Blood Run East Read online

  He shrugged, smiled. “Once we’re off the ferry, we can choose our places to suit ourselves. In the meantime, we stay in here till they announce the car deck’s ready for disembarkation. Then, in a nice intent crowd, and with head scarf and glasses — we go, all right?”

  *

  The car deck came alive with sound: voices, footsteps, engines in a smell of exhaust smoke. Following the queue they rolled out into bright sunshine, inching along towards the check-point inside the port area. No trouble: a scrutiny of their passport and they were waved through. Outside the gate in the wire barrier Shard turned right.

  “Now will you tell me where we’re going?” the girl asked.

  “The Sofitel, not far.” Shard waved a hand towards the tall green building alongside the sea approach to the commercial port and yacht harbour.

  “Breakfast?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do we check in?”

  “I don’t know that yet either.”

  She gave him a shrewd look. “You mean we have a contact to make.”

  “You have, Miss Farrell.”

  “Me?” She sounded surprised.

  “You identify, then I talk.”

  She nodded slowly. “So that’s how it is. We’re out from under now, are we? Out from officialdom’s umbrella?”

  “Correct.” Shard turned right again, heading in for the Sofitel’s car park: away across the old Cunard terminal, a vast tanker loomed, a half-million tonner, its superstructure and funnel in clear view above the building, a powerful reminder of where the world’s centre of gravity lay. “We’re in the hands of your people as of now.”

  “British Government no longer interested?”

  “Only in success, that’s all.”

  “No more help?”

  He shook his head. “None at all. It’s up to us.” He drove on, stopped and parked in a space between a Renault and a Simca, both with French registrations. They walked past a fountain playing into an ornamental pool, and into the hotel foyer. Shard led the way to a table for two with comfortable chairs set in a recess. “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Yes, black.”

  Shard went across to reception. “Bonjour, mam’selle … my name is Garrett. Are there any messages?”

  The girl checked a board behind her. “Non, m’sieur.”

  “May we have coffee … café?”

  “Oui, m’sieur, I will ring.” She did so; Shard went back to the table and brought out a packet of cigarettes, offered Katie Farrell one. They lit up; a waitress appeared and Shard ordered the coffee and biscuits. The foyer was very quiet, very peaceful: they drowsed. The advent of coffee brought them back to life. Shard looked at his watch: contact was to be made at 0830 hours. It was now 0825. He drank coffee: 0830 came and went. Nothing happened: some people were never punctual and this was France. There was an air of slow motion, except on the roads; but Shard felt a surge of worry, envied Katie Farrell her apparent lack of concern. She seemed to trust him completely, which was odd when you came to think about it: she fought the British, she blew them up, but to her they still represented what they had for so long represented to the world, solidity and dependability — or at any rate, he did since she was trusting her life to him in a highly positive way …

  A voice called: “M’sieur Garrett?”

  “Yes —” He was on his feet in a trice.

  “There is a telephone call, m’sieur.”

  “Thank you.” He signalled to Katie Farrell: together they went across and took the call. She listened, then put her hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to Shard.

  “It’s Paul Legrain. Does that check?”

  “That checks. Is he?”

  She said, “Yes. I identify the voice. Here.” She handed him the receiver.

  Shard said, “Garrett,” and then listened to a brief message in poor English. As soon as it had been passed, the call was cut. Shard replaced the handset, thanked the girl in reception, and paid for his coffee. Then, taking Katie Farrell’s arm, he led her out of the hotel.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “14 rue Benjamin Carot. And we walk.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask Paul Legrain,” he said. “Anyway, it’s a nice day.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  “Legrain’s route instructions were adequate.”

  They walked towards the town, along the sea-crusted wall of the yacht harbour. There were still men with money enough to burn: the boats, some sail, some motor, were of all nationalities and included plenty of British. Even the White Ensign was there, to indicate the exclusiveness of the Royal Yacht Squadron. There was a sharp tangy smell of the sea overlaid with petrol and oil fuel. Elderly Frenchmen sat around on seats and bollards, grizzled men in blue jeans and berets, dreaming perhaps of a past when Cherbourg was a simple Fishing and naval port primarily, a past less gaudy and more truly salty. They turned right at the end of the avant-port, waited to cross the railway line while truck after truck of Japanese Datsun cars went past in a huge trail of import, then across the swing-bridge and another right turn down the other side of the harbour. Across the road were bars and cafés, even at this early hour with their patrons drinking coffee or cognac at the pavement tables. They crossed the road into a spider’s-web of side streets leading from the waterfront, still pervaded by the sea and fuel smells but now with the smells of food added: fruit, baking bread, meats and garlic. Soon the streets became narrow, dirtier, smelling more of drains; and the passers-by somehow more furtive and sinister. The shopping crowds were gone now, so, except for the odd sleazy front, were the pavement cafés. The atmosphere was quite different.

  Katie Farrell said suddenly, “This I don’t like.”

  “I don’t see you,” Shard said, “as chickening. So why? Or is it just that you haven’t a bomb handy?”

  “Don’t be funny!” she snapped.

  “I’m not. But Belfast has its back streets, as don’t we all know —”

  “This is different. It’s just a feeling.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Come on.” He took her arm. “It’s not far now, if I’m following Legrain’s instructions right, which I am.”

  They walked on: the bright day had gone and cloud was rolling up ahead of a wind that blew fragments of paper scudding through the dirt. The streets seemed to close in, suddenly unfriendly, suddenly menacing: a brooding sullenness brought about by the unheralded disappearance of the sun, perhaps by the change in Katie Farrell’s manner. Keeping close to the girl, Shard studied her face obliquely: she was reacting badly, seeming nervous and fearful, on edge maybe as to the next stage of the journey and what it might bring forth. She might, even now, be untrustful of the British Government or of Shard himself. As they came to the turn into the rue Benjamin Carot, she asked, “Are you sure it’s okay?”

  “Yes. Aren’t you? You know Legrain, I don’t.”

  After a brief hesitation she said, “Yes, it’s all right, I suppose I’m worrying about nothing.”

  “Then stop, h’m?” Checking numbers, they went on. Number 14 was not immediately obvious; Shard found it after a search up a dark alleyway off the street: a mouldering door with heaps of debris close by, builder’s leavings it looked like, added to by both dogs and humans: the smell was powerful. Shard bunched a fist and knocked on the door: on the other side of it lay knowledge of the next step, the next contact-point, and such knowledge was vital, never mind the filth that he was fairly obviously about to enter. There was no answer to his knock immediately: he banged again, then heard sounds from within. A moment later he heard the movement of rusty bolts and the door went inwards, creakily, protesting its age.

  With darkness behind him, a man showed.

  “Paul Legrain?”

  There was a nod. Shard glanced at Katie Farrell: she, also, nodded.

  “Garrett and wife.”

  “Entrez, m’sieur.” Paul Legrain, a man of around thirty years of age by Shard’s information, though he looked older
, stepped back, opening the door a little wider. Katie Farrell went in, with Shard close behind her, a hand inside his jacket, fingers round the butt of the automatic. Ahead in the gloom he saw, but saw too late, the loom of more men. As an electric light came on overhead and he saw black hoods and guns pointing, his arms were suddenly grabbed and pinioned from behind. His automatic was removed. Twisting as far as he could, he looked into a heavy face beneath a totally bald head, a face set virtually neckless upon immense shoulders. His arms, pressed to his sides, felt in a fair way to cracking through his ribs. Katie Farrell backed up against him, trying to get away the guns, panting like a stag at bay. The man behind him pushed forward and he moved like a child, willy-nilly, half carried by the monstrous bald man’s ferocious grip, with Katie Farrell being propelled before him. There were stairs ahead, leading steeply upward. With no word said, they were forced up the stairs, the front door now shut and bolted behind them. Reaching a landing, still with the guns pointing, they were pushed through a doorway opening left. They went into darkness, but when Shard was inside another light was flicked on and he saw five more men, all sitting in chairs, all to a point lifelike and all dead. Each man’s throat had been cut, each man’s head lolled sideways from a gaping red neck, each body sat in an attitude of ease. It didn’t look like the work of ex-Army Officers.

  4

  KATIE FARRELL’S FACE was as white as a shroud: it wasn’t just the fact of death — as much as Shard, she’d seen plenty. It was the macabre quality, the deliberate arrangement, the pose of the corpses. The room was a spread of blood: it could be smelt.

  Shard looked at the hooded men with the guns. “All right,” he said. “You’ve succeeded in impressing us. Now let’s hear why.”

  “You don’t need any explanation, Mr Shard. Look at their faces.” The man who had spoken, Shard fancied, could have been an Ulsterman. “What do you see?”

  “A Middle East aspect on two of them,” Shard answered. “On the others, European. All right, so you’re the other side. And Paul Legrain?”

  “Legrain did what he was told. He got you here.”

  “And now?”

  The speaker’s eyes flashed behind the slits, briefly. “We don’t want him any more. As for you, Mr Shard, we don’t intend you any harm, but you’ll have to stay here for the time being, I’m afraid.”

  “While you —”

  “While we make certain arrangements for Miss Farrell.”

  “What arrangements?”

  Another concealed grin: “As if you need to ask. I’m not saying more than that. Something tells me you’re not all that unhappy anyway.”

  “My feelings don’t come into it. I have a job to do. I intend to do it.”

  There was a jeering note. “Like how, Mr Shard?”

  No answer from Shard: with those guns on him, ready to kill Katie Farrell at least, it was a clear case for biding time. He looked again at the dead representatives of the oil power bloc and their European lickspittles, wondering if his part in the blood run had been planned to end, after all, in this sleazy Cherbourg house … not that it made any odds now. As the gunmen closed in around him, separating him from Katie Farrell who so far had not uttered, he made an appeal.

  He said, “Miss Farrell’s is not the only life in the balance.”

  “Well? Go on, Mr Shard.”

  “Her people have a hostage. Maybe you knew that.”

  There was a pause. “I’m not saying whether we did or not, but it makes no difference.”

  “If I fail, that hostage dies.”

  “I’m sorry, believe me.” Was there a kind of sincerity in the tone? Shard wondered.

  He asked, “But you won’t take it into account?” He added, “She’s an innocent woman, nothing to do with any of this, no connexion with your politics or those of your opponents. She’s someone’s wife and to that extent unique. There are plenty of Katie Farrells. What, exactly, do you achieve?”

  Behind the black hood, the eyes glinted: Shard had the feeling the hidden lips were smiling, even laughing at him. “No comment,” the man said, and jerked his gun. “And nothing of what you said taken into account. Now turn round and face the door.”

  Bitterly Shard said, “You’re all a lot of bastards, on both sides,” and turned away as ordered.

  *

  Three gunmen had remained in the death room with Katie Farrell: two, plus the heavy bald man, went down the stairs with Shard. From the ground floor level they went down again, to a cellar, stone-built and damp, with a bare electric light bulb dangling on a flex from the ceiling. Beneath the light, which the leading gunman had switched on, was a hard upright chair: nothing else.

  “You’ll stay here,” the man said from behind the hood. “You won’t be harmed, but you’ll be locked in and Buffo will be on guard outside.”

  “Buffo?”

  The gun’s movement indicated the big bald man. “He’s strong, as I dare say you’ve realised. I repeat, you won’t be harmed — that is, just so long as you don’t do anything foolish. Right now, I can’t say how long you’ll be here. Buffo will be informed when the time comes. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Nothing,” Shard said sardonically, “that you’re likely to answer.”

  There was a laugh. “Then you’re a wise man to save breath.” The man backed away behind his pointed gun. “By the way, Buffo doesn’t know anything. He’s a peasant from the Haute Savoie and he’s a deaf mute. He’ll attend to your needs, food and drink — there’s a hatch in the door — but he won’t communicate. So once again — save breath.”

  The men backed out; Buffo pushed the door to and locked it from the outside. The light remained on. Shard listened to the footsteps climbing the stairs. After that there was silence, an intense silence that seemed almost to muffle thought. Shard paced the cell, backwards and forwards: it was largish, perhaps fifteen feet square. The walls, he found, were solid, repaired in places with new stone well grouted in. The wooden door was solid too, very heavy, and the hatch, which was set at ground level like a cat door, was iron-bound and no more than six inches square. To get out was simply not on. By his watch, which had been left with him, Shard paced for some fifteen minutes before he heard more movement upstairs: footsteps again, more distant than before, presumably coming down from the first-floor level. He fancied he heard them going along the passage that served as a hall, fancied he heard the closing of a door.

  Katie Farrell, now bound on her last journey?

  Shard, pacing again restlessly and impotently, thought of Katie Farrell: a girl in the flush of her early twenties, attractive, with all to live for, perhaps too much to live for. The real criminals were those persons who had given her her life’s interest, her mother and her associates. She had perhaps fallen victim to the romanticism surrounding the Easter Rising: Shard’s reading of history had told him that there was a kind of heroism in those earlier days and a genuine passion for liberty. There had been sordid deeds on both sides and Britain had had much to answer for: but in recent years bestiality had taken over and liberty had become a mockery. In his bones Shard was glad that officialdom and its planning for expediency had come unstuck; he could spare little sorrow for Katie Farrell, murderesss in her own right. But Hedge’s wife was a different kettle of fish …

  Sounds outside the door told Shard that Buffo was at hand: clumsy movements and a grunting — it was like an animal. On the heels of heavy breathing, something was pushed through the hatch: a cup of coffee, black as coal.

  Shard fetched it. “Thanks,” he called unheard through the door. There was a shuffle of departure. Shard examined the coffee, smelt it, tasted some on a finger. Innocuous — he hoped! He drank. It was strong and bitter but he felt better for it; he doubted if they would see any point in drugging it anyway. Buffo, the walls and the door were security enough. After drinking, he replaced the empty cup in the hatch and resumed his pacing. Later, though he had heard nothing, he saw that the cup had vanished: Buffo could obviously move sil
ently on occasions. The day dragged by in a damp atmosphere and a stench of drains, as though town sewers were spilling in the nearby earth. Lunch came hatchwise — crunchy bread and cheese and a glass of water. With regret, for he was thirsty, Shard rejected the water, not knowing whence Buffo had drawn it. Later, lunch was repeated in the name of supper. The light remained on, giving Shard a headache till he stood on the chair and removed the bulb. During the night he snatched some restless sleep huddled on the hard chair, which he had shifted into a corner. By his watch, morning came: he was stiff and cold and suffering the aftermath of nightmares during which his mind had raced in circles around the abortion he had made of his assignment, of the fate of Hedge’s wife, and around the likely whereabouts of Katie Farrell — or her lifeless body.

  Breakfast came: another cup of coffee and a roll. He had run out of cigarettes, but there was no communication with the moronic Buffo. He gasped for a smoke, and the morning passed slowly on towards lunch-time, but no lunch came and the house above was as deathly still and quiet as the cellar. A forgotten feeling came over Shard and after a while, still lunchless, and whether or not there was any point considering his gaoler’s deafness, he hammered on the stout door.

  To his astonishment, it gave. He opened it wide: so far as he could tell, no hidden Buffo.

  Cautiously, he moved out, flesh creeping, all senses on the alert. There was no break in the silence overhead. He reached the foot of the stairs and went up, slow and watchful. The passage was empty; he went to the outer door and tried the handle:free and open! Shard sent a breath whistling out through set teeth. How long, for God’s sake, had that cellar door been unlocked? Long enough, it seemed, for deaf-and-dumb Buffo to hot-foot out to anonymity! Shard went back along the passage and up the stairs to the first floor. Outside the death room he fumbled for, and found, the light switch. The brilliance shone on the same scene as before, except that now the quick had gone and only the dead remained in their bloodied silence. And had been joined by an equally silent Paul Legrain.

  *

  Hedge was shaking like a leaf and his face was a dirty grey. The day before, it seemed, he had been contacted by telephone — a man representing the ‘private army’ interests who didn’t want Katie Farrell to be let through to the Middle East: an anonymous man who had said only that Katie Farrell had been intercepted. A metaphorical snook having been thus cocked at the British Government and the Foreign Office, Hedge couldn’t wait to impart, but took time off afterwards to reprimand Shard. “You should have come back sooner. You could have flown from —”