Véronique and Simone stood to one side until Gilles beckoned them to him. He introduced the teenage boy to them, who fearfully met their gaze as he trembled from head to toe.
Gilles held the boy’s uninjured arm to support him and said, “This is Abdalla. He is from Cameroon and speaks some French and a little English. He’s a migrant who has survived a terrible journey. His papers were lost when the boat in which he was being transported capsized. He’s terrified we are going to turn him over to the police and they will send him back. He tells me he has relatives in France; if that is so, he might be able to stay. But he lost their information along with his other papers. I want to help him. What do you say?”
Véronique pointed to his injured arm. “Should he see a doctor, too?”
The young man shook his head vehemently. They could see how this idea traumatized him.
After talking amongst themselves, Simone said, “Let’s go to my place and wait for Kat and Philippe to return.”
Abdalla spoke quietly to Gilles, who turned and said, “He says there is a box in the cave he needs to get. That’s all he has. I will go back in—it’s easier for me. He’s very weak.”
Véronique walked to the rear of her car. “I have one of those emergency bags, and it has a blanket.” She popped the trunk as Gilles led the boy to the back seat and helped him in, speaking firmly at the same time. Then Gilles turned back to the rocks.
Véronique took the silver mylar from its thin envelope and placed it over Abdalla’s shoulders, pulling it down to cover right to his feet. He murmured, “Merci,” as his shivering continued.
“More from fear than anything else, je t’assure,” Simone whispered to Véronique.
The women stood by the open car door and offered quiet reassurances to Abdalla, who would not meet their gaze. Startled by a loud clunk, they turned to see that Gilles had lifted a metal container the size of a wine case from the opening in the rocks.
He hoisted himself back out, brushing away bits of branches stuck to him. “It’s not too heavy,” he told them.
An hour later, Katherine and Philippe arrived back at Simone’s. Their faces mirrored a mix of concern and relief.
Simone was now looking her composed and put-together self. Along with Véronique and Gilles, she was sipping a glass of wine and offered some to Kat and Philippe.
Coco was curled up asleep in a basket of cushions.
“Rocco is not out of the woods yet,” Kat reported, taking a long sip from her glass. “Merci, Simone. They are doing surgery to open the wound on his leg, clean it out and stitch it up. He has a fever from infection … and—” Kat’s voice broke and she struggled for control.
Philippe took over the story, “And he is extremely weak. However, the vet feels Rocco ultimately will recover. He says this young man saved his life by using the most basic methods. We owe him our thanks.”
He looked over at Abdalla, who was now sound asleep on the sofa, wrapped in Simone’s cashmere throws.
Véronique said, “We sent him to take a shower. Gilles called Didier, who brought over some old work shirts and jeans. The poor kid is swimming in them, but he is clean. He did not want to lie down, but when we insisted he was asleep within minutes.”
Simone’s brow was furrowed, and her voice concerned. “We have heard quite a story while you were gone. This will hopefully be a happy ending for Rocco—and for Abdalla. We must try to do something for this young man.”
Véronique’s voice was solemn. “Mon Dieu! He has told us of his entire journey, and I agree he deserves our help.”
Kat and Philippe looked to Gilles for his reaction, and he quietly shared what they had learned. “Abdalla seems to be around seventeen or eighteen. His father is a farmer, and Abdalla helped on the farm since he was a small child, even while attending school at the same time. He speaks French quite well, along with a smattering of English. When the military came into their village and began shooting for no reason, his family sent him off with their blessing to find a better life. He left with his best friend. They made their way through the jungle and across Chad, crossing the Sahara jammed in the back of a pickup truck with twenty-some other men. Reached Libya. Then they paid an atrocious amount to take a boat to Italy.”
An air of sadness hung over them, in spite of their relief that Rocco had been found. This story was hard to process.
Gilles continued, “As we hear so often, the boat capsized. Abdalla was picked up by the Italian Navy but he lost all of his documents, shoes—everything.”
“And his friend?” Kat asked.
“Never seen again. Abdalla hopes he survived somehow.” Véronique filled in for Gilles. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Even though we read about these stories, it is simply heartbreaking to hear it firsthand. The poor kid walked all the way through Italy to Vintimille and stayed in the camp there for a few months trying to contact his family.”
“Sans succés,” Gilles said.
“Yes, no luck at all. He doesn’t know if his family is still alive or if they know what happened to him. When he lost his papers, he also lost the information about relatives in France,” Simone told them. “The authorities were about to send him and a large group of other Africans back to Libya, so he snuck away and swam along the coast to France.
“Some French-Algerian fishermen picked him up and brought him to Antibes. They felt sorry for him and understood what he had been through. He worked for them and they fed him, but he wanted off the boat.”
“But how did he find this cave? How did he come to have Rocco?” Kat asked.
Gilles took up the story again. “Trying to find a hiding place, he found the cave by sheer accident. He thought he would climb up, hide in our woods, and rest. Then he discovered the opening in the rocks when his foot slipped in the crevice. Surprisingly, it led to a small cave deep within. He planned to stay just for a few days. Someone had told him to try to get to Marseilles. He went out that first night and scavenged from the cans outside restaurants. Then the next day, Rocco fell through a hole on your property leading into the roof of the cave.”
“What? Where?” Kat and Philippe were surprised they had not noticed it in all the searching they had done.
Véronique shook her head. “Rocco gashed his leg on a sharp rock edge and lost a lot of blood. There is a smaller wound on his head. He actually was stuck partway down, and Abdalla cut his arm helping him get unstuck. He knows a lot about animals and about treating illness and injury with plants from his family’s farm. He’s resourceful. He would slip out at night to find food in trash cans and got a container for Rocco’s water. Sometimes he found edibles in nearby potagers like Simone’s.”
“Bien sûr, some late potatoes and turnips. He stole my sheet, too!” Simone said. Then her voice softened. “Now that I know why it was taken, I’m glad I could help in some way.”
“I’m sure we will find out more in the next few days,” Véronique speculated.
“Alors, que devrions-nous faire?” Gilles asked. “What are we going to do?”
“Let’s not do anything for now. We will come up with a plan tomorrow,” Philippe said, after quickly conferring with Kat. “We’re not going to call Mercier yet, en tout cas.”
“And what about that box? If he lost everything, where did that box come from? Did he explain that?” Kat asked.
“He claimed he found it when he was diving in the sea early the other morning, trying to catch a fish,” Simone explained. “He was pretty sure it would fit in the crevice and thought he could use it as a small table. It appears to be sealed all around and is not very heavy.”
Philippe mentioned to Gilles that he had noticed no markings on it. “Let’s have a look at it again.”
They got up and went into the front foyer. Philippe brought the box into the kitchen and put it on the island. There did not appear to be any way of opening it.
Simone examined it suspiciously and suddenly was very interested. Her voice was authoritative as she said, “We should call Thibideau about the box right this minute.”
“What’s he got to do with this?” the others all asked at once.
“Croyez-moi,” Simone murmured, her eyes wide with disbelief, “he needs to see this. It’s only five o’clock. Philippe, please call him. Do you want his number?”
Everyone looked at Simone with wonder.
Kat was puzzled. She and Philippe exchanged looks that asked, How and why does she have Thibideau’s phone number?
Kat made a mental note to get to the bottom of that. Her suspicions still lingered from that business with the drug cartel the previous year.
Philippe placed the call. He explained they were at the home of Madame Garnier and in possession of a strange metal box that had been found in the cove across from their properties. At Thibideau’s request, he took a photo of the box and messaged it to him immediately.
Calm and cool as always, Philippe thought, as the commissaire said he would be there within the hour.