by John Gardner
Boysie’s stomach flipped.
“Then someone else got to them,” Edith paused. “Caesar Chiliman who appeared to be a freelance working for the opposition. They were blown early and it must have given Mostyn a shock. The French and Americans knew how sensitive Pinkney and Defoe were and started to panic. I’ll say that for Mostyn, he did remain cool. But friend Chiliman still had the edge, because he was not what he seemed.”
“Not a freelance?”
Edith gave a negative shake of his head. “To use criminal parlance, Chiliman was Bormann’s minder; and Mengele’s. We’ll never know how he got on to Pinkney and Defoe, but he did and he wanted them tucked away. The inducement must have been very large and they did not stand a chance. If Mostyn had not got them, then Chiliman would.”
“He did.”
“We know that now. Mostyn didn’t know it for some time. Chiliman worked with an Argentinian called Castervermentes. Mostyn discovered that quite quickly and I don’t think there’s much doubt that Castervermentes pulled the trigger on Pinkney and Defoe. But the whole thing threw Bormann and Mengele. They had a lot of friends and nobody was very keen on Chiliman after that; him having let people get that close. He went into hiding and eventually carried on with the freelancing cover he had set up in order to get Pinkney and Defoe. Castervermentes became a showbiz agent.”
“And they all didn’t live happily ever after.”
“Last year the past crept up on everybody. Mostyn was still searching. Chiliman knew the names of everyone involved and he’d kept out of their way. Until last year, in New York. He was spotted by Joan Palmer.”
“And he spotted her.”
“Fatally. They all just happened to be in New York at the same time. Castervermentes is agenting a singer called James Gest ...”
“I’ve seen him.”
“Well, he’s often broke and has a lot of underworld contacts : not averse to making the odd bit of loot on the side. Don’t ask me what Chiliman’s motivation is, but he is obsessed with wiping out everyone concerned with the 1964 Mexican operation.” Edith smiled, lopsidedly. “And you’re the last on his list, Oakes.”
The telephone made them all jump. Couperose answered, conducting a rapid conversation in which he appeared to be asking a lot of questions and getting answers on the volley.
“They got off at Cap Martin,” he told Edith after the chat was finished. “Car to meet them. They’re at the Villa Veronique now. We can presume Mlle. Portobello is there also ...”
“With Harry the Hornet,” mused Edith.
Couperose nodded.
“Can anyone join in?” from Boysie.
Edith grinned, “You did not know it, but you had company on the train. The terrible trio-Chiliman, Castervermentes and Gest.”
“On the train?” Boysie swallowed.
“You’re a lucky lad, Boysie. If they’d spotted you, it would have been the silk shroud.”
Boysie thought for a moment. “Who’s Harry the Hornet?”
“Henri Frelon. The heavy who abducted your girlfriend.”
“And tried to fade me?”
“The same.”
“And they’re all here, with Zizi?”
“At Cap Martin. We knew Frelon had access to a villa down here. Now we have it marked.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
Edith gave a puffy laugh, “The hooded avenger. These are pros, Oakesie. Taking them isn’t going to be easy, and Chiliman is a dedicated and obsessed man. Dedicated to disposing of the entire team. He’d like nothing better than you steaming in to save the fair damsel. That’s probably exactly how he sees it.”
“It’s how I see it as well,” Boysie bridled.
Edith turned to Couperose, telling him to get every detail available on the Villa Veronique. “We’ll take them,” he said firmly, “but we’ll do it my way.”
Boysie suddenly found himself becoming romantic.
“The bugger’s got Zizi there. I want him. I just don’t think we should hang about.”
“Scientifically,” snapped Edith.
***
Couperose took an hour, but it was time well spent. He came back, not only with the exact location of the villa, but with diagrams of the place - plan and elevation. His man from Avignon was still watching and there had apparently been no sign of movement since the trio had been deposited there. Boysie became tense, wondering what they might be doing with Zizi, his overactive imagination throwing up all sorts of conjured pictures of tortures and interrogations. The romantically-sounding Villa Veronique became, in his mind, a medieval dungeon with decor by De Sade - iron maidens, racks, thumb screws, and the more painful articles of the trade, all about as subtle as a flame thrower.
The promontory of Cap Martin lies a little up the coast from the territorial boundary between France and the Principality of Monaco. It is tree-covered and dotted with villas, for it was once the most fashionable winter resort on the coast. The grand villas have now been taken over for other uses, but some of the smaller ones remain as permanent homes, or holiday hideaways.
The Villa Veronique is one of these, set on the eastern side of the spit, surrounded on three sides by a wall in which large wrought-iron gates are set back from the road.
Edith, Couperose, the two heavies and Boysie studied the plans for a long time, noting the general layout of its two storeys and small cellar, how the entrance hall led straight into a large main room, with a kitchen off to the right and high French windows which, in turn, opened out to a patio from whence steps dropped to a small jetty and bathing area.
Upstairs there were four bedrooms and a large bathroom, the master bedroom with a wide balcony overlooking the jetty. The cellar was intended for wine and gave room only for the swinging of a couple of fair-sized cats.
“Dusk would be the time to take them,” Edith said. “From both sides. A party going over the wall and a couple of launches coming in from the sea. What kind of transport have they got?” he asked Couperose.
“The Peugeot isn’t in sight, probably in the garage or even removed altogether. There’s a black Renault, which was drawn up in front of the main door when I last spoke to my man, and there’s some kind of boat at the jetty, and a couple of pedallos.”
“Dusk tomorrow,” Edith concluded.
“It’s a hell of a time off,” grumbled Boysie. “They could have Zizi carved up and dumped in the sea by then. Why not dawn?”
“They’ll be alert at dawn. If they’re on the qui vive.”
“Qui vive, qui schmive,” Boysie sounded disgusted. “There’s a bird in there being maimed, driven out of her mind.”
“Quell the melodrama, old lad. They’re probably merely chatting her up.”
“Chatting her up with scourges.”
“If my fellow from Avignon hears screams, we’ll precipitate matters,” grinned Couperose.
Boysie remained silent while Edith and Couperose went into details concerning who would do what, and from where the reinforcements would come: apparently five people from DTS were flying in later, and Couperose was bringing some of his men up from Paris.
“Which reminds me,” Boysie dragging himself from the nagging worry about Zizi. “What’s happened to Griffin and Lyric?”
William Edith smiled a sick leer, “They’ll be around, I’ve no doubt, Boysie, no doubt at all.”
XV - DAWN CHORUS
A substantial flock of birds breaking into song at first light
Boysie insisted on having some personal armament more effective than the Beretta. Nobody appeared to mind very much, and Couperose produced a Colt -38 Super and three spare magazines. They then decided to meet first thing in the morning, by which time the additional bodies would have arrived.
“You don’t mind if I go and get myself some gear?” Boysie asked deferentially. “Mine’s got spread around a bit.”
“You okay for money?” Edith seemed actually concerned.
“I’ll manage. I just want another sweater a
nd some clean drawers.”
Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea, and Boysie left the hotel, turning sharp left and disappearing into the streets which surrounded the Rue de France. The shops were all open, goodies displayed and tempting. There was a time in his life when Boysie could not have resisted the suedes, leathers and silks which shrieked elegantly from the male boutiques. But now he knew better, and satisfied himself with a moderately priced cord battledress, a cheap leather belt, a black roll neck, two pairs of black socks, a pair of black sneakers and a couple of spare pairs of black briefs, without any fancy animal patterns on the front.
Walking back to the hotel he paused at an ironmonger’s establishment and, almost instinctively, entered and purchased a hunting knife, with sheath. It was cheap but sharp and would be effective. On his way out he spotted some large leather pistol holders and pouches marked up as Army surplus, so he bought one of each and completed the shopping spree with a ball of thin twine.
It was only a vague plan; so vague that he could not even own to it yet, but it was there, having a lurk in the back of his head; a kind of private fantasy which he was acting out, knowing well enough that he could never bring himself to make the leap from the idea to reality.
He collected his key from the desk, went up to the room and rang room service for a plate of smoked salmon, a large vodka, a quarter bottle of brandy, and a jug of coffee.
The food arrived and for the next hour Boysie ate, drank and lazed on the bed, toying with his problem. After that he started to think again.
William Edith was wrong, he knew it in his guts, his water and his bones. If Chiliman and his crew had Zizi cooped up in the Villa Veronique and imagined she knew where Boysie would head, then tomorrow night would be far too late. Already it might be too late. He sipped black coffee, his mind crammed with images of the lush Zizi Portobello suffering agonies in the cellar which was only big enough to swing a couple of fair-sized cats.
The mental chain reaction continued, cats became sinister and Zizi’s pleasing body took hold of Boysie’s senses. By tomorrow night it would be out of sight. There were two choices, he told himself: go above William Edith and make a complaint at the local police station, or do something about it himself.
Boysie did not like police stations as he had this old streak of snobbery which led 1-tru to believe that you did not meet a nice class of person in police stations. As for really doing something about it himself, that, he concluded, would be dangerous and stupidly romantic.
Other images, the pictures of childhood, flooded in-a white knight on a charger thundering over rough ground towards a white castle. The knight reined in the horse, which pawed the ground with its hooves and blew thick steam from its nostrils. From a high slitted window, the princess leaned out crying, “Save me, sir knight.” The knight hefted his lance and pushed back his visor.
Boysie groaned. He looked ridiculous in that white armour.
It was madness. Stupid. He swung his legs off the bed and went through to the bathroom, found a large plastic laundry bag, pushed a bath towel into it, got out his ball of twine, tied up the open end, ran the cold water until the bath was half full and immersed the plastic bag in the water. No bubbles. It was quite waterproof.
He unplugged the bath, put the bag down on the mat and went back into the bedroom to pour another cup of coffee and lie on the bed again.
After another two cups, and four more cigarettes, he began to wonder if he was fit enough. There was a time when he could swim, run, climb, jump and shoot without puffing like some wheezy bellows, or feeling his heart pounding in his head. Too many cigarettes, too much booze, not enough exercise, except with the wrong kind of women.
Zizi in the glade outside Auxerre after the sexy lunch, naked with thighs spread in obeisance and nipples reaching up in chorus to the sun, and him performing minor miracles for a man of his age and indiscretion.
“Shit,” said Boysie aloud.
This time Zizi was on the scaffold, the wicked King John sat on a throne under a striped awning, together with the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the man in black (also on the scaffold) had this big glinting chopper.
An arrow whistled through the air and down went the man in black-a great cheer from the crowd-and there was Robin Hood, all in that nice Lincoln Green, cut stylishly, with some fashionable scalloping around the hem of his doublet.
The King’s Men at Arms were elbowing through the crowd, but Robin galloped on towards the scaffold, reached up to swing Zizi onto the pommel of his saddle, missed and landed flat on his back.
It was all madness and, safe in that knowledge, Boysie drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
He woke suddenly and sweating. There had been a dream, though he could not recall it, except for the fact that Zizi was screaming fit to bust her bra. He looked at his watch. It was barely three o’clock and he just could not get Zizi, Chiliman, Castervermentes and Gest out of his head. It must have been Chiliman and Castervermentes he had seen outside La Mansion at Puebla in the small hours all those years ago.
Boysie got up and went back into the bathroom, undid the plastic laundry bag, took out the big towel, substituted a smaller one and began to load it with the other gear - the black cord battledress, sneakers, socks, underwear, the belt, to which he attached the holster and pouch, and, last of all, the Colt .38 Super, loaded, with the safety on and two of the spare mags in the pouch.
Then he tied the neck of the plastic sack securely and added a long loop. He put another short length of twine through the knife sheath, knotted that firmly in a loop, and carried the whole lot through to the bedroom.
He still had the little Beretta, which he checked and put into his right coat pocket. Last of all, Boysie uncorked the brandy, took a long pull, replaced the cork and stuck the bottle into his left pocket.
Then he rang down to the desk and told them he wanted to go out and take some pictures at sunrise and could they have a cab ready for him in half-an-hour. He still knew that he would not really do it, so he stretched out on the bed again, lit another cigarette and waited for the desk to call him back. In any case, he thought, they probably had orders to report his movements to William Edith and that would put an end to his foolishness.
But thirty-five minutes later the telephone rang and a bright feminine voice told him that his car was waiting. Another slug of brandy and Boysie slung the plastic sack over his shoulder and headed out of the room. The white knight and Robin Hood were both on their way to the rescue, though he knew well enough that, when he came to it, he would not do anything at all: it was far too dangerous.
The car was a Merc of some kind: black with a driver who looked like a tired llama. Boysie told him to take the corniche inferieur and drop him off on the other side of Roquebrune. Boysie knew exactly where he wanted to be left - just where the road cuts across the neck of Cap Martin.
The driver looked puzzled and Boysie pointed to the plastic laundry sack and burbled something about taking photographs. The llama driver shrugged: what did he care anyway? The Negresco was nothing more than a luxurious lunatic asylum.
It was still very dark when the car dropped him. Boysie lit a cigarette and stood in the shadows of the trees, watching the tail lights recede towards Nice, and wished he had kept the torch.
He sat down by the roadside and waited for the first break in the blackness which would herald the beginning of dawn. It took two cigarettes before he could see enough to head through the trees, over the hard red earth towards the dangerously sharp rocks at the eastern lip of the cape. The climb down was not easy, but the sea below was calm, lapping at the clustered boulders. He was out of breath by the time he got within spitting distance of the water, but it was now light, and to his left he could see the sweep of the coast and the rising houses of Carnoles and Menton. Boysie had a slight flicker of nostalgia-it seemed a long time ago since he had last been here, on a sneaked weekend with Mostyn’s secretary, the lovely Iris Macintosh a lustful romp which had inevitably led to tra
gedy.
Boysie shook his head and turned to look at the immediate shoreline of Cap Martin, counting the villas. Veronique was about half a mile along, the fourth house, he could see it quite clearly, its dirty cream wall dropping into the sea.
The light was grey, an odd silent and unreal stillness, as though he was the only person alive on this piece of shore. Even the water made little noise. He realised that he was straining his ears for something. The dawn chorus? They don’t have one here, he reflected, and two other images slid into the panovision screen of his head: an afternoon, long ago, with his one-time steady, Elizabeth, driving not far from here, high up across the Alpes Maritimes to Grasse, the air thin and everything bathed in bright sunlight and perfect stillness, no creatures moving, no sign of life; the other picture, superimposed almost, was of a misty morning of his childhood in Berkshire, standing in a wood with a girl called Ruth or Sybil or Daphne or something, and the whole sky cracking open with bird song, and he knew - it was the very pinpointed moment that he knew - it was not going to last for ever.
Slowly, Boysie took the Beretta out of his pocket, slid the magazine from the butt, pumped the action once and threw the two pieces of metal into the sea. Then he started to undress.
It was chilly and he felt a little absurd, bare-arsed on the rocks, his clothes lying in a pathetic little pile at his feet. It was only then that he knew he should have tied a loop of twine around the neck of the brandy bottle as well. He was going to need something to warm him at the other end.
Well, he thought, you can’t have it both ways, uncorking the bottle and tipping quite a lot of the liquid fire down his throat. It brought tears to his eyes and made him wonder what the hell he was doing, stark stripped on a chilly dawn. Decisions, he pondered, decisions, hanging the hunting knife around his neck, and then the plastic sack of clothes. The rocks hurt his feet, and as he neared the water he was certain that he had spotted several lumps of excrement bobbing jolly on the sea.
The water was cold, the plastic sack ungainly around his neck, floating ahead of him. After the first three cautious strokes, Boysie was convinced that this was how he was at last going to lose his manhood. What a way for it to go, he mused, chilled off and frozen blue in the Med. He smiled, it had been blue before.
