The Game by Gerald Hammond

Author:Gerald Hammond [Hammond, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-05-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Keith lay on the bed in his impersonal room in the Angus Hotel, holding a bag of ice to his upper face with one hand (the floor waiter had been sympathetic) and the telephone to his ear with the other. The bell was ringing in the flat in Newton Lauder.

Wallace answered the phone at last. ‘How are you getting on?’ he asked.

‘Did you read the top right-hand headline in the Scotsman this morning?’ Keith asked.

‘Not yet but . . . I’m looking at it now. I got you.’

The headline had referred to revelations by a Dundee councillor that the city’s Craigowl exchange was being used for telephone-tapping on an international scale.

‘It looks as if somebody’d better get over to the Western Isles,’ Keith said. ‘I’ve had a bit of a knock. Could you go?’

‘It doesn’t sound like my sort of trip. This isn’t just because you’re afraid of flying?’

‘No it is not,’ Keith snapped. ‘I’ve been kicked just above the nose, and both my eyes are closing.’

‘How’s the other fellow?’

‘Pretty much the same by now. But Warrender’s a determined sort of sod, so you’d better get there first.’

‘We’d best meet and talk,’ Wallace said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘You’d better come to me, and don’t hang about. I don’t think I could drive, not safely. I’ve got a blinding headache and I’m seeing double. I was going to ask you to send Molly up by train to drive me back.’

‘I’ll work something out. Tell me where you are and I’ll either call you back or come.’

*

Keith was roused from an unstable sleep by a voice and then by a soft form reclining beside him on the bed and tender kisses on his bruised face. ‘You sound like Wallace but you feel like Molly,’ he said. ‘Which are you?’

He felt Molly laugh shakily against him. ‘Who did that to you?’ she asked. ‘What a lousy thing to do! I’ll scratch his eyes out.’

‘Don’t bother. I’d just given him a poke that’ll close his other eye for a week – I’d already closed the first one – which is probably what gave him the idea. It was probably quits when I got careless. All the same, I’ll tie his long nose in a knot if he comes near me again. Is it morning already?’

‘It’s not even midnight,’ Molly said. ‘Wal brought me up in a helicopter.’

‘One that Personal Service often hires, in connection with business,’ said Wallace’s voice.

‘It’s waiting down at Riverside. I’d never been up in one before. It was noisy, but I did enjoy myself,’ Molly said wistfully. ‘You can see everything.’

‘When I fly, I don’t want to see anything,’ Keith said. ‘And don’t set your heart on a chopper; we’ll never afford one, and they scare me witless.’ He moved uneasily and groaned. ‘God! Where’s my ice-bag?’

He heard water slosh. ‘It’s all melted,’ Molly’s voice said ‘Shall I get some more ice?’

‘Please.’ He heard the door open and close. ‘Has Big Ears gone?’

‘You’d be in trouble if she hadn’t.

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