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

TWELVE

We walked down the track. The luggage was two soft leather Italian grips with long handles like overgrown handbags, my briefcase, and Harvey's Air France case. It didn't take much effort, but it was far too much to carry in public if we wanted to look like tourists out for a stroll. We'd have to hide it for a time.

After half an hour we reached the stream at the bottom of the slope. I picked a muddy patch, shovelled a hole with one number plate, then planted all four in, and kicked the mud back on top.

Maganhard said: They will trace the car by the engine number.'

'Yes, but it'll take them a few hours longer.'

The trees ended at the stream, but a few hundred yards along to our left, they started again on the far side. We walked along there, crossed, and went up through more woods towards the road. By my reckoning that put us about a quarter of a mile from the nearest village.

Harvey, who'd dropped naturally into place just behind Maganhard's right shoulder, turned round to me and said: 'Well – what's the plan?'

'I don't think we'd all better go into the village; four of us'll look suspicious – and they may have got the word about the ambush by now.' It was half past nine, over an hour since the shooting had started.

Harvey said: 'Okay. That means either just you or you and her. I stay with him.' His voice was quite definite.

I nodded, and turned to the girl. 'Miss Jarman – if you'd like to come with me, I'd like you to. A man and a woman look more innocent than a single man on his own.'

'Whatever you say.' Not exactly a rush of enthusiasm, but not everybody feels all that good an hour after being shot at for the first time. It can be quite a shock realising that people are really trying to kill you, personally.

Harvey said: 'About who you ring – I have an opinion.'

'Go on.'

'You don't ring Dinadan.'

I hadn't been going to; when you're on the Rat-line you never change your mind and go back to the same place again. But I wanted to hear Harvey's reasons as well. I said: 'You tell me why.'

'The mob who planted that ambush knew exactly where we were -exactly. They made it as far away from the village as they «ould, but they were still on the only road we could have taken, if we were going for the Rhône. They knew we were in Dinadan – and they hadn't followed us from Tours.'

I nodded slowly. 'They knew all right. I think your ideas about Dinadan are wrong, but I won't argue it now. I wasn't going back, anyhow.'

Harvey looked at me with cold carefulness. Then he 85 said: 'Okay, we're in a hurry. Anybody else from your Resistance days round here?'

"There's a man up in Lyons-'

'Too damn far,' he said briskly. 'What about this wine château you were talking about last night – the Pinel people? That's a Côtes du Rhône wine; their place should be closer.'

I shook my head. 'I'm not keen on it.'

'Don't you trust them?'

'I trust them all right-'

'Then ring 'em. They'll have delivery trucks and jeeps and things – they can pick us up easy.'

There's a personal problem for me there.'

He slanted his eyebrows. 'Right here and now,' he said quietly, 'we have exactly four personal problems. And yours is a murder charge – same as mine. So if you trust these people-'

'All right.' It was perfectly reasonable. I couldn't argue. 'All right. I'll ring them.'

That's fine.' He nodded. 'And I have one more idea: don't walk – run.'

Miss Jarman and I reached the village in about ten minutes. The thirty-odd kilometres from Dinadan had made a big difference: now we were definitely in the south of France, and almost in summer. The farmyards were beginning to look dry and dusty, with roses blooming along the walls. The village itself was built of warm yellow southern stone, roofed with curly red tiles.

There were three little rusty green tables planted outside a caféin the square; we sat down and I ordered coffee and a Pastis.

When the waiter had gone, Miss Jarman said: 'Are you really liable to be charged with murder?'

'We killed a couple of people – intentionally. That's murder, all right.'

'But they were trying to kill us. Isn't that self-defence?'

'Self-defence is an excuse for killing, if you stand up in court and prove it. But, like somebody else you know well, we aren't going to stick around and fight it. So it'll stay on the books as murder.'

'Rape and murder aren't quite the same thing.'

'No, especially when Maganhard didn't rape anybody and – technically – we did murder somebody. But the big difference is that they don't know who we are; they do know him.'

'Will they find out about you?'

I shrugged. 'In the end, maybe. But as long as they can't prove anything, we should be all right. There's not going to be a public scandal about a couple of Paris gunmen getting killed. The cops won't have much pressure on them to solve it.'

The waiter brought her coffee and my Pastis and I asked about the times of buses to Vals-les-Bains, which was roughly in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go. As I'd hoped, there wouldn't be one for hours. I asked if I could make a phone call.

It took a little time to get through, then a man's voice, cool and dry and old, answered: 'Clos Pinel.'

'Est il possible de parler à Madame la Comtesse?'

'Qui est à l'appareil?'

I hesitated, wondering what name I should give these days. Then something about the voice sank in.'C'est vous, Maurice?' I demanded. I'd somehow thought the old boy must have died or been pensioned off or something by now. I added:'Ici Caneton.'

This time he hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was a little warmer.'Monsieur Caneton? Un moment…'

After a moment, a woman's voice said: 'Is that really you, Louis?'

'Ginette? Yes, I'm afraid it's me.'

'My dear Louis, when you decide to stay away, you bury yourself. Are you coming to see me now?' Her English was nearly perfect; only her accent showed she hadn't spoken it in England for a long time. But I wasn't listening to the accent, only the husky gentle voice itself.

'Ginette – I'm afraid I'm in trouble. There's four of us. I hate asking – but can you help? Pick us up and move us along a bit? You don't have to know what it's about.'

'So I don't have to know?'

She sounded both amused and reproachful. 'What a thing to say, Louis. Where are you?'

I told her the name of the village.

Her voice got brisk. 'A grey Citroen van with the name of the Château will meet you in one hour and a half. It will bring you here.'

'Hell, you don't need to involve the Château, Ginette. Just get us across the Rhône and we'll-'

'This is still a safe house, Louis. For you.'

I gave in. It's not only bad manners to argue with the person making the arrangements – it's also stupid. Particularly when they know the game as well as you ever did.

'We'll be just through the village, on the south road,' I said.

She rang off. I walked back to the table. 'We're okay.' I looked at my watch. 'We'll be picked up at half past eleven.'

Miss Jarman nodded, then asked. 'Where is this château?'

'Just across the Rhône from here.'

'Who are the people there?'

'Belonged to a man called the Comte de Maris. I knew him in the Resistance. But I read he was drowned three years ago. Yachting accident.'

'Leaving the Comtesse? Was she the personal problem you mentioned?'

I blew smoke into my Pastis. 'Why would you think that?'

'I wouldn't, necessarily, but I'd certainly think it first.' She was smiling cheerfully.

I scowled at her. 'So let's leave it at that.'

But not her. 'I suppose she was also in the Resistance? Was she the Comtesse then?'

'No,' I growled.

'So she married him and not you. Well, so would anybody – if he had a title and a vineyard.'

I winced. It was an idea I didn't like thinking about.

She added thoughtfully: 'But I don't suppose that was it. I'd think you must have been pretty unlovable when you were younger – and you must have been rather young, then. Was that why they called you Caneton – duckling? Or was it just a pun on your name?'

There was a sudden squeal of tyres and a police jeep rushed into the square from the north road. And stopped.

I said quickly: 'Sit still and look interested. It'd be natural.' She widened her eyes at me, then twisted to watch the jeep. It was a battered blue affair with flapping canvas and perspex doors. A sergeant zoomed out of it and rushed into the café. Three others jumped out of the back; one hurried off to the bottom of the square. The others stared busily around and then lit up cigarettes.

I said quietly: 'I think we can assume that somebody's found the wrecked cars, and at least one body. They wouldn't be running like this for a crashed car.'

Her eyes were a hard, wide china-blue. 'Have you got your gun? What do we do?'

'No, I don't have it – thank God. It's a bit big for these social occasions. We just sit and wait.'

'For how long?'

'Until it won't look as if we're running away.'

The sergeant and the proprietor came out of the café, both talking fast and neither listening. I leant over and called:'Qu'est-ce qui se passe?'

The sergeant gave us a fast glance that probably didn't even register what sexes we were, said a last word to the proprietor, and strode back to the jeep, yelling for his men.

The proprietor came over and started explaining about how the bandits in the hills had had a battle this morning. A car shot up, at least one man killed. He stretched the 'at least' to suggest a platoon of undiscovered corpses.

I made appreciative noises and said that odd things happened outside Paris. He swept Paris aside with one gesture; did I know that of the great crimes of the last decade not one had happened in Paris? They were getting feeble, there. Take theaffaire of the headless girl…

The cop galloped up from the bottom of the square, got in the jeep, and they drove about thirty yards into the street leading south – the one we'd come up. Once more, they all jumped out again and started spreading spiked metal balls across the road to cripple any car trying to rush them. Then they brought out a couple of sub-machine guns, leaned against the jeep, and lit up again.

I ordered another coffee and a Pastis. When the proprietor had gone, Miss Jarman said: 'What do we do now?'

'Go on waiting.'

'But they're blocking the road. We're cut off from Mr Maganhard-'

'I know. I'll have to go round the back of the village and bring them up on to the north road. We'll have to stop the Pinel van there. It shouldn't be too bad; the cops aren't being very serious.'

'They aren't? ' She looked at me incredulously.

'They're standing where the taxpayers can see them, not where they'll do any good. Anybody coming down that road could see them at twice the range of their guns. But they still think they're looking for local bandits who wouldn't try to escape from the area, anyway. This blockade's just for show. The trouble starts when anybody says the word "Maganhard".'

Two shots sounded, distant, but not too distant, and clearly the flat short snap of a pistol.

Miss Jarman raised her eyebrows at me. 'Or, of course, when your friend Harvey starts shooting.'