by John Gardner
They were turning into Kensington High Street now, having run around the back of the Cromwell Road, then through Marloes Road.
‘I’m a shade more adventurous than Jane Austen,’ Naldo said, slipping the pistol from his pocket, then reaching out with his left hand, under the dashboard and pulling out the wires on the communications radio.
‘What in God’s name you think you’re doing, Mr Railton? You can’t do that! Oh, my goodness. What … ?’ Then he felt the pressure of the pistol in his side.
‘Drive nice and easily, Mr Bates, because I’m just desperate enough to use this.’ Never, they taught, never ever place a weapon close to a man’s flesh. It means you are too close, and the recipient, if trained, can take violent action before you have time to squeeze the trigger. There is one exception to this rule. It does not apply in a moving vehicle when your target is the driver and nobody else is travelling in the vehicle. Jesus, Naldo thought, what a walking receptacle of strange information I have become. What a prize idiot. Naldo realized he was pushing the pistol so hard against Bates’s ribs that he was causing the driver physical pain.
‘Mr Railton …’ he began to whine. ‘But, Mr Railton …’
‘But me no buts, Bates. Just drive, within the correct limits, and take me to Heathrow. I’ve a plane to catch.’
Bates swallowed and nodded. ‘The boss is going to be ever so angry,’ he said.
‘Very angry,’ Naldo corrected him. ‘Very angry indeed.’
As they slowed to enter the tunnel to Heathrow, some thirty minutes later, Naldo whispered, ‘Don’t even think about it, Bates.’ He had kept the pistol firmly in the driver’s side all the way, using the vanity mirror on the sunshield to gauge whether there was another car in tow. Nothing was easy in the sodium lighting, but he was fairly certain they were secure. BMW would only now have begun to get anxious. Naldo’s last words to Barbara had been to instruct her on the first call she would receive. ‘Tell them I wasn’t quite ready. Say I delayed Bates and we gave him tea. We didn’t think to call in again.’ This last he added because Bates would certainly have radioed his arrival at the house.
In the relatively small car-park, in front of the Number 1 Terminal, Naldo instructed Bates exactly how he should park, guiding him to a dark corner. Heathrow’s great population and travelling explosion was only on the brink of blowing. London’s major airport still lived in the late fifties. ‘They’re going to need bigger facilities here,’ he said casually. ‘OK, switch off the engine. Now, just look over there.’ He pointed out of the driver’s side window, and, as Bates turned his head automatically, Naldo sapped him hard on the back of the neck. Bates tipped sideways and Naldo had to put out an arm to save him from falling against the wheel and hitting the horn.
‘Great finesse, Railton,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Subtle as a train wreck.’
He was not worried about the possibility of being seen. Bates had tucked the Rover tightly into the corner, with the boot almost against the wall. The few people around seemed to be in and out of the place quickly, either dashing to catch a flight, or anxious to get away from the airport’s environment. Flying was still a relative adventure for most people.
He used Bates’s tie to bind the driver’s hands, a handkerchief to gag him, and the man’s own braces to secure his ankles. Now all he had to do was wait for the moment when the park was completely deserted. It came five minutes later, and Naldo was quickly out of the car, opening the boot, then dragging the unfortunate Bates from the driver’s seat and dumping him in, closing and locking the boot, with a murmured ‘Sorry.’
He locked the other doors and dropped the keys into a drain as he crossed to the arrivals area, his shoulders hunched slightly, the walk a kind of short-stepped shuffling gait which made him appear older. His manner was one of great uncertainty, constantly switching the canvas bag from hand to hand. He paused by one of the litter bins, dipping his hand in to pluck a recently discarded boarding card from the trash.
With the topcoat still open he slid the boarding card into his breast pocket and shuffled towards the car hire desk, where he asked for a car, explaining he spoke no English. There was a short delay while they found one of the girls who was fluent in French. Naldo was amazed at the way the girl hardly looked at him. Her only interest seemed to be in the paperwork which she went over several times before being satisfied. She accepted a traveller’s cheque, drawn on the Credit Lyonnais, without pausing for thought.
Within three quarters of an hour of arriving at the airport, Michel Provin, freelance engineering draughtsman with a bona fide address in the 13th Arrondissement of Paris, was on the road. He reckoned the first hour would be the most dangerous, for initially he was forced to head back into London, turning off the main roads and entering the slow-moving traffic of Earls Court. He risked double parking outside the small late-night Pakistani grocery shop. Inside he squeezed through other shoppers, and between the heavily stocked shelves. The shop smelt of cumin, ginger and a multitude of other spices. The owner stood, paunchy and smiling, behind the counter while his two daughters served customers of all races, colours and creeds.
‘Excuse me,’ Naldo spoke softly to the Pakistani. ‘Snow swept over the earth, Swept it from end to end.’
The Pakistani smiled and nodded. ‘Oh, indeed, yes, sir.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The candle on the table burned, the candle burned.’ Another, rather supercilious, smile. ‘If, sir, you would like to be following me please.’ He led the way to the back of the shop, through a small door and into a lighted store-room. Big Herbie Kruger sat patiently, reading a paperback, on a wooden chair that looked uncomfortably small for him.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Herb.’ Naldo smiled.
‘Is no matter for me. I read. The scent in here is nice.’ He waved a large arm towards the shelves of canned goods and packets. ‘You did good, Nald. You did very good. They asked me in. Begged me in. I took pictures of the stuff the bugger’s fitted Caspar with. Only that. I was right, yes?’
‘Oh, you were very right, Herb.’
‘Almost give me a medal, Nald.’ Herbie handed over a small package wrapped in blue cartridge paper.
‘They’ll give you a jockstrap medal when you tell them they’re off the hook.’ Naldo took the package. ‘Tell them when you like. Tell them they’re in the clear. Use it to your advantage.’
They talked for a few more minutes. At last Naldo said, ‘I have to get moving. We never saw each other, Herb. Right?’
‘Don’t know what you mean. Who hell are you anyway?’ Herbie gave his big daft smile and turned his back as though he wanted to be able to say with honesty that he had not seen Naldo go.
As he left the Pakistani grocer’s shop, Naldo wondered how Herbie managed to arrange these people. Particularly how he convinced them that quoting Pasternak to a stranger was helping some cause in which they believed passionately. Within minutes, Naldo was heading west, towards Cornwall, with a long night’s drive ahead of him.
He stopped just after midnight and dialled his own number. Barbara answered with a tense ‘Hello?’ And when he spoke she said, ‘Oh, how nice of you to call.’
He said, ‘I’m OK,’ and rang off.
A couple of miles from Beckeleg’s cottage, Naldo junked the car, finding a clifftop far away from any habitation. It ran straight down into churning sea, with no rocks below. Taking the car as near to the cliff-edge as he dared, Naldo pushed it, allowing it to roll off with the engine still running. He left the lights on and watched, detached as the twin beams turned over and over like a huge Catherine wheel. He saw the water burst in a white explosion, and the lights stayed on long enough for him to see the vehicle whirl, spin and disappear, rear first, under the waves. With luck nobody would spot it for days, for the currents were strong along the coast and the car should be towed out as it sank.
He walked the rest of the way, waiting above the cottage until he was ready.
Beckeleg opened the door at his knock, peered at Naldo in the half-light. �
��Why, Mr Rail —’ he began.
‘The name’s Provin,’ Naldo said with a heavy French accent. ‘Michel Provin.’ He pronounced it Provan.
‘’Course ‘tis m’dear. I’d know you anywhere. You come on in, ’tis a raw morning.’
3
He woke with a start, his hand leaping to the pistol. There was movement outside the door, and Naldo realized he had been asleep in the chair for a long time. Then came the tattoo of knocks. Ta-ta-ta-TAT. He was cramped and stiff so that it took what seemed to be an age before he could even stand. Barzillai Beckeleg gave the pistol only a cursory glance as he came into the cottage. ‘You’m not needin’ one of them things w’ me around, Nal — Mr Provin,’ he said with a smile that lifted his right eyebrow. ‘I got some food for us, ’tis past six. I were longer than I expected.’
‘Nobody out there looking?’
‘If there were, I didn’t see none of ’em. Nothin’ special round here this time o’ the year.’ He gave Naldo another quizzical smile. ‘And I don’t reckon you left many traces.’
‘When can we go?’
‘That’s the trouble with folks today. Rush, rush, rush.’ Beckeleg set a plastic grocery bag on the table. ‘We’m gonna have ourselves a nice feast afore we go, m’dear. Got some good steak off ‘n a butcher friend o’ mine in Truro. We’re gonna ’ave some steak, with chips an’ all, afore we go off on a cold night like this. And I don’t reckon on leaving ’till ten or eleven. No moon then, and the sea’s a bit choppy. Leave it a while, that’s what I say. This ain’t a night that’s gonna tempt they coastguard and customs patrols. We’ll take it nice and quiet, young Mr Provin.’
In the end, they left at 10.30, riding without lights, a force six coming from on shore, and the sea chopping from four to six feet.
The only light was the green glow from the radar screen, and Naldo had to hang on to keep his balance, legs astride as he stood next to Beckeleg. The deck quivered, as though being constantly struck by a giant hand from below, and, in the minutes between, you could feel the thrust from the powerful diesels that drove the sleek craft forward slicing the white-capped peaks.
Though the wind, motors and sea produced a lot of noise, the two men were able to speak and hear in the small forward cabin.
‘Is it safe, navigating without lights?’ Naldo shouted.
‘’Tis never safe,’ Beckeleg bellowed. ‘Particularly when we skirt the French coastline. Very rocky. But ’tis safe enough wi’ me. Us Beckelegs’ve been sneaking into the Breton ports for many generations. We ’as what you call a collective memory. Instinct. Anyways, ’tis quite a calm night for December.’
They were silent for a while, then, as he put on more power, Beckeleg laughed. ‘Ah, we was right scared o’ these buggers in the war. Fast. Manoeuvrable, an’ all. Lord that was good sport, sneakin’ in and joinin’ up with the fishing fleets from Brittany. We knew most on the men and their women from before the war, see, and they were pleased wi’ us. We’d sneak in, past these bloody E-boats, get into harbour and wait to drop the lads, and lasses too. Then wait to take someone out, or just get back ourselves. But o’ course you know it all, Mr Provan. Provan indeed. My arse.’
Naldo’s eyes had adjusted to the blackness. Now he detected more than spray flinging itself at the screen in front of the bridge. ‘Is that snow?’ he asked.
‘Snow indeed. It doesn’t last long as a rule out here or near the coast. But they do get it at times.’ Beckeleg suddenly became convulsed with laughter. ‘Oh, my God, don’t talk to me about snow in these parts. Oh dear, Oh dear.’
‘What?’ In the glow from the radar screen, Naldo saw Beckeleg wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.
‘I shouldn’t laugh, really. ’Twas bloody serious then. But I’ve never gone near the place since.’
‘What place?’
‘Well. ’Bout 1943 it were. This time of year. Bit later. Near the New Year of ’44. I come over to … no, I won’t tell ee the name of the port, or you’ll get wise. I come to pick up one of your fellows, and they ’ad a freak snowstorm. Eight or ten inches on it. I came in at night and there weren’t any Jerry E-boats out. When I got to the house where this fellow was supposed to be they told me I ’ad to get out best I could at first light — this would be around midnight. “Where’s the man, then?” I axed, and they said as how ’ee was holed up in the next village inland. A mile off. ’Ee was afeared of coming into the fishing village, convinced I wouldn’t be calling for ’im. I were furious, ’cos t’were a bloody dangerous trip.
‘Bugger ‘im, I thought, I’ll go get the sod. So I sets out to walk to this ’ere village. I’m up to me balls in snow, ’cos it’s got worse by this time. Well, I finally gets to the place. ’Tis just one street wi’ little houses down either side.’ He began to laugh again. ‘We did some bloody silly things in them days. I got no idea where this fuckin’ Joe’s hiding, so I bangs on the first door I come to. Nobody answers, so I bangs again. Then I hears this moaning from inside and I tries the door. It be open, and there, on the bed in this little room, is a woman in labour. She’m in a turrible state. Naked and with the baby almost there.
‘Well, we all on us know the lingo; the kind they speaks along the coast anyhow. I axes ’er if I can help and she’m crying and in a panic. “Yes,” she says. “You can get the wise woman.” She means the midwife, but the wise women along this coast know more’n any midwife. “Where can she be found?” I axes ’er, and she tells me ’tis the last cottage on this side o’ the village street. So off I goes, trudgin’ through the snow. Well, I gets to the place and hammers on the door. This old crone peers out, real old bat, she is. I tells ’er what’s to do and she says, yes, she were expecting as much. Must be the young Fartyarty woman. She gets ’er coat and a bag, then she says she can’t walk through the snow. I must carry ’er. So I hikes ’er up on me back and we set off, piggy-back like, through the snow.
‘So, I get about fifty yards and realize she’m gonna slip oft me back, so I yells to her that I shall have to set ’er down, then get her up again, more comfortable. There’s this wall. A low wall …’ He began to chuckle again at the thought of it. Naldo, in his nervousness, began to laugh as well.
‘So I turns around, bends me legs and sets ’er on the wall, nice and shipshape. I steps away, to stretch me back like, then turns round.’ He laughed again. ‘Oh my goodness, talk about turrible things you’m done in your time. I turns round and she be gone. Oh, my Christ, I think, she’m done fallen behind the wall. So I goes to look …’ He could not continue the story, so doubled with laughter was he. After a minute he regained control. ‘I goes … I goes to this wall and looks over it, and … Oh, my God … Oh dear … I looks over the wall, and it’s not a fuckin’ wall …’ He struggled with what was obviously going to be the punch line. ‘Not a wall, but a well. I’ve popped the old crone on the edge of the village well, and she’s lost ’er balance. Must’ve been bloody deep an’ all, that well. Not a sound from it.’
Later, he said, ‘Never been back there since. Never goin’ back.’
‘What about the Joe?’ Naldo asked.
‘That bugger? That bugger ’ad made it to the fishin’ village. Waitin’ for me when I got back. ’Ang on there, this is the difficult bit.’ He concentrated on his navigation and seamanship.
They finally pulled quietly into the old port of Concarneau, with the massive fortifications of the Ville Close rising above them, at just after 4.45 in the morning.
They were not challenged once, and Beckeleg immediately took Naldo to a house off a narrow cobbled street five minutes from the harbour. There old friends of the seaman, still doused with sleep, made coffee and provided bread and cheese. The snow had not yet hit the coast and the father of the house, a stubble-chinned little man who hopped around reminding Naldo of an agile monkey, drove him to the railway station at Quimper. By early afternoon he was in Paris, and taking another train. That evening, M. Michel Provin booked into the Hôtel Palma au Lac in Locarno. It was
raining and cold, here in this usually mild Swiss canton of Ticino. Naldo stood at his window overlooking Lake Maggiore, watching the lights blurring in the downpour.
He was tempted to telephone, for he knew Arnie was only a few miles away. But that would have been bad tradecraft — unsafe as telephoning Barbara and telling her where he was.
The next morning was still chilly, but the rain appeared to have passed. Naldo set out early, walking to the pier to catch the ferry. He was going back to many memories, not all of them pleasant.
4
During the Second World War, Naldo’s late Uncle Caspar had run an agent with remarkable skills. The agent’s cryptonym was Night Stock, and his real name was Marcel Tiraque.
Tiraque was a wealthy man who owned a beautiful pink villa, with a lawn that ran down to the lake near the town of Ascona on Lake Maggiore. From this villa, Tiraque had moved with amazing skill into occupied Europe, working with resistance groups and the SOE. He saved many lives and was of great value to Caspar. Soon after the war ended, Tiraque died and Caspar secretly bought the villa in Ascona. Only three other people knew the place belonged to Caspar. They were Arnold Farthing, Big Herbie Kruger and Naldo Railton. The four men had kept the secret over the years. At one time or another each of them had stayed in this beautiful place, and all had a hand in improving the property. Though there had been many offers to rent, or even buy, this unique house, Caspar would never sell it. There was an understanding, taken in the last year of Caspar’s life, that the Villa Carlo should belong to his three survivors, who would be responsible for its upkeep. A local lawyer was given instructions that nobody was to be allowed to view the villa, as the owners had no intention of selling or leasing, and all communications which arrived there were sent to a poste restante address in Paris.
The Villa Carlo, Ascona, was the secret dark hole into which Arnie and Naldo had agreed to disappear, and Naldo set out on the short ferry ride from Locarno with high hopes that, by this nightfall at least, they would be making plans regarding what action should be taken to clear Caspar’s, and their families’, reputations. In so doing they would also dig the ground out from under any possible traitor still in place. For Naldo, this had become an obsession, much as the old legend spoke of King Arthur’s obsession with the Holy Grail.