“He’s stalking you!” Simone reached out a comforting hand to the troubled girl. “Don’t worry,
She shuffled from behind the counter, took Sophie’s arm and guided her through the door to the archway, pointing to where the hire cars were untidily crammed. “On the other side of the yard, there’s a back door. Monsieur Fouche’s shop, a
Sophie kissed her cheek in thanks and maneuvered through the cars. Simone watched her go. There was a time when she too was slender and agile, and handsome men pursued her with a passion. Now? Ah, now she was a woman of years.
But life was not all bad. There was always Fouche and his dark chocolate crushed raspberry delights.
Corentin and Thierry were old hands at what they did. They had reconnoitered the streets around the market before Sophie arrived. They knew where she would go if she got spooked.
Corentin wanted her to see him.
When Sophie ran through Simone’s yard she failed to see Thierry waiting across the street. And despite her fast-paced escape, Thierry kept far enough behind her not to be noticed. Corentin cut and thrust the car through the congested side streets and by the time Sophie had hitched a lift in a young man’s car, Thierry had climbed into the Audi, and the two killers followed her with ease.
Max stood behind the two front seats and stared through the windshield as Bobby sped towards the Spanish border. Peaches sat in the passenger seat, knees tucked up as usual, iPod playing, eyes closed. They turned off the A63 motorway on the St. Jean de Luz south slip road onto the D912, a smaller, twisty road that would take them, hopefully, to the chateau. Max was worried. Not only was he dependent on Bobby for shelter and transport, which, as grateful as he was, was irritating because he’d rather look after himself, but the young American had never asked a question about what was going on. Never since Pau, when Max had phoned him asking for help at the hospital, never once on the drive into the mountains and Zabala’s sanctuary, nor when Max and Sophie turned up late at the chateau. And this morning Bobby volunteered to drive them without question. Wouldn’t it be natural to at least ask what you might be getting into?
As they approached the outskirts of Hendaye, Bobby slowed down.
“Any idea where this place is? The caretaker guy didn’t have a clue about directions. Probably hasn’t been any farther than his local town his whole life,” he said to Max.
“The countess said there were no signs but we should look out for a hairpin bend. It’s on the right somewhere.”
Bobby winced. “I’ve got a confession to make, Max.”
Was this going to confirm Max’s doubts? He waited.
Bobby grinned sheepishly. “My gran isn’t a countess. She was the housekeeper until the old countess died twenty years ago. She left the chateau and all its debts to my gran. She’s been selling off furniture and fighting debtors ever since. She’s a bit loopy. She thinks she is the countess now, but she has a heart of gold and I’d hate to do anything that’d cause her problems. So, this thing you’re involved in seems to be getting complicated. If there’s anything you think you should tell me, I’d like to know.”
Max’s mind raced, plucking out events from the past couple of weeks. Was this it? Had Bobby finally broken cover? Could he be involved in any of the trouble?
A gut-wrenching moment. Sophie appeared the next day-was there a chance these two could be working together? It fitted neatly enough. Max’s mind shouted back at him.
He shook his head involuntarily at his own thoughts.
“That’s OK, then,” Bobby said, misunderstanding.
“That’s not what I meant. You’re right, Bobby, I shouldn’t drag anyone into this. It is serious, and the reason I don’t want to tell you is because it would make you vulnerable. Once we’ve been here to this Antoine d’Abbadie’s place, I’ll leave. Me and Sayid. All I can say is, I need to find something. Although truth is I don’t know what I’m looking for. I would never cause any harm to you or your gran, no matter who she thinks she is. I promise.”
“That’s cool,” Bobby said. He leaned across to the dashboard, took his cell phone and handed it to Max. “You might need this. I’ve got another. I’m on speed-dial one.”
“Thanks,” Max said, momentarily surprised by the generosity of the gift.
The surfer nodded. It was cool. It always was.
“There,” Max said, pointing at the bend in the road. “It’s there.”
The young driver’s dream of asking the beautiful girl for a date lasted all of five minutes when Sophie jumped out of the car, apologized and told him she was late to meet her boyfriend. The lie slipped easily from between her lips. The driver shrugged. It was life. But it could have been a more beautiful one had she stayed.
Sophie found the safest route across the barbed-wire-topped gate: she clawed her fingers around a gate post, balanced, flicked her hips across the wire, then twisted her body midair, landing with both feet together, neither on her toes, which would have pitched her forward, nor on her heels, which would have jarred her spine. It was effortless. She ran almost silently into the chateau. Where was Max?
“I cannot tell you,” Comtesse Villeneuve said as she studied the girl, who now seemed mildly agitated.
“Countess, listen to me. This is not a straightforward matter of a wayward fifteen-year-old kid on the run from going back home. He’s involved in a really dangerous situation.”
“He behaves more like an older boy. He has seen death and known loss. That can mature a boy beyond his years.” She gazed at the girl, whose light olive complexion now seemed a little flushed.
Sophie had pulled off her cap, ruffled her hair and sat down facing the elderly lady. “It’s dangerous,” she repeated helplessly.
“For whom?” No expression. No hint of suspicion or guile. A straightforward question. Would the girl answer truthfully?
“For everyone who knows him,” Sophie said.
The comtesse did not know whether she trusted Sophie or not. Those almond eyes were impenetrable, and she liked to read people through their eyes. A slab of gray cloud pushed between sea and sky, dimming the room. A contour of diffused light surrounded Sophie’s body. Invisible to the naked eye, seen only by those with the gift to see. The old lady watched the agitated flow of color-drenched energy swirl around the girl. She was distressed but hiding it extremely well. There was pain there, grief too, and fear. The fear was not of physical harm but of a young woman’s emotional uncertainty.
Where Max’s aura had been broad, unbroken, symbolizing his strength and health, this girl’s was fractured- enormous energy, screwed down tightly like a lid on a jar. Daggers of red light shot out from this quivering shadow body, like sunspots bursting from the fiery surface. The girl’s conflicting emotions made the comtesse gasp. She could not help herself.
Sophie Fauvre either was in love with Max Gordon or wanted to kill him.
The nondescript entrance to the Chateau d’Antoine d’Abbadie could easily be missed by passing motorists. There were no big signs demanding attention, and the chateau wasn’t visible from the road. Bobby drove the van slowly under the canopy of trees that lined the narrow tarmac drive. A parking area, denoted by coconut-mat fencing, was on the right-hand side after about a hundred meters. There was one other car parked, with German license plates, and Max could see a middle-aged couple, obviously tourists, waiting farther ahead, where he could just make out the edge of the gray stone building. That must be the entrance.
“Wait here. I’m going to check it out and make sure this is the right place,” Max said.
The bare branches of the tree canopy still obscured the building, but now Max could see its shape. A black slate roof capped the stone walls. The chateau wasn’t that big but it had the look of a small medieval castle, some ramparts on the one side, about three stories high, while the nearer side looked like a more typical French chateau. This d’Abbadie bloke must have had a lot of fun, Max thought, because it was all a bit nineteenth-century Disney.
