She couldn’t understand it. People like him and Lucas killed for money. They killed good and bad, guilty and innocent, offering no mercy to their victims. Who were they to think ill of her, to condemn what she’d done?
Dan was sickened because she’d refused to spare even the children, but that choice hadn’t been hers; it had been made for her by Simon. She’d returned to Simon what he’d so cruelly handed to her. She’d done unspeakable things but they’d been right. And she didn’t care whether Dan could see that or not; she knew it to be true.
Chapter Twenty
He should have brought his own car. The heater wasn’t working in the rental car, which hadn’t been a problem the previous day, but today was much colder. Even his feet were cold. He’d have found it amusing if he didn’t feel so completely ridiculous.
It wasn’t much of a walk between here and the rue Saint Benoit, but the idea was that the rental car could act as a blind, which would be less conspicuous than simply standing across the street from the house. That was the idea, anyway, but the rental car was freezing.
He got out and started to walk, heading for the cafe that he now knew was a frequent haunt of hers. He’d wait in there; if she showed, all well and good. If she didn’t, at least he’d be warm.
The car acted as a barrier to the truth. For the most part, as he sat there, he could fool himself that he was on just another job. Out on the street, though, walking past the house, he felt ill at ease in his own skin, full of self-doubt.
It was a feeling he carried with him into the cafe and he sat dwelling on it as he waited for his coffee. At home, in isolation, he convinced himself that he was ready to come back out into the world, but every time he ventured out, it was as if he’d made no progress at all.
What had really changed since his previous visit when Madeleine had pleaded with him to stay away? He’d turned his back on his old life again, retreated from the world again. This time he was certain he was done with it, but then he’d felt like that before, so how certain could he be? How certain could he ever be that there wouldn’t be another phone call that he’d feel obliged to respond to?
By the time he’d finished his second cup of coffee, he was close to giving up, not just on the cafe, on this cold January day, but on the whole thing. He still didn’t think he had the courage to speak to her or face Madeleine again, so maybe it was better just to go and wait for her to find him if ever she wanted to.
Then she came in, alone this time, and he was captivated all over again. He panicked when he realized he hadn’t brought his newspaper. He considered getting up to take one of the cafe’s papers but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
The young waiter came over to chat, helping her with her coat and scarf. She was wearing a red sweater, a color that suited her like it suited her mother. She didn’t appear to order anything and he was curious to see who she was meeting.
For ten minutes, he was happy just watching her. He could have sat looking at her all day. He only wished that she would see him, too, but the couple of times she looked in his direction she appeared not to notice him at all. Then, after ten minutes, she checked her watch and reached into her coat pocket for a phone.
At first, he couldn’t hear her speaking but she became angrier as the brief conversation ran its course and the final few words of the call carried across to him. It bothered him that she was angry, that someone had stood her up.
She grabbed her coat and got up to leave. Without even thinking about it, Lucas stood too and then didn’t know why except he was fired up with adrenaline. He went to sit down again but realized that for the first time she was looking at him, probably curious at the way he’d responded so directly to her movements.
He’d always felt with a hit that there was one moment when everything was right for doing the job perfectly, and that unless that moment was seized it would turn messy—still feasible, but messy. This wasn’t a hit, but this was that moment.
He took a step towards her, going through the words in his head, trying to imagine himself saying them. She didn’t move, just kept her ground, staring at him with the same look of expectancy and curiosity.
He smiled apologetically and, painfully slowly, he said, ‘Excusez moi, mademoiselle, vous ne me connaissez pas, mais, uh, je suis . . .’ He was grinding the words out one by one.
‘It’s okay. I speak English.’ Her accent was flawless. She appeared to register his shock but couldn’t know why he was surprised. ‘And I know who you are, I think.’
‘You do?’ She took her eyes off him for the first time now, looking around to see if they were attracting attention standing there.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ He nodded but it wasn’t so much an invitation as a request for some discretion. As soon as they were sitting, the waiter came over and she ordered in French before saying to him, ‘What would you like?’