by Ian Rankin
“Now tell me about Jim,” she said. So Reeve told his side of it, a seasoned performer by now. She listened intently, holding the pen as if about to start taking notes. The book she’d been reading was the biography of some French politician. She tapped the cover absentmindedly with the pen, covering the politician’s beaming honest face with myriad spots, like blue measles. The barman came over to take another order, and tutted and pointed. She saw what she’d been doing, and smiled and shrugged. The barman seemed not much mollified.
“Do you know this man?” she asked Reeve. She meant the politician. Reeve shook his head. “His name is Pierre Dechevement. Until recently he was responsible for agriculture. He re-signed. There was a young woman… not his wife. Normally, such a thing would not be a scandal in France. Indeed, there was no trace of a scandal in Dechevement’s case. Yet he still resigned.”
“Why?”
She smiled. “Perhaps because he is a man of honor? That is what his biographer says.”
“What do you say?”
She stabbed the pen at him. “You are shrewd, Mr. Reeve. For years Dechevement took bribes from the agrichemical compa-nies—well, no, perhaps bribes is too strong. Let us say that he enjoyed hospitality, and received favors. In my opinion one of those favors was the young lady in question, who turns out to have been a sometime prostitute, albeit high-class. Dechevement was quite brazen; she accompanied him to functions here and abroad. He even became her employer, giving her a position on his private staff. There is no record that she contributed any work, but she was paid a generous salary.”
Marie Villambard lit a fresh Peter Stuyvesant from the stub of the old one. Her ashtray had already been emptied twice by the barman. She blew out a stream of smoke.
“Dechevement’s closest ties were to a company called COSGIT, and COSGIT is a French subsidiary of Co-World Chemicals.”
“So Dechevement was in CWC’s employ?”
“In a manner of speaking. I think that’s why he was told to resign, so no one would bother to backtrack and find that the young prostitute had been paid for by Co-World Chemicals. That might have created a scandal, even in France.”
Reeve was thoughtful. “So you weren’t working along the same lines as my brother?”
“Wait, please. We have not yet… scratched the surface.”
Reeve sat back. “Good,” he said as his second Perrier arrived.
“In a sense, Dechevement is only a very small part of the whole,” Marie Villambard said. The waiter had brought her a new pack of cigarettes, which she was unwrapping. Reeve noticed that all the customers who’d been in the bar on his arrival had now been replaced by others—which didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t surveillance.
“I have become,” she went on, “more interested in a man called Owen Preece. Doctor Owen Preece. Your brother was interested in him, too.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s dead now, unfortunately. It looked like natural causes. He was in his seventies—a cardiac crisis. It could happen to anyone that age…”
“Well then, who was he?”
“An American psychiatrist.”
Reeve frowned; someone else had mentioned a psychiatrist in connection with CWC…
“He headed what was supposed to be an independent research team, funded partly by government and partly by agrichemical companies, to look into BSE, what you call mad cow disease.”
Reeve nodded to himself. Josh Vincent had mentioned something similar—research funded by CWC itself, using psychiatrists as well as scientists.
“This was in the early days of the scare,” Marie Villambard was saying. “The team comprised neurologists, viral specialists, experts in blood diseases, and psychologists. Their initial reports were that the disease ME—”Yuppie Flu‘ as it was called at the time—was not a disease at all but was psychosomatic, an ailment brought on by the sufferer for some complex psychological reason.“
“They were working on prion protein?”
“That is correct, and they found no evidence to link prion proteins found in organophosphorus substances, or any pesticides currently in use, to any of the range of diseases that other scientists claim are closely linked to them.”
“They were got at by CWC?”
“Not exactly, but there is good reason to believe Dr. Preece was in the employ of CWC, and he was head of the team. He gave the final okay to their results. He had access to all the data…”
“And could have tampered with it?”
“One member of the team resigned, claiming something along those lines. He was killed in a boating accident only weeks later.”
“Jesus. So Preece falsified tests and results? And all this was partly funded by the U.S. government?”
Marie Villambard nodded throughout. “The initial idea had come down from someone in the middle ranks of Co-World Chemicals. Some of us assume this man was responsible for put-ting Preece in charge. Dr. Preece was in some ways an excellent choice—he was a psychiatrist of some renown. He is also thought to have carried out experiments for the CIA.”
“Experiments?”
“On humans, Mr. Reeve. In the fifties and sixties he was part of a team which tested the effects of various hallucinogens on the human nervous system.” She saw something close to horror on Reeve’s face. “It was all perfectly legal, believe it or not. The subjects were patients in lunatic asylums. They had few rights, and no one to fight for what few rights they had. They were injected with all manner of chemicals; we can’t even say which. Preece was a small part of this. It only came to light recently, after his death, when some CIA files were released. It made some of us wonder about his involvement with various committees and research projects post-1960. This man had something to hide, some shame in his past, and those with a past can always be bought.”
“And the CWC employee who suggested all this…?”
“Kosigin,” said Marie Villambard. “A Mr. Kosigin.”
“How do you know?”
“Your brother found out. He interviewed a lot of people under the pretext of writing a book about Preece. He spoke to scientists, government agencies; he tracked down people who had been involved in the original project. He had evidence linking Preece to Kosigin, evidence of a massive cover-up, something concerning every person on the planet.” She lifted her cigarette. “That’s why I smoke, Mr. Reeve. Eating is too dangerous, to my mind. I prefer safer pleasures.”
Reeve wasn’t listening. “Whatever evidence my brother had has gone to the grave with him.”
She smiled. “Don’t be so melodramatic—and for goodness’ sake don’t be so silly.”
Reeve looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Your brother was a journalist. He was working on a dangerous story, and he knew just how dangerous. He would have made backups of his disks. There will be written files somewhere. There will be something. In an apartment somewhere, or left with a friend, or in a bank vault. You just have to look.”
“Supposing the evidence has been destroyed?”
She shrugged. “Then the story is not so strong… I don’t know. Maybe it is impossible to find a publisher for it. Everywhere we look, in every country which uses these chemicals and pesticides, we find some government connection. I do not think the governments of the world would like to see this story published.” She stared at him. “Do you?”
He stayed silent.
“I do not think the agrichemical conglomerates would like to see the story appear either, and nor would agencies like the CIA… Maybe we should all just get back to our ordinary lives.” She smiled sadly. “Maybe that would be safer for us all.”
“You don’t believe that,” he said.
She had stopped smiling. “No,” she said, “I don’t. It has gone too far for that. Another good reason for smoking. I am like the condemned prisoner, yes?”
And she laughed, the terror showing only in her eyes.
She had some information she could give him—copies of documents�
��so he followed her in his car. They left the city traveling towards a town called Saint Yrieix. This is all I need, thought Reeve, more driving. The road was a succession of steep ups and downs, and a couple of times they found themselves stuck behind a tractor or horse trailer. At last Marie Villambard’s Citroën Xantia signaled to turn off the main road, but only so they could twist their way along a narrow country road with nothing but the occasional house or farmstead. It was a fine evening, with an annoyingly low sun and wide streaks of pale blue in the sky. Reeve’s stomach complained that he’d been shoveling nothing but croissants and coffee into it all day. Then, to his amazement—out here in the middle of nowhere—they drove past a restaurant. It looked to have been converted from a mill, a stream running past it. A few hundred yards farther on, the Xantia signaled left, and they headed up a narrower, rougher track made from hard-packed stones and sand. The track led them into an avenue of mature oak trees, as though this roadway had been carved from the forest. A couple of roads leading off could have been logging tracks. At the end, in absolute isolation, stood a small old single-story house with dormer windows in the roof. Its facing stones hadn’t been rendered, and the shutters on the windows looked new, as did the roof tiles.
Reeve got out of his car. “This is some spot,” he said.
“Ah, yes, my grandparents lived here.”
Reeve nodded. “He was a timberman?”
“No, no, he was a professor of anthropology. Please, come this way.”
And she led him indoors. Reeve was dismayed to see that security was lax. Never mind the isolation and the fact that there was only one road in and out—the house itself was protected by only a single deadbolt, and the shutters had been left open, making for easy entry through one of the windows.
“Neighbors?” he asked.
“The trees are my neighbors.” She saw he was serious. “There is a farm only a couple of miles away. They have truffle rights. That means the right to come onto the land to search for truffles. I only ever see them in the autumn, but then I see them a lot.”
There was a bolt on the inside of the door, which was something. There was also a low rumbling noise. The rumble turned into a deep animal growl.
“Ça suffit!” Marie Villambard exclaimed as the biggest dog Reeve had ever seen padded into the hall. The beast walked straight up to her, demanding to be patted, but throughout Marie’s attentions its eyes were on the stranger. It growled again from deep in its cavernous chest. “His name is Foucault,” Villambard explained to Reeve. He didn’t think it was time to tell her he had a cat called Bakunin. “Let him smell you.”
Reeve knew that this was the drill—same with any dog—don’t be a stranger. Let it paw over you and sniff your crotch, whatever it takes, until it has accepted you in its territory. Reeve stretched out a hand, and the dog ran a wet, discerning nose over the knuckles, then licked them.
“Good dog, Foucault,” Reeve said. “Good dog.”
Marie was rubbing the monster’s coat fiercely. “Really I should keep him outside,” she said. “But he’s spoiled. He used to be a hunting dog—don’t ask me which breed. Then his owner had to go into hospital, and if I hadn’t looked after him nobody would. Would they, Foucault?”
She started to talk to the dog—Reeve guessed part Alsatain, part wolfhound—in French, then led it back to the kitchen, where she emptied some food from a tin into a bowl the size of a washbasin. In fact, as Reeve got closer, he saw that it was a washbasin, red and plastic with a chewed rim.
“Now,” she said, “my thinking is that you need a bath, yes? After your first-class journey.”
“That would be great.”
“And food?”
“I’m starving.”
“There is an excellent restaurant, we passed it—”
“Yes, I saw.”
“We will go there. You are in France only one night, you must spend the time wisely.”
“Thanks. I’ve some stuff in my car; I’ll just go fetch it.”
“And shall I begin your bath.”
The bathroom was a compact space just off the hall. There was a small kitchen, and a small living space that looked more like an office than somewhere to relax. It had a look of organized chaos, some kind of order that only the owner of such a room could explain.
“You live here alone?” Reeve asked.
“Only since my husband left me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. He was a pig.”
“When did he leave?”
“October eleventh, 1978.”
Reeve smiled and went out to the car. He walked around the house first. This was real “Hansel and Gretel” stuff: the cottage in the woods. He could hear a dog barking, probably on the neighboring farm. But no other sounds intruded except the rustling of the oak trees in the wind. He knew what Marie thought—she thought the very secrecy of this place made her safe. But where she saw secrecy, Reeve saw isolation. Even if she wasn’t in the telephone book, it would take just an hour’s work for a skilled operative to get an address for her. An Ordnance Survey map would show the house—might even name it. And then the operative would know just how isolated the spot was.
There were two small outbuildings, one of which had been a bakery at one time. The bread oven was still there, the large wooden paddles still hung on the walls, but the space was used for storage these days. Mice or rats had chewed the corners out of a tower of empty cardboard boxes. The other outbuilding was a woodshed, and maybe always had been. It was stacked with neat piles of sawn logs. Reeve peered into the forest. A covering of dry leaves on the forest floor wouldn’t be enough to give warn-ing of anyone approaching the house. He’d have had trip wires maybe. Or…
Sudden beams of light flooded the shade. He blinked up and saw that halogen lamps had been fastened to some of the trees. Something or someone had tripped them. Then he saw Marie Villambard standing beside the house, arms folded, laughing at him.
“You see,” she said, “I have protection.”
He walked towards her. “They’re movement-sensitive,” he said.
“That’s right.”
He nodded. “All connected to a single source?”
“Yes.”
“Then they’d be easy to disable. Plus, what do they do? They light up the trees. So what? That’s not going to stop someone from advancing.”
“No, but it gives Foucault something to aim at. He stays out here at night.”
“He’s just one dog.”
She laughed again. “You are a security expert?”
“I used to be,” Reeve mumbled, going back into the house with his bag.
He changed into his spare set of clothes, wrapping his soiled shirt around Lucky 13. He wasn’t planning on staying here. He’d head off after dinner, find a hotel somewhere on the route. So he took his bag back out to the car and put it in the trunk, out of sight. Marie Villambard had put together a cardboard box full of papers.
“These are all copies, so I do not need them returned.”
“Fine,” he said.
“And I don’t know if they will tell you anything I haven’t.”
“Thanks anyway.”
She looked like she had something awkward to say, her eyes avoiding his. “You know, you are welcome to stay here tonight.”
He smiled. “Thanks, but I think I’ll head off.”
“You are sure?” Now she looked at him. She didn’t look like an executive anymore; she looked lonely and tired, tired of solitude and stroking Foucault, tired of long wakeful nights wondering if the sky would suddenly burst open with halogen. Tired of waiting.
“I’ll see how I feel after dinner,” he conceded. But he loaded the box of files into the trunk anyway.
“Shall we take my car?” she asked.
“Let’s take mine. It’s blocking yours anyway.” He helped her on with her coat. “It looked like a very nice restaurant.” Making conversation didn’t come easily. He was still getting over the feeling of bei
ng flattered that she wanted him to stay. She locked the door after them.
“It is an excellent restaurant,” she said. “And a very good reason for moving here.”
“It wasn’t sentimentality then?” He opened the passenger door for her.
“You mean because the house belonged to my grandparents? No, not that. Well, perhaps a little. But the restaurant made the decision easy. I hope they have a table.” Reeve started the engine and turned the car around. “I tried calling, but the telephone is acting up again.”
“Again?”
“Oh, it happens a lot. The French system…” She looked at him. “You are wondering if my phone is tapped. Well, I don’t know. I must trust that it is not.” She shrugged. “Otherwise life would be intolerable. One would think oneself paranoid…”
Reeve was staring ahead. “A car,” he said.
“What?” She turned to look through the windshield. There was a car parked fifty or sixty yards away—French license plate; nobody inside.
“Merde,” she said.
Reeve didn’t hesitate. He slammed the gearshift into reverse and turned to navigate through the back window. There was a logging trail behind him, and another car darted from it and braked hard across the road.
“Gordon…” Marie said as he stopped the Land Rover. It was the first time she’d used his name.
“Run for it,” Reeve said to her. He released both their seat belts. The men in the rear car were reaching into their jackets, at the same time opening their doors. “Just get into the woods and run like hellfire!” He was shouting now, pumping himself up. He leaned across her, pushed open her door, and thrust her out of the car. “Run!” he yelled, at the same time hitting the accelerator with everything he had and pulling his foot off the clutch. The wheels spun, and the car started to fly backwards, weaving crazily from side to side. The men were halfway out of the car when Reeve hit them with everything his own vehicle had. One of the men slipped, and Reeve felt his back wheels bump over something that hadn’t previously been on the road. The other man slumped back into the car, either dazed or unconscious.
