He began to smoke in what he hoped would look to any passing member of the household like a moody teenager taking time out with his troubles, pondering the mysteries of the universe and the vagaries of solitude at the bottom of a French garden. As far as Kite could tell, he was alone, yet it felt as though he was being watched from some hidden corner of the garden, perhaps by Alain or the always suspecting Abbas. A gecko slipped up the wall a few inches from his feet, causing Kite to start. He stepped back. The tip of the cigarette brushed against the leaves of an olive tree and he had to relight it.
Kite continued to smoke the cigarette, telling himself that it was all just a question of hanging around near the wall, killing time, looking natural to anyone who might come past or spot him. The ground floor of the house was more than a hundred metres away, screened by trees. Kite could see the window of Xavier’s room on the first floor, Eskandarian’s attic bedroom above it. He reached up and took down the book, opening it halfway through. He leaned with his back against the tree, extinguishing the cigarette in a pile of loose earth and dried leaves. Kite could see ants on the ground and knew it would only be a matter of time before they climbed onto his espadrilles and started marching up his legs. Nevertheless he pretended to concentrate on The Songlines, reading the same paragraph several times and even marking a passage in the margin (‘Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.’) for the benefit of anyone who might be watching him. After five minutes of this masquerade, he stood up, brushed off his legs and lifted the swimming trunks from the top of the wall. A corner of the material had snagged on the glass, but they did not tear as Kite pulled them free. He walked back towards the house, leaving the packet of cigarettes behind him as if he had forgotten it.
He had reached an enclosed, shaded walkway in the garden and was turning towards the swimming pool when Abbas suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path. Startled and afraid, Kite stepped back. There was a small, weathered bench to one side of the pergola on which Abbas must have been sitting.
‘Jesus, you gave me a fright,’ he said.
‘Lockie,’ Abbas murmured in acknowledgement.
Had he been watching him? Had he cottoned on to the ruse with the book and the swimming trunks?
‘Having a siesta?’ Kite asked. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you.’
‘You don’t disturb me.’
‘Is Ali not back from the hospital?’ He knew that it was far too soon for José to have been treated, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘That was a nasty cut.’
Abbas wasn’t in the habit of speaking unless he had to. He merely grunted at Kite and sat down on the bench. His hair was greasy, the collar of his white shirt dirty and frayed. Kite had a sudden image of him creeping around the New York subway, weighing up which stations to target, checking out air vents.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ Kite told him.
‘You have cigarette?’
It was as if Kite’s heart had caught on a fragment of glass. He managed to say: ‘Sorry, no, smoked my last one.’
Abbas patted the pockets of his suit jacket in a pantomime of frustration. Was he toying with Kite or was the request for a cigarette a genuine, if grim coincidence?
‘Never mind,’ he said.
‘Xavier will have a Marlboro,’ Kite told him. ‘Come to the pool. Or I can fetch you one?’
His mind was racing. Should he go back to the wall and grab the packet, pretending to have forgotten it? No, he couldn’t do that. It might already have been taken by Peele or Carl.
‘It’s OK,’ the Iranian replied. ‘I can wait.’
His words sounded loaded with menace. Kite knew that he should walk on, that it was pointless to hang around trying to act natural. Besides he could not be sure that Abbas was genuinely suspicious of him. Even if he had seen him reading and smoking by the wall, Kite was certain that he had carried off the dead drop with faultless precision. The cigarettes had been bundled in with the book and the swimming trunks. He had looked like someone grabbing ten minutes of peace and quiet at the end of a hectic afternoon. That was it. No reason to panic. He must hold his nerve.
‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said. ‘Watch out for mosquitoes.’ Abbas shrugged, as if it was the mosquitoes who should watch out for him. ‘See you later.’
Kite walked off clutching the swimming trunks and the Chatwin, reaching the pool to find Xavier and Jacqui in the water. Martha was sunbathing on the patch of ground where two days earlier they had made love. When she saw Kite, she sat up and waved.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Having a smoke, reading,’ he said. He was sick with the fear that Abbas was already at the wall, pulling down the packet of cigarettes, finding the note. ‘What’s going on?’
Xavier surfaced in the deep end and said: ‘Oh, hi. Fancy going into Mougins?’
‘Sure.’ Kite knew that his friend was low on alcohol and wanted to stock up. He turned to Martha. ‘Come with us?’
‘Love to,’ she replied. ‘I want to take more photos. But have a swim first, Lockie. The water’s beautiful.’
Half an hour later, Xavier rode into Mougins on the Vespa. Rosamund offered to give Martha, Jacqui and Kite a lift. She
