House of the Hanged (18 page)

‘I have no idea. More than two thousand, though.'

‘More than ten times two thousand. He said he would be happy to pay twenty-five.'

Tom nodded, impressed.

‘I said I couldn't do anything without first speaking to the owner. Monsieur Dufresne then produced three thousand francs as a sign of good faith.'

‘And to secure the piece for himself.'

‘Exactly. He's going to be back in a few days.'

‘I see your dilemma,' said Tom. ‘How much do you offer the sailor?'

‘He'll be happy with two thousand francs, but I don't think I can do that.'

‘Ahhh, I see – what price your conscience?' Tom teased.

‘I was thinking of offering him ten thousand.'

‘Which still leaves you a profit of fifteen.'

‘What do you think?'

Tom sat back, working it through in his head from all the different angles.

It was brilliant.

‘I think,' he said eventually, ‘that your beautiful Quan Yin is worthless.'

‘Worthless?'

‘It's a scam, Benoît. The sailor and Monsieur Dufresne are in on it together.'

Tom could see the cogs turning, but Benoît wasn't ready to relinquish his easy rewards just yet. ‘But he left me three thousand francs . . .'

‘That's the genius of it. That's the reason you're happy to hand over ten thousand to the sailor. But it still leaves them with seven thousand.'

‘My God . . .'

‘The moment you've paid the sailor, you're never going to see Monsieur Dufresne again.'

‘Okay, okay,' said Benoît irritably, ‘I'm with you now.' He got to his feet and stomped to the window.

‘Don't be angry. They didn't get you.'

‘I'm not angry,' snapped Benoît.

‘Anyhow, I'm sure we can figure out a way for you to keep your hands on the three thousand.'

Benoît turned, intrigued.

‘Revenge,' Tom went on, ‘plus a nice consolation prize. Did you give your Monsieur Dufresne a receipt for the money?'

‘Of course.'

Tom took a sip of cognac. ‘Give me a moment to think.'

It took him a good few minutes, because he was trying to find a way to work Commissaire Roche into the conversation at the same time. Meanwhile, Benoît sucked the life out of another cigarette.

‘Okay, here it is. Tomorrow, when the sailor returns, you tell him the good news that his Quan Yin is worth twenty-five thousand francs. Not only that, but you have a buyer lined up who has already put down three thousand francs. He won't be expecting that.'

‘No, he'll make some excuse and take the Quan Yin back.'

‘Ah, but you can't give it to him.'

‘Can't I?'

‘No, because you no longer have it in your possession.'

‘No?'

‘No, because the moment you established its true value you placed it in the safekeeping of your good friend, Commissaire Roche – who has kindly agreed to oversee the transaction once the prospective buyer returns.'

A ghost of a smile appeared at the corners of Benoît's mouth.

‘Somehow, I can't see the sailor demanding to head right over to the Commissariat to reclaim it,' Tom continued.

‘No.'

‘He'll disappear.'

‘But Dufresne will be back for the three thousand. It's a lot of money.'

‘Yes, but the trouble is, you don't have it any more.'

‘No?'

‘No. You tell Monsieur Dufresne that the seller was eager for a quick sale and you proudly announce that you managed to negotiate a price of three thousand francs with him, thereby securing Monsieur Dufresne the most extraordinary bargain. He'll know you're lying, of course, but what can he do about it? If he kicks up a fuss, you suggest he take up the matter with your good friend . . .'

‘. . . Commissaire Roche.'

‘They'll cut their losses and run, they won't have a choice. Besides, they'll make the money back off some other greedy fool before long.'

Benoît scowled at the insult but seemed pleased with the overall proposal. ‘You're a dark horse, Thomas. One day you're going to have to tell me what you really did for the British government before you became a writer.'

Tom smiled. ‘It might be wise to alert Commissaire Roche to the presence of two conmen in the area. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.'

‘So you're acquainted with Roche, are you?'

‘A little. An easy man to underestimate.'

‘Not if you've known him as long as I have.' Benoît swirled the cognac in his glass then came and sat back down opposite Tom. ‘I may be a greedy fool, but I'm not a complete idiot. What is it you want to know about Roche?'

It would have been insulting to keep up the charade. ‘How good is he at his job?'

‘Put it this way, he could easily have made a name for himself in Toulon or Marseilles.'

‘Why didn't he?'

‘He likes it here,' shrugged Benoît. ‘That simple?'

‘No, he has a wife who doesn't like it here. I think she's finally accepted that they're not going anywhere else, though.'

‘When he gets his teeth into something, does he ever let go?'

‘No,' said Benoît. ‘Never.'

Tom nodded.

Benoît looked concerned. ‘I don't know what's going on, and I don't want to know.' Tom made to speak, but Benoît silenced him with a raised hand. ‘No, just listen. You are a friend of mine, and I'll do whatever I can to help, whatever you ask of me. It may surprise you to know that I don't have much in the way of religion, or even morality, when friends are in need.'

‘Thank you,' said Tom.

‘Remember what I said.'

‘I shall.'

‘Another glass of cognac?'

‘Maybe a finger.'

Remarkably, that was that. The matter was closed and the conversation moved on seamlessly to a post mortem of dinner the night before. Benoît had been very taken with Klaus, especially his story of the Bavarian mountain-dwellers boxing up the weary swallows and shipping them to Venice, and he was very keen to borrow the German's latest novel. Tom promised to drop it off the next time he was passing.

‘You mean, you really were passing?'

‘I'm on my way to Hyères, to see Hélène. She's back from Greece.'

‘Yes, I know. Chantal had lunch with her two days ago.'

It was strange that Chantal hadn't mentioned it over dinner last night, even stranger that Benoît's nervous eyes seemed incapable of meeting his gaze.

‘What is it, Benoît?'

Benoît leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette before replying. ‘Hélène has met someone.'

Tom understood the words; it took a little longer to absorb their meaning.

‘Where? Here?'

‘In Greece.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't know exactly . . . some Polish count.'

Tom nodded, taking it in. ‘It must be serious or you wouldn't be telling me.'

‘It would certainly be very serious for me if Chantal knew I had told you.'

‘Don't worry.'

‘Forewarned is forearmed, and all that.'

Forewarned proved to be hellishly distracting. Tom reached the outskirts of Le Lavandou in a daze, barely aware that he'd been driving. The last of the houses fell away on either side as the road climbed lazily towards Bormes-les-Mimosas.

There had been nothing in Hélène's voice when they'd spoken that morning. She had seemed delighted at his suggestion that he drive over to see her after lunch. Maybe two years of complacency had dulled his hearing – complacency and presumption. He knew there were other men in her life, just as she was aware that he didn't always sleep alone when he stayed at his apartment in Paris. This was the unspoken understanding that had always existed between them, but he had somehow assumed that if she were ever to demand something more constant in her personal life then he would be the one she chose. She had even intimated as much on a couple of occasions; at least, that's how he'd taken her words at the time. Incorrectly, it now seemed. She had found herself a Polish count while on holiday in Greece, and her small stable of admirers back in France was for the chop.

With Hector gone and Leonard's rock-like presence in his life under serious question, the thought of also losing Hélène bit deep. But what right did he really have to be upset? She wasn't to know that his world was crumbling around him. And for God's sake, it had taken Lucy in the kitchen last night during dinner to point out to him that he was missing her. Lucy had detected it in him, so why on earth hadn't he? If he was so out of touch with his own feelings, how could he possibly hope to keep track of Hélène's?

He heard it before he saw it: a building roar above the throb of the wind blustering through the car's open windows. The rear-view mirror revealed a snub-nosed black sedan gaining from behind, powering up the slope as if to pass him on the straight. A quick glance back at the road told him that they weren't going to make it before the bend up ahead. That's when he realized that they had no intention of making it. He also became acutely aware of the steep drop-off to his right, the ground disappearing beyond the gravelled verge into a deep valley of scrub oak, rocks and scattered pines. If he ended up down there he could go undiscovered for weeks, even longer.

He dropped a gear and stamped on the throttle pedal. The Renault responded, but not urgently enough. The sedan had stolen the advantage while he wasn't looking, and now swung out wide to overtake. Tom yanked the steering wheel to the left, foiling the manoeuvre. Before he knew it, the bend was upon him – a sharp left-hander, almost completely blind – and he was still on the wrong side of the road. If there was any doubt that the driver of the other vehicle had it in for him, that vanished as he caught sight of the sedan over his right shoulder, looking to undertake, to keep him boxed in against any oncoming traffic, to force him into a head-on collision.

He swerved to the right, bracing himself for the impact, but the sedan's driver had anticipated the move, hitting the brakes and dropping in behind once more. They were bumper-to-bumper as they hurtled round the next bend into a long climbing straight. The Renault was woefully underpowered in comparison with the sedan, but the incline played in Tom's favour, the sedan unable to pick up enough speed to pass him just so long as he kept veering from side to side to obstruct it. He knew that would all change when they breasted the rise and the road levelled off once more.

The occupants of the sedan seemed to know this, too. Tom could just make them out in the rear-view mirror: two men sitting as still as department store mannequins. Strangely, it was their inhuman composure that brought him to his senses. His brain began to function once more, a cold and clinical reasoning coming to his assistance.

He had to accept the inevitable – that he was outnumbered and in an inferior vehicle. There was no point in pretending otherwise. But what did he have going for him? Not much: the Beretta, which he now removed from his jacket pocket and placed on his lap. He had to assume the two men were also armed, but it didn't necessarily follow that they were prepared to use their weapons. The Italian sent to kill him had intended to complete his mission while leaving no signs of foul play. In all likelihood, the two men in the car behind were under the same instructions. Forcing him off the road was one thing; peppering him with bullets another altogether. They might have the upper hand, but they were limited in their options. This was the nub of the strategy beginning to take shape in his head, a plan of action which he executed the moment the road levelled off.

He spun the steering wheel hard to the left and the Renault slewed across the road towards a narrow dirt track that struck off obliquely into the scrub and trees. Too close to its prey to abandon the chase, the sedan instinctively followed. They weren't to know where he was leading them; he barely knew himself. All he had to go on was an unwelcome memory of once trying to work his way north to the main road from the remote beaches around Brégançon and swearing never to attempt such a thing again. He had found himself hopelessly lost in the rugged landscape just back from the coast, and it had taken detailed directions from two old men stripping cork from an oak to see him out of the labyrinth of winding valleys shut in by high, ridged hills.

His pursuers must have doubted the wisdom of following him, finding themselves smothered in a dense pall of dust thrown up by the speeding Renault. Chickens scattered as a farmhouse whistled past on Tom's right, after which the track noticeably deteriorated before plunging down the side of a narrow valley – the gateway to the violent tumble of hills which lay like a choppy sea across his path. He knew he had little chance of making it through to the coast. Given the speed at which he was travelling, the guts would be ripped out of the Renault long before then. Whatever was going to happen was going to have to happen soon.

The Renault danced and leapt over the ruts, grounding its belly every so often. He had no way of determining if the sedan had abandoned the chase; all he could make out in the rear-view mirror was a billowing cloud in his wake, talcum-powder white in the blazing sunshine. Only when he slowed to negotiate a T-junction at the foot of the valley did he glimpse the vehicle over his shoulder. It had dropped back, content to pursue from a distance. This wasn't what he wanted. He needed it tight in, close on his tail, if his plan was to work. He also needed to gain height.

He bore left at the junction, barrelling along on loose gravel, the trees thickening around him, his eyes scanning ahead, searching for a turning which would lead him back up the hillside. Twice he slowed, only to reject the side-tracks as too steep to negotiate. At last he saw it: a slender thread working its way diagonally up the side of the escarpment on his left.

Winter rains had scored deep runnels in it, and for a moment it seemed that the Renault wasn't up to the task. But the tyres finally bit, spitting dust and stones, and he regained speed on the ascent. By the time he soared over a bald crest into the adjacent valley, the needle was nudging one hundred kilometres per hour on the dial.