Time to go looking for Holly. She is sitting on the ground near the van, badly traumatised and still shaking.
He gathers up several discarded items of clothing and squats down beside her, his hand gently on her back. “It’s over, Holly. Finished. There’ll be no more shooting. Everything’s going to be okay. You were very brave. Bloody amazing, in fact.” They hug briefly, Lewis keeping one eye on Panich who is still out for the count. Lewis debates finishing him off with a bullet, but dismisses the idea. It will be better to leave at least one Russian for the authorities to question later. He picks up Stefan’s gun and wipes it clean of his fingerprints. No point in making it easy for everybody.
“It’s time to get dressed,” he says gently. “As soon as you’re ready, we should get out of here and be on our way.”
122
Épernay
Shortly before ten-thirty that evening, retired Épernay fireman, Jacques Diday, had heard the sound of gunshots coming from the disused airstrip a few hundred metres across the road from their house. Forbidden by his wife to go and investigate the scene personally, instead he had telephoned the emergency number for his local gendarmerie to report the matter. The night operator, taking note of the call and logging it in his incident book, had duly despatched a car to investigate. The police vehicle was actually based in the centre of Reims, about forty kilometres away.
Consequently, it was only at about eleven o’clock that evening by the time the police arrived at the scene, co-incidentally almost the precise moment that Saul Zeltinger’s car was leaving the A26 motorway, a few kilometres to the east. Within minutes of the policeman discovering two bodies, one male, tall, possible Slavic, and the other female, Asian, in her late twenties or early thirties, the French police officer had radioed in asking for additional support from the Police Nationale. Saul Zeltinger had also been notified. His driver, Beck, was soon driving at speed along the straight flat road away from the motorway to join the lone officer at the airstrip at Épernay.
Whether the German detective would have made the connection that a white Ford car with British plates heading in the other direction might have contained Lewis and Holly was debateable. Usually, however, not much escaped the German Detective-Inspector’s beady eye. It was therefore perhaps fortunate for Lewis and Holly that they had chosen a different route when leaving the airstrip a short while earlier.
123
Near Troyes
“How are you feeling?” Lewis asks, concerned that Holly has hardly moved since leaving Épernay.
They are in a different car. Holly’s loan car has been safely parked up at the station car park in Épernay. Earlier, Lewis had walked up and down adjacent rows of parked cars at the station until he had found a make and model that he had felt was appropriate: a five-year old Peugeot 308. It was a popular car throughout France, one that Lewis hoped would enable them to pass across the country without attracting undue attention. He had hot-wired the ignition, the engine starting first time. It even had a full tank of petrol.
“Weird, to tell the truth. How’s the head?” Lewis had found at an all-night hypermarket on the outskirts of town. He had used some of his spare Euros to buy filled-baguettes, bottled water, plenty of chocolate and some heavy-duty painkillers.
“Easing a bit, thanks.” They are heading south across open country. Lewis plans to cut back due east and join the motorway shortly, but is wanting to avoid the more direct route that passes the airfield.
“I’m still not sure I understand why we had to ditch the car. I don’t like driving a stolen vehicle. It doesn’t feel right.”
“It won’t be for long. Your car will now be high on France’s most-wanted list. For a quieter life, I thought it was better to change.”
The crescent moon is back. The clouds have cleared and the road once more is dead straight. There is no traffic to be seen anywhere. The landscape is gently undulating, the road passing through vines and mixed farmland. There are virtually no houses or villages to speak of. They drive in silence for several kilometres, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Want to tell me how you managed to track me down?” Lewis asks eventually. He could see she was awake, staring ahead at the road.
Slowly she begins her story. She finds it helpful to talk. She tells him everything, how she felt, her fears, and some of the tough decisions she had to take along the way. At one point, in the middle of a town called Sézanne, Lewis slows and takes a left turn, the route signposted towards the A26 motorway. Otherwise they cruise along at a constant speed the whole way.
“She was completely perverted, that woman Sui-Lee, wasn’t she?” Holly is saying at one point. “What a ghastly piece of work.”
“Now you know what I had to go through,” says Lewis.
“What did she make you do?”
“You don’t want to know,” is all he will tell her. So she leaves it alone and they continue in silence.
“What’s the plan now?” she asks eventually.
“We drive to the Swiss border, somewhere close to Geneva. Then we take a taxi across into Switzerland. We should be there by early morning.”
They are approaching the junction for the motorway.
“Why can’t we just drive straight to Geneva?”
“Probably not a good idea with a stolen car.”
“But why a taxi?”
“Because,” said Lewis, “passengers in taxis are never stopped at the frontier. They are always waved through.”
“How do you know?”
“In my time as a drifting ski bum, a lot of rich clients would take taxis from Geneva airport direct to the French ski resorts. I never, ever, showed my passport at the border. Not once.”
“Point made. A taxi definitely sounds good to me. Do you need me to drive?”
“Possibly. Why don’t you get some sleep first? My head’s going to keep me awake for the moment.”
Lewis pulls into the motorway tollbooth. He buzzes down the window next to him to collect a ticket from the machine before joining the carriageway heading south.
“I think I will try and get some sleep. Let me know when you want me to take over?”
He reaches across and brushes her cheek. “Thank you, Holly. You were amazing tonight. I was not happy about you coming on this trip. However, what you did this evening was beyond brave. You were terrific.”
She turns on her side to face him, her seat raked back into the fully reclined position. She is smiling for the first time since the whole episode at the airstrip. As Lewis looks fleetingly across at her and smiles back, spontaneously she raises herself up on one elbow, leans across towards him, and kisses him on the cheek.
“And that’s to thank you. You were amazing too, Ben, terrifying actually. I don’t even want to think what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there. You definitely saved my life.”
“Not exactly the perfect date, was it?”
“I think next time we should stay at home.”
He picks up one of the big bars of chocolate he purchased earlier and hands it to her. “Do me a favour before you drop off? I’m hungry and I need chocolate. Could you open it for me?”
“That bad, huh?”
“I hear it’s good for headaches.”
She opens the packet for him and hands it back. “Only if you eat large enough quantities, so I’ve heard.”
“Let me experiment for a while. I’ll let you know the test results later.”
124
Near Geneva Airport
They swap over the driving in the middle of the night. Lewis lies back exhausted in the passenger seat and falls instantly into a deep sleep. They make good time, with no traffic or hold ups to disrupt them. It is a little after four-thirty in the morning when Holly pulls into a rest area and cuts the engine.
; Lewis is awake instantly. He checks the time, shaking his head a little and wincing.
“Where are we?”
“Approaching the turn off to Geneva. I didn’t know what the plan was. I thought you should probably drive the next bit.”
They get out the car and take a stretch, meeting once more at the front of the car as they swap over. This time, however, they do not simply pass each other by with a smile. They hug spontaneously, Lewis holding Holly tight, kissing the top of her head gently.
“You all right, there?” he says to her as they embrace. She feels warm and soft in his arms.
“Better thanks. Did the chocolate do the trick?”
“Still work in progress, I’m afraid.”
There is a Holiday Inn near Geneva airport on the French side of the border, near a village called Saint-Genis-Pouilly. Lewis remembers it because he once had had a brief stopper there. It had been with a wealthy Russian female client whose private jet from Geneva’s TAG terminal had been cancelled due to fog. She had been looking for something to do to amuse her for a few hours and Ben Lewis had found himself in the right place at the right time.
With Lewis once more behind the wheel, they set off. The hotel was situated less than a kilometre from the French-Swiss border and less than ten minutes drive from where Holly had stopped.
“How many Euros do we have left?” Holly asks as Lewis parks the car in the half-empty hotel car park.
Lewis takes an assortment of the Russian’s Euro notes from out of his jacket inner pocket and counts them quickly. “Well over five hundred. Why?”
“Enough for us to take a room and freshen up?”
“With breakfast to boot. The bank in Geneva is unlikely to open before eight-thirty in the morning.”
“That gives us almost four hours. Come on, I could murder a long soak in a deep bath.”
History could be in danger of repeating itself, Lewis thinks to himself as they head towards the reception desk.
“How long will you be staying, monsieur?” The night receptionist is an overweight man in his fifties, dressed in shirtsleeves with no tie. He looks as if he has not long been awake.
“Only a few hours. Our flight is at midday,” Lewis says, looking at Holly and winking.
“And how will you paying for your stay with us today?”
“Cash.”
“In that case, I will need you to pay for the room upfront, Monsieur.”
“Sure,” Lewis says, handing over two hundred Euros.
“Merci,” he says, handing him back some change. “I will also need your passport please.” Lewis raises an eyebrow. “It is normal procedure at airport hotels here in Geneva. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”
Lewis hands over Marco Trevoni’s passport and the receptionist scans an electronic copy before handing the document back along with two plastic key cards in a folded cardboard wallet. He explains that their room is on the third floor, the elevators being behind them and to the right.
Lewis lets Holly use the bathroom first, choosing instead to flop down on top of the soft goose-down duvet which lay invitingly on the king-size bed. He falls immediately into a deep sleep. He is blissfully unaware when, wrapped only in a bath sheet, Holly later creeps into the room and lies beside him. They both enjoy the sleep of the dead until the alarm by the side of his bed starts to beep. The time is a little after seven-thirty.
He takes a long shower whilst Holly slumbers, enjoying the sensation of the hot needles of water on his skin. His mind is in neutral as he applies the shower gel, and is taken by surprise when he finds the door to the shower cabinet opening and sees Holly stepping in to join him.
“I thought you might need some help,” she says, their two naked bodies pressing together. They kiss, a long, sensual kiss.
“You saw me naked earlier,” she says, grabbing the bottle of shower gel and squeezing it. “It was only fair that I should see you too.”
They kiss once more. She applies more shower gel over them both.
“How is that?” she asks.
“My head or other parts?” he asks.
“Both,” she says, and shivers as he places his hand between her legs and touches her.
Their lovemaking is frantic and passionate. By the end their bodies are shaking, both with pleasure and from nervous exhaustion.
“How was that for a first date?” he asks as they lay together afterward, both arm in arm, listening to their racing pulses slowly starting to subside.
“The start of the evening was a bit weird, but that last bit was amazing.” They kiss again, Lewis deciding against his better judgement that it is time to get dressed. They are both famished and decide to order breakfast from room service. When it eventually arrives, they demolish the food in its entirety, right down to the last croissant.
“Bugger,” Lewis says moments later.
“What’s the matter?”
He is examining Leyla Zamani’s iPhone that he has just removed from his jacket pocket. The screen is badly cracked, a spider’s web pattern now covering virtually the entirety of the glass.
“Is it broken?” she asks.
Lewis presses the ‘on’ button and the screen flickers hesitantly. It takes three attempts to enter the password correctly. It is only just working.
“Well,” he says exhaling loudly, “it might be okay. I must have landed on it badly or something during all the fun and games yesterday. Let’s hope and pray that it stays working or else all this will have been for nothing. Then we’ll really be in the shit.”
With difficulty, he navigates to the address book, finding and then memorising the contact number of the person at the bank that Leyla Zamani appeared to know. He also searches for another number from the recent telephone call list. He then turns the iPhone off to save its battery.
125
Épernay
It wasn’t until after two o’clock in the morning when Saul Zeltinger eventually got to bed. Following the discovery of the dead bodies at the disused airfield, he and Beck had found themselves a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Épernay. A rather grumpy and unhelpful night concierge had reluctantly consented to let them have two rooms for the night, but only if Zeltinger agreed to pay the full rack rate. He had arranged to meet Beck for breakfast at half past eight. Zeltinger, never one to be late for any meeting, was already dressed and about to head downstairs when his mobile phone began to vibrate. The time was precisely one minute before the half hour.
“Zeltinger.”
“Good morning, Detective Inspector.” It was Ben Lewis, he was sure of it. He looked at his screen to check the number, but it simply displayed the words, ‘Caller ID withheld’.
“This is a surprise, Ben. We appear to have been playing cat and mouse these last twenty-four hours. I don’t suppose that you are about to tell me where you are at this precise moment?”
There was a pause before Lewis answered. “Let’s just say France, shall we?”
“Well, that makes the two of us. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I think we can cut to the chase. You know as well as I do that given what has happened in the last twenty-four hours, I am probably lucky to be alive.”
“Yes, if you were a cat, you’d be almost through all your allotted nine lives. You appear to have upset a lot of Russians, not to mention one Chinese woman in particular.”
“I need to be able to have a frank conversation with you, Zeltinger, one where you are not about to lock me up and throw away the key first before we start speaking.”
“Go on, then. You are intriguing me.”
“First things first. I thought you were supposed to have arrested that Chinese woman out at Heathrow yesterday? How on earth did she manage to end up following me to France yesterday evening?”
Zeltinger pauses. “That was not one of Heathrow airport police’s finest hours, I have to admit. Are you anywhere near the Champagne region at the moment by any chance? It’s just that we could perhaps meet face to face to discuss some of this. I ask this because I spent time in the early hours wandering around a disused airfield near Épernay. I wondered if that rang any bells? It was you that brought up the subject of the Chinese woman, you see, Ben.”
“How much difficulty am I likely to be in at the moment? Honestly.”
“That’s a tough question. It depends on the point of view, I suppose. If we dismissed the aggravated assault charges on certain Russians in Green Park, and then again in Paddington, not to mention the bombing of your flat in Pimlico and the death of a Russian citizen, then we might be okay. Of course we’d also have to wipe from the memory the illegal riding of a motorbike through Hyde Park; failure to remain for questioning after a second failed bombing attempt at a London hotel; theft of a passport from an Italian tourist at Heathrow; entering the UK using a false name and stolen documents; and then there would be the reckless endangerment whilst riding a bike through rural Kent. If all these UK charges could theoretically be laid aside, then you would only have those that the French national police want to discuss with you remaining: most notably those that are connected to the deaths of a Russian man and a Chinese woman at a disused airfield near Épernay yesterday. Are you getting a feel for the complexities involved here?”
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 26