Michel moved in closer. ‘No. I pulled you in to save your neck from Roman — which you don’t seem to appreciate. And also because this is your last chance to save yourself from a charge of accomplice to murder. Once we’ve pulled in Venegas, that chance has gone. So now you’ve got some free time to contemplate the wiseness of talking or not.’
Georges met Chenouda’s hard stare evenly. The nerves were back somersaulting in his stomach and tightening his throat, and his first instinct was to continue fighting back. But the roller-coaster ride of the last half-hour had drained him and the situation seemed almost too surreal for comment, so that all that came out in the end was, ‘This is ridiculous,’ huffed on a weak exhalation. ‘So when do you expect to be picking up Venegas?’
Michel turned away slightly. ‘A half hour. Maybe an hour or two. Who knows?’
Georges’ shoulders slumped at the prospect of possibly hours in a jail cell. ‘You knew it all the time,’ he hissed. ‘You knew that-’
‘We don’t have time for this now,’ Michel cut in brusquely, holding one hand up. ‘… I’ve got an operation in progress to get back to. All I can say again is use the time wisely to re-think whether it’s worth taking an accomplice to murder rap for the Lacailles.’ He stared the weight of the message home one last time, but still he couldn’t tell if he’d made any inroads.
He repeated Donatiens’ right to a lawyer, but Donatiens merely fired back defiantly, ‘If I’m not going to talk, what’s the point?’ before Maury led him away.
Michel sat down slowly in the silence of the interview room. The exchange had exhausted him. Hopefully some time in the cells would weaken Donatiens’ resolve; he’d get a taste of what the next few years might be like if the chips fell the wrong way for him, and crumble.
The confrontation had given him more the measure of Donatiens, but still he wasn’t sure: the business innocent, or the smooth money-launderer? Maybe the next few hours with Donatiens within arm’s each in the cells below would help provide some clarity for both of them.
Elena stared into the churning water over the side of the ferry rail.
A faint mist obscured landfall at the far end of Poole harbour and the open sea at her back. The short ferry hop had come to symbolise for them freedom, escape from all the madness of the world outside, but now it felt as if they’d merely been escaping reality and the veil had finally been lifted on just what a waste half her life had been.
Elena had protested with Edelston that surely the fact alone that Ryall had taped their last meeting showed his guilt. Edelston didn’t agree. Ryall suspected that Lorena was being led and cajoled into admitting something that just hadn’t happened, was purely in her dreams, and the tape had born out that concern.
Elena had launched one last desperate assault. ‘That’s what we’d hoped for in recommending psychiatric assessment. It would have separated the dreams from the reality and cleared up any doubt once and for all.’
‘That as may be. But due to your over-eagerness and over-stepping the line, that chance I’m afraid has now gone.’
She shook her head. Nothing more she could do for Lorena; unsure now whether the leaden weight sagging her shoulders was because she felt to blame, or the sense of redundancy and helplessness. But was it too late to save herself?
When she’d first made the ferry hop, she’d been with her parents and younger brother. She’d been only eight years old, and imagined that she was sailing away to a magical, mystical land; that the short strip of sea separated them from an entirely different world. It became all the more magical when she discovered the chine. They’d been on the beach and she’d gone deep inside, out of sight, and she’d lost track of time wrapped in its cool, shaded embrace, sitting by the gently running brook while a squirrel eating a berry on a nearby branch looked at her curiously. She’d been gone for over forty minutes, her parents berated her when she emerged. They’d been frantically looking for her, worried that he might have drowned. Her father’s anger was strongest, and finally it boiled over. He landed an increasingly hard flurry of smacks on her backside before her mother intervened. It was just one of many volcanic eruptions of her father’s constantly stern, bubbling temperament, and her and her brother spent half their lives in fear of ever provoking it.
The first time she’d made the ferry journey with Gordon had been fifteen years ago. They’d been going out together for only three months, then after that made the habit of coming down every spare weekend in the summer months. Gordon was working in the City at the time, and for him the short ferry hop symbolised separation from the mad cut and thrust of the finance markets that consumed him all week. A year after they were married, they bought a weekend cottage in Chelborne, only two miles from where they now lived.
Then six years ago came Gordon’s heart attack and his decision to leave the City and them move to the area permanently. They put out requests with local estate agents, and details of the house overlooking the chine came through their letter-box four months later. They stayed in the weekend cottage while improvements were made, Gordon started a small investment brokerage based from home, handling a select few old clients to which were gradually added some local clients, and she also shifted half her London workload to a home desk and computer. When she wasn’t on a plane or truck bound for Eastern Europe, she spent most of her time on the phone, so it hardly mattered whether she was in London or Dorset.
Gordon’s income was more than halved, but their London house sale had left them with a healthy financial cushion. Most importantly, Gordon felt happier, less stressed, and they both had more quality time to spend with the children.
Elena shook her head. Each stage in their lives appeared so carefully planned and mapped out — except that half of it had been a lie throughout. And she’d lived that lie now for so long that she could never bring herself to tell Gordon; it would cut him to the quick, summon another heart attack. No, this was a quest she’d have to make alone, in secret.
‘Christos Georgallis…’ She muttered the name almost as an incantation under her breath, quickly swallowed on the steady breeze swirling into Poole harbour. Twenty-nine years? She wondered where he was now. She had so much to tell him: that she’d never stopped thinking about him; that she’d always loved him, and that she was sorry, sorry… sorry. She clenched her eyes tight as the tears welled. Oh my God, she was sorry.
But she wondered first and foremost if she’d ever be able to find him. Knowing how intent her father had been on burying him forever out of sight and reach, probably not.
NINE
‘You called earlier?’ Roman hunched his collar up tight. An icy wind outside seemed to still penetrate the glass of the telephone booth. His caller’s usual booth two blocks from RCMP HQ had come up on his call monitor at home.
‘Yes, I did.’ The voice at the other end was flat, bland. He didn’t make the point that it had been three times or give any hint now as to why it was so urgent. As arranged at the outset, he was only to be called at home in an emergency, and nothing possibly incriminating should ever pass between them over the line.
‘You can call me back on this number…’ Roman read out the number on the phone.
‘Yeah… fine.’
The line went dead, and Roman stamped his feet and blew in his hands as he waited on the call back. It took a moment more than usual.
‘I’ve started using the booth a block further away from home — just in case they might have cottoned on to me using the nearest booth,’ his caller explained.
‘Okay — where’s the fire? What’s happened?’ Roman’s tone was impatient, the wait in the cold and the cloak and dagger routine adding to his edginess.
‘It’s Donatiens. He was at our HQ today, being questioned by Chenouda…’
Roman felt the cold grip him even deeper as the details came out, what few he was able to extract with a chain of increasingly staccato questions: What time? How long for? What was said?