by Mark Hebden
‘They open up the paths occasionally. They’ve just finished.’
‘Nice spot.’
‘Very desirable. They’ve been trying to get building permission here for years. The council won’t allow it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Place of rare natural beauty. All these trees. The builders said they’d be prepared to leave them standing in clumps and put the houses in small groups among them.’
‘Who were they, these builders?’
‘A Paris firm. Some consortium nobody’s ever heard of.’
They were clutching each other now and Charlie was just beginning to murmur ‘My brothers will kill you’ when Brochard stiffened and drew away.
‘Well!’ Charlie whispered. ‘After all this time! What are you waiting for?’
‘Be quiet! There’s somebody down there.’
‘Holy Mother of God, it must be Jean-Jacques and Gabriel! We’d better move.’
They sat up cautiously. Just below them among the trees they could see a torch. Brochard smelt petrol.
‘Petrol?’ he whispered ‘Here? Any boat-houses round here?’
‘Nothing. That’s what they’re trying to get permission for. Natural thing on a lake, boat-houses. They just want to build houses to go with them.’
‘Stay here,’ Brochard said.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘At the moment, I don’t know.’
‘It’s none of our business.’
‘It’s mine.’
Leaving the girl, Brochard descended the slope cautiously. There was a man in the undergrowth gathering twigs and laying them alongside the pile of cut branches. Brochard could now smell kerosene.
As he watched he heard the clank of a petrol can and a glugging noise. Surely to God the man wasn’t scattering petrol around? But the smell was stronger now on the breeze. The man drew off a little way and Brochard saw he had a piece of rag in his hand. Laying it on the ground and picking up a can, he sloshed what smelled like kerosene on it.
‘Mother of God,’ Brochard breathed.
He knew exactly what the man was up to. He’d watched his father burning underbrush on the farm. The man had scattered kerosene and petrol around and was going to light it. The soaked rag was a precaution. He wasn’t intending anything to explode in his face. He was going to light the rag and toss it on to the kerosene he’d scattered by the pile of branches. The petrol would attend to the rest.
The man was now standing upright, as though he were sniffing the air to get the direction of the wind. As Brochard leapt to his feet he recognised the man as Gérard Espagne and realised he had stumbled on the sort of arson that had been troubling Pel for some time.
Espagne went down with a grunt under Brochard’s attack, his cigarette lighter still unused in his hand. He was winded and Brochard grabbed him by the hair and, lifting his head, banged it down on a log. Espagne went limp and Brochard was just congratulating himself on a neat arrest when he was knocked flying and found himself lying on the ground with somebody on top of him. His attacker was trying to do exactly the same to him as he’d just been doing to Espagne.
‘Jean-Jacques–’ He recognised the voice at once as Gabriel Ciasca’s. ‘It isn’t Charlie who’s under him. It’s a man!’
The weight on Brochard was lifted, then he heard the furious voice of Charlie. Sitting up, he saw her with one of the cut branches in her hand swiping away at her brothers.
‘You stupid idiots,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s happened to me!’
Jean-Jacques was glaring at Brochard. He indicated Espagne. ‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked. ‘It’s Gérard Espagne.’
‘Do you know him?’ Brochard asked.
‘I see him in bars. He’s a crook.’
As Jean-Jacques fished out a cigarette, Brochard knocked it from his hand. ‘Light a cigarette here,’ he said, ‘and you’re dead. The whole place’s soaked with petrol. Can’t you smell it, you lunatic? He was going to set the hillside alight.’
‘What for? In this breeze the whole place would go up.’
‘That’s what he intended.’
‘Name of God! We’d better let somebody know.’
‘Not now you don’t.’
They all swung round as a new voice joined in the conversation. Brochard had a feeling that the face of the newcomer was one he’d seen among the mug shots when he’d been looking up Espagne. It wasn’t hard either to see he had a gun in his fist and that there was another man behind him.
‘Who’re you?’
‘Never mind who I am,’ the newcomer said. He gestured at Espagne who was just coming to life. ‘Get him on his feet, Denot.’
The second man heaved Espagne up and started slapping his face to bring him round. The gun didn’t waver.
‘Who are these types?’ Jean-Jacques demanded.
‘No friends of mine,’ Brochard assured him. ‘Yours either, I imagine. They’ll be friends of Espagne’s. And since Espagne’s a crook, they’ll be crooks too.’
The man with the gun grinned and Brochard knew he was right. ‘But for you stupid cons,’ he said to Jean-Jacques, ‘I’d have nabbed one of them and been away with him before his pals arrived. I expect they were preparing things further up the slope so it’ll all go up together.’
Espagne was standing on his own now without assistance and shaking his head. The man called Denot was feeling the clothes of Brochard and the Ciasca brothers. ‘Knife,’ he said, fishing a weapon from Jean-Jacques’ pocket and tossing it into the bushes.
‘What now, Lulu?’ he asked.
‘Get rid of them. Blow them away. We can’t afford to have them around. Then we’ll get to the boat and Gérard can do his stuff uninterrupted. Is he all right?’
Espagne was still rubbing his head, then, straightening up, he took a swing at Brochard. It rattled his teeth and set his brains wallowing in his head. He licked a split lip.
‘Cut that out,’ the man called Lulu said. ‘We’ve not got the time for that nonsense. Get going. We’ll pick you up in St-Flô and you can be across the lake and in Switzerland by morning. You’ll be heading for the frontier by afternoon. Nobody will be able to connect you with this.’
Lulu’s smile was thin and to Brochard it seemed almost possible to see the little wheels and cogs going round in his skull as his brain worked. He had grabbed Charlie’s arm and jerked it up behind her, holding her in front of him as a shield against any attempt to attack him.
‘Further up the hill,’ he said to the man he called Denot. ‘By that pile of cuts. We’ll get rid of them there.’
‘Fire your gun there,’ Brochard pointed out, ‘and the lot of us will probably go up. The air’s full of petrol fumes.’
The thought seemed to disconcert the man with the gun and he turned to look at Espagne. As he did so, Charlie raised her knee and her spiked heel came down with all her strength on his toe. His yell of agony tore at the darkness and as he stumbled aside, he bumped into the other man. At once, Brochard aimed a blow at Espagne’s stomach. As Espagne bent double, Brochard jerked his knee up and he went over backwards.
As the man with the gun straightened up, Brochard swung at him, too. It nearly broke his arm and as he turned, his fingers and wrist paralysed, he saw Jean-Jacques take a kick at the man called Denot to send him flying into the bushes. That was something about the Ciasca brothers, he thought. They knew what to do in an emergency and how to do it quickly. Thank God they were on his side for once.
As Brochard swung round, he realised he was once more alone and unarmed and the man called Lulu had grabbed the gun again. The Ciascas, all three of them, were bolting down the path towards the lake. They knew it better than Brochard did and they hadn’t waited to offer help. He decided that, on his own and without a gun, discretion was the better part of valour and he set off after them, praying he wouldn’t break his ankle in one of the patches of shadow.
To Brochard’s surprise, he realised a light rain had started and that his face
was wet. As he left the trees, he found he was stumbling through darkened streets and in and out of cobbled alleyways towards the lakeside.
He had caught up with Charlie. Concerned with their own escape, her brothers had vanished. He grabbed her hand, dragging her after him. She shrieked and almost fell as she lost her shoe. He caught her in his arms as she kicked the other shoe off, then they were running again, tripping and stumbling down a steep street to the water’s edge. Behind them they could hear the clatter of feet and shouts.
‘What’s this place?’ Brochard panted.
‘Cizent.’
‘Where’s the police station?’
‘There isn’t one. It comes under St-Flô further on.’
‘We’d better get along there.’
They turned down a final narrow alley and, as they burst out at the other end, they found they were near the lake. The rain was coming in a wavering mist across the water.
‘Where are Jean-Jacques and Gabriel?’ Charlie demanded, brushing hair from her face.
Above the sound of water beginning to gurgle in the gutters they still could hear running feet behind them.
‘Wherever they are,’ Brochard panted, ‘they’re not being followed. The bastards are all after us.’
And it would be important that they caught them, too. Lulu, Denot and Espagne had a lot to lose – together, Brochard supposed, with the people who were backing them. Because, he reasoned, there must be someone backing them. People like Lulu, Denot and Espagne didn’t set fire to woods for fun and were unlikely to have the resources to make any profit out of it.
As they reached the lakeside, he saw a motor launch moored against a wooden jetty, among a cluster of hoop-topped fishing boats. A man was standing on the bow smoking a cigarette. There was no sign of anyone else because the sudden flurry of rain had driven everybody into the late bars, and they were alone.
‘I bet that’s their boat,’ he said. ‘The one they were going to use to pick up Espagne.’
‘Can you handle a boat?’ Charlie asked.
‘No. Can you?’
‘Everybody who lives on the lake can handle a boat.’
The man on the launch turned as they stepped forward, hardly visible in the shadows now that the rain clouds had hidden the moon.
‘Gérard?’ he whispered.
‘Yes,’ Brochard whispered back.
It seemed to satisfy the man on the foredeck. He turned away and bent over the bow rope. As he did so, Brochard scrambled aboard and placed a foot against the seat of his trousers so that he went head-first over the side. As he fell, he grabbed at a row of fishing nets drying alongside and brought the lot down on top of him in the water in a tangle of mesh and wire and posts.
‘I’ll take her,’ Charlie said. ‘I know what to do.’
Her thin dress plastered to her body by the rain, she jumped into the wheelhouse. The whine as she pressed the starter drowned the shouts of the man struggling in the water alongside.
As the engine exploded into life, the launch began to surge against the boats moored alongside the wall. Brochard struggled to release the stern rope before they tore down the jetty and, as he did so, he caught a glimpse of a rowing boat moving away from the shore. It was about a hundred yards away, sliding across the reflection of the coloured lights outside one of the lakeside hotels. A head was silhouetted against the bright ripples, and he knew instinctively it was one of the Ciasca brothers.
He was flung to his knees as Charlie opened the throttle and the boat swung violently away from the jetty and turned to face west towards Evian. The men who had been chasing them had emerged from between the houses and were running down the jetty alongside, waiting for an opportunity to leap aboard. As he struggled to his feet, beyond them Brochard saw a figure which could only be Gabriel running for a group of parked cars. Then he was on his knees again as their port bow struck the starboard quarter of a moored launch with a crash that sent a piece of wood flying off in an erratic arc.
For a moment he thought they were going to be jammed in. He flung his weight against the rocking launch and they bounced along its side, tearing off fenders one after the other. As they drew away, a man he recognised as Espagne took a flying leap at them. He managed to reach the stern but, while he was still fighting for his balance, Brochard jabbed with the boathook and he splashed into the tumbled water behind them.
‘We made it,’ Brochard panted as he fell into the wheelhouse where Charlie was juggling with the wheel and the throttles.
‘Not quite,’ she said.
She gestured at the jetty and he saw Lulu and Denot running towards another, larger boat. As they leapt aboard and the engine roared into life, the owner emerged from one of the bars yelling with rage. As he tried to jump aboard, Denot swung a fender which hit him in the chest and sent him rolling over the side. As he vanished from sight, the boat surged away from the wall, leaving him bobbing in the water, screaming for help to the people who were now appearing on the quay.
They were roaring along the line of the shore now, bow up, the water hissing under the boat’s chine, the rain blurring the windscreen in little flurries.
‘I think your brothers got away,’ Brochard said.
Charlie put her head out of the wheelhouse and stared astern. The other boat was well away from the wall now and heading out into the lake through a group of moored dinghies.
‘They’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘They know what to do.’
She brushed the hair from her eyes and concentrated on the wheel. The pulsating engines drowned the hiss and clatter of the water overside.
‘Did it really happen?’ she said in a small scared, subdued voice.
‘It happened,’ Brochard said grimly. ‘They were going to set the hillside on fire. And it’s still happening, because they have to stop us before we go the police. Perhaps we should have dived into a bar or something.’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Charlie said. ‘I know about boats.’
Brochard flashed her an approving glance. ‘That was a bright idea,’ he said. ‘Stamping on his toe.’
‘I hope I broke some bones.’
Brochard stared astern. Through the drizzle the hills showed black and oppressive against the sky. The lights of a car sped along the road towards Evian. ‘I bet that’s Gabriel,’ he said.
The other boat was close on their quarter now and he could see the white of the bow wave.
‘I think the bastards are catching us up,’ he said.
Charlie glanced round. ‘They’re trying to pass us,’ she said calmly. ‘They’ll pull in front and force us to stop. That’s what the police do.’
As they reached the headland at Yvois she swung the launch round it, and the other boat followed at once. Instinctively, she swung further to port to get away and the other boat swung, too. As it drew nearer she swung away again.
‘Steady on,’ Brochard yelled. ‘They’re trying to force us ashore! We’ll never get round the headland if we get any closer.’
Charlie squinted at the dashboard. ‘I think they’re faster than we are,’ she said.
She appeared to be quite calm as she pushed the throttles as far as she could and held them there to strain the last knot from the boat. For a moment they drew away but the gap soon closed again, and for a while neither of them spoke as they listened to the banging of the boat’s chine on the water.
‘You’re not allowed to use these speeds,’ Charlie observed cheerfully. ‘The lake police will be after us.’
‘It’s a pity they aren’t,’ Brochard said. ‘But you can never find a cop when you want one, can you?’
For a while longer they surged along, straining their eyes towards the bow wave of the following boat. They were near the headland now and the other launch was drawing closer to the starboard side again.
‘For God’s sake,’ Brochard said. ‘Don’t let them force us ashore!’
Charlie glanced over her shoulder. ‘I know this lake. I’ve seen Jean-Jacques in act
ion with the police. I know what to do.’
Their bow wave was slapping against the buttressed sea wall as they raced round the point. The following boat, losing ground as they turned to port, quickly caught up again and was almost alongside them again now. They could see two figures aboard and there was a flash in the darkness and a thump just behind them in the woodwork.
‘They’re shooting!’ Brochard looked round. A car which had been keeping pace with them ashore was still with them. It seemed now to have been joined by another and he wondered if one of them was the owner of the boat Lulu had stolen, chasing his property. Then faintly above the engines he heard the siren of a police car and realised that the Evian cops hadn’t been so slow after all.
They were only a few metres offshore now, close enough to hear the shouts of watchers excited by the sight of two unlit boats roaring past in the darkness. Then the second boat swung heavily to port once more.
It was bigger and faster than their own. As Charlie swung the wheel the bows of the two boats crunched together, and they bounced nearer the shore. Again the big boat swung and again the two bows crunched together.
Brochard was clinging to the dashboard to keep his balance. ‘Once more,’ he yelled, ‘and we’ll be up the beach!’
‘Wait,’ Charlie said. ‘I am waiting.’
As the other boat came surging towards them a third time, its bow wave blue-white in the darkness, she slammed the throttles shut and flung the gears into astern. Throwing the throttles wide open again, they came to an almost abrupt halt that threw Brochard forward. The other helmsman, caught unawares, shot past their bows. Immediately, wrenching at the gear levers, Charlie flung the launch into ahead again and opened the throttles wide once more. As the other helmsman recovered himself, he found he was now on the inside with Charlie bearing swiftly down on his starboard side. Instinctively, he swung his wheel to port.
But, missing his last attempt to force them ashore, he had already swung too close himself. As the boats crunched together again, he swerved and there was a yell in the darkness. They heard the crash as the stern of the larger launch leapt clear of the water in a violent heave. A man on the deck by the wheelhouse disappeared over the side in a flurry of arms and legs, then the boat was wallowing in the surge as its own wash caught up with it. The engines screamed raggedly for a second or two, then became silent, as they heard the shriek of a police siren and saw the lights of a car swing to a stop alongside the wreck.