against one cheek, the moistness of a single teardrop against his temple as she muttered, ‘I’m sorry, Georges… so sorry.’ He began to fear the worst.
SEVENTEEN
Elena was slightly breathless as she jumped back in the car and waved the tickets. ‘Great. I’ve got them.’
She started up and headed off. From Lorena’s uncertain smile fired back, the significance of the triumph was obviously lost on her. Elena had become rigid with tension when the clerk seemed slow processing everything on screen, filled with sudden panic that an alert might have already reached the ticket desk. First hurdle down: two more to go. As she wended her way around and got her first view of the Euro-Shuttle check-in kiosks eighty yards ahead, she could see that there were about three or four cars in each queue.
‘Don’t forget, if anyone asks — you’re my daughter, Katine.’ Elena stared the message home for a second with Lorena. She’d already mentioned it on the long drive, but it was crucial now that they were coming up to Customs. One of the key parts of her plan: Katine was still on her passport, and with Lorena only a year older, they should sail through with no problem. ‘I don’t think they will ask — but just in case.’
‘Okay.’ Lorena nodded and fixed her eyes straight ahead again as they veered slightly and slowed to join a queue that had just reduced to two cars.
Each car seemed to be taking about a minute. Elena tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as the one in front started to take longer. The ticket desk clerk had informed her that she could go to the duty free shopping area for the twenty minutes before boarding, but she wanted to get through straightaway. If there was no alert at the ticket desk, then probably one wouldn’t have reached the check-in kiosk yet either. But each extra minute increased the likelihood. The car at the kiosk finally moved off: just one ahead now.
Elena’s body ran hot and cold. She stopped her finger’s tapping on the steering wheel, tried to look relaxed, calm. Nicola Ryall would have discovered Lorena was missing fifteen minutes ago now. How long before it hit Nicola Ryall that it wasn’t just some innocent mix-up with Lorena getting a lift from a friend’s mother and she called the police: five minutes, ten minutes? Then how long for them to arrive, start questioning and get to the stage where they realized that she’d taken Lorena? Another twenty, twenty-five minutes at most. But would they put out an alert straightaway, or head to her home first and listen through the tape left with Gordon? The car ahead moved off. Elena pulled forward to the kiosk.
The clerk, a man in his early twenties, smiled cursorily at her. She stiffened her arm as she handed over the ticket folder to dampen the visible shaking of her hand.
He flicked through the tickets for a second before looking up. ‘One child and an adult?’
‘Yes.’
The clerk looked at the screen ahead and keyed in some details. After a second his eyebrows furrowed and Elena’s heart froze. Then as quickly his face relaxed and he made a quick note as he tore off part of the tickets. ‘Board at gate eight and wait for the green signal there. Thank you.’ He handed back the tickets with a boarding card.
Elena was a second slow pulling away, caught off guard at getting passed through so quickly. But the most difficult part lay only sixty yards ahead: Customs. Any alert put out would likely have gone straight through there, not to the ticket desks.
She felt a rush of guilt when she thought of the crushing shock that must have hit Nicola Ryall when she realized Lorena was missing — reflecting for a moment how she’d feel to discover that Katine had disappeared from school with a stranger. To abate that panic, she wanted Nicola Ryall to get to Gordon and the tape as quickly as possible and know that Lorena was safe and wouldn’t be harmed. But her thoughts were seriously at odds: to allow her time to get away, she hoped that there was some delay.
Two cars ahead in the shortest queue at Customs, one by the time she’d slowed and pulled in — people were being passed through quickly. She took her passport out of her side-pocket, her heart beating wildly. If an alert had come through already, it would all be over now. Brief nod as the guard handed the passport back to the driver in front, and Elena pulled forward to the kiosk.
The Customs guard fired a curt smile without hardly looking at her as he asked for her passport. His only direct stare into the car, as he flicked through its pages, was towards Lorena. ‘Your daughter?’
‘Yes.’ Elena tried to keep her voice flat, calm, but she swore she could hear a few nervous modulations just in that one word.
The guard looked again at Lorena and then at her, and handed the passport back. ‘Okay. Thank you.’
Elena kept her return smile equally as curt and controlled, tried not to let him see the relief and elation that swept through her in that moment. She pulled away, but not too hurriedly. So, no alert as yet; at least not one that had reached Customs.
But her elation faded quickly in the first minutes of waiting in the queue for a green light: fifteen more minutes to go to boarding. Her name and car registration were now on the computer, and an alert could come through at any minute. She found her eyes drifting anxiously to the rear-view mirror. What would they do: run out of the Customs kiosk to catch up with her? Or would they just contact the guard ahead controlling boarding with a walkie-talkie? Then the half-hour train journey itself: more than enough time for the police to visit Gordon, hear the tape and alert Customs. They’d simply phone ahead and stop her as she rolled off the train at Calais. Her mouth was suddenly dry and it was hard to swallow.
Lorena picked up on her consternation. ‘We’re through now, no? Everything’s okay?’ Her tone was questioning with a hint of plea.
‘Yes, yes. Everything’s okay.’ Elena took her eyes from the rear-view mirror and let out her breath. By necessity she’d put Lorena on her metal approaching Customs, but there was no point keeping her on a knife-edge for the next forty minutes. With what she’d probably suffered with Ryall, Elena didn’t want this trip to be yet another nightmare. She’d just have to weather the brunt of that alone. She forced a reassuring smile as she lightly ruffled Lorena’s hair. ‘France, here we come.’
‘I’m sorry to phone again so late. It’s starting to become a habit.’ The smile in Azy’s voice stopped short of a chuckle: it was way too late for open jibing. ‘But I thought you’d want to know this straightaway.’
Michel blinked and rubbed his eyes as he focused on his bedside clock: 3.08 a.m. this time. ‘That’s okay. What’s up?’
Azy related how he’d seen one of the club girls, Viana, get a lift home with Georges Donatiens. ‘She told me she was getting a lift home with a cousin, but I was suspicious — so I hung about a block up from the club and saw her get into Donatiens’ car. What made me suspicious was she was talking earlier to Donatiens, and it all looked pretty sensitive, private. They moved away from the bar, didn’t want to be overheard.’
Michel didn’t see anything overly worrying, at least not to warrant a 3 a.m. call. ‘Doesn’t Donatiens talk to the other girls or sometimes give them a lift home?’
‘Yeah, he talks to ‘em, he’s friendly enough, alright. But it’s all at arm’s length, he never usually leaves the bar. As for him giving them lifts home, I don’ think so — he hardly ever hangs around that late.’ Azy’s gravel voice hushed a shade, as if he was concerned about listeners-in, as he came to the crunch point. ‘But the problem with this girl, Viana, is that she’s also Roman’s girl on the side. That’s why I called.’
Michel sat bolt upright, a sharp tingle running up his spine. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Uh huh. As sure as can be. They tried to keep it quiet, low-key — but I’ve had my suspicions for a while. Then a few nights back — the last time I called in fact — they had a scene in the club and it all came out. Roman blurts out about her riding his dick like it was going out of style — embarrassed the hell out of her.’
The pieces were all tumbling into place for Michel. ‘So this was the girl Roman gave a hard time to the night he finally materialised after Venegas disappeared?’
‘Yep, one and the same.’
Michel fell silent. The tingle in his spine had risen to solid tense knot at the back of his neck. He massaged the taut muscles with his free hand. Faint traffic sounds from beyond his window were starker, more pronounced through the phone. Azy was obviously calling from a downtown booth. ‘And you think they were headed for her
