The data recovery process on the SD card had been running all night — she’d had enough foresight to plug the laptop in before she went to sleep — and was eighty per cent finished at six-thirty in the morning, when Bridge was woken by Izzy and Steph making cakes again. In the bathroom, visions of Syria drifted behind the mirror as she cleaned her teeth with Izzy’s brush. The sight of Adrian’s blood, his nightmarish head in the jeep’s passenger seat…it was just dream logic, they weren’t real memories, they meant nothing. And yet.
She took a scalding hot shower to distract herself, and move the thoughts to a dark corner of her mind. Dr Nayar would frown at that, but she didn’t have time to process this stuff right now. If past experience was anything to go by, they’d stop bothering her in a few hours. As she entered the kitchen they were already little more than phantoms, tenacious but insubstantial.
“Are you coming with us to the patisseries, Auntie Bridge?”
Steph’s question pulled Bridge from her thoughts, but before she could respond, Izzy cut in.
“Actually, sweetheart, I think this morning it’ll just be Maman and Auntie Bridge by ourselves. We need to talk about grown-up stuff.”
Steph was devastated. Bridge thought she might burst into tears at any moment. “But I’m four. I can talk about grown-up things.”
Bridge didn’t know what her sister was up to, but playing along was the surest way to earn some brownie points. She smiled sympathetically at her niece. “We’ll talk about more grown-up things with you when we get back,” she said, “but Maman and I have to talk about things for sisters. When you and Hugo are older, you’ll talk about brother and sister things.”
“But! But!”
“Auntie Bridge is right, Stéphanie,” said Izzy, packing the last of the cakes into their paper bags. “We’ll bring you back some pastries, OK? Then we can all have brunch together. You like brunch, don’t you?”
The look on Steph’s face suggested at that moment she didn’t like anything at all, not even breathing or existing. She slid off the stool without a word, head hung and shoulders slumped, every step out of the kitchen a leaden thump on the floor. Bridge pulled a face and turned to Izzy, but her sister shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Ten minutes with Fred and she’ll have forgotten this entire conversation. Come on, let’s go.”
They drove for several minutes in a silence that Bridge didn’t want to break, not knowing exactly why Izzy wanted to get her alone, and her sister didn’t appear to be in a hurry either. Then Izzy finally spoke, and Bridge realised it wasn’t nonchalance. Her sister was anxious, steeling herself to ask a difficult question.
“Why are you really here, Bridge? What the hell is going on with you?”
“I —”
“And please don’t give me that rubbish about office politics. Credit me with some intelligence.”
Bridge was torn. She’d always hated lying to Izzy about her work, but the rules were clear. She spoke slowly. “I’m not sure what I can say that’ll satisfy you.”
Izzy yanked the steering wheel and pulled the car to the side of the road, stepping on the brakes to bring them to a halt. “Satisfy? To hell with satisfy, tell me the bloody truth. First you just happen to be working two hours up the road from where I’m on holiday…”
“I swear, that is pure coincidence.”
“Shut up. And then you turn up again less than a week later, dressed like a bloody burglar, with no luggage or even a toothbrush — and don’t think I hadn’t noticed the bruises on your arms, by the way — and you want to, what, lie low for a few days? So either you’re some kind of international art thief, or some bastard work boyfriend is knocking you around, or maybe both, or whatever. Tell me, for heaven’s sake!” Izzy was shaking, breathing hard, and Bridge realised her sister was more anxious about this conversation than she was. A memory slid into the front of her mind. They were teenagers, and Izzy had begun stepping out with grown men, guys in their twenties who seemed impossibly mature to young Bridge. She remembered Izzy in tears, pulling down the hem of her sleeve, thinking Bridge hadn’t seen the bruises. Perhaps hoping more than thinking.
As tears welled up in Izzy’s eyes, another memory leapt unbidden into Bridge’s mind: the night their mother shouted herself hoarse, swearing at the same young man when he rolled up drunk after Izzy broke up with him. Izzy had sat at the top of the stairs, quietly crying, while Bridge peered out from behind her bedroom door.
Neither of them had ever spoken about it. And now, Bridge realised, Izzy was worried she’d got herself into the same situation, but like her sister before her she couldn’t face talking about it. She leaned over to stroke Izzy’s hair, and smiled in sympathy. “It’s not that, Izz, honestly it’s not. You know me, if some bloke tried that I’d kickbox his arse until he only wished Mum was throwing plates at him.”
Izzy snorted with laughter through her tears, remembering that same night. “You promise me, OK? You promise you’d tell me?”
“I promise. It’s not that.”
“Then what, Bridge? What’s going on?”
She’d backed herself into a corner by not lying. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie about that, especially not to Izzy. She was so tired of lying. “I work for —” She choked on the words, cleared her throat, tried again. “I work for the government.”
“I know you do,” said Izzy.
“No, you don’t. I’m not at the DTI. I’m not a junior civil servant. I work at…” She struggled to say it. It felt absurd, now more than ever, to say out loud: I’m a spy. How could anyone say it with a straight face? It was impossible. She tried to imagine how Giles might phrase it, using political language to disclose the minimum amount of necessary truth, but not a shred more. “I’m a technical analyst,” she said slowly. “You know I’ve always been the big nerd, right? And now I monitor computer hackers all over the world.”
“You monitor hackers all over the world. For the British Government.”
“Really, I just sit at a desk in front of a computer all day. It’s dead boring.”
“But you’re supposed to keep it a secret, and tell everyone you’re a secretary.”
“Well, not really a secretary…?”
“And now you’re working here in France.”
“It’s just a one-off, honestly.”
“Bridge, are you a spy?”
She tried to reply, hesitated, tried again, got as far as “Um,” tried another tack but only made it to “Well,” and then gave up.
Izzy rescued her. “That’s why you had a different name on your laptop, wasn’t it? IT department joke, my arse. Oh my God, are you on the run? We should call the police.”
“No,” Bridge shouted, and regretted it immediately. She lowered her voice. “I just need somewhere to crash for a couple of days while I figure out my next move. I can’t trust the police.”
“What the hell do you mean, you can’t trust the police? They’re the police. That’s who you call.”
Bridge shrugged. “Not me. Officially, they don’t know I’m here. And they might be involved.”
“Involved in what?” Izzy was leaning forward, now, wide-eyed and excited, and Bridge knew she’d said too much.
“I really can’t say. This isn’t a movie, Izz. My chewing gum doesn’t explode, my watch doesn’t shoot poison darts, I haven’t got jets in my boots; none of that. I’m just a computer nerd, same as always.”
Izzy snorted, and put the car into gear. “Computer nerds don’t get into fights and go on the run,” she said as she pulled back onto the road. “But don’t worry, ma soeur, your secret’s safe with me.” Bridge wondered about that. Besides, the way this mission had gone, she was far from confident she had a job to return to in London anyway. Maybe that was for the best. “Oh, shit,” said Izzy, “do you know how to fire a gun? Have you got one?”
A horrible image flashed into Bridge’s mind, of Stéphanie finding the SIG Sauer SP2022 in her car back at the farm. But the car was locked, and the gun was hidden in the glove compartment. Nobody would stumble across it. There was no need to worry.
Worrying about Novak, though, was a different matter. Bridge declined to talk about guns, and Izzy appeared satisfied with the rest of Bridge’s explanation, so that was that. They went around the town, stopping off at patisseries to deliver a box here, a bag there. But Bridge, though she smiled and gave pleasantries, was preoccupied the whole time. She peered round every corner, looked down every narrow street, watched every passing car, alert for signs of danger. Izzy either didn’t notice, or was polite enough not to comment out loud, and Bridge was grateful for that. She didn’t relish the prospect of telling her sister about the big Russian spy who tried to kill her yesterday, and would certainly finish the job given the chance.
But anonymity was her best advantage. True, she’d given the gendarme her sister’s married name, but ‘Baudin’ was hardly rare. She’d also lied and told him she lived north of Agenbeux. Finally, the gendarme hadn’t recognised her, or questioned her as if she was a suspect. The chances were slim that he’d remember her, let alone mention her to Novak. And yet… Much as she tried to convince herself nobody would find her here, the possibility nagged at her, floating at the back of her mind, refusing to sink below the surface.
They reached the final patisserie a little before eight. As usual, Bridge hung behind Izzy, casually glancing around, checking they weren’t being watched or followed. She smiled and said ‘bonjour’ to the owner, who asked where petite Stéphanie was. Izzy said she was under the weather, but had still helped make the cakes that morning, and pointed out one particular batch with iced topping that Steph baked all by herself. The owner hoped the girl would feel better soon, cooed appreciatively at the cakes, and asked for a stash of Izzy’s printed paper bags. She only had a couple in hand, so she turned back to Bridge and said, “Can you get me a half dozen more bags from the car? They’re on the back seat.”
“Sure,” said Bridge, taking the keys and stepping out onto the street. She quickly scanned the area, a habit she’d internalised over the course of the morning, but saw nothing. The bags were where Izzy had said, in the car. Bridge removed a stack, locked the car, and returned to the shop. She’d brought too many, so Izzy counted off six, then handed the rest back to Bridge while the owner paid her.
As they drove away, Bridge said, “It can’t earn you much, doing this. After what you must spend on ingredients and fuel, are you even turning a profit?”
Izzy shrugged. “A bit, but that’s not the point. Steph loves doing it, and I think it’s good for her to understand how the world works. That’s why she normally comes with me to the shops, to see the money changing hands; a bit of haggling, you know.”
“Izz, she’s four years old.”
“Exactly. What were we doing at four? Climbing trees, poking worms with sticks and getting bloody knees.”
Bridge frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Look, I know you think I spoil her, and I’m not stupid. She can be a right little madame at times. But I just want better for her. I want her to be smarter than us, to learn her way around the world a bit faster.” Bridge didn’t reply. Izzy glanced over, to see Bridge staring at the spare paper bags in her lap. “Bridge, are you listening?”
Bridge exhaled through her nose in frustration, then whispered, “For fuck’s sake.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not you. Me, my life, my fuck-ups.” Bridge spoke slowly, carefully. “Izz, I think it would be a good idea for the four of you to go on a family road trip. Maybe drive down to see Mum.” Bridge spoke slowly, carefully, not taking her eyes from the paper bags in her lap.
“What are you talking about? Bridge, what’s wrong?”
Bridge realised that what she’d been feeling all morning wasn’t just anxiety that Novak might track her down and try to kill her. It was that he’d come, and she wouldn’t be ready. That she would freeze up, instinctively try to escape, try to run away and hide all over again. It had never been much of a workable option, but now it was impossible. Now she’d put her sister’s family in danger, just by coming here. Délices de la Ferme Baudin, Côte-d’Or, the printed label on every bag. Just like the one she’d brought back from her first visit. The one she’d left in the guest house.
A wave of emotion passed over Bridge, exhaustion mixed with the terror of knowing her family was in danger. And not only was it her fault, but only she could put it right. She was sick and tired of running away.
She turned to Izzy. “When we get back, I need you to get everyone together and pack the car while I scout your land.”
“Scout? What does that mean? Scouting for what?”
“Vantage points.”