Young Petrella (11 page)

He made another circuit of the two cellars and confirmed that there were only two ways out. Then he sat down again to think.

He might hide in the cellar. But for how long? Or he might conceal himself behind the door and try to slip out, or fight his way out, when the men came for him. It seemed a slender chance. And, at the back of his mind, maddening him . . . he knew that there was a way out.

It was a chance thought about scrubbing the vats that brought it back to him.

In olden days they had, literally, to be scrubbed: by men with brushes, who were lowered from the opening at the top. In modern vats there was often a device in the back at ground level enabling a man to get through. He would drag a pressure hose with him, and so the work would be done in a tenth of the time.

Petrella prayed that the march of science had reached the Château Maurice-Epinard. It had, and a minute later he was inside the vat itself. He had armed himself with a pole from the cellar, and with it he pushed at the big trapdoor in the ceiling of the vat. It swung up under his pressure. So far, so good. The chance existed, but at the moment it was three clear feet out of reach of his fingertips. He needed something to stand on.

The empty barrels in the main cellar would be tall enough to set on end, but they were too wide to get into the vat. He stumbled around in the dark for ten minutes and discovered two brooms and a rake, but nothing more.

Twelve o’clock.

Sweating now, he went back into his prison and took all the bottles from one of the racks. Then he set to work at loosening a section. It was a very bad time indeed before it came away from the wall. But it was thin enough to be squeezed through the opening in the vat, and just strong enough to take his weight.

The last piece was a nightmare. He dared place very little weight on the rack, and he had to stand on it and lift a heavy trapdoor, using a thin wooden pole. That done, he had to pull himself up through the opening. His arms were trembling with fatigue, and twice he thought he would drop. It was only the realisation that if he failed he would never be able to try again that got him through on to the floor of the loft.

And that was almost the end of his difficulties. The loft door was bolted, but on the inside. Five minutes later, he was in the open, creeping between the vines, heading for the main road.

It was seven o’clock in the morning, in London. Superintendent Costorphine had been dragged from his bed at six, but he seemed neither surprised nor excited. He listened silently to the outline of Detective Petrella’s adventures.

“How did you get back, then?” he said.

“I got a lift in a lorry to Bordeaux,” said the battered young man. “I got in touch with Commissaire Michel and he took me to the airport. We were lucky. The plane from Marrakesh had to touch down and he got me a seat in her. Did you get my telephone message?”

“I got nothing.”

“There’s a forest fire south of Paris. A lot of the lines are down.”

“I expect that’s it,” said the Superintendent.

He pondered for a moment. “Let me have your ideas about it,” he said. “What do you think these people do with the stuff – after they’ve picked it up out of the water?”

“I found out,” said Petrella, “that a lot of the vineyards – particularly the smaller ones which don’t go in for château-bottled wines – will sell you a barrel or more at a time. They arrange the shipping and the customs clearance. You just pay the money and in due course the barrel or barrels are delivered. It’s new wine, of course – not very drinkable.”

“I see,” said the Superintendent. “Your idea is that they hide the stuff in the wine and export a barrel or two to a contact on this side?”

“Yes, sir. If they used a Perspex container – or something of the sort – they could regulate the weight so that it wouldn’t either float or sink. It would be suspended, so to speak. It would be almost impossible to detect without actually draining the cask.”

“You would appear to have a natural talent for smuggling. Perhaps you can tell me why the man who received it leaves it alone for two years. Just plain caution, would you think?”

Petrella said earnestly: “Oh, no, sir. Once a claret is in cask you must
never
touch it for two years. You’d do endless harm to the fermentation. After two years you draw it off and bottle it. That would be the time to get the stuff out, without hurting either it or the claret. In 1952 you get a 1950 heroin. . .”

“Hmph,” said the Superintendent. “We’re in the realms of guesswork there. The first thing to do will be to ask the customs people to give us a list of private buyers from this château. It can’t be a very long list. You’d better go to bed.”

“You wouldn’t like me to—”

“No, no,” said the Superintendent testily. “I can handle it now.”

Which brings us to a lovely house of rose-coloured brick in the hills above Maidenhead, and a portly man with a white face and red lips, who started by protesting, then screamed with rage, and ended by whimpering.

And promotion recommended for Detective Constable Petrella.

And one more neat red line in Superintendent Costorphine’s drug book.

Matrix Street is an outpost. On both flanks rise the advancing tide of bedsitting rooms and shops; behind it, in the open space caused by a landmine in 1940, office blocks have risen. In Matrix Street the little houses, with their three white steps leading to their gay front doors, still belong to people. People live in them.

They are not the sort of people who trouble the police except when their chimneys catch fire or they lose their dogs. Detective Constable Patrick Petrella was on his way to see a retired Colonel who had been using a real Smith and Wesson .445 revolver to shoot imaginary rats in his back garden and he was using Matrix Street as a short cut. Outside No. 15 he noticed Miss Flint’s large tortoiseshell cat, Tinker, sitting on the low wall beside Miss Flint’s porch. As he went past Tinker looked at him and lifted the side of his velvet mouth in the lightest of protests. Petrella said, “Good morning, Tinker,” but his mind was on the Colonel.

Nearly an hour later he was on his way back. The Colonel had proved amenable to reason, and the right-hand pocket of Petrella’s raincoat was weighed down by a Smith and Wesson .445 revolver. Tinker was still sitting on the wall. As Petrella approached he jumped down, ran to the front door, and scratched it delicately.

Petrella stopped.

Now that he had time to consider the matter it occurred to him that No. 15 still wore an overnight appearance. The downstairs curtains were drawn. The end of a folded newspaper protruded from the letterbox. Petrella looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock.

It was, of course, possible that Miss Flint was away. But before going away she would surely have made proper arrangements for Tinker. In some households cats were left to fend for themselves when the family went on holiday. Not in Matrix Street. Petrella climbed the three white steps and pressed the bell. He heard it buzzing in the bowels of the house; and then, so faintly that it might have been the echo of an echo, he thought he heard a cry.

He stood for a moment, and heard nothing but his own heart; then went down the steps, through the little green side door, which stood on the latch, and down the narrow side passage. Outside the back door was an untouched bottle of milk. He felt a pressure on his ankle. Tinker had followed him.

The window which looked most hopeful was the smallest of the lot. Petrella, by a torpedo-like manoeuvre, and at the expense of a coat button, injected his thin body through the opening, and found himself in a larder. The door was held by a thumb-catch on the outside but yielded to treatment.

In the tiny front hallway he stopped again and called out. This time, he heard the answer. It was a feeble hail, and it came from upstairs.

He tried the two bedrooms, without success, noticing that neither had been slept in. Then the voice spoke again.

“Stop pottering about, whoever you are,” it said. “I’m in the bathroom. The door isn’t locked.”

Petrella opened the door and looked inside with caution. It was a long, narrow, coffin-shaped bath with high sides and Miss Flint was sitting in it. She had a towel wrapped round her shoulders.

“This is no time for modesty, young man,” she said. “I’ve been here all night.”

Petrella found another towel, wrapped this also round the old lady, picked her up bodily and carried her into the bedroom. She was surprisingly light. Here he tucked her up as best he could.

“Shout and shout. People must be very deaf in this street. I thought no one would ever come.”

“It was Tinker brought me in,” said Petrella.

“Darling Tinker,” said Miss Flint. “As soon as I’m up and about he shall have a whole haddock for himself. If it hadn’t been for him, I might still be in that horrid bath – how I hate it – bawling my head off.”

“How did it happen?”

“I got in,” said Miss Flint. “I couldn’t get out. That’s all. Something’s wrong with my legs. I managed to pull the plug out, and all the water went away. And I got hold of a towel
and
the bath mat. Lucky it was a warm night.”

“Yes,” said Petrella. A sudden thought of what it meant to old people to live quite alone came into his head. “You lie quiet. I’ll send the ambulance round.”

“Ambulance?”

“Certainly,” said Petrella. “Just lie still.”

“But what about Tinker?”

“I’ll look after Tinker. My landlady’s very fond of cats.”

“It’s very good of you,” said the old lady, doubtfully. “I don’t even know your name. Who are you?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Petrella, “I’m a policeman.”

Two days later he called in at the hospital to tell Miss Flint that Tinker was settling down nicely in his new home. He had a word with the doctor before he went in.

“She’s a marvellous old lady,” he said. “It would have killed some people a lot younger than her.”

“Will she be all right?”

“Certainly she’ll be all right. The delayed shock was the worst part of it. That and the very slight stroke which affected her legs. She’ll be up in another week. They don’t make ‘em like that nowadays. You go and have a gossip with her. She thinks very highly of you.”

Petrella found Miss Flint in a reminiscent mood. She talked of her father, who had been a Colonel, and of her great-uncle, who had been a Canon Residentiary of Salisbury; and quite suddenly she stopped, and said, “You don’t think I’m mad do you?”

“I’ve rarely met anyone saner in my life,” said Petrella, sincerely.

“Then let me tell you something. I was helped.”

“Helped?”

“During that dreadful night. Quite late. I’d heard the church clock strike midnight and I knew I was there until morning. Perhaps for ever. For the first time, I really thought about that. Suppose no one came. Not for days, or even weeks. And I started to scratch at the side of the bath – what good I thought it could do – and I think I opened my mouth to scream, and I knew, for my father often talked to me about panic, that if I started to scream I should be finished, and at that moment I saw it.”

“Yes,” said Petrella, in what he hoped was a soothing voice; but it is doubtful if Miss Flint heard him. She was back, in the night, fighting the Terror with only the shades of a long line of hard-living, hard-headed ancestors to help her.

“It was the most beautiful thing. A face, bearded and strong, and lit up from behind by a glow of goodness and kindness. Every time I weakened, I saw it. I don’t know how many times. And in the end I went to sleep. Now do you think I’m mad?”

“I’m not sure,” said Petrella, truthfully. “How good is your eyesight?”

“As good as yours,” said Miss Flint, tartly. “I still use my own eyes and my own teeth.”

“How far away did this – er – face seem to be? I mean – was it just outside the window – or further away?”

“If it wasn’t inside my own head?”

“If it wasn’t inside your own head,” agreed Petrella.

Miss Flint considered, and then said, “You’re so rational. About a hundred yards. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you saw it,” said Petrella. “The interesting question, to my mind, is whether anyone else, similarly placed, would do the same.”

Miss Flint fumbled in the old black bag on her bed table.

“Here’s the key,” she said. “Why don’t you go and have a look for yourself.”

It was mad, of course.

Petrella told himself so, quite firmly, more than once, during the course of the afternoon, and as the afternoon faded into the smoky grey of evening. A dream, a vision, a hallucination, born of strain and nurtured by shock.

He told no one.

At eleven o’clock, feeling curiously guilty, he let himself into No. 15 Matrix Street, climbed the stairs to the first floor and stopped to listen. The clock in the hall ticked loudly back at him.

Using his torch discreetly, he moved an old wheelback chair from Miss Flint’s bedroom across to the bathroom, and padded it with two cushions. He had a long wait in front of him.

He positioned the chair in front of the bathroom window and settled himself into it. After which he took from his pocket a small but powerful pair of night glasses, and placed them ready.

The gardens of Matrix Street run sharply down to the railway, a branch line, little used at night. Beyond the railway, the ground rises again, to the backs of the big new shop and office blocks which have risen there since the war. These, in their turn, front on the High Street.

Petrella dozed. Behind him, Matrix Street slept the deep sleep of clear consciences and small incomes. An occasional car passed the end of the street, dipped down – what was it called? – a funny little street of cellars and warehouses – which ran through the arch under the railway embankment, then rose again to join the High Street at the war memorial. He could trace the progress of each car quite clearly, the run down, in top gear, the slight booming noise as it passed under the arch, the gear change for the steep rise beyond, then a glimpse of the lights as the car slowed at the corner.

What
was
the name of the street? Petrella was irritated. He prided himself that he knew his manor forwards and backwards.