Not that Jacquot had any doubts about Constance’s seaworthiness. If he had been by himself he would have loved the rough and tumble, the nervy exhilaration of bucketing through the waves, the feel of his bare feet planted on deck, white bubbling spray stripping off the bow in snowy wings and smacking like silvery bullets against the windscreen, safe in the knowledge that the cutter was a tough little operator and up to the task. But with two women below, one of them pregnant, he was keen to get out of the battering seas, bracing himself whenever he saw one of the incoming swells crest and break.
The change happened sooner than he expected. As Île des Pénitents drew closer, its chalky crags rising up on his port side, the breeze slackened, the swell began to subside and the rolling and bucketing settled into a more gentle progress, enough for him to push forward the throttles and take a bead on plage des Solitaires, a small shingle beach about midway along Pénitents’ otherwise inhospitable northern shore.
Ten minutes later he cut the engines and cruised in to the rocky cove, dropping anchor as Constance slowed to a halt. There were three other boats ahead of him, two yachts and another small cruiser. The skipper of the cruiser waved a greeting.
‘You had yourself quite a ride,’ the man called out. He was about twenty metres away, but his voice carried over the water.
‘She’s a tough old girl,’ replied Jacquot, noting a woman and a young boy on the aft deck. A family outing, he decided.
‘Forecast says there’s more coming in,’ the man continued. ‘Time for port, you ask me.’
Jacquot had forgotten to check the weather forecast but didn’t admit it.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Good time to head back, I reckon.’
‘No point taking chances.’
Jacquot gave the man a wave and swung back to the wheelhouse where Delphie was waiting for him.
‘It’s looking good,’ she said, and handed Jacquot the GPS handset. ‘I’d say we’re close. Closer than we were last night, at any rate.’
He checked the figures. ‘Let’s hope the batteries last.’
108
CASSEL CRUISED PAST plage des Solitaires, keeping Corsaire a discreet three hundred metres off-shore, Léo and Zach in the cabin below monitoring Constance through binoculars.
‘They could be just out here for a picnic,’ said Zach, as he watched the man check his anchor with a few hefty tugs before stepping along the narrow side deck back to the wheelhouse. ‘Him and the two girls. A little bit of action, that’s all.’
‘Then they might as well have stayed in that calanque of theirs,’ said Léo. ‘Why bother hauling their arses out here, through that kind of water? They’re up to something, if you ask me. And if they’re going for the gold, then we’ll have them. If not … hey, we just keep watching.’ He laid down his glasses and spread out across the leather sofa on which they were kneeling. ‘And living on the high seas like this sure beats the crap out of my one-bedroom shack in Coldanne. I could really get used to this,’ he said, running his fingers over the soft cream hide.
‘Pity the boss can’t.’
‘You ever been sea-sick?’ asked Léo, not bothered whether he got an answer or not. ‘It’s the shits, I’m telling you.’
‘You know that for a fact?’ asked Zach with a grin.
‘You just need to look at the colour of him. If it wasn’t for the old man, he’d be landside and happy to be there.’
Somewhere below them, the soft rumble of the turbines died and Corsaire settled in the water, a distant clanking sound as the anchor dropped. The boat swung round and squares of sunshine slid across the carpet – as though the sun was moving faster through the sky than it should – settling finally at Léo’s feet.
‘You take the first watch,’ he said. ‘Then tell Dhuc to take over. Me? I’m going for a swim. Make it look all natural. Like that’s why we’re here. For the swimming.’
109
‘DO YOU MIND if I stay?’ asked Claudine, from the shade of the wheelhouse. Out on deck Jacquot and Delphie were packing the watertight grab-bag for their trip ashore: sun cream for Delphie, sandals and espadrilles, a towel, bottled water, a torch, Jacquot’s cigarettes, a camera and the GPS handset. ‘I’ll look after the boat,’ she said.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Jacquot, suddenly anxious. They had all been looking forward to the hunt for the gold, if there was any, and this unexpected request to be left behind came as a surprise. He could have kicked himself for causing the two sisters such discomfort. Delphie seemed to have managed but for Claudine it must have been a trial. But she hadn’t been sick, she hadn’t asked him to head back to their Sirènes mooring and wait for the weather to change, and there was bright colour in her cheeks.
‘It’s okay. Just a rest, is all,’ she told them, and swept a hand through her hair. ‘I’ll be fine, really. Maybe I’ll read a book, if I can find one.’ The attempt at humour didn’t altogether cover the note of disappointment in her voice, regret at missing out on all the fun now that they were here, so close. They’d all been excited by the prospect of hunting for the gold, the three of them together. Now it was just two of them going.
While Delphie finished packing the bag, Jacquot went over to Claudine and gave her a kiss.
‘If you’re sure you’re all right?’
‘I’m fine, don’t worry. It’s just, you know …’ She patted her stomach. ‘Sometimes it’s like a little voice telling you to take it easy. And now is one of those times. That’s all.’
‘I’ll bring you back a present.’
Claudine gave him a smile, reached out a hand to smooth his cheek, then gripped his nose hard between thumb and forefinger. ‘You had better. And shells and pretty stones just won’t cut it. What I want comes yellow and heavy and shaped like a brick. C’est clair?’ She gave his nose a final twist and then released him.
‘Oui, c’est clair,’ he said, rubbing his nose and leaning forward to give her a peck on the cheek. ‘We won’t be long.’
‘Take as long as you need. And don’t worry about me,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Because of the other boats moored in the cove, Constance was anchored too deep for Jacquot and Delphie to wade in to the beach. So, with Claudine watching, they lowered themselves off the transom ladder, slid into the warm, salty water, and they swam towards the beach, until the stony sea-bed was visible and they felt the ground beneath their feet.
Up on the beach, the first thing Delphie did was pull the GPS handset from the grab-bag. She switched it on, shielded its face with her hand, and stepped towards the water’s edge, looked again, then took a few more paces up the beach.
‘Still close, but no cigar,’ she said. ‘But at least we won’t be diving for it.’
Jacquot slipped on his espadrilles, pulled on a T-shirt from the bag – the salt already drying on his skin scratchy against the cotton – and glanced around. To their left a shoulder-high shelf of slanting rock rose up from the water and the beach and ran at least fifty metres inshore, effectively cutting off any easy access to the east. On the other side of the beach, just a few steps away, was a narrow jetty built into the other shelf of rock that enclosed the cove, its concrete cracked and tilted into broken jigsaw pieces, worn down by years of weather and disuse. From before the Revolution, prisoners had been brought here by ship’s tender, rowed ashore and unloaded on this jetty to begin their sentences in the prison barracks a few hundred metres west, where the slopes from Pénitents’ rising crags flattened out before dropping into the sea.
Standing there on the beach, Jacquot was stunned to realise how long it was since he had been there, on plage des Solitaires, one of a dozen or so youngsters who’d come out here on summer weekends for overnight parties – a fire on the beach, beers, wine, some dope, one of the girls quite handy with a guitar … Suddenly it seemed like a different life.
‘Hey, dreamer. So which way do we go?’ asked Delphie, putting down the handset to squirt cream on to her shoulders and arms. The
sun was high now, with no real shade to soften its burn.
Jacquot shook away the memories. ‘If you had to carry a ton of gold, which way would you go?’
‘If it was me,’ she said, pulling on a straw hat, ‘I’d have dropped it over the side. In Sirènes. In one of those wire cage lobster pots disguised to look like a rock.’
‘Too many divers, snorkellers. Someone would have been sure to find it.’
‘An underwater cave?’
‘You’ve been reading too many thrillers.’
‘So what do you reckon?’
Jacquot nodded to the jetty and a narrow path leading away from it up into the low stony scrub.
‘They could have brought Constance in close, driven her right up on shore maybe, and then unloaded. Hard work but they could have done it. And late November, there aren’t too many people come out here. Also they’re far enough away not to be seen, they wouldn’t have had to worry about someone spotting them. No roads along that stretch of the coast,’ he said, nodding back to the mainland cliffs. ‘I’d say they went for the path, a couple of bars apiece unless they had some more of those waistcoats. And they wouldn’t have gone too far, even if they’d had them.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’ asked Delphie, leaving the grab-bag for Jacquot and heading for the path, looping the GPS’s cord around her neck.
Jacquot watched her stride off, then picked up the bag, slung it over his shoulder and looked back at Constance.
He could see Claudine standing on the rear deck. She waved, Jacquot waved back, and then he turned to follow Delphie.
110
‘WHAT ARE THEY doing?’
Zach lowered the binoculars, and turned away from the cabin window where he and Dhuc were keeping watch.
It was Didier, looking a little peaky but putting on a show in a pair of crisply-ironed white shorts, a pale blue polo-shirt with the collar up, tennis socks and plimsolls.
‘Two of them have gone ashore – the man and one of the women. The other one’s stayed on board.’
‘And?’ Didier took the binoculars from Zach and peered through them, swinging the glasses left and right until he caught the pair of them walking along a path, the woman first, the man a few steps behind her, with a bag over his shoulder.
‘That’s it. Except they look like they know where they’re going.’
‘What’s she got there?’ asked Didier, squinting through the glasses. Every few steps the woman would pause, check something in her hand, and then move on.
‘Looks like a compass,’ replied Dhuc, still watching through his glasses.
‘More like a GPS handset,’ said Corsaire’s skipper, Cassel. ‘She had it on the beach, walked around a bit, checking it, then set off along the path. If you ask me, I’d say they’re trying to match a set of co-ordinates.’
Outside, from the aft deck, came the sound of a splash, something hitting the water. Didier frowned.
‘It’s Léo,’ said Zach, seeing the frown. ‘He said he was going for a swim, to make it all look natural.’
Didier considered this, then turned back to Cassel. ‘Where does that path lead?’
‘Not far. Maybe three, four hundred metres,’ the skipper replied. ‘There’s an old prison camp at the end of it. Not much left of it now. Just the foundations, really. A couple of walls, maybe. But nothing more than a metre high.’
‘What happens if they go off the path?’
‘They’ll have to start climbing. It gets steep quickly.’
Didier narrowed his eyes. ‘Are there caves up there?’
Cassel shook his head. ‘Nothing you could hide anything in, if that’s what you mean. And hauling up a ton of gold would have been a hell of a job.’
‘If those two went off the path, would they be out of sight?’
‘A few minutes, maybe; nothing more.’
‘What about the other side of the island? Maybe they landed here because it’s too rough to moor round the other side?’
‘They couldn’t get far, not from this side. Round the end there,’ Cassel said, pointing, ‘the slope just drops straight down into deep water. If they’re looking for something, like I said they’ll be looking for it near the old prison. That’s my bet.’
Didier nodded. It made sense. And while there were other boats moored in the cove, they wouldn’t be coming back loaded down with gold bars. They’d wait till the other boats had moved off. As if on cue, he noticed activity on the two yachts. One of them was already turning and a sail going up. On the other, a man was hauling up an anchor.
Just the two launches left.
He swung the glasses on to the second craft. A man and a woman sitting on the cramped aft deck, and a young boy, sitting on the bow, casting out a fishing line.
Easy to get rid of, thought Didier. If they decided to stay.
111
‘HOW INFURIATING!’
Delphie was fuming. She was stalking around the ruins of the old prison, one hand holding down her straw hat, the other cradling the GPS. It was a bleak, desolate, sun-blasted place, the buildings that had once stood there reduced now to bare footings. Not a single wall remained, no roof, no doorway, no windows, just an occasional ledge of brick or stone to indicate where a door might have been, none of them more than three or four courses high, low enough to step over, the larger sections sprayed with ground-level graffiti: Vive La Fédération, P et D ’92, Nautilus, Club25 and other less decipherable squiggles and shapes in lurid shades of blue and black and pink.
For the hundredth time, Delphie paused, shook the handset, peered again at the figures.
‘I just can’t get the damned thing to do what I want.’
‘That’s the whole point,’ said Jacquot, making himself comfortable on a makeshift bench at the edge of what had once clearly been the largest room in the prison – a mess hall or sanatorium, he guessed, or maybe an enclosed exercise yard. He opened the top of the grab-bag and dug around for his cigarettes. ‘You do what it tells you to do. Probably a concept not altogether familiar to you and your sister.’
It was a poor attempt at humour, trying to lift her mood, but Jacquot knew that he had to do something. He was the one who’d put them up to it, the one who’d told them about the gold and raised their hopes, and it was for him to ease the disappointment. For the last hour the pair of them had trudged around these ruins, stopping to check the co-ordinates then moving on again, the GPS nowhere near as accurate as they had hoped. So far they’d stepped out an area some thirty square metres which matched the bookmark co-ordinates, but the digital read-outs continued to flicker indecisively, never properly settling.
Cupping his hands, Jacquot lit up two cigarettes.
‘Here,’ he said, waving Delphie over. ‘Time for a smoke.’
Ten metres away, she stamped her foot, looked round one last time and then came over to the bench, sat down beside him and almost snatched the cigarette from his fingers. She took a deep pull and blew out a plume of smoke, whipped away by the breeze.
‘It’s just so frustrating. So … I don’t know. Maddening. In the movies they’d have found it by now. In real life … well, it just doesn’t seem to work like that.’
Jacquot chuckled.
‘Calme, calme,’ he told her. ‘Just relax. We’re here. It’s close, if it’s here at all.’
‘But where, Daniel? Just where exactly?’ she snapped back, waving her cigarette at the ruins. ‘I mean, look around. There’s just … nothing. Nowhere they could have hidden it.’
She was right, and Jacquot knew it. Apart from three grated wells which Delphie had got very excited about – until they’d established the metal gratings had rusted into the stone, and the bottom of each was filled with rubbish – there appeared to be nowhere that the gold could have been concealed. Which was why he had stopped for a smoke, to take in the view and think it all through. Across the weed-strewn foundations where they now sat he could see all the way to the rising hump of Cap Canaille in the east, to the ma
inland directly across the channel, and to Callelongue and Cap Croisette to the west, a marvellous panorama, wide and open, just the perfect spot for a tourist viewing bench. Below them, at anchor a hundred or so metres offshore, lay a glistening white cruiser and Jacquot spotted the two yachts that had been moored in the cove come into view, their sails filling and heeling to the breeze. The man in the launch had been right. The weather was changing.
‘We just have to think positive,’ he began. ‘If this is the place the co-ordinates have brought us to, then all we have to do is try and work out where the gold could be. And there would have been a lot of it, remember. Which should limit the options. So … if we were Philo and Eddie, where would we have stashed it? Say, within twenty metres of where we are now.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re joking.’ Delphie unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and took a gulp. She looked done in, as though the lure of finding the gold had worn off, the whole escapade reduced to a tiresome wild goose chase which she was now keen to put behind her. He couldn’t blame her. The sun was high above them, hard and strong, and searing down over Pénitents’ stony slopes, the occasional gust of breeze across their faces and shoulders as hot as the draft from the opened door of a baker’s oven. This was not what they had planned.
As they sat there together, smoking their cigarettes, Jacquot wondered what it must have been like to have been a prisoner here, held in one of those tiny cells, roasting in summer, shivering in winter. And maybe just to make the punishment sweeter, the cells’ barred windows looking out across the channel to the mainland. Home for most of the people kept here, none of whom would ever likely set foot on the mainland again. Les Oubliés. The forgotten.
And then Jacquot frowned. Some thought. Some image. Something that flashed through his mind so quickly it barely registered. It was a familiar feeling. Often, investigating a crime, something ‘clicked’ – some memory, some association.
The Dying Minutes Page 35
