‘Let her go,’ shouted Martin. ‘Can’t you see? You’re suffocating her.’
The young man, whom Isabelle recognised from the photos as Ramdani, tightened his grip on the old lady’s throat, and pointed his pistol at Martin. He didn’t look much more than twenty years old, thought Isabelle, and he looked frantic.
‘Stop it!’ Martin commanded. ‘She’s choking. She can’t breathe.’
Isabelle added, trying to sound calm, ‘Put the gun down. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. And let the lady go.’
The man stared at Isabelle, and for a moment she thought that her words had got through to him. Martin must have thought so too, for he took a step forward and extended his hand. ‘Just give me the gun.’
Ramdani relaxed his grip on the old lady’s throat, but instead of handing over the gun, he held his arm straight out and fired.
Isabelle watched in horror as the shot hit Martin square in the chest, its force knocking him to his knees. Immediately one of the armed officers behind her raised his own weapon and fired back.
Ramdani’s face creased in agonised surprise. He dropped the gun as his legs gave way, and he knocked down the old lady as he fell.
There were three bodies on the floor now, but only one of them was moving. The old lady was gasping and shuddering, the other two were still. One of the officers was on his phone calling for backup and medical assistance, Isabelle was kneeling on the floor, holding Martin’s head up, his blood running over her hands and down his jacket. She was shouting, ‘Martin, Martin,’ but he didn’t respond and she knew that he was dead.
Later Isabelle could only dimly recall the sequence of events that followed the shootings. Looking back she realised that she had acted automatically to try to prevent a public furore. She had sent the officers in their GAZ jackets outside to explain to interested bystanders, attracted by the ambulance and the presence of the police, that there had been a gas emergency, and that an old lady had had a heart attack, but the emergency was over and the old lady was still alive and was going to hospital.
She had insisted that the bodies of Martin and the young man, presumably Ramdani, once they had been formally declared dead, be left where they were until the middle of the night, when they could be taken out secretly.
She had stayed, at first sitting on the floor beside Martin, tears running down her cheeks, then sitting in the kitchen making the dreadful but necessary phone calls. Throughout this, some of her colleagues had thoroughly searched the old lady’s flat. It was obvious how Ramdani had got in. The grating in the bedroom was off and there was a gaping hole in the ceiling. Why he had chosen her flat no one could explain, unless he had gone into the ducting when he heard the knocking on his door and thought he could hide there. Or perhaps he had heard Seurat come up into the crawl space, and panicked. He might have thought it would be safe to hide in the old lady’s flat, or possibly he’d thought he could escape through her front door, until he’d realised that the officers were outside in the corridor. When they’d broken in, he must have intended to use her as a shield for his escape.
By the time the medical team returned to remove the bodies, Isabelle was back in the living room sitting beside Martin. Before Ramdani was taken out, she ordered a policeman to search his body thoroughly. She was glad she did – in a trouser pocket they found a folded train schedule. It was for the Eurostar from Paris’s Gare du Nord to London.
Watching as Martin was zipped into a bag and taken away, Isabelle thought how unnecessary his death was, and cursed herself for letting him push ahead of her as they came into the flat. Like the grandmother he had been telling her about, and like the old lady who had now been taken despite her protests to hospital, Martin had been absolutely fearless. And curious, fatally curious.
The only good thing to come out of this whole dreadful night, she told herself, was that it was now pretty certain that the terrorists were heading for England.
Chapter 48
At the safe flat in Paris, Annette Milraud was in the kitchen making a late supper. Her husband Antoine was with her. Martin Seurat had decided to move Antoine from the Montreuil house to share the flat, judging that he was likely to cooperate more if he was with his wife than if they were kept separated. As well as the guards, Jacques Thibault was there this evening too. He was monitoring Milraud’s laptop and phone for any messages from Zara or the contact in Dagestan – any communication at all that might throw light on what might happen next. If need be, he could immediately ask Milraud to explain.
Annette poked her head round the sitting-room door. ‘Would you like to join us for supper?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Thibault. ‘I’ll stay here.’
As well as Milraud’s laptop, he kept checking his own for any news of the operation at Ramdani’s flat. From the kitchen he could hear the low murmur of the Milrauds’ conversation. Once Annette gave out a loud groan, and he heard Antoine say, ‘It will be all right, I promise.’
It was about eleven o’clock when the landline phone rang. Thibault picked it up, thinking with relief it must be Isabelle at last. But it was a man’s voice. He identified himself as a senior police officer. ‘Am I speaking to Monsieur Thibault?’
‘Yes,’ said Jacques, warily, wondering why on earth a police officer had his name and this number.
‘I have been asked to ring you by Madame Isabelle Florian.’
‘Is she all right?’ asked Thibault.
‘Yes. But she wished me to tell you that there has been some shooting at a flat in Seine-Saint-Denis. The occupant of an apartment has been shot dead.’
The policeman seemed to hesitate and Thibault sensed that there was more to come. ‘Is he the only casualty?’
The policeman said slowly, ‘One other person was shot. He is also dead, alas.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Thibault, thinking it must be some poor policeman who had gone first into the flat. Thibault barely registered what the caller said next – ‘A Monsieur Martin Seurat from your Service, I believe’ – but then the words sank in.
‘Martin Seurat? Are you sure?’
‘Positive, Monsieur. He was dead when he reached the hospital. I am so very sorry.’
In the background Thibault heard Annette clearing the table in the kitchen. He thanked the policeman for calling and hung up. He would learn the details later on; right now, he was too stunned to take in much more than the death of a senior officer of the DGSE.
‘What’s wrong?’ Milraud was in the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing him suspiciously.
Thibault stared back at him. ‘There’s been a shooting.’
‘Where?’ Milraud asked, bewildered. Milraud had not been told anything about Ramdani or the anticipated arrival in Paris of the group of jihadis, but that didn’t stop Thibault’s mounting anger.
‘In a tower block The wrong man got shot. Martin Seurat is dead.’
‘What?’
‘I said Seurat is dead.’
A plate shattered on the floor in the kitchen. A moment later Annette appeared in the doorway. ‘What did you say?’
‘I think you heard me.’
She looked at Thibault with disbelief, her arms outstretched. For once Antoine didn’t try to comfort her but sat down heavily in one of the sitting-room chairs. He was clearly stunned, one hand on his forehead, his head bowed.