He looked at Jacquot and then Marie-Ange, to make sure that they did. Both of them nodded.
‘Good. Now let me tell you what will happen. At the moment we are approximately twelve nautical miles off the L’Espiguette coast. The Léonie is still holding her pattern, sailing approximately three nautical miles inside and three nautical miles outside terri -torial waters. In a moment, if she keeps to pattern, she will turn and come back into home waters. When she does that, I will come in behind her, to block off any escape if she tries to make a run for it.’
‘Can’t we follow her if she’s in international waters?’ asked Marie-Ange.
‘International Maritime Law is a minefield, Marie-Ange. Let’s just say I would prefer to make any approach in French territory.’ Chabran turned to Jacquot. ‘I am assuming that you are armed?’
Jacquot nodded, opened his life-jacket and showed the grip of the 9-mm in the pocket of his pea-jacket.
‘As will be our boarding party. Sidearms only. They will remain holstered until I say otherwise, or our lives are in danger. Understood?’
Jacquot said that he did.
‘She’s beginning her turn, Skip,’ said Willi. ‘About three thousand metres, a few degrees off due south.’
Chabran checked the radar screen. ‘Take us up to fourteen knots, then bring her round to follow at a thousand metres.’
He turned back to Jacquot and Marie-Ange.
‘So, mes amis, the game begins.’
95
VIRGINIE CABRILLE WALKED OVER TO the display case and fitted the riding crop back into its place, black braided leather against the cabinet’s lining of scarlet felt. She ran her fingers over the various coiled whips and bamboo canes set around it, but shook her head, as though what she saw there didn’t quite seem to fit what she had in mind. Instead, she turned to the trolley and picked up one or two of the instruments laid out on its top shelf – pincers, pliers, and an extravagantly curved tool in shiny steel that looked as though it might be used to open something up, and open it very wide indeed. She tested the action. Hanging from the beams, Gastal heard a ratcheting sound as the tong-like jaws opened and held. But these, too, seemed not to interest her. In the end, she settled for a long metal rod with a thick rubber handle which she waved about like a sabre. Gastal knew exactly what it was the moment she pressed it against his left nipple. There was a crackling blue buzzing sound, stars exploded in his eyes, and Gastal jerked as a burst of high-voltage, low-current electricity shot through his body.
A taser. A bloody taser, he thought, as she drew the rod away from the nipple and placed it in his open armpit. Another flash. Another jolting, buckling burst of power. And another, and another, as she worked her way along his arm until she buried the tip of the rod into the palm of his hand, held the burst and lit him up like a firecracker.
He was only able to scream when the power came off, and when it did, with a final, burning crackle, he screamed with all his might, loud and clear and anguished.
‘At last, at last, a proper scream,’ she cried out, tilting her head like a piano tuner, as though to hear the sound more clearly, to savour it more fully. ‘Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful . . . Oh, you did that so well, mon brave,’ she said, walking back to the trolley and dropping the prod on to it. ‘And please don’t worry,’ she continued, waving to the ceiling, the quilted door, the varnished brick walls. ‘As you can see, the room is soundproofed. So feel free. Make as much noise as you wish. Even louder, it doesn’t matter. No one will hear you down here.’
Virginie went to the door, reached for a switch and lowered the lights. ‘They say that screaming helps,’ she said, coming back to Gastal. ‘Did you know that? Apparently it lessens the pain, or rather . . . makes it more manageable. Whether it does or doesn’t, I cannot say. What I do know is that it greatly increases my pleasure. Because, Monsieur Flic, if you do not scream, and scream loudly, and enthusiastically, well, I really won’t enjoy myself. And you wouldn’t want that, now would you?’
‘You’re mad, you’re raving . . .’
She was quick, so quick Gastal never saw it coming. Not that he could have done anything about it, strung up as he was between the beams. In an instant, the blink of an eye, she seemed to pirouette away from the trolley and spin towards him, and the next thing he knew her right foot had shot up between his legs and the toe of a penny loafer had connected with that small, hard stretch of skin and bone just behind his scrotum. The pain speared up through his anus, spine, belly and chest and exploded behind his eyes, howled into his brain.
It was worse, far worse than any direct kick to the genitals. He tried to double up, to somehow absorb the pain, to soften and accommodate it, but there was not enough movement in his bonds to afford him such comfort, the leather bracelets and ankle straps biting into him as he tried to squirm away from the appalling, numbing glory of the hurt. All he could do was suck in air through gritted teeth as though it was the last air in the room. When he could take in no more, he flung it out in a prolonged wail of agony.
‘Oh, mais oui, mais oui, chéri,’ shouted Virginie again. ‘Bravo, bravo, bravo! You are learning, you are learning.’ And she spun around delightedly. ‘But from now on, mon petit, un peu de respect, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Jesus Christ, woman,’ he gasped. ‘This is . . . this is fucking . . .’
‘Attention, monsieur.’ She wagged her finger in his face, ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. I beg you to be careful what you say from now on. And how you say it. I will not warn you again.’ She walked back to the trolley, shrugged off her cardigan and draped it across the topmost shelf.
‘Now, I know I just told you that screaming gives me pleasure, that it’s good to hear,’ she began again, turning to look at him. ‘But shall I tell you another little secret? Would you like to hear it?’
Gastal knew better than to let the question go unanswered. So he nodded his head. Right now, he knew, he needed to play for time. Time for someone to reach him, to save him. If only he’d brought back-up . . . If only he’d told Peluze where he was going, instead of stomping out of the Sofitel the way he had . . . But he hadn’t done either of those things, and given the way he’d been treating Peluze he couldn’t see his second-in-command losing any sleep over his absence. For the moment, he knew that he was on his own.
‘Well, it’s this,’ she continued, running the necklace of pearls through her fingers. ‘I’ve recently discovered that sometimes the best pain to inflict, the most satisfying, the pain that gives me the greatest pleasure, is the . . . the quiet kind. Or rather, the kind you don’t actually hear. Just the sense that someone is suffering, suffering terribly because of something that you have done. Do you follow me?’
Gastal nodded again.
Virginie seemed satisfied with the response, and Gastal was relieved he’d made the effort. Just stay in there, he thought to himself. Don’t make her angry. Spin it out as long as you can, as long as you can bear it.
‘Shall I give you an example?’ she continued, going over to the twin cabinets, closing one of the doors and leaning against it.
‘Yes,’ he managed. ‘Tell me.’
‘Yesterday, at Saint Pierre cemetery, there was a funeral. You were there. Why don’t you tell me who was buried?’
‘Your father.’
‘En effet, not just my father,’ she said with a little chuckle. ‘Because, you see, there were two bodies in the coffin. One dead, my father, may he rest in peace. The other, not dead. Alive. Just . . . sleeping. A cheating, double-dealing little shit called Guillermo Ribero who thought he could fool the family, take us for a ride, profit from our generosity. So I put him in the coffin with my dear, departed papa, and I screwed down the lid.
‘Now, I wasn’t there when he woke up, when he realised where he was and started screaming. I never heard a whisper. Not a thing. But you know what, Monsieur Flic? I lived it with him. Thinking about him. Wondering how long he’d live. Wondering what it would be like, in that silky, satin darkness, when t
he air started to turn bad. I felt it here. In my heart. In my head. Even here,’ she said, placing a hand between her legs. ‘For many hours, longer than I would have thought possible, I felt the most intense, the most . . . elevating sense of pleasure. That’s how good it was. En effet, better than good.
‘Of course, one of the things you miss is the smell. The smell of pain,’ she continued, pushing herself off the closed cabinet door and coming over to him. ‘But that’s not going to happen with you, Monsieur Flic. Mais non, mais non . . .’ She sniffed the air. ‘Indeed, I can smell yours already.’
Gastal couldn’t help a small whimper of fear. If she could do that to this Ribero character, what could she do to him? he wondered with a shiver of terror. Strung up like he was, naked, defenceless? She was mad, certifiable, and unless someone came busting through that padded door very soon, he knew he was dead meat.
‘You are sick. You are fucking sick . . .’ was all he said. Only a whisper, no more than that, the words just popping out of his mouth before he could stop himself, knowing in the instant he spoke them that wishing them back would do him no good.
He was right.
Without any warning, without any hesitation, Virginie’s fist lashed out at him, straight arm, the ball of her hand connecting with the space between his nose and top lip.
Blood shot up his nostrils, splashed into the back of his throat, its force and quantity making him gag and choke. A tooth – or rather the very expensive crown that he had recently had fitted – was snapped out of his top jaw and spun around in his pulped mouth. He didn’t know whether to spit it out or swallow it, but his tongue was suddenly so swollen, so useless, that he was unable to do either. Finally, coughing out a mouthful of blood, he heard it hit the polished floor and skitter away.
Slowly, still reeling from the blow, Gastal squeezed open his eyes.
Virginie was standing in front of him, hands on hips, a penny loafer tapping.
‘Now, what did I just say? What did I tell you? Respect, respect, respect,’ she said. ‘I told you. I warned you, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen, did you? So there you are. That’s what happens down here to naughty little boys who don’t do as they’re told.’
96
AS THE P.60 BEGAN ITS turn to take up position behind MY Léonie Jacquot didn’t need binoculars to see her lights as she danced across the swell just a thousand metres off their starboard side. But without those lights, the yacht would have been invisible. Like the P.60, now turning into the chop and taking up position behind her.
Reaching forward, Chabran pulled a cream-coloured microphone from its slot on the instrument panel and pressed the transmit button. ‘All hands to station. All hands to station,’ he said, then racked the mic back in its holder.
For a moment nothing happened, and then Jacquot was aware of sound and movement – the clang of a bulkhead hatch somewhere below, running feet, and a shadow up on the prow taking position at the canon, removing the tarpaulin cover and swinging the barrel down to take a bead on the Léonie, now just a warm golden glow rising and dropping below the swell.
‘Someone’s sleeping on watch,’ said Chabran. ‘If they were keeping an eye on their radar screen they’d have spotted us by now. If I was her skipper, I’d have his guts, whoever’s up there . . . Still, it’s a motor yacht. Navy’s different, I guess.’
He reached for the mic again and spoke into it: ‘Searchlight on in ten, bosun, and counting . . .’ Then he leaned forward and switched to a new channel. ‘Time for their wakey-wakey call,’ he said to Jacquot and Marie-Ange, and pushed the transmit button again.
‘MY Léonie. MY Léonie. This is Gendarmerie Maritime vessel P.60. I repeat, this is Gendarmerie Maritime vessel P.60.’ The moment he finished speaking the searchlight came on from somewhere above them, a brilliant cone of light shooting ahead through the darkness, silvering the rain and lancing across the Léonie’s stern and superstructure. As far as Jacquot could judge, they were now no more than a few hundred metres behind and clearly gaining on her. He wondered whether they’d make a run for it, now that Chabran had introduced himself.
For a moment nothing happened. No movement aboard, no sudden change in Léonie’s rolling forward course. It was like following a ghost-ship. But then, as Jacquot watched, the Léonie pulled round to starboard and he was hard-pressed not to gasp. As she came beam on to them, caught in the glare of the searchlight, the full sweep and glory of her lines was revealed, from a high prancing bow to a long low transom, the space between taken up by rows of lit windows at deck level and portholes beneath, a second-storey bridge and wheel-house, and a curving white hull that shone in the searchlight.
Suddenly a voice crackled over the intercom. ‘MY Léonie to Gendarmerie Maritime. MY Léonie to Gendarmerie Maritime. This is Captain Mili of the Léonie. How can we be of assistance? Over.’
‘We have a permit to board, Léonie. I repeat, we have a permit to board. Please hold to and prepare for boarding party.’
Fifteen minutes later, the P.60’s boarding party cast off in two Navy Zephyrs and crossed the fifty-metre stretch of choppy water between the two vessels, keeping within the searchlight’s silvery beam. As the first Zephyr closed in, the Léonie’s crew opened the transom gate and made ready to receive the boarding party, ropes cast and secured. Chabran went first, clambering up on to Léonie’s deck, followed by three of his crew. Once they were aboard, the Zephyr’s helmsman moved away to make room for the second craft carrying Jacquot, Marie-Ange and four more P.60 crew, their gunbelts and holstered weapons cinched below their life-jackets.
By the time Jacquot and Marie-Ange had climbed up on deck, the Léonie’s skipper had come out from the salon and was shaking hands with Chabran. He was still in pyjamas, his dressing gown flapping in the breeze and pressing against his legs. Keen to be out of the weather, he waved them inside.
After the roll and chill of the open deck, the salon was warm and quiet, plumply furnished and filled with the scent of hothouse flowers and beeswax polish. Introductions made they sat down and made themselves comfortable. The Léonie’s skipper, Perto Mili, was all smiles, his face lined and craggy, a small beard tipping the point of his chin.
‘So, messieurs, mademoiselle, how can I be of assistance?’ His voice was soft and treacly, not a single sign of tension, no tremor in his expression. As though this was something that happened regularly, some guests dropping by, a social call, even if it was nearly four in the morning.
Chabran pulled some documents out of an inside pocket and handed them over – a thin sheaf of papers, curled at the ends where they’d been torn from a fax machine.
‘A warrant to search your ship, Capitaine.’
‘So I see, so I see,’ replied Mili, leafing through the papers. ‘Mais bien sûr. Pas de problème. But might I ask why?’
‘Not at this time,’ replied Chabran, taking the papers back from him and getting to his feet. ‘May we begin?’
97
‘MY FATHER ALWAYS TOLD ME I was too impulsive, too impetuous,’ said Virginie Cabrille, wiping a splash of Gastal’s blood from her wrist. ‘Always telling me to hold back, take my time. Well, he would have been proud of me now. Twelve years I have waited and suddenly the prize is mine. Offered to me on a plate. An exquisite, irresistible opportunity to cause the most terrible, the most devastating pain. From a distance, of course. Like our friend Guillermo. But far, far worse.’
While she spoke, Gastal tried to make himself as comfortable as possible. By twisting his hands upwards he had discovered that he was able to get a grip on the cords that ran from bracelets to beam, supporting himself for minutes at a time. Then, letting go of the cords and narrowing his hands, he was able to drop a precious few centimetres, far enough for his pointed toes to reach the lower beam and take the weight from his arms. By working between the two, he had found some means of support, some small comfort. But he was tiring quickly. His wrists, upper arms, and shoulders ached, and he was aware of a cramp dancing dangerously
around his insteps.
If Virginie was aware of these movements, these accommodations, she gave no sign of it. Instead, she walked behind him and he heard a dragging sound, something being pulled across the floor. His pulse quickened, and a shiver passed through his body. He wondered what it might be, what new horror she had in mind. He closed his eyes, and waited. The dragging sound passed him and stopped in front of him, and slowly, fearfully, he opened his eyes.
A chair. Nothing but a chair, an old leather club chair placed beside the trolley. Kicking off her shoes Virginie settled into it, drawing up her legs and curling her feet under her. When she was comfortable, she reached over to the trolley and picked up a shiny steel container about the size of a cigar box, laid it in her lap.
‘And you know something, Monsieur Flic? My father was right. Patience really is a wonderful thing.’ She shook her head, as though astonished that it could be so. ‘You put a million francs in the bank, you don’t touch it, and voilà, fifteen years later you check your account and the money has doubled. Just like that. And I have discovered that it is exactly the same with revenge. You make a deposit, and the longer you leave it, the greater the gain.’
She flipped open the lid of the box and trailed her fingers over its contents.
Gastal wondered what was inside it. It didn’t take long to find out.
‘Of course,’ she continued, ‘it is not easy, this patience thing. This holding back. But in the end, well, it is so gloriously rewarding. Because while you wait, while you bide your time, it is quite extraordinary how many unforeseen events come into play.’
As she was speaking, Virginie took what looked like an aerosol can from the box. ‘You start an action, you commit, and things suddenly start happening.’
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