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

THIRTEEN

I swung round to look at the blockade. The cops were firmly behind the jeep by now, peering round it up the road to the south. There was nothing to see. I heard the proprietor come pounding out behind me.

Then the sergeant came running back, yelling for the telephone. He looked more surprised than worried.

The girl asked: 'What will they do now?'

'God knows. But probably get some more men in. We may have to move.' I started working up a worried expression. It wasn't difficult.

When the proprietor and sergeant came out again I jumped up and started demanding police protection. I hadn't come down here to get involved with bandits. The village was obviously about to be besieged. Where was safe?

The sergeant sneered and told me I was safe where I was. I pointed out that only thirty yards away his own men were taking cover – was I expected to sit in the open? Were there any bandits downthat way? I pointed north.

He said No, and if I wanted to go that way, he'd be glad to be rid of me. He ran back to the jeep.

I paid up quickly, took Miss Jarman's arm, and scuttled out of the square northwards. A last look over my shoulder showed a couple of cops, one with a sub-machine-gun, running back from the jeep and turning up a small alley past the cafétowards the stream, to start an outflanking movement.

I hurried us on.

When we were clear of the village, I found a stone wall leading across the fields towards the stream. I told the girl to stay there. The van shouldn't be along for about half an hour. But if it comes, stop it. I don't want it going into the village.'

Then I took off, running in a crouch, down behind the wall.

A few minutes of that convinced me that my running-crouched days were long past. I straightened up behind a tree, breathing fast and shallow, then went on more slowly. I had nearly a quarter of a mile in all to go to the stream, and I had to go that far to make sure I was clear of the farmland – and also to give me a sense of direction.

I splashed across and into the trees, then turned and trotted south on the far bank. Through gaps in the trees I kept an eye on the church spire just over the slope. I knew I was safe until I got level with it; after that, there would be the two cops to worry about.

When the spire was square on my left, I slowed down. Across the stream there were wide, lush green fields, separated by fat stone walls. The woods where Harvey and Maganhard were parked started about a quarter of a mile farther on. I didn't think the cops would have crossed the stream but I thought they'd have come as far as it; it was an obvious natural boundary to any search area.

But they might not be searching – just sitting, watching. Waiting for reinforcements. I slowed down even more, and started edging away from the stream, deeper into the trees.

Something splashed in the water. I froze against a tree, then raised one eyebrow round it.

One of the cops was lifting a wet foot and shaking it angrily. Then he pulled himself ashore on my side, sat down, and emptied his boot. After that he picked up his submachine-gun and started peering carefully at the soggy bank, looking for tracks.

He was about thirty yards from me, and there wasn't enough undergrowth for me to move without being seen.

He took his time. He walked several yards along the bank, still looking at the ground, then looking for an easier place to cross back. Finally he crossed, climbed up into the field, and walked slowly away on a diagonal track towards the woods and the road. I took a deep breath and started running.

A few minutes later I was level with the woods on the opposite bank and looking for the place where we'd first crossed, coming down from the car. Something glinted among the trees ahead. I moved cautiously, from tree to tree. Gradually it grew into a small light-green car, a Renault 4L, half buried in the low branches of a young fir.

Then I remembered the proprietor talking aboutone car being shot up… I should have listened harder. The third man, the one who'd run away, had got one of the cars started and had trailed us. It wouldn't have been difficult -he didn't need to keep us in sight. We'd left a blood-trail of hydraulic fluid for anybody who knew where to look for it.

And those first shots had been when he'd caught up with Harvey and Maganhard…

I yanked open one of the buckled doors, in the desperate hope that there might be a spare gun lying around. There wasn't of course.

I ran down to the stream, crossed, and started up towards the road. The stream was closer to the road here; I reckoned I had only about two hundred yards to go. I knew just where I'd left Harvey and Maganhard – but they'd have moved when the shooting started. Where to? Were they still even alive? There'd been only two shots, and it's just about impossible to kill two people for certain with just two pistol shots. So there must have been one shot from the new friend and one, in reply, from Harvey. Unless the first shothad killed Harvey, and the second had been a careful, aimed execution of Maganhard…

I stopped and sank down to a crouch beside a tree. That sort of thinking was tying my brain in knots. All I really knew was that I was walking into a gunfight without a gun. Why the hell hadn't I carried the Mauser? Because it was too big. So why hadn't I picked up Bernard's gun when I had the chance? – I could have carried that. No answer. I moved off again, bent double.

I had about a hundred yards to go. There still wasn't enough undergrowth to give any real cover for movement, but at least the ground was damp enough not to make any noise underfoot. I crept from tree to tree.

Fifty yards. Now I could see a gleam of sky ahead through the trees, where they ended at the road. I stared into each low patch of grass or bramble, looking for the outline of a lying figure, the movement of a hand, the glint of a gun-barrel. I saw dozens, but none of them were there.

Maybe I should call to Harvey. And maybe I should keep my head shut unless I wanted it blown off.

Then I saw something, right ahead. A shape, a heap, in the open and not moving… It was the luggage. I started breathing again. But now was the time to speak or forever hold my peace. I slid down among the roots of the tree and said quietly: 'Harvey – it's Cane.'

Something moved in the brambles over to my right. I jerked forward. A gun banged and chips of wood spattered around me. I threw myself into the clump of bushes in front. Too late, I saw somebody kneel up among them.

Gunfire singed my face and battered in my ears. I lay flat, trying to work out if I were dead.

Harvey said: 'Davey Crockett, I presume? Welcome to the Alamo. I was hoping you'd come along and tempt him out of cover.'

'Any time. ' I started unwrapping myself from the bushes. A few yards over to my right, a man. was lying half out of the bramble patch. Harvey walked across to him. He walked stiffly, and then I saw a stained rip in his jacket over his left ribs. I yanked myself free and went after him.

'Are you hurt bad?'

'Not serious.' His face was set hard as he tried to lift the man with his foot. He let him fall back, convinced he was dead.

'I'd been stuck in cover about twenty minutes waiting for him to make a move. What's the news?'

'Let me have a look.' I started tearing open the bloodstained hole in his shirt. 'The news is we're being picked up, but the cops have got a roadblock in the village. They heard the shooting and they're out in the fields.' I nodded over my shoulder. 'It's just a gash – but you'll have to run with it Can you?'

He nodded.

I said: Then go round the village and up to the road.'

Maganhard came up behind us, carrying my Mauser as delicately as he would a dead rat. I took it off him.

Harvey said to him: 'Liechtenstein's now that way ' He pointed to the stream. 'Get the luggage and run.'

Maganhard said: 'I do not mind about the luggage-'

'Imind,' I said. 'It's evidence of who was here.'

Maganhard went to fetch it. Harvey called after him: 'Remember – the business you save may be your own.' Then he looked at the dead man. 'Though he's a good piece of evidence himself. They won't think he committed suicide.'

A voice from the field shouted:'Ai! Allons-y?'

I said: 'I may be able to fool them a bit. Stay across the stream and away from the bank: they'll look for tracks there. Anddon't come back for me, whatever you hear.'

He crooked an eyebrow at me: 'You aren't going to be the boy on the burning deck, are you?'

Maganhard went trundling past, carrying the two cases. I said: 'I'll be along.'

He turned away, then back. 'It's the first time I've ever been hit,' he said thoughtfully. 'He came up behind me; got me by surprise.'

'I'd assumedthat, for God's sake.'

He didn't seem to hear me. 'But it's not an excuse really. People shouldn't get up behind me and take me by surprise. My job.' Then he loped off down the track, his left elbow pressed tight into his ribs, his Air France suitcase in his hand.

I took a deep breath that was only partly because of the running and jumping I'd been doing recently, found the Mauser holster, and clipped it on as a shoulder-piece. Then I walked over to the dead man.

He was a smallish man with long dark hair, wearing a shabby grey double-breasted suit. Hus gun was a US Army Colt.45 automatic. I put it in a pocket, picked him up, and staggered through the wood towards the fields.

Near the last of the trees I put him carefully down again, got out his gun, broke out the magazine, and counted the rounds. There were too many for what I planned; I left him just three. Then I sneaked forward to the edge of the field.

One of the cops was standing in plain view about a hundred yards away, up to the middle of his thighs in long grass, and staring hard at the trees. I couldn't see the other. I pulled back and went on hands and knees to the road I needed to account for the four earlier shots – and a dead man. I tucked the Mauser into my shoulder and fired two careful shots at the nearest house in the village, a quarter of a mile off. I saw a cloud of dust fall off the wall. Now the cops down there knew they'd been fired at; maybe they'd believe some of the earlier shots had been aimed at them, too.

I crept back to the dead man. The cop was still in the middle of the field, staying out of what he thought was accurate pistol range. With the Mauser and its shoulder-piece, I could have plucked his eyebrows at that range. Well, that was about what I wanted to do. But I would have preferred to know where his partner was.

I propped myself carefully behind a tree, and shouted at him. I told him to come on if he felt brave enough. Gendarmes had killed my father and brother. Now let him try and kill me. I was going to take one with me when I went.

I tried to make it sound crazy; an impression of craziness might help fog up some awkward details. He had half ducked when I started shouting, but stayed in view. I put a shot close enough to his head for him to know I meant him. He threw himself flat.

His partner knelt up suddenly from the grass near him and loosed off his sub-machine-gun in my direction. Sprigs of fir and cones spattered down on my head. That was good enough for me. I let out a long dying scream, ending in a nasty little choked gurgle.

Then I threw the empty Mauser cartridge case into the field, patted the dead man on the shoulder, said: 'That'll teach you to shoot at cops,' grabbed my briefcase, and ran.

I caught up with them just where they were about to re-cross the stream and get to the road. By there, my run had turned into a gentle trot.

Harvey gave me a bleak little smile and said: 'I like the idea, but d'you think it'll fool them for long?' He must have heard all my little performance.

'Long enough, maybe.'

'Sooner or later they'll find the guy got hit by a thirty-eight, not one of their machine-guns.'

'They won't rush a post-mortem on him if they think they already know what happened.'

We splashed across the stream and up into the cover of the wall leading to the road. I looked at my watch and made it just over half an hour since I'd left Miss Jarman. My feet were beginning to remind me that I'd got them wet four times since then. We stumbled on.

Parked in the gateway at the top of the field was a grey Citroen van with corrugated sides and clos pinel painted across its rear doors. Miss Jarman and somebody else were kneeling by the front wheels, pretending to be interested in the tyres.

As we staggered up, blowing like a herd of tired horses, the other person stood up and came quickly to the back of the van. It was Ginette, in a neat grey skirt and a smudged old suède jacket.

And older than when I'd last seen her, twelve years ago -but not twelve years older. Perhaps a gentle weariness in her dark eyes, a slowness and steadiness in her expression. But the same dark-chestnut hair, the soft pale skin that never seemed to be touched by the sun, the same sad amused smile I'd remembered far too well.

She touched my arm. 'Hello, Louis. You haven't changed a bit.'

My legs were soaked to the knees, my jacket and shirt were covered in mould and pine-needles, half my hair was dangling in my face, and half the forest was in my hair. And I had the big Mauser in my hand.

I nodded. 'Maybe I should have.' We started climbing into the back of the van.