Midnight Plus One - Lyall Gavin - Страница 43

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Harvey walked past and up to the long square-cut bonnet, rapped on it, and called: 'You down there in the engine-room – this is the Captain speaking. I want flank speed on both engines.' He walked back and got a look from Morgan that you normally only see at bayonet practice.

Harvey nodded to him, said: 'And damn the torpedoes, too,' and climbed in.

I asked: 'Will we have to stop for petrol? '

Morgan did a little mental arithmetic, then said: 'I don't think so, sir. We have twenty gallons – and another two in a tin in the boot, if we need it.'

That reassured me. I didn't much want to start showing our faces at petrol stations. I climbed in after Harvey and the door closed behind me with a small solid click.

We rolled up into the daylight with all the stately dignity of the Queen Mary going down the Solent. On a hearse heading for an expensive funeral.

The time was half past two.

We turned north, back through most of Montreux, then right into a zigzag up the hillside to Blonay and over to meet the main road for Fribourg, across the corner of the mountains.

Harvey sat beside me on my right, sharing a jump seat that folded down from the partition between us and Morgan. We faced forwards and the back of our seat almost restricted Maganhard's leg-room. But not quite – not in that car.

As soon as we were rolling, Harvey started a careful check-up on the inside of the car: the plate-glass partition between him and the back of Morgan's neck, the roof, the door beside him.

I wasn't worried about the local citizens seeing it wasn't the General in the back seat: where Maganhard and Miss Jarman were sitting, it was too dark to recognise your own wife, even if you'd wanted to. There were no side windows behind the rear doors, and the car went back nearly four feet from there. The small back window was heavily smoked glass, and even the rear door windows were tinted. The car had the atmosphere of the smoking-room from one of the richer London clufa, and it was furnished to match.

The seats were of thick brown leather, the woodwork was dark mahogany, the handles and knobs of scratched, worn brass that looked much more solid than brand-new brass ever did. The carpet and the silk panelling on the roof had the same tone: a dull gold. None of it looked smart and new, but it had never been intended to. It was supposed to look worn – and as if it would never wear out.

After a while, Maganhard said: 'This seems a very distinctive car for a man like the General. He must be a man who makes enemies; I would have expected something less obvious.' He was obviously feeling smug about his own idea in choosing a Citroen.

I'd been trying to work that out for myself, and reckoned I had. 'It's protection – of a sort,' I said. 'Once somebody's really trying to kill you, you can change your car every month and it won't fool them. This way he attracts as much attention as he can – and a pro killer won't shoot at a man in a spotlight. I suppose it's the same thing as living in one part of one hotel for forty years: anybody knows where to find him but theydon't know how to get through five floors of a big hotel once they've blown his head off. In a private house up in the hills, he'd be a pushover.'

Maganhard said: 'I seem to remember some famous political assassinations that worked in public places.'

'Political killings are by cranks – and they get caught. The point of a pro killer is that he can count the odds; he won't shoot unless they're on his side.'

'Amateurs are hell,' Harvey said absently, still looking carefully round the inside of the car. 'You can set up something that's watertight for the professional – you're playing the same rules. Then some amateur walks in and blows the whole thing. The trouble in our business is, we only fire the second shot. You get a guy who doesn't care if the second shot knocks his head off – what can you do?'

I turned and smiled reassuringly at the dark shape that was Maganhard. 'You see? Just be glad people like you and the General don't attract cranks – only real killers.'

Maganhard said: 'I'll try and remember to be thankful.'

Harvey just grunted and went on exploring the door at his side, and the partition in front.

I noticed we were going up a steep hill, but the car didn't. It would have taken a hopped-up Mercedes a lot of work with the gearbox just to keep us in sight. Morgan only changed down from top a couple of times. But you hardly need gears with a seven-litre engine that turns slowly enough to have started the old crack about 'it fires once at every mile-post'. That period of Rolls doesn't have much top speed – and never did have – but it'll go up a vertical slope like fire along a fuse.

We didn't even slow down for the corners. I got a hasty flashback of my past life the first time Morgan slammed that great chariot into a hairpin bend, but it just sailed round. The springing was as stiff as a five-day corpse. We got to know that springing better once we were over the crest and opened up down the straight on the other side. It felt very solid and stable, but when you hit a hole in the road your backside knew about it by special delivery.

Harvey finished his tour of inspection, swung round on me, and said abruptly: 'Okay – the car's secure. There's no microphones and that partition's soundproof. He can't hear a word.' He nodded at the back of Morgan's neck, a few inches away through the thick glass. 'So now tell me, Cane: why the hell are we riding in this heap?'

I smiled in a friendly way and said: 'It's a nice car. And as far as you're concerned, it's a free ride. Enjoy it.'

His eyes were cold and steady. 'A piece of cheese,' he said softly, 'just a big piece of Gruyere – and four blind mice sitting around in the holes thinking how nice somebody's left it lying around just when they felt hungry. Why are we riding in this car, Cane?'

'It's still a free ride.'

Miss Jarman said: 'Do you think the General-'

'Yes-I-do-think-the-General,' Harvey said, still watching me. 'Okay, Cane -1 know you've been right before. But just think of this: for the first time on this trip, somebody knows where we'll be -exactly where we'll be, within a few inches – when we're crossing that frontier. If that's a trap, it's a very damn good one.'

'I know,' I said. 'But look at it this way: we know exactly wherethey'll be waiting. And that hasn't happened before, either.'

'You mean itis a trap?' His eyebrows had that half-degree slant on them.

'Hell, of course it's a trap. What else d'you expect for three thousand francs in this business?'

Maganhard came awake at full volume: 'General Fay is working for – for this Calieron?'

I smiled over my shoulder at him. I liked the way he said 'this' Calieron, as if the world was full of Gallerons, all trying to lift his ten millions' worth of Caspar AC, but only this one likely to do it.

'Well,' I said, 'if the General wasn't working for him twenty minutes ago, I'll bet he is now. But I think he always was. It was always likely, wasn't it? There's damn few big deals in this part of the world where the General isn't working for one side or the other. And you and Fiez hadn't hired him.'

'You guessed this?' he shouted. 'And you let me pay him three thousand francs?' He was glaring at me as if I'd grown two heads, and neither of them friendly.

'Well, Idid suggest you paid a third of seven and a half,' I said soothingly. That'd have saved you five hundred. He knew he'd never collect the rest, but he wouldn't have dared refuse it.'

He wasn't soothed, of course. 'Why should I pay anything to be betrayed?'

'He did help get you out of jug – and you're still getting What he sold you: a cop-free ride to the frontier. He wasn't fooling about that. If he wanted us caught by the cops, he could have left you in the pen in Montreux. Anyway, we know they don't want us caught: they want us dead. You must have noticedthat.'

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