Soldier No More (38 page)

The van arrived five minutes later, drawing in close beside the left-hand bastion of the gateway.

Still remembering Sussex, Roche watched it half-hopefully, half-fearfully, out of the corner of his eye, only to have his half-hopes swiftly dashed as its occupants unloaded boxes of fresh peaches from the rear, each carrying an armful through the gateway into the town, with no more than the typical glance at him which the working peasant reserved for the idle foreign tourist, of boredom lightly iced with envy.

Five more minutes dragged by, then the two men returned to exchange empty boxes for fresh ones. Roche’s half-fears began to strengthen at their inconvenient presence, which must surely account for the delay in Genghis Khan’s appearance. At the best of times the moment of contact was charged with doubt and uncertainty, but here in the open, with miles of countryside below him and a hundred upper-storey windows watching him over the old wall, the dangers were multiplied.

He turned away from them to scan the street again, aware of a prickle of sweat under his shirt which was not caused by the sun’s warmth on his back. But this time, as he moved to give them a wider berth, the elder of the two peasants detoured to pass round him, his face half-obscured by the peach-boxes.

“The van,” half the mouth whispered.

Beneath the three-quarter rolled-up canvas flap at the back, the interior of the van looked hot and dark, and still full of peach-boxes. Several wasps were already buzzing above the lowered tail-board, attracted by the scent of the peaches and working up their courage to leave the safety of the sunlight.

“Look away—don’t look in here,” said Genghis Khan’s voice out of the boxes and the darkness. “Look towards the country.”

Roche looked away quickly, down the Cahors road and over the children, to the fields which the medieval Neuvillians had once tilled when they had been frontier farmers.

“If you can hear me, don’t nod—just say so. You understand?” Roche almost nodded. Every night they had returned to the security of their walls, those old farmers, like the earliest colonists of the Americas. That was how
bastides
worked.

“Yes,” he addressed the fields. He hadn’t realised until now how deliberately the place had been sited; but, of course, Alphonse de Poitiers had taken the high ground for his new town, like any good commander.

“From time to time, walk away, as though you are still waiting for someone … And if you see anything you don’t like, walk away and don’t come back. You understand?”

Again Roche very nearly nodded. It was an unnatural way of conversing, almost like talking to an incubus within him, which was whispering inside his head.

“Yes.” With an effort of will he drove out the dark thought, to join Alphonse de Poitiers. “I understand.”

“Then listen. We know now where Audley’s money comes from—“

“So do I. He wrote
Princess in the Sunset
,” interrupted Roche quickly. Another advantage was that the memory of that face was less daunting than the actual sight of it: he had to envisage Genghis Khan as he was now— imprisoned in sweaty peach-sweet darkness, with wasps buzzing around his ears, not as the descendant of the Mongols and the out-rider of the next race’ of conquerors.

“He told you?”

“No.” Better to think of the man in there as a Hun than a Mongol: Audley’s Aëtius, the Last of the Romans, and his half-civilised Visigothic allies had beaten
them
not far from here fifteen hundred years back. So it could be done—it wasn’t impossible if he kept his head.

“What?” The sound of a slight movement inside the van, above the wasp-buzz, encouraged Roche.

“I said ‘no’—he didn’t tell me. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s Antonia Palfrey. It wouldn’t do his image as a serious historian any good … among the serious historians.” Roche smiled at the fields of Neuville as he thought of what Dr Bodger would make of Antonia Audley. In any last resort there was a weapon to hand there.

But not a weapon to use against Genghis Khan. “What’s more, he’s writing another novel—he’s writing two books, actually: there’s a novel about the Vandals in the 5th century, which I think he’s finished … and there’s a history of the Arab invasion of these parts in the 8th century. Which is why he’s here now—“ the weapon he needed for Genghis Khan fitted snugly into his hand “—all of which I think Colonel Clinton and Sir Eustace Avery already know… among other things,” he lowered his voice deliberately, to make it more difficult for Genghis Khan to hear, for tactical reasons as well as pure sadism.

“What? Clinton
knows?
”
The surprise in the muffled voice was balm to Roche’s soul. The thing was working—Genghis Khan could be tweaked into a human reaction, he wasn’t invincible: Aëtius, when he saw the sun shimmer on the lance-points of the Gothic army coming to his aid must have felt like this!

“He didn’t want to make it too easy for me. It’s a test for me—“ Caution quickly counter-balanced confidence: it was Steffy about whom he needed to know, not the source of Audley’s wealth “—at least, it was until things started going wrong, anyway.”

“Too easy?” To Roche’s disappointment, Genghis Khan shrugged aside
things going wrong
. “Why too easy?”

“Audley wants to come back, he only had to be asked in the right way. I think Clinton knew that—that was never the real thing they were after.” He weakened slightly, remembering Genghis Khan’s interpretation of the assignment. “You were right there.”

“You are sure about Audley?” Genghis Khan also brushed off the olive branch.

“Of course I’m sure.” Nothing less than certainty would do for Genghis Khan, even if nothing would ever be certain about David Audley.

Only wasp-buzzing came from the darkness and peach-boxes. It was high time to walk away, and make like a tourist waiting for his girl-friend, but he couldn’t leave it at that now, he had to qualify it somehow.

“That’s my reading of him, anyway. I’d need much more time to tie it up—and professional advice. But we haven’t got any more time,” he snapped.

“But you are prepared to stake your life on it?”

So that was what he was doing:
One must always risk one
’
s life, or one
’
s soul, or one
’
s peace
—
or some little thing
!

“I know he’s bloody bored, and that’s a fact!” said Roche bitterly, from the heart.

“Bored? “The incubus-voice relaxed. “Ah, yes! Bored…”

Roche sensed that he had to keep the initiative. “But what I want to know is … what happened to Meriel Stephanides,” he snapped at the
bastide-
fields.

“Where is she now?” There was a harsh edge to Genghis Khan’s voice. “Have you lost track of her?”

He didn
’
t know about Steffy
! The realisation jolted Roche that the Comrades were as criminally incompetent as the British.

“She’s dead, damn it!” He needed time to think, and there was one very simple and overdue way of taking it.

He moved away from the van, towards the bastion on the far side of the arched gateway. The street was still empty, and the dog had got the children’s ball at last, with which it was joyfully baiting them as they screamed at him to give it back.

Just an accident after all? Or if not an accident, and not the Comrades…
then who!

The sun blinded him for a moment, and he felt another long trickle of sweat run down his back again under his shirt…

And if Genghis Khan didn’t know, then how much else didn’t he know? And how much were events pushing
him
, as Roche himself felt pushed by them, to make assumptions, and to act, and to take risks which would normally be rated as unacceptable?

“Are you there?” Genghis Khan’s voice was back to normal. “How did she die?”

A wasp zoomed out of the darkness, gorged on peach-juice and flying somewhat erratically. “Her car ran off the road last night—“ Roche ducked to avoid the wasp “—she broke her neck, apparently.”

“Were there any witnesses?”

That wasn’t the right question. “No.”

“What do the police say?”

That wasn’t the right question either. “They’re not confiding in me. They told Miss Baker it was an accident. The car went off the road and she broke her neck. That’s all I know.”

“Good! And you haven’t reported to Clinton yet?”

The drift of the wrong questions was plain enough. What Genghis Khan wanted was time, not his trusted man’s opinions.

“No, not yet. I haven’t reported to anyone yet—except you.” He shaded his eyes against the glare, and looked intently at nothing. He had given himself a breathing space, but it had been Genghis Khan who had used it to better purpose.

He scrunched away from the van again, glancing over his shoulder at imaginary strangers.

If Genghis Khan knew who had killed Steffy then the Comrades must know about d’Auberon. It was still inexplicable that they hadn’t known long ago, but they must know
now
, and that was why Genghis Khan was here in person.

He reached the far side of the gateway. The children had disappeared, presumably in pursuit of the dog, and there was still nothing else in sight.

He turned round. The immediate question was … did the Comrades rate the d’Auberon papers as more important than placing Captain Roche in Sir Eustace Avery’s new group? If they did, then Captain Roche would be well-advised to cash in the chips he already possessed, in the hope that they might be enough to buy him safety with the British.

He eyed the van speculatively. Whatever happened to the d’Auberon papers, he could bring Audley in, that was no problem; but then, because Audley wanted to come back, that would hardly count in his favour in any reckoning. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, might be worth quite a lot; and even Jean-Paul, betrayed to the British, could be traded off to the French in exchange for a bit of badly-needed goodwill.

Yet, viewed dispassionately, even together they hardly outweighed half a dozen years’ high treason—or insufficiently to ensure that Avery and Clinton wouldn’t condemn him to the certain death of remaining in post in Paris as their treble traitor, untrusted and expendable.

In fact, as things stood, if he couldn’t deliver those damned d’Auberon papers to the British, then he might be even more well-advised to remain a loyal Comrade, at least for the time being, until another opportunity presented itself…

True or false? It only took an instant to test the possibility, and feel it crumble. Over the last few days he had committed himself in his heart too far and too absolutely to turn around again. And he could never go back to where he’d started because the wasting disease within him was very close now to the point where it would become plainly visible to everyone. Already Jilly and Madame Peyrony had both sensed something wrong, and—

He was aware suddenly that something had cut through the concentration of his fear, just when it was shaking his knees.

It wasn’t a sound, it was a movement: it was the van beside him rocking on its springs as its balance changed. And then, following almost instantaneously on the movement, it was also a sound—

Genghis Khan was swearing
—explosively, and in Russian—or maybe it was in Polish, or in some black language unknown to civilised man, or in no language at all, except that it was also in the universal language of pain.

Genghis Khan had been stung!

The van steadied and the oaths carried no echo: five seconds or less encompassed the whole disturbance inside it.

But the earth had turned in those five seconds, shrinking the van back from the Joseph Stalin tank it had been in Roche’s imagination to just a van again, rather battered and rusty, with worn tyres which left only smooth tracks in the dust; and, in the reduction of the van, the man within it had been diminished also to human proportions.

“Are you okay in there?” Roche inquired. Grunt. Roche hoped devoutly that the sting had been on the tip of Genghis Khan’s index finger, where the concentration of nerves would ensure the greatest discomfort. And at the same time he wished the stinging wasp its escape in the darkness, and a safe flight home.

“The point is, things have changed rather, down here, since I last spoke to you.” He listened to his own voice critically, and was satisfied with it. “Also … I’m beginning to get the impression that you haven’t been as helpful as you said you’d be. It’s bad enough to be put through the hoop by Sir Eustace Avery and Colonel Clinton, but at least they hinted they were testing me. I did think you were on my side.”

Still no reply. But he had burnt his boats now, and that gave him bloody-mindedness, if not confidence.

“You told me about Miss Stephanides. And about Bradford and Stein. But you somehow omitted to tell me about Etienne d’Auberon. Or have you never heard of him?”

“Don’t be clever with me, Roche. It doesn’t suit you.” A few moments earlier that would have stopped him in his tracks. And maybe it wasn’t bloody-mindedness any more than it was real confidence— maybe it was the nerveless desperation which lay on the other side of cowardice, long after courage had been exhausted.

“It may not suit me. But you’re sitting snug in there—“
he mustn
’
t laugh at his own joke
“—and I’m out here in the open. And if I’m not clever I’m going to end up in the Tower of London—or somewhere less picturesque. And that suits me even less.”

“What do you know about’d’Auberon?” This time there was no delay.

“I know what Sir Eustace Avery wants me to know.” Roche fished unashamedly for more information. “Do you still want me to go ahead?”

Genghis Khan digested the question in silence, while Roche observed the two children and the dog reappear in the distance.

“Do you still want me to go ahead?” Roche sharpened his voice to emphasise the question. If Genghis Khan had any lingering doubts about his loyalty, that ought to put them finally at rest: it was exactly the sort of question a loyal Comrade should ask, offering a willingness to fail the British, and lose his chances of promotion, on the Comrades’ behalf.