Free Injury Time by Catherine Aird Page A

tradition of the seventeenth-century country gentleman after whom the club was named: and was one of the many points which figured in the thinking—if not in the Minutes—of the Committee during its deliberations on the ticklish question of the admission of women to the club.
    The Commander said, ‘It’s not every day we get a chance of picking up the real brains behind a drug racket right here in the middle of London, I can tell you.’
    â€˜If criminals have got brains, then they use them,’ agreed Henry Tyler.
    â€˜Let alone three chances,’ said the Commander, lapsing back into melancholy.
    It wasn’t a question of brains that was making the question of the admission of women to the Mordaunt Club so tricky. Diehards were insisting that the question was academic (since women per se were seldom of a sufficiently Mordaunt cast of mind to qualify for membership) and the views of Sir John Mordaunt himself on the subject unknown (but not too difficult to conjecture).
    â€˜Ah,’ said Henry Tyler, himself cast in the mould of Dreier’s celebrated dictum of a diplomat being a man who thought twice before saying nothing. ‘Shall you get a fourth chance, do you think?’
    Howkins still looked depressed. ‘Well, so far we’ve always known where to find him the weekend after a shipment comes in, which is something that doesn’t happen in every case.’
    â€˜And do you always know when that is going to be?’ enquired Tyler pertinently.
    â€˜Oh, yes, that’s no trouble. Thanks to your people, actually. The local Brit-bod in Lasserta usually tips us off in good time.’
    Something in Henry’s expression caused the Commander to rephrase this. ‘Sorry,’ he grinned. ‘That’s short-speak for Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the Sheikhdom of Lasserta.’
    â€˜Anthony Heber Hibbs?’
    â€˜That’s him. He’s got a pretty good intelligence system going out there where they make the stuff so that’s no problem.’
    â€˜So what is?’ Identifying the problem was always important. Even if nothing could be done about it. That was part of the working credo in Henry’s department.
    â€˜Evidence, lack of and need for,’ said Howkins cogently. ‘It’s got to be stone-cold, straight-up and irrefutable evidence before we blow our cover or we’ve lost everything and then we’ll never catch him.’
    â€˜You want him red-handed,’ said Henry, falling back on an earlier phrasing. It was one which Sir John Mordaunt would have understood.
    â€˜We do.’ The Commander started on his whitebait. ‘And we want him rather badly.’
    â€˜I can see you don’t want just small fry either,’ agreed Henry Tyler, who had opted for hors-d’oeuvres rather than whitebait. ‘Small fry aren’t worth losing your set-up for.’
    â€˜Let’s face it,’ said Howkins. ‘Our cover can’t be all that good or someone wouldn’t be giving him the nod every time we close in but for what it’s worth we’d like to try to keep our cover and nobble whoever’s doing the Sister Ann act.’
    â€˜What Sherlock Holmes would have called a three-pipe problem …’
    â€˜More like half a dozen hookahs,’ said Howkins, getting pessimistic again. ‘I’ve been racking my brains all weekend.’
    â€˜He—your chappie—can’t be too worried about walking into a trap, then, can he?’
    The Foreign Office man didn’t get a direct answer. ‘Have you ever heard, Tyler, of a famous restaurant in Manlow Street?’
    â€˜â€œMother Carey’s Chickens”? Oh, yes …’
    â€˜Well, we established first of all that our man has regular meetings at “Les Poulets de la Mère Carey” there the week after a shipment of heroin comes in from the Sheikhdom.’
    â€˜Then he is doing well, your