The English Girl: A Novel (11 page)
THE LUBÉRON, FRANCE
T
he nearest village had only a dreary bed-and-breakfast, so they drove to Apt and checked into a small hotel on the perimeter of the ancient center. The dining room was empty of other patrons, and only a single elderly waiter was on duty. They ate at separate tables and then walked through the quiet, dark streets to the old basilica of Sainte-Anne. The domed nave smelled of candle smoke and incense and faintly of mildew. Gabriel studied the main altarpiece, his head tilted slightly to one side, and then sat next to Keller, before a stand of softly flickering votive candles. The Englishman’s head was bowed and he was holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. When he spoke, it was in a repentant whisper.
“It turns out she was right after all.”
“Who?”
“The
signadora
.”
“Perhaps I’m mistaken,” said Gabriel, lifting his eyes toward the dome, “but I don’t recall the
signadora
mentioning anything about a villa in an agricultural valley in the Lubéron.”
“But she did mention the sea and the mountains.”
“And?”
“They brought her across the sea, and now they’re hiding her in the mountains.”
“Maybe,” said Gabriel. “Or maybe they’ve already moved her to another location. Or maybe she’s dead already.”
“Jesus,” whispered Keller. “Why are you always so goddamned negative?”
“Remember where you are, Christopher.”
Keller rose, walked over to the votive candles, and lit one. He was about to return to the pew but stopped when he saw Gabriel staring at the donation box. He dug a few coins from his pocket and fingered them one by one through the slot. The sound seemed to echo in the dome long after he had retaken his seat.
“Spend much time in Catholic churches?” he asked.
“More than you might imagine.”
Keller resumed his pose of penitential reflection. The red glass of the votive candles lent a pink cast to his face.
“Let us stipulate,” he said after a moment, “that it is possible the girl is somewhere else. But let us also stipulate that all the evidence suggests that isn’t the case. Otherwise, Brossard wouldn’t be here. He’d be back in Marseilles, working on his next score.”
“At the moment, he’s probably trying to figure out why Marcel Lacroix didn’t come to Aix to collect his money. And when he tells Paul what happened, Paul is going to get nervous.”
“You don’t spend much time with criminals, do you?”
“More than you might imagine,” Gabriel said again.
“Brossard isn’t going to say a word to Paul about what happened in Aix today. He’ll tell him everything went down as planned. And then he’ll keep the money for himself. Well, not all of it,” Keller added. “I suppose he’ll have to give some to the woman.”
Gabriel nodded slowly in agreement, as though Keller had spoken words of great spiritual insight. Then he turned his head slightly to watch a woman walking up the center of the nave. She had dark hair combed straight back from a high forehead and wore a belted raincoat of synthetic material. Her footfalls, like the sound of Keller’s coins, echoed in the quiet of the large church. Pausing before the main altar, she genuflected and made the sign of the cross, deliberately, forehead to heart, left shoulder to right. Then she sat on the opposite side of the nave and stared straight ahead.
“The only way we can determine whether she’s there,” Gabriel said after a moment, “is to watch the villa for an extended length of time. And there’s no way we can do that without a proper fixed observation post.”
Keller frowned in disapproval. “Spoken like a true indoor spy,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you and your ilk can’t function in the field without safe flats and five-star hotels.”
“Jews don’t camp, Keller. The last time the Jews went camping, they spent forty years wandering in the desert.”
“Moses would have found the Promised Land much more quickly if he’d had a couple of lads from the Regiment to guide him.”
Gabriel looked at the woman in the raincoat; she was still staring straight ahead, her face expressionless. Then he looked at Keller and asked, “How would we do it?”
“Not we,” answered Keller. “I’ll do it alone, the way I used to in Northern Ireland. One man in a hide with a pair of binoculars and a bag for his waste. Old school.”
“And what happens if a farmer spots you while he’s working one of those fields?”
“A farmer could walk over the top of an SAS man in his hide and never see him.” Keller watched the candles for a moment. “I once spent two weeks in an attic in Londonderry observing a suspected IRA terrorist who lived across the street. The Catholic family below me never knew I was in the house. And when it came time for me to leave, they never heard me go.”
“What happened to the terrorist?”
“He had an accident. A pity, really. He was a true pillar of his community.”
Gabriel heard footfalls and, turning, saw the woman exiting the church.
“How long can you stay in that valley?” he asked.
“With enough food and water, I could stay for a month. But forty-eight hours should be more than enough time to tell whether she’s there or not.”
“That’s forty-eight hours we’ll never get back again.”
“But they’ll be well spent.”
“What do you need from me?”
“A ride would be nice. But once I’m in place, you can forget about me.”
“Then you won’t mind if I go to Paris for a few hours?”
“Why the hell do you need to go to Paris?”
“It’s probably time I had a word with Graham Seymour.”
Keller made no reply.
“Something bothering you, Christopher?”
“I’m just wondering why I have to sit in the mud for two days and you get to go to Paris.”
“Would you prefer that I sit in the mud and you go to see Graham?”
“No,” said Keller, patting Gabriel’s shoulder. “You go to Paris. It’s a good place for an indoor spy.”
I
t had been a long time since they had slept, so they returned to the hotel ten minutes apart and repaired to their rooms. Gabriel drifted into unconsciousness within minutes and woke to find his room ablaze with a violent Provençal sunrise. By the time he made his way downstairs to the dining room, Keller was already there, freshly shaved and looking as though he had slept well. They nodded to one another like strangers and, separated by a pair of linened tables, ate their breakfasts in complete silence. Afterward, they returned to the ancient center of the town, this time to do a quick bit of shopping. Keller bought a heavy coat, a dark woolen sweater, a rucksack, and two waterproof tarpaulins. He also bought enough water, packaged processed food, and plastic ziplock bags to last him forty-eight hours. The shopping excursion complete, they ate a large lunch together, though Keller drank no wine with his. He changed into his new clothing as Gabriel drove through the mountains to the rim of the tiny valley with three villas and spoke not a word as he disappeared into a thicket of undergrowth, as swiftly as a deer alerted by a hunter’s footfall. By then, it was sunset. Gabriel phoned Graham Seymour in London, spoke the name of a Paris landmark, and rang off again. That night, God in his infinite wisdom saw fit to send an autumn storm into the Lubéron. Gabriel lay awake in his hotel room, listening to the rain lashing against the window and thinking of Keller alone in the mud, in the valley with three villas. The next morning he ate breakfast in the dining room with only the papers and the white-haired waiter for company. Then he drove to Avignon and boarded a TGV train to Paris.
PARIS
I
was beginning to think I would never hear from you.”
“It’s only been five days, Graham.”
“Five days can seem like an eternity when a prime minister is breathing down your neck.”
They were walking along the Quai de Montebello, past the stalls of the
bouquinistes
. Gabriel wore denim and leather, Seymour a Chesterfield coat and handmade shoes that looked as though they had touched no surface other than the carpet running between his office and the director-general’s. Despite the circumstances, he seemed to be enjoying himself. It had been a long time since he had walked down a street without bodyguards, in Paris or anywhere else.
“Are you in direct communication with him?” asked Gabriel.
“Lancaster?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Not anymore,” said Seymour. “He’s asked Jeremy Fallon to serve as a buffer.”
“How do you communicate with him?”
“In person and with great care.”
“Does anyone else know of your involvement?”
Seymour shook his head. “I do it all in my spare time,” he said wearily, “when I’m not trying to keep watch on the twenty thousand jihadis who call our blessed isle home.”
“How are you managing?”
“My director-general suspects I’m selling secrets to our enemies, and my wife is convinced I’m having an affair. Otherwise, I’m managing rather well.”
Seymour paused at one of the trestle tables of the
bouquinistes
and made a show of inspecting the inventory. Standing at his back, Gabriel scanned the street for any evidence of surveillance—a pose that seemed too contrived, a face he had seen too many times before. The wind was making tiny whitecaps on the surface of the river. Turning, he found Seymour holding a faded copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo
.
“Well?” asked Seymour.
“It’s a classic tale of love, deception, and betrayal,” said Gabriel.
“I was asking whether we’re being watched.”
“It seems we’ve both managed to slip into Paris without attracting the attention of our mutual friends in the French security services.”
Seymour returned the volume of Dumas to its place on the trestle table. Then, as they set off again, he delved into the breast pocket of his Chesterfield and removed an envelope.
“They left this taped to the bottom of a bench in Hampstead Heath last night,” he said, handing the envelope to Gabriel. “Two days, or the girl dies.”
“Still no demands?”
“No,” said Seymour, “but they supplied a new proof-of-life photo.”
“How did they tell you where to find it?”
“They placed a call to Simon Hewitt’s mobile using an electronic voice generator. Hewitt retrieved the parcel during his morning jog, the first and only morning jog he’s ever taken. Jeremy Fallon gave it to me this morning. Needless to say, the tension inside Number Ten is rather high at the moment.”
“It’s about to get worse.”
“No progress?” asked Seymour.
“Actually,” said Gabriel, “I think I’ve found her. The question is, what do we do now?”
T
hey crossed the Petit Pont and walked in the esplanade outside Notre Dame while Gabriel quietly recounted what he had discovered thus far. That the man with whom Madeline Hart had lunched on the afternoon of her disappearance had called himself Paul. That Paul had hired a Marseilles-based smuggler named Marcel Lacroix to move Madeline from Corsica to the mainland. That Lacroix had negotiated an additional payment of one hundred thousand euros for his services, which was to be delivered by a man named René Brossard, in the French city of Aix. And that Brossard, upon the unsuccessful transfer of the money, had immediately driven into the mountains of the Lubéron, to an isolated agricultural valley with three villas.
“You think Madeline is being hidden in one of the villas?”
“René Brossard is a well-known Marseilles crime figure. Unless he’s decided to go into the winemaking business, there’s only one reason for him to be there.”
Seymour shook his head. “The French police have been looking for her for more than a month,” he said after a moment, “and yet you managed to find her in five days.”
“I’m better than the French police.”
“That’s why I came to you.”
Directly before them several young eastern Europeans were posing for a photograph with the cathedral in the background. Gabriel supposed they were Croatians or Slovaks but couldn’t be certain; he had no ear for the Slavic tongues. He nudged Seymour to the left, and they walked past the tourist cafés lining the rue d’Arcole.
“You won’t mind if I ask you a few questions,” said Seymour.
“The less you know, the better, Graham.”
“Humor me.”
“If you insist.”
“How did you learn about Paul?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Where’s Marcel Lacroix?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Who’s watching the villa?”
“An associate.”
“From the Office?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well,” said Seymour, “that was informative.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“How much do you know about Paul?”
“He speaks fluent French with an accent, changes his appearance to suit his needs, and apparently he likes movies.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gabriel explained how Marcel Lacroix had seen Paul at the Cannes Film Festival, though he left out the part about the duct tape, the near drowning, and the bullet that Christopher Keller, a renegade SAS man whom the British government believed to be dead, had fired into Lacroix’s brain.
“Paul sounds like a professional.”
“He is,” said Gabriel.
“He befriended Madeline before kidnapping her? Is that your theory?”
“Obviously, they were acquainted at the time of her disappearance,” Gabriel said. “Whether they were friends, lovers, or something else is the topic of some debate. I suppose the only way we’ll know for certain is to ask Madeline.”
“How long have you had the house under surveillance?”
“Less than twenty-four hours.”
“How long will it take you to establish whether she’s there or not?”
“We may never know for certain, Graham.”
“How long?” Seymour pressed.
“Another twenty-four hours.”
“That would leave only one more day until the deadline expires.”
“Which is why you have no choice but to take my information and give it to the French.”
They rounded a corner into a quiet side street.
“And what should I say to the French when they ask how I got this information?” Seymour asked.
“Tell them a little bird told you. Make up a convincing cover story about a source or a communications intercept. Trust me, Graham, they won’t press you on the source.”
“And if they’re able to rescue her? What then?” Seymour quickly answered his own question. “They will undoubtedly discover that she was having an affair with the prime minister. And then, because they are French, they will rub Lancaster’s nose in it as publicly as possible.”
“They might not.”
“Lancaster would never take that chance.”
“You asked me to find her,” said Gabriel, “and I believe I’ve found her.”
“And now I’m asking you to bring her out.”
“If I go in there, people will die.”
“The French will assume it was one gang of Marseilles criminals killing members of another gang. It happens all the time down there.” Seymour paused, then added, “Especially when you’re in town.”
Gabriel ignored the remark. “And if I’m able to get her out? What am I supposed to do with her?”
“Bring her back to Britain and let us worry about the rest.”
“You’ll need a cover story.”
“People disappear and reappear all the time.”
“And if the video ever becomes public?”
“No missing girl, no scandal.”
“She’ll need a passport.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t generate a false passport with her picture on it without raising alarm bells. Besides,” Seymour added, “you and your service are rather good at making false passports.”
“We have to be.”
They walked in silence for a moment along the quiet street. Gabriel had run out of objections and questions. He could only say no, something he was not prepared to do.
“She might not be in any condition to travel,” Gabriel said at last. “In fact, it might be a while before she’s ready for much of anything at all.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“If she’s actually in that villa,” Gabriel began, “and if we can get her out, we’ll have to take her to one of our French safe properties and clean her up. I’ll bring in a team, a doctor, some nice girls to make her feel comfortable.”
“And when she’s ready to move?”
“We’ll change her appearance, take her photograph, and stick it on an Israeli passport. And then we’ll bring her across the Channel, at which point she will be your problem.”
They had reached the end of the street. It had brought them back to the flank of Notre Dame. Seymour adjusted his scarf and pretended to admire the flying buttresses.
“You never told me where the villa is,” he said indifferently.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“And Marcel Lacroix?”
“He’s dead,” said Gabriel.
Seymour turned and extended his hand. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Walk to the Gare du Nord and get on the next train to London.”
“It’s more than a mile.”
“The exercise will do you good. Don’t take this the wrong way, Graham, but you look like hell.”
A
s it turned out, Seymour couldn’t recall the way to the Gare du Nord. He was an MI5 man, which meant he came to Paris only for conferences, holidays, or when he was trying to find the kidnapped mistress of his prime minister. Gabriel murmured the directions into Seymour’s ear and then followed him to the station’s entrance, where he vanished into a sea of beggars, drug dealers, and African taxi drivers.
Alone again, Gabriel rode the Métro to the Place de la Concorde and then made his way on foot to the Israeli Embassy at 3 rue Rabelais. After paying a courtesy call on the station chief, he contacted the operations desk at King Saul Boulevard to request a French safe house and a hostage reception committee. Five minutes later the desk phoned back to say a three-member team would be on the ground within twenty-four hours.
“What about the house?”
“We have a new property in Normandy, not far from the ferry terminal at Cherbourg.”
“What’s it like?”
“Four bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, lovely views of the Channel, maid service optional.”
Gabriel rang off and collected the keys to the house from the station chief’s safe. It was approaching half past four, leaving him just enough time to make the five o’clock train to Avignon. He arrived in darkness and returned to his hotel in Apt. That night there was no rain, only a powerful wind that stalked the narrow streets of the town’s ancient center. Gabriel lay awake in his bed, in solidarity with Keller. At breakfast the next morning, he drank more than his usual allotment of coffee.
“You didn’t sleep well, Monsieur?” asked the elderly waiter.
“The mistral,” replied Gabriel.
“Terrible,” agreed the waiter.
T
he sign over the storefront read
L’IMMOBILIERE DU LUBÉRON
. Adopting the skeptical demeanor of Herr Johannes Klemp, Gabriel spent a moment scrutinizing the property photographs hanging in the window before entering. A woman of perhaps thirty-five greeted him. She wore a tan skirt and a white blouse that clung to her with an illusion of dampness. She didn’t seem to find Herr Klemp’s attempt at small talk appealing. Few women did.
He told her that he had fallen under the Lubéron’s spell and that he planned to return for a longer stay. A hotel wouldn’t do, he said. In order to experience the
real
Lubéron, he wanted to rent a villa. And not just any villa. It had to be something substantial, in an area where tourists rarely ventured. Herr Klemp was not a tourist; he was a traveler. “There’s an important difference,” he insisted, though, if there was one, it seemed entirely lost on the woman.
There was something in Herr Klemp’s demeanor that told her this was going to be a lengthy ordeal. Unfortunately, she had seen many others like him before. He would want to see every property but, in the end, find none to his satisfaction. Still, it was the only job she could find in this place that so enchanted the likes of Herr Klemp, so she offered him a café crème from the automated machine and opened her brochures with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
There was a lovely villa north of Apt, but he found it too pedestrian. And then there was a newly remodeled villa in Ménerbes, but its garden was much too small and its furnishings far too modern. And then there was the grand estate outside Lacoste, the one with its own clay tennis court and indoor lap pool, but this offended Herr Klemp’s social democratic sense of fairness. And on it went, villa by villa, town by town, setting by setting, until all that remained was a property south of Apt, in a small agricultural valley planted with vineyards and lavender.
“It sounds perfect,” said Herr Klemp hopefully.
“It’s a bit isolated.”
“Isolated is good.”
By this point, the woman felt exactly the same way. In fact, if she’d had the power, she would have locked Herr Klemp in the most isolated property in France and thrown away the key. Instead, she opened the brochure and walked him through every room in the house. For some reason, he seemed particularly interested in the entrance hall. There was nothing unusual about it. A heavy timbered door with iron studs. A small decorative table. Two flights of limestone steps. One flight rose to the second level of the house, the other sank into the basement.
“Is there any other way down besides these stairs?”
“No.”
“And no outside entrance to the basement?”
“No,” the woman repeated. “If you have guests using the bedroom on the lower level, they’ll have to use these stairs.”
“Are there photos of the lower level?”
“I’m afraid there’s not much to see. There’s only a spare bedroom and a laundry room.”