‘Why is Countess Marie crying?’
‘You have a long lifeline–’
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Please.’
‘All right. Why are you crying, please?’
‘I’m sorry. I – I’m upset.’
‘You mean I’ve only got to walk into a place–’
‘My young brother is missing.’
‘Your brother? I know someone’s missing. Everyone knows. Alexandre. But your brother. They haven’t found him?’
She shook her head, the titian hair brushing across the table.
‘And that’s your mother in the big green-and-white caravan?’
A nod this time. She didn’t look up.
‘But why all the tears? He’s only been missing for a little while. He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’
Again she said nothing. She put her forearms on the table and her head on her forearms and cried silently, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Bowman, his face bitter, touched the young gypsy’s shoulder, rose and left the booth. But when he emerged the expression on his face was one of dazed bewilderment. Cecile glanced at him in some trepidation.
‘Four kids,’ Bowman said quietly. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the archway towards the forecourt. Le Grand Duc, the blonde girl still with him, was talking to an impressively scar-faced and heavily built gypsy dressed in dark trousers and frilled off-white shirt. Bowman ignored Cecile’s disapproving frown and halted a few convenient feet away.
‘A thousand thanks, Mr Koscis, a thousand thanks,’ Le Grand Duc was saying in his most gracious lord of the manor voice. ‘Immensely interesting, immensely. Come, Lila, my dear, enough is enough. I think we have earned ourselves a drink and a little bite to eat.’ Bowman watched them make their way towards the steps leading to the patio, then turned and looked consideringly at the green-and-white caravan.
Cecile said: ‘Don’t.’
Bowman looked at her in surprise.
‘And what’s wrong with wanting to help a sorrowing mother? Maybe I can comfort her, help in some way, perhaps even go looking for her missing boy. If more people would be more forthcoming in times of trouble, be more willing to risk a snub–’
‘You really are a fearful hypocrite,’ she said admiringly.
‘Besides, there’s a technique to this sort of thing. If Le Grand Duc can do it, I can. Still your apprehensions.’
Bowman left her there nibbling the tip of a thumb in what did appear to be a very apprehensive manner indeed and mounted the caravan steps.
At first sight the interior appeared to be deserted, then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom and he realized he was standing in an unlighted vestibule leading to the main living quarters beyond, identifiable by a crack of light from an imperfectly constructed doorway and the sound of voices, women’s voices.
Bowman took a step through the outer doorway. A shadow detached itself from a wall, a shadow possessed of the most astonishing powers of acceleration and the most painful solidity. It struck Bowman on the breastbone with the top of a head that had the unforgiving consistency of a cement bollard: Bowman made it all the way to the ground without the benefit of even one of the caravan steps. Out of the corner of an eye he was dimly aware of Cecile stepping hurriedly and advisedly to one side then he landed on his back with a momentarily numbing impact that took care of any little air that bullet-head had left in his lungs in the first place. His glasses went flying off into the middle distance and as he lay there whooping and gasping for the oxygen that wouldn’t come the shadow came marching purposefully down the steps. He was short, thick-set, unfriendly, had a speech to make and was clearly determined on making it. He stooped, grabbed Bowman by the lapels and hauled him to his feet with an ease that boded ill for things to come.
‘You will remember me, my friend.’ His voice had the pleasant timbre of gravel being decanted from a metal hopper. ‘You will remember that Hoval does not like trespassers. You will remember that next time Hoval will not use his fists.’
From this Bowman gathered that on this occasion Hoval did intend to use his fists and he did. Only one, but it was more than enough. Hoval hit him in the same place and, as far as Bowman could judge from the symptoms transmitted by a now nearly paralysed midriff, with approximately the same amount of force. He took half-a-dozen involuntary backward steps and then came heavily to earth again, this time in a seated position with his hands splayed out behind him. Hoval dusted off his hands in an unpleasant fashion and marched back up into the caravan again. Cecile looked around till she located Bowman’s glasses, then came and offered him a helping hand which he wasn’t too proud to accept.
‘I think Le Grand Duc must use a different technique,’ she said gravely.
‘There’s a lot of ingratitude in this world,’ Bowman wheezed.
‘Isn’t there just? Through with studying human nature for the night?’ Bowman nodded, it was easier than speaking. ‘Then for goodness’ sake let’s get out of here. After that, I need a drink.’
‘What do you think I require?’ Bowman croaked.
She looked at him consideringly. ‘Frankly, I think a nanny would be in order.’ She took his arm and led him up the steps to the patio. Le Grand Duc, with a large bowl of fruit before him and Lila by his side, stopped munching a banana and regarded Bowman with a smile so studiously impersonal as to be positively insulting.
‘That was a rousing set-to you had down there,’ he observed.
‘He hit me when I wasn’t looking,’ Bowman explained.
‘Ah!’ Le Grand Duc said non-committally, then added in a penetrating whisper when they’d moved on less than half-a-dozen feet: ‘As I said, long past his prime.’ Cecile squeezed Bowman’s arm warningly but unnecessarily: he gave her the wan smile of one whose cup is overful and led her to the table. A waiter brought drinks.
Bowman fortified himself and said: ‘Well, now. Where shall we live? England or France?’
‘What?’
‘You heard what the fortune-teller said.’
‘Oh, my God!’
Bowman lifted his glass. ‘To David.’
‘David?’
‘Our eldest. I’ve just chosen his name.’
The green eyes regarding Bowman so steadily over the rim of a glass were neither amused nor exasperated, just very thoughtful. Bowman became very thoughtful himself. It could be that Cecile Dubois was, in that well-turned phrase, rather more than just a pretty face.
Chapter 2
Certainly, two hours later, no one could have referred to Bowman’s as a pretty face. It could be said in fairness that, owing to various troubles it had encountered from time to time, it didn’t have very much going for it in the first place but the black stocking mask he’d pulled up almost to the level of his eyes gave it an even more discouraging look than it normally possessed.
He’d changed his grey gaberdine for a dark one and his white shirt for a navy roll-neck pullover. Now he put the spectacles he had worn for disguise away in his suitcase, switched off the overhead light and stepped out on to the terrace.
All the bedrooms on that floor opened on to the same terrace. Lights came from two of them. In the first, the curtains were drawn. Bowman moved to the door and its handle gave fractionally under his hand. Cecile’s room, he knew: a trusting soul. He moved on to the next lit window, this one uncurtained, and peered stealthily round the edge.
A commendable precaution, but superfluous: had he done an Apache war dance outside that window it was doubtful whether either of the two occupants would have noticed or, if they had, would have cared very much. Le Grand Duc and Lila, his black and her blonde head very close together, were seated side by side in front of a narrow table: Le Grand Duc, a tray of canapés beside him, appeared to be teaching the girl the rudiments of chess. One would have thought that the customary vis-à-vis position would have been more conductive to rapid learning: but then, Le Grand Duc had about him the look of a man who would always adopt his own strongly original attitude to all that he approached. Bowman moved on.