Past Imperfect

by John Matthews

  So close. He felt the earlier rush of anticipation grow stronger as the trees and hedgerows flashed by in the stark beam of his headlamps... shadows marking his progress. Tombstones for Duclos. He hit a flat stretch and edged his speed up to 160kmph.

  The past weeks of activity had left him tired and jaded. But now the adrenalin rush made him alert again, he could feel it touching every nerve end as he sped on, the kilometres starting to zip by... seven... six...

  Dominic flicked the radio back on. He raised the motorway car, aware that Duclos would probably reach them first. 'He should be passing you in no more than two or three minutes if he's heading straight on. If so, give immediate pursuit and we'll radio ahead. Keep the airwaves open throughout.' He left a similar message with the second car heading north, but with a four minute timing.

  Less than a minute later, as the N7 junction loomed ahead, he called Lepoille and brought him up to date. '...About two minutes now on the motorway, three if he's heading south.' Dominic turned at the N7, heading toward the motorway. Closing the triangle tighter. 'And maybe four minutes for him to pass me if he comes this way.'

  Dominic tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, anxious as it came up to the minute mark for Duclos to pass the motorway car, then looked towards the radio as he silently counted down... fifty seconds... forty... thirty. At ten seconds he prompted: 'Anything yet?'

  'No.'

  Beats of silence: Forty... fifty... a minute over! Duclos must have headed south or was coming north towards him! 'TLN-493 - he could be heading down towards you. If so, he should be passing any second.'

  'Okay.'

  But his radio stayed obstinately silent as the seconds passed: a minute over heading south, two heading north. The chances that Duclos was heading his way increased, and Dominic slowed - honing in closer on each passing car: type, colour and finally number among the glare of oncoming headlamps.

  Still silence from the radio.

  Duclos must be heading towards him, he'd have reached either of the other points by now. Dominic pulled over at the first farm turning on a flat stretch and backed in so that he was side-on to the traffic, ready to turn out quickly.

  Dominic's nerves tensed. Any second now: scrutinizing each passing car, looking ahead two and three cars at the first hint of shape and form on the horizon, lights and shapes becoming a blur, headlamp star bursts as his eyes watered... Come on... come on!

  He knew that if he saw Duclos now, there would be little subtlety left: he would just ram his car broadside and yank him out at gun point. But each car that at first looked hopeful, then finally when closer he saw wasn't Duclos, raised his panic another notch. And sunk him deeper into despondency; Duclos' smug face seeming to rise up increasingly out of each set of passing lights... fooled you... fooled you again!

  Dominic made a final check with the other two cars: nothing. Then looked at his watch: 9.57 pm. Duclos wasn't going to show! Dominic became frantic. He banged his fist on the steering wheel. Where? For God's sake... where? He stared blankly at the map. They'd had Duclos cornered, and he'd disappeared into thin air!

  There was hardly anything in the triangle left worth Duclos heading for: Le Luc and small nearby villages such as Le Cannet, a few small roads leading to farms. Unless Duclos had taken the N7 doubling back so that-

  Dominic froze. Airfield! The small yellow square to the right of the triangle suddenly leapt out at him.

  The TB20 Trinidad banked at 9,000 feet as it came over the last stretch of the Alpes Maritimes.

  There was a thin cloud layer, ghostly mist racing towards them and clinging to the windscreen. Then after a minute they were through and the lights of the Cote D'Azur were ahead. The pilot started a descent to 6,000 feet as he prepared to bank again.

  His passenger had hardly said a word throughout, and his presence had increasingly unnerved him. A stocky man in his late thirties named Hector whose Swiss French had an Italian or Spanish accent, wearing a padded leather jacket which made him look even bulkier. The only bit of good news was that Hector would be staying in Portugal with his pick-up. At least he would have the journey back without his company.

  6,000 ft... 5,600... 5,200. He dropped in stages following the lights along the coast, then as he saw the lights of Toulon ahead, banked sharply for the final descent.

  Darkness. All they could see was the shape of three grey hangars at the far end of the airfield and another two to their far right by a small office building. Nine aircraft in total: two to their right, four spread between the more distant hangars, and three on a flat tarmac area at the end of the main runway. But there were no lights, no movement or activity.

  Dominic had arrived at the airfield at 10.02pm, a minute after the Le Luc car with two gendarmes. The driver, a sergeant named Pierre Giverny, informed him that it was much the same now as when he had arrived. 'Total darkness. No sign of activity.' What Giverny hadn't noticed as he'd pulled in was one of the three planes on the tarmac beyond the runway taxiing slowly, starting to move to position to take off. It braked and stood motionless as soon as his lights appeared. Duclos' car was out of sight, tucked behind the back of the furthest hangar.

  Dominic was parked next to the gendarme's car: two sets of headlamps on full beam, probing expectantly into the darkness, though most of their effectiveness faded less than halfway along the main runway. Everything beyond was just vague, grey shadow.

  'Perhaps I was wrong,' said Dominic. He looked thoughtfully towards the distant hangars and planes.

  In the darkness of the plane's cockpit, Hector commented: 'Give them a moment more and they'll probably go.'

  The pilot nodded with a pained smile. Hector had suddenly found his voice: police and night-time raids. Probably familiar ground.

  Duclos consciously held his breath as he looked on at the figures in the distance, shadowy silhouettes alongside the headlamp beams. His nerves were racing out of control. One of the cars he was sure was Fornier's!

  He saw the figures huddled together talking, looking towards them. A shiver ran up his spine, his whole body suddenly shuddering. Then after a second they turned, seemed to be making their way back towards their cars.

  'See!' Whispered, almost breathless exclamation from Hector.

  Duclos thought Hector might have been a navigator, until he'd slipped in the back when Duclos had first got in. Hector's presence behind him made him uneasy. A final soupçon of tension he could have done without after the mounting panic of the day. Duclos felt his stomach in knots, his nerves breaking close to the edge.

  Dominic got back into his car, starting her up. He moved forward, starting to turn... then suddenly stopped. He looked thoughtfully back at the runway fifty metres ahead, its long expanse of darkness and the planes and hangars at its end.

  'What's he doing?' Duclos hissed. A frozen silence with no answer between them in the confined darkness of the cockpit. Only slow breathing, waiting. Then: 'Oh God... Jesus!' As Duclos saw the lights straighten, start to head towards them.

  'Go... Go!' Hector shouted. 'Get going!' He took out a gun and waved it, though the pilot was unsure if it was as a threat or to fire at the oncoming car.

  The pilot started up and jolted forward, completing the turn quickly so that they were in line with the runway. Then he throttled up high, starting to roll forward furiously.

  The car had almost covered the fifty metres of tarmac beyond, was approaching the beginning of the runway...

  The plane shook and rattled as they picked up speed. The pilot knew that once the car had covered half of the runway, it would be too late, they would be blocked from take off. He bit at his lip. It was going to be close.

  80... 90.... He watched the speedometer climb quickly to over 100 kmph. But he could see that the car had already covered almost quarter of the runway.

  'Are we going to make it?' asked Duclos. He was trembling, though he wasn't sure if it was more fear of collision or them not getting away.

  'I don't know.'

  A
s the reach of the car's beam hit them, the pilot switched on his own lights. A stronger marker of their own presence, hopefully intimidating, a deterrent. The car seemed to falter slightly before picking up speed again. The second car had also now started following, was just touching the start of the runway.

  'Don't worry,' Hector said. 'As soon as he sees we're serious, we're not stopping - he'll back off.' But his undertone wavered; even Hector now wasn't sure.

  As the airplane lights hit Dominic, he'd braked slightly on impulse - it suddenly appeared more ominous, threatening - before steeling himself again.

  His first intention had been purely to investigate the planes and hangars ahead, so one of the planes moving suddenly from the group had surprised him. Turning quickly to panic as he realized it was turning, positioning, was starting along the runway. Making a bid for escape!

  He knew in that second with certainty that Duclos was inside.

  If he could get close enough to block their passage, they would be forced to abort take off. But he could see now that they weren't easing back His own speed was edging over 90 kmph, and the plane was probably nearing 170, 180... rolling furiously towards take off.

  The first twinge of fear gripped him. If they collided at that speed, there would be little chance of survival. But Monique's words rang in his ear: '... do you think that it would be any easier to face me - knowing that you've let the man responsible escape?' But it wasn't just Monique... the other faces long etched in his mind burned home stronger in the glare of the plane's lights... Christian, Machanaud... as if they too were somehow depending on him. No!... No! He'd chased Duclos for too long, too many lives affected - he couldn't let him go now! He kept his foot down hard, powering on...

  'He's crazy!' Hector screamed as the car lights raced towards them.

  Duclos said nothing, was too afraid, his simmering panic of the day reaching a crescendo. Almost catatonic, a nervous dribble crept from the corner of his mouth, his whole body seeming to tremble in time with the shuddering of the plane as it screamed forward. The engine's roar, the fast approaching lights, the shaking and rumbling - a cacophony of sound and light which suddenly made him realize it was all going to end here. Here on this runway in a ball of flame! His whole body was bathed in sweat. But part of him perversely almost welcomed the oblivion - an end to all the panic and madness, the running and hiding and chasing. He couldn't go on any more! Nerves screaming: End it... Yes, end it! I can't face another second... A crooked smile crossing his face as it dawned on him that Fornier would also be consumed in the fireball.

  'We're not going to make it!' the pilot screamed.

  'Keep going... keep going!' Hector shrieked, pointing his gun. This time it was a threat.

  Ninety metres... eighty... seventy... The distance closed rapidly between them.

  Gerome... Monique. Duclos standing outside his house waiting to give the assassin his blood money! Dominic gripped the steering wheel tight.

  The pilot suddenly saw a niche, a slim chance. If he turned a fraction at the last second, the car would hopefully sweep past under the wing. He looked to the side, judging height quickly. It would be close - but probably their only chance now.

  A monster! All those lives. So much destroyed. Duclos escaping was unthinkable. Dominic headed straight for the airplane's searing lights.

  The pilot tilted the wheel slightly to the right, and felt the first lift under the wings practically at the same second.

  Forty metres... thirty...

  Dominic saw the veering in direction almost too late to react, sudden panic that the plane might sweep past him and escape - and he turned the wheel sharply. Too sharply. He felt the back swing around and the car slide into a spin, tilting heavily. It skidded inexorably forward with tyres screaming for almost ten metres before the tilt finally verged into a sickening roll - and Dominic saw everything spinning... the plane's lights, the car roof and side window, the seat and floor, shards of glass suddenly showering down around him and swirling as he thought: Gerome... Monique!

  The first roll of the car cut sharply into the side of the plane's windscreen view, but with the second roll the pilot could see the car was heading straight for them, its frame starting to fill the windscreen... but they were lifting... lifting... the nose edging up above the dark ominous shape.

  The pilot felt the thud as the car hit something below them, then the violent shuddering and shaking through the joystick, fighting to keep control as the plane dipped and wavered. He thought for a second they were going to nose-dive straight down and crash, but the wavering quickly righted, they started to lift again.

  Oh God... Monique! Dominic's last thought as darkness finally swallowed up the cataclysm swirling around him. If anything happened to Gerome and now him, she could never face it. She would be practically alone.

  500 ft... 1,000. Steadily climbing, the lights of the coast starting to appear in the distance below. The pilot looked out briefly for damage. He could see fuel dripping back from below one wing and checked his gauge. It was probably a slow leak, but enough to stop them making it to Portugal. They might have to put down beforehand. But the thud had been one of the struts or possibly the landing wheel. If damage was bad, they might not be able to put down.

  An electrical spark caught on the fumes from Dominic's carburettor, a small fire starting... but in his inner darkness all he could see was the single candle flame burning, flickering across Monique's gentle profile. And as the flames became more intense, starting to catch the dripping petrol all around him, he was back in the wheat field searching for Duclos. The gendarmes were tapping forward with their canes, but Poullain had ordered them to torch the wheat field ahead. He was sure that Christian's murderer was still hiding in the field, and the flames and smoke would help flush him out. But Dominic was also concealed among the long sheaves, on his knees searching for the coin as the flames came close, starting to lick all around him... growing panic as he felt the searing heat and realized the fire had surrounded him, there was no way out.

  As the plane touched 2,000 ft, they saw the car's explosion in the distance below, as if someone had lit a runway bonfire to mark a landing point. A slow smile crossed Duclos' face.

  As the explosion came, a jolt went through Monique's body. A feeling of dread as if something terrible had happened to Gerome in the emergency room at that second.

  She looked up anxiously towards the emergency room doors, expecting a doctor to come out with a drawn face at any moment.

  But with the passing seconds and nobody appearing, she went back to her silent prayers of the past hour, thinking: please... please. Not this second time. Surely God couldn't be so cruel as to let another of her sons die. It never occurred to her in that moment that her prayers should have been for Dominic.

  EPILOGUE

  Praia do Forte, Brazil. January, 1996

  Duclos sipped at the caipirissima as he swung on a hammock on the covered terrace. From the beach in front of the villa came the gentle swish of surf. Darkness had fallen almost three hours ago and it showed only as a white frothing line in the moonlight.

  They'd finally landed over three hundred kilometres further north than planned, close to Oporto, due to loss of fuel. A nightmarish, skidding landing with a damaged wheel - but they made it. Two days in Portugal with Hector to arrange a new identity and passport, and then he was on a scheduled flight to Salvador, Bahia. He was met there by a local, Jorge Cergara, who drove him the eighty kilometres north to Praia do Forte and the beach villa. His new identity was Gerard Belmeau, a Swiss-French businessman taking early retirement. His hair had been dyed a red sandy blonde, and he had started cultivating a moustache which was tinged every few days to match.

  The papers for the house were already prepared in the name of Belmeau, and Praia do Forte was increasingly popular with foreign tourists. No eyebrows would be raised, Cergara assured. And if at any time they were, both the Mayor and Police Chief were in their pockets from pay-offs on their hotel and resort i
nvestments in the area.

  Gerard Belmeau? His new life. Duclos had rolled it around his tongue for days, tried to force it into his mind so that if anyone called out his new name he might actually respond. Except nobody did. Nobody knew him. He was just a shadowy quiet figure who shuffled into town occasionally to eat and buy groceries and visited the beach some weekdays. At the weekends it was too crowded and invariably he'd stay on his terrace and nurse a caiparissima, catch up on the latest news from France in the newspapers.

  There was only one place in town he'd found where he could get them, and normally he'd buy Le Figaro and Le Monde - the only two available - at the same time. He'd filled the French press the first two months of escape. Front page at first, then later further back with background and new angle items: rise and fall in politics or thrown in with a soup of other political scandals - Tapie, Medecin, now Duclos.

  Duclos had smiled at the articles attacking the general bungling surrounding his escape: Barielle for allowing house arrest, Corbeix for not protesting stronger against it, the entire examination process for not uncovering the fact that he very obviously had funds outside of those frozen, and finally the keystone collection of Provence cops who let him slip through their grasp.

  A circus of finger pointing and mud slinging. Sitting eight thousand miles away on a palm fringed beach, Duclos found it all laughable, pathetic. A lot of ranting and political rhetoric, his name used primarily for Ministers to score points off each other as they grasped at air with empty hands, screaming for justice. Duclos sneered. Justice? What did they know.

  They had no idea what he'd suffered through the years for those few dark moments three decades ago? Plagued for years by blackmail from Chapeau, then in turn his brother, his secret life with Betina and Joel. Sometimes it had felt like a hell on earth in repayment for what he'd done, one incident linking to another through the long years. That was why he'd felt so outraged when the case had re-surfaced - he felt as if he'd already paid his penance, served his term!