comes across to take a look. ‘Please be careful,’ he pleads.
‘Of course.’ She looks up at him. ‘But it is mine.’
‘What do you mean?’ snaps Warner.
‘Well, I put it in the case.’
Warner opens his mouth to speak but thinks better of it. He knows his chances of getting a straight answer from a spook—even an old spook—are pretty slim.
As she carefully wipes away at the slime with a tissue, the small group huddled around her see there is a thin, fragile paper label wrapped around the outside of the canister. A skull and cross-bones slowly emerges. And just to hammer home the point, the legend ‘Danger de Mort’.
‘Is it safe?’ asks Deakin.
‘Oh yes. Emptied a long, long time ago. May I have a cloth?’
The technician obliges and carefully she scrubs away the final blobs of mud, revealing the stencilled details of the contents, the name of the producer and place of manufacture. She feels gratified at her little piece of theatre when she hears the collective intake of breath. They all know what it means. Still shocking after all these years. Good.
Rose hands the canister to a technician who holds it as if it is a bomb. Which it is. ‘Can you clean that up and preserve it for me? So the label remains legible? There are some chaps I want to show it to.’
‘Of course.’ The man gets to work with chemical sprays and preservatives.
‘Bloody hell—’ starts Warner, but Rose raises a hand to silence him.
‘Help me up will you, Deakin?’ she asks. ‘I need to take another look at the car.’
Deakin assists her out of the chair and they shuffle, slowly, out of the marquee and into the darkening afternoon light of Senlitz. Clouds are gathering over the mountains, and they seem to have taken on the black, threatening hue of the water.
Rose lets Deakin guide her round the ruined vehicle, and she squints in the windows, shaking her head. Finally, at the rear of the car, she asks him to open the boot once more and peers inside, holding her breath against the acrid smell of rapid, oxygen-driven decomposition.
She points a bony finger at a leather loop on the rear bulkhead.
‘Pull that down for me will you, Deakin?’
He reaches in and tugs. The handle snaps and comes away in his hand. Rose raises an eyebrow, a silent instruction to continue. He traces the edge of the thick cardboard partition until he finds some leverage and tugs.
Deakin can’t help it, he screams, or at least something halfway between a scream and a gasp emerges.
The body, trapped in the compartment for all these years, away from aquatic scavengers, has remained remarkably intact, so he can still see that it is, or was, a woman. The skin has mummified, stretched and wrinkled over the underlying bone, and there is still a mess of dirty blond hair attached to the skull. Slowly it topples over and hits the floor of the boot with a thump, sending up a sickly shower of ancient flesh particles.
‘Fuck,’ says Deakin quietly.
Rose, playing nervously with the elaborate watch on her wrist, nods and says, almost to herself, ‘You know, I always wondered what became of her.’
Twelve
FRANCE, FEBRUARY 1937
E VE IS DREAMING , remembering in lurid details how they had made her husband so unhappy, so very unhappy. After all he had done for them. In reality they had been at Maxims when it happened, but in the dream they are in a cellar, a cellar lit only by red lights that give everyone a devilish glow. Maurice is telling a convoluted joke about Satan and sex, when Robert enters, his eyes dark coals.
He orders a couple of Pernods and gives one to Williams, almost forcing him to gulp at it.
‘Will. I have spoken to Ettore. He says yes. Le Mans. We can have two Tanks. ’
Williams beams and Eve feels for him. The Tanks, the Type 57, are big beautiful alloy-clad racers, like something from the movie Things To Come or Metropolis, which Williams has spent hours making super-reliable for an assault on the 24-hour race.
It is at
‘Of course.’ She looks up at him. ‘But it is mine.’
‘What do you mean?’ snaps Warner.
‘Well, I put it in the case.’
Warner opens his mouth to speak but thinks better of it. He knows his chances of getting a straight answer from a spook—even an old spook—are pretty slim.
As she carefully wipes away at the slime with a tissue, the small group huddled around her see there is a thin, fragile paper label wrapped around the outside of the canister. A skull and cross-bones slowly emerges. And just to hammer home the point, the legend ‘Danger de Mort’.
‘Is it safe?’ asks Deakin.
‘Oh yes. Emptied a long, long time ago. May I have a cloth?’
The technician obliges and carefully she scrubs away the final blobs of mud, revealing the stencilled details of the contents, the name of the producer and place of manufacture. She feels gratified at her little piece of theatre when she hears the collective intake of breath. They all know what it means. Still shocking after all these years. Good.
Rose hands the canister to a technician who holds it as if it is a bomb. Which it is. ‘Can you clean that up and preserve it for me? So the label remains legible? There are some chaps I want to show it to.’
‘Of course.’ The man gets to work with chemical sprays and preservatives.
‘Bloody hell—’ starts Warner, but Rose raises a hand to silence him.
‘Help me up will you, Deakin?’ she asks. ‘I need to take another look at the car.’
Deakin assists her out of the chair and they shuffle, slowly, out of the marquee and into the darkening afternoon light of Senlitz. Clouds are gathering over the mountains, and they seem to have taken on the black, threatening hue of the water.
Rose lets Deakin guide her round the ruined vehicle, and she squints in the windows, shaking her head. Finally, at the rear of the car, she asks him to open the boot once more and peers inside, holding her breath against the acrid smell of rapid, oxygen-driven decomposition.
She points a bony finger at a leather loop on the rear bulkhead.
‘Pull that down for me will you, Deakin?’
He reaches in and tugs. The handle snaps and comes away in his hand. Rose raises an eyebrow, a silent instruction to continue. He traces the edge of the thick cardboard partition until he finds some leverage and tugs.
Deakin can’t help it, he screams, or at least something halfway between a scream and a gasp emerges.
The body, trapped in the compartment for all these years, away from aquatic scavengers, has remained remarkably intact, so he can still see that it is, or was, a woman. The skin has mummified, stretched and wrinkled over the underlying bone, and there is still a mess of dirty blond hair attached to the skull. Slowly it topples over and hits the floor of the boot with a thump, sending up a sickly shower of ancient flesh particles.
‘Fuck,’ says Deakin quietly.
Rose, playing nervously with the elaborate watch on her wrist, nods and says, almost to herself, ‘You know, I always wondered what became of her.’
Twelve
FRANCE, FEBRUARY 1937
E VE IS DREAMING , remembering in lurid details how they had made her husband so unhappy, so very unhappy. After all he had done for them. In reality they had been at Maxims when it happened, but in the dream they are in a cellar, a cellar lit only by red lights that give everyone a devilish glow. Maurice is telling a convoluted joke about Satan and sex, when Robert enters, his eyes dark coals.
He orders a couple of Pernods and gives one to Williams, almost forcing him to gulp at it.
‘Will. I have spoken to Ettore. He says yes. Le Mans. We can have two Tanks. ’
Williams beams and Eve feels for him. The Tanks, the Type 57, are big beautiful alloy-clad racers, like something from the movie Things To Come or Metropolis, which Williams has spent hours making super-reliable for an assault on the 24-hour race.
It is at
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