Lovers and Liars Trilogy (94 page)
Read Lovers and Liars Trilogy Online
Authors: Sally Beauman
“Then you’d better not keep him waiting. Call me the second you both get home. And have a lovely time,” she added, “in that mysterious place, wherever it is. He’s waiting for you, Gini. Go on….”
Gini ran down the steps. In the taxi Pascal took her hand. He was looking anxious.
“It’s an hour ahead there,” he said. “I wanted us to arrive in sunlight, but we won’t. It will be dark.”
“That’s fine.” Gini rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ll see it in twilight. Then tomorrow we’ll get up very early—”
“Possibly. We might not want to.”
“Well, one day we could. We could get up early one of the days, Pascal, and see it at dawn.”
It was not a very lengthy journey. With a change of planes it took just over two hours. While they were on the second plane, Pascal talked at great length, very fast. He explained when his ex-wife was moving to England, and so when and how he was planning for Gini to meet Marianne. He was full of ideas as to where he and Gini might live in London, and how often they might spend time in France. He had a million plans for how he would work, and she would work, and how and where they might work together, and when Gini said that she also had one or two plans in this respect, he gave her a glance of delight: Fine, he said, they would, of course, incorporate her plans as well.
“Don’t you think, Pascal,” Gini said contentedly, “that all these plans of ours might take up a long time? Years and years. We’ll never get through them all, you know.”
“So?” He gave her a sidelong smile. “I don’t want to be through with these plans. I intend to spread them out and keep you busy. I intend them to last us a very very long time.”
“Some of those plans are quite dangerous.”
“So? I like danger. And so do you.”
He drank a glass of champagne very fast. He said, “I’ve rediscovered who I am. For that I have you to thank, Gini. I think I shall kiss you. I think I shall kiss you for a long time, right now.”
“On a plane? In front of the stewardesses?” Gini smiled.
“The hell with the stewardesses. The hell with the rest of the passengers. Lean a little bit this way. No, a bit more, darling. Excellent. Now.”
By the time they landed, Gini felt dazed. She looked at the airport where they landed, and she saw the woman at the car rental desk, and she saw the streets of the town through which Pascal drove them, surely and fast. She saw all these things, and the narrower, steeper roads they came to eventually, but they were blurred and made imprecise by the happiness she felt. She leaned back in her seat and watched the light over the hills around them turn silvery, then mauve. She had waited a long time to come here, and now that she had, it felt momentous but welcoming. She knew this place with her mind. To come here felt like coming home.
“When we get there—it’s only a few kilometers more,” Pascal said, “I want you to close your eyes when I tell you, and then open them when I tell you—” He broke off and gave her an anxious glance. “Maybe you’ll be disappointed….”
“I won’t be disappointed, Pascal.”
He drove on, the narrow road winding upward. Ahead of them, through the gathering darkness, Gini could see the outlines of buildings, a small church, a farm. She wound down the window and breathed in the scents of the air. Pascal slowed. She could hear faint music in the distance. To her left, a pale hunting owl swept over the hills.
“Now you must close your eyes,” Pascal said, stopping the car. So she did. Pascal came around and took her arm. He led her quietly and carefully a short way. Gini could feel cobbles underfoot, and hear voices. The past weeks slipped away. It felt so good, so immensely good to be alive, to be with Pascal, to be here.
“It’s just around this next corner,” Pascal said, “and then you can open your eyes.”
He led her on a short way. The voices were a little louder now, and they were accompanied by other noises—music, the clink of glasses, footsteps, the laughter of children. The air smelled of open country and cooking and red wine and the promise of long summer evenings. When Pascal stopped and told her she might look now, she opened her eyes. She saw trees with their trunks lime-washed white, and their still-bare branches strung with lights. She saw two cafés facing each other on either side of his square. She saw the houses he had described to her, and the small church he’d worshipped in as a boy. She saw a priest in a cassock, and two men who might have been farmers, and a mother with a small child. She saw, on the far side of the square, the village’s one hotel, which was where he had promised her they would stay, and she saw the shuttered window on the top floor, which would have a view over the hills, and which he had told her would be theirs.
It was very ordinary and very extraordinary; it was as he had described it and much more than he had described it. Pascal looked at her face, then up at the night sky which was patterned with the most brilliant stars. He kissed her, then he led her across to one of the cafés, where he was recognized at once, and where together with the priest who had confirmed him, and the two farmers who had been taught by his father, they drank
marc.
Pascal was teased, and she was teased, and Pascal took this in good spirits.
When he had had enough of the teasing, he rose, and took her into the hotel, whose owner was his mother’s cousin. She showed them, with pride, to her room with the best view, on the top floor. And they both looked at that view, which was very beautiful, the next morning. But as Pascal had predicted, they did so long after dawn.
Sally Beauman
To Lovell, with love
Prologue
T
HE YOUNG EXECUTIVE IN
the black overcoat was nervous, but he had no trouble when crossing the borders. He left Amsterdam at six on a cold January morning, driving one of the fleet of Cazarès Mercedes. The temperature outside was below freezing, and inside the car he kept the climate control at sixty degrees Fahrenheit: no warmer, for he wished to stay alert. Fearful of black ice, of even the most minor accident, or any run-in with the police, he drove with precision and care, keeping five miles below the speed limit.
He tensed as he reached the border with Belgium, but the traffic was increasing by then. He was just one of many similar businessmen, in similar sedans, heading for Antwerp, Brussels, or Paris. Besides, EC regulations had dispensed with most border formalities: unless there was a major security alert, it was rare to be stopped.
He made good progress south on the fast, flat Belgian highways. Before ten, he was crossing into France on the autoroute, with his destination—Paris—no more than a steady hour’s drive to his south.
Once in France, he began to relax—an error, he thought later. He switched on his CD player, allowed himself a much-needed cigarette. Feeling a rising elation, for his mission was almost accomplished, he also allowed his speed to creep up.
The Mercedes responded to the least touch on the accelerator. Coming up fast behind a lumbering truck, he pulled out to overtake, shot past with a contemptuous look—and saw the police car that had been concealed in front of it five seconds too late.
He felt a thump of adrenaline, an immediate drying of the mouth, but he drove on, gradually reducing his speed, signaled, and pulled back into the middle lane. He told himself the police would overlook his actions. If he had been driving a flashier car, a Porsche for instance; if he had not been wearing such irreproachable clothes, a Hermès overcoat and a custom-made Savile Row suit, they might flag him down. As it was, he looked the very picture of affluence and respectability. Surely he was safe.
As he thought this, he realized the police car was right up on his tail, and its lights and sirens had started up.
Keep calm,
he said to himself. A warning, at worst a fine; he could handle this situation. He gave a polite gesture of acknowledgment, and pulled over onto the hard shoulder. He had about fifteen seconds while the police car pulled in behind and the officers got out. He glanced down at the black attaché case next to him on the passenger seat. Such cases were issued to all senior Cazarès personnel. This one bore his name, Christian Bertrand, and a discreet monogrammed tag attached to the handle, embossed with the letters JL. This indicated that Bertrand was one of six senior aides who reported directly to Jean Lazare himself.
For one long, painful second, he stared at the briefcase. His every instinct was to cover it with his overcoat or a newspaper, to conceal it under the seat. But the first policeman was already approaching, and any action that drew attention to the briefcase was a mistake. He checked his own reflection in the rearview mirror—he looked pale but composed. Then he opened his door. By the time the first policeman reached his side, he had his documents in his hand; he was polite, respectful—and ready with his excuse.
His apologies, of course; a momentary lapse of concentration. He paused, thinking—
don’t mention Amsterdam
—then continued smoothly. His mind had been on the details of his breakfast business meeting in Brussels, and the report he would make to Monsieur Lazare when he reached Cazarès headquarters later that morning. He waited, allowing time for these names, of magical significance to any Frenchman, to take effect. They registered—Bertrand could see that.
The policeman did not show deference at once, but his manner thawed somewhat. He remarked that an important business meeting and a momentary lapse of concentration could excuse many things, but not hitting a speed of one hundred and thirty kilometers per hour in a ninety-kilometer-per-hour zone.
Bertrand murmured additional apologies. Handing over his documents, he remarked in a casual way that this was, of course, a very pressured time for anyone associated with Cazarès—as the officer would certainly know, the Cazarès spring collection would be shown the following week.
The policeman absorbed this information. He gave Bertrand a slow, assessing look. His eyes took in the cashmere coat, the expensive suit, shirt, and tie, the conservative Elysée-style haircut, the tinted tortoiseshell-framed spectacles. Bertrand prayed silently that his sobriety of dress would prove his salvation. The Sorbonne, Oxford, an MBA from Harvard Business School—he silently recited this litany of achievements to himself. Let the cop be a reasonable man, he prayed, and not an overofficious busybody, the way some of them were; let him see that he was now dealing with a well-educated, well-connected businessman whose efforts on behalf of Cazarès were of international importance, and added greatly to the luster and prestige of France.
Let him be patriotic; let him be goddamn well impressed, the young man thought wildly, then he froze. While the first policeman was examining his documents with intolerable slowness, his partner was making a measured pass around the Mercedes. He bent over its license plate, touched a rear light, moved around to the front, examined the windshield wipers with minute and terrible attention. Then he opened the passenger door. Bertrand watched him covertly. He leaned into the car; he examined its dashboard, its instrumentation, its CD controls, its hand-stitched black leather seats. Reaching forward, he opened the glove compartment, then shut it again. Bertrand averted his eyes. He thrust his hands into his overcoat pockets, hoping neither policeman would notice that they had started to shake.
The second cop was looking at the attaché case now, Bertrand could sense it. He risked one glance around, and he was right: the man had moved the case, and was inspecting the monogrammed tag. Bertrand felt fear clench his stomach; he began to feel sick and light-headed. He thought,
I have to distract them…