Len Deighton - An Expensive Pla by An Expensive Place To Die

Author:An Expensive Place To Die [Die, An Expensive Place To]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

I got to the Avenue Foch at midnight.

At the corner of a narrow alley behind the houses were four shiny motorcycles and four policemen in crash helmets, goggles and short black leather coats. They stood there impassively as only policemen stand, not waiting for anything to happen, not glancing at their watches or talking, just standing looking as though they were the only people with a right to be there. Beyond the policemen there was Loiseau’s dark-green DS 19, and behind that red barriers and floodlights marked the section of the road that was being evacuated. There were more policemen standing near the barriers. I noticed that they were not traffic policemen but young, tough-looking cops with fidgety hands that continually tapped pistol holsters, belts and batons to make sure that everything was ready.

Inside the barriers twenty thick-shouldered men were bent over road-rippers. The sound was deafening, like machine-guns firing long bursts. The generator trucks played a steady drone. Near to me the ripper operator lifted the handles and prised the point into a sunsoft area of tar. He fired a volley and the metal buried its point deep, and with a sigh a chunk of paving fell back into the excavated area. The operator ordered another man to take over, and turned towards us mopping his sweaty head with a blue handkerchief. Under the overalls he wore a clean shirt and a silk tie. It was Loiseau.

‘Hard work,’ he said.

‘You are going into the cellars?’

‘Not the cellars of Datt’s place,’ Loiseau said to me. ‘We’re punching a hole in these cellars two doors away, then we’ll mousehole through into Datt’s cellars.’

‘Why didn’t you ask these people?’ I pointed at the house behind which the road work was going on. ‘Why not just ask them to let you through ?’

‘I don’t work that way. As soon as I ask a favour I show my hand. I hate the idea of you knowing what we are doing. I may want to deny it tomorrow.’ He mopped his brow again. ‘In fact I’m damned sure I will be denying it tomorrow.’ Behind him the road-ripper exploded into action and the chiselled dust shone golden in the beams of the big lights, like illustrations for a fairy story, but from the damp soil came that sour aroma of death and bacteria that clings around a bombarded city.

‘Come along,’ said Loiseau. We passed three huge Berliot buses full of policemen. Most were dozing with their kepis pulled forward over their eyes; a couple were eating crusty sandwiches and a few were smoking. They didn’t look at us as we passed by. They sat muscles slack, eyes unseeing and minds unthinking, as experienced combat troops rest between battles.

Loiseau walked towards a fourth bus; the windows were of dark-blue glass and from its coachwork a thick cable curved towards the ground and snaked away into a manhole cover in the road. He ushered me up the steps past a sentry. Inside the bus was a brightly lit command centre.

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