"Midnight Plus One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lyall Gavin)

NINE

We ate on the move, the girl handing over wedges of bread stuffed withpatéor cheese. She tried opening the sardines, spilled oil on herself, said: 'Damn them to hell,' and threw the full tin out of the window. Then, very coolly, she said: 'I'm sorry, we seem to be out of sardines.'

Maganhard gave a metallic chuckle.

I ate a bit of cherry tart and then lit a cigarette. I felt a lot more cheerful; even if they tried to seal off this area with roadblocks, they wouldn't necessarily catch me. I was almost back into the Auvergne again, and when I was on roads I knew… well, the Gestapo had once tried catching me with roadblocks there.

I knew the feeling was due a lot more to the doublemarc than to either the food or my knowledge of the back roads, and I had enough sense to know it wouldn't last more than a couple of hours. But while it lasted, I wanted to cover some ground.

The hillsides became lush, Gothic, overdone; the trees got romantically gnarled and twisted, set among rocks covered with thick moss like the green velvet sofas in old ladies' parlours. The whole thing looked like a set for an opera where they're trying to keep your mind off the singing.

I wasn't fond of this country; it was too thick and damp and it breathed down your neck. I wanted the clean cold uplands, where you can see a man coming at rifle-shot range.

Harvey asked: 'Who're we staying the night with?'

'Some friends.'

'From the Resistance?'

I nodded.

He asked: 'You're sure they're still there? And still friends?'

'Somebody will be. We've got a choice: I knew quite a lot of people down here. One of the Rat-lines went through there – taking escaped prisoners out, bringing supplies in.'

We passed through la Courtine, an army town that looked a bit like a barracks itself: open, empty, newly swept, and with a scruffy soldier leaning on every corner. Then dived into the valley of the Dordogne.

Maganhard said: 'Mr Cane.'

I waited for him to go on, then said: 'I'm still here.'

'Mr Cane – when we discussed – about policemen, you said you wouldskip the moral question. Why did you not argue it?'

Harvey and I glanced at each other. The old buzzard hadn't said a word in hours – had he been brooding onthis egg?

I said carefully: 'I wasn't sure you'd be interested, Mr Maganhard.'

'Why not?'

I shrugged and hoped he could see. 'Maybe I made a hasty judgement from circumstances – such as being chased across France by assorted police and crooks. But I judged you wouldn't be interested.'

'If we might skip the sarcastic question,' he said calmly, 'will you tell me why?'

I leant forward and got a look at him in the rear-view mirror. For once, he had an expression on his face. It looked like a smile chalked on armour plate; not appropriate and not permanent – but still there.

I said: 'Let's say I try to keep an open mind about people who go in for tax avoidance in Liechtenstein.'

'You don't say taxevasion, Mr Cane.'

'No, Mr Maganhard, I know the difference. Evasion is illegal – and I'm sure what you're doing is legal.'

'But not moral?'

'Practical morality, like a lot of things, is mostly a matter of fair exchange. You're running factories in France, Germany, and so on – but you aren't paying to keep those countries running. That's all.'

'Any of those countries, having the power that governments have, could decide they wanted more of my money and establish a perfectlylegal debt that I owed them.' His voice had the silky click of stainless-steel cog-wheels. 'They may well do so. Would paying that debt make me more moral?'

'I doubt it, Mr Maganhard. I'd say either you're ready to pay for your ride or you're not. Whether youhave to pay is something different. Perhaps you're mixing up morality and legality.'

'I'm sure you can explain the difference.'

'I don't suppose so. I'd just say that morality doesn't change when you cross a frontier.'

Harvey chuckled.

After a moment, Maganhard said: 'You seem to be taking a very strong, and rather strange, attitude, Mr Cane.'

I shrugged. 'You brought the question up, Mr Maganhard. And I'm not breaking my heart over a bit of tax avoidance. Thousands do it; they'll go on doing it as long as countries like Liechtenstein and some Swiss cantons make tax laws for exactly that reason – to try and suck a bit of blood from other countries. If it ever gets too much, the other countries'll crack down. They'll drive Liechtenstein out of business.'

'I meant, Mr Cane, that you must find yourself in a rather equivocal position, attempting to help me as you are. Yet when I talked to Monsieur Merlin on the radio-telephone from my yacht, he told me you had asked to be assured that I wasnot guilty of this – this charge laid against me, and also that I was travelling to save my own investment, not to try to steal somebody else's. You wished to believethen that I was a moral man.' And all the steel smoothness was back in his voice.

'Morality can also be relative, Mr Maganhard. For instance, I'd say you were more moral than those goons who jumped us in Tours. You don't seem to be trying to kill anybody – but it seems somebody's trying to kill you. I don't have to believe you're particularly moral over taxes to think I'm on the right side in helping you here.'

'You also believed Monsieur Merlin over the other charge! ' For a moment, the harshness in his voice surprised me. Then I got it: anybody who believed he was such a stiff, upright character as he did, would naturally take the old fate-worse-than-death attitude on rape. He'd believe it was the ultimate crime. Probably that was why he hadn't been able to bring himself even to use the name: he'd just said 'this charge'.

I wondered if whoever had framed him hadn't had a sense of humour. Among other talents.

I said: 'Merlin's a good lawyer – and he said it was a frame. Anyway, I know something about rape charges.'

Harvey turned and said cheerfully: 'You do? Tell us more.'

I said: 'For one thing, you don't need witnesses: nobody expects witnesses to a rape charge. All you need to know is that a man was alone in a likely place at a likely time, and have some girl complain he was raping her there and then. If you can get her to sleep with him, you can even get some medical evidence. But either way, it always ends up just her word against his. And even if it fails, or never comes to court, a smear sticks.'

Harvey said softly: 'And I thought you only knew about machine-guns.'

Miss Jarman said: 'Howdo you know this, Mr Cane?'

'I did it to somebody once. Oh, it was quite moral, really. It happened in the war. We used it to get rid of a German civil official in Paris – he was being too efficient. It never went to court, of course, and it wouldn't have worked if the German Army hadn't wanted an excuse to get him recalled: they found him too efficient, too. So we gave them the excuse.'

'What happened to the girl?' she asked.

'We got her out to the country, in case there was an enquiry.'

'I didn't mean that,' she said coldly.

'I know you didn't. Let's say she was fighting a war and knew it.'

Maganhard interrupted impatiently: 'I understand all that, Mr Cane. You were telling me why you believed the charge against me was false.'

'I was.' I fumbled a cigarette out of the pack on the seat beside me; Harvey reached across with his lighter. 'Yes – that still leaves a couple of questions. Why should anybody frame you?'

He thought it over. 'It makes my movements more difficult. Particularly in France, of course. But it is an extraditable offence that I am accused of, so I might be arrested anywhere. If I were in jail, then something like – like what we are trying to avoid would be more easy. Obviously.'

I grinned sourly: he hadn't given anything away. Then I got serious again. 'But the girl didn't scream until you'd left France. That sounds like a pretty clear attempt just to scare you off, without risking a trial. Come to that, why weren't you tried in your absence? You can be, under French law.'

'Monsieur Merlin stopped an attempt to do that. I believe the prosecution weren't pressing for it.'

'It sounds as if they weren't very happy about their own frame – if they thought it mightn't stand up even without you there. Now let's have the basic question: why didn't you fight the charge? If it was a frame, you could get it knocked flat. You'd still have a bit of a smear – but now you've got thatand you can't come and go freely.'

'I thought you'd answered that question yourself, Mr Cane.' He sounded slightly amused, if that was the right word for a very small change in tone. 'You said that it would eventually come to being my word against the woman's. I don't believe any court in the world is infallible; they might have made a mistake.'

'Mr Maganhard, I wasn't talking about going to court; it would never get that far.' I sounded puzzled; Iwas puzzled. I hadn't expected to find myself lecturing a man with a home-made million on the facts of legal life.

He said: 'I'm not sure I understand.' His voice had gone stiff again.

I said: The disadvantage of a rape frame is the same as its advantage: it all depends on the evidence of one woman. If the woman's really a phoney, then she's been" hired. And if she can be bought once, she can be bought twice. So she changes her identification of you – and no case.'

'I would regard that as wasted money.' The voice was as rigid as cast iron now.

Harvey and I glanced at each other. He smiled briefly and went on leaving the work to me.

'Look, Mr Maganhard,' I said carefully. This would have saved you money. Say you'd given me the job of going to see this woman a month ago. If I thought she'd been bought, I'd have bought her back for a few thousand more. The whole cost – hers and mine – would be about a quarter of what you're paying for this trip. And no risk. Strictly as a businessman, how does that appeal to you?'

'Nobody is strictly a businessman, Mr Cane. One must take the moral question. And the morality of this____________________'

'Morality? Who's talking about morality?' I found I was shouting, and lowered the volume. 'We're talking about a frame-up: where's the morality of that? And if you want to do the moral thing, why didn't you stand up in court and fight it?'

'Forgive me, Mr Cane, but I have been thinking about this far longer than you have.' He was calm and very sure. 'Since I am innocent, I could gain nothing by going to court. I would merely risk the court making a mistake and finding me guilty. And I will not fight bribes with bribes; I do not see why I should pay for justice that should be mine by right. Thisis a moral question.'

For a long time there was nothing but the gentle zoom of the engine and the wind rush along the windows. Then Harvey said: 'Well, it's a good way to stay rich: count your money with glue on your fingers.'

'Mr Lovell – don't you think there might be a question of right and wrong in how the rich spend their money, as well as how the poor do?'

Harvey looked at me; I lifted an eyebrow back at him, and then fiddled the mirror to catch Maganhard's face. He was leaning forward slightly, and frowning – slightly – at the back of Harvey's neck. But I was beginning to learn that his slightness was only skin deep.

Harvey said: 'Mr M. – how the rich spend their money has never been a really pressing problem with me. I'll just say you've got a point of view there.'

Maganhard's face twitched briefly into what could have been a smile, scowl, sneer, or almost anything else. But suddenly I thought I could see, under the square solid face, the lean Scots preacher thundering cold hellfire and penny-wise salvation from the stone pulpit.

'He's got a point of view,' I growled. 'He may lose an empire, but he's got a point of view.'