Dead Line (10 page)

Trent’s body was stone now. Immobile.

‘I asked for the date when this happened. My friend’s niece remembered very clearly. It was a Thursday, a little over six weeks ago. It was the day before you first called me from Naples.’ Ribbons of smoke coiled up from his cigarette, waving and writhing in front of his sunken eyes. ‘The car was a blue Clio,’ he said. ‘The same as Aimée’s.’

Trent found himself standing alone with Alain, out by the damaged Mercedes and the dusty red Japanese sports car Philippe had beached beside the fountain. The security lights blazed around them but the sky was beginning to lighten from indigo black to shades of grey. Fifteen minutes more and the sun would be up. Maybe the lamps would finally be turned off.

‘You backed me in there,’ Trent said. He couldn’t quite disguise his puzzlement.

Alain shrugged. He was wearing his tailored grey jacket again. ‘You were right about Serge.’ He exhaled wearily, mouth curled into a tired and sheepish half-smile. ‘Should I tell them about him?’

‘Maybe later. Let them sleep first.’

‘I’m going to check the pool house again. He must have been communicating with them in some way.’

‘He’d be a fool to have left anything behind.’

‘He is a fool. He betrayed M. Moreau.’

‘We should speak with the housekeeper. We should do it now.’

‘I’ll do it. But not right away. When she wakes up. It’s better if I’m alone. She’s worked with M. Moreau for too long to talk with a stranger in the room.’

Trent made a low humming noise. He gazed off along the driveway, as if he almost expected the chauffeur to be walking back towards them through the hazy grey.

‘I can drive you,’ Alain said. ‘There are more vehicles inside the garage. You were right about that, too.’

‘Better you stay here. Get some rest.’

‘And if your car doesn’t start?’

‘Return my mobile and I’ll call you. My Beretta, too.’

Alain cocked his head to one side and held Trent’s eye for a beat. Then he grunted and smiled his wan, fatigued smile again, like a guy reluctantly facing up to paying out on a losing bet. He fished inside his trouser pocket for a plastic key fob that he jabbed towards the Mercedes. The car squawked and its shattered indicators blinked. Alain opened the driver’s door, the hinge straining and scraping against the distorted front wing. He reached across to the passenger side, released a catch on the glove box and retrieved Trent’s pistol.

‘Somewhere safe,’ Trent muttered.

Alain backed out of the car and weighed the Beretta in his hand. He assessed Trent with one last, lingering look. Then he extended his arm.

Trent took the pistol. He stripped it and counted the rounds. Thirteen left. He palmed the magazine back in, lifted up his shirt and slipped the pistol into the waistband of his jeans.

Alain delved a hand into his rear pocket and lifted Trent’s mobile between his finger and thumb. ‘You have a number for this? In case we need to talk?’

Trent took the mobile and flipped it open. He entered his numerical security code.

‘It has a number but I don’t know it. Tell me yours. I’ll call you.’

Alain recited the sequence and Trent typed it in, then hit
CALL
. A few seconds later, Trent heard a muted chirp coming from the chest pocket of Alain’s jacket. A faint blue light pulsed through the charcoal fabric.

‘I took the card from your wallet, too,’ Alain said. ‘It lists a number in Marseilles?’

‘My home phone,’ Trent told him. ‘But try this mobile first. And don’t call me from the phone in Jérôme’s study. The gang could be trying to get through to you at the same time.’

He nodded to the bodyguard, just once, an abrupt and businesslike farewell between two professionals, and then he pocketed his mobile and turned and marched off along the driveway, his feet pounding the gravel. He didn’t look back over his shoulder but he could sense Alain’s eyes on him. He made a conscious effort to relax his shoulders and swing his arms and glance from side to side as he walked. Like an average guy out for a stroll. Like a typical visitor with a perfectly reasonable degree of curiosity about his surroundings.

But his prying was far from ordinary. He was searching very hard. He hadn’t timed it exactly right. A thin band of hazy pink was just visible beyond the hills on the opposite side of the valley. Another ten minutes and it would have been perfect. But for now the light was still a little murky. He could see a tangle of treetops off to his far right, but it was hard to say if it was the location he was looking for. The ramshackle cabin might be somewhere else altogether.

He logged the possibility all the same, then strode on through the cool morning air. Dust drifted up around his ankles and hands. His Beretta tapped a regular percussive beat against the flesh of his back.

He fixed his attention on the neat rows of cypress trees he was passing. The trunks were lean and straight and protected by dry, toughened bark. And somewhere up above, in amongst the greenery, surveillance cameras were recording his every movement.

He listened keenly for the buzz and whirr of servos or the hum of an electric feed. He searched the ground for raised troughs where cables could have been buried. It took a long time for him to spot what he was looking for. He was close to giving up. But finally he glimpsed a grey plastic junction box screwed to a trunk he was approaching, just above the lowest branches. He traced upwards from the box, following some black electrical wiring. But the camera evaded him and finally he averted his eyes.

The fence was up ahead, at the base of the slope. He could see the cameras fitted to the gate. And as he got close, he could hear them swivel in the stillness. They turned and pivoted and zeroed in on his location.

He walked on, not breaking his stride. The gate buzzed and clunked and dropped on its hinges, then began to swing inwards. He veered right and passed through the gap and out into the middle of the road. The gate shuddered to a halt, then jerked backwards and arced smoothly towards him until it closed with a
thunk
and a long droning buzz.

The cameras spun and dipped and focused down at him. He paused and glanced up and stared into a single lens. He didn’t wave. Didn’t smile. He simply looked up through the little disc of manufactured glass, picturing his image shuttling through apertures and circuit boards and wires, buzzing back along the driveway, back inside the villa to the cramped and airless security room, materialising on the flickering colour monitor that Alain was sure to be studying.
How much do you know, big guy?
he was thinking.
Are you afraid of me now?

Trent stared at the lens of a security camera mounted on the steel post just inside the solid green gate. It was pointing towards him across the wet night-time street.

He was sitting in the front passenger seat of Girard’s Saab. Girard was smoking beside him, slumped low in the olive rain mac he had on. Trent had cracked his window to release the drifting fumes.

‘You’re certain the cameras are disabled?’ Trent asked, not for the first time.

Girard said nothing. Trent turned to find him staring, impassive, the collar of his mackintosh high around his neck. The pouches of leathery skin beneath his sunken eyes appeared more swollen than ever. Perhaps he was getting some way towards feeling as weary as Trent.

‘I don’t like that we’re relying on somebody else.’

Girard took a contemplative puff. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice pinched, ‘if a pipe burst inside your home, what would you do?’

Trent blinked at him, the smoke getting in his eyes, making them sting.

‘Or if your electricity failed? What then?’

‘I’d fix it.’

‘And if you couldn’t?’

‘I’d call someone.’

Girard drew on his cigarette some more, allowing the silence to linger.

‘No.’ He released a plume of smoke from the side of his mouth. ‘You’d call an expert.’

‘But your expert is a criminal.’

‘The best I know.’

‘Can we trust him?’

Smoke writhed before Girard’s face. Darkness swelled in his moist eyes. ‘It’s not a profession that offers guarantees.’

‘But you believe him?’

‘He told me it was done.’ He shrugged. ‘You paid him very well.’

Trent looked back across the drenched street. Only an hour ago, during their drive along the coast from Marseilles, they’d watched the storm rage over Cassis. They’d seen the flicker and flash of sheet lightning, the low, bundled mass of raging clouds. But as they’d sped closer, it had felt as if they were chasing the storm away. The lightning and the thunder had stalked on along the coast. The rain that had lashed the windscreen in desperate bursts was now little more than a faint, moist haze, like coastal fog.

Trent opened his door and stepped out into a shallow puddle. He smelled soaked tarmac and saturated foliage and damp earth. Water dripped off the chicken-wire fence behind him. Misted wetness clung to his face and hands.

The gate that guarded the entrance to the villa was a single moulded panel of thickened steel. It was as high as his shoulder, topped with metal barbs. The wall alongside it was even taller.

He could see the sloping roof of the villa just beyond, the terracotta tiles slick with rain. The cluster of bushy trees that surrounded the property were weighed down and dripping with moisture.

He felt oddly numb. He’d been sure that he would sense something when he got here. Some kind of cosmic signal. A tightening of his scalp. Perhaps a whispering in his ear – a haunting trace of Aimée’s voice that only he could hear.

But there was just the wetness and the stillness and the creepy, muted vacuum of a neglected street in the first moments following a storm.

The surveillance camera stared blindly at him.

He hoped.

Trent dropped from the wall into soft mulch and rain-soaked shrubs. Thorny branches snagged his dark jacket as he pushed his way through onto a dewy lawn shrouded beneath knee-high ribbons of mist. The villa was smaller than Trent had anticipated. Two storeys, perhaps three bedrooms. But it had large arched picture windows on the ground floor to make the most of the view. And the view was staggering.

A rectangular infinity pool, perched at the very edge of high sea cliffs, framed the outlook. Ahead was only ocean. Blue-black and shimmering. Undulating and cresting. Hemmed down by the swirling bank of menacing grey clouds.

Way off to the left, Trent could see the hazy blur of the storm squall passing on. A single light blinked and dipped in the dark. A buoy, or perhaps a lone ship. The tiny fishing harbour of Cassis was just out of sight.

‘It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’ Girard asked. He stepped onto the squelching grass alongside him, brushing damp leaves from the sleeves of his mackintosh.

Trent jerked his head around.

‘Are you living the wrong life?’ Girard pointed his chin towards the view. ‘Bend some rules and all this could be yours.’

‘It’s just a house,’ Trent mumbled.

He turned to face the villa and ripped free the Velcro fastener on a pocket on his cargo trousers. He removed a heavy Maglite torch. Slapped it against his gloved palm. Girard’s specialist had been tasked with disabling the electricity supply as well as the security cameras, so there’d be no lights inside. Later‚ Girard would contact him and give him the all clear to come back and reconnect everything before dawn.

‘Which door?’ Trent asked.

‘Middle one.’

Trent twisted the torch lens and a powerful white beam pierced the foggy dark. He swung it downwards, fixing a pair of French doors in the centre of the blazing spotlight. He walked towards them, the beam bouncing with his movements and reflecting off the blackened glass until the glow centred in on the glinting brass door furniture. A key was poking out of the lock, just as Girard’s contact had said it would be. Trent rotated the key‚ then removed it and slipped it into his pocket.

He snatched a breath, seized the handle and twisted it in one fluid movement.

The door opened outwards. No resistance whatsoever.

Trent listened very carefully. He could feel a tightening in his thighs – a tensing of the muscles he’d need to call on if the alarm started to wail.

But he heard no piercing squeal. There was only the low, wheezing burble of the swimming-pool pump, the distant crash and shuffle of the surf at the base of the cliffs, and Girard’s ragged breath on his neck.

‘How do we know your man hasn’t disturbed anything?’ Trent hissed. ‘Or taken something?’

‘He’s a professional.’

‘He’s a thief. ’

‘You’re nervous,’ Girard said. ‘I understand it. But we mustn’t delay.’

Girard didn’t understand. How could he? Somewhere inside this house, through this very door, Trent might come face to face with his deepest fear. He might find the proof that Aimée was lost to him for good. That she was never coming home. That the source of all the warmth and light in his life had been extinguished for ever.

His hand trembled, the torch beam vibrating as he aimed it through the gap in the door and cast it around. The spotlight jinked left and right and back again. It revealed a living room with a sleek open-plan kitchen at the rear. The furniture was spare but high-end. The pieces looked to have been carefully selected. There was a lot of cream leather and metal and glass. A display case off to the right contained a model of some kind of super-yacht.

‘Come.’ Girard reached inside his jacket and removed a torch of his own. He clicked it on, pointed the beam at the ground and nudged Trent forwards.

Trent’s movements were painfully slow, like he was submerged in water, and it took an age for him to pass through the door. He swallowed drily. Listened to the buzz and click in his ears. Felt the stillness envelop him and numb his senses.

He stood very still, adjusting to the unlit space and the sensation of his heart firing like a machine gun in his chest. Girard glided past him and cast his torchlight around the kitchen. The counters were bare. He opened cupboards and closed them again. He slid drawers out and in.

There was a door on the far right. Girard inclined his head towards it. Trent swallowed a lump the size of his fist and forced himself to step around by the yacht in the display case, his boots leaving damp treads on the pale marble floors.

He clenched the stippled aluminium casing of the torch and followed Girard into a large garage, cool in temperature. Concrete floor, painted breezeblock walls, a pair of up-and-over doors fitted to an electric mechanism. There was space for two vehicles inside but only one was parked there.

Trent felt the floor tilt beneath him. The car ballooned in his vision, then slammed into focus.

A blue Renault Clio. The driver’s door was scratched and dented. The silver diamond emblem was missing from the front.

Aimée’s car. Unmistakable. No doubt about it.

He staggered forwards. Extended his gloved hand in slow, jerking increments and tentatively spread his fingers on the window glass. A groan escaped his mouth.

He fumbled downwards. Grasped the catch. Wrenched open the door.

The scent of her favourite perfume rushed out at him. Notes of citrus and jasmine. A synthetic embrace.

He grasped the steering wheel. Bent forwards and mashed his cheek into the plastic. A horrible logic was bearing down on him.
Aimée was very beautiful. Strikingly so. She was given to flirtation and she was funny and sweet. On a couple of occasions, clients had misread her signals . . .
He thought of Jérôme’s
terrible temper
. The rage he’d been in with the dancer who’d spurned his advances. Had Aimée done the same thing? Had Jérôme snapped?

The sound of cautious footsteps roused him and he became aware of Girard stepping around the back of the car. A short pause, then Trent heard the
clunk
of the boot mechanism, then nothing more. The silence lingered. Slowly, Trent raised his eyes to the rear window. He could see Girard’s gloved hand on the boot lid.

He stumbled round to join him in a daze.

But all the boot contained was Aimée’s spare umbrella and the warning triangle Trent had equipped her with in case she broke down.

He tried to speak. Found that he couldn’t. He dumbly opened and closed his mouth as a stinging wetness clouded his vision.

‘I’m sorry,’ Girard said, voice pitched low. ‘You can wait outside, if you prefer . . .’

Trent shook his head roughly and backed away from the car and burst through the door into the kitchen before his thoughts could catch up to his actions. He lurched through into a hallway, torchlight arcing wildly from side to side. The front entrance to the villa was ahead of him. Stained-glass panels on either side of a glossy black door. There was a carpeted staircase to one side. Trent clambered up.

The balcony at the top overlooked the darkened foyer. Girard came pacing along behind him, his torch projecting a fast-moving disc onto the floor.

Four closed doors led off from the balcony. Trent burst through the one immediately facing him. It opened into a luxurious bathroom. Beige tiles lined the floor and walls. There was a walk-in shower cubicle and a sculpted bathtub. The fittings were high-quality, the soft white towels fluffy and dense.

A mirror above the sink jabbed the flare of his torch back at him. He shielded his face with his arm, then lowered the beam and caught sight of his macabre reflection. His face was gaunt against his liquid black clothing, lips peeled back from gums and teeth.

He wheeled away towards a pebble-glass window positioned over the toilet. It hinged open from the top and looked just large enough for a slim person to climb through. A ballet dancer, say.

Trent seized the handle. He twisted it and forced the unit outwards. It opened very wide. He poked his head through the gap, water dripping onto him from the plastic frame. He shone his torch into the vaporous, shimmying black. A wooden trellis was fitted to the wall just below. Scented plants were knotted around it. It was no ladder but it was just possible that it could bear a young woman’s weight. Especially one as light and athletic as a ballet dancer.

Trent was poised to withdraw his torch when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He reared upwards and whacked his head on the window.

‘My friend,’ Girard said. ‘Something you should see.’

Trent clutched his hand to the back of his skull. Girard’s expression was sombre. His eyes quivered with a sorry pleading.

‘Show me,’ Trent managed, before following Girard out of the bathroom towards the open door that lay in wait.

Girard led him into a generously proportioned bedroom. Trent’s torchlight revealed a low double bed, neatly made, with a plain grey duvet and plenty of cushions. He saw two bedside units and a single armchair that faced one entire wall of mirror-glass panels. A rounded wooden beam was fitted horizontally across the mirrors at approximately waist height. A balance barre.

So this was where Moreau had made dancers perform for him. Perhaps some had been happy to do it. But at least one of the girls had been terrified.

Girard coughed discreetly and squatted next to a circular rug in the middle of the floor. He aimed his torch downwards and rolled the rug back. There was a rusty brown stain shaped like a lopsided figure eight on the cream carpet beneath.

Trent swayed. He reeled.

‘Could be the dancer’s,’ he muttered.

‘We can test it,’ Girard replied. ‘Take a sample. I can speak to some people I trust.’

‘Probably the dancer’s,’ Trent said again.

But even as he spoke, there was more still to come. He’d spotted something. It was glinting at the edge of the pool of light being cast by Girard’s torch.

The item was down on the floor, nestled behind the foot of the bed. Swinging his own torch into the space, Trent slumped to his knees and reached out a lifeless hand.

A necklace.

Fine silver chain, as fragile as spider’s silk. The chain was threaded through a solid silver locket. It was polished and smooth, a perfect oval. He removed his gloves and held the necklace in his quaking palm. The clasp was broken. It looked like it had been forced apart. He wedged his squared-off thumbnail beneath the locket’s delicate catch. The lid flipped open and a wrenching moan funnelled out from him.

Trent was staring at a picture of himself.

And –
bam
– now he was back in his own bedroom, two months before, his sleep-gritted eyes watering against the dazzling sunlight streaming in through the Venetian blind. Aimée was beside him, her lush hair fanned out on her pillow. She’d just elbowed him awake and was biting down on her lip, fighting a grin. It was a fight she was losing. Her eyes danced with delight. With anticipation of a secret about to be revealed.