‘Where’re Komarovsky and his half-breeds now?’
‘Waiting for you to make the next move.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Komarovsky and his half-breeds are well aware of what you are, as well as the next phase of your mission.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since I told them, the day you arrived in Lausanne.’
‘You what?’
‘Komarovsky’s half-breeds in Moscow have been trying to decipher our SX traffic since Yuriev went underground. Upon your arrival in Lausanne we let slip the codes embedded in the BBC signals, giving the enemy the impression they had secured a back door into our communications. Happily, they took the bait.’
Harper tapped his cigarette, watched the ashes tumble to the floor again, not liking the sound of things already.
‘What exactly did they read in your SX traffic?’
‘That you met secretly with Yuriev before he was slaughtered, that he told you where he’d hidden the object in Lausanne Cathedral and that you now have it in your possession. That message was transmitted two days ago. Within the last hour I’ve let it slip you’re bringing the object to our Paris cell, tonight.’
‘Now I truly don’t get it.’
‘You’ll leave this room with your overnight bag and make your way to LP’s Bar. Take the scenic route, make sure you’re noticed. At LP’s, have more than a few drinks, chat with your bartender friend, Stephan. Tell him you’re off to London for a break, allow yourself to be overheard. Then allow yourself to be followed to Gare Simplon, where, very plainly and drunkenly, you board the midnight TGV to Paris.’
‘I still don’t get it.’
‘You’re not meant to get anything, Mr Harper. You’re meant to follow orders and leave for Paris tonight.’
‘Komarovsky’s killers won’t buy it, they’ll know my leaving Lausanne is a bluff no matter what you sent in your bloody SX traffic.’
‘Precisely. They’ll assume we’re trying to draw them from the cathedral and never see the real reason you’re going to Paris.’
‘Track down and slaughter the mole in the Paris operation.’
‘With extreme prejudice, Mr Harper.’
Harper took a final draw of the Inspector’s fine North African tobacco. It felt like a last puff before the firing squad got the order to fire.
‘There’s a problem, Inspector. Two problems.’
‘Yes. Miss Taylor and the boy in the cathedral, you mean.’
‘You knew all along?’
‘As did the enemy.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s the way the counter-intelligence game’s played. Bluff, bluff, double bluff and hope you don’t come up with the short stick. The enemy has been watching you, and noted your behaviour.’
‘Courtesy of your SX traffic?’
‘Of course. Your apparent abandoning of Miss Taylor and the boy in the cathedral will cause the enemy a measure of doubt. Throw them on the back foot.’
‘I promised I’d come back to the cathedral tonight. The lad and Miss Taylor, they’ll be waiting for me.’
‘Nothing we can do about that, I’m afraid. Mission timeline has already begun.’
‘I promised I’d help them.’
‘You did what?’
‘I promised I’d come back.’
‘You realize such a thing is a direct violation of the rules of engagement with locals.’
‘I didn’t at the time, but it’s done. I can’t just leave them.’
‘Again, those are the phantoms of your form, you mustn’t let them interfere with your mission.’
‘You’re asking me to abandon two innocent souls.’
‘I’m not asking, I’m telling you to abandon them and get on the midnight train to Paris.’
‘This isn’t right.’
‘We don’t live in a place of right or wrong, we follow orders.’
Harper jumped from the bed.
‘No, what’s not right is you not telling me something.’
‘I tell you everything you need to know. If I say jump, you ask how high on the way up.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Control yourself, Mr Harper, anger can lead to free will. I’m ordering you to limit cognitive functions to the confines of your mission. Is that clear?’
‘What’s clear is whatever Yuriev hid in the cathedral is still there, isn’t it? You let that bit of info slip on your bloody SX traffic, along with where it is, didn’t you? My orders are a diversion, the real mission is here. You want to capture an enemy chief in human form, let Officer Jannsen at him with her enhanced interrogation techniques. Moving Miss Taylor and the lad from the belfry would show your hand so you’re willing to sacrifice their souls.’
‘You have your orders, Mr Harper.’
‘There’s something about the two of them, something you’re not telling me. I mean the lad knows how to read shadows, he sees things. His own mother told him an angel was coming to the cathedral … Christ, none of this is an accident. You brought them both to Lausanne. You’re using the two of them as double agents and they don’t even know it. You can’t do this, damn it, they’ll be slaughtered.’
The Inspector drilled deep into Harper’s eyes.
‘“Cura nihil aliud nisi ut valeas”!’
Something snapped to attention in Harper’s brain, overpowering the phantom of a dead man named Jay Harper.
‘Yes, sir.’
The Inspector adjusted his silk scarf, closed his cashmere coat.
‘Mister Harper … Some of them, the sensitive ones like the boy, the woman for that matter, they affect us. In some ways, it’s the greatest weight of our eternity, knowing we can never cross the line to their world even though we hide in their forms, mimicking their lives. Show me one of our kind who can draw a picture or write a piece of music, a line of poetry. We can’t. We can only stand in the shadows and watch them with wonder. And yes, too many of them are lost to us, I know.’
‘Lost is a polite way of expressing it, isn’t it? Human souls ripped from bodies, fed to the devourers.’
‘It happens when the enemy hides in the form of men.’
Harper held his hand before his eyes, studying it again.
‘And what do you call this?’
‘We didn’t start this war, Mr Harper, and we have no choice but to fight. We are here to save what is left of paradise. Do you read me?’
No choice, no bloody choice.
‘Understood, will comply.’
The Inspector stepped closer to Harper.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but as it’s been such a rough go for you … perhaps this will make it easier for you. The boy in the cathedral. The fact is he is listed, his life is nearly finished.’
Like a kill shot to the head.
Not even hearing the crack.
‘When?’
‘That sort of thing is way above my pay grade. But from what I gather it’s to be soon.’
‘And Miss Taylor?’
‘The woman isn’t listed as such but … well, you know what they did to her.’
‘And you won’t let Komarovsky take her alive.’
‘It’s for the best. You know what they do to their women when they’re finished with them. What was done to Simone Badeaux was an easy death in comparison.’ The Inspector took a step towards Harper. ‘And as we’re on the topic, I need not remind you of the rules regarding locals who’ve been listed.’
‘No contact, no interference that would affect the time and manner of their death.’
‘Quite. Now get a move on, the clock’s ticking.’
Harper stuffed the killing knife in his belt, picked up the gun and ammo clips from the bed. He looked at them.
‘You know, I saw a newspaper the other day, read some new words for the slaughter of the innocent. They call it collateral damage.’
‘Go easy with those thoughts, Mr Harper.’
‘Go easy?’
‘Whatever it’s called these days, you know this isn’t the first time you’ve had to turn and walk away.’
‘Will they receive comfort, will their souls make it to another life?’
‘We’ll do all we can, of course. But you know how it is, mission success comes first.’
The Inspector stepped to the door and pulled it open. Mutt and Jeff filled the passageway like two immovable and immortal things. Harper looked through the shattered balcony windows, saw rain falling hard in the dark night, felt words rise within him from an unremembered place. ‘“Blessed are the dead ….”’
The Inspector turned back.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘“Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon”. Who wrote those words?’
‘Edward Thomas, a poet and soldier of the Great War, Artists’ Rifles Regiment.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Killed in action on the Western Front, Easter Monday, nineteen seventeen. His name is listed at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.’
‘Right, I remember him.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I took his human form, the last mission, didn’t I? I gave him comfort, helped carry him to his grave at Agny, and then I snatched his body for regenerative stasis.’
‘As I said, go easy, Mr Harper. You’ve only just been awakened.’
‘I remember him, Inspector. I remember everything about him, I remember every last one of them.’
‘Then remember this: they are not us and we are not them. Now, get a move on. Give us a good show.’
thirty-four
Rochat watched the cigarette bounce on Monsieur Dufaux’s lower lip as he spoke.
‘You want desserts with your two
plats du jour
?’
‘
Oui
, monsieur, two.’
‘Two, you say.’
‘
Oui
.’
Monsieur Dufaux shook his head slowly, pulled the cloth from his apron, pounded non-existent crumbs from a table. He rearranged the place settings.
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Monsieur?’
‘How many years have you been coming to my café for supper?’
‘Since I was an apprentice at the cathedral.’
‘And every time, you order the
plat du jour
with tap water to drink. Once in a blue moon you take a Rivella. Never an espresso and never, never a dessert. No, I don’t like it one bit.’
‘
Pardon
?’
‘First, you stop coming to the café for your supper, then there’s all this takeaway business, always for two. And now, you want dessert.’
‘Monsieur Booty is with me in the tower.’
‘And since when do cats eat
tarte aux pommes
for dessert, uh? Or maybe you want to tell me it’s for that snowman of yours? I don’t know, Marc, it sounds very strange to me. We Lausannois aren’t comfortable with strange. We like our little corner of the world to operate with dull regularity. All of us in the café agree, you need to come clean about your little secret in the belfry.’
Rochat looked about the room, saw the university professor and his wife with their books, Madame Budry and the first of her many glasses of
vin blanc
, the Algerian street cleaners with their espresso and cigarettes, even a table of Japanese tourists struggling with fondue forks. All were staring at him, hanging on to Monsieur Dufaux’s last remark.
‘My secret, monsieur?’
‘Yes, that illegal angel of yours hiding in the cathedral. We were just discussing it before you arrived. Come on, let’s have it.’
Rochat was so flummoxed with all the patrons staring at him and waiting for a reply, there was only one thing to say.
‘She came to the tower in a bathrobe and nothing else and had long blond hair but I gave her a haircut and then she looked like Joan of Arc but now she’s dyed her hair black and she looks like someone else until she smiles then she looks like the angel again. And she has a friend who’s coming tonight to help her find her way home.’
There were seconds of utter silence till Monsieur Dufaux burst out laughing and all the patrons joined in at the very moment Monsieur Junod pushed through the curtains at the door, followed by his small white dog on a lead.
‘Oh,
merde
, I’ve missed something good, haven’t I?’
‘
Bonsoir
, Monsieur Junod. It appears our dear friend Rochat now has two angels in the tower and they both want apple pie! So, Marc, this other angel, was he in a bathrobe, too?’
‘
Non
, monsieur. He was wearing a brown coat with straps on the shoulders like detectives wear in old movies.’
The café burst out laughing again. Monsieur Dufaux put his arm around Rochat and led him to his usual table near the window with the lace curtain.
‘Forgive me, Marc, but it was too precious to pass up. Monsieur Junod, sit down and I’ll pour you a beer. And a fresh glass for everyone, on the house, in honour of
le guet de Lausanne
for being such a good sport!’
Everyone applauded and raised their glass. ‘
Le guet
!’
Monsieur Dufaux rested his hand on Rochat’s shoulder.
‘And you, Marc, your dinners are on the house as well.’
‘I have money, monsieur.’
‘
Mon cher
, it’s the least I can do. We miss you when you don’t come around. Not much for us poor Lausannois to do in the evenings but bore each other to death. You always give us something new and wonderful to talk about. Sit down, I’ll get your dinners,
tout de suite
.’
Monsieur Dufaux pulled the cloth from his apron strings and pounded tabletops on his way to the kitchen.
‘
Mon dieu
, two apple pies for the angels. What’s next, uh?’
Rochat sat at the table and looked about the café. The round lamps hanging from the ceiling that looked like full moons. The pictures on the wall of Lausanne from long ago, the slate that was washed and rewritten in white chalk each day but the letters were always the same, and always in the same place, like all the patrons of the café. And Monsieur Junod settling at his table with today’s edition of
24 Heures
, and his little white dog jumping up on the next chair to survey the room as if demanding service. Soon dinners would be finished and cigarettes would be lit, Monsieur Junod would finish studying his newspaper and the evening’s conversation on important matters in Café du Grütli would begin. Rochat pulled aside the lace curtains and watched the rain fall and splash on the cobblestones of Escaliers du marché. Tiny streams formed between the cobblestones and ran down to bigger streams of rain from Rue Mercerie.
‘
Et voilà
, Marc.’ Monsieur Dufaux was standing at the table with the dinner basket. ‘Two pork fillet dinners, two slices of apple pie, and I’ve thrown in a bottle of wine.’