Everything was out of focus. The great walls and towers that surrounded him were miles away, and the sightseers seemed to be moving too slowly, like a film that had run down. Alex wanted to enjoy being here. He wanted to feel part of the holiday again. But seeing Yassen had spoilt it all.
Alex had met Sabina only a month before, when the two of them had been helping at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, but they had struck up an immediate friendship. Sabina was an only child. Her mother, Liz, worked as a fashion designer; her father, Edward, was a journalist.
Alex hadn't seen very much of him. He had started the holiday late, coming down on the train from Paris, and had been working on some story ever since.
The family had rented a house just outside Saint-Pierre, right on the edge of a river, the Petit Rhone. It was a simple place, typical of the area: bright white with blue shutters and a roof of sun-baked terracotta tiles. There were three bedrooms and, on the ground floor, an airy, old-fashioned kitchen that opened onto an overgrown garden with a swimming pool and a tennis court with weeds pushing through the asphalt. Alex had loved it from the start. His bedroom overlooked the river, and every evening he and Sabina had spent hours sprawled over an old wicker sofa, talking quietly and watching the water ripple past.
The first week of the holiday had disappeared in a flash. They had swum in the pool and in the sea, which was less than a mile away. They had gone walking, climbing, canoeing and, once (it wasn't Alex's favourite sport), horse-riding. Alex really liked Sabina's parents. They were the sort of adults who hadn't forgotten that they had once been teenagers themselves, and more or less left him and Sabina to do whatever they wanted on their own. And for the last seven days everything had been fine.
Until Yassen.
The address is confirmed and everything has been arranged. We'll do it this afternoon…
What was the Russian planning to do in Saint-Pierre? What bad luck was it that had brought him here, casting his shadow once again over Alex's life? Despite the heat of the afternoon sun, Alex shivered.
“Alex?”
He realized that Sabina had been talking to him, and looked round. She was gazing across the table with a look of concern. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. “You were miles away.”
“Nothing.”
“You haven't been yourself all afternoon. Did something happen this morning? Where did you disappear to on the beach?”
“I told you. I just needed a drink.” He hated having to lie to her but he couldn't tell her the truth.
“I was just saying we ought to get going. I promised we'd be home by five. Oh my God! Look at that one!” She pointed at another teenager walking past. “Four out of twenty. Aren't there any good-looking boys in France?” She glanced at Alex. “Apart from you, I mean.”
“So how many do I get out of twenty?” Alex asked.
Sabina considered. “Twelve and a half,” she said at last. “But don't worry, Alex. Another ten years and you'll be perfect.”
Sometimes horror announces itself in the smallest of ways.
On this day it was a single police car, racing along the wide, empty road that twisted down to Saint-Pierre. Alex and Sabina were sitting in the back of the same truck that had brought them.
They were looking at a herd of cows grazing in one of the fields when the police car—blue and white with a light flashing on the roof—overtook them and tore off into the distance. Alex still had Yassen on his mind and the sight of it tightened the knot in the pit of his stomach. But it was only a police car. It didn't have to mean anything.
But then there was a helicopter, taking off from somewhere not so far away and arcing into the brilliant sky. Sabina saw it and pointed at it.
“Something's happened,” she said. “That's just come from the town.” Had the helicopter come from the town? Alex wasn't so sure. He watched it sweep over them and disappear in the direction of Aigues-Mortes, and all the time his breaths were getting shorter and he felt the heavy weight of some nameless dread.
And then they turned a corner and Alex knew that his worst fears had come true—but in a way that he could never have foreseen.
Rubble, jagged brickwork and twisted steel. Thick black smoke curling into the sky. Their house had been blown apart. Just one wall remained intact, giving the cruel illusion that not too much damage had been done. But the rest of it was gone. Alex saw a brass bed hanging at a crazy angle, somehow suspended in mid-air. A pair of blue shutters lay in the grass about fifty metres away. The water in the swimming pool was brown and scummy. The blast must have been immense.
A fleet of cars and vans was parked around the building. They belonged to the police, the hospital, the fire department and the anti-terrorist squad. To Alex they didn't look real: more like brightly coloured toys. In a foreign country, nothing looks more foreign than its emergency services.
“Mum! Dad!”
Alex heard Sabina shout the words and saw her leap out of the truck before they had stopped moving. Then she was running across the gravel drive, forcing her way between the officials in their different uniforms. The truck stopped and Alex climbed down, unsure whether his feet would come into contact with the ground or if he would simply go on, right through it. His head was spinning; he thought he was going to faint.
Nobody spoke to him as he continued forward. It was as if he wasn't there at all. Ahead of him he saw Sabina's mother appear from nowhere, her face streaked with ashes and tears, and he thought to himself that if she was all right, if she had been out of the house when the explosion happened, then maybe Edward Pleasure had escaped too. But then he saw Sabina begin to shake and fall into her mother's arms, and he knew the worst.
He drew nearer, in time to hear Liz's words as she clutched hold of her daughter.
“We still don't know what happened. Dad's been taken by helicopter to Montpellier. He's alive, Sabina, but he's badly injured. We're going to him now. You know your dad's a fighter. But the doctors aren't sure if he's going to make it or not. We just don't know…” The smell of burning reached out to Alex and engulfed him. The smoke had blotted out the sun.
His eyes began to water and he fought for breath.
This was his fault.
He didn't know why it had happened but he was utterly certain who was responsible.
Yassen Gregorovich.
None of my business. That was what Alex had thought. This was the result.
THE FINGER ON THE TRIGGER
« ^ »
he policeman facing Alex was young, inexperienced, and struggling to find the right words. It wasn't just that he was having difficulty with the English language, Alex realized. Down here in this odd, quiet corner of France, the worst he would usually have to deal with would be the occasional drunk driver or maybe a tourist losing his wallet on the beach. This was a new situation and he was completely out of his depth.
“It is the most terrible affair,” he was saying. “You have known Monsieur Pleasure very long time?”
“No. Not very long time,” Alex said.
“He will receive the best treatment.” The policeman smiled encouragingly. “Madame Pleasure and her daughter are going now to hospital but they have requested us to occupy us with you.” Alex was sitting on a folding chair in the shadow of a tree. It was just after five o'clock but the sun was still hot. The river flowed past a few metres away and he would have given anything to dive into the water and swim, and keep swimming, until he had put this whole business behind him.
Sabina and her mother had left about ten minutes ago and now he was on his own with this young policeman. He had been given a chair in the shade and a bottle of water, but it was obvious that nobody knew what
