Читать книгу Day Of Atonement - Alex Archer - Страница 14

Cauchon pulled the SIM card from the phone and snapped it in two.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the smile from his face. He had Roux exactly where he wanted him. For the time being, at least, and that was a fact worthy of celebration.

Roux would speak to the girl. She would tell him about the near-miss and the falling rocks at Carcassonne, and the old man would know it wasn’t accidental. He would know that she had been lucky—lucky to have been warned just in the nick of time that she was in the path of the masonry, sent falling at his word. And for that moment Roux would know Cauchon had had her life in his hands and could easily have snuffed it out had he so wanted.

The change in the tone of Roux’s voice as he’d mentioned Annja’s name had been delicious. It was all the confirmation he had needed to know he was right. He had never intended to kill the young woman, just shake her up, and only then so that she could pass the scare on to the old man so he would realize his mysterious caller meant business.

The old man was going to pay.

Cauchon played his fingers across the row of SIM cards he had lined up on the table in front of him, each one still attached to the credit-card-size retainers.

He had no intention of making it easy for Roux. That would only serve to take the sport out of it. Cauchon knew Roux wouldn’t turn to the police. That was an avenue that was never open to him. Far more likely was him taking matters into his own hands. Cauchon welcomed the idea. Let the old bastard fight back. Breaking him then would be so much more satisfying.

It didn’t matter if the girl herself believed that the incident was actually an accident. No doubt Roux would disabuse her of that notion when he talked to her, and that would keep her looking over her shoulder, on edge. Uncomfortable.

Cauchon was banking on the belief that Roux was protective of her. He had plenty of reasons to believe he was right.

He watched the hands of the clock on the wall slowly turn.

He wanted to give the old man time to find out what had happened and then more time to think about the call, to let his words get under his skin. He wanted him to start worrying, to imagine what might happen next. He wanted him to be constantly worrying, doubting, looking at strangers and thinking, Are you the one trying to get to me?

And then he wanted to visit the man’s worst nightmares upon him.