Vulture is a Patient Bird

Fennel grimaced. So Jacey, the poor stupid sod, had been carved. He didn't hesitate. Moving swiftly, he was on the policeman before the man realized he was being attacked. With laced fingers, Fennel smashed his hands down on the man's bent neck with one shattering, terrible blow. The policeman spread out over Jacey's blood-stained body.

Fennel darted into the tiny, evil smelling bedroom and up the ladder that led to the attic. In seconds, he had got the bag containing his equipment, then slid down the ladder, out on to the landing. He paused to listen, then went down the stairs to the ground floor, three at the time. Panting, he reached the front door where he paused again, hearing the distant sound of a police siren. He slid out into the rain, ran across the road and backed against the wall of the alley as an ambulance and two police cars came roaring to a standstill.

Fennel grunted . . . well timed, he thought, then set off by the back alleys until he reached a main road. He saw a cruising taxi and waved. The taxi pulled up and he told the driver to take him to the Royal Towers Hotel.

He arrived outside Shalik's suite and rapped on the door. There was a delay, then the door opened. George Sherborn, a pertly, elderly man who acted as Shalik's confidential secretary and valet regarded Fennel with startled disapproval. He knew all about Fennel and after hesitating, stood aside and let him in.

"Mr. Shalik is away for the weekend," he said. "What is it?"

"I've got to get the hell out of the country fast," Fennel said wiping his sweating face with the back of his hand. "I'm in dead trouble. The creeps after me found my pal and carved him. The cops are there now. It won't take them long to find my fingerprints all over the goddamn place, and when they do, I'm blown."

Sherborn was never flustered. He could rise to any emergency with the calmness of a bishop presiding over a tea party. He knew without Fennel the Borgia ring operation couldn't succeed. He told Fennel to wait and went into the inner room, shutting the door. Half an hour later, he returned.

"A car is waiting for you downstairs to take you to Lydd," he said. "You fly by air taxi to Le Touquet. There will be another car at Le Touquet to take you to the Normandy hotel, Paris where you will stay until the Johannesburg plane leaves. Your ticket will be at Orly, waiting for you." Sherborn's round gooseberry eyes regarded Fennel impersonally. "You understand the cost of all this will be deducted from your fee?"

"Who says so, fatty?" Fennel snarled.

Sherborn looked at him with contempt.

"Don't be impertinent. Mr. Shalik will be most displeased by what has happened. Now get off." He handed Fennel a sheet of paper. "All the necessary details are here for you. You have your passport?"

"Oh, get stuffed!" Fennel snapped and snatching the paper, hurried to the lift.

Five minutes later, seated in a hired Jaguar, he was being whisked down to Lydd.

Chapter Three

Ten minutes after the meeting between Gaye, Garry, Jones and Fennel had broken up, Shalik had come into Natalie's office, an overcoat over his arm and a weekend case in his hand. She paused in her work and looked up.

To Shalik, Natalie Norman was part of his background: useful, exceedingly efficient: a dedicated, colourless woman who had been with him for three years. He had chosen her to be his personal assistant from a short list of highly qualified women an agency had submitted to him.

Natalie Norman was thirty-eight years of age. She spoke fluent French and German, and she had an impressive degree in Economics. With no apparent interests outside Shalik's office she was, to him, a machine who worked efficiently and who was essential to him.

Shalik liked sensual, beautiful women. To him, Natalie Norman with her plain looks, her pallid complexion was merely a robot. When he spoke to her, he seldom looked at her.

"I shall be away for the weekend, Miss Norman," he said, pausing at her desk. "I will ask you to come in tomorrow for an hour to see to the mail, then take the weekend off. I have a meeting on Monday morning at 09.00 hrs.," and he was gone.

There was no look, no smile and not even a "nice weekend'.

The following morning, she arrived at her usual time, dealt with the mail and was beginning to clear her desk as George Sherborn came in.

She loathed Sherborn as he loathed her. To her thinking, he was a boot-licking, sensual, fat old horror. On the day she began to work for Shalik, Sherborn, his fat face flushed, had run his hand over her corsetted buttocks as she was sealing a large envelope full of legal documents. His touch revolted her. She had spun around and slashed his fat face with the side of the envelope, making his nose bleed.

From then on they hated each other, but had worked together, both ably serving Shalik.

"Have you finished?" Sherborn asked pompously. "If you have, get off. I'm staying here."

"I'll be going in a few minutes," she returned, not looking at him.