Ormerod's Landing (57 page)

'Fuck off, copper!' The cry seemed almost a scream. Ormerod swore he could hear the bones shifting. 'Go on - fuck off!'

'Offensive words and behaviour,' called Ormerod in his best
official voice. 'And in
here.
I wouldn't be surprised, blasphemy
as well. Where are you? Come on son. Come on out, there's a good lad.'

A pile of skulls suddenly rolled down from a shelf like loaves
of stale bread. They bounced about his feet. He turned the beam of the torch up swiftly. There was a gap in the grisly wall from which the skulls had been pushed and standing in
the gap, his face loaded with hate and viciousness, was Albert
Smales, the man he had come so far to see.

'Hello, Albert,' said Ormerod softly. 'What's a nasty boy like you doing in a nice place like this?'

'What you want?' demanded Smales. 'What you after? You've nowt on me. Nowt at all.'

Ormerod looked up at him. He kept the torch off his face,
but flicked it to and fro. Smales covered his eyes with his hands.
Ormerod intoned: I told you, lad, routine inquiries. Concerning the death of one Lorna Smith in London on ...'

'You must be fucking mad,' growled Smales. 'What do you think you can do here in bleeding Paris? There's Jerries every
where. What hope have
you
got?'

'I've done all right up to now, Smalesy,' smiled Ormerod.

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'You're here and I'm here. I've come a long way for this.'

Smales suddenly picked up a skull and threw it at him. Ormerod was expecting it and caught it like a rugby ball. 'No
respect for the dead!' he bellowed, hurling it back. It smashed against the stone wall. Smales was suddenly gone, his shadow
flying along the wall and the curved ceiling. 'Come back you
bastard,' said Ormerod more to himself than to Smales. He began to trot cautiously along the grim passage. He stopped
and waited. He could hear the other man breathing among the
bones. 'Smales!' he called 'Come on out. I want you, Albert. I want you.'

'Well you ain't going to fucking get me!' The words came in a screech. They were followed by a fusillade of bones, old
legs and arms and then two skulls. Ormerod covered his head. But the direction from which the bombardment came showed
him where his quarry was. Carefully he went along the corridor
shining the torch on the floor, until he reached a short flight of
stone steps going up to the gallery. He crept up the steps having
the passing thought as to who originally had the task of
arranging all those grinning skulls and criss-crossed bones. At
the end of the gallery he saw the half shadow of Smales. A
policeman always knows by instinct when he has got bis man. Ormerod knew he had got Smales. He went forward one small
step at a time.

Smales knew he was coming. He was waiting with a skull in
his hand. As Ormerod rounded the end of the gallery he brought it down on the policeman's head with all his strength. Unfortunately for Smales it was one of the older inhabitants and it splintered like dry bread on contact with his pursuer's forehead. Ormerod staggered back, his head resounding with the force of the blow, his knees buckling for a moment. But he did not fall. Instead he used his bent knees as a spring to bring him up forward again. At last the unarmed combat was going to come in useful, even if it were not against the Ger
mans. He came up on a powerful rebound and grabbed Smales
with both arms forcing him back against the wall. Smales was
not as big as Ormerod, but he was years younger and he was frightened. He butted at the policeman but Ormerod managed to pull his face back away from the blow. He banged Smales

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against the stones causing half a dozen skulls and their attendant bones to collapse in a gaunt heap. Smales fell backwards, pulling Ormerod with him, and they lay on top of each other, panting and sweating. Smales got his hand free and grabbed another skull. He lifted it to strike Ormerod but the policeman caught the other side of the skull and they wrestled with it like two men with a ball. 'You bastard - this could be somebody's mother,' panted Ormerod. He knew he had him.

Smales collapsed back on the floor, sweat pouring from every pore in his face, his eyes swimming in it. Ormerod leaned off. 'Right, now, what were we saying?' he began.

Smales opened his pale eyes and blinked as the sweat ran into them. 'How ... ?' he gasped. 'How do you reckon you're going to get me out of Paris?' His chest heaved. 'You must be looney.'

'Do you wish to make a statement?' Ormerod gasped formally.

'Let me get up. Let me just sit up will you? You're killing me.'

Ormerod should have learned from Le Blanc. He eased himself off Smales and even sportingly helped him to his feet. As the soldier stood up he brought up his knee and caught Ormerod the second most powerful blow he had ever felt in the crotch. He gasped and staggered back. Then Smales hit him across the head with a tibia selected at random from the many piled around them. It was a good bone and it hurt. His face sagged. Smales rushed forward and pushed him.

The English policeman fell backwards down a flight of stone steps, his arms outstretched and sweeping down with him a crowd of skeletons who ended up in a gruesome embrace with him at the foot of the steps. Ormerod blacked out. Smales, laughing wildly, ran.

Raymond was a man who spoke in the same manner as he walked, a stooping, hesitant delivery, everything careful and considered. Ormerod wondered how he would ever be able to handle a sub-machine gun when the time came. I must tell you again, monsieur,' he said, sitting in the room of the apartment

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at the Rue des Plantes, 'that the man Smales is important to our plans for the next two days. We need the experience of
the criminal. After that he's yours. He is not somebody we can
trust.'

'Right,' nodded Ormerod. His back hurt from his fall down the stairs and the human tibia had given him a large contusion on the forehead. 'I just want him long enough to make a statement about the murder he committed.'

'And after that - what?' asked Raymond.

Ormerod shook his head painfully. 'That I don't know,' he admitted. 'My whole object has been to find him. But as to getting him out of here and back to face a court, well, that is going to be bloody difficult, I've got to admit. I'll be lucky to get myself out as far as I can see. And Smales would shop me to the Germans the first time he had a chance. He'd rather
spend the next few years in Germany than go to a necktie party
in Wandsworth.'

Raymond looked puzzled. 'What is this necktie party?' he inquired.

'Hanging,' said Ormerod simply. 'When he's convicted they'll
hang him at Wandsworth prison in London.'

'Ah, of course we have the guillotine, you know.'

'Don't like the idea of that,' grimaced Ormerod. 'Bit messy I should think.'

To his considerable surprise Raymond said: 'I expect we could get Smales out of the country for you.'

'You could? How?'

'Well, you know, France is still operating, if you understand me. Everyday life still goes on all over the country, here and in
the unoccupied zone - already we have transported a man in a coffin to Switzerland, a live man, I mean, with air holes in the
coffin and food. He reported that the journey was very com
fortable. Also everyday transport methods are often easy. The fruit and vegetables coming in from the country to the market
at Les Halles. Several men have arrived amid a pile of cabbages.
That method is called
"mon petit chou".
Then there are the
trains. The Germans make checks on trains but mostly they are
not very thorough. We hid a wanted man on the footplate of

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the engine all the way to Perpignan, you know, disguised as the fireman. The Boche checked everybody on the train except the
driver and our friend. Oh yes, there are ways.'

Ormerod looked at him with new admiration. Raymond smiled at the recognition. 'And for the moment,' he said, 'there
is Unoccupied France, Vichy France. There are many comings
and goings over the long border, believe me. The Germans may
be sitting in our house, monsieur, but the basement is full of
Frenchmen.'

Raymond left his chair and poured them cognac. 'Provided
you give the appearance of going about your everyday business,
you can move in Paris with some freedom. I still carry on my teaching at the Sorbonne without interference from the Nazis. At present that is. The only difference is that my Jewish
students are now more recognizable. They have to wear a yel
low star. Sometimes there are a dozen or more Jewish boys and girls in a lecture. There are so many stars that I say it is
like teaching astronomy. We have to make a joke of it. Sometimes the other students, just to protest, wear the stars as well. The Germans don't like that, but they have done nothing about
it yet. They are very busy trying to learn to be occupiers.'

Ormerod looked at him steadily. 'When will you do your bank raid?' he asked. 'That's if you can tell me.'

'Some time in the next three days,' said Raymond. He was not being cautious. He did not know. 'It will be difficult, but we need the funds. It will be interesting because I have never done anything truly criminal in my life. War gives a man strange opportunities.'

Ormerod nodded: 'It certainly does. Strangely enough, I've never done anything really criminal either. It's a bit frowned upon in the Metropolitan Police. Do you still want me in on it?'

'Yes I do.' Raymond regarded him seriously. 'We do not have enough people or enough experience to carry out this
sort of thing. Jean Le Blanc has been called to the Vichy Zone,
to Lyons. He will be back in two or three days. It is a pity, but it was urgent. He would have been useful.'

Ormerod sniffed: 'Yes, a useful bloke our Jean. I shall miss him.'

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Raymond smiled thinly. 'He is not a friend for everybody,'
he said. 'What is your expression - not everybody's cup of tea?
I think he is a hard man. But, monsieur, France has had too many soft men. Soft men do not win wars.'

'He's a tough bugger all right,' said Ormerod thoughtfully. 'And without a lot of sportsmanship. He'd make a marvellous Nazi.'

'As I say, we need him,' repeated Raymond calmly. 'We need
men of every sort in the resistance. All politics, all beliefs.
Believe me, before Paris is free again they will be fighting each
other as well as fighting the Boche. As for myself, well I am a
patriot, pure and simple. All I wish is to see France free. For that I would sacrifice everything. It is, you must understand, very embarrassing to be a slave.'

Ormerod regarded him with admiration. 'I hope it all works out for you,' he said with his customary inadequacy.

'Thank you. But for now we must consider the bank robbery.
It is, I repeat, a great pity that Le Blanc is not here. Also I have told your comrade Dove to stay out of this. In a direct way, that is. She has too much to do in the future. We cannot risk her on something like this.' He spread his hands. 'And so
we have got what we have got,' he said. 'Novices. In the future,
as we become tougher, more accustomed to this life, it will be
different, but at the moment, the men attached to the group,
patriots though they are, are not criminals. Smales is a criminal
and you are a policeman. We need men of your background and calibre.'

Ormerod grinned. His bruised mouth hurt when he did so. 'I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment,' he said.

'It is,' smiled Raymond. 'We have a part for you, monsieur.
It requires some coolness but it will not involve you directly in
the robbery.'

'That's a relief anyway. I never really fancied myself with a
mask over my nose. What do I do?'

Raymond went to the bureau in the corner and took out a
map of Paris which he spread on the low table between them. 'One of the great difficulties of any kind of action like this in
France, and particularly in Paris, whether it is a resistance operation or a bank robbery, is getting away from the scene

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quickly. There is no quick transport available. And in any case,
a car hurrying through Paris in these days would be picked up in a moment. As you see there are very few civilian cars on the roads and we could hardly escape on bicycles.'

Ormerod acknowledged the fact. 'I've travelled to Paris in
just about every way except camel train,' he said. 'As you said
the other day, thank God the railways are running.'

'Exactly. And this is what we plan to do with the bank robbery. Not the railway - the Metro.' He pointed to the map. 'See, here is the location of the bank. It is in the Rue de Babylone. Here.' He looked at Ormerod quizzically. 'I have to
tell you, monsieur, that we will have a little co-operation from
inside the bank itself. The assistant manager is a patriotic Frenchman and he knows the money is for a good cause. He is making sure that it is conveniently together and that there will be no resistance, so nobody will need to be shot.'

Ormerod sniffed. 'Not unless our friend Smales gets trigger happy,' he warned. 'Albert would really enjoy shooting a bank
cashier. Especially if he thinks it's in a good cause. Right up his alley that is.'

'If he shoots anyone unnecessarily then he will be tried by
our own court and will be executed. I'm afraid we would have
to cheat you, monsieur. It has been made clear to him.'

'What do I have to do?' asked the Englishman. 'My non-combatant role?'