She said: ‘This urgent business – this first urgent business you had to attend to – ’
‘Attended to. I’ll bring the car round to the front.’
Le Grand Duc watched his departure and announced to Lila: ‘In about an hour we mingle with our subjects.’
‘Subjects, Charles?’
‘Gypsies, dear child. But first, I must compose another chapter of my book.’
‘Shall I bring you pen and paper?’
‘No need, my dear.’
‘You mean – you mean you do it all in your head? It’s not possible, Charles.’
He patted her hand and smiled indulgently.
‘What you can get me is a litre of beer. It’s becoming uncommonly warm. Find a waiter, will you?’
Lila moved obediently away and Le Grand Duc looked after her. There was nothing indulgent about the expression on his face when he saw her talking briefly and smiling to the gypsy girl who had so recently read her fortune: there was nothing indulgent about it when he examined the Chinese couple at an adjacent table: even less so when he saw Cecile join Bowman in a white car in the street: and least of all when he observed another car move off within seconds of Bowman’s.
Cecile gazed in perplexity round the interior of the white Simca. She said: ‘What’s all this about, then?’
‘Such things as phones,’ he explained. ‘Fixed it while you were having breakfast. Fixed two of them in fact.’
‘Two what?’
‘Two hired cars. Never know when you’re going to run short.’
‘But – but in so short a time.’
‘Garage is just down the street – they sent a man to check.’ He took out Czerda’s barely depleted wad of Swiss notes, crackled it briefly and returned it. ‘Depends upon the deposit.’
‘You really are quite amoral, aren’t you?’ She sounded almost admiring.
‘How’s that again?’
‘The way you throw other people’s money around.’
‘Life is for living, money for the spending,’ Bowman said pontifically. ‘No pockets in a shroud.’
‘You’re hopeless,’ she said. ‘Quite, quite hopeless. And why this car, anyway?’
‘Why that get-up you’re wearing?’
‘Why – oh, I see. Of course the Peugeot’s known. I hadn’t thought of that.’ She looked at him curiously as he turned the Simca in the direction of a sign-post saying ‘Nîmes’. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I’m not quite sure. I’m looking for a place where I can talk undisturbed.’
‘To me?’
‘Still your apprehensions. I’ll have all the rest of my life to talk to you. When we were on the patio a battered-looking gypsy in a batteredlooking Renault sat and watched us for ten minutes. Both of them are about a hundred yards behind us now. I want to talk to the batteredlooking gypsy.’
‘Oh!’
‘Well might you say “Oh!” How, one wonders, is it that Gaiuse Strome’s henchmen are on to us so soon.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You’re looking at me in a very peculiar manner, if I may say so.’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘Well?’
‘If they’re on to you, why did you bother switching cars?’
Bowman said patiently: ‘When I hired the Simca I didn’t know they were on to me.’
‘And now you’re taking me into danger again? Or what might be danger?’
‘I hope not. If I am, I’m sorry. But if they’re on to me, they’re on to the charming gypsy girl who has been sitting by my side – don’t forget that it was you that the priest was tailing when he met up with his unfortunate accident. Would you rather I’d left you behind to cope with them alone?’
‘You don’t offer very much in the way of choices,’ she complained.
‘I’ve got very little to offer.’ Bowman looked in the mirror. The battered Renault was less than a hundred yards behind. Cecile looked over her shoulder.
‘Why don’t you stop here and talk to him? He’d never dare do anything here. There are far too many people around.’
‘Far too many,’ Bowman agreed. ‘When I talk to him I don’t want anyone within half a mile.’
She glanced at him, shivered and said nothing. Bowman took the Simca over the Rhône to Trinquetaille, turned left on to the Albaron road and then left again on to the road that ran south down the right bank of the river. Here he slowed and gently brought the car to a stop. The driver of the Renault, he observed, did the same thing at a discreet distance to the rear. Bowman drove the Simca on its way again: the Renault followed.
A mile farther on into the flat and featureless plains of the Camargue Bowman stopped again. So did the Renault. Bowman got out, went to the rear of the car, glanced briefly at the Renault parked about a hundred yards away, opened the boot, extracted an implement from the tool-kit, thrust it inside his jacket, closed the boot and returned to his seat. The implement he laid on the floor beside him.
‘What’s that?’ Cecile looked and sounded apprehensive.
‘A wheel-brace.’
‘Something wrong with the wheels?’
‘Wheel-braces can have other uses.’
He drove off. After a few minutes the road began to climb slightly, rounded an unexpectedly sharp left-hand corner and there suddenly, almost directly beneath them and less than twenty feet away, lay the murkily gleaming waters of the Grand Rhône. Bowman braked heavily, was out of the car even as it stopped and walked quickly back the way he had come. The Renault rounded the corner and its driver, caught completely unawares, slewed the car to a skidding stop less than ten yards from Bowman.
Bowman, one hand behind his back, approached the Renault and jerked the driver’s door open. Pierre Lacabro glared out at him, his broad brutalized face set and savage.
‘I’m beginning to think you’re following me around,’ Bowman said mildly.
Lacabro didn’t reply. Instead, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the door frame to afford him maximum leverage he launched himself from the car with a speed surprising for a man of his bulk. Bowman had been prepared for nothing else. He stepped quickly to one side and as the driving Lacabro hurtled past him he brought the wheel-brace swinging down on Lacabro’s left arm. The sound of the blow, the surprising loud crack of a breaking bone and Lacabro’s shriek of pain were almost instantaneous.
‘Who sent you?’ Bowman asked.
Lacabro, writhing on the ground and clutching his damaged left forearm, snarled something incomprehensible in Romany.
‘Please, please listen,’ Bowman said. ‘I’m dealing with murderers. I know I’m dealing with murderers. More important, I know how to deal with murderers. I’ve already broken one bone – I should think it’s your forearm. I’m prepared to go right on breaking as many bones as I have to – assuming you stay conscious – until I find out why those four women in that green-and-white painted caravan are terrified out of their lives. If you do become unconscious, I’ll just sit around and smoke and wait till you’re conscious again and break a few more bones.’
Cecile had left the Simca and was now only feet away. Her face was very pale. She stared at Bowman in horror.
‘Mr Bowman, do you mean – ’
‘Shut up!’ He returned his attention to Lacabro. ‘Come now, tell me about those ladies.’
Lacabro mouthed what was almost certainly another obscenity, rolled over quickly and as he propped himself up on his right elbow Cecile screamed. Lacabro had a gun in his hand but shock or pain or both had slowed his reactions. He screamed again and his gun went flying in one direction while the wheel-brace went in another. He clutched the middle of his face with both hands: blood seeped through his fingers.
‘And now your nose is gone, isn’t it?’ Bowman said. ‘That dark girl, Tina, she’s been hurt, hasn’t she? How badly has she been hurt? Why was she hurt? Who hurt her?’
Lacabro took his hands away from his bleeding face. His nose wasn’t broken, but it still wasn’t a
very pretty sight and wouldn’t be for some time to come. He spat blood and a broken tooth, snarled again in Romany and stared at Bowman like a wild animal.
‘You did it,’ Bowman said with certainty. ‘Yes, you did it. One of Czerda’s hatchet-men, aren’t you? Perhaps the hatchet-man. I wonder, my friend. I wonder. Was it you who killed Alexandre in the caverns?’
Lacabro, his face the face of a madman, pushed himself drunkenly to his feet and stood there, swaying just as drunkenly. He appeared to be on the verge of total collapse, his eyes turning up in his head. Bowman approached and, as he did so Lacabro, showing an incredible immunity to pain, an animal-like cunning and an equally animallike power of recuperation, suddenly stepped forward and brought his right fist up in a tremendous blow which, probably due more to good fortune than calculation, struck Bowman on the side of the chin. Bowman staggered backwards, lost his balance and fell heavily on the short turf only a few feet away from the vertical drop into the Rhône. Lacabro had his priorities right. He turned and ran for the gun which had landed only a foot or two from where Cecile was standing, the shock in her face reflected in the immobility of her body.
Bowman pushed himself rather dizzily up on one arm. He could see it all happening in slow motion, the girl with the gun at her feet, Lacabro lurching towards it, the girl still stock-still. Maybe she couldn’t even see the damn thing, he thought despairingly, but her eyes couldn’t be all that bad, if she couldn’t see a gun two feet away she’d no right to be out without a white stick. But her eyes weren’t quite so bad as that. Suddenly she stooped, picked up the gun, threw it into the Rhône, then, with commendable foresight, dropped flat to the ground as Lacabro, his battered bleeding face masked in blood and hate, advanced to strike her down. But even in that moment of what must have been infuriating frustration and where his overriding instinct must have been savagely to maim the girl who had deprived him of his gun, Lacabro still had his priorities right. He ignored the girl, turned and headed for Bowman in a low crouching run.
But Cecile had bought Bowman all the time he needed. By the time Lacabro reached him he was on his feet again, still rather dazed and shaken but a going concern none the less. He avoided Lacabro’s first bull-rush and wickedly swinging boot and caught the gypsy as he passed: it so chanced that he caught him by the left arm. Lacabro shouted in agony, dragged his arm free at whatever unknown cost to himself and came again. This time Bowman made no attempt to avoid him but advanced himself at equal speed. His clubbing right hand had no difficulty in reaching Lacabro’s chin, for now Lacabro had no left guard left. He staggered backwards several involuntary paces, tottered briefly on the edge of the bluff, then toppled backwards into the Rhône. The splash caused by his impact on the muddied waters seemed quite extraordinarily loud.
Bowman looked gingerly over the crumbling edge of the bluff: there was no sign of Lacabro. If he’d been unconscious when he’d struck the water he’d have gone to the bottom and that was that: there could be no possibility of locating him in those dark waters. Not that Bowman relished the prospect of trying to rescue the gypsy: if he were not unconscious he would certainly express his gratitude by doing his best to drown his rescuer. Bowman did not feel sufficiently attached to Lacabro to take the risk.
He went to the Renault, searched it briefly, found what he expected to find – nothing – started up the engine, let in first gear, aimed it for the bank of the river and jumped out. The little car trundled to the edge of the bluff, cartwheeled over the edge and fell into the river with a resounding crash that sent water rising to a height of thirty feet.
Much of this water rained down on Lacabro. He was half-sitting, half-lying on a narrow ledge of pebble and sand under the overhang of the bluff. His clothes were soaked, his right hand clutched his left wrist. On his dazed and uncomprehending face was a mixture of pain and bewilderment and disbelief. It was, by any reckoning, the face of a man who has had enough for one day.
Cecile was still sitting on the ground when Bowman approached her. He said: ‘You’re ruining that lovely gypsy costume sitting there.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ Her voice was matter-offact, remarkably calm. She accepted his hand, got to her feet and looked around her. ‘He’s gone?’
‘Let’s say I can’t find him.’
‘That wasn’t – that wasn’t fair fighting.’
‘That was the whole idea behind it, pet. Ideally, of course, he would have riddled me with bullets.’
‘But – but can he swim?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ He led her back to the Simca and after they’d gone a mile in silence he looked at her curiously. Her hands were trembling, her face had gone white and when she spoke her voice was a muted whisper with a shake in it: clearly some sort of delayed shock had set in.
She said: ‘Who are you?’
‘Never mind.’
‘I – I saved your life today.’
‘Well, yes, thanks. But you should have used that gun to shoot him or hold him up.’
There was a long pause, then she sniffed loudly and said almost in a wail: ‘I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I can’t see to fire a gun.’
‘I know. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about everything, Cecile. But I’m sorriest of all that I ever got you into this damnably ugly mess. God, I should have known better.’
‘Why blame yourself?’ Still the near-sob in her voice. ‘You had to run some place last night and my room – ’ She broke off, peered at him some more, looked away and tried to light a cigarette but her hand shook so much he did it for her. Her hand was still shaking when they got back to the hotel.
CHAPTER 6
Bowman drew up outside the hotel entrance. Not five yards away Lila sat alone by a table just inside the patio entrance. It was difficult to say whether she looked primarily angry or disconsolate: she certainly did not look happy.
‘Boy-friend’s ditched her,’ Bowman announced. ‘Meet me in fifteen minutes. Alleyway at the back entrance of the hotel. Stay out of sight till you see a blue Citroën. I’ll be inside. Stay off the patio. You’ll be safe in the foyer.’
Cecile nodded to Lila. ‘Can I talk to her?’
‘Sure. Inside.’
‘But if we’re seen – ’
‘It won’t matter. Going to tell her what a dreeadful person I am?’
‘No.’ A shaky smile.
‘Ah! Then you’re going to announce our forthcoming nuptials.’
‘Not that either.’ Again the smile.
‘You want to make up your mind.’
She put a hand on his arm. ‘I think you might even be rather a kind person.’
‘I doubt whether the lad in the Rhône would share your sentiments,’ Bowman said drily.
The smile vanished. She got out, Bowman drove off, she watched him disappear with a small frown creasing her forehead, then went on to the patio. She looked at Lila, nodded towards the hotel foyer: they went in together, talking.
‘You’re sure?’ Cecile asked. ‘Charles recognizes Neil Bowman?’
Lila nodded.
‘How? Why?’
‘I don’t know. He’s very, very shrewd, you know.’
‘Something more than a famous wine-grower or folklorist, you would say?’
‘I would say.’
‘And he doesn’t trust Bowman?’
‘That puts it very mildly indeed.’
‘Stalemate. You know what Bowman thinks of the Duke. I’m afraid my money’s on my man, Lila. He disposed of another of the bad men today – ’ ‘He did what?’
‘Threw him into the Rhône. I saw him do it. He says – ’
‘So that’s why you looked like a ghost when I saw you just now.’
‘I felt a bit like one, too. He says he’s killed two others. I believe him. And I saw him lay out two more. Local colour is local colour but that would be ridiculous, you can’t fake a dead man. He’s on the side of the angels, Lila. Not, mind you, that I can see the angels liking it very much.’
r /> ‘I’m no angel and I don’t like any part of it,’ Lila said. ‘I’m out of my depth and I don’t know how to cope. What are we to do?’
‘You’re no more lost than I am. Do? Do what we were told to do, I suppose?’
‘I suppose so.’ Lila sighed and resumed her earlier woebegone expression. Cecile peered at her.
‘Where is Charles?’
‘He’s gone.’ Her gloom deepened. ‘He’s just gone off with that little chauffeuse – that’s what he calls her – and told me to wait here.’
‘Lila!’ Cecile stared at her friend. ‘It’s not possible – ’
‘Why? Why is it not? What’s wrong with Charles?’
‘Nothing, of course. Nothing at all.’ Cecile rose. ‘Two minutes for an appointment. Our Mr Bowman does not like to be kept waiting.’
‘When I think of him with that little minx – ’
‘She looked a perfectly charming young girl to me.’
‘That’s what I thought, too,’ Lila admitted. ‘But that was an hour ago.’
Le Grand Duc was not, in fact, with the little minx, nor was he anywhere near her. In the square where the Rumanian and Hungarian caravans were pulled up, there were no signs of either Carita or the huge green Rolls and neither could have been said to be normally inconspicuous. Le Grand Duc, on the contrary, was very much in evidence: not far from the green-and-white caravan and with notebook in hand, he was talking with considerable animation to Simon Searl. Czerda, as befitted the leader of the gypsies and an already established acquaintance of Le Grand Duc, was close by but taking no part in the conversation: Searl, from what a few signs of emotion that occasionally registered in his thin ascetic face, looked as if he wished he were taking no part either.
‘Vastly obliged, Monsieur le Curé, vastly obliged.’ Le Grand Duc was at his regally gracious best. ‘I can’t tell you how impressed I was by the service you held in the fields by the Abbey, this morning. Moving, most moving. By Jove, I’m adding to my store of knowledge every minute.’ He peered more closely at Searl. ‘Have you hurt your leg, my dear fellow?’