Authors: Ian Rankin
Reeve got out of his car. “This is some spot,” he said.
“Ah, yes, my grandparents lived here.”
Reeve nodded. “He was a timberman?”
“No, no, he was a professor of anthropology. Please, come this way.”
And she led him indoors. Reeve was dismayed to see that security was lax. Never mind the isolation and the fact that there was only one road in and out—the house itself was protected by only a single deadbolt, and the shutters had been left open, making for easy entry through one of the windows.
“Neighbors?” he asked.
“The trees are my neighbors.” She saw he was serious. “There is a farm only a couple of miles away. They have truffle rights. That means the right to come onto the land to search for truffles. I only ever see them in the autumn, but then I see them a lot.”
There was a bolt on the inside of the door, which was something. There was also a low rumbling noise. The rumble turned into a deep animal growl.
“Ça suffit!” Marie Villambard exclaimed as the biggest dog Reeve had ever seen padded into the hall. The beast walked straight up to her, demanding to be patted, but throughout Marie’s attentions its eyes were on the stranger. It growled again from deep in its cavernous chest. “His name is Foucault,” Villambard explained to Reeve. He didn’t think it was time to tell her he had a cat called Bakunin. “Let him smell you.”
Reeve knew that this was the drill—same with any dog—don’t be a stranger. Let it paw over you and sniff your crotch, whatever it takes, until it has accepted you in its territory. Reeve stretched out a hand, and the dog ran a wet, discerning nose over the knuckles, then licked them.
“Good dog, Foucault,” Reeve said. “Good dog.”
Marie was rubbing the monster’s coat fiercely. “Really I should keep him outside,” she said. “But he’s spoiled. He used to be a hunting dog—don’t ask me which breed. Then his owner had to go into hospital, and if I hadn’t looked after him nobody would. Would they, Foucault?”
She started to talk to the dog—Reeve guessed part Alsatain, part wolfhound—in French, then led it back to the kitchen, where she emptied some food from a tin into a bowl the size of a washbasin. In fact, as Reeve got closer, he saw that it was a washbasin, red and plastic with a chewed rim.
“Now,” she said, “my thinking is that you need a bath, yes? After your first-class journey.”
“That would be great.”
“And food?”
“I’m starving.”
“There is an excellent restaurant, we passed it—”
“Yes, I saw.”
“We will go there. You are in France only one night, you must spend the time wisely.”
“Thanks. I’ve some stuff in my car; I’ll just go fetch it.”
“And shall I begin your bath.”
The bathroom was a compact space just off the hall. There was a small kitchen, and a small living space that looked more like an office than somewhere to relax. It had a look of organized chaos, some kind of order that only the owner of such a room could explain.
“You live here alone?” Reeve asked.
“Only since my husband left me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. He was a pig.”
“When did he leave?”
“October eleventh, 1978.”
Reeve smiled and went out to the car. He walked around the house first. This was real “Hansel and Gretel” stuff: the cottage in the woods. He could hear a dog barking, probably on the neighboring farm. But no other sounds intruded except the rustling of the oak trees in the wind. He knew what Marie thought—she thought the very secrecy of this place made her safe. But where she saw secrecy, Reeve saw isolation. Even if she wasn’t in the telephone book, it would take just an hour’s work for a skilled operative to get an address for her. An Ordnance Survey map would show the house—might even name it. And then the operative would know just how isolated the spot was.
There were two small outbuildings, one of which had been a bakery at one time. The bread oven was still there, the large wooden paddles still hung on the walls, but the space was used for storage these days. Mice or rats had chewed the corners out of a tower of empty cardboard boxes. The other outbuilding was a woodshed, and maybe always had been. It was stacked with neat piles of sawn logs. Reeve peered into the forest. A covering of dry leaves on the forest floor wouldn’t be enough to give warn-ing of anyone approaching the house. He’d have had trip wires maybe. Or…
Sudden beams of light flooded the shade. He blinked up and saw that halogen lamps had been fastened to some of the trees. Something or someone had tripped them. Then he saw Marie Villambard standing beside the house, arms folded, laughing at him.
“You see,” she said, “I have protection.”
He walked towards her. “They’re movement-sensitive,” he said.
“That’s right.”
He nodded. “All connected to a single source?”
“Yes.”
“Then they’d be easy to disable. Plus, what do they do? They light up the trees. So what? That’s not going to stop someone from advancing.”
“No, but it gives Foucault something to aim at. He stays out here at night.”
“He’s just one dog.”
She laughed again. “You are a security expert?”
“I used to be,” Reeve mumbled, going back into the house with his bag.
He changed into his spare set of clothes, wrapping his soiled shirt around Lucky 13. He wasn’t planning on staying here. He’d head off after dinner, find a hotel somewhere on the route. So he took his bag back out to the car and put it in the trunk, out of sight. Marie Villambard had put together a cardboard box full of papers.
“These are all copies, so I do not need them returned.”
“Fine,” he said.
“And I don’t know if they will tell you anything I haven’t.”
“Thanks anyway.”
She looked like she had something awkward to say, her eyes avoiding his. “You know, you are welcome to stay here tonight.”
He smiled. “Thanks, but I think I’ll head off.”
“You are sure?” Now she looked at him. She didn’t look like an executive anymore; she looked lonely and tired, tired of solitude and stroking Foucault, tired of long wakeful nights wondering if the sky would suddenly burst open with halogen. Tired of waiting.
“I’ll see how I feel after dinner,” he conceded. But he loaded the box of files into the trunk anyway.
“Shall we take my car?” she asked.
“Let’s take mine. It’s blocking yours anyway.” He helped her on with her coat. “It looked like a very nice restaurant.” Making conversation didn’t come easily. He was still getting over the feeling of being flattered that she wanted him to stay. She locked the door after them.
“It is an excellent restaurant,” she said. “And a very good reason for moving here.”
“It wasn’t sentimentality then?” He opened the passenger door for her.
“You mean because the house belonged to my grandparents? No, not that. Well, perhaps a little. But the restaurant made the decision easy. I hope they have a table.” Reeve started the engine and turned the car around. “I tried calling, but the telephone is acting up again.”
“Again?”
“Oh, it happens a lot. The French system…” She looked at him. “You are wondering if my phone is tapped. Well, I don’t know. I must trust that it is not.” She shrugged. “Otherwise life would be intolerable. One would think oneself paranoid…”
Reeve was staring ahead. “A car,” he said.
“What?” She turned to look through the windshield. There was a car parked fifty or sixty yards away—French license plate; nobody inside.
“Merde,” she said.
Reeve didn’t hesitate. He slammed the gearshift into reverse and turned to navigate through the back window. There was a logging trail behind him, and another car darted from it and braked hard across the road.
“Gordon…” Marie said as he stopped the Land Rover. It was the first time she’d used his name.
“Run for it,” Reeve said to her. He released both their seat belts. The men in the rear car were reaching into their jackets, at the same time opening their doors. “Just get into the woods and run like hellfire!” He was shouting now, pumping himself up. He leaned across her, pushed open her door, and thrust her out of the car. “Run!” he yelled, at the same time hitting the accelerator with everything he had and pulling his foot off the clutch. The wheels spun, and the car started to fly backwards, weaving crazily from side to side. The men were halfway out of the car when Reeve hit them with everything his own vehicle had. One of the men slipped, and Reeve felt his back wheels bump over something that hadn’t previously been on the road. The other man slumped back into the car, either dazed or unconscious.
Reeve looked out of his windshield. Men had appeared beside the car in front. They’d been hiding in the woods. He checked to his left and saw Marie scurrying away. Good: she was keeping low. But the men in front were pointing towards her. One of them headed back into the trees, the other two took aim at Reeve’s car.
“Now,” he told himself, ducking and opening his door. He slipped out of the car and started crawling towards the trunk just as the first shots went off. There was a body lying under the car, between the front and back wheels. Most of it was intact. Reeve patted it down but found no gun. It must have been thrown during the collision. He couldn’t see it anywhere nearby. Another shot hit the radiator grille. Would they hear shots at the neighboring farm? And if they did, would they think them suspicious? The French were a nation of hunters—truffles not their only prey.
The collision had thrown open the back of the Land Rover. He couldn’t hope to carry the box of papers, but snatched his overnight bag. They were closing on him, walking forward with real purpose and almost without caution. He could try the other car, there might be guns there. He was on the wrong side of the track to follow Marie, and if he tried crossing over they’d have a clean shot at him. His first decision had to be right. He knew what standard operating procedure was: get the hell away from the firefight and regroup. If you had to go back in, come from a direction the enemy would least expect.
It made sense, only it meant leaving Marie. I can’t help her dead, he thought. So he took a deep breath and, crouching low, made for the trees. He was like a figure in a shooting gallery to the two gunmen, but they only had handguns and he was mov-ing fast. He reached the first line of trees and kept running. It was nearly dark, which was both good and bad: good because it made it easier to hide; bad because it camouflaged his pursuers as well as himself. He ran jaggedly for three minutes and was still surrounded by oaks. He hadn’t been trying to run stealthily or silently, he just wanted distance. But now he paused and looked back, peering between the trees, listening hard. He heard a whistle, then another—one way over to his right, the other to his left, much closer. Only two whistles; only two men. He was getting farther and farther away from Marie. It could take him hours to circle back around to her. He was doing something he’d vowed to himself he’d never do again: he was running away.
He held out his hands. They were shaking. This wasn’t one of his weekend games; his pursuers weren’t using blanks. This was real in a way that hadn’t been true since Operation Stalwart. Return or retreat: those were the options facing him now. He had seconds to decide. He made the decision.
He looked down at his clothes. His pullover was dark, but the shirt beneath was white and showed at the cuffs and neck. Quickly he tugged off the pullover and took off his shirt, then put the pullover back on. Trousers, shoes, and socks were dark, too. He put the shirt back in his bag, then unwrapped Lucky 13. He used the damp and mud beneath the leaves to cover his face and hands and the meat of the dagger’s blade. They might have flashlights, and he didn’t want a glint of metal to give him away. The dark was closing in fast, the tree cover all but blocking out the last light of day. Another whistle, another reply. They were far enough apart for him to walk between them. They’d hardly be expecting him to double back.
But he was going to do just that. He left the bag where it was and set off.
He took slow, measured paces so as not to make noise, and he went from tree to tree, using each one as cover so he could check the terrain between that tree and the next. He had no landmarks to go by, just his own sense of direction. He’d left no tracks that he could follow back to the road, and didn’t want to follow tracks anyway: they might belong to a truffle hunter; they might belong to a pursuer.
But the whistled messages between his two pursuers were as good as sonar. Here came the first call… then the response. He held his breath. The response was so close he could hear the final exhalation of breath after the whistle itself had ended. The man was moving slowly, cautiously. And very, very quietly. Reeve knew he was dealing with a pro. His fingers tightened around Lucky 13.
I’m going to kill someone, he thought. Not hit them or wound them. I’m going to kill them.
The man walked past Reeve’s tree, and Reeve grabbed him, hauling him down by the head and gouging into his throat with the dagger. The pistol squeezed off a single shot, but it was wild. Still, it would have warned the others. Even dying, the man had been thinking of his mission. Reeve let the body slump to the ground, the gaping wound in the neck spurting blood. He took the pistol from the warm, pliant hand and looked at the man. He was wearing camouflage, black boots, and a balaclava. Reeve tore off the balaclava but couldn’t place the face. He did a quick search but came up with nothing in the pockets.
It was time to go. Another whistle: two sharp staccatos. Reeve licked his lips and returned it, knowing it wouldn’t fool his adversary for longer than half a minute. He set off quickly now, hoping he was heading towards the cars. But he knew his direction was off when he came out into a clearing he knew. There was the house, sitting in darkness. He looked up but couldn’t see any halogen lamps hidden in the trees. Maybe the enemy had disabled them.
Had they taken Marie back to the cottage? It looked unlikely, there were no lights in there. He walked forward to check… and now there was a burst of halogen, lighting the scene like a stage-set in a darkened theater.