Алистер Маклин - The Way to Dusty Death

‘Gone to Marseilles. He said. With Neubauer.’

‘He was out here, too? He would be. And Jacobson?’

‘Out in his car. Looking for the twins. He said.’

‘He’s probably taken a spade with him. I’ll get the spare keys and fetch the Ferrari. Meet you at the transporter in fifteen minutes. With the gun. And money.’

Harlow turned and walked away. Rory, rising rather unsteadily to his feet, followed. Dunnet put an arm round Mary’s shoulders, pulled out a breast handkerchief and proceeded to clean her tear-ravaged face. Mary looked at him in wonderment.

‘Are you what Johnny said you were? Special Branch? Interpol?’

‘Well, yes, I’m a police officer of sorts.’

‘Then stop him, Mr Dunnet. I beg of you. Stop him.’

‘Don’t you know your Johnny yet?’

Mary nodded miserably, waited until Dunnet had effected his running repairs, then said: ‘He’s after Tracchia, isn’t he?’

‘He’s after Tracchia. He’s after a lot of people. But the person he’s really after is Jacobson. If Johnny says that Jacobson is directly responsible for the deaths of seven people, then he’s directly responsible for the deaths of seven people. Apart from that he has two personal scores to settle with Jacobson.’

‘His young brother?’ Dunnet nodded. ‘And the other?’

‘Look at your left foot, Mary.’

At the roundabout south of Vignolles, a black Citroën braked to give precedence to Harlow’s red Ferrari. As the Ferrari swept by, Jacobson, at the wheel of the Citroën, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, turned his car towards Vignolles and stopped by the first roadside telephone booth.

In the Vignolles canteen MacAlpine and Dunnet were finishing a meal in the now almost deserted room. They were both looking towards the door, watching Mary leave.

MacAlpine sighed. ‘My daughter is in low spirits tonight.’

‘Your daughter is in love.’

‘I fear so. And where the hell has that young devil Rory got to?’

‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Harlow caught that young devil eavesdropping.’

‘Oh, no. Not again?’

‘Again. The ensuing scene was quite painful really. I was there. I rather think that Rory was afraid that he might find Johnny here. Johnny, in fact, is in bed – I don’t think he’d any sleep last night.’

‘And that sounds a very attractive proposition to me. Bed, I mean. I feel unaccountably tired tonight. If you will excuse me, Alexis.’

He half rose to his feet, then sat down again as Jacobson entered and approached their table. He looked very tired indeed.

MacAlpine said: ‘What luck?’

‘Zero. I’ve searched everywhere within five miles of here. Nothing. But I’ve just had a report from the police that two people answering closely to their descriptions have been seen in Le Beausset – and there can’t be many people around like the terrible twins. I’ll just have a bite and go there. Have to find a car first, though. Mine’s on the blink – hydraulics gone.’

MacAlpine handed Jacobson a set of car keys. ‘Take my Aston.’

‘Well, thank you, Mr MacAlpine. Insurance papers?’

‘Everything in the glove box. Very kind of you to go to such trouble, I must say.’

‘They’re my boys too, Mr MacAlpine.’

Dunnet gazed expressionlessly into the middle distance.

The Ferrari’s speedometer registered 180 kph. Harlow was clearly paying scant attention to the French 110 kph restriction, but from time to time, purely from instinct, for it seemed unlikely that there was any police car in France capable of overtaking him, he consulted his rear mirror. But there was at no time anything to be seen except the coils of rope, hook and first-aid box on the back seat and the hump of a dirty white tarpaulin which had been clearly flung carelessly on the floor.

An incredible forty minutes after leaving Vignolles the Ferrari passed the Marseilles sign. A kilometre farther on the Ferrari pulled up as traffic lights changed to red. Harlow’s face was so battered and bruised and covered in plaster that it was impossible to tell what expression it wore. But the eyes were as calm and steady and watchful as ever, his posture as immobile as ever: no impatience, no drumming of fingers on the wheel. But even Harlow’s total relaxation could be momentarily upset.

‘Mr Harlow.’ The voice came from the rear of the car.

Harlow swung round and stared at Rory, whose head had just emerged from its cocoon of canvas tarpaulin. When Harlow spoke it was with slow, deliberate, spaced words.

‘What the hell are you doing there?’

Rory said defensively: ‘I thought you might be needing a bit of a hand, like.’

Harlow restrained himself with what was obviously an immense effort.

‘I could say “This is all I need” but I don’t think that would help much.’ From an inner pocket he fished out some of the money that Dunnet had given him. ‘Three hundred francs. Get a hotel and phone Vignolles for a car in the morning.’

‘No, thank you, Mr Harlow. I made a terrible mistake about you. I’m just plain stupid, I guess. I won’t say sorry, for all the sorries in the world are not enough. The best way to say “sorry” is to help. Please, Mr Harlow.’

‘Look, laddie, I’ll be meeting people tonight, people who would kill you soon as look at you. And now I’m responsible for you to your father.’

The lights changed and the Ferrari moved on. What little could be seen of Harlow’s face looked slightly bemused.

‘And that’s another thing,’ Rory said. ‘What’s wrong with him? My father, I mean.’

‘He’s being blackmailed.’

‘Dad? Blackmailed?’ Rory was totally incredulous.

‘Nothing he’s ever done. I’ll tell you some time.’

‘Are you going to stop those people from blackmailing him?’

‘I hope so.’

‘And Jacobson. The man who crippled Mary. I must have been mad to think it was your fault. Are you going to get him, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t say “I hope so” this time. You said “Yes”.’

‘That’s right.’

Rory cleared his throat and said diffidently: ‘You going to marry Mary, Mr Harlow?’

‘The prison walls appear to be closing round me.’

‘Well, I love her too. Different like, but just as much. If you’re going after the bastard who crippled Mary I’m coming too.’

‘Watch your language,’ Harlow said absently. He drove some way in silence then sighed in resignation. ‘OK. But only if you promise to stay out of sight and keep safe.’

‘I’ll stay out of sight and keep safe.’

Harlow made to bite his upper lip and winced as he bit the gash in that lip. He looked in the rear mirror. Rory, now sitting on the back seat, was smiling with considerable satisfaction. Harlow shook his head in what might have been disbelief or despair or both.

Ten minutes later Harlow parked the car in an alleyway about three hundred yards away from the rue Georges Sand, packed all the equipment into a canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder and set off, accompanied by a Rory whose expression of complacency had now changed to one of considerable apprehension. Other factors apart, there was a sound enough reason for Rory’s nervousness. It was a bad night for the purposes Harlow had in mind. A full moon hung high in a cloudless starlit Riviera sky. The visibility was at least as good as it would have been on an overcast winter’s afternoon. The only difference was that moon-shadows are much darker.

Harlow and Rory were now pressed close into the shadow of one of the ten-foot high walls that surrounded the Villa Hermitage. Harlow examined the contents of the bag.

‘Now then. Rope, hook, tarpaulin, twine, insulated wire-cutters, chisels, first-aid box. Yes, the lot.’