Caravan to Vaccares

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. Hang on. There may be worse yet to come.’ Bowman made no excuse and gave no reason for entering the fourth booth, the only one that held any interest for him, nor was it necessary: the girl was so shaken by what she’d just been told that the oddity of Bowman’s behaviour must have suddenly become of very secondary importance.

  The booth was very dimly lit, the illumination coming from an Anglepoise lamp with a very low wattage bulb that cast a pool of light on a green baize table and a pair of hands that lay lightly clasped on the table. Little of the person to whom the hands belonged could be seen as she sat in shadow with her head bent but enough to realize that she would never make it as one of the three witches of Macbeth or even as Lady Macbeth herself. This one was young, with flowing titian hair reaching below her shoulders and gave the vague impression, although her features were almost indistinguishable, that she must be quite beautiful: her hands certainly were.

  Bowman sat on the chair opposite her and looked at the card on the table which bore the legend: ‘Countess Marie le Hobenaut.’

  ‘You really a countess, ma’am?’ Bowman asked politely.

  ‘You wish to have your hand read?’ Her voice was low, gentle and soft. No Lady Macbeth: here was Cordelia.

  ‘Of course.’

  She took his hand in both of hers and bent over it, her head so low that the titian hair brushed the table. Bowman kept still – it wasn’t easy but he kept still – as two warm tears fell on his hands. With his left hand he twisted the Anglepoise and she put a forearm up to protect her eyes but not before he had time to see that her face was beautiful and that the big brown eyes were sheened with tears.

  ‘Why is Countess Marie crying?’

  ‘You have a long lifeline – ’

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘All right. Why are you crying, please?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I – I’m upset.’

  ‘You mean I’ve only got to walk into a place – ’ ‘My young brother is missing.’

  ‘Your brother? I know someone’s missing. Everyone knows. Alexandre. But your brother.

  They haven’t found him?’

  She shook her head, the titian hair brushing across the table.

  ‘And that’s your mother in the big green-andwhite caravan?’

  A nod this time. She didn’t look up.

  ‘But why all the tears? He’s only been missing for a little while. He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’

  Again she said nothing. She put her forearms on the table and her head on her forearms and cried silently, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Bowman, his face bitter, touched the young gypsy’s shoulder, rose and left the booth. But when he emerged the expression on his face was one of dazed bewilderment. Cecile glanced at him in some trepidation.

  ‘Four kids,’ Bowman said quietly. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the archway towards the forecourt. Le Grand Duc, the blonde girl still with him, was talking to an impressively scar-faced and heavily built gypsy dressed in dark trousers and frilled off-white shirt. Bowman ignored Cecile’s disapproving frown and halted a few convenient feet away.

  ‘A thousand thanks, Mr Koscis, a thousand thanks,’ Le Grand Duc was saying in his most gracious lord of the manor voice. ‘Immensely interesting, immensely. Come, Lila, my dear, enough is enough. I think we have earned ourselves a drink and a little bite to eat.’ Bowman watched them make their way towards the steps leading to the patio, then turned and looked consideringly at the green-and-white caravan.

  Cecile said: ‘Don’t.’

  Bowman looked at her in surprise.

  ‘And what’s wrong with wanting to help a sorrowing mother? Maybe I can comfort her, help in some way, perhaps even go looking for her missing boy. If more people would be more forthcoming in times of trouble, be more willing to risk a snub – ’

  ‘You really are a fearful hypocrite,’ she said admiringly.

  ‘Besides, there’s a technique to this sort of thing. If Le Grand Duc can do it, I can. Still your apprehensions.’

  Bowman left her there nibbling the tip of a thumb in what did appear to be a very apprehensive manner indeed and mounted the caravan steps.

  At first sight the interior appeared to be deserted, then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom and he realized he was standing in an unlighted vestibule leading to the main living quarters beyond, identifiable by a crack of light from an imperfectly constructed doorway and the sound of voices, women’s voices.

  Bowman took a step through the outer doorway. A shadow detached itself from a wall, a shadow possessed of the most astonishing powers of acceleration and the most painful solidity. It struck Bowman on the breastbone with the top of a head that had the unforgiving consistency of a cement bollard: Bowman made it all the way to the ground without the benefit of even one of the caravan steps. Out of the corner of an eye he was dimly aware of Cecile stepping hurriedly and advisedly to one side then he landed on his back with a momentarily numbing impact that took care of any little air that bullet-head had left in his lungs in the first place. His glasses went flying off into the middle distance and as he lay there whooping and gasping for the oxygen that wouldn’t come the shadow came marching purposefully down the steps. He was short, thick-set, unfriendly, had a speech to make and was clearly determined on making it. He stooped, grabbed Bowman by the lapels and hauled him to his feet with an ease that boded ill for things to come.

  ‘You will remember me, my friend.’ His voice had the pleasant timbre of gravel being decanted from a metal hopper. ‘You will remember that Hoval does not like trespassers. You will remember that next time Hoval will not use his fists.’

  From this Bowman gathered that on this occasion Hoval did intend to use his fists and he did. Only one, but it was more than enough. Hoval hit him in the same place and, as far as Bowman could judge from the symptoms transmitted by a now nearly paralysed midriff, with approximately the same amount of force. He took half-a-dozen involuntary backward steps and then came heavily to earth again, this time in a seated position with his hands splayed out behind him. Hoval dusted off his hands in an unpleasant fashion and marched back up into the caravan again. Cecile looked around till she located Bowman’s glasses, then came and offered him a helping hand which he wasn’t too proud to accept.

  ‘I think Le Grand Duc must use a dfferent technique,’ she said gravely.

  ‘There’s a lot of ingratitude in this world,’ Bowman wheezed.

  ‘Isn’t there just? Through with studying human nature for the night?’ Bowman nodded, it was easier than speaking. ‘Then for goodness’ sake let’s get out of here. After that, I need a drink.’

  ‘What do you think I require?’ Bowman croaked.

  She looked at him consideringly. ‘Frankly, I think a nanny would be in order.’ She took his arm and led him up the steps to the patio. Le Grand Duc, with a large bowl of fruit before him and Lila by his side, stopped munching a banana and regarded Bowman with a smile so studiously impersonal as to be positively insulting.

  ‘That was a rousing set-to you had down there,’ he observed.

  ‘He hit me when I wasn’t looking,’ Bowman explained.

  ‘Ah!’ Le Grand Duc said non-committally, then added in a penetrating whisper when they’d moved on less than half-a-dozen feet: ‘As I said, long past his prime.’ Cecile squeezed Bowman’s arm warningly but unnecessarily: he gave her the wan smile of one whose cup is overful and led her to the table. A waiter brought drinks.

  Bowman fortified himself and said: ‘Well, now.

  Where shall we live? England or France?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard what the fortune-teller said.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  Bowman lifted his glass. ‘To David.’

  ‘David?’

  ‘Our eldest. I’ve just chosen his name.’

  The green eyes regarding Bowman
so steadily over the rim of a glass were neither amused nor exasperated, just very thoughtful. Bowman became very thoughtful himself. It could be that Cecile Dubois was, in that well-turned phrase, rather more than just a pretty face.

  CHAPTER 2

  Certainly, two hours later, no one could have referred to Bowman’s as a pretty face. It could be said in fairness that, owing to various troubles it had encountered from time to time, it didn’t have very much going for it in the first place but the black stocking mask he’d pulled up almost to the level of his eyes gave it an even more discouraging look than it normally possessed.

  He’d changed his grey garberdine for a dark one and his white shirt for a navy roll-neck pullover. Now he put the spectacles he had worn for disguise away in his suitcase, switched off the overhead light and stepped out on to the terrace.

  All the bedrooms on that floor opened on to the same terrace. Lights came from two of them. In the first, the curtains were drawn. Bowman moved to the door and its handle gave fractionally under his hand. Cecile’s room, he knew: a trusting soul. He moved on to the next lit window, this one uncurtained, and peered stealthily round the edge.

  A commendable precaution, but superfluous: had he done an Apache war dance outside that window it was doubtful whether either of the two occupants would have noticed or, if they had, would have cared very much. Le Grand Duc and Lila, his black and her blonde head very close together, were seated side by side in front of a narrow table: Le Grand Duc, a tray of canapés beside him, appeared to be teaching the girl the rudiments of chess. One would have thought that the customary vis-à-vis position would have been more conductive to rapid learning: but then, Le Grand Duc had about him the look of a man who would always adopt his own strongly original attitude to all that he approached. Bowman moved on.

  The moon still rode high but a heavy bar of black cloud was approaching from the far battlements of Les Baux. Bowman descended to the main terrace by the swimming pool but did not cross. The management, it seemed, kept the patio lights burning all night and anyone trying to cross the patio and descend the steps to the forecourt would have been bound to be seen by any gypsy still awake: and that there were gypsies who were just that Bowman did not doubt for a moment.

  He took a sidepath to the left, circled the hotel to the rear and approached the forecourt uphill from the west. He moved very slowly and very quietly on rubber soles and kept to deep shadow. There was, of course, no positive reason why the gypsies should have any watcher posted: but as far as this particular lot were concerned, Bowman felt, there was no positive reason why they shouldn’t. He waited till a cloud drifted over the moon and moved into the forecourt.

  All but three of the caravans were in darkness. The nearest and biggest of the lit caravans was Czerda’s: bright light came from both the halfopened door and a closed but uncurtained side window. Bowman went up to that window like a cat stalking a bird across a sunlit lawn and hitched an eye over the sill.

  There were three gypsies seated round a table and Bowman recognized all three: Czerda, his son Ferenc and Koscis, the man whom Le Grand Duc had so effusively thanked for information received. They had a map spread on the table and Czerda, pencil in hand, was indicating something on it and clearly making an explanation of some kind. But the map was on so small a scale that Bowman was unable to make out what it was intended to represent, far less what Czerda was pointing but on it, nor, because of the muffling effect of the closed window, could he distinguish what Czerda was saying. The only reasonable assumption he could make from the scene before him was that whatever it was Czerda was planning it wouldn’t be for the benefit of his fellow men. Bowman moved away as soundlessly as he had arrived.

  The side window of the second illuminated caravan was open and the curtains only partially drawn. Closing in on this window Bowman could at first see no one in the central portion of the caravan. He moved close, bent forward and risked a quick glance to his right and there, at a small table near to the door, two men were sitting playing cards. One of the men was unknown to Bowman but the other he immediately and feelingly recognized as Hoval, the gypsy who had so unceremoniously ejected him from the greenand-white caravan earlier in the night. Bowman wondered briefly why Hoval had transferred himself to the present one and what purpose he had been serving in the green-and-white caravan. From the ache Bowman could still feel in his midriff the answer to that one seemed fairly clear. But why?

  Bowman glanced to his left. A small compartment lay beyond an open doorway in a transverse partition. From Bowman’s angle of sight nothing was visible in the compartment. He moved along to the next window. The curtains on this one were drawn, but the window itself partly open from the top, no doubt for ventilation. Bowman moved the curtains very very gently and applied his eye to the crack he had made. The level of illumination inside was very low, the only light coming from the rear of the caravan. But there was enough light to see, at the very front of the compartment, a three-tiered bunk and here lay three men, apparently asleep. Two of them were lying with their faces turned towards Bowman but it was impossible to distinguish their features: their faces were no more than pale blurs in the gloom. Bowman eased the curtains again and headed for the caravan that really intrigued him – the greenand-white one.

  The rear door at the top of the caravan was open but it was dark inside. By this time Bowman had developed a thing about the unlit vestibules of caravans and gave this one a wide berth. In any event it was the illuminated window half-way down the side of the caravan that held the more interest for him. The window was half-open, the curtains half-drawn. It seemed ideal for some more peeking.

  The caravan’s interior was brightly lit and comfortably furnished. There were four women there, two on a settee and two on chairs by a table. Bowman recognized the titian-haired Countess Marie with, beside her, the grey-haired woman who had been involved in the altercation with Czerda – Marie’s mother and the mother of the missing Alexandre. The two other young women at the table, one auburn-haired and about thirty, the other a slight dark girl with most ungypsy-like cropped hair and scarcely out of her teens, Bowman had not seen before. Although it must have been long past their normal bed-times, they showed no signs of making any preparations for retiring. All four looked sad and forlorn to a degree: the mother and the dark young girl were in tears. The dark girl buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Oh, God!’ She sobbed so bitterly it was difficult to make the words out. ‘When is it all going to end? Where is it all going to end?’

  ‘We must hope, Tina,’ Countess Marie said. Her voice was dull and totally devoid of hope. ‘There is nothing else we can do.’

  ‘There is no hope.’ The dark girl shook her head despairingly. ‘You know there’s no hope. Oh, God, why did Alexandre have to do it?’ She turned to the auburn-haired girl. ‘Oh, Sara, Sara, your husband warned him only today – ’

  ‘He did, he did.’ This was from the girl called Sara and she sounded no happier than the others.

  She put her arm round Tina. ‘I’m so terribly sorry, my dear, so terribly sorry.’ She paused. ‘But Marie’s right, you know. Where there’s life there’s hope.’

  There was silence in the caravan. Bowman hoped, and fervently, that they would break it and break it soon. He had come for information but had so far come across nothing other than the mildly astonishing fact of four gypsies talking in German and not in Romany. But he wanted to learn it quickly for the prospect of hanging around that brightly illuminated window indefinitely lacked appeal of any kind: there was something in the brooding atmosphere of tragedy inside that caravan and menace outside calculated to instil a degree of something less than confidence in the bystander.

  ‘There is no hope,’ the grey-haired woman said heavily. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘A mother knows.’

  Marie said: ‘But, Mother – ’

  ‘There’s no hope because there’s no life,’ her, mother interrupted wearily. ‘You’ll never see your brother agai
n, nor you your fiancé, Tina. I know my son is dead.’

  There was silence again, which was just as well for Bowman for it was then that he heard the all but imperceptible sound of a fractionally disturbed piece of gravel, a sound which probably saved his life.

  Bowman whirled round. He’d been right about one thing, anyway: there was menace abroad that night. Koscis and Hoval were frozen in a crouched position less than five feet away. Both men were smiling. Both held long curving knives in their hands and the lamplight gleamed dully off them in a very unpleasant fashion.

  They’d been waiting for him, Bowman realized, or someone like him, they’d been keeping tabs on him ever since he’d entered the forecourt or maybe even long before that, they’d just wanted to give him enough rope to hang himself, to prove that he was up to what they would regard as no good – no good for themselves – and, when satisfied, eliminate the source of irritation: their actions, in turn, certainly proved to him that there was something sadly amiss with this caravan heading for Saintes-Maries.

  The realization of what had happened was instantaneous and Bowman wasted no time on self-recriminations. There would be a time for those but the time was assuredly not when Koscis and Hoval were standing there taking very little trouble to conceal the immediacy of their homicidal intentions. Bowman lunged swiftly and completely unexpectedly – for a man with a knife does not usually anticipate that one without a knife will indulge in such suicidal practices – towards Koscis, who instinctively drew back, lifting his knife high in self-defence. Prudently enough, Bowman didn’t complete his movement, but threw himself to his right and ran across the few intervening yards of forecourt leading to the patio steps.

  He heard Koscis and Hoval pounding across the gravel in pursuit. They were saying things, to Bowman unintelligible things, but even in Romany the burden of their remarks was clear. Bowman reached the fourth step on his first bound, checked so abruptly that he almost but didn’t quite lose his balance, wheeled round and swung his right foot all in one movement. Koscis it was who had the misfortune to be in the lead: he grunted in agony, the knife flying from his hand, as he fell backwards on to the forecourt.