The Way to Dusty Death (18 page)

He broke off with a screech of pain as Harlow resumed the treatment. After a few seconds Harlow stopped again. A sobbing Mary, still securely held by Dunnet, was looking at him in stupefied horror.

Harlow said: ‘I was beaten up by some people who knew I was going to Marseilles to see about some very important pictures. They wanted those pictures very very badly. They also knew that I would be parking the Ferrari in a barn in a disused farmhouse a little way down the road. Mr. Dunnet was the only other person who knew about the pictures and the farmyard. You dunk perhaps he told?’

‘Maybe.’ Like ‘his sister’s, Rory’s cheeks were now liberally streaked with tears. ‘I don’t know. Yes, yes, he must have done.’

Harlow spoke slowly and deliberately, interspersing every other few words with a resounding slap.

‘Mr. Dunnet is not a journalist. Mr. Dunnet has never been an accountant. Mr. Dunnet is a senior officer of the Special Branch of New Scotland Yard and a member of Interpol and he has accumulated enough evidence against you, for aiding and abetting criminals, to ensure that you’ll spend the next few years in a remand home and Borstal.’ He removed his left hand from Rory’s hair. ‘Whom did you tell, Rory?’

Tracchia.’

Harlow pushed Rory into an arm-chair where he sat hunched, his hands covering his aching scarlet face.

Harlow looked at Dunnet. ‘Where’s Tracchia?’

‘Gone to Marseilles. He said. With Neubauer.’

‘He was out here, too? He would be. And Jacobson?’

‘Out in his car. Looking for the twins. He said.’

‘He’s probably taken a spade with him. I’ll get the spare keys and fetch the Ferrari. Meet you at the transporter in fifteen minutes. With the gun. And money.’

Harlow turned and walked away. Rory, rising rather unsteadily to his feet, followed. Dunnet put an arm round Mary’s shoulders, pulled out a breast handkerchief and proceeded to clean her tear-ravaged face. Mary looked at him in wonderment.

‘Are you what Johnny said you were? Special Branch? Interpol?’

‘Well, yes, I’m a police officer of sorts.’

Then stop him, Mr. Dunnet. I beg of you. Stop him.’

‘Don’t you know your Johnny yet?’

Mary nodded miserably, waited until Dunnet had effected his running repairs, then said: ‘He’s after Tracchia, isn’t he?’

‘He’s after Tracchia. He’s after a lot of people. But the person he’s really after is Jacobson. If Johnny says that Jacobson is directly responsible for the deaths of seven people, then he’s directly responsible for the deaths of seven people. Apart from that he has two personal scores to settle with Jacobson.’

‘His young brother?’ Dunnet nodded. ‘And the other?’

‘Look at your left foot, Mary.’

CHAPTER
TEN

At the roundabout south of Vignolles, a black Citroen braked to give precedence to Harlow’s red Ferrari. As the Ferrari swept by, Jacobson, at the wheel of the Citroen, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, turned his car towards Vignolles and stopped by the first roadside telephone booth.

In the Vignolles canteen MacAlpine and Dunnet were finishing a meal in the now almost deserted room. They were both looking towards the door, watching Mary leave.

MacAlpine sighed. ‘My daughter is in low spirits tonight.’

‘Your daughter is in love.’

‘I fear so. And where the hell has that young devil Rory got to?’

‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Harlow caught that young devil eavesdropping.’

‘Oh, no. Not again ?’

‘Again. The ensuing scene was quite painful really. I was there. I rather think that Rory was afraid that he might find Johnny here. Johnny, in fact, is in bed -I don’t think he’d any sleep last night.’

‘And that sounds a very attractive proposition to me. Bed, I mean. I feel unaccountably tired tonight. If you will excuse me, Alexis.’

He half rose to his feet, then sat down again as Jacobson entered and approached their table. He looked very tired indeed.

MacAlpine said : ‘What luck?’

‘Zero. I’ve searched everywhere within five miles of here. Nothing. But I’ve just had a report from the police that two people answering closely to their descriptions have been seen in Le Beausset — and there can’t be many people around like the terrible twins. I’ll just have a bite and go there. Have to find a car first, though. Mine’s on the blink — hydraulics gone.’

MacAlpine handed Jacobson a set of car keys. take my Aston.’

‘Well, thank you, Mr. MacAlpine. Insurance papers?’

‘Everything in -the glove box. Very kind of you to go to such trouble, I must say.’

They’re my boys too, Mr. MacAlpine.’

Dunnet gazed expressionlessly into the middle distance.

The Ferrari’s speedometer registered 180 kph. Harlow was clearly paying scant attention to the French no kph restriction, but from time to time, purely from instinct, for it seemed unlikely that there was any police car in France capable of overtaking him, he consulted his rear mirror. But there was at no time anything to be seen except the coils of rope, hook and first-aid box on the back seat and the hump of a dirty white tarpaulin which had been clearly flung carelessly on the floor.

An incredible forty minutes after leaving Vignolles the Ferrari passed the Marseilles sign. A kilometre farther on the Ferrari pulled up as traffic lights changed to red. Harlow’s face was so battered and bruised and covered in plaster that it was impossible to tell what expression it wore. But the eyes were as calm and steady and watchful as ever, his posture as immobile as ever : no impatience, no drumming of fingers on the wheel. But even Harlow’s total relaxation could be momentarily upset.

‘Mr. Harlow.’ The voice came from the rear of the car.

Harlow swung round and stared at Rory, whose head had just emerged from its cocoon of canvas tarpaulin. When Harlow spoke it was with slow, deliberate, spaced words.

‘What the hell are you doing there?’

Rory said defensively : ‘I thought you might be needing a bit of a hand, like.’

Harlow restrained himself with what was obviously an immense effort.

‘I could say this is all I need, but I don’t think that would help much.’ From an inner pocket he fished out some of the money that Dunnet had given him. ‘Three hundred francs. Get a hotel and phone Vignolles for a car in the morning.’

‘No, thank you, Mr. Harlow. I made a terrible mistake about you. I’m just plain stupid, I guess. I won’t say sorry, for all the sorties in the world are not enough. The best way to say ‘sorry’ is to help. Please, Mr. Harlow.’

‘Look, laddie, I’ll be meeting people tonight, people who would kill you soon as look at you. And now I’m responsible for you to your father.’

The lights changed and the Ferrari moved on. What little could be seen of Harlow’s face looked slightly bemused.

‘And that’s another tiling,’ Rory said. ‘What’s wrong with him? My father, I mean.’

‘He’s being blackmailed.’

‘Dad? Blackmailed?’ Rory was totally incredulous.

‘Nothing he’s ever done. I’ll tell you some time.’

‘Are you going to stop those people from blackmailing him?’

‘I hope so.’

‘And Jacobson. The man who crippled Mary. I must have been mad to think it was your fault. Are you going to get him, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t say ‘I hope so’ this time. You said ‘Yes’.’

That’s right.’

Rory cleared his throat and said diffidently: ‘You going to marry Mary, Mr. Harlow?’

The prison walls appear to be closing round me.’

‘Well, I love her too. Different like, but just as much. If you’re going after the bastard who crippled Mary I’m coming too.’

‘Watch your language,’ Harlow said absently. He drove some way in silence then sighed in resignation. ‘OK. But only if you promise to stay out of sight and keep safe.’

‘I’ll stay out of sight and keep safe.’

Harlow made to bite his upper lip and winced as he bit the gash in that lip. He looked in the rear mirror. Rory, now sitting on the back seat, was smiling with considerable satisfaction. Harlow shook his head in what might have been disbelief or despair or both.

Ten minutes later Harlow parked the car in an alleyway about three hundred yards away from the rue Georges Sand, packed all the equipment into a canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder and set off, accompanied by a Rory whose expression of complacency had now changed to one of considerable apprehension. Other factors apart, there was a sound enough reason for Rory’s nervousness. It was a bad night for the purposes Harlow had in mind. A full moon hung high in a cloudless starlit Riviera sky. The visibility was at least as good as it would have been on an overcast winter’s afternoon. The only difference was that moon-shadows are much darker.

Harlow and Rory were now pressed close into the shadow of one of the ten-foot high walls that surrounded the Villa Hermitage. Harlow examined the contents of the bag.

‘Now then. Rope, hook, tarpaulin, twine, insulated wire-cutters, chisels, first-aid box. Yes, the lot.’

‘What is that lot for, Mr. Harlow?’

‘First three for getting over that wall. Twine for tying things up or together, like thumbs. Wire-cutters for electric alarms —if I can find the wires. Chisels for opening things. First-aid box —well, you never know. Rory, will you kindly stop your teeth from chattering? Our friends inside could hear you forty feet away.’

‘I can’t help it, Mr. Harlow.’

‘Now, remember, you’re to stay here. The last people we want here are the police but if I’m not back in thirty minutes go to the phone box on the corner and tell them to come here at the double.’

Harlow secured the hook to the end of the rope. For once, the bright moonlight was of help. With his first upward cast the hook sailed over the branch of a tree within the grounds. He pulled cautiously until the hook engaged firmly round the branch, slung the white tarpaulin over his shoulder, climbed the few feet that were necessary, draped the tarpaulin over the broken glass embedded in the concrete, pulled himself farther up, sat gingerly astride and looked at the tree that had provided this convenient branch: the lower branches extended to within four feet of the ground.

Harlow glanced down at Rory. the bag.’

The bag came sailing upwards. Harlow caught it and dropped it on the ground inside. He took the branch in his hands, swung inwards and was on the ground in five seconds.

He passed through a small thicket of trees. Lights shone from the curtained windows of a ground floor room. The massive oaken door was shut and almost certainly bolted. In any event Harlow considered that a frontal entry was as neat a way as any of committing suicide. He approached the side of the house, keeping to shadows wherever possible. The windows on the ground floor offered no help - all were heavily barred. The back door, predictably, was locked: the ironic thought occurred to Harlow that the only skeleton keys which could have probably opened that door were inside that house.

He moved round to the other side of the house. He didn’t even bother looking at the barred lower windows. He looked upwards and his attention was at once caught and held by a window that was slightly ajar. Not much, perhaps three inches, but still ajar. Harlow looked around the grounds. About twenty yards away were a cluster of garden and potting sheds and a greenhouse. He headed resolutely in their direction.

Rory, meanwhile, was pacing up and down in the lane outside, continually glancing at the rope in what appeared to be an agony of indecision. Suddenly, he seized the rope and began to climb.

By the time he had dropped to the ground on the other side, Harlow had a ladder against the lower sill of the window and had reached the level of the window itself. He pulled out his torch and carefully examined both sides of the window. Both sides had what were clearly electrical wires stapled to the framework of the window. Harlow reached inside his bag, produced the wire-cutters, snipped both wires, lifted the sash high and passed inside.

Within two minutes he had established that there was no one on the upper floor. Canvas bag and unlit torch in his left hand, the silenced pistol in the other, he stealthily descended the stairs towards the hallway. Light streamed from a door that was slightly ajar and the sound of voices from inside, one of them a woman’s, carried very clearly. This room he temporarily ignored. He prowled round the ground floor ensuring that all the rooms were empty. In the kitchen, his torch located a set of steps leading down to the basement. Harlow descended those and played his torch round a concrete-floored, concrete-walled cellar. Four doors led off this cellar. Three of those looked perfectly normal: the fourth had two massive bolts and a heavy key such as one might expect to find in a medieval dungeon. Harlow slid the bolts, turned the key, passed inside, located and pressed a light switch.

Whatever it was, it was certainly no dungeon. It was a very modern and immaculately equipped laboratory although what precisely it was equipped to do was not immediately apparent. Harlow crossed to a row of aluminium containers, lifted the lid of one, sniffed the white powdery contents, wrinkled his nose in disgust and replaced the lid. As he left he passed by a wall telephone, obviously, from the dial, an external exchange one. He hesitated, shrugged and walked out, leaving the door open and the light on.

Rory, just at the precise moment when Harlow was mounting the steps from the cellar, was hidden in the deep shadow on the edge of the thicket of trees. From where he stood he could see both the front and the side of the house. His face held a considerable degree of apprehension, an apprehension that suddenly changed to something very close to fear.

A squat, powerfully built man, clad in dark trousers and a dark roll-neck pullover, had suddenly appeared from behind the back of the house. For a moment the man, the patrolling guard that Harlow hadn’t bargained for, stood stock-still, staring at the ladder propped against the wall. Then he started running towards the front door of the house. As if by magic two items had appeared in his hands — a large key and a very much larger knife.

Harlow stood in the hallway outside the occupied room, thoughtfully regarding the bar of light streaming from the partially opened door and listening to the sound of voices. He tightened the silencer on his gun, took two quick steps forward then violently smashed the door open with the sole of his right foot: the door all but parted company with its hinges.