Chapter 21
The Front Door
On the Friday night, a hundred and four of the best-trained men in Switzerland did not come to Villa Ambrose, and Gideon Strake stood at the gates with a flask of coffee and waited for them until a quarter to five in the morning.
He had done it properly. Twenty-two men on the lake wall, fourteen on the roof, a van in every lane for a mile, dogs in the shrubbery. At midnight a mist came up off the water. At two a barn owl called. At four a man on the roof reported, in a small embarrassed voice, that he thought he'd seen a fox.
At a quarter to five he rang Lyon. A deep, warm, shaken voice told him there had been a dreadful misunderstanding. The warrant was pulled. The Federal Prosecutor had lost her nerve. The French had claimed jurisdiction over part of the lake. Idris had been furious and gone to bed. They'd try again in the middle of May.
"I'm so sorry, Gideon," said Lindqvist.
"Not at all," said Strake. "These things happen."
He stood under the cold stars looking up at the dark house. It should have pleased him. Instead he found himself thinking of an old Welshman in a hat, twenty-five years ago in Geneva, with a ring in his hand, saying to a laughing room: Now. Which of you is watching the other hand?
"Shall we stand down, sir?"
"No," said Strake slowly. "Not yet."
"My dear Gideon, you look dreadful."
At nine on Saturday morning, Conrad Aldermoor sat up in bed in a claret dressing gown, taking a boiled egg from a silver cup. On the bedside table, a smaller sister of the Geneva automaton sat with a sleeping bird on its wrist.
"I've been up all night."
"It's very good of you. But we have a long evening, and I'd hate the young man to arrive to a tired host." The faded blue eyes were serene. "I've been thinking all week about that ring in the loaf. A Welshman with a cough, so shy, so pleased to be asked. I was sorry to learn he'd died. I'd have liked to make it up to him, for the dinner. It is the reason for a table, you know. Not the money. It is so lonely to be right about everything and have no one to say it to. I'd like him to understand."
"He'll understand. By tomorrow he'll know all of it."
"And the seventh chair?"
It was said so lightly Strake nearly missed it.
"We always set it, of course. It's the tradition. Though he never comes. He's a person of great modesty. He has never once in twenty-five years left his work. I do wish tonight he might. I've never been sure the boy knows he's loved."
"The boy?" said Strake sharply.
"The young man in the hat, of course," said Aldermoor.
At four that afternoon, in a van in a vineyard above Cologny, Ravi Menon found, for the first time in his life, that he was not afraid.
Nell dealt patience on a toolbox lid. Camille laced her boots. Anselm told a story about a Vienna dentist. And on the bench in a long dark coat, shaved, in a clean high-collared shirt and black gloves, sat David, calm, looking almost like what the newspapers said.
"Twenty-three fifty," said Ravi. "Strake rings Odile at the Évian house. Nell takes it. Midnight, you cross the threshold. Oh-five, he rings again. While Nell's on the line, Anselm and Camille go in off the water through the boat-house and bring Rhia out. By oh-fifteen they're across the lake. And at oh-forty, Dr. Roth's people arrive. Not the Friday. The Saturday. They've been in the next village since six in forty-two vans, with a lot of very bored men in vests."
"Good."
"David." The thin young face was crooked and serious. "Whatever happens, I'm so glad it was you. I'd have been a security installer in a hotel for the rest of my life. I'd have been bored."
"Come here." David pulled him hard against his shoulder for a moment, saying nothing. Camille put her small hand flat on his chest.
"The elephant. Do not be clever. Be kind and be quick. That is all there is." She kissed him on both cheeks and turned away.
At five, she and Anselm drove off round the lake toward France with a boat on a trailer, and did not look back.
Idris waited at the foot of the hill by a stone wall, alone, in his raincoat. Below them through black trees the lights of Villa Ambrose streamed across the water. Cars were drawing up the drive.
"Six cars. You've a walk of eleven minutes. If you go now, you arrive on the stroke. Is there anything you'd want said to somebody?"
"I've said it all. On a great many cards."
"I thought you'd say that." Idris held out his open palm. On it lay a worn one-euro coin. "It's Amina's. I've practised four months. She says I'm nearly good. I don't know what I mean by it. For luck, or sincerity. I'm not superstitious."
David took the coin. He closed his fist slowly, in the old way, with his whole body, believing every inch of it. He turned it over and opened it. Empty. He opened the other. Empty. He held both palms out in the dark, and Idris Kamara, accountant, forty-four, felt a lump so absurd and large he couldn't speak.
"I'll give it back on Sunday."
"Daniel. I have never in my life been so afraid for anyone."
"Then you've got the idea." David set the hat on his head. It sat, for the first time, exactly right. "Good night, Inspector."
He walked up the drive of Villa Ambrose under a half moon, between rows of lime trees, hands in his pockets, at an even pace.
At the end of it rose a long pale house of the 1790s, with a pillared porch, twelve wide steps and a pair of stone sphinxes, every window lit. A string quartet played. Glasses chimed. At the foot of the steps, bareheaded, hands behind his back, in the golden light, stood Gideon Strake.
They looked at each other across ten feet of raked gravel. Over the lake, a small chapel clock struck the hour, forty seconds late.
"Good evening, Daniel."
"Good evening, Mr. Strake."
"You're punctual."
"I was told it was an invitation."
"It is." Strake stood aside. "You'll forgive me. I must ask for your coat."
The door was tall and bright. Beyond it a white hall held a chandelier, a vase of lilies, and a row of men in dark suits along the wall, looking at him.
David took off the hat. He looked at it for a moment. Then, with a small courteous bow, he handed it to the man at the foot of the steps, climbed past the sphinxes, and went in.