Touch The Devil

by Jack Higgins

  “True,” Jean-Paul said. “But let’s look at it another way. What if the sea claimed them? What if they died from exposure, and the Mill Race carried them in to the rocks outside of St. Denis?”

  There was a long silence. Anne-Marie said in a low voice, “If you’re implying what I think you are, there is the obvious problem that the bodies would not be Jacques Savary and Martin Brosnan.”

  “And wouldn’t stand up to any kind of forensic examination,” Devlin added.

  “Battered beyond recognition, wearing prison uniforms, stenciled with their own numbers, floating in on stolen prison life jackets?” Jean-Paul shook his head. “I would think it unlikely that they would take the examination any further than that.” He eased his back, staring down at the chart thoughtfully. “I make a considerable amount of money from the operation of gambling casinos. We always win because the odds favor the house. I’ll make you a prophecy on this one—a gambler’s hunch. I think that if the authorities recover those two bodies, they’ll dispose of them as quickly as possible and simply announce that prisoners Brosnan and Savary have died, either from natural causes or perhaps in an accident at the granite quarry.”

  “What you’re saying is that they would kill the escape story altogether?” Devlin said. “In other words, it never happened.”

  “Eminently sensible, if you think of it. That way the authorities are not left with egg on their face, and Belle Isle’s reputation for being escape-proof is left intact.”

  Anne-Marie said, “He could be right. It makes a great deal of sense.”

  “Perhaps,” Devlin said. “Only time will tell on that one. So, what’s the next move?”

  Jean-Paul turned to Cresson. “We’re in your hands now, André. Scour the city. Mortuaries, undertakers, all the usual places. The trawler leaves for St. Denis tomorrow afternoon. When it does, I want two suitable bodies in its cold storage.”

  André Cresson lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the one he was smoking and took a pen and a small leather-bound notebook from his pocket. He said to Devlin, “I know where I am where Jacques is concerned. I was his doctor for years. Perhaps, Monsieur, in the interests of accuracy, you’d care to give me a description of your friend Brosnan?”

  EIGHT

  Frank Barry lay in bed smoking, staring up at the ceiling. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and cold November rain drifted against the window. Jenny Crowther slept beside him, breathing gently, her lips slightly parted. She looked, in repose, incredibly innocent, even childlike. He considered her dispassionately, his mind busy on important things.

  He slid from between the blankets, padded to the chair on which he’d left his clothes, and pulled on slacks and an old sweater. He ran fingers through his hair and picked up his suitcases.

  Jenny stirred and sat up. “You’re going?” she said, and there was alarm in her voice.

  He put the cases down and came to the bed. “No, you stay where you are. I don’t want you up at the farm today, understand?”

  She gazed at him searchingly. “You’ll be back?”

  “Later,” he said.

  She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. It had no effect on him at all, and he was conscious of a strange feeling of regret.

  “Be a good girl,” he said, and he picked up his suitcases and went out.

  There was a smell of bacon cooking. He found Salter in the kitchen at the stove.

  “Ah, Mr. Sinclair,” he said. “Can I offer you a little something?”

  “Not really.” Barry poured himself a cup of tea and drank it quickly. “I always prefer to work on an empty stomach.”

  Salter stopped smiling. “This is the big day then?”

  “I’d have thought a devious old sod like you would have learned by now that the less you know the better off you are.” Barry picked up the suitcases and went to the door. “I’ve told Jenny to stay away from the farm today. That applies to you as well.”

  The threat was implicit. Salter stood there clutching the frying pan, looking thoroughly alarmed. Barry went out and crossed the yard to the barn.

  Fifteen minutes later he parked the Land Rover at the end of the jetty. The rain was fine and soft in the mist and, as usual, there wasn’t a soul about. He slipped over the rail of the Kathleen and went into the wheelhouse. First, he dropped the inspection flap under the instrument panel to check that the Smith and Wesson and the Sterling were still there. Satisfied, he went outside. Kathleen’s tender, a yellow inflatable with an outboard motor, swung at the stern on a line. He pulled it into the jetty, clambered down and cast off. The outboard, like everything else about Salter’s boat, was brand new. It started with no trouble at all, and he headed away along the creek toward the sea.

  He turned into a side channel, followed it for a while, then tried another, for some twenty minutes beating back and forth, even turning toward the land again, before he pushed through a bank of reeds and found what he wanted. It was a pool, roughly circular in shape, perhaps sixty or seventy feet across. It shelved steeply toward the center and at that point was about fifteen feet deep.

  It was as if he were the first person to enter that place. There wasn’t a sound, only the rain, and he shivered, remembering stories he’d heard as a child back home in Ireland of fairy pools and the like. Strange, but it was as if it had been waiting for him. As if he had been there before. Nonsense, of course, but in any case, it would suit his purpose admirably. He started the tender’s engine again and made his way back to the boats.

  Hedley Preston stood in front of the wardrobe mirror and adjusted the blue army beret to a suitably rakish angle. The camouflaged battle dress gave him a sinister appearance. He adjusted the webbing belt at his waist.

  “Well, now,” he said softly. “Who’d have thought it.”

  He went downstairs and found Varley, similarly attired, standing at the fire, a glass in his hand. Varley glanced over his shoulder and said sourly, “Look at you. Quite the hero.”

  “One thing’s certain,” Preston told him cheerfully. “You won’t be if Sinclair finds you with that in your hand.”

  “Stuff Sinclair,” Varley said, but at the sound of steps in the passageway he hurriedly put the glass on the mantelpiece behind a photograph.

  Barry appeared in the doorway, one of the suitcases in his hand. The uniform suited him. He looked a soldier down to the last inch, and the Browning in the webbing holster at his waist fitted the picture perfectly.

  “So, here we are,” Preston said. “Now we get to know what it’s all about.”

  “Just as much as you need to.”

  Barry put the brown suitcase on the table, opened it and took out a map of the area, which he unfolded. “One truck, possibly two, passing this point on the road to Wastwater. Half a dozen soldiers in one for certain. They’ll also have an escort. I shan’t know how many until later.”

  “Soldiers?” Varley said. “Here, what is this?”

  “Don’t wet yourself,” Barry said. “They don’t let armed soldiers go racketing around the countryside in Britain, so you’ve nothing to worry about. We block the road with the Land Rover to stop them.” He took one of the gas grenades from the case. “Lob one of these in the back of the truck. The gas it contains works instantly. They’ll be unconscious for an hour.”

  “And what about us?” Preston asked.

  “All catered for.” Barry held up a small khaki colored gas mask with a green canister dangling from it.

  “So, they’re all sleeping like babies,” Preston said. “What do we do?”

  “Off-load what we find in the truck into the Land Rover. Thirty minutes back to the coast where I’ve got a boat waiting. We load up, and you two are finished. You can get the hell out of it.”

  “With another five thousand pounds each,” Preston said. “Let’s not forget the most important item.”

  Barry took the Sterling submachine gun and the Smith and Wesson from the suitcase. “Both these are loaded for bear in c
ase anything goes wrong, but no shooting, not unless I give the word. Understood?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. Sinclair.” Preston picked up the Sterling lovingly. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

  Varley handled the Smith and Wesson gingerly, then slipped it into his webbing holster. “One thing I’d like to know,” he said belligerently. “What’s in this bloody trunk that’s so important?”

  Barry closed the suitcase and stood looking at them, holding it against his leg. There was a long moment before he said, “Right, let’s get going.”

  He walked out. “Now look here,” Varley began, and Preston choked him off instantly.

  “Cool it, Sam, understand? Everything comes to him who waits, as I’ve already told you, so for the moment let’s just do as the man says.” He picked up his Sterling and followed Barry out.

  The funeral parlor was on one side of a small, cobbled square in the old city. When Jean-Paul Savary, Devlin, and Anne-Marie approached there was a horse-drawn hearse outside, a splendid baroque creation in black, with weeping golden angels at each corner and black plumes stuck up between the horses’ ears.

  “Ostrich feathers,” Jean-Paul said. “Actually, it’s illegal now, but when people are as conservative as they are around here it’s difficult to break such ancient customs.”

  He pulled on a bell rope at the side entrance. It was opened immediately by a tall, thin old man in a rusty black suit. “This way, Monsieur Savary,” he said.

  They followed him along a dark passage. The smell of incense and wax candles filled the air, heavy and oppressive. There were chapels of rest on either side of the passage, most of them with a corpse lying in state in an open coffin so that the relatives and friends might visit.

  Devlin said, “Thank you very much, but I’d rather go some other way.”

  “Does it really matter?” Anne-Marie asked. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.” They paused in a doorway to look at an old man propped up in a coffin lined with black satin. He wore a blue suit, collar, and tie, his hair was neatly combed, and his face had been colored with stage make-up, the lips vermilion. “What can it possibly matter to him that they’ve made him into a waxworks freak.”

  “As long as it comforts his old mother, you mean?” Devlin shivered. “No thanks. As a bad Catholic I think I’ll stipulate cremation.”

  The old man opened a door at the end of the passage and stood to one side. The room they entered was the preparation room, where bodies were washed, or embalmed if required, before actual burial. Dr. Cresson, the eternal cigarette in his mouth, was standing by a stone sink talking to a tiny, rat-faced man who wore a shiny blue suit and carried a black bag in one hand.

  Cresson turned to greet them. “Ah, there you are.”

  There were two stone mortuary slabs in the center of the room, a body on each covered by a sheet.

  “Everything going according to plan?” Jean-Paul asked.

  “I think so. Both these individuals died in automobile crashes.”

  “Can we have a look?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it. Not unless you actually enjoy that kind of thing. They don’t look too good.”

  “Will they pass?” Devlin asked.

  Cresson nodded. “I think so, after I’ve done a little more work on them.” He beckoned the rat-faced man over. “Jean-Paul, this is the tattooist I mentioned, Mr. Black. English, but he’s been in Marseilles some time now.”

  Jean-Paul took the little man’s hand. “I am grateful for your help in this matter. The Union Corse does not forget its friends, believe me.”

  “A pleasure, Monsieur. May I start now?” Black said.

  “But of course.” Jean-Paul turned to Cresson. “You have the numbers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then all that remains is to make sure the right one goes on the right corpse.”

  Anne-Marie and Devlin watched, fascinated, as the little man opened his bag, produced a battery-operated tattooist’s needle and a bottle of dye, and went to work.

  “An extra, but essential touch,” Jean-Paul said.

  As they watched, the little man neatly tattooed Brosnan’s number on the forearm of the taller corpse. He rubbed in the dye, then swabbed the flesh and held the forearm up.

  “Satisfactory, Monsieur Savary?”

  “Beautiful,” Jean-Paul said. “You are a true artist, my friend. And now my father, 28917.”

  “Very well, Monsieur.”

  Jean-Paul turned to Anne-Marie and Devlin. “The rest, I think, is in the hands of fate.”

  From a vantage point among trees at the side of the road two hundred yards north of Brisingham airfield, Barry watched through binoculars as they unloaded the Luftwaffe transport plane. He could see only two vehicles, a large three-ton truck and a jeep. As he watched, the Bundeswehr soldiers loaded three crates into the back of the truck and then climbed in after them.

  Their officer stood talking for a while to a young man in the uniform of a captain in the British army. After a while, they got into a jeep which moved off across the runway, followed by the truck. Barry waited until both vehicles were turning out of the gate into the road, just to make sure, then he jumped into the Land Rover and drove away.

  The rain had increased into a solid, driving downpour since Barry had gone, and it was not too pleasant crouching out of sight behind a gray stone wall in the trees at the side of the road. Varley had a half bottle of Scotch from which he took frequent swallows.

  Preston said, “You really are a daft bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Mind your own sodding business,” Varley snarled. “Nobody tells me what to do. Not you and certainly not Mr. God-Almighty Sinclair.” He emptied the bottle and dropped it to the ground. “I’ll fix him when I’m good and ready.” He put a finger to his nose. “You see if I don’t.”

  Preston shook his head in disgust. Varley was a liability, not only now but for the future, so much was obvious. On the other hand, who needed him? Preston caressed the barrel of the Sterling and stiffened, suddenly alert at the sound of an engine.

  “Here, I think he’s coming.”

  A moment later the Land Rover appeared. Barry turned it across the road, got out, and moved through the trees to join them.

  “Everything all right?” Preston asked.

  “Fine,” Barry told him. “Two vehicles. A jeep leading that’s got three in it, followed by a three-ton truck. The driver and a sergeant in the cab, half a dozen Krauts in the back. That means three grenades. I’ll slip the first one into the jeep when I go talk to them. You and Varley take the truck, one in the cab, another in the back.”

  “Fine by me, General.” Varley saluted drunkenly.

  Barry bent down and picked up the empty whisky bottle and threw it from him with a curse. He grabbed the big man by the front of his battledress. “Spoil this for me, you drunken pig, and I’ll blow your head off. That’s a promise.”

  There was no time for more, for suddenly there was the deepening note of an engine as a vehicle started up the hill.

  “All right,” Barry said. “Get your masks on,” and he turned and ran down to the road. He opened the door of the Land Rover, got his gas mask, and slung it around his neck and stood there waiting.

  The German artillery major was in the rear seat of the jeep, while the young English captain sat up front beside the driver, half turned toward him while they spoke. He didn’t see Barry until the driver drew his attention to him and slowed.

  The captain said, “I wonder what this is all about?” He wound down the window. “What’s going on?” he demanded as Barry approached.

  “Change of plan, old boy, didn’t they tell you?” Barry said. “Well, isn’t that bloody typical?”

  He pulled the pin and lobbed the gas grenade through the open window, turning away instantly to pull his mask up over his face.

  Preston and Varley ran out from the trees, Preston cutting across the road to the rear of the truck, tossing his grenade over the tailgate.


  It was Varley who fouled things up. He pulled the pin of his grenade as he ran forward, tripped and went sprawling, the grenade rolling away from him in a curl of white smoke.

  The truck door swung open and a big sergeant of Artillery jumped to the ground. Barry, having no option, drew his Browning and shot him twice as the sergeant launched himself at Varley. In the same moment, Barry picked up the smoking grenade and threw it into the cab, where the driver still sat behind the wheel.

  It was suddenly very quiet. Preston came around from the back of the truck, and Barry pulled Varley to his feet and shook him in anger, his voice muffled inside the gas mask.

  He turned and hurried around to the back of the truck, let down the tailgate and clambered over the inert bodies of the German artillery men and examined the three green containers he found there.

  Preston and Varley joined him. It took them exactly four minutes to move the containers across to the Land Rover. Within five, they were driving away, leaving the two army vehicles silent in the rain at the side of the road.

  Jenny Crowther walked along the path beside the estuary in the rain, a forlorn-looking figure in the head scarf and old raincoat. Her life until Barry had been nothing, one gray day after another. Now, he circled in her brain so constantly that she could think of nothing else. She moved along the jetty and stood, hands in pockets, looking at the two boats. After a while, she stepped over the rail of the Kathleen and went into the wheelhouse. She sat on the bench, her back against the bulkhead, staring at the instrument panel. Finally, she reached underneath and dropped the inspection flap. The Sterling and the revolver hung there, neat and deadly in their brackets. She touched them gingerly, then pushed the flap back up into place and went out again.

  She moved along to the Jason next and stood looking at it, wondering what it was all about, a slight, puzzled frown on her face. She stepped over the rail and went into the wheelhouse and stood there undecided, not certain what she was doing there at all. Suddenly, in the distance, she heard the sound of an engine.