Luc had called Akim’s mobile shortly after eight o’clock. Akim had confirmed CUCKOO’s assassination by text message but Valerie had then rung back just after Kell had left for Austerlitz station. Under Drummond’s instruction, Akim had ignored the call. Valerie had rung back an hour later, leaving a tetchy message.

‘Akim needs to talk to her or they’ll get suspicious,’ White said. ‘Did he mention anything about a second location?’

Kell shook his head. There was an unspoken warning in White’s analysis. We’re doing this as a favour to Amelia. Mate’s rates. Two days, max, then we can’t afford to stick around. If your boy isn’t in there, we’re going back to Stansted.

Just then, like an augur of success, Jeff phoned to say that he had seen a young Arab walking along the lane past the ruined windmill, about three hundred metres south-east of the house.

‘Slimane,’ said Kell.

There was also a car in the drive, a white Toyota Land Cruiser that had not been parked there earlier in the day. Perhaps Luc and Valerie had returned to the house after making their calls to Akim.

It was enough to green-light the operation. In two connecting rooms at the hotel in Castelnaudary, White set out the plan.

‘You said the boss likes to go for a swim in the evenings.’

‘Akim mentioned that, yes.’

‘Then we’ll go when he goes. Get close to the house, Luc comes out to the pool, that’s our trigger. Jeff takes him out in his Speedos from the windmill. If he stays indoors, fine, we’ll wait for the sun. Mrs Levene said live rounds, body count.’

‘She wants to send a message to Paris,’ Kell confirmed.

White nodded. A routine dental appointment. He then set out further details of the raid. Jeff – curly-haired, mid-forties, looking for all the world like a hearty landlord from a pub in Shropshire – would walk along the track from the south side and take cover in the ruined windmill, two hundred metres from the pool. Mike would go in through the front door and secure the cell. Simultaneously, White would enter through the exercise area, removing the metal bars at the rear entrypoint of the cell and extracting François through the back. Kell would be waiting to drive them out on to the D625. In spite of White’s insistence that the operation was ‘a piece of piss’, Kell had insisted on a role.

‘As soon as we go in, block the track at the eastern intersection,’ White told him. ‘Something goes wrong and they come out and try for the Land Cruiser, get in the way and take out the tyres. Don’t shoot anywhere higher than the bumper. Your boy might be in there if they’ve seen us coming.’

‘Are they going to see you coming?’

Jeff laughed. Mike, who still had the build and buzzcut of the Regiment, looked like a cowboy preparing to spit a wad of tobacco on the floor. White smiled and passed Kell a Glock pistol. ‘Fired one of these before?’

‘Didn’t you get the memo?’ Kell replied, touching the barrel. ‘That’s all MI6 does nowadays. Assassinations.’

79

François was sitting on his bed when he heard Luc coming downstairs and telling Valerie that he was going for a swim. It was just before seven o’clock in the evening, probably another ten minutes before Slimane or Jacques brought him supper. It would be his last meal in the cell. He had heard the sounds of the house being packed up, boxes placed in the Land Cruiser outside, the slamming of car boots, the zipping of cases. At any moment François was expecting to be taken from his room and driven to a new prison, a new terror, one from which he would never be returned.

Five minutes passed. He heard the door of the microwave clunking shut and knew that he could expect another frozen meal: rice in a bag; sinewed cuts of beef or pork in a supermarket sauce. Sure enough, a few minutes later he heard the ping of the timer, then either Jacques or Slimane loading the food on to a plate. One of them would carry a tray into the cell, the other would watch to make sure that François made no attempt to escape.

Footsteps outside, the knock on the door. François raised his hands above his head and heard the padlock clunk against the door as the key was inserted. Jacques came in, glanced at the television, dumped the tray on the floor and walked across the room to pick up the bucket of urine.

‘Stinks in here,’ he said. François had heard it all before.

Slimane was behind him, looking oddly detached, perhaps a little stoned. Usually he would mutter a few words, something spiteful or contemptuous, just to get his blood going, to ease his boredom. But tonight he stared into the middle-distance, his left eye still bruised and swollen, as though he had something else on his mind, like a sixth sense of imminent defeat.

A car passed on the track outside, cutting through from the south-east. Local knowledge; somebody who knew the rat run. Just then, from the first floor, François heard a woman shouting, not in panic or fear, but from a sense of outrage, of stunned surprise. Valerie. Jacques put the bucket on the floor, directly in front of François, looked at Slimane and went out into the hall, as if a fire alarm had gone off and he wasn’t sure if it was a test. Then François heard the sound of Valerie running downstairs. In that moment, the front door flew open and something was thrown into the hallway. The house inverted with noise. Slimane and François blocked their ears, the room screaming, as Jacques dropped to the ground. At first it looked as though he had tripped or slipped on the floor, but François saw blood on the wall behind him, the barrel of a rifle, then the outline of a man wearing body armour and a black balaclava. His ears were numb. He had kicked over the bucket and was staring at the urine as it pooled out in front of him. Even then, he thought that Slimane would make him clear it up.

Valerie had come to the bottom of the stairs. She looked into the cell and screamed at Slimane: ‘Shoot him!’ An instant later, blood had sprayed against the door of the cell as her body crumpled beside Jacques. The soldier had shot her point-blank in the head.

Slimane reached for the rear pocket of his jeans. This was where he kept his gun, the gun with which he had taunted François, the gun with which he had threatened him, day and night.

It was out and levelled at François’ chest in one quick, trained movement. François looked beyond Slimane, at the masked face of the soldier who had shot Jacques and Valerie. An instant later the soldier had swung his own weapon towards Slimane, but it was too late; the Arab had stepped towards François, grabbed and spun his body as easily as a man moving the branch of a tree, and pressed the cold steel of his gun against François’ right temple. Slimane’s arm flexed around François’ neck, he began to drag him backwards across the floor of the cell and away from the soldier.

François tried to twist free, but Slimane only held him tighter and pressed the barrel of the gun harder against his head, shouting: ‘You put your fucking gun down.’ It was not clear whether the soldier could understand. ‘Go back out of the door!’ the Arab screamed in French. ‘Get outside. I’m taking this prick with me and we’re leaving in the car.’

The grip on François’ neck momentarily slackened and he grabbed at a breath of air, gulping and coughing. There was a wet slick of sweat all over François’ face; it was as if the two men were transferring fear from skin to skin. To his dismay, François saw the soldier lower his rifle and step over Valerie’s dead body, moving backwards towards the door, seemingly in the act of surrender. As he did so, Slimane moved tentatively forward, his hips banging against François, shunting him towards the hall, all the time driving the gun into the side of his head like a screwdriver.