"OK," said Roz. "Let"s try this one. Do you remember Amalie Govier? She was a regular customer of yours. She bought toys for her brother"s children."
Parmentier opened his eyes, but said nothing.
"She"s dead," Roz went on sharply. "One of your friends shot her last night. That was just before they vanished everyone in Larochepot."
Parmentier"s face twitched. Roz heard a small intake of breath. But still he said nothing.
"Before we left Touleville, we spoke to Mathilde Detaze, Amalie"s cook," she said. "She found the priest dying of gunshot wounds. He said he"d seen agents of the Devil. We think he saw your friends."
Parmentier gave a slight shrug. "Priests are agents of the forces of oppression," he said. "To them all revolutionary forces are evil. Still, I am sorry he died. And I am sorry about Amalie Govier. She was a pleasant woman; we often met in church." His face quivered.
"So you admit you know why these people died?"
Martineau"s voice. "You admit you are a supporter of the Bolsheviks and the anarchists?" Parmentier"s eyes swung up to the policeman"s face, then closed tight.
Roz swore, stared furiously at Martineau. Every time they got near to getting anything out of Parmentier the gendarme opened his big mouth and ruined it. Couldn"t he just shut it for five minutes?
Chris glanced at her, and must have read her face, because he turned quickly to the Frenchman. "Sir, I think we might get more information out of Monsieur Parmentier if you left."
"He"s my prisoner," said Martineau calmly, folding his arms.
Roz just went on staring at him, at the shiny bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his uniform jacket. He was a good cop, she thought. There had to be some way of convincing him.
Then she had a better idea. "OK, Chris, let"s chuck it in and get some coffee. We"ll leave him to Martineau."
Chris opened his mouth to protest; she kicked him in the shin just in time. He got up, said "Excuse me" politely to Martineau, who hesitated and then stood aside. Chris slid the door back, letting in the noises of the corridor and a draught of cold air that smelled of soot.
Parmentier had opened his eyes again and was looking anxiously from one to the other of them. "I -" He hesitated, then looked pleadingly at Chris"s retreating back. "I will speak to you, Monsieur Chris, if the other two leave."
Roz folded her arms. "No way. You"re Monsieur Martineau"s prisoner."
"You don"t dictate to us," said Martineau at the same time.
Roz almost smiled. She liked the "us". It was definitely an improvement. She looked at the Frenchman and said, "Maybe we could compromise. Just to get him to talk."
For the first time, Martineau looked directly at her. "In what way?"
Roz shrugged. "You get the coffee. Chris and I have a little chat with your prisoner." She stressed the last two words, then added, "If he says anything material to your inquiry, we"ll let you know, of course."
Martineau"s eyes narrowed. Roz held her breath.
Parmentier said, "I will talk to Monsieur Chris only."
Everyone ignored him.
"Very well," said Martineau at last. "We will try it." He looked at his watch. "I will give you fifteen minutes."
There was more polite shuffling as Chris made way for Martineau to leave; when at last the sliding door was shut, Roz heaved a huge sigh of relief.
"I will talk to Monsieur Chris only." Parmentier was sitting up now, a hand against the bulge on his hip where a plastaform was healing his wound.
"We"re partners," said Roz. "You talk to Chris, you talk to me. OK?"
Parmentier appeared to consider this. Finally he looked up at Roz. "You know, you should understand, after what happened to your race in America. Slavery, misery, even after the so-called emanc.i.p.ation. It is the same in Europe, believe me. The working people have no more rights than slaves."
Parmentier was obviously speaking from a deep conviction. Roz remembered the factory workers standing on the platform, their poor clothes, the dull, tired expressions on their faces. Like the underdwellers, she thought: deprived, miserable, detested by everyone - and therefore easily led.
Easily picked up by criminals, druggies, political extremists.
Or aliens, pretending to be extremists so as to get a foothold inside Earth"s political system.
Yes. This situation was beginning to seem familiar.
Maybe even controllable.
Parmentier was still talking: "It is all a matter of education, you see. Of educating the children. If they are sent to capitalist schools, they learn capitalist ways, become good capitalists. But if they are made to learn the ways of socialism -" He broke off, smiled. "You need not worry about the people of Larochepot. They will be ransomed, no doubt, if any wish to return."
The train entered a tunnel, plunging the compartment into the yellow half-light provided by the small lamps above the seats. The carriage swayed under the changing pressure of air: Roz"s leg gave another stab of pain, and she scowled.
"Return from where?" asked Chris over the roar of the tunnel.
"Naturally I can"t tell you that," said Parmentier. "But believe me, they are quite safe."
"You sure of that?" asked Roz. "The people that the priest saw weren"t human."
Parmentier stared at her, his grey eyes wide. "Of course they were human! They might have been wearing strange uniforms, but they were human! You are trying to tell me they were devils? Or ghosts?"
"No, just aliens."
"I don"t understand."
"People from another world," explained Chris.
Parmentier looked from one to the other of them in bewilderment; then his face hardened. "You are talking nonsense. That is fantasy, it is Jules Verne, it is impossible.
You are just trying to make me give something away. Well, I won"t." He lay back and closed his eyes again.
Roz nodded. Fifty years before s.p.a.ce travel, she remembered. "OK, so you think it"s impossible," she said. "So what did they tell you?"
Silence.
"About the uniforms?" prompted Chris.
"I"m not talking about that."
"OK, don"t talk about it. But think about it for a minute.
Why should these revolutionaries go around dressed up like bears?"
Parmentier"s eyes opened, flicked from Roz to Chris and back again. He licked his lips, shrugged. "I cannot tell you."
The train emerged from the tunnel, and a strip of sunlight lit on the wooden panelling around the door, staining it a rosewood colour. Roz decided that they weren"t going to get any further this way. She mentally rewound the conversation, searching for a place to start again.
Chris beat her to it. "You talked about re-educating children as "socialists". They"d have to be taken away for that, wouldn"t they?"
Parmentier shrugged again. "Maybe."
"But you weren"t told where?"
No reply.
Roz decided to try a different tack. "Look, what if I told you that I reckon your revolution has been betrayed?"
"No! That"s not true!"
"Have you seen where the children are going to be taken? Have they taken you through a transmat beam? Have they shown you these "socialist" schools? Do you know anyone who has seen them?"
Parmentier said slowly, "If I were a party to such a thing, I think I would trust my comrades. Wouldn"t you?"
"Even if those "comrades" are two and a half metres tall with long brown fur and three fingers on each hand?"
"They are special liaison forces! They dress like big toys.
It is intended to rea.s.sure the children." He paused, then said, in a puzzled tone, "What do you mean, three fingers?"
"You haven"t seen them close up, have you?" asked Chris.
Parmentier stared at him.
""Cos if you had, you"d know they weren"t humans in costume."
Roz took it up. "They"ve got three fingers on each hand.
They"ve got blank green eyes with fixed lenses. They don"t even smell human. You"d know." It occurred to Roz as she spoke that she was using just the same appeal to prejudice - almost the same words - as the old woman in the corridor.
" They smell, you know They smell, you know."
But there was no time to worry about that now.
Parmentier was cracking, she could tell. He was looking from her to Chris and back again, desperation on his face. Roz had seen that expression before: he wanted to know that he hadn"t been taken for a sucker, that he hadn"t been betrayed by his own idealism.
Big mistake, idealism, she thought. Gets you into all kinds of trouble.
Aloud, she said harshly, "It"s like I"ve said. You"ve been sold out."
"We don"t want to get involved in local politics," Chris said gently. "We don"t need to know about the people you think think are responsible for this. They may well be innocent. All we want is to know what"s happening, so that we can stop it before it"s too late. There are a lot of children involved." are responsible for this. They may well be innocent. All we want is to know what"s happening, so that we can stop it before it"s too late. There are a lot of children involved."
"They will not be harmed!" cried Parmentier. "We only want to re-educate them! When they have seen for themselves the triumphs of socialism, the new science, the new society - when they have spent a few years in the hands of the Communists, then we will allow them to return - if they wish to. But many will probably want to stay."
Roz looked at him. "Do you really believe that, just at the moment?"
Parmentier returned her gaze. There was a long moment of silence. From the corner of her eye, Roz watched the sunlight crawl around the wall of the compartment, fade and die. At last Parmentier asked, "How many children?"
"We"re not sure. Millions."
"Millions? But - but they said -" He looked away. "You"re lying. It"s impossible." But he didn"t sound convinced any more.
Roz pressed home the advantage. "When are they going to be picked up?"
"Tomorrow. At six in the morning. The control is in England." He looked at the ground. "The code they gave for the operation is "Recruiter"."
Book Three
The Front Line
Chapter 12.
When Benny woke up there was a gun pointing at her head.
She stared at it for a moment, at the barrel gleaming in the light of a low sun, at the crouching figure that held it, silhouetted against red-stained clouds.
"Ace?" she hazarded.