by R J Bailey
Clearly, I was going to have to bite my lip with Ferris Bueller’s mum around. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
At some point I was going to have to break it to her that the price for her little jaunt had probably just gone up. Not doubled, but by a good percentage. Because, for starters, two people were much harder to look after than one. Especially if one of the pair is not a child but not yet an adult.
‘All clear,’ said Konrad.
I put the luggage in the blessedly empty boot and opened the rear car door for our wards to get in.
We headed back to the hotel in silence. Konrad sat in the passenger seat up front, with the client behind me and a fidgety Myles next to her. She took off her sunglasses and scarf; I discreetly studied her reflection in the mirror but it told me little other than I had a tired woman on my hands.
I pulled up outside the hotel, killed the ignition and said to Konrad, ‘We should go in one at a time.’
The lad, though, had spotted the welcoming lights of the bar next door. ‘Can I get a drink?’ he asked.
‘No,’ we all said at once.
‘But it’s legal here,’ he whined. So he was under twenty-one. Surely he hadn’t come all the way to Europe just to get wrecked? And presumably he had been able to drink on the boat over.
‘You go first,’ I said to Konrad. As he opened the door and the internal lights came on, I gave Myles a quick once-over. He had a square face with a neck that suggested plenty of sports, flawless skin and teeth. Lots of teeth. Wide and white. All-American teeth. There was something of the genetically cloned about him, as if he had been bred to be the captain of the school football team. Gridiron football, that is.
The courtesy lights flicked off as the door closed and I made a mental note to disable them. They could ruin night vision and also give anyone who cared to watch a good look at us.
‘I’m sorry, you can get a drink when we get to our final destination.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Mrs Irwin firmly.
She hadn’t been much of a judge so far. We were heading to get a fake passport for her and she had gone and brought along the boy. I bet the inker in Saint-Lo that the Colonel had employed wasn’t expecting that. And I would put good money on Myles having a passport in his own name. Which he would have to show at any hotel we stopped at. So, no hotels. I would have to drive straight through to Luxembourg. When we stopped for breakfast I’d make sure I popped something from my first-aid kit to keep me awake. My body wouldn’t thank me, but I’d pay it back later.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. ‘You, of course, have jurisdiction over your son.’
‘Thank you.’ It was as sharp as a sherbet lemon.
I poured as much concern into my voice as it would take. ‘Except if it involves your safety, or the safety of the group, Mrs Irwin.’
‘I told you, Ruth will do,’ she replied briskly.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘This man who was killed? Was it definitely murder? Not an accident?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Not unless he shot himself in the head, climbed into the boot and then disposed of the weapon, because there was no sign of it. ‘It fact, I’d put money on it not being an accident.’
‘Then that’s bad news.’
‘It is. You have any ideas about who might be trying to stop you making this journey, Mrs Irwin?’ I asked.
‘Not a clue.’
I doubted that. She would have some inkling, if only a sneaking suspicion, even if she didn’t want to face up to it.
I checked my phone surreptitiously. There was a voicemail from Nina, but I was low on battery on both my phones. I had assumed nobody was out to track me, but I didn’t want to get into an argument about why I still had a phone – well, two phones – and they didn’t. I lifted the central armrest and found the charging slot and connected the iPhone. On the Android – one-handed and under my jacket so as not to rub it in to my phoneless charges – I texted Nina: Will call later.
I used my new knife to saw off the buckle of the seat belt and then shoved it into its slot. That way, the car’s computer wouldn’t go apoplectic every time I pressed start, binging and bonging to remind me I wasn’t buckled up. Seat belts slow you down. Many a driver has been trapped for a split second by a belt. Just enough for someone to shoot them through the side window. Of course, that was assuming you didn’t have a collision where you needed the belt, but my instinct told me it was better to stay mobile on this one than be strapped into a seat.
Konrad reappeared and I popped the boot again. I got out and intercepted him. ‘Let’s not dwell on the driver, eh? It’s just sinking in with Mrs Irwin. We don’t want to spook them too much.’
He shrugged. ‘Fine by me. I covered the bill, by the way. Cash, before you ask.’ I’d used my Alison Cooke passport from the Monaco caper to register; I assumed he’d also used one that didn’t have his real name on it. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ There was impatience in his voice. We both wanted to put some distance between us and this town. Oh, and the body under the boat.
I handed him the knife. ‘I assume you don’t want a seat belt?’
‘No. Not now we know it isn’t a day at the park.’
‘Walk in the park,’ I corrected. ‘Day at the beach.’ Whatever the phrase, it wasn’t going to be either of those.
It was my turn to fetch my stuff. I had repacked my gear before we went for dinner, so, with a final, longing look at the shower, I grabbed the RTG bag and left the room. It was going to be a long night.
Ordinarily I would have gone along the coast road, the D116, or the slightly faster inland route, the D901, to Cherbourg and then struck south towards the N13. But there was no ordinarily about this. We had to avoid any cops and we had to assume we had been blown by whoever the opposition was. And I really wanted to know if anyone was following us. So I picked up the D24, which would wind us, in a series of doglegs, to Valognes, where I would pick up the D2. There was no place for anyone to hide on such a road. If we’d picked up a shadow, I’d see them. There was only one problem. What if they wanted to be seen?
Nobody spoke for a while and I kept my eyes on the mirror as much as the black tarmac that shone like patent leather in the Peugeot’s big halogens. I could see Konrad was watching the door mirror on his side. I used the electronic control to angle it so he had a decent view of the road behind. He grunted his thanks.
The road was in pretty good shape, the headlamps picking out tall hedgerows that sometimes crowded in alarmingly, so that two cars abreast could only just squeeze by each other. Ambush country. But I didn’t think we were up against that, not yet. How could they know I’d come this way? No, my main problem with how narrow the road was involved me clattering into another vehicle, given that I wasn’t braking much and no longer had a working seat belt. But this wasn’t a route favoured by lorries and I reckoned that there would be little agricultural machinery out at that time of night. The last thing I wanted was a head-on with a Massey-Ferguson or whatever the French equivalent was, but I considered that was unlikely.
So I kept up a steady speed, just a notch above entirely sensible, and tried to take the bends as smoothly as possible. I didn’t want carsick passengers either. Luckily the 508 had suspension set for comfort, not handling, so she sailed round most of them in a stately fashion, despite being shod with unforgiving run-flat tyres. Which I hate.
‘Can you tell me the arrangements?’ Mrs Irwin asked.
‘We are to stop in Saint-Lo and get you some papers. Only one set has been arranged, I am afraid.’
‘Myles and I do not have the same surname. So his passport should not set alarm bells ringing.’
Well, that was something. And might explain why he wasn’t flagged up as her son in Nina’s research. Although Myles, with that spelling, wasn’t such a common a name. Hoteliers might remember it if asked. I was still disinclined to use official lodgings.
‘OK, after we get the papers, then we go directly to . . . where we are goi
ng.’ I was too superstitious to say it out loud. It’s an old PPO habit: you don’t advertise where you are going, even when it’s bleedin’ obvious. It means that when it really matters, you don’t let slip the route or final destination. PPOs still live by that old poster: Walls have ears. These days it’s ceilings, floors and windows, too.
‘Luxembourg.’
‘Yes.’
‘When do you expect we will be there?’
I looked at Konrad. ‘I’m mainly going to use roads like this. It’s slow, but safe.’ At least, I hoped so. ‘We’ll be in Saint-Lo at first light. We can have breakfast while the papers are done. Then, by tomorrow evening, with a bit of luck, we’ll have you at your meeting.’
‘You will share the driving?’
‘No.’ Konrad answered for me, just in case I thought that was a good idea. ‘You can’t be the firepower and the driver at the same time. You end up compromising both.’ I was glad to hear that definitive dismissal. If he ended up driving it meant I was disabled. Or worse.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve done this before. Why don’t you try and get some sleep?’
We drove on in silence, although Myles seemed to twitch and sigh a lot. Screen withdrawal symptoms, no doubt. After fifteen minutes I pulled over in a passing place and switched the car’s engine off, killing the lights. The engine ticked as it cooled. The impenetrable blackness of the countryside seemed to thicken around us.
‘Why have we stopped?’ asked Mrs Irwin eventually.
‘Just a precaution,’ said Konrad.
A car came in the opposite direction after five minutes and I closed my eyes as the headlamps raked our cabin. I am sure Konrad did the same behind his sunglasses.
I waited another ten, thinking about the phone call I was going to make to the Colonel. I’d call from the inker’s place, on a landline, and I’d still have to use some sort of code to tell him the driver had a headache he wasn’t going to recover from. It’s the vet here. I am afraid your cat is very unwell.
I’d think of something better than that, I was sure.
Once I was certain nobody was on our tail, I restarted and turned left at the next crossroads. Konrad leaned forward and looked at the heads-up satnav display. I was going to circle back as well, just in case.
There was, though, another possibility. Maybe they didn’t need to follow us. Maybe they already knew where we were going. After all, if they knew we were getting a car delivered . . .
But I put that thought aside until the next morning. Things usually looked better in daylight.
Usually. Not always.
FIFTEEN
‘I could do with a coffee.’
They were the first words that Konrad had spoken for some time. I was travelling west, above Saint-Lo, the red smudge of a sunrise filling my mirror. The address I had been given for the inker was in the eastern suburbs of the town. I wanted to come in from the west, just in case someone was expecting us. The obvious approach, given our origin point, would have been from the east.
‘If you think that is OK,’ he added.
Coffee sounded good. My eyes were full of sand and I could feel my energy levels dropping. Those roads were tiring and the constant vigilance, not to mention the doubling back and the long diversion to the west, had taken it out of me. Konrad, though, looked box fresh.
I studied the rear-view mirror. Myles’s head had lolled to one side; he had his mouth open and was snoring. ‘Ruth’ had her head back against the headrest, but I couldn’t be sure she was asleep behind the sunglasses. Now it was light, I got a good look at her face. She was attractive in a severe way. Her face looked as if it had been hewn out of a solid block of alabaster to give it cheekbones and a firm jawline. Red hair poked out from beneath the headscarf, just a shade too bright to be her natural colour. Even a few surreptitious glances were enough to tell me she’d had work done. Possibly a lot of work. Certainly expensive, for she didn’t have any of the usual trout-in-a-hurricane features that shouted SURGERY. How old? In her mid-forties, Nina had said. Young to be pricking and plumping at her face, but that’s rich Americans for you. Can’t leave well enough alone.
I slowed as I approached the rear of a Renault van decorated with a logo showing a bunch of smiling carrots. I pulled round it. Its side was covered with more drawings of happy, happy vegetables. ‘There’ll be a town with a market somewhere around. Where there’s a market . . .’
‘There’s a market café,’ Konrad finished.
He played with his phone. ‘Marigny? Says here Wednesday is market day. And today’s Wednesday.’
I punched the name into the sat nav. Twenty-one kilometres. ‘It’ll do.’
He turned and examined our cargo. Satisfied they were asleep, he asked: ‘How’d you get into this business anyway?’
‘I thought you’d checked me out?’ I asked.
‘Only your PPO record.’
‘I was a Combat Medical Technician. Iraq, mostly. Afterwards I just fell into it. You?’
‘I was in the thirty-fourth Bercsényi László. You know them?’ There was a pride in his voice I hadn’t heard before. ‘Hungarian Special Forces. Then the movie business started coming to Budapest and Prague. Hollywood and the BBC came calling whenever they wanted to recreate old Paris or Victorian London. So you get Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp, wanting to see the sights and the nightlife, and studios getting very nervous. They still thought of us as the Wild East, full of gypsy thieves. So, they hired local muscle. Ex-special forces like me. From there, hanging round the set, it was easy to get the job fixing up the guns.’
There was a queue of traffic into Marigny and Konrad stopped talking as we slowed. He rolled up his right trouser leg, revealing the holster strapped to his ankle. A crawling line of vehicles was a good place to sandwich me in and try a snatch. If that was what they wanted. Or spray the car with bullets, if that was their preference. Konrad began to watch for anything that might be the initiation part of a move against us. I did the same for my side.
Most of the vans and cars turned right, so we took a left and drove around the other side of town. I parked up in a side street and turned the engine off. I looked at my watch. It was coming up to six-thirty.
‘Early for tourists to be out and about,’ he said, reading my mind. What were we to the casual observer? They’d be unlikely to think: oh, look – a professional BG/gunman, a PPO, an American millionairess and her rangy son. But then again, they would probably remember us as strangers in town for a day or two if anyone came asking. We didn’t exactly blend in.
‘We’ll have to take that chance.’
I left the car and opened the rear door. Mrs Irwin’s eyes snapped open as cool and fresh morning air hit her. ‘Are we here?’
‘Comfort break, ma’am,’ I said. ‘We won’t be too long.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Coffee,’ I agreed.
‘Good.’ She shook her son on the shoulder. She spoke with real affection, as if he were a slumbering prince. ‘Myles. Myles, darling. Wake up.’
He gave a start, a snort and then smacked his lips together. It obviously took him a few seconds to place where he was in the world. He pulled himself upright in the seat. ‘Wassappening?’ he asked.
‘Coffee. Rest rooms,’ I said.
‘Will there be somewhere for me to freshen up?’ Mrs Irwin asked.
‘Probably.’ I wasn’t making any promises. I was not in familiar territory. ‘If you don’t mind, we’ll see how we go.’
‘Of course.’ She grabbed her handbag and exited in a smooth, elegant movement. She was wearing a dark-grey trouser suit, and when she stood the wrinkles seemed to fall out of it. I smoothed my own clothes as best I could. Once we had gathered, the four of us strolled down the pavement trying to look nonchalant.
‘You have spoken to the Colonel?’ Mrs Irwin asked.
‘No. I’ll do it later, I promise. Myles, listen . . .’
A grunt came back.
‘You and your mother,
please could you not speak in the café any more than is strictly necessary.’
‘Why not?’ he asked with a distinct undertow of irritation.
‘Just in case someone wonders what two Americans are doing so far off the beaten track. Your countrymen come for the Normandy beaches to the north. I doubt Marigny has many must-see sights for them, so you’ll stand out. That goes for you too, Mrs Irwin, if you don’t mind.’ I waited for her to correct me with a Christian name I was never going to use. She let it pass. ‘Unless your French accent is good.’
She shook her head to let me know it wasn’t. ‘What about you?’
‘Passable,’ I admitted. ‘But there’s a tradition of English speaking bad French all over France, from the boom years of property buying. They’re no longer a novelty.’
Café du Marché was just what I expected it to be, with scuffed wood panelling, bentwood chairs and a zinc bar. It was busy, mostly with traders hitting early-morning brandies, and we got few glances as I ushered our party towards the rear. I knew Konrad was worried about exits, but going deep inside meant we were hidden from view in case anyone was window-shopping for us. He had rolled down that trouser leg so he no longer looked like a gunfighting Mason with a grievance, but when he sat he would make certain his right leg stuck straight out so he could grab the ankle gun if need be.
I found us a table behind a coat rack that shielded us further and was a few paces from the kitchen, which gave us an escape route if necessary. Konrad made sure he could see the front door, to check comings and goings and, as I expected, he kept that ankle within easy reach. But we both knew it was all more a set of familiar precautions than anything really useful. We had no idea what our opposite numbers looked like. Or what they wanted. He would have to go on instinct if anything started.
I ordered four coffees and assorted pastries from a waiter whose look told me he had better things to do than listen to me mangle his language. Konrad said something in fast, fluent French I didn’t catch. The waiter scuttled off.
‘I told him to move his fuckin’ ass or I’d give it a good kicking.’
