The English Girl: A Novel

a bullet in his brain. René Brossard couldn’t be allowed to know that, of course, which was why Gabriel had the dead man’s phone at the ready. He watched Brossard moving swiftly along the shadowed street, attaché case in hand. Then he looked at the florid Germans, and the sandaled Scandinavians, and the mother and child who, somewhere in the darkest recesses of his memory, were still burning. It was 5:22. Eight minutes, he thought, and then the chase would be on. One mistake was all it would take. One mistake, and Madeline Hart would die. He drank more of the beer, but in his current state it tasted of wormwood. He stared at the woman and the child and watched helplessly as the flames consumed their flesh.
    A t 5:25 he rang Keller again.
    “Where is she?”
    “Still driving in circles.”
    “Maybe she’s leading you on a wild goose chase. Maybe there’s a second car.”
    “Are you always so negative?”
    “Only when a young woman’s life is at stake.”
    Keller said nothing.
    “Where is she now?”
    “If I had to guess, heading back in your direction.”
    Gabriel severed the connection and picked up the other phone. After speed-dialing Brossard’s number, he placed his thumb tightly over the microphone and brought the phone to his ear. Two rings. Then the sound of Brossard’s voice.
    “Where the fuck are you?”
    Gabriel pressed his thumb tighter against the microphone and said nothing.
    “Marcel? Is that you? Where are you?”
    Gabriel removed the phone from his ear and pressed the END button. Thirty seconds later he redialed. Once again he covered the microphone with his thumb and said nothing. Brossard picked up on the first ring.
    “Marcel? Marcel? I thought I told you no more phones. You have three minutes. Then I’m gone.”
    This time it was Brossard who rang off first. Gabriel slipped the phone into his pocket and called Keller again.
    “How did it go?” asked the Englishman.
    “He thinks Lacroix is alive and well and in a spot with bad cell service.”
    “Very bad.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “Getting close to the Place du General de Gaulle.”
    Gabriel killed the connection and checked the time. Three minutes, then Brossard would walk. He would be agitated, wary. It was possible he would notice a man following him on foot, especially if that man had been drinking lager in the Irish pub when Brossard had been at Le Provence. But if Brossard passed by the man on his way to the car, he might be less inclined to regard him with suspicion. It was one of Shamron’s golden rules of physical surveillance. Sometimes, he preached, it was better to follow a man from in front rather than from behind.
    Gabriel stared at his watch. Then, at the stroke of 5:28, he left his table at the pub and set out down the rue Espariat with his helmet beneath his arm. Le Cézanne was the last business on the right, at the point where the street emptied into the Place du General de Gaulle. Brossard was at a table outside. As Gabriel passed, he could feel the Frenchman’s eyes boring into his back, but he forced himself not to turn and look. The motorbike was where he had left it, parked next to several others beneath a plane tree that was beginning to shed its leaves. Three had come to rest on the bike’s saddle. Gabriel brushed them away. Then he climbed on board and pulled on the helmet.
    In the rearview mirror he could see Brossard rising from his table and stepping into the narrow street. A few seconds later the Frenchman passed within a few inches of Gabriel’s right shoulder. Close enough so that Gabriel could smell his cologne. Close enough that, if he were so inclined, he could have plucked the attaché case from his left hand. Earlier Brossard had carried the attaché in his right hand, but now that was not possible; he had a mobile phone in his right hand. And the phone was pressed hard against his ear.
    Gabriel started the bike’s engine as Brossard entered the esplanade at the edge of the Place du General de Gaulle, his head swiveling slowly from side to side like the turret of a tank looking for a target to engage and destroy. There were late-afternoon crowds milling about; Gabriel might have lost sight of him were it not for the attaché case, which shone like a newly minted coin in the gathering dusk. By the time Brossard reached the curb of the traffic circle, the mobile phone was back in his pocket and he was reaching for the front passenger door of a black Mercedes E-Class sedan that