Close Call

Chapter 49

Liz was lying on her bed in her Kentish Town flat, shoes off but still fully dressed. Isabelle had promised to let her know as soon as there was news of the group of jihadis, due to arrive at four o’clock at the flat in Paris. But she had heard nothing before she left work at seven and still nothing three hours later, by which time she had stretched out on her bed, with both her phones beside her. She was half asleep when her landline started ringing. She sat up and grabbed the handset.

‘Hello.’

‘Liz, it’s Peggy.’

‘Oh, Peggy. I thought you might be Isabelle. Have you heard anything from Paris?’

‘No. But it will have been a no-show. That’s probably why they haven’t rung. I’ve just heard from Charlie Simmons. There’s been a message in the cooking code. It was sent this morning but it’s taken him ages to decrypt because it was full of mistakes. He thinks whoever sent it didn’t properly understand the rules and it was badly encoded. Anyway he’s managed to get into it and apparently it says that they’re not going to Paris after all. They’re coming straight on to Britain. I’m just about to text Jacques Thibault. They must all have been wondering why no one turned up at the flat. They were probably hanging on, hoping they were just late.’

‘Yes, but I’m surprised they didn’t let us know that no one had appeared. I wonder what they’ve been doing. I’m going to ring Isabelle now to see what’s going on.’

‘OK. While you do that I’ll text Jacques. Then I think we need to warn A4 that Zara might be on the move soon. Because if his friends are on the way here, they may arrive tonight, and he’s the only angle we’ve got on them.’

‘Yes, and when I’ve spoken to Isabelle, or Martin if I can’t get her, I’ll warn the Manchester Counter-Terrorist Group that we may have some action for them soon. Our friends may well be heading for one of those warehouses.’

Liz put the phone down and was just about to pick it up again to ring Isabelle when her mobile suddenly came to life.

‘Liz, it’s Isabelle.’

‘Hello. We’ve been wondering where you were. I gather no one turned up. You’ve must have had a rather boring evening.’

There was a pause. Then Isabelle said, ‘Well, actually that’s not quite true.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘It’s true the people we expected didn’t show – but we were puzzled why and we decided to search the flat to see if there were any clues to what was going on, and our man didn’t seem to be there. But he was there – he was hiding in the next-door flat and, Liz, I’m so sorry…’ Her voice crumpled.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’

She could hear Isabelle sucking her breath in, trying to pull herself together. Then she managed to say, ‘Martin, he was shot.’

‘Shot?’

‘Liz, I am so sorry. Martin is dead.’

Liz went ice-cold. She didn’t want to believe what she’d heard. She took a deep breath, trying to control herself, and said as calmly as she could, ‘What happened?’

While Isabelle explained, Liz tried to focus, to listen. But the words ran like noisy flowing water in the background while one brutal fact kept occupying the foreground – Martin was dead. Isabelle was explaining that when the jihadis hadn’t shown up, she and Martin had taken a gamble and gone in, hoping to find evidence of what was being plotted. Martin had been curious, Isabelle explained – and Liz thought, damn Martin, he was always curious.

And it was here Liz completely tuned out, not wanting to hear the details of the death of the man she loved. Isabelle was still talking as a thousand images flashed through Liz’s head: of her first meeting with Martin at the DGSE’s old-fashioned headquarters on the outskirts of Paris; of Martin down at Bowerbridge, her family home, and the way he had taken to the place – so quintessentially English, he’d said; and of how Martin had chuckled when he’d seen the childhood relics Liz still kept in her bedroom there – the rosettes from gymkhanas, the watercolours she had liked to paint as a girl, and the photograph taken by her father as she stood gap-toothed and beaming and no more than nine years old, holding perhaps the titchiest fish ever to be yanked (and that with some grownup help) from the waters of the river Nadder.

All this came at her in a concentrated rush, which made her smile momentarily – though each time she had a loving image of him the grim news of his death intervened, and her memories fell away like waves hitting an unexpected reef.

She became aware that Isabelle was no longer talking. Liz did her best to pull herself together. She said mechanically, ‘Thanks, Isabelle, for letting me know.’

‘Liz, did you hear what I said? I said I thought you would want to come over.’

‘Of course. Should I be arranging things?’

There was an awkward pause, and Liz suddenly realised that she had no real position in this. She hadn’t been Martin’s wife, not even legally his partner; officially, she had no real status in Martin’s life at all.

She asked Isabelle, ‘Have you told Mimi?’ Martin’s daughter.

‘Not yet.’

‘Or Claudette?’ Martin’s ex-wife, who lived in the Brittany countryside. It had not been a happy divorce – she had left Martin for an old boyfriend – but lately they had re-established speaking terms and could discuss their daughter civilly enough. Martin’s bitterness at his wife’s desertion had obviously been intense, but she remembered now how once as they were having coffee after dinner, he’d explained that since Liz had come into his life, his anger with his ex-wife had evaporated.

‘No, I haven’t called her yet. Listen, Liz, give me half an hour and I will phone you back. But remember one thing. You were the most important person in Martin’s life.’

‘It’s kind of you to say that, Isabelle.’ She was doing her very best not to sob but her eyes filled with tears.

‘I’m not just saying it to be kind – he told me often enough.’

It was long after midnight when Isabelle called again. In the intervening time Liz had got up and made coffee, checked her diary for appointments the next day, rung Peggy and told her the news and that she’d be in Paris tomorrow, then asked her to tell DG about Martin. She went online and booked a ticket on the Eurostar, then put a few things in an overnight bag, just in case. Finally, having run out of diversions, she collapsed in an armchair in her sitting room. She sat still for several minutes, slowly composing herself. She didn’t actually want to think any more about Martin just now – it was too painful. But quite unbidden, the memory of their last meeting came back to her, and she thought of his words – Because I love you very much, Miss Liz Carlyle. And suddenly she started to cry, then cried and cried until she could cry no more.

When her tears were utterly exhausted, she got up and went to the bathroom and washed her face. As she dried it the phone rang.

It was Isabelle again. ‘I have reached Mimi and ­Claudette, Liz.’

‘I hope they are all right.’ She had little sense of ­Claudette. Early on in their relationship it had been clear that Martin didn’t want to talk about his ex in any detail, something that Liz had always been grateful for, since it meant there were no shadows hanging over them.

‘Well, Claudette was shocked, of course. I don’t know if you ever met her.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘She likes to control things in her life, Liz, so the unexpected tends to throw her at first, then she reasserts control, if you understand.’

‘Yes,’ said Liz, but she wasn’t sure what Isabelle was getting at.

‘At first she decided there must be a funeral right away. I explained that couldn’t happen. Because of the circumstances there will have to be a post-mortem and there may be an inquiry, though it will be secret of course. Everything is being done to make sure there is no publicity – at present anyway – as we don’t want to alert Zara and his friends. And I told Claudette you should be consulted.’

‘Thank you,’ Liz said mechanically. She didn’t really feel able to cope with all this at present.

‘She didn’t like that – not because it was you, Liz; she has no axe to grind, but because she always wants to decide everything herself. But she did say she would be happy to have you attend the service.’

‘That’s big of her,’ said Liz. Then she took a deep breath and forced herself to focus. ‘I don’t think there’s much family, Isabelle. Martin’s parents are both dead and he was an only child. My real concern is what Mimi wants. It’s her wishes we should follow here.’

Liz had only met the girl once. Martin’s relations with his daughter had been strained after the divorce; living with her mother, Mimi had not surprisingly sided with her in what had been an angry parental split. But since coming to Paris to attend the Sorbonne, she had begun to see her father regularly, and relations had improved immeasurably. When Liz had met her, not in Martin’s flat but on the neutral ground of a café, conversation had been polite but strained at first.

Then Martin had excused himself to make a phone call and Liz had admired Mimi’s new pair of boots, and suddenly they had begun to talk freely about all sorts of things – clothes, films, and why they hated cigarette smoke and were glad Martin had given up, and whether Paris was rainier than London – and their conversation was so spontaneous and friendly that when Martin had come back from making his call, he felt (as he said affectionately to Liz later that evening) that he was almost surplus to requirements.

Now Isabelle said, ‘Actually, I have just come off the phone to Mimi – that’s why I am so late ringing you again. Her mother broke the news to her, and of course she is distraught. I’d given Claudette my number and Mimi must have got it from her. At first, she wanted all the details of her father’s death. To tell you the truth, I ducked that, Liz. I hope you think that was the right thing to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Liz, thinking that she didn’t know the details either. She hadn’t been listening when Isabelle was telling her what had happened. ‘She’ll learn all about it in due course,’ she said, thinking, So will I.

‘She wanted to make sure you’d been told, but she didn’t have your number. I think she was relieved to learn that I’d already been in touch. She said she hoped you would come over right away. She’ll take this very hard but I’m sure your presence here would be a great comfort.’

‘I will,’ said Liz. ‘I’ll be on the Eurostar that gets in at quarter past ten. But I don’t really know Mimi at all.’

‘I’ll send a car to meet you and take you to the flat. Right now you are the one link to her father. She said that the last time she saw Martin he told her he hoped to marry you. He told her everyone has a true love in their life but not everyone is lucky enough to find them. He said he was one of the lucky ones.’