He woke from a deep sleep as light poured in from the open cabin door.
‘Sorry, Fred,’ came Simone’s whisper, as the cabin returned to blackness. ‘Those two are in my cabin. Do you mind?’
‘No,’ said de Payns, drifting back to sleep as Simone settled into the bottom bunk.
De Payns dozed, his vague concerns about Romy and the Tirol Council gnawing at his mind. He’d been facetious with Romy about loving surprises; he actually hated them for the simple reason that in his social world—his life zone—he needed a good idea of who he was speaking to before he spoke to them. It wasn’t controlling or manipulative, as Romy had once accused him: it was an essential filter through which he decided who received which level of candour and allowed him to curate conversations away from anything revealing. Springing a surprise on him such as the opening night of a Tirol Council conference was not his worst nightmare, but it was close. He knew he’d embarrassed Romy by making jokes about Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, and getting Ana to laugh. But such deflections were natural reactions. What was he supposed to say? Don’t ambush me with openly political cocktail parties because they are the events that people like me frequent in order to get people drunk and talking. And he shouldn’t have been snide about this colleague of hers, David; it was beneath him. But perhaps he’d have to remind her to be careful when playing the jealousy game, because jealousy might be exactly what you get.
He wondered about his increasing paranoia. The two people whose opinions he respected more than any others, Romy and Briffaut, had both asked him to see somebody about his condition. His natural reaction was to resist, but he wondered if it could be all that bad …
He was deep in sleep when the lights came on and he was hurled by his t-shirt onto the floor. Stunned and winded, he moved cautiously on the carpet, aware of two sets of black tactical boots near his face.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Simone, hand over her eyes at the blast of light.
‘You’re in the wrong cabin,’ said Ahmed. ‘Where’s the waiter, the earring guy?’
Simone dragged herself out of the bunk, tugging her t-shirt down over her panties. ‘He’s in my bunk.’
‘Get him,’ said Ahmed to his sidekick. ‘Frenchie, you stand there,’ he said to de Payns.
De Payns, wearing nothing but his underwear and t-shirt, backed up against the bulkhead as Simone left the cabin. Ahmed opened the shuttered wardrobe where Jacques and de Payns stored their bags. ‘Which one is yours?’
Squinting against the light, de Payns pointed to the black Lacoste sports bag. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Who said I was looking for something?’ asked Ahmed, positioning his body so de Payns had no path to his handgun. ‘And who said you could speak?’
De Payns nodded as Jacques was led into the cabin, rubbing his eyes and holding a shirt against his groin for modesty. ‘What the fuck?’ he exclaimed, and the sidekick punched him in the kidneys from behind with a savage right hook, bringing Jacques to his knees, gasping for breath.
‘In through the nose, out though the mouth,’ de Payns advised.
‘Shut it,’ Ahmed told him, finger in de Payns’ face, before addressing Jacques. ‘You swear at me again and you’re over the rail, got it?’
Jacques gulped and nodded, his face in a wince.
‘Now we’re all here, let’s see what you’ve brought onboard,’ said Ahmed.
‘It’s not mine,’ gasped Jacques. ‘This dude on the train asked me to hold it for his wife, and I—’
‘What are you talking about?’ Ahmed demanded.
‘The cocaine,’ whispered Jacques, still clutching his side. ‘It’s not what it looks like.’
‘What does it look like?’
Jacques grimaced. ‘There’s quite a bit there, but I’m not a dealer or anything …’
‘Shut up,’ said Ahmed. ‘I don’t care about your drugs.’ He picked up de Payns’ Lacoste bag and turned it over, watching the contents fall to the carpet, then he threw the empty bag to his sidekick, who searched it.
‘Open that,’ said Ahmed, pointing at de Payns’ toiletry bag.
De Payns collected the bag from the carpet and showed Ahmed the toothpaste, shaving gear and a stick of Brut 33 deodorant.
‘No condoms,’ said Ahmed, enjoying himself. ‘Not a gay, are you, Frenchie?’
‘Only my right hand,’ said de Payns, and the two Syrians laughed.
‘You’re a funny guy,’ said Ahmed, smiling but trying to be serious. ‘What are these?’ he asked, kicking three aluminium cigar tubes at de Payns. ‘You have cigars?’
‘No,’ said de Payns, picking up the tubes carefully. He opened one and tapped out a cigarette. ‘My smokes.’
‘Why are they in a cigar tube?’ asked Ahmed, gesturing to see one.
‘On a yacht I have to smoke outside, and I want to keep my smokes dry. I hate damp cigarettes.’
Ahmed made a face as he unscrewed a lid and confirmed they were cigarettes. ‘Show me the camera.’
De Payns picked up the shiny waterproof Olympus from a pile of clothes and switched it on, handed it to Ahmed, who scrolled through the pictures. They were all of beaches on the Cote d’Azur and walking trails in the hills behind. There were several of the double carousel in Nice.
‘No pictures of Azzam?’ asked Ahmed. ‘Why not?’
De Payns shrugged, more nervous the longer the chat went on. He’d suspected there was going to be a spy hunt, but that didn’t make it any easier when the trap started to close. ‘You think I should?’
‘Everyone gets a shot of themselves on this yacht,’ said Ahmed, eyes boring into him. ‘But you have pictures of wooden horses and a tree?’
Before de Payns could answer, Ahmed was distracted by a black USB key he’d spotted in the clothes pile. ‘What’s that?’
De Payns bent over and picked it up. ‘It’s a hard drive—you know, with pictures, music, backups.’
Ahmed nodded, took it from him and handed it to the sidekick, who left the room. ‘Where’s your phone?’
De Payns reached under his pillow and brought out Frédéric Ruesche’s phone. He keyed in the password and handed it over.
Ahmed went through it expertly, like de Payns would go through a phone.
‘These are pictures of your workmates in Paris?’ asked Ahmed, flicking through galleries of people at parties and in restaurants listed in his legend. He stopped on the picture of a girl in a bikini at the beach. ‘She your girlfriend?’ he said, showing the photo to de Payns.
‘No,’ said de Payns. ‘Just a friend.’
‘You are definitely a gay,’ said Ahmed, shaking his head. ‘No real man can be just friends with a girl like that.’
Ahmed handed back the camera and the sidekick came back to the cabin with a laptop, with de Payns’ hard drive plugged in. Ahmed sat on the lower bunk and scrolled through the data storage device.
‘Toto and the Eagles?’ said Ahmed, bemused. ‘That’s a lot.’
‘I like easy-listening music.’
‘So, you have insomnia?’ asked Ahmed, standing and handing back the hard drive. ‘That, or you’re deaf. Tidy this up.’
Ahmed opened Jacques’ blue pack and upended it on the carpet. The bag of coke and a box of condoms were evident, but so was a black plastic device that bounced free and landed beside Ahmed’s boot. Ahmed picked it up, inspected it and looked at Jacques, who was on his knees, confused.
‘What is this?’ asked Ahmed.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, then it’s lucky I can tell you what this is,’ said Ahmed, his face like stone. ‘This is a voice-activated audio recording device. It has a ten-hour battery and sticks onto surfaces like the underside of a table, or a car dashboard.’
Jacques shook his head. ‘I don’t—’
‘We’ve got our spy,’ the Syrian said, nodding at the sidekick, who bent and grabbed Jacques under the armpits.
‘Spy?’ echoed Jacques, struggling. ‘What am I spying on?’
‘So, you’re asking me the questions, now?’
‘That thing’s not mine.’
‘Just like the coke isn’t yours, right?’ replied Ahmed. ‘Remind me. Someone on a train has a wife with a recording device and just needs you to hold it? Sounds credible.’
‘I don’t spy,’ said Jacques, his face white with fear. ‘I’m a ski instructor.’
‘Don’t bother bullshitting,’ said Ahmed, as Jacques was dragged backwards. ‘You can talk to me, or you can talk to the Libyans. I’ll give you that choice, at least.’