Jack Higgins (18 page)

T
he bones of my wrist had fragmented, I could tell that by the way they grated together when I wound a handkerchief around it in an attempt to stop the bleeding. It still wasn't hurting, not yet. That would come later and I tucked my hand inside my flying jacket and scrambled up the hill.

As I went through the fence at the top and started across the south meadow, a shot echoed flatly through the fog and two more sounded in reply. I put my head down and ran, ducking behind the grey stone wall that was the northern boundary, keeping to its shelter until I came to the farm.

Another shot sounded from the open door of the loft in the barn and two more were fired in reply from the house. I hurried back the way I had come and the
moment the farmhouse was out of sight scrambled over the wall and approached from the rear.

The yard by the back door was deserted, but by this time I wasn't caring too much anyway because my wrist was beginning to hurt like hell, the pain crawling up my arm like some living thing.

I ran across the yard, head-down, expecting a bullet in the back at any second, but nothing happened and then I was at the door and it opened to receive me.

I didn't stop running until I cannoned into the wall on the other side of the kitchen. Behind me, the door closed and a bolt was rammed home. When I turned, wiping sweat from my eyes with my left hand, Da Gama was standing facing me.

 

When I was pushed into the hall, I found Vogel crouched at the shattered window, a revolver in his hand, Sarah Kelso flattened against the wall beside him. Rasmussen lay on the table, eyes closed, blood on his head and Ilana and Gudrid were at his side.

Vogel looked me over calmly. “What happened to Stratton?”

“He tried to get down to the beach the hard way. I wouldn't count on seeing him again if I were you.”

Another bullet shattered the window and everyone hit the floor. I crawled over to Ilana and held out my wrist. “Do what you can with this, will you? What happened here?”

She pulled a silk scarf from her neck and bound my wrist tightly. “When we got here Jack told us to get in
the house. He said he was going to ambush them from the loft in the barn.”

“What went wrong?”

“They came in the back way. Stupid, but there it is.”

“This can't be his day for clear thinking,” I said. “What about Rasmussen?”

“He tried to tackle Vogel and Da Gama hit him over the head with his gun.”

Two more bullets smashed through the window, one of them ploughing into the floor and Gudrid screamed. Vogel turned towards me, his back to the wall as he reloaded his revolver, a smear of blood on his cheek.

“I think we've had enough of this nonsense. Come here, Miss Eytan.” She hesitated and he nodded to Da Gama who flung her forward. Vogel caught her by the hair, wrenched back her head and touched the barrel of his revolver to her temple. “Mr. Martin,” he said evenly. “Go outside and tell Desforge I'll blow out his lady friend's brains if he doesn't come out of that barn within the next two minutes.”

I didn't even get a chance to think it over because Da Gama dragged me to my feet, opened the door and shoved me outside. I dropped to one knee and a bullet chipped the wall beside the doorpost. From then on he obviously recognised me and I stumbled across the yard shouting his name.

As I ran into the entrance of the barn, he appeared at the edge of the loft above my head and standing up there in his old parka, the Winchester ready for action, he wasn't Jack Desforge any more. He was that other, legendary figure who had always seemed so much larger
than life. As he dropped to the floor and moved towards me, I had the strange illusion that this was somehow a scene we had played many times before.

And when he spoke, it might have been dialogue straight off page fifty-seven of some script that had been specially written for him—the kind of film he had made a score of times.

“You don't look too good, kid. What happened?”

I told him about Stratton. “But that doesn't matter now. You've got to come in, Jack. Vogel swears he'll kill Ilana if you don't and I got a strong impression that he means it.”

He nodded briefly, a strange remote look in his eyes as if his mind was elsewhere. “Okay, kid, if that's what you want. How do we know he won't pick us off on our way across the yard?”

“We find that out in next week's episode.”

“I can't wait that long.” He went out through the open door in three or four strides and dropped the Winchester on the ground. “Okay, Vogel, you win.”

For one wild moment I expected to see him go down under a fusillade of bullets. He stood there for a while, hands on hips as if waiting for something, and then the door across the yard opened and Vogel came out pushing Ilana in front of him.

Sarah Kelso followed, Da Gama at her heels, but there was no sign of Gudrid who had presumably stayed with the old man. We all met in the middle of the yard in a kind of awkward silence.

Vogel spoke first. “The emeralds, please, Mr. Martin.”

I hesitated and Desforge said, and it was as if he was somehow in command, “Give them to him, Joe.”

I unstrapped the belt and tossed it across. Vogel hefted it in his hand, face quite calm. “A long wait.”

Ilana moved suddenly to join Desforge and me and swung to face the Austrian. “And what happens now, Mr. Vogel? Do we get what you gave Arnie Fassberg?”

Vogel smiled gently. “My dear Miss Eytan, like most determined sinners, I'm quite prepared to carry the burden of my own misdeeds, but I certainly object to being made responsible for someone else's. I don't know who killed the unfortunate Mr. Fassberg, but it certainly wasn't me or any of my associates.”

There was no reason for him to lie, none at all and Ilana turned and stared at me blankly. “But who, Joe? Who else could it have been?”

“Only one person I can think of,” I said. “The person who told him about the emeralds in the first place.”

Sarah Kelso seemed to shrink visibly, the skin tightening across her cheeks, a hand going to her mouth involuntarily as she took a hurried step backwards. “Oh, no—never in a thousand years.”

“But it had to be you,” I said. “There is no one else.”

For a long moment she seemed to be struck dumb and it was Desforge who spoke, his voice quiet and calm and very, very tired.

“Sure there was, kid, there was me. She found that letter at the Fredericsmut, remember? The one from Milt Gold. She knew I'd reached the end of the line. The night you came back from the ice-cap, the night she was really certain for the first time that Arnie had made a fool of
her, she brought me out here to the barn. I thought it was just for a tumble in the hay, but there was more to it than that—a lot more. If I could squeeze the emeralds out of Arnie we could split them fifty-fifty and clear out in my boat.”

God knows why, but it was as if I had known all along and my voice when I spoke, seemed to belong to someone else.

“Why did you kill him?”

“I didn't mean to. I knew he couldn't very well go running to the police. I was going to give him something to keep him happy. I was holding him with his own shotgun and he tried to jump me. It was as simple as that.”

Sarah Kelso shook her head. “But it isn't possible.”

Desforge shrugged. “What she's trying to tell you is that we were in bed together when it happened.”

“That was certainly my impression,” I said.

He turned to Sarah Kelso. “Sorry, angel, but I left you for an hour. That's all it took. You were sleeping like a baby.”

“You fool,” I said. “You stupid bloody fool. Now what happens? What
can
happen?”

“Christ knows, it's a mess.” He shook his head. “I never thought it would end up like this. In the beginning it seemed like a good idea. I was desperate. There was nothing left, Joe. That letter from Milt was a death sentence. There was a court order out on my property in California against back taxes and the picture deal had fallen through. I was finished. Have you any idea what that meant? There was nothing to come. There was never going to be another picture.”

It was as if he was talking for me alone, as if I was the only person there and in a strange way I understood what he was trying to say. He wasn't making excuses—he was just trying to get me to understand. All his life he'd inhabited the fantasy world, living a series of incredible adventures each contained in its own watertight compartment and as one finished, another began. If you made a mistake the director shouted
Cut
and you tried it again. Nothing was for real—nothing was ever for real and suddenly, I realised what he must have felt like after killing Arnie, standing there with the noise of the shotgun still ringing in his ears, looking down on his handiwork and realising with horror, that his was permanent, this was something that couldn't be adjusted ever.

Ilana stared at him mutely, a kind of dazed incomprehension in her eyes. He ignored her and said to Vogel, “It seems to me you and I have something in common after all. How were you hoping to get away from here? By rendezvousing with Da Gama's schooner?”

Vogel shook his head. “You're wasting your time, I've no room for passengers.”

“You're living in cloud-cuckoo land. Tell him, Joe.”

I nodded. “He's right. Even if the schooner makes it in one piece, there's a Danish corvette doing coastal survey work out of Godthaab that could run you down in half a day.”

Vogel turned back to Desforge, a slight frown on his face. “You have something else on your mind or you would not have raised the matter.”

Desforge lit a cigarette. “There's always the Otter down there in the fjord.”

For the first time Vogel's iron composure cracked and he clutched at what was, after all, the only real hope of extricating himself from what was otherwise an impossible situation.

“You can fly?”

“Not like laughing boy here, but good enough for short hauls. Newfoundland, for instance.”

“We could reach Newfoundland?”

“Easily with what's in the tank now. Plenty of remote fishing villages where we could put down and pick up enough gas to continue. We could make somewhere like Maine for our second landing. I'm willing to take my chances after that. America is a big country. Of course I'd expect a cut in the emeralds. Fifty per cent would seem to be about right.”

I could almost see Vogel's brain working as he decided that he could handle that one at the right time and place.

“Agreed. Is there anything else?”

Desforge held out his hand. “I think I'd like to look after the bank if you don't mind. After all, you and bully boy here seem to be carrying all the artillery.”

Vogel hesitated fractionally and probably decided there was no harm in humouring him. He tossed the belt across. Desforge folded it neatly and stuffed it inside his parka.

“Another thing, no more trouble.” He nodded towards Da Gama. “I don't want Frankenstein there cutting loose on my friends or anything like that. Now tell him to get the Land-Rover.”

“Just as you say, Mr. Desforge.”

Ilana turned and hurried away and he had to run to
catch her at the door. She started to struggle and he held her very firmly and then she seemed to go limp and sagged against the wall. He had his back to us, hiding her from view and it was impossible to hear what he said, but when Da Gama drove the Land-Rover into the yard, he turned and came back towards us and I saw that Ilana was crying bitterly.

As Desforge approached, I moved into his path. “You're kidding yourself,” I said. “Even if our friend here doesn't put a bullet through your head at the appropriate time, where on this earth can Jack Desforge hope to hide and not be recognised?”

He laughed. “You've got a point there, kid, but there must be somewhere. I'll have to think about it.”

As Vogel climbed into the Land-Rover, Sarah Kelso said something to him in a low voice. He pushed her away angrily. “You've made your bed—now lie on it.”

She turned on Desforge, desperation on her face. “For God's sake, Jack, if I ever meant anything to you, take me with you. He says I can't go.”

Desforge laughed incredulously. “You've got your nerve, angel, I'll say that for you. Go on, get in! I'd say we just about deserve each other.”

He turned to me and smiled sombrely. “Strange how things work out. Have you ever wondered how many changes you'd make in your life if you could do the whole thing over again?”

“Often,” I said.

“Me too.” He nodded. “But I'd only need to make one. Remember the pier at Santa Barbara in the fog when
I met Lilian Courtney for the first time? I should have turned and run like hell.”

It was an interesting thought, but there was no time to take it any further. He got into the passenger seat beside Da Gama and turned and looked at me for the last time. For a second, there was something there, an unspoken message that I couldn't hope to understand and he smiled that famous smile of his, sardonic and bitter, touching something deep inside me, the old indefinable magic that had moved millions of people through the years in exactly the same way.