A Fine Night for Dying

Mercier considered the chart for a moment or two, then jabbed a finger at a group of rocks marked as dangerous about six miles out.

“The pinnacles, monsieur, they’ve taken plenty of ships in their time. They stick up from a trench a thousand feet deep. Anything that goes down there will stay down, believe me.”

Chavasse nodded. “That’s it, then. You lead the way in the whaler. I’ll follow. Go with him, Darcy.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

Chavasse shook his head. “No point, this kind of job only needs one.”

“I said I’d stay.” Darcy’s voice was bleak. “What I say, I mean.”

He moved into the prow and stood there with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

“I don’t think he is too happy, monsieur,” Mercier commented. “Which surprises me. After all, they did as much to his own brother.”

“Which is exactly what’s bothering him,” Chavasse said. “He isn’t a hunting animal, Mercier. Now let’s get moving. We haven’t much time.”

THE pinnacles were first observed as patches of white water in the distance. As the boat approached, the turbulence increased and Chavasse was aware of great plumes of spray that blossomed in the night.

The pinnacles themselves were a scattered group of jagged rocks, in some cases permanently awash, and in others, twenty or thirty feet above the waves. When Mercier whistled sharply and waved, the agreed signal, Chavasse cut the engines and called to Darcy, who had been waiting by the forward hatch with a fire axe. Now he dropped inside and commenced to batter a series of holes in the prow. When he reappeared, she was already settling at that end and he was soaked to the skin.

Chavasse unfastened a cork life belt bearing the ship’s name and tossed it overboard, as Mercier came alongside.

“Lost at sea,” he said. “Sunk with all hands. Nobody will ever see Jacaud again.”

“And Gorman?” Darcy asked. “What about him?”

Chavasse shrugged. “Believe it or not, but most people who take a dive into the Channel don’t turn up again. Even if somebody does find what’s left of him after a few weeks, it’ll all fit neatly.”

“You have a naturally tidy mind,” Darcy said.

“Too complicated. I’m a professional, you’re not. It’s as simple as that.”

The whaleboat closed in and they scrambled aboard. Mercier took her round in a wide circle and they watched. The Mary Grant was well down by the head now, her stern lifting out of the water. When she went, she disappeared so quickly that if any one of them had closed his eyes momentarily, he would have missed it. The waters rolled over, and Mercier opened the throttle and took the whaler away.

“And now what?” Darcy Preston demanded, dropping down on one of the wide seats, shoulders hunched against the spray.

“We catch a train,” Chavasse said. “A train for Marseilles, if there is one, or is it still we?”

Darcy nodded slowly. “I’ve gone too far now to step back. You needn’t worry-I’ll be behind you all the way.”

“Fair enough.” Chavasse turned to Mercier. “Take us to some quiet spot on the coast as near to Saint Brieuc as possible. Can you manage that?”

“Certainly, monsieur.”

Chavasse gave him a cigarette and held out a match in cupped hands. “About Jacaud, Mercier, there could be questions.”

“Perhaps, monsieur, but I doubt it. He was to leave in the morning. Most people will think he left a little earlier. In any case, he was seen to go out in the Mary Grant, and where is the Mary Grant now? Perhaps in a few days, that life belt will be found by a fishing boat or drift ashore somewhere, and perhaps not. Henri Jacaud never existed, monsieur.”

“And you? What will you do?”

“I will bury my wife,” Mercier said simply.

CHAPTER 12

France

The Camargue

It was just before midnight when they reached St. Brieuc. By chance there was a train due out in fifteen minutes to Rennes, and Chavasse decided to take it rather than hang about.

At Rennes they had a delay of an hour and a half before the Marseilles train, and they spent it in a cafe just outside the station. The Jamaican was still brooding and had little to say for himself. In the end, Chavasse had had enough.

“It’s no good going on like this,” he said. “Either we clear the air now or you drop out.”

“Wouldn’t that be a problem?” Darcy said. “I’m not even in this country officially.”

Chavasse shook his head. “I can contact our Paris office. They’ll get you out.”

Darcy looked genuinely troubled. “I don’t know, Paul. When I first got the idea of following you, it seemed to make sense, and especially later when I heard what they’d done to Harvey. I was bitter and angry; I wanted revenge.”

“So?”

“That business with Gorman, I didn’t mind that. After all, he was trying to kill you. There was nothing else I could do, but Jacaud.” He shook his head. “That sticks in my throat.”

“If that’s the way you feel, then you’d better leave,” Chavasse told him. “Rossiter drowned your brother like a rat and without a qualm, he tried his hand at mass murder when the Leopard went down, and didn’t do so badly when you remember what happened to Mrs. Campbell and Old Hamid. He won’t hesitate to see the both of us off the moment he claps eyes on us and realizes we’re still in the land of the living. This isn’t the Old Bailey or the Jamaican High Court. There’s only one law here-kill or be killed-and I’ve had direct orders. Ho Tsen, Rossiter and Montefiore-they’ve all got to go.”

The Jamaican shook his head. “You know, back there in the old days, living with Harvey in Soho, I met every kind of villain there was, but you-you’re in a class of your own.”

“Which is why I’ve survived twelve years at this bloody game,” Chavasse said. “Now are you in or out?”

“The way I see it, I don’t really have much choice in the matter. I know that once I get anywhere near Rossiter, if I don’t get him first, he’ll get me. It goes against the grain, that’s all, to accept that that’s the way it is. I had years of it in Harvey’s particular jungle-I don’t suppose a psychologist would have much difficulty in working out why I took to the law.” He sighed heavily. “But you can count on me, Paul. I won’t let you down.”

“Good, now I know where I am, I’ll put a call through to our field agent in Marseilles. I’d like him to be ready for us when we arrive in the morning.”

He stood up and Darcy said, “This place, the Camargue-what is it exactly?”

“The delta area at the mouth of the Rhone,” Chavasse told him. “About three hundred square miles of lagoons and waterways, marshes, white sand dunes and hot sun, though this isn’t the best time of the year for that. It’s famous for three things. White horses, fighting bulls and flamingos. I was there as a boy twenty years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.”

“But what in the hell are they doing in a place like that?” Darcy demanded.

“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Chavasse said and went to make his phone call.

JACOB Malik was Polish by birth and had left the country of his origin for political reasons just before the outbreak of the Second World War. For a couple of years, he had worked for the Deuxieme Bureau, the old French secret service organization that had died in 1940. He had spent the war working with the British Special Operations Executive, acting as a courier to French resistance units. An adventurous career had been brought to an end by an FLN grenade through his hotel bedroom window during the Algerian troubles. He had retired to a small cafe on the Marseilles waterfront with his Moorish wife and three children. He had been acting as Bureau agent in that city for six years and Chavasse had worked with him twice.