The Holcroft Covenant (30 page)

Helden touched his arm; the contact was brief, but it was firm. “You call him Heinrich Clausen. You can’t say ‘father,’ can you?”

“I
had
a father.” Noel stopped. It was not the moment to talk at length about Richard Holcroft; he had to control himself. “He’s dead. He was killed five days ago in New York.”

“Oh,
God
.…” Helden stared at him; he could feel the intensity of her concern. “Killed? Because of Geneva?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“But you think so.”

“Yes.” He gripped the wheel and was silent. A shell was forming, and it was an awful thing.

“I’m sorry, Noel. I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could comfort you somehow, but I don’t know how.”

He looked at her, at her lovely face and at the clear brown eyes filled with concern. “With all your problems, just saying that is enough. You’re a nice person, Helden. I haven’t met too many people like you.”

“I could say the same … nice person.”

“We’ve both said it. Now, what about that trout? If we’re going to take a few hours off, why not tell me where we’re going?”

“To Barbizon. There’s a lovely restaurant in the center of the town. Have you ever been to Barbizon?”

“Several times,” said Noel, his eyes suddenly on the small rectangular mirror outside the window.

There was a dark-green Fiat behind them. He had no idea whether it was the same car that had waited for him yesterday on the avenue George V, but he intended to find out—without alarming Helden. He slowed down; the Fiat did not pass. Instead, it veered into the right lane, allowing another car to come between them.

“Is something wrong?” asked Helden.

Holcroft depressed the accelerator. The automobile lurched slightly at the slower speed. “No, not really. I had trouble with this damn thing yesterday. It needs a carburetor adjustment, I think. Every now and then there’s an air lock. It passes if you nurse it.”

“You sound very efficient.”

“I’m a fair mechanic. You don’t take jobs in Mexico and points south unless you are.” He stepped on the pedal and held it down; the car sped forward.

He could see the green Fiat in the rearview mirror now. It swerved to the left, passing the intervening car, then returned to the right lane, behind them. The question was answered. They were being followed.

His fear was making him cautious. Whoever was in that Fiat was indirectly involved with Richard Holcroft’s death; he was certain of it. And he was going to trap that man.

“There. Everything’s fine now,” he said to Helden. “The air lock’s passed. Lunch in Barbizon sounds like a hell of a good idea. Let’s see if I remember the way.”

He did not. On purpose. He took several wrong turns, covering his mistakes with laughter, insisting the whole French countryside had been changed around. It became a silly game with a deadly serious objective: He had to see the face of the man in the Fiat. In Paris that face had been obscured behind a windshield and a cloud of cigarette smoke; he had to be able to recognize it in a crowd.

The Fiat’s driver, however, was no amateur. If he was bewildered by Noel’s aimless turns and shifting speeds, he gave no indication of it, staying a discreet distance behind them, never allowing the gap between them to become too close. There was a disabled car on a narrow road south of Corbeil-Essonnes; it was a good excuse to stop. Holcroft pulled alongside to see if he could help; the driver of the Fiat had no choice. He drove swiftly past the two parked cars. Noel looked up. The man was
fair, his hair light brown; and there was something else: splotches, or pockmarks, on the man’s cheek.

He would know that face again. That was all that mattered.

The driver of the disabled car thanked Holcroft, indicating that help was on the way.

Noel nodded and started up again, wondering if he’d see the green Fiat soon. Would it be in a side road, waiting for him, or would it simply emerge from nowhere and appear in the rearview mirror?

“That was a very nice thing to do,” said Helden.

“We ugly Americans do nice things every once in a while. I’ll get back on the highway.”

If the green Fiat was in a side road, he did not see it. It was simply there, in his mirror, on the highway. They got off at the Seine-et-Marne exit and drove into Barbizon. The green Fiat stayed far behind, but it was there.

Their lunch was a strange mixture of ease and awkwardness: brief starts and abrupt stops; short conversations begun, suddenly suspended at midpoint, the purpose unremembered. Yet the ease was in their being together, physically close to each other. Holcroft thought she felt it as surely as he did.

This sense of closeness was confirmed by something Helden did, obviously without thinking about it: She touched him repeatedly. She would reach over briefly and touch his sleeve, or, more briefly, his hand. She would touch him for emphasis, or because she was asking a question, but she touched him as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do. And it was natural for him to accept her touch and return it.

“Your brother didn’t discuss Beaumont?” he asked.

“Yes, he did. He was very angry. Everything about Beaumont angers him. He thinks you were wrong about seeing him on the plane, though. He wanted you to bring the photograph. I told him you didn’t have it. He was furious.”

“About the photograph?”

“Yes. He said it might be dangerous. It could lead ‘people,’ he said, to Gretchen, to you. To Geneva.”

“I think the answer’s simpler. The Royal Navy’s no
different from any other military organization. The officers protect each other.”

“My promiscuous sister, you mean?”

Holcroft nodded; he really did not want to discuss Gretchen Beaumont, not with Helden. “Something like that.”

She touched his fingers. “It’s all right, Noel. I don’t sit in judgment where my sister’s concerned.” Then she took away her hand, embarrassed. “What I mean is, I have no right … No, I don’t mean that, either. I mean where you are concerned, I have no right.…”

“I think we both know what you mean,” interrupted Holcroft, covering her hand with his. “Feel free to have a right. I think I like it.”

“You make me feel foolish.”

“Do I? It’s the last thing I want to make you feel.” He pulled back his hand, and followed her glance out the window. She was looking at the small stone pond on the terrace, but his attention did not remain where hers did. His gaze rose to several groups of tourists strolling in the Barbizon street beyond the gates of the restaurant. The man with the light-brown hair and pockmarked face was standing motionless on the far sidewalk. A cigarette was in his mouth, what appeared to be an artist’s brochure in his hands. But the man was not looking at the brochure. His head was raised slightly, his eyes angled over at the entrance of the restaurant.

It was time to make his move, thought Noel. His rage was rekindled; he wanted that man.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said as casually as he could. “I saw a poster by the door that—in my schoolboy French—I think said
Fête d’Hiver
. Someplace called Montereau-something-or-other. Isn’t that a kind of carnival?”

“The
fête
is, not the village. It’s about seven or eight miles south of here, I think.”

“What is it? The carnival, I mean.”

“
Fêtes d’hiver?
They’re quite common and usually run by the local churches. As a rule, they’re associated with a saint’s day. It’s like a flea market.”

“Let’s go.”

“Really?”

“Why not? It might be fun. I’ll buy you a present.”

Helden looked at him quizzically. “All right,” she said.

*  *  *

The bright afternoon sunlight bounced off the side-view mirror in harsh reflections, causing Holcroft to squint and blink repeatedly, trying to rid his eyes of blind spots. The dark-green Fiat appeared now and then. It was far behind them, but never out of sight for very long.

He parked the car behind a church, which was the focal point of the small town. Together he and Helden walked around the rectory to the front and into the crowds.

The village square was typically French, the cobblestone streets spreading out like irregular spokes from an imperfect wheel, old buildings and winding sidewalks everywhere. Stalls were set up in no discernible order, their awnings in various stages of disrepair, crafts and foodstuffs of all descriptions piled on counters. Shiny platters and a profusion of oilcloth caught the rays of sun; shafts of light shot through the crowd. This
fête
was not aimed at the tourist trade. Foreigners belonged to the spring and summer months.

The man with the pockmarked face was standing in front of a stall halfway across the square. He was munching on a piece of pastry, his eyes darting in Holcroft’s direction. The man did not know he had been spotted; Noel was certain of that. He was far too casual, too intent on eating. He had his targets under surveillance; all was well. Holcroft turned to Helden, at his side.

“I see the present I want to get you!” he shouted.

“Don’t be silly.…”

“Wait here! I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be over there”—she pointed to her right—“at the pewter display.”

“Fine. See you soon.”

Noel began edging his way through the crowd. If he could weave enough, slouch enough, and make sufficiently quick movements, he could reach the edge of the mass of colliding bodies without the light-haired man’s seeing him. Once on the cobblestone sidewalk beyond the crowd, he could inch his way around to within yards of the pastry stall.

He reached the sidewalk; the man had not seen him get there. He had ordered another piece of pastry and was eating it absently, rising on the balls of his feet, peering anxiously over the heads of the crowd. Abruptly, he
seemed to relax and settle back, his attention only half on his targets. He had spotted Helden; apparently he was convinced that if he could see her, her companion would not be far away.

Noel feigned a suddenly lame ankle and limped around the border of the crowd, his new injury allowing him to bend over in pain. There was no way the man could see him now.

Noel was directly behind the pastry stall, no more than ten yards from it. He watched the man closely. There was something primitive about him as he stood there motionless, eating deliberately, every now and then stretching to make sure his quarry was still in sight. It struck Holcroft that he was watching a predator. He could not see its eyes, but somehow he knew they were cold and alert. The thought made him angry, raising images in his mind of such a man seated behind a driver, a gun perhaps at the driver’s head, waiting for Richard Holcroft to emerge on a New York sidewalk. It was the sense of ice-cold, deadly manipulation that enraged him.

Noel lunged into the crowd, his right hand gripping the automatic in his pocket, his left extended in front of him, fingers taut. When Noel touched him, it would be a grip the light-haired man would never forget.

Suddenly he was blocked.
Blocked!
As he parted the shoulders of a man and a woman in front of him, a third figure met him head on, cross-checking him with its body, its face turned away. He was being stopped deliberately!

“Get out of my way! Goddammit, let go of me!”

He could see that his shouts, or his English, or both, had alarmed the light-haired man, just feet away, who spun in place, dropping his pastry. His eyes were wild; his face was flushed. He spun again and forced his way through the crowd, away from Noel.

“Get out of—!” Holcroft could feel it before he saw it. Something had sliced through his jacket, ripping the lining above his left pocket. He looked down, his eyes unbelieving. A knife had been thrust at his side; had he not twisted his body, it would have penetrated!

He grabbed the wrist holding the knife, pushing it away, afraid to let go, crashing his shoulder up into the chest of the man who held it. Still the man kept his face hidden. Who
was
he? There was no time to think or wonder; he had to get the terrible knife away!

Noel screamed. He bent over, his enemy’s wrist vised in both his hands, the blade thrusting about in the crowded space, his whole body writhing, twisting into those surrounding him. He yanked the fist with the blade extending from it, then smashed it down with his full weight, falling to the street as he did so. The blade fell away, clattering on the stone.

Something crashed into his neck. Suddenly dazed, he still knew what it was; he had been hit with an iron pipe. He lay curled up in terror and confusion, but he could not stay down! Instinct made him lurch up; fear made him hold his place, waiting for an attack, prepared to fend it off. And rage made him seek out his attackers.

They were gone. The body that belonged to the unseen face was gone. The knife on the ground was gone! And all around him people backed away, staring at him as if he were deranged.

My God!
he thought, with a terrible awareness. If they would kill him, they would kill Helden! If the man with the pockmarked face was protected by killers, and those killers knew he had spotted their charge, they would assume that Helden had spotted him, too. They would go after her! They would kill
her
, because she was part of his trap!

He broke his way through the circle of onlookers, and
dodged
a hundred angry arms and hands in the direction he instinctively remembered she’d indicated only minutes before. A stall that was selling some kind of pitchers, or plates, or … pitchers, plates,
pewter
. That was it! A stall with pewter. Where was it?

It was there, but she was not. She was nowhere to be seen. He ran up to the counter of the stall and shouted.

“A woman! A blond woman was here!”

“Pardon? Je ne parle pas—”

“Une femme.… Aux cheveux blonds. Elle a été ici!”

The vendor shrugged and continued polishing a small bowl.

“Oùest elle?”
shouted Holcroft.

“Vous êtes fou! Fou!”
yelled the stallkeeper.
“Voleur! Police!”

“
Non! S’il vous plaît! Une femme aux
—”