Alistair MacLean - Circus

“Very strange smell in this car, I must say.” Maria said: “I’m afraid I’ve just broken a phial of perfume. A drop is nice — but a whole bottle — well, it is a bit strong, I must say.”

Bruno, stammering slightly and with his voice sounding acutely embarrassed, said: “What is it, officer? This is my fiancée.” He held up Maria’s beringed left hand so that there should be no doubt about it. “Surely there’s no law —” “Indeed not.” The policeman leaned a confidential elbow on the window-sill. “But there’s a law against parking in a main street.”

“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t realize —”

“It’s the fumes,” the policeman said kindly. “Your mind must be all befuddled.”

“Yes, officer.” Bruno smiled weakly. “Is it all right if we park behind those trucks?” Hopefully, he indicated the vehicles in the south lane.

“Certainly. Don’t catch cold now. And, comrade?”

“Officer?”

“If you love her so much, why don’t you buy your fiancée a bottle of decent perfume? Needn’t be expensive, you know.” The policeman beamed and walked away with his colleague. Maria, remembering her momentary yielding to Bruno, said in a cross voice: “Well, thank you. For a moment there I thought you had found me irresistible.”

“Always use your rear-view mirror. It’s just as important when you’re stationary as when you’re driving.” She made a face at him as he pulled the car into the south lane.

The two policemen watched them park. They moved out of eyeshot of the car. The larger man pulled a walkie talkie microphone from his breast pocket, pressed a button and said:

“They’re parked in the south lane by the Lubylan, Colonel.” “Excellent.” Even with the metallic distortion and the fact that his speech was interrupted by a series of whooping gasps — laughter was an unaccustomed exercise for him — Sergius’s voice was unmistakable. “Just leave the love-birds be.” It took Bruno and Maria minutes only to establish that there were indeed ground-level guards. There were three of them and they kept up a continuous peripheral patrol, each making a full circuit of the Lubylan in turn. At no time was any guard in sight of the other two. As sentries, they were a degree less than enthusiastic. Not for them the continually roving, probing eye, the piercing scrutiny of all that lay in their path of vision: with downcast gaze and trudging steps, they gave the impression of thoroughly miserable men, huddled against the cold and living only for the moment of their relief. There had been night-time sentries patrolling the Lubylan for ten, perhaps twenty years, and probably no untoward incident had ever occurred: there was no conceivable reason why it ever should. From the two watchtowers they could see, the south-west and south-east ones, searchlights flashed occasionally and erratically along the tops of the perimeter walls. There was no discernible predetermined sequence to the switching on and off of the searchlights: it appeared to be a quite random process, its arbitrary nature dependent on the whim of the guard. After twenty minutes Bruno drove off to the public convenience he had patronized earlier that evening. He left the car, kissed Maria goodbye as she moved into the driver’s seat and disappeared into the depths. When he emerged, the grimy parcel with the old clothes and the amatol tucked under his arm, he was clad in his original sartorial glory.

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 cobble-stoned courtyard of what looked to be a very ancient inn indeed. The head waiter courteously escorted them to a corner 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 by 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?”