“It’s open?” I asked.
“It pays to think ahead,” said Roche as we emerged into the relative bright surroundings of what looked like another barn.
Roche pushed open the barn door and looked out. I followed. Between some trees and across a field I could see the building we’d come from and some wispy smoke which I assumed was the crashed helicopter beyond.
We walked around the barn and I saw a black motorcycle leaning on its stand next to the wall. On the saddle were two helmets. Roche handed me one, slipped one on himself and climbed aboard.
I know nothing about motorbikes but this one looked really cool. Laid low it reminded me of one that you usually saw heavily tattooed men riding with red bandanas on their heads and leather jackets with skulls and studs on. The rear seat had a short backrest.
“Get on,” he said.
I slipped my leg across the seat and slid behind him, trying to avoid the butt of the rifle digging in to me. He thumbed the starter and the bike coughed into life. I could feel the engine throbbing beneath me. The bike jerked slightly as he kicked it into gear and with a quick rev of the throttle we pulled away and started off down a dirt track and out onto a narrow road.
Once on the tarmac, Roche gunned the engine and we accelerated. I felt myself being pushed back in the seat as we quickly gained speed. Over his shoulder I could see the road ahead as we rocketed along. I liked it. I’d often wondered what it would be like to be on a bike and Roche seemed to handle it well. We weaved along the road, banking over into corners (which took some getting used to) and made good progress. When he pulled to the side of the road and stopped I recognised where we were as the start of the winding road leading up to the small village again.
“We need to get back to the car and we need information,” he said, “and I believe we can do both by heading back to Gourdon. Do exactly what I say and no more.”
Without waiting for a reply we took off again and weaved our way up the mountain.
About a quarter of a mile up he pulled the bike to the side of the road and switched it off. We got off and left the bike on its side stand as we walked up the road.
“Stay behind me and keep close to the left.”
I followed him, keeping myself to his left. This kept us out of sight to anyone further up. We walked for a short distance until we reached a small outcrop of rocks. About 200 metres further ahead I could see a four-wheel-drive car, the same one that we could see from the café. I looked to the side and could see, at the top of the cliff, the café we’d been in earlier. Looking over the edge I could see, far below, the smoking wreck of the helicopter and the barn we’d come from.
“No police,” I said, more as a statement than a question.
“We’re dealing with powerful men,” replied Roche. “Stay down.”
Up ahead we saw movement. A solitary man was kneeling by some rocks; a rifle similar to the one Roche had was resting on the rock in front of him as he was using binoculars to scan below, searching for us, I guessed.
Roche, on one knee, was aiming the rifle at him. We waited. Minutes went by. We waited.
I watched the man by the rock. He checked his watch and scanned the area below. We waited.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked.
“Quiet,” Roche snapped.
I went quiet and watched. More minutes went by and the man clearly began to get uncomfortable, sitting back and rubbing his neck.
He was scanning again but stood up now. We waited. Roche was completely still, watching the man through the sight of the rifle.
The man lowered the binoculars and slipped his hand into his pocket to retrieve his phone.
He tapped the screen of his phone a few times and raised it to his ear. Halfway up to his head I heard a crack as Roche fired.
The side of the guy’s head exploded as the rifle shot went straight through his brain. He crumpled to his knees and fell sideways onto the ground.
“Come on,” shouted Roche and started running up the road to the dead man.
I ran after him. When I got there, Roche immediately picked up the phone.
I looked down. The man lay still, eyes staring at a rock in front of him. No expression on his face but he looked like he’d had a stroke as the left side of his face was distorted and twisted. More death.
“I needed his phone unlocked,” said Roche.
Dragging me back out of my own head, I looked at him. “What?”
“His phone. It would have been locked and I don’t have time to crack it. I had to wait until he unlocked it for me before I shot.”
I stared at Roche. I wondered what it took for a person to be so cold that you could use death in such a way, granting a man a few more minutes of life to get to his phone.
I sat down, my legs no longer able to support my weight.
As Roche thumbed his way through the guy’s phone he said, “Try to relax and breathe normally. I need you to function.”
My legs were weak and I was shaking. Roche looked around and saw a bottle of water on the ground near the guy’s rifle. He handed it to me and said, “Drink this, it will help.”
It didn’t help. Handing me a bottle of water that had, minutes before, been used by the dead man next to me to quench his thirst definitely didn’t help. It made things worse, much worse.
Roche had plugged something into the bottom of the guy’s phone and was looking at me as it did its thing. He sighed. I was clearly struggling with what had happened.
Placing the phone onto a rock he came over and grabbed the guy’s feet, dragging him over to a small ledge, and rolled him over it. It wasn’t a high ledge but it was high enough to conceal the body from my view. Next he kicked some dirt over the area that was covered in blood and some other stuff that I didn’t want to think about. It was enough to break up the spatter pattern.
He came over and sat by me. Extracting a packet of cigarettes from his jacket, he knocked one out of the packet and put it into his mouth. He offered one to me but I shook my head.
Taking a petrol lighter from his pocket he thumbed the wheel and lit the cigarette. He took a draw on the cigarette and blew out a plume of grey smoke.
“That guy was waiting to kill you. He’s killed many people before and would kill many more in the future,” he said.
“So?” I replied.
“So? So he died instead of you and me.”
“It’s wrong to kill people! No one has the right to do that!”
Suddenly Roche got up and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. He dragged me up and over to the ledge. “Look at that. Look!”
I looked down. The man was now lying face down with his legs and one arm bent up behind him. I tried to turn away but Roche grabbed the back of my neck and forced me to look.
“That is you, but for the shot that killed him,” he said. “You would like to swap places?”
“That’s not the point!” I shouted. “Don’t you get it? That’s all I’ve seen! People dying and other people not caring. Life worth nothing. Life isn’t worth nothing. Life is all there is. If we don’t care about one man dying, no matter what the circumstances, then what’s the point in being alive? It’s pointless!”
“Yes,” he replied. I pushed away from him and staggered back a few feet, away from the ledge.
“Yes? That’s it? You agree and yet you don’t care?” I was trembling with rage. Tears were running down my face but they were tears of rage.
Roche just stared at me impassively and then walked over and checked the progress of the device plugged into the phone. That was the last straw.
I threw myself at Roche, screaming at him. It was clearly a mistake but I didn’t care. As I was nearly on him he stepped to the side and lifted his arm, spinning me around and kicking me to the floor. I fell onto the dust but w
as still mad with rage. I jumped up and ran at him again. This time he placed a foot into my stomach and I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath.
Roche sat on a rock and finished his cigarette, staring out at the view while I hacked and wheezed to try to breathe properly and hold in the rising vomit.
After a few minutes my breathing started returning to normal and I sat back against a rock.
“It’s not right,” I said, but the rage was leaving me now. I just felt numb.
“You see that bird there?”
“What?”
“That bird.” He pointed across at a buzzard, circling.
“What about it?”
“Do you like buzzards, Matthew?”
“Do I like them? I don’t know. Yes. I suppose. I don’t know.”
“Surely you like them. Majestic birds, wheeling above you, flying lazy circles as they spiral up on the warm thermals rising up from the hills.”
“So what?”
“So what? That’s what life is all about, Matthew. The reality of life is horrific. That buzzard is looking down at the corpses of the dead men by the helicopter as they’re warming in the sun. Every creature alive is programmed to survive by any means possible. To kill and to finally be killed. Nature is a hostile environment where every day is a fight to survive at the cost of another.”
“Do you do children’s parties?” I replied, sarcastically.
“You’re missing the point. Life is hostile, we will all die and a hundred years from now no one will even remember that you were ever here. But what that gives us is freedom. If nothing matters then you can watch the circling bird and marvel at its elegance. You can accept that the reality is macabre and violent but you can enjoy the serenity of its flight. You can enjoy the feel of mountain stream water running over your skin, biting into a fresh apple plucked from a tree, the caress of a woman’s hand on your neck, the smell of a cold January morning.”
He flicked the cigarette butt over the ledge and continued, “Everything you have you have already lost; it’s just a matter of time. But that time makes the difference. Enjoy what you have, when you have it. Don’t think about the loss but think about the gain and realise that nothing really matters at all.”
He got up and retrieved the phone. He removed the device and put the phone on the floor and stamped on it. “Wait here while I get the bike.”
He walked off down the road and I waited, watching the circling buzzard.
16
When we reached Gourdon again on the bike the atmosphere was completely different. The quiet, relaxed feel to this antique village had been replaced by panic and confusion.
Finally, ambulances and police had started to arrive and blue lights strobed in the car park as the occupants were clearly in the village dealing with the casualties from earlier.
Roche opened the boot of the car and rearranged some of the gear. He shoved it all back into the boot but took a laptop bag and my duffle and slammed the boot shut.
Climbing onto the bike, bags slung on my shoulder, we headed off, leaving the car behind.
“Where are we going?” I yelled.
“I need somewhere to go through this data,” he replied over his shoulder, referring to the phone data he’d managed to retrieve. “I’m not sure how they found us so quickly so we need to get away from this area and find somewhere to think and plan.”
Realising that he hadn’t answered my question, I nevertheless clung on and watched the landscape drift by. We rode for over an hour until I saw a sign that sparked a memory. Monte Carlo; a place I associated with James Bond and Formula One motor sport.
Roche made a hands-free call from his phone. He spoke for some time in French and then hung up. To me he then said, “I have some friends here and they’ve given me an address. I suspect we should be safe for a day or two at most.”
Before we got into the main town, Roche pulled up at a car park near an old building and we got off the bike. A few minutes later and a black van pulled into the car park and we walked over to it. Without seeing or speaking to the driver, Roche encouraged me into the back and followed me. Inside there was a row of seats and, behind them, a metal cage. I had no idea what went into the cage but I decided not to ask.
With no windows I had no idea where we were going but after about twenty minutes the van stopped and Roche slid open the side door. We stepped out and I saw that we were outside a tall apartment building.
Carrying the bags, we walked into the reception area, which had plush beige carpet, mahogany tables and leather easy-chairs.
Behind a desk, a well-dressed security guard smiled at us. Roche spoke to him and showed a plastic card. He nodded and waved us down a corridor and to a set of lifts.
Roche called the lift and when it arrived we stepped inside and Roche swiped the card through a slot. The lift doors closed and we went up.
We got out at the seventh floor and exited into a corridor. The same plush carpet and décor greeted us and I followed Roche down the hall.
At a door marked 721, Roche swiped the card again and the door clicked open.
It was an apartment; a very well-appointed apartment.
A large, open-plan space with expensive-looking chairs opened out into a kitchenette. A bowl of fruit sat on the kitchen bench along with a bottle of chilled wine in a bucket.
On the other side of the room, two French doors opened out onto a balcony facing the sea.
Against the remaining wall there were three doors which I suspected were bedrooms and a bathroom.
“We should be safe here for a while. You can get some rest and shower while I see what I can get from the data on that phone,” said Roche.
“It’s a nice place,” I said.
“These places sell for millions. This building has apartments owned by some of the Formula One drivers. They overlook the racetrack.”
I walked over to the French doors and looked out. Anticipating my interest, Roche said, “You can open them and go out if you wish. We’re well concealed up here.”
I pushed the doors open and stepped out onto the balcony.
Ahead of me I could see the sea. Expensive boats drifted by on the crystal clear blue water, the late afternoon sun warming up the stark white of their hulls.
Below me, people were milling around through the shops and cafés as their long shadows spread across the pavements, the corners of the wide streets coloured by the red and white stripes of the race chicanes, and the wide, black rubber marks on the roads promising excitement for those lucky enough to be here for the next race.
Roche joined me holding two glasses. He handed one to me. “Try this.”
The short, round-bottomed glasses held an inch of brown liquid in ice. I sniffed it and curled up my nose at the potent smell.
“Curl your nose up at twenty-five-year-old single malt whisky again and I might just throw you over the edge after all,” said Roche.
He held up his glass and said, “To single moments of bliss in a dark world,” and drained his glass.
I lifted the glass and drained the liquid in one go. It hit the back of my throat like liquid lead. I don’t often drink whisky and it immediately made me cough. I felt it run down my throat, hot despite the ice.
Roche raised an eyebrow and took my glass. “I’ll refill these while you recover.”
He returned a couple of minutes later with the glasses refilled and suggested that I sit down and drink this one more slowly.
A short while later, someone, who I guessed was room service, delivered some food and we both sat on the balcony eating some cold meat, cheese and bread with our whisky.
As the sun began to set, a warm breeze drifted in from the sea. It was probably the whisky but I was starting to feel better. I was finally able to relax and the feeling of the warm bree
ze and the sight of the deep blue sea was nice.
The noises from the street were changing. The cars were thinning out and music was drifting up from one of the many bars and clubs along the sea front.
From time to time I checked on Roche. At times he was hunched over a laptop connected to the phone device and at other times he was talking on his phone. He seemed blind to everything else and so I left him alone, choosing to enjoy sitting on the balcony. I didn’t know what was going to happen next and I had no idea how long this time of peace and quiet would last. I guessed not long but I was beginning to realise what Roche had meant earlier. Everything ended; what mattered was what you did before. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, feeling my body relax. A moment of bliss in a dark world.
Leaning back in the well-cushioned chair I fell asleep.
I’m not sure what woke me up but when I did it was dark. A sour taste of old whisky coated my mouth and I was feeling chilly. The streets were almost deserted now; the boats on the water still and dark, their occupants asleep for the night.
I looked in through the door and saw Roche asleep on the sofa, the laptop folded shut on the table. The clock on the wall next to the cooker was saying 3:34 in green LED. I decided that I’d better go inside to get some more sleep in comfort but as I got up to go inside I stopped.
In the distance, heading along the street, I saw three sets of headlights: three cars, one behind the other, slowly coming down the street.
I’m not sure what made me feel uneasy, whether it was the fact that there were three of them with nothing else on the road or whether it was the fact they were creeping so slowly.
What finally triggered a panic response was that they all killed their lights at the same time as they got halfway down the road before pulling into the side, about 200 metres away.
Staying low, I crept into the room and went over to Roche. I grabbed his shoulder and said, “Roche, wake up.”
Instantly awake, Roche turned over and said, “What is it?”
“Three cars across the street with their lights off. They just arrived.”
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