The Dust and the Heat

by Michael Gilbert

  “Is it as soon as that?” said Philippa. A cloud had crossed the sun sending a blue-black shadow across the lake and the little boats were driving into it.

  After breakfast on Thursday morning at Lyons, Oliver said to Philippa, “I shall be spending the whole morning with our lawyer, Maître Philippon. He is very distinguished and has a grey beard exactly like the late Sir Henry Wood. But he would consider it frivolous if I took you to his office, which is staffed, incidentally, entirely with male clerks. In the afternoon I shall want you because I shall want to dictate my affidavit – it’s called a ‘declaration of exceptional solemnity’ here, but it’s the same thing as our affidavit. Then it’ll have to be typed out. The hotel is providing a machine. Then we have a date with the vice-Consul, who will authenticate my signature and stand us a drink. And don’t forget that we have two children back in England.”

  “It’s sweet of you to tell me,” said Philippa. “Have they got names?’

  “The boy is called Philip, after you.”

  “And the girl? I suppose, Olivia, after you.”

  “The darlings,” said Oliver. “How could we have deserted them, even for a week? Here is Maître Philippon.”

  The French lawyer, who did, indeed, look startlingly like the late Sir Henry Wood, bowed to Oliver and kissed Philippa’s hand. A young man with sandy hair was hovering in the background. He was not introduced, and Philippa imagined that he was one of the lawyer’s male assistants.

  She had the morning to fill. Lyon is not the most picturesque of French cities, but it has the brash attraction of a place which is full of people getting on with the business of making money. Philippa did some shopping and one or two other chores and then sat at a table under a striped umbrella in the Place Victor Hugo, sipping at a citronade and watching the traffic tying itself up in a free-for-all round the statue of the novelist. At one point she thought she spotted someone she recognized. He was strolling down the pavement opposite but he was swallowed up in the exodus of home-going lunchers as the clocks struck twelve.

  At a quarter to one she walked to the restaurant where she had arranged to meet Oliver. Missing it the first time, she swung back and came face to face with him. This time there was no possibility of mistake. It was the sandy-haired lawyer. He stepped politely to one side and she went into the restaurant. Oliver, who was already installed at a table in the corner, rose to meet her.

  She said, “I’m being followed by one of Philippon’s assistants. Why?”

  “Do you like to face your fellow-lunchers, or sit with your back to them? Facing’s better, I think.” He signalled to the waiter who pulled the table out from the wall and adjusted her chair for her. When he had taken their order and gone Oliver said, “I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice. He must have done it very badly.”

  “But why?”

  “Lyon is a lot nearer Germany than London or Elsfield Wood.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s someone in Germany,” said Oliver, “who hates my guts. He’s had one shot at killing me and one shot at framing me, and it’s his money that’s behind this lawsuit.”

  “A trade rival?”

  “He’s the head of our biggest German competitors, but that’s by the way. He’s gone up as quickly on his side of the fence as I have on mine, because he happens to be a ruthless sort of sod with an above-average outfit of guts and a knack for picking other people’s brains.”

  “Him and you,” said Philippa. “Did you really think he was going to abduct me?”

  “It’d be corny, I know, but supposing he had whisked you away in a taxi to some back-street den and held lighted matches against the soles of your feet, wouldn’t you have told him all my secrets?”

  “Before he struck the first match,” said Philippa. “I’m a frightful coward.”

  “According to Philippon this lawsuit is a big bluff. He hasn’t got a chance of succeeding. The most he could have hoped for was what we should call an interim injunction to hold up our exports of the raw material for Handcharm – which is a fungus and grows in only two known places, one of which is the wrong side of the iron curtain.”

  “Please don’t,” said Philippa.

  “Don’t what?”

  “I thought you were going to tell me where the stuff grew. I could feel the soles of my feet tingling.”

  “He wouldn’t bother to torture you to discover our source of supply,” said Oliver, cheerfully. “He knows that. It’s the process he wants.”

  “Why does he hate you? You personally, I mean?”

  “Here comes the pâté,” said Oliver. “It’s made of goose and truffles. Very rich.” When he had finished the last crumb of the pâté and four slices of buttered toast with it, he said, “He’s got pretty good reasons for hating me. I killed his brother and had a shot at killing him. Also I married his brother’s wife. That’s how I got hold of the process.”

  Wibberley said, “But I must speak to him.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said Dumbo. “I could have given you the number of the hotel in Lyon, but he was due to leave there this morning.”

  “When’ll he be back?”

  “He’ll be in the office on Monday morning.”

  “Back in England, I mean.”

  “On Sunday night.”

  “Today’s only Thursday. It can’t take him four days to get back from Dijon.”

  “I don’t think he’s hurrying. It’s business, but it’s a sort of holiday too,” said Dumbo, and heard Wibberley at the other end of the telephone line draw in his breath with a hiss as if he had been hit in the stomach. He said, “This can’t wait. I’ve got to talk to someone.”

  “Why not come down here and talk to Harrap and me?”

  After a short pause Wibberley said, “All right. I’ll do that.”

  “He sounded a bit narked,” said Harrap, who’d been listening in on the office extension. “If this is going to be a council of war we’d better get hold of Bill Blackett too. Did Oliver say anything to you before he left?”

  “About what?”

  “About Wibbers – and his advertising campaign.”

  “He said we were to support him to the hilt, but he wasn’t to be given the signal for the kick-off until he got back from France.”

  “I see,” said Harrap. “That was all he told you, was it?”

  An angry Wibberley came straight to the point. “I was as good as ordered by Nugent to stick my toes in with Bargulder and ask for a seat on the Board. He said the Quinn & Nicholson account was important enough to justify it and ought to be represented by a director.”

  “Fair enough,” said Dumbo. “What happened?”

  “I saw Bargulder this morning. He told me–” Wibberley’s voice still shook with outrage at the recollection, “–that I was getting too big for my boots and that if I didn’t like it I could hand over the account.”

  Harrap said, “A bit tough that, certainly. What happened?”

  “I was so flabbergasted,” said Wibberley, “that I didn’t know what to say. But I can tell you this. If he persists in his attitude I’m not stopping with him. There are plenty of other firms who’d be glad of my services, I can tell you.”

  Harrap and Blackett looked at each other. Dumbo said, “Look here, aren’t you being a bit hasty about this? Suppose I had a word with Bargulder?”

  “Someone had better,” said Wibberley, “and quick, or there’s going to be real trouble, I assure you.”

  When he had gone Dumbo said, “What the hell’s Bargulder playing at? If he rocks the boat now we really shall be for it. Suppose Wibbers trots across the road and joins up with Mallinson’s agent – what’s his name – Pedersen?”

  Harrap looked at Blackett and said, “I suggest we let it run until Oliver comes back. He’ll sort it out.”

  For most of the journey back they talked about things that didn’t matter. On the Saturday, south of Orleans, Philippa said, “What shall I do with this when we get home? Wear it o
n a ribbon and hang it round my neck?”

  She indicated the plain gold circlet which Oliver had bought for her on the second day of the journey.

  “Don’t waste sentiment on it. Flog it. You’ll get a good price.”

  “Is that what the others did?”

  “The others?” said Oliver innocently.

  “When we got to the hotel on the first night. The man who took our bags. You remember. He said, ‘The same as on previous occasions’.”

  “That was my third visit. The first time was with Chrissie. The second time I was alone.”

  “I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.”

  “And the fourth time will be tonight. I booked the same room too. For our last night in France.”

  “It was a sweet thought,” said Philippa.

  The next morning, after breakfast, Oliver went down to find a conference going on in the yard. The place stank of petrol.

  “Someone’s been throwing the stuff about,” he said.

  The Dutchman, whose car was parked next to his, had opened the bonnet of his Mercedes and was examining the petrol tank anxiously. Oliver did the same. The truth was apparent at once. There was a jagged hole an inch across in the bottom of Oliver’s tank.

  The proprietor, who had joined them, exclaimed aloud at the sight. “Who can have done such a thing?” he said. “It is clearly deliberate.”

  “It wasn’t done by a woodpecker,” agreed Oliver. He was thinking furiously. There could be no important reason, that he knew of, for stopping him from reaching London that night, and yet someone had taken a lot of trouble about this little bit of sabotage. The bonnet was self-locking with a release inside the car itself, which was also locked. He took a quick look at the windows and found, as he had suspected, that one of the side vents had been forced. A wire loop, dropped through the opening, would have lifted the inside locking catch. Quite an expert job.

  He said, “Where’s the nearest garage? And, more to the point, will it be open?”

  “There’s a garage in Alençon, and it will certainly be open for sales of petrol and oil, you understand, but not necessarily the workshop.”

  One of the men said something, and the proprietor’s face lightened.

  “I had forgotten. A fortunate chance. There is a man who might repair it for you. He is an itinerant mechanic. He works at the Rocambeau farm.”

  “Let him be sent for.”

  The mechanic arrived driving a tractor. He examined the damage in silence, watched by the large crowd which gathers round any comfortable contretemps. Then he straightened up and said something to Philippa, who had assumed the position of interpreter.

  “He says the hole’s too large to plug with cement or anything like that. It would need a patch and the patch would need welding.”

  “Has he the kit to do it?”

  The mechanic’s response to this was a lengthy monologue ending with an expressive gesture in which he blew out his cheeks, said “boom” and threw both hands in the air. It earned a murmur of applause from the audience.

  “He says that he could very easily solder on a patch, but if you use a red-hot soldering iron on a tank which has recently held petrol, it will ignite the fumes and–”

  “All right,” said Oliver. “I understood the last act. Has he got any other suggestions?”

  The man considered the matter. There was, he said, one chance. In the tractor shed at the farm there was a derelict motor car. He had the impression, but could by no means be held to guarantee it, that the tanks in the two cars were roughly of the same size and shape. If that were so, it would not be impossible to effect a substitution. It would be easiest to do the job at the farm where he had his equipment. If Monsieur concurred with the suggestion, the tractor could tow it there.

  “Fine,” said Oliver. “How long?”

  Much depended, said the man, on whether it was necessary to fit a sleeve over the petrol union. If they were fortunate, two hours.

  It took just under two hours and cost the surprising sum of fifty francs. “And where in England would you get a job like that done on a Sunday for under four quid?” said Oliver as they drove along the Route Nationale, going fast to make up for lost time. “Or where would you find a mechanic like that?”

  “You had a real stroke of luck there,” said Philippa. “I gather he’d only installed himself at the farm two or three days ago. He’s a travelling mechanic. He does odd jobs for farmers. They said he was an absolute wizard; anything from motor mowers to ten-ton tractors.”

  “He’s certainly fixed this one,” said Oliver.

  The hotel had got them up a picnic lunch and they ate it in Rouen.

  As they were packing up to go Philippa said, “How much petrol did we have?”

  “I’m not sure. I told them to fill it up. Why?”

  “When we stopped I noticed the gauge was registering empty.”

  “I don’t suppose that means a lot,” said Oliver. “The gauge wouldn’t register on the substitute tank. All the same, we don’t want to run out. Better dip her and see.”

  He broke off a thin branch from the hedge, unscrewed the petrol cap and pushed it in.

  “What’s up?” said Philippa.

  “There’s something damned odd about this tank,” said Oliver.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come and feel.”

  Philippa took the stick and prodded cautiously.

  “Now take it out and look at it.”

  “It’s as dry as a bone. No petrol there at all.”

  “No, but there is something there. Something soft and rather bulky. You can feel it with the stick.”

  Philippa said, “Do you think it’s a bomb?” She meant it as a joke, but it suddenly struck her that it might quite easily be true, and the words came out with a dry croak.

  “I don’t think so,” said Oliver. He had got out a torch and was trying, without much success, to shine it through the opening of the tank. “It’s a damned odd bomb if the heat and vibration haven’t set it off by now.”

  “And if there isn’t any petrol, what’s the car going on?”

  “There’s petrol all right, and I think I can see how it works. This is one of the old-fashioned tanks with a smaller spare tank inside it. It’s a sort of baffle-plate arrangement. The first lot of petrol that you put in fills up the rear compartment. As soon as that’s full, it flows over into the main part of the tank. When you’ve finished the main, you switch over and use the gallon or so in the first section. You can see the joins on the outside of the tank.”

  “I expect you’re right,” said Philippa. “But what is it?”

  “Whatever it is we’re not going to get it out through the petrol cap. We’ll have to cut one end of the tank open, and I’ve got nothing to do it with. Let’s try the next garage.”

  The proprietor of the next garage opened up the shed at the back which served him as a workshop, and showed Oliver a useful assortment of tools.

  “I find myself unable to comprehend,” he said, “why Monsieur should wish to cut a piece out of his petrol tank, but if such is his wish he should find here suitable tools to do it with.”

  “Thank him a thousand times,” said Oliver, “and tell him not to bother. I’ll do the work.”

  He selected a small drill and bored three touching holes to form an entrance for the point of the metal saw. The rest of the operation was laborious but straightforward. Three cuts defined three sides of an oblong flap. Oliver took a pair of pliers, gripped the top of the flap and bent it outwards. The proprietor and Philippa craned forward. Oliver put in a gloved hand and eased something out from the bottom of the tank.

  “Well?” said Philippa. “It doesn’t look very exciting.”

  “Is that what Monsieur was looking for?”

  “What we need now,” said Oliver, “is a sharp knife.”

  It was a flat package, some six inches square, enclosed in a thick plastic covering, taped and glued at the edges.

&nbs
p; “Do be careful,” said Philippa. “This may be where the trick comes. Suppose it’s full of acid and spurts up at you when you cut it?”

  “I don’t think it’s acid,” said Oliver. He was slicing carefully round the edge.

  It was photographs. There were forty of them, beautifully printed, absolutely clear and cold-bloodedly filthy.

  Oliver fed them, one at a time, into the workshop stove.

  “I would have asked for one as a souvenir,” said the proprietor wistfully. “It would have attracted custom. On the other hand, I fear my wife would not have been amused.”

  “The next thing,” said Oliver, “is to repair the tank. Our pal this morning told us that you couldn’t use a soldering iron on a petrol tank. I thought he was talking balls at the time. Anyway, I’m going to have a shot at it. You two can get outside if you like, but honestly I don’t think there’s any danger.”

  At Lydd Airport a customs officer called them out of the passport control room. Oliver noticed that his car had been parked to one side to let the others through. There was a second and senior officer by the car and a mechanic with him.

  “We were looking at this tank of yours,” said the first officer. “Was it on your car when you took it abroad?”

  “For God’s sake! You don’t imagine I normally drive round with a prehistoric arrangement like that, do you?”

  “When was it fitted?”

  “At eleven o’clock this morning at a small village outside Alençon called St Pierre-sur-Orcq.”

  “Were you aware, sir, that under Rule 17(c) of the Custom & Excise Rules governing the temporary export and reimportation of mechanically propelled vehicles any fitment made abroad had to be reported at the port of re-entry?”

  “I will confess,” said Oliver, “that I had no idea that Rule 17(c) existed.”

  “I see, sir.”

  The two customs officers looked at each other. The senior one said, “In that case I’m afraid we shall have to examine the tank, sir.”

  “Rule 17(d)?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I was just wondering what your authority was.”

  “The rules give us authority to examine any vehicle entering or leaving.”