Jim Valley was waiting for him as he reached street level of the Port-Royal RER station. Port-Royal gave de Payns about five blocks of walking before he reached his apartment, giving him space to see if he was being followed. Now Jim was here. The former soldier made a show of putting on his cap, which translated to follow me. It was 5.46 p.m., on a beautiful Paris evening. De Payns wanted to get home. But he followed Jim, who led him along an avenue of horse chestnut trees into the Jardins des Grands Explorateurs.
Jim sat at an unoccupied park bench overlooking the La fontaine de l’Observatoire and De Payns sat beside him. They both reached for cigarettes.
‘So, anything for the director?’ asked Jim, tapping his cigarette on the pack.
‘Nothing,’ said de Payns, lighting up. ‘Our friend isn’t back.’
‘Not what I heard,’ said Jim, his heavy features slightly obscured by aviator sunglasses. He wore a black, lightweight windbreaker of the type Templar wore when he was armed.
‘He’s not in the Bunker yet,’ said de Payns.
‘What are they saying about Falcon?’
‘Confused, mostly. The DO is conducting an internal investigation.’
‘Do they suspect you?’
De Payns laughed. ‘No, Jim. Not me.’
Jim lit up and waited until two high school kids had walked past before saying, ‘So?’
De Payns shrugged. ‘There’s three theories.’
Jim numbered them on his fingers. ‘One, we have a mole. Two, we fucked up. And three?’
‘Sayef Albar has a more sophisticated operation than we first suspected.’
‘That’s number two.’
De Payns looked at him. ‘These operations are not a jigsaw puzzle, Jim, with all the pieces slotting neatly into place. It’s more like juggling plates.’
‘War is shit and then you die,’ said Jim, pulling a cheap flip phone from his windbreaker pocket and sliding it to de Payns. ‘That’s démarqué. The only number you need is under Q.’
De Payns took the phone and slipped it into his jeans pocket. ‘The drop?’
‘Rue de Bretonvilliers, number one-seventy,’ said Jim. De Payns knew the street; it was on the Île Saint-Louis. ‘In the courtyard is a letterbox for the complex. You use the box for twenty-eighteen. No key, you just curl your finger under the slot and flip the latch. Think you can handle that?’
‘Got it,’ said de Payns, controlling his annoyance.
‘Drops will be on Monday or Thursday, mornings. If there’s a white gommette on the advertising poster at the corner of Quai de Béthune, we’re armed. Okay?’
De Payns nodded, still not looking at Valley.
‘And the director will want some progress, so can you give me a date that you’ll talk with our friend?’
‘Tell him within the next forty-eight hours,’ said de Payns.
And without another word Jim was on his feet, walking away.
The de Payns’ apartment was off the Avenue du Général Leclerc, a trendy but not too expensive part of the Montparnasse district. The main window of the living room opened onto a Juliet balcony that rode slightly higher than the trees. It wasn’t large enough for a chair, but de Payns liked to sit on the windowsill, feet on the balcony, looking over the treetops to the north, at the monolith of the Montparnasse Tower. The tower resembled the black slab in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Too conspicuous in the Paris context, something that ran against his instincts.
‘Could you get Patrick from karate?’ asked Romy from behind him in the kitchen. She’d been talking about her family coming to town and the graduation ceremony. He’d barely heard a word. He swallowed his mouthful of above-average Bordeaux, stubbed out his cigarette and turned back to face the room. Romy wore faded jeans and a tight tank top. Some Parisiennes were winter women, and others were summer. Romy was definitely summer.
‘And we need butter,’ she said as he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her neck. She didn’t spill a drop from the measuring jug she’d filled with milk. De Payns lingered against her shapely derriere but she batted him away, warning him not to be late for Patrick.
The streets were busy as he walked around the block to the old church hall where sensei John—a West African man in his late twenties—was finishing up with a karate class of about thirteen primary school kids. They were stretching on the mats, following the sensei’s lead. Patrick was on the far side of the group, where a pile of heavy bags and headgear was stacked, and de Payns saw that his son had noticed him but didn’t break his concentration from the teacher. He also felt eyes on him. Turning slowly, he locked gaze with an Arab woman of around forty, with no hijab and dressed like a Parisienne. She was with another group of parents but she smiled at de Payns and walked towards him.
‘Alec, I think?’ she said, as she reached him. She was confident and well spoken, with no accent. She was also very attractive. ‘You’re Patrick’s dad, right?’
‘Yes,’ said de Payns, forcing a smile.
‘My boy is Charles. He and Oliver are friends at preschool.’
De Payns recognised the tone women took with men whom they assumed knew nothing about their child’s daily life.
‘Ana,’ she said, offering her hand.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said de Payns, and they shook. ‘Is Charles in this group?’
‘No, five is the minimum age for John’s class, but Charles turns five in a couple of months. Romy said Patrick was in this class and I should come down and check it out.’
‘I don’t think I’ve met Charles yet—or maybe I know him from his surname?’ said de Payns.
‘Homsi,’ said Ana without hesitation. ‘Charles Homsi.’
It sounded Lebanese but de Payns avoided the cliché. ‘Syria?’
‘Ha!’ she said, perfect white teeth lighting up her face. ‘Well done, Alec. My husband is going to like that.’
By the time the kids had finished their stretches and were running to their parents, de Payns knew the husband’s name was Rafi and he was an engineer with a big firm in Paris, and that the Homsis also lived in the Montparnasse area, slightly north of the de Payns.
He was still thinking about Ana a while later, when the family was eating dessert. ‘I met Charles’s mother tonight,’ said de Payns, while the boys hacked at their bowls of ice cream. ‘When he turns five, he wants to do karate with sensei John.’
Oliver looked surprised. ‘But Charles already does taekwondo.’
De Payns could sense Romy glaring at him and he forced himself to tamp down his suspicions. He wasn’t going to interrogate his son.
As the moment passed, his personal Nokia phone buzzed against his leg. He glanced at it. There was a text message from ‘T’ which simply said: S is thirsty. Big Nose 2100?