by James Easton
“Sorry, Robin. It won’t be for long. I can’t risk you pushing any buttons.”
His hands went into her collar, feeling the hood on her ski jacket, sliding quickly around her back, down her sides, then back up into her hair, pressing gently on the back of her head. He nudged her legs apart and took hold of her right thigh with both hands, running them down to her knee, then felt the shin and calf. He took her boots off and checked her feet. He did her other leg, then pushed each arm out and repeated it. Then he reached around her and ran his hands over the small of her back and her hips.
Robin heard a noise like someone panting and realised it had come out of her mouth.
He looked at her from a foot away, his head a little on one side.
“Are you OK?”
“Just about.”
“Your breathing. Regulate it. Nothing to be afraid of.” He stroked her face.
Robin wasn’t exactly afraid, except possibly of herself. The door slammed. Jean Haim got into the front seat and drove them away.
Anders and Miguel sat at the kitchen table. Carolina took some peas out of the freezer, wrapped them in kitchen paper, and gave them to Anders. He held them against his forehead. Miguel was uninjured, which was purely down to luck, she felt, given the speed with which the whole mess had developed.
Those men were trouble. She’d let the fact that they were in a nice restaurant cloud her initial accurate judgement of their basic threat. A rookie error.
Miguel said, “I’m hungry.”
Carolina frowned. “What about your steak?”
“He threw it at one of the guys,” said Anders.
“Next time, throw the potato. That was a T-bone,” she said, not finding it funny. Carolina was from a family that did not waste anything, let alone prime cuts of beef. She went to the units and set about warming some curry for him. She was annoyed. The risk to Miguel. Her not focusing on what she was being paid to do.
Miguel said, “Sorry about the steak. Carolina, don’t be mad at Anders. I got involved first. He was helping me.”
“As you said three times in the car. So much for you being afraid of everything.”
Miguel shrugged. “I got angry with them. I had to help the woman, and then I had to help Anders.”
“Leave it, Miguel,” said Berg, lightly. “She’ll soon realise we did nothing wrong and, in fact, were very heroic. She will calm down.”
That made Carolina want to laugh, and therefore to sleep with Berg, and increased her annoyance.
“What about me?” he asked. “I’m hungry as well.”
“You’re avoiding bruising. Keep that against your head.”
“Can I have a glass of wine?”
Carolina got two glasses and poured some wine.
“Me too,” said Miguel.
She fetched an extra glass, poured some wine, and passed it to him.
“Can you teach me to fight?” he asked.
Carolina rolled her eyes. “Why do people always ask that?”
“Because it’s cool,” said Miguel. “I mean, you clobbered them. They were beating Anders, and then they were all on the floor, and then we were driving away. Like that.”
She tried to remember the word ‘clobbered.’ Looking at his bright eyes, his fascination, her heart softened. He’d been about to throw himself at one of the men. His nose was a little red from his snowboarding crash in the morning. Miguel Pérez was brave. And he seemed happy.
“What did you do to the first man?”
“Miguel. Curry. Now, I have to call your parents and tell them I let you get into a fight.”
Jean Haim parked and opened the garage, then changed the plates. Robin sat in the back seat watching him. They’d stopped several times on the way, whenever there was a junction or a fork in the road, Jean checking they weren’t being followed before driving on.
Robin tried to examine the clashing impulses in her own brain. How could she feel safe with Jean, as he took her away from safety with her wrists bound, after searching her carefully for tracking devices? She’d surrendered her phone, her one means of contact with the only person who knew she was doing this, without a murmur. She had no idea what was going to happen. She was scared but had no desire to resist him. This was terrifying. But also, exciting. There was no other word.
He flipped the lights on in the kitchen and led her through to the lounge, making sure the curtains were closed before he put the standing lamp on. He tugged her wrists out and cut the plastic binders with a kitchen knife.
“That wasn’t nice,” she said.
“I know. This isn’t a game.”
He held her phone out to show her what he was doing, walked over the book shelf and left it there. Then he came back to stand opposite her.
He made no move to touch her.
She slipped her arms around his neck.
It turned into a hug, and they laughed, holding each other, relaxing. “Oh God, I was talking to your friend in Paris. Now I’m holding you here.”
“I was worried, you know?”
“About what?”
He looked down. “That you might not want to know me because I was caught again, doing a job.”
Robin took his glasses off. “You don’t need those to see, do you?”
“No.”
“Is it just us here?”
He nodded. “For as long we like. There are a few other things, with my people, going on. But here just us.”
“You really planned this, didn’t you? The escape, hiding here. You’re going to get away with it.”
“Yes. If I am careful. You have everything for the filming?”
She nodded. “I planned it.”
They stepped closer. He wound his hand into her hair and kissed her.
Later, with her legs around his neck and her back arching off the covers, Robin wondered if they’d ever left Cannes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Carolina was in the study, listening to Eva Pérez down the phone.
“Tell Miguel I have passed on his heroism and his father is proud of him. But his father joins his mother in forbidding more fighting for the rest of the holiday,” she laughed warmly.
Carolina relaxed. “Well, we won’t be visiting any more restaurants. At least not with a crowd of drunken men in them.”
“It’s OK, Carolina, we know you have it. These things happen.”
She put the phone down and went into the lounge. Miguel was asleep in front of the TV with the remnants of his curry balanced on his chest. Carolina shook him awake gently and helped him to bed. He flopped down onto the covers. The house was warm so she left him like that and closed the door.
She heard garage noises. Berg working on his bike, or his vodka. She smelt alcohol and realised it was from her shirt. She went into the shower room and looked in the mirror. The guy had spat blood and booze on her. Neither Miguel nor Berg had told her. Probably hadn’t noticed. She went back to her room for her shorts and a T-shirt. She showered, wound one of the guest towels around herself, and stood in the little anteroom in front of the sauna. Through the tinted door, she could see the floorboards stretching away into the gloom, the strut of a bench. She checked Berg was still making his garage noises, groaning in the way men did for apparently no reason when they simply moved around, then opened the sauna door and went in. It was dimly lit. She looked at the controls. Berg liked his sauna hot, she guessed, but it was OK for her for now. She put the timer on for fifteen minutes.
Berg looked cute with that bruise over his eye. He’d have other bruises too. He’d got in against the bar, and the men couldn’t find a lot of purchase, unable to get around behind him, but they must have landed a few clean blows. She imagined undressing him to check out his injuries. Might be fun.
Maybe his appeal was simply that he was so damned nice to look at. And so damned nice. And not that good at business. She didn’t think he should let people book without a deposit. And it was nice, the way he’d helped Miguel and not been embarrassed a
bout being bailed out by her. She quite liked macho pride sometimes, but in Berg’s case its absence seemed to work.
Carolina lay down on the bench, stretching out. She remembered being pitched up against that bar. She’d have bruises too. She felt them forming against the wood as she settled. She couldn’t be bothered checking it now. She slipped down into the place where you didn’t quite sleep as you cooked.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Carolina woke with a naked Berg adjusting the controls with his back to her and his towel held in front of him. She saw a scrape on his shoulder, a darker area on his ribs.
“Anders, that is very nice, but I think you might want to put your towel on.”
Berg whirled around, deploying the towel, his eyes on Carolina’s. Seeing her smile and that she knew it was an accident.
“I didn’t see you. You were in the dark,” he said.
“Not quite the dark. It’s calm.”
Berg looked at the bench next to her. “Are you working now?”
“Right up until bedtime.”
“It’s some pressure.”
She shrugged. Nodded at the bench alongside her. Berg sat down. He had nice manners. Moi, at the same stage of knowing each other, would have sat down without invitation in the same situation. Not that she was comparing.
“I like your place.”
Berg looked around at the walls of the narrow sauna. He gave a little smile, pregnant with resignation. She knew nothing of business and could not understand why his was not doing well. But she saw that Berg thought he might lose his place. That his future was uncertain. Such a nice guy, with this pain. It quickly became better to talk to Berg when they weren’t both sweating in dry heat and wearing towels.
“All yours.”
The house was warm, but the air outside the sauna was like a cool breeze for a minute. She showered, checked out her back in the mirror. The edge of the bar had given her three parallel, blueing lines across her lower back. She moved her hips side to side. It seemed OK.
She dressed, hiked her shorts up a little, then went through to the lounge and found an Avenida replay. She settled back, enjoying the glow from the wood stove.
She was tired. Not sleepy, just a little wrung out. Miguel had been thrilled by the fight, Berg a little juiced as well. For them, the thrill came from surviving the risk. Miguel especially. His first time in combat. Or something. For her, it was just a pain in the neck. An interrupted dinner, an attention-drawing event that terminated her surveillance of Michel Sylvestre, a man connected to the underworld armourer and criminal ghost named Rédoine Luce. All in the mix with Rafa Nieto.
Although she was no longer a cop, running into them like that felt like a rare piece of luck. But the French were having fun with it now. Not her. She wondered whether they could pick those guys up at the restaurant in the time they had, follow them efficiently in these weather conditions. It was a shame a person like her couldn’t help out.
She didn’t know who Pablo had handed this onto, and who was coming to take it on. Were they as good as her? Because she was good at her job. She’d never screwed up. Everyone felt pressure. But she could function when she felt it. Even in the worst situations, when she’d had to kill people intent on killing others. Maybe because of that experience, there were few Carolina would trust like she trusted herself. And that few did not encompass the national security resources of France. But it was all theoretical anyway. Her family needed her. And so, she reminded herself, did Miguel Pérez, thrower of T-bones.
Berg, in Bermuda shorts and a sweatshirt, emerged from the corridor, took his position on the sofa and rolled a joint. He blew smoke and pressed the heel of his palm to his eye.
“What’s this?”
“Avenida.”
“This was on yesterday.”
“I never miss a game, and when I am not watching a game, I am reviewing previous games. This is what happens if you lived in Salamanca.”
Berg smiled.
“Why do you like Frigg Oslo?”
“I told you. I like underdogs.” He grimaced and touched his brow again. “Another cancellation today.”
“I don’t get it. Morzine’s bursting.”
“But not AB Langrenn.”
“Maybe you should change the name. You don’t just do the cross-country stuff, do you? Berg Winter Sports. Or Berg Extreme.”
“Why would I do that?”
Carolina stifled a yawn. “Cross country skiing isn’t so, I don’t know…”
“Sexy?”
She could not confirm that. It was contrary to how she saw him.
“Maybe just not so dynamic.” She changed the subject. “Do you have any binoculars?”
He looked over. “Sure. For hunting.”
“Can I borrow them?”
He went and got them, sat next to her as he took them out of the case and looked at them. After a couple of minutes Carolina said, “What are you doing?”
“Checking them.”
“Checking?”
He passed them to her. “I think they’re OK.”
“Your eye is bloodshot.”
She stood up and pushed him back on the sofa, angling the reading lamp on the end so she could see. It was a blush coming out of the corner of his eye.
She pulled his eyelid down gently with her thumb, her fingers taking the strain outside of the bruise on his forehead. A scratch was coming up on the bruise. A close examination had not been possible in the presence of Miguel. The bruise reached down to his cheekbone now. She stroked it with her thumb. Just to test its sensitivity.
“What about you? He really shoved you into the bar.”
“I’ll live. So will you. I’m going to bed.”
In her room, she slipped her shorts and socks off and sat on the bed.
There was something in the air between them now. She doubted he was after much except a good time, under pressure in his business, wanting comfort after being kicked and punched. Meeting someone new without any crap between you. She felt much the same.
It was tempting. Why hadn’t she risked it just then?
She sat there, not assuming he’d respond if she went back to him. But imagining it. How it would go. After a while, she heard Berg walk slowly past her door on his way to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, around six, Max drove out to Avoriaz, a ski resort a few kilometres from Morzine. He had some of Rafa Nieto’s guys in front and some more behind, and the snowplows had been out already. They moved slowly, and he was confident that he had not been followed when he pulled in near a ski lift port in Avoriaz, a remote spot, chosen by his client, Rédoine.
The mountains were huge jags beyond the valley, just visible against the blue-black of the morning sky. That side was clear from a security point of view. The hillside he was on was covered in forest. Any problems would come from there.
His phone rang. The voice was under mild electronic distortion, like always.
“It’s Rédoine. All OK?”
“Sure.”
“Walk down to the ski lift station.”
Max got out of his car, his snow boots gripping alright as he walked. He was hyper-aware, hearing every tiny sound.
“There are some rocks,” Rédoine said, “immediately above the lift. There is no snow on them. You can walk down there. Then walk under the ski lift station.”
It was an open area. The road stopped where Max had parked. The snow hadn’t been cleared beyond that point, and you could see the ski trails sweeping around to the left from the track and across the open, flat areas between a ski gear store and a restaurant, down to the viewing point and the port where you took the ski lift. He fell twice going down the slope. The rocks had a thin sheen of ice you couldn’t see. It probably looked ridiculous, but his heavy muscles protected him, and he made it to the lift station. The air was like a knife.
“I’m there,” he said.
“I can see you. Would you mind waiting a minute?”
Rédoine laughed, softly, the distortion making it into a buzz. “I like those things, my friend. I can see everything, and it’s in both our interests that I do. So please wait.”
Max moved under the structure housing the ski lift motors and stood by one of the concrete pillars holding it up, away from the uplighter. A long way away you could see a snowplow going around the bends of the road up the hill.
“How many men have you got with you, Max?”
“Just one, in the car.”
Silence, again. Where the hell was he?
Max looked back up the side of the mountain. He could just make out the supports of the ski lift, the lines of the thick conifers clumped in patches going up.
“We have a small problem, Max. I don’t think we can meet just now.”
Max let out a lot of air. “Why not? There’s no one here.”
“You weren’t followed?”
“No. I had support, two tail cars with me until a few hundred metres from here.”
“That’s a problem,” said Rédoine, on the line. “This must mean I was followed. Or not me. Merde. I think it was my protection. He was followed.”
“Is he here now?” Max edged more behind the pillar, away from where the track swept down. He could make out the outline of the restaurant across the way, how the roof gave way to a flat veranda overlooking the valley.
Then Max heard snow bikes coming down the track. He turned. There were four of them. Police. They parked in front of the veranda. He heard them barking instructions at someone under there, flashlights catching the struts and a man crouching in the shadows.
Rédoine said, “Get away, Max. Go straight behind you. Work your way over that field and get to your cars.”
Rédoine’s voice sounded like he was focused on something else. Max looked at the restaurant.
The man they had found under the veranda had come out. He held his hands up. Rédoine’s man.
Rédoine, his voice tight, said “Désolé.”
The man’s head snapped back, and the rest of his body followed like a whip. There was a shot, a hard, flat sound from a rifle. A second shot pinged off one of the snowbikes, another kicked up a puff of snow. He was missing deliberately. The cops scrambled into cover under the veranda.