Vintage Stuff

Chapter 21

'Shit, that's torn it,' said Major Fetherington as they ground to a halt at a road block beyond Boosat. Three gendarmes carrying sub-machine-guns circled the car while a fourth aimed a pistol at Slymne and demanded their passports. As the man flicked through the pages, Slymne stared in front of him. He had been staring at the road ahead for hundreds of miles while the Major had dozed beside him and it had all been in vain. Obviously something catastrophic had happened. Even the French police didn't man road-blocks and keep the occupants of cars covered with machine-guns without good cause, but Slymne was almost too tired to care. They'd have to send a cable back to the Headmaster and then find a hotel and he could get some sleep. That would be some consolation. What happened after that didn't matter now. He wasn't even worried about the letters. If Glodstone had kept them, nobody could prove he'd sent them. And in a sense he was relieved. It was all over.

It wasn't. He was woken from this rhapsody of exhaustion by the car doors being opened and with the guns aimed at them they were ordered out.

'Can't,' said the Major adamantly, 'Ce n'est pas possible. Ma bloody derrière est blessé et je m'assis sur une tube de pneu.' But in spite of his protests he was dragged out and made to stand against a wall.

'Bloody disgraceful,' he muttered, as they were frisked, 'I'd like to see a British bobby try this sort of thing with me. Ouch!'

'Silence,' said the sergeant. They were prodded apart while the car was searched and their luggage was laid out on the road. It included the inner-tube and a bottle the Major had used to save himself the agony of getting out for a pee. After five minutes two police cars drew up on the far side of the barrier and several men in plain clothes moved towards them.

'Seem to be taking an interest in our passports,' said the Major and was promptly told to keep his trap shut. Slymne stared over the wall at a row of poplars by the river and tried to keep his eyes open. It was hot in the sun and butterflies soared and dropped about the meadow in the still air, alighting for no apparent reason on a small flower when there was a larger one only a foot away. Slymne took comfort in their random choice. Chance is all, he thought, and I am not responsible for what has happened. Say nothing and they can do nothing.

To the little group of policemen studying his passport, things looked rather different. The ferry ticket was in it. 'Entered France yesterday and they're here already?' said Commissaire Ficard, 'They must have driven all night without stopping.'

He looked significantly at the Major's bottle and its murky contents. 'Occupation, schoolmaster. Could be a cover. Anything suspicious in their luggage?'

Two plain-clothes cops emptied the suitcases onto the road and went through their contents.

'Nothing.'

'And what's the inner-tube doing there?'

'The other man was sitting on it, Monsieur le Commissaire. Claims to have a wounded backside.'

The mention of wounds decided Commissaire Ficard. 'Take them in for questioning,' he said, 'And I want that car stripped. Nobody drives here from Calais that fast without good reason. They must have exceeded the speed limit in any case. And check with the ferries. I'm interested in these two.'

As the Major was hustled into the van he made things worse. 'Keep your filthy paws off me, you oaf,' he snapped and found himself lying on the floor. Slymne went quietly. Being arrested had come as a relief to his conscience.

Outside Poitiers the Countess put the boot in. 'So we need gas. Now if you want to pull in at the next station with a description of a glass-eyed man circulating that's your problem. I don't want any part of it. You can drop me off here and I'll walk.'

'What do you suggest?' asked Glodstone. He had long since given up trying to think for himself.

'That you drive up the next quiet road and you and Al Capone Junior take a break and I drive on and have her filled up.'

'A car like this isn't easy to drive, you know. You have to have had experience of non-synchromesh gears and...'

'You double-declutch. I'll practise.'

'I suppose it might be a good idea,' Glodstone admitted and turned onto a side road. For ten minutes the Countess drove while Peregrine sat in the back and Glodstone prayed she wouldn't strip the gears.

'OK?' she asked finally.

Glodstone nodded but Peregrine still had reservations. 'How do we know you'll come back? I mean you could just drive off and...'

'Leave a clever boy like you for the cops to pick up? I've got more sense. Besides, I wanted to be rescued and that's what you're doing. But if it'll make you any happier I'll leave my passport with you.'

She got out and, rifling in her suitcase, found the right one. 'I'll buy some food while I'm about it,' she said. 'Now you just take it easy in the field. Have a nap and if I'm not back inside two hours, call the cops.'

'What did she mean by that?' asked Peregrine as she drove away. Glodstone heaved himself over a gate into a field.

'She was joking,' he said hopefully and lay down in the grass.

'I still think ' said Peregrine.

'Shut up!'

Three miles further on the Countess pulled off the road again and spent some time stuffing the gold bars down behind the back seat. Then she changed into a summer frock and put on sunglasses. All the time her mind was busy considering possibilities. They could still be nabbed but, having come so far without being stopped, it seemed unlikely an alert was out for two men and a woman in a vintage Bentley. To be on the safe side, she took two of the little bars out and, making sure no one was in sight, hid them in the hedge behind a telephone pole.

An hour later she was back. The tank was full, she'd bought all the food they'd need, plus some very black coffee in a thermos, and a trowel. With this she dug a hole beside the hedge and buried the two gold bars. If the Customs found the others she wanted something to fall back on; if not she could always pick them up later. But best of all, as she drove on to where Glodstone was asleep and Peregrine still suspicious, two motor-cycle cops passed without more than a glance at her.

'Back on the trail, boys,' she said, 'We've nothing to worry about. The flics aren't looking for us. I've just seen two. No problems.' She poured Glodstone a mug of coffee laced with sugar. 'Keep a sloth awake for a week it's so strong, and you can eat as we go.'

'I'm not going to be able to make Calais all the same,' said Glodstone, 'not today.'

'We're heading for Cherbourg and you will.'

By midnight they were in the car-park outside the Ferry Terminal and Glodstone was asleep at the wheel. The Countess shook him awake. 'Galahad and I will cross as foot-passengers tonight,' she said, 'you come over the first boat in the morning. Right?' Glodstone nodded.

'We'll be waiting for you,' she went on, and got out with Peregrine and crossed to the booking-office. But it was another two hours before she passed through Customs and Immigration on an American passport in which she was named as Mrs Natalie Wallcott. Ahead of her, a youth called William Barnes settled himself in the cafeteria and ordered a Coke. He too was asleep when they sailed. The Countess bought a bottle of Scotch at the Duty-Free shop and went up on deck with the plastic bag and leant over the rail with it. When she came down again the bag and the bottle and any documents that might have suggested she had been the Countess de Montcon or Anita Blanche Wanderby were sinking with the Scotch towards the bottom of the Channel. By tomorrow she would be Constance Sugg once more. By today. She must be getting tired.

Slymne wasn't. He had passed through the exhaustion barrier into a new dimension of light-headedness in which he wasn't sure if he was asleep or awake. Certainly the questions being put to him by the two detectives who sat opposite him suggested the former. They were put quite nicely, but the questions themselves were horrible. The contrast made him feel even more unreal. 'I am not a member of any subversive organization, and anyway the British Secret Service isn't subversive,' he said.

'Then you admit you belong to a branch of it?'

'No,' said Slymne.

The two men gave him another cup of coffee, and consulted a file on the table. 'Monsieur Slymne, on 12 April you arrived and on the 22nd you left again. On the 27th you came once more and departed 3rd August. The night before last you returned and drove 900 kilometres without resting. It will help if you explain.'

Slymne tended to agree but a seemingly distant portion of his mind took over. 'I teach geography and I like France. Naturally I come frequently on visits.'

'Which is presumably why you speak our language so fluently,' said Inspector Roudhon with a smile.

'That's different. I'm not very good at languages.'

'But an incredible student of geography to investigate the country for 900 kilometres without stopping. And at night too. Unless...' He paused and lit a cigarette. The room stank of stale tobacco. 'Unless, Monsieur Slymne, and I merely hypothesize, you understand, you were already in France and someone provided you with an alibi by booking a crossing to Calais in your name.'

'An alibi? What would they do that for?' said Slymne, trying to keep his eyes in focus. The situation was getting madder every moment.

'That is for you to tell us. You know what you have been here for. What mission you and Major Fetherington are on.'

'Can't,' said Slymne, 'because we aren't on one. Ask the Major.'

'We have. And he has had the good sense to tell us.'

'Tell you? What's he told you?' Slymne was wide awake now.

'You really want to know?'

Slymne did, desperately. The detective left the room and returned with a signed statement a few minutes later.

'Major Fetherington admits to being a member of the Special Air Services. He was parachuted into the forest near Brive from a light aircraft...'

'From a light aircraft?' said Slymne in the grip of galloping insanity.

'Yes, monsieur, as you well know. He has even named the type and the airfield from which he flew. It was a Gloster Gladiator and left from Bagshot at 0400 hours Tuesday morning '

'But...but they haven't made Gladiators since God knows when,' said Slymne. What on earth was the Major up to? And there couldn't be an airfield near Bagshot. The man must have gone off his rocker.

'On landing he hurt his back but buried his parachute and made his way to the road above Colonges where you picked him up,' continued the detective. 'You were to give him his orders...'

'His orders?' squawked Slymne. 'What orders, for Lord's sake?'

The detective smiled. 'That is for you to tell us, monsieur.'

Slymne looked desperately round the room. Major Fetherington had landed him up to his eyeballs in it now. Talk about passing the buck. 'I don't know what you're on about,' he muttered. 'I haven't been anywhere near Brive and...' He gave up.

'If you will take my advice, Monsieur Slymne,' said the Inspector, 'you will tell us now what you know. It will save you from meeting certain gentlemen from Paris. They are not of the police, you understand, and they use different methods. I haven't met such men myself and I hope I never have dealings with them. I believe they are not very nice.'

Slymne cracked. But when, an hour later, he signed the statement and the Inspector left the room, he was still denied the sleep he so desperately wanted. Commissaire Ficard wasn't having it.

'Does the clown think we're mentally deficient?' he shouted. 'We have the assassination of one of America's top political theorists and the mutilation of a Soviet delegate and he asks us to believe that some English schoolmaster is responsible? And the other one has already admitted being SAS. Oh, no, I am not satisfied. The Minister is not satisfied. The American Ambassador is demanding immediate action and the Russian too and we have this buffoon telling us...' The phone rang. 'No, I will say nothing more to the Press. And I'd like to know who leaked the story yesterday. The media is crawling all over the ground in helicopters. What do you mean they can't crawl in 'copters? They land in them and then...' He slammed the phone down and lumbered to his feet. 'Just let me lay my hands on this English turd. I'll squeeze the truth out of him if it has to come out of his arsehole.'

'Monsieur le Commissaire, we have already told him some special agents are coming from Paris,' said the Inspector.

'They needn't bother. By the time I'm through with him there'll be nothing left for them to play with.'

Major Fetherington lay on his stomach with his head turned sideways and contemplated the wall uncertainly. Like everyone else in the Boosat gendarmerie, he hadn't the foggiest notion what had really happened at the Château Carmagnac but for the moment he'd spared himself the ordeal Slymne was quite clearly going through. To the Major it sounded like an advanced form of hell and he thanked God he'd given the sods what they'd wanted a load of codswallop. And in another way it was satisfying. Old Gloddie must have done something pretty gruesome to have warranted roadblocks, helicopters and accusations that he and Slymne were agents of the Secret Service, and good luck to him. The Major had never had much time for the French and Gloddie had given it to them where it hurt and got away with it. And he wasn't sneaking on the old ass to a lot of Frog cops who were doing whatever they were doing (the Major preferred not to think about it) to Slymne. Reaching over the side of the bed he found his socks and tried to block his ears with them and had partially succeeded when Slymne stopped yelling and the cell door opened.

'What about my clothes?' asked the Major with a quaver as they dragged him to his feet. Commissaire Roudhon studied his stained Y-fronts with disgust.

'You're not going to need any where you're going,' he said softly. 'You may require shoes though. Give him a blanket.'

'What's happening?' said the Major, now thoroughly frightened.

'You're taking us to the spot where you buried that parachute.'

'Oh, my God,' whimpered the Major. He could see now he'd made a terrible mistake.