Midnight Never Comes - Jack Higgins [3]
He was too tired to think straight and the morphia was really beginning to take effect so that he even found difficulty in knotting his tie properly. The Walther automatic was lying on the table together with his wallet and loose change. He weighed it in his hand for a moment, frowning, then slipped it into its special pocket inside his jacket and left. When he went out into the corridor, the building seemed unnaturally quiet and he glanced at his watch. Half-ten. They'd all be away now except for the Duty Officer and the night-shift men in the radio room.
But he was wrong for when he opened the door to Mallory's outer office, Jean Frazer was sitting at her desk. She removed her spectacles, got to her feet and came to meet him, concern on her face.
'How are you, Paul?'
He held her hands briefly. 'Never felt better, Jean. Is he in?'
She nodded and tightened her grip as he started to pull away. 'I thought you might like to come back to my place afterwards. You look as if you could use a decent meal. We could talk things over. It might help.'
For a moment, his face was illuminated by a smile of great natural charm so that he might almost have been a completely different person. He touched her cheek gently and there was real affection in his voice when he spoke.
'Don't waste your time trying to put the pieces together again, Jean. They just won't fit any longer.'
Something seemed to go out of her and her shoulders sagged. Chavasse turned away, tapped once on Mallory's door, opened it and went in.
Mallory sat at his desk, the medical reports before him, cigarette smoke drifting up through the light of the shaded lamp. He glanced up, his face sombre and nodded briefly.
'You don't look too good, Paul. Better sit down.' He got to his feet. 'How about a drink? Whisky suit you?'
'Not according to my doctor,' Chavasse said. 'Or haven't you read those reports yet.'
Mallory hesitated, leaning on the desk with both hands. 'Yes, I've read them.'
'Then could we kindly get this over with. It's been a hard day.'
Mallory took a deep breath and nodded slowly. 'All right, Paul, if that's the way you want it.'
He sat down and opened the file in front of him. When he spoke again, his voice was brisk and formal. 'I'm afraid your fitness tests have proved negative.'
'All of them?' Chavasse said. 'I certainly don't do things by halves, do I?'
'You never did,' Mallory observed dryly. 'Frankly, you would seem to be in a pretty low state of health generally. Understandable, I suppose, in view of what you went through in Albania and then the knife wound didn't help. Dr. Lovatt tells me it's had to be opened up and drained on three separate occasions.
'Something like that. He seems to think a nice long rest in the sun is indicated. What can you offer?'
Mallory removed his spectacles and leaned back in his chair. 'The fact is that I've nothing to offer you at all, not any more. You see, the psychiatrist's report didn't make any better reading than this little lot. It seems your nerves are shot to pieces. He even thinks you need treatment.'
'At ten guineas a time he would,' Chavasse said. 'You must be joking. He couldn't psychoanalyse his way out of a wet paper bag.'
Mallory straightened in his chair and slammed a hand hard down on the desk. 'For God's sake, Paul, face facts. What about your practical earlier this evening? You went in after Jorgensen like an amateur. In the field, you'd have been dead, don't you understand that?'
'I understand only one thing,' Chavasse said bitterly. 'That I'm being slung out on my ear. That about sums it up, doesn't it?'
'No one asked you to get mixed up in that Albanian affair,' Mallory said angrily. 'You went in of your own accord.'
'Believing in the word of a member of this