The Black Tide (14 page)

‘Can we phone her now?’

‘She is not on the phone.’

‘You think she knows where her father is?’

He didn’t answer that, his sharp eyes staring and a frown on his face. ‘So! That is why you are here.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, the knuckles of his hands pressed into his cheeks, looking straight at me. ‘It is not the man’s background that interests you, it is where you can find him. Why? You are not the police. You cannot arrest
him. Even if you discover where he is—’ He stopped there, silent for a moment, his eyes still fixed on me. ‘All right then. Okay.’ He suddenly bounced to his feet. ‘I take you to see her. It is only two hours, a bit more per’aps according to the traffic. And there is a little restaurant I know just beyond Angers where we can eat.’

He had a Renault 20 and he drove fast, the radio on all the time so that conversation was almost impossible. I leaned back and closed my eyes, lulled by the husky voice of a singer crooning a French love song, wondering about the girl, what she would be able to tell me. And in the evening I would be meeting Baldwick. The thought depressed me – that and Barre’s hostility. I could feel it in the silent intensity of his driving. He didn’t understand, of course. He hadn’t connected me with the woman who had blown the ship up. And it had been tactless of me not to conceal my disappointment at his report. Two years living an isolated existence with just one other human being – I had forgotten the pressures of everyday life, the sensitivity of men whose pride was part of their individual armour against the world. Rationalization, self-justification … God! How tired I was! How very, very tired!

The drone of the engine, the voice singing, the sky dark and the wind blattering at the car in gusts … I had a feeling of remoteness, my mind transported, drifting in a daze. Emotional exhaustion perhaps, or just the loneliness. Sitting there, my eyes closed, my cap pushed back, my body enveloped in the heat from the engine – heavy lorries thundering by, the flash of headlights in the murk … Christ! What a filthy lousy day! And here I was being driven by a stranger, a Frenchman, through a land gripped in winter, to meet the daughter of a man I’d sworn to kill … Guinevere – a name from Arthurian legend, was that important? Would she have heard from him? He could be in the desert now, or at sea, or buried in the teeming masses of some Arab town. Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al Khaimah, Khor al Fakkan – the Emirate names passing through my mind like a refrain – and Muscat, too, El Ain … all the names of all the places I had ever visited in the Gulf. Where would it be – where would I
catch up with him? And when I did, would I really kill him? Would I have the guts?

And then, after a long time, I saw his newspaper picture face twisted in pain, the wide stare, the shocked surprise and the blood spurting. What had I used? In God’s name, was it a knife, or was it my bare hands? My teeth were bared and gritted, my fingers wet and feeling flesh, squeezing, squeezing, and I was cursing as the tongue came out and his eyes glazed …

‘Angers,’ Barre said and I blinked my eyes and sat up.

We were off the dual carriageway, driving into the centre of a city. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

‘You’re tired, I think. You were talking to yourself.’ He switched off the radio. ‘We are coming now to one of the great châteaux of France.’ He turned off to the right, away from the river which he said was the Maine, and above us I saw a line of great black-banded towers. ‘A pity you don’t have time to view the tapestries of the Apocalypse – this city has some of the most remarkable tapestries in the world.’ He talked then about the Angevin kings and the Plantagenet connection until we stopped at a little hotel in Bohalle for lunch.

What I had said while I was asleep in the car I don’t know, but all through the meal, it seemed, he avoided the purpose of our journey, putting himself out to be entertaining as though I were somebody to be treated with care. It was only at the end, over the last of the wine and some excellent local cheese, that he suddenly said, ‘That girl, what are you going to say to her, have you thought?’

I gave a little shrug. What the hell was I going to say to her? ‘Does she know her father wrecked a tanker?’

‘It’s not certain. There’s no proof yet. But of course she knows he’s under suspicion. It is in all the papers. And yesterday the local press print a statement from the skipper of the
Vague d’Or
’ And he added, ‘Is better you leave it to me, eh? She may not have any English and if I talk to her—’

‘Ask her if she’s heard from her father, if possible get his address.’

‘And how do we explain ourselves? She might talk to me, but with two of us there – I don’t know.’ He was frowning. ‘I think if I were her I would be asking some questions before giving any answers.’

We were still discussing it as we drove out of Bohalle, the road now hugging the bank of the Loire, through Les Rosiers, St Clément-de-Levées and St Martin-de-la-Place. At Saumur, with its fairy château perched above the river, we crossed over to the south bank and almost immediately the road was bounded by shallow limestone cliffs along which conventional house fronts had been built as façades to what were apparently troglodyte dwellings. ‘Les Tuffeaux,’ Barre said, and talked for a moment about the mushroom industry that had grown side by side with the wine business in caves carved out of the limestone to provide the building material for medieval churches.

He stopped at a riverside café to enquire the way and afterwards we turned right at Souzay to join a narrow road close under the cliffs. Mushrooms, he said, were a by-product of the Cavalry School at Saumur. ‘What you call horse shit,’ he added, laughing. It was a long, very narrow road and the Choffel house was at the end, in a little cul-de-sac where there was a cave half-hidden by a drooping mass of vegetation, the entrance sealed off by an iron door with a dilapidated notice announcing Vin à Vendre. We parked there and walked back. The figures 5042 were painted black above the rough plaster porch and from a rusty little iron gate opposite that led into a small rose garden there was a fine view over tiled rooftops to the broad waters of the Loire glinting in a cold shaft of sunlight. Dark clouds hung over the northern bank where the vineyards gave way to forest.

I had no preconceived mental picture of Choffel’s daughter. I expected her to be dark, of course, but I hadn’t really thought about it, my mind on how I could persuade her to give us the information I needed. It came as a shock, when she opened the door, to find there was something vaguely familiar about her. She was about twenty, well-rounded with black hair cut in a fringe that framed a squarish face and I had the feeling I had seen her before.

Barre introduced us and at my name she turned her head, staring at me with a puzzled frown. Her eyes were large and dark like sloes, very bright, but that may have been because of her cold. She looked as though she was running a temperature. Barre was still talking, and after a moment’s hesitation, during which her eyes remained fixed on my face, she let us into the house. ‘I have told her we are here about the
Petros Jupiter
insurance, nothing else,’ Barre whispered as she ushered us into what I suppose would be called the parlour in that sort of house. It was a comfortably furnished room and almost the first thing I noticed was a photograph of her father, the same dark features and prominent nose I had seen in the newspaper pictures, but clean shaven and bareheaded, the crinkly black hair carefully smoothed down, and he was smiling self-consciously, dressed in his engineer’s uniform. Standing beside it, in an identical silvered frame, was the photograph of a young woman with the most enormous eyes staring out of a long, gaunt face. She had a broad, pale brow and a mass of curly brown hair. ‘My family,’ the girl said to me in English, and then she had turned back to Barre, speaking in French again, the tone of her voice sharp and questioning.

It was a strange room, more than half of it natural rock that had been plastered over and then decorated. This and the colour of the walls, which was a pale green, gave it a certain coldness, and with just the one window it had an almost claustrophobic feel to it. I heard my name mentioned and Guinevere Choffel was repeating it, staring at me again, her eyes wide, a shocked look that was mixed with doubt and confusion. ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’ Her English was perfect, but with something of a lilt to it, and she said again, ‘Why are you here?’ her voice dropping away to a note of despair. ‘It was an accident,’ she breathed. ‘An accident, do you hear?’

She knew! That was my first reaction. She knew about Karen, what had happened. And the reason I was here, she must have guessed that, for she didn’t believe me when I said I represented Forthright & Co., the marine solicitors dealing with the case, and needed her father’s address so that we
could arrange for him to make a statement. ‘No. It’s something else, isn’t it?’ And in the flash of her eyes, the sound of her voice, I had that sense of familiarity again, but stronger now. And then it dawned on me. She was like Karen in a way, the same sort of build, the same high colouring against the raven black hair, that lilt in the voice; that emotional quality, too, the voice rising and those dark eyes bright with the flash of her anger: ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know my father or you wouldn’t think such a thing.’ She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt and turned away to blow her nose. ‘He’s had a hard life,’ she mumbled. ‘So many things gone wrong, and not his fault – except that once.’ This last was swallowed so that I almost lost it. And then she had turned and was facing me again, her voice rising: ‘Now you’re here, blaming him. It’s been the same, always, you understand. Always. Do you know what it’s like, to be accused of things you don’t do? Well, do you?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘No,’ she said, her voice higher still and trembling. ‘Of course you don’t. It’s never happened to you. And now you come here, asking me, his daughter, to tell you where he’s gone. You think I would do that when you have already passed judgment on him?’ She seemed to take a grip of herself then, speaking slowly and with emphasis, ‘It’s not his fault the ship is wrecked. You must believe that. Please.’

‘You saw him in La Rochelle, did you?’ Or perhaps he had only had time to contact her by phone.

‘In La Rochelle?’ She stared at me.

‘In the trawler basin there, when he arrived in the
Vague d’Or
.’

‘No, I don’t go to La Rochelle. Is he in La Rochelle?’ She sounded surprised.

‘He didn’t contact you?’

‘No, how could he? I didn’t know.’ She was still staring at me, breathing heavily. ‘La Rochelle, you say?’ And when I explained, she shook her head. ‘No, I don’t see him there, or anywhere. I didn’t know he was in France.’

‘But you’ve had a letter from him?’

‘No, not since—’ she checked herself. ‘No. No letter.’

‘But you’ve heard from him. You know where he is.’

She didn’t answer that, her lips tight shut now.

‘Do you know a man named Baldwick?’ I thought there was a flicker of recognition in her eyes. ‘He’s in Nantes. Has he phoned you, or sent you a message?’

She lifted her head then, the dark eyes staring into mine. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? You’ve made up your—’ She shook her head. ‘You had better go please. I have nothing to tell you, nothing at all, do you hear?’ Her voice, quieter now, the lilt stronger, had an undercurrent of tension in it. ‘She was your wife, I suppose. I read about it in an English paper.’ And when I didn’t answer, she suddenly cried out, ‘She did it – herself. You cannot blame somebody who wasn’t there.’ I could smell her fear of me then as she went on, ‘I’m sorry. But it’s her fault. Nothing to do with my father.’

‘Then why didn’t he stay in England? If he’d waited for the Enquiry—’

‘It’s nothing to do with him, I tell you.’ And then, vehemently, almost wildly – ‘It’s the chief engineer. He’s the man you should ask questions about, not my father.’

‘Is that what he’s told you?’

She nodded.

‘You have heard from him then,’ I said.

‘Of course. He wrote me as soon as he landed in Cornwall.’

‘Did he tell you he was planning to get away in a Breton fishing boat, that he didn’t dare face the Enquiry?’

‘No, he didn’t say that. But I was glad – glad when I knew. For his sake.’ She must have been very conscious of my hostility, for she suddenly shouted at me, ‘What do you expect him to do? Wait to be accused by a chief engineer who isn’t sick, but drunk and incompetent? It’s happened before, you know. Why should he wait, an innocent man, to be accused again?’ She was standing quite close to me, looking up into my face, her eyes wide and desperate. ‘You don’t believe me?’

‘No,’ I said.

And then she did something so unexpected it shocked me deeply. She spat in my face. She jerked her head and ejected her germ-laden spittle straight into my face.
‘Maquereau
!
You’re like all the rest. When you’ve got a man down you kick his teeth in. My father is the finest, most generous, kindly man I know, and you use him, all of you, as though he is nothing but a turd under your feet. I hate you. I hate the whole world.’ Tears were streaming down her face and she rushed to the door, pulling it open and screaming, ‘Get out! D’you hear?
Allez
! And tell your friends, everybody, that he is clear of you all now. He’s free, and you’ll never find him. Never.’

The door banged behind us.

‘Is not a very rewarding visit, eh?’ Barre said with a chuckle as we walked back to the car. He seemed to enjoy my discomfort, and then as we drove back down to the main road he said, ‘Nothing is what it seems to be, isn’t it so? The man you regard as a terrorist, others think of in ideological terms. So what about Choffel, eh? You see him as a wrecker, a man who has deliberately caused a tanker to go on to the rocks, but to his daughter he is a kindly, generous man who would not hurt a soul and you are the enemy.’ He glanced at me quickly. ‘How do you think he sees himself?’

I hadn’t considered that. ‘I’ve had other things to think about,’ I told him.

‘That is not an answer.’ He waited a moment, then said, ‘But why does he do it?’