A Season in Hell. Jack Higgins

education to understand.’ Jago paused and glanced in the last chapel on the right. ‘This must be it.’

      The coffin was the only one closed. It was constructed in dark mahogany, the handles and studwork of gilded plastic in case cremation was favoured. Normally, international regulations concerning the air freight of corpses required a sealed metallic interior, but this was habitually waived in the case of small aircraft flying at under ten thousand feet.

      ‘All right,’ Jago said.

      Valentin unscrewed the lid and parted the linen shroud underneath to reveal the body of Eric Talbot. There were two enormous scars running from the chest to the lower stomach, roughly stitched together, relics of the postmortem. Valentin had spent two years as a conscript in the French Army, had served as a medical orderly. He’d seen plenty of corpses in Chad when he was on attachment to the Foreign Legion, but this was something he could never get used to. Sometimes he cursed the day he’d met Jago, but then the money …

      He opened one of the holdalls, took out an instrument case, selected a scalpel and started to work on the stitches, pausing only to wipe sweat from his forehead.

      ‘Get on with it,’ Jago told him impatiently. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

      The air was tainted now, the sickly sweet smell of corrupt flesh quite unmistakable. Valentin finally removed the last stitches, paused, then eased the body open. Normally, the internal organs were replaced after the postmortem, but in a case such as this, where the body faced a considerable delay before burial, they were usually destroyed. The chest cavity and abdomen were empty. Valentin paused, hands trembling.

      ‘A sentimentalist at heart. I always knew it.’ Jago opened the other holdall and took out one plastic bag of heroin after another, passing them across. ‘Come on, hurry up. I’ve got a date.’

      Valentin inserted one bag into the chest cavity and reached for another. ‘Boy or girl?’ he said viciously.

      ‘My goodness, I see I’m going to have to chastise you again, you French ape.’ Jago smiled gently, but the look in his eyes was terrible to see.

      Valentin managed a weak laugh. ‘Only joking. Nothing intended.’

      ‘Of course. Now get the rest of it inside and sew him up again. I want to get out of here.’

      Jago lit another cigarette and went out, moving along the corridor to the chapel at the end. There were a few chairs, a sanctuary lamp casting a glow over the small altar and brass crucifix. All very simple, but then, he liked that. Always had done since he was a boy in the family pew in the village church, his father’s tenants sitting respectfully behind. There was a stained-glass window with the family coat of arms dating from the fourteenth century with the family motto: I do my will. It summed up his own philosophy exactly, not that it had got him anywhere in particular. He tipped his chair back against the wall.

      ‘Where did it all go wrong, old son?’ he asked himself softly.

      After all, he’d had every advantage. An ancient and honourable name, not the one he used now, of course, but then one had to preserve the decencies. Public school, Sandhurst, a fine regiment. Captain at twenty-four with a Military Cross for undercover work in Belfast and then that unfortunate Sunday night in South Armagh and four very dead members of the IRA whom Jago hadn’t seen any point in taking in alive, had taken every pleasure in finishing off himself. But then that snivelling rat of a sergeant had turned him in and the British Army, of course, did not operate a shoot-to-kill policy.

      It wasn’t so much that he’d minded being quietly cashiered, although it had nearly killed his father. It was the fact that the bastards had taken the Military Cross back. Still, old history now. Long gone.

      The Selous Scouts hadn’t been too particular in the closing year in Rhodesia before independence. Glad to get him, as were the South Africans for work with their commandos in Angola. Later, there was the war in Chad where he’d first met Valentin, although he’d been lucky to get out of that one alive.

      And then Smith, the mysterious Mr Smith, and three very lucrative years, and the most extraordinary thing was that they had never met, or at least, not as far as Jago knew. He didn’t even know what had put Smith onto him in the first place. Not that it mattered. All that did matter was that now there was almost a million pounds in his Geneva account. He wondered what his father would say to that. He got up and returned to the chapel of rest.

      Valentin had carefully restitched the body and was replacing the shroud. Jago said, ‘Five million pounds street value. He’s richer in death than he knows.’

      Valentin screwed down the lid again. ‘Six, maybe seven if it was diluted.’

      Jago smiled. ‘Now what kind of rat would pull a stroke like that? Come on, let’s get moving.’

      They went past the office where the attendant still slept and stepped out into the alley. It was raining and Jago turned up his collar. ‘Okay, you and Agnès be at Vigny tomorrow, one o’clock sharp, for the departure. When the plane takes off, ring the usual number in Kent.’

      ‘Of course.’ They had reached the end of the alley. Valentin said awkwardly, ‘We were wondering. That is, Agnès was wondering.’

      ‘Yes?’ Jago said.

      ‘Things have been going well. We thought a little more money might be in order.’

      ‘We’ll see,’ Jago said. ‘I’ll mention it to Smith. You’ll hear from me.’

      He walked away along the waterfront thinking about Valentin. A nasty bit of work. Rubbish, of course. No style. A true wharf rat, but a rat was still a rat and needed watching. He turned into the first all-night café he came to five minutes later, changing a hundred-franc note at the bar, going into a telephone booth in the corner where he dialled a London number.

      He spoke quietly into the tape recorder at the other end. ‘Mr Smith. Jago here.’ He repeated the number of the telephone he was using twice, replaced the receiver and lit a cigarette.

      They had always operated this way. Smith with his answerphone and presumably an automatic bleeper to alert him to messages so that he was always the one to phone you. Surprisingly simple and no way to trace him. Foolproof.

      The phone rang and Jago picked it up. ‘Jago.’

      ‘Smith here.’ The voice, as usual, was muffled, disguised. ‘How are you?’

      ‘Fine.’

      ‘Any problems?’

      ‘None. Everything as normal. The consignment leaves Vigny at one tomorrow.’

      ‘Excellent. Our friends will pick it up as usual. It should be making us money within a week.’

      ‘That’s good.’

      ‘Your account will be credited with the usual amount plus ten per cent on the last day of the month.’

      ‘That’s nice.’

      ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire …’

      ‘And all that good old British nonsense.’ Jago laughed.

      ‘Exactly. I’ll be in touch.’

      Jago replaced the receiver and returned to the bar where he had a quick cognac. It was still raining when he went out into the street, but he didn’t mind that. It made him feel good and he was whistling again as he walked away along the uneven pavement.

      But at Vigny the following afternoon the weather was not good, low cloud and rain and a ground mist that reduced visibility to four hundred yards. It was only a small airfield with a control tower and two hangars. Valentin and Agnès stayed in her Citroën on the edge of the runway and watched as the hearse arrived and the coffin was manoeuvred inside the small Cessna plane. The hearse departed. The pilot disappeared inside the control tower.

      ‘It doesn’t look good,’ Agnès said.

      ‘I know. We could be here all