by John Gubert
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had no compunction about the sedan and its occupants. At least there were no innocents hurt. I asked Jacqui how she was getting on. The tape was only 20 minutes long. She had recorded it twice and was just running through the copies. She would be finished in half an hour.
I said, “I will be too and then we need to get the car. There’s too much about it on the news to leave it up by the houses.”
“Charles, why do we need two copies? You never explained. I didn’t think of asking earlier.”
“I want to put one in the bank in Monte Carlo and one in Fucquet in Geneva. We will then call your father and arrange to hand over the original. But, I will make arrangements that, if anything happens to me, the tapes will be discovered and handed to the police and the television channels. CBS would love them. In addition, if anything happens to you or any of my family, I will do the same. I can make those arrangements on the phone. But we need a new car and we must drive to Monte Carlo. We can deposit the first tape first thing in the morning and the second before the banks close in Geneva.”
She nodded her agreement. “Are we going to stay together?”
“I want to,” I said, “but you are free to choose. That does not change the arrangement I need to make with your father. If ever you want to leave, I will see that you do not go empty handed. You are going to help us. You will be free. You won’t have to blackmail your father again.”
I took her in my arms and kissed her gently, “I love you though. Don’t leave me.”
She laid her head on my shoulder and clung to me, just for a minute. Then she started. “Come on let’s get moving. We need to be careful ‘till we’ve sorted this out.”
We did our best to cover our tracks. I suspect forensics would have been able to find traces of blood and bullets. But there was no reason why they should look at the house, at least as long as we were not caught.
I handed Jacqui the small gun. I also passed her a couple of rounds of extra ammunition that I had found on the girl. “Keep that in your bag. But only use it if you are desperate. I doubt it would be very accurate at any distance. Shoot low as the gun jerks up when fired.”
I put my father’s gun in my waistband and the gangster’s in my jacket pocket. I picked up the ammunition – both guns took the same – and returned it to its hiding places behind the grill. I removed the tapes and placed the copies in the same place. The original I put in my other pocket.
We walked out carefully. I said, “We’ll have to scout around the car in case it has been identified. I doubt it, though, as the news is only 40 minutes old. But we need to be careful. When we come back, is it possible that your father would have ordered more people here? After all, he should already know about the sedan.”
“He’ll know about the car but not the killings. We would avoid radio contact at times like this. There would be a rendezvous planned for later today or tomorrow with the killers. The meet would take place whatever happened. That’s the process. The instructions are always the same. They are simple. Do the job and then get out and away. If the targets have not turned up, stay put only for as long as you have been told. If they don’t turn up, get further orders at the meet. In extreme cases call, but only in extreme cases. Use a public phone. Never pick up the house phone, as you don’t know who is calling or whether calls can be traced. And avoid mobiles, as they are not secure. That’s the way it goes. I think we can stay in the house tonight.”
“Let me explain later but I plan to be out in an hour or so. But first of all, how would they have got to the house?”
“You would never use a car on a job like that. They would either have instructions to take you or kill you. They would use your car to get away. They would be left at the house and the delivery car would leave. A parked car causes suspicion. It is of no benefit.”
We came to the parking space the same way as we had left it. Nobody was there. The car was parked next to the Twingo. A couple of others had left, but it was as we left it. I could see nobody around.
I turned to Jacqui. “Head down to the main entrance. Here is the tape. Same routine as before if I am caught. Although this time it is more likely to be the police than your father.”
She quickly headed off and I strolled over to the car. I got in and quickly immobilised the alarm. I held my breath. I had known it to be temperamental and go off for no apparent reason. But it didn’t. I drove down the deserted street and stopped at the junction with the main road. Jacqui came out of the bushes and jumped in beside me. We drove off to the house.
“I am still a bit edgy when I am without you,” she said. “Together and I feel safe.”
“I’ll be with you all the time,” I said. “Let’s get this car in the garage and then we have a couple of urgent phone calls to make.”
Once at the house, we quickly checked it out for visitors and found none. We did it together this time. It was getting dark as night drew in.
“Jacqui, call and hire a car. We need a good four door, and we need to pick it up this evening.” She did as asked and was soon giving her credit card details. They offered to deliver it. “Hold on a minute,” she said, and covering the mouthpiece asked me what she should do.
“Can we pick it up in an hour? Can they wait?”
After a minute on the phone, she said, “They shut in half an hour and they say they have nobody available.”
“OK we will be there. Am I right that they are just off the road to St Tropez. Just after the big bend as we leave Croix Valmer?”
She confirmed the details with them and said goodbye. “Let’s move,” I said. We went to the kitchen for the bullets and the tapes. I put them in a holdall, picked up my case and we headed out. I locked the house and opened the garage. “Open the boot,” I said, and then put the case and the holdall on the back seat of the Mercedes.
She then came to help me place the two sheets with their gory contents into the boot of the car. They actually fitted neatly in together.
With that we drove off to the car hire place. Up the side road with the car blending well into the night. We agreed Jacqui should go alone and, as she drew out, I would follow her back to Croix Valmer. We would take the back road to Gassin and on to Remantuelle. I knew those roads well and they would be quite deserted at this time of the year. My plan was quite simple. We would get to the top of the cliffs, wipe my car down and send it into the sea with our two dead friends in the front. Once found, they would be linked to the sedan. The police would assume that they had been the targets and, given that they could not establish the exact time of the murder, they would have assumed that friends of the occupants of the sedan had been the perpetrators of the crime. A case well closed in their mind.
The only other thing we needed to do was to get my parents to dump their car. They would have it in Madrid tomorrow and I knew where to contact them from tonight. That would be easy for we needed to avoid any connection with the mysterious Ferauds. After all, the police would assume that they were the people in the car.
The road to the car hire firm was dark and deserted. I dropped Jacqui off outside, and, as agreed, moved up to the junction and pulled into a side road. From there I could watch the entrance to the car hire firm and the main road.
Everything appeared very quiet. By now Jacqui should be inspecting one of the cars in the parking area in front of the hire firm. Yet there was no movement. I felt nervous and glanced at my watch. Then in the half dark I saw Jacqui emerging from the offices. There were two men with her. They were dressed in suits. They were definitely not in the car hire business.
I quickly moved from the car. I locked the doors and, my heart thumping, moved down to the car hire area. They must be expecting me, I thought. Yet I could see no lookout. I was sure nobody had been watching me. If they were going to take me out or capture me, they had ample opportunity earlier. They would not have waited till I was suspicious.
I got closer to the gate and crouched by the fence. I held my gun ready.
I then heard Jacqui. She was sobbing. “Let go of my arm. You’re hurting me. I don’t want to go back to my father. I want to get away. That’s why I wanted a car. I want to be on my own. Let me go, please let me go.”
A rough voice replied, “Get in the car and shut up bitch. You’re more trouble than you are worth. If I were your pa, I’d beat the fucking daylights out of you.”
“You’re not my father,” she said. “ You’re my cousin and he’s my uncle. If you touch me, my father will kill you. Whether you are family or not. Let go of my arm.”
Somehow I knew she thought I would be close. The message was clear. They did not think I was there. Perhaps the fact that I drove away had led them to believe that my car was a taxi. In the half dark it would have been difficult to identify from a distance. Also I knew that uncle and cousin were not going to harm Jacqui. They would be wary of a shootout. I also suspected that they did not know that she was armed.
I decided to use surprise tactics. I stood up and called out, “Police. Let the girl go or I shoot.”
They swirled round to me, pushing Jacqui away behind a van for cover. They hesitated as they looked to see if I was really the police. I was half hidden from their view by a large dark blue estate car. They lost precious moments as they searched for others. I was surprised they did not attempt to make it a fight. I supposed that they saw that I had them covered and so made no attempt to draw guns. Then I saw why. Jacqui had used the diversion to take her gun from her bag, and they had seen it before me. Two guns against two in their holsters are no match for two drawn ones.
“Back off to the wall,” I said. “Now.”
They complied uneasily.
“Now get into the office.” They complied. “Lie on the floor and spread your arms out. One bad move and I shoot.”
I turned to Jacqui, “What happened to the car hire?”
“Let me look if anything was done,” she said. “Yes, all the paperwork is here. There is the Peugeot. All they needed to do was to swipe my credit card, confirm my licence and get my signature. I can do the paperwork myself. That makes the hire legal, including insurance and things. I don’t want to get stopped by the police, although I resent paying after what they did.”
“What did you tell the car hire people? How did you know Jacqui was going to be here?” I asked the uncle.
“We know the firm,” he said. “We put them on notice. We were in St Tropez co-ordinating operations.”
“What operations?” I snapped.
He mentioned the sedan and the accident. He knew we had been involved. He said nothing about the house and the killers. They saw no need to tell me. I felt there was no need for him to know.
“OK Jacqui wants to get away from this all and I agreed to drive her here. I am now going to drive along with her. If you follow her, there will be trouble. I know what her father really wants and if I do not call a friend by tomorrow night, then the goods are handed to the police. And the hand over will be at senior level and a copy will be passed to the US embassy in Paris. We know their organised crime people there. Tell her father that we will call him on Wednesday morning; that’s the day after tomorrow. He will be safe as long as nothing happens to either of us, or any of our friends. Have you understood?”
The uncle looked worried. “OK,” he said, “but don’t go back to your house. There are people waiting for you there.”
I hesitated. “Why don’t you call them?”
He looked worried. “We always maintain total silence on these operations. They would not answer. They will leave tomorrow night if you don’t turn up. It would be dangerous to break the rules.”
That relieved me, as I now knew that we had time to spare. I also knew that the uncle was worried by my threat. He couldn’t be sure that I was not bluffing but couldn’t risk it either. Fortunately, at this moment they thought they had nothing to lose by playing along.
“Once we leave, you stay for five minutes. Then go back to St Tropez. Don’t even try to follow us.”
I was certain he wouldn’t. I thought of cutting off the phone but they most likely had mobiles. And we did not have time to mess around.
Jacqui said, “I’m ready.” We backed out of the room.
“Change of plan,” I said. “Follow me. We’ll take a different route, as they may be able to see the road we take if we go the back way. But we need to drive fast.”
She jumped into the car and started it up. “The tank’s full,” she said. I walked alongside her as we made our way to my car. I then got in, started the engine and pulled ahead of her. I turned right and she followed. I then drove steadily for five to ten minutes till I got to the Gassin turnoff. Then I led her cross-country to Remantuelle and drove up through it to get to the coast road and the cliffs. It was from there that I needed to dispatch the car. I knew a good place that was protected from the road, overlooking the sea at a point that I believed was quite deep. That suited my plan.
As we drove round the old square in the centre of Remantuelle, it was getting dark. And there were menacing clouds approaching. I knew that there could be violent storms soon. I only hoped that they would not hit us until we had finished our jobs.
I watched carefully in the rear view mirror as we drove along the winding back roads. There was hardly any traffic and I was pretty sure we had not been followed. If Jacqui’s uncle had watched us go, he would assume we were heading to St Tropez and beyond rather than doubling back to Remantuelle and the coast.
As I pulled off the road I saw that the dark and ever more menacing storm clouds were even closer and that a strong wind had whipped up. Jacqui drew up behind me and shivered as she got out of her car. She was dressed in a white blouse and short blue skirt. She wore light shoes.
“Have you warmer clothes in the car?” I asked. She shook her head. “Take my jacket then. Most of my stuff is summery things as I was planning to move on and buy as I needed. I have a light sweater in my case and I’ll put that on. Take the gun and the tape from the jacket pockets and put them in the glove compartment of your car. Always hold onto your bag with the other tape though. I’ll empty out the car.”
I grabbed our bags and shoved them into the boot of Jacqui’s Peugeot. I then opened my case and pulled out a light cashmere sweater and put it on. I still felt cold and could see that Jacqui did too. The wind tugged petulantly at her clothes and seemed to blow through them. She pulled the jacket around herself for more warmth.
“Let’s get moving,” I said. “First we need to wipe down the car to remove our fingerprints. I don’t know what the sea will do to the car but we should take no risks. Here are some rubber gloves that I took from the kitchen. You take the right hand one and I’ll take the left. Spray the car with this, it’s an alcohol-based spray, and wipe the front of the car clean. I’ll do the same around the doors and in the back. You at least can sit out of the wind.”
She nodded and got to work. I did too and we felt we had done all we could although it took longer than I had thought. How do you rub off fingerprints when you cannot see them? I hoped we had done a good job and felt somewhat more confident when I reflected that we had never been in trouble with the police and so they would not have a copy of our fingerprints in any case.
By the time we had finished it was already raining. It started slowly and then got heavier in minutes. The thunder in the distance was already rumbling and then a sharp flash of lightening seemed to shoot out of the sky and disappear into the hills on the other side of the bay.
“Let’s hurry,” I said. “We are too exposed here and I don’t like the idea of pushing a car in this storm. I want to be away from the metal and the trees. Help me get the bodies out of the back.”
We pulled the girl out first and unrolled her from the sheet. There was another flash of lightning in the distance and it threw its shadow across our cliff top. The dead girl’s face seemed to move eerily. The eyeballs appeared to move. The open mouth seemed to click. I almost screamed and Jacqui looked
about to faint.
“Give me your glove,” I said. “I’ll put her in the car. We need to avoid any fingerprints.”
I pulled the body to the passenger seat. I lifted it into the car. I placed a seat belt around it. I wondered if the air bag would inflate in the crash. Not that that would help. We pulled the second body out and I slammed the boot. Again I took off the sheet and lugged him to the driver’s side. I called to Jacqui to tear up the sheets as best she could but not to lose any bits of them. He was heavier and I fought his weight, I struggled, too, against the wind and the now teeming rain. I somehow got him into the seat and secured with the seat belt. I saw that my clothes were bloodstained. I would need to change before we hit the next town.
As I looked up there was a roar of thunder and a blast of wind that had me reeling backwards. I turned to Jacqui and felt the lightning soar towards us. There was a crack about thirty yards away. It hit a large tree and, as we looked, it crashed down falling between the road and us. It missed the Peugeot by a few yards.
I went to Jacqui. “I’m going to push the car over now. Give me the sheets and drive your car to the road.”
I took the sheets and grabbed a bag that had been in my car. I saw it was from a supermarket. I couldn’t recall from when. I was amused that this irritated me. I stuffed the sheets inside, picked up some stones from nearby and shoved them into the bag. I tied the top together, pushed out the air and flung the bag over the cliff into the sea. I watched from the edge and saw it plummet down into the water. At least they’ll be washed but they’ll always be stained, I thought.