Presumption of Guilt

by Jeffries, Roderic

  “Temporarily, yes.”

  Fernando whistled through gapped teeth. “Hell, man, that’s a specialists job. You need the agents in Barcelona.”

  “There’s nothing wrong mechanically. I want you to check whether anything’s hidden in it.”

  Fernando spoke curiously. “What kind of anything?”

  “I don’t know. Just something that shouldn’t be there.”

  “It’ll take time. There’s an amazing number of places in the car you can hide things.”

  “It doesn’t matter how long. I just want to be certain the car’s clean.”

  “OK. Give me a hand to push this old pig out of the way.” He reached out and slapped the Seat 600 with the palm of his hand. “When we’ve done that, drive the Mercedes over the pit.”

  *

  Two and a half hours later — half an hour of which had been spent in the nearest bar — Fernando reflated the spare tyre and secured it in position. “That’s it, then. Nothing.”

  “Thanks a lot. What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. It’s a goodbye present.”

  Sterne knew enough about the Spanish character not to argue. Instead, he drove to the nearest shop and bought a dozen bottles of 103 brandy. He presented these as his goodbye present. Fernando insisted on opening one of the bottles to make certain the contents were all that they should be.

  Sterne left Cala Survas, heading westwards, at twenty past one. He switched on the radio and tuned in to the Barcelona station which played classical music all day. Plácido Domingo was singing an aria from Rigoletto. He joined in.

  Chapter 4

  The rain, which had started minutes before, came down with near-tropical intensity and sections of the road were awash: even on fast speed, the wipers of the Mercedes couldn’t keep the windscreen clear and the world beyond was distorted. Sterne slowed still further, thankful the bumpy road was virtually deserted and he wasn’t faced with French drivers who regarded natural hazards as a reason for increasing speed: then he cursed because he shouldn’t ever have been on this road, passing through a waterlogged, bleak countryside in which he had seen no sign of habitation for several kilometres. He wondered where in the hell he’d taken the wrong turning.

  Through the streaming windscreen, he saw that the road forked and there was a signpost. Lençon to the right, 15 kilometres. He swore again. Half an hour ago, Lençon had been 18 kilometres away. He must have been driving in a semi-circle.

  The intensity of the rain increased, although up to now he’d have said that that was impossible, and it was because he slowed still further that he caught sight of the figure, sheltering under an evergreen oak. He braked to a stop, partially lowered the passenger window, and in schoolboy French called to know if he could offer a lift.

  There was no response. He decided his voice could not have carried against the drumming of the rain and he shouted at the top of his voice.

  The person finally moved and he identified her as a woman. She walked, clutching her blouse with one hand, with an uneven step. She stopped when half way to the car, careless of the rain, staring at him with a look which even through the torrential downpour he could identify as one of fright.

  “Mademoiselle, what is the trouble? Come to the car and I will help.”

  She hesitated, then came forward once more. Her foot caught on something and she almost fell and instinctively let go of the blouse and held both hands to brace herself. He saw that her sodden blouse was torn.

  He pushed open the car door.

  “Who’s in the car?” she demanded, in English.

  “I’m on my own. Look, whatever the trouble is, I’m sure I can help.”

  The rain plastered her torn blouse and jeans to her body as she stared at him, desperately trying to reach a decision.

  “I promise you’ll be safe.”

  She climbed in and he realised the reason for her hoppity motion was that she was wearing only one shoe. He turned to reach over the seat to the back and she flinched away from him. “My suitcase is on the back seat and there’s a towel in it: that’ll mop up a little of the wet.” Careful to move no closer to her, he opened the suitcase and brought out the towel which he handed to her. “I’ll turn the heater on full. I don’t know if I can direct all the air your way, but I’ll try… Why not take off a few of your wet things…”

  “Oh Christ!” she cried as she reached for the door handle.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You’re trying…”

  “I’m trying to find the quickest way of getting you dry.”

  Slowly she let go of the door handle. “I’ll stay wet.”

  “Well, at least dry yourself as much as possible with the towel.”

  As he switched on the heater and set the controls to give the maximum amount of hot air, she used the towel to mop herself. It was impossible for her to do this without letting go of the torn blouse. He looked away.

  After a while she said: “Have you got a cigarette?”

  “I’m afraid not. I don’t smoke.”

  “God!” She began to sob, deep retching sobs which made her body shake.

  “Can you tell me what happened? Has someone hurt you?”

  “They tried to rape me,” she answered, her voice shrill. “What is it — d’you want all the filthy details?”

  “I just want to do the best I can to help. We’ll drive straight to Lençon where I’ll buy you some cigarettes and then take you to the police…”

  “The police? Ask a French policeman what rape is and he’ll tell you it’s when a woman has second thoughts.”

  “But they can call a doctor…”

  “And can he wash away the memory?”

  “Were you physically injured?”

  “No.”

  He released the handbrake and accelerated slowly away, into the torrent of rain which drummed so hard on the car’s roof that he had almost to shout. “When we reach the town who can I get in touch with? I could phone England…”

  “No.”

  “Surely there’s someone…”

  “No.”

  He deemed it best not to argue any further for the moment.

  As they entered Lençon, the rain began to ease. He braked to a halt outside a tobacconist. “What kind of cigarettes d’you like?”

  “Any.”

  He ran into the tobacconist. The woman behind the counter had the cantankerousness of old age and she seemed determined not to understand his halting French, but eventually, with the aid of much gesticulating, he managed to make her realise that he wanted some cigarettes, it didn’t matter what brand, and some matches. She sold him a pack of John Player Specials which, being imported, were the most expensive she had in stock.

  Back in the car, he handed them to his passenger and she lit one.

  “Would it be an idea to introduce ourselves?” he asked. “I’m Angus Sterne.”

  She said nothing, but went on smoking. The interior of the car was very hot and she had begun to dry: she’d somehow managed to secure the blouse so that she no longer had to hold it closed.

  “I don’t know whether to call you Agatha or Zenobia?”

  There was a long pause before she said: “Belinda.”

  “Belinda what?”

  An even longer pause. “Backman.”

  “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to see the police now and explain what happened?”

  “I told you, I’m not seeing them.”

  “All right. Then we’ll try and find a doctor…”

  “Can’t you understand?” Her voice rose. “I won’t see anyone.”

  “If you’re certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’m booked in at a motel just north of here. Let’s go straight there after…”

  “You can forget that,” she said contemptuously.

  “What I was going to suggest,” he said, in the same even tone, “was that you book in there for the night in a separate cabin after you’ve bought some c
lothes.”

  “What do I use for money?”

  It occurred to him for the first time that she had with her only the clothes she was wearing. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  “Is there any way I can convince you I’m only trying to help, not seduce, you?”

  She turned and stared straight at him: her expression was one of suspicion, yet also of frightened hope.

  “I’ve been in one or two tight corners and each time I’ve been hellish lucky and there’s been someone around to help. So I know how desperately one can need that help. If I buy you clothes, take you out for a meal, and pay for the motel, I will not be looking for repayment in bed, or anywhere else.”

  “You… you swear that?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  For the first time since she’d entered the car, she relaxed slightly. “Don’t do that until you’ve bought me something to wear so I look less like a drowned rat.”

  *

  The Bourgogne was in the centre of Lençon, overlooking the main square. Its décor was dull, even dowdy, but it was patronised by a number of Frenchmen, many with their families, which was a more certain guide to the standard of its cuisine.

  Belinda and Sterne were shown to one of the corner tables, from which they could look out at the square. The menus were brought and once they decided what to eat he started to order, inevitably having difficulty in pronouncing some of the words. Belinda took over, showing that she spoke the language fluently.

  The omelettes truffles were as good as Evans had promised they would be, the veau Orloff equally delicious, the tartelettes cœur à la crème a miraculous mélange of cream cheese, sugar, cream, strawberries, and redcurrant jelly.

  The waiter brought them coffee and two Bisquits. They warmed the glasses in their hands. “It’s strange, isn’t it, how tiny things can alter one’s life in such a big way,” she said, her voice low, her thoughts far away. “Something which at the time doesn’t seem it could possibly be of any consequence whatsoever turns out to be vitally important.” She sipped the cognac. “But for that red dress…”

  “A red dress?” he prompted.

  “It was in a little shop at the back of the town, somewhere where you’d never have expected to find anything so chic. I tried it on and it was exactly me: and I remembered how Jean had told me I should wear red more often because it made me glow and I wanted to show him I’d remembered… I’d just enough money left to buy it, but then I couldn’t get a train ticket… I bought the dress and the woman wrapped it up as if it had been an Emmanuel Ungaro. I wasn’t worried about the train ticket. I’d been hitch-hiking for a couple of months and nothing had ever happened.” She put the glass down, lit a cigarette. “Do you want to hear the beastly details?”

  “Only if you want to tell them to me.”

  “Maybe sharing them will distance them a bit… The first car that stopped for me had a French family. Very typical. Father with a belly, mother who agreed with everything he said and then did what she wanted, and two rowdy kids. They were turning off at Echaux so they dropped me there. The kids had been making such a racket I was glad to see them go…

  “Along came this blood-red Mondial Quattrovalve. The two men in it were smooth. Where was I trying to get to? What a coincidence — that’s where they were passing through. There was just enough room in the back since it was a two plus two so they hoped I wouldn’t feel cramped. Did I like driving fast? …Christ, could he drive! Frightened me, yet at the same time excited me. As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose he was ever actually in danger of hitting anyone, but he liked the thrill of taking risks… I suppose that’s really why they made their play for me. Anyone with their sort of money is never hard up for women ten times smarter than me, but then it’s all too easy and there’s no risk… They said we’d have a picnic lunch. We stopped in Betaneau and they bought foie gras and a couple of bottles of Mouton Rothschild. Their kind don’t know that you can picnic on cheese and vin ordinaire. When we left there we took the road which crosses the Etaples Plateau and half way across, in the middle of nowhere, they decided to stop.” She finished the cognac and stared down into the glass.

  Sterne caught a waiter’s attention and pointed to the glass. The wine waiter came across with a bottle and refilled both glasses.

  She lit a cigarette. “They drank the wine as if it had been the crudest of crude vin ordinaire and when they’d finished the second bottle they started on me. There was no attempt to find out if I was likely to be cooperative. They wanted rape. I tell you, they wanted rape.”

  He reached out and put his hand on hers, resting on the table. He half-expected her to snatch her hand away, but she did nothing for quite a while before sliding it free, making it a casual act without any significance.

  “The place was littered with stones and I managed to get hold of one the size of my fist and I slammed it down on the nearer head. That kept him quiet for a bit. The other man didn’t like that — no objection to hurting others, bloody scared of being hurt — so I had the chance to break free and run. I suppose they’d have caught me if it hadn’t suddenly rained like the second flood was starting just as I reached a wood.”

  “Thank God it rained and you found that wood.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Thank God.”

  *

  The motel consisted of offices and a restaurant and three lines of cabins. Sterne drove slowly along the last line and then stopped. “Here we are — number fourteen. You’ve got the key?”

  “Yes,” Belinda answered, her voice high.

  He spoke easily, as if unaware of the fact that she had shown an increasing tension from the moment they’d left the restaurant. “I’d see you to the cabin door, but the agreement is, I stay here.”

  She climbed out, shut the door, adjusted the collar of her coat against the rain which had eased until it was now little more than a light drizzle. She took a pace up the very short path, stopped, and turned. He lowered the window. “Have you forgotten something?”

  “To thank you for everything.”

  “There’s no need.”

  She stared at him and he thought she was going to break down and cry once more, but then she controlled her emotions. “Good night, Angus.” She went up to the front door, unlocked it, and entered the cabin.

  He backed the car to a point where he could turn, carried on round to the front row and cabin number 40.

  Five minutes later he sat in an armchair beyond twin single beds, tired but not yet ready to get into bed. Tomorrow morning someone would contact him and hand him the new papers for the Mercedes. Then it was back to England and the routine of the prosaic life of a man who had to learn to earn a living…

  His mind drifted. How could Belinda have been so naïve as to believe she could go on hitch-hiking without meeting trouble? She wasn’t beautiful, in the sense of lush, hot-house perfection, but she certainly had the piquant attractiveness which came from slight imperfections: curly brown hair which wouldn’t stay in place but danced around, an oval face that had a very slight bias to one side, blue eyes too large, a snub nose, cheerful lips too generous, a body a shade too rounded for contemporary beanstalk tastes. She must have known how men were always looking at her. Yet at the beginning she had just seen the two Italians as sophisticated, friendly, a little inclined to show off. She was too trusting: too ready to believe in other people’s good nature…

  Chapter 5

  Next morning Sterne left his cabin at half past eight to make his way to the restaurant, where he found he was the only guest present. He sat at one of the window tables and a waitress brought him two croissants, butter, apricot jam, and coffee. He was eating the second croissant when a middle-aged woman, plump, dowdy, with thick horn-rimmed spectacles which were the wrong style for her square, heavy face, entered the restaurant and crossed to his table. “Monsieur Sterne?” Her husky voice held a thick accent, often making it difficult immediately to underst
and her words.

  He came to his feet. “Have a seat.” As she sat, he noticed that the lines around her eyes and the sagging flesh on her neck suggested that she was older than he’d first judged. “Will you have something to eat? Coffee?”

  “No,” she replied curtly. “Was the border crossing with no trouble?”

  “Nobody was interested in either me or the car. I didn’t even have to show the papers.”

  “Where is the papers now?”

  “In the car.”

  “Get them.”

  “Sure, just as soon as I’ve finished eating.” She reminded him of the matron at his prep school. Old Battleaxe they’d called her, with all the cruelty of youth.

  She was silent — her expression hadn’t altered, but there was no doubting her resentment at this delay — until he’d finished the croissant, then she said: “You will get them now.”

  He didn’t bother to object on the grounds that he hadn’t finished his coffee. He left, went through to his cabin, returned with the papers, still in the envelope in which Evans had handed them to him.

  She carefully checked through the papers, replacing them when she was satisfied. Then she opened her large, crocodile-skin handbag and brought out a second brown envelope, twin to the first. “These are for England. Be certain everything is good.”

  The first thing he noticed was that the car was now in his name. “Aren’t you taking a risk? With these I could sell the car and pocket the money.”

  “Are you so stupid?”

  He wondered if that was a straight question, an implied criticism, or a threat? He checked through the rest of the papers. “Everything looks fine. So where do I go from here?”

  “I am telling you,” she said sharply, annoyed that he should imagine he needed to ask. “Drive as you wish, but you come to Calais for to take the seven-thirty boat on Monday evening.”

  “This coming Monday?”

  Her expression became impatient.

  “I was hoping to drift around a bit in the Loire valley…”

  “Monday evening. You drive to the motel in Newingreen which is close by… ’Ithe…”