Kite continued to smoke the cigarette, telling himself that it was all just a question of hanging around near the wall, killing time, looking natural to anyone who might come past or spot him. The ground floor of the house was more than a hundred metres away, screened by trees. Kite could see the window of Xavier’s room on the first floor, Eskandarian’s attic bedroom above it. He reached up and took down the book, opening it halfway through. He leaned with his back against the tree, extinguishing the cigarette in a pile of loose earth and dried leaves. Kite could see ants on the ground and knew it would only be a matter of time before they climbed onto his espadrilles and started marching up his legs. Nevertheless he pretended to concentrate on The Songlines, reading the same paragraph several times and even marking a passage in the margin (‘Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.’) for the benefit of anyone who might be watching him. After five minutes of this masquerade, he stood up, brushed off his legs and lifted the swimming trunks from the top of the wall. A corner of the material had snagged on the glass, but they did not tear as Kite pulled them free. He walked back towards the house, leaving the packet of cigarettes behind him as if he had forgotten it.
He had reached an enclosed, shaded walkway in the garden and was turning towards the swimming pool when Abbas suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path. Startled and afraid, Kite stepped back. There was a small, weathered bench to one side of the pergola on which Abbas must have been sitting.
‘Jesus, you gave me a fright,’ he said.
‘Lockie,’ Abbas murmured in acknowledgement.
Had he been watching him? Had he cottoned on to the ruse with the book and the swimming trunks?
‘Having a siesta?’ Kite asked. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you.’
‘You don’t disturb me.’
‘Is Ali not back from the hospital?’ He knew that it was far too soon for José to have been treated, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘That was a nasty cut.’
Abbas wasn’t in the habit of speaking unless he had to. He merely grunted at Kite and sat down on the bench. His hair was greasy, the collar of his white shirt dirty and frayed. Kite had a sudden image of him creeping around the New York subway, weighing up which stations to target, checking out air vents.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ Kite told him.
‘You have cigarette?’
It was as if Kite’s heart had caught on a fragment of glass. He managed to say: ‘Sorry, no, smoked my last one.’
Abbas patted the pockets of his suit jacket in a pantomime of frustration. Was he toying with Kite or was the request for a cigarette a genuine, if grim coincidence?
‘Never mind,’ he said.
‘Xavier will have a Marlboro,’ Kite told him. ‘Come to the pool. Or I can fetch you one?’
His mind was racing. Should he go back to the wall and grab the packet, pretending to have forgotten it? No, he couldn’t do that. It might already have been taken by Peele or Carl.
‘It’s OK,’ the Iranian replied. ‘I can wait.’
His words sounded loaded with menace. Kite knew that he should walk on, that it was pointless to hang around trying to act natural. Besides he could not be sure that Abbas was genuinely suspicious of him. Even if he had seen him reading and smoking by the wall, Kite was certain that he had carried off the dead drop with faultless precision. The cigarettes had been bundled in with the book and the swimming trunks. He had looked like someone grabbing ten minutes of peace and quiet at the end of a hectic afternoon. That was it. No reason to panic. He must hold his nerve.
‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said. ‘Watch out for mosquitoes.’ Abbas shrugged, as if it was the mosquitoes who should watch out for him. ‘See you later.’
Kite walked off clutching the swimming trunks and the Chatwin, reaching the pool to find Xavier and Jacqui in the water. Martha was sunbathing on the patch of ground where two days earlier they had made love. When she saw Kite, she sat up and waved.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Having a smoke, reading,’ he said. He was sick with the fear that Abbas was already at the wall, pulling down the packet of cigarettes, finding the note. ‘What’s going on?’
Xavier surfaced in the deep end and said: ‘Oh, hi. Fancy going into Mougins?’
‘Sure.’ Kite knew that his friend was low on alcohol and wanted to stock up. He turned to Martha. ‘Come with us?’
‘Love to,’ she replied. ‘I want to take more photos. But have a swim first, Lockie. The water’s beautiful.’
Half an hour later, Xavier rode into Mougins on the Vespa. Rosamund offered to give Martha, Jacqui and Kite a lift. She told them that Abbas had made a phone call from the house, then driven off in the Audi, presumably to collect Eskandarian from the hospital. Kite could not help worrying that he had discovered the note and was raising the alarm. When he came back to the house, would Abbas and Eskandarian be waiting for him, Luc and Rosamund beside them, shaking their heads in stunned disbelief at the depths of his treachery? The thought made him feel nauseous.
They met Xavier at the café in the village square. He had already been to the supermarket and bought a Johnnie Walker and a replacement bottle of Smirnoff. Jacqui said nothing, even when the bottles clinked together as Xavier set them down on the ground.
‘Well that was weird,’ he said.
‘What was?’ Martha asked.
‘Saw Abbas with a man on my way up to Carrefour. Acting strangely.’
A sensation of pure fear coursed through Kite.
‘What do you mean “acting strangely”?’ he said.
‘Just that. He was sitting in a parked car with another bloke.’
‘Maybe he’s made friends in the local area,’ Jacqui suggested. Both Xavier and Martha laughed at her apparent naivety. Kite was too shocked to join in.
‘What were they doing?’ he asked.
Xavier casually waved the waiter over and ordered a vodka and tonic. Waiting for him to answer was like watching a bullet travelling towards him in slow motion.
‘I only saw them for a minute or two, at the traffic lights,’ he said. ‘Looked like they were having an argument, a heated debate about something.’
‘Weird,’ said Martha.
‘Maybe Abbas is secretly gay,’ Xavier suggested, lighting a cigarette. He put on a cod Middle Eastern accent. ‘Are you friend of Dorothy, mister? Do you drop anchor in Poo Bay?’
‘Xav, that’s disgusting!’ said Jacqui, and glanced over at Martha for support.
‘What did he look like?’ Kite asked. He felt completely removed from their joshing, as if Martha and Jacqui were sitting at a neighbouring table talking to someone else.
‘I dunno,’ Xavier replied. He was wearing Top Gun Ray-Bans. He took them off and polished the lenses on a napkin. Kite wanted to tear them out of his hands and plead with him to answer. Eventually he put the sunglasses back on, picked up his cigarette and said: ‘About the same age as Abbas. Weird lip.’
‘Weird lip?’ Kite instantly thought of Bijan.
‘Yeah. Why you so keen to know? Putting together a Photofit?’
Martha looked at Kite as though she also wanted an answer to that question.
‘Sorry, I’m just wondering if it’s the same guy who came up to me in Cannes after lunch.’
‘What guy?’ Martha asked.
‘Nothing,’ Kite replied quickly. He had only spoken to Peele and Eskandarian about his encounter with Bijan. ‘Just this bloke who cornered me in a café in Cannes and started banging on about Iran. He was roughly the same age as Abbas. Had a hare lip.’
‘Curly hair too?’ said Xavier, intrigued.
Kite knew then that Abbas had been speaking to Bijan. It was as though he had been hit with an electric shock. He managed to say: ‘Yeah, curly black hair. Must have been the same guy.’
Martha was staring at him. She could tell that Kite was distracted by something. She said: ‘Are you OK?’ and put her hand on his arm
. At the same time, Kite experienced a wave of relief, realising that if Abbas had found the note in the packet of cigarettes, he would surely have driven straight to Eskandarian, not into Mougins to meet Bijan. But why was Eskandarian’s personal bodyguard arguing with a member of an exile group targeting Iranian VIPs in France? Had Bijan been setting a trap for him all along? Worse still, was Abbas conspiring to have his boss assassinated? Kite was bewildered. He felt that he could not answer these questions without speaking to Peele. Should he write a second note and leave it on the orchard wall or trust that BOX had witnessed the meeting and knew what to do?
‘I’m fine,’ he told Martha, but he could see that she was confused.
‘Why would he be talking to you one day, then Abbas this afternoon?’ she asked. It was the question to which Kite had no clear answer. Perhaps his initial theory had been correct: Abbas and Bijan were working together to investigate Kite. Bijan was not an exile, but part of Eskandarian’s entourage. Yet that contradicted Peele’s assertion that Bijan was a threat.
‘God knows,’ he replied.
‘Is he following us?’ Jacqui asked.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Xavier. ‘Of course he’s not!’
Jacqui told him not to be so condescending and punched him on the arm. Xavier responded by grabbing her wrist and giving her a Chinese burn. The conversation collapsed as the siblings bickered back and forth, drawing disapproving stares from neighbouring tables. Martha put the fire out by asking Kite and Xavier when their A-level results were due. That took them into a ten-minute conversation about gap years and university applications, at the end of which Martha announced that she wanted to walk home and take some photographs. She picked up her camera bag, took the Nikon out and hung it around her neck.
‘Come with me?’ she asked Kite.
Xavier and Jacqui looked at one another but said nothing.
‘You guys can go back together on the Vespa,’ Kite suggested.
‘It’s OK, Mum’s coming to pick me up,’ Jacqui replied.
Kite put a fifty-franc note on the table for the drinks. Xavier immediately gave it back to him, saying it was far too much.
‘My treat,’ he said. ‘You lovebirds enjoy yourselves.’
Jacqui made a noise at the back of her throat and their bickering started up again. Kite and Martha walked away, saying they would see them back at home.
As soon as they were out of sight of the café, Kite reached for Martha’s hand and they kissed. Later, walking out of the village, he told her in more detail about the meeting with Bijan. She was appalled by many of the things Bijan had said, and they talked in general about their opinion of Eskandarian. Martha thought that he was fun and clever, respectful towards her and not sexist or patronising, which was often the default position of older men when they interacted with her. She found it hard to believe that charming, friendly Ali was an adviser to a regime that meted out the kinds of punishments and restrictions Bijan had described. Kite thought about Abbas in New York, of the rumours linking Eskandarian to the slaughterers of Pan Am 103. He wanted to tell Martha everything, not least because he was still bewildered by the nature of the meeting between Abbas and Bijan and would have liked to get her take on it. But that option simply wasn’t available to him. Strawson’s warning sounded in Kite’s mind: We sure as shit don’t need you with your head up your ass the next two weeks. To be with Martha was to find respite from the constant stress and double-think of his new existence. That morning, in bed with her, it was as though Strawson and Peele and the entire crazy operation had never been conceived. Kite had felt that he might somehow walk out of her room and it would just be a beautiful summer day in France, two people falling in love with nothing to worry about except what book to read, what clothes to wear, what music to listen to. Then he had been pulled back into duplicity, deceiving Martha – deceiving all of them – with his ploys and schemes around José. Kite relished the adrenalising risks of his new existence, but had already recognised that it could not last forever. He would inevitably burn out. Either he would continue to see Martha and stop working for Peele and Strawson, or their relationship would have to end and he would dedicate himself to BOX 88. There was no alternative, no way to juggle his split lives if Martha was not to be compromised.
After half an hour they reached the access road, a mile or so from home. It was almost seven o’clock. A sudden cool wind came in from the south, rattling the leaves on the olive trees. The cicadas were briefly silenced.
‘Mistral,’ said Martha.
‘What’s that?’
‘Means it’s going to rain,’ she said.
They looked up at the darkening sky. There were no clouds, no stars. Just the cool wind and the distant cry of a wood pigeon.
Then, a moped. At first Kite thought it was Xavier coming back from Mougins, but he saw the light of a bike coming down the hill towards them from the north. Martha was taking the lens cap off her camera. Kite had walked a few metres ahead of her. He reached into his back pocket for a cigarette and turned to see what had caught her eye. Martha was crouched down, both hands on the Nikon, pulling focus on something in the distance. The moped was about to pass them.
Kite stepped onto the verge to give it the road. He saw that someone was riding pillion behind the driver. Both were wearing helmets. From the size of the bike and the pitch of the engine, Kite understood that it wasn’t a moped, but something larger, faster. The bike slowed down as it came towards him, as if the driver wanted to stop and say hello. But he went past – Kite was sure it was a man – then slowed almost to a halt beside Martha.
Her camera bag was on the ground. The passenger riding pillion leaned over and scooped it up, like a polo player striking the ball. Before Kite could react, the motorbike had screamed off, throwing up a spume of dust and stones.
‘No!’ Martha shouted.
Kite tried to give chase, but it was pointless. The driver was already fifty metres away, sixty, accelerating into the distance.
‘Jesus Christ, that was all my films, my lenses, everything!’
Kite knew with sickening fury that BOX had carried out the theft.
‘Every photo I’ve taken since I got to France. My other camera. Wankers!’
She shouted into the valley, stunned by what had happened. Kite put his arm around her, but it was no comfort. He knew they had wanted the pictures from lunch, from Cannes, from every moment Martha had been at the villa.
‘We can call the police,’ he said, fighting an urge to go straight to the safe house and to confront Peele face to face.
‘Did you get a number plate?’ she asked.
Kite was embarrassed to admit that he had not even thought to look. ‘We should still go to the police,’ he said.
‘What’s the point? I’ll never get it back.’
‘Maybe they’ll dump the bag when they see there’s no money in there. Nothing of value. Maybe they’ll just take the backup camera.’
Even this was a lie, sowing false hope in Martha that would never come good. She was standing at the edge of the road in a state of dazed rage.
‘Are you insured?’ Kite asked.
‘Fuck no,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Who has travel insurance, Lockie?’ It was the first time she had lost her temper with him. ‘No, it’s done. They’re gone. My whole summer holiday. Fuck.’
There was nothing for it but to walk back to the house and tell the others. Luc was incensed, said it was ‘probably Arabs’, and insisted on calling the police. They told him that Martha would have to come into Mougins to file a report. Martha said that she was resigned to never seeing the bag or the rolls of film again. Kite didn’t bother trying to change her mind. He made a promise to himself to buy her a new camera.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, touching her neck as they sat on the terrace before dinner. ‘It’s such bad luck.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied, turning and kissing him on the forehead. ‘It’s not your fault, Lockie. It’s not your fau
lt.’
Kite knew differently. All night he privately raged at Carl and Peele. He wondered if Strawson had come back from wherever he had been and ordered the theft. From an operational perspective, Kite could see why Martha’s photographs might be of value to BOX: she had taken dozens of pictures of Ali, of Abbas and Luc, of Jacques, José and Bita. They would be useful additions to the Eskandarian files and to the pictures Kite had taken in the office which he had yet to give them. But essential? Surely they hadn’t needed the photos? Perhaps it was Strawson’s way of reminding Kite that the operation was more important than Martha.
Eskandarian returned from the hospital at around eight o’clock, driven back by Abbas. Nobody said anything about seeing Abbas in the car with Bijan. José had been given seven stitches in his forehead and was now resting with his mother in a hotel room in Cannes. The accident and the theft of the photographs caused a veil of gloom to descend on dinner, until Martha reassured everyone that she was fine, that she was still having the best summer of her life and raised a glass to her hosts, catching Kite’s eye as she did so. Still boiling with anger, Kite wandered down the drive with Xavier, ostensibly to smoke a cigarette, but in truth wondering if Abbas was parked in the lay-by and therefore blocking any chance he might have of later going to the safe house. Sure enough, the bodyguard was sitting in the Audi smoking a cigarette. Kite checked the walls on either side of the gate, as he always did, to see if they had been marked in chalk. There was nothing on them.
‘All right, man?’ Xavier asked, waving at Abbas.
The Iranian nodded, keeping the window closed.
‘Miserable bastard,’ Xavier whispered. ‘Here’s a question.’ He turned back to the house. ‘You’re forced to live on a desert island with Ted Bundy, Jumpy Jones-Lewis or Abbas. Everyone else is dead. Who do you choose?’
‘Ted Bundy,’ said Kite.
It had occurred to him that his friend had no knowledge nor understanding of the threat from the exile community and therefore no concept of the seriousness of Abbas’s meeting with Bijan. For the second time he wondered if he should write a note to Peele and leave it on the orchard wall. With Abbas in the car, there was less risk that he might be seen.
Box 88 : A Novel (2020) Page 38