So far, she’d reported back to Khalil via Grant whenever the police asked her for extra information. She’d also communicated her worry that they didn’t believe her. Grant had calmed her and instructed her to go for a walk later this afternoon. It gave him time to get there, and it was an opportunity to assess her surveillance team, then guide her to a safe place, without being detected or traced. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t under house arrest – yet.
It sounded simple, but it all depended on how savvy the French reconnaissance team watching her was. Should Grant be lucky, they’d be tired, bored and only 50 per cent eyes on the job because it would be late when he got there after a four-hour drive and because they wouldn’t be aware of the value of the source. Or, they could have been briefed already, making them alert, prepared and potentially dangerous. Time would tell.
The traffic out of Paris was hell but, once out onto the autoroute, he was able to cruise all the way to Lyon. The summer sun was dipping behind the horizon when he arrived. There was a different pace here, he noticed, and an industrial flatness. The city’s lights were trickling on and mingled with the orange beginnings of a sunset.
The vast sprawling city enveloped him and he fought through traffic to the Part-Dieu district. Smart offices, uniform boulevards and the giant spectre of the Tour du Crédit Lyonnais towered over the surrounding streets. Grant parked his Renault and went on foot to the block of flats where Marie Bisset was staying while an Interpol forensic team finished searching her home. It had taken a phone call to a gendarme on Khalil’s payroll, who usually looked out for his son, to extract the information. Madame Bisset was right: Interpol were closing in and that left them little time.
It didn’t take him long to spot the surveillance team. They sat directly outside the doorway leading to the apartments. There were two of them, and they were eating – as Frenchmen tended to do constantly – and drinking coffee. They seemed to be having an amusing conversation. Occasionally, they swept their gazes up the street and peered up at the building. Grant walked around the back and, to his amazement, he could see no evidence of a team there. He texted Madame Bisset’s number from a new pay-as-you-go phone and got an instant reply. She was jumpy. She’d had two phone calls: one informing her that evidence had come to light that required her to attend a formal interview tonight, and a car was being sent to collect her, then a second apologising for a member of staff being sick and her interview was scheduled for tomorrow morning, first thing. Now, there was a man outside her door.
Grant ran his hand through his hair. This would be trickier than anticipated. He texted her:
When I text you again, it means you need to leave. Let me worry about the man outside your door. When you leave, go directly down the back service stairs and out to the carpark. I’ll be there waiting.
He followed with a further text telling her what he was wearing and said he’d scratch his head as she emerged. He hung up. He headed for the back entrance and slipped inside, taking the stairs easily. When he got to the correct floor, he did one walk past of the apartment and confirmed that there was a single male gendarme outside it. He was armed. At the other end of the corridor was another stairwell and Grant thanked his stars. He took out his phone and texted Madame Bisset, instructing her to turn left out of her apartment. Then he shouted as loudly as he could, as if he was being mortally attacked. He banged on a door, making sounds as if he was being winded, and pleaded for help.
‘Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!’ he cried.
He heard footsteps and lay on the floor, pretending to be badly injured. The gendarme was simply doing his job: his instinct told him to protect, and he was doing just that. Grant garbled in his best French that he’d been attacked. He pointed to the stairwell. ‘He had a gun,’ he said. ‘He ran down there with my bag – it has medicines in it and money. Lots of money.’
The gendarme checked that Grant was not too badly hurt and took off down the stairwell, speaking into a radio. Grant’s window had just become smaller. He shot up, sprinting to the other stairs, past the apartment, praying that Madame Bisset had not been tardy. He came across an elderly woman on her way down the stairs.
‘Madame Bisset?’ he asked breathlessly. She nodded.
‘Vous êtes Grant?’ she affirmed.
‘We need to hurry,’ he said.
They reached a door and Grant looked outside. Emergencies in France were casual affairs at best. Responding vehicles got stuck behind drivers unwilling to move aside, asserting their right to keep in lane. He thanked that Gallic trait now. If he’d been in Britain, traffic would be parting for them like the Red Sea did for Moses, and the cops would be here in no time. He was, of course, assuming that the gendarme had called for backup, so he could return to his duties guarding the apartment.
He held on to Madame Bisset’s elbow and ushered her away from the building, down a small alleyway that led onto a street three blocks away from his car. He’d memorised the streets around the apartment block and calculated a route.
‘Do you have a headscarf in that bag?’ he asked her.
She nodded and pulled one out, wrapping it around her head.
He took off his jacket, put it back on inside out so a different colour showed and pulled a baseball cap out of his back pocket, placing it on
