He drove just a shade more savagely than before. He could feel the girl’s body trembling against his. Then ahead he saw what he’d expected to see: the other guardia, second of the customary pair, and the man was lying on the dusty verge, gasping.
Shaw slid to a stop, and he and Debonnair got out quickly and went over to the man. Looking at the big, blood-drained face and now angry eyes of Pepe, Shaw, with an effort, controlled his burning impatience and waited for the man to pull himself together — he was obviously badly injured. Shaw said quietly, “I know your friend was killed… that much I saw. Was it a big car, scarlet and silver and black?”
Pepe nodded.
“We’ll take you with us, amigo, and we’ll catch up with the car that did this.” He added, as he got out to give Debonnair a hand with Pepe, “Which way did they go, did you notice?”
“Señor, they went along the San Pedro road.”
“Right,” said Shaw grimly. “That’s all I wanted to know.” There was a blood-flecked foam on Pepe’s lips as they helped him into the back of the car; Debonnair got in beside him, supported the dying man against her breast. As Shaw jumped in behind the wheel she told him that the man ought to be got to hospital at once. Shaw nodded, let in the clutch. He drove fast but carefully, trying to avoid the bad patches because of Pepe, swinging into the San Pedro road and heading for those wicked hairpin bends. Thank Heaven, the surface was pretty good in parts, perhaps the best in Andalusia.
As they went along he got the story in gasps. He asked, “You would recognize the car — be able to describe it?”
“Si, señor.” Pepe nodded, almost vigorously. “A big, powerful Chevrolet.”
“Get the number, did you?”
“It was going so fast,” said Pepe humbly, “and it was all so sudden, señor.”
Shaw nodded. That was quite understandable. The next thing to do would be to get all the Civil Guard posts alerted, and then Karina’s number would be up. He asked, “Where’s the nearest post with a phone?”
“At the end of this road, señor, where it joins the Malaga-Algeciras road.”
“Okay. Soon as we get there, you’ll get some proper attention, and I’ll ask ’em to use the blower and alert all posts along the line… I’m after that car too.”
But it didn’t work out that way; a couple of miles farther on Shaw heard a horrible shuddering noise of laboured breathing behind him, a kind of bubbling. He heard Debonnair’s sharp intake of breath, and he half turned, saw the look on her face. He asked, “What’s up, Deb?”
“I–I think he’s going, Esmonde.”
“Hell!” Shaw took the car round a bend, stopped with a jab of the foot-brake, and leaned over the seat-back. The man looked ghastly. He got out, opened the rear door, and put a hand over Pepe’s heart. After a minute he looked up at the girl.
“He’s had it all right, poor beggar.”
He saw that there were tears sparkling on her lashes. He looked round, made up his mind fast. “I’m afraid he’s got to go, Debbie — nothing we can do for him, and if we get caught with a dead guardia we’ve had it too.”
She nodded, her lips appearing bloodless. She had an inkling of what Shaw meant to do; she knew he’d hate the idea as much as she, shrink inwardly from it, that it would be another of the things to remain indelibly upon his memory, but she knew too that he had no choice — there was too much in the balance to allow any squeamishness now. As quickly as possible Shaw eased the body from the car, out of its pool of blood, dragged it across the road… he saw, thankfully, that Debonnair had turned away. He laid Pepe gently down by the roadside and quickly said a prayer. Then he lifted the body on to the low stone parapet which topped the steep drop into the valley, and, closing his eyes, rolled it over. He tried not to listen; but as he turned away and went back to the car he could hear Pepe crashing down, down through the stones and the rubble, to land as pulp some hundreds of feet below.
Shaking, he started up. Debonnair had come back into the front now, and she squeezed his arm understandingly.
Some way farther on, Shaw said, “Look, Debbie. It’s no damn use going to that Civil Guard post.” His face was worried, eyes puckered into a frown. “These deaths’ll involve us in explanations that’ll go on till doomsday if I mention them — and if I didn’t I’d have to give some equally tricky reason to get ’em to alert all posts to stop a car.”
“But surely — that’s the best way to stop them, to pick them up, isn’t it? However long it takes.”
“No, it isn’t.” He shook his head decisively. “I know the Spanish, bless ’em! We’d get hung up ourselves for so ruddy long — and they wouldn’t take any action to stop her until they’d asked questions and filled in forms and telephoned for advice and instructions… and come to that, Karina’s quite capable of driving right through a road-check — as we’ve seen. We’d do much better to press on after her ourselves, Debbie. She’s full of tricks; and the Civil Guard are simple folk.”
The girl said sweetly, “Well, my darling, you’re the boss.”
Shaw grinned. “I just like a bit of moral support, that’s all!” He sent the car lurching forward again, and soon he was turning out of the San Pedro road and heading up automatically, unthinkingly, for Malaga. He’d gone about a kilometre along that road when he saw a guardia patrol some distance ahead. Bearing in mind his earlier feeling that Karina might try to confuse the route — and also that he might be quite wrong about Malaga anyway — he decided to make a check; he drove on and stopped alongside the patrol, asked them if they’d seen any signs of a big scarlet-and-silver Chevrolet going fast for Malaga.
They looked blank, and Shaw’s lips tightened.
One said, “No, señor. Nothing of that description has passed us.”
Shaw cursed. “You’re quite certain?”
“Absolutely, señor.”
“Muchissimo gracias.” Quickly Shaw turned the car, headed back along the road towards San Roque. Farther on, he stopped a car coming up from that direction, and for confirmation asked if the driver had seen such a car as Karina’s. The driver had. And well he remembered it… Karina had apparently not slackened speed by the time she’d met him, and the driver was still shaking like a leaf at the way she’d come round a corner. He would be obliged if the señor would kindly pass on what he thought of her, when and if he caught the car up.
Shaw was already moving. He called, “I’ll be telling her a packet, don’t you worry. And thanks!”
Shaw was really worried now. Maybe he had been quite wrong about the Ostrowiec, but surely Karina couldn’t possibly be going to La Linea again? Or could she? There were the other ports. Shaw reviewed the possibilities, and all at once it hit him: Algeciras! Algeciras was one of the most cosmopolitan cities of Andalusia, and from there it was so easy to slip across to Tangier. It must be Algeciras! He drove flat out, past the mountains, through the valleys bright yellow with the little clover-leafed oxalis; flat out, to make up for the time and distance lost, stopping only to top up his tank and a couple of cans at Guadiaro. As he sat wiping sweat from his eyes, waiting impatiently as the petrol went in, Shaw said grimly:
“Let’s hope they get copped for speeding at the San Roque check-point. It looks about the only hope.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN