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WHEN A senior officer, like Champion, confesses to being outwitted--that's
the time to run for your life.'
The quote originated from a German: a Sicherheits dienst officer giving
evidence to one of our departmental inquiries in 1945. Champion--like all
other British S.I.S. agents captured by the Nazi security service--faced a
board after the war, and heard his ex-captors describe his interrogations. Not
many came out of such investigations unscathed, and very few such men were
ever employed in the field again. Champion was an exception.
'I think it's yours,' said Champion. He picked up the red king and waved it
at me. 'Unless you can think of something I can do."
'No' it's checkmate,' I said. I am a poor player, and yet I had won two games
out of three. Champion swept the pieces off the small magnetic board, and
folded it. 'Anyway, we must be nearly there.'
'Nice airport have just given us permission to land,' said the second pilot.
I looked out of the window. The land below was dark except for a glittering
scimitar that was the coast. We continued southwards, for even a small
executive jet must obey the traffic pattern designed to leave jet-noise over
the sea. Champion looked at his wristwatch. There would be a chauffeur-driven
limousine at Nice airport, just as there had been at the quayside in Le Havre.
There was no fuel crisis for Champion.
'You must have questions,' said Champion. "You never were the trusting type.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Why did you bring your queen forward? Twice you did that You
must have seen what would happen.'
The limousine was there. It was parked in the no-waiting area. The cop had
moved a sign to make room for it. The dark-skinned chauffeur was holding a boy
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in his arms when we saw him. The chauffeur's gigantic size made the child seem
no larger than a baby. But he was a big boy, dressed in a denim bib and brace,
with a red wool workshirt: all tailored with the sort of care that only the
French expend on children's clothes.
'Has he been a good boy?' said Champion.
The chauffeur stroked the child's hair gently. Have you, Billy?'
The boy just nuzzled closer into the shoulder of the dark wool uniform.
It was a starry night. The air was warm, and the white-shirted airport
workers moved with a spurious grace. What had these men of the south in common
with the stamping feet and placid anxiety of the bundled-up dock workers we'd
seen sheltering from the driving rainstorms of northern Europe.
I sniffed the air. I could smell the flower market across the road, the
ocean, the olives, the sun-oil and the money.
'Bloody odd world,' said Champion, 'when a man has to kidnap his own child.'
'And his friends,' I said.
Champion took his son from the chauffeur. He put him on the back seat of the
car. Billy woke for a moment, smiled at both of us, and then closed his eyes
to nuzzle into the leatherwork. Gently Champion pushed his son along the seat
to make room for us. He gave no instructions to the driver, but the car
started and moved off into the traffic of the busy coast road. A roar of
engines became deafening, and modulated into a scream as a jet came low across
the road and turned seaward.
'You said you'd bring Mummy,' said the boy. His voice was drowsy and muffled
by the seat Champion didn't answer. The boy said it again: 'You said you'd
bring her.'
'Now, that's not true, Billy,' said Champion. 'It will be a long time. I told
you that.'
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The boy was silent for a long time. When finally he mumbled, 'You promised,'
it seemed as though he preferred the dispute to continue, rather than be
silent and alone. 'You promised,' he said again.
I thought for one moment that Champion was going to strike the child, but the
arm he stretched out went round him, and pulled him close. 'Dammit, Billy,'
said Champion softly. 'I need you to help your Dad, not fight with him.'
By the time we got to Cannes, the child's slow breathing indicated that he'd
gone back to sleep.
You won't find the Tix mansion in any of those coffee-table books about the
houses and gardens of the rich families of France. But the Tix fortune was
once a notable one, and the house had been built without regard to cost. The
quarry, two miles from it, had been the basis of the Tix empire, and even now
in the summer, when there had been no rain for a couple of weeks, the yellow
quarry-dust could be seen on the marble steps, the carved oak door and on the
half-timbered gables.
A century earlier, the wealth from the quarry had built this great house, and
created the village that had housed the men who worked there. But the riches
of the quarry had diminished to seams that had to be mined. Eventually even
the honeycomb of the mine's diggings yielded so little that it was closed. The
village languished, and finally became a training ground where French infantry
learned house-to-house fighting. But the mansion survived, its paintings and
furnishings as intact as three great wars permitted.
The builder had made it face the entrance to the drive, a track nearly a mile
long. It was a gloomy house for the dramatic siting of this solitary building
on the desolate limestone plateau condemned it to dim northern light.
The electricity was provided by a generator which made a steady hum, audible
throughout the house. The hall lights dimmed as we entered, for the power it
provided was fitful and uncertain. The entrance hall was panelled hi oak, and
a wide staircase went to a gallery that completely surrounded the hall. I
looked to the balcony but could see no one there, and yet I never entered the
house without feeling that I was being observed.
'Make yourself at home,' said Champion, not without some undertones of
self-mockery.
The tiled floor reflected the hall table, where the day's papers were
arrayed, undisturbed by human hand. The roses were perfect, too, no
discoloured leaf disfigured them, nor shed petal marred their arrangement. It
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was as homely as a wax museum, its life measured by the pendulum of the
longcase clock that ticked softly, and tried not to chime.
A servant appeared from a room that I later learned was Champion's study.
This was Mebarki, Champion's Algerian secretary. He was about fifty years old,
his eyes narrow, skin pigmented, and his white hair cropped close to the
skull. He pulled the door closed behind him and stood in the recessed doorway
like a sentry.
Champion carried his son, sound asleep, in his arms. A man in a green baize
apron helped the chauffeur with Champion's cases. But my attention was held by
a girl. She was in her early twenties. The dark woollen dress and flat heels
were perhaps calculated to be restrained, as befits the station of a domestic
servant who does not wear uniform. But in fact the button-through knitted
dress dung to her hips and breasts, and revealed enough of her tanned body to
interest any man who knew how to undo a button.
'Anything?' said Champion to the white-haired man.
'Two Telex messages; the bank and the confirmation.'
'In gold?'
'Yes.'
'Good. It's a pity they have to learn the hard way. In that case tell the
warehouse, and let them collect them as soon as they like.'
'And I confirmed lunch tomorrow.' Mebarki turned his cold eyes to me. There
was no welcome there.
'Good, good, good,' said Champion, as his mind turned to other matters. Still
holding his son, he started up the stairs. 'I'll put Billy to bed, Nanny,' he
said. 'Come along, Charles. I'll show you your room.'
The servants dispersed, and Champion took me along the dark upstairs
corridors of the house to my room. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]