The Nostradamus prophecies

11

It took him ten frenetic minutes to gather all his belongings together – passport, money, maps, clothes and credit cards. At the very last moment he rifled through the desk in case there was anything in there he might use.

He was borrowing the fl at from his English agent, John Tone, who was on holiday in the Caribbean. The car was his agent’s, too and therefore unidentifiable – its very anonymity might at least suffice to get him out of Paris. To buy him time to think.

He hastily pocketed an old British driving licence in Tone’s name and some spare euros he found in an empty film canister. No photograph on the driving licence. Might be useful. He took an electricity bill and the car papers, too.

If the police apprehended him he would simply plead ignorance – he was starting on a research trip to St-Remy-de-Provence, Nostradamus’s birthplace. He hadn’t listened to the radio or watched the TV – didn’t know the police were hunting for him.

With luck he could make it as far as the Swiss border – bluster his way through. They didn’t always check passports there. And Switzerland was still outside the European Union. If he could make it as far as the US Embassy in Bern he would be safe. If the Swiss extradited him to anywhere, it would be to the US, not to Paris.

For Sabir had heard tales about the French police from some of his journalist colleagues. Once you got into their hands, your number was up. It could take months or even years for your case to make its way through the bureaucratic nightmare of the French jurisdictional system.

He stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall he could find and left the car engine running. He’d simply have to take the chance and get some cash. He stuffed the first card through the slit and began to pray. So far so good. He’d try for a thousand euros. Then, if the second card failed him, he could at least pay the motorway tolls in untraceable cash and get himself something to eat.

Across the street, a youth in a hoodie was watching him. Christ Jesus. This was hardly the time to get mugged. And with the keys left in a brand-new Audi station wagon, with the engine running.

He pocketed the cash and tried the second card. The youth was moving towards him now, looking about him in that particular way young criminals had. Fifty metres. Thirty. Sabir punched in the numbers.

The machine ate the card. They were closing him down.

Sabir darted back towards the car. The youth had started running and was about five metres off.

Sabir threw himself inside the car and only then remembered that it was British made, with the steering wheel placed on the right. He plunged across the central divider and wasted three precious seconds searching around for the unfamiliar central locking system.

The youth had his hand on the door.

Sabir crunched the automatic shift into reverse and the car lurched backwards, throwing the teenager temporarily off balance. Sabir continued backwards up the street, one foot twisted behind him on to the passenger seat, his free hand clutching the steering wheel.

Ironically he found himself thinking not about the mugger – a definite first, in his experience – but about the fact that, thanks to his forcibly abandoned bank card, the police would now have his fingerprints and a precise location of his whereabouts, at exactly 10.42 p.m., on a clear and starlit Saturday night, in central Paris.