Chapter 4

Autoroute de Normandie, November 22^nd

Pulling the Volvo to a halt, calmly, Gavin motioned for the pair of them to stay still as he slipped around the car and lifted the tailgate.

"Caerys." He called, quietly, and she turned to face him. "Good, don't focus anywhere, but look about and see if you can see that car."

"Which car."

"The fucking Merc that was following us!" he hissed, his hands moving smoothly and calmly through the gear in the boot as he rummaged.

"Dark blue?" she asked, quietly, hunkering down a bit to rest her chin on the back of the seat. Something in her voice told him it wasn't quite the question it was supposed to be.

"That's right."

"Two rows back, to your left." She explained. He nodded.

"Can you see how many there are?"

"Three, I think... what are we going to do?"

"Run away." Sophie offered, in a hushed whisper from the front seat.

"Learn more." Gavin corrected, slipping the boot shut. "We're going to head in. Ladies, I'll need you to go into the toilets and wait there for at least fifteen minutes."

"Won't that make them suspicious?" Caerys asked, as he gestured for the pair of them to get out the car.

"Probably not — we've been driving for a while, and without being able to see what you're doing in there they've no reason to think they'll have been noticed."

"You think they'll follow us?" Sophie asked, sounding more than a little panicked. Gavin stepped closer and wrapped his arm around her, part reassurance and part making sure she went where he wanted her to.

"Most likely." He offered. "One will follow me, one will follow the pair of you as far as he can, and the third will remain with the car in case we sneak back past them."

"So what are you going to do?" Caerys asked, as they walked through the sliding glass doors of the sprawling mall-like building.

"I'm going to double back." He hesitated, briefly, checking Sophie's manner. She didn't notice, but Caerys did. "I'll make sure their car's in no state to follow us."

And neither are they... Caerys silently added, watching the flat look in Gavin's eyes.

"What about the one that will be following you?" Sophie asked. "And what if the one following us comes into the toilets?"

"They're all men." Gavin pointed out, though when he'd had the chance to check Caerys had no idea. "If they weren't worried about creating a fuss they'd have shot at us already, so they're not going to barge into the ladies' toilet. The one following me shouldn't be a problem." He came to a halt beside a bank of cash machines and turned to face Caerys. "I'll see you both here in fifteen minutes." And then he was gone, stepping into the slight crowd and seeming to disappear.

"Come on." Caerys urged Sophie, wishing she'd spent more time memorising the three men from the car. As it was she couldn't be sure that she could see any of them, but she tugged and urged the little French doctor into the rest-room anyway, pausing briefly in front of the full-length mirrored tiles of the wall to look at their reflection.

The large lump on Sophie's forehead had split at some point, a slight scab forming between her large brown eyes, just visible beneath the heavy fringe. She still looked tired, and scared, wrapped up in her own arms and the rumpled, stained clothing she'd been wearing at the warehouse. Washed and dressed in clean clothing, Caerys didn't feel much better, the strain showing on her face — devoid of make-up for the first time in years — she looked like a refugee in her mismatched, oversized clothes. Even the bulky shoes were beginning to give her blisters, and she'd only just put them back on to get out the car.

"Sorry, what?" Caerys asked, turning her attention back to Sophie as she muttered something in French.

"I said 'what are we going to do'?"

"Wait?" Caerys shrugged, after a moment's thought. "Unless you can think of anything better."

The pair of them moved slowly between the stalls, ignoring the stares they received, and when Caerys could see no-one looking, she dragged Sophie with her into one of the cramped stalls and pushed the door shut after wiggling into the cramped space after her.

"Are you OK?" Sophie, hugging herself hard was trembling, looking pale in the harsh overhead lighting, and Caerys reached out to nudge her shoulder when she didn't respond. Sobbing gently, she stumbled forward into Caerys chest.

"I just want to know what's going on..." she finally muttered, between sobs.

"You and me both." Caerys told her, quietly, hoping no-one was listening. It was France, who knew what they'd get away with, but she was reasonably sure two grown women in the same toilet stall would probably elicit some sort of comment.

"Who are they? What do they want? What about Christophe... oh God, Christophe, we have to go..."

"Not yet." Caerys reached out a hand to stop her opening the door, wrapping the other arm around the Doctor to hug her close. "Listen, I know it's weird, but I think we've got to trust this Gavin... we don't have anyone else."

"How can we trust him? We don't even know if that's his name... he's... he keeps guns, and kills people."

"Maybe he does kill people, but so far he's kept us alive, and he's the only one that's trying that at the moment."

"Do you trust him?"

"I... I'm not sure I trust anyone, any more." She admitted, quietly, resting her head back against the door. She didn't want to see pity in Sophie's eyes, she was free, finally, it was all good, now. It was all good.

"So why are you here?"

"Because I think he's the best chance I've got... he's... he's on his side, and that means he's not on their side, so I'll stick with him."

And he's good, too. Better than they are... and that's a mystery of its own.

Sophie's tears slowly dried up, as Caerys watched the hands on the watch Gavin had given her slowly turn the fifteen minutes away.

Autoroute de Normandie, November 22^nd

Gavin watched the short, stocky figure of the third man step away from wall as the two women emerged from the toilets hesitantly. The pair of them saw him staring at them — he was a lot more sloppy than either of the other two had been — and blanched as he advanced.

"Good afternoon." Gavin muttered, stepping in behind him, not touching him to give anything away.

"You..." he started to turn, but Gavin jabbed a half-formed fist into his back, jolting his kidney and stopping him.

"Yes, me... now, you're two friends aren't going to be bothering any of us any more. Neither of them had anything helpful with them, though, and your car's empty too... who are you?" Caerys and Sophie wandered a little closer, but he shook his head a little to keep them back out of the stocky figure's reach.

"You have no idea." It was meant to be a threat, from the tone.

"I know, that's why I'm asking you... what's going on? Which group are you with? And what do you want with us?"

"Kill me if you will. I tell you, I'm dead, but you can't come get me afterwards. They can."

"Oh, for God's sake, another mystic dramatist." He would have laughed, under other circumstances. "Go away before I have to hurt you."

"If I don't take her back they'll kill me."

"Well I'm not going to, I've got better things to do..." Stepping past him, Gavin walked up to the two women, gesturing them towards the main door.

"Won't he follow us?" Caerys asked, quietly, as they lined up beside him.

"I hope so, I can't do anything about him in plain view."

"What are you going to do?" Sophie's whisper barely carried.

"A piece of advice, Doctor; don't ask questions if you aren't sure you'll like the answer."

"Are they dead?"

"Head for the car."

"He'll follow you?" Caerys asked, as he turned to head along the side of the building.

"Probably." Gavin nodded, looking back at her briefly. "If he follows you, I'll see it."

"What if he just runs?"

"He'll find a nasty surprise at his car. Now, go." Urging a slightly reluctant Sophie before her, Caerys headed for the car, and Gavin continued round the corner of the building smoothly. Stopping, he grasped the drainpipe and quickly scaled the nine foot climb to the roof, edging over to watch his pursuer stood outside the doors.

Switching views back and forth between the corner he'd moved round and the two women approaching the car, he obviously considered the women easy enough to find, and turned to follow the path along the wall. Stripping a small, flat package from his pocket, Gavin held it over the drainpipe until the figure emerged round the corner, then let it drop.

It burst at the sharp angle at the base, spewing a cloud of greenish gas as it did, and the figure staggered two steps before collapsing to the floor. Dropping easily to the ground, Gavin put on a pair of thin gloves to roll the body over, checking briefly for a pulse which he choked away, then rummaging through the pockets finding only the same anonymous pistol he'd found on the other two. Tugging the body into the long weeds that clustered out of sight of the public parts of the service area he tugged his gloves off, put them back in his pockets, and jogged across the car-park as rain began to fall.

"Are you alright?" Caerys asked, as he drew near. He just nodded, and opened the car, letting the pair of them in.

"I'll sit in the back." Sophie muttered, pushing past Caerys and hurriedly sliding across the seat to leave room.

"Cool!" Caerys slammed the door shut and hustled to the front seat with a smile. "Ah... leg-room."

"How can you?" Sophie hissed.

"How can I what?"

"How can you just shrug off three people dying." Gavin explained, clipping his seat-belt into place. "The good Doctor would like to believe that we could have talked our way out of things, that we are dealing with reasonable people."

"We could have called for the Gendarmes." She snapped, as Gavin put the car in gear and pulled away.

"The what?"

"Gendarmes," Gavin explained as the car sped up to filter into the traffic. "French police."

"Would that have worked?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not."

"So you just killed them!" Sophie shouted, leaning forward a little in the back seat.

"Yes, because if it had worked and we'd lived, we'd now be stuck in a police station somewhere waiting for an official to decide what they're going to do with us. I don't know if you noticed, but half the people that were coming for us were military, and if they got hold of us in a police station we wouldn't get out. Chances are they've already got the police out looking for us now."

"Are we going to hole up somewhere?" Caerys tried to diffuse the situation.

"Not yet, I don't know the country round here well enough to feel comfortable. We'll pick up the Doctor's son, then make a break across the channel."

"Who are you?" Sophie interrupted again. "Who are you that you can just pick and choose who lives and who dies?"

"Like you do, Doctor?" Gavin snapped, his grey eyes staring back at her in the mirror. "People come to you when they're under attack from whatever diseases you deal with, and they say 'here, my life in your hands' and they trust you to do what needs to be done.

That's what I do, but I do it for the people that can't ask. I look for people whose lives are already in someone else's hands, and I set them free."

"So you're a policeman? Who do you work for?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. People put their lives in my hands because I'm a Doctor, because my work is reviewed and assessed by other people. Who judges what you do?"

"I do."

"That's it? Just you, self-declared judge and executioner?"

"No-one else seems to be willing to do the job, Doctor. You won't. You cry like a slapped child if I so much as put you in the same room as a gun. There are bad people out there, Doctor, people who won't wait for someone responsible to say 'here you go, do this', people for whom personal liberties are an obstacle, not a goal. These people are after you — exactly how much protection is your pacifism going to be when the gun-barrel's at your forehead? It didn't stop them the last time, did it? DID IT?"

"Enough!" Caerys tapped his arm as his voice raised to a shout, and Sophie slumped back into her seat, crying again, as Gavin's jaw set in frustration and he concentrated on driving.

Autoroute de Normandie, November 22^nd

"Sophie..." a gentle hand on her leg shook her awake, and she started upright as the car slowed. Looking out the window she spied the familiar sights of Le Havre, and came awake.

"Quelle heur et il?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

"About three o'clock." Gavin told her, without turning, keeping his eye on the traffic. "We need to find somewhere quiet to talk."

"Can't we talk here?" Caerys asked.

"I need to get my laptop out, too." He explained, navigating a junction. "I need to look at a map of this place."

"There is a park not far from here." Sophie explained. "When are we going to get Christophe?"

"We aren't." Gavin told her, bluntly. "They'll be watching him by now, if you're right and they know who he is. I'll get him, that's what we're going to talk about now."

"Will you... He... I don't want..."

"I'm hoping to avoid having to kill anyone, Doctor. I generally try to avoid it when I can."

"Really?"

"Forensic medicine is an incredibly capable field, after all." Sophie's scowl deepened, and Gavin pretended not to notice even as he felt a little guilty for baiting her. "Where's this park."

"Keep going, when the road splits go left." She muttered, staring out the side window as Caerys tried to suppress a smirk.

"What will they learn from the three people back at that service station?" she finally asked, as the silence grew.

"Not much. One asphyxiated — obviously chemical poisoning, but with no obvious source as the grenade becomes part of the gas once it cracks. One appears to have shot himself in his car. The other was stabbed by a left-hander about five foot five tall with his own single-edged, flat-bladed knife.

They'll have to assume that the three are linked — certainly the two that don't look like a suicide — but hopefully they'll come to the conclusion that the man in the car killed the other two then himself."

"Is that likely?"

"No identification on any of them? No identification on the pistols they carry? If their details are on a computer system it will reinforce the idea that a criminal meeting went wrong somehow. If their details aren't on the computer that will only arouse worse suspicions...

They'll be working so hard to find links between the three they'll not have cause to look elsewhere."

"So... who killed the man that followed you?" Sophie finally asked, leaning forward a little. "You said he was five foot five and left handed."

"No, I said that's what the forensic evidence will suggest. I crouched, shortened my reach to get the angle of curvature right."

"You're right handed, aren't you?" Caerys asked, recalling him coming through the window the previous evening with the rifle up against his shoulder.

"Ambidextrous." He shrugged. "Here's the split, go left... then where?"

"That's..." Sophie just shook her head, trying to come to terms with the reality of Gavin's cold detachment from what he'd done. "Ahead about two kilometres, it's on the right."

Avenue Jacques Anquetil, Le Havre, November 22^nd

The bench was weathered and beaten, tucked away beneath the overhanging branches of a tree at the junction of two paths. Caerys laid out on the bench, eyes closed, listening to the gentle rustle of the leaves over her head, ignoring the occasional drip of water from the morning's rain, and trying to tune out the muttered, stuttering conversation between Gavin and Sophie.

Freedom, she was discovering, wasn't what she'd hoped it would be. She'd swapped direct control for indirect control, swapped a limited number of places she could be for a large number of places she daren't be. It was freedom, but the price was high, and the gain was — so far, at least — minimal.

Her father was looking for her, she knew that much. Now someone else was looking for her — Sophie's 'Admiral', probably.

And then there was Gavin. Sophie, she was reasonably sure, was caught up in things as much as she was, but Gavin's participation confused her. She wasn't used to having to think her way through things that weren't school-work, and as she set to trying to puzzle her way through it, the voices on the other side of the bench began to rise.

"Some people are trying to sleep here, you know." She pointed out, raising her head high enough to look over the table-top at them. Both turned to face her, Gavin's furrowed scowl and Sophie's slightly haunted, lost bewilderment both obvious.

"My son is danger, how can you just sit there?" Sophie managed, as Gavin turned back to his laptop, jotting notes on a pad beside it.

"I know." Caerys swung her feet down to the grass, nodding, not without sympathy. "There isn't much I can do about, though, I'm afraid."

"But he can."

"Right." Caerys shrugged, not seeing the point.

"But he won't!" Caerys raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Gavin who continued his work for a few moments before he noticed the stare.

"What?" he asked.

"Won't help her son?" she asked. Gavin sighed, turning his scowl on Sophie for a moment before looking back.

"Won't help her son yet." He clarified. "Once I know where he is, how to get in, how to get out, I'll make a start. She can't do because she doesn't know how. You can't do it because you don't know how. How about you explain to her that I do know how, while I put that knowledge to use."

"Fair enough." Caerys nodded, getting up. "Come on, Soph."

"But he's..."

"Do you let patients tell you how to do their operations?" Caerys interrupted, taking her arm gently.

"That's different, I'm..."

"... an expert?" Caerys looked back at Gavin as he sat straight at the table, flitting back and forth between his pad and the screen. "I'm pretty sure he's at least as good in his field as you are in yours..."

"That's what scares me." Sophie hunched a little. "I'm not sure I want him going after Christophe..."

"Do you really think he'd hurt Christophe? I don't think he's like that."

"He's going in with a gun. Trouble follows people like that... trouble's followed us ever since he turned up. I don't want him taking that sort of trouble to Christophe."

"I don't know about you, but I was in trouble before he turned up." Caerys turned her gaze away, staring out into nothing. "I think I've always been in trouble..."

"I don't understand you, I'm... I'm terrified. Men with guns are chasing us — maybe chasing my son — but you're... I don't know what you're thinking, but you're calm."

"I'm free, at last. I've not had my own life since I was born, and now I do."