Other Paths to Glory (19 page)

Sweet-rotten smell - cow-dung smell -

‘Can you see anything, Paul?’

‘Go back!’

A boot, a dirty boot with steel studs on -

‘What’s the matter?’

A dirty boot with steel studs and a foot in it, with a spike of pink bone and tendons and a long flap of brownish skin with black hair bristling on it - God!

The sound of motor-cycles in the distance.

THE CAR MUST
have been waiting for him, parked in the darkness just up the road from the Belle Etoile, because he had to wait no more than a minute before it came sliding alongside the kerb abreast of him.

The driver leaned across to the window.

‘Lefevre?’

‘Roskill?’

‘Jump in.’ The voice was casual and decidedly public school. ‘You’re a couple of minutes late. Everything okay?’

‘I was just getting into bed when you shoved the note under my door. I had to dress.’

Mitchell paused, undecided as to which of the two questions uppermost in his mind he wanted to ask first.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Not far.’

‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘Oh, we’re bloody good at “hide and seek” - didn’t you know?’

The over-casualness of the man’s voice began to jar on Mitchell when he suddenly remembered he’d clean forgotten the most important question of all - the one which meant everything and nothing at all.

‘“If one told thee all was betrayed, what wouldst thou do?”’ he quoted hurriedly, grateful that the darkness of the car spared his embarrassment at the gaffe.

‘Heaven be praised - I was beginning to get nervous,’ said Roskill with evident relief.

‘I would run away. It might be true.’

‘And that’s what I would do too, by damn! David’s sense of humour certainly hasn’t improved since I last worked for him, I’ll say that.’

He gave Mitchell a quick nod of sympathy.

‘We’re just driving about to make sure no one’s tailing you, and we got your address from the tours manager - the coach company fellow - what’s his name - ?’

‘
Whitton.
’

‘That’s the man. Got the War Department to phone him up at Amiens. Satisfied?’

It was as easy as that - ridiculously easy.

‘And we didn’t phone you or come barging into your room because the French are terrible fellows for tapping and bugging, far worse than we are. Journalist pal of mine in Paris always says hullo twice when anyone phones him, just to be polite to the other chap on his line.’

Mitchell digested the precautions, recalling his warm, comfortable room in the Belle Etoile and the innocently empty boulevards outside the hotel with immediate and fearful suspicion. He had let his tired mind relax back there for a moment, and now he had been forcibly reminded that such weakness was not permitted.

‘But nobody’s on to me?’

Roskill glanced into the driving mirror.

‘Nobody’s following us, that’s true. So you may be right. Better to be careful than sorry though, eh?’ He glanced at Mitchell again. ‘Tell me, are you another of David’s bright ideas?’

Mitchell was not so much surprised at the accurate guess about his amateur status, which his fumbling use of the recognition phrase must have rendered apparent, as by the fact that Roskill clearly wasn’t in Audley’s confidence. That being the case he could hardly give a straight answer, but an instinct warned him not to stop the question dead in its tracks without finding out what lay behind it.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not to me it doesn’t, old boy - I’m just passing through, thank God. But to you…’

Roskill’s voice trailed off.

‘Half conscript, half volunteer, that’d be my guess.’

Again it was an uncomfortably accurate guess.

‘What makes you think so?’

Roskill shrugged.

‘Well … let’s say I don’t know you, but I do know David Audley very well. So I’ll give you a piece of advice, Lefevre - absolutely free: get back to your regiment as quickly as you can, even if it’s on its tenth tour in darkest Ulster. Get the hell out while you still can.’

He was being warned off again, this time half-flippantly in a very different style from Colonel Butler’s explosive disapproval, but nonetheless sincerely. And yet although the warning appealed to him as plain common sense he felt a perverse reluctance to accept it, even after the horror of this evening. It went beyond the original mixture of self-preservation and revenge now, and he suddenly felt an overriding need to pin it down in his mind.

It wasn’t simply curiosity, the need to know - the same insatiable need to answer questions in his mind, a drive which he had recognised but never quite understood …

‘Huh!’ Roskill broke the silence. ‘You’re hooked! I don’t know how he does it, but he does it: one look at you and he bloody knows where to fix it so you don’t even know he’s done it - ‘

‘Audley?’

Mitchell tried to sort out the mixture of regret, admiration and dislike in the man’s voice into some order of precedence.

‘Dr David L. Audley, MBE, MA, PhD - you’ll find out soon enough if you haven’t already. He’s quite a guy for getting results - he’s famous for it. But he solves trouble by making trouble, and someone always has to pick up the bill. This time it could be you.’

The bitterness was personal as well as professional, Mitchell was certain. But without knowing anything about Roskill he couldn’t gauge its justification.

Except that he did know one thing about Roskill:
Get them to hire a light aircraft - Hugh
Roskill
’
sfit to fly again
…

‘Did you manage to fly over Hameau Ridge, Roskill?’

Roskill stretched and shifted his position, leaving the final ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you’ admonition unsaid.

‘No. I didn’t get to fly anywhere. Because over-flying the Somme is
verboten.
’

‘Forbidden? As of when?’

‘As of now. Light aircraft, private aircraft - nothing flies off the airline corridor or under their operational ceiling. The whole area’s under military control.’

‘They give a reason?’

‘Military exercises. Only there aren’t any military exercises: all we can pick up on our radar is a few choppers buzzing around. Someone’s conning us, looks like.’

Not conning, thought Mitchell. Or not deliberately conning. This was just the aerial version of the situation Butler had reported on the ground: something was happening in the Channel departments. Even the presence of those motorcycle police, and the speed with which they had summoned men to Rattlesnake Ravine, only confirmed that. The French security services were obviously -

Christ! He’d been dim! The explanation or at least one part of it - had been staring him in the face for hours now, and he’d looked right through it.

Even as the implications of the idea began to spread like ripples he felt the car slow down. Looking around he saw that they were in an anonymous side-street, with the lights of a main thoroughfare some fifty yards ahead.

‘This is where we pan,’ said Roskill. ‘David’s waiting for you in Number 17, just across the street - Flat Four. The front door’s on the latch, you can go straight up.’

Mitchell looked up and down the street.

‘Are you coming back for me?’

‘Not likely! It’s Paris for me now. Straight on to the motorway just outside town, and I’ll be there before midnight - the place’ll just be hotting up. Knocks Arras into a cocked hat for late night enjoyment, Paris does, you know.’

The interior of the car was striped with bars of light and darkness thrown through the Venetian blinds of a window in the house beside them. One bar told him that Roskill was grinning happily, like a soldier ordered back to base on the eve of an enemy attack, but as the man moved his head Mitchell saw that the happiness didn’t extend upwards to his eyes.

‘How do I get back to my hotel, then?’

‘Get back? Down to the bottom of the street, turn left three hundred yards and you’re back in Place Lloyd George.’

Mitchell regarded him with astonishment.

‘Three hundred - then why the blazes have we been driving all over the place?’

‘I told you - to see if you’ve got a tail. And then to slip it if you had.’

‘But I still don’t see why I should have a tail - I haven’t done anything, and nobody could possibly know me.’

At least, nobody could know Captain Lefevre anyway: he’d only been born the day before. Except that after this evening even that cry had a hollow ring about it.

‘Well, you’re a lucky fellow to have such a clear conscience -and such touching confidence too,’ Roskill chuckled grimly. ‘But don’t ask me for whys and wherefores. I’m just the taximan this time, thank God.’

He took a final look up and down the street.

‘You’re in the clear at this moment, certainly: you tell David that from me. On which happy note I must bid you adieu, old boy.’

Mitchell fumbled for the door handle.

‘Thanks for the ride … old boy.’

Roskill’s teeth glinted in the bar of light across his mouth.

‘Think nothing of it. Just one final thought though, Lefevre. You wanted me to take a look at Hameau Ridge - the old battlefield, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Who was that cartoonist chap - Bruce someone - who drew all the old trench jokes?’

‘Bairnsfather.’

That’s the chap. Always drew the same soldier. Little man with a walrus moustache?’

‘ “Old Bill”.’

‘Right. And he was the one who was in this shell crater full of mud and water during a bombardment and turned to his mate and said “If you know a better hole, go to it.” And that’s pretty damn good advice; it seems to me - as far as you’re concerned.’

Roskill had entirely misunderstood Old Bill’s advice, Mitchell reflected as he closed the door of the flat behind him. The whole analogy was off the point. And yet the warning was plain enough all the same, echoing Butler’s doubts of the previous day about the advisability of sending forth a sheep dressed in wolf’s clothing. Only in a crazy way he had nevertheless been enjoying himself. Even the moments of fear in retrospect had a quality of excitement which made them exhilarating. But this was no time for self-analysis; Audley was talking to him –

‘- and not followed at all? That’s good, Paul - because if Hugh Roskill says you weren’t, then we can rely on it. He’s a first-rate operative, is Hugh.’

That somehow made it worse, thought Mitchell: whatever Roskill thought of Audley, the big man had no lack of confidence in his subordinate. The relationship betrayed a defect in each of them: if the younger man was bitter to the very edge of disloyalty, the older one was totally unaware of his disaffection. And if that cut them both down to human size it wasn’t exactly reassuring.

Audley regarded him solicitously.

‘You look tired, Paul. But that’s only to be expected, the first time on your own - here, sit down - have a cognac.’

He pointed to the bottle on the table.

Mitchell shook his head.

‘You look as if you’ve got something for me, too,’ said Audley. ‘You’ve seen something?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘A - fence.’

That was strange: he’d wanted to say ‘A foot’, but the word had refused to be said at the last moment.

‘A fence? What son offence? Where?’

‘On Hameau Ridge. There’s a double wire fence round Bouillet Wood. No trespassers.’

Audley frowned.

‘But you said you knew the man who lives there?’

‘He died last year. There’s a new owner now.’

‘Who owns it now?’

‘The man on the gate wouldn’t say. Nor would the police.’

‘The police?’ Audley took the information well, with controlled interest untainted by the least sign of worry. ‘How did you run into them?’

His coolness rekindled Mitchell’s confidence in him. ‘They ran into us. It was when we went to have a look at the wood from the Prussian Redoubt side.’

‘We?’ Audley pounced on the pronoun. ‘The interpreter was with you?’

‘You know about her?’

‘Her?’ Audley cocked his head questioningly. ‘The tours man told Hugh over the phone you’d be supplied with an interpreter - he didn’t say it was a female one.’

That sounded like Whitton right enough, though it was impossible to say whether he’d omitted that additional fact because of his quirky sense of humour or because he unselfishly wanted to give ‘a nice lad’ a clear run with a pretty girl.

Audley listened to his portrait of Nikki MacMahon with good-humoured interest.

‘Delightful. And a most accurate description too - go on, though.’

‘What with - the police or the fence?’

‘Whichever you like. It’s your story. Tell it your way.’

It would be logical to be chronological, thought Mitchell: to progress from the fence to the police, by way of Bouillet Wood. But the appalling image of the foot was overprinted on every other memory, becoming clearer every second while everything else faded.

‘We’ve got another body.’

‘Another - ?’ This time Audley reacted sharply. ‘You mean a dead man?’

‘They don’t come any deader. He was spread all over Rattlesnake Ravine. I think I found the largest piece of him. It was his - foot.’

‘His foot? What do you mean - he was cut up?’

‘Not cut up - blown up. Blown to bits - ‘

It tumbled out now, the foot, the ravine, the police. What he couldn’t paint in words was the unreality of the scene as darkness had fallen and the powerful headlights of the police cars had blazed up the cutting, illuminating the trees and bushes with unnatural sharpness against their own black shadows … and he’d kept on thinking, the knowledge going round and round in his brain, that this horror was a small thing compared with what once had happened here -

We
’
d had a belly-full of mercy that day
…

Audley listened in silence, right to the end, asking no questions this time, only nodding. Finally he looked up at Mitchell thoughtfully.

‘But you don’t believe him?’

‘The police inspector?’

‘He said it was an accident, but you evidently don’t believe him. Why not?’

Audley was studying him closely: it was as though he was being questioned and tested at the same time.