A Fine Night for Dying (4 page)

T
hey caught the night express to Brest with only ten minutes to spare. It wasn't particularly crowded. Chavasse managed to find them an empty second-class compartment near the rear, left the girl in charge and ran to the station buffet. He returned with a carton of coffee, sandwiches and a half dozen oranges.

The girl drank some of the coffee gratefully, but shook her head when he offered her a sandwich. “I couldn't eat a thing.”

“It's going to be a long night,” he said. “I'll save some for you for later.”

The train started to move, and she got up and went into the corridor, looking out over the lights of Marseilles. When she finally turned and came back into the compartment, a lot of the strain seemed to have left her face.

“Feeling better now?” he asked.

“I felt sure that something would go wrong, that Captain Skiros might reappear.”

“A bad dream,” he said. “You can forget it now.”

“Life seems to have been all bad dreams for some time.”

“Why not tell me about it?”

She seemed strangely shy, and when she spoke, it was hesitantly at first. Her name was Famia Nadeem, and he had been wrong about her age. She was nineteen. Born in Bombay, her mother had died in childbirth and her father had immigrated to England, leaving her in the care of her grandmother. Things had gone well for him, for he now owned a prosperous Indian restaurant in Manchester and had sent for her to join him three months before, on the death of the old woman.

But there had been snags of a kind with which Chavasse was only too familiar. Under the terms of the Immigration Act, only genuine family dependents of Commonwealth citizens already in residence in Britain could be admitted without a work permit. In Famia's case, there was no formal birth certificate to prove her identity conclusively. Unfortunately there had been a great many false claims, and the authorities were now sticking rigorously to the letter of the law. No absolute proof of the claimed relationship meant no entry, and Famia had been sent back to India on the next flight.

But her father had not given up. He had sent her money and details of an underground organization that specialized in helping people in her predicament. She was disconcertingly naive, and Chavasse found little difficulty in extracting the information he required, starting with the export firm in Bombay where her trip had commenced, passing through Cairo and Beirut, and culminating in Naples with the agents who controlled the
Anya
.

“But why did you give Skiros all your money?” he asked.

“He said it would be safer. That there were those who might take advantage of me.”

“And you believed him?”

“He seemed kind.”

She leaned back in her seat, head turned to look through her own reflection into the darkness outside. She was beautiful—too beautiful for her own good, Chavasse decided. A lovely, vulnerable young girl on her own in a nightmare world.

She turned and, catching him watching her, colored faintly. “And you, Mr. Chavasse? What about you?”

He gave her his background story, cutting out the criminal bit. He was an artist from Sydney who wanted to spend a few months in England, which meant working for his keep, and there was a long, long waiting list for permits. He wasn't prepared to join the queue.

She accepted his story completely and without any kind of query, which was bad, considering that it was so shot full of holes. She leaned back again and gradually her eyes closed. He reached for his trench coat and covered her. He was beginning to feel some kind of responsibility, which was really quite absurd. She was nothing to him—nothing at all. In any case, with any kind of luck, things would go through pretty smoothly once they reached St. Denise.

But what would happen when they arrived on the English coast and Mallory acted on his information? She'd be on her way back to Bombay for good. They'd never allow her into the country again after an attempt at illegal entry. Life could be very difficult at times. Chavasse sighed, folded his arms and tried to get some sleep.

 

THEY reached St. Brieuc just before five o'clock in the morning. The girl had slept peacefully throughout the night, and Chavasse awakened her just before they arrived. She disappeared along the corridor, and when she returned, her hair was combed neatly into place.

“Any hot water down there?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I prefer cold in the morning. It freshens you up.”

Chavasse ran a hand over the hard stubble on his chin and shook his head. “I'm not too fond of being skinned alive. I'll shave later.”

The train glided into St. Brieuc five minutes later. They were the only passengers to alight. It was cold and desolate and touched with that atmosphere peculiar to railway stations in the early hours of the morning the world over. It was as if everyone had just left.

The ticket collector, well protected against the chill morning air by a heavy overcoat and muffler, looked ready for retirement. He was the kind of man who seemed indifferent to everything, even life itself, and the pallor of his skin, coupled with his constant, repetitive coughing, boded ill. He answered Chavasse with a kind of frigid civility, as if his attention was elsewhere.

St. Denise? Yes, there was a bus to Dinard that would drop them within a mile of St. Denise. It left at nine o'clock from the square. They would find a café there that opened early for the market people. Monsieur Pinaud was not one to miss trade. He subsided once more into his own cheerless world, and they moved on.

 

RAIN drifted across the square as they went down the steps and crossed to the lighted windows of the café. It was warm inside, but not busy. Chavasse left the girl at a table by the window and moved to the zinc-topped bar.

A middle-aged balding man in striped shirt and white apron, presumably the Monsieur Pinaud referred to by the ticket collector, was reading a newspaper. He pushed it to one side and smiled. “Just off the train?”

“That's it.” Chavasse ordered coffee and rolls. “They tell me there's a bus to Dinard at nine o'clock. That's definitely the earliest?”

Pinaud nodded as he poured the coffee. “You want to go to Dinard?”

“No, Saint Denise.”

The coffeepot froze in midair and the man glanced across warily. “Saint Denise? You want to go to Saint Denise?”

His reaction was more than interesting and Chavasse smiled amiably. “That's right. My girlfriend and I are spending a few days' holiday there. I've arranged to stay at an inn called the Running Man with a Monsieur Jacaud. You know him?”

“Perhaps, monsieur. A lot of people come in here.” He pushed the coffee and rolls across.

Chavasse took the two cups and the plate of rolls across to the table. As he sat down, Pinaud wiped the zinc top of the bar carefully, then moved to a door that obviously led to the rear, and vanished.

“I'll only be a minute,” Chavasse told the girl, and went after him.

He found himself in a deserted, stone-flagged corridor. A notice at the far end indicated the lavatory. There was no sign of Pinaud. Chavasse started forward cautiously and paused. A door on his right was slightly ajar. From the sound of it, Pinaud was on the telephone. The interesting thing was that he was speaking in Breton, which Chavasse, whose paternal grandfather still presided over the family farm near Vaux in spite of his eighty years, spoke himself like a native.

“Hello, Jacaud. Those two packages you were expecting have arrived. The girl fits the description perfectly, but the man worries me. Speaks French like a Frenchman, or like a Frenchman should, if you follow me. Yes—okay. They're waiting for the bus at nine.”

Chavasse slipped back into the café. Famia was already on her second roll. “Hurry up,” she said. “Your coffee will be getting cold.”

“Never mind. I'm just going across to the station to check on that bus time again. I won't be long.”

He went out into the rain without giving her a chance to reply and hurried across to the station. It was still deserted, but he quickly found what he was looking for, a series of metal lockers, each with its own key, where luggage might be left. He took out his wallet and also the extra money he had taken from Skiros. He pushed the whole lot well to the rear of the locker, closed it quickly and concealed the key beneath the insole of his right shoe.

Famia was looking anxious when he returned to the café. He patted her hand reassuringly and went back to the counter.

“I wondered what had happened to you,” Pinaud said.

Chavasse shrugged. “I thought there might be a local train or something. It's a hell of a time to wait.”

“Don't worry about that.” Pinaud gave him a big smile. “You just sit tight and have another coffee. Lots of farmers and market people are in and out of here at this time in the morning. I'll get you a lift to Saint Denise. Someone is bound to be going that way.”

“Very decent of you. Perhaps you'd join me in a cognac? It's a cold morning.”

“An excellent idea.” Pinaud reached for a bottle and a couple of glasses and filled them quickly. “Your good health, monsieur.” He raised his glass and smiled.

Chavasse smiled right back. “And yours.”

The brandy burned all the way down. He picked up his coffee and returned to the table to await events.

 

PEOPLE came and went, mainly porters from the nearby market, and Chavasse bought the girl another coffee and waited. It was perhaps half an hour later when the old van turned out of a narrow street on the other side of the square.

He watched it idly as it approached, and noticed a Renault emerge from the same street and halt at the curbside. The van came on and braked no more than a couple of yards from the café window. Jacaud got out.

The girl reacted immediately. “That man—what a terrible face. He seems so…so completely evil.”

“Appearances can sometimes be very deceptive,” Chavasse told her.

Jacaud paused just inside the door, glancing casually around the room as if seeking a friend before proceeding to the counter, and yet he had marked them. Chavasse was sure of it. He purchased a packet of cigarettes, and Pinaud said something to him. He glanced over his shoulder at Chavasse and the girl, then turned away again. Pinaud poured him a cognac and came round the counter.

“You are in luck, monsieur,” he told Chavasse. “This man is going to Saint Denise. He has agreed to give you a lift.”

Chavasse turned to the girl and said in English: “Our good-looking friend has offered us a lift. Should we accept?”

“Is there any reason why we shouldn't?”

He smiled and shook his head. “You're really very refreshing, but hopelessly out of date. Still—never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Jacaud swallowed his cognac and crossed to the door. He paused and glanced down at Chavasse, face expressionless. “You are going to Saint Denise, I understand? I'm on my way there now. You're welcome to a lift.”

“Wonderful,” Chavasse said brightly. “We'll be right with you.”

Jacaud nodded briefly to Pinaud. “I'll be in touch about further arrangements,” he said, in Breton, and went out.

He was already behind the wheel when Chavasse and the girl joined him. There was room for one passenger. The girl took the only seat, and Chavasse heaved the suitcases into the rear and climbed over the tailgate. The van started at once, bouncing its way across the cobbles, passing the parked Renault. He caught a quick glimpse of the driver, a flash of very fair hair, and then the Renault pulled away from the curb and came after them, which was interesting.

Chavasse touched the butt of the Smith & Wesson snug in its holster against his spine, then sat back and waited to see what was going to happen.

 

WITHIN a few minutes, they had left the town and were proceeding along a narrow country road. The heavy rain and a slight ground mist reduced visibility considerably, but he caught an occasional glimpse of the sea in the distance beyond a fringe of pine trees.

The Renault stayed so close that he could see the driver clearly, a pale, aesthetic man with extraordinarily fair hair who looked more like a priest than anything else. They came to a crossroads at a place where the pinewoods seemed to move in on every side. The van carried straight on; the Renault turned left and disappeared. Chavasse frowned.

The van swerved into a narrow sandy track to the left and moved down through the pine trees toward the sea. A few moments later, the engine coughed a couple of times, faltered, then stopped completely. The van rolled to a halt, the door opened and Jacaud came round to the rear.

“Trouble?” Chavasse inquired.

“I've run out of fuel,” Jacaud said. “But it doesn't matter. I always carry an emergency supply. At the back of the bench there.”

Chavasse found on old British Army jerrycan that looked as if it had been in use since Dunkirk. It was full, which made it awkward to handle in the confined space, and he had to use both hands, which was obviously exactly what Jacaud had counted on. As Chavasse heaved the jerrycan up on the tailgate with every sign of difficulty, the big man's hand appeared from behind his back and the tire iron lever he was holding cracked down.