Night Of The Fox

by Jack Higgins

"And Kelso?"

  "Entirely in your hands, dear boy. You're the officer in the field. I'll back whatever you decide to do. You know how critical the situation is."

  "Fair enough."

  Munro picked up the phone at his side. "Send Mrs. Moon in now." He put the phone down and said to Sarah. "We're very lucky to have Mrs. Moon. We borrow her from Denham Studios by courtesy of Alexander Korda. There's nothing she doesn't know about makeup, dress and so on."

  Hilda Moon was a large fat woman with a cockney accent. Her own appearance inspired little confidence, for her hair was dyed red and it showed, and she wore too much lipstick. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, ash spilling down on her ample bosom.

  "Yes." She nodded, walking round Sarah. "Very nice. Of course I'll have to do something with the hair."

  "Do you think so?" Sarah asked in alarm.

  "Girls who get by the way you're supposed to in this part, dear, always carry it up front. They make a living from pleasing men, which means they have to make the best of what they've got. You trust me, I know what's best for you."

  She took Sarah by the arm and led her out. As the door closed, Martineau said, "We probably won't even recognize her when we see her again."

  "Of course," Munro said. "But then, I should have thought that was the general idea."

  It was early evening when the phone rang at Gallagher's cottage. He was in the kitchen, working through farm accounts at the table, and answered it instantly.

  "Savary here, General. The matter of the package we discussed."

  "Yes."

  "My contact in Granville was in touch with their head office. It seems someone will be with you by Thursday at the latest to give you the advice you need."

  "You're certain of that."

  "Absolutely."

  The phone went dead. Gallagher sat there thinking about it, then he put on his old corduroy jacket and went up to de Ville Place

  . He found Helen in the kitchen with Mrs. Vibert, preparing the evening meal. The old lady didn't live on the premises, but just down the road in another farm cottage with her niece and young daughter. She was a widow herself, a good-hearted woman of sixty-five, devoted to Helen.

  She dried her hands and took a coat down from behind the door. "If that's all, I'll be off now, Mrs. de Ville."

  "See you in the morning," Helen told her.

  As the door closed behind her, Gallagher said, "She doesn't suspect anything, does she?"

  "No, and I want it to stay that way, for her own good, as much as anyone else's."

  "I've just had Savary on the phone. They got through to London. Someone will be with us by Thursday."

  She turned quickly. "Are you certain?"

  "As much as I can be. How is the good colonel?"

  "Still feverish. George saw him this afternoon. He seems satisfied. He's trying him on this penicillin stuff."

  "I'm surprised Savary was in so early. They must have made the run this afternoon."

  "They did," she said. "Taking advantage of the fog again. Most of the officers have turned up here within the past hour."

  "Most?"

  "Two dead. Bohlen and Wendel. Two of the ships were attacked by Hurricanes."

  At that moment, the green baize door leading to the dining room opened and Guido Orsini came in. He was wearing his best uniform, his hair still damp from the shower, and looked rather dashing. He wore the Italian Medal for Military Valor in gold, a medal equivalent to the British Victoria Cross and very rarely awarded. On his left breast he also wore an Iron Cross First Class.

  Gallagher said in English, "Still in one piece are you? Hear you had a bad time."

  "It could have been worse," Guido told him. "They're all sitting in there doing their conspicuous mourning bit." He put a bag he was carrying on the table. "Dozen bottles of Sancerre there from Granville."

  "You're a good boy," she said.

  "So I believe. Don't you think I also look rather beautiful tonight?"

  "Very possibly." He was mocking her as usual, she knew that. "Now move to one side while I dish up the food."

  Guido inched open the serving hatch to the dining room and whispered to Gallagher. "Sean, come and look at this."

  The hall was paneled in oak, darkly magnificent, and the long oaken table down the center could accommodate twenty-five. There were only eight in there now, all naval officers, seated at various places In each gap, where someone was missing, a lighted candle stood at the plate There were six such candles, each representing a member of the mess who had died in action The atmosphere was funereal to say the least.

  "They have to make everything into a Shakespearean tragedy," Orsini said. "It's really very boring If it wasn't for Helen's cooking I'd go elsewhere. I discovered a remarkably good black-market restaurant in St Aubin's Bay the other night. Amazing what one got and without coupons."

  "Now that is interesting," Gallagher said. "Tell me more."

  As Mrs. Moon and her two assistants worked on Sarah, the fat woman talked incessantly. "I've been everywhere Denham, Elstree, Pinewood. I do all Miss Margaret Lockwood's makeup and Mr James Mason. Oh, and I've worked with Mr Coward. Now he was a gentleman."

  When Sarah came out from under the dryer, she couldn't believe what she saw Her dark hair was now a golden blond, and they'd marcelled it tight against her face. Now, Mrs Moon started with the makeup, plucking hairs from the eyebrows painfully then lining them into two thin streaks.

  "Plenty of rouge, dear. A little too much, if you know what I mean, and lots of lipstick. Everything just a little overdone, that's what we want. Now, what do you think?"

  Sarah sat looking into the mirror. It was the face of a stranger. Who am I? she thought. Did Sarah Drayton ever exist at all?

  "Well try one of the dresses. Of course, the underwear and every individual item will be of French origin, but you only need the dress at the moment, just for the effect."

  It was black satin, very tight and rather short. She helped Sarah into it and zipped it at the back. "It certainly helps your breasts along, dear. They look very good."

  "I don't know about that, I can't breathe." Sarah pulled on a pair of high-heeled shoes and looked at herself in the mirror. She giggled. "I look the most awful tart."

  "Well, that is the idea, love. Now go and see what the brigadier thinks."

  Munro and Carter were still sitting by the fire when she went in, talking in low tones Sarah said, "No one told me my name."

  "Anne-Marie Latour," Carter said automatically and then looked up. "Good God!" he said.

  Munro was far more positive. "I like it. Like it very much indeed." Sarah pirouetted. "Yes, they'll go for you in the German officers' club in St Heher."

  "Or in the Army and Navy in London, I should have thought," Carter said dryly.

  The door opened and Martmeau entered. She turned to face him, hands on hips in a deliberate challenge. "Well?" she demanded.

  "Well, what?"

  "Oh, damn you." She was cross enough to stamp a foot. "You're the most infuriating man I've ever met. Is there a village near here with a pub?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you take me for a drink?"

  "Like that?"

  "You mean I don't look nice enough?"

  "Actually, you transcend all Mrs Moon's efforts. You couldn't be a tart if you tried, brat. I'll see you in the hall in fifteen minutes," and he turned and went out.

  There was a spring fete on in the village in aid of war charities. Stalls and sideshows on the village green and a couple of old-fashioned roundabouts. Sarah wore a coat over the dress and hung onto his arm. She was obviously enjoying herself as they moved through the noisy and good-humored crowd.

  There was a tent marked Fortunes—Gypsy Sara. "Sara without the H," he said. "Let's give it a try."

  "All right," he said, humoring her.

  Surprisingly, the woman inside had dispensed with the usual gypsy trappings, the headscarf and the earrings. She was about forty with a sallow
face, neat black hair and wore a smart gabardine suit. She took the girl's hand. "Just you, lady, or your gentleman as well?"

  "But he isn't my gentleman," she protested.

  "He'll never belong to anyone else, never know another woman."

  She took a deep breath as if trying to clear her head, and Martineau said, "Now let's hear the good news."

  She handed a tarot pack to Sarah, folded her own hands over Sarah's, then shuffled the pack several times and extracted three cards.

  The first was Fortitude, a young woman grasping the jaws of a lion. "There is an opportunity to put an important plan into action if one will take risks," Gypsy Sara said.

  The next card was the Star, a naked girl kneeling by a pool. "I see fire and water, mingling at the same time. A contradiction and yet you come through both unscathed."

  Sarah turned to Martineau. "I had that last month at the Cromwell. Incendiary bombs on the nurses' quarters and water everywhere from the fire hoses."

  The third card was the Hanged Man. The woman said, "He will not change however long he hangs in the tree. He cannot alter the mirror image, however much he fears it. You must journey on alone. Adversity will always be your strength. You will find love only by not seeking it, that is the lesson you must learn."

  Sarah said to Martineau, "Now you."

  Gypsy Sara gathered up the cards. "There is nothing I can tell the gentleman that he does not know already."

  "Best thing I've heard since the Brothers Grimm." Martineau pushed a pound across the table and stood up. "Let's go."

  "Are you angry?" Sarah demanded as they pushed through the crowd to the village pub.

  "Why should I be?"

  "It was only a bit of fun. Nothing to be taken seriously."

  "Oh, but I take everything seriously," he assured her.

  The bar was crowded but they managed to find a couple of seats in the corner by the fire, and he ordered her a shandy and had a scotch for himself. "Well, what do you think of it so far?" he asked.

  "Rather more interesting than the wards at the Cromwell."

  "In other circumstances you'd be trained for about six weeks," he said. "The Scottish Highlands to toughen you up. Courses in unarmed combat and so on. Twelve ways of killing someone with your bare hands."

  "That sounds very gruesome."

  "But effective. I remember one of our agents, a journalist in civilian life, who stopped going into pubs when he was home. He was afraid to get into an argument because of what he might do."

  "Can you do that sort of thing?" she asked him.

  "Anybody can be taught to do it. It's brains that's important in this game."

  There were three soldiers in khaki battle dress at the bar, an older man who was a sergeant and a couple of privates. Hard young men who kept laughing, heads together, as they looked across at Martineau. When he went to replenish the drinks, one of them deliberately jogged his arm as he turned from the bar, spilling a little scotch.

  "You want to be more careful, mate," the youth told him.

  "If you say so." Martineau smiled cheerfully, and the sergeant put a hand on the youth's sleeve and muttered something.

  When he sat down Sarah said, "Jack Carter tells me you knew Freud."

  "Yes, I last saw him in London in nineteen thirty-nine just before he died."

  "Do you agree with psychoanalysis?"

  "Everything coming down to sex? God knows, old Sigmund had enough problems in that direction himself. He was once doing a lecture tour in the States with Jung and told him one day that he kept dreaming of prostitutes. Jung simply asked him why he didn't do something about it. Freud was terribly shocked. 'But I'm a married man,' he said."

  She laughed helplessly. "That's marvelous."

  "Talking of great minds, I used to have dealings with Bertrand Russell, who liked the ladies more than somewhat, which he justified by his strongly held personal belief that you couldn't get to know a woman properly until you'd slept with her."

  "That doesn't sound very philosophical to me," she said.

  "On the contrary."

  She got up and excused herself. "I'll be back in a minute."

  As she went out to the cloakroom the three soldiers watched her go, then glanced at Martineau, and there was a burst of laughter. As she returned, the young soldier who had bumped Martineau at the bar grabbed her arm. She struggled to pull away and Martineau was on his feet and pushing through the crowd to her side.

  "That's enough."

  "Who the hell are you, her father?" the boy demanded.

  Martineau took him by the wrist, applying leverage in the way the instructor had shown him on the silent killing course at Arisaig in Scotland in the early days. The boy grimaced in pain. The sergeant said, "Leave off. He didn't mean any harm. Just a bit of fun."

  "Yes, I can see that."

  As he took her back to the table she said, "That was quick."

  "When I feel, I act. I'm a very existentialist person."

  "Existentialist?" She frowned. "I don't understand."

  "Oh, a new perspective to things a friend of mine's come up with. A French writer called Jean-Paul Sartre. When I was on the run in Paris three years ago I holed up at his apartment for a couple of weeks. He's involved with the Resistance."

  "But what does it mean?"

  "Oh, lots of things. The bit I like is the suggestion that you should create values for yourself through action and by living each moment to the full."

  "Is that how you've got yourself through the last four years?"

  "Something like that. Sartre just put it into words for me." He helped her into her coat. "Let's go."

  It was dark outside, music and merriment drifting from the direction of the fair, although most of the stands were already closed because of the blackout regulations. They started across the deserted car park to where Martineau had left the car, and there was a sound of running footsteps. He turned as the two young soldiers ran up. The sergeant emerged on the porch at the rear of the pub and stood watching.

  "Now then," the young soldier who'd caused the scene at the bar said. "You and me aren't finished yet. You need to be taught a lesson."

  "Is that a fact?" Martineau demanded, and as the youth moved in, swinging a punch, he caught the wrist, twisted it up and around, locking the shoulder The soldier cried out as the muscle tore. The other soldier gave a cry of alarm and recoiled as Martineau dropped his friend on the ground and the sergeant ran forward angrily. "You bastard!" he said.

  "Not me, you for letting it happen." Martineau had his identity card out. "I think you'd better look at that."

  The sergeant's face dropped. "Colonel, sir!" He sprang to attention.

  "That's better. You're going to need a doctor. Tell chummy here when he's capable of listening that I hope he's learned something. Next time it could be the death of him."

  As they drove away, Sarah said, "You don't hesitate at all. do you?"

  "What's the point?"

  "I think I understand what Jack Carter meant. You have an aptitude for killing, I think."

  "Words," he said. "Games in the head. That's all I had for years. Nothing but talk, nothing but ideas. Let's have some facts. Let's stop playing games in black satin dresses with our hair blonded. You know what the first technique is that the Gestapo employ in breaking down any woman agent who falls into their hands?"

  "You're obviously going to tell me."

  "Multiple rape. If that doesn't do the trick, the electric shook treatment comes next I used to have a girlfriend in Berlin She was Jewish."

  "I know. Carter told me about her as well."

  "How they tortured, then murdered her in the Gestapo cellars at Prince Albrechtstrasse?" Martineau shook his head. "He doesn't know everything He doesn't know that Kaufmann, the head of the Gestapo in Lyons who I killed last November, was the man responsible for Rosa's death in Berlin in nineteen thirty-eight."

  "I see now," she said softly. "Sergeant Kelly said you were different and he was righ
t You hated Kaufmann for years and when you finally took your revenge, you found it meant nothing."

  "All this wisdom." He laughed coldly. "Going over there and taking on the Gestapo isn't like one of those movies they make at Elstree Studios. There are fifty million people in France. You know how many we estimate are active members of the Resistance?"

  "No."

  "Two thousand, Sarah. Two lousy thousand." He was disgusted. "I don't know why we bother."

  "Then why do you? Not just for Rosa or your grandfather." He turned briefly and she said, "Oh, yes, I know about that too."

  There was a silence He opened his cigarette case one-handed. "Do you want one of these things? A bad habit, but a great comfort in the clinches."

  "All right," she said and took one.

  He gave her a light. "Something I've never talked about. I was due to go to Harvard in nineteen seventeen. Then America joined in the war I was seventeen officially under age. Joined up on sheer impulse and ended up in the trenches in Flanders." He shook his head. "Whatever you mean by hell on earth, that was the trenches. So many dead you lost count."

  "It must have been terrible," she said.

  "And I loved every minute of it Can you understand that? I lived more in one day, felt more, than in a year of ordinary living. Life became real, bloody, exciting. I couldn't get enough."

  "Like a drug?"

  "Exactly. I was like the man in the poem, constantly seeking Death on the battlefield. That was what I ran away from, back to Harvard and Oxford cloisters and the sale world of classrooms and books, everything in the head."

  "And then the war came round again."

  "And Dougal Munro yanked me out into the real world… And the rest, as they say, you know."

  Later, lying in bed smoking a cigarette, listening to the rain tapping at the window, he heard the door open. She said softly through the darkness, "It's only me."

  "Really?" Martmeau said.

  She took off her robe and got into bed beside him. She was wearing a cotton nightdress and he put an arm around her automatically. "Harry," she whispered. "Can I make a confession?"

  "You obviously intend to."

  "I know you probably imagine, along with everyone else that I'm a delicate little middle-class virgin, but I'm afraid I'm not."