Jack Higgins - Dark Side of the Street

Vaughan passed the cattle truck within fifteen miles, travelling fast in a green Triumph Spitfire. A mile further on he overtook the old black Ford with Molly at the wheel, but it meant nothing to him. He had never met Crowther's stepdaughter and had certainly no reason to think she was in any way linked with the fugitives.

On the other side of Blackburn, he pulled in at a roadside cafe, found a telephone box and called World Wide Exports in London.

"Hello, sweetie, just thought I'd let you know I checked on our friend and he hadn't managed to come up to scratch. I'm afraid the two packages are on their way to Bampton."

"That's a great pity. What are you doing about it?"

"I closed our account with this branch-seemed no point in carrying on and I can be in Bampton before the merchandise. Thought I'd ensure it gets a suitable reception."

"I'm not certain that's such a good idea. I'd better check. Give me your number and I'll ring back in fifteen minutes."

Vaughan left the phone box, sat on the high stool at the counter and ordered coffee. The young waitress smiled when she gave it to him, impressed by the handsome stranger in the expensive clothes, but Vaughan seemed to look right through her and she moved away feeling rather disappointed.

He lit a cigarette and frowned at himself in the mirror at the back of the counter. It was not that he was remembering what had happened at the farm-he had already dismissed it from his mind as unimportant. He was only interested in what lay ahead, in whether the Baron would decide that he wanted him to dispose of Youngblood and Drummond personally.

Simon Vaughan was thirty-three years of age, the son of a regular army colonel whose wife had deserted him when the boy was eight months old. From then on life had been a long round of other people's houses, boarding schools and army stations abroad for short periods. He had developed into a handsome, smiling boy, strangely lacking in any kind of emotional response to life, but pleasant and popular with everyone.

After Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment and the first rather unpleasant incident had occurred. Lieutenant Vaughan's fanatical insistence on discipline and hard training had included the use of pack drill to punish those who failed to meet his standards. In spite of the physical collapse of four men and a slashing report from the battalion medical officer, he had escaped with only a reprimand.

In Cyprus he had been awarded the Military Cross for personally killing two EOKA members who had holed up in a farmhouse in a village in the Troodos and had defied all attempts to get them out. He had gone in through the roof and had shot it out at close quarters in a manner which had certainly left no doubts about his personal courage, although the discovery that the two insurgents had only one gun between them had left uneasy doubts in some quarters.

These were finally confirmed when Vaughan, by then a captain, was once again in action, this time in the Radfan Mountains of Southern Arabia playing a savage game of hide-and-seek with dissident Yemeni tribesmen. In an effort to extract information from a Bedouin, Vaughan had pegged him out in the sun and employed methods more popular amongst the tribesmen themselves than the British. The man had died, Vaughan had been relieved of his command and quietly retired to avoid any scandal.

His father, acting on the advice of the army medical authorities, had persuaded him to enter a private institution for rest and treatment, but after two weeks Vaughan walked out, disappearing off the face of the earth as far as his family was concerned.

The psychiatrists had experienced little difficulty in making their diagnosis. Simon Vaughan was a psychopath-a mental cripple, a man who was incapable of any ordinary emotion, who lived outside any moral frame of reference whatsoever. The taking of human life affected him no more than would the crushing of an ant underfoot by any average human being. He was the perfect weapon-a blunt instrument with a brilliant and incisive mind and the work he engaged in for his present employer suited his talents admirably.

A middle-aged woman came into the cafe, ordered a coffee and made for the phone box. Vaughan beat her to it, removing his hat and giving her his most charming smile.

"Would you mind awfully if I asked you to hang on for a minute or two? I'm expecting a call."

The woman smiled, her heart fluttering unaccountably, and put a hand to her hair. "Not at all."

"So kind."

Vaughan was still smiling at her through the glass when the phone rang and he picked it up instantly. "Hello, sweetie, what's the good word?"

"Carry on to Bampton and ensure that the merchandise is forwarded to our contact in Gloucester. Give him a ring and tell him what to expect."

"The full treatment?"

"Absolutely. And Simon, he doesn't want you to get involved personally unless it becomes absolutely necessary. If the occasion calls for it, then you have a free hand, but for the moment, simply keep an eye on things and report progress."

"Will do, sweetie."

He came out of the phone box and smiled cheerfully at the middle-aged woman. "Terribly sorry if I've held you up. You must allow me to put your coffee on my check."

She blushed like a young girl. "That isn't necessary-really it isn't."

"Oh, but I insist."

He left a generous tip and went out, whistling softly and the woman sighed and said to the girl behind the counter, "It isn't often you meet young men with manners like that these days."

The girl nodded. "Still, he's a real gentleman, isn't he? Anyone can see that."

Outside, Vaughan gunned the motor of the Spitfire and drove rapidly away.

The needle on the speedometer of the old cattle truck obstinately refused to move past thirty-five and it was coming up half past three when they approached Bampton.

Chavasse tapped Youngblood on the shoulder and pointed to where Molly stood beside the old Ford in a lay-by and Youngblood drew in beside her. It was raining hard, but there was colour in her cheeks and she seemed cheerful and excited when he dropped down to join her.

"How did it go, kid?"

"Fine," she said. "No trouble at all."

He turned to Chavasse who came round the front of the truck. "What was that address again?"

"Alma Cottage."

"Could be anywhere."

"True-Molly had better go in on her own. We don't want to make ourselves too conspicuous."

Youngblood nodded, took out Crowther's wallet and extracted five pounds. "You must be running low on petrol. Fill her right up while you're at it and get me some cigarettes and a newspaper if you can.

She drove away quickly into the heavy rain and the two men climbed back into the cab of the cattle truck.

"No road blocks so far, that's one good thing," Youngblood said.

Chavasse shrugged. "We're more than two hundred miles away from Fridaythorpe now. They aren't looking for us here-not yet anyway."

"Then there was no need to trail along in this old crate," Youngblood said. "We could have ditched the girl and used the Ford."

Chavasse managed to restrain his anger with difficulty. "Maybe you'd prefer to wander round Bampton showing your face all over the place while you try to find Alma Cottage?" he said. "Not me. If we aren't spread across page one by now then we ought to be." He shook his head. "She's earning her keep as far as I'm concerned."

"Maybe you're right at that," Youngblood said grudgingly.

"You can put money on it."

Chavasse sprawled back in the passenger seat, smoked one of his last cigarettes and went over things in his mind. So far, so good. Crowther's treachery to his employers-the fact that he had followed clients through to the Bampton address-had been a major stroke of luck. Without it, they wouldn't have stood a chance and the whole business, the long weary months in prison, would have been all for nothing.