As the man scrambled up and disappeared rapidly into the shadows at the end of the street, Shaw had a nagging thought that a couple of apparently lustful Latins had been disposed of just a little too easily; he was, in fact, about to ask the girl one or two pertinent questions when he saw that she was crying; and that finished him. She was saying something about being taken home to a hostel, and he interrupted her.
He said, “Of course I’ll take you home, my dear. Hop in the back.”
“Thank you… so much.”
She looked at him gratefully as he opened the rear door of the hired Renault. She got in and Shaw slammed the door after her. When Debonnair came along and got in the front with him he drove off fast over the greasy cobbles of the little street, past the lighted windows and the dark doorways and the vague shapes that flitted in and out of alleys. Following the girl’s directions, he turned to the right out of that narrow place and headed south-westward for the river.
After he’d crossed the river and was making up in the general direction of the Gare Montparnasse he sensed a movement behind him and then he felt the hard, round, cold pressure of gunmetal in the back of his neck and he stiffened, hands jerking a little on the wheel from sheer surprise.
The girl said, “Forget where — where I told you to go, Commander Shaw. Just — do what I say from now on.”
Shaw heard Debonnair’s quickly indrawn breath beside him, saw her head turn in sudden alarm. He put out a hand, touched her thigh, murmured: “All right, I know you warned me… but it’s all right. Just hold on and keep out of it.”
His body had slackened again now. That pretty voice had held a very scared quiver, had been uncertain of itself. The girl wasn’t used to this kind of thing, that was obvious. Shaw, after that initial bad moment, just laughed. Then he stopped the car, pulled in to the kerb. The girl gave a despairing sigh, as though everything was too much for her, and Shaw decided he could take a chance. He swivelled in his seat suddenly and grabbed for the gun. When he had it in his hands, he found that it wasn’t even loaded.
He looked at her. “Well? Why the melodramatics — and how did you know who I was?”
She said shakily, “I–I’m awfully sorry. It’s my father, you see.”
There was a silence. Then Shaw prompted, “I don’t see at all, I’m afraid. Please go on. I’m most anxious to know, before I hand you over to a gendarme.”
She was crying softly now. “Please, please don’t do that. My father wants to speak to you… urgently, very urgently. This was the only way the contact could be made safely. He gave me the gun in case you didn’t believe what I was going to tell you — but I couldn’t bear to think it — it might go off… so I unloaded it.”
“That was all faked up, then, back in Fouquier’s? You knew my movements and the way I looked at things, and knew I’d fall for a line like that?”
She said, “Yes, those men were helping Daddy.” Then she added in a low, hopeless voice: “I’ve made such a mess of everything. He’ll be so angry.”
Shaw murmured, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Now, come on, young lady. Who is your father?”
Then she said something that shook him. She said, almost haltingly and in a whisper, as though it was something that must never be said aloud in case some one should hear, “John Donovan.”
“Donovan?” Shaw stiffened. “My dear girl, Donovan’s dead!” At once his thoughts flew back into the past. John Donovan had been one of the leading lights of M.I.5… Donovan, that big, lovable bear of a man who’d been sent to Norway early in the war and had become so completely identified with the Norwegian underground that he’d become one of the heroes of the Resistance… and then, as the end of the war came in sight, things had changed for Donovan; he’d been accused — framed, in Shaw’s opinion and that of many other Englishmen and Norwegians — of traitorous activities, of causing the deaths of loyal Norwegians. His Southern Irish connexions had counted against him, and he’d been sentenced to death by an Allied military court in Norway; but he had escaped, and gone back underground among good friends. Soon after that, news had come out that he’d been burned to death in a fire at an apartment house in Bergen. A big funeral had been held in spite of an official ban on it, and there had been fighting between the authorities and men of the former underground who still believed passionately in John Donovan’s loyalty. In those old days Donovan had been a very good friend and comrade of Shaw’s. But now Donovan was dead. Very dead.
Shaw said tautly, “You’ll have to think up something better than that.”
She leaned forward, pleading. “But it’s true! He’s not dead. You’ve got to listen.”
Shaw switched on the inside light and turned right round in his seat. The girl’s face was a picture of misery, of frustration, of supplication. Debonnair gave her a shrewd sideways look, said softly: “She’s speaking the truth, I think, Esmonde.”
“Just a minute, Deb.” Shaw studied the girl, noticed the wet handkerchief being twisted about in her fingers. When he looked closely like that… this was why he’d felt he had met her before, of course… she was a petite and very feminine version of John Donovan. Possibly he was just thinking himself into it now she’d told him, but it did seem to him suddenly that there was no doubt of the likeness at all, that she was indeed speaking the truth — up to that point at least. There was the same frankness in the eyes, the same openness in the face, the same quality of honesty and directness and resolution and the same Irish love of life. This girl was John Donovan’s daughter, right enough.
He said quietly, “All right, my dear. You’d better explain.”
She said, “He’s not dead. His friends spread that story of his death. It was the only way, you see. After that he changed his identity. He meant to stay underground — he was used to that sort of life anyway — and then, one day, he was going to show up the people who framed him. He never managed to do that, but…” She hesitated, then went on earnestly, passionately: “He wasn’t a traitor, Commander Shaw. He wasn’t ever that.”
“I know,” Shaw told her. “I never believed he was. And I’m delighted to hear he’s still alive. It’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.”
She asked eagerly, “You do believe me, then?”
Slowly he nodded, rubbed his nose with his forefinger. “Yes, I do. I don’t think John Donovan’s daughter would tell that kind of a lie…” He added, “I remember he’d had a girl born, the only child, back in England — two or three years before he was arrested. The name was…?”
“Judith.”
“Judith it was. And your mother?”
She said softly, “She died when I was born.”
“All right, Judith, I knew that too—”
“I lived with an aunt — she’s dead now — and Daddy sent for me to join him in Norway when I was older. Now I’m partly in England and partly with him.”
“Uh-huh… Now, why does Donovan want to see me?”
“He’s got some information he wants to give you. It’s terribly important. It’s got to go very urgently to London.” The girl leaned forward, and Shaw felt her breath fanning his cheek, caught her fresh scent in his nostrils. A tendril of hair fell across her face; she pushed it back, gave her head an impatient little shake. “You’re the only man in the business left alive that he can talk to safely, the only one he can be sure won’t give him away to the authorities. He trusts you absolutely, you see.” She hesitated. “He did say I could tell you that he’s been approached by a man called Karstad. He says you’ll know that name.”
Shaw gave a harsh, involuntary laugh, a laugh which had no hint of humour in it. He said, “Your father says I’ll know the name, does he!”