Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks

children’s TV stuff, but he didn’t have time to think of anything else. It would have to do, that was all. He must hang on till he was back in Vicenza before posting it though. Shouldn’t send the man two letters from Verona.
    Next the detective novels. Morris dropped onto the couch in the sitting room and spread out the four books in front of him. Then almost at once he stood up again and was off into the bedroom looking for scissors. And Sellotape too. He must have some Sellotape somewhere. And gloves, dammit! Because the Sellotape would show fingerprints. He was proud of himself a moment then for having thought of that. No fool he, oh no.
    He stopped, passing through to the bathroom again, and watched himself in the mirror there - tall and blond, smiling, elegant in his white shirt and trousers. Quite charming. A garden-party type. He had enjoyed the garden parties at Cambridge. Quite the only part of the social life he had liked. For a few seconds., Morris had a wonderful sense of the attractive physical presence of himself. The flesh was firm in his trousers, the neck rose clear and clean over a clean Italian collar. What more did they want, for God’s sake? And who could blame him now if they’d brought him to this? He hurried back into the living room and sat down with his novels.
    They were stupid of course. Crimes of passion, crimes of politics murders for love(!) and money, murders to settle old enmities, old debts; clever little eccentric men solving everything with their polite interrogation methods and winning ways with women. Crap and crap. The same humanistic garbage over and over, the world a nasty place where the good guys take a beating but somehow win through on the last page and who cares whether it’s Maigret, Miss Marples or Bond. Garbage. You wondered whether any of them had ever read a newspaper in the end, or tried to get a job. And failed, that is. Again and again. Failed to find a place for themselves. No, failure was certainly what they didn’t seem to know about. Or rather, it would feature for a while and then happily go away - tension and release. If it continued then it was deserved. And if it led to drastic decisions then it was perverse.
    Not novels of the ‘80s, Morris, critic manqué, reflected. Nowadays the motive could be taken for granted. Humanity.
    But the days when he could permit himself the luxuries of philosophy were numbered. He had a hell of a lot to do if he was going to get back to Vicenza this evening. He dampened an index finger and leafed through a silly Simenon. Sulky passions and murky Parisian bars, but nothing he was really after. No. Agatha Christie then: long dresses and love letters, people lighting pipes and scratching behind pink ears, traces of arsenic in an apple crumble. Zero. But the third book was more promising, even if more stupid, and on page thirty-five Morris found just what he was after.
    Sheik Shaktiar, Your beloved son is in the hands of Bedouin Freedom Fighters who will not hesitate to dispatch him to the most doleful destiny if you do not comply with our every demand. Before the third sun sets, therefore, you will place a thousand dinars in gold, wrapped in camelskin, on the Tomb of Abdullah. The Barbarous at Ouajakd Oasis. Should you try any kind of subterfuge, your son’s doom will be sealed and he will be dining with his blackguard ancestors in hell before the first moon wanes. 
    The Avengers of Islam
    Morris was rather delighted with this splendid ransom note. As a first stab, it fitted the bill perfectly. To a camel’s hair, no less. Nothing more terrifying than farce, than not knowing whether it was serious or not. He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen and proceeded to cut it out.
    Then it was just a question of finding ‘daughter’ to Sellotape over ‘son’ (there’d been a daughter on the first page of the Agatha Christie, hadn’t there? The heiress. Yes.),