The Satan Bug. Alistair MacLean

      

      ALISTAIR MACLEAN

      The Satan Bug

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1962 under the pseudonym ‘Ian Stuart’

      Copyright © Devoran Trustees Ltd 1962

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey

      Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins eBooks.

      HarperCollinsPublishershas made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780006157502

       © JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007289417

       Version: 2020-09-07

       Dedication

      To Bill Campbell

      Contents

       Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Keep Reading About the Author By Alistair MacLean About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

      There was no mail for me that morning, but that was no surprise. There had been no mail for me in the three weeks I’d been renting that tiny second-floor suite of offices near Oxford Street. I closed the door of the outer eight by ten office, skirted the table and chair that might one day house a receptionist if the time ever came that Cavell Investigations could run to such glamorous extras, and pushed open the door marked “Private.”

      Behind that door lay the office of the head of Cavell Investigations, Pierre Cavell. Me. And not only the head but the entire staff. It was a bigger room than the reception office, I knew that because I’d measured it, but only a trained surveyor could have told it with the naked eye.

      I’m no sybarite, but I had to admit that it was a pretty bleak sort of place. The distempered walls were of that delicate tint of off-grey pastel shading from off-white at floor level to off-black just below the ceiling that only London fog and the neglect of years can achieve. In one wall, overlooking a narrow grimy courtyard, was a tall narrow window, washed on the inside, with a monthly calendar close by. On the linoleum-covered floor a square desk, not new, a swivel chair for me, a padded leather armchair for the client, a strip of threadbare carpet to keep the client’s feet from getting cold, a hatrack and a couple of green metal filing cabinets, both empty. Nothing more. There was no room for anything more.

      I was just lowering myself into the swivel chair when I heard the deep double chime of the bell in the reception-room and the sound of hinges creaking. “Ring and enter” the legend on the corridor door read and someone was doing just that. Ringing and entering. I opened the top left-hand drawer of my desk, pulled out some papers and envelopes, scattered them before me, pulled a switch by my knee and had just risen to my feet when the knock came at my inner door.

      The man who entered was tall, thin and a close student of the Tailor and Cutter. A narrow-lapelled coat hung over an immaculately cut charcoal suit in the latest Italian line, and in his suéde-gloved left hand he carried his other glove, black bowler, briefcase and, a few inches up his wrist, a tightly-rolled, horn-handled black umbrella. He had a long pale narrow face, thin black hair parted in the middle and brushed almost straight back, rimless glasses, an aquiline nose and on the upper lip a thin black line that, on closer inspection, still looked like a thin black line, miniaturisation of the moustache brought to an almost impossible state of perfection. He must have carried a micrometer about with him. He looked for all the world like a top-flight City accountant: I couldn’t see him as anything else.

      “Excuse my walking straight in like this.” He smiled briefly, three gold caps in the upper teeth, and half-glanced over his shoulder. “But it seems your secretary——”

      “That’s all right. Please come in.” He even talked like an accountant, controlled, positive, slightly over-precise in the articulation. He offered me his hand, and the hand-shake, too, was in character, quick, neat, giving nothing away.

      “Martin,” he introduced himself. “Henry Martin. Mr. Pierre Cavell?”

      “Yes. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Martin?”

      “Thank you.” He sat down gingerly, very straight, feet together, brief-case balanced with scrupulous care across his touching knees and looked around him slowly, missing nothing, a faint smile not showing his teeth. “Business not—ah—so very brisk these days, Mr. Cavell?”

      Maybe he wasn’t an