Once through an alleyway between the wall and a closed-up bar, I emerged into a small, cobbled, tree-lined square that had made many a postcard photographer’s day. As I started up the steps, I looked at the sky. The clouds had gone and stars were out, twinkling as best they could against the man-made stuff thrown up from the town and harbor.
I stopped about four steps before the top to check out the ramparts. Along each side of the wall was a three-foot-high parapet, which must once have run its entire length. Now, it was blocked in both directions, leaving quite a large area for people to use as a viewing platform. To the left, the wall over the archway was blocked by a rusty wrought-iron gate and railings, and to my right it had been made into a small parking lot. How they got up here was a mystery, but I saw three empty cars and a Renault van. The van was a dark color, and had been reversed against the parapet. Its rear windows looked down over the port.
I moved back down the stairs a little, into dead ground, and sat on the steps. A dog started to yap somewhere in the old town and a moped rattled along the cobblestones below.
There was only one way to find out if the van was occupied or not. I stood up and climbed to the viewing area. The van had a sliding door on its passenger side, so I kept to the right-hand side of it, in case it suddenly opened to reveal a bedraggled, short-haired woman in a damp leather jacket.
As I approached, I could see that the driver’s area was blocked off from the rear, screening the interior. I’d have expected a vehicle like this to be full of old newspapers and soda cans, even an air-freshener hanging off the mirror, but there was nothing.
I got on the right side of it, between the flush body panel and a BMW, before standing still, doing my open-mouth trick, and waiting.
The dog started up again. Still I waited, and maybe three or four minutes passed before there was movement. The steel creaked just a little; maybe they were changing over the trigger; but enough to tell me there were people inside.
I moved forward, closer to the parapet, but not beyond the line of the rear windows, to look down at the quay. I couldn’t help but smile as my eyes followed the line of boats below me. There, tied up next to the first of a whole row of bigger boys, a fifty-foot monster called the Lee, was the Ninth of May, looking as if it were hiding behind its mother’s skirts.
Like the owners of plenty of other small craft here, Curly had made the place look just like home. The quay behind boasted an array of very weathered garden furniture.
I studied the couch cover on the top deck, and it looked much the same as when I’d left it. There were no lights on board and the blinds were down.
I turned slowly, walked back to the steps and down into the square, leaving the police to it as I thought through potential exit points for the Romeos. They’d have to come along the quay, past the fishing boats and stalls, until they got to the road through the archway. They could then go straight, following the wall on either side until it stopped, then uphill, out of the old town, toward the railway station. The other option was to turn left through the archway and head for the bus station through the old town. Neither was more than ten minutes’ walk away.
According to traser it was three-fifty-eight. I still had time to do a more detailed recce of both, and work out how I was going to get a trigger in on the boat without getting spotted by the police. I crossed the archway, staying out of sight on the town side of the wall, and went to check out the rail option first. I thought about the two, maybe three people inside the Renault. Chances were, they had a camera mounted, ready to take pictures of the boat as soon as there was movement on board. Like me, any food they had with them would have been removed from its original noisy packaging, and wrapped in Saran wrap or a plastic bag. Their bathroom arrangements would be a little better than mine, though: they might even have managed plastic jerrycans. The inside of the van would be protected to cut down on noise. Maybe the floor was covered with soft gym mats and the wall padded with foam. They’d certainly be wearing sneakers or soft shoes.
But even so, at night, with hardly any ambient noise to drown their gentle movements, thank fuck I had heard them.
Chapter 42
It was six-thirty-three when I arrived in Hubba-Hubba’s parking lot, three minutes late. The other two vehicles were already there, parked together, with no one else around. It was far too dark to walk the dog, and the sex would have happened hours ago.
Once I’d closed down the Mégane, I started toward Hubba-Hubba’s Scudo. The front windows were slightly open, and the engine was off. I heard a gentle click behind me as Lotfi closed the door of the Focus. We approached the van together and as we climbed in through the side door the ribbed steel floor buckled gently under our combined weight. Hubba-Hubba turned around in the driver’s seat to face us both. I slid the side door back so it closed gently, and before anybody said anything I gave them a thumbs-up in the dull light of the glove compartment bulb. “We’ve got the boat back. Greaseball gave it to me and I have checked, they’re in Antibes.” Two very relieved people gave big sighs and babbled to each other in Arabic. “But we do have a problem: the police are there.”
I described the boat’s exact location, then the position of the Renault van, and the layout of the surrounding area. “The only way I can see us getting a trigger on the target is by having someone in the back of this thing.” I looked at Hubba-Hubba as they exchanged more Arab stuff and sounded puzzled. “Where are the blankets to cover the hawallada?”
He tapped the rear of his driver’s seat. “Under here.”
“Good, I think it’ll work. Basically, one of us needs to get in the back of this van, and stay there all day if necessary, watching the quay by the fishing boats and the archway so we can trigger the Romeos away. We need to play around with the back of this thing a little bit, but the first thing we need to do is choose the right man for the job. Hubba-Hubba, congratulations.”
He didn’t make any sounds of concern.
“Don’t look so happy. You’re just about to find out what it’s like to be holed up in the back of one of these things all day, looking through a small aperture waiting for the target, knowing that if you take your eyes off the trigger for just a second, you could miss what you’ve been waiting hours to see.”
Lotfi leaned forward and shook Hubba-Hubba’s shoulder, obviously pleased it wasn’t him. “That’s not a problem for this man. He’s the smallest, of course he should do it.”
Hubba-Hubba said something back that didn’t sound too pleasant. I couldn’t do anything but smile because I didn’t know what Lotfi was going on about. To me they looked like they’d both come out of the same mold.
I took a breath to gather my thoughts. “Okay, then, first things first.” I was waiting for Lotfi to get his beads out and, sure enough, I heard a click. “Ground — you’ve just had it. Remember that the bus and the train stations are a lot closer to the boat than they were yesterday. That’s good for us, as it’s easier to take them, but it’s bad if they’ve decided they can trim their timings and get there just in time to jump on and go. So we’ve got to be on the mark and right on top of them.
“The boat is in exactly the same condition as when we last saw it: the blinds are down, everything is buttoned up on the device. There’s no reason to believe it’s been moved, or that the Romeos have gone.”
Lotfi’s mind was elsewhere. “What about the police, Nick? What about what happened to you? Do you think they have made a connection between you and the boat?”
“I really don’t know. We just have to focus on what we’re doing. Nothing has changed for me. We have a job to do, an important job. The police are at Vauban — so what? They’re here for the boat, we’re here for the hawallada and the cash. If we do our job properly they won’t even know we exist. When, or if, they do, that’s when I’ll start worrying. It’s a tall order, but we don’t have a choice.”