Doubled in Diamonds, page 15
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because Billings suggested you might be one. I don’t think he believed it. But he thought about it – enough to ask me to keep my eyes open during the next few days.’
‘Did he?’
‘He did.’
‘Well, he’s dead right.’
She was silent and I reached for the carafe and poured wine into her glass.
I smiled. ‘I’m the secret agent type. I’m all for law and order. I’m the guy you read about who walks a knife edge, gets roughed up, kicked around, and triumphs in the end where he falls exhausted into bed with the girl.’
She said, ‘What are you trying to do? Play for my sympathy?’ She shook her head. ‘I know what you are. Money, you want. You latched onto the Arnold Finch thing and then saw a chance of getting a cut.’
‘Originally, yes. But then things changed.’ I reached out and took one of her hands. It was cold and she let it lie in mine like a dead fish. I said, ‘Have you got any way of reaching Billings. Say by phone?’
‘I could always call a man named Cadilly in London. He has ways of passing a message.’
‘Oh, yes, Cadilly. Well – all you have to do is pass on this conversation. I’d be a dead duck. If not from Billings – then from the people I work for. There’s a phone in the restaurant. You can always reverse the charges, even from France.’
She took her hand out of mine.
‘Is this on the level?’
‘You want the full story?’
‘If you’ve had time to make it up.’
‘Okay. But remember this – I’m not working for your sympathy. I’m telling you because I want to help you if I can. Incidentally, there’s a warrant out for your arrest in London. Without meaning to, I laid the information which made that possible. Have I got your attention?’
I had.
I gave it to her without let or hindrance, and when I had finished, she said, ‘You must be mad.’
‘Why?’
‘To tell me this.’
‘I don’t think so. I’m a great judge of character. Anyway, why should you cross me up? I’m trying to help you. Somewhere in this there’s got to be a chance to work a bargain with Commander Barnes. And it’s got to be a good one to hold him off because he’s a bloodthirsty bastard. Do I get your vote of confidence?’
For the first tune that day I got a small smile as she nodded her head. She said, ‘I’m glad you told me.’
‘And you’re not going to make a phone call?’
Her hand came out and held mine.
‘You know I’m not,’ she said.
Later, in the car, I said, ‘Tell me – did you get any idea where that house was?’
‘No. Only in the country somewhere, and some mountains around.’
‘How did you get there?’
‘In Dufy’s van, like you did.’
‘Dufy?’
‘He picked me up from the station at Clermont Ferrand. I’d come from Paris. I sat in the back. And then we stopped after about an hour or so. Then when I arrived at the house I saw that it was Hasler driving.’
‘Dufy,’ I said. ‘Who is he? Is he a plump, jolly sort of number with a gold tooth?’
‘Yes. He used to be a croupier at the Ascanti, when I first went there. But he retired and came back to France and opened a garage somewhere.’
‘He’s French?’
‘Of course. That’s why he came back to France.’
‘Where in France?’
‘I don’t know. At least—’
‘Come on, think. Where?’
‘I can’t remember. I haven’t got that sort of brain.’
‘But you must have some idea. Think. Dufy. France.’
‘Well… Oh, wait – we sent each other Christmas cards last year.’
‘Then you must have his address.’
‘Yes. But I can’t remember.’
‘Well, you’ve bloody well got to.’
‘And I tell you I can’t. If I was in England it would be easy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re like a terrier, aren’t you?’
‘I have to be, because it could be important. If I’m going to make a bargain I’ve got to have something that other people don’t know. This could be it. Now – how could you know if you were in England?’
‘Because it’s in my address book at the fiat.’
I had a nice sense of relief. Like the first long pull at a glass of draught bitter on a hot day.
‘Just where in your flat is this book?’
‘In the top drawer of my bureau. At the back on the left. It’s a tan-coloured, diary thing one of the wine suppliers to the Ascanti gave me. His name and address are in it.’
‘Good.’
‘But we’re not in England,’ she said.
I reached out an arm and put it round her shoulder.
‘We aren’t,’ I said. ‘But other people are.’
* * *
Rethel is a little town on the banks of the Aisne, a hundred and ninety-two kilometres from Paris and thirty-eight ditto from Reims. The Hôtel Moderne was opposite the railway station. Two rooms had already been booked for us by Suma.
While we were having dinner I saw, through the glass door of the dining-room, Casalis booking in at the reception desk. He was wearing a false moustache, a beret, and the little rosette of the Croix de Guerre in his buttonhole. He looked a dead ringer of a small French manufacturer who had to do his own commercial travelling. He also looked remarkably like Casalis.
Bertina was tired and went up to her room early. At her door she turned and gave me a light kiss on the lips.
I said, ‘Sleep well – and don’t worry. Things will work out.’
‘You think they will?’
‘Sure.’ I made it sound good.
Her lips brushed mine briefly again.
‘A bonus,’ I said.
‘In a way. You’re a good guy and you say things as if you mean them, as if you care about people. Maybe that’s why I took to you the first time we met. Christ, I haven’t been very bright about all this, have I?’
‘We’ll fix something. I promise.’ I was a great one for making promises without having any clear idea how to carry them out.
She smiled. ‘Just like that? You promise. And now I can go to bed and sleep without a care in the world?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Boy, you should have sold patent medicine.’
I went along to my room, lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the bed contemplating my toe caps. The only conclusion I came to was that my shoes were dirty. There was a steady tired ache in all my bones which came from sheer nervousness.
The telephone rang and it was Casalis.
He said, ‘Baby nicely tucked up with a goodnight kiss and a pat on the bottom?’
I said, ‘One of these days you’ll unwind and they’ll never get the elastic back.’
‘There’s a car round the corner of the hotel. Peugeot. Red. It’s waiting for you.’ He rang off.
I went down, still nervous.
Round the corner was the Peugeot and Aristide was at the wheel. I got in beside him.
I said, ‘Where? And who?’
He said, ‘Sutcliffe and Barnes. Where doesn’t matter.’
‘Barnes? He’s way off his patch, isn’t he?’
‘No shaking him. He still regards this as his baby.’
‘You’re telling me. He sees it as his last case before he retires. Barnes bows out in a blaze of glory. Life story sold to the News of the World for a packet – and then, maybe, a knighthood.’
We were through the town now and heading out along some country road. I didn’t bother to keep track.
After half an hour we ran into a small village and the car stopped in front of the mairie. The place was in darkness except for a light in one of the top rooms. Aristide led me in, down a draughty corridor where official notices flapped at us from the wall as we passed. Then up an iron staircase that smelt of disinfectant, and into the lighted room where the first thing I saw was a large photograph of de Gaulle over a fireplace filled with pink frilled paper.
Behind a long table in a leather-backed chair was Sutcliffe. Sitting at the far end of the table was Barnes. I didn’t get any cordial greeting. Sutcliffe just pointed a plump finger at a hardwood chair on my side of the table. I sat down, still nervous, and feeling like a candidate for a third-grade clerkship up for interview and without a hope in hell. I looked around the room for help, but there wasn’t a sign of a drink anywhere. Why, I wondered, did they always make me feel unwanted?
‘Start from the beginning, go slow, and omit nothing,’ said Sutcliffe. He wore a dark blue suit, old Etonian tie, and was a real breath of the old country. Barnes was in shooting tweeds with leather patches on the elbows and his face was a great, graven slab like an Easter Island statue.
I cleared my throat which didn’t seem as big as usual and started. I gave them everything right up to the time that I had driven away from Lyon station with Bertina. They heard me in silence and when I finished Barnes was the first to speak.
‘Just over a million, you say the valuation was?’
‘Yes. But it’s still quite a big headline, isn’t it?’
Sutcliffe got up from his chair, turned his back on me and stared at de Gaulle thoughtfully. At least that’s what it looked like from the wrinkles on the back of his neck.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘These drugs are coming in by barge down the French canal system?’
‘Yes. Suma’s going to phone me when and where to meet the barge. She’ll be on it when I go aboard, but she’s not staying. Bertina and I make the trip. Remembering the cable I saw in her hotel room I shall be surprised if the barge isn’t called La Fauvette and the master Grognon, E19 foxes me, though.’
Sutcliffe turned.
‘E19 is for Ecluse 19. That’s Lock 19. Probably where she meets the barge. And I’d say on the Canal des Ardennes – that runs through Rethel.’
Barnes said, ‘She said nothing about the hand-over point?’
‘No. I’m to know that eventually. All I have to do is stay aboard and keep an eye on things. Suma will join us just before the hand-over. So far as I can see I’m a strongarm man to make sure that the exchange goes without hitch. Both sides have got to trust one another but they’re not just leaving it at that.’
Barnes stood up.
‘What about this damned girl?’
‘What about her?’
‘Well, if she’s going to be with you and you’ve got to pass information to Casalis and Aristide she might get wise. In fact, Billings might have planted her on you for just that reason. He wouldn’t overlook any possibility.’
‘To Billings,’ I said, ‘she’s an embarrassment. So I’ve got her – until she can return to London.’
‘And then I’ll have her, by God!’ He slapped a big fist into his palm. ‘When I think that if she’d given us that Finch-Fairlawn connection I might have wrapped all this up in England—’
‘She’s just an ordinary girl who got mixed up. The way you talk she might be the brains behind everything.’
He gave me a sour look. ‘Gone soft on her, have you?’
Before I could say anything, Sutcliffe said, ‘How do you see the Billings-Fairlawn set-up?’
‘So far as I can see they work together all right. Fairlawn overstepped the mark with Horace Goodenough, but that could have been excess of zeal. It’s clear what they intend to do. Billings aims to come back to London without a shred of evidence to connect him. He’ll pay off his boys there and then live like a king. Fairlawn and Hasler, I guess, are for the wide-open spaces and new identities.’
Sutcliffe gave me a long look, and then said gently, ‘Go on.’
My nervousness was wearing off a bit now. They weren’t being too bad with me. I put on a slightly stupid look and said, ‘Go on what?’
Sutcliffe smiled. ‘You’re not a fool, Carver. It must have occurred to you. Billings wants London and security. Fairlawn wants abroad – and security. They can rely on it from the professionals who worked with them in London. But you and the girl are not professionals. Get me?’
‘Yes. I’ve had similar thoughts. If you really want the truth, I’ll settle for out now.’
‘You stay,’ said Barnes.
I ignored him.
Sutcliffe said, ‘You’ve no idea where this valuation house is?’
‘None.’
‘Not even the smallest idea?’
‘No. Your people had a chance to do better than me. You could have followed. What went wrong?’
Neither of them answered. I lit a cigarette and stared at de Gaulle. I didn’t get any sympathy from him. But maybe underneath that heavy Gallic overcast he approved. He knew something, too, about keeping a little in hand.
I said, ‘About the girl. As I said – she’s a stupid number who really had nothing to do with anything. I’m going to do a hell of a lot for you two. I might even finish up with a knife in my back. It’s a risk I’ll take happily if I have your promise that all you’ll do to the girl is give her a good talking to.’
‘She gets what’s coming to her.’ There was a fine, swelling volcanic rumble in Barnes’s voice. ‘The bitch.’
‘Do you go along with that?’ I asked Sutcliffe.
‘Why not? The due process of law must be observed.’
‘Since when in your service? You don’t care a damn for the law if it suits you.’
Sutcliffe smiled and I didn’t like it.
‘Don’t get any chivalrous ideas about her, Carver. I’ve warned you about that kind of thing.’
‘And don’t get any other ideas,’ said Barnes. ‘There’s money, big money in this affair. You’ve got itchy palms. You’ve already done well. But from now on you’re really sitting in the driving seat. I don’t want you to get the slightest idea that you can bend anything – for the sake of a blonde-headed floozy with blue eyes or for the sake of a few extra hundred quid. Clear?’
‘As mud. And why don’t you stop fussing about your tiny blaze of glory? And, as a matter of interest, who is the boss here? You or Sutcliffe?’
Neither of them liked that. Barnes because he knew he wasn’t the boss, and Sutcliffe because I’d never used anything but ‘sir’ or a little cough to name him before. They both gave me cold stares. I stood up and walked to the window. The red Peugeot was waiting outside and I could see the red end of Aristide’s cigarette.
Without turning, I said, ‘Can I go now?’
From behind me Sutcliffe said, ‘Yes. But first I want to make two things clear. One – watch that girl. She may not be as stupid as you think. And she may be in much deeper than you think. And secondly – watch yourself. You’re making too strong a plea for her. I don’t like that.’
I turned and I wasn’t nervous now. I was just plain bloody angry. Neither of them cared a damn for anything except getting this job wrapped up. They’d roped me in, and I was being paid, and they were going to use me without caring a cuss whether I came out the other end walking or carried. Because I was useful just now they had to be reasonably nice to me. But anyone else, like Bertina, who didn’t have any use to them, didn’t exist as a human being.
I said, ‘I didn’t care for that kind of talk. I could dig my heels in now and say I won’t go an inch farther unless you give me a clearance on the girl. I haven’t taken the Queen’s shilling, you know. I can just walk out.’
Sutcliffe said easily, ‘Try it.’
And Barnes with a mild volcanic grunt said, ‘No deal.’
They were right, of course. If I didn’t go through with it then anything could happen – to me.
I walked to the door.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But I’m a soft-hearted type. There’s something about a woman in distress that just brings out a rare touch of decency in me. You’re lucky not to suffer from it.’
I had my fingers on the door handle when Sutcliffe said, ‘Was it something to do with this rare touch of decency which made your conversation with her at lunch so absorbing?’
I swung round, not hiding my surprise.
‘So somebody was on our tail from Lyon?’
Sutcliffe nodded. ‘One of the Lyon cars. Plain clothes. After you phoned in. They reported a very earnest talk between the two of you. What was the gist of it?’
I smiled. It was an effort and I could feel it cracking a bit at the ends.
‘The gist was twofold. One, a discussion on how to make langouste au gratin – which no doubt the boys reported we ate. And secondly – since she didn’t really want to come with me – a lecture from me on what would happen to her if she went back to London against Billings’s wishes. He’d threatened to razor her. Between ourselves we weren’t on very good terms.’
‘Interesting,’ said Sutcliffe. ‘Things must have changed, though – since you got two goodnight kisses this evening.’
‘Old peeping Tom Casalis, eh? Well – I said we weren’t on good terms. But then we had the rest of the day driving and my charm began to tell. Any more?’
They both looked at me; Sutcliffe amused now, and Barnes rubbing his two big hands together as though he was longing for something with life in it to squeeze.
I went out and as the door shut behind me nervousness came down like a mist, cold and thick. If anything went wrong now because of my confidence to Bertina then Wilkins would have to make an announcement in The Times. I could see it. Carver, Rex. On the blank of blank, suddenly, as a result of being a blank fool.
Chapter Ten
Double Takeover
The following evening I had a phone call from Suma. Five minutes later there was another call, from Casalis in the hotel.
I said, ‘That was quick.’
He said, ‘We’ve got the local exchange cooperating.’
I relayed to him the instructions I had been given by Suma.
At nine o’clock the next morning, Bertina and I checked out of the hotel. I drove round to the Renault garage which was in the Rue Gambetta – which was also the main road out to Reims and to the bridge over the canal. We left the car and walked down to the bridge, our cases in hand.
