The End Game by Michael Gilbert Page B

Martin Brandreth and Blackett she must have been thinking about something, because she had been sitting for half an hour, in an armchair, in front of a blank television screen.
    When the telephone on the low table beside the chair rang, she hesitated. Then she picked up the receiver.
    David said, “It’s me.”
    Susan said, “Oh!” Ten degrees below zero.
    “I’ve got something important to say to you.”
    “You’re drunk.”
    “Certainly I’m drunk. If you’d had eight pints of beer and eight whiskies in eight different pubs you’d be drunk too.”
    “I’d be unconscious,” said Susan resignedly. “But if you really have got something to say, say it. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”
    “Look,” said David. He spoke with the gravity of a statesman delivering an ultimatum. “You think that I’m just a good for nothing stupid clapped out boozed up Welsh wolf. Chase any tart with big boobs and dyed hair who’ll give me a ride for ten quid a bang. You’re a million light years out of date. All right. Some years ago I might have been. But that’s all finished.”
    “And was that all you wanted to say?”
    “All I wanted to say. All finished.”
    “Go to bed,” said Susan and replaced the receiver. Then she stretched out her hand again, this time to switch off the tape recorder.

 
9
    Rayhome Tours operated from a building near the British Museum. The ground floor was an art bookshop. A narrow staircase, with its own entrance door, on the left of the shop led up to the second and third storeys, which were all Rayhome.
    “It’s not much to look at,” said Paula, the well-built blonde who presided over Reception. “But then, we don’t see a lot of our customers. Most of our business is done by post. It’s you who deals with the customers, Mr Morgan.”
    “David.”
    “David, then.”
    David looked at the plaque on the desk which said, “Miss Welham.” He said, “And I’m sure you’ve got another name, too.”
    “Suppose I have.”
    “I shall have to know it, shan’t I.”
    “Why?”
    “How do you think I can take you out for a drink this evening if I don’t know your first name? Have a port and lemon, Miss Welham. It doesn’t sound right.”
    “Do you always ask a girl out for a drink the first day you meet her?”
    “Only the beautiful ones.”
    “Go on with you.”
    A telephone buzzer sounded beside the reception desk. Paula said, “Yes, Mr Cheverton. He’s here. I’ll send him along.” And to David, “It’s the second door on the left.”
    David seemed in no hurry. He said, “There are two Mr Chevertons. Which one was that?”
    “That’s Bob. He’s the younger brother. They’re neither of them all that young, really.”
    “The years pass,” said David. “Our hair gets thinner, our teeth fewer, our breath shorter.”
    “You’ll be short of a job if you don’t hurry.”
    Both Mr Chevertons were in the large front office. As Paula had said, they were past their first youth, but still impressive figures—thick-set, muscular, with the confidence which comes from running a successful business in a highly competitive market.
    Bob Cheverton said, “Sit down. This is my brother Ronald.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” said David politely.
    The older Cheverton smiled bleakly, but said nothing.
    “We’ll explain the job to you. If you don’t like the sound of it, it’s not too late to back out.”
    “Tell me the worst, then.”
    “You’ll find it easy enough. Once you get the hang of it. We run regular twelve-day tours. Leave on Thursday morning, back first thing Monday. You get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. Three days every fortnight. Then you start again. France and Italy alternately. We used to do Germany, but the exchange rate killed it. Do you speak French?”
    “Enough to order a drink.”
    “Let’s hear you do it,” said Ronald Cheverton.
    “Donnez-moi, s’il vous plait, un whisky avec un peu de glace et un Gordon’s avec Martini.”
    “Now