Circus (20 page)

After twenty minutes Bruno drove off to the public convenience he had patronized earlier that evening. He left the car, kissed Maria goodbye as she moved into the driver's seat and disappeared into the depths. When he emerged, the grimy parcel with the old clothes and the amatol tucked under his arm, he was clad in his original sartorial glory.

Precisely at noon on the following day Bruno was met by Maria at Kolszuki station. It was a beautiful, cloudless winter's day, crisp and clear and sunny, but the wind off the plains to the east was bitingly cold. On the twenty-minute journey out Bruno had passed the time of day studying his own highly-coloured obituary in the Crau Sunday paper. He was astonished at the richness and variety of his career, the international acclaim that followed him wherever he went, the impossible feats he had performed before heads of state the world over: he was particularly touched to discover how kind he had been to little children. It contained just enough fact to make it obvious that the reporter had actually been interviewing someone in the circus, a person clearly possessed of a deadpan sense of humour. That it wasn't the work of Wrinfield he was sure: Kan Dahn appeared much the most likely culprit if for no reason other than the fact that he was the only
person mentioned in the article apart from Bruno. The article, Bruno reflected, augured well for the morrow: the turn-out at the cemetery at 11 a.m. promised to be a remarkable one. Bruno carefully cut the piece out and put it together with the previous day's black-bordered obituary.

The inn Bruno had in mind was only two miles away. One mile out, he pulled into a lay-by, got out, opened the boot, gave a cursory examination to the tumbler's mat and the padded hook attached to a rope, closed the boot and returned to his seat.

‘Both mat and rope are just what I wanted. Just let them stay there until Tuesday night. You have this car rented until then?'

‘Until we leave here on Wednesday.'

They pulled off the main road, went some way up a narrow lane, then pulled up in the cobblestoned courtyard of what looked to be a very ancient inn indeed. The head waiter courteously escorted them to a table and took their order. As he was finishing, Bruno said: ‘Do you mind if we sit by that corner table?' Maria looked her surprise. ‘It's such a lovely day.'

‘But of course, sir.'

When they were seated, Maria said: ‘I can't see any lovely day from here. All I can see is the back of a broken-down barn. Why the new table?'

‘I just wanted my back to the room so that no one could see our faces.'

‘You know somebody here?'

‘No. We were followed from the station by a grey Volkswagen. When we stopped at that lay-by he passed us but then pulled into a side turning and waited until we had passed him, then he tucked in behind us again. Where he's sitting now he's directly facing our previous table. He may well be a lip-reader.'

She was vexed. ‘It's supposed to be my job to see those things.'

‘Maybe we should swop jobs.'

‘That's not very funny,' she said, then smiled in spite of herself. ‘I somehow don't see myself as the daring young girl on the flying trapeze. I can't even stand on a first-floor balcony, even stand on a chair, without getting vertigo. Fact. See what you're letting yourself in for?' The smile faded. ‘I may have smiled, Bruno, but I'm not smiling inside. I'm scared. See what else you're letting yourself in for?' He said nothing. ‘Well, thanks anyway for not laughing at me.
Why
are we being followed, Bruno? Who could possibly know we were out here? And who is the person they're following – you or me?'

‘Me.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘Did anyone tail you out here?'

‘No. I've listened to your lectures on driving mirrors. I spend more time looking backwards than forwards now when I'm driving. I stopped twice. No one passed me.'

‘So it's me. And nothing to worry about. I detect Dr Harper's hand in this. It's what I take to be the old CIA mentality. Never, never trust anyone. I suspect half the members of espionage and counter-espionage services spend a good deal of their time watching the other half. And how is he to know that I'm not going to go native and revert to my old Crau sympathies? I don't blame him. This is a very, very difficult situation indeed for the good doctor. A hundred against one that that lad behind us is what it pleases Harper to call his man in Crau. Just do me one favour – when you get back to the circus train, go see Dr Harper and ask him straight out.'

She said doubtfully: ‘You really think so?'

‘I'm certain.'

After lunch they drove back to Kolszuki station with the grey Volkswagen in faithful if distant attendance. Bruno stopped the car outside the main entrance and said: ‘See you tonight?'

‘Oh, yes, please.' She hesitated. ‘Will it be safe?'

‘Sure. Walk two hundred yards south of the Hunter's Horn. There's a café there with the illuminated sign of the Cross of Lorraine. God knows why. I'll be there. Nine o'clock.' He put his arm round her. ‘Don't look so sad, Maria.'

‘I'm not sad.'

‘Don't you want to come?'

‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I want to spend every minute of the day with you.'

‘Dr Harper wouldn't approve.'

‘I suppose not.' She took his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes. ‘But have you ever thought that now is all the time there may be?' She shivered. ‘I can feel someone walking over my grave.'

‘Nobody's got any manners any more,' Bruno said. ‘Tell him to get off.' Without looking at or speaking to him again she let in the clutch of the car and moved off: he watched her until she disappeared from sight.

Bruno was lying on the bed in his hotel room when the phone rang. The operator asked if he was Mr Neuhaus and when Bruno said he was put the caller through. It was Maria.

‘Tanya,' he said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.'

There was a pause while she apparently adjusted to her new name, then she said: ‘You were quite right. Our friend admits responsibility for what happened at lunch-time.'

‘Jon Neuhaus right as ever. See you at the appointed time.'

By 6 p.m. that evening the full darkness of night had already fallen. The temperature was well below freezing, a faint wind was stirring and patches of slowly drifting cloud occasionally obscured the three-quarter moon. Most of the sky was bright with twinkling frosty stars.

The lorry parked outside the truck-drivers' pull-up, three miles south of the town, was filled almost to capacity. From the low single-storey café came bright yellow light and the sound of jukebox music: the café was being heavily patronized, drivers entering or leaving at fairly regular intervals. One driver, a middle-aged man enveloped in the numerous swathes of his breed, emerged and climbed into his vehicle, a large and empty furniture van with two hinged rear doors and securing battens running along both sides. There was no partition between the driver and the body of the van: just that single seat up front. The driver turned the ignition, the big diesel thudded into life but before the driver could touch brake, clutch or gear he was slumped forward over his wheel, unconscious. A pair of giant hands reached under his armpits, plucked him from his seat as if he were a puppet and deposited him on the floor of the van.

Manuelo applied adhesive to the unfortunate driver's mouth and then set about fixing a blindfold. He said: ‘I am grieved that we should have to treat an innocent citizen in this manner.'

‘Agreed, agreed.' Kan Dahn shook his head sadly and tightened the last knot on their victim's wrists. ‘But the greatest good of the greatest number. Besides,' he said hopefully, ‘he may not be an innocent citizen.'

Ron Roebuck, who was securing the man's ankles to one of the parallel securing battens, did
not appear to think that the situation called for any comment. There were lassos, clothes-lines, heavy twine and a large coil of nylon rope – the most conspicuous of all and by far the heaviest and thickest: it was knotted at eighteen-inch intervals.

At 6.15 p.m. Bruno, magnificently attired in what he privately thought of as his Pierrot's suit and the magnificent pseudo chinchilla, left the hotel. He walked with the unhurried measured gait of one for whom time is not a matter of pressing concern: in fact he did not wish to disturb the fulminate of mercury in the six explosive devices that were suspended from his belt. The voluminous nylon coat concealed those perfectly.

As befitted a man with time on his hands, he wandered at apparent random, following what would otherwise have been thought to be a devious twisting route. He spent a considerable amount of time in stopping and apparently examining goods in shop windows, not omitting the side windows at shop entrances. He finally sauntered round a corner, quickened his pace for a few steps, then sank into the dark shadow of a recessing doorway. A dark raincoated man rounded the same corner, hesitated, hastened forward, passed where Bruno stood concealed, then sagged at the knees, momentarily stunned, as the edge of Bruno's right hand caught him below his right ear. Bruno held him upright with one hand, went
swiftly through his pockets with the other and came up with a snub-nosed automatic. The safety catch clicked off.

‘Walk,' Bruno said.

The hijacked furniture van was about halfway down the south lane abutting on the Lubylan, the last of five parked trucks. Bruno saw it at once when he halted, arm apparently cordially in arm with his erstwhile shadow, at the corner of the main street and the south lane. Bruno had deemed it prudent to halt because a guard was coming up the other side of the lane, machine gun shoulder-slung. From his general appearance the weapon was the last thing on his mind. Like the guards of the previous night he wasn't walking with a brisk military step, he was trudging along, wallowing in the unplumbed depths of his own frozen miseries. Bruno dug his automatic deeper into his companion's side, just above the hip-bone.

‘Call out and you're a dead man.'

Clearly, the idea did not appeal to the prisoner. The combination of fear and the cold gave him the impression of one who was frozen stiff. As soon as the guard had turned the corner into the main street – he did not have the appearance of one who was about to glance back suspiciously over his shoulder – Bruno marched his captive down to the line of parked trucks: once safely abreast of these they were hidden from the sight of anyone on the other side of the lane.

Pushing the man in front of him, Bruno moved out cautiously between the third and fourth parked trucks and glanced to his right. A second guard had just appeared round the south-east corner and was on his way up the south lane. Bruno retreated to the pavement. There was no guaranteeing that his captive would not suddenly screw his courage to the sticking point and, moreover, it was now safe, because free from observation, to have an unconscious man on his hands, so Bruno repeated the earlier blow, although this time with considerably more force, and eased the man to the ground. The guard passed unwittingly by on the other side. Bruno hoisted his captive to his shoulder and carried him to the rear of the van just as one of the doors opened: someone had been keeping a good watch through the windscreen. Kan Dahn had the unconscious man inside in a second and Bruno followed.

‘Is Roebuck on his way? To get that little toy for me from the train, and the cassettes?'

‘On his way.' Kan Dahn jumped down followed by Manuelo, who hid behind the end of the van. Kan Dahn lay down in the middle of the lane, produced a bottle of Scotch from his pocket, poured a liberal amount over his face and shoulders and lay still, the bottle still clasped in his hand. His arm covered his face.

A guard came round the south-east corner and saw Kan Dahn almost immediately. He stood stock still for a moment, looked around warily, saw no
danger and broke into a run towards the prostrate man. As he approached he unslung his machine-pistol and advanced slowly and cautiously, the barrel trained on the massive bulk. At fifteen feet it was unthinkable that he should miss. At twenty-five feet it was equally unthinkable that Manuelo should miss. The hilt of the knife caught the guard squarely between the eyes and Kan Dahn, courteously breaking his fall, had him inside the van in five seconds.

In another ten seconds Manuelo had retrieved his knife and retreated into his former hiding position while Kan Dahn resumed his recumbent position. Such was Bruno's faith in the two that he did not even bother to watch the painful proceedings but concentrated instead on the process of immobilizing, gagging and blindfolding the prisoners. Within six minutes there were five men lashed to the side of the furniture van, completely helpless and silenced, three of them already conscious but none of them able to do anything about their circumstances. The people of the circus are pastmasters in the art of tying knots: their lives too often depend on this very expertise.

The three men left the van. Kan Dahn had a pair of canvas shoes in a pocket and carried a finely chiselled but massive crowbar, Bruno carried a pocket flash, three bound poles slung from his shoulder, and a polythene-wrapped and very peculiar packet in his pocket; Manuelo, in addition to a variety of throwing knives, carried a pair
of rather fearsome-looking and heavily insulated wire cutters. The amatol explosives Bruno had left behind in the van.

They walked eastwards along the lane. Occasionally the moon shone through and their presence there was readily to be seen by anyone with eyes to see. Even so, they had no option other than to carry on as unobtrusively as they could – although it was questionable whether any close observer would have found anything unobtrusive about the crowbar, wire-cutter and poles. By the time they had reached the power station, some three hundred yards distant from the prison side of the Lubylan, the moon had slid behind some barred cloud again. There were no guards to be seen or heard, and the only form of protection appeared to be a heavy steel mesh mounted on ten-feet hollow steel tubes, with one cross-railing at the top and one six feet up. The top railing was liberally festooned with very unpleasant barbed wire.