Midnight Plus One

'How much luck?'

'A certain amount. If they're watching the frontier, we might have to wait until dark to cross.'

She frowned, puzzled. 'If they don't catch us tonight, won't they assume they've missed us?'

I shook my head. 'Wrong approach to police mentality. If they don't catch us, they'll assume we haven't tried yet. Unfortunately, they'll be right.'

Then her number came through and I drifted off to chat with themaire.

ELEVEN

At half past seven the next morning I was drinking black coffee with Madame Meliot and Miss Jarman.

I wouldn't say life seemed much fun right then, but at least I had that feeling that you know you're going to feel okay sooner or later. I'd sat up for an hour after the telephone calls drinkingmarc with Meliot himself and recalling the Resistance days and asking what had happened to old so-and-so? We hadn't mentioned Giles.

Meliot came in from somewhere outside, clapped me on the shoulder, and then said something I missed to Madame. She turned round and kissed me.

That woke me. I started to say:'Mais, pourquoi-?'

The girl said: 'I think it must be those flowers – the wild daffodils – you left on their son's grave yesterday. He must have seen them.'

'I did? Oh – so that's what you were doing when I lost you.'

I smiled back at Madame and shrugged meaninglessly. She called me an Englishman and went to get more coffee. Meliot had vanished, too.

I looked at the girclass="underline" 'Thanks. I suppose I should have thought of it.'

'Englishmen never think of flowers. But the gesture wasn't out of character. For a moment I wondered why you'd expect them to put us up, when you'd got their son killed on a job you were doing.' She sipped her coffee. 'Then, when you said you'd gone on with the guns to Lyons, I understood: you could have thrown his body out at the roadside. Instead, you took it up to Lyons and then brought it all the way back here. It must have been quite a risk. I see why they like you.'

Madame came back with the coffee; Meliot came back and poured a shot ofmarc into it. I tried protesting, but it didn't help. They stood around grinning at me while I drank it. Well, there are worse ways to start a day.

Harvey and Maganhard came down, neither of them looking as bright as the desert sun, but at least on their feet. They'd got stuck sharing a room; Madame had made it clear she was entertaining them because they were with me. Therefore, I got the best single room. Logical.

Harvey took a cup of coffee. 'You ring Merlin last night?' he asked.

'Yes.' I studied him carefully sideways. He looked a little bleared and slow, but his hands on the cup were quite steady.

'What did he say?'

'Said he'd try and get to Geneva overnight on the Simplon-Orient. Then if we get stuck on the frontier, without the car, he'll try and think of ways of getting us across. He could be some help.'

He frowned into his cup. 'He could be dangerous, too – if the cops are really watching him.'

I nodded. 'Yes – or he could just lead them away from us. We don'thave to get in touch with him.'

Maganhard looked up quickly. 'Monsieur Merlin must be with me in Liechtenstein.'

I waved my head meaninglessly. I'd take my own decision – and we could always ring him when we were well past Geneva. He'd reach Liechtenstein in a couple of hours by plane to Zürich and then a train or hired car.

Maganhard said: 'I am ready to go on.' It sounded like an order.

Getting away from the Meliots wasn't difficult. They'd never known me except as a person who had to go when he said so, and with no fuss made. We were rolling by a quarter to eight.

Harvey slipped his gun down to his ankle, then started juggling with the maps. 'About seventy kilometres to the Rhône: where do we cross?'

'Le Pouzin, probably.'

'It's a big river,' he said doubtfully. 'They could be watching all the bridges.'

'I hope they'll think we'll be crossing north of Lyons. Merlin said he'd sent that telegram to the yacht, so they think we're going from Paris. And Le Pouzin's about ten bridges down from Lyons.'

He made a non-committalmmm noise.

Maganhard leant forward and asked: 'How much do you think the police know, Mr Cane?'

'Well-' I tried to count up. They know we're in France. They know there's four of us: the crew of that yacht probably talked their heads off. As sailors, the police'd be able to put the screws on by threatening to ban them from France for ever. So they know you and Miss Jarman, but they probably can't describe Harvey or me. Not after just a glimpse on that beach. But apart from the telegram, that's about all.'

Miss Jarman said: 'What about the man you had a fight with in Tours? Won't they know about him?'

Harvey said: 'No. His pals'll have hauled him off to some quack doctor to get him patched up. How would they explain to the cops what they were doing, anyway?'

Maganhard said heavily: 'I hope you are right.'

'God, I only have to be right the whole time,' I snapped. 'The cops just need to be right once, that's all.'

Harvey smiled his twisted smile. 'Your trouble is you're just not enjoying the ride, chum.'

I glared at him, but soon my jumpiness passed. A few kilometres out of Dinadan we passed through thick pine woods, fresh logs stacked by the roadside like huge peeled asparagus. Then the road climbed in wriggles towards the final rim of the central plateau before the drop to the Rhône.

The farms died out as the country got steeper. The hilltops turned into bare grey rock, the slopes into rock slides stitched in place by a few bushes or tough grass.

I swung up in an uphill left-hand curve over the shoulder of a hill, where the road was sunk across a small spur, with rough rock walls speckled with clumps of broom on either side.

Two light-green Renault 4L's blocked the road.

They were carefully arranged, slanted across the road with their back ends almost touching in an arrowhead pointing at us. Whatever I did, I was going to hit them.

I rammed my foot back on the accelerator; it was the only unexpected thing I had left to do. Just before we hit, Harvey snatched down at his ankle and fired two careful shots through the windscreen.

There was a huge clang and jolt, turning into a scream of tearing metal. Then, suddenly, it was quiet.

My face was resting on the steering-wheel, but I didn't seem to have hit it hard. I grabbed for my door handle, had to kick it open, and pitched out on to the road, spilling maps, Mauser, and spare magazine from the open briefcase as I went.

I heard Harvey tumble out of the other side.

Lying flat in a puddle of broken glass, I was covered on three sides by the Citroen, the six-foot rock wall beside the road, and one of the Renaults which had got knocked aside and ended up just behind us. Under the Citroen, I could see Harvey flat against the wall on his side.

He looked across, and said: 'Cover above me.'

I said: 'Yes,' and then looked to see what he was talking about.

They'd planned a good ambush, in a place I should have remembered and worried about. The rock walls of the cutting meant we couldn't have swerved, and couldn't jump off the road once we'd hit the Renaults. Then we'd have been trapped in one precise spot, with them waiting up on the banks on either side to blaze away.

But by hitting the Renaults as hard as I could, I'd shifted the whole scene several yards: now they'd have to move before they could shoot.

But we were still trapped inside the cutting – and they were still on the banks above us.

A gun banged over my head and a shot crunched into the Citroën's roof. Harvey fired back. The steepness of the wall meant the people on my side couldn't get at me; Harvey's side couldn't get at him. We would be shooting across, over each other's heads.

Suddenly somebody stuck his head and gun up from the rocks on the bank above Harvey and loosed off two shots in my direction. Broken shale clattered down the rock wall behind me. I ducked, and grabbed for the Mauser, clipped the holster on as a butt, and switched the button to Automatic.