Читать книгу The English Girl - Daniel Silva - Страница 20

THEY SENT HIM to the bottom in the deep waters beyond the Golfe du Lion and then made for Marseilles. It was still dark when they drew into the Old Port; they slipped from Moondance a few minutes apart, climbed into their separate cars, and set out along the coast toward Toulon. Just before the town of Bandol, Gabriel pulled to the side of the road and loosened several engine cables. Then he telephoned the rental company and in the hysterical voice of Herr Klemp left a message saying where the “broken” car could be found. After wiping his fingerprints from the steering wheel and dashboard panel, he climbed into Keller’s Renault and together they drove eastward into the rising sun to Nice. On the rue Verdi was an old apartment building, white as bone, where the Office kept one of its many French safe flats. Gabriel entered the building alone and remained inside long enough to retrieve the post, which included the copy of Madeline Hart’s Party personnel file he had requested from Graham Seymour. He read it as Keller drove toward Aix along the A8 Autoroute.

“What does it say?” the Englishman asked after several minutes of silence.

“It says that Madeline Hart is perfect. But then we already knew that.”

“I was perfect once, too. And look how I turned out.”

“You were always a reprobate, Keller. You just didn’t realize it until that night in Iraq.”

“I lost eight of my comrades trying to protect your country from Saddam’s Scuds,” Keller said.

“And we are forever in your debt.”

Mollified, Keller switched on the radio and tuned it to an English-language station based in Monaco that served the large British expatriate community living in the south of France.

“Homesick?” asked Gabriel.

“Occasionally, I like to hear the sound of my native language.”

“You’ve never been back?”

“To England?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Never,” answered Keller. “I refuse to work there, and I’ve never accepted a contract on a British subject.”

“How noble of you.”

“One has to operate by a certain code.”

“So your parents have no idea you’re alive?”

“They haven’t a clue.”

“Then you couldn’t possibly be Jewish,” admonished Gabriel. “No Jewish boy would ever allow his mother to think he was dead. He wouldn’t dare.”

Gabriel turned to the most recent entry in Madeline Hart’s personnel file and read it silently as Keller drove. It was a copy of a letter, sent by Jeremy Fallon to the Party chairman, suggesting that Madeline be promoted to a junior post in a ministry and groomed for elected office. Then he looked at the snapshot of Madeline sitting at an outdoor café with the man they knew only as Paul.

Keller, watching him, asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m just wondering why a rising young star in Britain’s governing party was sharing a bottle of champagne with a first-rate creep like our friend Paul.”

“Because he knew she was having an affair with the British prime minister. And he was preparing to kidnap her.”

“How could he have known?”

“I have a theory.”

“Is it supported by fact?”

“A couple.”

“Then it’s only a theory.”

“But at least it will help to pass the time.”

Gabriel closed the file, as if to say he was listening. Keller switched off the radio.

“Men like Jonathan Lancaster always make the same mistake when they have an affair,” he said. “They trust their bodyguards to keep their mouths shut. But they don’t. They talk to each other, they talk to their wives, they talk to their girlfriends, and they talk to their old mates who’ve found work in London’s private security industry. And before long the talk reaches the ears of someone like Paul.”

“You think Paul is connected to the London security business?”

“He could be. Or he could know someone who is. However it happened,” Keller added, “a piece of information like that is gold to someone like Paul. He probably put Madeline under watch in London and hacked into her mobile phone and e-mail accounts. That’s how he found out she was coming to Corsica on holiday. And when she arrived, Paul was waiting.”

“Why have lunch with her? Why take the risk of showing his face?”

“Because he needed to get her alone so he could get her cleanly.”

“He seduced her?”

“He’s a charming bastard.”

“I don’t buy it,” said Gabriel after a moment of reflection.

“Why not?”

“Because at the time of her abduction, Madeline was romantically involved with the British prime minister. She wouldn’t have been attracted to someone like Paul.”

“Madeline was the prime minister’s mistress,” Keller countered, “which means there was very little romance in their relationship. She was probably a lonely girl.”

Gabriel looked at the photo again—not at Madeline but at Paul. “Who the hell is he?”

“He’s no amateur, that’s for sure. Only a professional would know about the don. And only a professional would dare to knock on the don’s door to ask for help.”

“If he’s such a professional, why did he have to rely on local talent to pull off the job?”

“You’re asking why he doesn’t have a crew of his own?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Simple economics,” Keller responded. “Maintaining a crew can be a complicated undertaking. And invariably there are personnel problems. When work is slow, the boys get unhappy. And when there’s a big score, the boys want a big cut.”

“So he uses freelancers on straight fee-for-service contracts to avoid having to share the profits.”

“In today’s competitive global business environment, everyone’s doing it.”

“Not the don.”

“The don is different. We’re a family, a clan. And you’re right about one thing,” Keller added. “Marcel Lacroix is lucky Paul didn’t have him killed. If he’d dared to ask Don Orsati for more money after completing a job, he would have ended up on the bottom of the Mediterranean in a cement coffin.”

“Which is where he is now.”

“Absent the cement, of course.”

Gabriel glared at Keller in disapproval but said nothing.

“You’re the one who ripped his earring out.”

“A torn earlobe is a temporary affliction. A bullet through the eye is forever.”

“What were we supposed to do with him?”

“We could have run him over to Corsica and left him with the don.”

“Trust me, Gabriel—he wouldn’t have lasted long. Orsati doesn’t like problems.”

“And, as Stalin liked to say, death solves all problems.”

“No man, no problem,” said Keller, finishing the quotation.

“But what if the man was lying to us?”

“The man had no reason to lie.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew he was never going to leave that boat alive.” Keller lowered his voice and added, “He was just hoping we would give him a painless death instead of letting him drown.”

“Is this another one of your theories?”

“Marseilles rules,” replied Keller. “When things start out violently down here, they always end violently.”

“And what if René Brossard isn’t sitting at Le Provence at five ten with a metal attaché case at his feet? What then?”

“He’ll be there.”

Gabriel wished he could share Keller’s confidence, but experience wouldn’t allow it. He checked his wristwatch and calculated the time they had left to find her.

“If Brossard does happen to show,” he said, “it might be better if we don’t kill him before he can lead us to the house where they’re hiding Madeline.”

“And then?”

Death solves all problems, thought Gabriel. No man, no problem.