Frederick Forsyth No Combacks

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"In the Channel Islands we have a different fiscal system to that of the
United Kingdom mainland," said the lawyer patiently. "We have no capital
transfer tax. We also practise bank confidentiality. A donation within
Guernsey or the Islands attracts no tax. If the recipient is domiciled or
resident within the UK mainland, then he or she would be liable under mainland
tax law. Unless already exempted. Such as by the Charities Act. And now, if
you will sign a receipt for one envelope, contents unknown, I will have
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discharged my duty. My fee is already settled and I would like to get home to
my family."
Two minutes later the Mother Superior was alone. Slowly she ran a letter
knife along the envelope and extracted the contents. It was a single certified
cbeque. When she saw the figure on it she scrabbled for her ro-
sary and began telling it rapidly. When she had regained some of her
composure she went to the prie-dieu against the wall and knelt for half an
hour in prayer.
Back at her desk, still feeling weak, she stared again at the cheque for over
two and a half million pounds. Who in the world ever had such money? She tried
to think what she should do with so much. An endowment, she thought. A trust
fund, perhaps. There was enough to endow the orphanage for ever. Certainly
enough to fulfil the ambition of her lifetime: to get the orphanage out of the
slums of London and establish it in the fresh air of the open
countryside. She could double the number of children. She could . . Too many
thoughts flooding in, and one trying to get to the front. What was it? Yes,
the Sunday newspaper the week before last. Something had caught her eye,
caused a pang of longing. That was it, that was where they would go. And
enough money in her hands to buy it and endow it for always. A dream come
true. An advert in the property columns. For sale, a manor house in Kent with
twenty acres of p arkland
Sharp Practice.
Judge Comyn settled himself comfortably into the corner seat of his
first-class compartment, unfolded his day's copy of the Irish Times, glanced
at the headlines, and laid it on his lap.
There would be plenty of time for the newspaper during the slow four-hour
trundle down to Tralee. He gazed idly out of the window at the bustle of
Kingsbridge station in the last minutes before the departure of the
DublinTralee locomotive which would haul him sedately to his duties in the
principal township of County Kerry. He hoped vaguely he would have the
compartment to himself so that he could deal with his paperwork.
It was not to be. Hardly had the thought crossed his mind when the
compartment door opened and someone stepped in. He forbore to look. The door
rolled shut and the newcomer tossed a handgrip onto the luggage rack. Then the
man sat down opposite him, across the gleaming walnut table.
Judge Comyn gave him a glance. His companion was a small, wispy man, with a
puckish quiff of sandy hair standing up from his forehead and a pair of the
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saddest, most apologetic brown eyes. His suit was of a whiskery thomproof with
a matching wes .kit and knitted tie. The
judge assessed him as someone associated with horses, or a clerk perhaps, and
resumed his gaze out of the window.
He heard the call of the guard outside to the driver of the old steam engine
puffing away somewhere down the line, and then the shrill blast of the guard's
whistle. Even as the engine emitted its first great chuff and the carriage
began to lurch forward, a large running figure dressed entirely in black
scurried past the window. The judge heard the crash of the carriage door
operung a few feet away and the thud of a body landing in the corridor.
Seconds later, to the accompaniment of a wheezing and puffing, the black
figure appeared in the compartment's doorway and subsided with relief into the
far corner.
Judge Comyn glanced again. The newcomer was a florid-faced priest. The judge
looked again out of the window; he did not wish to start a conversation,
having been schooled in England.
"By the saints, ye nearly didn't make it, Father," he heard the wispy one
say.
There was more puffing from the man of the cloth. "It was a sight too close
for comfort, my son," the priest replied.
After that they mercifully lapsed into silence. Judge Comyn observed
Kingsbridge station slide out of sight, to be replaced by the unedifying rows
of smoke-grimed houses that in those days made up the western suburbs of
Dublin. The loco of the Great Southern Railway Company took the strain and the
clickety-clack tempo of the wheels over the rails increased. Judge Comyn
picked up his paper.
The headline and leading news item concerned the premier, Eamon de Valera,
who the previous day in the Dail had given his fall support to his agriculture
minister in the matter of the price of potatoes. Far down at the bottom was a
two-inch mention that a certain Mr. Hitler had
taken over Austria. The editor was a man who had his priorities right,
thought Judge Comyn. There was little more to interest him in the paper, and
after five minutes he folded it, took a batch of legal papers from his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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