by Denis Pitts
It was being used today by the man who slept at forty thousand feet.
8
They put him in a cell in the local police station in Grasse and then took him, in a convoy of three cars, sitting between two policeman in the second, to the préfecture at Cannes. Here they fingerprinted and photographed him, weighed him and took away his clothes. They dressed him in a black denim prison uniform and marched him, handcuffed between two detectives, before the examining magistrate, who ordered him to be locked in the dangerous-criminal wing of the local prison, pending inquiries.
He heard the guards taking bets on the sentence he would eventually receive.
“Fifteen years,” said the first. “With no parole. Hard labor all the way.”
“You must be joking,” said the other man, whose funereal voice ran through the listening boy like a cold bayonet. “Snatching a banker’s daughter and trying to heist the Rainier rocks. It’ll be life plus a few years for this one.”
Of all the changes that had overtaken Jean-Paul in his life in Egypt and now in France, none had been so marked and profound as this one.
For the very first time in that life, he recognized the true enormity of what he had become. At night he would wake, soaked with sweat, limp with exhaustion, after fearful nightmares in which he found himself throttling the girl or slashing at her father with a bayonet. All defiance had gone from him. He was a quiet, model young prisoner, polite to the guards. They in turn befriended him, for he was, after all, extremely young for this wing.
After three months of remand he received a visitor.
He was taken from his cell and dressed in a spotless white shirt, black trousers and black boots which were several sizes too large for him.
They gave him a comb and mirror and told him to look smart. Feeling clumsy and awkward in his ill-fitting boots, he was marched along what seemed to be several miles of gloomy prison corridors to the Bureau d’Administration, where he was told to wait in a large anteroom. A stern-faced middle-aged woman sat typing, ignoring him completely. The guard with him tried unsuccessfully to flirt with her, and he gave Jean-Paul a big wink.
A door opened and a bald man with heavy horn-rimmed glasses came out and looked at him.
“Come,” he said. It was not an unkind voice.
Jean-Paul went into the office. There was a large, glass-topped desk and a matchingly big picture of the President of France on the wall behind it.
The man beckoned the boy to sit on a high, upright chair in front of the desk. And then he sat down facing him.
“We haven’t met,” he said. There was mock gravity in his voice. “You are Jean-Paul and I am the governor of this prison. I’ve just received a report about you from the police. They’ve made a lot of inquiries about you, you know. Both here in Cannes and in Marseilles and —” he paused and looked directly into the boy’s eyes “— and in Egypt.”
He saw the look of alarm in the boy’s face.
“Yes, you see, we are all friends with the Egyptians now. Funny world, isn’t it?”
Jean-Paul felt an ugly lead weight growing in his chest and stomach. His eyes filled with tears.
“Jean-Paul Becker, age unknown. Escaped from Port Said Municipal Prison November 5, 1956. So you were a jailbird before you came here?”
The boy nodded his head. He was sobbing freely.
The governor took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to Jean-Paul. The governor’s face was compassionate. He had seen tears too many times in a prison lifetime to allow himself to be moved by them. But what he had seen were adult tears, not those of a boy.
“A hardened criminal at the age of — what? How old are you, Jean-Paul?”
“I don’t know, sir. Honestly.”
“What about your mother and father?”
“They are dead, sir. I was brought up by ladies in a brothel.”
“And then?”
The boy began crying again. For the next fifteen minutes he told the governor everything he could remember. The story flooded out of him between great convulsive gasps. The man did not prompt or try to interrupt. It was all there, spilling out in front of him.
When Jean-Paul was through, the governor spoke quietly.
“It is a terrible story — no one could have made it up. You have been truthful, Jean-Paul, I would guess for the very first time. Now listen carefully.”
The boy gave a huge sigh. He was confused and terror-stricken.
“You realize, I suppose, that you have made it very easy for the police. They can send you back to Port Said tomorrow if they wish. Do you want to go back rather than face trial here?”
The boy had a fast and fierce vision of Sergeant Fahmy’s vengeful eyes, and of the Hopeless Ones, lying there in their stench.
“No, sir.”
“One more question, Jean-Paul. Are you truly sorry for what you have done?”
“Yes, sir. It was wrong and I am sorry. They were nice people.”
“I believe you,” the governor said. And then he paused and said, “Madame?”
Jean-Paul heard the woman’s voice from behind him; it was soft and lyrical. He did not turn, but fastened his eye on the governor’s tiepin. He heard the rustle of her dress and caught the fragrance of her perfume as she walked across the office. She came into the corner of his vision and he saw the sudden pink and whiteness of her dress and the flash of jewelry on her hands.
She stood close to him now. He heard her say, “Hello, Jean-Paul,” in that same magical voice. He turreted his head from his shoulders and looked up to see her smiling at him. It was a warm, beautiful face, kind and sympathetic now. She had jet-black hair and vivid green eyes in which he saw hidden laughter.
“I’m Claudine’s mother,” she said. “I am here to tell you that I forgive you. And so does she.”
“I didn’t want to frighten her,” he said.
“My husband says that you were running away from her. You didn’t frighten her.”
The woman reached out and tousled his fair hair. “You poor child,” she said softly.
*
He was moved that afternoon from the dangerous-criminal wing to a cell in a block reserved for civil prisoners on remand. There were sheets on the bed, which had springs and a mattress. The following morning he was given fruit juice, freshly baked hot rolls and jam for breakfast. A bowl of apples and oranges was left in his cell.
On the fourth day of his new confinement, the cell door was flung open and filled by the biggest man he had ever seen, a man so wide that he had to squeeze his way through the door, bending his head at the same time. The man stood wheezing for several moments, looking down at the boy in curiosity mingled with astonishment and disbelief. He fumbled among the many pockets that lined his bulging belly and found a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez, which he placed upon the end of a red and bulbous nose.
This action appeared to confirm all three expressions at once.
The man’s voice was deep and resonant and seemed to come from the very depths of what lay behind a huge gold watch chain.
“This? This? A criminal?” he bellowed. “Never.” He turned to a guard, who hovered nervously. “Such innocence — just look at it. Botticelli himself could not have created such purity and innocence in a face.”
The man lowered his colossal bulk onto the bed, which groaned and sagged desperately under the challenge.
“Boy,” he roared, “I am Maître Legros. I am your advocate. I am here to listen to your story and then decide whether or not to undertake your defense. You understand, boy?”
Jean-Paul was fascinated by the man’s nose.
“I make judges cry. Did you know that? And I can make small boys weep if they do not tell the truth. So you will tell the truth.”
*
A week after his meeting with the extraordinary Maître Legros, dressed in a smart new suit with a collar and tie and boots that fitted, Jean-Paul stood in the spike-lined dock of the ornate and frightening Palais de Justice and
faced an elderly magistrate.
All morning the argument raged about his exact age and the level of his criminal responsibility. Two doctors said that he was physically at least fourteen years old and that he had the maturity of a seventeen-year-old. Two others agreed that he was mature but declared that physically he was no more than thirteen.
Finally, Maître Legros rose ponderously to his feet and quelled any further argument with a thunderous denunciation of everyone in the court except his client.
“Gentlemen,” he roared. “Do we examine this child’s teeth as we do horses’? Do we saw him in half and count the rings as we do oak trees? Or are we not talking of a warm-blooded human being who has been washed hither and thither through this troubled world by the tides of war and ill fortune? Are we not a great country of humanity and civilization — that we can subject a poor innocent like this to our own barbaric inquisition? Just look at that child and consider the pomposity of this court — and those who would seek to use the majesty of the laws of France to harm a child who is little more than a weanling.”
All eyes turned to Jean-Paul, who sat composed and still.
The magistrate intervened in a reedy voice. “But Maître, he is a known criminal.”
“Silence, you old fool,” rumbled Legros, rounding on the bench and advancing on the red-robed magistrate like a maddened bull. “You are too old to remember the meaning of innocence. I demand the release of this boy. Not one more day can he spend in prison, facing the corruption of life among murderers and rogues, thieves and pimps. It is not I who ask. It is humanity that demands.”
The court burst into an angry hubbub. Lawyers and magistrate came close to blows. The public gallery was a mass of argument. The chief magistrate hammered his gavel and shouted for a silence that was not forthcoming.
Only Jean-Paul and his giant attorney remained calm. Indeed, as the row grew, so did a vast smile upon Legros’ vast face.
Four hours later, after three adjournments and Maître Legros being twice ordered from the courtroom, Jean-Paul was released into the custody of Jacques d’Isigny and driven away in a Peugeot by Madame d’Isigny.
Later still, he was shown the room in which he was to live in the chateau, which the d’Isignys, normally in Paris in the winter, had temporarily opened so that they could attend the trial. It was big and it had three windows which looked over the mountains. It had an armchair, a desk and a big bookcase filled with adventure stories. Photographs of racing drivers and their cars adorned the walls. It had been Marcel d’Isigny’s room.
Jean-Paul attached no significance to this. All he thought was that for the first time since he’d been a very small boy he was in his own room with a bed, and that there were women’s voices downstairs.
OVER CHERBOURG, 1800
He awoke to see the last of the sun glowing over the solid clouds which had lain, leaden and lumpy, over the whole of Europe. The aircraft was making a series of long, lazy circles over the western approaches to the English Channel, safely above the busy airlanes and sufficiently far away from ground controllers to avoid any unnecessary questions about its behavior.
Becker went back to his own control room. He glanced first at the Reuters Telex. It was a quiet news day. There had been sporadic fighting on the Golan Heights; a plane had crashed in Djakarta, killing seventy-two; the White House announced a forthcoming goodwill visit by the President. There was no mention of European leaders.
The senior technician was a keen-eyed man in his late twenties. Replacing a resistor circuit in one of the computers, he completed the operation with the deft use of a small soldering iron. He closed the cabinet and switched on the machine. He pressed a key and the machine reported CIRCUITRY COMPLETE on its own screen.
The man sat back and looked around and saw Becker.
“There’s not a great deal to report yet, Mr. Becker,” he said. “All four countries are still mobilizing. The first report is due in five minutes from Presto. The others at five-minute intervals. We should have the first real picture in about thirty minutes.”
“All communications satisfactory?” asked Becker.
“Perfect. We’re getting Centra ten-tenths and crystal-clear readings via the Becker satellite and independent systems.”
“Anything from Centra?”
“Your guests are continuing their animated discussions.”
Becker smiled. He tried to visualize the scene in Elba and wondered whether the Prime Minister had yet come to blows with the President.
“Let me know about Presto,” he said.
He left the control room and walked the length of the aircraft to the flight deck.
*
As the slender, droop-nosed jet hung gracefully on the thin, frozen air of the substratosphere, its gadgetry clicking quietly inside its shell, its owner talking casually to the pilot, a considerably more mundane event was happening on the ground seventy miles to the northeast.
The Landrover that had been parked at the racecourse turned from the main road into a quiet Wiltshire village, crossing the trout-filled River Kennet and turning into the parking lot of a small pub that stood on a rise.
The path that led up to it was lined with dahlias and the last of the summer’s roses. It was an attractive and friendly place. Inside, the bearded landlord was peering over his half-moon glasses and calling “Last orders, please,” to customers who clearly preferred not to listen.
As the middle-aged man in tweeds entered the bar, he looked around and saw among the lunchtime regulars a smiling, handsome man with untidy black hair that badly needed cutting. He had a clear complexion and sparkling dark eyes. He wore a pin-striped navy-blue suit that sagged untidily as only an expensive suit can sag on a rich young English aristocrat.
He rose immediately from a table in the corner. The conversation began as it can only begin in an English pub on a Saturday lunchtime.
“Hello, sir. Good to see you. Sorry to rush you, but would you like a drink before he calls time? Are the roads busy? Nasty day.”
The older man was not quite sure whether the other was trying to act out a part or whether he actually meant to say all this in a space of so few seconds.
“I’d like a pint of bitter,” he said.
The young man ordered it and they moved back to the table, which looked out on a garden where children played. A number of noisy young farmers were playing darts in the adjacent games room. A large man with a black beard patted a golden retriever and helped the landlord with the Daily Telegraph crossword.
“It’s all happening then, General?”
“So it seems, Craddock.”
The general picked up the pint and drank the first half in one long draught. He put the heavy glass down precisely on the ringmark it had made on the polished table.
“Tell me what’s happening,” he said. “How many people have you managed to contact?”
“Everyone, sir. Fifteen. All at home or easily reached. They will be making their numbers now and will report to the hotel. I’ve booked a conference room there, together with the two top floors. We should have the complete communications system in operation by tea time.”
The general filled his pipe and lit it.
“Tea time?” He raised an eyebrow at the young man.
“Sorry, sir, sixteen hundred, Zebra.”
“You realize, of course, Craddock, that you and I, simply by being here, are committing treason, or certainly conspiring to do so?”
“If the scheme works, sir, there will be fifty thousand traitors let loose in the country by midnight. They can’t hang us all.”
“Only a very small number of that fifty thousand actually know what’s going on,” said the general. “We are relying a great deal on an assessment of their characters.”
“Everything we know about them tells me that they’ll leap at it,” said the younger man.
The general finished his pint of beer. He put his pipe back in his mouth and lit it again, this time sucking hard until the tobacco
glowed red in the blackened bowl. The younger man continued to talk, in a cultured voice tinged with excitement that he tried to conceal.
“You must remember, General, that apart from any other consideration, they have an unfailing loyalty to you, partly because of your own reputation — but also because of your other important connections.”
“Which is why I wanted to see you first.” The general blew a stream of smoke toward a travel poster.
“I have arranged to see the King tomorrow. Ostensibly for some shooting at Balmoral. I need to be in a position to break the news to him, either that he has a completely new system of government or that his most trusted servant, namely myself, has failed to overthrow the existing government and that my head is now at his disposal.”
Craddock said gravely: “You are suddenly pessimistic, sir.”
“No,” said the older man. His eyes were fixed on the golden retriever. “The word is pragmatic. We have planned this thoroughly. In my case, for two years with our European colleagues. But none of us, to the best of my knowledge, has planned what to do if we make a balls-up of it.”
“We won’t, sir.”
“I’m sure you are right, Craddock.”
The general looked at his watch. He stood up.
“Time to tell the conductor that we are ready to start playing,” he said.
Craddock stood up, too.
“Just one thing, sir. Out of curiosity. Has the conductor given us an abort time?”
“My dear boy,” said the general calmly. “The great conductor in the sky has just locked up the leaders of the four biggest European countries in his house on Elba. If we fail, we face hanging in England. Have no doubt about that. The death penalty remains for treason, and this lot in power will be delighted to see us swinging in the Tower of London.
“But in the case of that man up there, they’ll have to hang, draw and quarter the poor bastard to satisfy the bloodlust. They’ll have his head on the Eiffel Tower, his legs on Cologne Cathedral, his arms on St. Peter’s, and his chest on St. Paul’s. No, there is no question of an abort. This time it’s for real.”