Touch The Devil

by Jack Higgins

  FIVE

  The Grenadier Guard, in black busby and scarlet tunic, stood at his post outside St. James’s Palace, rigidly at attention, rifle at the slope, and stared into infinity, trying to ignore the young model in the white silk pantsuit and gold high-heeled sandals, who positioned herself against him.

  It was ludicrous really, rain falling, and in spite of that her perfume filled his nostrils so that he had to breathe deeply to steady himself.

  There was a lighting man, a second cameraman, wardrobe mistress with two assistants, three other models—just now changing in the large van—and a curious crowd of onlookers, pausing to watch Anne-Marie Audin at work.

  She wore knee-high brown boots and a khaki jumpsuit of the kind that could be purchased at any military surplus shop. Her hair was long, shoulder length, at present held back in a ponytail. The face was very brown, and the only make-up she wore was a pale lipstick.

  Fox parked the car at the curb and followed the Irishman toward the crowd. They moved around to the other side of the van.

  “Has she changed much?”

  Devlin shook his head. “Big for the cause of women but a darling girl, though she’d belt me for saying it.”

  “She and Brosnan were lovers then?” Fox asked gently.

  “Oh yes.” Devlin continued to watch her as she took one photo after another. “I wasn’t going to tell that old bugger that, though. Tell me, Captain, when were you born? End of March, beginning of April, I’d say.”

  Fox was astonished. “How did you know that? It’s actually the seventh of April.”

  “I was right though. Aries the Ram. That’s the doctor’s sign. Surprising to find you a soldier and you a healer by nature. Now take Ferguson. He’s a Scorpio for sure. According to my favorite book of astrology, published in the eighteenth century, I might add, if his stars are badly aspected, which I’m certain they are, he’s a lover of murder and thieving, a promoter of sedition, perjured, obscene, rash, and inhumane. Recognize any of his more lovable traits there?” He put a hand up. “No, don’t bother to answer.”

  Anne-Marie turned to her assistant. “All right,” she said in French. “Now we move into the park. Buckingham Palace last.”

  Her eyes passed over Devlin. She paused and looked back slowly. “Good day to you, a colleen” he said cheerfully. “God save the good work.”

  Anne-Marie Audin turned very pale under her tan. He took her hands and kissed them gently.

  Devlin and Anne-Marie sat on a bench in the rain in St. James’s Park. Below, the crew was setting up for more pictures by the lake.

  The content of Devlin’s French was excellent, rapid and fluent. The accent was terrible. He said, “You’re wearing well, girl.”

  “And you, Liam. Still up to your ears in that cause of yours? I would have thought London dangerous territory for you.”

  “Ancient history,” Devlin told her. “No more causes. I’m getting old, my love.”

  “That will be the day.” She ruffled his hair without thinking.

  He offered her a cigarette from his battered old silver case. She shook her head, and he took one himself. “Fashion photography?” He nodded at the crew by the lake. “Isn’t that a bit of a comedown for France’s favorite war photographer?”

  “And there’s the professor talking,” she said. “Don’t be a snob, Liam. It’s the best fashion magazine in the world, and I never give less than my best. I’d have thought you’d have known that. There’s always far more to any highly popular art form than the critics are willing to admit. Anyway, it’s not the only reason I’m here. Later tonight I’m doing a documentary for French television on down-and-outs in London.”

  “I might have known.” He grinned crookedly. “And still big for the cause of women and still not married and all of thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-three,” she said, and punched him in the shoulder.

  “But still not married for all that, and we both know why.” She glanced at him, face blank, then looked out across the lake. Devlin said softly, “Have you seen him lately?”

  “The last time I tried was three years ago. I received permission through the Judiciary Department and went to Belle Isle. He refused to see me. Sent me a letter later, his last one, in which he said I was to look upon him as dead.”

  “And?”

  She smiled wanly. “I got some good pictures, Liam. A terrible place.”

  “I can imagine. I’m seeing him Tuesday, myself. It should be an enlivening encounter.”

  She turned instantly, eyes dark. “You are seeing Martin? You? But how can this be?” She frowned, glancing across at Fox sheltering from the rain under a tree. “Who is that man, Liam? What game are you playing now?”

  So he told her, rapidly and concisely, leaving nothing out. When he was finished, she sat there staring at him in astonishment.

  “But this is incredible, insane.”

  “It might get him out, or would you rather he spent the rest of his life on that rock?”

  “No, of course not. I would do anything—anything to see him free,” she said savagely. “Not for my own sake, Liam, not for love, but for him.” Her fingers hooked painfully into his arm.

  “I know, girl, I know,” he soothed her.

  There was a call from the lake below, her assistant waving. She said, “I’ll have to go. Look, I must see you again.”

  “I’m leaving for Marseilles in the morning.”

  “Tonight at nine o’clock. I’m doing the feature I mentioned to you. Filming the work of one of the welfare canteens serving the homeless. The south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Please be there, Liam.”

  Her voice was low, urgent. He took her hand as they got up. “You always were hard to refuse.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and started down the slope to the lake.

  It was early evening when Barry reached Marsh End, not that Marsh End itself was anything much—a scattering of cottages beside the road, most of them derelict. The place he was looking for was a mile on the other side. Iron gates stood open, a gravel drive passing through the beech trees and rhododendrons to a gray stone house beyond. The board at the gate carried the legend in gold lettering Henry Salter—Undertaker. House of Rest and Crematorium. Barry drove up the drive and parked the Cortina at the bottom of the steps leading to the entrance. As he got out, a girl emerged from the stable yard to the right and paused, looking at him. She wore rubber boots, an old raincoat, and head scarf, and carried a bucket in each hand. Her face was calm, touched by an impossible beauty in the evening light.

  “Mr. Salter about?” Barry asked.

  She spoke with the strong and distinctive Cumbrian accent and yet there was a dead quality to her voice.

  “I’ll see, sir. No one else here, with it being Sunday. Who shall I say?”

  “Sinclair’s the name,” Barry told her cheerfully. “Maurice Sinclair. I think you’ll find he’s expecting me.”

  “I’ll see then, shall I?” She went up the steps, and Barry followed her.

  It was very quiet in the embalming room, and Henry Salter worked alone, his rubber apron smeared with blood. The body upon which he was working was that of a young woman, and he was in the process of removing her viscera. The door opened behind him, and the girl entered. She had taken off the scarf, revealing tangled dark hair, and the old cotton dress she wore was a size too small, the seams splitting in several places.

  Salter said, “I’ve told you never to disturb me while I’m working, Jenny.”

  “There’s a gentleman to see you, sir, a Mr. Sinclair. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  Salter paused and glanced at her sharply. “Ah, yes, Mr. Sinclair. He’ll be staying the night, Jenny, so make sure the spare bedroom is ready. Then you can get him something to eat.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said in that curiously dead voice and looked down at the body. “She was really beautiful.”

  “I know, Jenny, but this is what we all come to in the end. Now be a good girl and run a
long.”

  She went out, and Salter picked up the body and lowered it into a stone sink filled with formaldehyde. It slid under the surface and hung suspended an inch or two from the bottom, the hair fanning out. He removed his rubber apron and gloves, went into the small washroom at the other end of the embalming room and started to clean himself up.

  Afterward, he slipped on a dark alpaca jacket and straightened his black tie. The iron gray hair, the gaunt face, the rimless glasses, gave him exactly the appearance that he felt the public had a right to expect from an undertaker. Death was a serious business, and nobody believed that more sincerely than Salter himself. Certainly there was little to link the grave and respectable face that confronted him in the mirror with the second-rate thief who had served three prison sentences as a young man before coming to terms with the real facts of life.

  As he went along the corridor, he wondered about this man Sinclair. The offer of the work had been something he’d found impossible to refuse. The ten thousand pounds mentioned would come in very handy indeed. Only the previous week he’d had the new incinerator installed in the crematorium. It could consume a human body in fifteen minutes, not like the older one, which was so inefficient that it was necessary to pulverize the skull and the pelvic bones later.

  Another reason he’d not been able to refuse the work, even if he’d wanted to, was the source of the request—people of consequence in the London underworld whom he’d dealt with on a number of occasions.

  The coast around Marsh End was a lonely, somber world of creeks and marshes, ideal for a fast boat by night, in and out, and Salter had acted as middleman for many a drug consignment on its way to London. When you’d done that sort of thing once, the truth was you could never say no again.

  He went down the staircase and found Frank Barry standing by the reception desk. “Mr. Sinclair?” he said and held out a hand. “Henry Salter. Let’s go into my private sitting room. It’s far more comfortable.”

  Barry followed him along a narrow corridor, and Salter opened a door and led the way into a room that was crowded with Victorian furniture. The walls were dark green damask, the curtain a dull red velvet. Salter stirred the fire with a brass poker.

  “A drink, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “Not yet,” Barry said. “Business first.”

  He took the Ceska from his pocket and placed it on the table, and Salter licked his lips nervously. Barry put the briefcase down and opened it. He took out several packets of twenty-pound notes and tossed them across.

  “Five thousand there. You get the other half on completion. Satisfactory?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. Sinclair.” Salter scooped the money up instantly and put it in a drawer.

  “Now, my requirements. You have everything?”

  “You can see the boat in the morning. It’s moored in a creek not far away. I thought you might like to stay the night here.”

  “What else do you have to offer?”

  “A small farmhouse at the head of the valley, four miles from here. The two men I was asked to recruit arrived this afternoon. They’re there now.”

  “What are their backgrounds?”

  “Liverpool underworld. They have both done time for robbery with violence and the like. Rather rough, I’m afraid.”

  “Exactly what I need,” Barry told him. “Soon enough to see them tomorrow. And the equipment?”

  “Two suitcases were delivered this morning very early.”

  “Who by?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. A young man in a dark coat and hat. I’ve never seen him before.” Barry smiled, and Salter said, “Your people seem remarkably efficient, Mr. Sinclair.”

  “And why wouldn’t they be? Let’s have a look at those suitcases.”

  Salter opened a cupboard at the side of the fireplace. The cases were well made in real leather, their catches held in place by tumbler locks, the combinations of which Barry had memorized from the list in his briefcase.

  He quickly lined up the right sequence of numbers and opened the first case. It contained two Sterling submachine guns, two British army-issue Smith and Wesson revolvers, a Browning automatic, and several gas canisters. Salter’s eyes opened wide. Barry closed the case, locked it, and opened the other, disclosing army camouflage uniforms, several dark blue berets, and webbing belts.

  “Can I ask what all this is about, Mr. Sinclair?” Salter said nervously. “It all looks pretty heavy to me.”

  “That’s what you’re getting paid for,” Barry told him. He locked the second case. “Now let’s have that drink.”

  At that moment, there was a knock at the door, it opened and Jenny came in with a tray.

  “I told you not to disturb me,” Salter said angrily.

  “I thought you might like some tea, Mr. Salter, you and the gentleman.”

  She glanced at Barry, and in the light of the room and without the head scarf he saw now that she was at best plain, with high cheekbones, olive skin, and overfull lips.

  “All right, girl, run along and get a meal ready for Mr. Sinclair.”

  She went out, and Frank Barry, ignoring the tea, went to the sideboard, and helped himself to the Scotch. “Is she all there?”

  Salter poured himself a cup of tea. “Oh, yes, just a little slow, that’s all. She used to live at the farm I mentioned, up the valley, with her father, a fine old drunk. He ran his car into a wall one night and killed himself. She would have been destitute if I hadn’t taken her in and bought the place.”

  “A philanthropist,” Barry said. “I could tell right away.”

  “But she never seems to come to life,” Salter said. “Her flesh has—has a deadness to it. She never responds.” It was as if he were talking to himself for a moment, and then he looked up. “You understand me?”

  “Oh, yes,” Barry said in disgust. “I think so.”

  Salter swallowed the rest of his tea hurriedly. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a job to finish. A burial tomorrow afternoon, so it won’t wait. Jenny will look after you.”

  He went out. Barry drank the rest of his Scotch. The room was very quiet except for the grandfather clock in the corner. There was an indefinable musty smell to everything, like an old room opened for the first time in many years. It went well with the overstuffed furniture and the nature of the establishment.

  When he opened the door, he could smell cooking. He followed the smell along the passage to the old stone-flagged kitchen. The girl stood at the stove stirring something in a pan with a wooden spoon. She glanced over her shoulder.

  “It’s almost ready,” she said in that dead voice as she put down the spoon and wiped her hands over her thighs. “I’m just going out to the shed for more wood for the stove.”

  She took a large red flashlight from under the sink and moved to the door. Barry was there before her and opened it. “I’ll come with you. You could probably do with some help.”

  She looked up at him, uncertain, then handed him the light. “All right, it’s across the yard.”

  It was treacherous underfoot and Barry picked his way carefully, cursing when he stepped into a puddle. When the girl opened the door of the barn, he saw several vehicles parked inside. A black hearse, a large black limousine, a van, and a Land Rover.

  The woodpile was to one side under a loft stuffed with hay. She said, “Over here, Mr. Sinclair,” and for a moment, in the light’s beam, she looked as beautiful as she had at their first meeting.

  She leaned over the woodpile, one knee forward so that the old cotton dress tightened across her thighs. Barry reached out, cupping a hand around her thigh, and she glanced back over her shoulder, and it was there, whatever Salter had thought, in her eyes.

  Barry handed her the flashlight and smiled. “You take that, I’ll carry the wood.”

  She stood waiting for him, her face above the light in shadow. He piled half a dozen logs in the crook of one arm and led the way out.

  Like any other great city in the world, London has i
ts share of derelicts, down-and-outs who can no longer help themselves, who sleep rough because they have to.

  When Devlin and Harry Fox arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields just before nine o’clock, a Salvation Army mobile canteen was in position, the French camera crew already setting up their equipment. Fox parked the car, and he and Devlin started walking to where Anne-Marie, wrapped in a bulky sheepskin jacket, stood talking to a cheerful-looking woman who wore the uniform of a Salvation Army major. She caught sight of Devlin and Fox approaching and came to greet them.

  “Time you two met,” Devlin said. “Harry Fox.”

  “A pleasure, Miss Audin,” Fox said gallantly.

  “And what would you be doing here then?” Devlin asked. “Aren’t those film cameras?”

  “Video,” she said. “A documentary I’m doing for French television on the underside of London life.” She pointed to the figures shambling out from underneath the plane trees. “Men without hope,” she said. “Sometimes women. Unemployed, alcoholic, socially inadequate, or just out of prison. When the hostels are full, those who can’t get in sleep out-of-doors. The soup and sandwiches they get here are probably the only food they’ve had today.”

  They watched for a while as the canteen workers served as derelict a crowd of human beings as Harry Fox had ever seen in his life before.

  “This is terrible,” he said. “I never realized.”

  “Some of them sleep over the grills in the pavement of the hotel around the corner, warmed by the steam from the boiler room,” she said. “The rest wrap themselves in old newspapers and crowd together in the pavilion in the garden over there. At least it’s dry.”

  “All right,” Devlin said. “What are you trying to prove? That you care? I know that. What did you want to see me about?”

  “I want to come with you,” she said, “in the morning. To Marseilles. You could ask Martin to see me. He might listen to you.”