‘Calm yourself, Sabir. There’s an ongoing crisis in Marseille. The detachment of CRS we would normally be counting on for operations of this nature are fully occupied with other matters. We have had to address ourselves to Montpellier instead. Permissions have had to be given. Identities checked. That all adds to the time frame.’ Macron was astonished at how easily the lies tripped off his tongue.
‘What are we going to do then? Just wait? She’ll never hold out that long. And neither will Alexi. He’ll crack and go powering in. And so will I. If he goes, I go.’
‘No you won’t.’ Macron tapped the waist of his blouson, just above the hip. ‘I have a pistol. If necessary, I will handcuff both of you to my car and leave you for my colleagues to find. You, Sabir, are still wanted for murder. And I have reason to suspect that your companions – Dufontaine and the girl – have been using this house illegally. Have you any idea who it actually belongs to? Or have you just been house-sitting on spec?’
Sabir ignored him. He pointed up the track leading towards the house. ‘When’s your local back-up coming? You need to cut through all this bullshit, surround the place and make immediate contact with the eye-man. The sooner you start putting pressure on him, the better. Make it clear that he will gain nothing by harming Yola. That was the deal we had. The deal I made with your boss.’
‘My local back-up will be here in fifteen minutes. Twenty at the outside. They know exactly where to go and what to do. Show me the situation, Sabir. Explain to me exactly what trouble you have all managed to get yourselves into. And then we will see what we can do to get you out of it.’
58
Macron had settled on his plan. It was absurdly simple. He had reconnoitred the house and understood the layout perfectly. A wide-open window led to the back of the Maset. He would wait for Sabir and Alexi to show themselves and then he would pass through it, counting on their voices – and the eye-man’s concentration on them – to mask the sound of his movements. The minute he had a clear sight of the eye-man he would take him out – a shot to the right shoulder ought to do it.
For Macron wanted his day in court. It wouldn’t be enough just to kill the eye-man – he wanted the bastard to suffer. Just as he had suffered with his feet. And his back. And his neck. And the muscle at the top of his buttock that had been crushed by the car seat and which ticked incessantly since the accident – particularly when he was attempting to drift off to sleep.
He wanted the eye-man to suffer all the tiny humiliations of bureaucratic procedure that he, Macron, had to suffer in his position as a junior police officer. All the stone walls and the Chinese whispers and the unintentionally intentional mortifications. He wanted the eye-man to rot for thirty years in a ten foot by six foot jail cell and to come out an old man, with no friends, no future and with his health in tatters.
Sabir had been telling the truth after all. This was a crisis. The girl was obviously on her last legs. She was swinging around like a rag doll on a light bracket. She couldn’t possibly hold out for the twenty-five minutes necessary for the CRS to land a helicopter the full kilometre and a half away from the Maset needed for effective sound containment – and then to hurry into position.
This had become his call. He was the man the service had in place. Any hesitation would only lead to tragedy.
Macron squatted down beside Sabir and Alexi. He checked the loads in his pistol, enjoying the feeling of power it gave him over the other two men. ‘Give me three minutes to get round to the back of the house and then show yourselves. But don’t come within the eye-man’s range. Stay near the trees and tantalise him. Draw him out. I want him framed against the front door.’
‘If you see him, will you take him out? Not hesitate? The man’s a psychopath. He’ll kill Yola without a second thought. God alone knows what he’s put her through already.’
‘I’ll shoot. I’ve done it before. It wouldn’t be the first time. Our part of Paris is no nursery. There are shootings nearly every day.’
Macron’s words didn’t ring true somehow – Sabir couldn’t quite get himself to believe in them. There was something fervid about the man – something just a little fake. As though he were a civilian who had wandered into a police operation and had decided, off the cuff, to act the part of a participating officer simply for the Hell of it. ‘Are you sure Captain Calque’s okayed this?’
‘I’ve just this moment called him. I’ve explained that a further wait might be fatal. My back-up are still a good fifteen minutes away. Anything could happen in that time. Are you with me on this?’
‘I say go in now.’ Alexi pushed himself up on his knees. ‘Look at her. I can’t bear watching this anymore.’
Given the tenor of Alexi’s words and the urgency of the situation confronting them, Sabir decided to ditch his reservations too. ‘All right, then. We’ll do as you say.’
‘Three minutes. Give me three minutes.’ Macron slithered through the undergrowth towards the back of the Maset.
59
The second he heard Sabir’s voice, Bale played the fi re extinguisher over the candles and oil lamps surrounding Yola. He had caught sight of the extinguisher as he was fetching soup from the kitchen and had immediately decided how best to use it. Now he screwed his eyes shut and waited for them to readjust to the darkness.
Yola called out in her terror, ‘What was that? What did you just do? Why did the lights go out?’
‘I’m pleased you’ve finally turned up, Sabir. The girl’s been complaining that her legs are tired. Have you got the prophecies with you? If not, she swings.’
‘Yes. Yes. We’ve got the prophecies. I have them on me.’
‘Bring them over here.’
‘No. Let the girl go first. Then you get them.’
Bale knocked the stool away with a backward flick of his leg. ‘She’s swinging. I warned you of this. You’ve got about thirty seconds before her windpipe crushes. After that you could try an emergency tracheotomy. I’ll even lend you a pencil to stick her with.’
Sabir felt rather than saw Alexi gliding past him. Five seconds earlier the man had been on his knees. Now he was running straight for the entrance to the Maset.
‘Alexi. No. He’ll kill you.’
There was a flash of light from inside the house. Alexi’s running figure was briefly lit up. Then darkness fell again.
Sabir started running. It didn’t matter that he would die. He had to save Yola. Alexi had shamed him by running in first. Now he was probably dead.
As he ran, he dragged the clasp knife from his pocket and locked open the blade. There were more fl ashes of light from inside the Maset. Oh Christ.
On the first note of Sabir’s voice, Macron ducked in through the back window of the Maset. He would guide himself by the lights in the front room – that ought to do it. But as he made his way up the hall, the lights were suddenly extinguished.
Bale’s voice was coming from the left of the open door. Now it was moving across the room. Macron could just make out a darker silhouette against the faint light coming in from outside.
He tried for a snap shot. Please God he hadn’t shot the girl. The sudden flash of light was just enough to warn him of the barricade of chairs and tables Bale had set-up across the face of the corridor. Macron tripped over the first chair and began to fall. In desperate slow motion he twisted over on to his back and endeavoured to kick
