Caravan to Vaccares

  ‘Gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Absolutely gorgeous.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Bowman agreed. ‘You’d hardly think she could drive a great big car like that.’ He ignored Cecile’s old-fashioned look and leisurely surveyed the patio. ‘Three guesses as to the underprivileged owner.’

  Cecile followed his line of sight. The third table from where they sat was occupied by Le Grand Duc and Lila. A waiter appeared with a very heavy tray which he set before Le Grand Duc who picked up and drained a beaker of orange juice almost before the waiter had time to straighten what must have been his aching back.

  ‘I thought that fellow would never come.’ Le Grand Duc was loud and testy.

  ‘Charles.’ Lila shook her head. ‘You’ve just had an enormous breakfast.’

  ‘And now I’m having another one. Pass the rolls, ma chérie.’

  ‘Good God!’ At their table, Cecile laid a hand on Bowman’s arm. ‘The Duke – and Lila.’

  ‘What’s all the surprise about?’ Bowman watched Le Grand Duc industriously ladling marmalade from a large jar while Lila poured coffee. ‘Naturally he’d be here – where the gypsies are, there the famous gypsy folklorist will be. And, of course, in the best hotel. There’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship across there. Can she cook?’

  ‘Can she – funnily enough, she can. A very good one, too. Cordon Bleu.’

  ‘Good Lord! He’ll kidnap her.’

  ‘But what is she still doing with him?’

  ‘Easy. You told her about Saintes-Maries. She’ll want to go there. And she hasn’t a car, not since we borrowed it. He’ll definitely want to be going there. And he has a car – a pound to a penny that’s his Rolls. And they seem on pretty good terms, though heavens knows what she sees in our large friend. Look at his hands – they work like a conveyor belt. Heaven grant I’m never aboard a lifeboat with him when they’re sharing out the last of the rations.’

  ‘I think he’s good-looking. In his own way.’

  ‘So’s an orang-utan.’

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ She seemed amused. ‘Just because he said you were – ’

  ‘I don’t trust him. He’s a phoney. I’ll bet he’s not a gypsy folklorist, has never written a thing about them and never will. If he’s so famous and important a man why has neither of us heard of him? And why does he come to this part three years running to study their customs? Once would be enough for even a folklore ignoramus like me.’

  ‘Maybe he likes gypsies.’

  ‘Maybe. And maybe he likes them for all the wrong reasons.’

  Cecile looked at him, paused and said in a lowered voice: ‘You think he’s this Gaiuse Strome?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything of the kind. And don’t mention that name in here – you still want to live, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t see – ’

  ‘How do you know there’s not a real gypsy among all the ones wearing fancy dress on this patio?’

  ‘I’m sorry. That was silly of me.’

  ‘Yes.’ He was looking at Le Grand Duc’s table. Lila had risen and was speaking. Le Grand Duc waved a lordly hand and she walked towards the hotel entrance. His face thoughtful, Bowman’s gaze followed her as she crossed the patio, mounted the steps, crossed the foyer and disappeared.

  ‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’ Cecile murmured.

  ‘How’s that?’ Bowman looked at her. ‘Yes, yes of course. Unfortunately I can’t marry you both – there’s a law against it.’ Still thoughtfully, he looked across at Le Grand Duc, then back at Cecile. ‘Go talk to our well-built friend. Read his palm. Tell his fortune.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Duke there. Go – ’

  ‘I don’t think that’s funny.’

  ‘Neither do I. Never occurred to me when your friend was there – she’d have recognized you. But the Duke won’t – he hardly knows you. And certainly wouldn’t in that disguise. Not that there’s the slightest chance of him lifting his eyes from his plate anyway.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Please, Cecile.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Remember the caverns. I haven’t a lead.’

  ‘Oh, God, don’t!’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘But what can I do?’

  ‘Start off with the old mumbo-jumbo. Then say you see he has very important plans in the near future and if he is successful – then stop there. Refuse to read any more and come away. Give him the impression that he has no future. Observe his reactions.’

  ‘Then you really do suspect – ’

  ‘I suspect nothing.’

  Reluctantly she pushed back her chair and rose.

  ‘Pray to Sara for me.’

  ‘Sara?’

  ‘She’s the patron saint of the gypsies, isn’t she?’

  Bowman watched her as she moved away. She side-stepped politely to avoid bumping into another customer who had just entered, an ascetic and otherworldly looking priest: it was impossible to imagine Simon Searl as anything other than a selfless and dedicated man of God in whose hands one would willingly place one’s life. They murmured apologies and Cecile carried on and stopped at the table of Le Grand Duc, who lowered his coffee cup and glanced up in properly ducal irritation.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, good morning.’ He picked up his coffee cup again. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tell your fortune, sir?’

  ‘Can’t you see I’m busy? Go away.’

  ‘Only ten francs, sir.’

  ‘I haven’t got ten francs.’ He lowered his cup again and looked at her closely for the first time.

  ‘But by Jove, though, if only you’d blonde hair – ’

  Cecile smiled, took advantage of the temporary moment of admiration and picked up his left hand.

  ‘You have a long lifeline,’ she announced.

  ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘And you come of noble blood.’

  ‘Any fool can see that.’

  ‘You have a very kind disposition – ’

  ‘Not when I’m starving.’ He snatched away his hand, used it to pick up a roll, then glanced upwards as Lila came back to the table. He pointed his roll at Cecile. ‘Remove this young pest. She’s upsetting me.’

  ‘You don’t look upset, Charles.’

  ‘How can you see what’s happening to my digestion?’

  Lila turned to Cecile with a smile that was halffriendly, half-apologetic, a smile that momentarily faded as she realized who it was. Lila put her smile back in place and said: ‘Perhaps you would like to read my hand?’ The tone was perfectly done, conciliatory without being patronizing, a gently implied rebuke to Le Grand Duc’s boorishness. Le Grand Duc remained wholly unaffected.

  ‘At a distance, if you please,’ he said firmly. ‘At a distance.’

  They moved off and Le Grand Duc watched them go with an expression as thoughtful as possible for one whose jaws are moving with metronomic regularity. He looked away from the girls and across the table where Lila had been sitting. Bowman was looking directly at him but almost immediately looked away. Le Grand Duc tried to follow Bowman’s altered line of sight and it seemed to him that Bowman was looking fixedly at a tall thin priest who sat with a cup of coffee before him, the same priest, Le Grand Duc realized, as he’d seen blessing the gypsies by the Abbey de Montmajour. And there was no dispute as to where the object of Simon Searl’s interest lay: he was taking an inordinate interest in Le Grand Duc himself. Bowman watched as Lila and Cecile spoke together some little way off: at the moment Cecile was holding Lila’s hand and appearing to speak persuasively while Lila smiled in some embarrassment. He saw Lila press something into Cecile’s hand, then abruptly lost interest in both. From the corner of his eye he had caught sight of something of much more immediate importance: or he thought he had.

  Beyond the patio was the gay and bustling fiesta scene in the Boulevard des Lices. Tradesmen were still setting u
p last-minute stalls but by this time they were far outnumbered by sightseers and shoppers. Together they made up a colourful and exotic spectacle. The rare person dressed in a sober business suit was strikingly out of place. Camera-behung tourists were in their scores, for the most part dressed with that excruciating careless abandon that appears to afflict most tourists the moment they leave their own borders, but even they formed a relatively drab backcloth for the three widely differing types of people who caught and held the eye in the splendid finery of their clothes – the Arlésienne girls so exquisitely gowned in their traditional fiesta costumes, the hundreds of gypsies from a dozen different countries and the gardiens, the cowboys of the Camargue.

  Bowman leaned forward in his seat, his eyes intent. Again he saw what had attracted his attention in the first place – a flash of titian hair, but unmistakable. It was Marie le Hobenaut and she was walking very quickly. Bowman looked away as Cecile rejoined him and sat down.

  ‘Sorry. Up again. A job. Left on the street – ’

  ‘But don’t you want to hear – and my breakfast – ’ ‘Those can wait. Gypsy girl, titian hair, green and black costume. Follow her. See where she’s going – and she’s going some place. She’s in a tearing hurry. Now!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She looked at him quizzically, rose and left. He did not watch her go. Instead, he looked casually around the patio. Simon Searl, the priest, was the first to go and he did almost immediately, leaving some coins by his coffee cup. Seconds later, Bowman was on his feet and following the priest out into the street. Le Grand Duc, with his face largely obscured by a huge coffee cup, watched the departure of both.

  Among the colourful crowds, the very drabness of Searl’s black robes made him an easy figure to follow. What made him even easier to follow was the fact that, as befitted a man of God, he appeared to have no suspicions of his fellow-men for he did not once look back over his shoulder. Bowman closed up till he was within ten feet of him. Now he could clearly see Cecile not much more than the same distance ahead of Searl and, occasionally, there was a brief glimpse of Marie le Hobenaut’s titian hair. Bowman closed up even more on Searl and waited his opportunity.

  It came almost at once. Hard by a group of fish-stalls half-a-dozen rather unprepossessing gypsies were trying to sell some horses that had seen better days. As Bowman, no more than five feet behind Searl now, approached the horses he bumped into a dark, swarthy young man with a handsome face and hairline moustache: he sported a black sombrero and rather flashy, tight-fitting dark clothes. Both men murmured apologies, side-stepped and passed on. The dark young man took only two steps, turned and looked after Bowman, who was now almost lost to sight, edging his way through the group of horses.

  Ahead of him, Searl stopped as a restive horse whinnied, tossed its head and moved to block his progress. The horse reared, Searl stepped prudently backwards and as he did so Bowman kicked him behind the knee. Searl grunted in agony and fell to his sound knee. Bowman, concealed by horses on both sides of him, stooped solicitously over Searl and chopped the knuckles of his right hand into the base of the man’s neck. Searl collapsed.

  ‘Watch those damned horses!’ Bowman shouted. At once several gypsies quieted the restive horses and pulled them apart to make a clear space round the fallen priest.

  ‘What happened?’ one of them demanded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Selling that vicious brute?’ Bowman asked. ‘He ought to be destroyed. Kicked him right in the stomach. Don’t just stand there. Get a doctor.’

  One of the gypsies at once hurried away. The others stooped low over the prostrate man and while they did so Bowman made a discreet withdrawal. But it wasn’t so discreet as to go unobserved by the same dark young man who had earlier bumped into Bowman: he was busy studying his fingernails.

  Bowman was finishing off his breakfast when Cecile returned.

  ‘I’m hot,’ she announced. She looked it. ‘And I’m hungry.’

  Bowman crooked a finger at a passing waiter.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She went into the chemist’s shop. She bought bandages – yards and yards – and a whole lot of cream and ointment and then she went back to the caravans – in a square not far from here – ’

  ‘The green-and-white caravan?’

  ‘Yes. There were two women waiting for her at the caravan door and then all three went inside.’

  ‘Two women?’

  ‘One middle-aged, the other young with auburn hair.’

  ‘Marie’s mother and Sara. Poor Tina.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just rambling.’ He glanced across the courtyard. ‘The love-birds across there.’

  Cecile followed his gaze to where Le Grand Duc, who was now sitting back with the relieved air of a man who has narrowly escaped death from starvation, smiled indulgently at Lila as she put her hand on his and talked animatedly.

  Bowman said: ‘Is your girl-friend simpleminded or anything like that?’

  She gave him a long cool look. ‘Not any more than I am.’

  ‘Um. She knew you, of course. What did you tell her?’

  ‘Nothing – except that you had to run for your life.’

  ‘Didn’t she wonder why you came?’

  ‘Because I wanted to, I said.’

  ‘Tell her I was suspicious of the Duke?’

  ‘Well – ’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. She have anything to tell you?’

  ‘Not much. Just that they stopped to watch a gypsy service this morning.’

  ‘Service?’

  ‘You know – religious.’

  ‘Regular priest?’

  ‘So Lila said.’

  ‘Finish your breakfast.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘But I thought – I thought you would want to know what the Duke said, his reactions. After all, that’s why you sent me.’

  ‘Was it?’ Bowman seemed abstracted. ‘Later.’ He rose and entered the hotel: the girl watched him go with a puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘Tall, you say, El Brocador. Thick-set. Very fast.’ Czerda rubbed his own battered and bandaged face in painfully tender recollection, and looked at the four men seated at the table in his caravan – El Brocador, the swarthy young man Bowman had bumped into in the street, Ferenc, Pierre Lacabro and a still shaken and pale Simon Searl who was trying to rub the back of his neck and the back of his thigh simultaneously.

  ‘His face was darker than you say,’ El Brocador said. ‘And a moustache.’

  ‘Dark faces and a moustache you can buy in shops. He can’t hide his stock in trade – violence.’

  ‘I hope I meet this man soon,’ Pierre Lacabro said. His tone was almost wistful.

  ‘I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry,’ Czerda said drily. ‘You didn’t see him at all, Searl?’

  ‘I saw nothing. I just felt those two blows in the back – no, I didn’t even feel the second blow.’

  ‘Why in God’s name did you have to go to that hotel patio anyway?’

  ‘I wanted to get a close-up of this Duc de Croytor. It was you, Czerda, who made me curious about him. I wanted to hear his voice. Who he spoke to, see if he has any contacts, who – ’

  ‘He’s with this English girl. He’s harmless.’

  ‘Clever men do things like that,’ Searl said.

  ‘Clever men don’t do the things you do,’ Czerda said grimly. ‘Now Bowman knows who you are. He almost certainly knows now that someone in Madame Zigair’s caravan has been badly hurt. If the Duc de Croytor is who you think he is then he must know now that you suspect him of being Gaiuse Strome – and, if he is, he’s not going to like any of those three things at all.’ The expression on Searl’s face left no doubt but that he himself was of the same opinion. Czerda went on: ‘Bowman. He’s the only solution. This man must be silenced. Today. But carefully. Quietly. By accident. Who knows what friends this man may not have?’

  ‘I told you how this can be done,’ El Brocador said
.

  ‘And a good way. We move on this afternoon. Lacabro, you’re the only one of us he does not know. Go to his hotel. Keep watch. Follow him.

  We dare not lose him now.’

  ‘That will be a pleasure.’

  ‘No violence,’ Czerda warned.

  ‘Of course not.’ He looked suddenly crestfallen. ‘But I don’t know what he looks like. Dark and thisckset – there are hundreds of dark and thickset – ’

  ‘If he’s the man El Brocador described and the man I remmember seeing on the hotel patio,’

  Searl said, ‘he’ll be with a girl dressed as a gypsy. Young, dark, pretty, dressed mainly green and gold, four gold bangles on her left wrist.’

  Cecile looked up from the remains of her breakfast as Bowman joined her at the table.

  ‘You took your time,’ she observed.

  ‘I have not been idle. I’ve been out. Shopping.’

  ‘I didn’t see you go.’

  ‘They have a back entrance.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I have urgent business to attend to.’

  ‘Like this? Just sitting here?’

  ‘Before I attend to the urgent thing I have to attend to I’ve something else urgent to attend to first. And that involves sitting here. Do you know they have some very nosey Chinese in the city of Arles?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Couple sitting over by Romeo and Juliet there. Don’t look. Man’s big for a Chinese, forty, although it’s always hard to say with them. Woman with him is younger, Eurasian, very good looking. Both wearing lightly-tinted sun-glasses with those built-in reflectors so that you can’t see through them from the outside.’

  Cecile lifted a cup of coffee and looked idly round the patio. She said: ‘I see them now.’

  ‘Never trust people with reflecting sun-glasses. He seems to be displaying a very keen interest in Le Grand Duc.’

  ‘It’s his size.’

  ‘Like enough.’ Bowman looked thoughtfully at the Chinese couple, then at Le Grand Duc and Lila, then back at the Chinese again. Then he said: ‘We can go now.’