Алистер Маклин - Circus

Precisely at noon on the following day Bruno was met by Maria at Kolszuki station. It was a beautiful, cloudless winter’s day, crisp and clear and sunny, but the wind off the plains to the east was bitingly cold. On the twenty-minute journey out Bruno had passed the time of day studying his own highly-coloured obituary in the Crau Sunday paper. He was astonished at the richness and variety of his career, the international acclaim that followed him wherever he went, the impossible feats he had performed before heads of state the world over: he was particularly touched to discover how kind he had been to little children. It contained just enough fact to make it obvious that the reporter had actually been interviewing someone in the circus, a person clearly possessed of a deadpan sense of humour. That it wasn’t the work of Wrinfield he was sure: Kan Dahn appeared much the most likely culprit if for no reason other than the fact that he was the only person mentioned in the article apart from Bruno. The article, Bruno reflected, augured well for the morrow: the turn-out at the cemetery at 11 a.m. promised to be a remarkable one. Bruno carefully cut the piece out and put it together with the previous day’s black-bordered obituary.

The inn Bruno had in mind was only two miles away. One mile out, he pulled into a lay-by, got out, opened the boot, gave a cursory examination to the tumbler’s mat and the padded hook attached to a rope, closed the boot and returned to his seat.

‘Both mat and rope are just what I wanted. Just let them stay there until Tuesday night. You have this car rented until then?’

‘Until we leave here on Wednesday.’

They pulled off the main road, went some way up a narrow lane, then pulled up in the cobblestoned courtyard of what looked to be a very ancient inn indeed. The head waiter courteously escorted them to a table and took their order. As he was finishing, Bruno said: ‘Do you mind if we sit by that corner table?’ Maria looked her surprise. ‘It’s such a lovely day.’

‘But of course, sir.’

When they were seated, Maria said: ‘I can’t see any lovely day from here. All I can see is the back of a broken-down barn. Why the new table?’

‘I just wanted my back to the room so that no one could see our faces.’

‘You know somebody here?’

‘No. We were followed from the station by a grey Volkswagen. When we stopped at that lay-by he passed us but then pulled into a side turning and waited until we had passed him, then he tucked in behind us again. Where he’s sitting now he’s directly facing our previous table. He may well be a lip-reader.’

She was vexed. ‘It’s supposed to be my job to see those things.’

‘Maybe we should swop jobs.’

‘That’s not very funny,’ she said, then smiled in spite of herself. ‘I somehow don’t see myself as the daring young girl on the flying trapeze. I can’t even stand on a first-floor balcony, even stand on a chair, without getting vertigo. Fact. See what you’re letting yourself in for?’ The smile faded. ‘I may have smiled, Bruno, but I’m not smiling inside. I’m scared. See what else you’re letting yourself in for?’ He said nothing. ‘Well, thanks anyway for not laughing at me. Why are we being followed, Bruno? Who could possibly know we were out here? And who is the person they’re following – you or me?’

‘Me.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Did anyone tail you out here?’

‘No. I’ve listened to your lectures on driving mirrors. I spend more time looking backwards than forwards now when I’m driving. I stopped twice. No one passed me.’

‘So it’s me. And nothing to worry about. I detect Dr Harper’s hand in this. It’s what I take to be the old CIA mentality. Never, never trust anyone. I suspect half the members of espionage and counter-espionage services spend a good deal of their time watching the other half. And how is he to know that I’m not going to go native and revert to my old Crau sympathies? I don’t blame him. This is a very, very difficult situation indeed for the good doctor. A hundred against one that that lad behind us is what it pleases Harper to call his man in Crau. Just do me one favour – when you get back to the circus train, go see Dr Harper and ask him straight out.’

She said doubtfully: ‘You really think so?’

‘I’m certain.’

After lunch they drove back to Kolszuki station with the grey Volkswagen in faithful if distant attendance. Bruno stopped the car outside the main entrance and said: ‘See you tonight?’

‘Oh, yes, please.’ She hesitated. ‘Will it be safe?’

‘Sure. Walk two hundred yards south of the Hunter’s Horn. There’s a café there with the illuminated sign of the Cross of Lorraine. God knows why. I’ll be there. Nine o’clock.’ He put his arm round her. ‘Don’t look so sad, Maria.’

‘I’m not sad.’

‘Don’t you want to come?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I want to spend every minute of the day with you.’

‘Dr Harper wouldn’t approve.’

‘I suppose not.’ She took his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes. ‘But have you ever thought that now is all the time there may be?’ She shivered. ‘I can feel someone walking over my grave.’

‘Nobody’s got any manners any more,’ Bruno said. ‘Tell him to get off.’ Without looking at or speaking to him again she let in the clutch of the car and moved off: he watched her until she disappeared from sight.

Bruno was lying on the bed in his hotel room when the phone rang. The operator asked if he was Mr Neuhaus and when Bruno said he was put the caller through. It was Maria.

‘Tanya,’ he said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

There was a pause while she apparently adjusted to her new name, then she said: ‘You were quite right. Our friend admits responsibility for what happened at lunch-time.’

‘Jon Neuhaus right as ever. See you at the appointed time.’

By 6 p.m. that evening the full darkness of night had already fallen. The temperature was well below freezing, a faint wind was stirring and patches of slowly drifting cloud occasionally obscured the three-quarter moon. Most of the sky was bright with twinkling frosty stars.

The lorry parked outside the truck-drivers’ pull-up, three miles south of the town, was filled almost to capacity. From the low single-storey café came bright yellow light and the sound of jukebox music: the café was being heavily patronized, drivers entering or leaving at fairly regular intervals. One driver, a middle-aged man enveloped in the numerous swathes of his breed, emerged and climbed into his vehicle, a large and empty furniture van with two hinged rear doors and securing battens running along both sides. There was no partition between the driver and the body of the van: just that single seat up front. The driver turned the ignition, the big diesel thudded into life but before the driver could touch brake, clutch or gear he was slumped forward over his wheel, unconscious. A pair of giant hands reached under his armpits, plucked him from his seat as if he were a puppet and deposited him on the floor of the van.

Manuelo applied adhesive to the unfortunate driver’s mouth and then set about fixing a blindfold. He said: ‘I am grieved that we should have to treat an innocent citizen in this manner.’

‘Agreed, agreed.’ Kan Dahn shook his head sadly and tightened the last knot on their victim’s wrists. ‘But the greatest good of the greatest number. Besides,’ he said hopefully, ‘he may not be an innocent citizen.’

Ron Roebuck, who was securing the man’s ankles to one of the parallel securing battens, did not appear to think that the situation called for any comment. There were lassos, clothes-lines, heavy twine and a large coil of nylon rope – the most conspicuous of all and by far the heaviest and thickest: it was knotted at eighteen-inch intervals.