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  ‘A bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush.’

  Her smile was a patient one. ‘We’re not going to start that again, are we?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to.’ He sucked down more whisky. ‘So where to now? Switzerland?’

  ‘Too early. The season’s not properly underway yet. And my contract doesn’t start for another month. I’m heading up into the Auvergne for a few weeks.’

  ‘Pretty bleak up there at this time of year.’

  ‘That’s how I like it. English friends are lending me their holiday house. It’s near a tiny village, lost in the hills somewhere to the east Aurillac. My sanity saver.’

  ‘You’re going up there all on your own?’

  She shrugged. ‘No one else to share it with.’ She sipped at her champagne and stared into the endless stream of bubbles rising through her flute to break the surface. ‘Funny, I never imagined I’d make forty and still be on my own.’

  Enzo said, ‘I’ve been on my own for twenty years. You get used to it.’

  She looked at him curiously, then slipped her hand very gently over his. ‘No one should have to be on their own. Ever. Life’s too short for that.’

  He turned towards her, to find a strange dark intensity in her eyes. Something almost sad. Compelling. And he felt a flutter in his stomach like startled butterflies. She had no idea just how short.

  The lights of La Petite France reflected off the water below, projecting flickering, amorphous images through the arched window and on to the far wall of Enzo’s bedroom. By its monochrome light, he watched as Anna slipped off the tee-shirt she wore beneath her leather bomber, and shimmied out of her jeans. Until she stood in just black bra and panties, tall and elegant, with an almost boyish figure. Her skin was clear and tanned and smooth, and she moved with an innate grace towards the bed, the sure-footed balance of the skier in every step, dropping her bra on the floor to reveal the curve of small, firm breasts with dark, succulent areolae. She kicked off her pants and he saw the thin strip of her Brazilian-waxed pubis below the belly. Then she released the clasp behind her head to let her hair tumble freely across square shoulders.

  In all his wildest imagination, he could never have foreseen this when he boarded the train in Cahors yesterday. And yet there was something about it that felt just right. To make love to a stranger on the eve of his death. No promises made, and none to keep. Perhaps the last time he would ever make love to a woman.

  But it wasn’t the sex, although she had succeeded in arousing powerful sexual instincts within him. It was the human contact. Skin on skin, the warmth of another person wrapped around him, comforting, consoling. A moment without past or future.

  She straddled his chest, leaning over him, her breasts inches from his face, to release his hair and fan it out across the pillow. Then she dipped to kiss his forehead, his nose, his lips. Gentle, intimate kisses as if they had known each other all their lives. She ran fingertips through the hair on his chest, and slid down until her lips brushed his belly, and he felt the rush of blood to his loins. He ran his hands down her back, feeling smooth, firm muscles beneath his palms, and cupped full buttocks before turning her over, taking her by surprise, driven by sudden lust. She gasped as she felt his erection press hard against her belly, and he found her lips and tongue with his mouth to silence her. His fingers sought the soft, wet place between her legs, and grazed her repeatedly until she arched against him, and he slid down to bite her nipples and tease them with a darting tongue.

  He felt her fingers digging into his back, and through palpitating breath heard her whisper, ‘Now. Please, now.’

  When it was over, he was spent in a way he had never known before. Fatigued beyond reason, in body and mind. He wanted to weep, to tell her everything. About Kirsty and Sophie and Pascale. And the sentence of death which had been passed on him just yesterday. But these were secrets best kept. Secrets that he would carry with him to the grave.

  She lay beside him, curled into his hip, her breath on his shoulder, her hand on his belly, and he felt her take comfort in him. She too, had her secrets. Stories she would never share. A sadness behind dark eyes that she would never breach. He leaned over to kiss her forehead before closing his eyes to slip away into an unexpectedly deep sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was raining, as it always seems to be. He was at a funeral. A Gaelic funeral, like they have in Scotland, the coffin resting on the backs of two chairs set out in the street. He was one of the bearers, dressed all in black. The women watched as the coffin was lifted, and the long walk to the cemetery began. They would not follow, for the women were not allowed at the graveside.

  As they came over the top of the hill, the bells of the church ringing in their ears, they saw the gravestones like so many cropped stocks on the machair below, and he couldn’t stop himself repeating the lines of the poem by John Donne,

  And therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

  Over and over, like a mantra, penetrating his soul.

  The bearers were soaked through by now, and his hands had become wet and slippery. He found that he could no longer keep his grip. Again and again he moved his hands to try to secure a firmer hold on his corner of the coffin. But it was slipping away from him, heavy and awkward. He called for help, but it was too late. It slid from his shoulder and pitched forward to the hard earth. There was a loud crack, and the polished wooden box split open, spewing the dead man from its silk interior to a grotesque final resting place on the metalled surface of the road.

  Enzo watched in horror as the corpse rolled in slow-motion towards him, a face like death itself, eyes wide and staring, a purple bruised tongue protruding from pale lips. And he realised that he was looking at himself.

  He woke up, still gasping from the shock of it, bedsheets damp and twisted around his body. His hair was in his eyes and his mouth. He sat up and swept it from his face, breathing hard, unable to shake off the knocking sound in his head, loud and insistent.

  A grey morning light filtered from the semicircular window that overlooked the millpond below, and he realised, finally, that someone was knocking at the door. And suddenly he remembered Anna, and making love to her the night before, and he turned towards her. But the bed was empty. Cold. She was long gone. Like a dream. Perhaps, after all, she had really only been a figment of his imagination.

  He slipped from the bed, a painful consciousness slowly returning, and pulled on a towelling bathrobe. The rich, red carpet felt soft under his feet as he walked to the door and opened it.

  Raffin had his hand raised, ready to knock again. Kirsty was at his shoulder.

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, Dad, why didn’t you answer? We thought something had happened to you.’ She pushed past the journalist and into the room. Raffin followed and closed the door behind him.

  Enzo was still sleep-confused. ‘I … I was sleeping.’ He looked at Raffin. ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘I got the six o’clock TGV from Paris.’ He didn’t look as if he had risen early. As usual, he was immaculately groomed. Clean-shaven, his hair a shining brown, swept back to the fashionably upturned collar of his linen jacket. His pale green eyes regarded Enzo speculatively. ‘You sleep pretty soundly for a man whose daughter’s life is under threat.’

  Enzo looked for his watch, but his wrist was naked. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly nine.’ Kirsty stooped to pick up Anna’s meagre black bra. She looked at her father in disbelief. ‘What’s this?’

  There was something like a smirk on Raffin’s face. ‘Well, it doesn’t look like it would fit your father.’

  Kirsty turned her consternation in Enzo’s direction.

  But before he could think of anything to say, the bathroom door opened, and a startled Anna stood in the doorway, a bathrobe hanging loosely on her angular frame, a towel wrapped around wet hair. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was someone else here?’

  Enzo glanced with embarra
ssment towards his daughter, and saw anger and humiliation blazing in her eyes. Raffin stepped in quickly. ‘We were just leaving.’ He took Kirsty’s arm and led her firmly out into the corridor. He cast Enzo a parting glance that seemed to carry the conflicting attributes of both admonition and admiration.

  When the door shut, Enzo turned sheepishly towards Anna. ‘I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘The girl’s my daughter. Kirsty. Raffin’s her boyfriend.’

  Something in his tone made her cock an eyebrow. ‘You sound as if you don’t approve.’ She began gathering her clothes together.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And does her mother share your view?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I divorced her more than twenty years ago. Kirsty’s never forgiven me.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Just … ah.’ She clutched her clothes to her chest. ‘I think I preferred it when we didn’t know too much about one another. And I certainly don’t want to get between a father and his daughter.’ She gave him one of her sad smiles. ‘I think I’d better go.’ She crossed the room to give him a tiny, soft kiss on the lips. ‘I loved making love with you last night.’ And then she hesitated. ‘Although you should know … I’m not in the habit of sleeping with strangers.’ She closed her eyes for a fleeting moment of introspection. ‘I was feeling pretty low, too. Maybe fate brought us together, just to take the pain away for one night.’

  He nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  She looked at him long and searchingly, and he thought that whatever pain it was that she was suffering, it brought a kind of tortured beauty to her face. She crossed to the dresser and laid her clothes in the chair and lifted a hotel pen from the desk. She turned a pad of letterheaded notepaper towards her and scribbled a quick address and phone number. She tore it off and held it out towards him. ‘That’s where I’m staying for the next few weeks. If you get lonely.’

  He took it, almost absently, folding it and slipping it into the pocket of his robe. ‘Sure,’ he said, knowing that he would never see her again.

  She lifted her clothes and headed for the door. A fleeting, backward glance and she was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The dining room, behind long net drapes, doffed its cap to the colours and culture of the sixties. Red leather chairs and black steel tubing, faux woodgrain formica veneer, and shaggy grey carpet. Hotel guests dipped croissants in steaming black coffee and tried to give the impression that they couldn’t hear Kirsty railing at her father.

  Her voice was shrill, and filled with accusation, despite Raffin’s best attempts to calm her down. He disliked scenes.

  ‘Someone tried to kill me a couple of days ago. I’m being stalked by the man who was almost certainly responsible for that. The same man who probably broke into my apartment, and set a bunch of kids to steal our money in the park. The same man who somehow fixed it that all our credit cards are out of credit …’ She drew a deep breath for the denouement. ‘And all you can think to do is pick up some woman in a bar. To follow your dick, just like always?’

  Raffin was shocked. ‘For God’s sake, Kirsty!’ He glanced anxiously at the heads turning in their direction.

  But she was past caring. This was betrayal. This was the man in whom she had put her trust. The man she had turned to for help when her world was crashing around her. And while she was crying herself to sleep in the room next door, her father was screwing some woman he’d just picked up in a bar. It was unforgivable.

  Enzo saw the pain in his daughter’s eyes, the absolute belief that somehow he had let her down. And maybe he had. Maybe he always had. But with the selfishness of a child, she never made any allowance for the feelings of others. He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t. And I don’t want to.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s part of the problem. You don’t know me. You’ve never wanted to know me.’

  ‘Oh, and you know me, do you? You weren’t around for most of my life, so how’s that possible?’ She was right on the edge, breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

  Enzo stared at her, anger, frustration, guilt, all boiling together inside him. ‘You’ve spent twenty years blaming me. For all those little things that didn’t please you. For every unhappiness you ever felt. It was my fault. Never yours, never your mother’s. Always mine. You’ve defined your entire life by blaming me for everything that’s wrong with it. Well, you’re going to have to find someone else to blame pretty damned soon. And maybe that’s a good thing. Because when I’m not around any longer, you won’t have some convenient scapegoat to blame for your own shortcomings. And maybe, finally, you’ll start taking responsibility for yourself.’

  He screwed up his napkin and threw it on the table. Almost on the verge of tears he stood up, turning abruptly through the net curtains and striding away across the marble foyer.

  Kirsty was stunned to silence. She had never been on the receiving end of her father’s ire. Never felt the full force of his hurt and frustration. And it took a moment before the implications of what he had said fully sank in. She turned to search Raffin’s pale green eyes for reassurance, but found only embarrassed bewilderment. Colour had risen high on his cheeks. ‘What did he mean?’

  Raffin shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Kirsty rose quickly, nearly upsetting the table, and went chasing through the columns after her father.

  The elevator doors were closing by the time she reached them. She got a hand in just in time, and they slid open again to reveal Enzo standing alone under the harsh electric light. He looked tired, washed out, dark shadows beneath his eyes. Diminished somehow. And almost for the first time in her life she saw him as being old, failing, less than the image of tall, youthful strength she had carried with her since childhood. The doors slid shut and they rose slowly together through the old mill in an awkward silence that neither knew quite how to break.

  Finally she said, ‘What did you mean, you wouldn’t be around any longer?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like nothing to me.’

  ‘A turn of phrase.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  He looked at her and found himself speared by her dark, searching eyes. He might have resisted a little longer, kept his secret to himself, a little ball of poison screwed up inside of him. But there didn’t seem any point any more. She would find out soon enough. They all would. ‘I’m dying.’

  Two simple words, dropped like toxic pearls into a young life that had never contemplated a world without him. He was right. She had used her anger at him to define everything about herself. When she had failed, it was his fault. When she had succeeded, it was to show him that she didn’t need him. But she did. She heard her own voice like a whisper in the dark. ‘How … ?’

  ‘Leukemia. They say I’ve got six months if I take the chemo. But I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s been a checkered life, Kirsty. I’ve known pain and tragedy, sure. But I’ve loved some wonderful women. I have two beautiful daughters. And I’ve always had my health. I’m not going to spoil my last months by taking chemotherapy.’

  The elevator jerked to a halt and the doors drew apart. He pushed past his daughter and strode down the hall towards his room, afraid that she might see his tears. He had almost reached his door when she caught up with him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face her.

  She was flushed, her face shining and wet. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.’ She drew a long, fibrillating breath. ‘You’re right. I was so obsessed with blaming you for everything, it never occurred to me there might be a time when you wouldn’t be there. And who would I have to blame then?’

  He put his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him, and she was just his little girl again, tiny and vulnerable and dependent.

  Her voice was muffled against his chest. ‘You ask
ed me last night if I’d forgiven you. And I said no. Well, I was wrong. I just realised, for the first time in my life … there’s nothing to forgive.’ He felt her body racked by sobs. ‘I don’t want you to die.’

  At the far end of the corridor, elevator doors opened and Raffin stood looking down the hallway at father and daughter in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They headed north and west out of the city in the BMW that Raffin had rented. The slip road from the D263 took them on to the A4 for Paris. There were signposts to places like Hagenau, Karlsruhe, Saarbrücken. Ghost names from a German past, punctuating an Alsatian landscape where men had fought and died for the right to fly a flag, and pay their taxes to another master.

  Enzo lounged in the back watching the dull November landscape slide past, grey and misty and damp. He would never see another spring, or ever again feel the warmth of the summer sun. If he could have chosen a time to die it would not have been in winter. Kirsty sat in a brittle silence in the passenger seat, hands clasped tightly between her legs. There didn’t seem anything left to say.

  They were about two kilometres from the gare de péage, where tickets were dispensed for the toll portion of the autoroute, when they hit a tailback, vehicles backed up all the way from the rows of booths strung across the highway ahead. Raffin shifted down to second gear and they crawled slowly forward through the exhaust fumes.

  It was Raffin, finally, who broke the silence. He half turned towards Enzo. ‘So why do you think you’re the target for all this merde?’

  ‘Because there’s too much going on with only one thing in common.’

  ‘And that’s you?’

  Enzo nodded. ‘What else connects an attempt to kill Kirsty with the burning down of Bertrand’s gym? A robbery in a park, with the cutting-off of my credit?’

  Kirsty turned in her seat, her face a mask of incomprehension. ‘But why? What’s the point?’