A Season in Hell Read online

  “Exactly,” Villiers said. “So let’s have him in and get it over with.”

  When Sean Egan entered the room he was in shirtsleeve order, creases razor sharp, the beige beret tilted at the exact regulation angle. He wore shoulderstrap rank slides with sergeant’s chevrons. On his right sleeve were the usual SAS wings. Above his left shirt pocket he also wore the wings of an Army Air Corps pilot. Below them were the ribbons for the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the Military Medal for Bravery in the Field and campaign ribbons for Ireland and the Falklands. He stood rigidly at attention in front of Warden, who sat behind his desk. Villiers remained in the window seat smoking a cigarette.

  Warden said, “At ease, Sergeant. This is completely informal.” He indicated a chair. “Sit down.”

  Egan did as he was told. Villiers got up and took a tin of cigarettes from his pocket. “Smoke?”

  “Given it up, sir. When I got my packet in the Falklands, one bullet chose the left lung.”

  “Some good in everything, I suppose,” Villiers said. “Filthy habit.”

  He was filling time and they all knew it. Warden said awkwardly, “Colonel Villiers is your control officer on this one, Egan.”

  “So I understand, sir.”

  There was a pause while Warden fiddled with the papers as if uncertain what to say. Villiers broke in. “Daniel,” he said to Warden, “I wonder if you’d mind if Sergeant Egan and I had a word in private?”

  Warden’s relief was plain. “Of course, sir.”

  The door closed behind him. Villiers said, “It’s been a long time, Sean.”

  “I didn’t think you were still with the regiment, sir.”

  “On and off. A lot of my time’s taken up with Group Four. You did a job for us in Sicily, as I recall. Just before the Falklands.”

  “That’s right, sir. Still part of DI5?”

  “On paper only. Antiterrorism is still the name of the game though. My boss is responsible only to the Prime Minister.”

  “Would that still be Brigadier Ferguson, sir?”

  “That’s it. You’re well informed—as usual.”

  “You used to tell me that’s all that kept you alive in Belfast and Derry, undercover. Being well informed.”

  Villiers laughed. “A damned Shinner, right to the end, aren’t you, Sean, just like your Dad? Only a dyed-in-the-wool Ulster Catholic would call Londonderry Derry.”

  “I don’t like the way they use bombs. That doesn’t mean I think they haven’t got a point of view.”

  Villiers nodded. “Seen your uncle lately?”

  “He visited me in Maudsley Military Hospital a few months ago.”

  “Was it as difficult as usual?”

  Egan nodded. “He never was much of a patriot. To him the army is just a big waste of time.” There was another pause and he continued, “Look, sir, let’s make this easy for you. I wasn’t up to scratch, was I?”

  Villiers turned. “You did fine. First time anyone has actually got out of the pit. Very ingenious, that. But the knee, Sean.” He came round the desk and opened the file. “It’s all here in the medical report. I mean, they’ve done a clever job in putting it together again.”

  Egan said, “Stainless steel and plastic. The original bionic man, only not quite as good as new.”

  “It will never be a hundred percent. Your own personal evaluation report on the exercise.” Villiers picked it up. “When did you write this? An hour ago? You say here yourself that the knee let you down.”

  “That’s right,” Egan agreed calmly.

  “Could have been the death of you in action. All right ninety percent of the time, but it’s the ten percent that matters.”

  Egan said, “So, I’m out?”

  “Of the regiment, yes. However, it’s not as black as it looks. You’re entitled to a discharge and pension, but there’s no need for that. The army still needs you.”

  “No thanks.” Egan shook his head. “If it isn’t SAS, then I’m not interested.”

  Villiers said, “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  Villiers sat back, watching him, a slight frown on his face. “There’s more to this, isn’t there?”

  Egan shrugged. “Maybe. All those months in hospital gave me time to think. When I joined up seven years ago I had my reasons and you know what they were. I was just a kid and full of all sorts of wild ideas. I wanted to pay them back for my parents.”

  “And?”

  “You don’t pay anyone back. The bill will always be outstanding. Never paid in full. So much Irish time.” He got up and walked to the window. “How many have I knocked off over there and for what? It just goes on and on, and it didn’t bring my folks back.”

  “Perhaps you need a rest,” Villiers suggested.

  Sean Egan adjusted his beret. “Sir, with the greatest respect to the colonel, what I need is out.”

  Villiers stared at him, then stood up.

  “Fine. If that’s what you want, you’ve earned it. There is another alternative, of course.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “You could come and work with me for Brigadier Ferguson at Group Four.”

  “Out of the frying pan into the fire? I don’t think so.”

  “What will you do, go back to your uncle?”

  Egan laughed harshly. “God save us, I’d rather work for the Devil himself.”

  “Cambridge then? Not too late.”

  “I don’t really see myself fitting into that kind of cloistered calm. I’d feel uncomfortable, and those poor old dons certainly would.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Villiers said. “I used to know an Oxford professor who was an SOE agent during the Second World War. Still …”

  “Something will turn up, sir.”

  “I expect so.” Villiers looked at his watch. “The helicopter is leaving for regimental headquarters at Hereford in ten minutes. Grab your kit and be on it. I’ll arrange for your discharge to be expedited.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Egan moved to the door and Villiers said, “By the way, I was just remembering your foster sister, Sally. How is she?”

  Egan turned, a hand on the doorknob. “Sally died, Colonel, about four months ago.”

  Villiers was genuinely horrified. “My God, how? She couldn’t have been more than eighteen.”

  “She was drowned. They found her in the Thames near Wapping. I was in the middle of major surgery at the time so there was nothing I could do. My uncle took care of the funeral for me. She’s in Highgate Cemetery, quite close to Karl Marx. She liked it up there.” His face was blank, his voice calm. “Can I go now, sir?”

  “Of course.”

  The door closed. Villiers lit another cigarette, shocked and disturbed. The door opened again and Captain Warden came in. “He told me you wanted him on the helicopter, back to regiment.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s taking his discharge?” Warden frowned. “But there’s no need for that, sir. He can’t continue to serve in SAS, yes, but there are plenty of units who’d give their eyeteeth to get their hands on him.”

  “No way. He’s quite adamant about that. He’s changed. Maybe the Falklands did it, and all those months in hospital. He’s going and that’s it.”

  “A hell of a pity, sir.”

  “Yes, well, there may be ways and means of handling him yet. I offered him a job with Group Four. He turned it down flat.”

  “Do you think he might change his mind?”

  “We’ll have to see what a few months on the outside does to him. I can’t see him sitting in the corner of an insurance office, not that he would need to. That pub of his father’s—he owns it. He also happens to be Jack Shelley’s sole heir. But never mind that now. He just gave me a shock. Told me that foster sister of his was drowned in the Thames a few months ago.” He nodded to the computer in the corner. “We can pull in stuff from Central Records Office at Scotland Yard with that thing, can’t we?”
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  “No problem, sir. Matter of seconds.”

  “See what they’ve got on Sally Baines Egan. No, make that Sarah.”

  Warden sat down at the computer. Villiers stood at the window looking out at the rain. Beyond the trees he heard the roaring of the helicopter engine starting up.

  “Here we are, sir. Sarah Baines Egan, age eighteen. Next of kin, Ida Shelley, Jordan Lane, Wapping. It’s a pub called The Bargee.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Found on a mudbank. Been dead around four days. Drug addict. Four convictions for prostitution.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” Villiers turned to the computer. “You must have the wrong girl.”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Villiers stared at the screen intently, then straightened. The helicopter passed overhead and he glanced up. “My God!” he whispered. “I wonder if he knows?”

  TWO

  Paris, on the right occasion, can seem the most desirable city on earth, but not at one o’clock on a November morning by the Seine with rain drifting across the river in a solid curtain.

  Eric Talbot turned the corner from rue de la Croix and found himself on a small quay. He wore jeans and a parka, the hood pulled up over his head and a backpack hanging from his left shoulder. A typical student, or so he appeared, and yet there was something else. An impression of frailness, unusual in a boy of nineteen, eyes sunken into dark holes, the skin stretched too tightly over the cheekbones.

  He paused under a streetlamp and looked across at the café which was his destination. La Belle Aurore. He managed a smile in spite of the fact that his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. La Belle Aurore. That had been the name of the café in the Paris sequence in Casablanca—not that there seemed anything romantic in the establishment across the quay.

  He started forward and suddenly became aware of the glow of a cigarette in the darkness of a doorway to his right. The man who stepped out was a gendarme, a heavy, old-fashioned cape protecting his shoulders against the rain.

  “And where do you think you’re going?”

  The boy answered him in reasonable French, nodding across the quay. “The café, monsieur.”

  “Ah, English.” The gendarme snapped his fingers. “Papers.”

  The boy unzipped his parka, took out his wallet and produced a British passport. The gendarme examined it. “Walker—George Walker. Student.” He handed the passport back and the boy’s hand trembled violently. “Are you ill?”

  The boy managed a smile. “Just a touch of flu.”

  The gendarme shrugged. “Well, you won’t find a cure for it over there. Take my advice and find yourself a bed for the night.”

  He flicked what was left of his cigarette into the water, turned and walked away, his heavy boots ringing on the cobbles. The boy waited until he had turned the corner, then crossed the quay quickly, opened the door of La Belle Aurore and went inside.

  It was a poor sort of place, of a type common on that part of the waterfront, frequented by sailors and stevedores during the day and prostitutes by night. There was the usual zinc-topped counter, rows of bottles on the shelves behind, a cracked mirror advertising Gitanes.

  The woman who sat behind the bar reading an ancient copy of Paris Match wore a black bombazine dress and was incredibly fat, with stringy peroxided hair. She glanced up and looked at the boy.

  “Monsieur?”

  There was a row of booths down one side of the café, a small fire opposite. The room was empty aside from one man seated beside the fire at a marble-topped table. He was of medium height with a pale, rather aristocratic face. The thin white line of a scar bisected his left cheek, running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. He wore a dark-blue Burberry trench coat.

  Eric Talbot’s head ached painfully, mainly at the sides behind the ears, and his nose wouldn’t stop running. He wiped it quickly with the back of his hand and managed a painful smile. “Agnés, madame. I’m looking for Agnés.”

  “No Agnés here, young man.” She frowned. “You don’t look so good.” She reached for a bottle of cognac and poured a little into a glass. “Drink that like a good boy, then you’d better be on your way.”

  His hand trembled as he raised the glass, a dazed look on his face. “But Mr. Smith sent me. I was told she’d be expecting me.”

  “And so she is, chéri.”

  The young woman who leaned out of the booth at the far end of the room stood up and came toward him. She had dark hair held back under a scarlet beret, a heart-shaped face, the lips full and insolent. She wore a black plastic raincoat, scarlet sweater to match the beret, black miniskirt and high-heeled ankle boots. She was very small, almost childlike, which increased the impression of a kind of overall corruption.

  “You don’t look too good, chéri. Come and sit down and tell me all about it.” She nodded to the fat woman. “I’ll take care of it, Marie.”

  She took his arm and led him toward the booth past the man by the fire, who ignored them. “All right, let’s see your passport.”

  Eric Talbot passed it across and she examined it quickly. “George Walker, Cambridge. Good—very good.” She passed it back. “We’ll talk English if you like. I talk good English. You don’t look too well. What are you on, heroin?” The boy nodded. “Well, I can’t help you there, not right now, but how about a little coke to keep you going? Just the thing to get you through a rainy night by the Seine.”

  “Oh, my God, that would be wonderful.”

  She rummaged in her handbag, took out a small white package and a straw and pushed them across. In the mirror above the fire, the man in the blue trench coat was looking at her inquiringly. She nodded, he emptied his glass, got up and went out.

  Talbot had the packet open and inhaled the cocaine through the straw. His eyes closed and Agnés poured a little cognac in her glass from the bottle on the table. The boy leaned back, eyes still closed as she took a small vial from her handbag. She added a few drops of the colorless liquid to the cognac and replaced the vial in her handbag. The boy opened his eyes and managed a smile.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded.

  She pushed the glass across. “Drink that and let’s get down to business.”

  He did as he was told, taking one tentative sip, then swallowing it all. He placed the glass on the table and she offered him a Gauloise. The smoke caught the back of his throat harshly and he coughed. “All right, what happens now?”

  “Back to my place. You catch the British Airways flight to London that leaves at noon. Carry the goods through in a body belt, only not dressed like that, chéri. Jeans and parka always get you stopped at customs.”

  “So what do I do?” Eric Talbot had never felt so light-headed, so remote, and his voice seemed to come from somewhere outside himself.

  “Oh, I’ve got a nice blue suit for you, umbrella and briefcase. You’ll look quite the businessman.”

  She took his arm and helped him up. As they reached Marie at the bar, the boy started to laugh. She glanced up. “You find me amusing, young man?”

  “Oh, no, madame, not you. It’s this place. La Belle Aurore. That’s the name of the café in Casablanca where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman have their last glass of champagne before the Nazis come.”

  “I’m sorry, monsieur, but I do not see films,” she replied gravely.

  “Oh, come, madame, but everyone knows Casablanca.” He lectured her with the careful, slow graveness of the drunk. “My mother died when I was born, and when I was twelve I got a new one. My wonderful, wonderful stepmother, lovely Sarah. My father was away a lot in the army, but Sarah made up for everything, and in the holidays she let me sit up to watch the Midnight Movie on television whenever it was Casablanca.” He leaned closer. “Sarah said Casablanca should be a compulsory part of everyone’s education because she didn’t think there was enough romance in the world.”

  “Now on that, I agree with her.” She patted his fac
e. “Go to bed.”

  It was the last conscious thing Eric Talbot remembered, for by the time he reached the door he was in a state of total, chemically induced hypnosis. He crossed the quay, moving with the certainty of a sleepwalker, Agnés’s hand on his arm. They turned onto a small wharf by some warehouses, a cobbled slipway running down into the river.

  They paused and Agnés called softly, “Valentin?”

  The man who stepped out of the shadows was hard and dangerous-looking. His shoulders enhanced a generally large physical frame, but there was already a touch of dissolution about him, a little too much flesh, and the long black hair and thick sideburns gave him a strangely old-fashioned appearance.

  “How many drops did you give him?”

  “Five.” She shrugged.

  “Maybe six or seven.”

  “Amazing stuff, scopolamine,” Valentin said. “If we left him now, he’d wake up in three days without the ability to remember anything he’d done, even murder.”

  “But you won’t let him wake up in three days?”

  “Of course not. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  She shivered. “You frighten me, you truly do.”

  “Good,” he said, and took Talbot’s arm. “Now let’s get on with it.”

  “I can’t watch,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Suit yourself,” he told her calmly.

  She turned away and he took the boy by the arm and led him down the slipway. The boy followed without hesitation. When they reached the end, Valentin paused, then said, “All right, in you go.”

  Talbot stepped off the edge and disappeared. He surfaced a moment later and gazed up at the Frenchman with unseeing eyes. Valentin went down on one knee at the edge of the slipway and leaned over, putting a hand on the boy’s head. “Goodbye, my friend.”

  It was so shockingly easy. The boy went under as Valentin pushed, stayed under with no struggle at all, only air bubbles disturbing the surface until they, too, stopped. Valentin towed the lifeless body round the edged parapet and left it sprawled on the end of the slipway, almost entirely submerged.

  He walked back to Agnés, drying his hands on a handkerchief. “You can make your phone call. I’ll see you at my place later.”