28

Behind the door was a policeman. He flashed a badge and told David in accented but otherwise perfect English that his name was Officer Sarria. The cop was in a smart kepi and dark uniform, and he had a colleague right behind him. The second man was in a black single-breasted suit, a very white shirt. Unsmiling. Wearing sunglasses.

Sarria pushed inside the room, past David; the policeman looked at Amy, sitting at the edge of the bed.

‘Miss Myerson.’

‘You know my name…?’

‘I have been following you both across France. We need to speak. Now. This is my colleague -’ He gestured behind. ‘He is another policeman. I am going to talk with you. Now.’

David bridled at the idea of being interrogated, here. He felt cornered. Skewered. Something terrible would happen, hidden away up here. In the privacy of their room, on the top floor. He envisioned blood – flayed across the bathroom wall.

He glanced Amy’s way; she half-shrugged as if to say what else can we do? Then he turned back.

‘OK. But…downstairs. On the terrace. At the back. Please…?’

Sarria sighed, impatiently. ‘OK, yes, downstairs.’

The four of them took the clanging hotel lift to the ground floor. In the lobby, David noticed another policeman, standing at the hotel door, in the sun: radio buzzing. The hotel was being defended.

They walked the other way, onto the al fresco terrace, towards an isolated table – almost nearer the sea than the bar. It was discreet, sheltered by potted fir trees. No one could see them.

Amy held David’s hand, she was perspiring. The two policemen sat either side of the couple. David could feel himself sweating, as well. He wondered briefly if he was ill. What if they had caught an infection? From the bodies, in the vault, turned to liquor? Why had the corpses been stored so carefully?

The words smallpox and plague ripped apart what equanimity he had left. He tried to focus on the matter at hand. The policeman was talking.

‘I was born…just up there in Bayonne,’ said Sarria, apropos of nothing at all. He looked back at Amy, then David. ‘Yes, I am Basque. Which is one reason why I know you need help.’

‘So…what is it?’ said Amy, bluntly. ‘Why are you here, Detective?’

‘We have been tracing Miss Bentayou. She is possibly a material witness to the criminal slaughter of her family.’ His nod was sombre. ‘Oui. And we know she flew out of Biarritz, to Frankfurt.’

‘So she’s in Germany -’ David replied, hastily.

‘And from there, she flew straight to Namibia, according to the airline records.’ His face showed irritation. ‘Do not try to deceive me, Monsieur Martinez. We have been following this whole mystery for some time. The trail of chaos and blood…from the murders in Gurs…to that house in Campan, where someone heard two gunshots.’ His words were terse. ‘And the old priest in Navvarenx church told us your name. After that, it was easy to find out more. The news story about you, and so on.’ The officer glanced at a tiny cup brought by a waiter: a delicate cafe noir. He didn’t touch it. ‘You may like to know the priest is quite well. He saved your life, I think. Shut the door just in time.’

Amy persisted.

‘But how did you find us? Down here?’

‘I am a senior officer of the gendarmerie. Part of my job is to maintain awareness of Basque terrorists.’

David flashed a brief glance at Amy; her face was composed, her blonde hair gently lifting in the breeze. But David could glimpse the turmoil of feelings under her concertedly impassive expression. He wondered if she was thinking of Miguel; he wondered what she was thinking of Miguel.

Sarria glanced sidelong at his colleague, then continued:

‘We have contacts all across Le Pays Basque. Watchful contacts. We guessed you might be in Biarritz, because this is where Eloise flew out. I asked all the cybercafe owners to keep an eye, as you say – for an English girl. Of your description, Miss Myerson. Not so difficile.’

The silent policeman was scanning the terrace, and the beach beyond; like a presidential bodyguard, looking left and right.

Sarria elaborated: ‘I also know, of course, that you are being hunted by Miguel Garovillo. One of the worst of ETA killers. Infamous and sadistic. I would like to arrest him myself. But he is clever. As well as cruel.’ Sarria tilted his gaze towards David. ‘And he has a lot of very…significant assistance. Important people behind him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Before I tell you, you need to know more. Of the history. You must prepare yourself.’

David looked Amy’s way; the autumn light was bright on her hair. He turned to the suntanned face of the French cop.

‘Tell me.’

‘Very well.’ He took a tiny, pouting sip of his cafe noir, then said: ‘Do you have the map? The map mentioned in the news story?’

David felt a tremor of anxiety. ‘Yes. It is here…I always keep it on me -’ He felt in his jacket pocket, then pulled out the very worn road map.

Officer Sarria took it, and unfolded it; the paper was white in the sun, the blue stars almost pretty; he nodded, and glanced at his colleague, then he refolded the paper, and placed it on the table.

‘I have seen this map before.’

‘What?’

‘It is your father’s map, Monsieur Martinez. I returned it to your grandfather. After the murder.’

‘I know it’s Dad’s map, but I don’t understand -’

But even as he said this, the truth began to reveal itself in his mind. David stammered:

‘You were – you mean -’

‘I mean this.’ He gazed at David. ‘Monsieur Martinez, I may be a senior flic with grey hair, but once I was a young officer. In Navvarenx. In Gurs. Fifteen years ago.’

The reality kicked in; David’s grief was painful in his chest.

‘When my parents were killed?’

‘I suspected it was ETA from the start. It had the hallmarks, if that is the word, of an ETA operation. The sabotaged car, a nasty explosion, it was similar to other ETA killings we investigated at the time. And I also suspected the young Miguel Garovillo was involved, we had eye witnesses.’

‘So why the fuck didn’t you arrest him?’

Sarria frowned.

‘When I was at the Navvarenx police station we had a visit from the senior officer of the region.’

‘Who?’

‘It does not matter. What matters is this – he told me to conclude the case. He ordered me to finish the investigation, and mark it – unsolved. Yet we had evidence. I was very angry.’

‘Why? Why would they do this?’

Sarria looked Amy’s way. ‘At first my immediate reaction was GAL.’

David also looked at Amy.

‘Sorry? Who is gal?’

She replied:

‘It’s not a person, David. It’s GAL.’ Her face was white with anxiety. ‘Capital G capital A capital L. GAL. They were a group set up by the Spanish state to kidnap and execute Basque radicals. In the 1980s and 90s. They had covert support from…elements inside the French government.’

‘Exactly, Miss Myerson.’ Sarria’s nod was curt. ‘This was the obvious answer. And my senior officer dropped hints, in that direction. A GAL killing – so you leave it alone. The authorities implied, to us, that your parents were Basque terrorists, Monsieur Martinez. Their death was therefore not a tragedy for the French State.’

David waited. Sarria sighed.

‘But this made no sense to me. No sense at all. From what I could tell your parents had no link to terrorism. An American man and a British woman touring the area? And why would a known Basque radical, perhaps the fiercest ETA terrorist of all, Otsoko, the Wolf – son of the great José Garovillo – why would he suddenly be working for GAL? Suddenly a traitor to his entire cause?’

The question hung in the air, like the tang of salt from the sea, a hundred metres west.

‘So…’ Amy said, quietly. ‘Why?’

‘That is the question. Why the three murders.’