by Peter Watson
Edward was already running into the main lobby of the station, which opened off the left luggage department. He stood in front of the ‘Arrivals and Departures’ board. Victoria followed him. ‘Nothing has left in the last ten minutes –’
The next train is for Zurich – platform three.’
‘Watch the taxis, in case they try to trick us.’ Edward ran along the underpass and up the steps to platform three. He scanned the people waiting. Neither Nancy nor Zakros was among them. He ran back to the front of the station where Victoria was waiting. She shook her head. ‘No sign of them.’
‘Ssshhhugar!’ hissed Edward. ‘They were clever. We thought they were relaxed last night. It was an act! They left the hotel as a lure, to see if someone broke into their room. They probably left the room arranged in such a way that we were bound to disturb something. That told them they were being followed, watched. And it gave them all night to work out a plan to deceive us. They obviously didn’t have time to pick up any of the Blunt stuff – but used the left luggage counter as a delaying device. But if they didn’t take a train, or taxi, what did they do?’
‘Look!’ said Victoria, and pointed.
Edward followed her gaze. At the far end of the station building was a red sign. In white letters it said ‘Alpine’, and then, underneath, ‘Car hire’.
He was already running. He skidded to a halt outside the door of the Alpine office and then walked slowly across to the desk. ‘Has my brother-in-law picked up his car yet?’ he said casually to the woman behind the desk. He gave Zakros’s name. She smiled and said, ‘Oh, you’ve just missed him. They left – oh, five or six minutes ago.’
Edward groaned – but then his manner changed abruptly. He dipped into his inside pocket and took out his wallet. He fished out a hundred-franc note. ‘What sort of car was it and what was the registration number?’ The girl stared at him. This was not brother-in-law behaviour. Edward took another note from his wallet. ‘Quickly!’
A man sitting at a desk overheard this exchange and came towards them. ‘What is it, Monica?’
‘This person wants information about a client.’
The man looked at Edward, then at the notes. He smiled and took the money from the counter. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ He bent to delve in the records. After a moment, he took out a sheet and handed it across to Edward.
Edward scanned the paper. Zakros had rented a Mercedes, white. Edward scribbled down the registration number.
‘They didn’t say where they were going, did they?’
Monica looked across and shrugged. ‘No. Few people do – though they did ask where they might buy maps of France.’
Victoria and Edward hurried back to their car. ‘But where in France?’ she asked of the air in general.
‘First things first,’ said Edward. ‘I’ve just realized – last night, when they reached their hotel, they didn’t know they were being followed, so they must have had the Blunt stuff with them. They probably left it in the hotel strong-room while they went out, just to be on the safe side.’ He started the car and they drove off. ‘They confirmed when they got back that they were being followed – which is why they worked out the plan to drop us.’ He turned left into the Rue Chantepoulet, past the church and back down towards the lake. ‘But they abandoned the bags they took in the blue Renault – they needed to do that to convince anyone following that they were just stopping off at the left luggage.’ The Audi reached the crossroads before the bridge. ‘Therefore they have to go back to the hotel first, to collect the Blunt stuff, before going on anywhere else.’
Edward pulled rapidly away, across the bridge, retracing their route of a few minutes earlier. He was as nippy as he could be but the traffic was heavy and they were trapped several times. When they did reach the Helvétique, it was immediately clear that there was no white Mercedes in the vicinity. Edward stopped the Audi and marched into the hotel lobby. He buttonholed the receptionist they had talked with the night before. ‘Has Dr Quincy left yet?’
‘I believe so – let me ask.’ The man turned and spoke with his colleague.
‘Yes,’ said the colleague. ‘They were shopping, they said, and didn’t want to leave their luggage in the car. But they collected it oh, about fifteen minutes ago. And they paid their bill earlier this morning, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Edward forcing a smile on to his face. He stepped outside with Victoria and got back into the Audi. He was not given to swearing but there was a word Nancy had been fond of. ‘Sonsabitches!’ he hissed.
Victoria opened out the map and spread it over her knees. ‘France! Jesus, there must be five or six ways out of Geneva into France. The place is surrounded by France.’
Edward looked at her, then snatched at the map. He studied it for a few moments.
‘What is it?’
‘You don’t know what you just said.’
‘I don’t?’
Edward handed back the map and started the car. He accelerated up the Rue Saint-Léger and turned right, hurrying back down the hill to the Boulevard Jacques Delcroze. ‘I’m sure I’m right but I’ll explain as we go.’ He turned right at the Rue F. Hodler. ‘Nancy and Zakros couldn’t know they had been rumbled until yesterday evening, when they got back to their room. They couldn’t have known we would get on to them when we did, so they would have had to work out a completely new plan during the night. Even now they may be in the dark about all the details. They must have contacted someone in Greece by now – someone in Kofas’s organization, Stamatis Leondaris’s wife, even if there are no other members of the Brigade. So they found out about the Cessna. As a result of that, perhaps, they set a trap for us. Now they will have put two and two together. They successfully lured us away – and gave us the slip. But they had to come back here, I mean to the hotel. We have confirmed that.’ He slowed at the Boulevard des Tranchées, then accelerated into the Route de Malagnou. ‘Now, the fact that they behaved the way that they did at the railway station proves that they thought they were being followed –’
‘Well, of course –’
‘If you’re being followed, you don’t leave clues as to where you are going.’
‘But they didn’t. Not really. As I said, there are six or seven ways into France from here.’
‘They’re not going to France.’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I’m guessing. But it’s a good guess. That’s why they asked the woman at the Alpine car rental about maps for France. They wanted to wrong-foot us but in a not too obvious way. There was always the chance that whoever was following them would eventually find their way to Alpine, as we did. So they spread a little gentle confusion.’
‘Then where –?’
‘There are two possibilities. Either they could stay in Switzerland. They could go to ground, here in Geneva, sit still for a few days. But they need to get to a good newspaper and Geneva doesn’t have one. So that means Zurich. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung.’ He pulled out, to pass an enormous Dutch coach. ‘But think about that for a moment. This story isn’t exactly flattering to the Swiss. It reflects badly on Swiss banking laws and on Swiss banks. All that Nazi loot secreted away. Knowing the Swiss, there’s a good chance that the newspaper Nancy and Zakros went to would turn them in, rather than publish anything damaging to their precious banks.’
‘So?’
‘So … that leaves the second alternative.’ Edward pointed ahead, at the road sign they were approaching.
‘Chamonix?’ said Victoria. ‘That’s France, too.’
‘Mont Blanc,’ said Edward. ‘The tunnel. It leads to Italy. Italy has plenty of good papers – in Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples. For that matter they can sail to Greece or fly to America from there.’
‘But how can we be so certain?’
‘We can’t. We’ve just got to risk it.’
‘Why not alert the French or Italian police – get them to close the border?’
‘How are we going to
convince them over the phone? And without telling them everything? And how long would it take? Chamonix is eighty kilometres away, fifty miles. Motorway for most of it. Thirty-five, forty minutes at the most. We couldn’t even get a helicopter in time – and once they are in Italy they can take any number of roads, abandon their Mercedes and hire something else.’
Victoria lapsed into silence as Edward manoeuvred the car through the Geneva suburbs. In a few moments they reached the border with France. They sailed through. Victoria remarked gloomily, ‘They probably got the same treatment, too.’
Edward pushed the Audi to 190 kilometres per hour, close to a 120 miles an hour, and held it there. Neither spoke. The Mercedes ahead of them was easily capable of the same speed and more. If Nancy and Zakros were worried about being followed – and they must have been apprehensive, at the least – they would certainly have pushed the Merc as fast as it would go. Which meant Edward and Victoria had no chance of catching them. They passed Vetraz and Arenthon. By now the day had cleared gloriously and the sun shone from almost directly in front of them. They passed Bonneville, where the road crossed the river Arve, according to the sign. The valley sides began to close in about them. Towards Cluses the road began to rise, lifted on huge stilts. A temporary roadworks sign loomed.
‘Jesus!’ groaned Victoria. ‘Just what we need.’
‘With luck, it might be exactly what we need,’ replied Edward. ‘Keep your fingers crossed. How far ahead do you think they are? If they are ahead.’
‘Ten, fifteen minutes. Maybe a bit more.’
The temporary road signs showed that the traffic in their direction was crossing to the other side of the divide and that for six kilometres the traffic was two-way. Small plastic poles were inserted in the carriageway every twenty yards or so and overtaking was forbidden. Edward drove fast right behind a lorry labouring up the incline. He was forced to slow to around 40 kilometres an hour, barely 25 mph. Two trucks rumbled past in the opposite direction, then a coach. Immediately afterwards, Edward pulled out. The Audi moved into the other lane, between two of the poles, and Edward changed down. He accelerated past the truck that had been ahead of him, then past another. The driver sounded his horn and flashed his lights. Ahead, a car coming towards them was flashing its lights. Edward pulled back in between two poles and accelerated away from the forward truck.
The next traffic was about half a mile ahead and again he raced up to it, changed down, and pulled out as soon as there was a chance to do so. He passed two coaches, their occupants goggle-eyed as the Audi raced past them. Edward pulled in again when he had to, this time snicking one of the poles which sounded tougher than it was. Looking in the rear-view mirror he could see he had left it bent and bouncing around the road. The forward coach of the two blared its horn. But Edward was accelerating away again. ‘If Nancy and her lover got behind a slow truck we could be making up minutes,’ he breathed grimly. Twice more he slipped the Audi into the oncoming lane. Twice more the other traffic – in both directions – flashed their lights and blared their horns. Once more he hit a pole and sent it careering across the roadway and underneath an oncoming lorry. Had the driver of the lorry braked there might have been the most almighty collision but he had the sense simply to run over the pole and crush it.
Then the roadworks were over and they were crossing the divide, back on to a clear carriageway. Edward edged the Audi close to 200 kilometres per hour but he could feel it growing less stable; the wheel had a slight tremble. He didn’t let up. They passed Magland and Sallanches. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Quarter to twelve.’
‘How long since Geneva?’
‘Twenty-one minutes, since you ask.’
‘We might have saved … four, five minutes on that incline? That still leaves them three or four minutes ahead, a long way on a motorway.’
‘If they came this way in the first place.’
Edward didn’t respond, except to press his foot harder on the accelerator pedal, even though it was already flat against the footwell. They passed Le Fayet and then Servoz. Then a sign which said, ‘Mont Blanc tunnel, 12 km’.
‘Seven miles.’
The valley sides were now very close to the road and the air felt cooler all of a sudden. Both scanned the road ahead. A sign told them they were coming to the toll area, where they had to pay for the autoroute. ‘Lie back, close your eyes,’ said Edward.
What –?’
‘Do it!’ At the same time he switched his headlights full on. Ahead of him was a row of seven or eight toll booths and leading back from each of these were lines of cars and caravans, nine or ten vehicles long. Edward pulled over to one side and drove past the lines. He pulled up very close to the right-hand booth and, at the same time, rolled down his window. To the irate driver of the car next to him he gesticulated to Victoria and shouted: ‘Hôpital! Crise de coeur! Hôpital!’
The driver looked, then beckoned Edward forward.
Waving his thanks, he eased the car in front and stopped by the cashier. As he handed some money to the woman, he said quietly to Victoria. ‘There’s a white Mercedes just gone through. I don’t know whether it’s them or, if it is, whether they’ve seen us.’
The woman gave them their change and Edward sped off. He accelerated, but now the autoroute came down to two lanes and they were blocked behind a caravan. The driver of that took several seconds to pass another, very similar caravan. By the time Edward was free, the traffic was slowing for the border control as they left France.
‘Got it!’ said Victoria. ‘White Mercedes, five cars ahead.’
One by one the cars were waved through the border control without being stopped. As the Audi approached the uniformed passport control officer, however, he waved Edward to a stop.
‘Now what?’ Victoria groaned.
The man was pointing. Edward opened the door and looked back. Part of the chrome flashing of the Audi had come away and was hanging down. It had been dislodged by one of the plastic poles he had hit. Edward put on the handbrake, got out and twisted the strip back and forth, back and forth, until it snapped off. ‘Merci,’ he cried to the passport officer and got back into the Audi. He threw the chrome strip on to the back seat, eased off the handbrake and moved the car forward.
The tunnel mouth loomed ahead, a dark cylinder illuminated by amber lights. The first part had two lanes going in each direction but that soon narrowed to one. Overtaking was again forbidden and for the first kilometre there were yet more short poles in the centre of the road – sturdy metal ones this time. Again Edward pulled up behind the caravan in front of him and, when he could, when the dividing poles stopped, he pulled out and passed it. A coach coming towards them flashed its headlights. For a few moments the oncoming traffic was too heavy to do any more overtaking.
‘How long is the tunnel?’ asked Victoria.
‘Seventeen kilometres, end to end, ten and a half miles. Fourteen kilometres to go.’ Suddenly the road cleared and Edward was able to pull out again. He passed two cars and a van. As he pulled in again, there was a Volvo shooting-brake immediately in front and, ahead of that, a white Mercedes.
‘It’s them!’ said Victoria. ‘Nancy just looked back.’
‘Yes – they’ve seen us.’
The oncoming traffic cleared again, and now the Mercedes moved out too, overtaking a BMW. Edward pulled out and passed the Volvo but was forced to pull in behind the BMW. An articulated truck went past in the opposite direction. More traffic – coaches mainly – was bearing down on them.
‘Nancy is leaning over to the back seat,’ Victoria said. ‘She’s pulling at something, a bag I think.’
They watched as she turned back in her seat. Since there was a car in between them, it wasn’t easy for Victoria or Edward to see clearly what was going on in the Merc. The headlights of the oncoming traffic didn’t help either. The Mercedes accelerated, to about 80 kilometres per hour, 50 mph. The BMW, with a Turin number plate, accelerated to keep pace. Edward gav
e silent thanks for the competitiveness of Italian drivers. He too accelerated, and so did the Volvo, which was still behind him.
‘She’s raising her arm. A lot of activity. I wonder –’
Suddenly an object shot up through the open sun-roof of the Mercedes. It was a bag, a Vuitton-type holdall, soft, without a frame but sturdy and full of soft things by the look of it. As they watched, it flopped on to the boot of the Mercedes and rolled backwards to the road.
‘Watch out!’ shouted Victoria as the BMW struck the bag and braked fiercely. Cars, caravans and a truck raced towards them on the other side of the road. Edward stood on his brake and Victoria put her hands on the dashboard to avoid being thrown against the windscreen. The tyres of the Audi – along with others, squealed under the pressure, the high pitch ricocheting around the tunnel gallery. By dint of pressure, and skill, Edward managed to keep the Audi fairly straight and he avoided hitting the BMW. Just a fraction of a second after he had stopped, however, the Volvo slammed the Audi from behind. The thud was felt in their backs as the car was shunted forward, so far forward in fact that the Audi was forced against the BMW, which was badly dented but shot forward a few yards under the impact. Behind them the sounds of battered metal told Edward that four, five or more vehicles had piled into one another. The white Mercedes was already fifty yards away and accelerating.
‘Ssshit!’
One or more of the cars behind must have slewed across the road because the traffic coming in the opposite direction was now braking hard.
Edward and Victoria got out of the Audi and looked back. Yes, half a dozen cars were mangled together. They walked forward to where the driver of the BMW was trying to extract the Vuitton bag from under his vehicle. Edward and Victoria bent to give him a hand.
‘Who were those people?’ the Italian asked. ‘Crazy – and I didn’t even get the number.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Edward. ‘I did. Here, let’s pull together.’
