The End Game

by Michael Gilbert

  The thought kept him cheerful through the hot hours of the early afternoon. Most of the passengers were torpid and half of them were asleep. David had moved to the back of the coach to have a gossip with Captain Hobart.

  They were ten kilometres past Piacenza when he realised that his plans had gone wrong.

  The coach braked to a halt with a suddenness which made the passengers sit up. There was a barricade across the road, with an official-looking car beside it. David, looking down the length of the coach, recognised one of the two men who were strolling towards them. He had a remarkable bush of hair and a deeply cleft chin.

  19

  “Some trouble?” said Captain Hobart.

  “Looks like it,” said David. “I’d better go and see what it’s all about.” He opened the emergency door at the back of the coach and stepped out, shutting the door carefully behind him. Then he walked quickly back down the road, hidden by the bulk of the coach, jumped the ditch and found himself in a vineyard. This had been planted in the economical Italian fashion with vegetables sharing the beds with the vines, and it formed a useful screen. David got between two of the rows and started to run.

  The slope of the field was downhill, and he was soon out of sight of the bus. The vineyard ended in a country road. Propped up, in the road, beside an opening in the hedge was a very old bicycle. David jumped on to it and pedalled off. As soon as he started he realised why the bicycle had been abandoned. Both the tyres were flat.

  Though uncomfortable, it was still rideable, and he had bumped along the road on the rims of the wheels for about a quarter of a mile when he realised that it was leading him back towards the main road. He had noticed the name of the town as they came through. Something like Fontenellato. It had a big church and a market square and looked quite a prosperous little place. It was the hour of the siesta, and the streets were empty.

  David abandoned the bicycle and walked towards the square. Ahead of him he heard the sound of a heavy vehicle starting. He broke into a run. Sure enough, it was a bus and it was already moving.

  The driver heard David’s shouts and slowed to a halt. David threw himself on board, and the bus started up again.

  “A narrow escape,” said the conductor.

  “Very narrow,” agreed David.

  ‘To what destination is the gentleman travelling?”

  “Where does the bus go to?”

  “Eventually to Piacenza.”

  “Then Piacenza is my destination.”

  An elderly gentleman in an alpaca jacket said, “It is dangerous to run in the heat of the day.”

  “I am in entire agreement with you,” said David. “Such exercise is better taken in the cool of the morning, or perhaps in the evening when the sun is down.”

  “It is better not taken at all. A little forethought is all that is necessary.”

  “A last-minute decision.”

  The old gentleman pondered this remark. He said, “Since it would appear that you did not know where you were going until you had boarded this bus, how could you have come to any decision?”

  “I have an impulsive nature,” said David.

  “You are English?”

  “Certainly not. I am Welsh.”

  “A nephew of mine once spent a year in Cardiff,” said the old gentleman. “He related to me some very curious stories about the Welsh.”

  The bus had left the main road and was making a circuitous route, stopping in each of the many villages which dotted the Lombardy plain to pick up or put down passengers. The old gentleman fell asleep. The countryside baked in the late afternoon sun. David was busy with his thoughts.

  How long would it have taken his enemies to discover that he was not in the coach? When they did discover it, what would they do? If they assumed that he had taken to the fields they would be in some difficulty. Policemen with motor cars and modern communications could be very effective on main roads but at a loss in open country.

  If they cast back to Fontenellato might they not pick up the story of the stranger who had run through the streets and clambered on to the bus as it was leaving? If they did, there would surely be a reception committee awaiting him at Piacenza.

  On the whole, David thought this unlikely. Undoubtedly they would get on to his track in the end, but he thought that he had a head start which it was up to him to make the most of. He could have wished that the bus was not quite so deliberate in its approach to Piacenza, whose towers and office blocks he could already see ahead of him, but it got there at last and put him down outside the mainline station. He walked into the welcome cool of the waiting room and consulted the indicator board.

  There was a train due in ten minutes, but this was described as locale, which meant that it would stop at almost every station. If he was prepared to wait for fifty minutes, there was an express train going directly to Milan. His instinct was to get away as fast as possible. His reason was against it. If a search was organised up and down the line, every intermediate station would be a danger point. Safer, in the long run, to wait.

  It was a nerve-racking fifty minutes, which stretched to an hour, then to an hour and a quarter. David spent part of it in buying himself a panama hat, a pair of sunglasses and a cheap plastic briefcase, and the rest of it in the station buffet replacing lost moisture.

  The shadows were already lengthening when a burst of activity announced the imminent arrival of the Bologna-Milano express. An official paced out on to the platform carrying a circular disc on the end of a stick, red on one side and green on the other. A boy wheeled out a trolley covered with drinks, sweets and newspapers. With important sighings and hissings the diesel-electric train slid into the station, and David climbed thankfully on board. He took his seat in the carriage just behind the engine.

  The next hurdle was going to be the ticket barrier at Milan Central Station. There would be a lot of neutral observers around, and David reckoned that if any attempt was made to snatch him he could kick up enough fuss to attract attention and make things difficult for his assailants.

  In fact, nothing happened at all, and David walked out into the station concourse with a feeling that he was now ahead of the game. Probably the opposition was still beating the coverts round Fontenellato. He hoped that they were getting good and hot. Speed was now going to be more effective than guile. He studied the timetable. The international express for Paris left at eight o’clock. He made for the ticket office. There were no couchettes left, but as the result of a last-minute cancellation there was a single wagon-lit apartment available. The thought of the privacy and the bed was irresistible. David had plenty of money with him. He booked the sleeper.

  The next and most necessary step was to restore a measure of credibility to his appearance. He was aware that he looked more like a tourist who had been for a walk in the countryside than a respectable occupant of first-class accommodation in an international express.

  Fortunately the shops were still open, so this was something that could be remedied.

  At a men’s outfitters in the Via Bolognese he bought a light travelling coat, a grey felt hat, some shirts and a pair of rather attractive Cambridge blue silk pyjamas. At a chemist’s he replenished his washing-and-shaving kit. Then he selected, to carry his purchases, a flashy-looking imitation pigskin suitcase. To give it a bit of weight he stopped at a kiosk and bought half a dozen magazines and a pile of newspapers.

  A final thought occurred to him. A restaurant car, as he had discovered, was due to join the train when it reached Switzerland, and he would be able to have a comfortable dinner—comfortable in every sense, since his immediate troubles would be over. Nevertheless, he stopped at the nearest food store, bought a pork pie, a slab of chocolate and a small bottle of brandy, and stowed them away in his briefcase. Emergency rations, he said to himself just in case he had to try an illicit frontier crossing on foot. He didn’t believe it. It was the gesture of a man who is thankful for a run of luck, but touches wood.

  By this time it wa
s a quarter past seven. He made his way back to the station, located his wagon-lit and settled down to wait. The minutes passed slowly. He heard other passengers coming in and occupying their compartments. The only thing which struck him as odd was the nonappearance of the wagon-lit conductor. This official was usually on hand to check passengers’ reservations, show them to their places and exact a tip.

  It was nearly half an hour later that David became aware that something was happening.

  He stepped into the corridor, lowered the window and peered cautiously out.

  There was a group of half a dozen men on the platform. Two of them seemed to be station officials. The other two had the unmistakable look of policemen. There were three coaches of couchettes and wagon-lits, of which David’s was the farthest away from the barrier. As he looked, the four men climbed aboard the first of the coaches.

  “Search party,” said David. “And they’ll be here inside five minutes.”

  There was only one course open to him. He left his new suitcase on the bed and dropped his new hat and coat ostentatiously on top of it. The longer they thought he was somewhere on the train the better. Then, picking up his briefcase, he made his way along the corridor towards the far end of the train.

  It was a long train. By the time he reached the head of it, he had put eight more coaches between himself and the pursuit. The engine had not yet been backed into position. The far end of the platform was dimly lit. David stepped out of the carriage and dropped down on to the line in front of the front coach.

  His train was on the outer of six lines. He crossed the other five lines carefully and regained the far platform. He had two choices. To get back on to the station concourse and mingle with the crowd or to get on to the train which was standing farther down the platform.

  It was a locale, second-class carriages only, and it was crowded enough to suggest that it was ready to start. David looked at the destination board. Lodi—Piacenza—Parma—Reggio Emilia—Bologna—Firenze.

  “The hunted fox,” he said, “when hard-pressed, will sometimes find safety by doubling directly back on his tracks.”

  He boarded the train, choosing a carriage which was already occupied by an Italian family. A mother, a father, a small girl, a smaller boy and a very small baby. Also a grandmother, a formidable grenadier with a moustache and a bonnet. David inserted himself between the father and the small girl, and the train moved off.

  It seemed, to start with, that his intrusion was going to be resented, but, as happens on such occasions, the advent of mealtime broke the ice. Under the supervision of the grandmother a basket of provisions was brought down from the rack, portions of chicken leg and pasta were distributed, two bottles of wine were uncorked and an agreeable picnic got under way. David produced his own food and was invited to share in the wine. In return he distributed pieces of his chocolate, a gesture much appreciated by the boy, who coated his mouth and chin with a brown layer.

  In the middle of the meal a ticket inspector arrived and prepared to take a serious view of the fact that David had boarded the train without a ticket. The grandmother took up the cudgels on his behalf. Whether this was because she approved of David or simply because she enjoyed an argument was not clear. She went straight over to the attack. There had been a long queue at the booking office, but only one of the ticket windows had been open. Why was that? If there was a long queue waiting, why was the second window not open? Was it because they were short of staff? It could hardly be that, when one considered the price one paid for a ticket—

  At this point the inspector gave up. He accepted the money David was offering him and withdrew, slipping on a grape which the boy had dropped—an accident which caused general satisfaction.

  By the time the train reached Bologna, David had discovered the names of the three children and of three other children who had been left at home, and had entertained them with an account of his misadventures on a walking tour in the Italian Alps. Between Bologna and Florence the children and the grandmother fell asleep, the mother cross-examined David about the cost of living in England and the father about the religious beliefs of the Welsh.

  On arrival at Florence complicated arrangements had to be made to disembark the family. David, having one hand free, offered to carry the baby, an offer which was gratefully accepted. He walked out of the station and accompanied his new friends to the family flat in the Via Torta. They parted on the doorstep with expressions of mutual esteem, and David made for the nearest telephone booth. It was ten minutes short of midnight, but he did not think that the Aldinis were people who went to bed early.

  Clarissa answered the telephone herself. She seemed pleased and unsurprised. Certainly there was a bed available. She couldn’t guarantee how soon he would get into it, as there was a bit of a party going on.

  It turned out to be, apart from Clarissa, an all-male party, consisting of two architect colleagues of Carlo Aldini; a man with a bushy red beard, whom David supposed to be an artist, but who turned out to be the Assistant Procurator Fiscal of Glasgow; and a serious young man in steel-rimmed glasses whom David diagnosed, correctly this time, as an American professor.

  It was the sort of party where everyone talks at once. David had now got his second wind. He talked to one of the architects about the scandal of modern office building, to the Procurator Fiscal about football and to the professor about a new theory that Shakespeare was the illegitimate son of Henry the Eighth. It was three o’clock when he tumbled into bed, wearing pyjamas borrowed from his host, and eleven o’clock when he opened his eyes to find Clarissa standing beside the bed with a cup of coffee in her hand.

  “You could have something more elaborate if you liked,” she said, “but actually it’s nearly lunch time. And you can borrow Carlo’s shaving things—that is, if you don’t happen to have brought any with you.”

  Her unconcern as to the reason for David’s unceremonious arrival was so splendid that it made him laugh. Clarissa laughed too. David thought she looked terrific and in any other circumstances would have invited her to jump straight into bed with him. He rejected the idea regretfully and said, “Sit down for a moment. I’m not going to tell you the story of the last few days, because you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve been engaged in my favourite pursuit of running away. It’s the thing I’m best at.”

  “You did tell me that you never went into a restaurant without looking for a way out through the kitchen.”

  “I’m looking for a way out now. Out of this God-forsaken country. I’ll need a bit of help.”

  “All right,” said Clarissa placidly.

  “Nothing criminal.”

  “I’m glad about that. Italian prisons are places to keep out of, so my friends tell me.”

  “If you look in the breast pocket of my coat you’ll find a passport. That’s the one.”

  Clarissa examined it critically. She said, “It seems to belong to a man called Lewis Hobart.”

  “A good type. I’m certain he won’t mind lending it to me for a day or two.”

  “Won’t he be needing it himself?”

  “They don’t bother to look at them at the Italian frontier. Sometimes not even at Calais. It’ll be wanted at Dover, but that’s tomorrow night, and I’ll be back in England by then, I hope.”

  “You don’t look much like him.”

  “Like enough. In passport photographs it’s only the externals that count. I’ll need a pair of tinted glasses with frames like his. You can buy them at any optician’s. Explain they’re for amateur theatricals. Then see if you can pick up a brown-and-white checked coat, like the one he was wearing when the photograph was taken. And some suntan lotion.”

  “Also for amateur theatricals?”

  “Right. He’s a bit balder than me, but if I comb my hair right back it should get past. Then you go to that travel agency in the Via Tornabuoni, I forget the name, but it’s next to the American Bank. See if you can book me a sleeper or a couchette on the night train from Livorno this ev
ening. The one that goes to Marseilles.”

  “In the name of Lewis Hobart.”

  “Captain Lewis Hobart. Late of the King’s African Rifles.”

  “Anything else?” said Clarissa, who was making a list.

  “One or two things. I’ll need another suitcase. And some washing and shaving things. I don’t think I’ll bother about shirts this time.”

  “What happened last time?”

  “I had to leave them behind. Two shirts and a pair of Cambridge blue pyjamas.”

  “You’d have looked very tasty in them,” agreed Clarissa.

  “Oh, boy,” said David to himself. “This is a girl in ten thousand.”

  “You’re a girl in ten thousand,” he said.

  The arrival of Carlo saved him from what would unquestionably have been an indiscretion.

  When Clarissa got back from her shopping expedition, having got all the things David had asked for, including a wagon-lit reservation on the Livorno train, she said, “I couldn’t help noticing that the carabinieri were clustered rather thickly round Central Station. They seemed to be particularly interested in English passengers. Why don’t I run you in my car to Empoli? Most of the Florence-Pisa trains stop there. No one will think of watching out for you in a small place like that. Then, if you get out at the stop before Pisa, you can take a bus into the town.”

  “A girl in a hundred thousand,” said David.

  The first part of the plan went well. He took an appropriate farewell of his guardian angel at the quiet end of Empoli Station platform and by three o’clock in the afternoon had reached Pisa, where he picked up a stopping train for Genoa. There was no sign of the opposition. He had dinner at the station restaurant and by nine o’clock he was sitting on the bed in his wagon-lit watching the Mediterranean coast slip past.

  On one point he had made up his mind. He would not go to sleep until the train was out of Italy and over the French frontier. He had surrendered his passport and ticket and had filled in the customary declarations. In the ordinary way he would not be disturbed again.