Kite retrieved his phone card and walked back to the Vespa. Peele had been completely wrong in his assessment of the situation. There had been no address to write down, no possibility of a second meeting in Cannes. The Iranian had not even asked Kite for his number. Why had he been so uninterested? We have other tactics, other ideas we can explore. Were the exiles planning a hit on Eskandarian? Kite rode back down to the pharmacy trying to work out what was happening but unable to untangle fact from speculation.
Martha was waiting for him on the road. She had already swallowed the pill. When she saw him, her expression changed from one of distracted anxiety to pleasure at his arrival. She swung onto the back of the Vespa, kissed Kite’s neck and wrapped her arms around his waist. The joy of being with her and the complexity of his work for BOX 88 were like two pistons in some vast machine moving perfectly in time, pulling him one way and then the other. As they rode home, Martha told him that the pharmacist had been a ‘judgemental Catholic with bad breath’. That made Kite laugh, though he was worried that she was going to feel unwell for the rest of the day.
‘As soon as I’m better we must do it again,’ she said, and Kite almost drove off the road. ‘I loved what happened last night.’
‘Me too,’ he shouted over the noise of the engine.
He was grinning from ear to ear as he drove through the gates, tooting the horn as he sped past Abbas in the Audi. Martha kissed him and retired to her room with a copy of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy which she had borrowed from Rosamund. She told Kite not to worry about her and put word out to the rest of the house that she was just feeling under the weather and would be fine by the evening.
Kite spent the rest of the morning chatting to Jacqui and Hana by the pool. He decided that he should stick to the plan to talk to Ali. If Bijan had been a trap, it was better to confront Eskandarian with his concerns about Iran, rather than to keep them to himself. That way he would look like less of a traitor. If Bijan was a genuine Iranian exile who regarded Eskandarian as his sworn enemy, then Kite had nothing to worry about. He could speak to Eskandarian as Peele had instructed, earning his trust in the process.
Xavier emerged just in time for lunch. Under orders from his father, he spent much of the afternoon marking and digging out an area in the south-eastern corner of the garden which Luc wanted to transform into a pétanque court. Kite helped them, but when Rosamund offered to drive father and son into Antibes at four o’clock to buy a set of boules, Kite seized his opportunity. He left them to it and went into the house to search for Eskandarian.
He was in the kitchen, making coffee.
‘Lockie!’ He had the charmer’s habit of making everyone with whom he came into contact feel sought after and cherished. Even Kite, who knew that Eskandarian was potentially an agent of mass murder, could not help being seduced. ‘How are you? Having a lazy afternoon? Is Martha OK? I think Hana is down by the pool.’
‘She’s fine. Just not feeling a hundred per cent.’
‘OK, good.’
Eskandarian poured a small percolator of coffee into a yellow espresso cup. He offered to make more for Kite – ‘It’s easy, will take five minutes!’ – but Kite declined. Instead he said:
‘Ali, this is a bit awkward, but could I possibly talk to you?’
The Iranian looked taken aback.
‘Talk to me? Of course!’
His reaction suggested that he was flattered by the approach, rather than frustrated that Kite was going to be taking up his precious time. Kite was standing over a bowl of La Perruche sugar and passed it to Eskandarian. He dropped a cube into the coffee.
‘It’s about something that happened in Cannes after you and Hana had gone home yesterday. Something about Iran.’
There was no microphone in the kitchen. Kite wanted Carl to hear. He tried to convey both with his body language and by his tone of voice that it would be better to hold the conversation elsewhere.
‘Something about Iran?’ Eskandarian looked confused. ‘OK, so what happened?’ He stirred the coffee with a matching yellow spoon. ‘Shall we talk in the living room? In the garden?’
Kite had been hoping that he would suggest going up to the attic. As luck would have it, a lawnmower started up in a neighbouring garden.
‘Might be a bit noisy outside.’
‘The living room then?’ Eskandarian suggested.
Kite glanced over his shoulder and grimaced slightly, as if to say: ‘These walls have ears.’ To his delight, Eskandarian took the hint. ‘Or we can talk in my room if you’re worried about something?’
‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Kite replied. ‘It’s better that we don’t get disturbed.’
With an expression of intrigue rather than concern, Eskandarian picked up his coffee and indicated that Kite should follow him upstairs.
‘I wonder what it is,’ he whispered as they passed Abbas’s bedroom. The door was closed. Eskandarian pressed a finger to his lips, indicating with a mischievous smile that his bodyguard was enjoying a siesta.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Kite replied, adopting the same stage whisper. They reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s just something I thought you should know.’
He had not been back to the attic since the first frantic evening when he had switched the lamps. Eskandarian’s study was now a meleé of books and files, of French, American and British newspapers as well as letters and faxes strewn on the tables and the floor.
