Lost (22 page)

‘You know I don’t know who has her child.’

‘You’re going to find out,’ Stuart said.

Santini stared into Stuart’s eyes and Stuart stared back. He saw tiny brown spots floating in the pale green; like shit in the sea, he thought, and he wanted to laugh suddenly at this moment, at the solemnity of two enemies locked together like this and at the smell of Coco’s aftershave, overwhelmed by the odour of his sweat.

‘Okay,’ Stuart said, pulling away. ‘That’s five minutes.’

‘I don’t trust you, Stuart.’

‘Course you don’t. But you have no choice.’

‘First call the magistrate,’ Coco said as Stuart moved away. ‘Call Lasserre now, in front of me, and tell her you didn’t find anything.’ Stuart shook his head. ‘Then I’ll look for the kid.’

‘No!’ Stuart shouted. His voice reverberated in the bare room. ‘I’ll call Lasserre when you’ve told me who has the child and where.’

‘What about the others?’ Coco said. He walked towards the window and looked out, rubbing his neck again. ‘Call the magistrate and cancel the search, then we’ll go. All of us.’

‘Go where? Out of here so you can lead me on a wild-goose chase while Evelyne empties the cache?’

‘He knows where he is.’ Alice’s voice broke in. She was now looking at Santini, her black eyes full of anger.

Santini glanced at her, then addressed Stuart again.

‘We leave together,’ he told Stuart. ‘Everyone. You cancel the search in front of me, then we leave.’

‘Leave and go where, Santini?’ Stuart asked. ‘To pick up
the child? Are you telling me you’re able to do that? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No. That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘Where are they?’ Stuart asked.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘They’re in the
maquis
,’
Stuart said. ‘Aren’t they?’

‘Probably.’

‘How many of them are there? More than three?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Coco said. ‘We all leave and I’ll find out what I can when we’re up there.’

‘Forget it. You’re not in a position to make conditions.’

‘You can forget it, Stuart. You can forget it!’

Stuart had never seen him so angry.

‘We all go,’ Stuart said calmly. He nodded towards the window to indicate the group by the pool. ‘I’ll call Lasserre when you tell me where we’re heading, otherwise we drill.’

There was a pause.

‘Drill then,’ Coco said.

There was a flash of lightning.

‘No!’ Alice said.

Stuart glanced at her. He shouted against the thunder: ‘We’re drilling.’

‘Stuart!’ Alice cried, but he walked out of the room.

As he walked quickly down the stairs he could hear her running behind him.

‘Please, Stuart!’

He stopped in the hall and looked at her. Coco was right behind her.

‘I’m starting the search,’ he told her.

‘Karim’s with them,’ Coco said suddenly. He was looking at Alice again, delivering the news to her.

‘Karim,’ Stuart said. ‘You sent Karim in.’

‘That’s what he’ll tell you. But it was his own crazy initiative. Like Mickey. I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of these kids.’ He flipped his hand over beside his head. ‘There’s no …’

‘Who else?’

‘No idea.’

Stuart turned to Alice.

‘I need to talk to him alone.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, Stuart. You’re not making any deals without me.’

Stuart watched her, waiting for her distress to subside.

‘Alice. Please.’

‘I have to come.’

‘It’s all right.’ He wanted to touch her. ‘I promise.’

Santini was picking up every nuance of this little exchange.

‘Please. Ask the others to come in. Trust me.’

She hesitated, then she looked once at Santini and left them. When she had gone Stuart took a chair and sat down at the glass table. He kicked the soft bag with the toe of his shoe.

‘I can send you down for this,’ he said.

‘Not for long,’ Coco said, walking to the window.

‘Ten years,’ Stuart said.

Coco clicked his tongue twice. He had his back to Stuart, who now lit a cigarette.

‘Who told you?’ Coco asked suddenly, turning round. Stuart ignored him, drawing on his cigarette. Coco hesitated between standing or sitting down. He took the chair.

‘Just tell me this: was it Evelyne?’ he asked.

Stuart waited. When the silence started to hum, he leaned across the table, close enough to see the grain of Coco’s skin.

‘You got a call last night at two-twenty a.m. From Karim,’ he said softly. Coco settled back into his chair and crossed his legs. ‘You’re going to call Karim back like he asked you to,’ Stuart went on. ‘You’re going to get them to take this money.’ He kicked the bag at his feet again. ‘Tell them it’s not in their interests not to. And you’re going to set up a meeting to hand it over.’ He paused. ‘Now who are the others?’

But Coco was looking past him towards the door. Evelyne was leading Alice and the men into the room.

Coco uncrossed his legs.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Coco told Evelyne. ‘Go to the study.’

‘We’ll all go to the study,’ Stuart said. ‘There’s nowhere to sit here.’ He put out his cigarette in one of the empty coffee cups and stood up. ‘Perhaps you could make some coffee, Evelyne.’

Evelyne had moved into the new situation like an amphibian crawling on to the shore. She glanced at Coco sitting in the chair. As if he were a thing of the past, she counted the people in the room with a long red fingernail.

‘Six coffees then,’ she said and left the room.

Alice was standing between Gérard and Paul.

‘We’re postponing the search,’ he said. He paused while Paul shifted, folding his arms and placing his yawning tennis shoes further apart from each other. ‘Dominique, you can go home, but I’d like you to be ready in case I need you.’

Dominique nodded solemnly. When Stuart did not continue he said, ‘So I go then?’

‘I’ll call you if I need you.’

‘No problem,’ Dominique said. ‘Any time you need help putting him away, I’m your man.’ He looked down at the person he took for his brother’s killer, but when Santini met his eye, Stuart saw how afraid he was.

‘Show him out, Evelyne,’ Coco said. ‘Then wait for me in the study.’ He was sitting in the large cane chair, stroking his beard. At the sight of him Stuart felt a rush of doubt. Evelyne raised her eyes to heaven and led Dominique out of the room. Coco was watching Stuart, and as he held Santini’s stare the room seemed to tighten around him. Pressure was building up in his head and his ears were burning. Santini dropped his eyes for only a moment, then raised them again.

Go on, Stuart thought. Go and talk to her. You won’t get another chance.

Santini stood up. He looked at each of Stuart’s men. He had no control and yet he could command. He stepped out of the room and Stuart closed the door.

‘We’ve got a lead for the child,’ he told them. ‘A good one. I haven’t got any choice. I have to pursue it now.’ He glanced
at Fabrice but Fabrice said nothing. He just stood there, his eyes blocked out by the reflection of the window in his glasses. ‘We’ll take the three cars we’ve got; that includes Madame Aron’s …’

His voice came clearly and reliably again and he created an illusion of certainty with what little he had. He unfolded a plan to them, all the transgressions of procedure and the unspoken dangers dissembled behind the fluency. At every moment as he spoke, he was aware of Alice watching and judging him. When he had finished no one spoke. The questions were too many. He looked at Fabrice, standing there with his hands in the pockets of his anorak.

‘We’ll need someone to go with the tracking equipment. Fabrice?’

‘There’s a technician for that. Presumably you’re going to ask Central Office.’

‘Everything is going to be regularised. Lasserre is behind me. We just don’t have time …’ He stopped himself. ‘This only works if we move quickly. Otherwise we’ll lose him.’

Stuart looked at Fabrice and decided to let him go; he would have to do what his conscience told him to do.

‘Paul? Can you do it?’

Paul shrugged. He was not familiar with the equipment.

‘Sure.’

‘Any questions?’ Stuart asked.

‘The technician can come with me in the van,’ Fabrice said.

Stuart nodded at him, careful not to embarrass him with his gratitude. He turned to Alice.

‘Madame Aron?’

The others turned and looked at her. She was standing by the door, cordoned off as always by her sex and her class and her grief.

‘Can you drive your car?’

She looked at Stuart and nodded and for a moment Stuart believed it would be possible for him to love her.

Lopez stood at the bar staring grimly at his reflection between the shelves of liquor. No one came to this bar because the owner’s wife had a germ phobia and the place stank of bleach. He liked the smell because it reminded him of the prison hospital that had been a sanctuary for him. There, hope had trickled back like the smell of bleach in the throat: it was a nice line – he would try and use it some time.

He took a sip of his Kir. He liked the syrupy sweetness of this bourgeois, woman’s drink. He had been introduced to Kir by a sausage heiress in Barcelona. Her name was Maria Teresa and he had loved the self-love with which she purred her own name. He looked at his watch. Stuart had not called as he had promised and it was already ten-fifteen. He took his mobile from his pocket to make sure it was on and laid it carefully on the bar. He would give him another fifteen minutes, then he would ring the
Islander
and start his series. He took another sip of his drink, then swallowed it all. No, he would not wait. Stuart had not treated him well.

He called the paper. Thierry, the news trainee, picked up. The editor was in a meeting.

‘Tell him it’s me, Thierry. Tell him it’s about the kidnapping.’

‘What kidnapping?’

‘Just get him.’

‘Sure. Lopez?’

‘Yes.’

‘You told me to monitor the police radio.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wrote it all down. I’ve put it on your desk.’

‘You don’t have to write it down; just tell me if there’s anything interesting.’

There was a pause.

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, come on, Thierry. Like names even you’ve heard of.’

‘There was a call for a squad car to Coco Santini’s.’

‘When?’

‘Wait a minute. Just one minute. I’ve got it here. It came at eight-thirty-three.’

‘Santini’s place where? In Santarosa or in town?’

‘In town. His villa on the bay. I’ve got the address. Just a minute.’

‘That’s okay. I know where it is. Thank you.’

Lopez knew as soon as he arrived at Santini’s place that he was too late. He could feel it as he looked through the wide-open gates at the empty drive. As he climbed down the bank on to the road, the first drops of rain began to fall. When he reached his car, his hair was wet.

He sat in his car and lit a cigarette. He still smoked Ducados and he liked the smell of brown tobacco and rain, mixed. Maybe it was time to go home to San Sebastian. He took his mobile from his jacket pocket and dialled Stuart’s number. The secretary answered. She had a whining voice.

‘I know it’s not your fault, madame. Just be kind enough to let him know that the story will be in the
Islander
tomorrow morning, in full.’

He hung up and while he finished his cigarette he looked for his opening line. A beautiful young woman, still grieving for the tragic loss of her husband, has been struck … Young woman or young widow. Which? It needed a link with the island. The young widow of a member of one of the island’s oldest families …

Lopez saw the moving shape in the wing mirror before he turned his head to look. He held perfectly still until the car had driven in through the gates. It was Georges Rocca’s car.
He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and climbed out.

He stood in the rain and looked for a way in. Santini’s villa was notoriously impenetrable. It was a bunker. That was why he didn’t need security guards. Security guards just took bribes. Lopez smiled, letting the rain drip into his mouth. He felt young again and excited. It was too soon to go home.

He followed the steep path that led from the lay-by down to the flat rocks and the sea. He could see the gulls standing down there, all facing in the same direction, standing stupidly in the rain, waiting for some gull messiah to scud in across the sea. He slipped in the mud and tore his suit vent on a root that was sticking out of the path. A ribbon of catholic oaths rolled from his mouth.

When he reached the shore he ran at the gulls, rain and sea stinging his eyes, and the moment of doubt came as the birds held their ground – they were preparing an attack. But they stepped lazily forward in response to some invisible command and lifted into the air, curling off to the next cove where Santini had built a little harbour and beach, all of cement. Lopez followed the narrow path over the rocks, his heart still beating from his moment of doubt with the gulls.

Only Santini’s mausoleum was visible from the cove. It was built on a piece of rock that jutted out beyond the cliff face. The mausoleum was the work of two brothers from a village in the north-east of the island that had produced stonemasons for generations. The marble was from Italy and the work was said to be very fine. Lopez had written a piece while it was being built questioning Santini’s right to burial on his own property. He had checked: Article L2223–9. Any person may be buried on a private property provided that the said property is situated at the prescribed distance from the confines of a town or village. Le Losange was not beyond the prescribed distance. It was a feeble assault, but Lopez knew that Coco’s mausoleum was a matter of the deepest significance to him and while it was not possible to make the
authorities put a stop to it, they had been forced to think up a way round the illegality. In the meantime they had halted the building work, which had been a source of considerable irritation to Coco. Still, Lopez thought, Coco had him on a short leash. He knew if he ever sought to do him any real damage, he could forget his peaceful retirement in San Sebastian; no port would be far enough. It was a sad thing to discover that after all he had been through he was so afraid.

Lopez heard a clap of thunder in the distance. Coco no longer used the cove now that he had his pool, and his cement installations were daubed with gloomy obscenities. The old access up to his property was barred by a tall wire fence that had collapsed in places and lay curling in the undergrowth. Lopez climbed over and looked up through the rain at the cliff. The first part of the climb was easy. He followed the old path, hoisting himself up where a step had subsided, making his suit muddy at the knees. He talked to himself under his breath as he climbed, clasping on to the ice-plants when the path disappeared. He was grateful for being close to the ground. His size had never been a disadvantage. He could sneak and crawl still, past police barricades, into rival rallies, past ticket booths at
corridas
and football matches and also into women’s beds, into their mothering arms, where they would press their lips to the top of his head and in no time their wistfulness would turn and their mouths would slide from the O of surprise to the Ah of concupiscence and it was too late: he had insinuated his way past the turnstile of their desire. For he was in fact none other than a real-life, flesh-and-blood sex dwarf. Lopez smiled as he climbed up through the rain. It was the sausage heiress’s phrase and he liked it, for that was exactly what he was: a sex dwarf. No woman was safe.

He had reached a dead end. The rock on which the mausoleum was built rose up before him, impregnable as Colonel Moscardo’s
alcázar.
The thunder was still a long way off. Lopez looked for a hold. The best face was where the rock
overhung. If he fell from there he would hit the lower part of the slope about a hundred metres below. He would have to climb the smooth part where the rock met the cliff and a muddy stream now trickled. He took off his socks and shoes. His feet had been broken with cables by the Guardia Civil when he was in his twenties. When he had been released he had gone to see a physiotherapist, who had restored them with exercises that Lopez had joked were at least as bad as the torture. But he was a dour man from Huesca and he had not laughed. Lopez used his little feet to claw at the mud and he climbed slowly and steadily, trusting them with all his weight, using his fingers only lightly to correct his balance. The cliff was perfectly vertical and as he climbed he marvelled at his own agility.

He heard them before he reached the top. He recognised the sound immediately as metal striking stone. He gripped the long waxy grass that fringed the cliff edge and gazed at the white mausoleum, glistening in the rain. The banging was coming from inside. If they found him, they would shoot him, but if he tried to go back the way he had come he would break his neck, so whatever happened, he was going out through the front gate, be it dick or feet first.

He pulled himself up and lay on his stomach on the wet grass, his legs still hanging over the cliff. Santini’s house was further up the hill and out of sight. Lopez crawled on to the lawn and crept round the side of the mausoleum. He heard a woman’s voice. It was Evelyne.

‘Lay them like that. Like bottles. Yes.’

‘Careful!’ Lopez started. ‘What do you think we’re dealing with here?’ It was Georges Rocca.

‘Hurry up,’ Evelyne said. ‘I’m getting wet.’ She was outside the vault. Lopez took a step back. He realised that if they found him, he’d simply go over the cliff.

‘Okay,’ Georges said. ‘Now the ammunition.’

It was an arms cache.

‘Okay, now seal her up.’

Lopez listened to them slide the stone drawer back into place.

‘Smoother than that,’ came Evelyne’s baby-doll voice. ‘It’s got to be smooth. Look, there. It shows.’

They were applying the cement.

‘Dog’s work,’ Georges said. ‘Let me do it.’

‘Hurry up, for Christ’s sake,’ Evelyne said. It was a voice job she needed, Lopez thought. ‘Hurry up!’

Go on, Georges, hit her. You know you want to.

‘I’m going back to the house,’ Evelyne said. ‘Leave the gate open when you go. Clean up all that. I don’t want to see a speck of dust here in the morning.’

When she had gone he could hear them set about clearing up. There was a sound of splintering wood.

‘Okay. Let’s go,’ Georges said.

Lopez waited a few seconds, then advanced to the corner of the mausoleum and looked out. Georges was walking up the path that led to the house. Behind him were his two new skinheads. They were carrying the tools and a bucket of cement and Georges was carrying the broken pieces of crate. Lopez could see red Cyrillic lettering on one of the pieces and he whispered a long, liturgical oath.