Children of War (10 page)

Dougal’s suggestion of Le Pavillon Placide in the neighbouring commune of St Chamassy was perfect. It was not a single house but a complex of old farm buildings built on three sides of a square with a stone wall and arched gateway protecting the fourth side. A terrace with tables and benches and a large herb garden filled the closed courtyard. Bruno took a room in the main house where Sami and his family would stay and assigned an attached house to the security team. A separate barn at the rear, probably used to dry tobacco in the old days, served as a garage and shielded one side of the swimming pool. The pool house shielded another side, with a lean-to and a horse trough outside. It must have been a stable and hay was still stored in one of the stalls. This gave Bruno an idea. He could patrol the perimeter more quickly and perhaps arouse less suspicion on horseback.

They stopped first at Bruno’s home, where he changed into civilian clothes, packed a small suitcase and his hunting guns and loaded Balzac and his gear into his Land Rover. The Mayor took Momu and Sami to the Pavillon at St Chamassy, where Dougal met them with the keys. Bruno drove his Land Rover to the
Mairie
, took his police pistol from the safe and called Fabiola to check that she’d be free to exercise the horses with
him. He picked up Momu’s wife, explained the situation and helped her pack. They spent over a hundred euros at the supermarket buying food and another thirty on Mozart discs. Dougal had told him there was a sound system at Le Pavillon. Bruno took a roundabout way to get there, using quiet roads where he’d see if he was being followed.

The Mayor, whose own hunting dog had been the mother of Bruno’s old hound, Gigi, was a better shot than Bruno. They shared out the weapons discreetly in the garage. The Mayor took Bruno’s old military Lebel rifle and began to clean and oil it even though Bruno, who took care of his weapons, had done so the previous weekend.

‘I have to go and pick up the Brigadier’s security guys so I’ll leave you on guard,’ Bruno told him.

‘I’m trying to think of the last time a Senator of France was armed on active duty,’ the Mayor said, a twinkle in his eye. He was evidently enjoying himself. ‘Should I give Momu the other shotgun?’

‘I’d tell him where it is, but let’s keep the guns out of sight for the moment. I don’t want to worry Sami or Dillah.’

After her joyful reunion with Sami, Momu’s wife Dillah was already clattering pans in the kitchen, Sami and Momu were sitting and watching her cook when Bruno left for the Gendarmerie. The two waiting security men introduced themselves as Gaston and Robert. They usually worked together, they told him, and they had the full kit in the four-by-four; weapons, infrared scanners, high-beam lights, Kevlar vests and an extra walkie-talkie for Bruno. He explained that he would be bringing his horse to Le Pavillon later, along with a doctor to check Sami’s condition. At St Chamassy he showed them
around, introduced them to the Mayor, Momu and the family, and gave them the large-scale map of the locality he kept in his Land Rover. Then the Mayor drove Bruno to Pamela’s place, where he found Pamela and Fabiola waiting and the horses already saddled.

This evening, there were no arguments about Pamela being allowed to ride. He explained Sami’s return and the security arrangements and suggested he and Fabiola ride to Le Pavillon, barely three kilometres away as the crow flies, on bridle trails and forest rides they knew well. Bruno strapped Fabiola’s medical bag to the pommel of her saddle, kissed Pamela and they set off.

‘What can you tell me about this young man?’ Fabiola asked as they walked the horses through the paddock to the lane. ‘All I know is that you said he’s been in Afghanistan and he’s somewhere on the autistic spectrum.’

‘He looks half-starved, and he’s been whipped, both in the past and recently. He was heavily sedated when they flew him here. He curled up into a ball and refused to respond until he saw Momu. But then he recognized me and he seems devoted to Momu and Dillah. And I learned today that he likes Mozart.’

Bruno went on to describe what he recalled of Sami’s boyhood in St Denis, and the trauma of his family’s slaughter in the Algerian civil war. ‘We have no idea what happened to him at the mosque in Toulouse, nor how he got to Afghanistan. I think he must have gone barefoot a lot. His hands are thin and his fingers delicate but his feet look like sides of beef. From his hands, I don’t think he was a fighter. Weapons and combat tend to roughen them up.’

‘And you want me to look at him,’ she replied, her voice
disapproving. ‘I trust you aren’t asking for an instant diagnosis.’

‘I’m hoping you can check him over for general health, see if there are any immediate problems,’ he replied. ‘I’m not asking you to take him on permanently or treat him.’

‘Is this connected with that dreadful scene in the woods, the man who was killed?’

‘It looks that way,’ he said. ‘I think the guys who killed him are the ones who attacked me in the
collège
. They were looking for Momu as a route to Sami and I presume they want to kill him, too.’

‘Thoughtful of you not to explain all this to Pamela. She worries about you quite enough as it is,’ Fabiola said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Let’s canter or we’ll never get there.’

*

From Le Pavillon came smells of cooking and a watchful greeting from Gaston. They rode around to the lean-to stables, where they heard the sounds of splashing coming from the pool and squeaks of excitement from Balzac. At the sight of Fabiola, Sami huddled close to Momu, turned his face away and sank down into the pool until only his head was visible. Fabiola, nodded, smiled and told Bruno she’d wait in the kitchen with Dillah until Sami was dressed and felt able to face a female.

‘I’ll leave you to unsaddle the horses and brush them down,’ she said, unstrapping her medical bag and marching off.

As soon as she left, Sami clambered out of the pool, unconcerned by his nakedness, and scooped Balzac into his arms, careless of the scratches the dog’s paws were raking on his chest as Balzac clambered up to lick his face.

‘I’ll get him some swimming shorts tomorrow and some more clothes,’ Bruno told Momu, who was smiling at Sami’s obvious pleasure.

‘Maybe you should get him a dog, too,’ Momu said, as Sami began running around the rim of the pool and letting Balzac chase him. Momu called Sami to come and get dressed and Bruno went to take care of the horses, wondering why Sami had not responded to them as he had to Balzac. Maybe it was a matter of size. His phone vibrated and as he opened the call he saw the green light. He checked his watch; he’d forgotten to call the Brigadier.

‘I heard from the security men that you’re all settled in. Who’s the doctor?’ the Brigadier began. Bruno explained that Fabiola was from the St Denis clinic and was checking Sami for any urgent medical problems. He asked if there was any news from Toulouse.

‘All quiet. The good news is that we got the number of that phone they were charging. We knew where they’d been in the woods and at the
collège
and then the route they took, so we triangulated it from there. They made a lot of calls while driving, several of them to numbers we didn’t know about. Make sure your guests don’t start using their own phones; the Toulouse gang may turn the phone trick against us and establish your location. I’ll call again tomorrow.’

When he entered the kitchen, Bruno saw that Fabiola had recruited Dillah, who was one of her regular patients, to help make Sami comfortable with her presence. Dillah stood with her arm around Sami as Fabiola examined him, stethoscope around her neck. Balzac sat at Sami’s feet, staring up at him patiently. Sami began to stroke the dog with his bare feet until
Fabiola asked him to sit still. Bruno left them to it and went outside to discuss with Gaston and Robert how they would share out the hours on watch.

‘Just like being back in the army,’ said Gaston, and Bruno asked which unit. Gaston had been in the paras and Robert in the
chasseurs
, but they had then served together when they transferred into the 13th Paratroop Dragoons, Rafiq’s old unit. That made sense, Bruno thought; the Brigadier would automatically recruit his security men from the special forces.

‘Did you know a guy named Rafiq?’ he asked.

The two men nodded grimly. ‘We heard he got the chop,’ said Gaston, the shorter and stockier of the two. ‘The word was he died hard, nasty stuff.’

‘He was killed by the same bastards we’re guarding against here,’ said Bruno.

‘Understood,’ said Robert, and gave his FAMAS assault weapon an affectionate tap. ‘If they come back, we know what to do. We’d better set a watch list for tonight.’ By the time Momu called him in to supper they had agreed a schedule.

‘We live on frozen pizza and there’s a microwave in our house,’ said Gaston. ‘We’ll eat later, one at a time. We already had a snack at that bar by the Gendarmerie before we met you.’

‘You don’t know Dillah,’ Bruno replied. ‘You can be sure there’ll be food for you. I think it’s chicken cous-cous. She said it was always Sami’s favourite.’

Places had been set for everyone at the big kitchen table, but Fabiola said she’d better ride back while there was still light. Sami clutched at her arm as she turned away and stroked her hand. She smiled at him, receiving a wide grin in return.

‘
Demain
?’ Sami said, in a questioning tone, asking if Fabiola would be back tomorrow.

‘
Demain
,’ Fabiola replied, gently patting Sami’s cheek. Bruno escorted her outside and asked for her verdict. Sami was malnourished, she reported. He also had hypertension, very high blood pressure and some gastric and bronchial infections that she’d identify when she had the results of the blood and other samples she’d taken. He would need major dental work, a broken bone in his left arm would probably need to be reset, and she thought a specialist had better look at the whipping scars on his back. Some of them weren’t healing.

‘He’s in poor shape, but in no immediate danger as far as I can see. As for the problems I can’t see, I’ll get the blood-test results in a day or so and I’ll let you know what they find. Physically, he needs rest, a good diet and some antibiotics. I’ve started him on a course that should clear up the infections in his scars. Dillah has the tablets. He seems calm enough, so I’ve stopped the sedatives. Psychologically, he’s in a bad way.’

‘Is it straightforward autism?’ Bruno asked.

‘There’s no such thing, and a lot of us are no longer convinced it’s a useful term,’ she replied. Autism used to be seen as morbid self-absorption, she explained, then it was said to be the result of bad parenting, and more recently that it was genetic. Some specialists thought it came from mercury poisoning or some other new toxin in the environment. All modern medicine could truthfully say was that autism was a catch-all word used for people who did not react conventionally to current social norms. They could be mute, hyperactive, extraordinarily gifted in some ways and almost psychopathic in others.

‘What happened to him as a child in Algeria was likely to trigger some kind of extreme reaction. Post-traumatic stress in children often presents itself as elective mutism, they just decide not to speak,’ she went on. ‘But whatever condition Sami had when he was growing up here has been hugely complicated by the new traumas he went through in Afghanistan. On the bright side, he’s obviously capable of strong affection. He shows it for Dillah and Momu, and for your dog. That may be a good sign, but from the way he reacted to me he might have something we see in orphanages, a reactive detachment disorder. Kids starved of contact and affection when young will often grab desperately to any adult in sight.’

‘Do you think prison psychologists will be able to help him?’

She said nothing but looked at him solemnly for a long moment and then at the rifle slung over his shoulder and sighed. She turned away to mount her horse, and said, ‘I don’t think I’m qualified to judge.’

‘Will you be back to see him tomorrow?’ Bruno asked. ‘You told him you would.’

‘I’d like to, but I’m not sure your prison psychologists would want another doctor getting involved,’ she said. As she settled in the saddle she added, ‘If I’m needed, of course I’ll come. In any event I’ll call you when I get the test results.’

At table, Sami used a spoon to devour his food and kept his left hand curled around his plate as if to protect it. Dillah was watching Sami, and she put her hand on his arm and told him gently, ‘It’s alright, Sami, there is plenty of food. We won’t be hungry.’

Sami smiled at her but continued to bolt his food. He seemed unconcerned at the sight of Bruno’s rifle leaning against his
chair. He was evidently accustomed to the sight of armed men, even when they kept their weapons to hand as they ate. That was probably commonplace in Afghanistan, Bruno thought, but perhaps not if Sami had been kept as a slave.

‘This cous-cous is great, Dillah, and thank you for helping with Fabiola,’ Bruno said. ‘I was worried he might not want to be examined by a woman.’

‘So was I,’ she replied, smiling. ‘But when he came in with your dog, Balzac went straight to Fabiola and she picked him up like an old friend. Sami seemed to think that made her his friend, too. And I told him Fabiola was my doctor, and Momu’s, and that she had delivered Karim’s baby. Anyway, I asked her to take on Sami as a regular patient and Momu signed the form. We’re still his guardians.’

‘But he’s over eighteen,’ Bruno said. ‘Guardianship lapses once he becomes an adult.’

‘Yes, but when we were trying to get Sami into a special school he had to be declared incapable of running his own affairs. We had to go before the
Juge des Tutelles
, and Momu and I were appointed
tuteurs
,’ Dillah said. Bruno nodded; he knew that the court of guardianship usually appointed family members to manage the affairs of someone judged incapable. ‘That means the guardianship is extended until the medical diagnosis changes.’

Momu cleared his throat, the sound of a man intent on changing the subject. ‘How long will we have to stay here, Bruno?’

‘I don’t know. As long as the situation lasts that puts you and Sami at risk.’