The Blue Ring (12 page)

Jens
moved forward, speaking to her softly, but she only cowered lower, her eyes
reflecting fear and despair. Creasy said, "Let's get the hell out of here.
First we'll get them to the car and you stay with them while I collect Michael.
I'll take care of the old woman."

Startled,
Jens asked, "Are you going to kill her?"

Creasy
shook his head. "No, but she deserves it, being part of this slime."

He
walked quickly down the corridor to the woman, who watched his approach and
started speaking rapidly in French. He did not answer, he just grabbed her by
the hair and slammed his fist into her jaw. She crumpled to his feet. He turned
away.

In the basement, Denise Defors had recovered some of her composure.

She tried pleading with Michael, telling him that the business had nothing to do with her. He told her to shut
up. Then, with the instinct of any cornered animal, she tried to escape. Her
life had been such that anything she had ever wanted from any man she had
always received. She could not conceive that any man would willingly shoot her.
She pushed herself away from the wall and ran for the door.

Michael shot her in the back. As she slumped against the doorpost, he shot her again in
the back of her head, then immediately levelled the pistol back at Boutin, who
put up his good hand as if to ward off a blow.

"No...Please, no," he stammered. His face was dripping with sweat.

"Just shut up," Michael said harshly. "There's a small chance you might live."

A minute later, Creasy came down the steps, glanced at the dead woman and then at Michael.

Michael said, "She made a run for it."

Creasy nodded, took out a piece of paper from his pocket, gave it to Michael and said,
"Jens is in the Renault outside -" he gestured at Boutin 'together
with two of this bastard's victims. Take the Renault and wait for me outside
the main gates. The kitchen window faces the road there. If you hear any police
sirens, fire a bullet through it. Do the same if any car goes through those
gates there's a mobile phone on the driver's seat then drive away and phone the
number on that bit of paper. The man at the other end will give you directions
to a hole. Wait for me there. Otherwise I'll be finished here in five minutes.
I'll meet you at the car."

Michael simply nodded and headed out through the door. Creasy looked at Boutin
expressionlessly and said, "We're going up to the kitchen to have a brief
but informative conversation." He gestured with his gun. "Move."

With a grunt of pain, the Frenchman moved.

Outside, Michael found Jens in the back seat of the Renault with the two girls. One of
them was slumped against the window, seemingly unconscious. The other was
holding Jens' hand, while he was talking to her quietly in what Michael guessed
was Danish. Michael got into the driver's seat without a word, turned the
ignition and drove the car down the driveway to the open gates. He turned right
and parked the car fifty metres down the road, took out the pistol and watched
the window of the kitchen about one hundred and fifty metres away.

"What now?" Jens asked.

"We wait," Michael said, and explained Creasy's instructions. "What shape
are those girls in?" he asked.

"Very bad shape," the Dane answered bitterly. "They were damn lucky one of them
was due to be shipped out tonight. The other wasn't quite ready yet. Bastards!"

"We were lucky too," Michael said quietly. "First, very stupid, then very
lucky."

"I wonder what Corelli was doing there? Handcuffed...?"

"We'll find out soon enough," Michael answered.

Six minutes later, Creasy slipped into the front passenger seat. "No
movement," Michael said. "Did you let them live?"

Creasy answered, "I handcuffed Boutin to Corelli, back to back. Someone will find them."

From the back seat, Jensen said with bitterness, "I'm a cop. But men like that
don't deserve to live. The way things are here they'll probably get away with it."

Creasy turned to look at him and then showed him the small black box in his hand, and
very quietly said, "Not this time."

The Dane watched Creasy's thumb depress the button and heard the dull explosion
from the house.

Creasy said, "Well, they'll only find bits of them. They've just gone to that
special hell reserved for such people."

It was
a comfortably furnished, three bedroom apartment. Jens and Michael sat at the
dining-room table, drinking coffee. Creasy came out of one of the bedrooms and
gently closed the door. His face showed little emotion, but the two younger men
could feel rage and disgust emanating from his whole body.

He
looked at them for a moment and then said quietly, "I've killed many
people in my life and sometimes regretted it. But I have no regrets about those
bastards we left back there. Only human beings do that to their own kind. The
lowest form of animal life would never understand it."

They
said nothing. Just watched him. He moved to the phone on the sideboard, picked
it up and punched a number. Although it was five in the morning, he received an
immediate answer. He talked into the phone in rapid French. Michael did not
understand, but Jens caught the drift. Creasy indicated that everything had
gone well. He then ordered what were obviously medical drugs. Jens recognised
only one: methadone.

Then
Creasy said, "My friend, I'm going to need one of your men for maybe up to
a week. He should be compassionate as well as tough...Yes, I said
compassionate. I'll call later in the morning. Try to have the drugs here as
early as possible with your man. Tell him to use the code words 'Red
Three'. The answer will be 'Green Four'...Thanks again." He
cradled the phone and came over to the table. Michael poured him black coffee.

"That
was Leclerc," Creasy said to him. "Remember me telling you about
him?"

Michael
nodded. "Yes, the arms dealer. I guess you got your arsenal from
him."

Jens
interjected, "We have to get those girls into a clinic as soon as
possible."

Creasy shook his head. "Mr Jensen..."

Jens interjected again "After what has happened tonight, maybe you can call me Jens?"

Creasy nodded solemnly and continued, "Jens, you're a policeman, and obviously
you have to think and, as much as possible, act like one. But this situation is
different. Normally you'd pick up the phone and call the Marseille police
headquarters or even police headquarters in Paris. But what would you tell
them? That you've just been in a full-scale battle, involving pistols,
grenades, SMGs and a bomb that killed the number one criminal in the region,
together with the corrupt head of the Missing Persons Bureau in Marseille. How
would you explain that? How would you explain myself and Michael? Bear in mind
that I just killed seven men and Michael killed one woman. We'd all be stuck in
this city for months. Including you. Michael and I would be arrested and held
in a jail which no doubt is run by other corrupt officials. That's definitely
not on my agenda."

Jens thought about that and said, "I could call my top boss in Copenhagen and
he would call the top man in Paris."

Michael said, "They would still want answers, and we still could not provide them."

Jens thought again and slowly nodded. "So what do we do? What about those two
girls? They need treatment, and soon."

"They'll get it," Creasy answered. "I've had experience in such cases. First,
let's examine their situation. I was able to talk to them both. They speak good
English. Hanne's situation is infinitely better than the other girl's...Her
name is Juliet. She wouldn't tell me her second name. Hanne has a Danish
policeman sitting right outside her bedroom door. She was reassured as soon as
you showed her your ID. She comes from a wealthy and loving family. We have to
get her back to Copenhagen." Creasy looked at Jens. "You can't just
take her on a plane, not in her condition. I assume that her passport and
clothing are being held by the Marseille police?"

Jens nodded. "In that case," Creasy went on, "we'll have to get her a
false passport."

"How do I do that?"

"You don't. I do."

"And how do I get her back to Copenhagen?"

"You drive her back," Creasy answered. "Together with another man. The
car's in the basement garage, fully fuelled with spare jerrycans of petrol in
the trunk. You make it in one go. Her passport will give her the identity of
your sister: she ran off with a lowlife character while on holiday. He
mistreated her and you came down to bring her home. It's a common enough story.
We'll go into details later."

Michael leaned forward and asked, "What about the other one...Juliet?"

Creasy shook his head. In a flint-hard voice he said, "Her situation is very,
very different. She's American. Her father was a GI with an American unit at
Wiesbaden Airbase in Germany. He was killed during exercises three years ago,
when Juliet was ten years old. Her mother had a secretarial job at the airbase
and stayed on there. About a year ago she remarried. It seems that Juliet's
stepfather's a total bastard. Within weeks he was abusing her mentally and
physically. Her mother did little or nothing to stop it." He sighed and then went on,
"About a month ago she stole some money from the house and ran away. She
had some romantic notion about Paris and managed to get there, where she was
quickly spotted by one of Boutin's scouts, who no doubt showed her great
sympathy. Well, she ended up in that villa, up to her eyeballs in
heroin...I'd guess she was destined for the Middle East within a few days."

Michael muttered, "Animals...fucking animals!"

Jens was shaking his head. "No...like Creasy said, animals don't do that to
their own." He glanced at Creasy. "So what do we do with her?"

As though talking to himself, Creasy said, "There's no way we can send her
home. There's no way we can hand her over to the authorities here, or anywhere
else for that matter. They would put her in a detox-centre and then either into
a social centre or maybe send her back to her mother. Either option would be a
disaster."

"So what do we do with her?" Jens persisted.

Creasy was looking at Michael, who was staring at the top of the table and his empty
coffee cup. Slowly he stood up, walked to the kitchen counter, refilled his cup
from the percolator and, over his shoulder, said, "We have no choice."

"I agree," Creasy answered.

The puzzled Dane looked first at Michael and then at Creasy. "You agree what?" he asked.

Michael came back to the table and sat down and provided the answer. "We keep
her," he said.

"Keep her?" Jens asked.

"Yes, keep her," Creasy said. "We take her back to Gozo. She'll have to go
cold turkey to get off the heroin, then she'll need a hell of a lot of
counselling to get her mind together. Gozo is the best place for that."

Jens'
face showed his incredulity. He stated flatly, "You're both crazy! You're
talking like she's a stray puppy or kitten that you picked up off the
street."

Creasy
nodded. "That's more or less it. But instead of fleas, she's got a dope
addiction. Instead of a flea bath she goes cold turkey."

The
Dane shook his head in exasperation then also stood up, carried his cup to the
kitchen counter, poured coffee into it, came back, sat down and started talking
in a firm policeman's voice. He explained in emphatic terms that basically they
were abducting the thirteen-year-old all over again. He pointed out that they
had no right to do such a thing. He told them that there were strict procedures
in every civilised country for handling such a situation. His voice grew
louder, and his right hand thumped gently on the table-top as he emphasised his
points. Nobody had the right to decide the future of any other human being. In
every civilised country there were laws and social structures to deal with such
cases. The girl was in no condition to make a judgement for herself. She should
be taken immediately into care and given professional counselling. He
emphasised the word 'professional' with a particularly hard thump on the table.
Then he gave them both a very stern look.

Creasy
was looking at his empty coffee cup. He said, "Well, I'm sitting here with
two very uncivilised, very bad-mannered people."

"What do you mean?" Jens asked.

Creasy gestured at his coffee cup. "In the last five minutes you've both gone and
helped yourself to more coffee and no one offered me a cup."

Michael smiled slightly, pushed himself to his feet, picked up Creasy's cup and went to
the counter.

Creasy looked at the Dane. "You talk to me about civilisation. Yes, the French
pride themselves on their civilisation." He gestured at the closed bedroom
door. "You call that civilisation? You call that a social structure? I've
seen more civilisation and social structure in a mud hut village in the middle
of Africa. I've seen more civilisation and social structure in the slums of Rio
de Janeiro or Calcutta." He leaned forward, his voice growing more
intense. "What you're saying is that we take that stray kitten to a vet.
You know what vets do with stray kittens? They usually make a half-assed
attempt to find it a home...enter your professional social workers. If that
doesn't work they put it to sleep." He gestured again at the bedroom door,
a gesture of anger this time. "Michael and I killed to pick up that stray.
You also risked your life." He leaned even further forward towards the
policeman. "There's no way that stray is going to the vet."

Jens looked into the slate-grey eyes, shrugged and said, "You're taking on a
big commitment."

Michael returned to the table, put the coffee in front of Creasy and sat down. As far
as he was concerned, that angle of the discussion was over. "What's our
next move?" he asked Creasy.