by Lex Lander
Her head hurt. She rummaged in her bag and split a pack of Paracetamol and swallowed four tablets without water. It was time to move on. She had restocked on clothes, make-up, tampons, and the other necessities of female life. Plus some auburn hair colouring which she was about to put to use. Then, hopefully before Duane came home and pinned her to the bed, she would be off to Ramsgate by hire car, from there to Zeebrugge by ferry, from Zeebrugge by train to Brussels, and from Brussels by air to any-bloody-where-at-all outside Europe.
* * *
Ghislaine was permitted fifteen minutes alone with her son in a cheerless, sparsely furnished room with a bare light bulb and barred windows. The boy was hardly perturbed by his abduction and removal to Roissy, close enough to Charles de Gaulle Airport for the whistle of jets taking off and landing to form a constant accompaniment.
‘Ne t’inquietes pas, Maman,’ he said stoutly as she cuddled him, weeping despite her resolve not to. ‘It’s not bad here, and I’ve met lots of new uncles.’
Some uncles, she thought bitterly. Any one of them would kill him to order.
The fifteen minutes passed like seconds and no extension was granted. A last cuddle, another cascade of tears that Marc wiped from her cheeks with sensitive fingers, then she was bundled away by two beefy CRS men.
She demanded to speak to Mazé. Neither man even bothered to answer. She refused to move so they lifted her off the floor by her arms and conveyed her to the waiting car, and from there to the airport for the 13.50 Air Inter flight to Lausanne. And made damn sure it didn’t leave without her.
* * *
A warm rain was falling when Ghislaine’s flight touched down at Lausanne Airport. Good as his word, Lux was there to meet her as she emerged from Customs with her overnight bag.
Their coming together was subdued. A touch of lips, a token hug.
‘How are you?’ he enquired, relieving her of the bag. His tone was compassionate but the eyes that probed her face were more speculative than concerned. For, in the hours alone, he had dwelt upon the tactics behind the police seizure of Ghislaine’s son. His conclusions did not bode favourably for their relationship.
‘A little tired,’ she confessed, softening the negativity with her dazzling smile of old. ‘And you? Did you miss me at all?’
‘Like I’d miss my head if I lost it.’
She tucked her arm through his and they walked to the exit. To the passing observer, just another couple, albeit more attractive than the average.
In the Range Rover Lux had hired locally they drove to the apartment, conversing only in stilted monosyllables. The backcloth of grey skies added to the gloomy atmosphere in the car. Under it the orderly streets of Lausanne, oddly deserted for a weekday, appeared drab and inhospitable.
Back at the penthouse, while Lux percolated coffee an exhausted Ghislaine collapsed into an armchair to stare listlessly out across the lake, blurred behind a veil of drizzle.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ Lux said, leaning on the breakfast bar as the percolator dribbled.
‘Of course. But later. First I must rest. And think.’
‘Alrighty. No rush. Not from this chicken anyhow.’
She wouldn’t meet his gaze, behaving almost as if she couldn’t bear to look at him.
He lit two Gitanes and took one to her with the coffee, though she didn’t much care for the brand. When she drew on it, it made her cough.
‘Sorry,’ she said and gulped a mouthful of black unsweetened coffee. ‘How can you smoke them without filters?’
‘It takes practice and leather-lined lungs,’ he quipped.
As she replaced his cigarette with one of her own bland Stuyvesants, he lit it for her.
‘Thank you, darling.’
Until this morning she had always made the endearment sound like a caress. Now it just sounded mechanical, much as it had been with his wife after a couple of years of wedlock. A habit, a knee-jerk.
‘Are you going to lie down?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I did not sleep well last night. This evening we will talk.’
She reached for his hand, squeezed it. It was an empty comfort. She was trying to behave normally towards him but he could tell it was an act. During her short absence her face had grown lines that had no business there. She was as beautiful as ever, only now it was a subtly flawed beauty, a glimpse of the future Ghislaine that he would have preferred be postponed for some years.
Thirty
* * *
Evening came early and brought with it a renewed assault of rain. Lux sat before the TV, absorbing little of its clacking effluent, as the darkness folded around him. Around nine Ghislaine wandered in, wearing a towelling robe, smelling of bath salts and yawning. She switched on the lights and joined him on the couch.
‘We must talk,’ she said, perching sideways to face him, her arm along the back of the couch, brushing his shoulders.
Lux used the remote control to kill the TV.
‘I know.’
His tone was resigned. He could have told her what she was about to say.
‘I love you,’ she said, and shuffled closer, making body-to-body contact.
‘I know that too.’
‘Then you will understand that what I must do is not because my love for you is less than it was.’
Lux took a drag on his cigarette, the only solace immediately available to him.
‘But Marc is your son. To save him you have to sacrifice me.’ Her mew of distress moved him to look at her. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart. I don’t blame you. You have no choice.’
She laid her head on his shoulder, stroked his thigh with her left hand.
‘Thank you for understanding. Thank you for not hating me.’
Despite his melancholy he was becoming aroused by her caresses. He restrained her.
‘You want me to stop?’ she queried, incredulous. His sexual appetite normally recognised no bounds.
‘This isn’t the moment.’
‘You are right. To make love might make me weaken.’
‘I wouldn’t let you, because my conscience wouldn’t let me.’
Moved, on the verge of tears, she said, ‘And to think your wife said you had no humanity. Kiss me, darling.’
In a way he would have preferred to part without the ritual of a farewell kiss. Even so, he held her to him and applied his lips to hers almost savagely. When at last they broke off she was flushed and her breath was coming in little explosions.
‘You do it so well,’ she said unsteadily.
‘Yeah. Lifelong practice.’
Ghislaine opened up space between them and let him see the compact automatic she was pointing at him. Her hand was not quite steady but that made the weapon no less dangerous.
He was more amused than afraid.
‘You’re a cool one. Were you holding that all along?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You know I have to turn you in.’
‘You have to try,’ he amended.
‘If I don’t, they’ll kill Marc. Mazé told me.’
Lux believed her, if not Mazé’s threat. Yet she wouldn’t dare gamble Marc’s life on the possibility that her boss was bluffing. Her maternal instincts were strong.
‘You’ll have to kill me,’ he told her as she rose and backed away, beyond his reach.
‘No, I won’t. To disable you will be enough. Your knee …’ She altered the angle of the gun barrel accordingly. ‘Or your foot.’ Another alteration.
The warning was enough to make him revise his tactics. Enough to make him take her seriously. Enough to convert him from lover to killer - and as a killer he had no equal.
The lunging kick when he delivered it was unexpected. He was as supple as a ballet dancer. His foot slammed into her gut and instantly bent her double. The explosion of pain caused her grip on the automatic to contract and a tiny round left the muzzle in a dart of flame to graze Lux’s side, just north of the hip. So light was the bullet that it lodged in the arm of t
he couch and went no further.
Ghislaine was on her knees, hugging her stomach, still miraculously clutching the gun yet incapable of firing it. Lux prised it from her and she offered no resistance. Instinctively he noted the type and calibre - a Manhurin PPK, modelled on the Walther and chambered for .22. He pocketed it.
‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he said, truly contrite, as he stooped over her.
Her mouth opened but only to emit a groan. He helped her to the couch, left her there rocking back and forth.
Done with sentiment he hurried to the bedroom, raided his wardrobe for two neckties and returned with them to the living room. He bound her wrists together in front of her and half carried her to the pine dining table to strap her to one of the legs. By then she had ceased squirming though her face was white and sweaty.
Satisfied that she was immobilised, he returned to the bedroom to tend his wound. Detaching his shirt from it made his eyes water. It was weeping blood, but not to excess. He cleaned it up painfully as best he could and smeared it with some antiseptic cream that he found in the bathroom. It stung, making him hiss through his teeth. Finally he swathed his midriff in a whole roll of bandage, also from the cabinet’s first aid stores.
Next, he gathered his belongings and dumped them carelessly in his valise. When he was done he left the valise by the entrance and went to check out his captive. She had recovered enough to call him an unpleasant name.
‘Now don’t be mean, honey,’ he said. He felt a louse, but he wasn’t remotely tempted to untie her. ‘You did your best. They can’t punish you for failing.’
‘You don’t know them.’
‘If I thought they would hurt your boy if I didn’t give myself up, I’d do it and take my chances.’
‘Words are cheap,’ she scoffed. ‘Go on then, Jackal - run. Save yourself.’
‘Jackal?’ He gave her a quizzical look. ‘Is that what your people call me?’
‘Yes. It is apt.’
But no verbal blow could bruise him now. The transformation to professional was absolute.
‘Goodbye, sweetheart. God bless.’
She made no answer, simply turned her head away as a final gesture of rejection. He shrugged and left her. At the door he collected his valise and towed it into the corridor. He shut the door and made for the lift. As he touched the button he heard the motor whine into action.
* * *
The apartment building was clearly upmarket and incorporated all the usual security devices. The entrance door could only be unlocked by inputting a code on the digital lock. Visitors were required to buzz their hosts to access the communal lobby. In addition CCTV cameras were trained on the lobby. They could easily be taken out of commission but Simonelli judged it unnecessary. As a rule the TV receivers were located in the entrance halls of apartments and only viewed when a visitor arrived. To beat the system took little ingenuity, only patience. Simonelli positioned himself in a dark corner of the porch to wait. He would slip through the door next time it was used, posing as a bona fide visitor. If someone objected that would be their hard luck.
His passport was not long in coming; a car swung into the parking lot. He ducked back into the shadows as its headlights swept the entrance. Moments later the engine died. Doors slammed, followed by the tap of at least two pairs of high heels on asphalt.
A pillar, a good foot square, occupied the centre of the porch. Simonelli darted behind it, placing it between himself and the approaching women.
‘Enfin. Je suis bien fatigué,’ one of them complained.
‘Moi, non,’ the other responded. ‘I’m just hungry.’
Simonelli edged around the pillar, keeping it between him and the women as they crossed the porch. As one of them selected the access code she obligingly announced the digits out loud: ‘Huit quatre quarante-huit.’ A tongue click. ‘I ought to change that. Using my date of birth always reminds me how old I am.’
The other woman cackled.
Simonelli memorised the figures: eight-four-forty-eight. So she had been born on 8th April 1948. He wordlessly praised the woman’s stupidity.
He gave them time to ride to their floor. It began to drizzle, softening the glare of the street lights. Music started up in a ground floor apartment, thud-thud-thud. As a teenager Simonelli had been a rock aficionado like all his contemporaries, but this techno stuff was just monotonous. No melody. Or was this just a sign of ageing?
Five minutes had passed. He advanced on the door. His thin fingers picked out the numbers on the lock - 8-4-4-8. A metallic click as the bolt was released. He pushed at the door and it swung back. A last glance behind him. The building opposite was an office block, darkened except for a yellow light over the entrance. No passers-by.
Half a dozen strides saw him to the lift. The indicator above the doors told him it was stopped at the fourth floor. He pressed the call button and fretted at its unhurried response. It eventually sighed to rest at ground level and the doors parted. Inside it was mirrored on three walls and plushly carpeted. The control panel showed seven floors, from RC through 1 to 5 topped by P for penthouse.
Simonelli thumbed the P. The doors hummed shut. The lift began its weary ascent.
His image was replicated to the left and right into infinity, zillions of ever-diminishing clones. It was disconcerting. He loosened the automatic in its shoulder holster. It wasn’t much of a gun. 6.35mm calibre. A handbag gun. A moll’s gun. Any serious adversary would laugh if he threatened him with it. The thought made him quail. Lux was as serious an adversary as they come.
He tugged the gun free, operated the slide, then lowered the cocked hammer. One round in the chamber, six in reserve. Small calibre slugs will kill surely enough if planted where it counts. But even a magazine-load might not be enough to stop Lux dead and prevent him from shooting back.
The lift was creeping past the third floor. Sooner or later, probably later, it would reach penthouse level. He wasn’t yet at the point of no return, he reassured himself. Not yet committed to following through. He could always descend without getting out. And why not? Why risk his life for a paltry five million francs when he had just made four times that amount for acting as a go-between? It was not as if he was short of money in the first place. The more he questioned the rationale, the less sense it made to go through with it.
A hard contract was not to be defaulted on lightly. You put yourself at risk of retribution. Yet would Barail spend more of his illicit earnings on punishing Simonelli? He didn’t think so.
The lift slowed. A chime sounded for those passengers who needed a wake-up call. Simonelli looked down at the gun in his hand. Maybe he was too old to be making a comeback as an assassin. Maybe it was time to go home and drift into a well-heeled retirement in some far-off place beyond the reach of the law.
The lift had come to a stop. The doors chugged open. A man in a dark blue blouson and chinos stood there, valise on the floor beside him, a bag slung from his shoulder. He was clutching his side as if it were paining him.
‘Lux!’ Simonelli momentarily froze.
‘What the fuck …?’ Lux’s eyes dropped from the Corsican’s face to the gun he was clutching and his reactions were a blur.
Marginally more prepared, Simonelli had only to lift the automatic and fire. It was advantage enough. He pumped out five of the little bullets (never leave yourself with an empty magazine) as fast as his finger could trigger them. Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack, no louder than a snapped stick. They may have sounded puny but all five struck home where he intended.
Five hits in the chest put Lux down on his backside, his own gun - an automatic even smaller than Simonelli’s - slipping from his grasp to bounce once and lie still, at the Corsican’s feet. He sat there on the carpet, supported by the wall, a surprised expression on his face and five red roses blooming on his shirt front
Simonelli hesitated, torn between stepping from the lift and, like the commanding officer of a firing squad, administering the coup de grâce and getti
ng the hell out before Lux produced a hidden gun as he had once before. No man could live with five holes in his chest, he decided, and hit the lift button. Lux still sat there, now canted over slightly to the left. Eyes unseeing, the red splashes merging to become a single stain over his heart which, against all probability, continued to pump. Then mercifully the doors closed like stage curtains on the final death scene in a play.
The lift descended. Simonelli sagged to the floor, dabbed perspiration from his forehead. His nerves were shot. The hand that held the gun shook like that of a lottery winner receiving a record-breaking cheque.
When the lift sighed to a halt on the ground floor he reeled out into the lobby on boneless legs. But for a man passing on a moped, who took him for a drunk, no one saw him lurch from the building and, guided by self-preservation rather than judgement, make his stumbling way to his car.
* * *
Among his acquaintances of longstanding Le Renard counted one Jacques Legoff, a political columnist for France Soir. Legoff was in his late fifties, in the news business since before de Gaulle came to power, and nobody’s fool.
Two days previously an Ordonnance from the Ministry of the Interior had been circulated to all newspaper and periodical publishers. It made reference to rumours of an assassination attempt on President Chirac and issued a total clampdown on all reporting, be it of fact or fantasy. However, the latest buzz circulating the media world was that the powers-that-be had had wind of the contract in advance and let it go ahead so as to snare the whole cabal. What was more, the assassin had actually penetrated the security screen, made a successful hit, and got clean away. Fortunately or unfortunately for France, depending on your politics, he only blasted to bits a helicopter pilot and two dummies, done up as Chirac and his wife.
