A Season in Hell. Jack Higgins

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      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 an anorak, the hood pulled up over his head, and a rucksack 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 anorak, 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 rounded 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 in 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 him.

      ‘Monsieur?’

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

      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. ‘Agnès, madame. I’m looking for Agnès.’

      ‘No Agnès 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 towards 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, a scarlet sweater to match the beret, a black mini-skirt 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 towards 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, СКАЧАТЬ