Shroud of the Healer

  "It is a bit of a ... what do you say? ... blot."

  "You're not still thinking of working there, I hope. The whole place is fenced in. You'd soon get fed up with the security checks going in and out."

  Zoé laughed. She was growing more relaxed as the day went on. "Why should I want to come and go? I will find myself the handsome young doctor and stay inside forever."

  "He'd die of exhaustion."

  "Not necessarily. I would be easy on him. Like I am with you."

  Matt wasn't going to take the put-down without protest. "Then I'd bug the place and listen to you groaning and moaning in bed."

  "You are disgusting, Matt Rider. How about buying me a coffee after the drive so long?"

  Zoé nodded towards the local bar where three large yellow umbrellas protected the tables from the pigeons in the trees above. A middle-aged woman in a wine-stained apron appeared. They were her only customers.

  Matt ordered a black coffee for himself and a white one for Zoé. From his shaky bistro chair he studied the cobbled square, complete with traditional village pump in a stone surround.

  Zoé kept staring up at the clinic.

  "What are you doing?" he asked. "Dreaming of your young doctor?"

  "I was looking at the black kites circling in the sky. I think perhaps there is a nest on the big rock."

  "They look like DC3s, old Dakota aircraft. Is that all that's on your mind?" He knew it wasn't.

  Zoé took hold of his hand. "Also, I am thinking about ... your work."

  He sighed, loudly. "Leave it."

  "You do not understand, Matt. I do not wish to stop you working for Ken." She leaned across and gave him a hug.

  He looked back up at the hill. "I could hang-glide from the top of there."

  Zoé sounded surprised. "You know how to use a hang-glider?"

  "I went on an adventure course in the Alps. Hang-gliders, paragliders. It was brilliant. I've been paragliding quite a few times since. I'm almost an expert."

  "It is dangerous, I think."

  "Well, I'm not about to leap off the top of the hill holding a tablecloth above my head, if that's what's worrying you."

  "No, I am not worried about you doing the brave things. A man should be allowed to stretch himself."

  "Women also. We could swoop over the Convent and look in the windows."

  Zoé sighed. "Matt Rider, you are a dirty old man." He stared at her. He'd meant it as a joke, but Zoé wasn't smiling. Every time she was about to unburden herself something interrupted her. He wished he'd shut up about hang-gliders.

  "I'm sorry, Zoé. You wanted to talk about my work."

  "Not about your work. You must, I think, do the work you enjoy. But you said you would bug the clinic. The fence it is so high, and there are the guards on the gate."

  "What's this, a test?"

  "Believe it or not, I am interested. So, tell me how you would do it."

  Matt shook his head. "I thought we were on holiday."

  Zoé shrugged. "Leanne Corbin, she has got me all disturbed."

  "And me. This K7 thing has really got to her."

  "At the hospital in Lyon, Leanne was always so calm. I wish we had spent longer talking to her yesterday. So tell me, is it easy to put the bugs in there?"

  "It would depend."

  "On what?"

  "On whether they're expecting to be bugged. It's always much harder to do anything if the target is alert."

  "You never tell me much about what you do for Ken."

  "That's because you don't like me working for him."

  Zoé touched his lips with her fingers. "You are, I think, too easily upset. Pretend I am your client and I am ever so rich."

  Matt moved back to allow the woman to place two large cups and saucers on the table. The coffee in his cup looked satisfyingly dark and fresh; the stains on the outside looked old.

  He waited for the woman to leave. "I'd ask innocent-sounding questions down here in the village. Find out how the clinic staff come and go. What special passes their visitors need. How security works. I can't just rush in there with a pocketful of bugs. I'd need a few days just keeping watch."

  "A few days? No wonder Ken he is so wealthy -- if he charges by the hour." Zoé giggled unexpectedly. "What else are you going to look for?"

  "I'd check out the phone lines. They're never underground -- not out in the country. I'd find a spot on the hillside where the overhead line can't be seen from the road, and climb the pole and put a pick-up on it. It would have to be advanced, to handle multiple calls from a business. I could leave a voice-activated recorder running, then get on with the rest of my plans."

  "They might use the cell phones, and not have phone lines."

  Matt tried his coffee, turning the cup to avoid the stains. It tasted even better than the coffee in the bar in Avignon. "Bright girl. Then I'd have a receiver that would automatically sweep the frequencies until I found them talking. Extremely expensive, but with the right equipment you are able to do that with digital phones nowadays. Anyway, I can't see a mobile phone mast on the hill or in the village."

  "Can they detect your pickup on their phone line?"

  "If they look for it. There's a thing they can use called a telephone tap defeater. It takes all the power my pickup needs and stops me listening. But that would mean they know someone is onto them, and it gets very technical then -- really advanced espionage. I could use a sophisticated induction pickup, and they're unlikely to detect that."

  "It sounds so easy."

  "That's because we're sitting here, not trying to tap a line in the middle of a field. Espionage and counter-espionage depends on the skill of the operators, and on who has the most money. But as soon as they find a bug they never talk openly again, that's for sure."

  Zoé sounded excited. "I can see some overhead wires."

  He drew his breath in sharply. "If you don't know what it is, don't mess with it. You're looking at the power cables to the site. See that rock with the flying Dakotas?" He pointed to where the black kites were soaring. "The main electricity supply runs past it on those poles."

  "Well, it looks like a phone line to me." Zoé stirred her coffee idly. "So you have climbed the pole and managed to get the pickup on there when the night is dark. So where would you sit with your receiver? Out on the hill for everyone to see you?"

  Matt finished his coffee. The after-taste was something to savor. Why couldn't all coffee be like this? "It depends on how advanced my telephone tap is. Give me a basic one with a small radio and I'd have to stay within twenty or thirty yards. But I wouldn't sit in the car. That would be a dead giveaway. I'd park in the village and hide myself in the bushes below the rock. Give me a good pick-up and I could be anywhere within a few miles."

  "Then you would be safe," commented Zoé as she drained her cup, grounds and all.

  "It gets better," said Matt. "I needn't even come to France. I could stay home and use my phone to get hooked in. It's called an Infinity Receiver. It transmits and receives on the international phone network. It's not legal, but all you need is some expensive kit, a simple code, and you're away."

  Zoé nodded. "I think perhaps they would catch you climbing the pole to put a simple tap there."

  "I've not been caught yet. Anyway, a PI worth employing wouldn't mess around in the open. He'd get inside the building to plant bugs."

  Zoé laughed. "Do you dress as the milk deliveryman?"

  Matt brushed a few crumbs off the table. Someone had been here earlier eating croissants. "People are suspicious when a stranger suddenly replaces a regular. A service engineer is best. No one expects to know him, and the job gets me into the offices. I can bring loads of gear because I'm supposed to have a tool box with me."

  "That is good."

  "I need to watch the main gate first, and see if they let certain visitors in without a fuss. They're the sort of people to impersonate."

  "And if that fails?"

  "I could always try digging in under t
he back fence -- as long as they've not got microwave or IR scanners along the wire."

  "IR scanners?"

  "Infrared. They scan along the boundary with an invisible light beam. You don't know they're there, because you can't see them. Break the beam and the alarm goes off."

  "So what do you do?"

  "Persuade someone on the inside to turn it off for a few minutes."

  "Like the man in the stores at Grieves' yard?"

  Matt nodded, remembering the job he had done on the first day he had met Zoé. The start of their relationship had not gone smoothly then, and once again Zoé seemed to have a problem he was unable to fathom.

  "It takes time. And money. That's why it's best to go in as a visitor, perhaps using a forged letter. It's easy to print fake invitations and letter headings nowadays with a computer. I'd need to get hold of a genuine letter from the clinic and scan it to make a perfect copy of the heading. I told you, it takes planning."

  Zoé nodded excitedly. "All right, I think you are now inside. And then?"

  "You've made it sound easy. Okay, I'm in. I plant miniature bugs in key locations, then come out and activate them later."

  "They sweep for bugs. Is that what they do?"

  "It is. And that's why I said I activate them later. I'm talking quality UHF gear now. You said money isn't important. I'd have a transmitter coded for each bug, but I keep the bugs switched off so they're almost impossible to detect. At that stage they'd be waiting to receive a signal rather than transmitting. I need to know when the hospital does a sweep, and make sure I send a signal to switch the bugs off until they've finished. Anyway, most hospitals aren't going to be looking for bugs. Not the electronic sort. Bed bugs more likely. Or viral bugs in the wards."

  Zoé reached over and hit him gently on the shoulder. "Not in my hospital, Inspector Rider."

  "Chief Inspector."

  She reached out across the top of the table again, this time taking hold of his hand. "I wish you had stayed with the police."

  Matt shook his head. "Don't keep on. Why all the interest in bugging?"

  "Since we met Leanne I find detective work rather exciting." Zoé lifted her empty cup. "Share a croissant with me, Chief Inspector?"

  Matt signaled to the woman who was sitting behind a fly screen made of long strips of brown plastic, reading a torn copy of Paris Match. The thought of salty French butter made him order two.

  Matt sat back as the woman returned with two large croissants, butter, and a dark red confiture in a chipped glass dish. The second cup of coffee looked as refreshingly dark as the first one, but the cup looked no cleaner.

  Zoé cut vigorously into her croissant. "You have been coming back in so bad a mood lately, but I think perhaps I have got the wrong idea of your work."

  He would normally have retorted that his mood had been good: it was Zoé who'd been uptight, not him. But Provence seemed too peaceful for a squabble. The croissants were unexpectedly tough. Crumbs scattered over the table as his knife dug in. The earlier customer must have been an expert to leave so few crumbs. More likely, the pigeons had been busy.

  "Ken takes the best jobs for himself. I can't blame him. It's his agency, and I was lucky to get work after leaving the police without a decent reference. I just wish he'd make more use of my training. Half my time seems to be spent checking up on husbands and wives for suspicious partners."

  He jumped up as a wasp got caught in his hair, and banged his head on the edge of the yellow umbrella. A large lump of dark gray dirt fell onto the table. "Let's not wait for Leanne to get a brochure. We'll drive up now and ask for one. Let's see how hot their security is."

  Zoé nodded. "You make the surveillance sound so exciting, Matt. I think perhaps I could like planting the bugs and tapping the telephones all day long."

  "I think I could, too," reflected Matt gloomily.

  "Cheer up, Chief Inspector, you can finish my croissant."

  Chapter Twelve

  Clinic of the Little Sisters of Tourvillon

  THE WINDOW that had been blackness last night was now filled with streaming rays of sunshine. Steve Michener had already taken a phone-call from his agent in Los Angeles assuring him that no one in Hollywood suspected he was in for medical treatment.

  "Observation," he'd been quick to point out.

  "Sure, Steve, in for observation."

  But the summer sun did nothing to dispel the bad vibes that had accompanied him all the way from the States. This afternoon they were going to yank something out of his brain while they had his skull cut open. The attractive nurse was doing her best to soothe him as she pulled firmly and expertly at the bedding.

  "You can get back in now, Mr. Michener. Admiring the view, I expect. Provence is the best part of France."

  "You're from the States. Tell me your name, nurse."

  "Nurse Corbin, Mr. Michener."

  "I guess you come from ... where?"

  "Albuquerque."

  "And I come from LA. You look beautiful this morning, Nurse Corbin." Suddenly he felt on a high. It was the sunshine that did it. Or maybe they'd slipped him something to help get through the day. "Have you ever seen so many orange roofs in one place? I guess a guy could make a killing selling roofing tiles around this part." He had to force the laugh.

  He stood by the open window in his pale blue silk pajamas, looking through the thin fly screen and feeling totally in control of the situation. He could take any liberty he wanted with this woman in the smart white uniform. "See that quaint village? There's a little square, and yellow umbrellas by the snack bar on the sidewalk. Do they ever let us go down there? I'd sure like to have a look at the place from up close, with a beautiful woman on my arm. What's your first name, Nurse Corbin?"

  "The village is called Tourvillon. It's a pretty place," she said, standing a little distance away as she looked from the window to where he was pointing.

  He noticed that she left his question unanswered. She wore no perfume. A woman without perfume seemed quaint. "It's all pretty around here. Just like the nurses." But he kept his hands to himself. He'd have to watch his step and control his natural urges. He needed the medical support staff for consolation, not sexual satisfaction. "Am I going to be all right, nurse?" The question filled his whole mind; filled it every minute.

  She turned away. "You must ask Dr. Kappa."

  "But I'm asking you. Doctors sometimes tell lies."

  "I'm a nurse. I'd put my life in their hands," she said with a brief smile.

  "If you're that confident, how about taking my place?"

  That made her smile for longer. "They're very gifted here, Mr. Michener. You'll soon be on your way back to the States without a care in the world. Please get back into bed. I have to give you a pre-med, an injection to make you sleepy. That brain of yours needs a rest. I'll leave the window open. It's a lovely morning. Can you smell the lavender in the garden? It's glorious. Happy dreams."

  The needle went into his arm with a sharp stab.

  *

  JIM KAPPA reclined in the black leather armchair in front of the window of his air-conditioned office. Masonic groups had been fair game for popes down the ages, but where would this one draw the line? Was the Pope scheming to root out the Knights of the Holy Succession? Surely the Vatican wouldn't see it through, not when the Holy Father came here and found out just how successful the staff were at Tourvillon. Successful and powerful.

  Mario Bernetti was probably panicking unnecessarily about Nurse Corbin's questions. A new thought made him frown. Had Leanne Corbin been put into the clinic as a plant? A spy for the Vatican? He laughed to himself. No, it wasn't their way of doing things -- not with a woman.

  He swung the chair round to face into the room. So what was Mario Bernetti fussing about? A nurse asks an innocent question about the Knights of Saint John. All right, he could keep an eye on her, but why did Bernetti assume the Vatican was behind her question? He felt a momentary panic. Perhaps Nurse Corbin was working for the popular pr
ess.

  He must have a word with security; get Maxwell Wilcox to check out every detail of her background. Surely Maxwell would have initiated a full check before the nurse joined the staff. He picked up the phone and turned back to look out of the window. Avignon stood as a brilliant cluster of terracotta tiles in the summer sunshine. Too many roads criss-crossed the landscape, but otherwise the picture was idyllic.

  "Maxwell? I want you in my office."

  Kappa reckoned he could usefully spend half an hour with his head of security. Michener's op wasn't for a couple of hours. Archbishop Valdieri was digging for dirt on secret societies. A pity if there was a snooper in the camp.

  Maxwell Wilcox, the slim American, entered the room wearing his navy blazer displaying that awful double row of gold colored buttons. The embossed insignia on each one looked like handcuffs. Could they be Maxwell's perception of the symbol of his profession?

  "I want a check, Maxwell, a full check, on a member of the nursing staff."

  Maxwell went to the computer and typed the code to gain access to the site network. He smiled briefly. "A nurse? What name, Jim?"

  "Corbin. Leanne Corbin."

  A few taps of the keys brought up a full screen of text, and Maxwell read quickly through the skimpy details. "Trained in New Mexico, first appointment in Albuquerque, worked in France for three years, then joined us from the cancer unit in Lyon, France. That was five years ago. Clearance is fine. Good CV. Speaks French well. No children. Her husband works in one of the local industries. Is there a problem, Jim?"

  "Probably not -- if she's been with us for several years." Kappa pointed to the monitor. "I hoped you'd have something more recent. Does your team keep any other records?"

  "We make jottings on staff in a separate folder on the computer. Mostly it's just temporary stuff that we junk every few months." Maxwell tapped the keys again and a new screen appeared. "Sunday. That's only yesterday." He sounded surprised. "Leanne Corbin was seen talking to a man and a woman in a bar in Avignon. The two words used here are 'rather intensely'. They were looking at a map of this area, which must be why Cranburg thought it worth recording. We have to watch for staff making contact with the press in their free time. And there's an earlier note that she was using a computer in an Internet café in Avignon ... last month. An Internet search on something. I'll speak with Cranburg. Maybe he'll have more information."