Midnight Plus One

The girl, Miss Jarman, was something else.

Her face was both innocent and haughty, which isn't a rare combination, but which rarely looks as good as it did on her. The face was a pure oval, rather pale, with thin arched eyebrows that were mostly pencilwork. Long brown hair in Garbo's Queen Christina cut, curled in under the chin. She was fast asleep, but doing it without letting her mouth come unbuttoned.

She didn't fit at all with Maganhard – or maybe she did, in a way. At least you could see why he wanted her in the front office, and somehow I was pretty sure that was the only place he did want her. She'd be very good at telling minor millionaires to go climb a tree without hurting their feelings. From her, they'd take it.

This had earned her a dark shaved-sealskin coat, probably on Maganhard's money but certainly not his design. It was a casual -wrap-around job held with a loose tie belt, as if it was just another coat. Under it, a white blouse.

I glanced at Harvey, twisted the mirror back, and went back to watching the road. We ran into Angers at about six o'clock. Despite the good road, our speed had dropped in overtaking thecamions, We drifted down the broad empty streets, past tall old houses with blind, shuttered windows. When a French town goes to sleep, it dies. It was like sneaking a short cut through the graveyard. I kept the speed down, the car as quiet as I could.

From here to Tours I had a choice of routes: the main road looping north or the tourist route alongside the river. In the end I reckoned that there'd be morecamions on the north route than tourists on the river at this time of day. We stayed alongside the Loire.

'We're stopping for petrol soon,' I announced, 'and fromnow on we may be meeting people. Cafés and so on. Better decide what parts we play.'

Harvey asked: 'You passing as French?'

'Unless anyone asks for my passport. I can do it. ' The French are so convinced that nobody else can speak the language properly, that once you know it well it never occurs to them that you could. be a foreigner. Useful.

Harvey said: 'My accent isn't good enough. So maybe I won't know any at all. Just a little old tourist from Moose Droppings, Iowa. First trip to Europe. Sure is a quaint little old place.'

I gave him a look, then asked the back seat: 'How about you, Mr Maganhard? What passport do you carry?'

'I am an Austrian citizen resident in Switzerland.'

'The passport's in your own name?'

'Of course.'

I hadn't expected much else, but there still seemed to be a disturbing amount of honesty going on.

'You'd better speak English,' I said. His accent wasn't perfect, and he didn't look particularly English – at least to me. But he was probably convincing enough for a French caféproprietor. I added: 'But if you have to show your passport, don't speak any English or French at all. Not knowing any languages'll make you seem rather smalltime.'

He grunted. I wasn't sure he liked the idea of seeming small-time, but he must have seen the sense of it.

'Miss Jarman?' I asked.

'I have an English passport, of course, but I believe I can speak French well enough.'

'I'd rather you stayed English. You look it. And act as upper-class as you like. If they're looking for a secretary they won't expect a Duchess. Be really snooty.'

T will behave as I want to behave, Mr Cane.' And the voice came from a lot farther off than just the back seat.

I nodded. That's perfect.'

Which left us as an English businessman, his upper-crust girl friend, an American tourist, and a French friend doing the driving. It wasn't particularly logical, but it was some distance from a couple of hired hands taking an Austrian businessman and secretary on a trip to Liechtenstein.

Probably none of it would help at all. But it was practice at remembering that we only needed to make one mistake to bring the ceiling down on us.

For the same reason, I reversed in a side road and turnedso as to come up to a petrol station from the East, as if we were going from Paris to the Atlantic coast.

I asked for forty-five litres, and the attendant wandered off round the back, still half asleep. I got out and stretched. Harvey slid out of his door and took a fast look round, then propped himself on the road side of the car.

I walked round the car, getting my first daylight look at it. As far as I could tell it hadn't got any scrapes or dents, and the tyres were nearly new Michelin X's – so no trouble there.

As I came back Harvey said: 'Sure a mighty pretty little place, this France of yours. Only trouble is the Goddamned fancy cooking. What I'd give now for a real deep-frozen chicken and some shrivelled-up black-eye peas. Yes, sir."

I gave him a look that should have sliced his head off, then had to go through with the joke; the attendant was looking at us.

I spread my hands. 'You are – making the pleasantry -yes? Or really you are -que dites vouz? – are homesick for your little town in Iowa?'

'Where my dear old pappy sits rockin' on his porch and figurin' new ways to cheat the Indians out of their oil-wells. You bet.'

I leered at the attendant and nodded at Harvey.'Américain… Il n'aime pas beaucoup la cuisine française.'

The attendant stared at Harvey as if he had escaped from the Insect House at the Zoo, then shrugged at me.'Quarante six.'

I dealt him fifty francs, and hopped into the car. We'd only fooled a sleepy garage hand, but at least it was a start.

I turned into a side road, did a swing round behind the garage and rejoined the main road east of it. The time was six-thirty-five, and the eastern sky was a mass of dirty ragged clouds ^with a tepid yellow light somewhere behind it. We hadn't seen the sun yet.

The road was a series of fast, gentle curves with just a wall on the right to keep the river off the road and me out of the river. The fields were green and lush; this is some of the finest French farmland.

We passed a couple of US Army trucks keeping nonunion hours and the first sign of Tours, a big Eiffel Tower-shaped power pylon, loomed up. Then the twin towers of the cathedral and the tall blocks of modern flats. Then I was stuck in a swarm of early workers on autocycles, buzzing like bees all over the road.

'Where are we eating?' Harvey asked.

'We'll find a place down by the market; they'll have been open for hours.'

I took the first bridge, weaved through more autocyclists, and went straight across into the old town. It was jammed with fruit and fish lorries. Just before the Place des Halles, I turned off into a side street and parked.

Harvey bounced out on to the pavement, holding up his left hand to stop Maganhard and Miss Jarman moving until he'd approved of the view. There were quite a number of people about.

'I could have done without the crowd,' he said quietly.

I shrugged. 'Or it could be protection.'

'I'mthe protection. Let's not make it a habit, hey?'

Maganhard and the girl got out and I locked up.

We were in a small, cramped square made of blank, scruffy flat-faced buildings, decorated with the gaudy tatters of last year's circus posters. On the far side of the square there was a small caféthat looked like standing room only. I led the way round the corner.

After a few yards, we found another café: small, dark, but warm and busy. We edged past a group of characters in smudged blue overalls or leather aprons talking about racing and drinking cognac, and found a table in the corner. The waiter zoomed up, bent an ear at me without looking at us, took an order for four coffees and croissants, and vanished.

Miss Jarman said: 'I'd've preferred mine white.'