‘Of course he’l tel us,’ he said breezily. ‘He’s going to be grateful we’ve got him out, isn’t he?
When I’ve explained to him the Rajah’s wil ing to do a deal with him, he’l only be too glad to tel us.
Without us he can’t do a thing.’
‘But he can!’ Eve said. ‘Do you think I’m an idiot, Adam? You’re not planning to help this man to escape: you’re going to kidnap him. You told me that’s what you’re going to do. You’re expecting him to resist. Of course he’s going to resist. In two years time he’l be released. If he escapes now, he is a fugitive, and if he’s caught, he’l go back to prison for another long term. He’s waited fifteen years: two more are nothing to a man like that. How can you, Adam? Why don’t you wait until he comes out a free man?’
Gillis mashed out his cigarette in the ash-tray on the dusty bedside table. His eyes were hard.
‘You can scarcely expect me to wait two years,’ he said with deceptive mildness. ‘It was only by the merest fluke I heard the Rajah was planning to gyp the insurance companies if he could. If it hadn’t been for that little rat of an A.D.G. who got tight when he and I were in the Bazaar, I never would have got the information. If I wait until Hater comes out, someone else may have the same idea and beat me to it.
I’ve got to go ahead now if I’m going to collect that money, and if it’s the last thing I do, I’m damn well going to have it. A half a million! Think of it, Eve! Think what we can do with it.’
She wasn’t deceived for a moment by his use of ‘we’. She knew she wouldn’t see any of it. It was his way of encouraging her to help him. Not that she wanted the money. If he offered it to her she wouldn’t touch it. She was keeping in step with him so she shouldn’t lose him: that was her reward for meddling in this dangerous business.
‘But it won’t be half a million,’ she said, watching him. ‘You’l have to give Hater a share. He may even want half.’
Gillis laughed. He saw the trap, and he side-stepped it with his usual slick adroitness.