The Art of Deception

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Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

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For Max and Finn, the greatest of my creations

Prologue (#u6df6665a-37ff-51e7-b4c8-e44eba680c24)

The vice of his fingers tightened on my wrist, and tendons crunched as they slid over each other inside my forearm. As he twisted harder, I turned my body in the direction of his grip to try and relieve the pain. His other hand appeared from behind him and the heel of his palm hit the side of my head. As it made contact with my ear, a siren rang in my brain, blocking all other sound.

I kicked out, my foot slamming into his shins. His forward momentum increased as he was caught off balance, and his upper body folded. His shoulder glanced off the picture frame on the wall and it fell to the floor with a clatter. The rebound flung him away from me. As he let go of my arm, we fell apart like a tree struck down the middle by lightning. I staggered backwards, calves ramming against the coffee table, pushing it towards the sofa.

Terror now ruling my fear, I grabbed the ceramic vase toppling from the table. I swung it ineffectually at his head. I was briefly surprised it didn’t break, and the resistance of the vase meeting something solid tipped me further backwards. I let it go and it shattered at our feet. As I fell, my hips and back splintered the glass table top with a rifle-like explosion. Wedged into the frame of the table, head thrown back against the seat of the sofa, I stared at the ceiling in a moment of silence.

Chapter 1 (#u6df6665a-37ff-51e7-b4c8-e44eba680c24)

‘Stop! Stop it!’ I yell, with my hands pressed over my ears.

My voice rasps in my throat and fills my head. The thudding on the wall ceases abruptly, and I take my palms slowly away. The ensuing roar of silence is tuned perfectly to the blood pumping through my veins.

My gaze is fixed on a pencil-drawn sketch taped to the mottled plaster, a child’s portrayal of a chalet. The house is perched on top of a mountain with stick people skiing down one side of the hill. As my concentration wavers, I blink away a tear of frustration, and rub my temple. I was expecting to see the picture tremble with the thumping. But these partitions are solid brick; raging fists will not move them.

The subsequent stillness is painful, and I try to imagine Fatima in her two-by-four-metre space on the other side of the wall. The expectation of what might replace her anger increases the tension like the static of an impending lightning strike.

They have taken away her son, and won’t let her see him even briefly for a feed. One of the female guards simply marched in and picked the little thing up from his crib, right in front of Fatima’s eyes. We all came out to the corridor to watch in horror as the head security officer gathered Fatima’s flailing arms and held her while the guard walked away with the baby. Then they locked her in. Who knows how long they’ll keep the baby this time. An hour. A morning. A day? I suck in the musty air of my cell. Annoyance has prevailed over my sympathy. I want to scream and shout too.

Someone has also taken away my son, but I have to keep a lid on my emotions or it may backfire. Losing control would do me no favours in this place, especially as my son is far away, and I don’t know when we will be together again.

I hope they don’t keep Fatima’s baby for long. She stole three packets of Zigis from the new Polish girl who came in last week. The one whose name no one can pronounce. Lots of z’s and c’s. Who the hell risks solitary for a handful of cigarettes? I guess the nicotine-deprived are desperate. They haven’t seen fresh Marlboros for weeks. I don’t even think Fatima intended to smoke them herself. She merely wanted something to trade. The theft led to a fight in the canteen, a messy affair resulting in tufts of hair on the floor and bite marks on various limbs.

I can’t believe Fatima was caught so easily, especially after all the other stuff she helped steal, the stuff she didn’t get nabbed for in her previous life. It turns out she was only the driver when she was arrested.

We all have previous lives. I still find it hard to talk about mine, so I choose to silently observe everyone else’s.

That fight clinched Fatima’s punishment. No solitary, simply take the little boy.

Her baby is called Adnan, and he’s a sweet little thing. The guards periodically use him as a bribe to try to control her anger, but I think it makes her worse. How can they take this woman’s child away? There’s an irony to it, with the tainted history of this place. All they’re doing is building a seething resentment that will eventually rise like the stopper on the top of a pressure cooker. Fatima is close to breaking point.

I know how she feels.

Adnan reminds me of Jean-Philippe, or JP as we called him within days of his birth. Maybe Adnan’s Balkan roots have a vague link to JP’s part-Russian ones. The same penetrating Slavic eyes, a strong squarish head, an almost simian brow. My baby is much older than Adnan, and no longer an infant. But I still think of him as a baby. The name JP stuck when he started l’école maternelle last year. His friends at school even adopted the soft ‘Shay-Pee’ in French.

I’ve noticed he tries to sign his full name, Jean-Philippe, on the bottom of his little notes and drawings to me now, a challenge for one so young. I hope he’s proud he can spell such a complicated name. More likely his grandmother, Natasha, or Mimi as JP calls her, has insisted he practises his full title. She has always hated the acronym we use for his nickname, and is undoubtedly dragging him back to a more conservative tradition. Her whole philosophy seems so formal, so remote. Since I’ve been here, she’s removed the strings connecting mother and child like a heavily glued sticking plaster, painfully tearing him from his Anglo roots.

He was 6 years old last week, and I haven’t seen him this month. I have had to be content with sending cards and my own drawings and talking to him on the phone. To think he had a birthday without me, his mother. The court has obliged his grandparents to let me see him once a month. It’s the most I could engineer for the moment. His father’s family is trying to keep him from me as much as possible. It’s a punishment far harsher than my imprisonment, and my heart aches for him constantly.

Fatima knows and respects this, but cannot contain her rage, despite being aware I can hear her, somewhat muffled, behind the wall. Motherhood for her is still fresh. The fear of separation has become a raw terror that something will happen to Adnan in her absence. I understand that, and can identify with it.

It’s a love like no other.

* * *

Seven years ago

Settling on a high stool, I nursed a glass of cheap draft beer, watching the bustle of the après-ski crowd reflected in the mirror behind the bar. A figure in a red ski-school jacket, a folded ten-franc note clasped between his fingers, pushed his way between me and the customer at my side. The young man rested his hand on the polished wood. I bit back a retort as his elbow pressed against my shoulder. He leaned in, and I drew back, expecting him to address the barman.

‘We are all vagabonds, you know.’ His silky deep voice spoke English, almost a whisper at my temple, his breath warm on the shell of my ear. The hint of a French lilt sent a tingle down my spine. I turned, and instead of delivering admonishment, smiled into a pair of mesmerising grey-blue eyes.

‘You are new in town, yes?’ he asked.

‘Just arrived,’ I confirmed. ‘Couldn’t hitch a lift, so I rode the cog railway up from the valley. Bit freaky, didn’t know if the rickety thing was going to make it, with all that clunking and straining.’

‘That rack is over a hundred years old. You took a journey on a classic piece of Chablais transport history. What brings you here?’

‘A bit of an unscheduled stop, really. I’m backpacking through Europe and read about this village in a student travel guide. Plus a college friend once told me about this bar.’

I hesitated. In reality I was looking for a few days’ work. I had heard this resort, easily accessible on my Eurorail pass, was a good place to try. Amsterdam and Paris had sucked the money out of my wallet faster than any pickpocket. This guy didn’t need to know I was flat broke.

‘I was originally on my way to Greece for the summer. I know that’s a long way from here, but I’m getting a bit short of cash.’

‘Mm. The Med. Sounds romantic. Unfortunately you have arrived at the end of the season. There won’t be many jobs available. People will be heading off soon, travelling south, perhaps to the same beach you are dreaming about. Some of us will stay here though; we have to work.’

The barman slid a bottle of Cardinal across the bar, a slight frown on his face. My new companion took a sip from the beer.

‘You’re lucky to live in such a beautiful place. What do you do outside the ski season?’ I asked as I glanced at the barman, now moving away to serve another customer.

‘I teach French at the international college. Pays the bills.’

He sidled in to sit on a recently vacated barstool in one smooth move, his body filling the space at my side, and he reached into his jacket pocket. He took a ready-rolled cigarette from a pouch of Drum, and lit the tatty end with a loud click of his Zippo. He noted my surprise.

‘One of the few bars that still allows smokers,’ he said, studying me intently through a swirl of blue smoke. No one else in the bar was smoking. He waved at a spark rising from a burning curl of tobacco, and studied me through creased eyes.

My face flushed hot and my belly flipped. A magnetism kept my eyes locked on his, despite the commotion around us.

And then he coughed, the harshness of the smoke catching in his throat, making his eyes smart. We both burst out laughing, his slick seduction technique exposed. I saw the barman roll his eyes as he served another client at the end of the bar, and as he returned, he leaned over.

‘Buddy, you know the rules. Quit being a dick.’

My companion put his hand on my arm, pulling my attention back to him.

‘Should give up the stuff,’ he said, curling his fist towards his chest, cigarette still clasped between two fingers.

‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘Tobacco should be outlawed anyway.’