Last Ditch (22 page)

‘She was lying,’ he thought. ‘He hasn’t gone to Bon Accord. What the hell did he say was the name of that pub, where they lunched?’ ‘Fisherman’s Rest’ clicked up in his police-drilled memory. He returned to the work table. On a notepad Ricky had written a telephone number and after it L’E.

‘He’d not go there,’ Alleyn thought. ‘Or would he? If Julia rang him up? Not without letting me know. But he couldn’t let me know.’

There was more writing – a lot of it – on an underleaf of the notepad. Alleyn saw that it was a quite exhaustive breakdown of the circumstances surrounding Ricky’s experiences before and during his visit to St Pierre-des-Roches.

Alleyn momentarily closed his eyes. ‘Madame F.,’ he thought, ‘has no doubt enjoyed a good read.’

He took down the L’Esperance number and left a message under the stone: ‘Sorry I missed you. Cid.’

‘She’ll read it, of course,’ he thought, and went downstairs. The kitchen door was ajar and the television silent.

‘
Bon soir, madame
,’ he called out cheerfully, and let himself out.

Back at the police station he rang the Fisherman’s Rest at Bon Accord, and to a background of bar-conviviality was told that Ricky was not, and had not been, there. Fox, who had yielded to Mrs Plank’s renewed hospitality, listened with well-controlled consternation.

Alleyn then rang L’Esperance. He was answered by a voice that he recognized as Bruno’s.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Alleyn here. I’m sorry to bother you but is Rick by any chance with you?’

‘No, sir, we haven’t seen him since –’

He faded out. Alleyn heard his own name and then, close and unmistakable, Julia’s voice.

‘It’s you! What fun. Have you mislaid your son?’

‘I seem to have, for the moment.’

‘We’ve not seen him since this morning. Could he be hunting you down in your smart hotel? Perhaps he’s met Louis and they’re up to no good in Montjoy.’

‘Is Louis in Montjoy?’

‘I think so.
Carlotta
,’ cried Julia musically, ‘is Louis in Montjoy?’ And after a pause, into the receiver: ‘She doesn’t seem to know.’

‘I’m so sorry to have bothered you.’

‘You needn’t be. Quite to the contrary. Hope you find him.’

‘I expect I shall,’ he said, quite gaily. ‘Goodbye and thank you.’

When he had hung up, he and Fox looked steadily at each other.

Fox said: ‘There’ll be a simple explanation, of course.’

‘If there is,’ Alleyn said, ‘I’ll knock his block off,’ and contrived to laugh. ‘You think of one, Fox,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

‘Such as gone for a walk and sprained an ankle?’

‘All right. Yes. That.’

‘He wouldn’t be up at Leathers? No. Plank would have said.’

The telephone rang.

‘That’ll
be
Plank,’ said Fox, and answered it. ‘Fox here. Yes. Nothing, eh? I’ll ask the Chief.’ He looked at Alleyn who, with a most uncharacteristic gesture, passed his hand across his eyes.

‘Tell him to – no, wait a moment. Tell them to knock off and report back here. And – you might just ask –’

Fox asked and got the expected reply.

‘By God,’ said Alleyn. ‘I wish this hadn’t happened. Damn the boy, I ought to have got him out of it to begin with.’

After a longish pause, Fox said: ‘I’m not of that opinion, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr Alleyn.’

‘I don’t mind, Br’er Fox. I hope you’re right.’

‘It’ll just turn out he’s taken an extra long walk.’

‘You didn’t hear Mrs Ferrant. I think she knows something.’

‘About the young chap?’

‘Yes.’

Fox was silent.

‘We must, of course, do what we’d do if someone came into the station and reported it,’ Alleyn said.

‘Tell them to wait,’ Fox said promptly. ‘Give him until it gets dark and then if he hadn’t turned up we’d – well –’

‘Set up a search.’

‘That’s right,’ said Fox uncomfortably.

‘In the meantime we’ve got the official search on hand. Did Plank say what he’d beaten up in the way of help?’

‘The chaps he’s got with him. A couple of coppers from the Montjoy factory,’ said Fox, meaning the police station.

‘We’ll take them with us. After all, we don’t know what we’ll find there, do we?’ said Alleyn.

The thing they got wrong in the gangster films, Ricky thought, was what it did to you being tied up. The film victims, once they were released, did one or two obligatory staggers and then became as nimble as fleas and started fighting again. He knew that when, if ever, he was released, his legs would not support him, his arms would be senseless and his head so compounded of pain that it would hang down and wobble like a wilted dahlia.

He could not guess how long it was since they gagged him. Jones had made a pad out of rag and Ferrant had forced it between his teeth and bound it with another rag, It tasted of turpentine and stung his cut lip. They had done this when Syd said he’d heard something outside. Ferrant had switched off the light and they were very still until there was a scratching at the door.

‘It’s the kid,’ Ferrant said.

He opened the door a little way and after a moment shut it again very quietly. Syd switched on the light. Young Louis was there. He wore a black smock like a French schoolboy and a beret, He had a satchel on his back. His stewed-prune eyes stared greedily at Ricky out of a blackened face.

Ferrant held out his hand and Louis put a note in it. Ferrant read it – it was evidently very short – and gave it to Syd.

Louis said: ‘Papa, he asked me if I could row the boat.’

‘Who did?’

‘The fuzz. He asked if I was afraid to go out in her at night.’

‘What’d you say?’

‘I said I wasn’t. I didn’t say anything else, Papa. Honest.’

‘By God, you better not.’

‘Maman says he’s getting worried about
him
.’ Louis pointed to Ricky. ‘You got him so he can’t talk, haven’t you, Papa? Have you worked him over? His face looks like you have. What are you going to do with him, Papa?’

‘
Tais-toi donc
. Keep your tongue behind your teeth.
Passe-moi la boustifaille
.’

Louis gave him the satchel.

‘Good. Now, there is more for you to do. Take this envelope. Do not open it. You see it has his name on it. The detective’s name. Listen carefully. You are to push it under the door at the police station and nobody must see you. Do not put it through the slot. Under the door. Then push the bell and away home quick and silent before the door is opened. Very quick. Very silent. And nobody to see you. Repeat it.’

He did, accurately.

‘That is right. Now go.’

‘I’ve blacked my face. Like a gunman. So’s nobody can see me.’

‘Good. The light, Syd.’

Syd switched it off and on again when the door was shut.

‘Is he safe?’ Syd asked.

‘Yes. Get on with it.’

‘We can’t take –’ Syd stopped short and looked at Ricky – ‘everything,’ he said.

They had paid no attention to him for a long time. It was as if by trussing him up they had turned him into an unthinking as well as an inaminate object.

They had been busy. His chair had been turned away from the table and manhandled excruciatingly to bring him face to the wall. There had been some talk of a blindfold, he thought, but he kept his eyes shut and let his head flop, and they left him there, still gagged, and could be heard moving purposefully about the room.

He opened his eyes. Leda and the Swan had gone from their place on the wall and now lay face down on the floor close to his feet. He recognized the frame and wondered bemusedly by what means it
had hung up there because there was no cord or wire to be seen, although there were the usual ring-screws.

Ferrant and Syd went quietly about their business. They spoke seldom and in low voices but they generated a floating sense of urgency and at times seemed to argue. He began to long for the moment to come when they would have to release whatever it was that bound and cut into his ankles. If he was to walk between them down to the boat, that was what they would have to do. And where would The Cid be, then? Watching with Br’er Fox from the window in Ricky’s room? Unable to do anything because if he did…Would The Cid ever get that message? Where was he now? Now, when Ricky wanted him so badly. ‘It’s too much,’ he thought. ‘Yesterday and the thunder and lightning and the sea and blacking my eye and now all this: face, jaw, mouth, ankle: no, it’s too much. The wall poured upwards, his eyes closed and he fainted.

The boy Louis did not follow the path down to the front but turned off it to his right and slithered, darkling, along tortuous passages that ran uphill and down, behind the backs of cottages, some occupied and some deserted.

The moon had not yet risen and the going was tricky, but he was sure-footed and knew his ground. He was excited and thought of himself in terms of his favourite comic strip as a Miracle Kid.

He came out of his labyrinth at the top of the lane that ran down to the police station.

Here he crouched for a moment in the blackest of the shadows. There was no need to crouch, the lane was deserted, but he enjoyed doing it and then flattening himself against a wall and edging downhill.

The blue lamp was on, but the station windows were dark while those in the living-quarters glowed. He could hear music: radio or telly, with the fuzz family watching it and the Miracle Kid, all on his own, out in the dark.

‘
Whee-ee! !
’

Across the lane like the Black Shadow. Envelope. Under the door. Stuck. Push. Bell. Push. ‘Zing! ! !’

In by the back door with Maman waiting. Hands in pockets. Cool. Slouch in wagging the hips.

‘
Eh bien?
’ said Mrs Ferrant, nodding her head up and down. ‘
Tu es fort satisfait de ta petite personne, hein?
’

Round the corner in the police station, Mrs Plank, peering up and down the lane, told herself it was too late for a runaway knock. Unless, she thought, it was that young Louis from round the corner who was allowed to wait up till all hours and was not a nice type of child. Then she noticed the envelope at her feet. She picked it up. Addressed to the Super and sealed. She shut the front door, went into the kitchen and turned the envelope over and over in her hands.

There was no telling how late it might be when they returned, all of them. Joe had been very quiet when he came in, but she knew he was gratified by the way the corners of his mouth twitched. He had told her they were going to search Syd Jones’s premises but it was not to be mentioned. He knew, thought Mrs Plank, that he could trust her.

It had been a most irregular way of delivering the note, if it was a note. Suppose it was important? Suppose Mr Alleyn should know of it at once and suppose that by leaving it until he came in, if he did come in and not drive straight back to Montjoy, some irreparable damage was done? On the other hand Joe and Mr Alleyn and Mr Fox might be greatly displeased if she butted in at that place with a note that turned out to be some silly prank.

She worried it over, this way and that. She examined the envelope again and again, particularly the direction, written in capital letters with some sort of crayon, it looked like: ‘MR ALLEN’. Someone who didn’t know how to spell his name.

The flap was not all that securely gummed down.

‘Well, I don’t care, I will,’ she thought.

She manœuvred it open and read the message.

Before they set out for Syd’s pad, Alleyn had held a short briefing at the station with Fox, Plank and the two constables from Montjoy: Cribbage and Moss.

‘We’re going into the place,’ he had told them, ‘because I think we’ve sufficient grounds to justify a search for illicit drugs. It will have to be an exhaustive search and as always in these cases it may bring us no joy. The two men we’re interested in are known to have been in St Pierre yesterday, and, as far as we’ve been able to find out, haven’t returned to the island. Certainly not by air. There has been no official passage to the Cove by sea and your chaps –’ he looked at the two constables – ‘checked the ferry at Montjoy. This doesn’t take in the possibility that they came back during the night in a French chum’s craft and were transhipped somewhere near the heads into Ferrant’s dinghy and brought ashore. We’ve no evidence –’ he hesitated for a moment and caught Fox’s eye – ‘no evidence,’ he repeated, ‘to support any such theory: it is pure speculation. If, however, it had so happened, it might mean that Ferrant as well as Jones was up at the pad and they might turn naughty. Mr Fox and Sergeant Plank are carrying handcuffs.’ He looked round at the four impassive faces. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s it. Shall we push off? Got your lamps?’

Plank had produced two acetylene lamps in addition to five powerful hand torches because, as he said, they didn’t know but what the power might be off. He had also provided himself with a small torch with a blue light.

They had driven along the front, past the Cod-and-Bottle, and parked their car near Fisherman’s Steps.

Ricky had described his visit to Syd’s pad so vividly that Alleyn felt as if he himself had been there before. They didn’t say much to each other as they climbed the steps. Plank, who in the course of duty beats had become familiar with the ground, led the way and used his torch to show awkward patches.

‘We don’t want to advertise ourselves,’ Alleyn had said. ‘On the other hand, we’re making a routine search, not scaling the cliffs of Abraham in black-face. If there’s somebody at home and won’t answer the door we effect an entrance. If nobody’s there we still effect an entrance. And that’s it.’

They were about half-way up the steps and had passed the last of the cottages, when Plank said: ‘The place is up on the right, sir. If there was lights in the front windows we’d see them from here.’

‘I can just make out the roof

‘Somebody might be in a back room,’ said Fox.

‘Of course. We’ll take it quietly from here – Plank, you’re familiar with the lie of the land. When we get there you take a man with you and move round to the back door as quietly as you can. We three will go to the front door.
If
there’s anybody at home he might try a break. From now on, softly’s the word. Don’t rush it and don’t use your torch unless you’ve got to and then keep it close to the ground.’

They moved on slowly. The going became increasingly difficult, their feet slipped, they breathed hard and once the larger of the Montjoy men fell heavily, swore and said, ‘Pardon.’ Plank administered a stern rebuke. They continued uphill, still led by Plank, who turned every now and then to make sure they were all together.

On the last of these occasions he put out his hand and touched Alleyn.

‘Sir,’ Plank breathed, ‘has someone fallen back?’

No, they were all there.

‘What is it?’

‘We’re being followed.’

Alleyn turned. Some way below them a torchlight darted momentarily about the steps, blacked out and re-appeared, nearer.

‘One of the locals? Coming home?’ Fox speculated.

‘Wait.’

No. It showed again for a fraction of a second and was much nearer. They could hear uneven footfalls and laboured breathing. Whoever it was must be scrambling, almost running up the steps.

‘Christ!’ Plank broke out. ‘It’s the missus.’

It was Mrs Plank, so out of breath that she clung to Alleyn with one hand and, with the other, shoved the paper at him.

‘Sh-sh!’ she panted. ‘Don’t speak. Don’t say anything. Read it.’

Alleyn opened his jacket as a shield to her torch, and read.

Fox, who was at his elbow, saw the paper quiver in his hand. The little group was very still. Voices of patrons leaving the Cod-and-Bottle broke the silence and even the slap of the incoming tide along the front. Alleyn motioned with his head. The others closed about him, bent over and formed a sort of massive scrum round the torch-lit paper. Fox was the first to break the silence.

‘Signed P.A.D.?’ Fox said. ‘Why?’

‘It’s his writing. Weak. But his. It’s a tip-off. “
Pad”.
They didn’t drop to it or they’d have cut it out.’

‘Practical,’ said Fox unevenly. And then: ‘What do we do?’

Alleyn read the message again, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Mrs Plank switched off her torch. The others waited.

‘Mrs Plank,’ Alleyn said, ‘you don’t know how grateful I am to you. How did this reach you?’

She told him. ‘I got the notion,’ she ended, ‘that it might be that young Louis Ferrant. I suppose because he’s a one for runaway knocks.’

‘Is he, indeed? Now, please, you must go back. Go carefully and thank you.’

‘Will it – they won’t? – will it be all right?’

‘You cut along, Mother,’ said her husband. ‘’Course it will.’

‘Goodnight, then,’ she said, and was gone.

Fox said: ‘She’s not using her torch.’

‘She’s good on her feet,’ said Plank.

Throughout, they had spoken just above a whisper. When Alleyn talked now it was more slowly and unevenly than was his custom, but in a level voice.

‘It’s a question, I think, of whether we declare ourselves and talk to them from outside the house or risk an unheard approach and a break-in. I don’t think – ‘ he stopped for a moment – ‘I don’t think I dare do that.’

‘No,’ said Fox. ‘No. Not that way. Too risky.’

‘Yes. It seems clear that already they’ve…given him a bad time – the writing’s very shaky.’

‘It does say “OK”, though. Meaning he is.’

‘It says that. There’s a third possibility. He says “till they’ve gone”, and I can’t think of them making a getaway by any means other than the way we discussed, Fox. If so, they’ll come out at some time during the night, carrying their stuff. With Ricky between them. They’ve worked it out that we won’t try anything because of the threat to Rick. We carry on now, with the old plan. We don’t know which door they’ll use so we’ll have two at the back and three at the front. And wait for them to emerge.’

‘And jump them?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘And jump them.’

‘Hard and quick?’

‘Yes. They’ll be armed.’

‘It’s good enough,’ Fox said, and there were satisfied noises from the other three men.

‘I think it’s the best we can do. It may be –’ for the first time Alleyn’s voice faltered – ‘a long wait. That won’t – be easy.’

It was not easy. As they drew near the house they could make it out in a faint diffusion of light from the village below. They moved very slowly now, over soft, uneven ground, Plank leading them. He would stop and put back a warning hand when they drew near an obstacle, such as the bramble bush where Miss Harkness had tethered her horse and Ricky had so ostentatiously lit his pipe. No chink of light showed from window or door.