Алистер Маклин - Caravan to Vaccares

‘Out!’ Bowman said.

Carita opened her mouth to protest but Bowman was in no mood for protests. He jerked open the door and practically lifted her on to the road. Immediately afterwards he was behind the wheel himself.

‘Wait!’ Cecile said. ‘Wait! We’re coming with–’

‘Not this time.’ He leaned down and plucked Cecile’s handbag from her. She stared at him, slightly open-mouthed, but said nothing. He went on: ‘Go into the town. Phone the police in Saintes-Maries, tell them there’s a sick girl in a green-and-white caravan in a lay-by a kilometre and a half north of the town and that they’re to get her to a hospital at once. Don’t tell them who you are, don’t tell them a single thing more than that. Just hang up.’ He nodded to Lila and Carita. ‘Those two will do for a start.’

‘Do for what?’ She was, understandably, bemused.

‘Bridesmaids.’

The road between Aigues-Mortes and Le Grau du Roi is only a few kilometres long and, for the most part, it parallels the canal at a distance of a few feet: the only boundary line between them, if such it can be called, is a thin line of tall reeds. It was through those reeds, less than a minute after starting up the Rolls, that Bowman caught his first glimpse of the powerboat, fewer than a hundred yards ahead. It was already travelling at an illegally high speed, its stern dug into the water, spray flying high and wide from the deflectors on the bows: the wash set up by the wake of its passing was sending waves high up both sides of the canal banks.

Searl was at the wheel, Masain, El Brocador and Ferenc were seated but keeping a watchful eye on the passengers, while Le Grand Duc and Czerda were conversing near the after door of the cabin. Czerda looked most unhappy.

He said: ‘But how can you be sure that he can bring no harm to us?’

‘I’m sure.’ The passage of time had restored Le Grand Duc to his old confident self.

‘But he’ll go to the police. He’s bound to.’

‘So? You heard what he said himself. His solitary word against all of ours? With all his evidence half-way to China? They’ll think he’s mad. Even if they don’t, there’s nothing in the world they can prove.’

‘I still don’t like it,’ Czerda said stubbornly. ‘I think–’

‘Leave the thinking to me,’ Le Grand Duc said curtly. ‘Good God!’

There was a splintering of glass, the sound of a shot and a harsh cry of pain from Searl, who abandoned the wheel in favour of clutching his left shoulder. The boat swerved violently and headed straight for the left bank: it would unquestionably have struck it had not Czerda, although older than any of his companions and the farthest from the wheel, reacted with astonishing speed, hurled himself forward and spun the wheel hard to starboard. He succeeded in preventing the powerboat from burying – and probably crushing – its bows in the bank, but wasn’t in time to prevent the wildly slewing boat from crashing its port side heavily against the bank with an impact that threw all who were standing, except Czerda, and quite a few who were seated, to the deck. It was at that instant that Czerda glanced through a side window and saw Bowman, at the wheel of the Rolls-Royce and less than five yards distant on the paralleling road, taking careful aim with Le Grand Duc’s pistol through an open window.

‘Down!’ shouted Czerda. He was the first down himself. ‘Flat on the floor.’

Again there came the sound of smashing glass, again the simultaneous report from the pistol, but no one was hurt. Czerda rose to a crouch, eased the throttle, handed the wheel over to Masaine, and joined Le Grand Duc and Ferenc who had already edged out, on all fours, to the poop-deck. All three men peered cautiously over the gunwale, then stood upright, thoughtfully holding their guns behind their backs.

The Rolls had dropped thirty yards back. Bowman was being blocked by a farm tractor towing a large four-wheeled trailer, and balked from overtaking by several cars approaching from the south.

‘Faster,’ Czerda said to Masaine. ‘Not too fast – keep just ahead of that tractor. That’s it. That’s it.’ He watched the last of the north-bound cars go by on the other side of the road. ‘Here he comes now.’

The long green nose of the Rolls appeared in sight beyond the tractor. The three men in the cockpit levelled their guns and the tractor-driver, seeing them, braked and swerved so violently that he came to a rest with the right front wheel of his tractor overhanging the bank of the canal. Its abrupt braking and swerve brought the entire length of the car completely and suddenly in sight.

Bowman, gun cocked in hand and ready to use, saw what was about to happen, dropped the gun and threw himself below the level of the door sills. He winced as bullet after bullet thudded into the bodywork of the Rolls. The windscreen suddenly starred and became completely opaque. Bowman thrust his fist through the bottom of the glass, kicked the accelerator down beyond the detente and accelerated swiftly away. It was obvious that, with the element of surprise gone, he stood no chance whatsoever against the three armed men in the poop. He wondered vaguely how Le Grand Duc felt about the sudden drop in the resale market value of his Rolls.

He drove at high speed past the arena on his left into the town of Grau du Roi, skidding the car to a halt at the approaches to the swing bridge that crossed the canal and connected the two sides of the town. He opened Cecile’s bag, peeled money from the roll of Swiss francs he had taken from Czerda’s caravan, put the roll back in the bag, thrust the bag into a cubby-hole, hoped to heaven the citizens of Grau du Roi were honest, left the car and ran down the quayside.

He slowed down to a walk as he approached the craft moored along the left bank, just below the bridge. It was a wide-beamed, high-prowed fishing boat, of wooden and clearly very solid construction, that had seen its best days some years ago. Bowman approached a grey-jerseyed fisherman of middle age who was sitting on a bollard and lethargically mending a net.

‘That’s a fine boat you’ve got there,’ Bowman said in his best admiring tourist fashion. ‘Is it for rent?’

The fisherman was taken aback by the directness of the approach. Matters involving finance were customarily approached with a great deal more finesse.

‘Fourteen knots and built like a tank,’ the owner said proudly. ‘The finest wooden-hulled fishing boat in the south of France. Twin Perkins diesels. Like lightning! And so strong. But only for charter, m’sieur. And even then only when the fishing is bad.’

‘Too bad, too bad.’ Bowman took out some Swiss francs and fingered them. ‘Not even for an hour? I have urgent reasons, believe me.’ He had, too. In the distance he could hear the rising note of Le Grand Duc’s powerboat.

The fisherman screwed up his eyes as if in thought: it is not easy to ascertain the denomination of foreign banknotes at a distance of four feet. But sailors’ eyes are traditionally keen. He stood and slapped his thigh.

‘I will make an exception,’ he announced, then added cunningly: ‘But I will have to come with you, of course.’

‘Of course. I would have expected nothing else.’ Bowman handed over two one-thousand Swiss franc notes. There was a legerdemain flick of the wrist and the notes disappeared from sight.

‘When does m’sieur wish to leave?’

‘Now.’ He could have had the boat anyway, Bowman knew, but he preferred Czerda’s banknotes to the waving of a gun as a means of persuasion: that he would eventually have to wave his gun around he did not doubt.

They cast off, went aboard and the fisherman started the engines while Bowman peered casually aft. The sound of the powerboat’s engines was very close now. Bowman turned and watched the fisherman push the throttles forward as he gave the wheel a turn to starboard. The fishing boat began to move slowly away from the quayside.