Cloak of Darkness

by Helen Macinnes

  Renwick nodded his agreement on that point. But he exchanged glances with Claudel, and they shared the same thought. Klaus Sudak wasn’t the type to wait and assess any situation. His assessment would be done when he reached safety. He moved on instinct.

  “The van has arrived,” Marchand said, listening. He began walking rapidly to the road. “We’ll take it down, send it back for the stretchers.”

  Renwick gave one last look at the chalet, tightly shuttered, deserted, a sad and lonely place, with two men lying still and another standing guard. And amid that silence, among the dark trees lost in shadows? Someone moving around, trying to guess what could have happened? If Sudak had even stayed this long to receive a report, then let him. This was one defeat he’d never repair.

  ***

  In the van, they studied a detailed map. “Now, where’s that house on the outskirts of town?” Renwick asked.

  “There!” Marchand pointed to one of the neat small squares that were dotted over the layout of the valley like a scattered flock of sheep. “It was rented two weeks ago for the rest of the summer.”

  “Occupied?”

  “Not until tonight, except for an occasional caretaker.”

  “What kind of car arrived there?”

  “A white Fiat. Italian registration.”

  “Milan?” Claudel asked quickly.

  Marchand looked at him, then at Renwick. “Perhaps my biggest problem is that I’ve been told so little. How did you know about Milan? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Renwick finished memorising the position of the house reached by the Fiat. It was among a cluster of five, the last group on the road from town. Fields around their sides, a wooded slope behind them. And the path that could lead from the Chalet Ruskin ended not too far away—close to a runoff stream from the hillside: a good marker, he thought, in a valley that was as flat as a billiard table.

  “Why?” Marchand repeated, his lips tight.

  “We didn’t know,” Renwick said. “Just another wild guess.”

  Marchand’s look sharpened, but the American was rolling up the map, handing it over with a polite thank-you.

  “What colour is the house?” Renwick asked.

  “White. Blue shutters.”

  “Not tightly closed, I hope,” said Claudel. He was feeling a delayed elation. Even if we win nothing more, he was thinking, we found Erik. We found him. And no sharpshooter in Marchand’s outfit would have been there to get him if we hadn’t flushed him out.

  “Keep away from that house,” Marchand told them. “There’s no need for you to go near it. I have posted two men already. If anything develops, I’ll know at once.”

  “So we just go to bed and enjoy sweet dreams?” Claudel asked.

  “Yes. You’re lucky. I have work to do.”

  “First,” Renwick said, “have that shoulder looked at.”

  “Then what? You’ll write my report for me?” Marchand’s temper was fraying rapidly.

  “Tomorrow, when there’s a quiet moment, we’ll sit down with you in a closed and very private room. We’ll answer your questions if we can.” Renwick looked at his watch as the van came to a halt.

  Marchand opened its door. “If you can,” he mocked, but he was partly mollified. “Tomorrow morning we meet here at the foot of the road. Six o’clock sharp. That will give us time to make our plans before we pay a visit to—” He broke off, staring uphill.

  A small vehicle, headlights blazing through the darkness, had swerved around the last turn on the steep slope. It was out of control, driving right at them with incredible speed, its horn blasting as its powerful beam swept over the group of men near the van and parked cars. Barely ten yards away, a violent twist of its steering wheel sent the yellow jeep careening over to the road’s left side. It hit the low bank, leaped wildly, turned over, came to rest on its side in the field beyond.

  Renwick and the van’s driver reached it, Claudel and Marchand at their heels. “Light here!” Marchand yelled over his shoulder to the men at the roadblock, who had been standing as if paralysed. It came on full strength.

  The driver was dead, still held in position by a safety belt. His passenger had been thrown clear—a young woman, dark-haired, wrapped in a travelling coat. A suitcase was some distance away, its contents spilled onto the bank and the field.

  Claudel went over to her. “Alive,” he called to Renwick, who was looking at the driver, partly unrecognisable. But he was the blond young man who had sat and joked with Annabel in the café that early afternoon. The ski instructor, Renwick had named him. Whoever he was, he had saved some people from injury, perhaps some lives, and lost his own.

  “Annabel?” Renwick asked very quietly as Marchand and he reached Claudel.

  Claudel nodded. “She’s hurt but alive.”

  Annabel’s eyes had opened. She said, “Oh! My leg! I can’t move it.”

  “Don’t,” Renwick said. Her voice had been natural. Nothing too seriously wrong. A broken leg, perhaps. She would live. “Why were you leaving, Annabel?” he asked gently.

  “Wait until we get her to the hospital,” Marchand said, and turned away to direct the removal of the body from the jeep.

  “Annabel,” Renwick repeated, dropping on one knee beside her, “why were you leaving? At this hour?”

  “He told me—told me to pack and leave. Oh, my leg!”

  “Don’t move it. Lie still. You’ll be all right. When did Klaus tell you to leave? What time?”

  Her voice was angry, indignant. “Midnight—after midnight. Didn’t stay around to say goodbye, can you believe it?” She was suddenly worried. “Where’s Jerri? Hurt, too?”

  “What went wrong? Isn’t Jerri a good driver?”

  “The best. It was the jeep—the brakes.” She struggled to rise, cried out with pain. She began to weep. “Where is Jerri? Where is he?”

  Renwick rose. “You handle this,” he told Claudel and went over to the jeep, interrupting Marchand, who was ordering an ambulance.

  “Yes, again!” Marchand almost shouted into his transceiver. “Return here! At once!” He switched it off, looked at Renwick. “Brakes, did you say? Tampered with?”

  “Get your best mechanic to find out how they were put out of commission, and you’ll have a case of homicide against the Chalet Ruskin.” Renwick was speaking rapidly, signalling Claudel to join him. “Who gave the order? Question them all. Jerri’s death may loosen some tongues. The girl—name is Annabel Vroom—could be a good witness.” And with that, Renwick moved quickly to his car.

  He was already in the Audi, had its motor running, by the time Claudel reached it. “Slightly abrupt,” was his comment on Renwick’s speedy departure. “I suppose Marchand guessed why.”

  “He didn’t try to stop us anyway.” That was a relief: no more argument, no more wasted time.

  “Now he will be warning his two men who are watching the house in the valley to expect a couple of lunatics in ten minutes.”

  “Five.” The street was empty of traffic.

  “Even at this hour there’s still a speed limit.” Claudel flinched at a sharp corner, added, “We’ll enter for Le Mans next year.” Then he turned serious. “Do you really think that Klaus Sudak is now climbing down a dark path over a rough hillside?”

  “No. I think he is at the end of the path by this time. You saw the map.”

  Claudel nodded. The path would only take about an hour of walking, even by night. We may be too late, he thought as he looked at his watch. It was almost ten past one. If Klaus had set out as soon as Annabel had orders to leave, he could now be reaching the meadows at the foot of the hill. From there to the house with blue shutters was a short distance. “Let’s hope he delayed.”

  For what? For news that two people had been killed in a car crash? He believes they’re dead. A jeep without brakes on that hill road at night? A disaster. But Jerri could drive.” And with his hands gripping the wheel he hadn’t a second to unbuckle his safety belt. “If there hadn’t been
a roadblock, he might have made it. He just might.”

  They took the road that lay on the right bank of a narrow river that ran through this broad, flat valley toward the town. Houses were now sparse, set down here and there, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, square blobs of ghostly white, and all neat and solid and fast asleep.

  “This might be it,” Renwick said as he saw a cluster of houses ahead of him. He wasn’t sure. They weren’t the close group he had expected. Three seemed more or less together, fields at their sides and backs. Then two followed, slightly apart. Behind all the stretch of fields was definitely a dark hillside, heavily wooded. By daylight it would be easy to identify a path coming down from the hill; by night, impossible. “See any blue shutters?” he asked as they passed the first three houses at a reduced speed.

  “Can’t tell colour by this light.” Claudel was depressed. No cover anywhere—just small gardens and rough hedges, shrubbery, no large sheltering trees. Then his voice quickened. “There’s a white car—parked at the side of that last house.”

  “You’re sure?” Renwick kept on driving for another fifty yards before he brought the Audi to a stop. Still no cover around them—flat fields reaching the hillside on his left, the River Arve flowing far to his right.

  “The car was the same colour as the house. Shutters looked grey. Could be blue by day. But I’m damned well not sure of anything at this moment. Do we risk it? Go in?” And if the car isn’t pure white, if it isn’t a Fiat, we could be in trouble.

  “We risk it,” Renwick said. He was looking at the flat road just ahead of them. It rose slightly as if it were bridging some small tributary to the river. A man-made stream, a runoff for the torrents of spring from the hillside. His eyes followed its straight line, as far as they could see by the half-moon light. Yes, it ran toward the woods. “The path is just over there,” he said, pointing to the hill. He switched off the car’s lights, reversed, and drove back to the houses at low speed. “No sign of Marchand’s men.”

  “They are keeping well out of sight.”

  “They know this territory. We don’t.”

  “Where do we park?”

  “Just beyond the house—near its neighbour. It’s the best we can do.” And damn all this manoeuvring: it was taking as much time as the drive through the town and its outskirts.

  They passed the house where Claudel had glimpsed a possibly white car in the driveway. It was there, all right. The next house had no shutters, its upper windows open for air; no lights, everyone asleep; and the car at its side was black.

  Renwick brought the Audi to a slow and soundless halt, drawing it close to a hedge. “The best we can do,” he said again as he turned off the engine. “Now we check the car we saw. If it is a Fiat, you deal with it. I’ll cover you.”

  “If Klaus did use the path to reach the house, why the hell did he delay? Why not take off in the Fiat?”

  “Change of clothes, change in appearance.”

  Claudel nodded. “It would be too much to hope he had sprained an ankle coming down that hill.”

  “Or broken his neck,” Renwick said grimly. “Let’s move it. After the Fiat’s dealt with, we’ll have a close look at the house, see what’s stirring. You take a look around the back. I’ll watch the front. Then we meet. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  They left the Audi, moved swiftly, reached their target in a few seconds. The shutters were closed, but a streak of light came from the ground-floor rooms. So people were awake. And moving around; one room darkened, another lit up. How many of them? Klaus—if he were there; the man who had driven here tonight—alone or with a chauffeur? And possibly the caretaker. Not too many, thought Renwick. Still, Marchand’s men would be useful. Were they both at the back of the house, keeping watch from the field or a vegetable patch? The front garden, small, was absolutely still.

  Renwick and Claudel exchanged a nod, separating as they started up the short driveway, one on each side of it, crouching low behind a rosebush or shrub as they advanced cautiously toward the white car that was pointed toward the road. It was a Fiat.

  Claudel bent down to check its plate: Milan. He signalled an okay to Renwick and opened the Fiat’s hood. Renwick waited until Claudel had dealt with the distributor—taken off its cap, removed the rotor inside and thrown it over the hedge, replaced the cap—and closed the hood again. In spite of Claudel’s extreme caution, there was a small click. Renwick’s hand went to his automatic, rested there. But no one in the house had heard anything. No door opened. Claudel signalled once more as he disappeared around the side of the house to reach its back, and Renwick relaxed. Now he could move to a bush that seemed a likely spot: larger than most, not too high but thick and heavy, a good piece of cover with a first-rate view of the house door.

  He reached it, head and shoulders well down, and dropped into its shadow. His hand fell on a sleeve, a rough sweater, an arm that was still and lifeless. My God, he thought, my God... He had found one of Marchand’s men.

  For a moment, Renwick froze. Then he drew his Biretta. He glanced at the body lying beside him. Face down, it had been pulled or shoved under the spread of branches. To be got rid of later, when time was less pressing? Gingerly, he reached out to the man’s back and felt a heavy dampness between the shoulder blades. The man had bled a lot, but the blood was cold. A knife wound.

  He eased Marchand’s transceiver out of his pocket. Risk it? He’d better. This house was more than suspect now. He looked around him, listened. Nothing stirred, only the dappled light of a moon struggling to free itself from the clouds. They thickened, grew. As the garden was plunged into darkness, he made contact with Marchand. All he said was, “Victor. Send help.” And Marchand, after a second of shock, said, “Understood.”

  Renwick put away the transceiver. Marchand knew he was here. Marchand knew he wouldn’t call for help if it weren’t urgent. Marchand knew it was police business if he made such a call. Marchand, thought Renwick, must be cursing the day when Claudel and I arrived in town.

  He had to move away from here. He tried to recall the layout of this patch of ground as he had seen it in the last burst of moonlight. The heavy clouds would last another two or three minutes. He rose and began a cautious approach in the temporary blackout over the ill-kempt grass to reach a dwarf tree that stood, all seven feet of it, in the corner of the garden. Its branches were thin, its leaves sparse, but they would blur any clear view of him when the moon came out of its cloud cover. From here he would be able to see one side and the front of the house. He looked at his watch. All this—the approach to the driveway, the Fiat, the body, and now a sheltering tree— had taken only nine minutes. Yet up on the hill beside the chalet there had been almost two hours of waiting, and worrying, and waiting. It was always the same: hurry up and wait. When the action did come, it could be counted in seconds—like a torrent bursting out from a breaking dam.

  The cloud was passing, the moon reappearing. Renwick caught sight of a dark figure standing at the side wall of the house, right at its front corner, barely twenty yards away. Claudel? Yes, Claudel. He had taken his time; but there he was, every sense alert as he looked around. Renwick tried a hand signal, stretching his arm beyond a branch, holding it there briefly. It was enough. Claudel’s quick eyes had seen it. He made a desperate dash before the moonlight strengthened, racing in his rubber-soled shoes to reach the thorn hedge that bounded the garden, and then the long grass beside Renwick. He fell prone, lay still, regained his breath.

  Slowly, Renwick dropped to a kneeling position, keeping his body behind the trunk of the tree—however small, it gave some protection from the house. Something was wrong. Claudel wouldn’t have come directly here if it weren’t. Once he had noted Renwick’s position, he should have chosen shelter farther away. And now they were breaking their second rule. Claudel was speaking. In a whisper. Renwick bent his head to catch the words. They were certainly less loud than any murmur into a transmitter—couldn’t Claudel have risked even that?
/>
  “One of Marchand’s men—looked dead. But he isn’t. Still breathing.”

  “Where?”

  “At the back of the house—near a truck. I deal with it.”

  “How was he hurt?”

  “A knife between the shoulder blades.”

  “The other one is dead. Knifed, too. I’ve called Marchand. Must have happened just after they got here, took their positions.” Renwick paused. “A throwing knife, I’d guess.”

  Claudel thought over that. Then he said, “I think we’d better stay together.”

  “Back to back, if possible.”

  Claudel nodded. “I’ll laugh at that tomorrow.”

  Renwick put a hand to his lips for silence. A light footstep had sounded. They turned their heads toward the house and watched the man who had emerged from its front door.

  He looked young and trim, walked with a spring in his step. Like them, he wore dark clothes, and became barely visible as he reached the shadows of the bush where the dead man lay. He was checking, thought Renwick in a sudden rise of anger. Checking to make sure nothing was disturbed, everything just as he left it. Then Spring-heeled Jack walked on, starting a tour of inspection around the garden, pausing to look briefly at the road outside. It must have been empty—and where the hell is Marchand? Renwick asked himself—for he walked back, up the short driveway toward the Fiat. Once past it, he was lost to sight.

  It was a quick tour of inspection. He reappeared from the back of the house, walking down its side, reaching the spot where Claudel had stood before his ten-yard dash to the hedge of thorn bushes. He stopped at the corner, looked around. Satisfied, he walked on. At the front door, he paused again and knocked twice. Then he stood aside, waiting.