Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

We walked half a mile along between the runway and the fence and then, when it was Switzerland on the other side as well, just cut ourselves out again. In both places I jammed the wire back into place and it might be a few days before anybody noticed the cuts. And even when they did, it wouldn't prove anything about a man called Maganhard.

We walked out into the suburb of Mategnin – tall new blocks of flats standing in the sea of mud that one day somebody was going to turn into a green lawn, unless he got another contract first, of course. It would have been dawn except for the clouds and the mountains, but the streets were still empty.

Maganhard asked: 'How do we reach the city now?'

'We walk round to the airport front entrance and pick up a bus or taxi.'

He digested this, and then said: 'We could have walked across the airport – it would have been less distance! '

'Of course – and pretended we were passengers? And shown our passports and explained how we got our feet wet on the plane?'

After that, he saved his breath for walking.

It was after six, in a dull dawn twilight, when we reached the airport buildings. The lights were still on inside, but were beginning to look pallid in the mauve light seeping over the, mountains on the east.

There were a few cars parked opposite the entrance, and a smallish bus towing a luggage-trailer parked alongside. Its lights were off.

'We'll go inside and clean up,' I said. 'Meet back at the door in five minutes.'

Miss Jarman headed off in her own direction. Even in the bright lights, she didn't look as if she'd been driven for nearly five hours in the back of a van and then gone for a two-mile hike across wet fields and through hedges. She had the natural glossiness which mud won't cling to. Just a little pale around the face and wet around the feet.

Maganhard looked as if he'd just lost a serious argument with a wildcat. His neat bronze raincoat was rumpled, smudged, and torn in two places; his trousers were wet and muddy, his hair was shaggy. He just stood there, looking ruffled and unhappy and determined to go on looking that way. He still thought I'd brought him across an unnecessarily rough route, and was damned if he saw why he should make the best of it.

We hustled him into the washroom, shielding him on either side. Harvey and I didn't look so bad, but mostly because our clothes had never looked so good. Harvey was pale, his eyes sunk in craters and the lines on his face deeper, but he looked alive again.

I'd hardly got started cleaning myself up when Maganhard said: 'You have not forgotten that we must ring up Monsieur Merlin.'

I had managed to forget it, of course, and would have been happy to keep it that way. But he was still paying for the trip. I brushed down my raincoat, washed my face, hands, and shoes, combed my hair, and was out looking for a telephone inside four minutes.

I rang Merlin's hotel, told them it wastrès important, and finally got Merlin himself.

'Mon Dieu!'he exploded. 'What has happened to you? I have heard nothing – not since Dinadan. For more than a day! All I get is the radio, the newspapers – all about shootings in the Auvergne! What is-'

I said: 'Shut up, Henri. We've got here now. If you want to see us, we'll be at Cornavin station in about twenty minutes.'

There was a pause, then he said: 'I meet you there.'

'Just walk through the booking hall up to the buffet.'

Somebody slipped into the telephone box next door. I glanced casually through the glass – and then said quickly: 'Cornavin in twenty minutes, then,' and slapped the phone back.

I was out and into the next box before she'd finished dialling. I smashed a hand down on the phone, breaking the connection, and jerked her out with the other hand.

She turned on a look of innocent, babyish surprise. 'Now why did-'

'You were doing well back on the frontier,' I said grimly. 'Don't spoil it all now. I told you phoning was out.'

'But only at the Château.'

'You could have asked me.'

I had one hand under her elbow and we were doing a twosome across the hall that couldn't have looked like a honeymoon at any distance.

She said sweetly: 'I thought you might say no.'

I just looked at her.

We reached the door at the same time as Harvey and Maganhard. Outside, the bus's lights were on and people were climbing wearily aboard. From the number of beards and guitars, it looked as if they'd come off a cheap night flight from Paris or London. I'd hoped for something classier – for reasons of camouflage, not snobbery. However rumpled, Maganhard still didn't look like a student on an Easter fling.

But at least students don't read the crime pages. We climbed in and paid our fare without attracting any interest.

I sat beside the girl, Harvey and Maganhard just behind us. I leant my head back and said: 'We may be meeting Merlin at the station.'

'Station?' Maganhard asked.

'Cornavin, the railway station where the air terminal is. When we get there, we split up. Harvey with me.'

Harvey said: 'No.' Rule One: the bodyguard sticks with the body.

'I know.' I nodded. 'But nobody's going to try any shooting in a station. The danger's being picked up by the cops. I want you back with me, to make sure nobody starts tailing Maganhard – or up ahead to see if anybody's waiting for him.'

He saw the sense of it. 'All right. I guess so.'

Maganhard asked: 'What do we do then?'

'Catch a train to Bern.'

'I thought we were going to hire a car?'

'Well, we're not – just yet. And anybody else who thought so is wrong, too.'

Miss Jarman said coldly: 'I suppose you mean me.'

'I mean anybody.'

The bus filled up and people started sitting too close for safe conversation.

At that time of the morning, the bus belted through to the terminal in ten minutes. We came out under Cornavin station at half past six.

The other passengers trampled each other down in the rush to get their guitars. I turned to Maganhard and said: 'Go ahead with Miss Jarman. Get two second-class tickets to Bern – let her buy them. Then go up to the platform. Don't recognise us.'

The girl said: 'If I'm buying tickets, I need some Swiss money.'

'You've already got some. You were making that phone work, remember?'

She gave me a look, and led the way off the bus.

Harvey and I let them get ten yards ahead, then sauntered after.

The booking hall was a tall, sombre art-nouveau affair, the sort of place that's built to look grimy and cold and no amount of cleaning and heating will ever change it. Railway stations specialise in it.

There were a few building workers going to out-of-town jobs, a few families coming off the overnight sleeper from Paris and London, but all wearing the same aimless, hopeless expression that you see in concentration-camp pictures. They didn't look as if they could remember their own faces in a mirror at that time of day, let alone spot a wanted man.

Harvey and I did a quick circuit, then he shook his head briefly. I agreed: nobody had smelt like a plain-clothes man.

Only one ticket window was open. Maganhard hung back, while the girl went up to it. I nodded to Harvey and he went out up the long dim tunnel ramp that led to the platforms. If you were going to stake out the station, you'd wait up there at the top, at thebuffet express counter, where everybody had to come past you and you'd have an excuse for just standing and watching.

I went up behind Miss Jarman to get our own tickets. As she turned away, she stared straight through me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her rejoin Maganhard, and start for the ramp. Then they stopped. I grabbed my tickets and turned around.

Bouncing across the hall like a big white rubber ball in his natty raincoat came Henri Merlin. He had seen Maganhard, but missed me. Instinctively, I looked behind him.