He put his finger inside the triggerguard and twirled the gun on the desk. It pointed towards him. No. Try again. It pointed towards the door.
It lived in his desk, which nobody touches. Of European make but said to be good, a stopper, powerful. It is our constitutional right, to bear arms. He had never taken it out but it was there, carefully kept oiled, with the charger separate to avoid weakening the spring. The armourer had explained; light enough for him but efficient, an automatic known here as a seven-six-five. He knew how to snap it in, to arm the action, feeling for the safety but now it was loaded, a fer-de-lance ready to strike.
He had got the story out of Crystal with no trouble at all; a stupid confusion of names. Calling herself Mireille and her real name was Janine. Harmless, a thing actors did. But this doctor made nonsense of safeguards. The man had been here in this room, questioning him, examining him. Prescribed for him. He had inner uncertainties, which now were known to this man, who was due – away at some conference, in the States – to come back with the result of those lab tests, and discuss a possible treatment… it doesn’t bear thinking of. It is like a bullet, lodged in the centre of his own bodily defences. A lawyer is a man. His blood is red.
It is true, one thinks of lawyers as cold, implacable, unmoved; Mr Tulkinghorn at his desk with the two bits of sealing-wax and the broken glass stopper. Men can be overwhelmed by pain and by a pressure suddenly unbearable. They can run amok; the head no longer controls the heart, the limbs, the armed hand. But not, one would say, lawyers: still less those who represent their country on diplomatic missions, clothed as it were in the Advocate-General’s red robe. People like this shouldn’t have loaded pistols on the table.
But it would be very foolish to think of somebody like Dr Barbour in an over-simplified, caricatural way. He is imbued with a sense of his importance? He is pompous, rigid, humourless? Authoritarian, a bully, a good deal of an old fascist? One would still know pitifully little about him. Raymond Valdez is thinking about how one will get to know more, and maybe, enough to be of some use. This will take time, effort, concentration, sympathy. The PermRep is a lot of boilerplate: there is much more to him. He is to a large degree a creature of systems and attitudes and the conventions of his class and upbringing. He is also – as he is telling himself – red-blooded. He lives and he breathes, and he loves. He is making indeed a great effort to be a man. Not to be mechanical, materialist. The pistol is a well-made ingenious mechanism but it means death. It is not a piece of sealing-wax. The Permanent Representative took it to pieces again and put it back in the drawer, after ejecting the loaded cartridge. It left a smell of mineral oil on his hands, so that he went to wash before going up to change. Not Spaniards – New Zealand. Mutton probably, or apples.
This evening the catering is by the Bénédicte firm. She does none of the big parties, boumboum affairs with hundreds of plates and glasses, but is in much demand for a more intimate affray. She has an excellent maître d’hôtel and two inventive cooks, and the secret is to have a personal eye upon the lay-out. Dr Barbour filtered through the convives.
“Two words with you.”
“With pleasure,” one eye on a waitress. “Careful dear, those are delicate.” She doesn’t disdain what cooks call the chicken-and-ham circuit but they aren’t sausage rolls: Canapé MacMahon is a short-crust tartlet with scalloped chicken livers, mushrooms and marrow; a madeira demiglace.
“I’ve had a piece of insolence from an employee of yours.”
“You may rely on me to deal with it.”
The phonecall had said nothing beyond ‘I want to see you’ but Monsieur Philippe doesn’t loiter, pausing only downstairs where there is a nice smell of fresh pastry and a gamy flavour from the kitchen beyond. The old horror’s office was upstairs. She doesn’t say Good Morning, she doesn’t ask him to sit down, she’s plainly in a nasty frame of mind.
“You were employed some months ago on an errand for a valued customer. It now appears that you have exceeded your instructions: a complaint has come in. You’ve pestered him, you’ve been indiscreet. Trying to make yourself a corner in the affairs of others. I won’t have it.” Reading him off as though he’d dropped a tray of glasses but he will bide his time. “You need not speak, I won’t listen. You need only understand me – you haven’t heard the last of this.”
“I don’t allow you to make threats.”
“I never make threats. I dislike complaints, they’re bad for business. I know how to put a stop to them, get that well fixed in your mind. Off you trot; I’m wanted downstairs.”
Talking to me like that – that you’ll regret, old bitch. Not the moment to say so and it needs quiet, collected thought. Now he had to go down the stairs in front of her, as though pushed…
She was buttonholed in the hallway by a distraught waitress.
“Oh Madame, James says the delivery has gone wrong.” She bullocked on through without a backward glance and Monsieur Philippe had a sudden inspiration, whipped back up the stairs three at a time. Anything, anything at all – a paper, a tape cassette? The desk was bare, the drawers all locked – cow. Only on the window-sill, a cigarbox. To offer favoured customers or might it hold a recorder? Well Glory Be. It held a small pistol. He slipped back down silent as the draught from an open door, ready to say Sorry, forgotten my glasses, but there was nobody at all. He didn’t know what one could make of this but something – something.
At home he examined the booty. A woman’s thing yes, but trust old Benny, no Mickey Mouse. A small but solid, shapely job, revolver loaded all round with .22 magnums…
It might be some time before she missed it. It might not be such an obvious guess who had found it. She wouldn’t do anything at once. She had, no error, leverage on him, but he, if she pushed too far, could find a few damaging suggestions. Neither party would be enthusiastic for a shakedown. Say nothing, keep it safe.
He had no gun, himself, since that damned impudent Barton had taken his, chucked it in the river. He’d been meaning to replace it but hadn’t found the right opening.
It was at this moment that he found the germ – the faintest shadow – of what looked like a bright idea. A wild plan, but simple. ‘Doctor Valdez’ he told himself sarcastically, would be part of this. The weak link, the way in. The more he thought, the thirstier he got.
But Valdez seemed to have vanished; no sign of him at either address. He rang up the secretary, an earnest enquirer, quite humble and prepared to wait upon the convenience of almost anyone but he did want, you see. Oh, he was away? But he’d be back on Friday? Oh yes, I see, the timeshift from the States. I wouldn’t want to bother him, it would be better to wait until Monday perhaps.
He had what he wanted, the plane timetable.
Yawning exaggeratedly, waiting for his ears to clear, Raymond doesn’t object to the tropic climes now and then but he does like to get home to where it rains, or might, outside; oh god why do these places stink so and why is my suitcase always the last one off? Caribbean islands fade to postcard size, mercifully cleansed of insects, air conditioners and penetrating American voices. And now dozy is the word and he has a horrible longing for soup. Pea soup and no bananas. Where the buggery is one to find soup? Minestrone.
It is needlessly dozy to be looking in the car park for an old Volkswagen. He has a smart new car and a magic thingy to pop the doors, if one could find it… The man next door is hunting for his key which isn’t in his pocket and might be in the briefcase, well one knows the feeling. Throwing his bag in the back he was suddenly crowded.
“Stay very still, there’s a pistol pointing at you. Now I get in, just behind you. No use staring about, those cars are all empty, gone to Paris for the day. Now if you turn your head slowly you’ll see it. Small but efficient. The target would be the back of your neck and you’re dead.
“Now you drive out slowly, careful not to hit anything. Got the money, have you, to make the gate open and get us out of here?”
Supposing I haven’t any m
oney, thought Raymond, the gate won’t open. Only this is airport desert, everyone else is gone, even the taxi-drivers are miles away sunk in a doze; lift your eyes from the crossword, boys. No, I’m stuck here with a maniac just behind me and what does he want, what the hell is the point? Why hijack me? Why hijack anyone? Is he escaping from somewhere? Or he’s done a holdup and I’m a hostage. Where are the bloody police, are they all inside drinking coffee? It was only a feeder flight. Big plane there coming in and lots of people, no good to me and I don’t Want to get shot in the neck.
“Right, now I’ll tell you, you drive on out to Barton’s house. You know the way well. Where you left your woman, right?”
Light is beginning to dawn and it doesn’t help. Being dozy and being frightened together is just making you sweaty. Is this – this must be the man who has some vengeance to take upon William. Who put the bomb outside William’s house. Not a very efficient man because it didn’t work well, but he might be better with guns than he was with bombs. This is not a good forecast. What can I do, dio merda? Tip the car in the ditch, like Joséphine did? Alack, there are country roads hereabout, stretches of woodland, farmland – ditches. But these lands are much too tame, orderly, ditches much too neat and small. Crash the car into something? There are villages with awkward turns, red lights, cars parked. This would be possible. He doesn’t think he can do it; too paralysed by fear. You are not that smart, Ray, and you are not that heroic. As he got into the car the first thing the man had done was to make a sudden lunge forward over my shoulder, to twist the reversing mirror up and out of sight-line; didn’t want to be seen. That would have been the moment for the unarmed combat; take the loony in the octopus-like grip. I didn’t; I did nothing.
Looking backward is of no interest, thought Ray. More anxious to know what is in front. The fiend is just behind me and it’s enough to know he’s there. ‘The fiend is at my elbow’ said… said… Lancelot Gobbo… that’s me, the clown. This feeling of total impotence is wretched. “Watch your road” snapped the man. “Don’t waver. Don’t try anything funny.”
He could bash the car into a tree. Would that leave them all trapped in airbags? – he doesn’t even know how the damn things work. Are there some at the back? And if he fired his pistol into them, wouldn’t they collapse?
Sweat is running down his neck, his chest, his back: his trousers were sticking to his legs. He could pee in his pants it wouldn’t make much odds. Raymond has practised dying – many times – but he hadn’t known it would be like this. And now they were climbing the steep slope, up to the house.
“Easy does it. Nice and slow. At the top you just glide down into the dip. You stop there, in front of the house. And you sound your horn. You go toot-toot. You don’t move. And he’ll hear that, and he’ll come out to see. Think there’s something wrong with you. There is, too. He’ll come to look, and I’ve got him, the bastard.”
It was all too likely. It was logical. William would think no harm. The one hope – that William, the professionally suspicious man, would think something amiss. He has weaponry, but how to alert him to the need for it? It was all true – William would simply come out wondering what the matter was. Joséphine – she might be there; she might come out too. The loony would not leave an inconvenient witness. They would all die.
“Toot again,” said the voice. “Pip-pip, here he comes.”
The car was angled towards the house. The back window was sliding down. Raymond slumped. He didn’t think he’d be able to see the others die. In the story, after the bombardment, the simple-Simon says ‘I was the only Janeite left’. But it won’t be that way. We’ll all be gone, with nothing to show. There is no one here and this man is going to get clear away with it. He heard the hissing breath drawn in and held as William started to come towards them.
A different voice, barking, wanting to sound gruff, authoritative and wishing very strongly to be obeyed, said loudly,
“Drop the gun.”
Of several startled people Monsieur Philippe was the most startled – William, who could see behind Raymond’s car, could see the other car which had stopped at the top of the dip, wasn’t startled. It meant that Xavier had been as good as his word and put a PJ man sticking to that idiot’s footsteps, and just as bloody well because the fucker’d turned dangerous. He caught hold of Joséphine’s arm and swung her violently, himself making a complicated sort of plunging swerve. He hoped that boy knew what he was doing.
Melodrama is never far from farce. Raymond with his eyes shut wasn’t sure whether he was in this world or the next. Whichever it was, that was a classic line.
Humphrey Bogart always said the line never existed, but that drunks in bars, anxious to show who really was the tough guy around here, were forever coming up to him making like they were George Raft, saying ‘Drop the gun, Louey.’
The boy from the PJ – he was not much more – was frightened by the situation and startled at his own voice. There he’d been stuck for hours on end, at that frigging airport, wondering what the hell the bugger was up to – practically since the beginning of his shift. Recognizing Dr Valdez he’d woken up. Followed from fairly far back. They’d gone quite slow. When they stopped he’d known something was up. Training took over then. He’d made quick time while angling out a bit. Because of Valdez in front. If you have to use your piece you try to make sure it doesn’t go on through and hit a bystander.
But Monsieur Philippe was very badly startled because it never had occurred to him to look behind him. The window down; he had the little pistol nicely braced, cocked, on single action.
At that wild Indian yell panic struck him. He swung the little gun in that direction and it went off (found afterwards to have a light pull, nothing unusual) and before he knew how to stop fired two more on double action.
The boy had his big standard-issue .357 revolver. There has been a lot of debate about police arms. The thing is dangerously powerful. Most PJ men of more experience have gone back to automatics, for the modern automatic is much more reliable than it used to be. The boy had been trained that if you do have to use your piece (after, it’s insisted upon, your call of warning) you shoot at the legs. Nobody’d ever shown him how you’re supposed to aim at some geezer sitting down in a car whom you can’t even see properly. No matter anyhow, these big guns kick up in the inexperienced hand. One shot but it fair tore the fellow in two and went out the far side. Jeesus-eff-christ, he thought, scared out of his wits. William didn’t need a second glance to see what had happened. He took the big revolver away from the boy, who put his hands up over his eyes, and said, “That’s all right, son, get your breath back.” The boy began to cry from nerves. He’d never fired the gun at anyone and now he’d killed a man. Stopped at once; it was only the scare.
“The ol’man’ll tear my head off for this. There’ll be an inquiry, I’ll be suspended.”
“No he won’t. Happens I know him, pretty well; he’ll take my word. You don’t touch any of this. You go back to your car, and call him. You let him shout, and then you tell him Mr Barton will be your witness.”
Raymond was still sitting there behind the wheel, clutching it. Joséphine reached in and took both hands.
“Come on. Upsidaisy.” He got out, took a look, and said
“Oh dear. My good car.” Insane laughter.
“The mirror cracked from side to side. Your insurance company is going to do its nut.”
“Not sure I haven’t peed my pants.”
“Would make two of us. Take a look at William, he’s in his element.” Raymond tried walking, with partial success.
Joséphine is especially fond of Ray’s quickness to laugh at himself.
William joined them.
“I had a quick word with Xavier. He’ll send the wagon and he’ll be out himself for a look before they take – that – away. The boy stays, to be sure no one touches it. I think he’d like a cup of coffee, Joséphine, if you’d manage that. What I’d suggest, we go in, and perhaps we all hav
e some apple pie.”
So there they are, the three Janeites.
“Aren’t we perfect fools, to imagine we can push violence out of the way? The harder we push, the more it clings.”
“Like Captain Haddock” (Joséphine is a strong Tintin fan) “trying to get rid of the sticking-plaster.”
“But Haddock’s violence is entirely innocent.”
“That’s what children like so much: they can feel total confidence in him.”
“Do you think,” said William, “that the jeweller was any good at his job?” The other two have had it explained to them, who the little sneak was.
“Oddly enough,” said Joséphine, “I can answer that. I’ve been in that little shop on the quays. Geoffrey was buying a wedding anniversary present for Liliane. Yes he was. Very good indeed. They aren’t all sitting up there in the Place Vendôme, you know. He had a passion for gold. Not that shit stuff – pink, grey, white. The real thing, high carat. You wear that on your skin, it takes a beautiful patina. He learned that, he said, in India. The inside – where it touches you, there is the heart and the soul of it. He did the most wonderful enamels on it. Isn’t that beautiful? Why was he such a horrible little shit?”
The PJ chief could be heard outside, brisk, rallying his troops. Xavier came in, said, “What’s that you’re drinking? I’ll have some… You all right, all of you?”
“We’ve a technical question for you.”
“Good, this. Polish, is it? I can give you the police answer, if William hasn’t already.”
“No, I haven’t the details.”
“I had a man on him, as you know. Just a tag, wasn’t getting anywhere much with it – interested in the Doctor,” nodding at Ray.
“Old bitch Bénédicte came in to see me, bold as brass.
“Her good pistol, which Of Course is legally registered, and was, so please you, mislaid while cleaning, got pilfered. An Insane thing to do, Commissaire, which she feels Obliged to make known to me, think of it, fellow running round with a Grievance.
The Janeites Page 19