LONDON ALERT

by Christopher Bartlett

  ‘You’re winding me up.’

  ‘That was only a joke and partly to prevent myself getting carried away, even getting attached to you. Besides, I want you slightly on edge so you reveal more of yourself when you eventually unwind. I have probably said too much about myself – there’s something about your naïveté that makes me talk too much. You’re a breath of fresh air after the society people I frequent. I’m going up to my room. I’ve got to update my report on you; not that there is much to add as yet. Good night.’

  With that she stood up, leant over towards him, and gave him a peck on the left cheek. Though the air kiss was probably one she had done hundreds of times as a society hostess at receptions, Holt wanted to believe there was more to it than that.

  Later, in his own bed, alone, he had a feeling of nervous anticipation like a fifteen-year-old, even though it had been made clear that he should not expect anything physical and the way things were going that could well prove to be the case.

  After a night sleeping fitfully, thinking of Consuela, he came downstairs to find her already in the kitchen. She was wearing a fetching cotton dressing gown.

  ‘Sleep well?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ he lied.

  ‘Good. We have a busy day ahead.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘We’re having breakfast in the conservatory. Can you take these things in?’ she said, giving him no chance to ask how she had slept.

  He had never lived in a house with a conservatory, though many of his parents’ friends had been adding them to theirs. Besides generating extra space, they enabled one to partly enjoy the outside life, despite the lousy English climate. It was bright and a nice place to be.

  Breakfast was a simple continental affair with croissants and slightly toasted French bread. There was also fruit, including some quite exotic ones. Having made sure he had enough coffee and toast, Consuela again took the initiative.

  ‘You have been very reticent about yourself. You have to give something away for me to assess you.’

  ‘I don’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Begin by telling me about your family, whether you have any brothers or sisters. That sometimes provides good clues regarding a person’s motivations – sibling rivalry and all that. Was your mother forceful in making you do things, like making you read?’

  ‘I’m an only child…’

  ‘I thought as much.’

  Realizing that she had obviously not been given any real details about him so that she could make her own assessment, he explained that his parents had died in a car crash when he was thirteen years old; that although clever, he just got by at school with the minimum of effort because he was bored and made up for it by playing practical jokes. His mother had tried to get him to learn the piano and had a grand piano that took up most of the living room in their tiny house.

  ‘The music mistress at my school said, “Why learn the piano? There’s only one in an orchestra as opposed to twenty or so violins. Learning the violin would give you a much greater chance of getting in.” She seemed oblivious to the fact that my complete absence of talent meant no orchestra would want me, even to play the triangle.’

  ‘Which parent influenced you most?’

  ‘Neither. They left me to my own devices. They were too busy with their intellectual pursuits, though they did question the fact that I spent a lot of time with a guy about to get married who was into electronics and had all sorts of fascinating gadgets. They didn’t realize it could have been the gate to a great future in Silicon Valley.’

  He went on to proffer information very similar to that which he had provided at the exploratory interview for the service with the major. It was only when it came to his present work for Giraffe that he found himself in a quandary.

  Sir Charles had told him to say something near the truth but not the whole truth. So he said he worked in a government think tank, thinking up scenarios for all sorts of situations, including what would happen were a hub airport to be built in such and such a place.

  ‘I can’t say more than that. All I can say is that I am an ideas man.’

  ‘You must be doing something important for it to be so hush-hush.’

  ‘Not really. I am just an ideas man, and brainstorming throws up scenarios in all sorts of domains, with some having security or military implications. I’m simply a backroom boy, supposedly able to think laterally. It’s not as exciting as it sounds – that’s why I am looking for something else, something that will stretch me a bit.’

  ‘Do you have to travel – go on missions? I saw from the stamps in your passport that you recently went to Japan.’

  On the principle that his undercover personage should be as close as possible to the truth, the service had copied his entry and exit stamps for Japan into his new passport under the name of Benet.

  ‘I don’t have to travel, though the people I work for think it is stimulating,’ he said warily.

  ‘You seem distant, withdrawn. As if you are hiding something from me, and I am wondering why.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not some kind of undercover cop?’

  ‘Do I look like one?’

  ‘No, but undercover cops never do. You can often tell one because they are too good to be true – more extremist than the people they are penetrating.’

  Had he been, in the major’s words, sussed out on day one? Was it so obvious?

  Anyway, all was not lost. She could not prove it, and whatever his role, he could always claim he was bored and looking for greater challenges in keeping with his intelligence. Also, there was a chance that Consuela might come to like him and only mention the possibility he might be a plant. He would neither admit it nor deny it – leave her in suspense. If he denied it, she would not believe him anyway.

  ‘Do I look like an extremist?’

  ‘No, not in the least. It’s difficult to work out what you are.’

  Holt felt that he should do some serious explaining, including revealing truths that would make him more believable. After all, the inspector had told him to present the real him, as far as possible.

  ‘I am not sure who I am either, as when my parents were killed, I was at a loss, and turned off for a year or so, and did not latch on to anything. You see, my trouble is that I cannot find a job where my talents are made use of. I don’t feel stretched, if you know what I mean. People say I’m too clever by half. I don’t intend to get people’s backs up when I say that. I don’t want to get yours up.’

  ‘Having a high IQ wouldn’t get mine up. After all, H has an exceptionally high IQ. What’s yours?’

  ‘One hundred and fifty or sixty.’

  Consuela raised her eyebrows and looked at him more intently than before, as if learning how intelligent he was made him of much greater interest.

  Consuela parked in the car park at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 – the new terminal dedicated to British Airways flights – and with a flourish handed Holt his boarding pass. Club Europe to Nice. They were certainly doing everything in style, for the extra cost for business class would be considerable.

  ‘I’ve never been to the Côte d’Azur. Seen it in films, though. For instance, in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Always dreamed of going there.’

  ‘That,’ retorted Consuela with a glint in her eye, ‘was a really funny movie – especially the whipping scene, where Steve Martin has to retain a stupid smile, pretending he has no feeling in his legs while Michael Caine is slashing at them with a cane. Of course, the fact that I’ve been there many times made the movie all the more enjoyable. The Côte d’Azur is too crowded in the high season, unless of course you have a yacht or the use of a great villa with views over the sea, like Cliff Richard, not to mention many other friends of ours.’

  ‘Isn’t it the high season now?’

  ‘Yes, but rest assured we have a motor yacht at our disposal, albeit a smallish one. It belongs to a couple of my bes
t friends. In fact my best friends.’

  As they made their way through immigration and the maddening security check and then on to the Executive Club lounge, Holt looked up at various security cameras so he would be identified. At one point he even gave a thumbs-up sign. He was sure Giraffe would know which flight he was on, as his name and passport number would have been given when Consuela made the booking. He did it more to reassure them and make them less likely to tail him – something that could lead to his downfall, as the Owl would soon find out. At least they would know where he was going and that he was still okay.

  Although the Club Class on European flights was not nearly as luxurious as that on the long-haul ones with flat beds, it did mean that one had three seats for two people, with the middle seat left vacant, and less likelihood of being seated next to someone totally unpleasant. Also, one was served drinks and proper food as soon as the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ signs were off. Nominally a two-hour flight, the journey seemed to be over in no time, and in fact they arrived early.

  Chapter 12

  Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc

  Terminal 1 at Nice, handling BA and only a few other airlines, had a very relaxed ambiance even though Nice was said to be France’s third busiest airport after the two in Paris. They were through passport control in five minutes and as a result their checked-in baggage seemed to be taking a long time to arrive, although it was in fact not so long, and they were out on the public concourse within twenty minutes of landing.

  As they stepped out of the baggage retrieval area onto the concourse, a young man in an elegant dark brown shirt with buttons down the front, offset by smart off-white trousers, came up to them with a measured stride.

  ‘Madam Consuela?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m William, the new captain, and dogsbody. The car is over there.’

  They walked the few yards to the Peugeot and got into the back seat while William put what little luggage they had in the boot.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Holt asked Consuela.

  ‘To Antibes, where we will board my friends’ high-speed motor yacht to take us to the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. That’s where movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio stay during the Cannes Film Festival.

  We will spend just a couple of nights relaxing there before going to a reception-cum-seminar on a mega-yacht moored at Villefranche-sur-Mer – a beautiful deepwater bay just beyond Nice on the way to Monaco. The hotel featured in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, just over the headland on the far side of the bay.’

  Was the seminar to be a clever way of winkling out his political views? He had better watch out. What at the outset had seemed to be a holiday was not to be pure holiday.

  The car left the confines of the airport and after a lot of twists and turns joined the A8 highway, running along the coast all the way from the Italian border through Monaco, Nice, Cannes, and then on to Aix-en-Provence. They were heading westwards, leaving the outskirts of Nice behind.

  ‘You cannot,’ said Consuela, ‘see much from the autoroute, but soon you will see Haut-de-Cagnes on top of a hill on the right. It’s one of those picture-postcard places. Actually, there are number of similar medieval towns and villages perched on top of what are virtually mountains, designed to repel attackers. The most well-known is Saint-Paul de Vence. Yves Montand and Simone Signoret and famous artists such as Marc Chagal lived there. Pity we haven’t time to travel around. What attracted all those artists was the light.’

  Holt got a glimpse of Haut-de-Cagnes, a medieval village dominated by a fort, itself on top of a hill. Soon after that they left the A8 and struck south to cross the busy Route Nationale and join the minor road along the coast. They passed near some striking apartment buildings Holt had seen from the plane as it came in to land over the sea.

  ‘Those crescent-shaped apartments,’ said Consuela, ‘border a marina – nowhere as large as the one we are going to at Antibes, but it does have a spa, which is quite nice as you can come by boat.’

  Holt, having only seen the Côte d’Azur in films, was surprised that much of it looked so ordinary. However, when the road began hugging the sea, with the railway line on the right and the Route Nationale running parallel beyond that, he began to feel different. It was the colour of the sea that did it – truly the Côte d’Azur. There were people bathing and many more sunbathing, with a few topless. After ten minutes or so, they deviated from the beach to skirt a hill with a square castle on top, which Holt learnt afterwards was called Le Fort Carré – the Square Fort.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ announced Consuela.

  Indeed, beyond the fort was the marina. Holt was staggered by the scale of it – one of the largest, if not the largest marina on the Mediterranean – and by the number and sizes of boats, ranging from small yachts with sails to mega-yachts like mini ocean liners crammed into it.

  ‘I can’t believe the size of some of these vessels,’ said Holt.

  ‘Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, brings his yacht here in the summer. He once invited H and me onboard. It was unbelievable, with two pads for helicopters – one right at the bow, the other at the stern – and a couple of mini-submarines. In addition, there were several stations for launching various small craft, such as those for Jet Skiers. The accommodation was out of this world too. There was, of course, a cinema and the usual swimming pools.’

  As they drove into the car park encompassing the marina, Holt noticed most of the boats were moored so that their sterns backed onto the piers. This meant more could be crammed in and also made it more difficult for undesirables to gain access, especially as most of the boats had electrically operated gangways that would extend themselves to the quay when commanded by remote control, very much like some garage doors. Each mooring had its own stanchion supplying water and electricity.

  Many of the more luxurious vessels were registered in tax havens, including the Isle of Man and Jersey.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel quite poor,’ he said to Consuela with a wry smile.

  ‘You see that long, rampart‑like harbour wall and the spot two-thirds along with the roof where the windsock is? That’s for helicopters, for people with craft without a landing pad.’

  ‘My…!’

  ‘We’re going on one of those sleek medium-size motor yachts. They can do up to thirty knots, whereas the massive ones, although impressive, only do ten or twelve, unless the owner is fabulously rich and able to have turbines like those on a warship.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I used to come here every year with these friends. When the Owl said I was to take you to see some people on a yacht near Monte Carlo, I came up with this idea of a side trip, ostensibly to better get to know you. Amanda and Jonathan are great friends from way back – I can always trust them not to spread rumours about whom I’m with, or even what I do…or more likely, do not do with them.’

  The car finally stopped at the stern of a sleek silver motor yacht some twenty metres long, with the narrow gangway already extended. The driver gave a discreet toot on the horn to announce their arrival but not loud enough to disturb those on nearby boats.

  A few instants later, a fiftyish-looking man appeared from below, followed by a woman about ten years younger.

  ‘Wonderful to see you, Consuela!’ said the man. ‘We do not see much of you these days, other than in the society magazines. Come on up!’

  The narrow gangway with just a flimsy line slung between supports on one side was quite tricky to negotiate, but no doubt easy to do so if practised. On stepping down from the gangway onto the afterdeck, Consuela was hugged warmly and showered with kisses. She returned them almost as avidly and then introduced Holt, explaining her relationship to them but not hers to Holt, other than saying that he was a friend.

  ‘This is Jeremy, my English friend. Jeremy, my best friends, Amanda and her husband, Jonathan. We used to spend a lot of time together down here, even before Jonathan had his big break.’

 
Holt too was showered with kisses, but fortunately not so profusely as Consuela.

  ‘I like your new toy, Jonathan,’ said Consuela. ‘Somewhat more luxurious and sleeker than the previous one, though there was nothing wrong with that. We had a lot of fun on her.’

  ‘We’ve only had this one a couple of years. It’s comfortable, fast, and it’s got a stabilizer that works even when at a standstill.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said Amanda. ‘I’ll show you your cabin.’

  Descending quite a number of steps, they went forward through a narrow passage until they were under the bridge, though ‘bridge’ might again be too grandiose a word for the helmsman’s place on a vessel of that relatively small size. Opening the door at the end, Amanda showed them into a cabin with an open space in the middle and a bunk along each wall.

  On either side of the entrance through which they had entered there was a door. The one on the left – facing towards the stern – led to an en suite shower and toilet, while the one on the right led to a small cabin with merely a single bunk and washbasin.

  Noting their surprise, Amanda explained that the boat had been designed for a family with two children plus an au pair; the son and daughter slept on either side against the walls well away from each other, while the au pair had the tiny adjoining cabin. The kids could play in the middle, where in normal circumstances the double bed for guests would be.

  ‘We could now put a bed in the middle, but the friends we sometimes let use the boat – with William in charge – very much like this setup. They sleep in the master cabin with the big bed, and the children here.’

  ‘What a great arrangement,’ commented Holt.

  ‘With kids on a boat,’ continued Amanda, ‘a constant worry is that they will run wild and fall overboard. If this cabin door is locked, the only way out is via the au pair’s cabin. Of course, when they get older things will probably get more complicated.’

  ‘Like the boy getting a crush on the au pair,’ remarked Consuela with a smile, and then adding, ‘Of course these days I hear it may be the other way round.’