‘About five o’clock, sir. But you don’t need to go ashore until seven, unless o’ course, you’d like to.’
‘Thank you.’ Inwardly Pitt groaned. They would have to be up and watching from then on, in case Wrexham chose to leave early. He could be on the next train to Paris and they would never see him again. To oversleep would be a disaster. Since Pitt had nothing with him for a night away from home, that meant he had no alarm clock either.
‘Better bring me two glasses of cider,’ he said with a wry smile.
Would Gower think to ask the arrival time? Pitt had no idea where he was, and did not want to attract attention by looking for him. Later, perhaps. Wrexham would be able to sleep as soundly and as long as he wished. He could not imagine such a man being disturbed by the nightmares of conscience.
Pitt slept on and off, and he was awake and on edge when he saw Gower coming towards him on the deck as the ferry nosed its way slowly towards the harbour of St Malo. It was not yet dawn, but there was a clear sky, and he could see the outline of medieval ramparts against the stars. The walls must have been fifty or sixty feet high at the least, and looked to be interspersed with great towers such as in the past would have been manned by archers. Perhaps on some of them there would have been men in armour, with cauldrons of boiling oil to tip on those brave enough, or foolish enough, to try climbing ladders to scale the defences. It was like a journey backwards in time.
He was so enthralled with the sight that he was jerked into reality by Gower’s voice behind him.
‘I see you are awake. At least I assume you are?’ It was a question.
‘Not sure,’ Pitt replied. ‘That looks distinctly like a dream to me.’
‘Did you sleep?’ Gower asked.
‘A little. You?’
Gower shrugged. ‘Not much. Too afraid of missing him. Do you suppose he’s going to make for the first train to Paris?’
It was a very reasonable question. Paris was a cosmopolitan city, a hotbed of ideas, philosophies, dreams both practical and absurd. It was the ideal place to meet for those who would change the world. The two great revolutions of the last hundred years had been born there. That of Marat, Danton and Robespierre, of Charlotte Corday, the guillotine, and the end of the great kings of France, had reigned here with terror and dreams that had changed the world. And there was the revolution of 1848, which had died, almost without trace.
‘Probably,’ Pitt answered. ‘But he could get off anywhere.’ He was thinking how hard it would be to follow Wrexham in Paris. Should they arrest him while they still had the chance? In the heat of the chase yesterday it had seemed like a good idea to see where he went, and more importantly, who he met. Now, when they were cold, tired, hungry and stiff, it felt a lot less sensible. In fact it was probably absurd.
‘We’d better arrest him and take him back,’ he said aloud.
‘Then we’ll have to do it before we get off,’ Gower pointed out. ‘Once we’re on French soil we’ll have no authority. Even the captain here is going to wonder why we didn’t do it in Southampton.’ His voice took on a note of urgency, his face grave. ‘Look, sir, I speak pretty good French. I’ve still got a reasonable amount of money. We could send a telegram to Narraway to have someone meet us in Paris. Then there wouldn’t be just the two of us. Maybe the French police would be pleased for the chance to follow him too?’
Pitt turned towards him, but he could barely make out his features in the faint light of the sky, and the dim reflection of the ship’s lights. ‘If he goes straight for the town, we’ll have no time to send a telegram,’ he pointed out. ‘It’ll take both of us to follow him. I don’t know why he hasn’t noticed us already.’ Actually that thought had troubled him through the night. Both he and Gower were above average height. In St Malo they would be even more conspicuous. Not only would their language betray them, but the cut of their clothes and the fact that they were obviously strangers. Wrexham could hardly be so blind as not to notice them in the clarity of daylight.
‘We should arrest him,’ he told Gower with regret. ‘Faced with the certainty of the rope, he might feel like talking.’
‘Faced with the certainty of the rope, he’d have nothing to gain,’ Gower pointed out.
Pitt smiled grimly. ‘Narraway’ll think of something, if what he says is worth enough.’
‘He might not go for the train,’ Gower said quickly, moving his weight to lean forward a little. ‘We were assuming he’ll go to Paris. Perhaps he won’t? Maybe whoever he’s going to meet is here. Why come to St Malo otherwise? He could have gone to Dover, and taken the train from Calais to Paris, if that was where he wanted to be. He still doesn’t know we’re on to him. He thinks he lost us in Ropemakers’ Fields. Let’s at least give it a chance!’
The argument was persuasive, and Pitt could see it might be worth waiting a little longer. ‘Right,’ he conceded. ‘But if he goes to the railway station, we’ll take him.’ He made a slight grimace. ‘If we can. He might shout for help that he’s being kidnapped. We couldn’t prove he wasn’t.’
‘Do you want to give up?’ Gower asked. His voice was tight with disappointment and Pitt thought he heard a trace of contempt in it.
‘No.’ There was no uncertainty in the decision. Special Branch was not primarily about justice for crimes, it was about preventing civil violence and the betrayal, subversion or overthrow of the government. They were too late to save West’s life. ‘No, I don’t,’ he repeated.
When they disembarked in the broadening daylight it was not difficult to pick Wrexham out from the crowd and follow him. He didn’t go, as Pitt had feared, to the train station, but into the magnificently walled old city. They did not dare lose sight of him, or Pitt would have taken time to look with far more interest at the massive ramparts as they went in through a vast entrance gate, which would have allowed several carriages to pass abreast. Once inside, narrow streets crisscrossed each other, the doors of the buildings flush with the footpaths. Dark walls towered four or five storeys high in uniform grey-black stone. It had a stern beauty he would have liked to explore, as if in those few yards they had stepped back in history. Knights on horseback would have ridden these streets, or swaggering corsairs straight from plunder at sea.
But they had to keep close to Wrexham. He was walking quickly as if he knew precisely where he was going, and not once did he look behind him. If he were out of their sight for more than a few seconds they could lose him. A knock at any of the entrances and he would disappear.
It was perhaps fifteen minutes later, when they were further to the south, when Wrexham stopped. He knocked briefly, and was let into a large house just off a stone-paved square, which was actually little more than a doubling of the width of street to perhaps thirty feet across. A slender tree decorated it, softening the harshness of the lines and giving it grace and character.
Pitt and Gower waited for nearly an hour, moving around, trying not to look conspicuous, but Wrexham did not come out again. Pitt imagined him having a hot breakfast and a wash and shave, and clean clothes. He said as much to Gower.
Gower rolled his eyes. ‘Sometimes it’s a lot easier being the villain,’ he said ruefully. ‘I could do very well by bacon, eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, then fresh toast and marmalade and a good pot of tea.’ Then he grinned. ‘Sorry. I hate to suffer alone.’
‘You’re not!’ Pitt responded with feeling. ‘We’ll do something like that, before we go and send a telegram to Narraway, then find out who lives in number seven,’ he glanced up at the wall, ‘Rue St-Martin.’
‘It’ll be hot coffee and fresh bread,’ Gower told him. ‘Apricot jam, if you’re lucky. Nobody understands marmalade except the British.’
‘Don’t they understand bacon and eggs?’ Pitt asked incredulously.
‘Omelette, maybe?’