Surgeon Sheik's Rescue

Bella had rung the bell at the gate, but no one answered.

Poking her telephoto lens through the bars she’d managed to capture some haunting architectural shots of the spires, arched windows, massive flying buttresses, gargoyles, but she’d suddenly noticed the security cameras atop the stone pillars flanking the gates tracking her motion. Then she’d detected more cameras positioned at discreet intervals between the spikes and creepers along the perimeter wall, and a frisson of unease ran through her.

Glancing slowly up, she caught sight of a dark figure in one of the mullioned windows in the upper floor window, watching her. But a shroud of mist sifted in from the sea, cloaking the abbey, and Bella had quickly returned to Madame’s to serve the afternoon coffee.

Then just yesterday, while Bella had been in the village boulangerie buying fresh pain au chocolat for Madame, through the misted windowpanes of the little bakery she’d glimpsed a tall, dark figure moving down the cobbled sidewalk, his profile hidden by the hood of his black cape. Despite a limp, his stride was swift. Two dark-complexioned men in suits flanked him closely. Wind gusted, revealing a holster under the jacket of the man closest to the window.

Bella’s pulse quickened and she spun round, trying to catch a glimpse of the hooded man’s face. In the process she fumbled and dropped the small change being handed to her by the boulangerie owner who’d smiled at Bella’s sudden distraction.

“He’s the stranger from the other side of the island,” the owner said as she helped Bella gather her coins.

“Do you know where he comes from?” she said, pocketing the change and picking up her basket of chocolate croissants.

The owner gave a Gallic shrug, pouting her lips. “Who knows?” She leaned forward, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “And we don’t ask. Important people—rich, famous people—come to our island every summer. They come because we don’t bother them. We don’t try to guess who they are and we don’t talk to paparazzi. But their estates lie on the southeast side of Ile-en-Mer where the climate is more temperate. Who would live on the west cliffs, and in winter? In a place that is haunted?” She gave a huff. “It’s beyond me.”

Bella thanked the owner and dashed out into the chill air. But the caped stranger was gone, the cobblestone streets eerily deserted.

* * *

“He goes by the name of Tahar Du Val,” Madame told her in French that afternoon as Bella served the croissants and coffee, a fire crackling in the hearth, the little dogs curled in a fur ball in front of the flames. “You are very interested in this occupant of Abbaye Mont Noir, non—this dark man with his one eye and secrets?” Madame accepted the cup and saucer from Bella as she spoke, arthritis making her movements awkward.

“I’d love to visit his abbey, ask him about the ghost—research for my novel,” she lied. “The more I know about him, the easier it’ll be to approach him.”

Madame took a sip of her coffee, her watery blue gaze fixed on Bella over the rim of her cup. And Bella reminded herself to be cautious—there was a sharp and analytical mind behind that papery skin, the powdery rouge, the red lipstick. Estelle Dubois could read people better than most.

“He moved into the abbey last August,” Madame said, her features going slack and thoughtful as she dipped her croissant into the milky coffee. “He arrived with another man—”

Bella glanced up sharply. “What man?”

“I think he might have been Monsieur Du Val’s brother,” she said, delivering the soppy croissant to her mouth. “He was younger, a little broader in the shoulder, slightly shorter. And according to the villagers who saw his face—he and the monsieur have similar features.”

Bella’s pulse quickened, but she kept her expression neutral as she crouched down, opened the fire grate and poked at the logs. “Did he stay long?”

“Long enough to organize the employees at the abbey and see to the shipping-in of furniture,” Madame said around her croissant. “And he handled the grocery shopping in the first weeks, before a chef came and took over.”

“Did this man give a name?” Bella asked.

“Non. He barely spoke beyond what was necessary to do his business in the village.”

Dryness tightened Bella’s throat. Calmly, quietly, she reached for Madame’s empty plate.

“Then one day, a private ferry came over from the mainland with gymnasium equipment,” she said. “A woman came with it.”

Bella stilled. “A dark-haired woman, exotic-looking?”

Madame’s penciled brow rose quizzically. “No, the woman was fair. I think she had something to do with the gymnasium equipment, perhaps a personal trainer. But she left very abruptly, the next day—she was angry when she boarded the ferry.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Jean-Claude, the ferryman who lives in the hut at the end of the pier. The younger man departed the island late September. He returned a few times until the end of November, but we haven’t seen him since. And when all the summer visitors were gone and the winter storms started rolling in, that’s when Monsieur Du Val started walking alone along the headland. Every day at precisely four-thirty. Always he wears his cape with the hood, and his black eye patch. His limp, it has been improving. After Christmas he began dining late every Tuesday night at Le Grotte below the hotel. He sits alone in a stone alcove in front of a window that overlooks the harbor. The maître d’ draws the curtain across the alcove for privacy, and Monsieur Du Val’s men sit close by at another table, watching the door. He orders a la carte and always a bottle of cabernet franc from the Chateau Luneau estate in the Loire Valley.”

Bella knew the winery—it all fit.

It had to be him.

She stole a quick glance at the ornate Louis XVI clock on the mantel above the fire. Almost 3:30 p.m. “You’re certain Monsieur Tahar walks along the cliffs at the same every day?” she said.

“Oui. Pierre, the sheep farmer on the other side, goes to bring in his flock before dark. He sees the Monsieur in the distance, always at the same time.”

“You talk to this farmer?”

“Everyone on this island talks, Amelie.” She held up a gnarled finger in warning. “But always, the talk stays here, on the island. It has been this way for centuries.”

The whole island felt liked it was locked in medieval time, thought Bella as her attention went back to the Louis XVI clock. Madame’s eyes followed Bella’s gaze and a smile curved along her mouth, red lipstick feathering deep into wrinkled creases.

“Go, Amelie,” she said with a dismissive wave of her veined hand. “Go see him for yourself. All this talk has exhausted me. But feed the dogs first, and don’t forget to lock the house when you go. Put the key under the mat so you don’t wake me when you return.”

* * *

Leaving Estelle Dubois nodding in front of the fire with her half-finished cup of milky coffee, Bella ran through drizzle to her separate maid’s quarters across a small courtyard strung with a washing line and trellised with grapevines thick as her arm at the bases. Moss-covered clay pots fringed the whitewashed walls, the vegetation inside them brown and tangled by winter frost.

She shrugged into a warm sweater and jacket, then on second thought shucked the jacket in favor of the red rain slicker and matching hat. Even though weather on this leeward side of the island might be mild, rainstorms could be lashing the windward coast—she’d learned this fast enough. Over her thick socks she pulled on gum boots. Bella glanced in the mirror and gave a wry smile. She looked more like a mariner in a fish commercial than a seasoned political reporter. She grabbed the bike, wheeled it through the courtyard, and began to pedal up the twisting dirt road that led to the cliffs on the far side of the little island, camera bag slung across her chest, the cold air sinking deep into her lungs.

* * *

An hour later Bella stood atop the cliffs holding her bike and breathing hard as curtains of mist swirled and rain drove in squalls. Waves boomed unseen on rocks far below the sheer cliff drop. Light began to fade, and she felt a sharp drop in temperature. She began to shiver as dampness crawled into her bones.

Then suddenly, at four-thirty, just as Madame had said, a hooded, black figure in a swirling cloak materialized from the mist, walking along the headland, fading in and out of the shifting brume like a specter.

Bella laid her bike down on the heath, removed her camera from the bag.

Zooming in with her telephoto lens she watched him stop right at the cliff edge, his back to her. He pulled back his hood, revealing thick, shoulder-length hair, black as a raven’s feathers. Face naked to the driving rain, he stared out to sea as if a sentinel watching for a lost ship, his cloak flapping at his calves.

Far below him waves crashed as the Atlantic heaved itself against the rock face, hurling icy spray up into the mist.

Something strange unfurled inside Bella.

He looked so alone, as if daring the elements to hurt him in some kind of bid for absolution. Yet in his shoulders there remained a subtle set of defiance.

Bella clicked off a few shots, zoomed in closer. Her lens was powerful, state-of-the-art. Her two-timing ex-boyfriend, Derek, had helped her choose the camera a mere two weeks before the newspaper budget cuts that saw Bella being laid off. The announcement she was being axed from the political news desk while the paper held on to the unionized deadwood had come as a gut-punching shock to Bella. One minute she was a respected, up-and-coming reporter covering the run-up to the presidential primaries and the bombing of the Al Arif royal jet at JFK. Then in the blink of an eye she was cast out on the street, unemployed, wondering how in hell she was going to make her next rent payment without cutting into her minimal severance payout.

Bella’s job, her success, defined her. And her sudden unemployment cut to the heart of her insecurities and self-esteem that came with having been abandoned as a baby. It was something she’d never been able to shake.

Oh, she’d hunted for new work, but the tide had turned on print media. Papers were hurting. And there was a glut of journalists, just like her, pounding on doors.

In desperation Bella had resorted to writing a blog for a website called Watchdog—theoretically an internet news portal, but one that had been scathingly referred to as “that conspiracy theorist site.” And because the blog gig was unpaid, she’d been forced to take housekeeping jobs to support her political writing “hobby.” It was about as low as a political sciences and journalism graduate could go.

Derek, of course, had kept his photography job at the Washington Daily, courtesy of the boss’s daughter. He’d informed Bella of his infidelity the same day as her layoff. Bella didn’t know which had hit her harder.