Loe raamatut: «Bloody Passage»

1
A Season for Killing

The first shot ripped the epaulette from the right hand shoulder of my hunting jacket, the second lifted the thermos flask six feet into the air. The third kicked dirt at my right heel, but by then I was moving fast, diving headfirst into the safety of the reeds on the far side of the dike.

I surfaced in about four feet of stinking water, my feet sinking into the black mud of the bottom. The smell was really quite something – as if the whole world had rotted. I tried hard not to breathe too heavily as I crouched to get my bearings.

The marsh had come alive, mallard, wild duck and widgeon lifting out of the reeds in alarm, calling angrily to each other, and down by the shore beyond the sand dunes, several thousand flamingoes took off as one, filling the air with the pulsating of their wings. I waited, but there was no further word from my unknown admirer and after a while things quieted down.

The punctured thermos flask lay about three feet in front of my nose on the edge of the dike, dribbling coffee, but apart from that everything looked beautifully normal. The open picnic basket, the neat white cloth spread on the ground, salad, sandwiches, a rather large cold chicken, the bottle of wine I’d been about to open and Simone’s easel with the water-colour she’d been working on, half finished.

Most interesting of all, and at that stage of things by far the most desirable item, the old Curtis Brown double-barreled sixteen-bore shotgun. It lay on the rug beside Simone’s tin of water-colour paints, fifteen or twenty feet away, but as I’d only expected a crack at the odd duck or two it was hardly loaded for bear.

I gazed at it morosely, debating the possibility of a quick dash to retrieve it, carrying straight on into the reeds on the other side of the dike, but he was one jump ahead of me even on that point, although I suppose it was the logical move. I pushed the reeds to one side cautiously and started to ease forward and a bullet drilled a neat hole through the stock of the shotgun.

The .303 No. 4 Mark I Lee Enfield service rifle was the gun that got most British infantrymen through the Second World War. Recently resurrected by the British Army for use by its snipers in Ulster, it is a devastating weapon in the hands of a crack shot and accurate up to a thousand yards, which explains its popularity with the IRA also. Once heard in action, never forgotten and I’d heard a few in my time.

Certainly the specimen which was inflicting all the damage at that precise moment was in the hands of an expert. I pulled back into the reeds and waited because quite obviously the next move was his.

I found cigarettes and matches in the waterproofed breast pocket of my hunting jacket and lit up. It was perfectly still again. Even the flamingoes had returned to the shallows on the far side of the dunes. A flight of Brent geese drifted across the sky above me in a V formation, calling faintly, but the only other sound was the strange eerie whispering of the wind amongst the reeds.

Somewhere thunder rumbled uneasily at the edge of things which didn’t surprise me for, in spite of the heat, the sky was grey and overcast and rain had threatened for most of the day.

About forty or fifty yards to my right on the same side of the dike there was a sudden crashing amongst the reeds and then a wild swan lifted into the air calling angrily. So, he was closer than I had imagined. A hell of a sight closer. I raised my head cautiously and became aware of the sound of an engine somewhere in the distance.

When I turned I could see the Landrover crossing the flooded causeway two hundred yards away, Simone at the wheel. She came up out of the water and drove along the top of the dike.

There wasn’t much that I could do except put my head on the block like an officer and a gentleman, so I came up out of the reeds fast, grabbed for the shotgun and ran along the dike waving my arms at her, expecting a bullet between the shoulder blades at any moment.

It was really very interesting. One bullet kicked dirt to the left of me, another to the right. I was aware of Simone’s face, wild-eyed in astonishment, and then as she braked to a halt, a third round drilled a hole through the windscreen to one side of her.

She stumbled out, white with fear. Another round thumped into the door panel behind her and I grabbed her hand and dragged her down over the edge of the dike into the cover of the reeds. She went in deep and surfaced, gasping for breath, her long dark hair plastered about her face. Another bullet slammed into the body of the Landrover.

She grabbed at the front of my jacket in blind panic. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

I took her hand, turned and pushed through the reeds until I was back in my original position. Another shot sliced through the reeds overhead and Simone ducked instinctively, going under again. She surfaced, her face streaked with filth and I took a couple of waterproof cartridges from one of my pockets and loaded the shotgun.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’

‘For God’s sake, Oliver,’ she said. ‘What is all this? Who’s out there?’

‘Now there you have me,’ I said. ‘He’s a professional, I know that, but for the rest, it’s really rather peculiar. You see, I have the distinct impression that he could have killed me any one of a dozen times and didn’t. I wonder why?’

Her mouth opened in astonishment, the wide eyes above the high cheek-bones widened even more. She said in a hoarse voice. ‘You’re actually enjoying this.’

‘Well it’s certainly enlivened a rather dull afternoon, you must admit that.’

Our friend fired again, shooting off the right hand leg of the easel so that it toppled over the dike into the water.

‘Damn his eyes,’ I said. ‘I liked that painting. It was coming along fine. The way you were soaking the blues into the background wash was particularly pleasing.’

She turned, her face contorted with fear, looking as if she might break into pieces at any moment. ‘Please, Oliver, do something! I can’t take any more of this!’

The wine bottle exploded like a small bomb, showering glass everywhere, staining the white cloth scarlet.

‘Now that really does annoy me,’ I said. ‘Lafite 1961. A really exceptional claret. I was going to surprise you. Here, hold this.’

I gave her the shotgun and took off my hunting jacket. ‘What are you going to do?’ she demanded.

I told her and when I’d finished, she seemed a little calmer, but was still obviously very frightened. I kissed her briefly on the cheek. ‘Can you handle it?’

She nodded slowly. ‘I think so.’

I slipped the jacket over the muzzle of the shotgun and eased it up over the top of the reeds. There was an immediate shot and as the jacket was whipped away, I cried out in simulated agony.

I turned to Simone who waited, white-faced, waist-deep in that foul water. ‘Now!’ I whispered.

She screamed out loud, scrambled up on to the dike, got to her feet and started to run toward the Landrover. He fired once, chipping a stone a couple of yards in front of her. It was all it took and she stopped dead, crying out in fear and stood there, waiting for the ax to fall. There was a movement in the reeds to my right and then boots crunched in the gravel of the dike top.

‘What happened?’ a voice called in French.

He moved past me toward her, a young, sallow-faced man with shoulder-length hair and a fringe beard. He wore a reefer jacket and rubber waders and carried the Lee Enfield at waist level.

The oldest trick in the book and he’d fallen for it.

I slipped up out of the reeds and moved in close. I don’t know whether it was the expression on Simone’s face or – more probably – the distinct double click as I cocked the shotgun, but in any event, he froze.

I said in French, ‘Now put it down very carefully like a good boy and clasp your hands behind your neck.’

I knew he was going to shoot by the way his right shoulder started to lift, which was a pity because he didn’t really leave me much choice.

He turned, crouching, to fire from the hip and Simone screamed. Having little choice in the matter I gave him both barrels in the face, lifting him off his feet and back over the edge of the dike into the reeds.

The marsh came alive again, birds rising out of the reeds in alarm, calling to each other, wheeling endlessly. Simone stood there transfixed, her face very white, staring down at the body. Most of him was submerged, only the legs from the knees to the feet encased in the rubber waders floated on the surface.

The next bit wasn’t going to be pleasant, but it had to be done. I said, ‘I’d go back to the Landrover if I were you; this won’t be nice.’

Her voice was the merest whisper and she shook her head stubbornly. ‘I’d rather stay with you.’

‘Suit yourself.’

I handed her the shotgun, got down on my hands and knees, secured a firm grip on each ankle and hauled him up on to the dike. Simone gave an involuntary gasp, and I didn’t blame her when I saw his face, or what was left of it.

I said, more to get her out of the way than anything else, ‘Bring me the rug, there’s a good girl.’

She stumbled away and I opened the jacket and searched him, whistling softly between my teeth. It didn’t take long, mainly because there was nothing to find. I squatted back on my heels and lit a cigarette and Simone returned. She still clutched the shotgun in one hand, the rug in the other which she handed me mutely.

As I wrapped it around his head and shoulders, I said, ‘Curiouser and curiouser, just like Alice. Empty pockets, no identity marks in the clothing.’ I lifted his hand, ‘Indentation in the left finger where a signet ring has habitually been worn, but no ring.’

A professional all right. Stripped for action so that there would be no possibility of tracing him or his masters if anything went wrong. But I didn’t say so to Simone because when I looked up, the dark eyes burned in the white face and her hands were shaking. She tightened her grip on the shotgun as if making an effort to hold herself together.

‘Who was he, Oliver?’

‘Now there you have me, angel.’

‘What did he want?’ The anger in her was barely contained. It was as if she might blow up at any moment.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said gently. ‘I can’t help you. I’m as much in the dark as you.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ The anger overflowed now, all the tension, the fear of the past ten or fifteen minutes pouring out of her. ‘You weren’t afraid when you were out there, not for a single moment. You knew exactly what you were doing. It was as if that kind of thing was your business and you were too good. Too good with this!’ She brandished the shotgun fiercely.

I said calmly, ‘It’s a point of view, I’ll give you that.’

I knelt down beside the dead man, heaved him over my shoulder and stood up. She said quickly, ‘What are you going to do? Get the police?’

‘The police?’ I laughed out loud. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

I bent down and picked up his Lee Enfield then walked along the dike toward the Landrover. There was a patch of bog amongst the reeds on my right; black viscous mud. The sort of place that might be five feet deep or bottomless. When I tossed him in he slid beneath the surface instantly. There was a bubble or two, the stink of marsh gas. I threw the Lee Enfield after him and turned.

Simone was standing watching me, still clutching the shotgun, a kind of numbed horror on her face. Thunder rattled like distant drums again, overhead this time, and the rain which had threatened all day came with a rush, hissing into the reeds.

It was somehow symbolic, I suppose, for with a sudden fierce gesture Simone tossed the shotgun over my head, out into the reeds. She started to cry bitterly, shoulders shaking and I put my arms about her.

‘It’s all right,’ I said soothingly. ‘Everything’s fine. I’ll take you home now.’

I turned and led her along the dike toward the Landrover.

I half-filled a tall glass with crushed ice, added a double measure of Irish gin and topped up with tonic water. Then I switched on the radio and turned the dial to Madrid. A little flamenco music would have been appropriate, but all I got was an old Glen Miller recording of Night and Day.

I pushed open one of the glass doors and moved out onto the terrace. Rain dripped from the fringes of the sun awning and I could smell the mimosa, heavy and clinging on the damp air.

The villa was built to a traditional Moorish pattern and stood in splendid isolation, which was the main reason I’d bought it, on a point of rock a hundred feet above a horseshoe cove thirty or forty miles south-east of Almeria toward Cape de Gata.

I’d been here almost a year now and never tired of the view, even on an evening like this with rain falling. There were lights outside the cove, not too far away, where local fishermen were stringing their nets and a liner drifted through the darkness five or six miles out and beyond it, Africa.

It all filled me with a vague, irrational excitement or perhaps it was just the events of the afternoon catching up. Heavy beads of rain rolled down the door and Simone became part of the room’s reflection in the dark glass.

The black hair hung to her shoulders, she wore a plain linen caftan so long that it brushed her bare feet. It was an original, soaked in vegetable dyes in a back room in some Delhi bazaar until it had reached that exact and unique shade of scarlet so that it seemed to catch fire there in the half-shadows of the room.

I turned and toasted her. ‘You can cook, too. The meal was enormous.’

She said gravely, ‘I’ll get you another drink,’ and went behind the bar in the corner.

‘That sounds like a good idea.’ I sat on one of the high cane stools and pushed my glass across.

She took down the gin bottle. ‘I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Irish gin until I met you.’

‘As I remember, that was quite an evening.’

‘The understatement of this or any other year,’ she said lightly as she spooned ice into my glass.

Fair comment. I’d met her at a party in Almeria thrown by some Italian producer who was making a Western or unreasonable facsimile, up in the Sierra Madre. I was strictly uninvited, pulled in by a scriptwriter I’d met in a waterfront bar, someone I knew barely well enough to exchange drinks with.

The party was a creepy sort of affair. Most of the men were middle-aged and for some reason found it necessary to wear sunglasses even at that time of night. The girls were mainly dolly birds, eager to comply with any and every demand that might lead along the golden path to stardom.

My scriptwriter friend left me alone and belligerent. I didn’t like the atmosphere or the company and I was already half-cut, a dangerous combina-tion. I pushed my way across to the bar which was being serviced by a young man with shoulder-length blond hair and a suit of purest white. His face looked vaguely familiar. The kind of cross between male and female that seems so popular these days. Anything from a manly aftershave advertisement to a second-rate movie and instantly forgettable.

‘Gin and tonic,’ I said. ‘Irish.’

‘You’ve got to be joking, old stick,’ he said loudly in a phony English public school voice, and appealed to the half-dozen or so girls who were hanging on his every word at the end of the bar. ‘I mean, who ever heard of Irish gin?’

‘It may not be in your vocabulary, sweetness,’ I told him, ‘but it certainly figures in mine.’

There was what might be termed a rather frigid silence and he stopped smiling. A finger prodded me painfully in the shoulder and a hoarse American voice said, ‘Listen, friend, if Mr Langley says there’s no such thing as Irish gin, then there’s no such thing.’

I glanced over my shoulder. God knows where they’d found him. A latter-day Primo Camera with a face that went with around fifty or so professional fights, too many of which had probably ended on the canvas.

‘I bet you went over big, back there in Madison Square Gardens,’ I said. ‘Selling programs.’

There was a second of shocked surprise, just long enough for the fact that I didn’t give a damn to sink in, and then his fist came up.

A rather pleasant French voice said, ‘Oh, there you are, cheri. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

A hand on my sleeve pulled me round. I was aware of the dark wide eyes above the cheekbones, the generous mouth. She smiled brightly and said to Langley, ‘I’m sorry, Justin. Can’t let him out of my sight for a moment.’

‘That’s okay, honey,’ Langley told her, but he wasn’t smiling and neither was his large friend as she pushed me away through the crowd.

We fetched up in a quiet corner by the terrace. She reached for a glass from a tray carried by a passing waiter and put it into my hand.

‘What were you trying to do, commit suicide? That was Mike Gatano you were arguing with back there. He was once heavyweight boxing champion of Italy.’

‘Christ, but they must have been having a bad year.’ I tried the drink she’d handed me. It burned all the way down. ‘What in the hell is this? Spanish whiskey? And who’s the fruit, anyway?’

‘Justin Langley. He’s a film actor.’

‘Or something.’

She leaned against the wall, arms folded, a slight frown on her face, a pleasing enough picture in a black silk dress, dark stockings and gold high-heeled shoes.

‘You’re just looking for it tonight, aren’t you?’

‘Gatano?’ I shrugged. ‘All he is is big. What are you trying to do anyway, save my immortal soul?’

Her face went a little bleak, she started to turn away and I grabbed her arm. ‘All right, so I’m a pig. What’s your name?’

‘Simone Delmas.’

‘Oliver Grant.’ I reached for another glass as a waiter went past. ‘You want to know something, Simone Delmas? You’re like a flower on the proverbial dung heap.’ I gestured around the room. ‘Don’t tell me you’re in the movies.’

‘Sometimes I do a little design work, just for the money. When I do what I prefer, I paint water-colours.’

‘And who needs them in this world of today?’

‘Exactly. It’s really very sad. And you – what do you do?’

‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion. Write, I think. Yes, I suppose you could say I was a writer.’

Langley’s voice was raised behind as he moved into another public performance. ‘Surely we’re all agreed that Vietnam was the most obscene episode of the century?’

I turned and found him in the centre of an eager group of girls. They all nodded enthusiastically. He smiled, then noticed me watching. ‘Don’t you agree, old stick?’ he demanded and there was a challenge in his voice.

I was a fool to respond, I suppose, but the last two drinks were like fire in my belly. I didn’t like him and I didn’t like his friends and I wasn’t too bothered about letting the whole world know.

‘Well now,’ I said, ‘if you mean was it a dirty, stinking, rotten business, I agree, but then most wars are. On the other hand as a participant I tend to have rather personal views.’

There was genuine shock on his face. ‘You mean you actually served in Vietnam?’ he said. ‘My God, how dare you. How dare you come to my party.’

I was aware of Gatano moving in behind me and Simone Delmas tugged at my sleeve. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Oh, no,’ Langley told her sharply. ‘He doesn’t get off that easily. I know he didn’t come with you, sweetie.’ He moved closer. ‘Who brought you?’

‘Richard Burton,’ I said and kicked him under the right kneecap.

He went down hard, but without making much of a fuss about it which surprised me, but I had other things on my mind. Gatano grabbed my shoulder and I gave him a reverse elbow strike that must have splintered three of his ribs.

I wasn’t too sure what happened after that. There was a great deal of noise and confusion and then I surfaced to find myself leaning against the wall in an alley at the side of the house. It was raining slightly and Simone was pulling my coat collar up about my neck.

‘So there you are.’ She smiled. ‘Do you do this kind of thing often?’

‘Only on Fridays,’ I said. ‘My religion forbids me to eat meat.’

‘Have you got a car?’

‘A white Alfa. It should be around here somewhere.’

‘Where do you live?’ I told her and she frowned. ‘That’s forty miles away. You can’t possibly drive that far in the state you’re in.’

‘You could.’ I fished the keys from my pocket and held them out. ‘Nice night for a drive. You can stay over if you like. Plenty of room and bolts on all the bedroom doors.’

I followed this up by starting to slide down the wall and she caught me quickly. ‘All right, you win, only don’t pass out on me.’

I leaned heavily, on her all the way to the car and only passed out when she’d got me into the passenger seat.

When I woke up the following day it was almost noon and she was painting on the terrace using some old oil paints she’d found in a cupboard in the living room. It seemed she liked the view as much as I did. She was still there at sunset. And after that …

Two months – probably the happiest I’d known in years, I told myself as I sipped the drink she pushed across the bar to me.

‘Is it all right?’ she said.

‘Perfect.’

She folded her arms and leaned on the bar. ‘What do I know about you, Oliver? Really know?’

I raised my glass. ‘Well, for a start, I drink Irish gin.’

‘You write,’ she said, ‘or at least you once showed me a detective novel under another name and claimed it as yours.’

‘Come on, angel,’ I said. ‘If I’d been lying I’d have chosen something good.’

‘You have a scar on your right shoulder and another under the shoulder blade that suggests something went straight through.’

‘A birthmark,’ I said lightly. ‘Would you like me to describe yours? Strawberry and shaped like a primula. Back of the thigh just under the left buttock.’

She carried straight on in the same calm, rather dead voice. ‘An American who could just as easily pass as an Englishman. A soldier because you did let slip at Justin’s party that night in Almeria that you’d been in Vietnam, although you’ve never mentioned it since. An officer, I suppose.’

‘And gentleman?’

‘Who can half kill a professional heavyweight boxer twice his size in two seconds flat.’

‘Poor old Gatano,’ I said. ‘He shouldn’t have joined.’

She seemed genuinely angry now. ‘Can’t you ever be serious about anything?’

She moved to the end of the bar as if to put distance between us, took a cigarette from an ivory box and lit it with shaking fingers. She inhaled deeply once then stubbed it out in the ashtray.

There was a direct challenge now as she turned to confront me. ‘All right, Oliver. This afternoon. What was it all about?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ I told her with perfect truth.

For a moment I thought she might make a frontal assault. Instead she hammered on the bar with a clenched fist in fury. ‘I’m frightened, Oliver! Scared to death!’

I moved to take her hand. ‘No need to be, I promise you. Not as long as I’m here.’

She gazed at me, eyes wide for a moment, then sighed, shaking her head slightly, and moved across to the window. She stood looking out into the night, arms folded in that inimitable way of hers, rain drifting across the terrace.

‘Rain, rain, go to Spain, never come my way again,’ she said in a lost little-girl voice.

I moved in behind her and slid my arms around her waist. ‘Come to bed.’

‘Do you know what’s the most frightening thing of all?’ she said without looking round.

‘No, tell me.’

‘That man out there in the marsh. He was a professional, you said so yourself, and yet he didn’t stand a chance, did he?’