Double pursuit, p.25
Double Pursuit, page 25
‘Look, I know you two have had your differences in the past, but I rather thought you had… reconciled. Is there a problem?’
Mel said nothing. She wasn’t sure how to describe the situation between her and Jeff. She hardly grasped it herself.
‘I need to know, Mélisende. I cannot allow any personal problems to interfere with operational capacity.’
Dieu, did the man have no heart?
‘I’m sure that neither Jeff nor I will allow any personal issues to interfere with our duty,’ she replied. Even to herself, she sounded like an automaton.
‘That is not an answer. Don’t play word games with me, young woman.’
‘Sir.’
He sighed.
‘Very well. I’ll let you get some rest now. Andreas will go out to Bourlois’s house and liaise with the search team which will arrive tomorrow morning. They’ll report to him at the hotel, then go on to Sète together. This “big boss” will, however, be perfectly aware his European network is blown. We’ve destroyed the top growth of the invasive plant. Now we need to eradicate the root. How far that’s buried is our next task.’
‘Of course. I’ll catch the first train back to Brussels tomorrow,’ Mel said, relieved Stevenson had swung away from her personal life.
‘No, I think it would be better for you to take a pause for a day or two. It’s been unrelenting since Rome. We need to process all the information we’ve gained and initiate the paperwork – boring but essential, as our masters expect everything to be perfect when they take Bourlois, Hassan and Tomislav into the mesh of their legal systems. I also need to make some phone calls. And tomorrow, I go to Creil to see first-hand the satellite pass and meet up with the so charming Madame de Villiers.’
‘I thought she was off the case.’
‘True, but it’s through her that we have access to the satellite images. Although we are all soldiers in one sense, our battles are fought in different ways. Take the train to Poitiers and go and see your family. Some fresh air at home will clear your head. I’ll expect you here Tuesday morning and not before.’
Mel stared at the screen. What the hell was Stevenson saying? A weekend off in the middle of the case?
‘But—’
‘Those are my orders. And use the office card to buy the train ticket. Out.’ His image vanished from her screen. Crafty bastard. He’d know if she’d complied and through the ticket checking system if she’d actually got on the train. Still, her mother’s warm embrace, her father’s wit and a run through her home woods would be like a reviving tonic. And they always gave her unconditional love whatever she’d done.
* * *
When Mel arrived in Paris at the Gare de Lyon the following day, she was tempted to head to the Gare du Nord and catch the next Thalys to Brussels. She’d go straight to Queen Astrid’s and demand to see McCracken. Maes, his team and security wouldn’t stop her. But Jeff hadn’t contacted her for the fifth day running. Was she so unforgiven? And for what? For trying to protect him and care for him? Well, stuff him. She glanced at her watch. Time for a quick coffee in the Big Ben Bar at the Train Bleu restaurant, and one of their famous pains au chocolat. This was no time for being healthy.
Her mother met her at Poitiers that afternoon. Susan des Pittones, slim, wearing a bright yellow shirt and capri pants, her hair caught up with a gold clip, ignored any admiring stares as she walked towards Mel in the way that models never forgot. But she only had eyes for her daughter and wrapped her in her arms as soon as she reached her. A tear ran down Mel’s face.
‘Darling, whatever is the matter?’ Susan gently held Mel back at arms’ length and searched her face. ‘You look like shit. What’s happened?’
‘Oh, Mum, I’ve completely cocked up!’
Susan took her daughter’s arm and led her along the walkway to the adjoining car park. She didn’t say anything until she’d sat her in the front passenger seat of her car.
‘Now, take a breath and take your time,’ Susan said. ‘We’re not moving out of here until you tell me what’s wrong.’
Fifteen minutes later, Susan started the engine. At home, she took Mel straight to her room, helped her undress and five minutes later returned with a mug of tea. But Mel was already asleep.
* * *
The instant Mel entered the dining room that evening, she spotted the look her mother exchanged with her father. Henri des Pittones, just entering his sixties, wasn’t and hadn’t ever been a handsome man; his mouth and eye sockets were too big for classic looks, but he had presence that came from the confidence of holding the same land as fifty generations of ancestors. His plentiful brown hair was salted with grey and he had the same dark brown eyes as his daughter. He said nothing when she walked in, but smiled, then drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead.
‘Welcome home,’ he said in a soft voice. Mel glanced up at him. Being treated as if she were as fragile as a piece of his Sèvres porcelain was more unbearable than being shouted at. He guided her to a sofa, the striped silk covered one she used to curl up on as a child. He poured her a glass of her favourite Touraine white wine and drew up a chair.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘I expect you’ve heard it all from Maman.’
‘Yes, Susan gave me the general outline. Why do you think you’ve made a mess of everything?’
‘The case wasn’t going at all well, but we’ve made good progress recently. We’ve had bumps along the way, but the team has—’
‘Stop skirting round the edges, Mélisende. It really isn’t like you. This isn’t about the team, is it? Just one member of it, I think.’
Mel looked at the veined marble fireplace then back to her father. Was she ready to be that open with him? But her father was waiting with an encouraging smile on his face. She took a deep breath.
‘After Gérard, I thought I’d put relationships behind me. There was one person before who really let me down, then Gérard. I intended to keep it really untangled with Jeff, sort of companionable, good sex and a man who made me laugh. I was determined not to let it interfere with our working relationship or let it go further. Jeff also seemed happy with that. But I hadn’t realised my feelings for him had been developing without me noticing. All I want to do is throw a protective blanket over him and keep all harm away from him.’ She looked away, embarrassed.
Susan made a stifled noise in the background. Henri frowned at her.
‘Carry on,’ Henri said to Mel.
‘He looked so ill after the bomb in Rome and he went to the hospital without protesting too much. He was stupid to have left there so quickly, but he was keen to get back on the case. When he admitted the headaches on the way back from Montpellier, I arranged for him to be taken to the hospital straight from the station as soon as we arrived back in Brussels.’ She paused. ‘And he hasn’t forgiven me for ambushing him like that.’ She gulped down the rest of her wine then sniffed hard. ‘I haven’t heard from him despite all my messages. Everybody else has, though.’
Henri shifted in his armchair and glanced at Susan who nodded at him.
‘Now, Mélisende, I want you to listen to me. I know how professional and dedicated you are and that very little stops you achieving your goal. But I gather you have lost your focus and are now operating down at normal human level.’
Mel opened her mouth to protest, but Henri held up his hand.
‘No, hear me out. Patrick Stevenson called me this morning. He’s very concerned.’
‘He has no right to—’
‘He has every right if it’s affecting your operational effectiveness. He’s not an idiot. I think he has a very good idea about where things stand with you and Jeff McCracken. I’ve only seen this young man once, in his police role when he was questioning you about Gérard. You have a different perspective, of course. Stevenson praises him highly as an intuitive and intelligent officer, who likes to project a rough exterior, possibly because of a difficult youth.’
He paused and refilled Mel’s glass.
‘You make your own choices in life and that is how it should be. I was surprised in your choice of Gérard as a husband, but that was your decision and you obviously saw something in him I didn’t. But that is in the past. You have a strong tendency to take charge which is no bad thing, as many others have no idea how to do so. However, I am under the impression that McCracken is not the kind of man who submits to this from any other person.’ He looked away and then back at her. ‘He must love you very much to have accepted this from you up to now.’
‘But, Papa, if you are right, then why is he ignoring me?’
‘You have smothered him, chérie, treating him as a child. You’ve done it for the best of reasons, but it is not the behaviour of equal partners. I gather he is a proud man, in the best sense, and probably feels very confused – hurt, desperate, and like most British men unable to express their emotions with any clarity or sense.’
Mel remained silent for a few moments, staring at a dish of unsalted cashew nuts but not seeing them.
‘You know without doubt that your mother and I love you without a second’s hesitation and with all our hearts,’ Henri continued. ‘We will support you, whatever you decide. It pains us to see you so tired and distressed. But you have to decide whether you want this man as a lover or colleague, or both. Do you love him enough to let him go or not enough so that you want to cling on to him for some other reason?’
‘You’re very hard, Papa,’ Mel said barely above a whisper.
‘I’m trying to be logical. You’re in a whirlpool of indecision and wearing a blindfold. You have to free yourself of both or your mind will explode.’ He shrugged. ‘I have seen personal partnerships transfer very successfully into the workplace.’ He smiled over Mel’s head at Susan. ‘So I don’t subscribe to the old stereotype that it never works, but it must be properly negotiated as adults.’
Mel chewed her bottom lip. She wasn’t sure she accepted all of her father’s observations. He was very experienced in the business world, and a successful negotiator. He’d done eighteen months’ national service in a cavalry regiment when he was younger, so he knew the military life even though it was some time ago. He was her wise and loving father, but how could he know the pressure she worked under now?
‘I don’t know how I feel, except that I can’t concentrate,’ she said.
Susan came over to sit beside her daughter.
‘Sometimes, it’s only little things, but they add up, then something equally small triggers the storm. You work so hard and are so dedicated that perhaps you haven’t had time to pay attention to the small stuff.’
‘You just don’t understand, Mum. We just jump from one thing to another. I hardly have time to sleep.’
‘And you always push yourself to do everything perfectly, don’t you?’
Mel shrugged off her mother’s arm.
‘There is no other way.’
‘News for you, Mel. There is.’ Susan frowned at her daughter. ‘I’m not such a naive stay-at-home as you think. When I was working all over the world, the pace was ferocious. It wasn’t life and death but the almost unbearable tension was continuous. But a wise head told me that eighty per cent would get you through most situations and if you achieved ninety per cent you were well ahead of the rest of the world. We all fail sometimes and the best thing is to admit it.’
Mel said nothing, but sipped her wine.
‘And you feel lonely, don’t you, Mel?’ Susan added. She pulled her daughter to her again and held her. ‘As if part of you had been taken away?’
Mel sniffed and nodded.
‘Well, I suggest you have an early night, then go back to Brussels in the morning and make it up with Jeff,’ Susan said. ‘From what Elaine said to me on the phone, I have a feeling he’s worth the effort.’ She smiled at Mel. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be able to get past anybody or anything standing in your way.’
31
Mel went for a run before bed, to clear the wine she told herself, but really to absorb all the things her parents had said. It sounded as if Susan had called Mel’s grandmother in Kent as well. And Elaine wouldn’t have held back her views. Mel stopped for a few moments when she reached the lake. The sun was fading, giving way to that magical half-light when as a child she used to imagine the wood sprites coming out to walk the earth. Now there were sounds of night creatures of the animal kind: the croak of a frog, the soft hooting of owls, cries against a background of crickets chirping and the occasional fish splashing. She closed her eyes and remembered when she and Gérard had swum and played in the water, then made love under the trees. But as Henri had said, that was the past.
The warmth from the lake and trees, the smell of humid wood from the trees and the sense of protection they’d given her since childhood were a far cry from that other love, David Wainwright, the English soldier whom she had met and loved in the hot, dry Sahel. David who’d left her, then tried to terminate her. God knows what had happened to him, but he too was in the past. She had to look to her future.
* * *
The train next morning from Poitiers was busy but not packed – only the really keen travelled at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning. Mel looked in the small paper carrier her mother had handed her when she kissed Mel goodbye – coffee and pain au chocolat and, as a concession to health, a natural yoghurt. She was going to need the fuel these would give her.
In Paris, she strode along the three quarters of a kilometre between Montparnasse station and the Gare du Nord and arrived in plenty of time for the next Thalys. This would take her to Lille, but she’d catch the local train from there to Brussels. On the way she made a call.
* * *
‘You are joking, Mel,’ Joanna Evans said, her face a mixture of shock and misery. ‘We’ll both get the sack.’ They were standing on Platform 6 of Brussels-Midi station. Even though rushing past, one or two people gave them curious looks at Joanna’s outcry.
‘Don’t be daft.’ Mel took Joanna’s arm and guided her off the platform. ‘The worst that could happen is that Mr Stevenson would give us a good bollocking, as Jeff would say.’
‘And a disciplinary. I’ve never had one. Ever.’
‘Well, no record is complete without at least one black mark.’
‘I don’t want to start now.’
‘C’mon, Joanna, be a good sport. Obviously, I’ll take all the blame.’ Mel’s eyes gleamed. ‘But you’re assuming we’ll get caught. Let’s not.’
Joanna thrust a C5 envelope at Mel. It was plastified, marked Confidentiel Défense, sealed and countersigned across the flap.
‘Perfect!’ Mel said.
‘You do know he’s a mess, don’t you?’ Joanna said. ‘In his head, I mean. Not medically. He can have work visitors, but you do know he’s made an express request to exclude you from the visitor list, don’t you?’
Joanna’s words were like a stab in the heart.
Hold it together, Mel.
‘I didn’t know, but I gathered that,’ she managed. She was even more determined to go and see him.
‘Mr Stevenson’s gone along with it so far, but I think he’s losing patience. Jeff’s being released either tomorrow or Monday, but when I went to collect some stuff from him yesterday and he didn’t realise I was watching, he looked so miserable. I don’t know what the problem is between you two, but it’s affecting everything.’
‘Well, I’m about to sort that out. With your help, of course.’ She gave Joanna one of her best smiles. Joanna rolled her eyes and handed over her card.
* * *
The taxi dropped Mel off at the barrier at Queen Astrid’s Military Hospital. Clutching the official envelope Joanna had given her, but which contained only blank sheets of paper, Mel sailed through without any bother. Joanna’s ID photo had the same po-faced expression they all had for IDs and the two women’s faces were the same oval shape with eyes in nearly the same place. Mel had folded her hair up into a similar style as Joanna’s and wore no lipstick.
At the reception, Mel took on Joanna’s reserved behaviour and waited with a solemn expression on her face. She was given permission to use the lift unaccompanied, but was unnerved when the soldier guarding it asked to see her pass again. That was different from last time. But then she’d been accompanied by Captain Maes. She let her breath out slowly as she rode up. She was checked again at the nurses’ desk; the name of Joanna Evans was on the authorised list. Mel was about to walk down the short corridor to Jeff’s room, when to her horror, Maes came round the corner straight at her.
‘Les toilettes, s’il vous plait,’ she mumbled at the nurse and turned her back to Maes who was still a few metres away. Thankfully, the nurse pointed in the opposite direction. Mel steeled herself not to hurry, but walked at normal pace, pushed the door open, closed it behind her. She sank back against the wall and took a deep breath. The handle on the door to the corridor turned, so she dived into one of the stalls, switching the lock to occupé.
This was ridiculous, she thought as she sat on the toilet lid. But Queen Astrid’s operated a high security protocol. Nevertheless… After the sound of footsteps, then the door opening and shutting, she waited a couple of minutes, then flushed the cistern. She listened but couldn’t hear any sound, so she made rustling noises as if adjusting her clothing, then grasped the door catch. To her relief, all she found was a discarded tissue on the basin with lipstick marks and two long brown hairs in the washbasin. She rinsed her own hands, then opened the corridor door a few millimetres, enough to see the nurses' desk. No sign of Maes.
It was now or never. The worst would be finding Maes in with Jeff.
At McCracken’s door, she glanced through the observation window. He was the only occupant. She grasped the handle and opened the door.
He was dressed, sitting at a table by the side of the bed and staring out of the window. He turned slowly and blinked hard at her. His face showed surprise, then relief and longing. But within a second, his expression hardened.
