The Janeites (22 page)

“Stay very still, there’s a pistol pointing at you. Now I get in, just behind you. No use staring about, those cars are all empty, gone to Paris for the day. Now if you turn your head slowly you’ll see it. Small but efficient. The target would be the back of your neck and you’re dead.

“Now you drive out slowly, careful not to hit anything. Got the money, have you, to make the gate open and get us out of here?”

Supposing I haven’t any money, thought Raymond, the gate won’t open. Only this is airport desert, everyone else is gone, even the taxi-drivers are miles away sunk in a doze; lift your eyes from the crossword, boys. No, I’m stuck here with a maniac just behind me and what does he want, what the hell is the point? Why hijack me? Why hijack anyone? Is he escaping from somewhere? Or he’s done a holdup and I’m a hostage. Where are the bloody police, are they all inside drinking coffee? It was only a feeder flight. Big plane there coming in and lots of people, no good to me and I don’t Want to get shot in the neck.

“Right, now I’ll tell you, you drive on out to Barton’s house. You know the way well. Where you left your woman, right?”

Light is beginning to dawn and it doesn’t help. Being dozy and being frightened together is just making you sweaty. Is this – this must be the man who has some vengeance to take upon William. Who put the bomb outside William’s house. Not a very efficient man because it didn’t work well, but he might be better with guns than he was with bombs. This is not a good forecast. What can I do,
dio
merda
?
Tip the car in the ditch, like Joséphine did? Alack, there are country roads hereabout, stretches of woodland, farmland – ditches. But these lands are much too tame, orderly, ditches much too neat
and small. Crash the car into something? There are villages with awkward turns, red lights, cars parked. This would be possible. He doesn’t think he can do it; too paralysed by fear. You are not that smart, Ray, and you are not that heroic. As he got into the car the first thing the man had done was to make a sudden lunge forward over my shoulder, to twist the reversing mirror up and out of sight-line; didn’t want to be seen. That would have been the moment for the unarmed combat; take the loony in the octopus-like grip. I didn’t; I did nothing.

Looking backward is of no interest, thought Ray. More anxious to know what is in front. The fiend is just behind me and it’s enough to know he’s there. ‘The fiend is at my elbow’ said… said… Lancelot Gobbo… that’s me, the clown. This feeling of total impotence is wretched. “Watch your road” snapped the man. “Don’t waver. Don’t try anything funny.”

He could bash the car into a tree. Would that leave them all trapped in airbags? – he doesn’t even know how the damn things work. Are there some at the back? And if he fired his pistol into them, wouldn’t they collapse?

Sweat is running down his neck, his chest, his back: his trousers were sticking to his legs. He could pee in his pants it wouldn’t make much odds. Raymond has practised dying – many times – but he hadn’t known it would be like this. And now they were climbing the steep slope, up to the house.

“Easy does it. Nice and slow. At the top you just glide down into the dip. You stop there, in front of the house. And you sound your horn. You go toot-toot. You don’t move. And he’ll hear that, and he’ll come out to see. Think there’s something wrong with you. There is, too. He’ll come to look, and I’ve got him, the bastard.”

It was all too likely. It was logical. William would think no harm. The one hope – that William, the professionally suspicious man, would think something amiss. He has weaponry, but how to alert him to the need for it? It was all true – William would simply come out wondering what the matter was. Joséphine – she might be there; she might come out too. The loony would not leave an inconvenient witness. They would all die.

“Toot again,” said the voice. “Pip-pip, here he comes.”

The car was angled towards the house. The back window was sliding down. Raymond slumped. He didn’t think he’d be able to see the others die. In the story, after the bombardment, the simple-Simon says ‘I was the only Janeite left’. But it won’t be that way. We’ll all be gone, with nothing to show. There is no one here and this man is going to get clear away with it. He heard the hissing breath drawn in and held as William started to come towards them.

A different voice, barking, wanting to sound gruff, authoritative and wishing very strongly to be obeyed, said loudly,

“Drop the gun.”

Of several startled people Monsieur Philippe was the most startled – William, who could see behind Raymond’s car, could see the other car which had stopped at the top of the dip, wasn’t startled. It meant that Xavier had been as good as his word and put a PJ man sticking to that idiot’s footsteps, and just as bloody well because the fucker’d turned dangerous. He caught hold of Joséphine’s arm and swung her violently, himself making a complicated sort of plunging swerve. He hoped that boy knew what he was doing.

Melodrama is never far from farce. Raymond with his eyes shut wasn’t sure whether he was in this world or the next. Whichever it was, that was a classic line.

Humphrey Bogart always said the line never existed, but that drunks in bars, anxious to show who really was the tough guy around here, were forever coming up to him making like they were George Raft, saying ‘Drop the gun, Louey.’

The boy from the PJ – he was not much more – was frightened by the situation and startled at his own voice. There he’d been stuck for hours on end, at that frigging airport, wondering what the hell the bugger was up to – practically since the beginning of his shift. Recognizing Dr Valdez he’d woken up. Followed from fairly far back. They’d gone quite slow. When they stopped he’d known something was up. Training took over then. He’d made quick time while angling out a bit. Because of Valdez in front. If you have to use your piece you try to make sure it doesn’t go on through and hit a bystander.

But Monsieur Philippe was very badly startled because it never had occurred to him to look behind him. The window down; he had the little pistol nicely braced, cocked, on single action.

At that wild Indian yell panic struck him. He swung the little gun in that direction and it went off (found afterwards to have a light pull, nothing unusual) and before he knew how to stop fired two more on double action.

The boy had his big standard-issue .357 revolver. There has been a lot of debate about police arms. The thing is dangerously powerful. Most PJ men of more experience have gone back to automatics, for the modern automatic is much more reliable than it used to be. The boy had been trained that if you do have to use your piece (after, it’s insisted upon, your call of warning) you shoot at the legs. Nobody’d ever shown him how you’re supposed to aim at some geezer sitting down in a car whom you can’t even see properly. No matter anyhow, these big guns kick up in the inexperienced hand. One shot but it fair tore the fellow in two and went out the far side. Jeesus-eff-christ, he thought, scared out of his wits. William didn’t need a second glance to see what had happened. He took the big revolver away from the boy, who put his hands up over his eyes, and said, “That’s all right, son, get your breath back.” The boy began to cry from nerves. He’d never fired the gun at anyone and now he’d killed a man. Stopped at once; it was only the scare.

“The ol’man’ll tear my head off for this. There’ll be an inquiry, I’ll be suspended.”

“No he won’t. Happens I know him, pretty well; he’ll take my word. You don’t touch any of this. You go back to your car, and call him. You let him shout, and then you tell him Mr Barton will be your witness.”

Raymond was still sitting there behind the wheel, clutching it. Joséphine reached in and took both hands.

“Come on. Upsidaisy.” He got out, took a look, and said

“Oh dear. My good car.” Insane laughter.

“The mirror cracked from side to side. Your insurance company is going to do its nut.”

“Not sure I haven’t peed my pants.”

“Would make two of us. Take a look at William, he’s in his element.” Raymond tried walking, with partial success.

Joséphine is especially fond of Ray’s quickness to laugh at himself.

William joined them.

“I had a quick word with Xavier. He’ll send the wagon and he’ll be out himself for a look before they take – that – away. The boy stays, to be sure no one touches it. I think he’d like a cup of coffee, Joséphine, if you’d manage that. What I’d suggest, we go in, and perhaps we all have some apple pie.”

So there they are, the three Janeites.

“Aren’t we perfect fools, to imagine we can push violence out of the way? The harder we push, the more it clings.”

“Like Captain Haddock” (Joséphine is a strong Tintin fan) “trying to get rid of the sticking-plaster.”

“But Haddock’s violence is entirely innocent.”

“That’s what children like so much: they can feel total confidence in him.”

“Do you think,” said William, “that the jeweller was any good at his job?” The other two have had it explained to them, who the little sneak was.

“Oddly enough,” said Joséphine, “I can answer that. I’ve been in that little shop on the quays. Geoffrey was buying a wedding anniversary present for Liliane. Yes he was. Very good indeed. They aren’t all sitting up there in the Place Vendôme, you know. He had a passion for gold. Not that shit stuff – pink, grey, white. The real thing, high carat. You wear that on your skin, it takes a beautiful patina. He learned that, he said, in India. The inside – where it touches you, there is the heart and the soul of it. He did the most wonderful enamels on it. Isn’t that beautiful? Why was he such a horrible little shit?”

The PJ chief could be heard outside, brisk, rallying his troops. Xavier came in, said, “What’s that you’re drinking? I’ll have some… You all right, all of you?”

“We’ve a technical question for you.”

“Good, this. Polish, is it? I can give you the police answer, if William hasn’t already.”

“No, I haven’t the details.”

“I had a man on him, as you know. Just a tag, wasn’t getting anywhere much with it – interested in the Doctor,” nodding at Ray.

“Old bitch Bénédicte came in to see me, bold as brass.

“Her good pistol, which Of Course is legally registered, and was, so please you, mislaid while cleaning, got pilfered. An Insane thing to do, Commissaire, which she feels Obliged to make known to me, think of it, fellow running round with a Grievance.

“Sure; insanity’s what they all plead; something came over me donchaknow. No more insane than you are.” The three looked at each other. Barking bonkers the lot of us. “Thing is, it’s perfectly true, pretty well anybody will do something insane at a given moment, press the sore point hard enough and fellow isn’t reasoning clearly. Likely enough, this was the moment, incapable of calculation, pick up the breadknife you’ve a homicide. This little fellow had been practising his vengeance a long time, sure, tasting it and loving it; seeing the gun there he takes leave of his senses. Afterwards, no no, it wasn’t him; was the Third Man. Bit late perhaps for the victim. William, old son, just as well, huh, having that boy there, bit dozy but didn’t quite drop all his marbles. All right, mustn’t stand here gossiping, thanks for the drink, I better get to work, lot of forms to fill in.”

Outside, they were towing away Doctor Valdez’ good new car. Raymond helped himself to another socking glassful of apple pie.

“I fell asleep on the plane,” he told them. “Girl gives you a pillow but it’s probable my head was in a bad position. There’s a lot we don’t understand about nightmare; it’s interesting that it’s called Alptraum in German.

“I was driving at night. Maybe I was on an English road, over on the wrong side, because bang, there are headlights blazing right in my face, there was nothing I could do but think This is It. The other driver swerved at the last possible second, I remember hearing him scrape along the bodywork and I still couldn’t react – there was another set of lights bearing down on me. I woke, then.

“It was like there in the car; I was in a lather, I rang the bell, sent the girl for a big drink. I’m saying that if it was premonition how do I get it there, in the middle of the ocean?”

The others were saying nothing, looking at him. I’m getting drunk, thought Raymond.

There had been papers lying about: he had picked one up, to obliterate the nasty moment. There was a picture of a piece of sculpture, a big one, monumental. Interview with the artist. Basque, interesting man, said something striking. He wanted to tell the others but his throat was stuck.

‘Wouldn’t art be the consequence of a necessity to try to do something we don’t know how to do?’ Indeed; a beautiful, a delicate necessity…

It’s this apple-pie. He was a student again, arguing with the others; pavement café in Poland. A million years ago, a million miles away. Magali put that record on again. They all played it, all the time; it had become an obsession, there in the heat, the dust.

Not Poland at all. Africa; these hundreds and thousands of black people all looking for help, and we had so little help to give. Magali, the nurse who worked with him; he can see her, a fall of dark hair held in an elastic band. He has cut all his own off; sand gets in it. Magali has a gramophone in the tent.

They all like to sing it, overworked and overtired as they all were. Bass drum, jarring like the springs of the jeep on the iron-hard piste, jouncing them. A prowling rhythm, easy to sing. Magali would begin, and he would join in.

He was singing it now; didn’t care how drunk he was.

Bang went that deep drum. Magali screamed out ‘Fever!’ That was what it was all about. That was the obsession. ‘You get the fever that’s so hard to bear…’ He ought to teach it to these two, who are laughing at him because he’s drunk.

Bang went Magali’s fist on the table, in time with the drummer. He used to dance with her – a thin, bony thing. Good nurse, though.

He would make these two sing, and dance, along with him.

‘Everybody gets the fever.’