Touch the Devil (11 page)

"Oh, yes," Barry said in disgust. "I think so."

Salter swallowed the rest of his tea hurriedly. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got a job to finish. A burial tomorrow afternoon, so it won't wait. Jenny will look after you."

He went out. Barry drank the rest of his Scotch. The room wa
s v
ery quiet except for the grandfather clock in the corner. There was an indefinable musty smell to everything, like an old room opened for the first time in many years. It went well with the overstuffed furniture and the nature of the establishment.

When he opened the door, he could smell cooking. He followed the smell along the passage to the old stone-flagged kitchen. The girl stood at the stove stirring something in a pan with a wooden spoon. She glanced over her shoulder.

"It's almost ready," she said in that dead voice as she put down the spoon and wiped her hands over her thighs. "I'm just going out to the shed for more wood for the stove."

She took a large red flashlight from under the sink and moved to the door. Barry was there before her and opened it. "I'll come with you. You could probably do with some help."

She looked up at him, uncertain, then handed him the light. "All right, it's across the yard."

It was treacherous underfoot and Barry picked his way carefully, cursing when he stepped into a puddle. When the girl opened the door of the barn, he saw several vehicles parked inside. A black hearse, a large black limousine, a van, and a Land Rover.

The woodpile was to one side under a loft stuffed with hay. She said, "Over here, Mr. Sinclair," and for a moment, in the light's beam, she looked as beautiful as she had at their first meeting.

She leaned over the woodpile, one knee forward so that the old cotton dress tightened across her thighs. Barry reached out, cupping a hand around her thigh, and she glanced back over her shoulder, and it was there, whatever Salter had thought, in her eyes.

Barry handed her the flashlight and smiled. "You take that, I'll carry the wood."

She stood waiting for him, her face above the light in shadow. He piled half a dozen logs in the crook of one arm and led the way out.

Like any other great city in the world, London has its share o
f d
erelicts, down-and-outs who can no longer help themselves, who sleep rough because they have to.

When Devlin and Harry Fox arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields just before nine o'clock, a Salvation Army mobile canteen was in position, the French camera crew already setting up their equipment. Fox parked the car, and he and Devlin started walking to where Anne-Marie, wrapped in a bulky sheepskin jacket, stood talking to a cheerful-looking woman who wore the uniform of a Salvation Army major. She caught sight of Devlin and Fox approaching and came to greet them.

"Time you two met," Devlin said. "Harry Fox."

"A pleasure, Miss Audin," Fox said gallantly.

"And what would you be doing here then?" Devlin asked. "Aren't those film cameras?"

"Video," she said. "A documentary I'm doing for French television on the underside of London life." She pointed to the figures shambling out from underneath the plane trees. "Men without hope," she said. "Sometimes women. Unemployed, alcoholic, socially inadequate, or just out of prison. When the hostels are full, those who can't get in sleep out-of-doors. The soup and sandwiches they get here are probably the only food they've had today."

They watched for a while as the canteen workers served as derelict a crowd of human beings as Harry Fox had ever seen in his life before.

"This is terrible," he said. "I never realized."

"Some of them sleep over the grills in the pavement of the hotel around the corner, warmed by the steam from the boiler room," she said. "The rest wrap themselves in old newspapers and crowd together in the pavilion in the garden over there. At least it's dry."

"All right," Devlin said. "What are you trying to prove? That you care? I know that. What did you want to see me about?"

"I want to come with you," she said, "in the morning. To Marseilles. You could ask Martin to see me. He might listen to you."

"What about this?" Devlin looked around him.

"Oh, I'll get all the footage I need of this business tonight. I'd intended to return to Paris Tuesday, anyway."

Devlin turned to Fox and nodded. "She could be very useful."

Fox said, "All right, Miss Audin. We'll see you at Heathrow in the morning. No later than ten o'clock, if you don't mind. I'll see to your ticket for you. We'll meet at the entrance to the International Lounge."

"Good," she said and kissed Devlin gravely on each cheek. "Thank you, Liam. And now, I must work, I think."

She walked toward the cameras. At the head of the line at the canteen someone was being violently sick.

"Jesus Mary," Devlin said. "The one thing in this life that turns my stomach. Let's get out of it," and they hurried back to the car.

Salter led the way up a flight of narrow wooden stairs covered in cheap linoleum. The landing was long and narrow, and he opened a door at the end and switched on the light. Barry went in after him, humping the two suitcases, then put them down. There was a double bed with a brass frame, a wardrobe, a dressing table in Victorian mahogany, and a marble washstand.

"You'll be nicely out of the way here," Salter said. "The back stairs are very handy. I'm at the front of the house myself. Just you and Jenny back here." He smiled weakly. "I'll see you in the morning. We'll look at the boat first thing, then I'll take you up to the farm to meet the others."

He backed out, closing the door, and Barry took off his jacket and draped it over a chair. He stood frowning at himself in the cracked mirror above the washstand. There was something wrong. It spoke aloud in the girl's silence, in Salter's sly eyes.

"An unreliable sod if ever I've seen one," Barry said to himself and went to the door and turned the key.

He undressed, got into bed with only the lamp switched on, and sat propped against the pillows smoking and considering the job in hand. It was really very simple. Stop the truck, put the Germans and their escort out of action, drive down to Marsh End with th
e r
ocket pod, load it onto the boat Salter had arranged, and put to sea for the rendezvous with the Russian trawler later that night. Absurdly simple. So much so that something was bound to go wrong.

He lit another cigarette, and at the same moment watched the door knob turn slowly. He reached for the Ceska and was across the room in an instant, turning the key. He wrenched open the door to see Jenny walking back along the passage. She was barefoot and wore a white cotton nightdress, a shawl about her shoulders.

She turned and stared at him dumbly, her eyes taking in the gun in his hand. Yet she showed no reaction--no reaction at all. He stood to one side, and she crept past him into the room. She lay on the bed without a word, staring up at the ceiling, hands folded across the shawl. Barry locked the door, put the Ceska where he could reach it, and got on the bed beside her.

He was surprised at the strength of his own desire. When he kissed her, he was shaking like a boy, and yet there was no response, not even when his hands roamed freely over her body, pushing the nightgown up above her thighs.

She lay there passively, allowing him to do anything he would with her, still not responding, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide. By then, he was past caring, needing her in a way he hadn't needed a woman in years.

Afterward, he rolled to one side, exhausted, and reached for a cigarette. She lay there for a moment longer, then stood up without a word, unlocked the door, and went out.

Barry lay there, smoking, looking up at the ceiling. It was crazy. It didn't make sense. It had been a long time since he'd needed anyone like that, a hell of a long time. He closed his eyes and thought of Norah Cassidy.

Chapter
Six.

The tide was drifting in, gurgling in crab holes, covering the mud flats with an expanse of shining water moving among the sea asters. Somewhere a curlew cried, lonely in a somber world.

Barry and the girl crossed a narrow stone causeway and followed a path through rough marsh grass and head-high reeds. Beyond, they stretched in an unbroken line toward the distant sea on either side of the estuary, swaying, the wind passing through them with an uneasy whispering sound.

Barry said soberly, "You'd swear there were eyes watching you from every thicket."

"Spirits of the dead," she said. "My father used to tell me the Romans were here two thousand years ago. Ravenglass up th
e c
oast was a port even then." She stood there for a moment, a strange, archaic figure in the head scarf and old raincoat. She shivered visibly. "I don't like this place. It frightens me. No one comes here, no local people, unless they can't help it."

She intoned the words in that dead voice of hers like the chorus from some Greek play. Barry said, "Fine. That's exactly how I wan
t i
t."

She moved on along the causeway, and he
followed. A few moments later they emerged beside a narrow creek. There was a decaying wooden jetty stretching out into the water on rotting pilings. To Barry's surprise there were two boats moored there, not one.

The first was real class, with a sharp raking prow and trim lines. It was painted white with a black line along the water mark and was obviously lovingly cared for. The name Kathleen was neatly painted across the bow in gold.

"Mr. Salter's own boat," she said. "He brought the other down from a boatyard outside Ravenglass yesterday."

It was a different proposition altogether, a forty-foot motor cruiser painted black, the name Jason-Fowey so faded that Barry had difficulty reading it. He climbed over the rail and went into the wheelhouse, and the girl followed.

"It doesn't look much, but it's a good boat at sea."

"You've been out in her?"

She nodded. "Mr. Salter uses her from time to time." "What for?"

She shrugged. "Fishing, when he's in the mood. He won't go out in the Kathleen unless the weather's perfect."

"Spends his spare time polishing the binnacle and so on?" She looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?"

"Oh, it figures." He lit a cigarette and offered her one. She shoo
k h
er head, and he said, "The men at the farm, have you seen the
m y
et?"

"I took milk up this morning."

"Old friends of Mr. Salter's?"

"I wouldn't know that. I've never seen them before."

"But you didn't like them?" They were standing close, shoulders touching, and he was filled with that irrational excitement again. She turned almost unwillingly, eyes down, and he gently stroked her face with the back of one hand. She leaned close. Outside, footsteps boomed on the jetty.

Barry went on deck as Salter stepped over the rail. "Ah, there you are, Mr. Sinclair," Salter said. "Will she do?"

"The other looks a better proposition to me," Barry said.

Salter was dismayed and showed it. "My own boat, Mr. Sinclair, a beautiful boat as you can see. You could sail to the Mediterranean in that boat. But the Jason here--there's more to her than meets the eye, I can assure you. She may not look much, but if you check the engine room, you'll find a Penta petrol engine. She'll do twenty-two knots. Depth sounder, automatic steering."

"All right," Barry said. "I'll take your word for it."

Salter looked relieved. "Good, and now, if you don't mind, I'll take you up to the farm and introduce you to Preston and Varley. As I told you, I have a funeral today, and I really am rather pressed for time."

Hedley Preston awoke and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, he couldn't think where he was, and then he remembered. His mouth tasted bad, his throat dry, and he got up and reached for the whisky bottle on the locker. It was empty, and he tossed it into a corner. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. He was a lean, sardonic-looking man with tangled dark hair and a face that was just beginning to show the first signs of dissipation.

He lit a cigarette, coughing as the smoke caught at the back of his throat, and peered out of the window at the sodden hillside. "Jesus," he said, "the joys of the countryside." And he opened the door.

Jenny Crowther, her mouth open in fear, stumbled into him.

***

Sam Varley was just behind her. Varley was an ox of a man, in soiled sweatshirt and corduroy trousers, and the eyes were wild in the fleshy face. Preston held the girl in the crook of his arm and fended Varley off.

"Okay, what's the problem?"

"I had a two-hundred pack of fags in my room last night. Now they're gone. That bitch must have taken them."

His breath was sour, and not only with the stench of last night's drinking, for there was a sharp, fresh edge to it that indicated he had already been at the bottle.

"You lost the whole pack to me at poker last night," Preston sai
d p
atiently. "Too bloody drunk to remember, that's your trouble." "To hell with that," Varley said. "You're just trying to protec
t h
er."