42
The manor-house hotel was visible through the trees from the road, floodlit and inviting in the darkness. Ben swerved the Renault off the road and down its long, winding driveway into the wooded grounds. They pulled up in the front, next to some other cars and a touring coach.
‘Bring your bag, we’re staying here tonight.’
‘Why a hotel, Ben?’
‘Because two foreigners in a hotel is a normal thing, but two foreigners staying with a priest in a village gets talked about. We can’t go back to Pascal’s after tonight.’
Inside, Ben approached the reception desk and rang the bell. A moment later the receptionist appeared from an office.
‘Have you got any rooms?’ Ben asked.
‘No, monsieur, we are full.’
‘No rooms at all? It isn’t even high season.’
‘We have a group of English tourists here for the Tour Cathare. Almost everything is taken.’
‘Almost?’
‘The only accommodation left is our best suite. But it is normally…that is to say…it is reserved for–’
‘We’ll take it,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Shall I pay you now?’ He reached in his pocket. Took out the fake Paul Harris passport and his wallet. He laid the passport down on the desk and showed her the cash. There was enough in the wallet to rent the whole hotel for a month. The receptionist’s eyes widened. ‘N…no need to pay now,’ she stammered.
She rang a bell on the reception desk. ‘Joseph!’ she called out in a bellowing voice, and a wizened old fellow in a bellboy’s uniform instantly appeared at her side. ‘Show Madame and Monsieur ‘Arris to the honeymoon suite.’
Old Joseph led them up the stairs, opened up a door and shambled into their room carrying their bags. ‘Just leave them on the bed,’ Ben told him, and tipped him with a large note, which was all he had by way of change.
Roberta looked around her at their accommodation. The ante-room, with sofa, armchairs and coffee-table, opened out into a huge square space dominated by a four-poster bed adorned with a giant red love-heart. On a large walnut table were flowers, chocolates tied up with ribbons, and statuettes of little brides in white dresses and grooms in tuxedos.
Ben sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes, leaving them where they fell on the Cupid rug. What an absurd room, he thought. If it hadn’t been for Roberta, he’d be sleeping in the car, hidden in some secluded forest somewhere. He took off his jacket and holster and tossed them on the bed, then lay back, stretching his tired muscles. As an afterthought he reached into his pocket and took out the flask. It was dented where it had deflected the bullet earlier. If the .380 round had hit it square on, it would have gone straight through.
He gazed at it for a few seconds. That’s another life gone, he thought, took a swig and put the flask away.
‘Will Anna be OK?’ Roberta asked in a faint voice.
He bit his lip. ‘Yeah, I think so. She might need a few stitches and treatment for shock. I’ll phone around in the morning and find out what hospital she’s at.’ At least he could rest easy knowing she was safe. The minute the ambulance had got there, the cops would have been alerted and she’d be under protection in hospital.
‘How did they get to her, Ben? What did they want with her?’
‘I’ve been wondering that myself,’ he muttered.
‘And the dead man outside her house? Who was he?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe a friend of hers who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
She sighed loudly. ‘I can’t stand thinking about it. I’m going to take a shower.’
He sat and thought as he listened vaguely to the splashing water in the background. He was disgusted at himself. It was pure luck that they’d got to Anna in time. He’d seen an awful lot of death and suffering in his life, but he didn’t even want to imagine the way she would have died if they’d arrived five minutes later.
Long ago, he’d promised himself that he’d never again allow his mistakes to harm the innocent. But it was happening, somehow. These people were getting close again, and the stakes were rising much too high.
He made a decision. Tomorrow he was taking Roberta to the nearby town of Montpellier and putting her on a flight to the States. And he was staying at the airport until he saw the plane leaving the ground with her in it. He should have done it days ago.
He sank his head into his hands, trying to shut out the gnawing feelings of guilt. Sometimes it seemed that no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing, everything he did in his life–every move, every decision–was somehow inexorably, magnetically impelled to return to haunt him. How much regret and self-reproach could one man carry?
A knock at the door disrupted his thoughts. As he walked into the ante-room to answer it, he slipped the Browning into his belt, against the flat of his lower back. He untucked his shirt to cover it. ‘Who is it?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘The food you ordered, Monsieur ‘Arris,’ came Joseph’s muffled voice. ‘And your champagne.’
‘I didn’t order any champagne.’ Ben unlocked the door, his hand hovering near where the pistol nestled coldly against his skin. When he saw the shrivelled old man standing alone outside with the service trolley he relaxed and pulled the door open.
‘Monsieur, the champagne is complimentary,’ Joseph said as he wheeled the trolley into the room. ‘It comes with the suite.’
‘Thanks, just leave it there.’
With his large tip from earlier on still nestling in his pocket, and the promise of more to come, the old man’s step seemed more sprightly as he wheeled in the trolley. There was charcuterie and a selection of cheese, fresh baguette and champagne on ice. Ben gave Joseph some more cash, showed him out and locked the door behind him.
The champagne took the edge off their mood. They ate in silence. In the background the radio was playing soft jazz. By the time the bottle was empty it was nearly midnight. Ben grabbed a pillow from the four-poster and tossed it on the leather couch near the window at the opposite end of the room. He took some spare blankets from the wardrobe and threw down a rough bed for himself.
The radio had moved on to playing an old Edith Piaf song. Roberta moved close to him. ‘Ben, will you dance with me?’
‘Dance?’ He looked at her. ‘You want to dance?’
‘Please. I love this song.’ She took his hands, smiling uncertainly, and could feel him tensing up.
‘I don’t know how to dance,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah, that’s what they all say.’
‘No, really, I don’t know how. I’ve never done it.’
‘Never?’
‘Never once in my life.’
From his wooden, awkward movements she could see he was telling the truth. She looked up at him. ‘It’s OK, I’ll show you. Just take my hands and relax.’ She moved towards him gently and rested one hand on his shoulder, taking his hand with the other.
‘Put your free hand here on my waist,’ she prompted him. His hand was rigid. She moved with him, and he tried to follow her motion, shuffling stiffly with her steps.
‘See? Feel the rhythm.’
‘OK,’ he said hesitantly.
The song ended and another followed straight on: ‘La Vie en Rose’.
‘Oh, this is a good one too. OK, here we go again…that’s it…enjoying it?’
‘I don’t know…maybe.’
‘I think you could be good at this, if you could relax a bit more. Ouch, my foot.’
‘Sorry. I did warn you.’
‘You’re thinking about it too much.’
From a simple dance he could feel a million conflicting emotions. It was the strangest sensation, and he couldn’t decide whether it was pleasant or not. A warm and inviting world seemed to beckon to him. He wanted to embrace the warmth, let it into his heart again after so many years alone in the cold. Yet the moment he began to feel himself giving in to it, he stiffened, and a barrier seemed to come crashing down somewhere inside him.
‘Thought you had it for a moment there.’
He pulled away. It was too much for him. It was as though his space had been invaded, his comfort zone breached after years of being alone. He threw a sidelong glance at the mini-bar.
She saw his eye. ‘Don’t, Ben, please.’ She laid a warm hand on his.
He looked at his watch. ‘Hey,’ he laughed nervously. ‘It’s getting late. We’ve got an early start in the morning.’
‘Don’t stop. It’s nice,’ she murmured. ‘Come on, we’ve had such a rotten day of it. We both need this.’
They danced a little longer. He felt her body close to his. He ran his hand up her arm to her shoulder and caressed it. His heart was beating faster. Their heads began to move closer to one another.
The song came to an end, and the voice of the radio presenter spoilt their moment. They stepped apart, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
There was silence between them for a few minutes. They both knew what had come close to happening and they both, in their different ways, felt a sadness descending on them.
Ben went over to his makeshift bed on the couch and, too tired to undress, he got into it. Roberta climbed into the vast nuptial bed and lay looking up at the canopy above. ‘I’ve never slept in one of these before,’ she said after a while.
Silence again as they lay there on opposite sides of the dark room.
‘How’s the couch?’ she said.
‘Fine.’
‘Comfortable?’
‘I’ve slept in worse places.’
‘There’s room in this bed for about six people.’
‘So?’
He raised his head off the pillow and gazed at where she lay in the dark. ‘You’re asking me to get in the bed with you?’
‘O…On the bed, then,’ she stammered, embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t a come-on, if that’s what you think. I’m just a bit nervous. I could use a little company.’
He hesitated for a few moments. Then he got up and pulled the blankets off the couch. He felt his way over to the bed, groping blindly about in the un familiar room. He moved to the far side of the bed and lay down beside her. He pulled the spare blankets over him.
They lay there in the darkness, a wide space between them. She turned towards him, wanting to reach out to him, feeling awkward. She could hear his breathing next to her.
‘Ben?’ she whispered.
‘Yeah?’
She hesitated before saying it. ‘Who’s the little girl in the picture?’
He raised himself up on one elbow and looked at her. Her face was a pale blur in the moonlight.
She yearned to put her hand out and touch him, hold him tight.
‘Let’s get some sleep,’ he said quietly, lying back down.
Around two, he woke up to find her slender arm draped over his chest. She was asleep. He lay there for a time, staring upwards at the dim play of the moonlight on the canopy of the bed, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her warm body as she slept.
The touch of her arm was a curious feeling. It was strangely electrifying, unnerving and yet deeply comforting. He let himself relax into the feel of it, closed his eyes and dozed off with a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.