The Khufra Run

‘Near the mill at La Grande.’

She emptied her glass and paced restlessly across to the fire. ‘The dirty bastards. They should drive them off the island, every last one of them.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened?’ I said.

She was almost angry when she turned on me. ‘What if I am? They’ve done some funny things. Broken into people’s homes. This is a lovely place …’

‘With Carlo here?’ I demanded. ‘You’ve got to be joking. He’s the original six-at-one-blow man. I thought that was why you kept him around.’

She changed completely, her face illuminated by that dazzling smile, the famous Lillie St Claire smile, as she moved across to Carlo.

‘That’s right. Of course it is. You wouldn’t let them hurt me, would you, Carlo?’

Carlo took the hand she held out to him and kissed it gently. From the look on his face I’d say he’d have torn the arms and legs off anyone who even tried.

She patted his cheek. ‘Bless you, Carlo. Let’s have a movie, shall we? What about The Door to Hell.’

He moved away as silently as usual. She poured another drink and flung herself into the chair next to me. This was a ritual I’d been through many times before. There was a small projection room at the rear of the salon and Carlo handled things at that end, using the smooth white wall next to the fireplace as a screen.

As the lights dimmed I said, ‘What about the girl?’

‘I left her in the bath. She shouldn’t be long. Did she tell you how she came to be mixed up with those creeps?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘I did. She said she’d arranged to meet a friend at the windmill at La Grande at nine o’clock. She went out there by taxi only he never showed. Then those pigs jumped her.’ She shook her head, ‘The whole thing stinks to high heaven if you ask me.’

‘Her affair, not ours.’

She carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘And her hair.’

‘What about her hair?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not natural. Reminds me of something and I can’t think what. A picture I was in once.’

‘Why don’t you shut up?’ I said. ‘… and let’s enjoy this one which, for a change, I don’t think I’ve actually seen before.’

I think she’d have given me the hard word at that except for the fact that at that moment, her face filled the screen and as usual, she was swept up in the greatest love affair since Antony and Cleopatra. That of Lillie St Claire for Lillie St Claire.

‘1938,’ she said. ‘I’d been in Hollywood two years. My first Oscar nomination.’

She was standing at the top of a great flight of marble stairs in some sort of negligee or other, being menaced by the swords of half-a-dozen Roundheads, who all looked villainous enough to play Capone-style gangsters, and probably did the following week. At the appropriate moment an athletic-looking character in breeches and a white shirt dropped into the picture, a sword between his teeth and proceeded to knock all sorts of hell out of the Roundheads.

‘Jack Desforge,’ she breathed. ‘The best there ever was.’

‘Better than Lillie St Claire?’ I demanded.

‘Damn you, lover, you know what I mean. Dietrich, Joan Crawford. Oh, they were great. Wonderful, wonderful people. They don’t breed them like that any more.’

‘Only you were the greatest.’

‘Look at my last film.’

‘I didn’t know anybody had done.’

I ducked to avoid the glass she threw at me for the film was very much a sore point, an Italian production of the worst kind; a programmer which had sunk, as they say, without trace.

Behind us there was a slight polite cough and Claire Bouvier moved down to join us. She wore a pair of slacks and a polo-necked sweater which combined with the short hair to give her a strangely boyish look.

She looked up in some bewilderment at the sword play on the wall then turned to Lillie and said hesitantly, ‘You have been most kind, Miss St Claire. I will see these things are returned to you tomorrow.’

‘That’s all right, darling. You can give them to the deserving poor when you’ve finished with them.’ Lillie told her.

She didn’t offer to put her up for the night which was much as I had expected for she was never one for competition in that quarter.

I said to Claire Bouvier, ‘All right. Let’s get moving.’

She glanced first at Lillie, then at me, strangely diffident, then went up the steps and out into the hall. Lillie said, ‘Do you fancy her?’

‘I hadn’t thought much about it.’

‘You’d be making a mistake. There’s something funny about that kid.’

She slid her arms about my neck and gave the full treatment, following this with a completely unprintable suggestion breathed into my right ear.

‘Impossible,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘We could always try. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to get down to Ibiza town and back again.’

She kissed me hard, that mouth of hers opening wide again and beyond, I saw Carlo waiting respectfully, his face showing no expression worth noting, yet there was something in the eyes I think. I could almost feel the knife going in between my shoulder blades.

I patted her face, ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘We’ll see,’ and I moved out fast.

She didn’t have much to say for herself on the way down to town. As we passed the mill where it had all begun I said, ‘What in the hell were you doing up here on your own anyway?’

‘I had an appointment to keep. With a friend.’

‘Who didn’t show?’ I was surprised at my sudden surge of anger. ‘He should have his backside kicked, whoever he is.’

She turned and looked at me sharply, but made no comment. I kept my eyes on the road. After a while she said, ‘Tell me about yourself. What do you do?’

‘I’m a charter pilot. I keep a floatplane down at Tijola.’

‘And Miss St Claire - you have known her long?’

‘Long enough.’

We were coming into the outskirts of Ibiza now and I took the direct route in along the Avenida de Espana. There were still plenty of bars open for the night, for Spain at least, was still young, but when I switched off the motor outside the small, waterfront hotel on the Avenida Andenes, it suddenly seemed very quiet.