Outside, under a misty sun, the grey-blue wastes of the Camargue swept past. The man in the toupee was still studying the fluctuations on the Bourse, without removing his dark glasses.
Packer went into the first-class toilet and began to shave. Despite his tan, his face had a drawn, yellow look and his eyes were dull with puffed red linings.
Shortly after he returned to his compartment the train began to slow into Arles, where there was a five-minute stop. He decided to give any ‘lamplighters’ the benefit of the doubt. No one joined them in the compartment, Toupee was happy with his financial sums, and Packer slept.
He slept so heavily that the conductor had to shake him several times. Packer asked how long it was to Nîmes. The conductor told him five minutes. Packer began to pull down his case. Toupee had now turned to the sports page. Chess or canasta looked more like his kind of game; but then you could never tell.
The train drew up at the platform and Packer slid open the door. Toupee did not even look up.
He waited on the platform for three minutes, then reboarded the first-class carriage at the other end, and this time found a compartment occupied by two nuns. He slumped down and slept for the next hour and a quarter — through the stop at Montpellier — until he was woken by the rasping voice, like a klaxon, announcing ‘Béziers … Béziers…’
He took down his case again, bowed to the nuns, and climbed out. Then, on an impulse, he jumped back aboard and ran down the corridor to his old compartment. Toupee’s seat was empty. He turned abruptly, and the tall thin figure in his dark glasses and two-tone shoes was standing in front of him.
Packer grinned. ‘It is forbidden to use the toilet during stops,’ he said in French, reciting from the universal litany of the SNCF.
‘I was merely washing my hands, monsieur,’ he replied, with no trace of annoyance. A very tolerant, civilized man, thought Packer, who merely nodded and returned to where he had left his case on the platform. He picked it up and began to carry it across to the barrier. He looked back once, but the windows of the first-class carriage were empty.
He walked through and signalled to a taxi in the square outside.
CHAPTER 25
Sarah had a hangover. It was very cold on the terrace of the Palace Hotel and the sunlight hurt her eyes, even behind dark glasses. D’Arcy-James had suggested a light omelette, and Jocelyn Knox-Partington had countered with an offer of eggs and bacon.
It was Mr Shiva Steiner who solved her problem; and without even consulting her, he had effortlessly summoned a waiter and ordered her a ‘Harvey Wallbanger’, before explaining the ingredients to her as though they were part of a game: one-third vodka, one-third Galliano, and the rest pure orange juice. ‘The best cocktails are like the best lovers,’ he said, patting her fur mitten across the table, ‘severe but gentle, and the results delectable.’
DJ had stood up to greet a party of boisterous men in skiing gear, and Knox-Partington had stopped a snappily dressed American with whom he was trying to arrange a backgammon game.
‘You have not changed your mind, I hope, mademoiselle?’ Shiva Steiner’s voice transmitted the reassurance of a very good doctor. Sarah guessed that his hands, too, would have the cool dry touch of a doctor’s.
She gave a quick laugh. ‘Why should I? Provided there are no strings.’
‘Ah, my dear young lady —’ Steiner’s gaze moved out across the white roofs of St Moritz — ‘one makes a down payment — one takes a small percentage.’
Sarah winced behind her dark glasses. Her café au lait had grown cold in front of her and was covered with a wrinkled grey skin. ‘That sounds rather mercenary, Mr Steiner.’
‘You are a romantic, I think?’
Sarah shrugged, pulling her silk cashmere poncho closer around her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. You’d better ask one of my friends.’
‘Or your lovers, perhaps?’ Shiva Steiner laughed — a pleasant laugh without the least innuendo. But she did not laugh with him, or even smile. Steiner’s manner became more serious. ‘Permit me to ask you, my dear Sarah — I may call you Sarah, may I not? — but you are here toute seule?’
‘Toute seule,’ she replied, as the waiter placed a glass of innocuous-looking pale orange juice in front of her.
‘Your health, my dear!’
They touched glasses and drank. Sarah sipped hers, swallowed, sipped again, then took a deep drink. ‘It’s good. It’s very good indeed, Mr Steiner. Just what I needed.’
‘You can always trust me, Sarah. I am a man of my word. And please — call me Shiva. It is not a beautiful name, but it is my own and I cherish it. It is Armenian in origin — a memory of my mother. I am, I fear, what you pure-blooded English would call —’ he gave a supplicating gesture, palms upwards — ‘well, you probably have several very rude words for it, but the politest I can think of
