A Fine Night for Dying pc-6

by Jack Higgins

  Chavasse nodded slowly. “So, you were to kill Mercier?”

  Jacaud started to cough, then gave a strange choking cry. His body heaved as if he were in pain, and Mercier and Darcy lowered him to the deck quickly. Mercier dropped to his knees and put an ear against Jacaud’s chest. When he looked up, his face was grave.

  “He is dead, monsieur. His heart has given out.”

  “Let’s hope he told the truth then,” Chavasse said calmly. “Get the ropes off him and put him in the saloon.”

  He turned and Darcy grabbed him by the arm. “Is that all you can say, for God’s sake? We’ve just killed a man.”

  “One way or the other, he was due for it,” Chavasse said. “So cut out the hearts and flowers. I haven’t got time.”

  He pulled free and went into the wheelhouse. He was examining the chart when they joined him. “I need a nice deep channel,” he said to Mercier. “Deep enough for the Mary Grant to sink into without trace.”

  Mercier sighed. “A pity, monsieur. She’s a beautiful boat.”

  “She’s still got to go,” Chavasse said. “Where would you suggest?”

  Mercier considered the chart for a moment or two, then jabbed a finger at a group of rocks marked as dangerous about six miles out.

  “The pinnacles, monsieur, they’ve taken plenty of ships in their time. They stick up from a trench a thousand feet deep. Anything that goes down there will stay down, believe me.”

  Chavasse nodded. “That’s it, then. You lead the way in the whaler. I’ll follow. Go with him, Darcy.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  Chavasse shook his head. “No point, this kind of job only needs one.”

  “I said I’d stay.” Darcy’s voice was bleak. “What I say, I mean.”

  He moved into the prow and stood there with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

  “I don’t think he is too happy, monsieur,” Mercier commented. “Which surprises me. After all, they did as much to his own brother.”

  “Which is exactly what’s bothering him,” Chavasse said. “He isn’t a hunting animal, Mercier. Now let’s get moving. We haven’t much time.”

  THE pinnacles were first observed as patches of white water in the distance. As the boat approached, the turbulence increased and Chavasse was aware of great plumes of spray that blossomed in the night.

  The pinnacles themselves were a scattered group of jagged rocks, in some cases permanently awash, and in others, twenty or thirty feet above the waves. When Mercier whistled sharply and waved, the agreed signal, Chavasse cut the engines and called to Darcy, who had been waiting by the forward hatch with a fire axe. Now he dropped inside and commenced to batter a series of holes in the prow. When he reappeared, she was already settling at that end and he was soaked to the skin.

  Chavasse unfastened a cork life belt bearing the ship’s name and tossed it overboard, as Mercier came alongside.

  “Lost at sea,” he said. “Sunk with all hands. Nobody will ever see Jacaud again.”

  “And Gorman?” Darcy asked. “What about him?”

  Chavasse shrugged. “Believe it or not, but most people who take a dive into the Channel don’t turn up again. Even if somebody does find what’s left of him after a few weeks, it’ll all fit neatly.”

  “You have a naturally tidy mind,” Darcy said.

  “Too complicated. I’m a professional, you’re not. It’s as simple as that.”

  The whaleboat closed in and they scrambled aboard. Mercier took her round in a wide circle and they watched. The Mary Grant was well down by the head now, her stern lifting out of the water. When she went, she disappeared so quickly that if any one of them had closed his eyes momentarily, he would have missed it. The waters rolled over, and Mercier opened the throttle and took the whaler away.

  “And now what?” Darcy Preston demanded, dropping down on one of the wide seats, shoulders hunched against the spray.

  “We catch a train,” Chavasse said. “A train for Marseilles, if there is one, or is it still we?”

  Darcy nodded slowly. “I’ve gone too far now to step back. You needn’t worry-I’ll be behind you all the way.”

  “Fair enough.” Chavasse turned to Mercier. “Take us to some quiet spot on the coast as near to Saint Brieuc as possible. Can you manage that?”

  “Certainly, monsieur.”

  Chavasse gave him a cigarette and held out a match in cupped hands. “About Jacaud, Mercier, there could be questions.”

  “Perhaps, monsieur, but I doubt it. He was to leave in the morning. Most people will think he left a little earlier. In any case, he was seen to go out in the Mary Grant, and where is the Mary Grant now? Perhaps in a few days, that life belt will be found by a fishing boat or drift ashore somewhere, and perhaps not. Henri Jacaud never existed, monsieur.”

  “And you? What will you do?”

  “I will bury my wife,” Mercier said simply.

  CHAPTER 12

  France

  The Camargue

  It was just before midnight when they reached St. Brieuc. By chance there was a train due out in fifteen minutes to Rennes, and Chavasse decided to take it rather than hang about.

  At Rennes they had a delay of an hour and a half before the Marseilles train, and they spent it in a cafe just outside the station. The Jamaican was still brooding and had little to say for himself. In the end, Chavasse had had enough.

  “It’s no good going on like this,” he said. “Either we clear the air now or you drop out.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a problem?” Darcy said. “I’m not even in this country officially.”

  Chavasse shook his head. “I can contact our Paris office. They’ll get you out.”

  Darcy looked genuinely troubled. “I don’t know, Paul. When I first got the idea of following you, it seemed to make sense, and especially later when I heard what they’d done to Harvey. I was bitter and angry; I wanted revenge.”

  “So?”

  “That business with Gorman, I didn’t mind that. After all, he was trying to kill you. There was nothing else I could do, but Jacaud.” He shook his head. “That sticks in my throat.”

  “If that’s the way you feel, then you’d better leave,” Chavasse told him. “Rossiter drowned your brother like a rat and without a qualm, he tried his hand at mass murder when the Leopard went down, and didn’t do so badly when you remember what happened to Mrs. Campbell and Old Hamid. He won’t hesitate to see the both of us off the moment he claps eyes on us and realizes we’re still in the land of the living. This isn’t the Old Bailey or the Jamaican High Court. There’s only one law here-kill or be killed-and I’ve had direct orders. Ho Tsen, Rossiter and Montefiore-they’ve all got to go.”

  The Jamaican shook his head. “You know, back there in the old days, living with Harvey in Soho, I met every kind of villain there was, but you-you’re in a class of your own.”

  “Which is why I’ve survived twelve years at this bloody game,” Chavasse said. “Now are you in or out?”

  “The way I see it, I don’t really have much choice in the matter. I know that once I get anywhere near Rossiter, if I don’t get him first, he’ll get me. It goes against the grain, that’s all, to accept that that’s the way it is. I had years of it in Harvey’s particular jungle-I don’t suppose a psychologist would have much difficulty in working out why I took to the law.” He sighed heavily. “But you can count on me, Paul. I won’t let you down.”

  “Good, now I know where I am, I’ll put a call through to our field agent in Marseilles. I’d like him to be ready for us when we arrive in the morning.”

  He stood up and Darcy said, “This place, the Camargue-what is it exactly?”

  “The delta area at the mouth of the Rhone,” Chavasse told him. “About three hundred square miles of lagoons and waterways, marshes, white sand dunes and hot sun, though this isn’t the best time of the year for that. It’s famous for three things. White horses, fighting bulls and flamingos. I was there as a boy t
wenty years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.”

  “But what in the hell are they doing in a place like that?” Darcy demanded.

  “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Chavasse said and went to make his phone call.

  JACOB Malik was Polish by birth and had left the country of his origin for political reasons just before the outbreak of the Second World War. For a couple of years, he had worked for the Deuxieme Bureau, the old French secret service organization that had died in 1940. He had spent the war working with the British Special Operations Executive, acting as a courier to French resistance units. An adventurous career had been brought to an end by an FLN grenade through his hotel bedroom window during the Algerian troubles. He had retired to a small cafe on the Marseilles waterfront with his Moorish wife and three children. He had been acting as Bureau agent in that city for six years and Chavasse had worked with him twice.

  He was standing beside a Renault station wagon, leaning heavily on his walking stick, when they emerged from the station, a thin, elegant-looking man with a spiked moustache who carried his sixty years well.

  He limped toward them and greeted Chavasse with enthusiasm. “My dear Paul, how wonderful to see you. How goes it?”

  “Excellent.” Chavasse took his hand warmly. “And Nerida and your family?”

  “Blooming. She still misses Algiers, but we could never go back. I wouldn’t last a week. They have long memories, those people.”

  Chavasse introduced him to Darcy and they all got into the Renault and drove away. It was warm and rather sultry, the sun hidden from view by heavy gray clouds, and yet there was that intense light common to Marseilles, dazzling to the eyes.

  “What have you arranged?” Chavasse asked.

  “I gave the whole thing a great deal of thought after your phone call,” Malik said. “At exactly four a.m., I hit upon an idea of some genius, though I say this with all due modesty. To get into the Camargue presents no problem. To stay without being observed is impossible.”

  “In three hundred square miles of lagoon and marsh?” Chavasse said. “I don’t follow.”

  “Oh, the population is small enough, mainly wild fowlers and a few cowboys who tend the young bulls and the horses that run wild in all parts of the area. It is because of the sparseness of the population that it is difficult for outsiders to enter without it being known. What you need is a legitimate reason for being there, a reason that anyone who sees you will accept.”

  “And you’ve found it?”

  “Bird-watching,” Malik said simply.

  Darcy Preston laughed out loud. “He can’t be serious.”

  “But I am.” Malik looked slightly injured. “The Camargue is famous for its wild birds, particularly its colony of flamingos. People come to study them from all over Europe.”

  “You know, I think you might actually have something there,” Chavasse said.

  “More than that, my dear Paul, I have the equipment to go with it. A small cabin cruiser and all the extras I could think of. A rubber boat, shooting jackets and waders, binoculars, a decent camera. I checked with S2 in London and got the go-ahead. It seemed pointless to waste time.”

  “Marvelous.” Chavasse was aware of a sudden irrational affection for him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Truly marvelous.”

  “No need to overdo it, Paul. For this kind of exercise, I get a handsome fee-double if I assist in the field.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “I know the Camargue and you don’t, so it would seem sensible.” He smiled. “And you really have no idea how boring life is these days. A little action would definitely be good for my soul.”

  “That’s settled then.” Chavasse turned to Darcy, who was sitting in the rear. “Nothing like some organization.”

  “Oh, I’m impressed,” Darcy said. “I’d be even more so if someone could remember to fill my belly within the next couple of hours. It’s contracted so much it’s beginning to hurt.”

  “That, too, I have arranged, monsieur,” Malik said. “My cafe is a stone’s throw from the harbor. There my wife will reluctantly provide you with bouillabaisse, simply because it’s the local speciality, but if you have sense, you will choose her stuffed mutton and rice and earn her eternal friendship.”

  “Lead on, that’s all I ask,” Darcy said, and Malik swung the Renault from one line of traffic to the next, narrowly missing a bus, and turned into a narrow side street leading down to the harbor.

  THE stuffed mutton and rice was everything Malik had promised, and afterward, they went down to the old harbor, parked the Renault and walked along a stone jetty. There were boats of all shapes and sizes riding at anchor, and scores of dinghies and tenders of every description were tied close to the jetty. They went down the steps and Malik hauled in a six-man yacht tender.

  Chavasse did the rowing and, under orders, threaded his way through the crowded harbor until they fetched alongside a twenty-foot fiberglass cabin cruiser powered by an outboard motor. She was named L’Alouette and was painted white with scarlet trim. Darcy climbed aboard, then turned to give Malik a hand. Chavasse followed, after tying up the tender.

  The cabin was small, the two padded side benches making up into beds at night. The only other accommodation was a lavatory and a small galley.

  Malik sat down with a sigh, produced a thin black cheroot and lit it. “And now to business. You’ll find a map in that locker, Paul, as well as a false bottom, under which are a couple of machine pistols and half a dozen grenades. It seemed like a good idea.”

  The map unfolded to show the Camargue in detail, and not only the several mouths of the Rhone, but every lagoon, every sandbank, every waterway.

  “You can’t go too much by this,” Malik said. “The action of the tide and the current from the river combine pretty forcefully. A sandbank can be there one day and gone the next, and some of the waterways can silt up just as quickly. We shouldn’t have too much trouble, though. L’Alouette only draws two or three feet.”

  “And Hellgate? Have you managed to pinpoint it on the map?” Darcy asked.

  “Indeed I have. See, just a little on the Marseilles side of the Pointe du Norde. Three or four miles inland is the village of Chatillon. Hellgate is marked there, a couple of miles northeast of the village.”

  Chavasse found it at once, an island in a lagoon that was shaped like a half-moon. “Have you managed to find out anything of the place or Montefiore?’

  “Naturally, I’ve been mainly restricted to Marseilles because of the time element, but I’ve managed to produce some useful information. The house is about seventy years old. Built in the nineties by a Russian novelist called Kurbsky, who didn’t like the czar and made it obvious. His novels had quite a vogue at the time in America and Europe generally, and he became a wealthy man. He came across the Camargue on a visit to a bull farm in the area and decided to stay. He had the house built where it was because he had an obsession with privacy. It’s a wooden building and very Russian in style.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He returned home after the Revolution-a grave error. He didn’t like Lenin any more than he did the czar, only this time he couldn’t get out. He died in 1925, or was killed off. None of this required any genius, by the way. There is an excellent library in Marseilles. I had a friend in the provincial land-records office telephone through to Arles to see who owns the place now. It was used as a base by German troops during the war. Afterward, it was empty until four years ago, when it was purchased by someone named Leduc.”

  “Leduc?” Chavasse frowned.

  “That was the name on the register.”

  Chavasse nodded slowly. “All right, I’d better fill you in on the details, then you know where you stand.”

  When he had finished, Malik looked thoughtful. “A strange business. This man Rossiter, for example. On the one hand, a bungling amateur who leaves himself wide open. On the other, a ruthless, cold-blooded killer without the slightest scruples.”
>
  “And Ho Tsen?”

  “Nasty-very nasty. What’s a real pro doing mixed up with people like that?”

  “That’s what we’ve got to try and find out,” Chavasse said. “Although I’ve got my own ideas on that subject. You know how difficult it is for the Chinese where espionage is concerned. The Russians don’t have anywhere near the same trouble because they can pass off their own people as nationals of most other countries. The Chinese obviously can’t do that, which explains why they’re willing to use a man like Rossiter, amateur or no amateur. Mind you, that still doesn’t explain how someone like Montefiore fits in.”

  Malik nodded. “And what happens afterward?”

  “Elimination-total and absolute.”

  “And the girl,” Darcy put in. “What about her?”

  “If we can, we get her out.”

  “But only if we can?”

  “Exactly. Now let’s get going. With most of the afternoon left, we can get a hell of a lot done before nightfall. Agreed, Jacob?”

  Malik nodded. “I’ll take her out of the harbor. I know what I’m doing. With this engine, we should make it in a little over three hours, allowing for the weather, of course, which I must say doesn’t look too good.”

  He went out on deck and Chavasse followed him. He stood at the rail, looking back at Marseilles, as they moved out to sea. An old city-they had all been here. Phoenician, Greek, Roman. Beyond Cape Croisette, the sky was dark and ominous, and as they lifted to meet the swell from the open sea, rain spotted the deck in great heavy drops.

  FROM the sea, the Camargue was a line of sand dunes drifting into the distance, and as they moved in, great banks of reeds and marsh grass lifted out of the water as if to greet them. With them came the heavy, pungent odor of the marshes compounded of salt and rotting vegetation and black gaseous mud, a smell that hinted at a darker, more primeval world, a place that time had bypassed.