Dead Line Read online

  ‘What’s your name?’ Stephanie asked.

  He told her, then added, ‘But most people call me Trent.’

  ‘You’re English?’

  ‘My mother was French.’

  ‘How would you help us?’

  He swallowed. No sense in rushing things now.

  ‘The policy your husband took out covers you for ransom payments up to a predetermined level. It also entitles you to my advice. Whether you choose to listen to it or not is up to you. I can tell you a lot more about myself and my record if you decide to appoint me. It’s how I usually begin work on a case.’

  Trent felt Alain’s gaze drilling into him but he kept his focus on Stephanie. She’d begun to collect herself and he saw now that she was tougher and more resilient than he’d imagined. Her cautious manner and her slight frame had deceived him and he supposed they shouldn’t have. Didn’t dancers put themselves through hell so they could appear composed up on stage when their bodies were screaming in pain? Viewed like that, their every performance was an illusion of sorts. Trent was beginning to gain some understanding of how it might feel.

  ‘Good,’ she said, and nodded, as if a decision had been made. ‘You’ll help us.’

  ‘But madame.’ Alain’s Ruger hadn’t wavered. He was squinting along the sights, scrutinising Trent. ‘Please consider. We have only this man’s word for what he says. Did M. Moreau speak to you about such a policy?’

  She bit down on her full lip. ‘No,’ she muttered.

  ‘We must be careful tonight. You see?’

  ‘Then verify what I say.’ Trent turned to face Stephanie directly. ‘My records show that your husband had a lawyer advise him on the policy. Do you know who that would have been?’

  She nodded. Raised her chin, a glossy lock shielding her eye. ‘A friend of Jérôme’s.’

  ‘And do you trust this friend?’

  ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘Then call him. Your bodyguard has my wallet and my ID. Have your lawyer check the policy against my credentials.’

  Stephanie glanced towards Alain. His blunt face was impassive, but he lowered the Ruger a fraction.

  ‘We can telephone from the house,’ Stephanie said. ‘You may follow us.’

  Trent looked over her angular shoulder towards his Peugeot. The bonnet was shunted beneath the rear of the Mercedes. Broken glass and shards of plastic surrounded the wheels. The front tyre was flat.

  ‘My lights are broken.’ He shrugged. ‘And I have a puncture.’

  ‘Then you may come with us. Alain can drive and—’

  ‘No, madame.’ The bodyguard shook his head, sighting back along the Ruger. ‘Forgive me, but I cannot allow it. Not until we speak to the lawyer.’

  She opened her mouth as if to respond, then reconsidered. She nodded in mute comprehension. Gazed meekly at Trent from beneath long, curling lashes.

  ‘You’ll walk,’ Alain said. ‘It’s not far. A kilometre, maybe. There’s a fence. A gate. If the lawyer confirms what you say, I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you very soon.’

  Alain gestured a short distance back along the road with his gun. ‘Wait by that rock. Don’t move until we drive away. Understand?’

  Trent turned and crossed towards the boulder Alain had indicated. He lowered himself and sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands pressed together beneath his chin. If he had been a religious man, he might have prayed. But instead he clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, silently cursing the fates that were tormenting him so.

  Chapter Four

  They didn’t look inside the Peugeot. There was that, at least.

  Trent had felt certain that Alain would duck his head in through the open driver’s door, but he was in a hurry to get Stephanie home. And though Stephanie had glanced at a window on her way past, the interior of the Peugeot was in darkness and she hadn’t reacted in the slightest. Maybe she hadn’t spotted anything. Maybe she had, but she wouldn’t process the information until much later. She was in shock. She wouldn’t be thinking clearly. Trent knew precisely what she was going through. He’d experienced something similar only recently.

  So he’d been lucky in a small way.

  And he’d suffered unimaginable misfortune in a much bigger, much more destructive way, too.

  Trent watched Alain remove his jacket to reveal the webbed shoulder holster he was wearing over his fitted white shirt. He wadded the jacket round his hand and used it to scoop the shattered windscreen glass from the driver’s seat and the dashboard of the Mercedes. He told Stephanie to climb into the front alongside him and he started the engine and edged forwards. There was a moment of resistance as the rear bumper freed itself from the embrace of the Peugeot, then a wrench of metal and broken plastic as the Mercedes dropped free and rejoined the road.

  Alain drove off at a cautious speed, the single working headlamp pawing at the darkness ahead, the left front wheel snagging against the distorted wing. One of the rear light clusters had been smashed, but a single bulb was still intact, and Trent watched its aimless twinkling until the Mercedes rounded a looping bend and disappeared from view.

  He was tempted to remain sitting on the boulder. He was tempted to quit altogether. His limbs felt leaden and he had the nauseating sensation of having been duped. But the stakes were too high. His need too urgent. And how could he possibly live with himself if he gave up now?

  The situation had changed, was all. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to adapt to new circumstances and he doubted it would be the last. But he was a resourceful, capable guy. He was well trained and experienced. And his motivation was strong. It was all-consuming.

  He forced himself to his feet. Marched across to the Peugeot and flipped off the busted lights. Snatched the keys from the ignition and fetched his mobile from the glove box. He unbuttoned his denim shirt, peeled it from his skin and laid it across the roof of the car. Unfastened his holster and tossed it into the cab, then ducked in towards the rear bench and grabbed a rug to cover what he needed to cover. He slammed the door closed. Kicked it, too. The steel toecap of his desert boot left a dint in the side of the car. A mark of his frustration. It wasn’t enough. He pictured himself bending down, gripping hold of the chassis and heaving with his back and his knees until he was able to stand upright and flip the car right over the edge in some kind of superhuman expression of his fury.

  He took a long breath, chest quivering as he inhaled. Then he grabbed his shirt and fed his arms through the sleeves and fastened the buttons. He locked the Peugeot and stood back to assess its position. It was pointed at a slant, off to the side of the road, and there was a long steady incline leading up to it. It would be safe enough here. And it wasn’t as if the road was busy. Not a single vehicle had passed. Gone eleven o’clock at night. Close to full dark.

  It was time to start hiking. To start thinking, too.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes’ walking and Trent came in sight of the perimeter fence that surrounded the Moreau estate. His pace was slower than usual, a consequence of the bruising to his knees and ribs, as well as the extra time he allowed himself to order his thoughts. He was sweating and his breath was shallow and reedy. A fog of midges swirled around his head, drawn by the heat coming off his body. He didn’t waft a hand. Didn’t slap his skin when they bit him. It felt like a torment he deserved. Self-pity. It was an indulgence he could no longer afford. He shook loose his arms and legs and rotated his head on his shoulders, like an athlete readying himself for an event he’d been training for his entire life.

  The fence was high and imposing. It was constructed from some kind of unfinished galvanised steel. The uprights were bevelled and set close together, leaving just enough space to poke an arm through. Sharpened barbs ran along the top and a series of signs had been secured to the uprights at regular intervals. PROPRIÉTÉ SOUS VIDÉO SURVEILLANCE. Property under video surveillance.

  The first camera picked him up at the corner of the esta
te. It was fixed to a steel pole ten feet inside the fence, partway up a steep grass slope that concealed the house from view. He heard the whirr and wheeze of servos in the heated stillness as the camera pivoted to track his progress. Thirty paces more and the next camera took over. More whirring. More tracking.

  His scalp itched. The sensation of being closely watched. It wasn’t an intrusion he’d ever welcomed but tonight it felt threatening.

  He passed four cameras before he reached the gate. The light from a pair of low-wattage bulbs stained the ground an acid yellow. The gate was made from the same galvanised steel bars as the fence, measured to the same height. It had the same barbs along the top. Same cameras protecting it, one on either side. The units turned with a slow electric hum and slanted down at him, zeroing in like laser-guided weapons locking onto a target.

  He waited.

  The cameras watched him.

  The gate remained closed.

  A dimly lit intercom was fixed to a post at his side. He approached it and ducked. The speaker crackled into life before he could press the button.

  ‘Wait.’

  Alain’s voice was gruff amid the static hiss.

  The system fell silent.

  Trent straightened and ground a heel into the dirt. The gravel driveway was visible through the gate, grey-white against the blackness all around. It rose up to the top of the steep bank, then disappeared from view. All that remained to indicate its route were the lines of tall cypress trees that bordered it on either side and a hazy orb of wavering light that seemed to throb in the darkness way over the hump.

  Trent turned his back on the cameras and crossed the narrow road. He was on some kind of ledge. Velvety darkness lay beneath his feet, indigo-black and bottomless. He could see the autoroute way ahead in the distance, down in the flat bowl of the valley. Unseen vehicles moved silently along, surrounded by pulsating coronas of yellow and red. Off to his right, a chain of monumental electricity pylons climbed the escarpment and continued into the sparsely forested zones above. He’d hiked under the thrumming wires just moments ago. Had felt the static buzz around his body like a charged aura.

  He sniffed the air. Aromas of wild herbs and flowers and arid dirt. He stepped up to the powdery edge. Inched his toes out over the abyss. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms out at his sides and bounced on the balls of his feet like a diver about to launch himself from a springboard.

  He pictured Aimée.

  He saw her smiling.

  As each day passed, it became harder to conjure his favourite image of her. Morning sunlight on freckled skin, Aimée’s drowsy brown eyes watering against the glare. Auburn hair fanned out around her head on stark white sheets, hands curled into loose fists by her ears. Teeth clamped down on the corner of her mouth. Lips shaping a mischievous grin.

  He squeezed his eyes tight shut and concentrated hard, sharpening the vision. Sculpting it. Refining it.

  Guarding it.

  The stamp of footsteps on gravel jarred him from his reverie.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Alain called, from behind him. ‘You can come with me now.’

  Trent exhaled and relaxed his pose. He heard the clunk of the gate latch releasing. The electric hum as the gate began to swing open.

  Still he didn’t turn.

  ‘She’s waiting for you,’ Alain said.

  Yes, he thought. Yes, you’re right.

  Chapter Five

  Alain insisted on patting Trent down again as he approached the gate. He was a lot more thorough the second time around and he located Trent’s mobile right away. He flipped it open and held it out to Trent, the screen glowing like a distress flare in the pulsing black. A four-digit pin secured the phone.

  ‘Enter your code,’ Alain said.

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘You do it or you don’t come in.’

  Trent stared at the guy until the loathing brimmed over in his eyes. The bodyguard didn’t relent. Finally, Trent sighed and punched in the sequence.

  Alain lowered his face to the phone and thumbed the keys. He cycled through Trent’s call list. His contacts. His messages.

  He looked up. ‘It’s empty.’

  ‘Like your head, smart guy. It’s a drop phone. Prepaid. They can be useful in kidnap situations. I thought it could be useful here, too.’

  Alain snapped the phone closed and slipped it into his back pocket without another word. Then he went through the routine of feeling around Trent’s torso and arms and legs, squeezing hard with his big hands. He had Trent remove his boots and socks and put them on again. Then he motioned him forwards and secured the gate behind him.

  Alain had slipped on a clean charcoal jacket. It was the same style and fit and colour as the soiled garment he’d been wearing earlier. Maybe, Trent thought, he had a whole rack of identical suits hanging in a wardrobe somewhere, like a uniform store. Trent couldn’t recall ever seeing him in a different outfit before.

  There was a telltale bulge beneath the jacket where his Ruger was holstered on his left side. But there was no sign of where he was keeping Trent’s wallet. No sign of Trent’s Beretta.

  They walked without speaking towards the crest of the driveway and Trent spent the time thinking carefully about the security measures that Jérôme had in place. A high fence. A steel gate. Surveillance cameras and a bodyguard. The Moreaus took their privacy seriously. It made Trent wonder exactly who they were afraid of, and why.

  His eyes were alert, scanning his new surroundings, mapping possible routes back to the road in case he needed to leave in a hurry. The bodyguard moved with purpose beside him. Swollen arms swinging like pistons. Powerful legs pounding the ground. He’d stuck a flesh-coloured plaster over the cut beside his eye but a dribble of dried blood had escaped from beneath. It looked like a stray cotton thread. Maybe, Trent thought, if he tugged on it the guy’s forehead would unravel.

  ‘When do I get my phone back?’ Trent asked.

  ‘When you leave.’

  ‘And my gun?’

  ‘It’s safe.’

  ‘Terrific. Can I have it?’

  The guy shook his head with all the emotion of an android. ‘When you leave.’

  ‘My wallet, then?’

  Alain marched on without responding. The darkness that surrounded them was a living thing. It shimmied and stretched and throbbed. It cocooned them, as if they were alone together on an unlit stage, the auditorium abandoned.

  ‘So, why are we walking?’ Trent asked. ‘Did you decide that I could use more exercise?’

  ‘You saw the Mercedes.’ Alain scowled down at his dress shoes, the band-aid wrinkling up beside his eye.

  ‘You expect me to believe you don’t have other vehicles to call on? Come on, I know Jérôme is rich. That’s a given for anyone who takes out a policy that includes my services.’

  Alain grunted. His large feet scuffed gravel. Dust coiled up around the cuffs of his trousers like the embers of a deadened fire.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you. Alone.’

  ‘So talk. The only things listening to us out here are the trees.’

  They tramped on, their footsteps loud in the darkness, the tall cypresses crowding in on them from either side.

  ‘I don’t trust you,’ Alain said.

  ‘No kidding. You should have mentioned something sooner.’

  Alain glanced across. His movements had a twitchy, mechanical quality. A surplus of nervous energy. Trent recognised the symptoms. He was experiencing them himself. The bodyguard’s system had been flushed with adrenalin during the abduction. He’d been overloaded with stress and fear and anxiety. And now he had a whole new set of problems to contend with. Starting with Trent.

  ‘Mme Moreau wants you inside,’ he said, like it was the worst idea he’d ever heard. ‘The lawyer told us that you’re the adviser the policy specifies. We kept you waiting because I asked him to make some calls. He telephoned two of the families you’ve worked for in the past.’

  Trent nodd
ed. The pack of documents that accompanied Jérôme’s insurance policy contained a select list of former clients who were willing to vouch for him.

  ‘I’ve worked for a lot of wealthy individuals,’ Trent said. ‘A few of them are generous enough to discuss my performance with others who find themselves in a similar situation.’

  ‘They speak very highly of you.’

  ‘They should. I got their loved ones back alive.’

  ‘That’s what they told us.’

  ‘But…?’

  ‘But I still don’t trust you. M. Moreau never mentioned you to me. He never talked about a kidnapping policy.’

  ‘And you believe that as his bodyguard you should have been told?’ Trent made a clucking noise with his tongue – a sudden pop in the unlit stillness. ‘Listen, these policies have to be kept completely secret. The records are carefully guarded. Otherwise, you risk alerting potential kidnappers.’

  Alain twisted sideways from the hip, staring at Trent as he walked. His jacket was unbuttoned. Each time he swung his left arm, Trent could see the butt of his Ruger and the glint of stainless steel in the moonlight. ‘But this is what interests me. Who guards these policies? You? Your company? And yet here you are, just as a kidnapping takes place.’

  They were close to the house now. It was a large, modern villa with terracotta roof tiles and a pink or peach render on the walls. A lot of the exterior was covered in climbing plants and flowering bougainvillea. There was a triple garage on the side and a circular fountain out front where a tubby stone cherub was pouring water from an urn.

  The property was very brightly lit. It was ablaze in the fierce glow of multiple floodlights that had been positioned among shrubs and foliage beds and palm trees. Trent thought back to the haze of light pollution he’d spotted from the gate. It made sense now. But nothing could have prepared him for the blinding glare.

  All things considered, the Moreau residence didn’t strike him as a relaxed family home. It felt more like a bunker, squatted low into the ground, hidden by the barbed steel fence and the steeply banked grass and the army of cypress trees, lit as starkly and as deliberately as a high-security prison in the middle of a lockdown.