The Venetian Affair (24 page)

He nodded, steadied her with his arm as they lurched together, bent his head so that she could hear him against the background of creaks and clatter and groans. “Electricians?” he asked softly.

“Perhaps they were. Perhaps not.” They were jolted together. She caught her balance, laughed, tried to smooth down her wind-blown hair. “Rough journey, isn’t it?”

“Seriously, Claire—” he began worriedly.

“I did try to find if they had concealed anything in my compartment, but I hadn’t enough time. We’ll find out when we get back.”

“Will we?” His worry was growing. Microphones and midget recorders were easily installed nowadays, but how did you find them without tearing the place apart? “How long could any small recorder run? A couple of hours?” But how could it be turned on, when they arrived back in Claire’s room? Or was it fed through to the next compartment? Why bother to speculate anyhow? He just did not know one damned thing
about the working of any supersecret recorders, except that they were miniature, powerful, and fantastically ingenious. Only the very best would be good enough for Kalganov and his boys—of that, he was sure.

“I’ve no idea how these things work. They do, though.”

“But you know what to look for?”

“This morning, Neill briefed me on several little tricks that could be played on us. Don’t worry, Bill. If we think any gadget is tucked away somewhere in my compartment, we’ll just have to play up to it. That’s all.”

One false word, one giveaway phrase—he looked at the large grey eyes so close to his, and he felt fear for this girl. And he thought of poor old Carlson—he couldn’t have enjoyed himself very much this morning.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said, guessing at the look on his face. “Please, Bill!” Doesn’t he know, she wondered, that I was sent to get him safely to that café table on the Piazza San Marco? Wisely, she didn’t tell him. And it was a pleasant feeling to have someone beside her who thought he ought to be responsible for her.

“Why did they have to send you?”

“Because no one has to explain to me what a man like Kalganov is. Or means. Or can do.”

“You think that he—”

She touched his arm. “Later,” she said, and looked back to the carriage they had passed through. “We can talk seriously in Venice.”

“They’ll think up some way of bugging our rooms even there,” he said gloomily.

“Well, they can’t eavesdrop on
every
gondola.” And with a
smile, she drew away from him as three other passengers came laughing and lurching into the freight car from the corridor. “Oh lord,” she said in dismay, looking at the open doorway, hesitating.

He took a firm grip of her wrist, felt the cold rush of air whip around them as he led her past the five-foot stretch of gaping wall. Outside, the darkening fields rushed along. Some thoughtful trainman, he noticed, had fastened a chain as a handgrip across the opening in case anyone staggered too much at a curve in the line. “It’s safe enough,” he told her reassuringly, thinking of the return journey.

She tried to laugh at herself as she smoothed her hair back into place once more. She was glad to hear a high-pitched squeal from one of the passengers behind them. “I suppose that’s the trouble,” she said, pointing to a wooden crate stamped
Pont L’Evêque
over which a faint smell of cheese hovered.

Fenner grinned. “If that door wasn’t left open, none of us would be able to face any dinner. How’s your appetite?”

“Still good. How much farther?”

“We’re almost there. Roast lamb, I think?”

It was an excellent dinner, too. Only the French could prepare and serve five courses on a fast-moving train. There was no choice: the menu was set. And so were the diners. Those who arrived late would have to wait for the second sitting. Claire and Fenner sat next to the window, facing each other, sharing the table with a solid Frenchman and his silent wife, who followed their conversation with as much critical attention as they examined the texture, size, and taste of each course. Perhaps
they were interested in the sounds of a strange language. Or perhaps it was an overwhelming shock for the voluble French to discover that foreigners could enjoy conversation, too. But even if they did understand English, they certainly didn’t understand any of the light talk, wild gambits, happy
non sequiturs
that flowed so freely between Claire and Fenner.

Fenner was having the best dinner he could remember. It wasn’t just the effect of good food and pleasant Beaujolais, or even of the smooth cognac sliding down so benevolently with his coffee, that made him raise his glass to her. “A thousand years!”

“A little optimistic. Even the head Lama in Shangri-La didn’t last as long as that. In any case, a thousand sounds much too wrinkled.”

Fenner’s eyes had flickered toward a man who was coming down the aisle between the tables. It was Neill Carlson, ignoring Fenner completely, looking like a man who had enjoyed his dinner and was on his way forward to his own carriage. “Well,” Fenner said slowly, “there is
She
, isn’t there?”

“Who?” She caught sight of Neill Carlson’s back. “Oh,
She
? Rider Haggard’s
She
?” Neill had run into a traffic jam at the doorway, where the second shift had already started to line up for its dinner. An attendant was telling them to go away, without much response.

“She lasted two thousand years, give or take—” He studied the small glass in his hand so that the man in the blue suit, who was following Carlson from the rear of the car, might not notice he had been seen. Fenner’s lips went dry. “Give or take a few years,” he ended.

Claire had sensed something worried him. She smiled
brightly, said, “You know, I always thought that was the silliest of titles.”

“She?
” Jan Aarvan was coming nearer. “Why?”

“Imagine being a critic who is very sensitive to grammar—”

“And what critic is not?”

“And his wife says, making sweet dinner conversation, ‘What good books did you review today, darling?’ I suppose that someone does call a critic darling, now and again—”

“And he replies, ‘None, as usual.’” Jan Aarvan, passing their table, almost collided with a hurrying attendant and halted.

“Will you please stop the obbligato? This is one story I am going to finish my way. He says—oh dear, let me get this right—” Neill Carlson was now making his way with difficulty through the doorway. The attendant had lost his argument with the second sitting: the hungry people were determined to wait there.

“He says that?” Fenner asked, smiling broadly. Beside their table Jan Aarvan was lighting a cigarette, leaving slowly.

Claire shook her head. “Our sensitive critic says with a shudder, ‘Pour me another drink, honey. I’ve just had to write three thousands words about
She.
’ And his wife, who went to Vassar, raises her eyebrows and says gently, ‘About her, darling, about
her.
And I think you have already had one drink too many.’”

Fenner drained his glass, even if it was sip-worthy cognac.

“Was it as bad as all that?” she asked. She let her eyes rest on the massive blue-clad back of a brown-haired man who was pushing his way through the waiting crowd at the door. He was in a great hurry, whoever he was. Abominable manners, she thought: the sharp-elbow-and-shoulder-aside type.

“On the contrary,” Fenner told her, signalling for the chief
attendant wandering up the aisle with his cashbox tucked under his arm, “you were superb.”

But I didn’t ask about me, she thought. And are we leaving? She concealed her surprise, finished her coffee with some difficulty, for the train was gathering tremendous speed, reached for her handbag and lipstick. And she wondered at Bill Fenner’s growing impatience as the chief attendant added, made a mistake, added again, apologised, counted the change with great exactness from his little tin box. Monsieur Solidity and Madame Silence rose to let them pass. “Not at all,” the Frenchman said in perfectly good English. Madame was still too shocked by the tip Fenner had added to the bill to say anything.

“It was only fifteen per cent,” Fenner reassured Claire as they eased themselves past the group at the door.

“I wonder what he made of our conversation? I could have sworn that he couldn’t understand one word we were saying. Which only goes to prove—” She smiled at him.

“That all foreigners are crazy.” But from the quick look he gave her, he showed that her point was well made. He opened the door that led to the freight car. Someone had turned on the lights, obligingly—two bare small bulbs swung from two cords. The wooden floor jiggled and jumped; the rattles and creaks, the shrieks and groans had multiplied. “Glad we didn’t have dinner here,” Fenner yelled at her ear. “Not much hope for the soup.” He took a firm grip of her arm.

Claire nodded, averted her eyes from the black yawn of night at the opened door, shivered as the cold wind whipped bitterly at their shoulders. Why this hurry? she wondered. But he didn’t stop to explain. They walked more slowly through the interminable corridors: it was almost as if he were looking
for someone, trying to keep it unnoticeable. Twice they stopped and looked out at black walls of hills rising steeply, and still he didn’t talk. The corridors were becoming empty. Most people were settling in for the night. The compartments’ lights had already been dimmed, some were even turned off completely. This was no good, she decided: we can’t worry separately. And we can’t risk any real talk in our rooms, either. As the train roared out of a long tunnel, she stopped by one of the open windows, grasped its brass rail, let the wind tear her hair to pieces. “Where do you think we are?” Outside, she could see black masses of trees, black stretches of fields, black ground steeply sloping. Here was a downward stretch, and the train, released from the hills it had travelled through, was running free into a valley. The noise of wheels was lessening. One could talk without raising one’s voice.

Fenner looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. “We are due at Dijon in twelve minutes.” It was a one-minute stop. No one got on or off the train there. “Come on, Claire, only two more cars to go.”

But she didn’t move. She rested her head against his shoulder. They were just a romantic couple looking out at the rushing night. She looked up at him, saying blithely, “Sorry. You’ll just have to get used to this.” Her mood changed. Quietly, she asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Carlson was being followed.” He slipped an arm around her waist. His voice was equally low.

“Does he know the man?”

“Yes. And the man could recognise him, too.”

“The man in the blue suit, with the powerful shoulders?”

“Yes.”

“Aarvan?”

“That’s right.”

She bit her lip. “Can he connect you with Neill in any way?” If so, she thought, our mission is over.

“He saw us visit the same address, but he didn’t see us together.”

“Do many people visit that address?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Vaugiroud must have a constant procession of ex-pupils and friends.

Beginners always worry too much, she thought. She said gently, “Then there is no definite link. We haven’t been spotted. Forget it, Bill.”

“But why should he be following Carlson so openly?”

“He could have been trying to see if Neill had any contacts on the train. One word, one small sign would have been enough. Chris was just two tables away from us, you know: the well-tailored suit talking Italian like mad to some Milanese friends. He didn’t blink an eyelid as Neill passed him. And you didn’t either.”

Claire could be right, he thought: Jan Aarvan might have wanted to note any sign of recognition between Chris, or us, and Carlson. And yet—he kept remembering Aarvan and the way he had followed. Fenner stared at the black countryside, dark shadow piled on darker shadow, outlines suspicioned rather than glimpsed, swirls of treetops eddying into a thick mass of night. “I just can’t figure it out,” he said slowly.

“Don’t try.” It was meant to encourage him. “Let Neill figure it. He will.” She smiled, thinking of Carlson. “Someone’s coming,” she said, and drew still closer to him.

It was an elderly shirt-sleeved man, suspenders undone and
flapping. He crushed past them, with unsteady legs and sleep-heavy eyes. “
Scusa, scusa!
” he said irritably, and lurched on toward the lavatory.

“Night traffic begins,” Fenner said. “Let’s move.” The train’s speed was tapering off.

She nodded. “When you next see Aarvan, point him out. Talk about shoulders, if he is close to us. I’ll get it.” As a woman, clutching her tweed coat over her slip, poked her head into the corridor and hesitated, Claire raised her voice to normal again. “You’re right—it’s chilly. I suppose we ought to start thinking of sleep, like everyone else.”

“Forms to be filled out,” he reminded her.

“Oh, heavens!”

“Sh!” said someone angrily from a darkened compartment.

The brakes were on. The express was beginning its long slide into the station of Dijon as Fenner left Claire in her compartment. “See you in five minutes,” he told her. “I’ll get those forms. And a nightcap.”

“Yes, darling.” She smiled as he glanced sharply at her. You never know, her eyes seemed to say as she gestured comically at the four small walls around her.

He entered his own compartment, and pulled up the window shade. The station was modern; the platform was long and broad, brightly lighted. He forced his window down from the top and looked out. Neither Carlson nor Jan Aarvan appeared, so they were both still on the train. But three men, waiting quietly on the platform, caught his eye. They were dressed in civilian clothes; they carried no bags, not even a briefcase. And
they were the only people on that long platform to board the train. They moved in a tight little group, as if they knew exactly what they wanted. Well, thought Fenner as the minute’s stop at Dijon was over, it seems as if someone did get a message to the Sûreté from the Gare de Lyon. He pulled down the shade, thoughtful, but somehow reassured by his guests.

Claire had made good use of those five minutes. He found her standing on her bed, the pillow pushed aside, reaching up to one of the heavy brackets on the wall just under the high luggage rack. She gave him a smile of triumph. She had found what she had been looking for. But what do we do? he wondered. He suddenly felt useless and stupid, just standing there speechless.