Eskandarian returned from the hospital at around eight o’clock, driven back by Abbas. Nobody said anything about seeing Abbas in the car with Bijan. José had been given seven stitches in his forehead and was now resting with his mother in a hotel room in Cannes. The accident and the theft of the photographs caused a veil of gloom to descend on dinner, until Martha reassured everyone that she was fine, that she was still having the best summer of her life and raised a glass to her hosts, catching Kite’s eye as she did so. Still boiling with anger, Kite wandered down the drive with Xavier, ostensibly to smoke a cigarette, but in truth wondering if Abbas was parked in the lay-by and therefore blocking any chance he might have of later going to the safe house. Sure enough, the bodyguard was sitting in the Audi smoking a cigarette. Kite checked the walls on either side of the gate, as he always did, to see if they had been marked in chalk. There was nothing on them.
‘All right, man?’ Xavier asked, waving at Abbas.
The Iranian nodded, keeping the window closed.
‘Miserable bastard,’ Xavier whispered. ‘Here’s a question.’ He turned back to the house. ‘You’re forced to live on a desert island with Ted Bundy, Jumpy Jones-Lewis or Abbas. Everyone else is dead. Who do you choose?’
‘Ted Bundy,’ said Kite.
It had occurred to him that his friend had no knowledge nor understanding of the threat from the exile community and therefore no concept of the seriousness of Abbas’s meeting with Bijan. For the second time he wondered if he should write a note to Peele and leave it on the orchard wall. With Abbas in the car, there was less risk that he might be seen.
‘Got any of that whisky?’ Kite asked.
‘Sure,’ Xavier replied. ‘Let’s drink it down by the pool.’
They lit a mosquito coil and sat looking out at the mountains as a storm rumbled in the distance. Kite opted to wait until the morning before confronting Peele: there was no safe way to get to the orchard and leave a note without it looking suspicious to Xavier or Martha. Nor could he get past Abbas and visit the safe house. Best to deal with everything later. With Leonard Cohen on Strawson’s ghetto blaster, they talked for almost an hour by the pool, Xavier finally asking Kite what was happening with Martha. Never happy talking about his private life, Kite ducked the question and said only that they were having a good time. Xavier reached for the bottle, poured himself another two inches of whisky and said: ‘Nothing wrong with that.’ It was perhaps his way of saying that he understood Kite’s need for privacy.
Just when they were on the point of going back to the house to find the girls, Kite heard Luc and Eskandarian talking in the garden. It sounded as though they were fifty metres away, somewhere close to the bench where Kite had earlier been confronted by Abbas.
‘Sounds like Ali and Papa,’ said Xavier, turning around in his deckchair. He had been drinking steadily since the café in Mougins and was already halfway through the Johnnie Walker. ‘Ali Papa,’ he slurred drunkenly. ‘Ali Papa and his forty thieves.’
The voices of the two men became louder, not because they were drawing closer, but because they were clearly having an argument. Kite heard Luc swear in French. He remembered what Eskandarian had said in the office: Luc, as you know, is a businessman with a wealth of experience. We are old friends. We talk candidly. It sounded as though the Iranian was trying to reason with him.
‘The chickens are coming home to roost,’ Xavier declared. ‘This was bound to happen.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kite asked.
‘Business thing,’ he replied. ‘Don’t understand it. Something’s happened.’
‘What business are they in?’ Kite wondered if the Falcons had a directional microphone aimed at the garden under cover of darkness.
‘Import-export,’ Xavier replied, sounding as if he knew more but didn’t want to breach his father’s confidence. ‘More whisky?’
The argument continued for another minute or so. It sounded to Kite as though Eskandarian was apologising to Luc, but that his entreaties were falling on deaf ears. There was silence. He assumed that one, or both of them, had gone back to the house.
‘Sounds like that’s that,’ said Xavier. ‘Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.’
‘What’s going on?’
It was Jacqui. She had emerged with Martha from beneath the fallen branches of the palm tree. Kite had been too distracted by the argument to notice their approach.
‘Thought you guys were in bed,’ said Xavier.
‘We got stuck in the garden. Dad was having a massive row with Ali. Did you hear?’
‘No, we’re both completely deaf and couldn’t hear a thing.’ Xavier rolled his eyes. ‘Of course we heard it!’
‘All right, all right, smart arse,’ said Jacqui and pulled her dress over her head. She was wearing a bikini. ‘We’re going swimming. Want to get in or are you too pissed?’
‘Too pissed,’ said Xavier. ‘And knackered. I’m off to bed.’
‘I’ll come,’ said Kite. Martha was stepping out of a skirt.
‘Great,’ said Jacqui. ‘Leave me with the lovebirds.’
It began to rain. Grumbling about getting wet, Xavier left the bottle of whisky beside his chair, whispered a slurred ‘Enjoy yourselves’ and walked back towards the house. Jacqui swam for only a few minutes before announcing that she was ‘freezing’ and hurrying back to the villa in a towel.
‘That’s why I love her,’ said Martha, the rain beginning to fall more heavily. ‘She wasn’t cold. She just wanted to
