by Mel Comley
Silence.
‘Tony?’
‘Did I hear you right? Baldwin’s made contact with you?’
‘Yes and yes. He told me it was my final warning, and that you and I should back off.’
‘Don’t you see, Lorne, you’ll have to come with me now.’
She placed the casserole dish in the oven, and walked through to the lounge. ‘How do you work that one out? And the answer is still, no, by the way.’
‘He’s obviously worried, otherwise, why would he contact you after all this time?’
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care. Not before the weekend anyway. End of. Now, tell me what you managed to find out?’
‘No way, Jose, you either come with me or I withhold the details, the choice is yours.’
‘Tell you what, Tony, go play your futile games with someone who cares.’ She pressed the end call button on the phone. Bullying jerk, who the hell does he think he is?
Before she had the chance to pick up her magazine, the phone rang again. Seeing that it was the same number, she waited, and waited. Finally, after twenty rings she answered it, but didn’t speak.
‘You care, Lorne, I know you do. I’m sorry for not thinking about Charlie, but I have information, good information, and if we don’t get back to France immediately, I can’t see another opportunity arising for us to nab the bastard.’
‘Clarify?’
‘When we’re in France.’
‘So it’s something big, then?’
‘It’s big all right. Far bigger than any of the stunts he’s pulled off in the past.’
Jesus, he sure knew how to gain her attention. Could she go back to France so soon? Could she let Charlie down, again? As she mulled over the questions the little voice in her head replayed Baldwin’s goading voice, not only the conversation she’d had with him the night before, but the night he’d pulled the trigger on Jacques, too. Goading, taunting, warning her to back off, and not to interfere. Then she found herself thinking, you’ve never listened to him before so why should you listen to Baldwin now?
She let out a long resigned breath. ‘When do we leave?’
‘I’ve booked us on the nine-fifteen leaving Heathrow, make sure you pack only the essentials.’
‘How many days?’
‘Hmmm … I’d say at least a week.’
‘A week! Tony, I have a dog to think about, I can’t keep farming him out.’
‘Not my problem, Lorne. I’ll pick you up at seven on the dot.’
That gave her five hours to drop Henry off at her father’s again, pack a bag, call Charlie and apologise, again. She worked her way backwards through the list. Charlie was still at school and Tom had been called out on a breakdown at work. So, she chose the cowards way out and left a message, a very apologetic message on their answer-phone.
She ran upstairs, emptied out the overnight bag she hadn’t even unpacked from their last trip, and stuffed it with t-shirts, skinny jeans, a couple of jumpers and underwear. Then she ran into the bathroom and gathered up her toiletries, adding them to the bag.
A few minutes later, she was in the car en-route to her father’s house with Henry in the back, his head hung low. Jesus "Psychic dog" strikes again, he knows exactly where he’s going and what’s happening. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you, boy.’
‘Lorne?’ Her father looked puzzled, when the pair appeared in the rear garden of his semi-detached house.
‘Hi, Dad … umm, I need to ask a big favour.’
Sam shook his head. ‘Not if you’re going back to France, I’m not.’
‘Dad, please. I need to do this.’
Her father tore off his gardening gloves, threw them on the bed of geraniums he’d been weeding and stomped in the house. Lorne knew she had a battle on her hands and needed to think fast on her feet, time was running out.
Following him into the house, she found him sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Her heart sank. She went over to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. ‘Dad, please.’
‘Lorne, let it go. I know you’ve been in limbo since … it happened, but it’s time to move on to pastures new, love. Forget about The Unicorn and start living your life again.’
‘Dad, I understand what you’re saying, and I know I’ve been a cow recently, but surely, even you can understand that I need to find closure.’ He looked up at her, tears welling and threatening to fall. She squeezed his shoulder tightly and continued, ‘You know I have to do this, Dad, don’t you?’
He nodded his head and a tear slipped onto his wrinkled cheek. ‘If I was in your shoes, I’d want the same. I wouldn’t give up either, but what kind of father would I be if I didn’t try to dissuade you? Let the authorities sort it out, girl.’
‘I’ll let you into a secret, Dad. I woke up this morning feeling like I could take on the world, that’s the first time in over a year I’ve felt like that. I feel invigorated, as if my life suddenly has a purpose. If I promise to be careful and to ring you every day at a certain time, would that help?’
He studied her carefully. ‘Your eyes do appear to have some life in them at last, but what happens if he finally kills you? How do you think that will make me feel, knowing that I gave you my blessing to go back there?’
‘He won’t get me, Dad, I’ll get him. Tony is an experienced agent he won’t let anything happen to me.’
‘So this will be a covert operation, I take it?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
He shook his head and with elbows on the table, leaned his forehead on the heels of his hands. ‘Good God, that’s even worse, Lorne. No one will know where you are, if you get into any danger over there,’ he mumbled.
‘Wrong, Dad, you’ll know every step we make.’
As her words sunk in, she noticed a change in him. He sat upright, his spine straightened as he pulled his shoulders back. He glanced down at Henry, who was quietly sitting with his head on the old man’s lap. He patted the dog’s head, and said, ‘Guess we’re stuck with each other, pal.’
Lorne flung her arms around her father’s neck and kissed his face half a dozen times. ‘Oh, Dad, you’re an angel.’
‘Not yet I’m not. Go on, off with you the boy will be all right with me. When’s your flight, I take it you are flying out?’
‘Tony’s picking me up at seven.’ She checked her watch and gulped, half an hour!
‘Jeez, Lorne, you better go, take care, girl. Ring me at nine on the dot every night. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll call the authorities, if I can make myself understood, that is.’
‘I will, Dad. Nine o’clock on the dot, and thanks. You two take good care of each other. I’ll be back soon, if not sooner. Love you,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she stepped out the front door.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tony picked her up at seven. ‘Well?’ she asked, before she’d even closed the car door.
‘Can I at least put the car into gear, before you start interrogating me?’
She blew out the breath she’d been holding in. It was another five minutes before she tried again. ‘C’mon, Tony, you can be so frustrating at times.’
‘And you, dear lady, can be so impatient at times. It’s all in my bag, difficult to show you when I’m driving.’
‘There’s no need to show me, just bloody tell me!’ She looked at him through narrowed eyes and thought he looked kind of shifty. He was avoiding eye contact and only focusing on the road ahead of him, which led her to think maybe he had tricked her into going back to France with him. No, he wouldn’t be as underhanded as that, would he?
Silence.
Her suspicions grew. ‘Tony?’
He sighed heavily and winced. ‘You really shouldn’t have retired, Lorne.’
‘You utter bastard. You’ve tricked me. Just who the hell do you think you are? I don’t know who’s worse, you or Baldwin.’
‘Hey, now that’s a bit over the top. Yes, I may have misled you slightly, but you’ll
thank me in the end, of that I’m certain.’
Her hands clenched and unclenched in her lap, ‘So you found out nothing, I take it?’
‘Ah, now that’s where you’d be wrong. MI6 have been working around the clock since the two bodies were found. They’re just putting together the final pieces of the puzzle and they should be completed in the next day or so. So, I thought it would make sense for us to be in France ready and waiting, for when the go ahead comes through.’
She had to agree his logic did sound feasible, but, it still didn’t stop her objecting to being lied to. Sadness filled her as she said quietly, ‘I hope you’re satisfied, Agent Warner, because I think your lies may have cost me my relationship with my daughter.’
He didn’t reply, but she did hear him gulp and the rest of the journey remained silent.
Tony tried to break through the chill that had developed between them in the departure lounge, asking her if she’d like a drink. Her refusal had come out sharper than intended and he left her to sulk, while he browsed around the shops surrounding the seating area.
When they boarded the plane, as a peace offering, Tony handed her a lollipop that had a sad clown’s face etched on it.
She laughed and punched his upper arm, hard. ‘Idiot! Where are we going to stay when we get there?’
‘I’ve arranged to pick up a hire car, we’ll drive to Caen, and find a small hotel or guest house when we arrive.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to stay in Paris tonight and drive to Caen tomorrow in the daylight?’ Her watch read eleven-thirty. They were due to land at midnight. ‘If I remember it’s a two-and-a-half hour trip to Caen. That means it’ll be almost three before we get there.’
‘You see, Sherlock, I knew there was a reason I wanted you to accompany me on this trip.’
His sarcasm earned him another thump. ‘You men, just have problems working out the finer details. You know, like the practical issues, such as, where to stay, what to eat, what to pack, how to be honest.’
‘Ouch, okay, you’ve made your point, women are truly indispensable.’ He laughed and for the first time Lorne noticed how the scar on his face appeared less prominent, and how white his teeth were when they weren’t covered by his thin lips.
They managed to locate a cheap hotel close to the airport and booked a double room with twin beds due to Tony’s budget restraints. Neither of them had either the time or the energy to feel any discomfort at sharing and they both collapsed into bed soon after arriving.
The alarm went off at six the next morning, and after grabbing a quick coffee and croissant, they set off for Normandy.
‘Are we going to book into a hotel first?’
‘No, I thought we’d take a trip out to Baldwin’s chateau.’
Her head turned sharply. ‘You mean we’re going out there in the daylight. Why? What do you hope to achieve?’
‘You never let up with the damn questions, do you? Obviously, we’re not going to drive up to the chateau like our froggie colleagues. We’ll need to be more discreet than that. I want to see what kind of mischief these guys get up to during the day. I’d like to find out why he has an army of men surrounding him. He’s never had that many around him before, has he?’
She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I seem to remember on his last job he had about four guys in tow and that was considered a big job. Was it four or was it three, he shot one and two ended up in prison, but I think there was another guy too. I’m not sure, though.’
‘That’s my point. We regarded the job a year ago as large, so if he’s employing that many men now, this must be a huge job. I just wish our guys would pull their fingers out and find out something concrete.’
‘You never did say if the file you copied, the one at the chateau, if it came up trumps.’
‘It was as I suspected, a list of art that has been stolen over the last year and tallies up with Interpol’s database.’
‘So, if we told the Capitaine about the list, he could challenge Baldwin about it, couldn’t he?’
Tony blew out a breath. ‘I doubt it. I know you don’t want to hear this, Lorne, but I genuinely believe he’s involved with Baldwin. Everything points to that, the way we approached the chateau by posse only to find Baldwin off the premises. Jesus, the guy hasn’t even been pulled in for questioning. There’s just no urgency where the Capitaine’s concerned, which leads me to believe he’s dragging his feet. Why would he do that, if he wasn’t going to gain from it?’
She had trouble holding back the feeling of shame eating at her, she had found it so easy opening up to the Capitaine that evening in her room, and now she couldn’t help thinking that he’d tricked her. Had he used his French charm to find out what she knew about Baldwin?
She’d felt an affinity with Michel because of who he was, one of Jacques best friends, maybe that had been a ruse, too. She wondered if Tony might be right, but a small part of her clung to the hope, he might be wrong, too.
‘Lorne?’
‘Hmm … sorry, I was miles away. You know that the jury is still out for me on that one, Tony. And no, it’s not because I slept with the guy, before you say it.’
‘I wasn’t about to say anything of the sort. He caught you at a low ebb, and you needed to reach out to someone, I can understand that.’
‘Why, thank you Mr Psycho Analyst, for being so understanding. I guess we’ll have to agree to differ on that one for the time being until we stumble across evidence to the contrary.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll bet you a hundred notes though,’ he added cheekily.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Tony, I’m one of the unemployed and no, I don’t draw benefits, I still have a little put by from the sale of the house, but I need that money to finish off my garden, then I’ll make finding a job my number one priority.’
‘I’ve told you before, join MI5, or better still come and join me at MI6. At least, you’ll see the world.’
‘Yeah, and even less of my family, we’ll see. I might even carry on property developing. I’m good at it, if that doesn’t sound too boastful.’
‘By what I saw of your new house you could be right, but then there’s the downturn in the housing market to consider, plus the dire straits of the economy and I can’t see the banks rushing to lend people money at the moment. Just be careful, we’ll talk more when this is over. We’re coming up to the turnoff now, I’m going to drive past, see where the neighbour’s property starts and go through that way.’ He looked down at her trainers. ‘Glad to see you’re wearing suitable footwear.’
The adjoining property turned out to be a farm. They drove the car down a muddy, dirt track, using the trees as cover they made their way over the fields to the chateau.
Lorne pulled on Tony’s arm as he went to step into an open field. ‘Hold on a minute, how do you know this isn’t Baldwin’s land?’
They crouched down and surveyed the open bronze-coloured field ahead of them. ‘You’re right, but look.’ He pointed out the large bales of straw stacked at one end of the field. ‘You can smell it’s recently been cut.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You really have been out of the game too long, meaning that the field must belong to the farmer, because if Baldwin owned it he wouldn’t want anyone snooping around at the moment.’
They ran across the next field towards the outline of the chateau beyond, stopping at a hedgerow where they assessed their route again. The field was lush and green and full of cows munching on the foot-high grass.
After going over a further two fields, they found themselves about a hundred feet or so behind the chateau. Tony looked through his binoculars and searched the area in every direction.
‘What do you see?’ Lorne asked impatiently.
He didn’t respond for several minutes. ‘I can just make out the tail end of a lorry, the sides are up. I need to move further that way to get a better view.’
Stooping, they ran along the boundary. Once they stopped, Tony locked the bin
oculars onto the vehicle again. ‘Jesus …’
‘What?’He handed Lorne the glasses. ‘Oh my God! There must be dozens of pictures in there.’
Tony snatched back the binoculars, and continued to scan the immediate area around the lorry. ‘I count maybe fifteen men, all built like the Incredible Hulk.’
‘Are they loading or unloading the vehicle?’
‘It’s hard to tell at the moment, looks like they’re having a break. Wait a minute, Baldwin has just come out of the chateau, he’s ranting about something, the men are returning to work. They’re unloading and loading.’
‘Then we call the police, Tony, let them deal with it.’
‘And tell them what, Lorne? For all we know this could be a legitimate delivery.’
She thumped herself in the thigh. ‘But, we know what the likelihood of that is, don’t we?’
‘Come on, think about it. What would you do if you received a call from some foreigners telling you that a delivery was being made?’
‘Okay, point taken, sorry I spoke. What are we going to do, then?’
‘We sit, wait and observe, till nightfall if we have to.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Not long after receiving a rocket up their arses his men seemed to move up a gear; within a couple of hours they’d loaded the lorry and were heading towards the motorway.
Tony and Lorne booked into a charming little chambre d’hôte around 6:00pm still buzzing from what they’d witnessed.
Lorne pulled the zipper on her overnight bag, getting ready to unpack her clothes, but Tony stopped her. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you we’ll probably need to leave at the drop of a hat.’
‘So I have to live out of a suitcase or canvas bag I should say? Yeah, that’s okay, mate, that’ll do wonders for my image, walking around in screwed up clothes.’ She stomped into the bathroom with her toiletry bag tucked under her arm before he had the chance to retaliate.
Lorne spent the next half-an-hour soaking in a hot bubble bath, her eyes closed. She ran the soap slowly up her legs, along her arms, over her neck. It was then she imagined her hands were that of the Capitaine’s and she moved down to caress her breasts and nipples. A smile tugged at her lips and her heart rate accelerated when her hands slipped into the water and soaped between her legs, fingers searching, almost bringing her to the verge of orgasm … Her eyes flew open, damn it, what’s wrong with you, woman? That night with him was a mistake, a bloody mistake!
