Death at the Clos du Lac

CHAPTER FIVE

The air along Avenue de Friedland felt cool and fresh after the warm, perfumed atmosphere of the exclusive Salon Elizabeth, and their first client of the day brushed a stray hair from her face and walked east towards Boulevard Haussmann. Her thoughts were on shopping, and meeting her husband for an early lunch. He had been tied up for several days in business negotiations, and she wanted to make sure that he took a break from work and relaxed, if only for an hour or two. Success, as she knew well, was too expensive if bought at the expense of one’s health.

She caught a glance of her reflection in a window, pleased with the magic worked on her hair by Marcel, the Elizabeth’s chief stylist. She hoped her husband would approve, and gave a wry smile before moving on.

She came to a narrow street between elegant apartment buildings. A block of shadow was cast over the pavement and she shivered momentarily, glancing back to check before crossing, eager to be back in the sun. As she did so, a grey furniture van signalled and pulled alongside her, the driver holding up a clipboard and smiling.

She stopped. Another out-of-towner lost in the maze of city streets. It happened all the time and she sympathised. She waited for the driver to wind down his window. But instead of looking at her, he was now glancing up and down the street, frowning in concentration. Something touched her consciousness, that tiny part of the human instinct warning of imminent danger, and she heard the metal ping of a door opening, and the scrape of feet on tarmac. A movement to one side caught her attention, and a tall figure stepped out from behind the van.

‘What are—?’ Her words were choked off by an arm whipping across her throat. She felt herself lifted by another powerful arm around her waist, and a smell of male body odour filled the air around her. Then she was out of the sunshine and in the dusty, close interior of the van, and being thrust face down onto a mattress lying on the floor.

The van began moving.

‘Lie still. Don’t shout,’ whispered the man holding her, his breathing hot in her ear. He smelt of onions and cigarette smoke, and she felt the smooth texture of a leather jacket against the skin of her neck. ‘Be good and you’ll live to see your fancy salon another day. Give us trouble and … well, you wouldn’t want Robert to have to attend your funeral, would you?’

She lay still and was quickly bound with lengths of fabric tape, which she recognised as the sort used by furniture delivery men to lash goods to the sides of their vans. Then a soft cotton hood was drawn over her head. She realised that she still hadn’t seen her captor’s face.

‘I can’t breathe!’ she cried, and shook her head violently as a rush of claustrophobia overtook her. ‘You’re making a mistake!’ Then she recalled that the man had mentioned her husband’s name. This was no error. With it came the cold chill of knowledge that the one thing Robert had feared, but that she had never truly believed possible, had finally happened: she was being kidnapped.

Her instinct was to fight. She had played a part in the Resistance during the war, mostly as a messenger and a carrier of weapons, sometimes ammunition and supplies. Young women were able to move about much more easily than men, although the risks had still been great. But the experience of battling the constant dread surrounding her back then had given her courage beyond her understanding, and the idea of being taken by the Germans had instilled in her and her colleagues the certain knowledge that to submit was to die. It was that early experience that she called on now.

She drummed her heels on the floor of the van, then lashed out with a kick, hoping to connect with the man who had torn her away from her freedom out there on Avenue de Friedland. The mattress absorbed all of her attempts to draw attention from outside, and her kicks were fended off with ease before her ankles were caught and held in a powerful grip.

‘Enough,’ said the man, as if he were chiding a troublesome child. ‘You’re wasting your time. Nobody will hear you from in here.’ Seconds later, she felt the same fabric tape being used to tie her legs together, and she became immobile, waiting to see what would happen next.

Her breath was coming in short gasps as the van’s movement began to rock her back and forth on the mattress. It absorbed some of the bumps, but she could feel the ribbed aluminium floor underneath and picture the road speeding past below. They had already made several sharp turns, but she soon lost all sense of direction or speed, and gave up trying. Instead, she focused on listening to sounds, hoping for something to indicate where they were. But soon that became a blend of noises and she gave that up, too. She could hear other traffic outside, but it was muted as if through cotton wool, and she guessed they had taken precautions to reduce any chances that she might call for help and attract attention.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded. Engage him in conversation, she told herself. To communicate is to lower barriers, according to her husband, a practised and very successful negotiator. But there was no reply. Whoever her captor was, he either did not believe in unnecessary talk or had learnt the same lesson about communication.

She forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply, trying to regain a sense of calm, in spite of her fears. There was no point in becoming stressed to the point of exhaustion, and this entire episode had taken place with no shouts of alarm on the street, and with such ease that it spoke of practised skill. It was probable, therefore, that it had all gone unseen, with nobody the wiser that a woman had been snatched off the street and was now being carried who knew where by men who would no doubt soon make their demands clear.

She put her face down and continued breathing. Robert would soon have her freed, she was certain of that. For now, though, she had to survive.