The Babylon Idol

Nobody replied. The cops all glared at him.

Ben pointed up at the big clock on the waiting-room wall, which read 2.15 p.m. ‘But you must be hungry, missing lunch over this stuff. Why don’t you do what you do best, head down to the nearest bistro for a nice meal and a bottle of wine and spend an hour or two working out how to become the heroes who saved the republic? Then maybe you’d like to call Commander Roman Vidal and ask him if they’ve found a single scrap of evidence down there at Le Val linking the shooting with the activities of any known or suspected terror group of any kind.’

The cop with the can pulled a nasty sneer. ‘If it wasn’t terrorists, then what? Maybe a hunter let off a stray shot? Thought your friend was a wild boar?’

Ben stared at him coldly and wondered how fast the guy’s smirk would disappear with that Coke can rammed down his throat. ‘Wild boar hunters shoot in groups, with spotters and beaters. They don’t snipe at their quarry from extreme ranges, with no safety backstop except someone’s wire fence. They don’t use silencers and they don’t generally confuse a human with a large hairy pig. Though,’ he added, giving the cop a deliberate up-and-down look, ‘in some cases I can see how that misunderstanding might arise.’

The cop’s eyes narrowed and he flushed scarlet. ‘Then who did this? Enlighten us, as you’re obviously so knowledgeable.’

‘That’s a very good question,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t know who did this, any more than you do. But then, I’m not the police, am I? I’m just a visitor to this hospital, waiting to find out if my friend in there is going to live or die, and having to waste my time answering pointless questions while you guys should be out there searching for the answers. So how about you leave me alone now?’

When the disgruntled cops eventually did leave, Ben called Tuesday again to update him on Jeff’s condition. Moments after he’d put his phone away, Ben heard footsteps and turned to see Dr Lacombe approaching. The look on her face made his heart jerk to a stop for a moment. Even before she opened her mouth to speak, he knew she’d come to deliver bad news.

‘There’s been a complication,’ she said gravely.

‘What kind of complication?’

She sighed. ‘I’m very sorry. I was afraid something like this would happen.’

‘Talk to me. Tell me he’s alive.’

‘He’s alive. But—’ She went into a rapid stream of medical terminology like post-traumatic pulmonary thromboembolism and right ventricular failure and circulatory failure and mechanical ventilation, until Ben stopped her.

‘I don’t understand. What happened?’

‘He had a blood clot in the lung. It caused a severe stroke and he’s no longer able to breathe on his own. We gave him a massive dose of barbiturates to induce deep unconsciousness, so the machine could breathe for him. I have no idea how long we might have to keep him under. Worst case, perhaps indefinitely.’

Ben could only repeat her words dully, as if he’d become stupid. His brain couldn’t compute what she was telling him. ‘Are you saying—?’

‘I’m afraid so, yes. He’s in a coma.’

Chapter 7 (#ulink_e1634075-ada3-548d-9e8b-ec8a09a578b3)

‘There’s nothing you can do here,’ she told him. ‘You might as well go home and rest. You look like you need it.’

‘Maybe I’m not the only one,’ Ben said. Sandrine Lacombe looked every bit as wrecked as he felt.

She shrugged. ‘I’ll stay with him as long as I can. I might go home myself for a couple of hours’ sleep, but I’ll have my colleague Dr Sauveterre call me if there’s any change in his condition. I live nearby, so, any developments, I can come straight over.’

Ben was touched by her determination to do whatever she could for Jeff. ‘I’ll go,’ he agreed. ‘There are some matters I need to attend to back at the house. But before I do, can I see him?’

Dr Lacombe frowned and seemed about to say no, then relented. ‘Just for a minute, okay?’

She was about to lead the way when a movement outside caught Ben’s eye and he looked out of the window to see a black Peugeot taxicab come speeding into the hospital car park. It pulled up close to the entrance and a pretty brunette in a tweedy winter coat clambered out, her face red and streaked with tears.

Sandrine Lacombe noticed Ben’s expression. ‘The fiancée?’

He nodded. Chantal Mercier had arrived.

Moments later there was commotion in the reception area. Ben grimly went to meet her, but didn’t have a lot of talking to do as the doctor took charge of the emotional scene and broke the news of the latest negative developments with a level of calm, sympathetic but firm professional control that a lot of top-rank military commanders would have envied.

Chantal sniffed, wiping her eyes. ‘Where is he?’ Her voice was hoarse from crying.

‘You can see him,’ Sandrine Lacombe said gently with a glance at Ben. ‘But only for two minutes.’

Chantal barely looked at Ben as the doctor led them down a series of corridors to the ICU. Jeff had been moved into a room behind a glass partition. His bed was surrounded by so much equipment that he was barely visible. A coloured monitor on a stand showed his heartbeat, slow and steady. More screens and racks of beeping electronics were flashing up streams of data that were meaningless to Ben. A drip bag dangled above his friend. Lying there completely still in the middle of it all, Jeff looked shrunken and frail under the sheet, as if all the vital force had been sucked out of him. The respirator tube was attached to a mask over his mouth and nose. Dozens of smaller pipes and hoses hung off him like snakes. His eyes were shut. He was barely recognisable.

Chantal let out a stifled cry when she saw him, raced to the bedside and clasped Jeff’s hand in both of hers, her face contorted and streaming with tears all over again. ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she kept murmuring. ‘He feels so cold.’

‘That’s normal,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, but Ben could see the sharp worry lines etched into her face.

Chantal pulled herself as close to Jeff as all the tubes and wires would let her. ‘Mon pauvre amour, est-ce que tu m’entends? Réponds-moi.’

‘He can’t hear you,’ Sandrine Lacombe said softly. ‘He’s far away.’

Chantal looked up, eyes swimming and full of terror. ‘How long will he be like this?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘What does that mean? Are you trying to tell me he could be like this for ever?’

‘I can’t say,’ the doctor repeated, tight-lipped.

‘If he wakes up, will he be … like before?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t say that either.’

An angry flush of colour came back into Chantal’s cheeks. ‘You’re supposed to be a doctor. How can you not know these things? I want a second opinion. I insist on—’

Ben couldn’t stand it any longer. He stepped around the foot of the bed, gently took Chantal’s arm and said, ‘Dr Lacombe is doing all she can. Let me drive you home. We can come back when it’s okay to visit.’

But Chantal jerked her arm away and shook her head furiously. ‘I want to stay with him.’

‘That’s not an option,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, gentle but firm. Chantal opened her mouth to protest, but all that came out was sobbing.

It was a long and sombre drive back. The cold rain was lashing down, and all that remained of the earlier snow was the dirty roadside slush. Chantal sat with her head bowed and her face in her hands all the way, not speaking. Ben didn’t know what to say to her. He was having a hard time dealing with his own emotions, and in the end he fell into silence too.

The short winter day was darkening by the time they reached Saint-Acaire. When the Alpina pulled up outside her little terraced house on the edge of the village, Chantal got out and ran to her door and disappeared inside without a word. The door slammed.

Ben sat for a moment, lit a Gauloise and then drove on.

When, a few minutes later, he turned off the road onto the innocuous farm track that led to Le Val’s entrance, he found its floodlit security gates partially blocked by a TV crew van and alive with a throng of reporters armed with cameras and microphones and clamouring for details about the shooting. A cop car was in attendance nearby but the gendarmes seemed content just to smoke and watch from a distance as Serge and Adrien, from inside the locked gates, were kept busy holding the noisy crowd at bay, repeating ‘No comment, no comment’ to a thousand insistent questions fired at them like bullets.

Ben slipped the BMW through the chaos, as thankful for the tinted glass shielding him from flashing cameras as he was for the tall fence and barbed wire keeping the zombie horde from invading the private sanctuary inside.

Once he’d made it through the gates and down the track to the heart of the compound, Le Val had never seemed to him so empty and desolate. The fleet of police vehicles had all gone. Jeff’s Ford Ranger was still where Ben had left it. Parked behind the pickup was the old Land Rover, and behind that was a little Renault Clio hatchback he didn’t recognise, but he was too tired and upset to think about it.

Tuesday must have seen the approaching lights of the BMW. He stood silhouetted in the glow from the open farmhouse door as Ben stepped out of the car and walked up the steps. Tuesday’s face was drawn and grim, and became even more so when Ben gave him the latest update on Jeff. They spoke for a few moments in the kitchen, where a bottle of scotch and a half-empty glass rested on the table. It wasn’t like Tuesday to drink, but he’d made some inroads into the bottle already. Ben fetched down another glass from the cupboard, filled it to the brim and knocked half of it down in a long, stinging swallow that made his eyes water.