A Foreign Country

by Charles Cumming

  Kell placed the rest of the documents in his shoulder bag, drained his cup of coffee and sent Elsa a text.

  This is all first class. Thank you.

  In different circumstances, he might have added one of her kisses – ‘X’ – at the end of the message, but he was the boss, and therefore obliged to keep a certain professional distance. He then proceeded to read the Delestre emails. They were in French and dated five days earlier, which placed Malot at the Ramada towards the tail-end of his holiday with Amelia.

  From: dugarrylemec@wanadoo.fr

  To: fmalot54@hotmail.fr

  When are you coming back to Paris? We miss you. Kitty wants a kiss from her godfather.

  Christophe

  From: fmalot54@hotmail.fr

  To: dugarrylemec@wanadoo.fr

  Enjoying Tunis. Coming back at the weekend but a lot of stuff to think about. Have taken sabbatical from work – they’ve been great about everything. Might come home to Paris next week, might go on the road for a while. Not sure. But give Kitty a kiss from her Godfather Frankie.

  P.S. Hope you guys are starting to put things together again after the fire. Promise to get you those books to replace the ones you lost.

  Kell put the email printout with the rest of the documents in his shoulder bag. He found a public toilet in the underground level of Gare Saint-Charles, went into a cubicle, tore up the entire file and flushed it in small pieces down the toilet. He went back upstairs, bought himself a ticket with a Uniacke credit card, and caught the ten o’clock TGV to Paris.

  It was time to have a little chat with Christophe.

  43

  Four hours later, Kell was sitting alone at a table in Brasserie Lipp staring at a photograph of Christophe Delestre that he had culled from the pages of Facebook. In the photograph, Delestre was wearing an outsize pair of black sunglasses, cargo shorts and a burgundy T-shirt. He looked to be in his early to mid thirties, had a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee beard, with gel giving spiked life to thinning hair. The privacy settings on the account had been tight and it was the only picture of Delestre that Kell could find. On the basis that Facebook users generally gave a great deal of thought and attention to their profile picture, Kell assumed that Delestre wanted to convey an image of easygoing cool and bonhomie; he was laughing in the shot and holding a roll-up cigarette in his right hand. Nobody else was visible in the frame.

  Lipp was an old-school Parisian brasserie on Boulevard Saint-Germain that had been a favourite of Claire’s when she had lived in Paris for a year as a student. She had taken Kell there twice during their marriage and they had sat side by side, at the same window table, watching the haute bourgeoisie of Paris in full flow. Little had changed. The waiters in black tie, wearing white aprons and careful smiles, prepared plates of steak tartare at a serving station just a pace from the entrance. The manager, immaculately turned out in a silk shirt and single-breasted suit, reserved his customary froideur for first-time visitors to the restaurant and an unctuous Gallic charm for more regular customers. Two tables from Kell, an elderly widow, decked out in fourteen kilos of art deco jewellery, was picking her way through a salade Niçoise, her shoulders covered by a black shawl. From time to time, the tablecloth would part to reveal a loyal Scottish terrier curled at her feet; a dog, Kell reckoned, more cherished and pampered than the late husband had ever been. Further along the same wall, beneath framed caricatures of Jacques Cousteau and Catherine Deneuve, three middle-aged women in Chanel suits were deep in conspiratorial conversation. They were too far away to be overheard, but Kell could imagine Claire, still clinging to a stereotype of the privileged French, announcing that they ‘probably have nothing better to talk about than sex and power’. He loved this place because it was the very soul of old world Paris and yet today he almost hated it, because he could only think of his estranged wife on her plane to California, sipping the same French wines and eating the same French food in a first-class seat paid for by Richard Quinn. At the Gare de Lyon, Kell had left a message on Claire’s voicemail asking her to reconsider her trip to America. She had rung back to say that she was already en route to Heathrow. There had been a note of weary triumph in her voice and Kell, gripped by jealousy, had almost dialled Elsa’s number in Italy and invited her to Paris, just to be in the company of a young woman who might soften the blow of his humiliation. Instead, he had taken a cab to Lipp, ordered himself a bottle of Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru and buried himself in strategies for Christophe Delestre.

  An hour later, the bottle finished, Kell paid his bill, crossed the street for an espresso at Café Flore, then took the metro to Pereire in the 17th arrondissement, where he knew a small, discreet hotel on Rue Verniquet. There was a double room available and he booked it under the Uniacke alias, his seventh bed in as many days. The tiny room was on the second floor and had bright orange walls, a reproduction Miró hanging beside the bathroom door and a window looking out over a small courtyard. Beginning to feel the sluggishness of a lunchtime bottle of wine, Kell did not bother to unpack, but instead went out into the late-afternoon sunshine and walked east towards Montmartre. He carried his camera with him and took a series of photographs in the blinding summer light – of café life, of wrought-iron street lamps, of fresh fruits and vegetables displayed in the windows of grocery shops – using the camera as a means of turning in the street and photographing the pedestrians and vehicles around him. Though he was sure that the DGSE, post-Marseille, had lost interest in Stephen Uniacke, a camera was a useful deterrent against mobile surveillance; later he could check faces and number plates to ascertain if certain vehicles or members of the public appeared in more than one location.

  By six, he was on Rue Lamarck, a main Montmartre thoroughfare in the foothills of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. According to Elsa’s file, Delestre lived in a ground-floor apartment on the corner of Rue Darwin and Rue des Saules. Kell began to descend a steep flight of stone steps leading to the junction of the two streets. He paused halfway down, looking back up towards Lamarck, and fired off a sequence of photographs in the manner of an amateur photographer trying his best to capture the idiosyncratic charm of Paris. He then turned and aimed the camera at the lines of cars stretching ahead of him on both sides of Rue des Saules. Using the telephoto lens, he looked for evidence of a surveillance team. All of the vehicles appeared to be empty; as Kell suspected, no agency would have the manpower to watch each and every one of Malot’s relatives and friends. At the bottom of the steps, now only a few metres from Delestre’s front door, Kell looked up at the facing apartments on Rue Darwin and judged that it would be impossible to spot a stakeout position; he would just have to trust to the odds and take his chances. He circled the block, walking down Rue des Saules and back up Darwin from the western side. It was a busy neighbourhood, old ladies coming home from the shops, children returning from school in the company of their parents. Kell approached Delestre’s door in the hope that Christophe would now be home from work.

  He heard the baby before he saw it, through an open window on the ground floor. In a small, dimly lit sitting room an attractive, dark-haired woman, perhaps of Spanish or Italian descent, was bouncing the baby up and down in her arms in an effort to stop it from crying.

  ‘Madame Delestre?’ Kell asked.

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘Is your husband at home?’

  The woman glanced quickly to her right, then back at the stranger on the street. Christophe Delestre was in the room with her. He stood up and came to the window, standing in front of his wife and child in what may have been an unconscious instinct to protect them.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘It’s about François Malot,’ Kell replied. He was speaking in French and extended a hand through the window. ‘It’s about the fire. I wondered if I could come inside?’

  44

  Facebook was misleading. Christophe Delestre had shaved off his moustache and goatee beard, put on a couple of stone in weight and was no longer wearing an outsiz
ed pair of black sunglasses. His brown eyes were large and candid, his puffy face bruised by a succession of sleepless nights. He was dressed in pale linen trousers, tennis shoes and a blue, button-down cotton shirt. Kell was ushered into the sitting room and invited to sit on a sofa covered by a moth-eaten blanket. Christophe closed the window on to the street and formally introduced his wife, who squinted at Kell as he shook her hand, holding the baby more tightly, as though she did not entirely trust this stranger in her home.

  ‘Is it about the insurance?’ she asked. Her name was Maria and she spoke French with a Spanish accent.

  ‘It’s not,’ he replied, and nodded affectionately at the child to put Maria more at ease.

  ‘You said your name was Tom? You are English?’ Perhaps to alleviate the tedium of permanent childcare, Christophe had been all too willing to allow Kell into his home. His manner was now more reserved. ‘How do you know about the fire?’

  ‘I’m going to be frank,’ Kell told them, and noticed that the child had stopped crying. Kitty. Malot’s god-daughter. ‘I work for MI6. Do you know what that is?’

  There was a stunned pause as the Delestres looked at one another. Officers did not often choose to break cover, but in certain circumstances, and within certain psychological parameters, name-dropping MI6 was like flashing a badge at a crime scene.

  It was Maria who spoke first. ‘You are a spy?’

  ‘I am an officer with the British Secret Intelligence Service. Yes. To all intents and purposes, I am a spy.’

  ‘And what do you want with us?’ Christophe looked frightened, as though Kell was now a direct threat to his wife and daughter.

  ‘You have nothing to worry about. I just need to ask you some questions about François Malot.’

  ‘What about him?’ Maria’s answer was quick, accessing some basic Latin impulse to disdain authority. ‘Who has sent you here? What do you want?’

  The small sitting room had become stuffy and Kitty began to moan. Perhaps she had sensed the gathering atmosphere of distrust, the hostility in her mother’s usually gentle and consoling voice. ‘I apologize for visiting your home without an appointment. It was important that the French authorities did not know that I was coming here today.’

  Christophe elected to move his daughter next door, taking the baby from Maria’s arms and walking through a kitchen area into what Kell assumed was a nursery or bedroom. Maria continued to stare at him, dark eyes cold with suspicion.

  ‘Can you please tell me your name again,’ she said. ‘I wish to write it down.’ Kell obliged her, spelling out K-E-L-L with slow precision. When Christophe came back into the room he seemed surprised to find his wife stooped over a table, scribbling.

  ‘I’m not feeling comfortable about this,’ he said, as though he had been coached by a third party and injected with greater self-confidence. ‘You say that you are with MI6, this seems a lie. What do you want? I think it was a mistake for me to allow you to come here.’

  ‘I mean you no harm,’ Kell replied, the quality of his French momentarily deserting him. The nuance he had tried to build into his response was lost and Maria found her voice.

  ‘I think you should leave us,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to have anything to do with you …’

  ‘No,’ added Christophe, buoyed by his wife’s courage. ‘I think it was a mistake. Please, if you want to interview us, you must go through the police …’

  ‘Sit down.’ Kell’s lingering, ceaseless irritation with Claire, allied to a general impatience with the Delestres, had caused him to lose his temper. He felt it flare inside him, the sudden snap of goodwill, and thought of Yassin naked in the chair in Kabul, his eyes wet with fear. The young French couple reacted to the sudden intensity in Kell’s voice as though he had drawn a gun. Christophe stepped sideways and dropped into an armchair. Maria took longer, but was eventually persuaded by Kell’s fixed stare to settle at the table.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘Why are you so defensive? Is there something I should know?’ Christophe began to reply, but Kell interrupted him. ‘It’s strange that you have no interest in François’ whereabouts. Can you explain that? I was under the impression that he was your closest friend.’

  Christophe looked dazed, like a commuter woken from a nap on a train. His tired, indoor face was motionless as he tried to unpick the meaning of what Kell had told him.

  ‘I know where François is,’ he replied, finding a certain courage. His right hand gripped the arm of his chair, knuckles white. A film of sweat had gathered around his widow’s peak.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘Why should we tell you?’ Maria flashed a look of dismay at her husband, who shook his head, as though to warn her against further resistance. ‘You say that you are a spy, but you could be working for the journalist who called us after the murder. We have already told him, repeatedly. We do not want to talk about what happened.’

  Kell stood up, moving towards her. ‘Why would a journalist pretend to be a spy? Why would anybody do anything that stupid?’ The question became rhetorical, because the Delestres found no answer. ‘Let me get something straight. There’s a possibility that François is in a lot of trouble. I need to know if he’s been in touch with you. I need to see your correspondence.’

  Maria produced a contemptuous snort. Kell could not help but admire her guts. ‘This is our private email!’ she said. ‘Why should we show you this? You have no right to …’

  Kell stopped her mid-sentence. ‘Is Kitty asleep?’ he asked, moving towards the nursery as though he intended to take the child. It took only a fraction of a second for Maria to realize what Kell had said.

  ‘How do you know my daughter’s name?’

  He turned towards Christophe, who looked to be weighing up the good sense of throwing a punch. ‘What about the books François promised you in his email from Tunis? Did they ever show up? Did “Uncle Frankie” come through for his god-daughter?’

  Delestre tried to stand but Kell went a pace towards him and said: ‘Stay where you are.’ He was back with Yassin again, the power of containment, the greed for revenge and information, and had to check himself from going too far. ‘I don’t want this conversation to become difficult, for either of us. What I’m trying to tell you is that I can get access to anything I want. I need your cooperation so that I don’t have to go to the trouble of breaking the law. I would rather not spend days listening to your private phone calls. I would rather not tell MI6 Station in Paris to follow you around town, to hack into your computers, to watch your friends. But I will do that if I have to, because what I need to know is worth breaking the law for. Do you understand?’ Christophe looked confused, like a child being bullied. ‘I am trying to pay you the compliment of being honest. There is a hard way to do what I have to do and there is an easy way that leaves you free and unmolested.’

  ‘Tell us the easy way,’ Maria replied quietly, and it was as though her own private capitulation marked an end to the Delestres’ resistance.

  ‘I need to see a photograph of François,’ Kell replied. ‘Do you have one?’

  He suspected that he already knew the answer to his own question, and so it proved. Christophe, adjusting his position in the armchair, shook his head and said: ‘We lost everything in the fire. All the albums, all the photographs. There are no pictures of François.’

  ‘Of course.’ Kell went towards the window and glanced up Rue Darwin. A smell of diesel came in from the street. ‘What about online?’ he asked. ‘What about Twitter or Facebook? Anything on there I could look at?’

  Maria tilted her head to one side and stared at Kell in puzzlement, as though he had stumbled on a coincidence.

  ‘Christophe cannot access his Facebook,’ she said, a note of surprise in her voice. ‘It hasn’t been working for a month.’

  ‘I’ve contacted them,’ Christophe added. They were both looking at Kell as if they blamed him for this. ‘I’ve tried to change my password. One
time I managed to get in but all my Facebook friends had vanished, all my photographs, all of my biographical information.’

  ‘Just wiped out?’

  ‘Just wiped out. The same with emails, Dropbox, Flickr. Everything to do with my Internet since the fire has been no good. It’s all gone. I just have this one account that I can use, my regular email to talk to friends. Everything else, no.’

  Outside on the street, a motorbike sped past the window, braked at the corner, then burned off down Rue des Saules.

  ‘Any idea why?’ Again, Kell felt that he already knew the answer to his own question: a DGSE computer attack on the Delestre residence, wiping out all evidence of their association with François Malot. The fire was probably the icing on the cake; perhaps it had even been intended to kill them.

  ‘We have no idea,’ Maria replied, and asked permission to go into the bedroom to check on Kitty. Kell made a gesture of goodwill, his arms spread apart, his hands upturned, as if to say: Of course you can. It’s your house. You can do what you want. She returned moments later carrying something behind her back. Kell thought for a split second that it was a knife, until she brought her hand forward and he saw that she was holding a bottle of baby milk.

  ‘Tell me about the fire,’ he said. ‘Were you at home?’