The Guardian of Lies Read online

  She laughed again and watched in astonishment while I changed into a black shirt and trousers from the boot of my car and looped a black scarf around my head. I then discarded my red dancing pumps for a pair of sturdy boots. In a small backpack I carried a torch, the High Standard gun and a camera. I didn’t show Marianne the gun because I didn’t want to panic her, and anyway, I didn’t for one moment think I’d need it. I wasn’t going to shoot anybody. Not tonight.

  We’d been waiting in the dark for an hour, Marianne in a doze, by the time I spotted the headlights leave the camp and spike their way towards me. The terrain in this part of the wide Rhône valley was as flat as the major’s baseball diamond, so I had no trouble watching the car’s approach.

  It was the right one. As it swept past my dogwood hiding place I recognised its green and white colour scheme and when it was half a kilometre down the road to Arles, I started my engine.

  *

  I hung back most of the time, letting the Chevy get away. There was only one road cutting through the countryside, so he wasn’t going anywhere but straight ahead. At times I lost sight of him, at times I put my foot down and hitched up closer, but he didn’t drive fast as if he were trying to lose me. When the moon popped out and skimmed the fields with a silver sheen, I switched off my headlamps and drove half-blind. That was when I clouted a rock on the side of the road and jolted Marianne awake.

  ‘Merde,’ she muttered, ‘where’s the car you’re after?’

  I pointed to the pinpricks of tail-lights far ahead in the dark bowl of the night.

  She leaned her head forward with a pretty frown of concentration. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A bastard.’

  She accepted that, too sleepy to push for details, and we drove in comfortable silence, each bound up in our own speculations. As we approached the Serriac turn-off I crept up closer but the Chevrolet didn’t take the side road. It shot straight on.

  Arles it was, then.

  *

  The streets of Arles defy logic.

  Imagine if you picked up a box of straws, threw them in the air and let them fall at your feet. Criss-cross, higgledy-piggledy, no rhyme nor reason. Designed to confuse. That is the town of Arles.

  It does not have streets built for cars.

  Arles is one of the oldest and loveliest towns in all France, bristling with ancient Roman architecture and medieval stone walls that rob you of all sense of scale. They have been here forever and will be here for another forever, its creamy timeworn houses huddled on top of each other like old friends. The streets are narrow, no wider than you can spit, so that they can cosset every scrap of shade during the humid summer when the sun can suck the life out of your skin, if you give it the chance.

  But at this time of night the town was quiet. The milky river mist was seeping up around the amphitheatre, and in the pavement café the last drinkers were murmuring in low voices and watching the town cats sneak through the darkness in search of scraps. I tracked the Chevy past the black bulk of the monolithic town walls and eventually into the Boulevard des Lices, one of the wider thoroughfares that divide the new town from the old. I kept a shield of three cars between me and the big American saloon at all times as we trailed through the town.

  I was careful. So careful. I was acutely aware of how my last car chase had ended.

  Marianne asked, ‘Where’s he off to?’

  ‘He’s heading into the old town. That car is so wide it will have to crawl.’ I took a risk and swung right too. Already I could see his brake lights on, gleaming red as he edged his way into the Place de la République.

  ‘Listen to me, Marianne. At this hour I reckon he’s heading for his hotel.’ I pulled my 2CV up on to a pavement and tucked it tight against a wall, out of reach of the square’s streetlamps. ‘In these tight streets, I can run faster than he can drive. Wait here for me.’ I leaned over, kissed her cheek and opened my door.

  ‘No, Eloïse. I don’t know who this guy is or what you want with him, but I don’t want you to—’

  ‘Lock your door,’ I said, and climbed out of the car. From my bag I removed the gun. I placed it on the driver’s seat. ‘That’s the safety catch,’ I pointed out. ‘If anyone tries to get in the car, shoot them.’

  She stared at me, appalled.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whispered. ‘No one will come.’

  I closed the driver’s door and locked it. From outside I watched her pick up the gun.

  *

  I ran, swift and soft-footed. Always in deep shadow, brushing past ancient walls and dark doorways. If he was taking this route, most likely he was heading over to the Place du Forum, where two hotels were to be found. The Place de la République lay empty, a large slice of darkness dominated by the elaborate town hall at one end and by a Roman obelisk at its centre, like a needle in its heart, but no American car. I felt a stab of panic. Had I lost him?

  In my car I’d have been too conspicuous in these narrow rat-runs, but on foot I was part of the fabric of the night. I stopped and listened. I could hear the heavy note of its engine rumbling off the wall somewhere ahead of me, so I took a breath and raced across the stone steps of the Church of SaintTrophime. Ducking down the next alleyway, I doubted if he’d have any paintwork left if he came through here.

  I entered the Place du Forum, blood pumping in my ears. The Forum is the heart of the town, just as it was in Roman times and in the days when Vincent Van Gogh set up his easel here. A couple of bars were still open, their soft light spilling into the pretty square and turning the green paint on a car purple. It was the Chevy. Manoeuvring with delicacy around the bronze statue of Frédéric Mistral, our Nobel Prize winner, I expected the driver to park and enter the Hôtel du Forum at the southern end of the square. I leaned against the mottled trunk of one of the plane trees to obscure my outline, catching my breath and smacking at the wretched mosquitoes drawn to the sweat on my skin.

  But the Chevy had no intention of stopping. As it slipped away out the other side of the square, I realised I was going to need a bigger breath. I started to run.

  *

  I followed the sound of the engine like a dog through the maze of streets between the Forum and the river. The streetlamps were poor here, the smell of the Rhône more invasive and the mist thicker as it lapped at my ankles and muted sounds, so that the engine seemed to whisper.

  I was moving at a steady pace along one of the wider streets that ran downhill towards the river when suddenly the brake lights popped on. I dodged into a nearby doorway. I watched the Chevrolet slowly pull to a halt maybe ten or twelve houses further down and park on a patch of dirt where once another house must have stood. The engine uttered a growl and then stopped.

  The sudden silence tweaked my nerves. I tucked myself deep into my shallow doorway till I could feel a doorknob indenting itself into my back. I reminded myself that I had done surveillance work before in Paris for Clarisse Favre, this was no different, no need for the sour taste in my mouth.

  But no. This was different. This wasn’t a headmaster cheating on his wife with one of his pupils, or a woman frittering away her accountant husband’s hard-earned cash on the horses at Longchamp racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne every Saturday. No, this was different. This was a man who had tried to kill the brother I loved. Was he here in Arles to finish the job he’d started? Or was he spying on the USAF air base as a Soviet operative, and if so, what did his friendship with Major Dirke imply?

  I had no answers. Not yet. In the silence I heard the click of the car door lock and I stopped breathing. The car was parked near the only lamp in the street and its light picked out the man who emerged from the driver’s seat. He had his back to me and stood still, listening. Then, apparently satisfied, he turned.

  It was Gilles Bertin.

  *

  Gilles Bertin crossed the road, moving quickly as though suddenly in a hurry, and by the light of the streetlamp I could make out that he was carrying a briefcase in one hand. He unlocked the door
of a house on the opposite side of the road that I was on, but about ten houses further down. The houses along this stretch were all attached to each other, cheek by jowl, and their front doors opened straight on to the road.

  The streetlamp’s muted triangle of light didn’t reach as far as my doorway, nevertheless I didn’t move a muscle, didn’t take a breath. Didn’t risk a heartbeat. I watched as Bertin opened the door, placed his briefcase inside, then turned and walked back to the car. But before he reached it, I heard another heavy click, the sound of a car door. To my surprise the Chevy’s front passenger door swung open and slowly a man’s head and shoulders appeared. A hand grabbed the car’s roof rim and the figure straightened up, his gaze immediately scanning the street.

  It was André. My brother.

  In Gilles Bertin’s car.

  I had a sense of dread like a living thing caught inside me. I blinked, as if I could change what I was seeing in this dark backstreet, as if I could wipe it clean like a blackboard and start again.

  Bertin opened the rear door, removed two crutches from the back seat and handed them to André. Everything about their movements was relaxed, their voices a low murmur that I couldn’t catch. In my mind the only explanation was that somehow the MGB agent had kidnapped my brother, but my eyes told me otherwise. This was no kidnap. This was my brother’s choice, to be in that car, to walk into that house, to be with this man. His battle for control of his legs as he crossed the road, forcing one foot in front of the other, stumbling on the cobbles, was agony to watch. He leaned heavily on the crutches and my instinct was to run and help, but my instinct could get me killed.

  André shuffled his way inside the house, but Bertin paused, checked the street once more and drew a gun from a holster under his suit jacket. I crushed myself even tighter into my tiny pocket of blackness, but he didn’t linger in my direction. Instead he glanced up at the streetlamp, took aim and fired. A silencer reduced the sound to a dull thwack, followed by the brittle crack of shattered glass. The light went out. The door shut.

  I was in the dark.

  *

  I heard a sound. So faint I thought it was the thump of my own pulse, but it came again. And again. A footfall?

  ‘Eloïse?’ A whisper. Barely a word at all. My palm was slick with sweat.

  ‘Eloïse?’

  I gave no reply.

  The soft footfalls were closer now. The darkness swallowed them and I couldn’t tell from which direction they were coming. A minute ticked past, two minutes. I listened harder and turned my attention to my right, where I heard the brush of a sleeve on a wall. A hand seized mine.

  ‘Eloïse, it’s me.’ A murmur against my cheek.

  ‘Léon!’

  It was Léon Roussel, though it was so dark now that all we could see of each other was a black outline. How he knew it was me, I don’t know.

  ‘Eloïse, what the hell are you doing here?’ he whispered.

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  It dawned on me then that for him to know what doorway I was concealed in, he must have seen me arrive before the streetlamp was shot out. It felt absurdly reassuring to know he’d been here all that time without my knowing. He stepped off the street and joined me in the shelter of my doorway.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I kept my voice low.

  But he asked, ‘Did you see André?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him. It was a shock.’

  ‘And the man he was with? Do you know him?’

  I shook my head, though it was pointless to do so in the pitch dark.

  ‘Do you know what’s going on here?’

  He spoke so softly I had to strain to hear. Again I shook my head. How could I tell him the truth when I didn’t know it myself ? The knowledge that my brother had deceived me seethed inside.

  ‘Listen to me, Eloïse.’

  I listened. I listened intently. I wanted him to give me a reason why this was happening. Léon was a policeman and this was his territory. There were things he knew that I didn’t. His shoulder pressed against mine as he leaned close.

  ‘Go home, Eloïse. Right now. Leave this to me. Go home and stay there until your brother comes home. I will continue to watch here and will telephone you the moment he leaves.’

  ‘Léon, I am no longer that child who got stuck up a tree. I am leaving for five minutes, but I will be back. I need to give my car keys to Marianne.’

  I took a long look at the house that my brother had chosen to enter, but it was no more than a blurred shape in the mist and darkness. On soundless feet I ran out into the black night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LÉON ROUSSEL

  Léon cursed under his breath. He tried to snatch at her but she was gone. That strange elusive creature who was so hard to pin down, so determined never to be caught in a net, driven by so many demons. Like her brother. His demons had always been ones that fed on risks to life and limb, zip-wiring from the topmost branch or tightrope-walking along the ridge of a barn. Now this. But this was not something that a sticking plaster and a rosy apple from the orchard could sort out. Yet again André had dragged Eloïse to the mouth of hell.

  That’s why Léon had come here tonight, but he hadn’t expected company. Not André, and certainly not Eloïse, looking ready for trouble in her black garb with her jet-black hair pulled tight off her face. It made her look tough in the same way he knew his police uniform made him look tough, though he’d learned that outward appearances were, more often than not, false.

  He’d learned to peel appearances away. That’s what he’d wanted to do tonight, but the arrival of the Caussade brother and sister had put a stop to it. His eyes never left the spot where the front door lay barely visible behind the clammy night air. The man in that house calling himself Gilles Bertin did not realise the way things were down here. The loyalties. The blood feuds. The vast expanse of Camargue marsh wilderness where bodies might not be found for months, sometimes never if a wild boar got to them first.

  It was too dark to see the dial on his watch, so Léon counted off the minutes in his head. Two minutes, three minutes. At four minutes he was tempted to slow his count but didn’t. At five minutes Eloïse was back, as he knew she would be. As good as her word.

  ‘Anything?’ she murmured, tucking herself in beside him. Her hair smelled of sea mist.

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘We wait?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She touched her fingers to the back of his hand. ‘We can’t talk now,’ she whispered. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘When this is done.’

  He felt rather than saw her nod.

  ‘Is Marianne here in Arles too?’ he asked.

  ‘Not anymore. I just gave her my car keys to drive home.’

  ‘Good. I will take you home. Maybe André too?’

  She didn’t reply, but he felt the heat of her and for a moment she leaned her weight against his shoulder. After that, they kept vigil in silence.

  *

  Headlights swept into the street at the far end, picking out a rib-thin dog slinking along one wall. The noise of the engine rattled off the walls, rowdy after the hour of silence to which Léon’s ears had grown accustomed. He pulled his jacket over his face and Eloïse hid hers against his shoulder when the car slid past, and for two beats of his heart he forgot about the car.

  ‘A taxi,’ he whispered into her hair.

  She lifted her head, her lips almost touching his and only the faint gleam of her eyes visible, and she seemed about to say something. But instead she turned her head to observe the taxi pulling to a halt in front of the house they’d been watching. The front door snapped open. Had the occupants been standing on the other side of it? Léon could see André silhouetted on his crutches against the light. The urge to go over and speak to the man who had been his friend was strong, to offer him a lift home, to make a connection, but Eloïse’s words still chimed in his mind. It’s dangerous.

  Dangerous for whom?

&n
bsp; André manoeuvred himself and his crutches inside the taxi. The man in the doorway offered no help. He watched the taxi drive away and turn left at the far corner, before he stepped back and shut the door.

  Léon exhaled. Eloïse could not drag her gaze from where the ruby tail-light of the car had been.

  *

  Léon drove fast. He had scant hope of catching up with the taxi because they had remained at their post in the doorway for another half-hour before accepting that no one else would be leaving that house tonight. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Sane people had taken to their beds long ago.

  ‘What happened back there, Eloïse? What went on with André and that man in the Chevrolet?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  She was huddled on the front passenger seat in his black Citroën saloon, her knees tucked under her chin, her arms wrapped around her shins. She held herself tight. As if she was frightened that something might fall out that she was trying to hold inside.

  ‘You were wrong, Eloïse, to go there.’

  A baby-faced deer leaped out into his headlights on the road, all spindly legs and eyes like torchlights. Léon swore and braked hard, missed it by a tail-whisker.

  ‘Bloody fool.’

  Did he mean the deer? Or her?

  ‘You knew,’ he continued as he drove on, ‘that the situation back there was dangerous but still you walked into it. You were wrong. André would tell you the same and maybe you would listen to him.’

  A full minute flicked by.

  ‘You don’t know André,’ she whispered. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Oh, Eloïse,’ he said gently, ‘you are not your brother’s guardian.’

  ‘Of course I am. I put him on those crutches.’

  ‘Did you know he would be in the car tonight?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Who was the other man in the car?’

  ‘Someone you should stay away from, even you, Monsieur le Capitaine.’

  The use of his police title jarred, making Léon glance across. She was sitting with her cheek on her knee and was looking at him. The darkness outside had trickled into the car and all strength seemed to have drained from her. Léon felt a wave of sorrow for her.