Never Coming Home (33 page)

‘Oh.’ Disappointment flattened Kaz’s voice. The old man took her arm. ‘You come with me.’ The eyes were still bright and birdlike and lit with amusement. ‘You talk to Jean.’

‘Jean?’ Devlin quizzed out of the corner of his mouth as they headed for the hire car.

‘Maurice’s son. I think this might be the local version of
I
 
don’t know, but I know a man who does.
’

Maurice was hoisting himself into an immaculate grey 4×4. They followed him down the narrow road to the village, and parked in the main square.

Jean, the scrawny urchin who had run wild with Kaz in the château’s grounds, was now the well-padded owner of a smart roadside bistro. He was standing at the open door, dressed in a white apron, surveying the street. Maurice ushered Kaz out of the car, a hand on her arm, to present her proudly to his son, before leading the way into the restaurant, with its welcoming miasma of garlic and fresh herbs.

The pâté, cheese and new-baked bread were excellent. The information was even better. Jean poured wine, wiping his hand on his apron. Kaz picked the black olives out of a bowl on the table and sipped from a small glass.

‘The trucks took the furniture into storage last September.’ Satisfied that his guests’ needs were attended to, Jean pulled out a chair and sat with them. It was late afternoon and the restaurant was empty. ‘Monsieur Le Brun has a cousin who works at the storage depot. It wasn’t a secret.’ Jean grinned. ‘But the furniture wasn’t all that was moved. There was another truck, a few nights later. I saw it go through the village as I was locking up. Smaller. Specialist hauliers.’ He looked at Kaz, waiting expectantly.

‘Moving the paintings and Oliver’s studio.’

He nodded. ‘And not into storage. The driver and his mate had breakfast here before they left. One of them made a call on a mobile, confirming their instructions. He went outside, but the kitchen window was open.’ Jean’s grin got wider. ‘The paintings went over the border. To Italy. To Lake Garda.’

Chapter Forty-Seven

Kaz sat in the tiny church, across the square from the bistro, breathing in the fragrance of incense and old stone and silence. She’d lit a candle on the stand next to the altar. She watched the flame, burning steadily. She’d prayed. She
wasn’t quite sure who to, or what for. Strength? Justice? Peace?

The deep core of grief inside her was never going to go away, but it might change.

She wrapped her arms around her chest, pulling her cardigan closer.

Something had happened at the château. More of the pieces she’d been missing in her relationship with her father had fallen into place, mysteriously moving her yet another step towards freedom. Her heart felt
 
…
 
open?

She
would
confront Oliver. She needed that, deep down, somewhere too deep to analyse. It was the last piece in the picture. Once that was done, she could walk away. But what would she be walking to? Devlin?

Did what they have amount to a relationship? What did he want? What did she want?

She sighed, letting her shoulders drop. The candle flame flickered higher, fed by a fugitive draught. There were already layers in her relationship with Devlin that she’d never had with any other man. Trust. Care. Shivery sounding words.

Is this what real love looks like?

The whisper seemed to come out of the air.

She got to her feet and headed for the door.

The bistro let rooms. When she got back two new mobile phones lay on the bed, alongside a pair of train tickets dated for the following day.

‘We drop the hire car back to Avignon station, pick up another at the other end, in Desenzano, if we need it.’ Devlin stuck his head out of the bathroom as she came in. He was managing to shave one-handed. Kaz raised her eyebrows. ‘Taking a lady to dinner,’ he explained.

‘Hmm.’ Kaz looked at the phones.

‘Old habits. We’re going into the field. We need clean equipment.’

‘Are we? Going into the field?’ She dumped her bag and kicked off her shoes. ‘I suppose we are. Do
 
… do you have a weapon?’

Devlin’s eyes slid away. ‘Not yet.’ His head came up. ‘You know, as far as I’m concerned, if you wanted me to put a bullet in your father’s head, it would be justified, with the things he’s done. And I could do it.’ He paused for a beat. ‘That’s not how you want it. I respect that you don’t want any more violence, but it doesn’t mean that other people will. We have to take care. We go into this as hostile terrain, so we prepare accordingly. It feels better to me that way. Humour me.’ He gave her a level look. ‘And if you change your mind, about the bullet in the head, let me know.’

He ducked back into the tiny shower room. Kaz looked thoughtfully after him, then took one of the phones over to the deep window seat. She rang Suzanne, giving her an update and the new number.

Call ended, she was standing by the window, looking out at the street, when Devlin emerged. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘I think I’d like
 
… just to walk? Spend some time
 
… out of time.’ She turned around and offered him her hand.

They explored the grounds of the château and climbed the ruins. Kaz showed Devlin the places where she and Jean had hidden, the rose garden that had first sparked her interest in flowers and the overgrown maze on the edge of the trees.

‘What?’ Kaz tilted her head.

Devlin was lounging on a dilapidated seat, at the furthest end of the château’s garden. Kaz had settled on a large, flat-topped boulder, her knees drawn up under her chin. The roofs of the village were just visible below, tucked into the valley.

‘I’m imagining you here, as a child, all skinned knees and pigtails.’

‘Pervert,’ she suggested amicably

‘Nah – I’ve never gone for the schoolgirl thing. But you must have been cute.’

‘I suppose I was.’ She looked around, considering. ‘We weren’t here that long, just three years, but I had a good childhood here, as far as it went. Small villages are very conservative. They totally disapproved of everything to do with Oliver, and life at the château, but they accepted me. I rather think they conspired to protect me, in a funny sort of way, to give me something normal. I went to school, and played with all the other children, and rode my bike and ate ice cream. All the usual kids’ stuff. I was more interested in helping Maurice in his greenhouse than what went on up here. I’d lived with that lifestyle for years. It was just Oliver, messing about as usual, and a bit boring. The paintings he produced here were amazing, but I was used to that.’ She grinned. ‘Planting out geraniums and picking beans and tomatoes was a novelty, after Venice, and far more fun.’ She turned slightly, and took a deep breath. ‘What about you? Your childhood?’

She waited for the eyes to hood, and close down. He’d turned his head and was looking off, at the view. ‘Yeah. I had one.’

‘I kind of thought you might have.’

Devlin sighed. She was watching him. He could see, out of the edge of his vision. Not exactly expectant, but hopeful. He concentrated on the view. What had gone on in his childhood
really
didn’t interest him. It hadn’t interested his mother much, either. He sighed again. Kaz wouldn’t pry, if he kept silent, but then she might
imagine
. And remembering wasn’t painful – it was just
 
… just
 
… He didn’t really know what it was. Just that he didn’t much care to go digging about there. He’d buried his memories, as required, when he entered the Service, without too much regret. They rarely surfaced now, and if they did, he could soon shove them under again.
Oh, what the hell
. Kaz had shared, so could he.

He leaned forward, arranging his good arm and the cast on his knees. ‘What do you want? It was a dark and stormy night? All that stuff?’

‘Was it? A dark and stormy night?’

‘Might have been. It was a hot summer, I know that much. Ma wasn’t too happy, being pregnant in temperatures in the 90s.’ Kaz leaned forward. He could hear his voice going flat. ‘She wasn’t too happy being pregnant at all.’ He looked up. ‘She was two months short of her seventeenth birthday when I was born.’

‘Oh.’ The soft exhalation of breath said it all. Compassion, pity, understanding. Words he’d never had much time for.

‘I’m pretty sure she would have got rid of me – and I don’t know that I’d blame her – but she was too far along when she realised what was happening. By the time my grandmother found out, it was way too late. Ma was 16, and stuck with a baby, when she should have been worrying about her O-levels and going to Bay City Rollers’ concerts.’

‘Your father?’

He shook his head. ‘If Ma knew, she wouldn’t say. My gran blamed the mechanic from the local garage. Swore that I was the image of him. Apparently he did a runner just after I was born, so she was probably right. My gran brought me up. She thought she was done with all that, and then to be landed with a kid from the wrong side of the blanket.’ He gave Kaz a smile that he knew was lopsided. ‘There you go – we’re both of us bastards – only I work harder to live up to it.’ Kaz’s soft exclamation of protest straightened the smile a little. ‘Gran fed me and clothed me and taught me right from wrong, but I always knew
 
–’ He stopped. It
didn’t
hurt. It was just how it was. ‘I was a mistake. Something to make the best of. That’s it. Childhood. It was a long time ago.’ He wiped his hand across his knee.

The look on her face told him he wasn’t getting away that easy. Her eyes were very dark. They always got that way when she was
 
… involved. She looked like that at night. In his arms. He shifted his position. There were bees and butterflies amongst the bushes that sprawled around the seat, and now and then a pleasant, pungent smell. Lavender? Something green and spiky. He leaned over and picked a leaf, as a diversion.

‘What about school?’

He hesitated. A flippant
What about it?
wasn’t going to be good enough.

‘I liked school. Sports and reading science books and
 
–
 
’ He stopped again.
Petrie
, he hadn’t thought of him in years.

‘And?’ Kaz prompted.

‘There was an old guy, living up the street. Old guy – I thought he was about 100, but he was probably only in his 60s. You know how kids are. Mr Petrie. He was a friend of my grandfather.’ Granddad – a pale wraith, slumped in the corner, fading slowly out of life in the grip of emphysema. ‘They used to play chess. Then my grandfather died and Petrie taught me to play. He’d been in the War and he had stories.’ Devlin frowned. ‘Looking back, I think he’d probably been in military intelligence, but the stories were boys’ own stuff – desert battles and beach-head landings.’ Had it begun with Petrie? Had he been the first talent scout, all those years ago? ‘Between him and my grandmother, they pushed me into going to university.’ He grinned as he saw her eyes widened. ‘Didn’t think I had brains, did you?’

‘I just
 
… never pictured you as academic. What did you study?’

‘Physics and Electronics. In the last year I got a work placement – a government research laboratory approached my tutor, I think
 
…’ Had that been the last stage in the selection process? ‘Graduation day
 
–’

Graduation day. The loneliest day of his life. Petrie and his gran were gone, dead within a few months of each other, in his final year, and his mother run off, God-knew-where, with a car dealer from Peckham. All his friends in excited family groups. The girl of the moment, what was her name – Ellie, or Emma? She had her family around her, too. They’d made him welcome, but somehow it had pointed up how alone he was. He’d been easy meat for the stranger in a sharp suit who’d approached him, almost as he staggered off the platform, with a diploma in his hand and no one to show it to. ‘A man offered me a job.’ He sat back abruptly, jerking the cast.

‘
The
job,’ Kaz said softly. ‘MI5? MI6?’ She raised her eyebrows at his expression. ‘I have signed the Official Secrets Act.’

‘And so you have.’ He exhaled. ‘I never worked for MI5 or MI6. My
 
… employers
 
… were a lot deeper and a lot darker. The unit that no one acknowledges exists.’ Until they want something particularly dirty done.
Send for the magicians. They make things disappear.
‘You’ve seen, Kaz. You know a little, or I wouldn’t even be telling you this, but you can never reveal it, to anyone.’

He heard the short, sharp hitch in her breath. ‘Would
 
… would they harm you?’

His chest tightened. First thought for him, not herself. ‘They would not be happy.’ He laughed. ‘Making them happy is not one of my ambitions these days. But they don’t like to be talked about,’ he warned softly. ‘I accepted their job offer, got the training and eventually was let loose on the world.’ Re-made, in their chosen image. ‘When you sign on – your whole past ceases, as of that moment. To all intents and purposes, Stuart Adams no longer exists. I became someone else, so deep undercover that there’s no connection now between me and that university student.’ Except in his own mind. He kept the thread, the finest of gossamer strands. He’d never been back, but he knew now where his mother was, and with whom. She had a new life and he wasn’t going to trouble it. ‘Then, when I left the Service, I changed again. New life, new name.’ Compartments, each one watertight. No links, except for the flesh and blood that strung them all together. Him. Whoever
he
was? ‘There you are.’ He spread his good hand on his knee. ‘That’s me.’