Redcap (2 page)

The telephone clicked off finally and Latymer got right out of bed, felt the thick, soft pile of the carpet on his toes, thrust his feet into lambswool slippers. The hard, steely green eyes were worried. What Shaw had told him was red-hot, and the more so when read in the context of certain other information which had come to hand the evening before. He found he was unusually on edge, anxious to get the full, face-to-face account of what Shaw had been doing.

Well—he would soon find out.

Latymer began to dress quickly.

For Shaw, it had begun in Fouquier’s in Montmartre.

Shaw had dined every night of his leave at Fouquier’s. Though he personally wasn’t all that keen on the atmosphere, Debonnair, whose leave from Eastern Petroleum had been arranged to coincide with his, liked dancing, and there was a certain amount of amusement to be had from watching the clientele in the alcoves, dimly lit by rose-shaded lights, or from watching the couples contorting their heated bodies so grotesquely as they stamped out the latest crazy movements on the tiny dance square. At least it was relaxing to him—up to a point. But Shaw could seldom relax; and in fact one of the reasons why he’d been going so regularly to Fouquier’s was that it was just the sort of international dive where a man like him might be able to pick up useful pieces of information, titbits which, even if they were not immediately valuable, might one day fall into place somewhere and complete a jigsaw as yet not even dreamed up; Shaw had a reputation in the Outfit for being remarkably conscientious even though for the most part he loathed the job and would have given much to have got out of the game for good. Nevertheless, this evening, as it happened, he wasn’t thinking at all about contacts or the Outfit; after ten clear days of Paris he’d been able to let go, to unwind, to free his mind of work and worry and responsibility, and for once he was genuinely relaxed. The worry-lines netted around his deep-set blue eyes—lines put there by the strain of danger and of a responsibility which at times became almost crushing—seemed to have been smoothed away to leave only the others, the clustered laughter-lines which appeared so engagingly when he smiled. . . .

And then he’d seen the girl.

She was coming towards his table, and, for some reason or other which might almost have been a premonition, the nagging pain in his guts had started up. Just like it always did at the start of an assignment, started and continued until the action began.

“Esmonde . . ."

Debonnair was looking at him curiously; he didn’t hear her speaking his name. She said, “Esmonde, what’s the matter?”

He looked at her briefly, then away again, towards the girl. He said, “Nothing. Wait a moment, Deb.”

He could have sworn he’d never seen the girl in his life—and yet there was something familiar about her. She was young and fresh-looking, with dark hair curling seductively round tiny, shell-pink ears, and she had large dark eyes, eyes which just now were obviously frightened and, as it seemed to Shaw, frightened of the two sordid men who were escorting her out. It struck Shaw that she was a little the worse for drink, and he found that out of character with the girl’s whole appearance; he guessed that this was probably her first experience of anything stronger than a glass of claret and that those two men had got her tight with just one purpose in their minds . . . her pleading look as she passed his table was directed straight into his eyes; and it went from there right into his heart. She wasn’t the sort for the sexy, prelude-to-seduction atmosphere of Fouquier’s, for the dim, overheated room filled with the
thump-thump
of erotic music from the scruffy three-man band sinuously snaking their hips and shoulders in one corner.

His knee pressed against Debonnair’s under the table, and he raised an eyebrow, jerking his head backward towards the girl, who had now gone on towards the velvet-curtained door, swaying just a little and held possessively, lasciviously, too closely around her slim young body by one of her escorts.

Debonnair said, “All right. I’ve seen.” She frowned a little and shook her head warningly, shook it so that the rose lighting was reflected in a moving mass of red-gold that rushed like fire through her fair hair and pointed up the tawny gold of her skin . . . the very look of her in that moment sent the blood pounding in Shaw’s body. She went on, “Darling, it’s probably her own fault, you know. Don’t go getting any of your chivalrous ideas. Damsels in that particular sort of distress aren’t all that uncommon in these parts, and she didn’t have to come here.” Her fingers broke the last of a bread roll, and she added with a low, gurgling chuckle: “It’s her daddy’s job anyhow.”

“But,” Shaw pointed out, “her daddy’s not here, so far as I can see.”

“Uh-huh . . . she’s English. That could be why, I suppose.”

“Oh? How d’you tell she’s English?”

Debonnair curled her lip in mock scorn. “My God, for a man in your job . . .” Then she smiled sweetly, patted her body. “
Clothes
, darling. She’s darned good to look at, but she hasn’t quite got Frenchiness. And there’s a general air of . . . well, dew-of-the-morning. Did you get that scent?”

He nodded. “Yes. Why? It was—nice and fresh.”

“That’s what I mean, dope! Not the sort of scent the girls who use this joint a lot care to dab on. Too much like Great-aunt Matilda’s withdrawing-room—if you see what I mean.”

“Yes,” he said, “I do.” He ran a hand through his brown hair, rumpling it, crushed out a cigarette in a jade ashtray. He frowned. His lined, tanned face hardened suddenly. “Somebody’s got to do something, Deb—”

“Well, maybe.” The anxious look deepened. “Still no reason why it has to be you who risks a stiletto in the back. You know these boys as well as I do, darling. And your boss told me to see you didn’t get into any mischief . . . he’s not going to like either of us very much if you get badly bent when you’re supposed to be on leave. I wasn’t in the Foreign Office for nothing, you know. I learned a thing or two before I left. Listening out, and getting into real trouble—they’re two very different things, my pet. You’re supposed to be inconspicuous. Besides, you’re precious to me too, as well as the Outfit.” Her hand slid under the table and found his. She looked into his eyes, tawny and compelling. “Remember? If you’re not careful, I’ll go completely mad and marry you. Then I’ll have a right to nag!”

Suddenly he grinned. “You’re jealous. She’s a damn good-looker.”

She gave a little gurgle of laughter. “My dear Esmonde, you’re as transparent as an indecent nightie! You aren’t after her for her looks—I don’t ever need to be jealous. That’s what frightens me . . . you nice, kind men get into more real trouble than the other sort ever thought of.” She squeezed his hand, looked demurely resigned, then smiled into his eyes again. She said, “I wouldn’t love you so much if you weren’t such a dope. And I suppose I’d really like to see those two smarmy boys have the skids put under them. Only —be careful, that’s all.”

Shaw leaned across and kissed the tip of her nose lightly. Then he got up, grinned down at her, slipped some thousand-franc notes on to a plate. He said, “Settle up, Deb, there’s a good girl. Give me five minutes. Then meet me at the car.”

He went outside.

He saw the girl about fifty yards down the street, with the men. There seemed to be a bit of a struggle going on, and they were trying to force her along, probably towards a car farther down the parked line. A cat strolled by, its tail arched. A man’s urgent, pleading voice floated from a lighted window, and then a girl’s high-pitched protests which subsided into a throaty chuckle. An old woman walked slowly up the other side of the street, bent over a stick, minding her own business. In Paris no one bothered very much about this kind of thing. . . . Shaw’s long chin thrust forward and he ran ahead, caught up with the group.

He asked the girl, “What’s the trouble? These men bothering you?”

She gave a little choking cry and turned to him appealingly. She said, “Oh, yes . . . yes, they are. Please, can you make them go away?”

Shaw thought: Debonnair’s right, she’s English, maybe a student on holiday and just seeing the sights. Silly little fool. He went into action then. He didn’t rush in, just put a hand on the shoulder of one of the men and spoke calmly and quietly. He said, “Look here. Be sensible. You heard what the lady said. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll just disappear.”

The man stood there and tried to bluster it out. Shaw moved in then. He got a tight grip on the lapels of the Frenchman’s jacket, lifted him close, then gave a heave and let go. The man shot backwards into the roadway, picked himself up, and ran. Shaw turned just in time to see the second man coming for him, and as the tall, slender body came up he bent suddenly, took him by the legs. The man shot over Shaw’s doubled body and landed on his face with a crash.

Shaw looked down at him, said briefly: “Your pal’s gone. You’d better do the same unless you want me to call a gendarme.”

As the man scrambled up and disappeared rapidly into the shadows at the end of the street, Shaw had a nagging thought that a couple of apparently lustful Latins had been disposed of just a little too easily; he was, in fact, about to ask the girl one or two pertinent questions when he saw that she was crying; and that finished him. She was saying something about being taken home to a hostel, and he interrupted her.

He said, “Of course I’ll take you home, my dear. Hop in the back.”

“Thank you . . . so much.”

She looked at him gratefully as he opened the rear door of the hired Renault. She got in and Shaw slammed the door after her. When Debonnair came along and got in the front with him he drove off fast over the greasy cobbles of the little street, past the lighted windows and the dark doorways and the vague shapes that flitted in and out of alleys. Following the girl’s directions, he turned to the right out of that narrow place and headed south-westward for the river.

After he’d crossed the river and was making up in the general direction of the Gare Montparnasse he sensed a movement behind him and then he felt the hard, round, cold pressure of gunmetal in the back of his neck and he stiffened, hands jerking a little on the wheel from sheer surprise.

The girl said, “Forget where—where I told you to go, Commander Shaw. Just—do what I say from now on.”

Shaw heard Debonnair’s quickly indrawn breath beside him, saw her head turn in sudden alarm. He put out a hand, touched her thigh, murmured: “All right, I know you warned me . . . but it’s all right. Just hold on and keep out of it.”

His body had slackened again now. That pretty voice had held a very scared quiver, had been uncertain of itself. The girl wasn’t used to this kind of thing, that was obvious. Shaw, after that initial bad moment, just laughed. Then he stopped the car, pulled in to the kerb. The girl gave a despairing sigh, as though everything was too much for her, and Shaw decided he could take a chance. He swivelled in his seat suddenly and grabbed for the gun. When he had it in his hands, he found that it wasn’t even loaded.

He looked at her. “Well? Why the melodramatics—and how did you know who I was?”

She said shakily, “I—I’m awfully sorry. It’s my father, you see.”

There was a silence. Then Shaw prompted, “I don’t see at all, I’m afraid. Please go on. I’m most anxious to know, before I hand you over to a gendarme.”

She was crying softly now. “Please, please don’t do that. My father wants to speak to you . . . urgently, very urgently. This was the only way the contact could be made safely. He gave me the gun in case you didn’t believe what I was going to tell you—but I couldn’t bear to think it—it might go off . . . so I unloaded it.”

“That was all faked up, then, back in Fouquier’s? You knew my movements and the way I looked at things, and knew I’d fall for a line like that?”

She said, “Yes, those men were helping Daddy.” Then she added in a low, hopeless voice: “I’ve made such a mess of everything. He’ll be so angry.”

Shaw murmured, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Now, come on, young lady. Who is your father?”

Then she said something that shook him. She said, almost haltingly and in a whisper, as though it was something that must never be said aloud in case some one should hear, “John Donovan.”

“Donovan?” Shaw stiffened. “My dear girl, Donovan’s dead!” At once his thoughts flew back into the past. John Donovan had been one of the leading lights of M.I.5. . . . Donovan, that big, lovable bear of a man who’d been sent to Norway early in the war and had become so completely identified with the Norwegian underground that he’d become one of the heroes of the Resistance . . . and then, as the end of the war came in sight, things had changed for Donovan; he’d been accused—framed, in Shaw’s opinion and that of many other Englishmen and Norwegians—of traitorous activities, of causing the deaths of loyal Norwegians. His Southern Irish connexions had counted against him, and he’d been sentenced to death by an Allied military court in Norway; but he had escaped, and gone back underground among good friends. Soon after that, news had come out that he’d been burned to death in a fire at an apartment house in Bergen. A big funeral had been held in spite of an official ban on it, and there had been fighting between the authorities and men of the former underground who still believed passionately in John Donovan’s loyalty. In those old days Donovan had been a very good friend and comrade of Shaw’s. But now Donovan was dead. Very dead.

Shaw said tautly, “You’ll have to think up something better than that.”

She leaned forward, pleading. “But it’s true! He’s not dead. You’ve got to listen.”

Shaw switched on the inside light and turned right round in his seat. The girl’s face was a picture of misery, of frustration, of supplication. Debonnair gave her a shrewd sideways look, said softly: “She’s speaking the truth, I think, Esmonde.”

“Just a minute, Deb.” Shaw studied the girl, noticed the wet handkerchief being twisted about in her fingers. When he looked closely like that . . . this was why he’d felt he had met her before, of course . . . she was a petite and very feminine version of John Donovan. Possibly he was just thinking himself into it now she’d told him, but it did seem to him suddenly that there was no doubt of the likeness at all, that she was indeed speaking the truth—up to that point at least. There was the same frankness in the eyes, the same openness in the face, the same quality of honesty and directness and resolution and the same Irish love of life. This girl was John Donovan’s daughter, right enough.