‘I’m leaving you to get him dressed,’ Packer told her, ‘while I go and fix up about a car. Come on, don’t look so shocked. Just think of yourself as his nanny.’ As he turned, he heard Pol urinating behind the open bathroom door.
The nearest hire-car bureau was only two blocks away. It took him less than ten minutes to complete the formalities and pay the deposit — out of Pol’s roll of guilders. On reflection he decided that the more impressive the car, the less the risk of being stopped. In any case, Pol would be paying — all the way. Packer would make damn sure of that.
When he arrived back at the hotel, he began to feel uncomfortably like a chauffeur as he sat in the Mercedes 280 and watched the Vuitton cases, followed by Sarah and the freshly clad, pink and perfumed figure of Pol, emerge with a retinue of hotel staff to see them off.
A quarter of an hour later they joined the autobahn south to the Belgian border.
There was only one Dutch policeman at the border post beyond Breda — a man with shoulder-length blond hair in a net, who waved the Mercedes through without leaving the shelter of his guard-room. Packer drove for several more kilometres without seeing any more police, and no customs. It was when he turned on to the autoroute to Antwerp that he knew they were well into Belgian territory.
He felt more anti-climax than relief, the slowing of adrenalin, and a growing awareness of Sarah sitting slouched beside him, chain-smoking her Gitanes and complaining regularly of his hesitation at overtaking in the rain. More than anything, he felt in need of a drink. Meanwhile Pol snored in the back.
The landscape was closing in, the sky drawn across with electric cables, the horizon a line of dismal slag heaps and factories and the guttering glare of burning gas waste. The rain was now coming down so hard that even with the windshield wipers working at double speed, he could see little through the filth and spray flung up by an almost unbroken chain of juggernauts.
It was not quite four o’clock, on a late March afternoon — exactly three and a half hours since the slaughter of the tulips — when Packer manoeuvred the car across the heavy traffic, into the lane leading up to the minor ring road round Antwerp.
It would be as good a place as any, he decided. The weather was foul, the light bad, and most drivers would be in a hurry. He slowed into the inside lane, almost under the bows of a TIR truck; then turned to Sarah. ‘Wake him up!’
She hesitated, and turned in her seat. ‘Much better to let him sleep,’ she began.
‘Do as I say,’ he said. The road was curving over ragged marshland, cut diagonally by a canal. There were no houses, no paths, no signposts; and the only lights came from the traffic. Sarah leaned over the seat and shook Pol’s knee. He grunted and snuffled, and Sarah ducked as the Frenchman rolled down his window and spat into the slipstream. ‘Where are we?’ he asked, in a clogged voice.
‘In one of the great beauty spots of the Common Market,’ said Packer. ‘Anywhere in particular round here you want to be dropped off?’ In the mirror he could see Pol’s little wet eyes blinking. His foot touched the brake. ‘You’re getting out here, Monsieur Pol. You and your beautiful luggage. The Belgians won’t be too upset about a few Dutch tulips.’
‘Les Belges?’ Pol muttered.
Packer half turned and continued in French. ‘Yes. But first I’ve got a few questions to ask. And I want the answers quickly. Otherwise we drop you here.’ He had slowed the car down to less than twenty kilometres an hour. Sarah was busy lighting another cigarette, while Packer prolonged his moment of drama. Usually he was embarrassed by speaking French in front of Sarah, for her command of the language — with a beautifully refined accent — was one of the rarer attributes she had picked up from her finishing school near Lausanne. But the tension in the car released Packer’s inhibitions.
‘How did you get hold of my name and rank, Monsieur Pol?’
‘Where are we, for God’s sake?’ Pol cried again.
‘We’re heading for the autoroute to Lille. But it’s still a long way. And it’s not a good day for hitchhiking — even if it’s legal.’ He had pulled on to the emergency shoulder and stopped.
Pol’s face loomed up in the mirror. ‘You are trying to take advantage of my condition, Monsieur Packer. I am not accustomed to being treated in this manner.’ He spoke with forced dignity, while Packer drummed his fingers on the wheel, in rhythm with the rain.
‘As I see it, Monsieur Pol, we have three choices. We can either stay here all night until you talk. Or we can throw you out and drive on. Or I can turn round and drive you straight back to Amsterdam.’ Pol was silent. Packer added: ‘Why did you get so drunk this morning?’
Pol gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, if you knew, if you knew! The troubles I have had — first a good card, then a bad card. A whole run of bad cards, now a run of good cards. I must be allowed to think.’
‘Just tell me how you knew about us and why you followed us this morning.’
Sarah sat
