Snow Rush

by James Easton

  The lounge was next door. More rough stone walls, big blue fabric sofas, rustic throws and floorboards, a wood stove. What Miguel’s parents called “basic” seemed to her really nice. No patio doors, a plus from a security perspective. Carolina looked back at the layout. The lounge, the study opposite the kitchen, the corridor with the smaller rooms on it leading to the garage. All in a line. That passageway through these rooms was the heart of the place, security-wise. She looked up and down its length a few times.

  The quiet of the house reminded Carolina of her grandparents’ place in Andalusia. The stillness you got in the country. She’d lived in a place like this until she was fourteen, before they moved to Salamanca.

  She checked Miguel was settling into his room, then chose the one next to him for herself. The bedroom windows were modern, wide, easy to climb through. She’d have to cover them with observation lenses and see about taping them up.

  She had a few hours now. Carolina took the books she’d bought out of her bag. It was warm in the house, so she changed into her running shorts and a T-shirt, and sat cross-legged on the bed with her English proficiency book.

  Three weeks’ worth of book to cover in two. She wondered if that meant full time or an hour a day, or what? There were so many uncertainties. She opened the book at the first page and began.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jean Haim was well off the grid, heading south on narrow roads near Marcilly-et-Darcy. They’d lined up a nice little place for overnight. It was built with the garage in the structure of the house so you drove in then got out of the car under the lounge on the first floor. It would keep him hidden. Detail mattered, even if the cops would be looking for him in his old Paris haunts. Not south, the way he’d gone.

  Jean had started planning as soon as he was put away the last time. What had changed things for him, everything, was a map of France. Some guy had done a mural with it in the prison art room, and Jean had taken a painting class in there to study it. It was vast, so much of it sparsely populated. He’d stared at this big mural, thinking it should be easy to hide in this country. But when prisoners broke out, they went to their own areas. Dyed their hair and shaved, sure. But only to be found hiding under their sister’s bed.

  Jean had worked it out looking at that map, a constant reminder to use the size, the emptiness of so much of France. Go where they would have no reason to look. To a place the opposite of what they would expect. Wait it out. Then disappear.

  He started thinking about Robin. She was in France. It was his memory of her that had made him plan this the way he had. Get out, get away, stay out. No more death wish.

  The way he’d planned it this time, there would be money to live off on the outside. The second pannier on the bike had contained a holdall with a laptop in it. He had a USB with his spreadsheets. It was part of his banker look too, but Jean understood prime rates, dividend yields, where you could buy property and disguise your identity, all of that now. He’d spent time with the fraudsters in prison, learning. One of them had talked to Jean about monetizing his expertise and had given him a book by an Australian hitman who had become famous by telling of his crimes.

  Jean saw the potential. He could do better. The Australian was uncouth. Jean felt he could appeal to a far wider audience, whether on the page or the screen. The housewives would love a cultured brute like himself. Plenty had loved him to date. Student activists also loved him. They were like groupies around a rock star. He preferred housewives because they didn’t talk about the environment all the time. Thinking about them made him think of Robin. Her breathing, her scent, and her tears.

  He pushed her away again. Focused on the plan. He knew the house was a few kilometres over the fields to the right, and he was looking for the turn as a car drove into his left side.

  He felt the impact and heard the bang at the same time, saw his plans crumble, and told himself to be cool in one fast moment.

  Deal with this, he told himself. He felt his body untense, the release painful in his shoulders and legs. His neck was OK, he thought. So were his insides. Nothing wrenched around. He took three slow, deep breaths.

  He’d been pushed onto the verge. As far as he could tell, the ground was firm. He looked in the mirror for the car that had hit him. It looked normal, stopped facing away from him. Jean’s passenger seat door seemed OK on the inside. Probably only external damage.

  There was movement to his left. It was the driver of the other car. Jean wound his window down, and the guy was looking at him directly.

  “I’m sorry. Are you OK?”

  Jean held his hand up. “Don’t worry, it happens.”

  The guy looked down at the door. “I’ll give you my contacts. I’m sorry, you’ve got a massive dent down here.”

  Jean nodded, acting natural. “Sure, OK.”

  “Did you hit your head?” the guy asked, peering in at him. He was in his late twenties, slim, wearing scruffy chinos and a big fisherman’s sweater.

  “Maybe. I think it’s ok.” He saw his glasses, down in the gap between the seat and the door, and he put them on quickly. He tried to perk up. “OK, my eyes work. Get me your details. I’ll see about getting the car out.”

  Jean was almost praying as he reversed. The wheel slipped once, but it found traction, and he eased back onto the road. He opened the door and got out. The passenger door and half the driver’s side were badly dented. He looked around. It was gloomy now. No other cars anywhere. From what he could see on the road it looked like an innocuous bump. There was shattered glass on the ground. No bumpers or wing mirrors or skid marks. He’d left a tire track on the verge. That was all.

  The guy brought his jacket out of the car, and Jean realised it was cold. The glasses slipped. He hooked them firmly over his ear.

  “So, I send you my details? I feel bad. I’m sorry.”

  This guy would remember Jean because of this incident, and he’d seen him out of the car so he might be able to guess his height now. If they messed around with identikit tech, tried him with an image of Jean with his longer prison hair taken down and a pair of specs, the guy would confirm it was him, and the manhunt would widen.

  Jean made a decision.

  He put his hand to his brow, stooped over and took a few deep breaths. When the guy came back he said, “Look, I don’t feel so good now. Can you come with me to my place? You don’t have to come in, just make sure I get there. My wife’s a doctor. She’ll do that light in the eyes thing.”

  The guy was happy to help, relieved even. “Yeah, of course. How’s your car?”

  “It’s ok,” said Jean, “Neither of us was going that fast. Can we do the details at my place? I should probably just get back.”

  “Of course.” He put his phone away. Jean patted his shoulder and picked his pocket. Went to his car and watched the man in his mirror, saw him turn and get into his car. It was bashed at the front only, one light out but the other working. They went east. Jean checked everything, whether he could see any other cars, whether there were houses beyond the endless flat fields they drove past for five minutes before he saw the safehouse over on the right.

  He thought about the light, too. It was not yet fully dark, but he felt it would be unlikely anyone could see the details of their cars from a distance, even if they had an angle on the road from an elevated position.

  His door clicked in its hinges, straining a little around the corner, but it held. This lane was even narrower, cutting through ragged meadows with scrawny saplings and undergrowth that had built up. There were some nondescript trees after a hundred metres. Not tall, but they formed hedges that concealed the cars as they trundled along. The road became uneven, and he watched the lights of the car behind bob on the potholes. They took a right turn into the driveway, the light almost gone.

  Jean swung his car around so that he got out on the far side from his new friend. The key was around the corner of the house, under a stone. The guy was looking at Jean’s car in what was left of the light wh
en he went back around the front of the house.

  “Are you feeling alright?”

  “Yes, my head’s clearing. So, the number.” Jean said. He took the phone out.

  “You’ve got my phone?” The guy’s hand was in his pocket. “I had it, no?”

  “You handed it to me back there on the road.”

  “Did I? Wow, maybe I hit my head too,” he laughed. He seemed nervous.

  “Well, it’s not like I could get into it.” Jean handed him his phone.

  “Ah, no.” The guy did the password. A girl’s image came up on the screen as he handed it back.

  “So this is my number, and let me just get something for you. My insurance numbers.”

  “I don’t think I need them.”

  Jean went to the side door into the garage and opened it with the key. A string brushed across his face. The light switch. He pulled it, took everything in quickly. He heard the guy skirting the door outside. Jean could tell he was uneasy, but not wanting to be rude and not wanting to leave his phone with Jean.

  “Come in.” He raised his voice. “Here it is.”

  The guy didn’t come in.

  Jean stepped out, saw he was backing away, looking up at the house and seeing the lights off, its shutdown appearance, the strangeness of it. He looked around at the meadows, feeling the isolation of this place. Everything Jean had studied driving over here, and he hadn’t even noticed, suddenly fitting together and terrifying him.

  Jean collared him before he could run.

  “It’s ok, come on.”

  He pushed upwards, so the guy’s feet nearly left the ground, and walked him into the garage, then closed the door and pushed him well into the room.

  “Calm,” he said, holding up a hand. “Calm. I apologise. Can you listen to me? It’ll be ok. Look, buddy, take some breaths. With me, OK? One, two, three. Better? Good, good. OK, so you know who I am?”

  He took his glasses off and let the man look at his face.

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “And I thought I was famous!” Jean smiled at him. “I’m Jean Haim. I broke out of jail this morning. I don’t look like it, eh? Now, tomorrow, I get picked up from here and I’m long gone. It’s tough luck you ran into me. And I don’t want to hurt you. So, you stay with me, here, tonight, and after I’m gone in the morning, you go home? I’ve got some food up in the kitchen. So how about it? You have anyone you need to talk to? We’ll need to make up a story. What about this girlfriend?”

  The guy was still scared. “I don’t… we aren’t seeing each other for a week. She’s in Lyon.”

  “OK, perfect. So we eat, tell each other our life stories? I invite you. I’m Jean. Robbery. Armoured car specialist.”

  He held out his hand. The guy shook it. He was nearly crying, still unable to absorb this. “Raymond. Landscape gardening.”

  “Wow. And your speciality?”

  “Shrubberies.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They were still in the driveway. Eric was grinning. “You really feel this air hitting your lungs, no?”

  Henri nodded. “Yes. It’s great here.“

  Eric took another deep breath, his arms held out like a priest giving a sermon.

  “It is special. How often do you come here, Henri?”

  “Now and then, school holidays, you know.”

  “Can I use it with my girlfriends?”

  “You? Sure. We let it sometimes, to friends. I can talk to my wife.”

  Eric turned around on the spot, looking out into the hills. Henri nearly reminded him it was dark but stopped himself, tried to feel some enjoyment, couldn’t really do it although there was the shadow of it for a moment. You couldn’t help but relax a bit with this air.

  They went inside, and Henri turned the heating on, boiled the kettle, checked upstairs. His daughter’s teddy was on the bed. Not that she slept in that bed. Always with them still. It was a simple place, roomy and cosy at the same time. Everywhere lay evidence of his family and normality. Some of his daughter’s dolls. His son’s bike.

  Eric was on the patio when Henri finished his rounds.

  “You see, Henri, this place is beautiful. Modest, but it has everything. And you have the view.” He took another huge breath, this time stretching his arms behind him. “Now, if you don’t mind, I must call my guy.”

  Henri moved into the kitchen and heard Eric greet someone.

  “Max, it’s me.”

  Eric came through a few minutes later. “So, it’s ok, he’s probably coming tomorrow but not sure of when we meet.” Eric smiled. “I can see the stars already. The lights down in the valley look like stars too.”

  “That’s what my daughter said last Christmas.”

  Maybe Henri would take him out on a slope. “Do you ski?”

  “Me? Oh, no.” The little man’s voice seemed to come from far away.

  “Eric, are you OK? You seem a little bewildered.”

  Eric was looking out of the window. “It’s this place. The mountains.”

  Henri thought he should get with the project a little. “Who is this guy we’re dealing with?”

  “I’m dealing with him, Henri. Not you. You are dealing with me. He’s a friend of mine. It’s just a simple deal. We’re providing a place and he’s paying.” Eric cocked his head. “It’s just business, OK? I know for you it’s unusual. But you’re providing a service. Like your surgery job. You can treat it like that.”

  “I’ll try. Is he staying?”

  Eric nodded. “Yes, Max will stay. Don’t worry. Your wife won’t know anyone was here. He knows how not to leave traces. Have you got any wine?”

  “A few bottles.”

  “Is it good stuff? I think here we must drink good wine.”

  “Nothing that special.” Thinking of it, the family times, he sighed.

  Eric laughed. “I think they have good food here in the mountains. Robust. With red wine. Don’t be so morose, Henri. Let’s take a drink. Live a little.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Robin tipped the porter, closed the door, and looked at the room Julian had reserved in the Chalet Guy Koffmann. It was so low key, with its natural stone and fabrics, that you almost didn’t notice the wave of calm it enfolded you in. Six hours in the car fell away.

  She found the spare bedding in the wardrobe and placed it on the end of the big sofa, near the window. Sharing had necessitated her buying the least sexy pyjamas she could find in Morzine, before checking in - orange thermals, a nightmare with her hair - and she laid those out on top of the bedding. Julian would insist on taking the sofa, but a show of willingness on her part would reduce his space for martyrdom.

  She unpacked the clothes she’d bought in Paris and the outdoor gear she’d bought in Morzine, and spent some time on the phone with one of Jean’s people, Rafael, talking about meeting them the next day. He said they’d need twenty-four hours to set up but seemed to like her ideas. Then she visited the spa, fantasizing as she relaxed that it was Jean coming here later, not Julian. The potpourri and musky oiled wood of the place weren’t exactly him, but she managed.

  Julian had just arrived when she got back to the room. He’d booked the sixth-floor restaurant for dinner, and they talked about the project in trance-inducing conditions – open fires, soft lights, the quiet, mountains like grey-blue ghosts through the steady snow outside.

  “So I had an idea about selling this,” said Robin.

  Julian necked an oyster and washed it down with Krug. “What’s that?”

  “What you said about the market for the film. French domestic audiences will be interested in Jean Haim. If this secret he wants to spill is big enough, then we might get an international, current affairs audience as well. There’s a way to widen it out further.”

  Another oyster, more Krug.

  “There have been some articles mentioning Jean in the U.S. Hot Felon type lists, and one of his ex-lovers is now a high-end fitness trainer in LA. Looks after a lot of celebrities.�
�

  Julian smiled. “OK, so I’m intrigued.”

  “There’s a way to make this appeal to the fantasies of a large slice of women globally.” She paused and tried the champagne, looking at him as she drank.

  “A sex tape?”

  She laughed. “No. We make it a kidnap story.”

  “Say that again.” Julian frowned.

  “You and I have dinner tomorrow night, at a restaurant in Morzine. From where they will kidnap me.” She did air quotes to make it clear that the kidnap would be a fabrication.

  Julian seemed to look at the light playing in his glass, thinking carefully. He shifted his weight around on the chair as he delved into his pocket. He brought his phone out. “Switch your phone off,” he said, doing that himself and putting his phone on the table. Robin switched her phone off and put it next to his.

  “The security around this thing just got much tighter,” he said. “If you are going to do this, spin that angle, it has to be simple.”

  “It will be. You are the only person who knows I am here, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So the story is, at the restaurant tomorrow I agree to have a drink with some young American or British people we meet there. Everyone is après ski, a bit drunk, tired, first names only in the throng. You go back to the hotel, grumpy old man.”

  “Right, thanks.”

  Robin let her hair fall forward. Julian watched it. “We’re playing, OK? The next morning, I tell you I’m spending a day or two skiing with my new friends. Now, in the story I will tell later, I am in the clutches of Jean Haim by then, and he is forcing me to say that. But you have no idea who I’m with. That means you won’t ever have to explain why you didn’t tell the authorities. You didn’t know.”

  Julian looked away from her, weighing it up for a while. “Why didn’t your new friends report you missing?”

  “I’m just an English chick they met. I didn’t show, and they drove off. They don’t exist anyway, I can’t certainly remember who they were. There’s no CCTV in the restaurant. Jean’s guys checked it out. Now, in reality, I’m checking in with you daily, and we have a signal for me to tell you if I have a problem. Jean knows if I don’t call in with you, you will tell the authorities. But the world will never know that’s what we were doing when this is all over. I come back in a few days and tell you of my ordeal. He just wanted to tell his story. I trusted him to do that. Women will love it.”