Just for a moment she held the facts away from her, and saw them thus distantly and coolly; and then the whole erection of evidence toppled upon her and overwhelmed her, and she believed with all her heart, and was lost. She had no longer any defences against Terrell. He was dead, murdered, killed as the result of something he had undertaken out of his sense of duty to his profession and his country. He was more than she had ever given him a chance to show, and she owed him justice all the more now, because she had denied it to him living.
“So you see that everything possible will be done to find out the truth. And you will be very careful, won’t you, not to let anything out even by accident? Remember I’ve vouched for you as for myself.”
“I won’t forget. I’m very grateful for your trust, I shan’t betray it.” She was staring before her with stunned eyes, seeing herself suddenly drawn, almost against her will, into a world of noble clichés, which she vehemently distrusted, but for which there existed no substitutes.
“And you’ll try to set your mind at rest, and leave everything to us? I’m sorry that I’ve troubled your peace at all.”
“Oh, no!” she said positively. “It’s better to know.”
And to his question, with only the faintest note of reserve:
“I know you’ll do everything possible. And thank you!”
But he hadn’t her personal obligations, and he hadn’t her sense of guilt, and how could he expect her to sit back and let him lift the burden of her conscience and carry it away with him?
The first thing she looked round for, when he was gone, was the large-scale map of Central Europe she had just bought at Hatchards.
“Czech visas,” said Toddy thoughtfully, “cost money.” He sat back on his heels and pondered the delectable roads racing eastwards across the map, and his expression was speculative and tempted. “Not that I’m saying it wouldn’t be a nice thing to do, mind you.” He added ruefully: “Rather a lot of money, if you ask me!”
“I know they do, but look at the tourist exchange rate! We should more than get it back. And if we did decide on it, we could be through France and Germany in a couple of days. Eating in France is damned dear unless you picnic all the time, and who wants to do that? I bet we’d save by running through as quickly as possible, and surely Czechoslovakia would be a whole lot more interesting.”
“I always did think you had a secret urge to live dangerously.” Christine swung her legs from the edge of the table, and drew the crumbling Iron Curtain thoughtfully back into position with one toe. “Quite apart from prison cells, secret police, and all that guff—supposing it is guff, we could be wrong about that, too!—who does the talking?”
“We all do, in English. I’m told the Czechs are marvellous linguists, now’s their chance to prove it. And if we do get out of bounds for English, I bet Toddy’s German would get us by well enough.” Tossa withdrew a little, to leave them with an idea they would soon be able to persuade themselves was their own. “Whatever you think, though, I’m easy. But I’ll write for visa applications if you like. They say it only takes a few days. I’m going to make some G.I.D.,” said Tossa, judging her moment nicely, and left them holding it.
“Maybe it does seem a pity not to use the carnet, now we’ve got it,” said Christine reflectively.
“Quickest route on the map,” reported Toddy, sprawled largely across Europe, “is Cassel—Brussels—Aachen, and straight down the autobahn. It takes you right past Wurzburg now, and part-way to Nuremberg. Might have got a bit farther, too, since this was printed.”
“It’s faster travelling through France than Belgium,” warned Christine. “We could just as easily run through to Saarbrücken, and get on to the southern branch of the autobahn, and then go north to Frankfurt.”
“It’s miles longer.”
“Yes, but hours faster.”
Dominic, who had never yet driven on the Continent, said nothing, but sat back and let them argue it out. So it happened that he was the only one who did not miss the look on Tossa’s face when she re-entered the room with the coffee tray, to find the twins deep in discussion of the various ways of reaching the Czech border quickly, and the possibilities presented once they had crossed it. He saw the small, fevered spark that lit in her eyes, the brief vindicated smile that touched the corners of her mouth, and ebbed again even more rapidly, leaving her fixed and sombre.
Tossa had what she wanted. But what it gave her was not pleasure, it seemed to him, only a brief and perilous sense of accomplishment, as if she had just taken the first step on a very uncertain journey.
Chapter 3
THE MAN WHO THUMBED A LIFT
« ^ »
They came spiralling down over France at about nine o’clock on a fine Thursday morning, craning to see the bewildering expanses of the blown sand-dunes revolve below them, starred with little salt pools and furry with pines. The estuary of the Canche dipped under one wing and vanished, the bridge and its crawling beetles of cars disappeared. By dazzling glimpses the white, urbane, anglicised villas winked at them from among the trees, and the long beach trailed a golden ribbon along the lacy edge of the sea. Le Touquet would never be so beautiful again.
Twenty-five minutes after they had left England they were creeping gingerly round the snack-bar called “L’Aubette,” and into the groves of pines, round whose braced feet the waves of sand broke like a patient and treacherous sea. The first gendarme eyed them warily as they rolled decorously round his concrete bollard, and bore away towards the golf links. Left turn after left turn, until you cross the bridge over the Canche, and then sharp right. And you’ve started. You’re heading for Montreuil-sur-Mer and the main Paris road; for Brussels and Aachen and the Cologne-Frankfurt autobahn, and all points east.
“We’re in France!” said Dominic, shattered and transported, for the first time relaxing the grim concentration with which he was keeping to the right. “We’re abroad!”
They ran off the autobahn for their first night at the rest-house at Siegburg, and thwarted of a bed there—it seemed one must stop at about four o’clock to be sure of a room anywhere immediately on the motorway—cruised down the hill into the town, under the Michaelburg, and fetched up in an embarrassingly narrow and difficult yard off the glittering main street. Toddy parked the van gingerly in a cramped corner, and hugged himself at the thought of Dominic manipulating it out into traffic next morning. Every man for himself!
They strolled through the surprising glitter of the streets, still lively at past eight in the evening, and climbed the Michaelburg in the dusk to the fortress church.
And out of the blue Tossa made her next move.
“Wouldn’t it be fine to go all the way east into Slovakia?” she said suddenly and fondly, as they sauntered down again through the silent gardens. “As far as the Tatras, anyhow. We couldn’t go back without seeing the mountains.”
“If we have time,” agreed Toddy accommodatingly, willing to entertain all suggestions. “We’ve got to see Prague first.”