Munro & Carter 2 - Cold Harbour

Author:Jack Higgins
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

*

Towards evening it was already getting dark at Cold Harbour, rain drumming relentlessly against the window of the kitchen. Julie and Genevieve sat opposite each other at the kitchen table and the French woman was shuffling a pack of Tarot cards. The gramophone was playing a man's voice, very appealing, backed by a swing band. The song was 'A Foggy Day in London Town.'

'Very appropriate considering the weather,' Julie said. 'Al Bowlly. The best ever for me. He used to sing in all the great London nightclubs.'

'I saw him once,' Genevieve told her. 'I had a date with an RAF pilot. It was back in 1940. He took me to the Monseigneur restaurant. That was in Piccadilly. Bowlly was singing there with the Roy Fox band.'

'I'd have given anything to see him in the flesh,' Julie said. 'He was killed in the Blitz, you know.'

'Yes, I know.'

Julie held up the Tarot cards. 'They tell me I have a gift for these things. Shuffle them and give them back with your left hand.'

'You mean you can foretell my future? I'm not sure I want to know.' But Genevieve did as she was told and handed back the cards.

Julie closed her eyes for a moment, then spread the cards face down on the kitchen table. She looked across. 'Three cards, that is all you need. Select one and turn it over.'

Genevieve did as she was told. The cards were very old. The painting was dark and sombre, the title in French. There was a pool guarded by a wolf and a dog. Beyond it, two towers and in the sky above, the moon.

'This is good, cherie, for it is in the upright position. It tokens a crisis in your life. Reason and intellect have no part - only your own instincts will bring you through. You must, at all limes, flow with the feeling. Your own feeling. This alone will save you.'

'You've got to be kidding,' Genevieve told her and laughed uncertainly.

'No, this is what the card says to me,' Julie told her earnestly and reached to put a hand on hers. 'It also tells me you will come back from this thing. Choose another.'

The card was the Hanged Man, a replica of the sign which hung outside the inn on the quay.

'It does not mean what you think. Destruction and change, but leading to regeneration. A major burden is removed. You go forward as your own person for the first time, owing nothing to others.'

There was a pause. Genevieve took a third card. It was reversed, a knight on horseback, a baton in his hand.

Julie said, 'This is a man close to you. There is conflict for its own sake.'

'Would that be a soldier?' Genevieve asked.

'Yes.' Julie nodded. 'Probably.'

'A crisis that only my own instincts will carry me through. Change, a major burden removed. A man, possibly a soldier, interested in conflict for its own sake.' Genevieve shrugged. 'I mean, what does it all add up to?'

'The fourth card will tell. The card you did not know you must draw.

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