Part 14 (1/2)

'I've been making a few enquiries,' Pitt said.

'Already?' Suddenly there was an edge of anger in Gower's voice.

Pitt was surprised. It seemed Gower's easy manner hid an emotional commitment he had not seen. He should have. They had worked together for over two months even before the hectic chase that had brought them here.

'As to who I can ask for information without it being obvious,' he replied levelly.

'Who?' Gower said quickly.

'A man named John McIver. He's another expatriate Englishman who's lived here for twenty years. Married to a French woman.'

'Are you positive he's trustworthy, sir?' Gower was still sceptical. 'It'll take only one careless word, one remark made idly, and Frobisher will know he's being watched. We could lose the big ones, the people like Linsky, and Meister.'

'I didn't choose him blindly,' Pitt replied. He did not intend to tell Gower that he had encountered McIver before, on a quite different case.

Gower drew in his breath, and then let it out again. 'Yes, sir. I'll stay here and watch Wrexham, and whoever he meets with.' Then he flashed a sudden, bright smile. 'I might even go down into the square and see the pretty girl with the pink dress again, and drink a gla.s.s of wine.'

Pitt shook his head, feeling the tension ease away. 'I think you'll do better than I will,' he said ruefully.

McIver lived some five miles outside St Malo in the deep countryside. He was clearly longing to speak to someone in his native tongue, and hear first-hand the latest news from London. Pitt's visit delighted him.

'Of course I miss London, but don't misunderstand me, sir,' he said, leaning back in his garden chair in the sun. He had offered Pitt wine and little sweet biscuits, and when he declined those fresh crusty bread and a soft country cream cheese, which he accepted with alacrity.

Pitt waited for him to continue.

'I love it here,' McIver went on. 'The French are possibly the most civilised nation on earth apart from the Italians, of course. Really know how to live, and do it with a certain flair that gives even mundane things a degree of elegance. But there are parts of English life that I miss. Haven't had a decent marmalade in years. Sharp, aromatic, almost bitter.' He sighed, a smile of memory on his face. 'The morning's Times Times, a good cup of tea, and a manservant who is completely unflappable. I used to have a fellow who could have announced the Angel of Doom with the same calm, rather mournful air that he announced the d.u.c.h.ess of Malmsbury.'

Pitt smiled, and ate a whole slice of bread and sipped his wine before he pursued the reason he had come.

'I need to make some very discreet enquiries: government, you understand?'

'Of course. What can I tell you?' McIver nodded.

'Frobisher,' Pitt replied. 'Expatriate Englishman living here in St Malo. Would he be the right man to approach to ask a small service to his country? Please be candid. It is of . . . importance, your understand?'

'Oh quite quite.' McIver leaned forward a little. 'I beg you, sir, consider very carefully. I don't know your business, of course, but Frobisher is not a serious man.' He made a slight gesture of distaste. 'He likes to cultivate some very odd friends. He pretends to be a socialist, you know, a man of the people. But between you and me, it is entirely a pose. He mistakes untidiness and a certain levity of manner for being an ordinary man of limited means.' He shook his head. 'He potters around and considers it to be working with his hands, as if he had the discipline of an artisan who must work to live, but he has very substantial means, which he has no intention of sharing with others, believe me.'

Although Pitt had begun to wonder if there were anything more to Frobisher than the comfortable way of life there seemed, he still felt a sinking of bitter disappointment from McIver's words. If this were not what West had been going to tell them about, and for which he had been killed, then why was Wrexham still here? Why had men like Linsky and Meister visited?

'Are you sure?' he said as politely as he could. However he said it, he was still questioning McIver's judgement.

'As sure as anyone can be,' McIver replied. 'Made a lot of noise, prancing about striking poses, but never done a thing in his life.'

'He had some very violent and well-known people visiting him.' Pitt clung to the argument, unwilling to concede that they had spent over a week here for nothing, still more, that West had died for a farce, a piece of pointless pretence.

'See 'em yourself?' McIver asked.

'Yes. One of them in particular is very distinctive,' Pitt told him. Then even as he said it, he realised how easy it was to ape a man as unusual as Linsky. He had never seen Linsky except in photographs, taken at a distance. The hatchet features, the greasy hair would not be so hard to copy. And Jacob Meister was ordinary enough.

But why? What was the purpose of it all?

That too was now hideously clear to distract Pitt and Gower from their real purpose. It had succeeded brilliantly, until this moment. Even now, Pitt was confused, struggling to make sense, and with no idea what to do next.

'I'm sorry,' McIver said sadly. 'But the man's an a.s.s. I can't say differently. You'd be a fool to trust him in anything that matters. And I hardly imagine you'd have come this far for something trivial. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I don't get into St Malo very often, but if there's anything I can do, you have only to name it, you know.'

Pitt forced himself to smile. 'Thank you, but it would really need a resident of St Malo. But I'm grateful to you for saving me from making a bad mistake.'

'Think nothing of it.' McIver brushed it away with a gesture. 'I say, do have some more cheese. n.o.body makes a cheese like the French except perhaps the Wensleydale, or a good Caerphilly.'

Pitt smiled. 'I like a double Gloucester, myself.'

'Yes, yes,' McIver agreed. 'I forgot that. Well, we'll grant the cheese equal status. But you can't beat a good French wine!'

'You can't even equal it,' Pitt agreed.

McIver poured them both some wine, then leaned back in his chair. 'Do tell me, sir, what is the latest news on the cricket? Here I hardly ever get the scores, and even then they're late. How are Somerset doing?'

Pitt walked back along the gently winding road as the sun dropped towards the horizon. The air glowed with that faint patina of gold that lends unreality to old paintings and makes them seem landscapes of the imagination. Farmhouses looked huge, comfortable, surrounded by barns and stables. It was too early for the trees to be in full leaf, but clouds of blossom mounded like late snow, taking on the delicate colours of the coming sunset. There was no wind, and no sound across the fields but the occasional movement of the huge, patient cows.

In the east the darkness was no more than a fading in the sky, a purpling of the colour behind the streamers of cloud.

He went over what they knew in his mind again, carefully, all he had seen or heard himself, and all that Gower had seen and reported.

It did not make sense, therefore there must be something missing. Or something seen but misunderstood?

A carter pa.s.sed him on the road, the wheels sending up clouds of dust, and he smelled the pleasant odour of horses' sweat and fresh-turned earth. The man grunted at Pitt in French, and Pitt returned the greeting as well as he could.

The sun was sinking rapidly now, the sky filling with hot colour. The soft breeze whispered in the gra.s.s and the new leaves on the willows, always the first to open. A flock of birds rose from the small copse of trees a hundred yards away, swirled up into the sky and circled round.

Between them Pitt and Gower had seen just enough to believe it was worth watching Frobisher's house. If they arrested Wrexham now, it would unquestionably show everyone that Special Branch was aware of their plans, so they would automatically change them.

They should have arrested Wrexham in London. He would have told them nothing, but they had learned nothing anyway. All they had really done was waste time.

How had he allowed that to happen? West had arranged the meeting, promising extraordinary information. Pitt could see the letter in his mind, the scrawled, misspelled words, the jagged edges of fear in the letters, the smudged ink.

No one but Pitt himself and Gower knew of it. How had Wrexham learned? Who had betrayed West? It had to be one of the men plotting whatever it was that poor West had been going to reveal.

But they had not followed West. Pitt and Gower were on his heels from the minute he began to run. If there had been anyone else running they would have to have seen him. Whoever it was must have been waiting for West. How had they known he would run that way? It was pure chance. He could as easily have gone in any other direction. Pitt and Gower had cornered him there, Pitt along the main street, Gower circling around to cut him off.

Had West run into Wrexham by the most hideous mischance?

Pitt retraced in his mind the exact route they had taken. He knew the streets well enough to picture every step, and see the map of it in his mind. He knew where they had first seen West, where he had started to run and which way he had gone. There had been no one else in the crowd running. West had darted across the street and disappeared for an instant. Gower had gone after him, jabbing his arm to indicate which way Pitt should go, the shorter way, so they could cut him off.

Then West had seen Gower and swerved. Pitt had lost them both for a few minutes, but he knew the streets well enough to know which way West would go, and been there within seconds . . . and Gower had raced up from the right to come up beside Pitt.

But the right dog-legged back to the street where Pitt had run the minute before, not the way Gower had gone. Unless he had pa.s.sed Wrexham? Wrexham had come from the opposite way, not following West at all. So why had West run so frantically, as if he knew death was on his heels?