Presumption of Guilt

by Jeffries, Roderic

  “Wasn’t that odd?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Surely if a husband and wife stay here it’s always the husband who books in?”

  “In the old days, certainly. In these days… It is difficult to keep up with the changing customs.”

  “Can the receptionist describe Monsieur Bressonaud?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We have so many guests during the season…”

  “But he must remember something about the husband if he thinks he was present.”

  “His memory for particular details is a little hazy.”

  “Then he could be mistaken and in fact Madame Bressonaud was alone?”

  The manager hesitated. He cleared his throat. “He thinks he was with his wife,” he said, repeating his previous words.

  They thanked him briefly for his help, then left. As they crossed the foyer, Belinda said in a low voice: “Well?”

  “Was he genuinely trying to help, or just wanting to seem to be genuinely trying to help?” replied Sterne.

  “What’s the answer.”

  “God knows. I don’t.”

  Once seated again behind the wheel, Sterne asked: “Which way do we go from here?”

  “The quickest is up to Perigueux and then across on the main road: if we try a more direct route we’ll end up on mountain tracks that are more for goats than cars.”

  “How far is it to Persoul?”

  “A long way.”

  “Then we’ll just keep going. Does your hotel have a night porter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If necessary, we’ll stop and phone ahead and find out. If it doesn’t, we’ll probably have to break off for the night.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t have come back here.”

  He was about to point out that the time this had taken was unlikely to prove to have made that much difference, but a quick look showed her expression to be so strained that he said nothing. He drove out of the forecourt.

  *

  It was eight o’clock when he said: “We’re going to have to stay somewhere for the night.” He yawned.

  “I suppose so,” she answered reluctantly.

  “Otherwise, we’ll get too tired. And in any case, we need a drink and a meal — though not much after that lunch — to recharge our batteries.”

  They’d been climbing slowly but steadily for half an hour and the countryside had changed from lush pastures and fields heavy with corn to a stony soil which grew poor grass and stunted trees. Villages were few and far apart and those that they passed through had an air of decay, with houses with broken shutters and peeling paint.

  “Have you any idea how far it is before we reach a place that’s likely to have a reasonable hotel?” he asked.

  “I’ll check.” She reached for the map on the dashboard. “We passed a fairly big town on our right not long ago.” He looked briefly to his right. The land now fell away quite sharply and there was an extensive view, but his quick glance showed him no houses at all. In any case, there were few side roads and all those that he’d noticed had looked as if they might soon peter out in the yard of one of the subsistence-level farms… He automatically checked the rear-view mirror. Some way behind them was a white car. Presumably, it was the same one that had been behind them some time back…

  She said: “Fauteville is something like twenty kilometres ahead and I seem to remember it’s quite a big place.”

  “Then we’ll spend the night there and have a really early start in the morning.”

  “Not too early.” She leaned sideways so that she could rest her head against the pillar of the car.

  She was emotionally, rather than physically, exhausted, he thought. She had been right, they shouldn’t have returned to the motel. They’d learned nothing, and for a reason that wasn’t entirely clear to him, it had affected her deeply… Movement in the rear-view mirror attracted his attention. The white car — now identified as a big Peugeot — was immediately behind them. “Why is it,” he asked rhetorically, “that people will still climb up your exhaust pipe even when there’s all the room in the world to pass?”

  She said dreamily: “The herd instinct.”

  The Peugeot swung out to overtake them, then drew back in. Ahead of them, perhaps three-quarters of a kilometre away, was an oncoming lorry which, even at that distance, could be judged to be old, decrepit, and incapable of much speed. “The bloke behind us needs L-plates up. He could have overtaken us and been halfway to the horizon before the lorry closes.”

  “Not everyone can be as brilliant as you.”

  This was the first time she’d shown signs of pulling out of her previous depression. His tone became light. “Don’t you mean anyone?”

  “Big head!” She reached out and rested her fingers on his neck in the gesture of love with which he had become familiar.

  The lorry passed them, rattling its way to some local farm. The Peugeot drew out, accelerated, and came abreast of them. It moved closer to crowd them.

  “The driver’s a bloody lunatic or blind drunk…” He caught sight of the look on the passenger’s face and he realised with shocked and chilling certainty that the driver was neither insane nor drunk… He rammed the gear into third and floored the accelerator and the Renault surged forward, engine note soaring.

  “What’s the matter, Angus?”

  The gap between the two cars widened for only a short while, then it began to close with an ever increasing speed. He judged that the Peugeot was turbo-charged, which meant there wasn’t a chance of losing it with straight speed… Its bonnet drew level with the driving seat. On their right the land now dipped away sharply and to go over the edge would be disastrous… He tried to will more speed out of the Renault, but there was nothing left. He braked violently and fought the wheel, killing an incipient skid with opposite lock. The Peugeot surged ahead, crossing the path they would have taken if he hadn’t braked.

  “Are they bloody mad?” she demanded, her voice high.

  “Just vindictive,” he answered grimly.

  The Peugeot was faster and heavier. So in a straight slogging match they stood no chance and their only hope was to use guile to evade it until they reached a built-up area or the traffic increased and the driver would no longer dare to crash them.

  The Peugeot’s brake lights went on. He accelerated and swerved out and they passed. “How far is it to the next village?”

  She reached for the map and opened this out, found difficulty in reading it because of the motion of the car.

  The Peugeot began to close the gap. He pulled over to the left-hand side of the road and took his foot off the accelerator and dabbed the brakes, then accelerated. The driver of the Peugeot, thinking Sterne was going to repeat his previous manoeuvre, braked violently: before he could rectify his mistake, the gap between the two cars had become a couple of hundred metres.

  “There’s some sort of village about five kilometres on,” she said tautly. “But it can’t be much of a size.”

  It didn’t matter how small. The men in the Peugeot would not risk trying to kill them there.

  The Peugeot was closing the gap. The driver knew he must either brake or accelerate and sooner or later — almost certainly sooner — the driver would judge correctly… He looked to his right. The land sloped as steeply as before and the rocks in the fields had become boulders…

  The car momentarily jerked as the engine note changed pitch before resuming its shrill, frenzied rhythm — a warning that he was stressing it too highly and should slow…

  A kilometre ahead, the road curved to the right and a heavy lorry appeared round the bed. The Peugeot had drawn almost abreast, but was not closing the gap between them. With the lorry in sight, the driver wasn’t going to risk making a move. Since every second brought them closer to the village… Too late, he realised that they’d outmanoeuvred him. He was still on the wrong side of the road so that if they m
atched his moves he’d be unable to draw in to the right, which meant he’d meet the oncoming lorry head on. He couldn’t increase speed and they’d know he couldn’t. So they’d be waiting for him to brake. And because the driver would be ready for this, his reaction time would be quick and, since the Peugeot was heavier and better braked, there was every chance he’d be able to prevent the Renault escaping…

  “Look out, Angus,” Belinda shouted.

  They were closing the lorry very quickly: it was a trailer outfit, huge and heavy. To hit it would be like hitting a brick wall. The lorry flashed its lights.

  The lorry’s headlights were switched on to full beam and even above the scream of the Renault’s engine they could hear the strident blast of its air horn. He braked, this time so violently that with opposite lock he only just managed to retain control. The Peugeot matched his move and came further into the centre of the road to cut off any chance of the Renault’s being able to slide between it and the lorry.

  Sterne’s mind raced. By now, the lorry driver would be convinced he was faced by a maniac and he’d try to get as far in to his side of the road as he could. How quick would his reactions be? Above normal, surely, since driving was his trade? Sterne drew further over to the left, apparently deliberately provoking the coming crash. Belinda screamed. The lorry driver, frantically trying to avoid the catastrophe, steered to his left, so sharply that the trailer wrenched at its couplings. The Renault clipped the grass verge and the near-side front wheel bounced up as the lorry, a wall of buffeting air, came abreast of them. The trailer was snaking and threatening to whiplash them and Sterne had to steer back on to the verge. This time, the whole left-hand side of the car was thrown up into the air.

  As they landed with a sickening jolt, the wheel was spun violently out of his hand. The end of the trailer drew clear as the tail of the Renault whipped round with a force that jerked their necks; their horizon became a blur as they spun across the road with tyres screaming. There was the ear-hurting screech of metal against metal as they slammed into the side of the Peugeot, then they were rolling.

  The windscreen disintegrated, showering them with glass. Centrifugal forces left them incapable of movement or coherent thought. There was a violent jolt, one more roll, and they struck a boulder half the size of the car. He lost consciousness.

  Chapter 18

  There were formless mists as he became aware of himself. Then there was pain, at first remote, but all too soon immediate. Someone murmured meaningless but comforting words: the mists closed in and there was nothing.

  Later there was form. A room with a high ceiling and a central light with a frilly, plastic shade which made him think of Brighton boarding-houses. He stared at the shade and tried to work out how he could have come to be faced by such a monstrosity, but the pounding pain in his head had made the problem too difficult. He closed his eyes and drifted off into an uneasy sleep that was filled with violent nightmares.

  Someone was talking. He opened his eyes and saw a man and a woman, neither of whom he’d ever seen before. The man began to speak in English, slowly and very carefully. “How do you do now?”

  He went to sit up, but at the first movement there was an explosion inside his head.

  “Be still and not wriggle.”

  Wriggle was a bloody funny word to use. But the message was clear and if moving caused such agony, he was going to lie very still.

  “How many of fingers?” asked the man as he held up three fingers in front of Sterne’s face.

  “Three,” he answered, in a croaky voice.

  “Good.”

  So what the hell was good about that?

  “And now?”

  “One.”

  “Please to look.”

  He watched the man’s forefinger move from right to left. Perhaps he’d landed up in an asylum.

  “Now you sleep.”

  A woman came closer to the bedside. She was wearing a rather severe white uniform, but it was clear she was a very attractive blonde. Well formed, to boot.

  She spoke in French and although he didn’t understand every word he was fairly certain she’d said that his natural reflexes certainly appeared to be normal.

  She injected something into his right buttock and before long he’d lost consciousness once more.

  *

  The door opened and Belinda entered. Her face looked worn and there were dark lines under her eyes: her left wrist was bandaged.

  She crossed to the bedside, studied him for several seconds, then bent over until she could rest her cheek against his. “Oh my God, my God!” He felt the wet of tears.

  He gripped her. “Relax. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s very difficult to get rid of a bad penny?”

  “When I saw you all crumpled up in an untidy mess I thought you were dead. I wanted to die as well.”

  “Thank heavens you didn’t do a Romeo or I’d have been honourably obliged to do a Juliet.”

  “You damned fool,” she said and brushed his cheek with her lips. She settled on the edge of the bed. “The doctor says you’ve had severe concussion but your skull’s not cracked even though the roof of the car was forced in and it hit you so hard.”

  “Nothing but rocks between my ears.” He touched her left arm, above the bandage. “How badly hurt were you?”

  “Me? It’s nothing. Only a fool woman could survive a crash like that and then strain her wrist climbing out of the wreck.”

  The door opened and a nurse looked into the room.

  “It’s all right, I’m just coming,” Belinda said in French.

  The nurse closed the door.

  “She didn’t want me to come in and see you because you were so weak. I had to promise I wouldn’t be in here for longer than a minute. I really must go now or she’ll make an awful fuss next time.” She stood.

  “In Spain,” he said, “when anyone goes into hospital there’s a second bed in the room for the relative or friend who helps look after the invalid.”

  “I think it’s probably a good job we’re in France.” She kissed him and left.

  *

  He slept, woke, was given a light meal which was surprisingly tasty. By now his headache had eased to the point where he was becoming irked by being in bed. When Belinda came into the room he greeted her with much of his old energy.

  She kissed him as he sat up in bed. “You’re looking a whole world better.”

  “I’m feeling a whole world better.”

  “Thank God for that… Angus, darling, the police want to talk to you. The doctor had a word with me about this and he said that the thing to do was to find out how you feel about things.”

  “I’m going to have to see someone sooner or later, so I might as well make it sooner… Have they questioned you about the crash?”

  “Later that first night. I told them the Peugeot tried to crowd us off the road and you tried desperately to get clear, but when the lorry came along in the opposite direction you couldn’t do anything but go round the wrong side of it. I said the driver of the Peugeot must have been drunk… I reckoned that if I’d told them what really happened they’d have got in touch with the English police and then everything would have come out.”

  “Clever as well as decorative!” His words were facetious, but his tone was serious. She must have been severely shocked, yet she’d had sufficient nous to realise the consequence of telling the truth.

  “Angus… Why did those men in the car try to kill us?”

  “I’ve been trying to work that one out and I’m damned if I’ve come up with an answer. On the face of things, it’s because we were asking questions at the motel. But as we didn’t learn a damn thing, I can’t see that it can be that.”

  “God, I was terrified!”

  “And you weren’t doing the driving.”

  She gripped his hand tightly. After a moment she said: “The policeman’s waiting around now. Will you see him?”

  She left the room, to return with a man not as ta
ll as she, who had a tough but good-natured face, and who was dressed a shade too carefully to be smart. He introduced himself, very seriously, in French as Officer Raoux of the Police Judiciaire of the Sûreté Nationale. He wished Sterne a quick and complete convalescence. Then he sat down and began to put questions, leaving Belinda to translate.

  Sterne answered carefully. They’d been driving along the road and the white Peugeot had started to overtake them, but instead of pulling right ahead it had come over as if it were determined to crash into them. He’d used brakes and accelerator to try to get clear. Then a heavy lorry had rounded the bend ahead and because they’d been on the wrong side of the road they’d been boxed in. The only way to escape a head-on crash had been to try to go round the near-side of the lorry. They’d hit the grass verge and bounced off that, missing the rear of the lorry’s trailer, but spinning across the road to hit the Peugeot. After that, he wasn’t at all clear what had happened.

  Raoux fingered his chin as if he’d discovered a stray hair, missed when shaving. “How was the Peugeot being driven when it kept crowding you? Was it weaving about the road?”

  The lorry driver would have been questioned and he must have testified that as far as he could judge the Peugeot had been driven smoothly but crazily. “I don’t think it was, no.”

  “When it came level with you each time, it wasn’t swerving this way and that?”

  “No.”

  “What sort of speed were you doing when you were trying to draw away?”

  “There wasn’t time to check.”

  “But presumably you were travelling about as fast as the car would go?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you were doing, perhaps, between a hundred and forty and a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. When a driver is drunk at that speed he is usually all over the road.”

  Sterne made no comment.

  “When did you first notice this Peugeot?”

  “In the rear-view mirror, a few seconds before it came up to us.”

  “You’ve no idea if it had been following you?”