Eye of the Needle(39)
He wondered what to do about the boat. Ideally he would scuttle it, but he might be seen doing so. If he left it in a harbor somewhere, or simply moored at the canalside, the police would connect it with the murders that much sooner; and that would tell them in which direction he was moving. He postponed the decision.
Unfortunately, he was not sure where he was. His map of England’s waterways gave every bridge, harbor and lock; but it did not show railway lines. He calculated he was within an hour or two’s walk of half a dozen villages, but a village did not necessarily mean a station.
The two problems were solved at once; the canal went under a railway bridge.
He took his compass, the film from the camera, his wallet and his stiletto. All his other possessions would go down with the boat.
The towpath on both sides was shaded with trees, and there were no roads nearby. He furled the sails, dismantled the base of the mast, and laid the pole on the deck. Then he removed the bung-hole stopper from the keel and stepped on to the bank, holding the rope.
Gradually filling with water, the boat drifted under the bridge. Faber hauled on the rope to hold the vessel in position directly under the brick arch as it sank. The afterdeck went under first, the prow followed, and finally the water of the canal closed over the roof of the cabin. There were a few bubbles, then nothing. The outline of the boat was hidden from a casual glance by the shadow of the bridge. Faber threw the rope in.
The railway line ran northeast to southwest. Faber climbed the embankment and walked southwest, which was the direction in which London lay. It was a two-line track, probably a rural branch line. There would be a few trains, but they would stop at all stations.
The sun grew stronger as he walked, and the exertion made him hot. When he had buried his bloodstained black clothes he had put on a double-breasted blazer and heavy flannel trousers. Now he took off the blazer and slung it over his shoulder.
After forty minutes he heard a distant chuff-chuff-chuff and hid in a bush beside the line. An old steam engine went slowly by, heading northeast, puffing great clouds of smoke and hauling a train of coal trucks. If one came by in the opposite direction, he could jump it. Should he? It would save him a long walk. On the other hand, he would get conspicuously dirty and he might have trouble disembarking without being seen. No, it was safer to walk.
The line ran straight as an arrow across the flat countryside. Faber passed a farmer, ploughing a field with a tractor. There was no way to avoid being seen. The farmer waved to him without stopping in his work. He was too far away to get a good sight of Faber’s face.
He had walked about ten miles when he saw a station ahead. It was half a mile away, and all he could see was the rise of the platforms and a cluster of signals. He left the line and cut across the fields, keeping close to borders of trees, until he met a road.
Within a few minutes he entered the village. There was nothing to tell him its name. Now that the threat of invasion was a memory, signposts and place-names were being re-erected, but this village had not got around to it.
There was a Post Office, a Corn Store, and a pub called The Bull. A woman with a pram gave him a friendly “Good morning!” as he passed the War Memorial. The little station basked sleepily in the spring sunshine. Faber went in.
A timetable was pasted to a notice-board. Faber stood in front of it. From behind the little ticket window a voice said: “I shouldn’t take any notice of that, if I were you. It’s the biggest work of fiction since The Forsyte Saga.”
Faber had known the timetable would be out of date, but he had needed to establish whether the trains went to London. They did. He said, “Any idea what time the next train leaves for Liverpool Street?”
The clerk laughed sarcastically. “Sometime today, if you’re lucky.”
“I’ll buy a ticket anyway. Single, please.”
“Five-and-fourpence. They say the Italian trains run on time,” the clerk said.
“Not anymore,” Faber remarked. “Anyway, I’d rather have bad trains and our politics.”
The man shot him a nervous look. “You’re right, of course. Do you want to wait in The Bull? You’ll hear the train—or, if not, I’ll send for you.”
Faber did not want more people to see his face. “No, thanks, I’d only spend money.” He took his ticket and went on to the platform.
The clerk followed him a few minutes later, and sat on the bench beside him in the sunshine. He said, “You in a hurry?”
Faber shook his head. “I’ve written today off. I got up late, I quarreled with the boss, and the truck that gave me a lift broke down.”
“One of those days. Ah, well.” The clerk looked at his watch. “She went up on time this morning, and what goes up must come down, they say. You might be lucky.” He went back into his office.
Faber was lucky. The train came twenty minutes later. It was crowded with farmers, families, businessmen and soldiers. Faber found a space on the floor close to a window. As the train lumbered away, he picked up a discarded two-day-old newspaper, borrowed a pencil, and started to do the crossword. He was proud of his ability to do crosswords in English—it was the acid test of fluency in a foreign language. After a while the motion of the train lulled him into a shallow sleep, and he dreamed.
IT WAS a familiar dream, the dream of his arrival in London.
He had crossed from France, carrying a Belgian passport that said he was Jan van Gelder, a representative for Phillips (which would explain his suitcase radio if Customs opened it). His English then was fluent but not colloquial. The Customs had not bothered him; he was an ally. He had caught the train to London. In those days there had been plenty of empty seats in the carriages, and you could get a meal. Faber had dined on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. It amused him. He had talked with a history student from Cardiff about the European political situation. The dream was like the reality until the train stopped at Waterloo. Then it turned into a nightmare.