Gibraltar Road (30 page)

Though terribly, agonizingly conscious of that time-shortage and the urgency, Shaw said, “Debbie, we’ve got to get some food inside us. There may be another long chase ahead for all I know, and a fat lot of good we’ll be to cope with anything like that unless we’ve eaten while we can.”

She smiled at him. “Fair enough—I’m starving.”

They walked on, through the narrow, smelly streets waking up to the bright day, with the Sunday-dressed people going to early Mass, the women in their striking mantillas. Mr Ackroyd had perked up a lot now, and he walked along almost cockily, his face turning from side to side, with its still slack mouth overdrooped by the wispy moustache. They found a cafe which was just opening up for the day, and they went in and sat down, and Shaw ordered breakfast to be brought quickly; which, after many grumbles from the proprietor, it was. They tucked into ham rolls and omelettes and plenty of hot coffee, and, though the coffee tasted of acorns, that meal did them an immense amount of good. Things didn’t look quite so black after that.

They lit cigarettes with their coffee, but there wasn’t much time to enjoy the smoke. Shaw, wanting to press on now and get to the Consulate, paid the bill, and, rested and refreshed and unwound, they went out into the warm street where the town was coming to full, vociferous life.

It was just his luck, Shaw thought despondently.

The Consul was away on business, and there was no knowing when he’d be back; the Vice-Consul had just been operated on, and was in bed. Shaw, who suspected that the Consul’s business was concerned with the removal of British subjects living along the Spanish coastal strip, tried to get something satisfactory out of the young Spanish clerk who was the only official he could find, but the man—a decent young fellow, and no doubt under strict orders—wasn’t giving anything away as to the Consul’s whereabouts, not even when Shaw asserted—as under the circumstances he was bound to do—his British nationality. Of course, he carried no proof of this, but Debonnair had her British passport, and Ackroyd was obviously as English as Yorkshire; also, Shaw had a convincing manner, and, becoming once again the naval officer which basically he always was, he used his personal authority to good purpose, and got the clerk to agree to his making a telephone call in privacy.

Shaw, watching every word he uttered, rang Staunton, and was able to make the Defence Security Officer understand that he’d got hold of Ackroyd and would cross the frontier as soon as he could pick up Karina and get his hands on that bit of the mechanism which he could now confirm as having been removed by Ackroyd. Staunton, who said he would advise Hammersley to delay the evacuation as long as possible beyond noon, offered to send a car to pick Shaw up—although, as he said, the Spanish authorities had apparently got wind of something going on, and had become very sticky at the La Linea frontier, and would very likely do all they could to cause delays to British transport. Shaw rejected this offer as likely, in the circumstances, to call too much attention to him and his mission—he would, he said, in view of the frontier situation, probably come across on the Algeciras ferry.

When Shaw rang off he ferreted out the clerk again.

Coming somewhat obliquely to the point, he said, “Look here, señor. While I am in Algeciras I’d like to look up an old friend of mine. His name is Manuel Zafra. Can you tell me where he’s living now?”

Shaw was looking hard at the clerk, saw him take the point. The clerk said sadly, “Señor, Manuel Zafra met with-—an accident. He is no longer with us.” His voice dropped a little, although they were alone in the office. “But I think—now—that I understand.”

“Good for you,” said Shaw crisply. “Can you give me any other names, then?”

“I can give you one, señor, but it will be no good your trying to reach him before five-thirty this afternoon. He has business which keeps him out of Algeciras until then always.” He leaned across the desk towards Shaw, spoke very softly. “Andres’s bar in the Calle de Las Flores. Ask for Andres himself—he knows much that goes on, señor, and will help you in any way he can if you say that Don Guillermo sent you, and give him this message. . . .”

Soon after that the little party left the Consulate, and as they did so a man moved from some shadows near by and lost himself in a maze of back streets.

After a thoroughly frustrating day of enforced inactivity during which there hadn’t been a whisper of Karina, the three were sitting at a table in Andres’s small bar listening to a guitar strumming away in the background. Shaw and Debonnair sipped conac. Mr Ackroyd simply sat and dribbled, looking worn out. Shaw watched every movement in and out of the place. Catching the waiter’s eye when half-way through his drink, he asked casually if Andres could spare him a moment.

“Your business, señor?”

Shaw repeated his instructions from the Consulate clerk; “I come from Seville, on the advice of Don Guillermo, with the offer of the best that the orange groves can produce.” The waiter said, “Señor, I will find out.”

With a flourish of his tray and a low bow he was gone, white apron flashing between black-trousered legs. A few minutes later a greasy little man like a dumpling waddled over to Shaw’s table and greeted them jovially. He snapped his fingers at the water. “Fundador, Ramon.” He turned back to Shaw, spoke quietly, though his words could hardly have been heard at any distance over the music of the guitar. “What troubles Don Guillermo,
amigo?
’

“He tells me you might perhaps know the whereabouts of ... a lady-friend whom I wish to speak to.”

Andres’s black eyes sparkled mischievously in Debon-nair’s direction as he sat down, and he made a gesture with his mouth and fingers. “The señor is ungallant. Who would wish to renew a liaison with any lady in the world when there is available this exquisite example of our Maker’s art—ha?”

Shaw grinned politely and felt glad Debonnair’s Spanish wasn’t quite up to this kind of thing, or he’d never have heard the end of that one. The black eyes were on him now, and regarding him unblinkingly. “Señor, the name of this lady-friend?”

“She is known here as the Señorita Rosia del Cuatro Caminos.”

“Aha!” There was an exhalation of garlic, and Shaw caught sight of the blackened stumps, interspersed here and there with gold, which passed for teeth. “I may be able to help.”

Shaw waited.

Andres darted several glances round the bar. There were not many people—it was nearly six o’clock, and the crowds would all be going to the bullfight this Sunday evening. Andres said, with his mouth shielded by a fat, hairy arm, “This woman, she is in Algeciras. That I know.” In emphasis, he nodded many chins. “I understand that she came into the town last night, very late, and went to a house in a certain street where she has—friends.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Friends who are dangerous. You would do well, very well, to keep away, my friend, from these men of danger.”

“I’m not interested in how dangerous it is.”

Andres shrugged. “One of her friends has already been inquiring.”

“For me?”

Again Andres shrugged. “As an incidental only. Mainly for the señor your friend, I think it would be.” The dark, olive head was inclined towards Ackroyd, and the chins sagged sideways. “I said that I had no knowledge of you, which was the truth. I have been promised fifty thousand pesetas for any information which may lead to you—think of that, fifty thousand pesetas—and I have had ten thousand on account! That is better than the goad on the donkey’s back. With fifty thousand I could go back to my native Ecija and live happily without work.” A dream of Ecija and no work shone briefly in his eyes, and then the glitter returned. “Are you prepared to match that sum? To—surpass it, señor?”

The sum was about five hundred pounds. But the implied threat was obvious, and Shaw had to act fast now. He said stiffly, “
I’m
not, but this is on Don Guillermo’s account.”

“Unlimited?” The eyes were greedy.

“Unlimited,” nodded Shaw without hesitation. It had to be that way, and if ‘Don Guillermo’ didn’t cough up—well, Andres had already had a good whack. But Andres brought out a slip of paper from a greasy wallet and wrote on it briefly. “Chit,” he said. “If the señor will be so good as to sign?”

Shaw signed. Andres put the chit carefully away. He said, “If the señor will go to Number Twelve, Calle Jose Antonio, he will find some one whom he knows. But I advise the señor to be very careful. I am told these people will stop at nothing.”

He looked hard at Shaw for a moment; then abruptly he got up and walked away behind the counter at the end of the room, and went through a door. Shaw stared after him. A draught from the door blew dust up along the floor of the bar, and Shaw wrinkled his nose. That address, he thought, it’s a trap, it’s a trap for certain. No doubt about that, in spite of Andres having done his best to sound convincing with all the off-putting talk about danger. Andres hadn’t been quick enough to hide a look on his face just as he turned away from the table—it had been no more than a gleam in the eyes, really, but it had been enough for Shaw. And it had all been too glib. Andres, he felt, was a newcomer to this game—if he’d been an old hand he wouldn’t have tried the financial stunt of playing one side off against the other. To a professional that stunk like a kipper right away. And yet -if Andres valued his connexions with the British Consulate surely he wouldn’t send him into a trap deliberately? Shaw was utterly undecided now as to what he ought to do.

And then he stopped worrying because he’d noticed something for the first time.

It was coming to him from that doorway through which Andres had gone, carried along on that draught of air as the door had opened, and it was getting to his table now and it was strong, it was well-remembered, and it was
Je reviens
. . . .

Shaw felt the blood drum through his brain, and he looked quickly at Debonnair. He noticed signs of disturbance in Ackroyd as that perfume came to him. Without moving again, and as casually as possible, as though he was merely making some odd remark, he whispered, “Get Ackroyd outside and walk him away—slowly, as though you’re waiting for me—go towards the bull-ring. That’ll keep you in the crowds, and I don’t think you’ll be molested in the open— but it is a risk. D’you mind, Deb?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“I’ll be with you very soon.” Shaw got up; in a slightly louder voice he said, “Shan’t be a tick, then we’d better get along to that address.”

He sauntered up to the bar counter, his eyes seeing, but yet appearing to search for, the sign with the arrow pointing towards a doorway to the left of the bar, and the one word Retrete—lavatory. Glancing back casually, he saw that Debonnair and the little man were leaving the bar arm in arm, Ackroyd looking as though he was in an almighty hurry to get away . . . and then Shaw moved behind the counter silently, swiftly. He tried the handle of the door through which Andres had gone, found it locked. But the lock was flimsy, and the second time his shoulder crashed against the door the lock came away.

Shaw, as he crashed through, noticed the other door at the back of the room opening into a courtyard. Andres stood alone in this doorway, plainly terrified now, but doing a poor best to look justly indignant. He asked, “Señor, what does this mean?”

“Means you won’t be able to loaf around in Ecija just yet. Where did that woman go?” Shaw, his eyes dangerous, ran across the room. Andres didn’t answer, and it would be useless to waste time on him now. The scent was strong, and he knew he hadn’t been mistaken. There was only the one way she could have gone, too. He went up to Andres, pushed him from the doorway with his gun-muzzle, ran into the courtyard.

Naturally enough, there was no one there.

Shaw ran to the end, found a small arched doorway set in the high back wall and covered with creeper. The door was unlatched. Shaw pulled it open, dashed into a narrow alleyway. There were dozens of doors through which Karina might have gone; there was obviously no time now in which to search that alley when Debonnair and Ackroyd were waiting and unprotected—and anyhow Karina could have gone right along and out at either end, making for the Calle Jose Antonio. Shaw had a sudden fear that Debonnair might be in danger already, and he ran back up the courtyard, into that room behind the bar. There was no sign of Andres now. As he came out through the bar into the street, into the Calle de Las Flores, Shaw felt his guts twisting with a dreadful feeling that he’d been enticed away from the girl and Ackroyd. Then he looked along to the left, and, quite close to the bull-ring, he saw Debonnair and Ackroyd sauntering along slowly, as though waiting for some one else to join them before taking up their seats for the fight.

He felt an overwhelming sense of relief as he caught up with them. In spite of her casual bearing, he could see the easement in Debonnair’s smile, too, and in her eyes.

She said, “I thought you’d never come out of that place again, darling. You shouldn’t give me these frights, they aren’t good! Anyway—what’s the news?”

“Karina.” He told her quickly what had happened. “I never got a sight of her, I’m afraid, but I know she was there.” The grey-blue eyes were troubled with a sense of failure, and he had that damned pain in his guts again now. “We’re just no better off than we were before—except that we keep clear of the Calle Jose Antonio for a while longer. I had a feeling it might be a trap.”

“How are we going to get a line on Karina again, then?”

He felt hopeless, but he said, “She won’t be far away now, Debbie. We’ll just have to keep our eyes skinned and watch out.”

She said, “But—I don’t understand. Or do I?” She wrinkled up her nose. “I mean—if that fat Andres was a double-agent they’d know at the Consulate.”

“Not necessarily—there mightn’t have been time. Don’t forget, Karina hasn’t been in Algeciras long. It’s sheer cash at the bottom of Andres’s tactics, and he may not have had the opportunity for the double game before. I’ll have the Consulate warned as soon as we’re back in Gib—”

He broke off suddenly, and stiffened, feeling a curious sense of unease. Debonnair looked at him in alarm. He was glancing behind now; an awareness, some deeply ingrained instinct, that he was being followed had made him do that, and he saw that his instinct hadn’t let him down.