Every Hidden Thing

Chapter 16

  Dougie

  Dougie arrived not many minutes after Lefevre had disappeared. He rang the bell and seeing the concierge’s door was open he called to Antoine. No answer. The concierge’s cat came to the gate and curled itself around his legs, meowing pitifully. He called again. After a while Antoine came shambling out, holding his head and looked the worse for wear.

  ‘Too much to drink eh, Antoine!’ Dougie called. Mutely, the old concierge let Dougie in and turned to hobble back to his lair. With that careless greeting Dougie ran past him and up the stairs two at a time. The door was open. Good. Ari hadn’t gone anywhere.

  ‘Hi, Prof are you there?’ He ran in and stopped short. Ari lay on the carpet in the entrance hall in a pool of blood. Fearfully Dougie looked around the apartment. There was no one else there; whoever had done this had gone. He looked briefly at Ari then averted his eyes. He must be dead, Dougie thought, although he’d never seen a dead person before. His face looked pasty for one thing. He didn’t want to touch the inert form lying so still on the carpet. The thought of checking for a pulse gave him the creeps. Then he noticed the overnight bag flung on top of a pile of clothes and it occurred to him that what he wanted from Ari had already been stolen. Forgetting that he had been sent to get the parcel at gun-point if necessary, his only thought now, was to get away. In a panic he rushed downstairs, calling to the concierge as he ran past, to get help for le Professeur in 4B.

  Some streets away he became aware of the gun in his pocket and he hurled it into a dustbin in an alley. His first impulse was to put as much distance as he could between himself and that terrible scene. Frantically Dougie looked for a public phone and waited impatiently for Jean-Paul to answer. He tried to steady his breathing as he stood in the phone booth, but he felt as though his lungs were about to burst. After what seemed an age, the deep French voice answered.

  ‘Jean-Paul. It’s Dougie,’ he croaked. ‘I couldn’t get the parcel from Mayer.’ There was a silence on the other side.

  ‘Why not? Did he put up a fight?’

  ‘I think he is dead . . . someone else shot him . . . I saw his body . . .’

  ‘Never mind. He was just another Jew. But Le Patron will not be pleased.’

  Dougie could feel the anger that reached over the airwaves. Jean-Paul’s voice was tight, as though he was talking through clenched teeth. In a jerky voice, Dougie explained what had happened.

  ‘I didn’t see anything in the apartment that looked like a box, or a parcel at all, except the stuff in his study of course, but it looked as though he was going away. His overnight bag had been emptied. Do you think someone else is interested in that parcel? If you didn’t send anyone else after it . . .’

  ‘Well you had better find it and soon,’ the angry voice cut across Dougie’s stumbling words. ‘Go back and see if you can find out what has happened. Search the place. Speak to anyone who might know anything. Just find it.’

  Dougie tried to calm down, but he knew that it was not as simple as that. Even now, he wasn’t sure what he should be looking for. With an effort, he concentrated on what Jean-Paul was ordering him to do: to get the parcel to the Gare de Lyon before the evening train to Venice. Jean-Paul told him that he was to go to the platform where the Simplon Express would be and wait under the clock. He was to be holding that morning’s Le Matin under his arm. Someone would approach him and he was to give them the evidence that he was supposed to get from Mayer. That was all.

  ‘If you fail . . . If Le Patron has to give this job to others . . .’ the voice stopped. The silence left Dougie in no doubt of what would happen to him if he did fail.

  ‘But what am I looking for, exactly?’ Dougie asked desperately, but soon realised that the line was dead. Frustrated, he slammed down the phone and slowly turned his footsteps towards the rue de Saintes-Pères.

  He fully expected to see police cars with flashing lights with the side street cordoned off, but it was disturbingly quiet in the cold afternoon. The only sound was of dead leaves crushing under his reluctant feet. Less than an hour had elapsed since he had fled Mayer’s place and he still could not understand why there were no gendarmes milling around. Dougie felt sick, as he slowly walked up the street, his mind racing as he thought of all kinds of scenarios.

  The street door was unlocked, but Antoine was not at his usual spot and no-one stopped him as he hurried up the stairs. Ari’s door was closed though not locked but while the carpet was still covered in blood, Ari’s body had gone. It dawned on him finally that this was not a game, as the Prof had warned him. He had thought it was, until now. A game of spies and intrigue like a movie, where the blood is fake and no-one gets hurt. But there was no doubt about the motionless body of his old teacher. Dougie was appalled at what he had got himself into. Ari had been one of the few people who had encouraged him and he suddenly felt very guilty about his part in the whole affair. He had only been gone for an hour and the Prof’s body had already disappeared. He rushed downstairs to ask the concierge what had happened, but the old man’s door was closed and he didn’t respond to Dougie’s urgent knocking. Dismally he turned and slowly walked down the silent street towards the rue de Vaugirard.

  There seemed nothing else that he could do. It was getting late when he rushed off towards the Metro, but as he ran, he realised that he had left his wallet at home and decided to go there first. He could feel air tearing in his chest as he gasped for breath and his throat felt raw. He rushed past Marthe, the concierge, without greeting her and he heard her slightly mocking voice follow him as he pounded up the stairs.

  ‘Est-ce que tu fuis le diable, lui-même?’ Are you running away from the devil himself? ‘What crazy thing are you up to now, young man?’

  He had quite a good relationship with the old lady but he was afraid that if he stopped to speak to her he would break down. Once inside the safety of his small studio he slammed the door and flung himself face down onto his rumpled bed waiting for his breathing to become normal again. He could see the Prof’s white face when he closed his eyes and he felt fear rising up like a huge knob in his throat. What have I got mixed up in? He’d given the Prof’s study a hasty glance as he’d checked the apartment, but Mayer obviously didn’t have anything that could be construed as a box or a parcel. Why was it so important to get whatever it was from the Prof? Who was Le Patron that he could order men to be killed because they had thwarted him? I should get to the Gare de Lyon and tell whoever it is that I didn’t find the parcel, but I think it would be better for my health to just run away instead. Go back to Manchester and tell some lie to Grandma. That would be the easiest. Just pretend that nothing has happened. He discarded that thought as soon as it was conceived; he knew they would find him wherever he tried to hide, especially if they thought he had stolen the bloody thing!

  Slowly, he put his wallet in his pocket. In the drawer he noticed his passport. On a whim, he put that in his pocket too. As he left the room, his eye fell on a silly woollen hat he had once bought for a joke. On the inside was what looked like a fleece but once on, it gave the impression of being a curly blonde wig. Impulsively his grabbed it and pulled it on his head with the plain blue side out. Then he left without looking back.