It was the third day of the heatwave and the sun streamed down on me, seemed to be floodlighting me as I paused for a moment on the doorstep, reading the name plates and apartment numbers, feeling very apprehensive and not much comforted by the sagging weight in my jacket pocket of the loaded Colt with its safety catch now off.
It was a tall old building, a four-storey walk-up; I didn’t bother to ring the bell but marched straight in and began climbing the stone stairs. It was a spooky building, quiet, dusty. From the outside it looked smart; inside it was shabby. Unusual for France, where it is usually the reverse. Apartment 5 was at the end of the third-floor landing. I rang the bell and then, for no particular reason, stepped aside.
In the event it proved to be a wise move: the door was ripped to shreds by a torrent of sub-machine gun bullets and, with the gun still firing, the lovely Madame de Vouvrey came crashing through it, blazing off in every direction except — fortunately for me, unfortunately for her — mine. I cracked the Webley off twice. Madame de Vouvrey, if it was indeed Madame de Vouvrey who had this engaging manner of answering the doorbell, was 6½ feet of very vicious-looking bloke with oily black hair and a dark, oily complexion. He recoiled against the door post, looking decidedly like he wished he hadn’t got out of bed today; blood shot out of the centre of his forehead and out the top of his chest. The sten gun dropped to the floor and clattered down the stairs, loosing off bursts of fire on its own as it went.
A second gorilla appeared in the doorway, brandishing an ugly-looking piece of lead-firing ironmongery. I cracked off a bullet into him, and he slammed over backwards. Then my left arm suddenly felt like it had been hit with a red-hot sledge hammer, and it flew up and cracked against the wall; there was a whining, splitting sound past my right ear, and bits of wall showered out at me. I spun around and saw another man, thin, small with a goatee beard, about to loose another shot off at me from a small automatic. I took the only course of evasion: a headlong dive down onto him, pumping the Webley’s trigger for all I was worth. I heard it crack and crack and crack and then click, and then I head-over-heeled and landed on top of his very fresh corpse.
I lay there for a few moments, my arm in agony, waiting for the next bullet to come at me. The Colt was empty and I felt around with my right arm for the bearded man’s gun. No bullets did come at me, and after a few moments more my hand closed over the automatic.
The silence continued but I waited a full couple of minutes before daring to stand up. In agony though my left arm was, I was still clutching the silver parcel. I staggered to my feet and then, bursting in from the street, came France’s answer to Knacker of the Yard with his troupe of boys in blue, and for a glorious moment I’d never been so damn glad to see the fuzz in all my life, until I suddenly realised I was standing among three dead men, holding a smoking automatic in one hand and 5 pounds of heroin in the other. I must have looked pretty damn cute.
8
The only courtesy I had from the French police during that entire following week was a choice of bunks in the celclass="underline" top bunk or bottom bunk. I’d taken the top and was glad of my decision, for sometime during every night they brought in a drunk who collapsed into the bottom bunk and would spend the night alternating between grunting and throwing up. Every morning they’d take him away again. I never got to see the faces of the drunks clearly; for all I knew, it could have been the same one every night.
The week had been pure hell and I was nearing the end of my tether. My arm hurt like hell from where the bullet had been removed, but I hadn’t been afforded the luxury of a single night in a hospital bed — they stitched my arm up, bandaged it, and put me straight into the cell. I was sore all over, damn bloody sore.
It was hot, airless and gloomy in the cell; a few streaks of sunlight occasionally managed to find their way in through the maze of bars in a small grille high up in the wall, but all they did was to heighten the gloom below. The police had not permitted me to make any telephone calls and had firmly indicated I was not going to be allowed to make any: not to the consulate, not to a lawyer, not to anywhere. Monsieur was not going to receive any aid from anyone until he had fully divulged the identity of the entire drugs ring.
The ad in The Times, the visit from Wetherby did not seem to interest them. They insisted they wanted the truth. For seven days they had dragged me in and out of that cell, into another windowless room but with very bright lighting, where they had interrogated me. Soon I was going to start yelling at them, those mean sods that stank of yesterday’s garlic. There was nothing more I could do. I didn’t know any more, unless they wanted me to start inventing things, which I didn’t think would do me very much good in the long run.
I cursed every night, through the long nights, at having been so stupid, having landed myself in this for a lousy £500, which I probably no longer even had. If I ever got out of here I knew what I was going to do. I was going to find Wetherby and knock his block off.
But he saved me the trouble.
The warder came as usual to take me to the first session of the day and took me into the room that I by now knew only too well. I sat on the wooden chair and waited for my interrogators to show up. Instead, Wetherby came in.
He didn’t shake my hand this time but lowered himself with considerable effort into a chair near me. He was still wearing the same mac, the same thick suit, the same green tie. His shirt was of a more lightweight nature. The beads of perspiration were in place on his head and he mopped them off with what looked like the same filthy handkerchief. He puffed a couple of times, and then patted his thighs. He looked cheerful.
‘Well, old boy, you’re in a spot of trouble.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Spot of trouble all right; oh dear, oh dear.’
He did not give me the impression of being a man under arrest. ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.
‘Me? Heard you were in a spot of bother — just popped in — see how you’re getting on.’
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Hot in here,’ he said. ‘Bad on air-conditioning, the French. Can’t understand it — always hot summers, always no air-conditioning. Not much in England either. No. Americans have it. They all have it.’
Wetherby was looking smug. In fact he was looking pretty damn pleased with himself. His arrival in this room placed an extremely odd complexion on things. Extremely odd. He looked decidedly as though he knew something, and I was more than mildly curious to find out what. ‘Will you tell me who the hell you are?’
‘Long sentences, drugs, in France. Very long. Hard labour. Nasty prisons. No remissions. Heroin — minimum of five years. Yes, minimum of five years. Never usually get that. Fourteen, fifteen, maybe less; twelve, perhaps. Not good, heroin.’ He patted his thighs again; it was an irritating habit. ‘Murder’s very bad. Very bad. Still got the guillotine; rarely used, though. Usually life. Long time, life, in France. Twenty years. Maybe thirty. Not good.’
There was a long silence — very long. Oddly I felt calmer. I wasn’t so scared now, scared the way I had been during the past week. There was something about this peculiar man that was comforting.
Then I felt it all welling up inside me again, churning my stomach inside out. I was in here for real. This was a real prison. I was a real criminal. I wasn’t at school any more, about to be gated or caned for a misdemeanour. I wasn’t at Sandhurst, about to get a right dressing down for blowing up a dummy tank half an hour before the Field Marshal came to inspect the exercise. I was a heroin-runner and a murderer. A court of justice would dictate my future and they were going to put me behind bars until well into my middle age. I felt myself quivering, and started hating and loving and hating and loving Wetherby; hating him because he had been responsible for putting me here, loving him because — somehow, somewhere, someplace along the line — he had to represent hope. He had to. ‘Help me.’