Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

At this moment Lennox cursed himself for accepting Peter Lanz's theory that by now the remnants of the Commando would, be fleeing back to Russia. It had been a reasonable theory at the time-because the third witness on Lasalle's list had just been killed, so why should the Commando linger? Lennox walked back into the hotel out of sight of the bar as though leaving by the front entrance, then he ran up a wide staircase which turned twice before reaching the upper landing. He waited at the top where he could see through a window to the road beyond.

The barman had disappeared behind a curtain when Lansky returned to the bar where Vanek was leaning against the counter. Picking up his drink, Lansky swallowed it as Vanek played with the glass in his hand. 'That Frenchman I saw coming out of No. 49-Jouvel's place-the chap I bumped into, is in the wash-room here,' he said in a quiet voice. 'That's no coincidence…'

`Are you sure? Describe him,' Vanek said casually.

Lansky described Lennox in a few words. 'I'm quite sure,' he said. `I'm trained to remember things like that-in case you've forgotten. We looked at each other in the mirror for a few seconds and we both knew each other. I could have dealt with him-the place was empty-but that would have sparked off the police and we don't want that at the moment, do we?'

`No, we don't. Incidentally, he's looking in at the bar now, so don't turn round…' The situation didn't surprise Vanek; sooner or later something was bound to go wrong-it had in Freiburg-up to a point. It was just a question of deciding how to handle it. 'He's gone now,' Vanek said. 'I think we'll get away from here, too.'

As they walked out of the front door a Peugeot 504 with a single man behind the wheel was moving off to Saverne after filling up with petrol. The rain obscured the silhouette of the driver. 'That's probably him,' Vanek said. From the first-floor window Lennox watched them drive off in the direction of Saverne. Going downstairs he went back into the bar where the barman was polishing more glasses. Ordering another cognac, Lennox made the remark as casually as he could.

`Those two men who came in here after me-I thought I recognized one of them. Or are they locals?'

`Never seen them before-and don't want to see them a second time. I gathered from the tall one they're something to do with market research. They pick names of people and go ask them damned silly questions. I think they're on their way to see Annette Devaud…'

`Really?'

`Something to do with a campaign to increase pensions,' the barman explained. 'Was her husband alive they wanted to know. How could they find Woodcutter's Farm? I just told them-I didn't draw them a map like I did for you.' The barman grinned sourly. 'And I didn't tell them Annette will chase them off her property with a shotgun as good as spit…'

Lennox finished his drink quickly and went out to where the Mercedes was waiting for him. If anything, it was raining even more heavily, and as he drove away from the hotel he saw in the distance thick rain-mist enveloping the Vosges mountains. There had been mist at Freiburg when the Commando killed Dieter Wohl and now there was mist over the Vosges. The association of ideas worried him as he pressed his foot down and drove well beyond the limit in his attempt to overtake the Renault.

Carel Vanek was a fast driver but Alan Lennox was a more ruthless driver. Risking patrol-cars-and the appalling weather -moving at over a hundred and ten kilometres an hour, the Englishman came up behind the Czech just beyond Saverne where the highway climbs into the mountains. For a moment there was a brief spell of shafted sunlight breaking through the clouds, illuminating the peaks of the Vosges, the shiny road ahead, and less than three hundred metres away Lennox saw the Renault arcing round a bend, sending up spurts of water from under its fast-moving wheels. Then it began to rain again, slanting rain which slashed down like a water curtain.

In the brief glimpse of sunlight Lennox saw the ground sloping away to the right beyond the road edge in a severe drop. He reduced speed a little, maintaining his distance behind the car in front. His opportunity came less than half a minute later as they still circled up the side of the mountain with the slope continuing down to the right. In the distance- where the road reappeared as it descended again-coming towards him, towards the speeding Renault, he saw the blur of a large truck. Lennox pressed his foot down, closing the gap until he was almost on the tail of the car ahead. Still climbing, the road straightened out as the oncoming vehicle, which he now realized was a huge timber wagon, came closer. He timed it carefully, gauging the width of the road, the combined width of the three vehicles, then he pulled out without warning and accelerated.

`Bloody maniac…'

Behind the wheel of the Renault, Vanek, still keeping a lookout for the Peugeot 504, was startled as the car coming up behind him began to overtake seconds before the timber wagon passed them. Instinctively he steered nearer to the right-hand edge where rain-mist blurred the view, trying to give maximum possible passage to the crazy idiot who was overtaking at this dangerous moment. Behind the windscreen of the timber wagon's cab the driver blinked as he saw what was happening, but there was no room to give leeway.

`Watch it,' said Lansky, suddenly alerted. 'There was a Mercedes at that hotel…

Lennox was alongside the Renault, squeezed into a gap where there was no margin for the slightest error as the timber wagon started moving past. Then it was gone. Lennox turned the wheel slightly. The side of the Mercedes cannoned against the side of the Renault. The wet road did the rest. The Renault skidded and went over the edge.

The slope was less steep at this point on the mountain. Vanek wrestled desperately as he felt the car go over and down, losing speed as he released pressure on the accelerator, allowing the car to follow its own momentum. The wheels were slipping on a muddy slope, churning up great gouts of mud which splashed over the windscreen, blotting out vision, so Vanek was driving blind as he lost more speed, as the car went down and down, skidding and sliding, twisting and turning while the Czech fought to keep the vehicle on some kind of straight course. Then, not knowing what lay ahead, he braked. The car hit something. Then stopped.

`We're alive,' Vanek gasped hoarsely.

`That's something,' Lansky agreed.

When they got out into the rain they were half-way down a long slope with the road obscured by mist where they had come over. A grassy rampart had stopped them sliding even further. A few metres beyond where the Renault had stopped a muddy farm-track continued on down the slope and went back up the hill towards the highway. 'It was that Frenchman I saw in the wash-room,' Lansky said. 'I caught a glimpse of him behind the wheel just before he hit us. He can't be the police or he wouldn't have bounced us over the edge.'

`We meet him again, we finish him,' Vanek replied. 'Now we've got to heave this car round and then I'll try and make it up the track. It's going to take time,' he added.

High on the mountain Lennox stopped the Mercedes close to the edge and looked down. He had to wait a minute until the mist cleared and then he saw the car and two small figures moving round it far below. One of them got inside the Renault and the faint sound of the motor starting drifted up to him. After a minute it stopped, the driver got out and both men started manhandling the vehicle.

Disappointed, Lennox drove off. Hoping to kill them, he had gained only a respite.

The weather higher up was foul and he was forced to cut his speed. Clouds blotted out the mountain summits, a grey mist smothered the lower slopes and the world outside the car was a shimmer of dark fir forest in the gliding fog. The address Dieter Wohl had provided-Woodcutter's Farm, Saverne-was misleading, as are so many addresses in rural France. Annette Devaud lived some distance from Saverne. Using the map drawn on the back of a menu card by the barman at the Auberge des Vosges, Lennox drove on through the mist. At one point he passed close to a canal far below him in a cut where oil-skinned figures moved about on a huge barge. Turning a corner, he saw a crude wooden sign rearing above a hedge. Woodcutter's Farm.