Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

I had a private hope that we might break the Une of evidence here – out-run the ripples again. If we could cross the border unseen and leave the Gendarmerie believing we were still in France, we'd have done it. A lot depended on whether or not they'd identified the wrecked Citroën DS as Maganhard's. I was pretty sure they must have found it by now: the extra shooting and the wrecked Renault would have started them combing the area more thoroughly than I'd first expected.

In one way, I hoped theyhad identified it. It would switch suspicion away from the northern route from Paris, but it might also convince them that we were stuck somewhere, hiding out, without transport. I wasn't worried about them thinking of the old Rat-line or Clos Pinel: they wouldn't think of them unless they knew I was involved -and I still believed they didn't know about me.

Unless Harvey had loused up cleaning the car and they'd got a set of my fingerprints. But they wouldn't know theywere mine – I'd never been arrested in France. Or had the Deuxième Bureautaken the trouble of getting my prints when I was 'attached to the Embassy' in Paris? They'd known about me, of course. And if they knew about me now, they might think of the old Resistance routes across the Geneva frontier…

I shook my head. You can get too clever with any police force, as well as too stupid. You've got it all worked out that they must have heard of X so they'll have stopped watching Y. And you roll up at Y, straight into their loving arms – all because the report about X has been sitting on the Superintendent's desk for three hours and nobody's remembered to tell him about it.

It's the same as systems at roulette: the wheel ain't heard of them. I'd decided to cross at Geneva. That was still the number to put my money on.

The night droned past us. Beside me, Ginette swung the big flat wheel like aroutier, her face now and then lit by the reflection of the headlights. I lit a cigarette and watchedher, serene and controlled, as the van buzzed up the steepening road into the Savoie.

'If you get stopped,' I asked, 'what's your story?'

'I shall deliver some wine in Geneva, anyway: two restaurants there take Pinel. And there is a good one in Gex. I will try to sell some there first, after I have had breakfast.'

'Why did you have to arrive there so early?'

'Because, Monsieur le Gendarme, I have an appointment at Pinel soon after lunch.'

'And have you?'

'I told Maurice to fix one – a safe one.'

'And you still think you need a manager?'

She smiled faintly. 'I need somebody to look after the wine while I look after the old Resistance friends who come through.'

'Touché.'

Soon after that, I fell asleep. I woke up as we came into thezone francheand started skirting round, with the frontier a kilometre or two on our right, to approach Geneva from the north-west.

She should have woken me: I'd missed my turn at the wheel. But it would have been hypocritical to complain. Liechtenstein was still nearly four hundred kilometres away; it could be a long day yet.

Ginette said: 'I think we are close, Louis.'

She'd turned right a few kilometres before Gex and was heading down towards Ferney-Voltaire, just about on the frontier.

'Don't get too near,' I said. The cops were likely to be prowling well inside the frontier, not just on it. And I didn't want them to wonder about a van that they heard come close, stop, and go back.

She said: 'Here, then,' and drew up. She kept the engine running. I swung down, ran round and opened the doors at the back. Somebody started pulling the crates of wine aside. Maganhard stepped down, then the girl. Then Harvey.

He was like somebody who'd been dragged out of the rubble of a bombed building. Weaving and staggering and shaking his head and then obviously wishing he hadn't. As a gunman, he looked just about fit enough to tackle a rather tired kitten.

I shut the doors quietly and went back to the cab. 'Thanks, Ginette. On your way.'

She reached across to my window. 'Look after yourself, Louis – please.'

'I'll let you know. Probably tonight.'

'Please.'

We touched hands, and then the van was growling off into the night. I waved a hand at the roadside. 'Over there, into the field. Quick.'

'Quick' was a pretty optimistic word for this crew. It took us a full minute to get through the hedge and up to our shins in long, dew-soaked grass. The only thing you could count on in this job was getting your feet wet every twelve hours.

I'd insisted on leaving all the luggage except my briefcase back at Pinel – and I'd only hung on to that because of the Mauser and the maps. I took it in one hand, grabbed Harvey's arm with the other, and led off along the hedge.

The van's engine died in the distance. The night was cold and thick, without stars. The weather we'd left behind in Brittany had caught up with us again, but at least it seemed to have dropped all its rain already. Ahead, there was an intermittent glow, alternately white and green, reflecting on the low clouds. The Geneva-Cointrin airport beacon. I headed towards it.

It was a quarter to five; three-quarters of an hour to first light.

For a time nobody said anything. We weren't walking very quietly, but you can't teach people to make no noise just by telling them not to. It takes practice. But the heavy damp air meant that sounds wouldn't carry far.

The girl said softly: 'What's that?'

I snapped my head around, butthat was just a big dark house on the horizon a few hundred yards away, with a line of trees leading up to it.

'Voltaire's château.' I wished I'd remembered it myself: it was a useful landmark.

She lifted a foot from the grass, shook it, scattering drops of moisture. 'How about a pithy quotation from the master?' she said softly but sourly. 'Such as "All's for the best in this best of all possible worlds"?'

'Or Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons.'

'Somehow, I don't find that very encouraging.'

'Jesus,' Harvey said thickly, 'are we on a literary coach tour or crossing a frontier quietly?'

'You mean you'd notice the difference?' I said, and started moving again.

Right then, Harvey wasn't my best friend. Awake and without his hangover, he could have looked after Maganhard – telling him when to move, when to stay still – leaving me just to do the same for Miss Jarman. As it was, I had to worry about all three of them – and particularly about how Harvey would react to trouble. For all I knew, he might be dopey enough to pull a gun and start shooting down gendarmes.

What I'd thought had been a hedge ahead turned into an orchard of small neat apple trees, growing just over head-high. And a fence of plain wire strands. The leaves weren't out yet – we were back in the northern spring up here – but the branches had been pruned so that they grew in close tangles, and the trees themselves were crowded together to make the most of the ground. In the dark, they gave plenty of cover from view.

But that works both ways. If I'd been commanding a frontier guard, I'd have posted a squad in that orchard. Spread them out a bit, tell them to stay still and quiet, and we could walk over them before we knew they were there.

And if I was commanding a real frontier-running party, I wouldn't be leading them through any orchards. We'd go round, and we'd do it on our bellies. What Iwas commanding – if that was the word – was a middle-aged businessman, a girl in a sealskin coat, and a gunman with a five-star hangover. I was dreading the moment when I had to tell that sealskin coat to get down and crawl in the mud.

We were going through the orchard.

I turned to the girl and asked softly: 'Were you ever captain of the school?'

'No.' A surprised whisper. 'I wasn't good enough at hockey or anything.'