The Way to Dusty Death (22 page)

Then you’d better shoot me now. Number eight.’

‘Cuneo. Then parts beyond.’ His voice was harsh but had the ring of sincerity. ‘I never make war on women. You’ll be released within twenty-four hours.’

‘I’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘May I go to the bathroom? I feel sick.’

Jacobson opened the bathroom door and looked inside. ‘No window. No telephone. OK.’

Mary entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She took a pen from her handbag, scribbled a few shaky words on a piece of paper, placed the paper face down on the floor behind the door and left. Jacob-son was waiting for her. He had her case in his left hand, a gun in the other. Both gun and right hand were buried deep in his jacket pocket.

On board
The Chevalier,
Yonnie thrust the last of the documents from the chart-table into a large briefcase. He returned to the saloon, placed the briefcase on a settee and went down the companionway to the accommodation quarters. He went to his own cabin and there spent a hurried five minutes in cramming his own most personal possessions into a canvas bag. He then made a tour of the other cabins, rifling the drawers for whatever money or articles of value that he might find. He found a considerable amount, returned to his own cabin and stuffed them inside his bag. He zipped the bag shut and climbed up the companionway. Four steps from the top he stopped. His face should have been masked in disbelief and terror but it wasn’t. Yonnie had run out of emotions and the capacity to display them.

Four very large armed policemen were resting comfortably on the settees in the saloon. A sergeant, with the briefcase on his knees, his elbow on the case and a gun in his hand pointing approximately hi the direction of Yonnie’s heart, said genially: ‘Going some place Yonnie?’

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Once again, the Ferrari was moving through the darkness. Harlow was not idling but neither was he pushing the car hard. As on the trip from Marseilles to Bandol, it seemed that the need for urgency was not there. Mrs. MacAlpine was in the front passenger seat wearing, at Harlow’s insistence, a double safety belt. A rather drowsy Rory was stretched out on the back seats.

Harlow said: ‘So, you see, it was all quite simple, really. Jacobson was the master-mind behind this particular operation. It will turn out that the Marzio brothers were the ones that really mattered. Anyway, it was Jacobson’s idea to gamble on the Grand Prix drivers and he altered the odds in his favour by suborning no fewer that five drivers. Plus even more mechanics. He paid them plenty — but he made a fortune himself. I was the thorn in his flesh — he knew better than to try to get at me, and as I was winning the majority ©f the races it was making his business very difficult indeed. So he tried to kill me at Clermont-Ferrand. I have proof— both stills and cine film.’

In the rear Rory stirred sleepily. ‘But how could he do that to you while you were on the track?’

‘Me? And a lot of others? Two ways. A radio-controlled explosive device on a suspension strut or a chemically operated explosive device on the hydraulic brake lines. Both devices, I imagine, would blow clear on detonation and leave no trace of their presence. Anyway, it’s on film record that Jacobson replaced both a strut and a brake line.’

Rory said: ‘Which is why he always insisted on being alone when inspecting smashed cars?’

Harlow nodded, temporarily lost in thought. Mrs. MacAlpine said : ‘But how — how could you degrade yourself in this awful fashion?’

‘Well, it wasn’t all that pleasant. But you know the blaze of publicity I live in. I couldn’t move privately, more or less to brush my teeth, than to do the job I was asked to. I had to take the heat off myself, step out of the limelight and become a loner. It wasn’t all that difficult. As for working my way down to the transporter job —well, I
had
to find out whether the stuff was coming from the Coronado garage or not. It was.’

The stuff?’

The dust. European jargon for heroin. My dear Marie, there are more ways to dusty death than losing control on a Grand Prix race-track.’

The way to dusty death.’ She shivered and repeated the words. the way to dusty death. Did James know about this, Johnny?’

‘He knew six months ago that the transporter was being used —oddly enough, he never suspected Jacob-son. They’d been together too long, I suppose. Some way, any way, they had to have the price of his silence. You were that price. And for good measure he was also being blackmailed for approximately twenty-five thousand pounds a month.’

She was silent for almost a minute then she said: ‘Did James know I was still alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he knew about the heroin —all those months he knew. Think of all those people ruined, perhaps dead. Think of all-’

Harlow reached out his right hand and caught her left in his. ‘I think, Marie, that perhaps he loves you.’

A car approached then, headlights dipped. Harlow dipped his. Briefly, as if by mistake, the approaching car’s headlights came on full beam, then dipped again.

As they passed each other, the driver of the other cab turned to his passenger, a girl with her hands bound in front of her.

Tut! Tut! Tut!’ Jacobson sounded in almost high humour. ‘Young Lochinvar headed in the wrong direction.’

In the Ferrari Mrs. MacAlpine said: ‘And James will have to stand trial for his - complicity in this heroin traffic?’

‘James will never stand trial for anything.’

‘But heroin —’

Harlow said: ‘Heroin? Heroin? Rory, did you hear anyone mentioning the word ‘heroin’?’

‘Mother’s been through a pretty rough time,. Mr. Harlow. I think she is beginning to imagine things.’ ‘

The Aston Martin pulled up outside a darkened cafe on the outskirts of Bandol. A violently shivering Traccia emerged from the shadows and climbed into the back of the Aston Martin.

He said : ‘Complete with insurance policy, I see. Now, for God’s sake, Jake, stop at the first clump of trees outside Bandol. Unless I change out of these clothes damn quick I’m going to freeze to death.’

‘Right. Where’s Yonnie?’

‘In gaol.’

‘Jesus!
’
Even the abnormally phlegmatic Jacobson was shaken. ‘What in the hell happened?’

‘I’d sent Yonnie out in the dinghy while I was phoning you. I’d told him to bring ashore all the papers and documents in the two top drawers in the chart-table. You know how important those are, Jake?’

‘I know.’ There was no disguising the harsh edge of strain in Jacobson’s voice.

‘Remember I’d told you that I thought Harlow had phoned Vignolles? He hadn’t. The bastard had phoned the Bandol police. They arrived while I was still in the phone booth. There was nothing I could do. They rowed out to
The Chevalier
and nabbed him there.’

‘And the papers?
^’

‘One of the police was carrying a large attache case.’

‘I don’t think that Bandol is a very healthy place for us to be.’ Jacobson was back on balance again. He drove off but not in a fashion ostentatious enough to attract attention. As they reached the outskirts of the town he said: That’s it, then. What with those papers and that cassette the whole operation’s blown.
Termine. Fine.
The end of the road.’ He seemed remarkably calm.

‘And now?’

‘Operation fly-away. I’ve had it planned for months. First stop is our flat in Cuneo.’

‘Nobody knows about it?’

‘Nobody. Except Willi. And he won’t talk. Besides, it’s not under our names anyway.’ He pulled up alongside a thicket of trees. the boot’s unlocked and the grey case is yours. Those clothes you’re wearing — leave them among the trees.’

‘Why? It’s a perfectly good suit and — ‘

‘What’s going to happen if the Customs search us and find a suit of soaking wet clothes?’

‘You have a point,’ Tracchia said and got out of the car. When he returned in two or three minutes, Jacob-son was in the back seat. Tracchia said: ‘You want me to drive? ‘

‘We’re in a Hurry and my name is not Nicolo Tracchia.’ As Tracchia engaged gear he went on: ‘We should have no trouble with the Customs and police at the Col de Tende. The word won’t be out for hours yet. It’s quite possible that they haven’t discovered that Mary is missing yet. Besides, they’ve no idea where we’re heading. No reason why they should notify border police.

But by the time we reach the Swiss frontier we may be in trouble.’ ‘So?’

Two hours in Cuneo. We’ll switch cars, leave the Aston in the garage and take the Peugeot. Pack some more clothes for ourselves, pick up our other passports and identification papers, then call in Erita and our photographer friend. Within the hour Erita will have turned our Mary into a blonde and very shortly afterwards our friend will have a nice shiny British passport for her. Then we drive up to Switzerland. If the word is out, then the border boys will be on the alert. Well, as alert as those cretins can be in the middle of the night. But they’ll be looking for an Aston Martin with one man and a brunette inside - that’s assuming our friends back in Vignolles have managed to put two and two together, which I very much doubt. But they won’t be looking for two men and blonde in a Peugeot, with passports carrying completely different names.’

Tracchia was now driving the car close to its limits and he had almost to shout to make himself heard. The Aston Martin is a magnificent machine but not particularly renowned for the quietness of its engine: there were carping critics who occasionally maintained that the engines for the David Brown tractor division found their way into the wrong machines. Ferrari and Lamborghini owners had been known to describe it as the fastest lorry in Europe. Tracchia said : ‘You sound very sure of yourself, Jake.’

‘I am.’

Tracchia glanced at the girl by his side. ‘And Mary here? God knows we’re no angels but I don’t want any harm to come to her.’

‘No harm. I told her I don’t make war on women and I’ll keep my word on that. She’s our safe conduct if the police come after us.’

‘
Or
Johnny Harlow?’

‘Or Harlow. When we get to Zurich, each of us will go to the bank in turns, cash and transfer money while the others keeps her as hostage. Then we fly out into the wild blue yonder.’

‘You expect trouble in Zurich?’

‘None. We haven’t even been arrested far less convicted so our Zurich friends won’t open up. Besides, we’re under different names and with numbered accounts.’

The wild blue yonder? With teleprinted copies of our photographs at every airport in the world?’

‘Only the major ones on scheduled flights. Lots of minor airfields around. There’s a private flight division in Kloten airport and I have a pilot friend there. He’ll file a flight plan for Geneva which will mean that we don’t have to pass customs. We’ll land somewhere quite a way from Switzerland. He can always claim that he was hi-jacked. Ten thousand Swiss francs should fit it.’

You think of everything, don’t you, Jake?’ There was genuine admiration in Tracchia’s voice.

‘I try.’ Jacobson, uncharacteristically, sounded almost complacent. ‘I try.’

The red Ferrari was drawn up outside the chalet in Vignolles. MacAlpine held his sobbing wife in his arms but he was not looking as happy as he might have done in the circumstances. Dunnet approached Harlow.

‘How do you feel, boy?’

‘Bloody well exhausted.’

‘I’ve bad news, Johnny. Jacobson’s gone.’

‘He can wait. I’ll get him.’

‘There’s more to it than that, Johnny.’

‘What?’

‘He’s token Mary with him.’

Harlow stood immobile, his drawn and weary face without expression. He said: ‘Does James know?’

‘I’ve just told him. And I think he’s just telling his wife.’ He handed a note to Harlow. ‘I found this in Mary’s bathroom.’

Harlow looked at it. ‘ ‘Jacobson is taking me to Cuneo.’ ‘ Without even a pause he said: I’ll go now.’

‘You can’t, man! You’re totally exhausted. You said so yourself.’

‘Not any more. Come with me?’

Dunnet accepted the inevitable. ‘You stop me. But I’ve no gun.’

‘Guns we have,’ Rory said. He produced four as proof of his assertion. ‘‘ -’We?’ Harlow said. ‘You’re not coming.’

‘I would remind you, Mr. Harlow,’ Rory said with some asperity, that I saved your life twice tonight. All good things come in threes. I have the right.’ ‘ ‘ Harlow nodded. ‘You have the right.’

MacAlpine and his wife were staring numbly at them. The expressions on their faces were an extraordinary combination of happiness and a broken bewilderment.

MacAlpine said, tears in his eyes: ‘Alexis has told me everything. I’ll never be able to thank you, I’ll never be able to forgive myself and the rest of my life will be too short for the apologies I have to make to you. You destroyed your career, ruined yourself, to bring my Marie back.’

‘Ruined me?’ Harlow said calmly. ‘Nonsense. There’s another season coming up.’ He smiled without mirth. ‘And there’ll be a fair bit of the top-flight opposition missing.’ He smiled again, this time encouragingly. ‘I’ll bring Mary back. With your help, James. Everybody knows you. You know everybody and you’re a millionaire. There’s only one way from here to Cuneo. Phone someone, preferably some big trucking firm in Nice. Offer them £10,000 to block the French end of the Cool de Tende. My passport’s gone. You ‘understand ?’

‘I’ve a friend in Nice who would do it for nothing. But what’s the use, Johnny? It’s a job for the police.’

‘No. And I’m not thinking about the continental habit of first of all riddling wanted cars and then asking the dead bodies questions. What I —’

‘Johnny, whether you or the police get to them first makes no difference. I know now that you know everything, have known for a long time. Those are the two men who will bring me down.’

Harlow said mildly: there’s a third man, James. Willi Neubauer. But he’ll never talk. Admission to kidnapping would bring him another ten years in prison. You weren’t listening to me, James. Phone Nice. Phone Nice now. All I said was that I would bring Mary back.’