“Then your business is with the people who had it, not with me. I paid the money. They promised me the mirror. I didn’t look in the case when I picked it up. There wasn’t time.”
He looked dubious. He was quite young, I realized. Pimples dotted his chin, which wasn’t surprising considering the greasy state of his hair. He looked like a slightly repellent nonentity, which is probably what a lot of criminals are in the beginning. I went on, “If I didn’t think it was in there, why did I hold on to the case? Why didn’t I just let you have it?” I wasn’t sure of the answer myself, but it made a presentable argument. He started to pick at his chin but still didn’t reply. I said, “Go talk to the people who set up the exchange. They can tell you what you want to know.”
Naturally, he went out again. He was back soon. He said, “We don’t believe you. You hid it somewhere.”
“I hid it? I was hardly out of your sight. I didn’t have time to hide it.”
“You hid it. Where did you hide it?”
“I didn’t hide it.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t hide it.”
His popping in and out was beginning to seem ludicrous. As he was leaving this time, I said, “I’m hungry.”
After a while, he returned carrying a tray holding bread, cheese, a Bosc pear, a glass of red wine. He put it on the foot of the bed and said, “You will have to tell us sometime. You will stay here until you do.”
I shook my head, and he left. I ate and waited for him to come back and pick up the tray. He didn’t come. I didn’t hear noises or voices. Were they still here? What were they doing? I watched the door, expecting it to open any minute. I began to feel very lonely without him.
Breakfast
All through the night, the wind roared across the field and broke around the house like a wave. Propped against the thin pillow, the lamp burning, I listened to it and stared out the window into the darkness. Once or twice a train went by, a fast-moving string of tiny lighted windows in the distance, and I put my face against the glass. At other times I lay back and studied the lace curtain, with its motif of flowers entwined in an oval frame around a bird. The bird, the train, even the wind became symbols, mocking symbols, of freedom. As the hours passed, I began to loathe the room with the tired loathing that comes when unpleasant situations continue too long. It was a feeling I used to have about my relationship with Ray. I slept fitfully and woke. I worried about Twinkie. When the first light broke I got up, went to the door, and began beating on it with my fist.
No response. I kept hammering. My hand hurt, but the thuds sounded good to me. Then I thought: Why shouldn’t I hit the door with something else, something harder, and make a louder noise? My eye had fallen on the gooseneck lamp, with its round metal base, when I heard footsteps. I yelled, “Open up! Open up!” The footsteps stopped on the other side of the door.
I resumed pounding. Moments later the steps receded down the hall.
“Don’t go,” I said. “Please don’t go.” The steps died away, and the only sound left was the wind.
I would make him come back. I would batter the door, batter the lock until it gave. I unplugged the lamp. My fingers were closing around the neck when I hesitated. They were screwing me around, and they were winning. If I battered the door, even broke it open, they would catch me before I could get away. If I used the lamp to smash a window, they would hear. Whatever I did, if it went wrong they would take the lamp away.
I had read in a magazine somewhere that if you were in a stressful situation you should stop and take ten deep breaths, concentrating on each one. This seemed an appropriate occasion to try it. I sucked in air. Sure enough, by breath six or seven my mind was clearing. By breath ten I was close to getting hold of myself, but I decided not to let my captors know that.
I flung myself on the door, slamming both fists against it, screaming, “Come back! Please! Come back!” in a fair imitation of hysteria. When the emotion seemed about to become real, I stopped to breathe. Then I started again.
During the second breathing pause, the steps returned. I cried, “Let me out!” and in a moment a voice, I thought it was Louis, said, “Are you ready to talk?”
“Yes! Yes!”
The door opened, and he stood there with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. He looked even greasier and less savory than yesterday, and the pouches under his eyes indicated he hadn’t slept much better than I had.
He accompanied me to the toilet. While I was there, I rinsed my face and hands, the cold water almost painful on my oversensitive skin. I tried to avoid looking in the mirror, where a pallid creature with shocked eyes made poking motions at the bird’s nest on her head.
He didn’t take me back to my bedroom-cell, but through the living room to the kitchen, where his mustached cohort, in socks, pants, and a webbing undershirt, was pouring steaming water from a kettle into a filter-style coffeepot. He glanced at me and grunted. I didn’t grunt back.
The kitchen had a breakfast nook, built-in benches on either side of a formica-topped table, and Louis seated me on one of the benches and asked if I wanted coffee. While he was getting it, I gazed out the window at a desolate and overgrown backyard enclosed by a ratty hedge. In the middle of the yard was one of those clotheslines shaped like an inside-out umbrella. A couple of dish towels on the clothesline were whipping in the wind, which was still high. There were no houses in sight. I wondered what had possessed somebody to build this suburban villa in such an isolated and unpleasant spot. I could imagine the ad: “Location perfect for kidnapping and other clandestine operations.”
Louis set a plate in front of me on which was a hunk of bread (yesterday’s, I ascertained by trying to tear off a bite) and a little plastic tub of strawberry jam. The coffee was soon ready, and I chewed the stale bread with the gusto of one who isn’t sure where her next meal is coming from, or if there will be a next meal at all. The mustached man took a mug of coffee and left, but Louis stayed with me. His body odor wafted across the table and my appetite started to flag.
After a few minutes he half-rose from the table, his eyes on the doorway. I followed his gaze. Standing there in black turtleneck and black trousers, his grizzled hair wilder than ever, was Bruno Blanc.
So Bruno was behind this. I put down my cup. Bruno glanced at Louis and said, “Leave us,” in a tone that showed who was in charge. When we were alone he took Louis’s place on the bench opposite me. His eyes were bloodshot, and the skin of his face hung in folds. He had the air of a man barely able to hold himself in check.
“So the mirror brings us together again,” he said.
“Right. The mirror abducted me, held me prisoner…”
His shoulders twitched. “We want the mirror. When we have it, you may go.”
“I told your… your henchman—”
He leaned across the table, grabbed the neck of my sweater, and pulled me toward him. “You told him a lie.”
I tried to free myself. “I didn’t.”
“You did. When you picked up the case in the Luxembourg, the mirror was in it.”
“Let me go!”
“You had the mirror.” He held on for a moment longer, then shoved me back against the bench, which rattled as my body thudded against it. He leaned over the table, glaring. “Where is it now? Where?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“Liar!” He threw himself back on his bench. “Your lies are useless. I know it was there.”
Was he bluffing? “How are you so sure?”
His tone was venomous. “How I’m so sure is not your business. Consider this: If I didn’t think you know where the mirror is, I might as well have killed you yesterday.”
That angle had occurred to me. Stonewalling could reach the point of diminishing returns. If I convinced Bruno of my ignorance, my next stop could be a windblown grave under the clothesline.
I said, playing for time, “You would kill me for the mirror? Jane said you thought life was sacred.”
His reply was incantatory. “Anyone who stands in the mirror’s way is in danger.”
“Pierre Legrand and Lucien Claude stood in its way?”
The corners of his mouth jumped. “It would seem so.”
It would seem so. He went on, “I want the mirror. Tell me where it is, and I’ll let you go.”
I doubted it. Why should he set me free, when I was able to incriminate him? He leaned forward. “Tell me. Now.”
Although he hadn’t touched me again, I felt pushed to the wall, squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. I said, in a petulant tone, the only remark that entered my head: “It isn’t fair. I paid the ransom.”
To my astonishment he laughed, a derisive bark. “You paid the ransom!”
“I did! I—”
“You paid nothing. You alerted the police. The Luxembourg was swarming with them. The ransom was never picked up.” A smile contorted his features. “Don’t you understand? You are in serious difficulty. And now you must tell me where the mirror is.”
Reaching Agreement
My first reaction to Bruno’s news was fury at Inspector Perret. So the police had blown it and shown me up as a stool pigeon or whatever the expression was. Bruno might be demented, but he was right about the difficulty I was in. If I ever— ever— got my hands on Perret, I’d …
“The mirror,” Bruno said.
I had to concentrate, or I wouldn’t live to take horrible and appropriate revenge. “Yes. I know where it is,” I said.
I pressed against the back of the bench as he reached out, his fingers scrabbling at my arm. “Where?”
I shook my head. “I have to show you.”
“Why?” Although the word was an explosion of frustration, I thought he had expected it.
“I want to be sure of getting back to Paris. The only protection I have is my knowledge of where the mirror is.”
“You think I couldn’t kill you in Paris, just as easily as I could here?”
I thought of Pierre Legrand and Lucien Claude. Being in Paris hadn’t kept them alive. But I wasn’t about to give up my one advantage. “You’ll never find it without me.”
The obsessive, hungry look passed over his face. “I could torture you. Force you to tell me.”
When he said “torture,” my head swam. I hate even the sound of the word. But I couldn’t lose control now. “You could torture me, but I might hold out a while. Or faint, or something.” (I meant “die,” but I couldn’t say it.) “If you take me to Paris, I’ll tell you where it is. It’s simpler that way.”
I could see him thinking about it.
“I promise. Swear to God,” I said.
He gazed at me a minute more, then turned and called, “Louis!” When Louis appeared, Bruno said, “We’re leaving for Paris. Take her to her room and then wait at the car.” He left, walking rapidly through the living room, and Louis and I followed him toward the back of the house.
I had no faith in Bruno’s intention to let me go. I don’t usually break my word when I swear to God, but I thought under the circumstances God would understand. It was time to resort to violence.
Bruno had told Louis to take me to my room and then wait at the car. He hadn’t mentioned reporting back after I’d been locked in. That meant, providing Bruno and the man with the mustache didn’t see anything, all they’d expect to hear was my room door closing and somebody going out the front as Louis went to the car to wait as ordered.
The door to the other bedroom closed as Louis and I entered the hall. As I thought he would, Bruno had closeted himself. I might have a few minutes, although considering how anxious Bruno was to get the mirror I thought they would be few indeed.
I decided what to do when we walked through the bedroom door and I saw my coat hanging on the knob of the chest of drawers. I brushed past it and deliberately knocked it to the floor saying, with great distress, “Oh, God!”
I had thought he’d look down, which would give me a chance to grab the gooseneck lamp and whap him. In fact, he was polite enough to stoop to pick the coat up, which gave me a twinge, but only a tiny twinge, of guilt when I brought the lamp down on the back of his head.
The crack a lamp base makes when hitting someone’s skull is a nauseating sound, but I would have been more nauseated if Louis hadn’t done what I intended, which was drop senseless. His eyelids fluttered as I searched his pockets, but that was all. I had a momentary, insane hope that I’d find the car keys, but that was too much to expect. I did find the room key, solitary on a ring. He was lying on my coat, but I jerked it out from under him. I closed and locked the door behind me.
I strode, but did not run, down the hall and through the living room. I had some trouble figuring out the several front door latches, but I was outside soon enough. It may not have been the perfect getaway, but it was a getaway.
Lying Low
I stayed on the front stoop during a two-second search for possible cover, looking over a couple of stunted rosebushes, the car in the gravel driveway, the road in front, the field to either side, and, across the road, a stand of almost leafless trees. The trees weren’t a thick, concealing wood, but they were the best alternative.
I ran across the yard, and the bumpy clay road, and only then saw a ditch, steep-sided and filled with withered leaves, that ran between the road and the trees. I missed my stride and fell, slithering into it, my breath knocked out. Dry leaves crackled around me and underneath them were more leaves, sodden and compacted. Dampness soaked through the knees of my pants and my hands sank into mold. In a moment or two I had recovered my bearings and decided I wasn’t seriously hurt. I eased myself up to the rim of the ditch until I could see the house. The front door was opening.
I lay still, breathing through my mouth, and watched them come out: Bruno Blanc, in a sheepskin jacket; the mustached man; and behind them, in the doorway, leaning on a cane, a figure in a black overcoat and hat, whose face I couldn’t see.
Bruno stopped, taking in the fact that Louis wasn’t at the car, where he was supposed to be. His head swung slowly from side to side and then, wildly, around toward the house. He pushed his way past the black-clad figure and back inside.
This wasn’t the head start I’d hoped for. As desperate as Bruno was, he’d get into that bedroom somehow, and then—
Bent practically double, I moved cautiously along the side of the ditch. The wind was rushing, so there wasn’t much danger that they would hear me. I clambered over rocks and fallen branches and stepped in water up to my ankle. When I looked again, I’d put a fair distance between me and the house. The mustached man was still in the yard, and the figure in black had moved out to the stoop. I didn’t see Bruno. I hunched over and continued.
By the time I stopped for a breather, the house looked small. The car was still there, but I couldn’t see any people. They might have spread out to comb the area. I started moving again. Where could I hide? For a few insane moments, I considered climbing a tree. I saw myself perched in the leafless branches, visible for miles. I could burrow under the leaves in the ditch, though. I could burrow like a mole, a rabbit, deep down so I was completely covered up. I scrambled along in my humped-over crawl. They would know by now I had gotten away, that I wasn’t in the locked bedroom.
I heard a motor. At first I barely noticed the sound, a deeper drone below the noise of the wind, but then it got louder. I glanced up and saw it was their car, the Renault, coming slowly up the road in my direction.
If I didn’t do something, they would see me. There were no convenient boulders to hide behind, no big drainage pipes, no underbrush, no caves. I could only dig into the leaves, so I dug. I pushed my way through the dry drifts into the mold, and then I lay still and prayed I was covered.
There was a pleasant, earthy smell under the leaves, so strong it was almost a taste. I thought I felt a bug crawling over the back of my neck. I wished my coat were golden brown, instead of camel. The car noise got louder as I squeezed my eyes closed and moved my head to get a twig
out of my nose. They were even with me now. They were looking, straining their eyes. What did they expect to see? Surely not a messy leaf pile with patches of camel showing through.
The sound passed, faded. When it was almost gone I raised my head. The Renault was approaching the railroad crossing. As I watched, I thought it picked up speed. It seemed they had given up. They were going back to Paris, probably. And surely they would be waiting there to intercept me.
I waited a long time after they disappeared before I climbed out of the ditch and sat on its edge. Warily, I scanned the road. If they’d really gone, they would be in Paris long before I was. They might break into my apartment. They might be so mad with me they would hurt Twinkie.
The thought brought me to my feet. The police, the police, I told myself. Surely they’ll be watching the apartment. But if it weren’t for the police, for Inspector Perret, I wouldn’t be in this fix.
I brushed the leaf mold off my coat as best I could and started off, staying in the trees. The road would have been easier walking, but the wood offered more protection. I didn’t see anybody— neither Bruno and his minions nor anyone else. The railroad crossing, so utterly distant, grew gradually, gradually, nearer.
I reached it at last and was standing forlornly, looking up and down the empty tracks, when a miracle happened. A truck rattled up. Behind the wheel was a woman with a square, plain face, a flowered kerchief tied around her head. She didn’t look French, and I could barely understand her accent when she said, “Do you need help? A ride?”
Her eyes were blue, the loveliest shade I’d ever seen. I nodded several times before I could say, “Please. Is there a train station nearby?”
She nodded, and I got in the truck. The radio was on very low, playing a bouncy accordion tune. I looked sideways at her, but she simply put the truck in gear and we took off. Neither of us spoke. In ten minutes, we had entered a village, steep-roofed stone houses bordering narrow streets, and she was pulling up at a white clapboard station with a sign that said, “Chateau Josse.”
The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries Page 17
