Алистер Маклин - Caravan to Vaccares

Czerda took the keys. ‘The brass one’s not.’ He removed it from the ring. ‘Sixty-five. For once, the truth. How’s the money wrapped?’

‘Oilskin, brown paper, sealing-wax. My name’s on it.’

‘Good.’ He looked round. Maca was sitting on the top of some caravan steps. Czerda beckoned him and he came to where they were, rubbing his chin and looked malevolently at Bowman. Czerda said: ‘Young José has a motor scooter, hasn’t he?’

‘You want a message done. I’ll get him. He’s in the arena.’

‘No need.’ Czerda gave him the key. ‘That’s for safe deposit sixty-five in Arles station. Tell him to open it and bring back the brown paper parcel inside. Tell him to be as careful with it as he would be with his own life. It’s a very, very valuable parcel. Tell him to come back here as soon as possible and give it to me and if I’m not here someone will know where I’ve gone and he’s to come after me. Is that clear?’

Maca nodded and left. Czerda said: ‘I think it’s time we paid a visit to the bullring ourselves.’

They crossed the road but went not directly to the arena but to one of several adjacent huts which were evidently used as changing rooms, for the one they entered was behung with matadors’ and razateurs’ uniforms and several outfits of clowns’ attire. Czerda pointed to one of the last. ‘Get into that.’

‘That?’ Bowman eyed the garish rigout. ‘Why the hell should I?’

‘Because my friend here asks you to.’ Czerda waved his gun. ‘Don’t make my friend angry.’

Bowman did as he was told. When he was finished he was far from surprised to see El Brocador exchange his conspicuous white uniform for his dark suit, to see Searl pull on a long blue smock, then to see all three men put on paper masks and comic hats. They appeared to have a craving for anonymity, a not unusual predilection on the part of would-be murderers. Czerda draped a red flag over his gun and they left for the arena.

When they arrived at the entrance to the callajon Bowman was mildly astonished to discover that the comic act that had been in process when he’d left was still not finished: so much seemed to have happened since he’d left the arena that it was difficult to realize that so few minutes had elapsed. They arrived to find that one of the clowns, incredibly, was doing a handstand on the back of the bull, which just stood there in baffled fury, its head swinging from side to side. The crowd clapped ecstatically: had the circumstances been different, Bowman thought, he might even have clapped himself.

For their final brief act the clowns waltzed towards the side of the arena to the accompaniment of their companion’s accordion. They stopped, faced the crowd side by side and bowed deeply, apparently unaware that their backs were towards the charging bull. The crowd screamed a warning: the clowns, still bent, pushed each other apart at the last moment and the bull hurtled wildly over the spot where they had been standing only a second previously and crashed into the barrier with an impact that momentarily stunned it. As the clowns vaulted into the callajon the crowd continued to whistle and shout their applause. It occurred to Bowman to wonder whether they would still be in such a happily carefree mood in a few minutes’ time: it seemed unlikely.

The ring was empty now and Bowman and his three escorts had moved out into the callajon. The crowd stared with interest and in considerable amusement at Bowman’s attire and he was, unquestionably, worth a second glance. He was clad in a most outlandish fashion. His right leg was enclosed in red, his left in white and the doublet was composed of red and white squares. The flexible green canvas shoes he wore were so ludicrously long that the toes were tied back into the shins. He wore a white conical pierrot’s hat with a red pom-pom on top: for defence he was armed with a slender three-foot cane with a small tricolor at the end of it.

‘I have the gun, I have the girl,’ Czerda said softly. ‘You will remember?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘If you try to escape, the girl will not live. You believe me?’

Bowman believed him. He said: ‘And if I die, the girl will not live either.’

‘No. Without you, the girl is nothing, and Czerda does not make war on women. I know who you are now, or think I do. It is no matter. I have discovered that you never met her until last night and it is unthinkable that a man like you would tell her anything of importance: professionals never explain more than they have to, do they, Mr Bowman? And young girls can be made to talk, Mr Bowman. She can do us no harm. When we’ve done what we intend to do, and that will be in two days, she is free to go.’

‘She knows where Alexandre is buried.’

‘Ah, so. Alexandre? Who is Alexandre?’

‘Of course. Free to go?’

‘You have my word.’ Bowman didn’t doubt him. ‘In exchange, you will now put on a convincing struggle.’

Bowman nodded. The three men grabbed him or tried to grab him and all four staggered about the callajon. The colourful crowd were by now in excellent humour, gay, chattering, relaxed: all evidently felt that they were having a splendid afternoon’s entertainment and that this mock-fight that was taking place in the callajon – for mock-fight it surely was, there were no upraised arms, no blows being struck in anger – was but the prelude to another hilariously comic turn, it had to be, with the man trying to struggle free dressed in that ridiculous pierrot’s costume. Eventually, to the accompaniment of considerable whistling, laughter and shouts of encouragement, Bowman broke free, ran a little way along the callajon and vaulted into the ring. Czerda ran after him, made to clamber over the barrier but was caught and restrained by Searl and El Brocador, who pointed excitedly to the north end of the ring. Czerda followed their direction.

They were not the only ones looking in that direction. The crowd had suddenly fallen silent, their laughter had ceased and the smiles vanished: puzzlement had replaced their humour, a puzzlement that rapidly shaded into anxiety and apprehension. Bowman’s eyes followed the direction of those of the crowd: he could not only understand the apprehension of the crowd, he reflected, but shared it to the fullest extent.

The northern toril gate had been drawn and a bull stood at the entrance. But this was not the small light black bull of the Camargue that was used in the cours libre – the bloodless bullfight of Provence: this was a huge Spanish fighting bull, one of the Andalusian monsters that fight to the death in the great corridas of Spain. It had enormous shoulders, an enormous head and a terrifying spread of horn. Its head was low but not as low as it would be when it launched itself into its charge: it pawed the ground, alternately dragging each front hoof backwards, gouging deep channels in the dark sand.

Members of the crowd were by this time looking at one another in uneasy and rather fearful wonder. For the most part they were aficionados of the sport and they knew that what they were seeing was quite unprecedented and this could be no better than sending a man, no matter how brave and skillful a razateur he might be, to his certain death.

The giant bull was now advancing slowly into the ring, at the same time still contriving to make those deep backwards scores in the sand. Its great head was lower than before.

Bowman stood stock-still. His lips were compressed, his eyes narrow and still watchful. Some twelve hours previously, when inching up the ledge on the cliff-face in the ruined battlements of the ancient fortress he had known fear, and now he knew it again and admitted it to himself. It was no bad thing, he thought wryly. Fear it was that sent the adrenaline pumping, and adrenaline was the catalyst that triggered off the capacity for violent action and abnormally swift reaction: as matters stood now he was going to need all the adrenaline he could lay hands on. But he was coldly aware that if he survived at all it could only be for the briefest of periods: all the adrenaline in the world couldn’t save him now.