A Treachery of Spies

by Manda Scott

  At length, Marianne says, ‘Sophie’s child will need a father.’

  ‘Yes.’ He reaches forward, lays another log on the fire. It is apple wood, aged and dry. It burns with a clear, yellow flame, and sweet smoke.

  There is a thought, not yet fully chased down; a wisp of an idea, fragile, alert, wary. It might take flight at any moment and be lost to the world. They chase it: two children with a net, slow steps and quiet; slowly, slowly, not a word out of place.

  He takes time to think about that, drinks a glass and half of another. ‘She will have to choose whomever she thinks is best.’

  ‘If she comes back.’

  Paul Rey may be the father. She may choose to stay with him. Another glass later, Laurence says, ‘Yes. If.’

  They are there, sitting silent with the fire, when a car draws into the yard. Laurence lifts his Colt, slides the safety catch off, walks to the window. He can still walk straight, more or less, which, given the volume of Calvados he has drunk, and its strength, is a source of some surprise. It may be that if he needs to, he can shoot straight.

  He doesn’t need to.

  Sophie is sober, thin, sad. She is enchanting, the wildness of her, the depth of her sorrow and what she does with it.

  He says, ‘Gone?’

  ‘Gone. I didn’t kill him.’

  She drops into the chair he has just vacated. She has the feel of a fire in the last blaze before the cold. The skin beneath her eyes is too-tired translucent. He nods to the bottle. ‘Want some?’

  ‘I shouldn’t.’ She says it before Marianne can. There are no other armchairs. He finds a hard chair at the kitchen table and carries it through. Marianne catches his eye.

  ‘I will make coffee.’ She abandons him, his co-hunter. She is so wise.

  ‘Sophie …’ He leans forward, elbows on knees, knows he is too tall for this, gangly, unused and uncertain. ‘I know about the child you carry. I think … I am sure, he – or she – will need a father.’

  She stares at him. Her gaze flicks to the bottle, to the fire and back.

  In the silence, the idea so carefully stalked settles. It strikes him that he should be on one knee, and he can do this, ridiculous as it might seem. He kneels before her, picks up her hand. She smells of gun oil and cinder, and blood. ‘Amélie Fabron, Sophie Destivelle, Amélie Duval, hunter in the woods and on the mountains. You lost a husband. You lost a man you loved. I know I can never fully be either of these things and I will never stand in your way, whatever you want to do with your life. But I promised a man we both loved that I would care for you and now I understand why. I cared about him. I care about you. I care about the life that is growing. Will you accept me in his place, to help you raise this child in safety and love and care, that there might be a good future out of our rotten past?’

  She has been so strong, and he has unmanned her. Her eyes are bright; her lips, so often strong, are weak now at the edges. She takes his hands in both of her own. ‘Laurence, I can’t. I can’t be a mother. It’s not in my nature. Surely you know that.’

  ‘But—’ Hunter in the woods and on the mountains. She is vengeance made manifest. Still …

  ‘He could have been a father. A good one. I would have given him that. I would have played a role for him because … because of everything. But you – did you ever want children? Did the need burn in you the way it did in him?’

  It has never crossed his mind. In truth, he cannot imagine it. He says, ‘But what will you do? Surely you can’t—’

  ‘Daniel’s Lisette had twins before, when she was married to the Milice. I delivered them: a boy and a girl. She is carrying a single child now but hers and mine will be born close together and the world will believe she had twins again. Already, I have spoken to her of this. She will do it – for him, for me, for herself, for the pain of what has happened and that she will never forget. She wants motherhood more than anything. She will have great joy in raising two children. I cannot imagine anything I want less.’

  ‘What, then, do you want? To hunt Kramme?’

  ‘To the ends of the earth.’ She presses a kiss to his cheek. Her voice is small and tight and tired. She lifts her head and strives to smile. ‘But not just him. Diem is our enemy, too. We have to find him, you and I, and kill him, however long it takes, whatever the cost. Far more than raising a child, this is our duty: to destroy them, whatever it takes. Will you help me with that?’

  They are standing now, her chest to his, palms to palms, her face not far below his. If he was close to Céline – and he was – he is closer now to Sophie. He cannot imagine loving any woman more. With all his heart, he says, ‘Whatever it takes.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE JURA MOUNTAINS

  Sunday, 18 March 2018

  22.52

  THIS PLACE HASN’T changed significantly since Laurence first saw it. An indoor toilet – two, in fact – replaces the earth closet; a television sits in the corner of the main room, and a high-speed modem; there’s a refrigerator in the kitchen as tall as he is, but otherwise, the sense of home wraps around him with the woodsmoke. Still, in the furling shadows of the fire is Patrick’s cigar smoke; in the sough of the wind across the chimney stack is Patrick’s quiet laughter, his voice, singing Highland boat songs.

  This is not new: Patrick has filled his shadows for years. What is new is that Sophie is part of the shadows, too. He is still trying to come to terms with this. The lamb staked out for the tiger. She did know exactly what she was doing, but even so … It may be that he never gets used to it.

  He is being watched, and does not want to seem maudlin. Laying his pipe by the hearth, he says, ‘You are very like your mother.’

  ‘René said that. And Paul.’ Elodie Duval is sitting on the floor to the right of the fireplace, with her back to an armchair, one knee pulled up to her chin, her elbow resting on it. She has Paul’s eyes and hair: everything else is of her mother. Almost everything.

  Laurence says, ‘You have his integrity.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘You could still leave. Nobody knows you’re here.’

  ‘Please let’s not have this conversation again. Sophie gave her life for this, and then my brother. I can do what’s needed.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’ Family is not only about blood. If Laurence Vaughan-Thomas has learned anything in a life of subterfuge it is this: Pierre will always be her brother. Sophie will always simply be Sophie; Paul will be Paul. Mother and Father are Lisette and Daniel, however much that may not be the absolute truth. But still, she is here.

  They fall back into an easy silence. From her earliest years, Elodie was a self-contained child. She has never needed to talk to fill the gaps. They watch the clock. They watch the fire. Laurence watches the shadows in the smoke and does not know if Elodie sees her mother in any of them.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock an owl calls outside. Laurence levers himself upright. ‘That’s René.’

  ‘Unless it isn’t.’

  ‘Stay back.’

  René taps Morse on the door: M. D. M. Laurence opens it, pokes his Colt to the crack. René’s face looms over it. He grins. ‘Martha’s here.’

  ‘Martha! Welcome, child. Welcome! Welcome! Let me get you a coffee …’ Laurence holsters his weapon, throws open the door, draws her in. She accepts his embrace, and—

  ‘Elodie! Oh my God! Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m good.’ They embrace with enthusiasm. Elodie says, ‘I’m sorry if we gave you a shock – it seemed safer to hole up out here after what happened to Sophie and then Pierre.’

  ‘Of course! Good idea!’ Martha is dressed down in black leggings and a navy-blue sweat top, with a loose bag over her shoulder. She holds Elodie at arm’s length, drinking her in. ‘Does the studio know you’re OK?’

  ‘Not yet. We’ll tell everyone tomorrow, if it’s safe. Can you hold off until then?’

  ‘Sure. Whatever.’ Spinning on her heel, taking in the unstraight walls, the hand-carved
clock on the wall, the clutter of equipment in one corner, Martha stares at that. ‘Why is the camera here?’

  ‘I had everything in the flat. I didn’t want anyone to steal any of it.’

  ‘But you’ve set everything up for a take?’

  ‘Laurence and I were recording our memories of Sophie while they were fresh. You could do the same for JJ sometime if you’d like?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I’d like that.’

  A coffee pot sits on the hearth. Laurence pours fresh for them all, into thick, rustic mugs with rounded lips and fat handles. ‘We ate dinner long ago. I could get you cheese, though? And maybe some ham?’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  He switches the lights on in the kitchen; they are beyond hiding now. Returning with cheese, ham, thick bread and butter, he finds that Elodie has set up the lights and Martha is sitting on a chair in the furthest corner from the door, with a drape behind her to give a consistent background.

  JJ’s great-granddaughter is exceptionally photogenic. Her hair is a blonde penumbra, reflecting light into the soft fabric behind, framing her face in gold. She has the perfect facial symmetry of a model, without the oversized lips and Botox-paralysis that afflicts so many of her generation.

  She is animated, talking to camera about her great-grandfather. His size. His habit of throwing her high in the air when she was a child. His deep, bass laugh. His size, did she mention? He was like a great, soft grizzly bear. As she grew older, the awe in which he was held by others, while she couldn’t drop the idea of his being a giant teddy bear, made just for her.

  ‘Is the whole family so long-lived?’ Laurence asks, leaning on the door frame.

  ‘Seems that way. Grandpa Lakoff was well into his nineties when he finally left us.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Grandpa Lakoff?’ Her eyes flick up and left, to the place where memories are held. ‘Charming, very dapper. He smoked a lot; thick, black cigars that smelled like burning silage. I didn’t meet him often. He was small, neat, careful, where Grandpa JJ is always … I’m sorry, was …’

  ‘Martha, it’s good to cry. If we don’t grieve for those we care about, we don’t honour the memory of all that they were.’ Elodie, who has not yet wept – for her mother, her father, her almost-brother – is ready with a box of tissues. ‘Take your time. I’m sorry. We had not planned to do this yet, but things are moving so fast. If we leave it, we might not be here tomorrow, any of us.’ She is good at this, the bending of truth to suit the exigencies of the moment.

  She hugs Martha, and so is close, holding her, when the car pulls up outside.

  23.00

  Lise Bressard, Mayor of Orléans, came through the fire with less outward damage than Picaut. Still, they spent two weeks in adjacent beds in a burns unit at a private hospital funded by Bressard family money. That kind of closeness is worth a lot, and nothing that has happened since has diminished it.

  So when Picaut asks for a plane, Lise lends her one: and a pilot, Declan, who speaks French with a West Cork accent. She offers security guards to go with them.

  ‘No, thank you. I have Rollo.’ And she has her own gun. It feels good, a solid weight in the straps across her chest. Lise says, ‘Please don’t do anything dangerous.’

  ‘I never do anything dangerous.’ Picaut clambers up into the plane and sits between Rollo and Patrice. She feels brightly, savagely alive.

  Monday, 19 March 2018

  00.17

  The wind is with them and the flight time is just under eighty minutes. The landing is enlivening, but not emetic. There are no unexpected boulders or cows. She had to switch her phone off during the flight, but when she turns it on again, there’s a message from Kathryn Kochanek.

  – Located new file on our original victim. Not sure useful, but thought you should see.

  Four images of John Lakoff’s body follow. Picaut sweeps across them, fast. These were taken in the pathology lab after someone has stitched shut the wound at his neck.

  He looks like an old man, sleeping; nothing seems new until she comes to a close-up of his neck, taken from the left side, which shows some faint smudged marks that might be fingerprints, as if someone held his head still while the cut was made. If they are, then the killer was right-handed, but …

  She thumbs a number on her phone.

  Eric answers on the fourth ring, sleepily. She says, ‘Eric, sorry to wake you. Can I send a couple of images through for Ingrid to look at?’

  Tetchily: ‘Inès, I’m not her PA. You can’t—’ In the background, Ingrid speaks. Eric, sighing, says, ‘OK. Send them now.’

  ‘On their way. Ask her to look at the second one, below the angle of the jaw.’

  The phone is passed from one hand to another. ‘Inès? It’s Ingrid. What am I looking for?’

  ‘There’s a ridge, a scar at the angle of his jaw. Has he had plastic surgery? A long time ago, when they weren’t as good as you are now?’

  A pause, and then: ‘Could be.’

  ‘Could it have been done to change his appearance? Enough to make him unrecognizable?’

  ‘In the right hands, yes.’

  ‘I’m sending you another picture. Can you tell me if you think it’s the same man before the surgery?’

  In the pause between sending and receiving an answer, she texts Kathryn Kochanek.

  – Did you find John Lakoff’s scarf?

  – No.

  – Then I know where it is.

  – Then you know the killer?

  – I will do soon.

  – Good luck!

  And then Ingrid is back on the line. ‘We’d need longer with the software to analyse the underlying bone structure, but it looks like the same person to me.’

  ‘Thank you. I owe you both.’ She hangs up. In the dark, all eyes are on her. With the sense of one revealing the secrets of the universe, she says, ‘John Lakoff is Max Kramme. He had plastic surgery in the US or maybe before then. At any rate, I think Sophie Destivelle recognized him and killed him.’

  ‘So Conrad and Edward Lakoff killed her in revenge?’ Rollo asks. ‘Or paid Martin Gillard to do it?’

  ‘Maybe. Or JJ, whose daughter married Edward Lakoff – Kramme’s son.’

  ‘Do you think he knew?’ Rollo asks.

  ‘That’s the real question, isn’t it? Did Jean-Jacques Crotteau, demon of the DGSE, know that his only daughter had married the son of a former Gestapo officer? If he didn’t, he’s been made a fool of and his death earlier this evening was murder. If he did, then he’s Diem and his death was suicide.’

  ‘JJ was never a fool.’

  ‘No, that’s what I thought. Shall we prove it?’

  According to Patrice’s maps, the walk to the cabin should take a little under twelve minutes. They do it in ten.

  Picaut’s team stands in darkness at the end of a paved pathway that leads between grandfather pines. She says, ‘Everyone in there is potentially dangerous. We don’t know who are the good guys and who are the bad, so we go in hard, and we ask questions when we’ve disarmed them. Are we clear?’ Picaut’s gun is in her right hand and her torch in her left. The two brace against each other in a way that feels solid and safe. ‘Patrice, you’re not armed. Just at the moment, you’re not even police. You have to stay out of the way. Promise me you will. The rest of you, come with me.’

  ‘Wait!’ Patrice holds up his phone to take a picture. She frowns. He says, ‘No, be like you were. If you’re going to throw yourself into the line of fire, I want to catch you like this, happy.’

  She is not used to him looking so serious. She laughs, and he takes her picture, the first one since the fire, and she doesn’t mind.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her face does not itch. She is alive. It was for this that she came back. Again she says, ‘Let’s go.’

  Picaut takes the side of the door opposite the hinge. Rollo kicks it open. She rolls in. God, it’s good to feel this alive.

  ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon
s!’

  Nobody shoots at her, which is, frankly, surprising.

  And then not.

  00.33

  THEY MUSCLE IN through the front door, loudly. For seventy years, Laurence’s nightmares have been regular, and they have been of this: of armed men, disturbing a sanctuary; of himself caught in a small, dark room with no avenues of escape; of the living hell that comes after. It was never truly his risk, but the fear of it leached from the men and women standing at an airfield with their parachutes strapped to their backs, and it clung to him through everything that came after. He lifts his gun.

  To his right, Elodie Duval, who has her mother’s wild streak and her father’s integrity, who shares the courage of both, who has been trained for this moment by two generations of agents, hugs Martha Lakoff in a protective embrace.

  ‘It’s empty. There’s nobody here.’

  Thank you, Petit-Evard, for stating the obvious. ‘Search the rooms.’ Already Picaut’s torch is stabbing at the separate components of the cabin: log fire – cold; ashtray – empty; light switch … She flicks it on. The cabin is small and tidy and homely. It has been occupied recently, say in the past month. A line of portrait photographs stretches across the walls. Here are Elodie, Pierre, Daniel and Lisette; Laurence Vaughan-Thomas and Paul Rey. To the left, above the fire, is Martin Gillard.

  Martin Gillard, whose mother, Martine Gillard, was Paul Rey’s final mistress.

  Set opposite him is Conrad Lakoff, whose father’s father was Sturmbannführer Maximilian Kramme.

  If she had seen this twelve hours ago, it would not have made sense. But here, now: it is the web, laid clear.

  The final pieces fall into place.

  PAUL REY’S SON STOP DIEM’S LEGACY QUERY.

  Fuck.

  Aloud, she says, ‘It’s a verb, not a punctuation mark,’ but nobody is listening. Rollo, Sylvie, Petit-Evard … they are all searching the cabin with brisk efficiency, inside and out.

  ‘Nobody here.’ Rollo comes back from checking the outhouse. ‘We got the wrong place.’

  ‘We’re screwed.’

  A knock at the door. They spin, weapons out. Rollo kicks back the door, gun in both hands. Nobody is there.