by R J Bailey
He shook his head.
‘So they are probably waiting somewhere up the road for us.’
‘I would have to agree,’ Konrad said in a weary voice.
‘I thought you shot the other guys?’ asked Myles, his voice laced with worry. His mother, I thought, was commendably calm.
‘I took out two of them,’ Konrad explained with measured patience. ‘They didn’t hand me a cast list for this particular production.’
Or a shooting script.
‘If it was me,’ I said, ‘doing this, trying to screw us up, I’d stake out the next few garages along the route. Knowing we’d have to call in sooner rather than later.’
The lorry, which had been filling my rear-view mirror for the past two minutes, pulled out and, in a cloud of black particles and clashing gears, accelerated past. I braced myself, but it really was just an innocent truck. Behind me the nearest cars were mere dots. For now.
‘I’ve got an idea. If you care to hear it,’ said Konrad. He was talking through clenched teeth now.
‘Go on.’
‘I know all routing decisions are yours.’
‘Yeah. I’m doing just peachy up to now. Go on. Fire away.’
‘I did a German version of The Four Musketeers near here. Thirty kilometres, maybe less, there’s a big chateau they used for filming some exteriors and a ballroom. Actually, it’s not big – they just made it look like that. I know the location scout that sourced it. I might be able to get us in there while we sort some tyres. In fact, there’s a film service unit in Le Mans I could call. It supplies vehicles to movies. From 2CVs to tanks.’
‘A tank might be good.’
He laughed at that and regretted it. He gripped his side again. ‘Terrible mileage. These guys could help, though, no questions asked. And we’d know their hands are clean.’ He meant they were unlikely to have been tapped by whatever black hats were ranged against us.
‘Le Mans is a fair distance from here,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘It’ll take time to get them up here.’
‘Not too long, once they’ve sourced the right tyres. They’ve got a van with all the gear on to do the change.’
He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. What was going through his mind was busy yelling itself hoarse around the cabin: do you have any better ideas?
Truth was, I didn’t. ‘Does the chateau have a landline?’
‘Last time I was there it did. We’ve just got to hope they’re not making the sequel there.’
‘I don’t think there is a Five Musketeers,’ I said. I could feel the bumps in the road more keenly now. The rear axle was juddering with each pothole as it lost the cushioning of air in the tyres. The Bridgestones were running on the stiffened sidewalls.
I twisted slightly so I could look at Mrs Irwin for a second. ‘It’ll make us late. Stopping off. But it means I can treat his wound properly, rather than in some service station toilet. How do you feel about that? The delay, I mean.’ I was fairly sure she’d be indifferent to where I administered first aid.
‘Delayed by how much?’ she asked.
I could only take a stab at that. ‘Twelve to twenty-four hours. I can’t be more specific.’
‘Better late than dead.’
It was a moment before we all realised it was Myles who had spoken. Konrad turned and gave him a smirk. ‘Well said, young man.’
I looked at the dash clock. It was still surprisingly early. Most of France was still having breakfast. Why did I feel like I’d done a day’s work already?
‘We’ll make the calls,’ I said.
I wasn’t taking any chances with the phones. I sent Myles to buy a throwaway burner from a phone store when we reached the outskirts of Saint-Lo. While he did so I checked the tyre sizes. At the same time I ran my hands round the two rears. Each had a serious hole, but not the jagged kind they would have displayed if we’d run over a Pit-BUL or a similar vehicle-stopping device. Something subtler had been used. But if it was an explosive charge, I would have heard it. There was another possibility – a Riptor device, a self-boring circular blade that burrows like a parasite into the tyre. As used by MOSSAD. If that was the case, the evidence might well be inside the tyre. That rattle I had heard maybe? For the moment, that was immaterial. Something had chewed out the tyres and the condition of the Bridgestone’s sidewalls suggested that, even at the much-reduced speed, we couldn’t go on indefinitely.
Then I got an approximate location from Konrad for the Musketeers chateau and put it into the satnav. It was more like forty kilometres. Which was an hour or more with us limping along. Konrad reckoned he would be able to pinpoint it once we were in the immediate vicinity.
The first call Konrad made was a success. ‘OK, there’s nobody in it,’ he said when he had hung up. ‘I’ve got the gate code. There’s a caretaker who may or may not be on site, but there’s a keybox with the same code in reverse round the side of the house. And if it’s the same caretaker, we’ll be OK. He’s a good guy.’
‘Good.’ I knew something else was coming.
‘One drawback.’
I hazarded a guess. ‘They’re charging us. Through the nose.’
‘Yes.’ He looked resigned to the fact. ‘Because they always do, don’t they?’
Because when the chips are down, the bill always goes up. Desperation is not a good bargaining position. And we were desperate. ‘We’ll pass the charge on to the Colonel.’
‘Who’ll pass it on to me,’ said Mrs Irwin.
‘Well,’ said Konrad, letting himself slide down the seat into a more comfortable position, ‘in which case we are indeed fortunate that you are a very wealthy woman.’
The next few kilometres passed in what I guess was a frosty silence from the rear.
The chateau was at the end of a long poplar-lined drive. It had those slated Disney-style turrets with high windows where princesses are usually kept, steeply pitched mansard roofs, apertures flanked by pilasters, a sweeping staircase to the entrance and plenty of froufrou plasterwork dotted with coats of arms. It wasn’t ‘little’, as Konrad had suggested, and it appeared that the exterior had been piped in a patisserie, not actually built at all. It looked the part for a bit of swordplay and skulduggery. Inside, though, it smelled musty. No musketeers of any description had been swashing or buckling for quite some time. Which was fine by me.
We based ourselves in one of the smaller salons, which was furnished with brocaded chairs, heavy gold and red drapes and over-ornate sideboards, mirrors and clocks. It wasn’t hard to imagine the Sun King lounging on a chaise longue complaining about the Protestants or his demanding mistresses. There were four such rooms downstairs, a mirror-lined ballroom and a cellar kitchen.
We piled our gear against one wall. I finally got a good look at the cannon Konrad was using. It was a Czech FK Brno, a pistol chambered for the 7.5mm bottlenecked, claimed to be second only to the .44 Magnum in power. I didn’t want to be in the same room when that went off. The other guys were lucky he had only fired the Ruger. A shot in the leg from the FK and they’d be amputees for sure.
I let the Americans go off to explore the place and find a room to rest up in. I pulled a dust cloth off a highly polished table and laid it on the carpet. A cloud of dust erupted as I did so, making me sneeze.
‘Get on the table.’
‘You sure?’
‘Blood wipes far easier off shiny walnut than it does carpet.’
He put the FK on a nearby chair, climbed up very gingerly and lay back. The table gave the politest of groans as it took his weight. I cut away some of the polo shirt to reveal the crudely applied field dressing.
‘How many approaches to the house?’
‘Only one—’ The last word segued into a wail as I ripped the soiled bandage from his body. Blood did indeed spatter the wood, coalescing into little globules on the wax surface. ‘Ow. That really did fucking hurt.’
‘Sorry. I figured if you were thinking about business you wouldn’t be thinking quite so mu
ch about how that was going to sting.’
I used a magnifying glass to examine the exposed flesh and muscle and picked out a few strands of fabric that might fester. He was lucky, there was little debris in there. Then I cleaned out the wound, squirted a blast of antiseptic spray, and sprinkled in some antibiotic powder. I used a haemostatic-sealing pack and applied a fresh dressing. I then wound a strapping bandage around his midriff, just to keep everything in place.
‘It’s not deep and it’s good and clean. More a gouge than a bullet channel. It skittered along your side and out the back of your jacket. A stitch won’t help, I don’t think. No shrapnel or fabric fragments I can see. Some powder burns on the skin. Guy was close, huh?’
‘I could smell his breakfast on his breath. I managed to knock his gun aside, otherwise you’d be looking at a PAW.’ A Penetrating Abdominal Wound would have had a whole different outcome. ‘Second one was a way away. He missed.’
‘So four shots?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘I only heard three.’
‘And there’ll be some people who say they heard fifty. The cops are probably looking for someone with a machine gun as we speak.’
That was true. The public was notoriously unreliable when it came to details such as how many shots were fired.
‘Any thoughts on who they were?’
‘I don’t think they were A-team. I took them too easily. This apart, I mean.’
I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. At least the top guys tended to work in predictable ways, within a set of parameters we all knew. If we were up against a bunch of amateurs, anything could happen.
He swung his feet off the table and slid to the floor. He did a couple of side bends and then some twists.
‘It’s gonna hurt.’
‘It won’t slow me down.’ A little chippy inflection crept in and the Hungarian accent showed itself.
‘Never said it would. Here.’ I gave him a strip of painkillers.
‘Thanks. Good job.’
I went to look outside while he selected a new shirt from his case. The floor-to-ceiling French doors of the salon overlooked a terrace and beyond that once-formal gardens that were busy embracing a modish informality and a section of the road that led to the house. Nobody could get up there without us seeing. Not in daylight, anyway.
‘You OK to hold the fort?’ I asked him. ‘I’ll go and make those calls.’
‘Sure. I’ll see if I can find a boiler room, get some hot water going.’
I found a phone in the anteroom of the ballroom. It looked old enough to have been used by Louis XIV or one of his flunkies to summon the troops and the receiver almost took two hands to lift it to my ear. I jammed it between shoulder and chin and dialled. The Colonel answered immediately. ‘You there already?’
‘Not quite. There was a problem with the delivery. The postman fell ill.’
I hoped he understood that. I’d spent hours choosing it.
‘How ill?’
‘Doesn’t look good. He’s lying down on the beach you told us about.’
‘Is he cold?’
As the grave, I wanted to say. ‘We covered him up. I suggest you send a medical team down.’
‘I will do.’ There was a little sigh that managed to convey irritation. Like this was all my fault. ‘Where are you now?’
‘Still a good few hours away from the destination. Some car trouble.’
‘Same cause?’
‘We think so. My cousin . . .’ I couldn’t think what to say next. ‘My cousin caught a chill. Nothing more than that. I’ve given him some aspirin. We’ll fix the car and be on our way, either tonight or tomorrow. My money is on tonight. But I might not be able to call in on our calligraphic friend.’
I didn’t want to go to the inker now. My instinct was he would be blown. Either dead like the driver or with someone watching the house. Or maybe both. Belt and braces.
He spoke between clenched teeth. The profanities would come when he hung up. ‘We can sort any formalities at the other end.’
They’d do her a false passport in Luxembourg, so she could extract cleanly. All I had to do was make sure nobody asked for one between here and there.
‘Where are you, exactly?’
I hesitated. My instinct was against giving away specifics over an open line. So I only gave him the rough location of the chateau, just to be going on with. There was a pause at the other end and I heard computer keys clicking.
‘I have no qualified mechanics in the immediate vicinity to help with your car.’
He meant there was no armed back-up to be had in the vicinity. Not that could reach us in time to be useful. ‘OK. We’ll be out of here as soon as we can anyway. I’ll call again if I get the chance.’
‘And Sam.’ His voice softened just a little as he said my name. ‘That guy we talked about. The specialist Henri recommended. He has one of the photographs you were interested in.’
I felt a flutter in my stomach. ‘Which one?’
‘The tattoo. Shall I get him to email it?’
Yes, yes, yes.
‘No,’ I said quickly before I blurted the opposite. ‘Not now. It’ll be a distraction. When I’m done here.’
‘Very well.’
My voice went very small when I asked the question. ‘Was there any metadata on it?’
‘None that he can find. Yet. He’s still looking. And you’re still paying, if that is OK.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Good. Stay in touch. I’ll deal with the other business.’ He meant the dead delivery driver.
My hand was shaking when I broke the connection. Two more calls to make. I dialled Nina.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘On the road.’
‘So is it as dull as you hoped?’
I wasn’t going to disabuse her of that notion in case she revisited the idea of writing a piece. ‘Duller.’
‘Well surely my voicemail spiced things up a bit.’
‘Fuck. Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to listen to it.’
‘That boring, eh?’
‘It takes a lot of work to make sure nothing happens. Got anything else for me on my charge?’
‘Well, there’s three things. The first is a negative, I’m afraid. Nothing I can find on why she has a fear or flying. Secondly, my people at the FT say she isn’t part of the Euribor scandal. Not that they can find.’
‘Odd.’
‘Yes. And thirdly, you can be grateful of one thing, that the son isn’t with you.’
‘What son?’
‘Mrs Irwin’s son.’
‘Myles?’
There was disappointment in her voice. ‘Oh, you know about him? Took me a while to put two and two together. You know, that they were related. What with having different surnames. Strange coincidence though.’
‘What is?’
‘Mother and son. Them both being wanted by the law. If she is wanted by the law, that is.’
I suddenly wasn’t worried about whether she had or had not rigged the Euribor rate. ‘Hold up. The son. He’s wanted?’
‘Well, not exactly. He and several others are being investigated, pending further action.’
‘What’s the charge?’
‘Rape.’
SEVENTEEN
Saturday
Laura went home yesterday. It was very emosh at the airport. I cried, Laura cried, the check-in girl cried. Dad/Matt didn’t seem as upset as I thought he would be. He said they’d Skype and WhatsApp and all that. And Laura asked me to as well, just to keep up on the news on the island. Dieter said he and his girlfriend Aja (who is really, really beautiful) would take over the surfing lessons. But I don’t have any friends my own age. There is an English language school here. I suggested to Matt I could start there but he said not until the court case is over. He says that won’t be finished until Mum gets out of hospital. HOSPITAL? She’s being treated for her PTSD he said. It’s sad, but good if it he
lps her get better. He says she’s promised the doctors that once she gets out she’ll stop the bodyguarding. And her drinking. I’d like her to do that. Both, I mean.
Tattoo still hurts a bit.
Monday
Dieter and Matt have put a new pizza oven (it’s not actually new – they bought it at an auction of some place in town that was closing down) in the bar and bought two mopeds for Putu and his friend Tjokaran to ride about town delivering them. I think Matt thinks they are going to become Domino’s. Which is a bit stupid, because there is already a Domino’s here.
First lesson with Sarah. She has given me homework! I have to read a book. Jane Austen. She says she is her favourite author. It was bad enough when Mum made me watch a film with Keira Knightley on TV.
Wednesday
OMG, the pizzas are shit.
EIGHTEEN
Normandy, France
The others had decamped to the kitchen. It wasn’t so much a cellar as a semi-basement, with windows set high into the walls. Light slanted through them onto stone-flagged floors, a cast-iron cooking range you could feed an army from – or an army of movie extras – two huge American-style fridges and a battle-scarred pine table that could seat twenty. An electric kettle was creaking its way to boiling on a steel prep surface. The three of them looked a little lost in the vastness of the place.
On the wall above the hog-roasting-sized fireplace was a security camera screen with a feed from the gate at the entrance to the chateau’s drive. So we could see anyone who arrived. If they bothered to come in the front door, that is.
I wouldn’t say the atmosphere was jolly when I walked in, but they all seemed to have relaxed a little. I hoped that had nothing to do with the bottle of cognac sitting on the table in front of Myles, which was placed next to his tablet. I hadn’t realised he had one of those in his pack. Did those things have GPS in them?
‘Look what I found,’ he said, waving the bottle by the neck.
‘Put it back,’ I said. Mrs Irwin bristled a little at my brusqueness, but I was past caring.
Myles looked crestfallen.
‘Let the kid have a slug,’ said Konrad. ‘Where’s the harm now? I’ve found the hot water. We can all have a shower. Or a bath, if you insist on being very English. There’s no milk, but coffee and tea. Some canned food. Pizza in the freezer out back.’
