The doctor nodded. ‘There are tablets for the pain. He’ll go to sleep now, I’ve given him a powerful dose of sedative – big frame and very restless – I’ll keep him well sedated for the next few days. I don’t think we’ll have to move him into the clinic.’
‘And the boy?’
‘He needs a good night’s sleep, that’s all. Children have an extraordinary recuperative facility. I don’t want to give him my knock-out drops. I suggest that you give him some warmed wine with plenty of sugar in it. Nature’s remedy, the grape. Better than all the chemicals.’
‘Thank you, doctor.’
‘Don’t thank me. I am pleased to be of service. I like them, you see. The child has inherited his father’s charm, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘He made me promise you’d say goodnight to him. I told him his father’s asleep. I don’t think he’s anxious, but …’
‘I’ll go and see him now.’
I need not have tiptoed in.
‘Did you see Henry? He was covered in blood.’
‘You must go to sleep, Billy.’
‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘He’s got to have a good night’s sleep, the doctor said so.’
‘Is Henry dead?’
It was a trap to test my story about his father. ‘Yes, Billy. Poor Henry is dead, but your father is just shaken up, and you and me are just fine. So we must count our blessings.’
Billy corrected me. ‘We must thank God,’ he said.
‘That’s what I meant,’ I said.
‘Can I see Daddy?’
‘If you want to, you can. But I thought you’d take my word for it.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Billy. ‘I do take your word for it.’ He wriggled down into his bed and put his face into his pillow. I waited for him to peep out at me. When he did, I pulled a face at him. Usually he laughed, but this time he was very serious. ‘Is Aunty Nini in prison?’
Pina had always been called Nini, ever since Billy had found her real name too difficult to pronounce. ‘Why, Billy?’
‘For shooting Henry.’
‘Who says she shot Henry?’
‘I saw her,’ said Billy. ‘She was driving the motorcycle. I saw her and she saw me.’
‘It looked like her, Billy. But Aunty Nini would not shoot us; we’re friends, aren’t we?’
Billy nodded, and swallowed. ‘It looked like her, though,’ he said.
‘I’ll bring you a glass of wine,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll put out the light, so that you can sleep. In the morning we’ll try talking to the fishes again.’
22
‘Don’t switch on the light, lover man.’
Topaz was waiting in my bedroom. She’d pulled the curtains open and stood near the balcony, so that the moonlight made her hair shine like polished silver.
I moved towards her. She threw herself into my arms. ‘It gives me the creeps, this house.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘All right? How could it be, in this dump? Those Arabs eating couscous and watching me all the time. And Mr Champion in some sort of coma.’
‘He’s only under sedation,’ I said. ‘And I like couscous.’
‘Gives me the creeps,’ she said. ‘This whole house gives me the creeps. If it wasn’t for poor little Billy, I would have packed my bags weeks ago.’ As she put her arms round me, I could feel the thinness of the white cotton dress, and I could feel that she wore nothing under it. She kissed me.
‘Don’t undo my shirt,’ I said.
‘What are you, a poof or something?’
‘Some other time, Topaz,’ I said. ‘Right now, I’ve got things to do.’
She hugged me tighter, confident that she could make me see reason.
‘You know enough of those English words for “go away” without forcing me to use them,’ I whispered.
‘I am English,’ she said.
‘And that’s another reason,’ I said.
‘What have I done?’ she said. ‘Am I using the wrong sort of toothpaste, or something?’
‘You’re a doll,’ I told her, ‘but for the next hour I’m going to be busy.’
‘Oh, an hour.’ She gave me her sexiest smile, and a sigh to match. ‘I might be able to last out an hour.’
‘Well, don’t blow a gasket,’ I said, ‘the steam fogs up my glasses.’
There was enough light coming from the night sky for me to see her as she smiled, and kicked off her shoes. She plumped up the pillows and sat on the bed. She kept her handbag close to her and began to rummage through its contents.
Footsteps came hurrying along the corridor outside my room. An Arab voice called softly for Billy, but there was no answer. The footsteps moved away downstairs, and I heard the call repeated somewhere down in the hall.
‘They are all leaving,’ said Topaz.
‘Sounds like it,’ I said. Now they were calling for Billy from outside in the grounds.
‘I’m not involved in any of this,’ she said.
‘I’ll see you in an hour,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Topaz.
There was enough light to see that she was holding a small pistol. ‘I thought it might be like that,’ I said.
‘Sit down on that little chair.’
I sat down very quickly. She gave a mocking laugh. ‘What are you?’ she said. ‘A man or a mouse?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
She looked at me for what seemed like a long time. ‘I’ll bet you keep your small change in a little purse.’ She waved the gun to show that she didn’t like the way I was leaning towards the door. Her position on the bed gave her a clear field of fire should I go to either the balcony window or the door. There was enough moonlight coming through the window to make such a dash very dangerous.
‘You shouldn’t have got into this one, cream bun.’
‘Stay here until morning, and you’ll be safe, and I’ll collect one hundred thousand francs,’ she explained. ‘Go downstairs, and you’ll be knocked unconscious, and I’ll lose my money.’
‘Sweet talk!’ I said. ‘These people pay debts with bullets.’
‘You let me worry about that,’ she said.
I moved. The little gold-painted chair creaked. Such chairs are not designed for sitting on.
‘It will be a long night,’ she said. ‘It’s too bad you wouldn’t do it the easy way.’
‘I’ll get my cigarettes,’ I said. I reached into my jacket for them. Topaz smiled her agreement. She had already run her hands over every place I might have hidden a gun.
I smoked my cigarette, and gave her no cause for alarm. She held the pistol as if she knew how to use it, and she’d left the room in darkness, so that if I tried to get away I would be silhouetted against the light from the balcony window or the light from the hall when I opened the door. I wasn’t sure how much of this was luck, and how much of it judgement, but neither was I in a hurry to learn.
Elsewhere in the house there were sounds of movement. Footsteps came up the stairs, past the door, and returned slowly and with enough deep breathing to make me sure that Champion was being carried downstairs.
‘Light another cigarette,’ said Topaz.
I did as I was told. At that range its glowing ember provided her with a target that she could not miss.
What was the plan, I wondered. If the girl was going to kill me, she could have done so already. If they were going to take me with them, there was no need for her to get me into bed for the night. If she was going to delay me until morning, how would she prevent me then from giving the alarm. Holding me at gun-point was one thing, locking me up, or knocking me unconscious was another.
I wondered how much of this was Champion’s idea.
‘If they kill Champion, you’ll be an accessory,’ I said. ‘And they still have the death penalty in France.’
My eyes had become accustomed to the gloom. I could see her stretched out on the bed, her hands clasped loosely in front of her. I
n her hands, the gun. ‘I’ll have a hundred thousand francs,’ she said. ‘You don’t think I’m going to hang around here, do you?’
‘The Riviera,’ I said. ‘Why not?’
‘I’ve had one winter in this lousy climate and I’m not planning another. To think that I believed all that travel-poster bilge about hot sun and swimming all the year. No, mister, my future is all planned.’
‘Husband?’ I asked. ‘Or someone else’s husband?’
‘You should have been on the stage,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anyone to help me spend. Especially I don’t need men to help me.’
‘Where in the sun?’ I persisted.
‘Close your eyes and go to sleep,’ she said, as if angry with herself for revealing too much. ‘Or I’ll sing out and someone will put you to sleep.’
There was the sound of heavy diesels coming slowly up the road. Topaz slid off the bed and went to the window. ‘Four huge trucks,’ she said. ‘No, five, I mean. Really huge. They’ve stopped down near the lodge.’
‘Use your brains, Topaz,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘You’re frightened,’ she said.
‘You’re damned right,’ I said.
‘I’ll look after you,’ she said sarcastically. ‘If they were going to hurt us, they wouldn’t have let me have the gun, would they?’
‘Have you tried it?’
‘Funny man – just don’t give me an excuse, that’s all.’ She went back to the bed.
‘Champion’s badly hurt,’ I told her. ‘The Arabs have taken control. They are not just going to leave us here.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
I chain-smoked that night, my muscles so tense that I hardly inhaled the smoke, and I don’t know how many cigarettes I used before there came a soft tapping on the door.
‘Topaz!’ The voice was no more than a whisper but I could see Mebarki, the Algerian secretary, as he came into the room. ‘Are you both there?’ Already some reflex action had turned my cigarette to conceal its light behind my palm.
‘Yes,’ said Topaz. The man stepped forward to the bed. There was a blaze of light. I might have mistaken it for a photo-flash, except that it was a rich yellow colour, rather than a thin blue. The flash of light printed Mebarki in full colour upon the black negative of the room. He stood leaning forward, like a man digging his garden. His eyes were half closed and his lips pursed in mental, moral and physical effort. The resounding bang of the gun he held seemed to come a long time afterwards. It was followed by the sound of gun-shot buzzing round the room like angry flies. Then he pulled the second trigger.
There was a clatter as the shotgun was dropped upon the floor, and a softer noise that I later discovered to be the leather gloves he’d thrown after them. From outside came the sound of the diesel engines. They revved and then moved away, until the sound of the last truck faded.
Topaz was past help. I could see that without even switching the light on. The point-blank shotgun blasts had torn her in two, and the bed was soaked with warm blood.
I owed my life to a semantic distinction: had Mebarki said ‘Are you both in bed?’ instead of ‘Are you both there?’, he would, no doubt, have devoted the second barrel to me.
I reached forward gingerly to retrieve her gun, and rinsed it under the tap in a process that was as much exorcism as it was forensic science.
Poor Topaz. Even traffic casualties who have played tag in the road deserve our tears, but I could find none. In Portsmouth two would grieve, each Sunday morning of their final years marred by long bus rides to a chilly cemetery.
Armed only with the little pop-gun that the Arabs had given Topaz, and equipped with a torch from beside my bed, I went through the house.
Billy’s room was empty, but I threw some of his clothes into a canvas bag and hurried down to the back door and went outside. I moved quickly and spoke softly: ‘Billy! Billy!’ There was no response. I went round past the kitchen door until I got to the fish pond. ‘Billy! It’s Uncle Charlie.’
There was a long silence, and when an answer came it was no more than a whisper. ‘Uncle Charlie.’ Billy was behind the summerhouse from which we played our games of calling to the fish. ‘Is that you, Uncle Charlie?’
‘Were you banging the doors, Billy?’
‘It was those men – did you see the big lorries? They made the doors bang twice.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ I said. ‘As long as it wasn’t you.’ I picked him up. He was dressed only in his thin pyjamas. I felt him shivering. ‘We must hurry, Billy.’
‘Are we going somewhere?’
‘Perhaps Aunty Nini will take you to England. Take you to Mummy.’
‘For always?’
‘If you want.’ Keeping off the gravel path, I carried Billy down to the copse where I’d left the Fiat under the trees.
‘Promise?’
‘You know I’ll try.’
‘Daddy says that when he means no.’ Billy put both arms round my neck. ‘Aunty Nini shot Henry,’ he said.
‘But only in the game,’ I said.
‘Was it?’ he said, coming fully awake and staring at me.
‘You and I always play jokes on Sunday,’ I reminded him. ‘There was the man trapped inside the fire extinguisher, and the toy rabbit who hid …’
‘And the fishes you talked to.’
‘There you are,’ I said.
‘Daddy will be awfully cross about the car,’ said Billy.
‘That’s why he went to bed,’ I explained. ‘I’ve had to promise to mend it.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Billy with a deep sigh. ‘But I’ll help you, Uncle Charlie.’
I found the Fiat parked where I had left it. I unlocked the front door and put Billy inside. As I looked back towards the house I saw a light shine from one of the upstairs windows. I got into the car and closed the door without slamming it. Another light shone from the upstairs windows of the house. I was beginning to understand how they worked now: someone had come back to sweep up the remains.
I started the Fiat. ‘Hold tight, Billy!’ I said. ‘This might be a rough ride!’ The car careered over the rutted tracks.
‘Yippee! Are you going to drive right across the back fields?’ said Billy excitedly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s so dull always going out through the front gate.’
23
There was a bright moon, but cloud was building up with every sign that the promised storms would arrive by morning. I kept up a good speed on the dry moonlit roads. I took my own route into Nice rather than follow the obvious one. I crossed the River Var high up, leaving behind the chic region where wealthy psychiatrists throw poolside parties for pop-groups.
East of the Var is another landscape. Routiers and quarrymen work extra time to buy a few hundred breeze blocks for raw little villas, that squat upon steep hillsides and at the weekends excrete small cars. In record time we were at St Pancrace. I raced through the empty streets of the northern suburbs and along the Boulevard de Cessole to the station. From there it was only two minutes to the Rue de la Buffa where Pina Baroni lived.
I found a parking place near the Anglican church. It was still only about one A.M., but as the sound of the Fiat’s motor faded there was not a sound or a movement in any direction.
Pina lived on the fourth floor of a new apartment block, at the fashionable end of the Rue de la Buffa. Across the street was Pina’s boutique. Its neighbours included two foreign banks, a poodle-clipper and the sort of athletic club that turns out to be a sun-lamp salon for fat executives.
In the moonlight the white marble entrance was as bright as day. The foyer was all tinted mirror, concealed lighting and locked glass doors, with a light behind the intercom and a thief-proof welcome-mat. ‘It’s Charlie,’ I said. The door opened with a loud click, and a sign lighted to tell me to push the door closed behind me.
Pina was dressed as if ready to go out. ‘Charlie –’ she began, but I shook my head, and at the sight of Billy
she bent down to him. ‘Darling Billy,’ she said, and embraced him tightly enough to squeeze the breath from his body.
‘Aunty Nini,’ he said dutifully, and stared at her thoughtfully.
‘He got his feet wet,’ I told her. ‘He went down to talk to the fishes in his pyjamas.’
‘We’ll give you a hot bath, Billy.’
‘These are clean pyjamas and underclothes and things,’ I said. I indicated the bag I’d brought.
‘Your Uncle Charlie thinks of everything,’ said Pina.
‘But always a bit too late,’ I said.
As if anxious to avoid talking to me, Pina took Billy into the bathroom. I heard the water running, and Pina came out and fussed about with clean sheets and pillowcases for the spare bed.
‘I want you to take him to England, Pina. Take him back to Caty.’
Pina looked at me without answering. ‘Hot milk or cocoa?’ she called loudly. ‘Which would you like, Billy?’
‘Cocoa, please, Aunty Nini.’
‘I can’t,’ said Pina.
‘It’s all over, Pina,’ I said. ‘Even now I can’t guarantee to keep you out of it.’
She pushed past me and went into the tiny kitchen. She poured milk into a saucepan, mixed cocoa into a jug and added sugar. She gave it all her attention. When she spoke it was without looking up. ‘You know about the others?’
‘Serge Frankel masterminding the whole thing, with you and old Ercole’s grandson doing the commando stuff? Eventually I guessed.’
‘Is Champion dead?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They took him away when the big trucks came. Where are they going, Pina?’
She bit her lip and then shook her head. ‘It’s a mess, Charlie.’ The milk boiled and she poured it into the cups. She pushed one cup towards me and took another one to Billy.
I sank down into an armchair and resisted a great desire to go to sleep myself. I heard the water running, and the voices of Pina and the child. I looked round the room. Amongst the colour TV, indoor plants and the sort of steel-and-leather furniture that looks like office equipment, there were one or two items still remaining from the farmhouse where she’d lived with her parents during the war. There was a sword that some long-dead Baroni had carried in the Battle of Solferino, at a time when Nice and Savoy were speaking Italian. Alongside it hung a faded watercolour of a house near Turin, and a photo of Pina’s parents on their wedding day. In the glass-fronted cabinet a place of honour had been found for a Staffordshire teapot with a broken spout. In the old days that had been the hiding place for the radio crystals.