Midnight Plus One

And in a way, it was cheering that he didn't plan to stay dry for ever. When they suddenly remember how long for ever is, they're back inside the bottle with a rush. But just another day is an easy target. No need for him to crack before then.

I flashed the torch at the sea.

For a few minutes nobody said anything. The waves crashed on the beach below, their echo dulled by the steady rain. Then I asked: 'Had your first amnesia yet?'

He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. 'The first memory blackout, you mean? Now, how would a man rememberthat?'

I just nodded. I hadn't really expected an answer, but it had been worth asking. The first amnesia, the first time you can't remember what the hell happened the night before, that's the big step. After that, you're over the hill. Nowhere to go but down. Or so the doctors say.

Getting an answer would have helped me guess how committed he was, how likely to crack.

I said: 'Just interested.'

'If you're that interested, you know a man hates talking about it.'

So he'd taken the trouble to check up on the stages and symptoms. They sometimes do. It's a way of standing back, watching themselves go down the slope. Less effort than trying to hold themselves back.

'So you know something about it?' he asked.

'Something. A bit of drinking wasn't exactly uncommon in the war – particularly in our sort of business. I read it all up once. Had to know how much security risk those people'd be.'

'And how much were they?'

I shrugged, but he probably couldn't see. 'Some were, some weren't. We won the war anyhow.'

'So I heard.' Then: 'You got a light.'

'What?'

He waved at the sea. 'Out there. You got a light'

I flashed the torch again. A faint light winked back. I looked at my watch: just after two o'clock.

'Can't be him,' I said. 'He's hardly late yet.'

'You ever think a real big businessman might be efficient? And he might hire efficient people to get him around?'

We looked at each other through the rain and darkness. 'No,' I said, 'looking at you and me, I wouldn't say that thought had occurred to me. But now we're hired, maybe we'd better try.'

FIVE

The boat hit on the beach with a long, grinding crunch. Several people bounced out and grabbed hold to steady it. The next wave swamped them to their waists.

That was what they'd been hired for, and I'd got quite wet enough for one night already; we stood back on the shingle. It was a motorised whaleboat with a good width, which it must have needed coming through that surf, and a clear twenty-five feet long, which told you something about the size of yacht that carried it.

One of the men stumped up to me and said in guttural English: 'The fish are biting.'

I tried hard to think of the proper password. Passwords are fine in the right place, which means a seemingly casual remark in a crowded street which won't betray anything if the wrong person hears it. Here, they were nonsense. But Merlin had insisted.

Then I remembered. 'And the birds are singing.'

He grunted and walked back. I glanced at Harvey; he was slipping something back under his mac.

Somebody was stepping off the whaleboat and getting a lot of help from the crew. He walked slowly up to us, and announced: 'I am Maganhard.'

'Cane.'

Harvey said: 'Lovell.'

Maganhard said: 'There are twenty kilos of luggage and two of us. I believe you have the Citroën.'

He didn't ask 'Is that all right?' or anything. Just telling us. If there was anything we didn't expect, it was up to us to say so. Efficiency – as Harvey had guessed.

And there was something I hadn't expected. 'Two of you?'

'My secretary, Miss Helen Jarman.' He stood there, waiting for me to say something else. All I could tell of him in the dark was that he was a square, solid man in a dark coat, no hat, and the glint of spectacles. His voice had a flat, metallic tone like a bad dictaphone.

Somebody else crunched up the shingle and stopped beside Maganhard. 'Is everything all right?'

A clear, cool, and unmistakably English voice. Nobody could ever imitate that upper-crust-girls'-school accent. Or perhaps nobody ever wanted to.

She looked fairly tall, with dark hair and a dark coat that glistened softly in the rain.

Maganhard said: 'I believe so. Has our luggage come?'

She looked back and a sailor arrived carrying two cases. Maganhard tramped past us over the shingle bank. Harvey patted me on the shoulder, and took two fast steps to arrive just behind Maganhard's right shoulder, just where a bodyguard should be.

I tagged on behind the procession, just where a chauffeur should be.

The sailor dumped the two cases, both expensive solid-looking lumps of horsehide, into the boot of the Citroen. He got a nod from Maganhard and headed back over the bank.

Harvey was standing beside Maganhard, looking out into the night but at the same time making sure he was blocking the most likely lines of fire at Maganhard. Shooting back is only the second half of a bodyguard's job: the first half is trying to be in the way of any bullets.

I asked: 'Where d'you want to sit, Harvey?'

'Up front.'

The girl said: 'Mr Maganhard may wish to sit there.'

'He might,' I agreed, 'in which case he'll be disappointed. Harvey arranges the seating.'

Maganhard said: 'Mr Lovell – you are the bodyguard?'

Harvey said: 'Yes.'

'I told Monsieur Merlin I did not need a bodyguard. A driver would have been quite enough. I do not like shooting.'

'Don't like it myself,' Harvey said evenly, still watching outwards. 'But just you and me don't make a majority.'

'Nobody is trying to kill me,' Maganhard said. 'That is just Monsieur Merlin's idea. The only danger is in being stopped by the police.'

I said: 'I had that theory, too. But when we picked up the car tonight in Quimper, there was a dead man in it.'

The rain pattered softly on the roof of the warm, dry car beside us.

Then Maganhard said: 'You mean killed? '

'I mean killed. I imagine he was the man who was supposed to deliver the car to us.'

The girl said: 'Dead inthis car?'

'Only the front seat. And he isn't even there any more.'

'What did you do with him?'

I didn't answer. Maganhard said: 'Do you really wish to know what these men do with the bodies, my dear?' But I wasn't sure his heart was in the crack.

Harvey said wearily: 'If we're ever getting into the car, I want Maganhard behind me, on the right.'

They got in, and even into the right places, without arguing. So maybe Maganhard was a little shaken, at that.

Past Tréguennec I turned on the headlights. But I wasn't even out of second gear yet: I didn't want to leave any impression of hurrying. Merely coming up from the sea was suspicious enough at that time.

We went through Plonéour-Lanvern and I got into third. The rain spattered steadily on the windscreen and was flipped away by the wipers, leaving a small, unswept patch in the middle. I tried to find a comfortable position leaning over to my left, against the door.

After a while, Harvey said: 'D'you think they'll be laying for us in Quimper?'

'Don't know. They could be.'

'Can we dodge it?'

'Not without a hell of a detour. We've got to cross the river, and there's no bridge below Quimper and nothing for about ten kilometres above it.'

From behind us, Maganhard asked: 'Why should anybody be waiting for us?'

'I'm thinking about the man in the car, Mr Maganhard. Somebody knew about him. So perhaps they know about us.'

Maganhard said: 'They could have followed you or Mr Lovell from Paris.'

'No.' I didn't need to consult Harvey on that one.

Maganhard said crisply: 'Can you be certain?'

'We know how to be certain.'