Touch The Devil

by Jack Higgins

  To his astonishment, Anne-Marie got up and stood at the rail, looking out to sea to where Belle Isle crouched behind the horizon. “Oh, I don’t know. I can see the logic of it. It’s so beautifully simple. He could be right. It could work.”

  “It could just as easily go the other way.” Devlin moved to the rail beside her. “I was talking to the captain of the supply boat coming over. He tells me that some nights that thing they call the Mill Race out there is like a river in flood.”

  “So, what did you tell Martin? That you would help?”

  “I didn’t have much choice. He said if I didn’t have something working by Thursday night, he’d take to the water anyway and take a chance on floating the ten miles to St. Denis.”

  “Not possible.” She shook her head. “The cold would have killed them by then. Tell me, this Savary you mentioned? Would that be Jacques Savary, the gangster?”

  “That’s right, and apparently he has a son, Jean-Paul, who’s following enthusiastically in his father’s footsteps. I’m supposed to contact him as soon as possible at a nightclub called House of Gold.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “The most notorious establishment in Marseilles. It will be interesting to see how you get on there. With your accent, my dear Liam, I think you may well need the services of an interpreter.”

  He frowned and put a hand on her arm as she turned away. “Are you sure about this? If it goes wrong, if your involvement became public, you could end up in prison yourself.”

  “Liam, dear Liam.” She kissed him gently. “Such a clever, devious human being and such a child. Is there any possible way you could keep me out?”

  It was raining again as Frank Barry and Jenny Crowther walked along the track through the reeds at Marsh End. The two boats swung on their lines beside the jetty. It was the Kathleen, Salter’s own craft, that Barry boarded now, lugging the case he carried over the rail.

  He went into the gleaming wheelhouse and examined the interior carefully, going down on his hands and knees until he found what he wanted. Under the instrument panel there was a large inspection flap, which gave access to the electric system. When he pulled the release catch, it swung down on hinges.

  Barry said to Jenny, “Keep a weather eye out for Salter, there’s a good girl, just in case he decides to show up.”

  He took from his pocket several items he had purchased that morning at the local general store—a screwdriver, screws, a bradawl, and a small hacksaw. There were also a number of brackets of the type used to secure tools at some convenient spot on a wall.

  He neatly and methodically bored the necessary holes in the flap and screwed the brackets into place. Then he opened the case, took out one of the Sterling submachine guns, loaded it, then slipped it into place, held by the brackets. Then he carefully loaded one of the Smith and Wessons and positioned it underneath the Sterling. He pushed the flap up, the catch clicked into place.

  Jenny, standing outside in the rain watching the shore, had been keeping one eye on him also. “What’s all that for then?” she asked, and her voice was totally different, like that of a new person.

  “What I call an ace in the hole.”

  He took out the other Sterling and quickly removed the end of the firing pin with the hacksaw. Not too much, just enough, and he fired it up into the air to make sure, a round up the spout. Then he did the same with the other Smith and Wesson.

  He put them back in the case with the gas canisters and turned to Jenny who was staring at him curiously. “Now they won’t shoot.”

  “That’s it, darling.” Barry moved out in the rain and slipped an arm around her waist. “I’m very ordered, you see, Jenny. I always like to know exactly where I am.”

  She held on to him tightly, her face glowing, and he kissed her. “I love the rain. It makes me come alive in a way nothing else does. A fine day, thanks be to God.” He smiled down at her. “And with the rest of it stretching before us, I suggest you take me into the thriving metropolis you call Ravenglass and show me the sights.”

  Twenty minutes later and five miles out of Marsh End on the way into Ravenglass he pulled onto the side of the road and braked suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “That place over there? What is it?”

  There was a watch tower, several decaying hangars, and an overgrown runway crossed by another. The fence around the place was rusting.

  “Tanningley Field,” she said. “The RAF built it in the war. Someone tried to run a flying club there a few years ago, but it didn’t work. It hasn’t been used for years.”

  “Is that so?” Barry said. “Now that is really very interesting.”

  He started the engine and drove away.

  The Maison d’Or was in the old quarter of Marseilles and could be approached only on foot, along a narrow cobbled street, lined with houses four or five stories high, with small iron balconies and shuttered windows. In spite of the new and stricter laws the police were supposed to invoke, prostitutes sat outside most of the doors, dressed in a myriad different ways to attract clients, most of them holding cheerful conversations with each other across the narrow alley.

  As Devlin passed, Anne-Marie on his arm, they were the target for a number of humorous remarks, mainly vulgar. He was astonished at the cheerful ease with which Anne-Marie handled the situation and at the fluency of her own gutter language when she replied.

  He said, “One thing’s for sure, the oldest profession is anything but oppressed. How does that sit with your women’s struggle?”

  “That women have a choice, a free choice, is all I ask,” she said. “What they do with that choice is their own affair.”

  The door of the Maison d’Or was locked, and Anne-Marie rang the bell. A panel slid back instantly, and a pair of hard blue eyes inspected them.

  “We’re looking for a little fun,” she said.

  “Aren’t we all, sweetheart. Are you members?”

  “No, from out of town, but I promised my friend here a good time.” She made an obscene gesture with the fingers of one hand.

  The door opened to admit them. The doorman looked as if he’d been a useful middleweight prizefighter in his day, his eyes swollen with scar tissue. He looked Anne-Marie over approvingly and whistled.

  “You look such a nice girl, too.”

  The foyer was decorated in scarlet and gold. The two girls behind the cloakroom counter wore elegant black dresses, and one of them came forward to take their coats.

  “I told you the Maison d’Or was special,” Anne-Marie said.

  In the ornate mirror, Devlin was aware of a young man who had appeared from a small doorway almost hidden beside the gold-draped entrance to the club itself. He was enormously attractive, with dark hair that curled slightly and black eyes that moved over everything with a kind of amused contempt. The badly broken nose for some reason fitted perfectly with the elegant Yves St. Laurent suit in dark-blue flannel. He watched them for a moment, a Gauloise dropping from the corner of his mouth, then came forward.

  “Monsieur,” he said to Devlin. “You will permit me?”

  Devlin raised his arms, smiling slowly, and the young man ran hands over him expertly.

  “What is this?” Anne-Marie demanded indignantly.

  “Hush, girl,” Devlin told her. “No problem. I’m clean.”

  “No offense, Monsieur,” the young man said at last, satisfied.

  “None taken,” Devlin said cheerfully. “It takes one to know one. We’d like to see Monsieur Savary.”

  “That isn’t possible,” the young man said. “Monsieur Savary isn’t here. I could take a message.”

  “I don’t think so,” Devlin told him. “He’d prefer to receive it himself. It’s from his father.”

  The doorman said, “Heh, what the hell is this?”

  The young man waved him down, the slight smile still fixed firmly in place, but the eyes had stopped smiling. “A large claim, Monsieur.”

  “Yes, well, when Savary
comes in, maybe you could mention it to him. We’re in no hurry.”

  Devlin took Anne-Marie by the elbow and headed for the draped entrance to the club. The young man snapped his fingers and a head-waiter materialized from nowhere to lead them to a table.

  “Champagne,” Anne-Marie said. “Irish whisky for the gentleman.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of Bushmills available?” Devlin said.

  “But of course, Monsieur,” the headwaiter replied. “We pride ourselves at Maison d’Or on our ability to provide all our customers’ requirements.”

  “And I expect that covers a wide field,” Devlin said and looked around him.

  It was typical of such establishments the world over. A trio playing intimate music, a small dance floor, tables crowded together, and a gaming room through an archway. In this case, the only surprise was the decor, for everything, wall coverings, curtains, carpets, and furniture, was in excellent taste.

  The headwaiter returned with their drinks himself. “Something to eat, perhaps?”

  It was Anne-Marie who answered him. “Later. For the moment, we wait for Monsieur Savary.”

  The headwaiter shrugged and walked away. Devlin said, “Do you get just the slightest impression we’re not wanted?”

  He toasted her, she sipped her champagne. It was too early for the club to be busy, that curious half-way point in the life of such establishments, a kind of lull before the real action of the night takes place.

  The doorman was leaning against the bar, a glass in his hand, watching them closely. He emptied his glass and moved toward them.

  “Get ready,” Devlin muttered. “Unless I miss my guess, this is battle station alert.”

  The doorman said, “Look, Monsieur Savary isn’t coming in tonight, so I’d drink up and move on if I were you. Of course the poule can stay.” His hand dropped to Anne-Marie’s shoulder, the broad fingers sliding inside the open neck of her shirt.

  She didn’t even flinch. “Could I have some more champagne?” she asked Devlin.

  “Of course.” He reached for the bottle. “And by the way,” he said to the doorman, “you’d oblige me by not doing that. I mean, she doesn’t know where you’ve been, does she?”

  Very slowly, the doorman released his grip. “You little jerk,” he said. “You know what I’m going to do with you?”

  “No,” Devlin said. “Do tell me.”

  He was in the act of pouring Anne-Marie’s champagne and, in an almost casual gesture, he reversed his grip and smashed the bottle across the side of the doorman’s head. The man cried out, going down on one knee, clenching at the tablecloth, glasses bouncing to the floor.

  There was immediate consternation, diners crying out in alarm. The band stopped playing, and several hard-looking specimens in dinner jackets moved in fast. There was a sudden shouted command as the young man with the broken nose appeared, waving his arms.

  Everyone backed off. The doorman stood up, shaking his head like a bull, holding a napkin to the blood mingling with the champagne. “You were right, boss,” he said. “Not what he seems, this one.”

  The young man inspected the damage. “Not too bad, Claude, you’ve known worse. Go and get yourself patched up.”

  Already half a dozen waiters were tidying things up. The young man turned. “Very good, Monsieur…?”

  “Devlin.”

  “I like your style.”

  “And I yours,” Devlin said. “You are Jean-Paul Savary?”

  “Guilty.” Savary gave them a mock bow.

  “Then why the performance?”

  “Because I recognized Mademoiselle Audin here.” He took her hand and kissed it gallantly. “You have no greater admirer of your work. Anyway, it gave me pause for thought. I don’t like to jump straight in, I like to think.” He sat down and snapped his fingers for the head-waiter. “Now, a message from my father, you say? How can this be?”

  “He shares a cell at Belle Isle with a friend of mine.”

  “Prisoner 38930—Martin Brosnan,” Savary said.

  “That’s right.” Devlin frowned. “You even know his number?”

  “There is nothing affecting my father and Belle Isle that I do not know, and on the rock a man’s number stays with him till death. They make certain by tattooing it on the right forearm.”

  Anne-Marie said, “He’s been there a long time, your father, I’m surprised the Union Corse hasn’t managed to do something about it.”

  “If it had been any other crime than the one he is in for.” He shook his head. “He tried to knock off de Gaulle. Not only that, he came damn close. They’ll never forgive him.” There was a sudden savagery in his voice.

  Anne-Marie continued. “And you’ve never tried to break him out?”

  “Of Belle Isle?” he laughed incredulously. “No one has ever escaped from that damned rock. No one.”

  Devlin said carefully, “Well, Thursday night, Martin Brosnan and your father are going to attempt to break the record, with your help or without it. That’s the message I bring from your father.”

  Jean-Paul Savary sat there, hands flat on the table, staring at Devlin. He turned slowly to Anne-Marie. “This is true?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He took a deep breath and stood up. “Then I suggest we adjourn to my private suite upstairs and discuss the matter.”

  * * *

  It was very warm in the comfortable sitting room. Anne-Marie opened the windows to the balcony and went outside to look at the harbor below. After a while, she went back in.

  Devlin and Jean-Paul had their jackets off and leaned over the table which was covered by a large-scale chart of the Belle Isle area.

  “Could it work?” Devlin asked.

  “In theory. The homing system Brosnan mentioned is no problem. I have heavy connections with the smuggling business in this area. We often recover stuff dropped over the rail of a passing ship at sea using just such a device. And the boat is no problem. We took over a fishing company on the docks last year. We own six trawlers. I can have one at St. Denis tomorrow.”

  “In other words, there’s no technical reason why it shouldn’t work.”

  “True, but it’s still a hell of a thing to step off the rock in that sea and take a chance that I would put at no better than fifty-fifty.”

  “You seem cheerful enough about it.”

  “He’s been in a stone tomb for fourteen years, Mr. Devlin. This is the only chance he’ll ever get to beat the game. Who am I to refuse him that? But there are other things to consider. Many important points which do not seem to have occurred to you.”

  There was a knock at the door and Big Claude, the doorman, looked in. “Doctor Cresson is here.”

  “Good, show him in.”

  Anne-Marie said, “What do we need a doctor for?”

  Jean-Paul lit a Gauloise and smiled. “You’ll see, cherie. You’ll see.”

  André Cresson was a large, fat man with dark, sad eyes and a double chin. His tan gabardine suit looked as if it hadn’t been pressed in months, and he smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from the stub of another, his black shirt smothered with ash.

  He said, “You say they intend to come out through the sewers?”

  “That’s right,” Devlin told him.

  Cresson made a face. “Not good. Sewers are a bad scene at the best of times, but in a place like Belle Isle…” He shrugged. “Probably the original tunnels from the eighteenth century. The effluent of years.”

  “What are you saying?” Jean-Paul demanded.

  “Well, there are often pockets of CO2 and methane. The first will suffocate. The second will not only suffocate, but will explode from a spark if conditions are right. But that’s just a chance they have to take.”

  “The point is, no candles or matches?” Devlin said.

  “Exactly. You will be seeing this man Brosnan again before the attempt, Monsieur?”

  “That’s right. I saw the assistant governor and made it clear th
ere were further matters of business to iron out before I could finalize them with my client. There was no problem. I see Brosnan Thursday morning.”

  “Then I suggest a small pocket flashlight might be in order. A thing perhaps difficult to come by in prison. You see, the main danger would occur if they were to fall in the effluent. Nausea, vomiting and a rapid death within a few hours can occur due to a gutful of human pathogenes. There is also the possibility of viral hepatitis.”

  There was a profound silence. It was Anne-Marie who said, “And what can be done about all this, Doctor?”

  “Oh, immediate drug therapy the moment they are retrieved.” He smiled sadly. “If, indeed, they are retrieved. The waters of the Mill Race, my friends, even on a calm night, will reduce body temperature rapidly. This would particularly affect my old friend Jacques who is not, to be frank, as young as he was.”

  Jean-Paul said, “All right, then you come with us on the trawler to administer whatever drugs are necessary the moment we have them over the side. Naturally, I’ll see that you’re well taken care of for this service.”

  Cresson shook his head. “No, Jean-Paul, your father and I go back more years than I care to remember. He was always my good friend. This one, I do for him.”

  Jean-Paul smiled. “Then, in his name, I gratefully accept.”

  Devlin said, “Let’s assume it works like a charm, and they make it. What happens next?”

  “As I told you,” Anne-Marie said. “I have a small farm in the hills above Nice. I use it when I want to get away from things. It’s very remote and up high. You can see anyone approaching for miles. They can go there during the recovery period.”

  “What about your staff?” he asked.

  “No problem. I only keep sheep there, a Spanish mountain variety. One shepherd, Old Louis, and he’s away up in the hills most of the time.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Jean-Paul said, “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll take care of my father.”

  “They’ll need to lie low for some time,” Devlin pointed out. “This thing will cause one hell of a stink. We’ll have every cop in France looking for them and Interpol on the alert.”