'It could be true, mon ami, but it is equally true that I don't want you to find that car, so… it is very convenient to have something to keep you busy elsewhere for a time.'
At this moment there was a bark outside the door and the poodle came bounding in. It ran a circle round the three of us and then got up on its hind legs and danced, begging, in front of Aristide.
He beamed.
'Mignon, non?' His calloused, police heart was touched.
'Don't fool yourself, Aristide. He just sees you as one big chocolate biscuit.' But as I spoke I was glad of the diversion. Both the men were watching the exhibition from the fool dog with happy grins on their faces. I stepped back to give the poodle more room for its act and, putting my hand behind me, got hold of the neck of the nearest bottle in the wine-rack. I jerked it out and slung it at the naked electric light-bulb. There was a crash and the light went out, followed by another, louder crash and a roar from Albert, but by this time I was at the door arid out, slamming it shut and turning the key in the lock.
I sprinted for the kitchen and was beaten by the poodle. Trust a dog to get the hell out of danger before anyone else.
I dashed through into the main room, picked up the shotgun, the map from under the cushion, and my suitcase and headed for the door, the poodle following. The cellar door was stout but I couldn't give it more than five minutes of pounding from Albert's big shoulders.
Outside I pumped both barrels of the shotgun into one of the rear tyres of Aristide's car. The noise sent the poodle, yelping hysterically, streaking for the woods, and then I ran for the Mercedes, wondering whether it was burgundy or claret which I had slung at the light. Either way Aristide was going to be angry. Wine, I was sure, was something which he always treated with respect.
The place where Otto and Tony had carried out the payroll robbery was St Jean-de-Maurienne, a small town of about seven thousand inhabitants on the N6, which is the road that runs eastwards from Chambery across Savoie to the Italian border at the Col du Mont Cenis and then on to Turin. It had been well chosen because it left them only about seventy-odd kilometres to reach the border. Fourteen kilometres east of St Jean there was a town called St Michel and some way out from this on the road to the border they had turned left-handed up into the mountains to their lake. From St Bonnet it was quite a drive, and no direct route to it. I reckoned I would make the lake sometime in the early afternoon. The payroll robbery, I learned later, had been from a small light engineering firm which had set up business on the eastern outskirts of St Jean-de-Maurienne. And later still, I learned that Otto had had this fixed pattern of hold-ups — knocking off a payroll in eastern France and then making quickly for the Italian border.
Dawn came up with a slight drizzle as I left St Bonnet and headed north. The rain slicked the road and cut down my speed. I stopped for coffee around nine o'clock in a small town and also bought myself a face-mask and snorkel, swimming trunks and a rubber-jacketed hand torch. For all I knew the lake water might be as clear as gin, but I wanted to be prepared. One thing I knew was that it would be as cold as hell.
I reached the lake soon after midday. It was two miles up a side track that climbed all the way through pine woods. It was still drizzling and, as I got higher, wisps of cloud began to sweep through the trees. The track ended, clear of trees, on a wide grassy plateau that overlooked a lake almost as big as the one O'Dowda had back in Sussex. On this side the ground was fairly level, broken with large grey boulders pushing through the bracken and scrub. On the other side — visible now and then through the mist — the ground rose steeply to a small crest. The surface of the lake was still, and the colour of gun metal.
I got out and walked to the edge of the plateau. Faintly in the thin grass I could make out the marks of Otto's car, and at the edge a big piece of ground had been broken fairly recently. There was a sheer drop of about fifteen feet into deep water. Looking down into it I could see nothing. It looked cold and uninviting and I felt a thin rise of goose pimples move across my shoulders and arms. I went back to the car, turned it round, and then stripped and put on the bathing trunks and the mask and went back to the bank. The cloud mist was thickening fast.
Somewhere down there was the car and Otto. I could rely on that because I knew Tony would never risk a lie with me. I didn't have to dive down and say 'hello' to Otto. I didn't have to grope about and recover what rested behind the air-intake grille. I could just go to the nearest phone and give O'Dowda the location and then send in my bill. All I'd been hired to do was to find the car. Whatever was hidden in it was no business of mine. O'Dowda and Aristide wanted it, and Najib wanted it for his employers. They could get on with it. It was no day for swimming and diving. All I had to do was to mind my own business. Simple. Except that few of us can resist minding other people's business — because just now and again it gives the chance of taking a commission on it. If Wilkins had been there she would have put her foot down firmly on ethical grounds and ordered me back to the car before I caught double pneumonia.
I scrambled down the bank until I was two feet above the water and then I jumped in feet first. I went in and nearly didn't come up. The cold hit me like a great hand squeezing the life from me. I surfaced, gasping for breath, blowing and swearing and in no mood to waste time. I didn't want my fingers to drop off before I could get down to that car.
I swam out a few yards, adjusted the mask and snorkel, took a deep breath, and went down, rubber torch in hand.
Underwater it wasn't as dark as I had imagined it might be, and I saw the car almost immediately. It was about ten feet away from me on the angle of my dive. It was lying tipped over to one side on the slope of the lake-bed. The driving-wheel side was the farthest away from me. I made it to the right-hand door, grabbed it to anchor myself and flicked on the torch. The window of the door was wound down. I beamed the torch around the inside and saw Otto at once. He wasn't a nice sight. He was wedged up like a grotesque carnival balloon against the roof of the car, his arms and legs dangling, marionette fashion, from the movement of my grasping the door. I took the torch off him quickly, swung it to the air intake to locate its position and then I let go and surfaced.
I trod water for a moment or two, wondering whether I was going to be sick, then took a deep breath and went down again. This time I worked without the torch, not wanting to see Otto buoyed up against the roof. I held the door with my right hand, shoved the torch into my trunks and reached in with my left hand. I got hold of the circular grille face and turned it. For a moment or two it wouldn't budge, then as the last of my breath was going, I gave it a jerk and felt it move.
I went up for a fresh supply of air and hung on the surface for a while like a played-out fish. The clouds had come lower and there was a dense, moving succession of mist wraiths wafting across the water. Somewhere up the slopes on the far side of the lake I thought I heard the soft tinkle of a cow-bell.
I went down again, and this time the grille turned easily and came away in my hand. I dropped it and reached into the aperture. I felt something flat and thick and pulled it out. It was about the size of a good fat book. I groped around to make sure there was nothing else in the compartment and then went up quickly without taking time for a goodbye to Otto.
I surfaced, pushed the mask back, sucked in great gulps of cold, misty air and looked at the object in my right hand. It was wrapped in thick brown oiled paper and banded all over with scotch tape. Shivering, hardly able to feel my hands or feet, I turned to make for the bank.