A Fine Night for Dying

Melos shook his head.

‘And the Indian girl? What’s Skiros playing at there?’

Melos didn’t answer. Chavasse pushed him away in disgust, turned and ran back towards the ship.

The girl’s teeth fastened on the edge of the captain’s hand, biting clean to the bone. He gave a grunt of pain and slapped her across the face.

‘By God, I’ll teach you,’ he said. ‘You’ll crawl before I’m through with you.’

As he advanced, face contorted, the door swung open and Chavasse stepped in. He held the Smith & Wesson negligently in one hand, but the eyes were very dark in the white devil’s face. Skiros swung round and Chavasse shook his head.

‘You really are a bastard, aren’t you, Skiros?’

Skiros took a step forward and Chavasse slashed him across the face with the barrel of the gun, drawing blood. Skiros fell back across the bunk and the girl ran to Chavasse, who put an arm around her.

‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re trying to get to England, but they won’t give you a visa.’

‘That’s right,’ she said in astonishment.

‘We’re in the same boat, then. How much did he charge you?’

‘He took all my money in Naples. He said he would keep it safe for me.’

‘Did he, now?’ Chavasse pulled Skiros up and shoved him towards the door. ‘Get your case and wait for me at the gangway. The good captain and I have things to discuss.’

When he pushed Skiros through the door of his own cabin, the captain turned angrily, blood on his face. ‘You won’t get away with this.’

Chavasse hit him across the face with the gun twice, knocking him to the floor. He squatted beside him and said pleasantly, ‘Get the girl’s money, I haven’t got much time.’

Skiros produced a key from his trouser pocket, dragged himself to a small safe beside his bunk and opened it. He took out a bundle of notes and tossed them across.

‘You can do better than that.’

Chavasse pushed him to one side, reached into the safe and picked up a black cashbox. He turned it upside-down and three bundles of notes flopped to the floor. He stuffed them into his pocket and grinned.

‘There’s a lesson in this for you somewhere, Skiros, and worth every penny.’ He tapped him on the forehead with the barrel of the Smith & Wesson. ‘And now the address – the real address where we can catch a boat for the Channel crossing.’

‘Go to Ste-Denise on the Brittany coast near the Golfe de St-Malo,’ Skiros croaked. ‘St-Brieuc is the nearest big town. There’s an inn called the Running Man. Ask for Jacaud.’

‘If you’re lying, I’ll be back,’ Chavasse said.

Skiros could barely whisper. ‘It’s the truth, and you can do what the hell you like. I’ll have my day.’

Chavasse pushed him back against the wall, stood up and went out. The girl was waiting anxiously at the head of the gangway. She had a scarf around her head and wore a plastic mac.

‘I was beginning to get worried,’ she said in her soft, slightly sing-song voice.

‘No need.’ He handed her the bundle of notes he had taken from Skiros. ‘Yours, I think.’

She looked up at him in a kind of wonder. ‘Who are you?’

‘A friend,’ he said gently, and picked up her suitcase. ‘Now let’s get moving. I think it would be healthier in the long run.’

He took her arm and they went down the gangway together.

FRANCE (#u536697fe-7ffc-599c-bd7f-4f793128aa54)

4 (#u536697fe-7ffc-599c-bd7f-4f793128aa54)

They caught the night express to Brest with only ten minutes to spare. It wasn’t particularly crowded. Chavasse managed to find them an empty second-class compartment near the rear, left the girl in charge and ran to the station buffet. He returned with coffee, sandwiches and half-a-dozen oranges.

The girl drank some of the coffee gratefully, but shook her head when he offered her a sandwich ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

‘It’s going to be a long night,’ he said. ‘I’ll save you some for later.’

The train started to move and she stood up and went into the corridor, looking out over the lights of Marseille. When she finally turned and came back into the compartment, a lot of the strain seemed to have left her face.

‘Feeling better now?’ he asked.

‘I felt sure that something would go wrong; that Captain Skiros might reappear.’

‘A bad dream,’ he said. ‘You can forget it now.’

‘Life seems to have been all bad dreams for some time.’

‘Why not tell me about it?’

She seemed strangely shy, and when she spoke, it was hesitantly at first. Her name was Famia Nadeem and he had been wrong about her age. She was nineteen, and had been born in Bombay. Her mother had died in childbirth and her father had emigrated to England, leaving her in the care of her grandmother. Things had gone well for him, for he now owned a thriving Indian restaurant in Manchester and had sent for her to join him three months earlier after the death of the old woman.

But there had been snags of a kind with which Chavasse was only too familiar. Under the terms of the Immigration Act, only genuine family dependants of Commonwealth citizens already in residence in Britain could be admitted without a work permit. In Famia’s case, there was no formal birth certificate to prove her identity conclusively. Unfortunately, there had been a great many false claims and the authorities were now sticking rigorously to the letter of the law. No absolute proof of the claimed relationship meant no entry, and Famia had been sent back to India on the next flight.

But her father had not given up. He had sent her money and details of an underground organization which specialized in helping people in her predicament. She was disconcertingly naïve, and Chavasse found little difficulty in extracting the information he required, starting with the export firm in Bombay where her trip had commenced, passing through Cairo and Beirut, and culminating in Naples with the agents who controlled the Anya.

‘But why did you give Skiros all your money?’ he said.

‘He said it would be safer. That there were those who might take advantage of me.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘He seemed kind.’

She leaned back in her seat, head turned to look through her own reflection into the darkness outside. And she was beautiful – too beautiful for her own good, Chavasse decided. A lovely vulnerable young girl on her own in a nightmare world.

She turned and, catching him watching her, coloured faintly. ‘And you, Mr Chavasse? What about you?’

He gave her his background story, cutting out the criminal bit. He was an artist from Sydney who wanted to spend a few months in England, which meant working for his keep, and there was a long, long waiting list for permits. He wasn’t prepared to join the queue.

She accepted his story completely and without any kind of query, which was bad, considering that it was so shot full of holes. She leaned back again and gradually her eyes closed. He reached for his trenchcoat and covered her. He was beginning to feel some kind of responsibility, which was really quite absurd. She was nothing to him – nothing at all. In any case, with any kind of luck, things would go through pretty smoothly once they reached Ste-Denise.