The Colours: A spy thriller packed with intrigue and deception

by T. M. Parris

  But Gustave was already walking away with another armful of artwork.

  Pippin tried again on his return. “Where’s the audience, Gustave? In your painting people are watching. People are taking part. But it’s just you. There’s no one here to see this. It’s pointless.”

  “You’re seeing it,” said Gustave. “You can tell the story.”

  “I don’t want to tell the story. There is no story.”

  Gustave slapped him hard. His head hit the metal side of the van.

  “You know better than that. It’ll be out there, believe me. Everyone will see it.”

  Pippin leaned his throbbing head against the van, closing his eyes. These days you always had an audience. All Gustave needed was a phone and he could broadcast the whole thing to the world.

  Back and forth, back and forth. It was cold, on this hill. Pippin sat and shivered. Gustave emptied the van, striding up and down, powered by zeal. Clem lay unmoving, a dark mass on the ground. How long had Gustave been planning this? Was this his aim right from the start? Or was it some kind of elaborate cover-up to draw attention from what had gone wrong, or from the damned Van Gogh that had distorted everything?

  Henri was always blunt about his motivations, if not the scale of his intentions. Why was Clem involved? If theft were Clem’s game, there were a hundred easier things to steal. As for Pippin himself, Pippin would have long gone. Pippin saw the futility of this from far off. And yet here he was, trapped, a reluctant witness to an abhorrent act of vandalism.

  The van emptied. Pippin’s heart raced. Gustave picked up the plastic container, unscrewed the lid, turned towards Pippin and smiled. Pippin wanted to turn away but had to watch. Gustave took his time, shaking the canister and pouring fluid all over the pyre.

  What was in there? Beautifully crafted works, hundreds of years old. Sketches, seascapes, nudes, dramatic stories enacted in shapes and colour, the faces of people long dead, scenes of everyday life injected with joy and flow and meaning. The best of the human spirit, canvas and oil and bronze and wood made into so much more than that. The essence of existence captured in a shape, a combination of colours. The world presented in a way nobody had seen before. All of this would soon be nothing more than charred remnants and ash. Pippin felt tears on his cheeks.

  Gustave struck a match.

  Chapter 39

  Fairchild was running uphill, the cold air making his lungs ache. He’d got a taxi halfway up but came on foot after that to approach quietly. But he needed to be quick, too. He had a bad feeling about this.

  He’d just taken a call from an old contact. Two guys in a van just stopped in the Old Port area of Marseille and asked for directions up to the Notre Dame de la Garde church. They did this near a restaurant on the harbour front, run by his friend, who was outside at the time keeping an eye on things. A beat-up old van, two serious-looking men, nine o’clock at night – odd. To top that, Fairchild’s friend, who had the kind of history to know about these things, thought there was something very off about the number plate on the van. It was a strong enough lead to take seriously.

  Legs burning, he pushed himself onward. Where was Rose and her crew? He’d texted her from the taxi. Her emphasis on teamwork didn’t seem to apply the other way. He turned a corner and slowed. In front of him was a van with the doors open, a small hunched up figure sitting on the back, and a body lying on the ground. Behind the body a tall man – Fournier – was looking up, his face illuminated by the giant orange flames of a bonfire. Smoke billowed off, and Fairchild could feel the heat even from a distance. Above all of it the immense floodlit church looked down, making a recognisable pageant.

  Fairchild crept closer, the van on one side, the bonfire on the other. The small guy sat still, his eyes round as he watched. His arms and feet were bound up. Behind him, the van was empty.

  The fire crackled. The flames grew. Something broke and collapsed in the pyre, sending sparks into the sky. Gustave was smiling as he stared up.

  That bastard Gustave. Now Fairchild realised what the madman had done.

  Chapter 40

  The first of Gustave’s matches had blown out in the wind. And the second, and the third, as if some divine force were intervening to save something of itself. But the fourth match took, and Gustave dropped it on the pile. Flames leaped up and licked the angular shapes. Gustave lit more matches, moving round the fire, a whirling dervish. The smell of the fuel reached Pippin, then a wave of heat as the flames rose and bent in the wind. The cardboard corner of one of the huge frames burned away. Inside Pippin could see paint on canvas bubbling and running. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  A shadow passed in front of him. No, not a shadow: the shape of a man, his silhouette against the orange flames. Where had he come from? The silhouette went straight for Gustave, who turned and backed off. But whoever this was, Gustave was no match for him. A series of tidy punches, a couple of kicks and Gustave was on the ground as motionless as Clem. Then the guy turned to the pyre.

  Moving upwind, he grabbed a length of wood that was once part of a frame, and pulled it out of the fire. He stepped in close, so close he had to jump back when a gust hit the flames. He swung the wood through the heart of the fire, forwards and back, pushing and jabbing, leaping back like a fencer from flames and sparks. The burning contents toppled and scattered over the ground. The pieces lay flat, some in flames, some not. Now the man moved among them. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm and hand. He picked up each piece in turn, lifting it by its edges, peering at it in the dim light. Was he looking for the portrait? If so, he’d risked a lot for nothing.

  He stopped suddenly, staring at something. He picked it up. It was flimsy, made of paper, small. He held it up and looked at both sides. Ignoring the other objects, lying like soldiers fallen in a battlefield, he rolled it up and stepped away. Only then did he look around at the two prone bodies and at Pippin, watching from the van.

  Please, come over. Please, release me. Take me with you. I don’t want to be here any more.

  The two figures on the ground were stirring. Clem had his head up already. In the distance a siren wailed.

  The man paused, listening, then tucked the roll close to his chest and strode away.

  Chapter 41

  Fairchild tasted the smoke in his mouth, and his clothes stank of the stuff. He clenched his fists as he walked off. That madman Fournier! What was the purpose of it? Fairchild only just arrived in time, but even so the print was sure to have suffered some damage. If he’d got there to find nothing but charred remains, he’d have killed the guy for sure. If sheer protest stupidity got in the way of Fairchild fully understanding the significance of this print and why it was so important to his parents, someone would pay a price.

  How had Gustave managed it? The other two clearly weren’t willing participants. The guy on the ground was a big bloke. He must have been the driver for the heist. Pippin, the diminutive thief, was the guy tied up at the van. Gustave must have had some tricks up his sleeve to carry that off.

  Fairchild had been right about Marseille, right about the painting too, that it meant something. He’d been caught out before seeing links where there weren’t any, adding two and two to make five. It was only a gut feel, but he’d been right. It had crossed his mind as well that Pippin had left that painting there deliberately, as a kind of message. But he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Pippin.

  All he’d got back from his text to Rose was a perfunctory reply. The sirens meant someone had called the police, but it certainly wasn’t him. He didn’t want to explain himself to local law enforcement any more than Rose’s lot would have done. No one else was up on this hill apart from the gang and himself. When he’d heard the sirens he’d paused, the print rolled up in his hand, the two on the ground stirring, Pippin at the van, pale and silent, no sign of anyone else.

  He'd done what he promised to do. More people would have meant more options, but he was alone. So he t
urned and left the three of them up there, getting himself and his print out of harm’s way while he still had the chance.

  Chapter 42

  Pippin watched the man disappear. He wasn’t going to be rescued. He was left here alone with the two of them. However much he wanted to, it wasn’t his time yet to leave.

  Clem was up first. Pippin watched the back of the big guy’s head as he sat up slowly and surveyed the chaos in front of him. Gustave was stirring too, groaning. That guy couldn’t do anything quietly. Clem climbed to his feet and stepped amongst the damaged artwork, walking around, lifting corners of frames with his foot. He looked up and met Pippin’s eye. Gustave was sitting up now, coughing thickly. There was blood involved, a broken rib maybe.

  A flash of blue lit the scene for a split second. This galvanised Clem. He stepped towards Gustave, reached into the guy’s jacket and pulled out his gun. He took a step back and aimed. A babble of words from Gustave. Was it coherent? Pippin couldn’t tell.

  Clem shot him in the head, a spray of blood and brains. Gustave fell back, truly silent now.

  Three strides and Clem was towering over Pippin.

  “Get in,” he said.

  Pippin scrambled but couldn’t get his feet up. Clem lifted his legs and shoved him. He slammed the doors shut. Moments later they were on the move, accelerating and twisting. Pippin rolled about in the empty van, thrown against the sides. The sirens were close now, wailing all around. Someone shouted through a megaphone. But the van didn’t stop.

  Gunshots, three or four, then a lurch and a burst of speed. Loud bangs on the sides of the van. They were being fired at. But they carried on without slowing, crazy driving, twisting and braking, skidding on every turn.

  The sirens faded. Their pace didn’t diminish. Pippin buried his head under his arms and wished he were somewhere else.

  Someone else.

  Chapter 43

  Zoe and Noah used to go skateboarding in the Place des Marseillais, below the steps up to the Gare St Charles in central Marseille. It wasn’t allowed, but a few of them met up and did it anyway until they were moved on. Those carefree weekends were all about harmless playing, enjoying movement for its own sake, back when everything was okay, when Mum and Dad were still around. Zoe tried to remember how good it felt just to be moving, the uncomplicated companionship they all shared for an hour or two. She’d been proud of being a big sis to her little brother back then. She still was.

  She stood by the iron railings and looked down at the Place from above. Tears filled her eyes as she watched Noah saunter up and look around for her. So grown up and yet still so vulnerable. It was a lot, what she was going to pass to him now. She’d spent all night working it out and had a plan, but this part of it, Noah, was her biggest regret. Unbelievable how much everything had changed within the space of a day.

  Noah sat on a bench and stretched out, playing around with his mobile. Her phone beeped. He’d texted her: You here, sis? But she wasn’t ready for him yet. She wanted to stay up above, standing and looking down. Noah didn’t look this way, and if he did he probably wouldn’t recognise her. Zoe was doing what Anna was going to do to her at the Japanese Garden. She was watching for watchers.

  She scanned the crowds, looking for anyone who arrived the same time as Noah and was still there. A guy smoking, a woman standing looking at her watch, a group of three talking and laughing as they crossed the square, they all melted away. How long would Anna give it?

  She texted: Be there in 20 and a smiley face.

  FFS came the answer. Yeah, well, he’d have to be patient.

  She ticked the people off in her head. All accounted for: those who had arrived had moved on. This wasn’t perfect – all you needed to do was change a hat or a coat or a scarf and the job was much more difficult. She was relying on that herself. At least she was sure no one was on her tail.

  She’d been at the bank all night, putting things in place, things that before were only ideas. But when she realised how much she’d changed things without even knowing, what she’d lost already, she went back to them and thought again.

  After twenty minutes she came down the steps and sat on the bench next to Noah. She was glad she’d chosen somewhere so busy, where they could just blend in. Noah didn’t register her at first. She still had the scarf, and her tied-back hair thinned her face. She’d also splashed out earlier on a hip-length close-fitting buttoned jacket to try and change her shape and style. Eventually she turned to Noah.

  “Hey, bro,” she said softly.

  Noah turned and his eyes widened.

  “Zoe! Oh my God! You look fantastic!”

  “Don’t over-react! I’m just trying a new look. What do you think?” She grinned.

  “Wow! Great! I mean – older, I guess. But in a good way.”

  “Like Grace Jones?”

  He shrugged, too young for that.

  “So what’s going on with you? You’re being weird, Zoe.”

  “Did you come straight from Raoul’s this morning?”

  “Yeah, like you said.”

  “And you spoke to Lily? Told her everything was okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s cool. You’re not, though, are you?”

  Zoe took a breath. “Noah, some things are going to change. I have to go away for a while.”

  “Away? Where? How long?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just – some people are after me.”

  His eyes widened.

  “It’s okay, Noah. They’re not going to find me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”

  He seemed to accept that. It had happened to him, after all.

  “But I’ve got to get clear of them,” she continued. “Stay out of their way.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. And even if I did, Noah, I wouldn’t tell you. You know why? Because they may come and ask you that. And you need to be able to say to them honestly that you don’t know where I am and have no way of getting in touch with me.”

  “Seriously? I won’t be able to call you? Not even a text?”

  “Nothing, no texts, no messages. If you send me a text, I won’t get it. When it’s safe again I’ll contact you.”

  He looked troubled. “And what if I don’t hear from you?”

  “You will. You will, I promise.”

  Zoe gave him her best reassuring big-sis squeeze of the shoulder.

  “Now listen. Watch yourself for a little while. Careful where you go. Look around, see if anyone’s following you. Stay tight with your mates. Keep to places where there’s other people about, public places. Get taxis if you need to instead of walking. I’m gonna give you some money.”

  Now he looked suspicious. “Where are you getting this money from, Zo? Is that why they’re after you?”

  “No. Well – not exactly. No, that isn’t it. They think I’m involved in something I’m not. They’re Russians, Noah. You see or hear of any Russians hanging around, just avoid them. Be careful for a while. When they realise I’m not coming here and you don’t know anything, they should disappear. The most important thing is that you keep up with everything. Studying, the academy, the practices. ‘Cos this is what you want, isn’t it, this chance?”

  He shrugged, casual as ever.

  “I don’t want some silly mistake of mine to mess things up for you.”

  She felt tearful again. Hold it back, Zoe. Now isn’t the time for that. You have to be strong.

  “How are things with Epée these days?” she asked.

  “Cool. His crew are still around but they don’t come near me.”

  “Well, tell you what. Any trouble from any Russians, any Russians showing their faces near you, you tell Epée they’re trying to take over his turf. Tell him he should scare them off. That he should do something big to show them who’s boss. You up for that?”

  “I thought you d
idn’t want me getting involved with them.”

  “I don’t. This isn’t getting involved. Don’t start doing things they ask you to do. But since Epée and his people are looking out for you, maybe we can use that.”

  He grinned, a flash of joy. “You were always the clever one. You got it all worked out, haven’t you?”

  She messed his hair, feeling all churned up inside.

  “Yeah, I got it all worked out. You think you can do this, bro? Trust your big sister and carry on?”

  He gave a curious half-smile. “Yeah, I guess. You’re a sister of mystery now, but I’m cool with that. Just get in touch when you can.”

  They hugged briefly. Zoe wanted to drown him in a massive bear hug, but had to keep it in check. She watched him lumbering away across the square, letting a drop or two fall from her eyes. She had no idea when – or if – she’d see her little brother again. It could be never, and that thought tore her apart. But as long as he was okay here, doing what he wanted to do, that was enough.

  She stayed for a while, scanning the crowds again for any changes in direction, anyone going Noah’s way, before leaving for the train back to Monaco. Family came first and she’d done her best by her brother. Now that was out of the way, she had to sort things out for herself.

  Chapter 44

  Rose stayed prowling around the Japanese Garden until well after dark and repeatedly tried Zoe’s phone, but no luck. Next morning she got on a train to Marseille. Yvonne, who had gone the previous night, hadn’t set eyes on Noah at all. That worried Rose, particularly on top of Zoe’s no-show in Monaco.

  The second conversation she’d had with Zoe was troubling her. It was understandable that Zoe didn’t want to put herself in Rose’s hands. But it felt as though she were slipping away. Zoe was a clever woman, frustrated at not having the chance to use her talents. But it was dangerous if she felt empowered to do things that she had neither the knowledge nor the support to do. Rose’s time as an agent runner in Moscow was still vivid in her mind. It didn’t matter how bright you were; if you were going to take on the might of the Russian government, you needed knowhow and you needed backup. Without either, Zoe had no chance. And things may get dangerous for those close to her as well, which was why Rose was coming to Marseille. Aside from checking if Noah was safe, he may have some idea what his sister was up to.