Pray for a Brave Heart (33 page)

Broach shouted, “The truck was never near the inn. You’re lying, you’re lying!”

“Did you hear that?” Denning asked Keppler quietly.

“Yes,” said Keppler’s voice. “It sounds as if there was another truck around.”

“Same model, colour, and licence plate?”

“For Andrássy… So that’s how they were going to do it. Who would notice two trucks if they looked identical?”

“Who would notice even one brewery truck in Falken?”

“I’ll have a search made of the road near the foot of the Blümlisalp trail. You stay where you are. Who’s with you and Waysmith?”

“Broach.”

“The secretary hasn’t arrived back yet?”

“Not yet.”

“He left the village just a few minutes ago. Alone. With an iron-fast alibi established.”

“Do we wait for him, or start searching the woods?”

“Wait for us. Ten minutes, and we’ll be there. Bohren and his men will attend to the woods. Can you manage? Good luck.” The connection switched off.

Broach had now recovered his dignity. He was hard-eyed, tense-lipped. “Take your hands off me,” he told Waysmith coldly. “And get out, both of you. Contemptible, contemptible lies. Now I know how you build up your cases against innocent people. You see a truck delivering some beer to the inn, you see it delivering a barrel here. So you fabricate a story from that, invent a crime to link me with—”

“With what?” Denning asked. “With Francesca’s disappearance?”

“That’s a lie.”

“Everything you don’t want to hear is a lie,” Waysmith said wearily. “Come on, Bill. There’s just so much of this that I can take.”

“We’ll stay here, Andy.”

“We’re wasting time,” Waysmith said sharply.

We’ve almost ten minutes to waste, thought Denning. He didn’t move. And Waysmith, watching his face, stopped protesting. Broach picked up the rifle. “You are now trespassing. Do I have to call the police?”

Denning laughed,

Waysmith said, “Sure, this guy just about kills me, too. But I’ll do my laughing afterwards. If Francesca is still alive.”

That stopped Broach, and held him.

Denning’s voice was suddenly grim. “There’s a chance she is still alive. They’ll have to transport her out of Bern before they can really go to work on her. She won’t give out information easily, not Francesca.”

Broach stared at him. His nostrils were rigid, white-edged. There was a strange gleam over the surface of his pale face.

“When I worked with the French underground,” Denning went on, “I met two girls like Francesca. They outlasted our best men when they were caught and tortured. One held on for three weeks in Ravensbrück.”

“This,” Broach burst out, “is a despicable act. You think you’ll blackmail me with lies to—”

“I’ve given you up,” Denning told him contemptuously. “You can believe what you like.” He turned back to Waysmith. He went on talking, ignoring the rifle, ignoring Broach.

And Waysmith, quick to follow Denning’s lead, wondered for one wry moment if Denning was as conscious as he was of Broach’s strained face, of the rifle’s dangerous tilt, of the taut hand that gripped it and ungripped it with savage nervousness. “Funny thing about this fellow,” Waysmith said, “he argues when he could go and see for himself. All he has to do is to walk into the woods and have a look at a truck.”

“He won’t find Andrássy, either. Perhaps he knows that. Perhaps he prefers to stay here and act pure.”

“Like the people who saw the trainloads of political prisoners being carted off to labour camps and never objected.”

“Perhaps he’s waiting,” said Denning. “For instructions.”

“That’s it. He’s waiting for his secretary to give him permission to—” Waysmith broke off. “Say, Bill, have I stumbled on something?”

“I’d call that a pretty good stumble,” Denning said slowly.

But tactically it wasn’t good. For Broach, standing so still, regained his assurance. “I’m waiting for no one,” he said. “Walters has gone on to Bern.” He raised the rifle. “I’ll count
up to ten. Get out.”

“There is Walters arriving in Bern right now,” Denning said. “Hear him?” The strong drone of a powerful engine climbing the hill to the house came steadily nearer.

Broach forgot both of them for that minute, at least. He crossed swiftly to the window. Then he turned and stared at them.

Denning took out a cigarette and lit it slowly. How many of the ten minutes had gone? Only half of them? Surely more.

Waysmith took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. He cursed them as he did every day. He didn’t like a fight with his glasses on; yet, without them, he’d misjudge distances. But there was one thing to be thankful for at this minute: the rifle was no longer pointed at his head. One false move, there, and Paula would never have recognised his face again. Stop thinking of Paula, he warned himself: no weakness, Danton! He counted the steps of Mr. Walters, coming briskly into the house.

The little man halted at the door. He looked at the rifle, at the stick lying beside the couch where Denning stood, at the glasses in Waysmith’s hand. He frowned, puzzled and annoyed. Then he came forward with a smile.

“I got your message, sir,” he said to Broach. “So I came back here.”

“But I sent no message.”

Mr. Walters blinked. “Then it must have been from Haase.”

Waysmith felt a sense of disappointment. His guess about Walters hadn’t been so good after all: there was still another who gave orders around here. But Denning saw the quick look of warning which Broach received, and Keppler’s peculiar phrase jumped into his mind: “iron-fast alibi”. Mr. Walters was
always quick to establish his minor role, it seemed.

“Oh,” said Broach, recovering himself, “Haase. Of course, Haase.”

“I’m sorry if I interrupted you and your guests, sir.” Walters eyed Denning’s stick again, as he backed towards the door with a polite bow.

Denning said, lifting the stick and leaning on it, “This is only for my bad knee, Mr. Walters. No need to be alarmed. We came to interview Mr. Broach.”

Walters’s alarm was apparent only for one moment. “No doubt you had an interesting conversation.” He was still edging towards the door.

Waysmith put on his glasses, and crossed the room quickly to reach the door before Walters. “Don’t go,” he said. “In fact, perhaps you could settle some of the arguments we got into.”

“Arguments?” Walters looked at Broach, almost sadly.

“Don’t worry,” Broach said. “I think I handled their arguments all right. They are fairly clever propagandists, these two. I shouldn’t be surprised to find that the State Department bribed them to come and persuade me back to America. Just look at their faces—I’ve hit on the truth.”

Waysmith shook his head in wonder. “You really do believe you’re an important kind of fellow, don’t you?” He leaned against the doorway, his feet outstretched, blocking Walters’s exit. “What’s that?” he added quickly.
“Another
car coming up your little hill?”

Walters crossed quickly to the window. He looked incredulous, worried. He stood beside Broach and waited for the car to come into the driveway.

Denning called softly, “Mr. James—”

Walters turned round.

Then he realised what he had done. “What did you say?” he asked coldly.

But Broach had taken a step away from the window. “It’s a truck,” he said unbelievingly.

Walters glanced back at the driveway quickly. For a moment his control slipped.

“An earlier delivery than expected?” Denning asked. But there was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach: Heinz Gauch had failed, Keppler had failed. Here was the brewery truck with Andrássy, and not one policeman, not one security agent in sight. And how many of Walters’s men were in that truck? Certainly two, perhaps three. “Andy,” he said quietly, and gestured towards the door.

“Then there were two trucks. Two,” said Broach. His voice rose. “Who was in the first one?”

Walters paid no attention: he had his own problems. “Fools. Idiots.” He turned angrily away from the window, wrenching, himself free from Broach’s hand, and ran towards the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” he shouted at Waysmith and Denning. “Broach! Cover them with that rifle!” And he ran into the hall, towards the front door, yelling another set of commands to the men outside. “Don’t stop there, you fools! Drive on!”

Broach stared at Denning for a long moment. Then his mouth twisted. He caught the rifle by its barrel and swung it high over his head as he took a step forward, smashing the butt down into the bowl of roses, sideways at a vase, down into a porcelain lamp, down, up, sideways, down, swinging, smashing blindly with each slow step. His face was livid, rigid. And then,
suddenly, he stopped. He threw the rifle at the door. And he stood there, staring at Denning again, his breath coming in gulping sobs, his eyes hard with rage against the whole world.

But never against himself, Denning thought. Broach dropped on to the couch and covered his face with his hands.

Waysmith picked up the rifle. “It wasn’t loaded after all,” he said, shaking his head, his voice mild with wonder as he remembered his fear. Now it seemed ludicrous. Yet Denning’s face was still tense. What next? Waysmith wondered. Then he heard the heavy footsteps mounting the wooden steps to the front balcony.

Denning took a firm grip of the end of his stick, as if it were a club. He faced the door, backing away from it. He said, “There’s a window over there, just behind us. Go on, Andy. You first. And keep that rifle pointed. It looks real enough.”

But Walters had returned. Alone. Swiftly he looked around at the destruction, swiftly he crossed over to the couch. “Broach! Broach!”

And Denning, half-way to the window, halted; for there was desperation and fear as well as anger in Walters’s hushed voice as his hand caught Broach’s lapel and shook him.

Walters was saying with quiet intensity. “That girl was the leader of the conspiracy against us. Her smiles were lies to catch you, catch me. She was head of the Committee. D’you hear? Head of the Committee. Of the Committee.”

Broach looked up at Walters, blankly at first, and then as the word “Committee” was hammered into his consciousness, his face lost the slack look of complete disbelief. He turned his head to look at Denning accusingly. “Was she?” he asked, his voice still hoarse.

Mr. Walters stepped back. He was satisfied. He turned to face the men who had entered the room. “Gentlemen, I must protest against this armed invasion. We have our rights. This is an outrage.” He blinked his eyes, he fluttered his hands.

“A terrible outrage,” Keppler said quietly, making his way into the room between the three policemen and the two men in tourist dress who had grouped themselves at the door. There was Le Brun, too, with his sardonic smile and quick eyes already searching for his diamonds.

“Look at the damage these criminals have done!” Walters swept his arm around him. He finished with a dramatic gesture towards Denning and Waysmith. “Just see what they’ve done! Arrest them!” As he spoke, he retreated over to the back of the room.

But Denning was already there. “I also had that window picked out for a quick exit, Mr. James.” And he caught the secretary’s shoulders, and swung him round. The blandly innocent face, indignant, contemptuous, sparked Denning’s anger. He hit hard.

“Was that necessary?” Keppler asked, but he was smiling as he signalled urgently towards the hall.

“Yes,” Denning said briefly. He rubbed his knuckles, as he stared down at the man now sitting at his feet, nursing a bruised jaw. I didn’t hit hard enough, he thought.

There was a stir near the door. A small dark man, firmly attached to Le Brun’s assistant, was brought into the room. He hesitated, nodded nervously, then looked bleakly at Le Brun.

“Look around you,” Le Brun told him abruptly. “Anyone here whom you know?”

Nikolaides looked at Broach, at Waysmith. He shook his
head over each of them. Then he looked at Denning. “Yes. I’ve met Mr. Denning.” His eyes dropped to Walters, now. He raised his free hand to point. “Mr. James,” he said, his voice rising, “The man who called himself James!” And he broke into a stream of French, detailing briefly but fluently James’s ancestry, his appearance, his antecedents, his future. “I spit on you,” he ended, and suited his action to his words. “Murderer and liar. I spit.”

“Now, now,” said Keppler with distaste, signalling Nikolaides away. There was nothing so bitter as injured complicity.

Le Brun addressed Keppler. “If I may start interrogating?” He nodded in the direction of Broach.

“Certainly. I’ve got all I want,” Keppler said grimly. He was watching the policemen as they encircled James.

“Don’t touch me!” James said in fury. “I have immunity. I insist. I have diplomatic immunity.”

One of the policemen hesitated, looked at Keppler.

“He will have to prove that,” Keppler told him. “Meanwhile, arrest him.”

And the policeman produced his handcuffs as he began his brief recital. Waysmith felt a shudder down his spine as the earnest voice droned on:…for the murders of Charles-Auguste Maartens…of Benjamin Taylor, Captain…of Maxwell Meyer, Lieutenant Colonel…in the City of Bern on the night of Thursday, the twenty-eighth day of May, 1953. Then he stared over at Denning.

But Denning was leaving the room.

Waysmith caught up with him at the front door. Together, they stood facing the quiet woods for a moment.

“Bohren ought to be there,” said Denning. But his voice
was worried. They looked at each other. Then they set out at a run, cutting across the grass, avoiding the harsh clatter of the gravelled driveway. As they reached the first trees, there came the crack of rifle fire, its echo slapping sharply against the wooded hillside.

After that brief burst of shots, there was only silence in the woods. Denning, now at a quick walk, led the way through the trees, keeping to the needle-covered ground, still avoiding the surface of the narrow road which guided them obliquely down a gentle slope. He halted suddenly.

“Did you hear something, too?” Waysmith asked in a low voice.

Denning nodded. There had been a clear snap of a dried branch, the dull sound of a fall smothered by the carpet of pine needles. And these noises had not come from the direction of the shots, but from somewhere up there, to Denning’s right, on higher ground. It could be some of Bohren’s men, circling around. Yet had there been enough time to let them climb the eastern heights of the wood? Judging from the shots, they had entered the wood at its western boundary bordering on the meadows through which Denning and Gauch had walked that
afternoon, and then filtered through the trees to find the road and the truck and Francesca.