by Chris Ewan
He pushed up from his knees and followed the tracks up the slope. The incline was steep and the sandy earth was loose underfoot. It rushed down in tiny avalanches and stony cascades from around his feet. No way could the Peugeot make it up here. Even the Land Cruiser must have struggled. Trent could see deep gouges in the dirt where the wheels had locked and slipped. On the way up or the way down? Impossible to tell. But the gang’s choice of vehicle suggested a reasonable amount of planning. It implied they’d chosen this spot deliberately and had selected the Land Cruiser to make good use of it. Maybe Serge had helped with that.
He scrambled his way to a rocky shelf some twenty feet up. The area was broadly circular in shape and there was enough space to turn a vehicle between the sparse collection of pines that ringed the front edge of the plateau and the giant boulders and limestone cliff-face that teetered over it from behind. There were tracks here, too. A series of parallel, curving tyre treads that bisected one another, describing a three-point turn. And there were footprints. More than one set. They were large and very clear. Heavy boots, Trent guessed. Not so dissimilar from the prints his own boots were leaving. They were mostly concentrated around the tyre tracks, although some headed off in other directions.
Trent followed a set that led towards a knot of pines. He palmed aside a branch and stood still for a moment, listening hard and breathing slow. The scent of resin was strong. He could hear the hum of distant traffic and the buzz of summer insects. The broad valley was laid out beneath him. Fields and vineyards and low, flat buildings, colours bland in the early morning light. He could see the autoroute, and much closer still, almost the entire length of the narrow ribbon of cracked asphalt that slanted up the side of the escarpment towards where he was standing. It was a terrific view. An excellent surveillance point.
He glanced down at his feet. The prints he’d followed stopped right where he was standing. In front of him, a patch of damp wild grass and herbs had been flattened, as if pressed down by something long and thin, like a log. Trent dropped to his knees. He laid himself out in the space, face down. His body fitted inside the impression almost perfectly, except it extended a little way beyond his feet. He rested his elbows on the ground and raised his curled hands to his eyes, miming a pair of binoculars. His view along the road was unobstructed. And he was about as well hidden as it was possible to be.
So this was where their lookout had been positioned. He’d lain prone here and he’d watched the road very carefully, very intently, until he’d seen the first blip from the headlamps of the Mercedes, followed by the visual echo of the Peugeot’s lights. And then what? He’d pushed himself up and called to the driver to start the Land Cruiser’s engine? He’d instructed the gang to jump inside the vehicle? He’d kept watching until the last possible moment, then hauled on his ski mask and jumped inside the jeep with an assault rifle clutched in front of him, waiting for the sudden fast plunge down the loose shingle slope?
It seemed feasible. But it was no concrete lead.
He stood and brushed strands of grass from his shirt and elbows and the knees of his jeans, looking down at the imprint in the grass. It could be the lookout was taller than him by half a foot or so. Or perhaps he’d wriggled a little. No way of knowing.
Turning, he made his way back to the tyre treads and stared at them once more. He pictured the scene. The tense, dark silence. The abrupt acceleration. The flash of headlamps. The weightless, risky slide and the crunching, jolting impact.
He walked a slow, watchful circle around the area until his eyes were snagged by another set of footprints, leading off towards the base of the limestone cliff. A shallow trench was gouged into the earth alongside them. He followed the markings, quickening his pace as they curved gently to the left, then disappeared behind a pile of boulders. He clambered over the rocks. There was a tight channel in behind. Some kind of natural gulley had been formed out of the chunks of limestone that had settled under the lee of the jagged cliff. He could hear a faint droning that reminded him of the static from a set of stereo speakers.
Then he saw the shoes.
Old white trainers, coated with red dirt and dust. They were attached to a long pair of legs in grubby jeans, crossed at the ankles where Trent could see blue cotton socks. He shifted to his left. The rest of the guy came into view. He was lying face down beneath a pulsing haze of flies. His chequered shirt had hitched up from the waist, exposing the silky black skin at the base of his spine. The flannel material was torn and ragged in the middle of his back, stiff with a congealed reddish stain. His head was clamped between two sandy rocks, like they’d grown up around him.
Trent scrambled his way over the craggy ground until he was standing above the body, one leg on either side. He closed his mouth and pinched his nostrils and reached down through the flies to grasp a weedy arm, taut with rigor.
The body twisted stiffly at the shoulders and neck but not at the waist, and the flies rose up in an angry swarm. It was enough for Trent to confirm what he already feared.
Serge, the missing chauffeur.
The whites of his eyes were yellowed, pupils blown, staring dumbly up at the featureless sky. A track of dried blood had adhered to the side of his mouth. His face was alive with ants, his skin covered in dust and debris, his nostrils and lips ringed with sand. His hair was coated in a fine layer of grit.
But it was the sight of his chest that made Trent rear backwards. The crater was very big and very deep, exposing blood and organs and arteries and glistening flesh. Someone had scooped the very life from the poor guy. They’d stood close and fired a shotgun and blown a hole through his heart and lungs.
Trent buried his face in the crook of his arm. He inhaled his own scent and bit down on his flesh. He glanced behind him, then bent low and delved quickly through Serge’s trouser pockets. He didn’t find anything and there was no shirt pocket left to be searched. It was gone with the rest of his chest cavity.
Trent let go and watched the corpse slump to the ground and the flies spiral up and then settle. He climbed past the body and up onto a much larger boulder. He scanned the immediate area. Nothing. He extended his search, stepping between rocks, clutching tight to the brittle cliff-face. But there was no sign of the blue holdall Serge had been carrying when he’d sneaked out through the security gate. Trent supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. The gang were a professional outfit. It wasn’t the kind of thing they’d be likely to overlook.
He returned to the narrow, stony crevice and stood looking down over the body and the swirling insect mass. It was no fancy resting place. It was a hard, barren spot.
He mopped the sweat from his face with the tail of his shirt and listened very hard for the sound of an approaching engine. But there was nothing other than the flat insect buzz and the eerie desolation and the humid, awful stench coming up from below.
Trent supposed there was a reasonable chance that the corpse could lie here for weeks or even months before it was discovered. There was the outside possibility the body might never be found. Perhaps it would be picked apart by birds or gnawed beyond recognition by scavenging animals. But it wasn’t a risk he was prepared to run. Alain might venture up here to assess the terrain for himself. And Trent couldn’t afford more distractions, or worse, risk the chaos of police involvement.
He crouched on trembling knees and set his hands around a boulder by his feet. It was a sturdy, misshapen rock, about the size of a rugby ball. His fingers dug into the sandy exterior. He bared his teeth and heaved it from the ground. Staggered forwards, bent double with the weight. He held it over the narrow chamber. Then he gulped a mouthful of the fetid scent, snatched his head away and let go.
A muffled, wet thump came up at him, accompanied by an urgent hum.
He wafted a stray fly away and bit his tongue. Squinted hard. Found another rock. Then some more. He lifted them and he threw them. He nudged them over the edge with the toes of his boots and he levered them into the chamber with his heels. The soggy thumpin
g sound became more hideous with each repeat. But in time, the noise changed. He heard the clatter of stone hitting stone. The dry clack of boulder meeting boulder. The stirring of the flies reduced to a low murmur. He risked a glance. It was almost done. He scooped up handfuls of dirt and stones and flung them into the channel, working in a frenzy until his nails were jammed with soil and his hands were grazed and scratched. He kept at it until the body was fully covered. Until you couldn’t see a finger or a foot or a single curl of hair.
He paused and took one last glimpse of the terrible thing that he’d done. Then he licked the sweat from his lips and finally turned his back on the familiar, predictable guy he used to be, and went off in search of a branch that he might use to scrub away the prints and markings that had led him here.
II
The Negotiation
Chapter Twenty-one
Trent faced his front door. He’d grown to dread returning home. It wasn’t because of the hollow sound of his key in the lock or the silence of the hallway. It wasn’t because of the tide of loneliness that swept over him as he stepped inside. No, what he loathed most of all was the way his mind betrayed him, his breath catching in his throat as he indulged a faint residue of hope. Hope that Aimée would come rushing to greet him, weak and disoriented, her clothes dirty and her hair tangled in knots. Hope that a light would be blinking on his answering machine with a message from the kidnappers he’d once felt so sure had snatched her. Hope, even, that he’d find her curled up on the sofa in her favourite baggy jumper, flicking through music channels on the television as if none of this were really happening.
It was a hateful, traitorous urge, one that was followed by the savage mule-kick of reality. His hallway was empty. His living room, too. There was no flashing light on the recording equipment he’d connected to the telephone.
No Aimée.
Trent approached the phone and lifted the receiver to his ear. A long flat tone. Still connected, then. He set it down, hand lingering on the cool plastic casing.
The apartment was tidy. Sterile, almost. He’d shoved the stinking wash of mess and litter into bin bags in a sudden frenzy more than a week ago, on the night of his return from Jérôme’s coastal villa. He’d tied the bags off and slung them outside. And all the while he’d been developing his plan, the first steps towards reclaiming control over his life.
Now the plan had changed. It wasn’t a shift he welcomed but he’d been forced to adapt. The odds against him learning exactly what Jérôme had done to Aimée were growing longer all the while. But he felt more determined than ever. Desperation, maybe. Stubbornness, perhaps. Or simply a reluctance to move on to whatever his life might become without her. But he wasn’t beaten yet and he didn’t intend to quit until he was certain of the outcome, whatever it might be.
There were no days now when he had any sense of equilibrium. His moods swung wildly, hour by hour, minute by minute. Sometimes he was convinced that she must be dead. Felt certain, with a cold twisting in his gut, that Jérôme must have killed her. But then there were the spells of surging optimism when he allowed himself to believe in an alternative scenario. Like perhaps Jérôme was holding her captive somewhere, or maybe Aimée had felt the need to flee and conceal herself for reasons that were presently unclear to him. And so it went on, an erratic spectrum of emotions, veering from the blackest despair to zealous faith and back again, leaving him feeling as if he were teetering on the edge of lunacy.
His hand slid away from the telephone and he moved into the master bedroom. The bed had been made with military precision, the covers tucked in tight. Blades of pearly light streamed through the Venetian blinds.
Hesitantly now, he eased open the door of the closet, then craned his neck to check behind the side of the bed. He couldn’t remember when the habit had first formed. Three weeks ago? Four? And he couldn’t readily explain what he hoped it might achieve. He didn’t seriously believe he might find Aimée here, as if she were engaged in some outlandish game of hide and seek. He was aware that it pointed towards some kind of mental frailty on his part. The beginning of a breakdown. Maybe not even the beginning. And yet the compulsion to hunt for his phantom fiancée was one he found impossible to ignore. Since the first time, he’d started to believe it would be a bad omen if he didn’t search. And so it had become part of his routine.
Dropping to his knees, he lifted the cover on the bed and peeked underneath. He saw the same thing as yesterday. The same as the day before that. Dust bunnies and an expanse of beige carpet, a shade darker than the rest of the sunbathed room.
He replaced the cover and backed out to enter the bathroom. He looked behind the door and swished back the shower curtain over the bath. A few shirts and some shrivelled underwear were drying on the retractable laundry line that was fitted over the tub – signs of his attempts to convince himself that he’d return to a life worth living once he’d confronted Jérôme, one where clean clothes would be something worth concerning himself with again.
He shied away from his pitiful reflection in the mirror over the sink, paced back into the lounge and hauled aside the curtains by the window. He scanned behind the armchair where Aimée had always preferred to read her celebrity gossip magazines and then finished up by peering over the kitchen counter.
He found nothing untoward. Saw no disturbance.
Only one place remained. The space he always checked last of all.
It was a small, windowless boxroom that filled a recess in the middle of the apartment. The previous tenants had used it for storage but Aimée had converted it into a home office for their business. She’d also insisted on squeezing a camp bed inside, claiming that their friends might like to stay over from time to time. In truth, the bed had only ever been used on the rare but spectacular occasions when some minor row triggered an eruption of Aimée’s fierce temper and Trent found himself in need of a place to sleep.
Now, the flimsy bed and thin mattress were propped up against one wall, leaving a narrow pathway towards a compact desk and a folding chair. A laptop and printer were stationed on the desk, concealed beneath layers of papers. An open road map of the area around Marseilles had been ringed with several locations. Aimée’s broken necklace, the one Trent had recovered from Jérôme’s bedroom, was draped over an anglepoise lamp, the locket firmly closed. The lamp was pointed up at the far wall. The wall was covered in photographs.
Trent clicked on the bulb and light blazed upwards.
There were prints of Jérôme and Stephanie entering a restaurant; of Alain leaning against the parked Mercedes in a backstreet alley; of Serge with the driver’s window down, wearing sunglasses and smiling toothily at a tune on the stereo. There were blurred images taken from a moving vehicle of the imposing gate outside the Moreau family home and the perimeter fence and security cameras that surrounded the estate; telephoto zoom shots of Jérôme standing on a wooden jetty in a cream linen suit, beside a gleaming super-yacht; snatched glimpses of Stephanie walking through the crooked alleyways of the Panier, glancing in the windows of artisan craft shops not far from Trent’s home.
The wall to the right featured plans and diagrams and more maps, logging the route the Mercedes tended to follow on its return to the Moreau estate and highlighting potential weaknesses. One of the vulnerable locations was the exact spot where Trent had readied himself to make his move and where the green Land Cruiser had appeared as if from nowhere to beat him to it.
The left-hand wall was filled with notes. Trent hadn’t bothered with paper. He’d scrawled with a marker pen straight onto the magnolia paint. Across the top of the wall he’d set out a timeline of the key events since Aimée’s disappearance. Below and to the left were the names of the suspects Girard had identified. There was an asterisk alongside Jérôme Moreau’s name. The others had been crossed out. Further to the right was the list Trent had compiled of the equipment he’d need to abduct Jérôme and force him to talk, as well as detailed recordings of Jérôme’s movements during the
past week. Down on the floor was a paint tin and brush. The simplest way of covering his tracks. Useless for now.
Trent snatched up a marker pen from beneath the road map on the desk. He uncapped it, releasing a sweet, gluey aroma, and stooped near a bare patch on the wall. He wrote one word, the nib of the pen shrieking against the gloss paint.
Xavier.
He stared at the name, then added the date and time of the gang’s first call. Beneath, he wrote: Second call: 48 hours? Ransom: €5 million?
He leaned back and considered the sum until his eyes strained and his sight blurred, and then he shook his head roughly, tossed the pen onto the map and paced back through to the kitchen. He lifted his phone. Punched in a number. Smoothed his fingers over the dust that had collected on the recording equipment as he waited for his call to connect.
There was a click. A pause. Then a tiny red light on the digital recorder was replaced by a bright green diode. The counter on the illuminated display was set to 00.00.00. The digits began to creep upwards.
There was no greeting on the other end of the line. Just the suck and rasp of breathing.
‘It’s me,’ he said, and heard the burr of feedback from the recording equipment.
He clamped his hand around the receiver, skin wet against the smooth plastic.
Finally, he heard a response.
‘I told you not to call.’
‘I had no choice.’
‘Is it done?’
‘The situation has changed.’
Trent waited. He watched the digits on the electronic display count upwards.
‘We need to talk.’
Another pause. Longer this time. Trent endured it for nine seconds.
‘You’ll want to hear what I have to say,’ he pressed.
‘Where?’
