‘Okay, Mum, no problem. I’ll definitely be back by then. Of course I understand. Bye.’
Rose Scripps tossed the mobile onto the dashboard of their unmarked Peugeot, the cheapest rental they could find at Geneva Airport. After drumming her fingers on the steering wheel for several moments, she turned to Carlyle and sighed. ‘I’ve got to be back home by tomorrow morning.’
Sitting in the passenger seat, a mute Carlyle stared through the windscreen at the almost empty car park. Less than a quarter of a mile away, the Kippe Clinic glinted in the weak sunshine. Nothing had travelled along the narrow tarmac road leading down to the single-storey glass building for more than an hour.
‘My mother’s off on holiday,’ Rose explained apologetically, ‘so she can’t look after Louise any longer.’
‘Where’s she going?’
‘Devon.’
‘A bit cold there at this time of year?’
‘She has a sister down there, near Totnes. We’ve visited a few times. It’s nice.’
Carlyle grunted. He’d never been to Devon in his life and didn’t feel like he was missing anything.
‘Anyway, I’ll have to pick up my daughter.’
‘Of course.’ Carlyle felt embarrassed by the amateurishness of their set-up: the fight against international crime laid low by a lack of childcare. He was unhappy with Joe for putting him in this position; unhappier with himself for putting him in this position. Joe had half-heartedly volunteered to come along, but he had family problems too. Come to think of it, so did Carlyle. Helen’s patience regarding this case was wearing mighty thin. And when he explained he’d be heading for Switzerland with Rose Scripps in tow, his wife had become decidedly frosty. ‘Do what you have to do,’ had been her final comment.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose continued, ‘but it has been three days already, and I didn’t know how long you were thinking of waiting here.’
‘No problem,’ he said.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘this is looking like a wild-goose chase.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed reluctantly.
‘Even if Falkirk turns up,’ Rose persisted, already talking herself on to the flight home, ‘and we get him, he’ll try and stay here in Switzerland.’
‘We have a warrant.’
‘Mm.’ She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It read 10.53 a.m. ‘The afternoon flight is at five-thirty.’
‘I know,’ Carlyle nodded, admitting defeat. If Rose was heading back home, there was no point in him staying either. Apart from anything else, he needed her to get him around, as he couldn’t drive. ‘We’ll call it a day at two o’clock, get something to eat, and be at the airport by four. Plenty of time.’ Gazing down over the town of Villeneuve, past the Grangette Nature Reserve and across Lake Geneva, he felt a very long way from Charing Cross. ‘It must be tough,’ he said diplomatically, ‘being a single parent.’
‘You just get on with it.’ Rose shrugged. ‘Most of the time it’s fine. It’s not like I have to worry about juggling trips abroad too often.’
Carlyle smiled. ‘Me neither.’
‘What about your wife?’
Carlyle tensed. ‘What about her?’
‘Doesn’t she mind you being here?’ Meaning: being here with me?
Carlyle chose his next words carefully. ‘She understands that sometimes I don’t have control over where my job takes me — although I work very hard at making sure I’m not away from home any more than is absolutely necessary.’ Meaning: subject closed. Bored, he flipped through the glossy brochure for the Kippe Clinic resting on his lap. ‘How much is 30,000 Swiss Francs?’
‘About. .’ Rose Scripps did the calculation in her head, ‘almost twenty thousand pounds — something like that.’
‘Fucking hell!’ Carlyle let out a low whistle. ‘Imagine spending twenty grand on two weeks of revitalisation and regeneration stress reduction therapies.’
‘Is that what Falkirk is doing?’
‘No idea.’ Carlyle flipped the page. ‘Listen to this: We are leading international experts in illnesses common in the global, de-industrialised, post post-modern society in which we live — disorders and illness related to an individual’s capability of coping with factors such as stress, daily frustrations, highly competitive work environments, anxiety and unsorted anger.
‘Stress is for rich people,’ Rose mused. ‘The term itself was only invented in the 1930s.’
‘What is it, anyway?’ Carlyle asked, though not interested in the slightest.
‘Technically it is defined as a non-specific response of the body to a demand for change.’
‘Sounds like crap to me.’
‘What a sensitive soul you are!’ Rose laughed.
‘That’s me.’ Carlyle tossed the brochure into the back and grabbed a pair of binoculars from under his seat, bought specially for their trip at Field amp; Trek on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden. Getting out of the car, he scanned the vista with the practised incompetence of the occasional tourist. The clinic lay off to his left, maybe 300 feet further down the mountain. On one side extended lush green fields, on the other a small forest. A small group of gardeners was tending flower beds at the front of the building, and a couple of cleaning staff stood enjoying a cigarette and a natter by a side door.
Switching his attention to the spa centre on the far side of the clinic, he could make out the half-Olympic-size pool, surrounded by recliners, through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The pool itself was empty but, in the far corner, Carlyle could discern a blonde masseuse vigorously working on a guest on a massage table. Readjusting his towel, the man sat up as she handed him a small bottle of water.
‘At last.’ Plonking the binoculars down on the car roof, Carlyle slipped round the bonnet of the car and headed rapidly across the car park.
‘Where are you going?’ Rose yelled after him, struggling to get out of the vehicle.
‘It’s him. Hurry up!’
‘John. . here!’
He half-turned, just in time to catch the small canister as it flew towards him. He looked at it nestling in his hand: it was about as tall as a Coke can, and half as wide. It could have been a small container of shaving foam, or maybe an asthma inhaler.
‘Pepper spray,’ Rose explained. ‘If he gives you any trouble, aim for the face.’
‘Nice one,’ he grinned, shooting off a little burst downwind. ‘Thanks.’
‘I brought it specially from London.’
‘Excellent!’ Another gold star for Heathrow airport security. ‘Not necessarily legal, but just the job.’ He began moving again.
‘What are you going to do?’ she called.
That, Carlyle thought, is a very stupid question. Lengthening his stride, he hit the grass beyond the tarmac and began running downhill towards the building.