Exocet - Jack Higgins [48]
'I believe they do.'
There was laughter in his eyes and the mouth was touched by that inimitable smile she knew so well. 'I'd say that more than anything else at this particular moment you could do with a nice hot bath.'
She smiled. 'My car is at the stables.'
'Then what are we waiting for?'
They went up the slope together, his arm around her, the horse trailing behind them.
* * *
After they'd gone, Tony Villiers and Harvey Jackson moved out of the trees and approached the two assailants. The bearded man was on his feet, clutching his arm, his face twisted with pain. The boy was being sick again.
'I told you to frighten her a little, that's all,' Villiers said, 'but you tried to be clever. Anything you got, you asked for.'
Jackson took several bank notes from his wallet and stuffed them into the bearded man's shirt pocket. 'Five thousand francs.'
'Not enough,' the man said. 'He's broken my arm.'
'That's your hard luck,' Jackson told him in his bad French.
Villiers was angry, face dark, remembering her struggling in their hands and part of that anger was directed at himself for being responsible.
'We could always break your other arm for you,' he said in a low, dangerous voice.
The bearded man swung up an arm defensively. 'No, that's it! Enough!'
He turned to the boy, grabbed him by the shoulder with his good hand and they staggered away.
'Sodding amateurs,' Jackson said. 'We should have known,' but Villiers had already turned away and was walking up the slope towards the road, very fast, head down.
* * *
The apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo was large and airy, high ceilings, tall windows. The furnishings were simple, but striking, the palest of green curtains, soft and restful, a couple of impressionist paintings a vivid splash of colour against white walls.
Montera sat at one end of an enormous green marble bath sunk into the floor and she came in from the kitchen, naked, with two china mugs of tea on a tray. She handed him one, stepped in the other end of the bath and sat down.
'To us,' he said, toasting her.
'To us.'
And for the moment, she was still able to forget the dreadful situation she was in, was able to think only of the present moment and of the fact that they were together.
He leaned back in the warm water and drank a little tea. 'Haven't we done this before somewhere?'
She frowned, running a finger down an ugly half-healed scar six or seven inches long below his right shoulder.
'What happened?'
'Cannon shell splinter. I was lucky that day.'
Once again, she had to simulate ignorance. 'You mean you've been flying? Flying down there in the Falklands?'
'Malvinas.' He grinned. 'Always remember that. But yes, I flew a Skyhawk fighter-bomber named Gabrielle. Featured prominently on television news several times a day.'
'You're joking.'
'Painted right across the nose of my plane beneath the cockpit, I assure you. You've been to San Carlos Water and back many times, my love.'
Suddenly she remembered the incident in the television department at Harrods, the sound of the commentator's voice, the planes coming in low over San Carlos Water, the missile exploding the Skyhawk and the people listening who had clapped.
'Yes,' he went on wryly. 'Who would have thought I'd become a television star at my time of life.'
She was genuinely angry. 'At your age, flying a jet plane in action. I never heard of anything so ridiculous.' She touched his face. 'Was it really that bad, Raul?'
'I have been to hell and back many times now,' he said. 'Seen young boys blown out of the sky around me and for what?' His eyes were haunted, full of pain. 'When I left Rio Gallegos, we'd lost approximately half our pilots. Down the drain, Gabrielle. All down the drain. Such waste.'
She responded to his pain instinctively. 'Tell me about it, Raul. Make me feel it. Get rid of it, my love. Get rid of it.'
She reached for his hands and he gripped them tightly as they sat facing each other. 'Remember that uncle of mine, the bullfighter?'
'Yes.'