by Lex Lander
‘They won’t catch me,’ she said. Her quiet confidence didn’t impress Lux.
‘They damn nearly did today.’
Beauregard nodded, lips pursed. ‘He has a point, you know, chérie.’
Her jaw jutted.
‘Don’t you start as well. I will not be caught, I tell you. Because I shall have protection.’
‘Protection?’ Beauregard said, and Lux echoed him.
‘Yes.’ She gave Lux her most direct look of the evening and he was devastated by it. At the time she was leaning forward, supported on her elbows, right hand clasping her left wrist, while Beauregard was slumped in his chair. From that position he could see only the rear quarter of her face, which meant he saw nothing of what she communicated to Lux by that look. ‘Yes. You have to go back, so ... I shall go with you.’ Her laugh was gay and infectious. She looked back over her shoulder at her husband. ‘From the way Dennis acted today I am confident that he will accomplish his objectives. All I have to do is stay by his side.’
Beauregard applauded, smouldering cigarette protruding from his mouth, eyes squinting against the smoke. ‘Tu es drôle!’ You’re funny.
Could he really be so naïve about his wife’s desirability, Lux wondered. Or was he simply supremely confident of her fidelity. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
As for Lux, he was too infatuated to think up a single objection. He suspected she was only using him and that the lowered-eyelids act had been designed throughout to snare him. Okay, he would let her think he was agreeing because he was besotted with her. She would only be half-wrong.
* * *
This was not like yesterday. The rain was a monotonous drizzle that fell in straight lines from a drab sky and showed no inclination to cease. No dabs of blue, no bright strips along the horizon. ‘Gris partout,’ the méteo had prophesied and they were not wrong.
However, bad news for tourists was not bad news for the likes of Lux. The murkier the conditions, the better the chances of avoiding detection. The only drawback was the poor visibility that went with the drizzle.
Ghislaine had come prepared. She appeared in Reception wearing a grey oilskin and sou’wester. Lux’s oilskin was dark green, so they were both well camouflaged.
Beauregard came to see his wife off. ‘Take good care of her,’ were his only words to Lux before they departed. He pecked his wife’s cheek undemonstratively.
Lux had warned Ghislaine that they would be walking the entire distance, a twelve kilometre minimum round trip. ‘So what?’ she had rejoined, and he had to concede she looked fit enough for double the distance.
Few people were about when they set off down the promenade. The sea was still and greasy-looking. The palms lining the front drooped despondently.
‘I’m looking forward to this,’ Ghislaine said as they entered the side turning that was a short cut, albeit a steep one, to the summit of le Drapeau.
Lux glanced at her. Her features were partly obscured by the sou’wester but there was no hiding the animation.
‘It’s not a Sunday afternoon picnic,’ he observed shortly. ‘Not for me, that is.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said, peering at him from under the brim. ‘When we get there I’ll be deadly serious. This is my job too, you know. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, just as I suppose you do.’
‘It’s not our reputations I’m worried about,’ Lux muttered. ‘It’s our heads.’
* * *
From the top of hill, on the edge of the copse, he could sweep the estate from end to end and beyond with his binoculars. Of the two houses away to the south, believed to be second homes, one was definitely untenanted: all shutters closed, garden generally overgrown awaiting the premier mowing of the season. A car was parked in the drive of the other. Nobody was about though. On a day like this it wasn’t surprising.
Rain dripped off the brim of Lux’s hat onto the binoculars. Convenient as the bad weather was for concealment, he would have appreciated a break from it. Ghislaine, crouching beside him, seemed oblivious of it. She had her own binoculars and was using them to hop from one object to another at random.
Lux had convinced himself he was only here to keep her out of trouble. To maintain his pretence to be a reporter he took a few listless snapshots while reflecting anew on the practical aspects of his true purpose. If the President’s helicopter touched down in the semicircle as was likely, his line of fire would be uninterrupted. The gradual downward slope would also flatten the bullet’s trajectory. One shot should be enough. Unless the wind was particularly strong or visibility as bad as today. If a second shot or, God forbid, a third were needed, the prospects of a kill would diminish exponentially. The Barrett, his chosen tool, was a semi-automatic weapon. A top marksman could loose off three shots inside one second, but three aimed shots would take three times as long. In three seconds the helicopter could do a fast climb or spin around so that the President was screened from sight. Members of the bodyguard could rush to put their bodies between the bullets and the President. The police could begin shooting back and distract Lux’s aim. So many things could go sour on him.
Make the first shot count then. Simple solution. Simple, yet far from easy.
‘Time I went and planted a few bugs,’ Ghislaine said.
So absorbed in technical detail had Lux become that he had forgotten he was not alone. He turned towards her. She was watching him, her expression enigmatic. They looked at each other for too long; finally she glanced away, colouring up under the sou’wester, to take refuge behind her binoculars.
‘You’re a beautiful girl, you know that,’ he was moved to say.
She sighed, as if the compliment had been paid to her so often that it had become tedious. But she immediately went on to demolish this impression by saying, ‘It is embarrassing to me to talk about my looks. If I am beautiful, then that is very nice. I do not think of myself in that way, as someone special.’ She lowered the binoculars. Solemn brown eyes focused on Lux’s grey ones. ‘You are also beautiful - in a masculine way, of course. You must have had many women swoon at your feet ...’ She made a gesture of appeal. ‘Oh, Dennis, what have you done?’
‘Done?’ Lux was nonplussed. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘To me, you fool.’ She pushed the sou’wester back from her forehead. ‘There I was, happy in my marriage, my career, my young son ...’ That was jolt number two; the first jolt had come when he learned she was married. ‘Then you come along and upset it all.’
‘Not intentionally. And anyway, how have I upset it all? Have I asked you to run away with me?’
A headshake, the lips curving upwards; there was poignancy in the smile.
‘No. But you will. And I shall agree. But then you already know that, don’t you?’
Lux straightened up, taking her with him. He held her by the shoulders. Her gaze was unwinking, unwavering. Rain dripping from the trees spattered their waterproof clothing.
‘No,’ he said wonderingly. ‘I didn’t. But now I do - and you’re right.’
Then she clung to him, her cheek pressing his chest, dislodging the sou’wester to release the mass of her hair.
‘Then let us love each other here and now. Let us seal the bargain. I don’t want to wait, I can’t wait.’
They didn’t undress fully. Didn’t search for a more accommodating, less public site, or dry place; the heat of their desire negated the cold and wet. They simply lay down where they stood, oblivious of the pricking of pine needles. She tugged off her rubber boots, then her jeans and panties down to her ankles and offered him her naked lower body. The depth of her desire was in the moistness he found there. He took what she offered, first gently then desperately and uninhibitedly. He forget all else, including his reason for being there.
* * *
When it was over there was no contrition. They sat just below the top of the ridge, drinking each other in.
‘I love you,’ she had whispered often during the act, sometimes in French, sometimes in English
. Now she said it again, more strongly, holding his gaze as if to convince him of it. Not that he doubted her sincerity.
‘I love you,’ he shot back at her, the avowal touched with incredulity.
It was a phrase they repeated often over the next hours. Lux somehow felt he would never grow tired of hearing her say it nor of saying it to her.
* * *
To be near her he took a room at the hotel for a second night. It was to be a night of much tossing and turning, of visions mostly of Ghislaine in the same bed as her Beauregard.
She had wanted to leave her husband now, and go with Lux. ‘Anywhere, I don’t care. Just to be with you ... it’s all I need.’
Almost she lured him into this undertow of indiscretion. Only the professionalism that lay ever just below the surface held him back, reminded him of other demands. If he wanted her, if he was prepared to usurp her husband, then the freedom he must buy was more indispensable than ever.
How to keep Ghislaine, while winning his freedom, that was the conundrum.
Not only that - he had had to run the unnecessary risk of a second foray to the Crillon estate solely because of his failure to keep out of Ghislaine’s way the previous day. To be ruthless in his self-assessment, he had fallen down on the job.
Well, we’re all human, he consoled himself, all allowed one mistake. He resolved there and then, in his hotel room in the stillness of the small hours, that he would make no more. That he would see the job through with ruthless efficiency. No compromises. He would have Ghislaine, yes, but it would be on his terms. When he was ready, and free of encumbrances.
Nineteen
* * *
No rain, just wall-to-wall blue sky. Lux and Ghislaine planned to spend the day together, doing nothing in particular, just discovering each other in the manner of new-found lovers. Her husband would be away all day photographing the Var, so no worries from that quarter.
They spent the morning walking on the beach, talking inconsequentially. They lunched in St Tropez, spotting a couple of celebrities and drinking too much red wine.
In the afternoon, Lux, perhaps made maudlin by the wine, experienced the first twang from his conscience. They were strolling along the Mole, admiring the array of floating hardware, blinding white in the early afternoon sun, when some inexplicable impulse made him ask, ‘Does it trouble you, deceiving your husband?’
Her pace slowed and his with it since they were holding hands.
‘I do not care for this word “deceive.”’ Twin grooves of displeasure etched above the bridge of her nose.
‘You mean the truth hurts?’ he said insensitively.
Now she stopped dead, wrenching her hand from his. Her face was puzzled, hurt. ‘Why are saying this, Dennis? You are as much a party to this as I am.’
‘I feel bad, that’s why. I love you, but I feel bad.’ He took her by the upper arms and shook her gently. ‘Can’t you understand that?’
‘So you want me to feel bad too. Then you will feel better and everything will be okay. Is that it?’
A couple of teenage girls coming up behind circumnavigated them, gawking openly at what was clearly a lover’s tiff. One of them nudged the other and they tittered in harmony.
Lux no longer knew what he wanted or felt, except that he loved this woman.
‘I’m not perfect but I’m not an all-out heel either. People’s feelings deserve respect. I just want to make sure we handle this in a … an honourable way.’ He tugged at his nose self-consciously. ‘If that’s possible.’
Her eyes were screened behind the oval sunglasses but he had a feeling they were blazing with anger.
‘Hah! Honourable, he says. There is nothing honourable about infidelity. All you can do is be honest. I honestly love you. I will honestly tell Bernard. And that will be the end of it. If that is not enough for you maybe it is better we end it now, before it properly begins!’
Lux thrust his hands deep in the pockets of his striped shorts, looked away from her, towards the sea where boats bobbed and jet-skis planed. Looked without seeing.
‘Maybe it isn’t enough …’ he began.
Her fiery Midi temperament would absorb no more of his indecision. She strode away, back towards the town, arms swinging like a skater, the brisk sea breeze flailing her hair and lifting the hem of her short dress to expose the backs of her thighs.
The wine had dulled his reactions. He let her go. Maybe it was for the best. His conscience would be clear if nothing else. His eyes stayed on her until she turned right at the tower and was swallowed by the pastel buildings along the quayside. Then he returned on dragging feet to his car in the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, to find he had been awarded a ticket. A perfect end to a perfect afternoon.
He sat in the car with the engine running and the air conditioning going, half hoping Ghislaine would suddenly turn up in the mood for forgiving, forgetting and sex. If she didn’t, well, she would come round soon enough. Love didn’t die because of a difference of opinion. He would stay at the villa tonight and pounce on her at the hotel tomorrow, after Bernard had left for the day. Give her an opportunity to work up some contrition. Meanwhile, work first, play afterwards. Better to stay focused on the contract and put the philandering on ice.
The combination of wine, sun, and stress was giving him a headache. He put the car into gear and reversed out of the parking bay.
* * *
Invisibility.
The word had stuck in Lux’s brain since his first visit to the Crillon estate, like a blackberry seed in a tooth cavity. Worry at it as he might, he couldn’t dislodge it. It was the key to killing Chirac and getting away with it. He had to become the invisible man.
Not in the sense of vanishing from sight or dematerialising, impossible as either was. He had to become as unremarkable as a blade of grass in a field, or a sheep in a flock. He had to become another face in the crowd.
The answer came to him as he was driving back from a shopping expedition in Ste Maxime.
‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed, almost driving into the back of a school bus. ‘That’s fucking it!’
At the villa he looked up companies specialising in fancy dress. The nearest was in Fréjus. He phoned them. Yes, sir, they had several such items available but they would need his measurements. He reeled off his statistics and they assured him they could fit him. A deposit of one hundred francs was required to reserve the costume for the specified days. No problem, a cheque would be in that evening’s post.
* * *
From the bed of pine needles where he and Ghislaine had consummated their love Lux surveyed the scene. Not that in the darkness there was much to survey: just the lights along the driveway and in the parking areas below, and a square of yellow cast by the mobile home. Between three o’clock to where he lay the sheen of the artificial lake made a hole in the total blackness in that direction. It was raining again, or rather drizzling, fine dashes of moisture picked out by the lights below, descending vertically in the motionless air.
For almost two hours he sprawled on the sodden hillside, watching - watching for movement, for some indication that the two guards were doing their duty, making periodic tours of inspection. On the hour perhaps, or half-hour.
But no, they were human. The dialogue may be imagined:
‘Filthy night, eh, mon pote.’
‘Ouais. You going out?’
‘Oh, I think I’ll give it a miss until the weather clears up.’
‘So what do you say to a game of cards before we turn in?’
‘Sure. Why not. Give me a chance to win back a few sous.’
There was, after all, no reason to suspect an intrusion. Not even a burglar would venture out on a night like this.
When the light of the mobile home was extinguished it took Lux by surprise. Cupping his hand around his pencil torch he checked the time. It was one-thirty-five a.m. Give them thirty minutes, say, to settle down, then he would move.
* * *
His descent to the h
ouse was slow and ponderous. Each foot precisely placed to avoid an accident. The slickness of the grass made him even more cautious. He couldn’t afford to break an ankle or even twist one. The eight hundred or so metres to the parking area took some thirty-five minutes. On reaching it he paused to take stock. The area was lit up by a low wattage globe on a pole set more or less in the middle of the asphalted area. This was both good and bad. Good in that it would provide light to work by on the night; bad in that he might be spotted by some nosy flic. Well, even the best plans contained an element of chance. You couldn’t entirely eliminate the unforeseen.
He stood for a while, longing for a cigarette but too professional to risk it. The night was as still as the ocean deep, the only sound the plink-plink of the rain on the leaves of the lime trees that screened the parking area. Satisfied that the security guards weren’t walking in their sleep, he followed a short driveway connecting the parking area with the semi-circular turning space in front of the house. Here the illumination was much brighter and he stayed off the asphalt, in the shadows, his black sneakers making no sound as he padded around, imagining the likely run of events and figuring his options. Making provision too for less likely but potentially more disastrous events.
Wiping rain from his face he completed his tour of the semicircle and faced uphill. If he adopted the course that was forming in his mind, he would have to ascend the slope in the darkness. No flashlight, no illumination except the lights around the house, which would be behind him. Well, he had just descended intact, hadn’t he? Going up may be more arduous but it was also less hazardous than descending. It ought to be a cinch.
He took a step towards the car park then froze as a faint humming, unmistakably of human origin, came to his ears. He quickly backtracked behind the nearest tree as a man appeared, striding along the driveway from the direction of the gates, a flashlight in hand but switched off, a dog trotting alongside: a big black beast, its ears pricked. Lux remained motionless, even stopped breathing, as the pair crossed the semicircle just metres from where he stood.
