"Thanks."
"Only trying to be helpful, kiddo. Make sure you enjoy Avignon."
"Maybe Zoé's changed her mind now, but she's been saying it's time I met her family in Clermont-Ferrand. We can't call on the way down; her parents are away in Italy."
"It's probably better that way round. If Zoé's mother doesn't take to you it could spoil your holiday."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she might be shocked at what her cherished daughter has picked up in England."
"It's going to make her year."
"You hope. Isn't it all a long way? I mean, you need a large car to go that far. Now take my BMW. It's..."
"It's off the road, Ken. With a broken window. See you a fortnight Monday." Matt was already at the top of the stairs. He put his head back round the door. "Look in Yellow Pages for a mobile windshield repairer. And make sure they vacuum the rear seat. You'll never believe how much glass there was in that window."
Chapter Four
Clinic of the Little Sisters of Tourvillon
THE LARGE sheet of x-ray film helped reduce the glare from the lightbox. Dr. Jim Kappa studied the fine lines that made up the side view of a human head. The teeth showed as clear emulsion, with the upper and lower jaws fixed firmly together in a display of anguish. Perhaps the patient already knew what the scans and radiographs would reveal.
"A highly malignant brain lesion." Kappa spoke softly to Mario Bernetti, as though the image on the film might overhear the devastating diagnosis. "You're the neurosurgeon, Mario, so the decision is yours. I'll support you if you decide on an immediate operation for Mr. Goldstein."
Dr. Bernetti clipped a second sheet of film to the box on the wall and leaned forward, his face lit by a glow of blue light. The CT scan showed the same patient, this time from the front. Again the jaw was firmly closed, but from this angle the teeth appeared to be set in a forced smile of resignation. The pale area of blood vessels and tissue that made up the malignant neoplasm sat directly between the upper teeth and the eye sockets.
Bernetti compared the x-ray image with the computerized tomography scan. "It look bad, Jim, but I work good on this one." He spoke in English but his voice sounded heavy with an Italian accent. "I no lose many patients yet. Not even you American surgeons come close to my record. When you think I should operate on Signor Goldstein?"
"We both know a tumor of this size and position can't wait." Kappa tapped the pale gray area on the film, outlining the malignant growth with the tip of a pencil. "I suggest you do one more scan, then start with a left frontal approach."
"Tonight?"
Kappa swung the pencil point in an arc across the image. "I'll arrange the operating room for a craniotomy."
Bernetti nodded. "Sure. I use a needle biopsy." He made a stabbing movement with his fingers. "I go deep into the brain."
The sound of a helicopter intruded into the clinic of the Little Sisters of Tourvillon. Kappa looked up, as though he expected to see the aircraft through the walls of the room. "That will be Mr. Michener, our new patient from California. The pilot's going back to Nice this evening, Mario. I want you to give him a complete set of these scans, and make sure he gets them on the New York plane tonight. Goldstein's specialist in Manhattan is anxious to know the worst."
Bernetti flicked the lightbox off. The unlit film became black, concealing the devastating medical evidence. "This one bad, Jim. But me, I make Signor Goldstein happy." He replaced the sheets of film in their large red folder. "I make his doctor in America happy too."
"Sure, Mario, we're here to make everyone happy. I'll tell you what." Kappa leaned close to his colleague and nodded towards the Convent of the Little Sisters that shared the site. "There's a young dark-eyed Sister with a gorgeous face. She's new to the convent. I bet I could make her happy."
Bernetti was already writing the medical report of the destructive tumor deep inside Goldstein's head. He looked up and sounded irate. "Me, I no touch the Sisters here in Avignon. Maybe I see too much of them at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome. Sorry, Jim, I no share your humor."
Chapter Five
Avignon, France
"I WANT you to promise me one thing, Matt." Zoé ran her fingers down his cheek.
"Which is?"
"You must forget about Ken. You are très crispé, much too uptight. We are here for a holiday. That Ken 'Abgood he is not worth spoiling a holiday for."
Matt nodded. Although Zoé was speaking English, her French accent seemed to have grown stronger as soon as they crossed the Channel. It was their first Sunday, and not even lunchtime. Something seemed to be still bothering Zoé, but whatever it was it remained unspoken.
He looked at the slightly upturned nose, the firm but narrow eyebrows, and the attractively wide mouth. The open windows on the journey down the autoroute in the little Austin Mini had played havoc with her long, mid-brown hair. The casual curls that Zoé had taken so long to get just right last night almost concealed the sensuous neck that had first attracted him in the bookshop nearly a year ago. His own fair hair was short enough to have been scarcely disturbed.
"What are you thinking, Matt?"
Zoé's question took him by surprise. "I'm thinking ... thinking I don't want to lose you." He gave a quick smile.
"You think I would walk out on you without saying anything?" she asked in surprise.
"Of course you wouldn't." Not that he was being strictly honest. It was more what he hoped than what he knew. Sometimes he couldn't figure Zoé out. Well, he wasn't going to let her go easily.
"Do I look all right, Matt?"
Zoé must know she was the center of attention in this bar. "You should have brought your nurse's uniform. You know how it turns me on."
"Only the outfit?"
Matt laughed, glad to see Zoé starting to relax after many days of tension at home. "And the cold stethoscope. You can give me a check-up with that any time, Nurse Champanelle."
"Behave yourself." Zoé looked embarrassed.
He took hold of her warm hand under the small bistro table. "Nothing's more important to me than you."
"Not Ken?"
Here it was again. "Of course not." He wouldn't be the one to start the argument.
The outside tables had a view of the old-fashioned roundabout of galloping horses in the central street, but they were all occupied. Inside, the cool bar had plenty of room. Matt found Avignon fascinating, and this was only their first full day.
The awareness of the envious men stealing glances at Zoé gave him a depraved thrill. "I'm not sure I should have brought you in here. There isn't a man who hasn't studied your body."
Zoé returned the compliment with a smile. "That is exactement the sort of thing you would notice, being a PI."
"Goes with the job. Nothing but attractive women all day long in my work, and plenty of time to look at them." He stood up and tried to catch the attention of a waiter. A crowd of tourists pouring through this ancient city blocked the narrow street that lead through to the Papal Palace. "I'll have to move the car if we don't get served soon. A bright orange Mini will be like a magnet for parking wardens."
Zoé pulled at his arm. "Sit down. It will not take us long to drink a coffee -- if they ever serve us. There are fifteen minutes left on the parking ticket."
Matt noticed a young woman sitting alone at the next table. She had been there when they arrived, and she kept glancing across. He tried to ignore her. "Yes, if. Les contractuels, traffic wardens and parking attendants are everywhere, in every country."
"They have a job to do." Zoé looked thoughtful. "I think perhaps PIs have the same image."
"Perhaps." He knew what was coming next. Ken Habgood was right when he said a holiday was make or break. "When we get back I might look around for something better. If that's what you want."
"You are good at your work, Matt. You have the training with the police."
"Sure." Matt managed to get noticed by the waiter. "Deux cafés au lait," adding
quietly, "S'il vous plaît." He turned to Zoé. "You're sitting with a man who once had a promising career in the police force, but ended up working for a backstreet detective agency."
Zoé nodded. "You do not have to do the divorces. The surveillance you set up for Ken in the big office block last month with the video cameras. It was clever. Even Ken said so."
"Ken's been good to me. I owe him a few more favors yet."
"Always you are thinking about your work."
"Don't start to nag. The drive here blew all thoughts of work away." He paused. "And that noise from the transmission helped."
"Perhaps." Zoé smiled uncomfortably, as though she had been deliberately setting up this conversation. "I have been thinking."
"I know something's worrying you. Merci." Matt leaned back as the waiter served the coffee.
"Ken, he is a good man, but he is mean. Why does he have a BMW while you only have your old Mini?"
"That BMW's ten years old. It's even more of a liability than my Mini. Is that what's been worrying you?"
She gave his hand a squeeze. "Nobody loves a PI. Except me."
Matt tried his coffee. It was only lukewarm. Zoé didn't seem to understand the kick he got from working for Ken Habgood. What little money there was, Ken seemed to share generously enough. "There are too many people in the private investigation business, that's the trouble."
Zoé raised her voice slightly. "You have over ten years with the police to help you start the business of your own. People would take you seriously."
"People want to take me out -- with steel scaffold poles. Anyway, you're wrong. Most private investigators are ex-cops." Matt withdrew his hand from Zoé's and placed it over the top of his cup. "Ken still thinks I left the police in some sort of disgrace."
"He knows did they not fire you. He knows you resigned."
"He knows I got out in time -- before it all hit the fan. That drugs case with the MP's son got very messy in the end. There are things I haven't told you." Matt sighed. The woman on the next table caught his eye and smiled. He nodded back and returned to his tepid coffee. "Anyway," he said defiantly, trying to make it the last word on the subject, "you have to think of me like Saint George, fighting the dragon; righting wrongs and all that."
"There is ... something I want to talk to you about," said Zoé after a significant pause.
The woman on the next table kept smiling. Matt smiled at her, briefly, but quickly turned back to Zoé and hoped she'd not noticed.
"Excuse me." The woman leaned towards their table before Zoé could continue. Her accent was North American. "I couldn't help overhearing you guys talking." She looked at Zoé. "You're Zoé Champanelle. Don't you remember me? I'm Leanne."
Zoé seemed to be hiding her rivalry well as she returned the smile. "You are American?"
"From Albuquerque. We met in France a few years back, when I was working at the cancer center in Lyon. I'm nursing here in Avignon now, at the Clinic of the Little Sisters up in the hills. I'm Leanne Corbin now."
Matt watched the polite look on Zoé's face turn to genuine pleasure. "Leanne? Yes, of course I remember. We were on the same ward. Always you made the jokes."
Leanne turned her chair. "Did I hear you say this good looking guy is some sort of detective? Is it all right if I join you, Zo?"
"Zo?" Matt mouthed the word and tried not to laugh out loud. Zoé had kept quiet about this detail of her past. She raised one of her narrow eyebrows as though to tell him to say no more. He turned to the woman. "I met Zoé in an English bookshop last year. It's a long story. We're ... going steady."
The woman had been eyeing him closely and he tried to put the right emphasis on the fact that he was already fixed up. Zoé's New Mexican friend made him think of the days when he'd been free to respond to smiling women. "We're on holiday. Vacation."
"Nice place, Avignon." Leanne Corbin nodded as though to herself. "I was about to go back to Albuquerque when, wham, I met this guy here in town one evening. We got married three months later. He's a good man."
Matt shrugged. What a mass of shortcomings that description could conceal. Yet Leanne seemed content. "Does your husband work at the clinic?"
Leanne laughed, and Matt decided that if she were to let her dark hair free from the tightly pulled bunch at the back, this woman would look almost desirable. "Alain's brother is the clever one: he's a priest. Alain works in a factory. Making farm machinery." She said it as though no further explanation was necessary. But in case it was, she added, "Alain's a lovely man, and we're very happy."
Matt sighed silently. Couldn't they have a quiet Sunday morning coffee without being interrupted? Zoé had been about to unburden herself.
A young man in tan chinos and a bright floral shirt stared at them across the bar. Leanne lowered her voice. "I don't want to make trouble, and I know Alain wouldn't want me to get involved."
"Involved in what?" Matt made room so Zoé's old nursing friend could slide her chair across.
Leanne came closer than Matt intended and he could feel the warmth from her arms. Her voice was quiet. "That man watching us is called Cranburg. He's part of the clinic's security team."
"Are you in some sort of trouble?" asked Matt.
"I found a large envelope in ... in ... the corridor at the clinic. I shouldn't have looked inside."
"But you did," said Matt.
"I wish I'd left it alone."
"Drugs?"
Leanne just stared at Matt, deep in thought.
After a minute Matt tried again, hoping for some sort of response. The silence wasn't his fault. This woman had insisted on gatecrashing their table. "Was there a name on the envelope?"
Leanne sounded vague. "Yes." She caught hold of Matt's arm. "Anyway, you're wrong. Something smells, but it's nothing to do with drugs. I did some research in the Internet café round the corner. Cranburg came in for a coffee, but no way can he have known what I was looking for on the café computer." She nodded towards the man in the bright shirt who was getting himself another drink.
"That's not..." Matt decided not to say anything that might worry Leanne unnecessarily. Anyone using a search engine on the Internet left a full history trail, unless they were careful to delete everything. "If you don't want the envelope, return it."
"I don't know how to do it." Leanne sounded agitated. "I can't go to the surgeon and say, 'Excuse me, I found this and opened it.'"
"Surgeon?" said Matt in surprise.
Leanne nodded slowly. "I don't like the guy."
"Then stick it in the internal mail. No one will know who found it."
Leanne seemed flustered. "I'm wondering how many of the doctors are involved. Have you ever heard of K7?"
Matt shook his head. "What's K7? A mountain?"
"Cut out the comedy and listen to Leanne," said Zoé sharply.
"K7 isn't a place, it's a brotherhood."
Matt looked up at the ceiling as though this might unlock his memory. The man at the bar, Cranburg, seemed to be paying them no attention now. Maybe he never had been. "You make it sound like a local branch of P2, the Italian Masonic Lodge."
Leanne shrugged. "It's no big deal."
Matt knew it obviously was. A long-lost nursing colleague wouldn't pull up a chair like this and start a conversation if she wasn't worried. "What do you want me to do? Go round and check on them?" It wasn't a serious suggestion. He caught sight of Zoé's critical glare. She could hardly see Leanne Corbin as a threat. She probably didn't want their holiday spoiled by unscheduled work. "Investigating K7 doesn't sound like my sort of activity." He shook his head firmly. "Not if it's like P2. No thanks."
"We have to be going soon," said Zoé. The smile was still on her face, but more obviously contrived now. "Our car, it is parked nearby, and the time on the ticket is running out. Matt is right I think. It is not the sort of work he does."
"I'm sorry if I sound jittery." Leanne loosened the top two buttons of her thin cream blouse. "I've not been too well for the past
few weeks. I'm not infectious or anything, but I keep getting headaches."
"You must see a doctor." Zoé sounded concerned.
Leanne laughed. "You know what nurses are like. We're familiar with all the symptoms and are afraid of the worst. We have to be dying before we see a doctor. I'll have to go to the medical center at the clinic if things don't improve soon. Hey, I'm sorry to keep on about it, but if this guy of yours is a private investigator, I might have a job for him."
"He is," said Zoé. "But he is on his holiday."
Matt smiled. Zoé could be very firm. Perhaps it was just as well: he was already warming to the idea of nosing around. Leanne didn't seem ready to give up. "Do you know about Sister Angela's visions?"
Matt drained his cup of lukewarm coffee, including the few grounds stagnating at the bottom. What an oddball to meet in a place like this. Zoé must have made some weird friends in the past. He tried to make his reply sound dismissive. "No, I can't say we do."
"Can I tell you about them? Please?"
Zoé, as a nurse, must have sensed something in Leanne's voice. She nodded encouragingly.
Leanne Corbin leaned further forward, revealing a full cleavage of plentiful freckles. "Sister Angela lives at the Convent of the Little Sisters. Up at Tourvillon. That's where the clinic is. It's where I work." It was all a bit breathless. "Do you understand?"
"I know about the clinic," said Zoé slowly. "It is only small, but everyone knows about the Clinic of the Little Sisters of Tourvillon."
"I don't," said Matt.
"By everyone, I mean everyone in medicine," said Zoé, and she looked encouragingly at Leanne. "Please go on."
"Tourvillon?" Matt wasn't going to be left out. "There's a map in the car. I'll get it, and buy a new parking ticket at the same time."
Outside in the hot morning sunshine he wondered whether to take his time -- or hurry back for Zoé's sake.
Three minutes later he was spreading the map on the small café table. "Tourvillon? Yes, got it. Up in the hills. About twenty minutes' drive. Go on, you were telling us about someone's visions."
Leanne smiled weakly. "I'm sorry. It all seems a bit silly now."
"Silly?" Matt could sense strong signals coming from Zoé, although they were probably invisible to anyone else. "No, it's not silly at all," he lied. "We'd like you to tell us. I know a thing or two about visions."