LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t smoke while we’re on the ground.’

      I climbed the boarding ladder and entered the fuselage to find a flying office complete with all modern conveniences, most of them built-in. There were two desks, one with an electronic calculator and a recording machine, the other fitted with a typewriter, another tape recorder and a photocopier. I guessed that was Mrs Forsyth’s post. I opened a filing cabinet nearby; it was empty.

      I moved aft and opened a door in a bulkhead. There was a corridor leading to the tail. I went along it and found myself in the galley, gleaming in stainless steel. I checked a cupboard at random and found what would have been a well-stocked cocktail cabinet had there been any bottles in it. Of course, if the aircraft had been due to go back to the manufacturers, the booze would have been tactfully removed.

      The galley was spotless but there was not a scrap of food in it. Even the refrigerator was empty. I pulled down a flap and found myself looking into a microwave oven. After another glance around I decided there wasn’t anything for me here so I went forward again along the corridor.

      There was a door on the starboard side which led into a sleeping cabin with accommodation for two. The beds were narrow but comfortable, as I found by testing, and they were made up ready for use. I slid open a wardrobe door and found three suits in various weights of cloth. When I checked the pockets I found nothing, not even a shred of lint. Whoever valeted Salton knew their job.

      I drew a blank in the dressing table too. Neatly folded double-cuff shirts, underwear, ties, shoes, socks and nothing much else. All clean and tidy. But there was something missing and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

      When I got back to the main cabin, Haslam was climbing aboard. ‘What do you think of it?’ he asked.

      ‘Where’s the ticker tape and the teletype?’ I asked jokingly.

      He grinned. ‘It wasn’t for the want of trying.’

      Something clicked. ‘There’s something else missing,’ I said. ‘There are shirts back there but no cufflinks; ties but no tiepins.’

      ‘Mr Salton’s personal jewellery is kept in the safe,’ said Haslam.

      ‘A safe? I’d like to see inside that. Can you open it?’ He hesitated, so I said, ‘It’s all right, you won’t get into trouble. And you can breathe down my neck.’

      The safe was well hidden under the floor. It had a good combination lock and if you’d wanted to extract the whole contraption you’d have had to take the plane apart to do it. Haslam opened it and stood aside. I said, ‘How come you have the combination?’

      ‘There’s currency of different sorts in there,’ he said. ‘At most airfields we can operate on credit, but at some of the smaller ones – particularly in South America – we have to pay cash for gas, servicing and airfield charges. Sometimes Mr Salton wasn’t aboard, so he gave me the combination.’

      That sounded reasonable. I dug into the safe and produced several sheafs of foreign currency – American dollars, Brazilian cruzeiros, Ecuadorian sucres, Bolivian pesos, Peruvian soles and so on. It was quite a wad, even if it did look like Monopoly money. There were no Campanillan pounds but then those wouldn’t be needed.

      There were several objects in protective wallets: two cigarette lighters, one of gold and the other of what appeared to be stainless steel but was probably platinum, and two cigarette cases likewise. Four sets of cufflinks and four tiepins, two signet rings and an American silver dollar with a hole bored through it – a good luck piece?

      Nothing else.

      I put it all back then looked at Haslam. ‘Was all this stuff here when you took the plane back to the manufacturer?’

      The expression on his face was a mixture of shock and surprise. ‘You know, no one even thought of it. Mr Salton didn’t mention it and it never occurred to me.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I guess we’ve got to thinking of it as part of the standard equipment of the airplane – like the radio, say. Mr Salton’s clothes weren’t taken off, either.’

      ‘But the alcohol was,’ I said.

      Haslam shrugged. ‘The galley is cleaned out as a matter of course after every flight.’

      When I stopped to think about the kind of man I was investigating, it all sounded completely logical. The very rich are not just folks like the rest of us. One of the super-rich once said in surprise, ‘You know, a man with five million dollars can live just as though he were a rich man.’ That’s pretty high-level philosophy.

      ‘Anything else, Mr Kemp?’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for the moment.’

      Haslam went forward to join Philips in the cockpit or the flight deck or whatever fancy name they give it in planes that size. I sat down and began to go through drawers. I didn’t really expect to find anything, but old habits die hard. There’s a curious fascination about going through a man’s effects, delving into the minutiae of his life – not that there was much to find about Salton because the cupboard was bare apart from blank stationery, office knick-knacks and the like. Everything personal had been cleared out, presumably by the efficient Mrs Forsyth.

      Presently the plane began to move. We taxied up the runway and then turned. A loudspeaker over my head crackled and Haslam said, ‘Fasten your seatbelt, Mr Kemp.’

      I snapped the seatbelt closed and the plane roared off, climbing rapidly. It levelled off and the warning lights went out. Haslam said over the speaker, ‘Okay, Mr Kemp, you can come forward if you want to.’

      I found Philips at the controls and Haslam chatting to someone on the radio. He signed off and I said, ‘Who were you talking to?’

      ‘Air traffic control at Benning Airport.’

      ‘Do you have to do that, even on a flight like this?’

      ‘They like to know what’s in the air,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly for the benefit of the missile tracking station at Fort Edward. We’re down-range of Cape Canaveral and they don’t like unforeseen blips on their radar.’ He put his hands on the controls. ‘I’ll take her, Les.’

      I studied Philips. ‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Philips.’

      He half-turned in his seat so as to face me and somehow combined the movement with a shrug. ‘If you’re in the flying business you get around.’

      ‘Have you been working for Mr Salton long?’

      ‘Three years.’

      ‘Me too,’ said Haslam. ‘Ever since he moved back to Campanilla permanently.’

      We chatted for a while. Both Haslam and Philips seemed depressed by the death of Salton and their depression seemed to be an amalgam of worry about their jobs and a genuine regret for the death of their employer: they had both liked Salton and thought him a good boss.

      We flew a triangular course and came back to El Cerco flying low over the lagoon. By then I was back in the cabin with my belt fastened for landing, and I had a good view of the house on the tiny island.

      I could even see the swimming pool and a diving board on which was a tiny figure that must have been Mrs Salton. As the plane went over, she dived and I caught the splash as she hit the water. Then the plane had passed and I lost sight of her.

      Back on the runway I said to Haslam, ‘Thanks for the flip.’

      ‘Did you find everything you wanted to know?’ he asked.

      I grinned at him. ‘Who does?’ I nodded pleasantly and walked away.

      He called out, ‘Okay, Les, let’s get the bird back into the nest.’ I turned and looked back to find him staring at me. I waved and he waved back, then I turned the corner of the hangar and looked out over El Cerco.

      Конец

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