Salvage for the Saint (10 page)

“Monsieur—you will have to be very careful. And do not hope too much. I think they will want something from her. If once they have it, they will kill her.”

-3-

Arabella had risen early and left the hotel at seven because she was chafing to get to Marseille and see the Phoenix—her yacht. Three nights had passed since she had first learnt of the Phoenix’s existence, and by this time her curiosity was definitely getting the better of her normal preference for late rising. Add to that the fact that the hotel itself was a reminder of two evenings spent in Descartes’ ultimately wearing company, and she had a strong double reason for wanting to get on her way.

But she had got no further than a kilometre or so when the MG began behaving like a bucking bronco. Its engine seemed to have been visited by a malady of galloping indecision; it changed its mind ten or twelve times, in the space of less than a minute, about whether it wanted to run or not. Arabella pulled off the road, put the gearstick in neutral and revved the engine a few times, whereupon it made up its mind. It did not want to run. It stopped, and would not start again.

Arabella knew nothing about the tinkering her car had suffered earlier that morning at the hands of Enrico Bernadotti; she only knew that the car had broken down.

She had left the village well behind her. Traffic was virtually nonexistent—she recalled one car passing her, in the opposite direction—and there was no telephone in sight. She started walking towards a house a couple of hundred yards away, but had only covered a quarter of the distance when she heard a truck coming.

Not being one to do things by halves, she ran into the road and waved her arms excitedly in a way that left her predicament in no doubt.

The effort, as it turned out, was unnecessary. It was a breakdown truck—complete with winch. It stopped some way in front of the MG and then backed up close. Out of it jumped a short muscular blob of a man in mechanic’s overalls and a cap. He was munching a sandwich, which she took to be the reason for his failure to offer a cordial greeting, or indeed any greeting at all.

Arabella’s French, while it might be just about up to the simpler transactions of life, was completely unequal to the task of describing the salient details of a mechanical breakdown. She resorted to sign language and a single, far from French, word.

“Kaputt!”

She operated the starter a few times to demonstrate the car’s recalcitrance. The mechanic said nothing; he simply attached the grappling-chains of his winch to the underside of her car and wound it up on to the back of the truck with Arabella still in the driver’s seat. Then the truck, painted with the name Garage Soustelle Freres, turned around and headed back towards the village.

It went straight past the garage of that name, which she had noticed earlier, and left the village by the opposite route. After a moment’s unease, Arabella settled down to wait, supposing that there must be other premises belonging to the Soustelles. But when the breakdown truck pulled right off the main road, and began following a rough dirt-track across mixed pasture land and marshy, boggy ground, she became definitely and substantively uneasy.

She leant on the horn. Nothing happened. She switched on the ignition and leant on it again. The penetrating paa-aa-aarp punctuated the calm of the countryside but produced no apparent effect on the breakdown driver. He continued to transport her, and her car, farther off the beaten track: through a farm gateway, along a still-rougher and less-beaten track than before; then between some trees to a stony yard between farm buildings.

The truck stopped and the driver got out, wiping the remains of his meal from his blubbery lips with the back of an oily hand.

“What the hell is this place?” Arabella began angrily. “Why have you brought me here?” She looked around at the timber fences, gates, corrals, horses; and back at the still-silent driver.

He had taken off his cap, and now his lips parted in something like a sadistic smile, revealing unpleasant-looking yellow teeth to go with his unpleasant-looking putty-nose and squinting piggy-eyes. Arabella regarded him disgustedly.

“My, but aren’t you an ugly one!” she declared, hoping to provoke some response. But he only beckoned her to follow as he set off for one of the adobe farm buildings.

He opened the door and stood aside for her to enter; then he followed her inside, shut the door, and stood firmly against it.

Arabella looked around. She was in a large farm office, well furnished in an old-fashioned heavy style, the walls liberally decorated with bullfight posters and photographs of horses—hefty brutes, many of them accoutred and padded for the bullring, some with picadors astride. At the far end was another closed door. Between Arabella and that other door, at a huge roll-top desk, sat a big man in a sombrero, with his back to her. Nearby sprawled a sallow-skinned man dressed all in black, who was picking at the strings of a guitar. His features were lizard-like, his shirt open halfway to the waist, revealing a black doormat of a torso decorated with a heavy gold chain.

The man with the guitar struck a sudden sharp chord, and the large figure at the desk swivelled to face Arabella.

Under the broad sombrero, that luxuriant bandit moustache and the huge bulk of chins beneath were unmistakable. It was Descartes.

“Bonjour, Madame Tatenor,” he said softly. “You see, I could not bear the parting from you!”

He smiled expansively, but now, in these new surroundings, there was something menacing in that gold-fringed smile. Arabella struggled to grasp the situation.

“But what … what are you doing here?” she finally said. “I mean, what am I doing here?”

The black-clad lizard had put down his guitar, and now he came forward, hissing through wolfish white teeth, to favour Arabella with a close inspection.

“And who the hell are you!” she snapped without ceremony, disliking him on the instant, whoever he might be.

Descartes chuckled.

“Let me introduce my associates … Enrico Bernadotti, who arranged your little mechanical trouble. And your guide here,”—he inclined his head towards the blubbery-lipped man who had driven the truck—“Pancho Gomez. You may have observed, his conversational powers are limited. He is a deaf-mute.”

She glanced around as Descartes’ words registered.

“Arranged my breakdown? You seem to have been to a lot of trouble to get me here. What do you want?”

Descartes shifted his bulk in the chair, causing the huge convexity of his midriff to wobble noticeably.

“The answer to that, Madame Tatenor,” he said very sternly and seriously, “is simple.” Then more silkily: “I think you know already what we want.” And then his voice cracked through the air with whiplash force: “So let us get down to business!”

“What business?” she said calmly. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She might be putting a brave front on it; but the fact was that underneath the moderately composed exterior was an interior that was not only indignant but more than a little scared. This was certainly the first time in her life that anything of the kind had happened to her, and she didn’t at all like the way things were shaping up.

Descartes sighed impatiently.

“Madame Tatenor, please let us not play games. You are the widow of Charles Tatenor. The widow of our ex-partner in crime. Only that we knew him under another name.”

“Crime? Another name? What is all this? Are you people crazy?”

Descartes suddenly propelled himself towards her at speed on his castored chair.

“We want to know where is the gold!” he boomed, his large face reddening with anger. “Now does the little bell ring?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Arabella said firmly. “And now, I think I’d like to go home.”

Unexpectedly, his motion lithe and sudden as a cat’s, Bernadotti sprang forward and slapped her resoundingly across the face—sending her sprawling back, only to be caught by the lurking Gomez and shoved forward again.

“I think we should start all over again, Mrs widow-honey,” Bernadotti hissed in an oily Italian-American accent. “You gotta understand, we don’t mess around.”

Arabella was furious, almost murderous, but temporarily numbed into silence by the ferocity and suddenness of the blow from Bernadotti.

“Where is the money?” Descartes demanded.

“What money? What gold? Please … I don’t know. I don’t know about any money.”

“Our other associate, Monsieur Fournier as he was known, did finally locate our old partner Karl … your husband, Mrs Tatenor. But he died before he was able to tell us where to find the money, or the gold, if it remains as gold. If indeed he ever did extract the secret from your husband before he died … before they both died. We cannot now discover from Karl, from your Charles, where he secreted our mutual ill-gotten gains. Therefore, we must discover it from you.” Descartes paused and waggled a solemn forefinger at Arabella. “Be assured, you will tell us before a long time has passed. You might save yourself pain by telling us now.” He emphasised his final words with that plump stabbing forefinger: “Where— is—the—gold?”

She repeated herself firmly, but with an edge of desperation now: “I tell you I don’t know about any gold, or money. My problem is, Charles didn’t leave me any—only debts. That’s why I’ve come here—to France, to Marseille. I’ve got to sell this yacht—my yacht, the Phoenix …”

Descartes put his head on one side and studied her for a few moments. Arabella tried again.

“I don’t have any money. No money. No gold. Comprenez-vous?”

Descartes shook his head sadly.

“Then you are no use to us. Your memory is too bad.”

“Listen, lady,” Bernadotti hissed suddenly, “we know the gold or the money is here in France, where your husband once did business. All you have to do is tell us where.”

“What money? What gold? I don’t know about any money or gold!” Arabella was near snapping-point now.

Again Descartes looked at her aslant for a moment.

“Let me remind you of the facts,” he began, “since you have such a poor memory, it appears. Four of us endured eight years in prison for a robbery of gold bullion in which your ‘Charles’ also took a part— and from which he escaped with the gold, all of the gold, while we were caught. Now we want that gold, or whatever remains of it.”

“All this is news to me. If Charles had any gold he certainly didn’t tell me about it,” Arabella said firmly. “Now let me out of here.”

She stood up; and Descartes, unexpectedly, rose from his own seat and made a sweeping, bowing gesture towards the door as if inviting her to leave. She compressed her lips determinedly and marched to the door. Pancho had been watching the conversation, his piggy eyes darting from mouth to mouth; but now he became absorbed in an old penknife, its blade much worn and sharpened, which he was honing patiently with a stone.

“Do you mind?” Arabella demanded.

Pancho didn’t move or look up.

“Our friend Pancho—he only lip-reads,” Bernadotti remarked.

Arabella clicked her fingers repeatedly under his eyes; but still he didn’t respond.

“It is not always easy to catch his attention,” Descartes explained.

“I see,” said Arabella slowly, as she turned back. “Perhaps if you … well, can you perhaps tell me a bit more about this money or gold, I’m supposed to know about?”

Suddenly, having edged into the middle of the room, she made a dash for the far door. But as she reached it, so did Pancho’s knife. One second it wasn’t there; the next, that well-worn blade was buried deep in the door, inches from her face.

She stared at the quivering knife and collapsed to a sitting posture on the floor, all the fight temporarily shaken out of her.

“If I knew where this gold was, I’d tell you,” she pleaded helplessly.

Bernadotti stood up abruptly.

“Let’s stop wasting time,” he hissed. “We’re gonna have to introduce you to some of our … livestock. The horned variety that helps people remember things they pretend they forgot, or that they pretend they never knew.”

He laughed uproariously as his words sank in and Arabella turned several shades paler. He was still chuckling as, after two quick strides to reach her, he grasped her arm in a powerful and painful grip and propelled her towards the door.

“Let’s go, Mrs high-class widow-lady. Toro is waiting for us!”

She searched Descartes’ features hopefully for some sign of dissension in the camp. But his expression was stonily impassive, and she was led off with her arm in that pincer grip from the black-shirted and be-chained Bernadotti.

Thus is was that, not long after, Arabella Tatenor found herself in a bullring for the first time in her life.

It was a small bull-ring as bull-rings go, and clearly designed for training rather than public entertainment. But it did seem to possess most of the usual features—approximately circular, with a wooden perimeter, though with only a minimal two tiers of what would have been seating if actual seats had been present, and a few breaks around the circumference of the perimeter fence. There was the door she had been pushed through into the ring, a heavy iron latticework gate on the opposite side, and a similar gate at right angles to both. Only one conventional feature was lacking—and that deficiency, her hearing told her, was about to be remedied.

There was a bull, now revealed as big, black, and ugly, pawing the ground impatiently on the other side of the heavy iron gate facing her.

Descartes’ voice floated fatly across to her.

“Have you decided to confide in us, Madame?”

Her eyes turned from side to side in despair and mute appeal.

“Please. Be reasonable. How can I tell you what I don’t know?”

“I think you do know,” came the fat voice. “And you will tell us—or else you are no further use to us. But you have very little time remaining.”

There was a short pause followed by a sharp mechanical click. The bull-gate swung slowly open.

Arabella pressed back against the fence behind in horror as the powerful snorting animal pushed its way through the gate. It trotted a few paces into the ring, and stopped. The morning sun reflected glossily off the perfect black muscularity of its back, and for a moment she was oddly, dispassionately aware of the beauty in that sheer animal power, before the parlousness of her own situation crowded in upon her again. She made a sudden panic-stricken dash for the door through which she had been propelled a minute before.