Hands of the Traitor (19 page)

Sister Ewing turned away and stared at
the empty picture hook on the wall. It was of no consequence, but
it needed saying. "Would you believe it; that old army photograph
has gone."

France, the next
morning

MATT WOKE
early and decided to let Zoé
stay asleep in her room on this their first full day. He went to
the Mini before it was properly light, to drive around the area and
absorb the atmosphere, trying to imagine what it would be like if
his grandfather had been well enough to come on the trip and point
out places first hand.

The countryside around here was more hilly
than he remembered northern France being. The drive down towards
Paris always seemed interminably level and boring. Up here there
were undulating fields dotted with areas of woodland, as well as
the expected areas of flat land. Maize seemed to be the main
produce, with vast areas of the waving brown stems. Sweetcorn, his
mother would call it.

He drove towards the coast, towards
Strouanne between Wissant and Cap Blanc-Nez where his grandfather
had made his wartime escape by MTB. Low clouds blew in from the
sea, the wind whipping the tops off the gray waves as they raced up
the long stretch of sand. He didn't bother to get out of the car;
just sat and looked at the horizon.

Zoé was waiting in the reception area
when he got back to the hotel just after nine. She broke the news
of his grandfather's death gently.

Matt looked at his watch. Within a couple
of hours they would have been talking to Sophie. So close to
setting the record straight -- and now the shattering news from
England that made their journey pointless.

He went to his room to phone his
father. He missed his mobile phone at times like this. His father
said the funeral couldn't take place for a week at least, according
to the police. The CID at Trinity Green thought a fellow patient
was to blame. There were some potentially violent cases at the
South Memorial, but the hospital maintained they were all locked in
their rooms when the police arrived.

A killer padre was a less likely
theory the police were following up. An elderly army chaplain who'd
visited earlier in the evening could have returned unseen. That was
what Sister Ewing believed. Matt felt there might be some sense in
that one, although chaplains weren't normally renowned for killing
their flock. Granddad had often mentioned Fergus Hawkins, and the
hospital visitor used the same name. The description was good. A
tall man in his late seventies, with a large drooping moustache and
an old scar on his chin. No one in the hospital had seen him
before.

Matt said he'd come straight back but his
father didn't seem bothered whether he did or not. Matt replaced
the phone and went with Zoé to the dining room. She fetched him a
warm croissant and a dark coffee from the serving table, and they
sat together while he picked at his food, trying to come to terms
with what had happened.

He sighed as he gave Zoé a hug. He
needed to draw on her strength. She put her arms around him and
they sat side by side at the table holding each other tightly. A
brutal killing in a psychiatric hospital. It would be big news in
England.

Through the dining room window Matt
noticed a man sitting in a white Citroen on the opposite side of
the street. The man was tall, but certainly not in his seventies.
He checked himself. If he wasn't careful he'd be seeing bogey men
everywhere.

The car had been there when he got
back from his drive. The driver had a neat pointed beard and was
wearing a fawn baseball cap. Hanging out through the back of the
cap was a pony tail. He might be an innocent businessman waiting
for a guest to emerge, but he'd waited a long time without jumping
out of the car to hurry anyone up. Okay, so it might be a paranoid
reaction, but this needed investigating.

Matt finished his coffee and
told Zoé to come with him for a short walk. He held her hand as
they left the hotel. The hand felt cold. Perhaps it was the shock.
They walked across the road, making sure they passed behind the
white car. Matt glanced sideways and read the sticker in the
Citroen's rear window. It was an advert for a car rental garage. Le
Garage de Saint Somer. He led Zoé towards a small food store,
an
alimentation
selling fresh fruit and vegetables on a table
outside, as well as a range of general groceries in the gloomy
interior.

"I think I'll stay on," he told Zoé.
"Granddad's funeral won't be for a week; probably longer. There
will have to be police inquiries and an inquest before the body can
be released. My father says there's nothing I can do to help over
there. I don't think he wants me back. Will you stay here with me
for a few days? I'll look after the hotel bill with my credit
card." He was going to add that Ken would have to give him a pay
rise if he was to pay it off, but it seemed the wrong thing to
say.

Zoé picked up two large peaches from
the outside table. "Madame Boissant is expecting us, so we will go
to see her now. It can be a sort of pilgrimage."

"That's good." He squeezed his arm
around her shoulder, but this time Zoé pulled away and went inside
to pay. He noticed she hadn't responded to his invitation to
stay.

Madame Boissant. Sophie. All the time he
had to fight off the impossible picture in his mind of an eternally
young woman with bouncy, blonde hair -- and a disfigured face.
"Poor old Granddad. He died still believing he killed her. I'm
going to phone my father and tell him I won't be back
yet."

She handed him a peach. "And I will
phone Florian to tell him I am staying for a little while longer. I
think we should also find the site by the supermarket. As a mark of
respect for your grandfather."

He nodded. Zoé seemed sensitive to his
needs, as well as Florian's. "Thanks."

He went to his room to use the phone
again and eat his peach. His father seemed quite happy for him to
stay, as long as he kept in touch by phone from time to time. It
seemed a reasonable request. Maybe he could learn to get on with
his father when the funeral was over.

He collected Zoé from her room and
went down to the Mini. "I want to see if the man in the Citroen
follows," he told her.

"What do you think it will be, Matt?
Monsieur 'Einman?"

"I've no idea, but I intend to find
out who it is."

"And how will you do that?"

"We'll go to the Garage de Saint Somer
after we've seen Sophie, and ask who hired that
Citroen."

Zoé nodded appreciatively, although to
Matt it seemed a fairly obvious way to discover someone's identity.
The Mini engine sounded healthy, especially when revved to the
limit.

"You are, I think, getting to like
this car," said Zoé as she fastened her seat belt.

"You're joking, of course." Matt
pulled away noisily, making sure everyone around noticed their
departure, especially the driver of the white car. He watched in
the mirror and saw the Citroen pull out. "Let's go into Calais and
lose him."

"Drive slowly on the bends," warned
Zoé. "We do not want to find him in the trees."

It was probably a joke, but
when Matt glanced across, Zoé looked worried. The large road
roundabout on the outskirts of the town had a sign saying
Centre
Ville
. He
floored the accelerator as they left the roundabout and the old
Mini leapt forward, weaving through the holiday traffic that was
entering the town for some last minute shopping before crossing the
Channel.

Horns tooted, especially when drivers
noticed the British number plate. The little orange car had caught
out the mix of French and British motorists, but they were not
going to allow the white Citroen to take advantage of them as it
pulled out and tried to follow. The gaps between the cars closed
instantly. In the rear-view mirror Matt could see the Citroen on
the wrong side of the street, facing a wall of oncoming vehicles --
with nowhere to go.

Jason Heinman braked hard and flicked
the switch on the tracker. The receiver beeped four times. The
Englishman was still close enough to follow. He didn't want to be
seen again, so he'd wait a few minutes. Did Rider really think he
could get away?

Chapter
15

MATT DREW
the Mini into the side of the
road and looked at the row of shuttered houses, every one of them
huddled low as though trying to escape being seen. Shells and bombs
had devastated most of the area in the two World Wars, so perhaps
these replacements were hoping to avoid the fate of their
predecessors. A large hotel built of concrete and glass, one of a
country-wide chain, was the only blot on the
surroundings.

One of these shuttered houses
was the home of Sophie
Bernay, or Sophie Boissant as she was now. Matt
was about to announce their arrival by using the large iron knocker
when a voice called from indoors. "Ah, the Englishman is here. The
grandson of the lovely Tommy.
Entrez
.
Bonjour!
"

Matt pushed at the unlatched door to
lead the way through the small hall into the darkness of the living
room. Would the occupant have some terrible mutilation to her face,
caused long ago by his grandfather wielding a large knife? The
curtains were wide, but the small window held back the dull gray
morning. At least the room felt cheerful with a small coal fire
crackling in the stone hearth. Matt would have been able to
appreciate it better if the circumstances had been happier. A frail
woman sat in a high-backed wooden chair, enveloped in a white lace
shawl.

"Madame Boissant?"

"
Enchanté!
" The elderly woman was smiling and
effervescent until she looked at Matt more closely. "You are upset,
monsieur. There is a problem?"

Matt attempted a smile as the woman
nodded her welcome. Her face looked lined but the skin showed no
sign of disfigurement. "I am Matt Rider, and this is ... my ... my
friend Zoé. Zoé is French." He wondered why he had introduced Zoé
in such a hesitant way. "I have come to see you about my
grandfather. I..."

He stopped. The meeting was pointless.
He out held his hands, trying to get some warmth from the fire,
chilled from the shock of the unexpected and brutal death. "Madame,
my grandfather is dead. He died last night."

Sophie put her hand to her small
mouth. "Oh, poor Tommy."

"Alec," corrected Matt. "His name was
Alec."

"Tommy. Alec. He was Tommy to me." Her
voice became interspersed with little sobs. "Often I have thought
about ... my Tommy, and now ... now I am never to see him
again."

"I am sorry." Matt could think of
nothing sensible to say. The years since the war must have
devastated the old woman's looks. It was impossible to see her as
the blonde bombshell his grandfather had often talked about. "I
think we had better go."

"I have kept your letters." The woman
dabbed her eyes with a small hankie. "You write such good French,
monsieur, and you speak it so well."

"Matt is good at languages," said Zoé.
She said it with a certain pride.

"Ah, Matt. Is that an English
name?"

"It is short for Matthew, Madame
Boissant," he explained.

Sophie nodded her head thoughtfully.
Her hair had become thin, but it looked freshly brushed, ready for
this meeting. "Matthieu."

"My grandfather did not die
naturally," Matt explained. "Someone in the hospital killed
him."

"Some patient in the
hospital?"

"Maybe." Matt shrugged. "He died a
horrible death."

"Poor Tommy."

"Yes," agreed Matt. "Poor Tommy. I
want to go to his funeral and say, 'I know where you went in
France, Granddad. I know something of the terrible hurt that made
you suffer for the rest of your life."

"It
was
terrible, monsieur." Sophie Boissant's
eyes came alive with the memory. "We hid in the rushes. I nursed
your grandfather in my arms for the whole night. When I kissed him,
I got his blood on my face and in my mouth." She nodded her gray
haired head. "Those two Americans became monsters. I could not bear
to watch what they did."

The news came as a surprise to Matt.
"Surely, it was my grandfather..."

"Tommy was drawn into those terrible
events with the Americans, monsieur."

"Do you remember their
name?"

"I ... I ... Perhaps ...
tomorrow.
Demain
." She dabbed her eyes with a hankie. "Tommy ... dead. It
is hard, monsieur." She began to sob.

Zoé stroked Sophie's wrinkled arm. "Do
not distress yourself."

Matt felt embarrassed by the upset
he'd caused. "Tell me, Madame," he said. "Is there a garage near
here called Le Garage de Saint Somer?"

Sophie dried her eyes and frowned. "Le
Garage de Saint Somer? It is eight or nine kilometers down this
road, Matthieu."

Matt found Sophie's use of his name
intriguing. He realized that by using the French version she was
showing that she'd accepted him already. Granddad must have made
one amazing impact in 1944, and Sophie's memory seemed to be
unaffected by the tragic events. If she could remember the name of
the Heinmans without prompting, he was halfway home to getting
justice. The DCI rings should clinch it.