Dead Line by Chris Ewan Page B

wrenched another bite.
    ‘We should go and wake the chauffeur up,’ he said, chewing with his mouth open.
    ‘Why would we do that?’
    ‘To ask him what he knows.’
    ‘Knows?’
    ‘It’s Saturday morning,’ Trent said. ‘Friday night last night. Not many chauffeurs get weekends off. ’
    ‘He’s ill. It’s why I was driving.’
    ‘Maybe that’s what he told you.’ Trent worked his jaw to clear some apple from his teeth. ‘But seriously, aren’t you the least bit suspicious that Jérôme’s driver happened to be off duty on the night his car was run off the road and he was abducted?’
    *
    It was cool and still and quiet outside. The sky was dark and distant beyond the halogen glare. Trent followed Alain around the perimeter of the house, their feet crunching along a pea-gravel pathway. The light from the security lamps was harsh and unrelenting. It pinned them against the wall. Two big men, walking one behind the other. Their shadows loomed over them like ogres.
    ‘So what’s your story?’ Trent asked. ‘What was your background before Jérôme hired you? Were you army?’
    Alain grunted. He let go of the limb of a tropical plant that he’d cleared from his path. It sprang back and slapped Trent in the face.
    ‘Police?’
    ‘No,’ Alain muttered.
    ‘Then what?’
    Alain’s shoulders slumped. ‘The truth? I was a squeegee punk.’
    ‘Seriously?’
    Squeegee punks were street kids who swarmed around traffic whenever it got snarled up at busy junctions in Marseilles. They’d wash your windscreen whether you wanted them to or not. Some people tipped them. Some didn’t. Some found that they happened to get robbed at knifepoint if they had their windows open or their doors unlocked.
    Alain marched on. He didn’t turn. Didn’t look back.
    ‘Not exactly your standard route into this kind of work,’ Trent said.
    Still Alain didn’t say anything.
    ‘How did it happen? Did you respond to an ad in the paper? Retrain in close protection skills?’
    Alain hesitated, then finally answered. ‘I pulled a gun on M. Moreau. I told him to give me his watch. It was a Rolex. Very expensive.’
    Trent whistled. ‘And did he?’
    ‘No. He offered me a job instead.’
    ‘Wait.’ Trent listened to the tread of their feet on the path. ‘He offered you a job right there and then? By the side of the road?’
    Alain nodded, his long shadow dipping and rising on the wall alongside him.
    ‘This is what he does. It’s why he’s rich. He judges people. He does it very fast. He did it to me. He saw something in me. He told me I could be useful to him. That he could teach me. And I believed him.’
    ‘You’ve worked for him ever since?’
    ‘Eleven years.’
    ‘And he’s been good to you?’
    ‘The best.’
    Trent fell silent. The cicadas were loud in the shrubs by their side. Gnats and flies and moths swirled around them, drawn by the ceaseless, blinding light and their body warmth.
    So Alain was a contented employee. Eleven years’ service. Plucked from a life on the streets. Given a fresh start. A rewarding salary and a place to stay in a luxury home, high in the hills of Provence. Invited to become a trusted member of the Moreau family.
    It was the kind of background that built fierce loyalty. And in Trent’s experience loyalty could compensate for many things. It could lead people to overlook certain character flaws. It could even, on occasion, cause them to participate in something terrible.
    Had Alain been involved, he wondered?
    And if so, then was Trent walking behind a guy who knew what had become of Aimée?

Chapter Thirteen
    They rounded the corner of the villa and the thin gravel path opened up into a landscaped garden. It was well stocked with palms and other exotics, screened by pines and poplars and olive trees. Immediately to their left was a terraced area shaded by vines.
    An oval swimming pool dominated the centre of the space. It was lit, like everything else, by the dazzling security