'I've got over three thousand pounds left. Plenty…'
'I'll see you then.'
'What about the photographs I've taken? I never expected to see you up here.'
'Destroy them. Wait five minutes after I've gone, then you can leave here…'
He drifted away like a ghost. Despite the heat she shivered with anticipation. For Paris. She hadn't even looked him in the eye. I never expected to see you up here… Klein always did the unexpected. Ever since that first meeting at a party in a flat near Harrods. She'd seen him watching her across the room. When he came up to her she didn't trust her luck. The other guests babbling away were crashing bores. This man was not only good-looking; he was intelligent, amusing, made her laugh.
'I'm Reinhard Klein. Consultant for a German armaments firm. A bit hush-hush – what I do.'
'You sound so English,' she'd remarked.
'Who says I'm not?' He'd grinned and she threw her normal caution to the winds. He could charm the birds out of the trees. And he had certainly charmed Lara. 'The Germans like to think they're dealing with one of their own kind…'
'You mean…'
'I mean I'd like to take you out to dinner. Send you home as soon as you've had enough…'
That was how it had started. She had learned practically nothing about his background, and this air of mystery intrigued her. Klein had – by the end of the evening -heard the story of her life.
She'd endured the usual debutante-style education. After prep school it had been Roedean. She whipped through her exams, got high marks, hated the whole childish business, simply couldn't wait to get out into the real world.
'I was good at languages,' she had told him. 'I went to a perfectly awful finishing school at Gstaad in Switzerland. To pass the time I became fluent in French and German. The other girls chased stupid men…'
'You don't like men?' Klein had probed.
'Not the kids – the twenty-year-old lot. They're callow, can't talk about anything except Henley and Glyndebourne. And bedding girls. I prefer older men. And I want to make a lot of money while I'm still young enough to enjoy it…'
Klein had showed interest in that remark – and her ability as a linguist. He'd tested her, chatting in German and French. She'd told him how her mother had died young, killed in a car crash. Then her merchant banker father had married Lady Windermere.
'He's not very bright about women,' she'd explained. 'I didn't like my mother. All she thought about was mixing with so-called high society. My step-mother turned out to be a disaster area as far as I was concerned. Wanted me out of the way.' Lara had mimicked her: 'My dear, the duty of an attractive girl in your position is to find some wealthy young man with prospects. Love doesn't come into it. You can get that elsewhere later. If you must…'
'An absolute bitch,' Lara had continued. 'Having endured a basinful of school, I was packed off to St James's Secretarial College in South Ken. I found the same empty-headed lot there. I passed top of the course and was supposed to get some job as PA to an executive type, preferably a bachelor. I rebelled…'
'You're politically aware?' Klein had asked.
'You must be joking.' She'd blown cigarette smoke into the air between courses. 'I'm aware politics is a bloody bore. Just a pack of self-seeking second-raters trying to ingratiate themselves with the voters – and the people higher up who could lift them into a good position. My grandfather was right.'
'Your grandfather?'
'On my father's side. The brains ran out after that. He used to tell me on the quiet, 'Lara, go for the money. Don't marry for it. That way lies misery. Find out what you can do well, be unorthodox, travel, get to know the world outside this tight little island. An opportunity will crop up. Trick is to spot it when it does.''
'Your grandfather was right,' Klein had agreed. 'Maybe one day I'll be able to show you that opportunity. We'll keep in touch. Time to send you home now…'
Lara had asked how she could contact him. He'd drawn back from that one. The other way round, he said. He would contact her one day. She'd given this marvellous man her address in Eaton Square and her phone number. He'd kissed her on the cheek before leaving her at the entrance to her apartment block. No attempt to fondle her.
She'd finished her secretarial course, never ceasing to despise the empty chatter of her fellow pupils. Her coming-out party, insisted on by Lady Windermere, had been pure agony.
'This occasion,' the tall handsome step-mother, had remarked, 'is where you may find the right man. Do put yourself out to attract a few prospects.'
'If you say so…'
Of course, it was Robin, Lady Windermere's son by her previous marriage to Lord Windermere – killed in a car crash – who got all the attention. His mother was very ambitious for Robin, the present Lord Windermere. 'With a lot of luck, a bit of judicious seduction at the right moment, he'll land an American heiress.'
Oh, my God, Lara thought, that went out with Henry James. For a few minutes, in the privacy of her bedroom at Eaton Square, she'd looked critically at herself in the mirror. The image staring back was of a slim girl, five feet seven, a good figure, shapely legs, and her crowning glory – thick shoulder-length auburn hair. A girl who stood erect and with a rather aggressive stance. What does my future hold, she wondered?
Pictures of her appeared in The Tatter at parties she hated, always with some idiot man grinning foolishly. Lady Windermere glowed each time. 'You're getting known. It won't be long now…'
You just want to get rid of me, Lara thought. To sever the last link my simple-minded father has with the past. My presence is a bloody nuisance to her – because I always outshine bloody Robin. I really must get away before this atmosphere suffocates me.
Klein kept in touch with occasional phone calls. 'I'm in Brussels,' he would say. 'Saw your picture in that magazine…' He'd chat on, and always closed with, 'I'm moving on tonight. Don't ask where. Be in touch…'
Two years passed since her first meeting with Klein. She got away from Eaton Square by taking secretarial jobs on the continent in Switzerland and Germany. A small legacy from her grandfather when he died gave her some financial independence, but she was still looking for the big money which would take her away from Eaton Square for ever. Then the call came from Klein, followed by a registered envelope containing an air ticket for Paris and some spending money. The conversation stunned her. 'Like the chance to make a quarter of a million pounds?'
At the Hotel Crillon in Paris Klein explained. He needed a girl above suspicion who could travel. He was going to hijack a ship. There would be no casualties. Tear-gas would be used to put the crew out of action.
'No more details than that,' he told her. 'This envelope contains the equivalent of four thousand pounds in French currency. That's for expenses. It won't be subtracted from the quarter of a million.'
Over dinner they had been speaking in French. Klein was checking her fluency before he put his proposal to her – and was impressed with her command of the language.
'What do you expect me to do for my fee?' she had asked coolly, talking as though it were an everyday occurrence.
Travel to Marseilles. By train. Buy a good camera, learn how to use it, take pictures of the port, check out security. Go there tomorrow,' he had instructed. 'Stay at the Sofitel. I will contact you
…'
After dinner he suggested they went to his room. She had no hesitation in accepting the invitation. They spent the whole night together. By morning Klein had no doubt Lara was his, body and soul.
All this history of her relationship with Klein drifted across Lara's mind as she waited in the inferno of the heat-laden terrace of Notre Dame de la Garde. Waited for five minutes until Klein was well gone.
A large modern liner appeared through the haze, heading for the docks beyond the fishing harbour. One of the big jobs coming in from Oran, Algeria. One of the passenger ships which plied regularly between Marseilles and North Africa.
To give herself something to do, she raised the camera, adjusted the focus, and took a dozen shots as it loomed larger and larger. She realized suddenly she had run out of film, checked her watch, let the looped camera fall alongside the field-glasses also looped round her neck and left the terrace.
Leon Valmy stepped out of the shadows beside the church, walked slowly after her. A small, spare
