Ken McClure: Tangled Web

‘This is where we have to decide whether we should have a drink or keep our reflexes perfectly honed,’ said Gordon, tongue in cheek.

Mary gave him a look that sufficed as a reply.

‘Two gin and tonics please.’

Mary let out a long sigh of appreciation. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever needed a drink so much in all my life,’ she said, putting her head back on the rest.

‘I’ll drink to that,’ agreed Gordon.

They both sat with their eyes closed for a few minutes, relaxing and savouring the calming effect of the alcohol before Gordon took out the French clinic’s blurb and started to read it. The St Pierre boasted the finest facilities currently available for the discerning client and was equipped for procedures varying from minor to major surgery, it claimed. Prospective patients could avail themselves of the in-house medical teams or appoint their own physicians and surgeons as they saw fit.

‘Do you know Paris?’ asked Mary.

‘Not well. You?’

‘Hardly at all.’

‘There’s a little map on the back,’ said Gordon. ‘This place is in the Rue de Bagneux in Montrouge, just outside the Périphérique ring road on the south side.’

Mary took a look at the map and added, ‘It says that you take the exit at Porte de Orléans. ‘But how do we get there?’

‘Do you have your driving license with you?’

Mary shook her head.

‘Me neither,’ said Gordon. ‘So renting a car is out. Let’s get whatever seems fastest into Paris — bus, train, taxi, you name it — and then play it by ear.’

‘Assuming we get into the country in the first place,’ Mary reminded him. ‘There’s the time factor to consider too,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘It’s going to be the evening rush hour if and when we do get there.’

‘All we need,’ Gordon sighed.

The flight landed at Charles De Gaulle airport with a large bump due to a crosswind catching the aircraft at the last moment in its approach. Many of the passengers started to talk about it but Mary and Gordon didn’t say a word: they were too focused on other things.

‘I wonder what French jails are like,’ whispered Mary.

Gordon squeezed her hand and tried to assure her that it wouldn’t come to that. He said that they should attempt to go through passport control with the biggest group of people they could find. This meant being neither the first to get off the plane nor the last. Fortunately, they had very little in the way of hand baggage to deal with and no luggage to collect from the carousel at all, so they could afford to be flexible in their timing.

As soon as he saw the Passport Control booths, Gordon knew that everything was going to be all right. The bored-looking officials were just waving people on through with a lazy wave of the hand as passengers held up their passports to them. Gordon held up the two covers, pretending to struggle to open them up as they passed, and suddenly they were into France.

There was a tourist information desk directly opposite as they emerged through customs, again unchallenged. As there was no queue at it, Gordon took the opportunity to ask the quickest way into Paris. The man pointed through the glass doors to the side of his desk and said, ‘There’s an express bus leaving in three minutes,’ he said. ‘It will save you waiting for anything else.’

Gordon took Mary’s hand and they rushed over to the Bureau de Change to change a handful of money before running out through the doors and reaching the steps of the bus just as the doors closed with a hydraulic hiss. To their relief, the driver saw then and opened them up again. They climbed aboard, thanking him, and sat down one row behind him on the other side as the bus moved off.

‘That was a bit of luck,’ said Mary.

‘Something tells me we’re going to need a whole lot more,’ said Gordon, but she was right. Presumably a taxi or train might have been faster had all things been equal but they hadn’t, and there was no telling how long they would have had to wait for either of these other options.

‘How’s your French?’ Gordon asked.

‘Quite good,’ replied Mary.

‘Good enough to ask the driver the quickest way to Montrouge at this time of day?’ he asked.

‘Piece of găteau, ’ Mary joked and, still sitting in her seat, she leaned forward and said across the aisle, ‘Monsieur?’

Gordon was impressed as Mary held a fluent conversation with the man, ending in smiles and thanks. ‘Thank God you came,’ he whispered.

Mary said, ‘He reckons the Metro would be quickest at this time of day without a doubt. He told me which line we want and the nearest station to where the bus stops. More than that, he used to be a cab driver; he told me how we get to Rue De Bagneux from our station.’

‘What a star,’ said Gordon.

As they left the bus at Gare de L’Est and stepped out on to the pavement into the darkness of early evening in Paris, Gordon looked about him and found what he was looking for. ‘There!’ he said, pointing to the steps with the Paris Metro sign above them. They hurried down them with Gordon saying, ‘It’s a smell you don’t forget.’

‘Like no other,’ agreed Mary.

They had to queue at the ticket booth but not for long. Most passengers seemed to have season tickets. ‘Where do we want to go?’ asked Gordon.

‘Porte D’Orléans.’

The train was crowded so they had to stand. By the time the train had cleared Montparnasse Bievenue, there were seats to be had. After Denfert Rochereau, it was more than half-empty. ‘Two more stations and then it’s ours,’ said Mary. ‘Port D’Orléans — the end of the line.’

The train emptied and Gordon and Mary made their way to the station exit, pausing there, as fellow passengers dispersed, to look for street signs in order to get their bearings. Gordon examined his small map. Mary said, ‘This should be Boulevard Brun, according to the bus driver.’

‘It is and we should cross it.’

They took the pedestrian underpass and surfaced on the other side of the Boulevard Brun, happy to be going under the heavy rush-hour traffic instead of having to dodge through it.

Mary pointed to a sign on the wall of a building to their right. It said, Rue De Bagneaux.

The clinic itself was three blocks down the Rue De Bagneaux, standing on the corner at a road junction and overlooking a cemetery. Neither of them commented on the fact; both were too nervous.

The door to the clinic was locked. In fact, the only outward sign that the building might be either a hospital or clinic was an ambulance standing outside. There was an entryphone mounted on the wall. Gordon pressed the button and waited.

‘ Oui?’

Gordon looked at Mary, took a deep breath then said firmly who they were, adding, ‘We’ve just arrived from the UK and we need to speak to someone urgently about one of your patients, a child named Trool.’

‘ Un moment.’

‘Gordon made a face as they waited for a reply.

‘You were fine,’ said Mary encouragingly. ‘The police will have been here by now, so the clinic staff will know that something is amiss with the Trool child.’

The door lock clicked open and they were admitted to a short, brightly lit hall leading to a flight of marble stairs. The air inside was warm and there was a smell of antiseptic. A woman dressed in a smart lilac suit and white blouse met them at the head of the stairs; she introduced herself as Antoinette Bressard, Administrative Assistant at the clinic. ‘I will take you to see Dr Balard,’ she said.

Mary asked her if Balard was the director.

‘Deputy Director,’ the woman replied. ‘The director has gone home for the evening.’

They were shown into an elegant office where a well-dressed man in his mid-thirties rose to meet them and invited them to sit.