The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Thirty-Eight

When they reached the railway station in Grenoble, Ben paid and generously tipped the driver with more of Rollo’s useful cash. Then he and Silvie made their way to the platforms. The only train going in the right direction was due to depart at 3.45 that afternoon. Its destination fell sixty kilometres short of theirs, terminating in Geneva. Lausanne was just a short bus trip beyond, nestled between the shores of Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps.

Ben paid cash for two tickets. Right on time, the long train rumbled and clattered up to the platform and halted with a hiss of airbrakes. They boarded the fourth carriage from the front, grabbing a pair of facing window seats with a table, and Ben stashed the heavy holdall and the green bag in the rack overhead. The train began to fill up around them. Most of the passengers were tourists, huffing and straining red-faced as they dragged their bulky cases and rucksacks down the aisle, manhandling them into the luggage racks, checking their reservations, fussing over seat numbers, arguing about who got to sit by the window, fiddling with their electronic gadgets the instant they were seated as if unable to resist the siren song of technology for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Ben saw a guard stride down the platform. Heard the old-fashioned whistle signalling that the automatic doors were about to close. Then the carriage vibrated gently underfoot as the engines powered up, he felt the familiar heave and stretch of the couplings as they took up the strain, and the train began to pull out of the station.

Silvie sat on the edge of her seat with her elbows on the table and her loose chestnut-coloured hair framing her face, gazing out of the window at the sunny white-capped mountains as they left Grenoble behind, rocking gently to the muted clatter of wheels on tracks. Ben ignored the picturesque view. He was thinking more about what they could expect to find at the end of the line.

‘Fifteen of you met up at the rendezvous before the raid,’ he said, keeping his voice low so that only she could hear him over the noise of the train. ‘Twelve in the cars, plus Streicher and his girlfriend, plus the artic driver. Correct?’

She nodded. ‘So,’ Ben said, ‘minus two dead men, Breslin and Dexter, makes thirteen. Minus you makes twelve.’

‘Streicher, Hannah Gissel and ten of the loyal,’ she said. ‘But he’s got the money to take on all the help he wants, whenever it suits him. There could be more, I can’t possibly say.’ She gave Ben a look. ‘And they’re all going to be armed to the teeth. Told you it’d be dangerous. Are you having second thoughts?’

‘I’m not worried about myself,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you.’

‘Thank you, but don’t be.’

‘Nobody’s making you do this. You’re free to get off at the next stop. Run back to DGSI. Tell Interpol you gave me the slip.’

‘Like that guy Simon would believe me.’ She smiled briefly, then looked serious again. ‘Anyway, I thought we already had this discussion.’

‘We did,’ Ben said. ‘But in my experience it’s a discussion you can’t have often enough. There are potential negative outcomes here that should be carefully considered.’

She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Meaning one of us might not make it out.’

‘Two against twelve or more. It’s a possibility. As is neither of us making it out. Either is more likely to happen than coming away with a zero casualty rate against big odds like that. So, I’m just saying. The door is open. You can get out before it’s too late, go back to your job, home, boyfriend, whatever’s back there waiting for you.’

‘I broke with him before I went undercover,’ she said. ‘He was an asshole anyway.’

Ben smiled. ‘Fair enough.’

A moment of warmth passed between them. ‘You have a nice smile,’ she said. ‘Should use it more often.’

‘When this is over,’ he said. ‘When Streicher’s in the ground. I’ll be smiling then.’

‘Then what? Do you have someone to go back to? It’s strange, I feel like I know you, but I hardly know anything about you.’

‘I did have someone. That’s all done with now.’ After he’d said it, the truth of his words hit him like a punch. It really was over. He went quiet for a moment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Ben snapped out of his reverie and looked at her. ‘What for? It’s not your fault.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘Not really.’

‘Okay, fine.’

He breathed out through his nose. ‘We were going to get married last year. It almost happened, too. But then, my life has a way of setting obstacles in my path.’

‘Doesn’t everyone’s?’ she said. ‘It’s like war. They say no strategic plan ever survives the first exchange of fire.’

‘That’s true enough,’ he said. ‘I should know.’

‘I suppose you should,’ she said. She paused, then asked, ‘So, do you have any family?’

‘My parents died a long time ago,’ he replied. ‘I have a younger sister, Ruth, and a son, Jude. He’s nearly twenty-one.’

‘Then you were married before?’

He shook his head. ‘Long, long story.’

‘What does he do, your son?’

‘He’s back in England. Sort of in between things at the moment.’

‘You say that as if you’re worried about him,’ Silvie said.

‘I do worry about him. I’m scared he might end up like me.’

‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew me better. But thanks anyway.’ Thinking about his troubles had made Ben’s mouth go dry. He reached in his pocket. Took out the bottle that Père Antoine had given him. There was still a little of the tonic left. He uncapped it and sipped some. The taste took him straight back to his time at the monastery.

‘What is that?’ Silvie asked.

‘Kind of an elixir that one of the monks gave me. It’s supposed to keep you healthy.’

‘Does it?’

‘It didn’t do him much good,’ Ben said.

‘May I?’ She took the bottle from his hand and uncapped it, sniffed and sipped. ‘Tastes metallic,’ she said.

‘I think it’s herbal,’ he said. ‘Not really sure.’

‘Whatever.’ She handed it back to him.

They lapsed into silence. The train rattled onwards, fields and the occasional village flashing by. Ben’s mind had drifted a long way by the time he left his seat half an hour later and made his way towards the buffet car, lusting after coffee. Getting as bad as Luc Simon, he thought absently as he headed towards the front of the train. They were speeding at full pelt through the French countryside, still forty-five minutes from the Swiss border. He swayed along the aisle, using the headrests of the seats on each side to steady himself.

The buffet car was three carriages to the front, a long metal counter running down the right side and a small kitchen behind, a couple of bar-style stools and a window looking out on the left side of the train. A whole different proposition from British railway catering, offering real food, coffee freshly made from actual coffee beans, and wine that wasn’t better employed for stripping paint.

Ben ordered cheese and ham baguettes and a couple of tall cups of coffee. Black for him, cream and sugar for Silvie. As he was paying, he noticed the train slow down, suddenly and quite dramatically. The sharp deceleration made him lurch and forced him to reach out to steady himself against the counter. The buffet car attendant had to do the same and muttered, ‘Whoa. Easy there, fellas,’ as items swayed and clinked on his shelves.

‘Are we coming to a station?’ Ben asked him.

The attendant shook his head. ‘No, must be something on the line. Some cows got loose on this stretch, couple of months ago. Or could be maintenance works, maybe.’

Ben got his change, picked up his tray. The coffee smelled good. The train slowed down even more, until it ground to a complete halt.

‘Weird,’ the attendant said. Ben turned and looked out of the window, craning his neck so that he could see the curvature of the train’s left flank stretching in a long tail behind. There was no sign of a station, not even of a tiny rural stop. Beyond a few metres of gravelled run-off along the edge of the tracks was a low barrier, and the other side of it a minor road curving parallel with the railway line.

Ben’s eyes narrowed and a small voice of alarm inside his head began to grow in volume as he saw the two cars.

Looked as if he wasn’t going to get to drink that coffee, after all.