Black Champagne

by George B Mair

  BLACK CHAMPAGNE

  George B. Mair

  © George B. Mair 1968

  George B. Mair has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1968 by Jarrolds Publishers (London) Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  This book is dedicated to my loyal secretary, Mrs. Jenny Hutchison, and to her talented husband Guy—friends through many eventful years.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – Rendezvous with Anarchy

  Chapter Two – ‘It all sounded too easy’

  Chapter Three – ‘Also dividends, danger and possible death’

  Chapter Four – ‘This feels nearer Heaven’

  Chapter Five – ‘That egg thing was more sinister than it looked’

  Chapter Six – ‘Sharks were messy eaters’

  Chapter Seven – ‘A short time may be for ever’

  Chapter Eight – ‘Do you believe in God?’

  Chapter Nine – ‘The end of the road’

  Chapter Ten – ‘Skin against skin and muscle against muscle’

  Chapter Eleven – ‘Jump off and see the Gods’

  Chapter Twelve – ‘Bed is a good place to die in’

  Chapter Thirteen – Black Champagne

  Chapter One – Rendezvous with Anarchy

  ‘Paris in the springtime.’

  Grant mouthed the phrase sarcastically as he waited outside la Santé prison and looked at its cold hard walls, sinister behind a play of shadow from the lights of late cars burning the tarmac along the Boulevard Arago.

  He showed his card to the gateman on duty and followed him into an office painted chocolate brown but dominated by the usual photograph of the President hanging lopsided above an old fashioned stove.

  The room was thick with hangovers from stale tobacco, hard liquor and a whiff of perfume which was difficult to place.

  He paused to light a cigarette and automatically marked the position of desk, filing cabinets, door and window. The stubs of two slender cigars lay on one ash tray. They were petit Coronas, and stained with lipstick. They also suggested that a woman had sat there for at least half an hour.

  ‘This way, m’sieur.’ He followed the warder through a short corridor towards an office sometimes used by the Governor, while the wall behind him vibrated like a stereophonic sounding board with the muted hum of voices. He knew that the passage linked with one wing of the jail used for prisoners in detention awaiting trial, and he guessed what they were talking about.

  The Governor was polite, but formal. ‘My instructions are to take you to prisoner XG 7469. You can remain with him for as long as you wish and there will be no witnesses. But the ceremony will take place five minutes after dawn so you must be prepared to leave before then. It has also been arranged that you will stand within two metres of the guillotine and that other witnesses will be considerably further back.’

  ‘So I shall be Ferguson’s last visitor?’

  ‘Understood.’ The Governor had become abrupt and drank at least one third of his Pernod. ‘The prisoner has already refused a priest and won’t now be allowed to change his mind.’

  ‘But you are sure that it’s impossible for him to have even a microscopic transmitter anywhere on his person, and that the cell has been given an all-clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grant was taking no chances. He detested this assignment, but since it had to be done it would be done properly. ‘And you also have orders to agree to any reasonable request from myself.’

  The Governor eyed him curiously. ‘Such as what?’

  ‘The people we are up against are extremely clever, and monitoring gadgets can be very easily hidden, even in prison. Given of course that someone has been able to bribe a warder. So I figure to talk elsewhere and would like to choose another cell. Its occupants can be transferred and Ferguson brought down here while I keep a general eye on things just to see that there’s no monkey business.’

  The Governor shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish.’

  The prison was overcrowded and cold, but Grant stopped at the end of a passage beside a cell isolated from the others by a store room for brushes and pails. ‘This will do. Get these men reorganised and then we’ll see Ferguson.’

  Four warders closed in at a sign from the Governor and the prisoners shuffled out in dark nightclothes, their cropped scalps almost surrealist beside the trim uniforms of two sleek young guards. Homosexuals, thought Grant sourly, and wondered how one cured that sort of thing in a jail where there could be nothing else.

  Mixed quarters were ‘out’ for jails in civilised countries, and France was highly civilised. Public executions were acceptable. And politicians were still the élite in society. So the place was bound to be civilised! Especially since its other two Gods were hard currency and accommodating women. He was still in a cynical mood and cursing his current assignment when the Governor motioned to a dead-pan middle-aged man dangling a fistful of keys who stopped at a spy-hole and then, slowly, turned the lock. The door opened without a sound and Grant saw that even the hinges had been freshly oiled as he remembered that this was the first time in years that a public execution had been held from the Santé.

  The room was less than four metres square. A hospital style bed with tubular black metal frame lay along one wall and there was a dry privy in one corner beside a basin of water. The prisoner was early middle-aged and well groomed . . . except that the neck of the shirt had been cut away and that he wore only flip-flop sandals which Grant knew could be kicked off in a second. The last second!

  They had met before, and the man’s eyes lit up with a fleeting spark of emotion which was instantly smothered. ‘Good evening, David. Come to say farewell?’

  The voice was controlled and apparently friendly. The words were English and Grant wondered when before in history an Englishman had been publicly executed in Paris. The thing was almost unique in peacetime. If one could call the times they lived in peace. ‘We’re going to have supper elsewhere. Coming?’

  Ferguson shook his head. ‘I like to receive visitors here.’

  ‘But for just this once you’re going to receive elsewhere.’ Grant’s manner was hard as flint. ‘So do you come quietly or do we carry you?’

  The prisoner stood up. ‘I never fight unless I know I can win. And I’d hate like Hell to be carried. Especially since they’ll soon be carrying what’s left of me in a box. So start moving.’

  ‘You first.’ Grant produced a small gun. ‘This has been used for knocking out animals and stopping riots. It carries a shot of gas which can put you to sleep. Perhaps you’d better go first while I follow with this and the others bring up the rear.’

  The prisoner stared at the gun. ‘I last used one like that for a bank job. So you win, since I don’t want to be sick during my last few hours on this stricken planet and the hangover is frightful.’

  ‘Then march.’ Grant pointed towards the door. ‘Turn left, but open the door immediately ahead of you and we’ll play it from there.’

  Ferguson bowed sarcastically. ‘Always polite, David. Especially when you’re rattled.’

  Grant moved the gun slightly. ‘Talk when I tell you. One more word and this operates. Understand?’

  The Governor and warder stood outside blocking the corridor which led towards the main mass of the cell block and watched Ferguson stroll insolently past them. His cheeks were pale, but his eyes were steady and only a tiny bead of sweat on the side of his nose showed his mounting tension. Grant allowed his three paces and then followed as Ferguson held the door open with one heel until he felt Grant take the load. ‘Toujours la politesse, David. Yo
u won’t shoot me just for saying that, will you?’

  Grant snapped out an order. ‘Turn round.’ And as Ferguson faced him he said softly, ‘I will’ and fired straight into his face. There was a puff of greyness, a hissing noise, and a look of blank astonishment spread over the prisoner’s eyes as he collapsed on the stone floor.

  Grant looked towards the warder. ‘Help me carry him down. I’ve given him enough to keep him out for around two minutes, and he won’t be too upset when he surfaces. But lay on coffee, chicken sandwiches and brandy, a Janneau Grand Aramac if you have any. It was his favourite tipple and I want him conditioned to talk.’

  The Governor lifted a phone while Grant waited impatiently until the order was given, and then, swiftly, the unconscious man was lifted on to a stretcher.

  Ferguson awoke as Grant poured drinks, and Grant saw that the man’s self confidence had been rocked. He glanced at his watch. Three hours remained in which to make a man give away secrets which could save the Department a great deal of bother, and himself a fantastic amount of work. So for the moment he would let Ferguson know the agony of suspense. And he knew that Ferguson hated uncertainty more than almost anything else on earth.

  But four minutes and thirty-five seconds ticked past before the man showed signs of cracking, and then Grant watched his fingers begin that strange athetoid movement, the rubbing, wriggling restlessness which showed that he was making a decision about which he had doubts.

  Ferguson had always shown that same curious finger rubbing, even at school, when he was up against a problem, and Grant had known him for over twenty-eight years. It was long enough to estimate how he would react, and he mentally allowed him another two minutes before he reckoned that curiosity would force a question. The last seconds were ticking out when the prisoner looked at him with a flat neutrality which Grant knew meant fear. Not just ordinary fear. But fear of the unknown. Of something terrible about to happen. The sort of fear which can make a man freeze in his tracks or go blank in his mind. And only then did he break a silence which had begun to chill even himself, but his voice was reassuring and tinged with friendliness. ‘Just a small demonstration to show I mean business. No hard feelings. Help yourself to coffee, and there’s some of your favourite brandy. Say when.’

  His very offhandedness seemed to reassure the prisoner, and Grant sighed with relief as a glint of life again sparked into Ferguson’s eyes as the man forced a brief smile. ‘You were always ruthless, David. I might have known better.’

  Grant decided to play it cool. But with a sharp eye on the watch which would give him a brief electric jab on the stroke of each hour, a gentle reminder that time was passing, and a timepiece which he used only under very special circumstances. ‘Chicken sandwich. Breast in these and leg in the others.’

  Ferguson stared at him curiously. ‘I thought it was my privilege to order a last meal.’

  Grant shrugged his shoulders. ‘The Governor said you weren’t interested.’

  ‘And that I had refused a priest?’

  ‘Sure. As he must have known you were bound to do.’

  ‘You don’t believe in last minute conversions?’

  Grant shook his head. ‘Not from types like you.’

  Ferguson became interested. ‘Why do you dislike me so much?’

  The two men laid down their drinks and for a split instant of time their masks dropped. Ferguson saw Grant as a scared schoolboy frightened sick by the wasp which another boy was holding in his hand, its wings gently fixed between finger and thumb while the pointed yellow and black tail was angled a millimetre from Grant’s naked thigh. While Grant saw in front of him a leering bully who had tormented him for four years at school before expulsion and a public flogging. Ferguson had been born bad. He was one of those few with a built-in evilness which, in the end, had destroyed him.

  ‘It isn’t dislike, so much,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a sort of curiosity to know how you tick. To understand where you went wrong, or if there is such a thing as natural sin.’

  Ferguson smiled with genuine amusement. ‘You always were a pompous Charlie, David, but you’ve probably killed more people than I ever did, even during the war.’

  ‘I’ve never killed for pleasure.’ And Grant cursed himself for being on the defensive.

  ‘But you’ll get kicks out of watching me sub-divide whether you admit it or not. Will you feel that the debt is squared?’ Ferguson was already on his second brandy and with his coffee still neglected.

  It was the opening for which Grant had been waiting. ‘What debt?’

  The prisoner wiped his lips. ‘Because if you do you’ll be wrong. I’ve never liked you. You condescended at school. You never blubbed when we tormented you. You got into the first fifteen when I stayed in the second. You stole my first girl, that blue black Eurasian in Tiffany’s, and ever since then you’ve been a thorn in my flesh. So now we both die. Possibly under the same knife.’

  Grant felt a shiver of tension, but forced himself to raise his hand in a gesture of disbelief. ‘My conscience is clear.’

  ‘Sure!’ Ferguson was laughing, but his eyes were cold as ice. ‘Except that when I felt that the game was up I decided you might as well cop it too. So I framed you.’

  Grant’s voice was very quiet. The man had taken his third brandy and was in an expansive humour. ‘How?’

  ‘A friend killed a bank clerk this evening and robbed him of a whack of hard cash, some of it in U.S.A. dollars. But he left your fingerprints on the man’s brief-case.’ Ferguson smiled again. ‘You know how easy it is nowadays to transfer prints. Dead simple in fact, so we lifted yours many weeks ago from a hotel room while you were having a swim at Cannes.’

  He paused. ‘That of course is capital murder and therefore a good enough beginning, but for good measure we’ve got perfect forgeries of certain documents labelled Top Secret, and a hefty sum of hard cash was recently paid into one of your banks. Another bank also got a left luggage office ticket for safe keeping, and when some Sûreté type draws out the contents he’ll find compromising correspondence typed by your own typewriter plus your own signature on each letter. Which should fix you for treason. But,’ he added grimly, ‘in case we missed anything we’ve also corrupted your girl friend, Maya, who is now a confirmed drug addict. A very switched-on new drug to which she has taken like a duck to water. And to say the least of it she has been indiscreet, because it seems you’ve told her more than is wise.

  ‘Now agents like you are not supposed to tell even their wives anything, far less broad minded mistresses. So you’ll certainly cop it for that once they’ve got on to Maya Koren, and since we’ve now stopped supplying the drug she would sell even your soul to get supplies. So that, dear David, should fix you, even if a few weeks must pass before they clinch all the evidence.’

  Grant studied him carefully. Ferguson had suddenly become a peculiar sort of bug which deserved a second look under the microscope. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  The prisoner lit a cigarette. ‘Just a small point. One of our people is a bookmaker and when they tumble to that lead your investigators will find that you’ve been gambling far beyond your means. Which will make sense out of selling state secrets to this or that government . . . because several will appear to be involved.’ He drained his third brandy. ‘And since motive is imperative we’ve supplied convincing motivations for everything.’

  Grant drew a deep breath. ‘But why go to all that trouble? School feuds don’t end like this.’

  Ferguson stared at him cynically. ‘Don’t they? It was just your bad luck that when you smashed S.A.T.A.N.[1] you also did me out of a job bringing in five figures tax free. And one doesn’t laugh that sort of money off. So now you’re scheduled to suffer.’

  Grant played his trump bluff. ‘I haven’t been lazy either. You have two loves in life, the bull terrier and your woman. So we’ve arrested your wife as being party to certain of your own crimes, of conspiring to conceal a wanted criminal, and for straight d
rug peddling. We can throw the book at her, and the dog will be given to my own departmental vivisectionists. Professor Juin’s team wants a dog on which it can experiment by grafting on a head. Remember that the Russians have already done it once. So the President has naturally issued orders for France to do the same. And at the double! A question of honour,’ he added sarcastically.

  ‘You’re bluffing,’ Ferguson spoke with blunt assurance. ‘Mary visited me about two hours ago and our dog was sent to a home last week.’

  Grant bluffed to the limit. ‘But you forgot to take out a licence and it’s now in cold storage for surgery. While Mary spent about an hour with the Governor tonight trying to plead a last minute argument for more appeals and so forth. The stubs of her smokes are still in the ashtray. And she’s been arrested. Which covers that.’ It was a long shot, but he lit still one more cigarette and sipped coffee before adding the punch line. ‘You must also understand that the Governor allowed her to waste his time only because he was waiting for some last minute evidence.’

  Ferguson’s cheek muscles tautened with rage and Grant saw his fingers writhe with uncertainty as he forced what might become an advantage. ‘I told you that the Russians have already grafted a second head on to a dog. Bear in mind that the thing has now got two heads and that they work. But no one knows how their brains tick. Have they two brains or one? Have they two personalities or one? Are they confused by impulses from one brain cancelling out impulses from the other?’

  Ferguson stared at him bleakly. ‘What has that to do with it?’

  Grant’s voice was low but his accent persuasive as he forced himself to speak off the cuff, yet with an air of decision which would be convincing. ‘Scientists know of only one way to find out. They must eventually graft one on to another human being.

  ‘Now it so happens that you, Ferguson, are very properly going to lose your own head in a short time. So it is going to be my job, with the help of some scientists, to collect it, preserve in appropriate fluid and take to a centre where a team of expert surgeons will attempt to graft the thing on to the neck of a woman due to die in a place where people aren’t so squeamish as they sometimes are here. The general consensus of surgical opinion is that as a graft you will take, because, as you know, blood tests and so forth were taken a short time ago. So let’s say that by this evening your head may well have been sewn on to the neck of a traitress who has also been sentenced to death. Which may perhaps mean that you won’t die at all, that your brain will simply operate using the apparatus of another body.’