Alex Archer - Day Of Atonement

“I suppose not,” Roux said thoughtfully. He raised his snifter to his lips and took a slow swallow, then rolled the remaining brandy around the glass. “Of course, it would be a lot easier if the caller already knew the number, or knew someone who did.”

Garin could feel the old man’s stare burning into him.

“You can’t really believe that I have anything to do with this?”

Roux said nothing.

“Do you really think so little of me?”

Roux said nothing.

“Seriously, this has nothing to do with me. I was in bed with a beautiful woman when you called. I would tell you who so you could corroborate this, but I didn’t get around to getting her name. I’ve got nothing to do with this. Come on, Roux, we go back a long way. You know I wouldn’t hurt Annja.”

“No, but you’d screw with me, so if you knew she was never in danger?”

“She’s one of us, Roux. She’s just like you and me. It’s the three of us against the world.”

“Is it? Is that how you really see things? I thought it was, but after the Pass of the Moor’s Last Sigh it’s hard to believe you sometimes. I think the things you want are very different from the things we want.”

“Okay, so I like the finer things in life. I would say that’s not a crime, but obviously sometimes it is. But you know me. You know I’d never hurt her.” It was true, and he was very delicately dancing around the fact that he’d come here with every intention of stealing from the old man. The objects of his nefarious intention were only a few feet away in his hidden vault. There was wealth beyond imagining in that vault, not just in monetary value, either. The old man was a hoarder. He had works of art and irreplaceable antiquities all around the house. He wasn’t worried about prying eyes seeing those, so he didn’t keep them under lock and key. It was only things that could lead back to who he really was that ended up in the vault. Secrets.

“You may be telling the truth,” the old man said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced. Garin was a gambling man. He knew a safe bet when he saw one. Roux still thought he was behind the whole scheme. Old habits died the hardest. Garin had to force himself not to look over the old man’s shoulder at the vault.

He could almost taste the money heading his way once he had his hands on Guillaume Manchon’s papers. It would only become a tough choice if, after examining them, Garin found something incriminating in the writings that tied them back to Joan of Arc’s execution, and that was almost certainly not the case, even if Manchon had recorded their names. Lots of Frenchmen had been called both Roux and Braden in the intervening years.

“Okay, worry about me if it makes you happy, but what do you want to do?” The old man shrugged for an instant, revealing the years that lay behind his eyes. “My instinct is to go and find her.”

“Which, for argument’s sake, if it were me behind the call, is exactly what I’d expect you to do, so you’d be walking right into the trap.”

“But you’ve convinced me it isn’t you,” Roux said with irritating smugness. “So, if the caller is in Carcassonne, and Annja is in Carcassonne, that’s exactly where I want to be.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But we don’t know who’s behind this. The number’s dead, so it’s either a burner phone or they’ve just destroyed the SIM card and we’re going to be chasing shadows once we touch down.”

“Then we make ourselves the bait to lure him out,” Roux said. “If he wants me, I’ll give him the chance to come at me and hope he makes a mistake.”

“And you wonder why I think you have a death wish sometimes, old man? You have no idea who you’re going up against, what he looks like, nothing.”

“I’ll recognize the sound of his voice.”

“Great, let’s hope he offers a nice convenient threat before he cuts your head off.”

“So you’d rather sit here and wait to see how things play out?”

“Yes. Think, Roux. If this guy really has it out for you, he’ll call you to taunt you again, won’t he?”

“And what if the next time it’s because Annja’s dead?”

“Have you met that woman?”

Roux shook his head. “How do you live with a lifetime of regret when your lifetime might never end?”

“I hate you when you get like this.”

“You mean when you know I am right?”

“Okay, fine. He’ll call or he won’t. He’ll make another attempt at Annja or he won’t. He’ll be waiting for you, though, that’s for sure. And that’s like putting your head in the noose and taunting the damned hangman.”

“Or perhaps, just perhaps, going to Carcassonne means we are in the safest place in the world, as he’d expect us to sit here and wait for his call and is lining up an attack on the house.”

“Not if he knows you, old man.”

“So you stay here, answer the phones, while I go out and risk my life for our mutual friend.”

And there was an offer that was almost impossible for him to refuse: Roux out of the house, and him having the run of the place and all the time in the world to infiltrate the vault and liberate Guillaume Manchon’s papers. The temptation was incredible. But he could hardly say yes. Instead, Garin moved to take control of the situation by seeming to agree with Roux.

“All right, all right. I’ll make you a deal. If he hasn’t called by the morning, we head to Carcassonne, okay? There’s nothing we’d be able to do tonight, anyway, so a few hours aren’t going to kill us. Get some rest. We’ll head out at first light.”

Roux agreed, but there was an obvious element of reluctance in his voice.

He made a show of looking at his watch, no doubt calculating how long it would take them to get there.

“We’ll be there in no time at all. Don’t fret, old man. It’s not like a few hours will make a difference.”

Morning.

Annja had had a restless sleep and the bottle of Pouilly-Fumé hadn’t helped. She had a dry-wine hangover and needed to get some air.

It felt like weeks since she’d been out for a proper run, really pushing herself. She had her gear with her, including a good pair of running shoes, so she got dressed, pulled her hair into a ponytail, stretched the kinks out of her muscles in a warm-up, then hit the streets. She pounded the pavement for a predawn hour, nothing but the wind in her face and the bite of the icy air in her lungs to keep her company until the first birds started to sing.

And then she kept on running, glad she’d resisted the temptation that Philippe presented, even when the wine had been flowing. It was always a mistake to mix work and sex. Always.

The ice glistened on the road ahead of her as the sun rose.

There was nothing like being out before the rest of the world woke up; it was like sharing a secret with the universe.

It was the best hour of the day, because it was just her and nature.

She kept on running, pushing herself to go faster as she reached the hills, and whenever she was presented with a choice of the hard way or an easy way, Annja chose the hard way every time. It felt like a metaphor for life as well as being a grueling workout.

Ninety minutes later she was in the shower, steam venting up out of the drain where the hot water hit the cold tiles, then she toweled herself dry, dressed and went down for breakfast.

The dining room wasn’t busy. Half a dozen people were keeping very much to themselves. She stocked up on a continental breakfast—fruit, muesli, yoghurt and a wonderfully fresh brioche—before she headed out to the car.

The run had cleared her head and taken the edge off her stress, as it always did. Even so, she checked over her shoulder as she slid the key into the lock, looking for the Mercedes.