Lie Down with Lions (1985)

“It’s not true. Ellis couldn’t be a spy. Don’t you think I’d know? I’ve been practically living with him for a year.”

“But you haven’t, though, have you?”

“It makes no difference. I know him.” Even while she spoke Jane was thinking: it could explain a lot. She did not really know Ellis. But she knew him well enough to be sure that he was not base, mean, treacherous and just plain evil.

“It’s all over town,” Jean-Pierre was saying. “Rahmi Coskun was arrested this morning and everyone says Ellis was responsible.”

“Why was Rahmi arrested?”

Jean-Pierre shrugged. “Subversion, no doubt. Anyway, Raoul Clermont is running around town trying to find Ellis and somebody wants revenge.”

“Oh, Jean-Pierre, it’s laughable,” said Jane. She suddenly felt very warm. She went to the window and threw it open. As she glanced down at the street she saw Ellis’s blond head ducking into the front door. “Well,” she said to Jean-Pierre, “here he comes. Now you’re going to have to repeat this ludicrous story in front of him.” She heard Ellis’s step on the stairs.

“I intend to,” said Jean-Pierre. “Why do you think I am here? I came to warn him that they’re after him.”

Jane realized that Jean-Pierre was actually sincere: he really believed this story. Well, Ellis would soon set him straight.

The door opened and Ellis walked in.

He looked very happy, as if he were bursting with good news, and when she saw his round, smiling face with its broken nose and penetrating blue eyes, Jane’s heart leaped with guilt to think she had been flirting with Jean- Pierre.

Ellis stopped in the doorway, surprised to see Jean-Pierre. His smile faded a little. “Hello, you two,” he said. He closed the door behind him and locked it, as was his habit. Jane had always thought that an eccentricity, but now it occurred to her that it was what a spy would do. She pushed the thought out of her mind.

Jean-Pierre spoke first. “They’re on to you, Ellis. They know. They’re coming after you.”

Jane looked from one to the other. Jean-Pierre was taller than Ellis, but Ellis was broad-shouldered and deep-chested. They stood looking at each other like two cats sizing each other up.

Jane put her arms around Ellis, kissed him guiltily and said: “Jean-Pierre has been told some absurd story about you being a CIA spy.”

Jean-Pierre was leaning out of the window, scanning the street below. Now he turned back to face him. “Tell her, Ellis.”

“Where did you get this idea?” Ellis asked him.

“It’s all around town.”

“And who, exactly, did you hear it from?” asked Ellis in a steely voice.

“Raoul Clermont.”

Ellis nodded. Switching into English, he said: “Jane, would you sit down?”

“I don’t want to sit down,” she said irritably.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

It couldn’t be true—it couldn’t. Jane felt panic rise in her throat. “Then tell me,” she said, “and stop asking me to sit down!”

Ellis glanced at Jean-Pierre. “Would you leave us?” he said in French.

Jane began to feel angry. “What are you going to tell me? Why won’t you simply say that Jean-Pierre is wrong? Tell me you’re not a spy, Ellis, before I go crazy!”

“It’s not that simple,” said Ellis.

“It is simple!” She could no longer keep the hysterical note out of her voice. “He says that you’re a spy, that you work for the American government, and that you’ve been lying to me, continuously and shamelessly and treacherously, ever since I met you. Is that true? Is that true or not? Well?”

Ellis sighed. “I guess it’s true.”

Jane felt she would explode. “You bastard!” she screamed. “You fucking bastard!”

Ellis’s face was set like stone. “I was going to tell you today,” he said.

There was a knock at the door. They both ignored it. “You’ve been spying on me and all my friends!” Jane yelled. “I feel so ashamed.”

“My work here is finished,” Ellis said. “I don’t need to lie to you anymore.”

“You won’t get the chance. I never want to see you again.”

The knocking came again, and Jean-Pierre said in French: “There’s someone at the door.”

Ellis said: “You don’t mean that—that you don’t want to see me again.”

“You just don’t understand what you’ve done to me, do you?” she said.

Jean-Pierre said: “Open the damn door, for God’s sake!”

Jane muttered: “Jesus Christ,” and stepped to the door. She unlocked it and opened it. There stood a big, broad-shouldered man in a green corduroy jacket with a rip in the sleeve. Jane had never seen him before. She said: “What the hell do you want?” Then she saw that he had a gun in his hand.

The next few seconds seemed to pass very slowly.

Jane realized, in a flash, that if Jean-Pierre had been right about Ellis being a spy then probably he was also right about somebody wanting revenge, and that in the world Ellis secretly inhabited, “revenge” really could mean a knock at the door and a man with a gun.

She opened her mouth to scream.

The man hesitated for a fraction of a second. He looked surprised, as if he had not expected to see a woman. His eyes went from Jane to Jean-Pierre and back: he knew that Jean-Pierre was not his target. But he was confused because he could not see Ellis, who was hidden by the half-open door.

Instead of screaming, Jane tried to slam the door.

As she swung it toward the gunman, he saw what she was doing and stuck his foot in the way. The door hit his shoe and bounced back. But in the act of stepping forward he had spread his arms, for balance, and now his gun was pointing up into the corner of the ceiling.

He’s going to kill Ellis, Jane thought. He’s going to kill Ellis.

She threw herself at the gunman, beating his face with her fists, for suddenly, although she hated Ellis, she did not want him to die.

The man was distracted for only a fraction of a second. With one strong arm he hurled Jane aside. She fell heavily, landing in a sitting position, bruising the base of her spine.

She saw what happened next with terrible clarity.

The arm that had shoved her aside came back and flung the door wide. As the man swung his gun hand around, Ellis came at him with the bottle of wine raised high above his head. The gun went off as the bottle came down, and the shot coincided with the sound of glass breaking.

Jane stared, horrified, at the two men.

Then the gunman slumped, and Ellis remained standing, and she realized that the shot had missed.

Ellis bent down and snatched the gun from the man’s hand.

Jane got to her feet with an effort.

“Are you all right?” Ellis asked her.

“Alive,” she said.

He turned to Jean-Pierre. “How many on the street?”

Jean-Pierre glanced out of the window. “None.”

Ellis looked surprised. “They must be concealed.” He pocketed the gun and went to his bookcase. “Stand back,” he said, and hurled it to the floor.

Behind it was a door.

Ellis opened the door.

He looked at Jane for a long moment, as if he had something to say but could not find the words. Then he stepped through the door and was gone.

After a moment Jane walked slowly over to the secret door and looked through. There was another studio flat, sparsely furnished and dreadfully dusty, as if it had not been occupied for a year. There was an open door and,