second later he heard Barry’s reply, cool, detached. ‘Green here. The package will be collected.’
Carrington’s car was moving towards the entrance followed by four CRS motorcyclists, just as Barry had promised and Corder jumped to his feet, turned and ran through the orchard to where he had left the Peugeot. He had plenty of time to reach the main road before the convoy and the moment he turned on to it, he put his foot down, pushing the Peugeot up to seventy-five.
His palms were sweating again, his throat dry, and he lit a cigarette one-handed. He didn’t know what was going to happen at St Etienne, that was the trouble. Probably CRS riot cops descending in droves, shooting everything that moved which could include him. But he had to turn up; had no other choice, for if he didn’t, Barry, being Barry, would smell an instant rat, call the thing off and disappear into the blue as he had done so many times before.
He was close to St Etienne now, no more than two or three miles to go, when it happened. As he passed a side turning, a CRS motorcyclist emerged and came after him, a sinister figure in crash helmet and goggles and dark, caped coat. He pulled alongside and waved him down and Corder pulled in to the edge of the road. Was this Ferguson’s way of keeping him out of it?
The CRS man pulled in front, got off his heavy BMW machine and pushed it on its stand. He walked towards the Peugeot, a gloved finger hooked into the trigger guard of the MAT49 machine carbine slung across his chest. He stood looking down at Corder, anonymous in the dark goggles, then pushed them up.
‘A slight change of plan, old son.’ Frank Barry grinned. ‘I lead, you follow.’
‘You’ve called it off?’ Corder demanded in astonishment.
Barry looked mildly surprised. ‘Jesus, no, why should I do a thing like that?’
He got back on the BMW and drove away. Corder followed him, totally lost now, not knowing what to do for the best. For a moment Corder fingered the butt of the Walther PPK he carried, not that there was much joy there. He’d never shot anyone in his life. It was unlikely that he could start now.
About a mile outside St Etienne, Barry turned into a narrow country lane and Corder followed, climbing up between high hedgerows past a small farm. There was a grove of trees on the brow of a green hill and Barry waved him down and turned into them. He pushed the BMW up on its stand and Corder joined him.
‘Look, what’s going on, Frank?’
‘Did I ever tell you about my grandmother on my mother’s side, Jack? Whenever she got a terrible headache there’d be a thunder-storm within the hour. Now with me, it’s different. I only get a headache when I smell stinking fish and I’ve got a real blinder at the moment.’
Corder went cold. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Nice view from up here.’ Barry walked through the trees and indicated St Etienne spread neatly below like a child’s model. The garage and forecourt were on one side of the road, the cafe and carpark on the other.
He took some binoculars from the pocket of his raincoat and passed them across. ‘Have a look. I have a feeling it may be a bit more interesting to sit this one out.’
Corder focused the binoculars on the fore-court of the garage. Two of the men, wearing yellow overalls, worked on the engine of a car. The third waiting in the glass office beside the petrol pumps talking to the girl who stood at the door with the pram, wearing a scarlet headscarf, woollen jumper and neat skirt.
‘Any sign of the car?’ Barry demanded.
Corder swung the binoculars to examine the road. ‘No, but there’s a truck coming.’
‘Is there, now? That’s interesting.’
The truck was of the trailer type, an eight-wheeler with high green canvas sides. As it entered the village, it slowed and turned into the carpark. The driver, a tall man in khaki overalls jumped down from the cab and strolled to the cafe door.
Barry took the binoculars from Corder and focused them on the truck. ‘Bouvier Brothers, Long Distant Transport, Paris and Marseilles.’
‘He’ll move on when he finds the cafe’s closed,’ Corder said.
‘Pigs might fly, old son,’ Frank Barry told him, ‘But I doubt it.’
There was a sudden firestorm from inside the truck at that moment, machine gun fire raking the entire forecourt area, shattering the glass of the office, driving the girl back over the pram, cutting down the two gunmen working on the car, riddling its fuel tank, petrol spilling on to the concrete. It was the work of an instant, no more, there was a flicker of flame as petrol ignited and then the tank exploded in a ball of fire, pieces of wreckage flying high in the air. The holocaust was complete and at least twenty CRS riot police in uniform leapt from the rear of the truck and ran across the road.
‘Efficient,’ Barry said calmly. ‘You’ve got to give the buggers that.’
Corder licked dry lips nervously and his left hand went into the pocket of his leather jacket, groping for the butt of the Walther.
‘What could have gone wrong?’
‘One of those bastards from Marseilles must have had a big mouth,’ Barry said. ‘And if word got back to the Union Corse …’ He shrugged, ‘Thieving’s one thing, politics is another. They’d inform without a second’s hesitation.’ He clapped Corder on the shoulder. ‘But we’d better get out of this. Just follow my tail, like you did before. Nobody is likely to stop us when they see me escorting you.’
He pushed the BMW off its stand and rode away. Corder followed. The whole thing was like a bad dream and he could still see, vivid as any image on the cinema screen, the body of the girl, bouncing back across the pram in a hail of machine gun fire. And Barry had expected it. Expected it, and yet he had still let those poor sods go through with it.
He followed the BMW closely, through narrow country lanes, twisting and turning. They met no one and then, a good ten miles on the other side of St Etienne, came to a small garage and cafe at the side of the road. Barry turned in beside the cafe and braked to a halt. As Corder joined him, he was taking a canvas grip from one of the side panniers.
‘I know this place,’ he said. ‘There’s a wash room at the back. I’m going to change. We’ll leave the BMW here and carry on in the Peugeot.’
He went round to the rear before Corder could reply and the young woman in the glass office beside the petrol pumps emerged and approached him. She was perhaps twenty-five with a flat, pleasant face, and wore a man’s tweed jacket that was too large for her.
‘Petrol, monsieur?’
‘Is there a telephone?’ Corder asked.
‘In the cafe, monsieur, but it’s not open for business. I’m the only one here today.’
‘I must use it. It’s very urgent.’ He pushed a hundred franc note at her. ‘Just give me some tokens. You keep the rest.’
She shrugged, went into her office and opened the till. She came back with the tokens. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said.
The cafe wasn’t much: a few tables and chairs, a counter with bottles of beer and mineral water and rows of glasses ranged behind, a door which
