The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

Eva saw no more, she was running with Jack, through the door, into the kitchens towards the back door. Kitchen staff scattered. They passed a rack of knives, she snatched one, a small vegetable peeler, then they were outside in a cobbled alley, rank with the smells of food waste. A cat bolted away, hissing with fright as Jack made for the mouth of the alley. Behind them the door crashed back. Eva risked a glance over her shoulder.

‘Two of them, not de Presteigne,’ she gasped.

‘Here’s the rest.’ Jack skidded out on to the street just ahead of the colonel and the other soldier, turned, reached inside his coat and threw something. With a grunt the man toppled and fell and de Presteigne went down with him, tripped beyond hope of balance.

‘Run!’ Jack pushed her. ‘The waterfront’s that way.’ They took to their heels, splashing through foul puddles, leaping piles of garbage, dodging the few passers-by. The pounding feet behind them were relentless. Eva heard de Presteigne’s voice cursing the men for not catching them as they erupted into a little square.

Jack made for the far exit, then recoiled. ‘Dead end.’ It was enough to bring their pursuers up with them. Jack pulled a pistol from his pocket and held it steady, his back almost to the wall, his left arm outstretched, urging Eva behind him.

It was as she had known instinctively: he would stand and protect her at the risk of his own life—and the odds were too great. She edged behind him, then further, out into the open, towards the alley to her right. Keeping the little knife concealed in her skirts, she waved the reticule that was somehow, against all probability, still swinging from her wrist. ‘Is this what you want, Colonel? The plans? The notebooks? Don’t you wonder what we took, what we know? Who we told?’

‘Eva!’ Jack lunged for her, but she had done what she had meant to do, split their attackers. De Presteigne shouted, ‘Ducrois, with me! Foix, break his neck’, and dived towards her. She spun round and ran, light-footed, impelled by the desperate urge to leave Jack with manageable odds. There was the bark of a pistol—his or Foix’s? Then she was out on to the quayside. Which river? It hardly mattered, either would have boats, surely?

The edge of the quay was slippery beneath her feet. Wary of mooring ropes, she began to edge along it, half her attention on the swirling water, half on the colonel and the soldier who had come to a halt when they saw her and were now, with the caution of hunting cats with a bird in their sights, padding forward.

‘Stand still, you silly bitch,’ de Presteigne said irritably. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going to?’

‘You are the one going to hell,’ Eva retorted. ‘That is the place for traitors and turncoats.’ She risked another glance down. It seemed a long way to the river’s dark surface and there were no rowing boats in sight yet. Where is Jack? There was a shout echoing from the little square

, the soldier half-turned and stopped at his officer’s curse.

‘Never mind them. Get her.’

Eva held her knife that had been concealed by the reticule in front of her. ‘Try,’ she invited.

The man rushed at her, grinning at her defiance. She slashed at him, he ducked away, slid on the slippery surface and pitched into the river with a yell of fear and a loud splash. ‘Colonel?’ she invited politely. The light from the lanterns hung along the fronts of the warehouses glittered off the little knife.

The tall man reached into his coat and produced a pistol. ‘No. You come here, or I’ll shoot you. And then, if your lover isn’t dead yet, I’ll shoot him.’

Slowly, trying to control the trembling in her arm, Eva held the reticule out over the river by her fingertips. It hung with convincing heaviness, thanks to the novel that she had tucked inside it that morning. ‘Then you’ll never get these.’

He shrugged. ‘So? They’ll be at the bottom of the river.’ He stepped forward. ‘Come on, don’t be such a little fool. Back to Prince Antoine.’ Eva’s head spun as she tried to decide what to do. Drop the reticule, then he won’t look anywhere else…Jack…

As she thought it he came out of the alleyway. Even at that distance she could see his bared teeth, the killing fury in every line of his body as he came, his pistol hand rising to level on the colonel. De Presteigne snatched at her as her attention wavered, caught her by the arm and held her, his own pistol swinging round towards her breast. ‘Stop right there or I’ll kill—Aagh!’

Eva fastened her teeth on his hand and he released her, scrabbling for balance. For a moment she was free, poised on the edge of the quay, then the momentum of her movement took her and she felt herself falling towards the river. There was the crack of a pistol, a shout immediately above her, then she hit the water and stopped thinking of anything but survival.

Despite the warmth of the summer night the cold almost knocked the breath out of her. Some corner of her brain registered that the river was fed by snowmelt as she kicked off her shoes and clawed at her bonnet strings and the fastenings of her pelisse.

I can swim, I can swim well, she told herself, fighting to calm the panicking part of her that was wanting to thrash and scream. It was a long time, but as a child she had swum naked in the river that ran through the grounds of their château. As a young woman she had swum in the private lake in the castle grounds. I haven’t forgotten, thank God…

With her heavier outer clothing gone she was managing to stay afloat, but the current was sweeping her downstream at terrifying speed. In the darkness things loomed out of the water, swept by her before she could register them as either dangerous or a potential lifeline. A wave slapped her in the face and she gagged on foul water.

It was useless to try to swim against this current, she had to stay afloat, go with it and trust to a rope or a bridge pillar to cling to. Eva struggled to orientate herself. This must be the Rhône, rushing down to its confluence with the Saône. A vision of swirling cross-currents and whirlpools where the two rivers met almost frightened her into stopping breathing, then something struck her shoulder.

Instinctively, she reached for it, and found herself grasping a large branch, the leaves still on some of the twigs. It supported her weight just enough for her to draw in a sobbing breath and raise her head to look around. She was in midstream, the banks seeming to flicker past at nightmare speed as she pitched and rolled with the current. Ahead the right bank seemed to vanish; the confluence was almost on her.

It did not seem possible she could survive this. Even with the support of the branch her limbs were losing sensation with the cold and the effort, her head was spinning and her throat raw. Eva tried to pray—for Freddie, for Jack, for herself—and clung on.

De Presteigne went down with a shout of pain as the ball lodged in his shoulder, his own shot whistling somewhere over Jack’s head. Jack did not stop to check whether the man was alive or dead as he began to run downstream, his eyes straining to search the surface of the water. Lights sparkled and flashed off the choppy surface, dazzling and confusing in some patches, leaving the river in darkness in others.

He sought mental balance, knowing that to give in to fear and panic would kill Eva as surely as walking away. If she could not swim, or catch some sort of float, she was dead already. He pushed that knowledge back and scanned the surface again. There! A tangle of foliage and, in the centre, a dark head, the flash of pale cloth, a raised arm. She was well ahead of him, there was no way he could reach the point where the two rivers joined before her.

People scattered in front of him as he ran, then a rider emerged from a side street, slack reined, relaxed, perhaps on his way home to his supper. Jack drew his remaining knife, reached up and dragged him from the saddle, his bared teeth and the menacing blade between them enough to have the man backing away, hands thrown up in surrender.

The animal reared, alarmed at the violent movements, the strange weight on its back, then it responded to heel and voice and they were away at a canter. With the added height he could see better, realised he had to get off the Presqu’île and on to the far bank, and dragged the horse’s head round to make for the foot of the last bridge just ahead. It all wasted time, lost him distance and Eva was fast vanishing into the maelstrom of waters.

Jack blanked the thought that he was losing her from his mind, tightened his grip and kicked.