Crossfire (19 page)

“Oh, I’ve diagnosed at least one broken jaw and nose between the pair of them,” he remarked. “Where did you learn to punch like that?”

She managed a slight smile. “Claude taught me. He says that a young woman needs to be able to defend herself, especially when she goes cycling on lonely roads. His parents were gypsies, and he ran away when he was fifteen. He grew up on the streets of Paris, so he learned to fight dirty from an early age. I could’ve killed those two, if I had wanted to, or ended their careers forever.”

“Do you see Claude often?” Stefan questioned, curious about her relationship with the racing driver.

“Yes, he lives in the complex, but he’s away on the racing circuit most of the season, though he drops by whenever he can. I think Jean-Michel asked him to look after me, in case the worst happened. Claude and Jean-Michel went into some business ventures together, and I inherited Jean-Michel’s share, so we’re business partners too.” Her face changed to an expression of pain as she continued, “Those girls were wrong. Claude is like a brother to me.”

Stefan felt reassured that the Frenchman wouldn’t present any competition. “You realize that when the papers print those accusations, you could sue those two riders for libel. With your resources, you could keep them in court for years. So if they decide to sue you for their injuries, you could countersue to discourage them. Doc Louis thinks they might try such a move.”

“Well, I’ll let my lawyers deal with that,” she said without much enthusiasm, pulling the duvet up to her chin.

“What you need is some tea.”

She rewarded him with a smile.

~ . ~

Later in the evening, Stefan defrosted some lasagna for them. He knew it was her favorite dish, but she displayed little appetite, picking at the food on her plate.

“Not hungry?”

“No.” She put down her fork.

“It’ll get better,” he assured her, speaking from experience.

She grimaced, not answering.

“You should listen to me. Everybody else does,” he said with mock arrogance.

“And what do you want to tell me now?”

“Don’t worry. I have a strong feeling that everything will be all right. Just trust me.” He didn’t want her to know he had taken a hand in the proceedings, but he didn’t want her to keep worrying either.

She stared at him with wide eyes. “Just promise me you won’t harm anyone, Stefan. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

Stefan was hurt. How could she suspect him of deeds that hadn’t even crossed his mind? Killing or injuring those involved wouldn’t solve anything, and where would it stop? It would attract too much attention anyway. The phone call to Karl had set in motion a far bigger mechanism. But he couldn’t tell her what he had done.

She saw the injured look on his face and was immediately repentant. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was that you mustn’t get into trouble on my account. Please forgive me?”

“Of course.”

She scrutinized his blue eyes, a soft look in her eyes. “You’re a special man, do you know that?”

He smiled, charmed by her sincerity. “I like you too.”

~ . ~

That night, when they went to bed, she took his hand, and without a word led him to her bedroom. He understood that she needed him more than she cared to admit, and didn’t protest, happy to have her in his arms. But he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the act. He wanted Marcelle, more than he had ever wanted a woman before, and he wanted far more than just holding her in his arms.

But when she snuggled up to him in sleep, he reproached himself for being so shallow. To win her love would take time, but it would be worth it.

~ . ~

The next day dawned, dark and dreary, with intermittent drizzle. At least that took care of any temptation for Marcelle to go outside, though Stefan noticed she showed no inclination to do so. Perhaps her body was too tender, he thought, studying her. She wore a deep purple tracksuit that contrasted with the white bandage on her right hand and the dressing on her smooth forehead.

He had dressed in a pair of Jean-Michel’s jeans again, with a loose sweater. He left his feet bare, enjoying the plush carpeting installed throughout the apartment.

The morning slipped by with many of Marcelle’s friends phoning to pledge their support for her. She was friendly and polite, but subdued, even when speaking to Richard. Her appetite hadn’t revived, and she hardly touched breakfast. Stefan knew she was sick with worry. The next call was from Francois Cheval, her father. He told her he would do what he could to help her situation. He was however, unable to come and see her as an important business deal kept him tied up in Japan.

The call seemed to lift her spirits, until she received a call from the Directeur Sportif of the Ultima-Fabelta Team, Pierre-Henri Petton. He told her that her sponsors and the French Federation wanted to see her at his smallholding on Friday morning. She said she would be there, but when she asked her team manager how things looked, he was evasive.

After she put down the phone, Marcelle raised her eyebrows at Stefan and said with flashing eyes, “Looks like Ultima-Fabelta wants to get in on the act. They had better be careful. I might get upset and stage a hostile takeover of their companies.”

He laughed, pleased that her sense of humor hadn’t left her.

One phone call, a little bit later, seemed to have more meaning than those before, drawing a quick smile of pleasure from her when she heard the caller’s voice.

After the call, she came to sit on the sofa again. “That was Anthony. He’s racing in Italy. He wanted to quit the tour and come to me, but I told him to forget it. One of us in trouble is enough, but I miss him.”

“You’ve never told me how you two met,” Stefan said, alerted by the tender tone in her voice.

“I met him while on the lamb, so to speak.” Marcelle said with a chuckle. “He saved my life, literally as well as figuratively.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Stefan asked, hoping for a chance to distract her from her predicament.

She smiled at him. “You’re going to get it all out of me, eventually, aren’t you?”

“I have extensive training in various interrogation techniques. So you might as well give it all up now,” he said, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

She sighed. “Well, his story starts where the last one left off, more or less. And I can’t tell you about Anthony without telling you about Jean-Michel, and how Anthony is the man who helped Jean-Michel to save me.”

“We have nothing but time, Marcelle. I’m listening. So you travelled to Paris, looking for your father, but you found Anthony instead.”

“Something like that. I lived in Paris for nearly three months, but with my limited resources, finding my father was impossible. By then my visa was about to expire, and life in Paris wasn’t cheap. I worried how I would survive once my money ran out. It was early January by then, and the European cycling season was around the corner.”

“Did you have any further news about the situation in South Africa?”

“Yes, I regularly checked on the news in South Africa, so I knew that the police hadn’t
identified me as a suspect yet. I decided to go back to what I do best, and bought a bicycle and new cycling kit. I hoped I would be able to obtain a license somehow, start racing again and earn money that way.”

“And you weren’t worried about exposing yourself to the public eye like that?” Stefan asked, moving closer and putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.

She didn’t seem to mind the contact, and moved closer to him, allowing her thigh to press against his. “Well, in the end it didn’t come to that. One day I cycled out to one of the early season international races, to watch, and I met some riders who had come out from Belgium. They were foreigners from America, New Zealand and Australia. They told me they knew a man in Ghent who could help me with a place to stay and get me to races. They said they knew of many places where one could cross from France into Belgium without going through border posts. I returned to Belgium with them, because my French visa had expired so I faced deportation if found. I also realized that the police could track my whereabouts if I kept entering countries legally.

“But that still didn’t solve your passport problem. You could hardly compete under your own name.”

“Yes, but the interesting fact was that these cyclists had assumed I was a boy. I had worn a few layers of thermal cycling clothing because of the extreme cold, so it was a natural mistake. Suppressing my initial impulse to correct them, I decided it could only work in my favor. The police would be looking for a girl, not a boy. I couldn’t have asked for a better disguise.”

“That was a lucky break.”

“Yes, and it gets better. In Belgium, my friends introduced me to Etienne De Wilde. He owned many houses in Ghent, and made his money by renting rooms and amenities to foreign riders and students. He was a real schemer, and not above breaking the law. He would often obtain false licenses for riders that the Belgian Cycling Federation had banned. He would portray them as local riders, so that they could at least race, and he could collect the rent every month.”

“Quite a rogue,” Stefan commented with a smile.

“That’s a fact,” she agreed. “I paid Etienne to get a Belgian racing license for me, and a Belgian passport. He obtained the passport by portraying me as his seventeen-year-old son, Michel de Wilde. His real son, the youngest of three, had died two years previously during a training accident. Afrikaans, my home language, was similar to Dutch, and I spoke fluent French, so I could pass for a Belgian. I raced in Belgium for that season, in the junior category, and did well enough. I managed to win enough money to support myself, so that I didn’t have to touch my own money.”

“So you managed to adapt to your new surroundings, and make the best of a bad situation.”

“Yes, but my problems were far from over. At the end of the season, I told Etienne I would return the following season. Armed with my Belgian passport, I crossed into France again, planning to spend a few weeks there, except that I saw an outdated picture of myself in a French newspaper. The accompanying report named me a murder suspect, wanted by the South African police. The report said I had obtained a visa for France in October the year before, and that the police suspected I was still in France. Completely spooked, I entered Spain by loading essential clothes into a backpack and crossing the border on my bicycle.”

“That was a bit too close for comfort,” Stefan said, feeling the tension in her body.

“You’re telling me. In Spain, I bought what clothes I needed and found accommodation with a family who rented rooms to tourists. That’s where I learned to speak Spanish. I spent the entire off-season training in the warmer parts of Spain, and at least felt safe.

“When I returned to Belgium in March, I no longer looked like the frightened sixteen-year-old who had fled South Africa. My hair was short and bleached by the sun. I had lost a lot of weight, and had a dark tan. By keeping my fat percentage to a minimum, and training hard, I had managed to keep puberty at bay, and no longer looked like a girl. I always wore dark glasses to hide my eyes, because they are a bit unusual, and tend to stick in people’s memories.”

“They’re beautiful,” he interrupted gently, turning his head to look into her eyes.

She smiled shyly, averting her gaze. “Thank you, but they are a bit strange.”

He let it go as she continued, “Etienne had obtained an international license for me for the season. This would allow me to cross into France and race there regularly. I did that, because I hadn’t given up on finding my father. The money was much better in France, especially in the Paris-based races, but racing in France wasn’t friendly to foreigners. To ensure that outsiders couldn’t survive for long, the French Federation kept prize money until the end of the season, and then paid it out in a lump sum. That was bad news for me, because I needed my prize money right away to survive. So I had to compete for every prime that came up, because the organizers paid that money right after the race.”

“Excuse my ignorance, but what is a prime?”

“That’s when they ring the bell during a circuit race, for instance, and the first person over the line on the next lap gets some money. The French pronunciation is preem. I used to win the majority of the primes in the races I entered. Of course this left me exhausted by the end of the race, and I would usually only place at the finish, instead of winning.”

“But at least you had money to live on, and perhaps winning might have attracted too much attention. I’ll be honest, that took a lot of guts, hiding in plain sight.”

“I guess so, but my aggression in the races attracted attention anyway, and three months into the season, I received an offer from a top Paris club. They would provide accommodation and pay me a salary, with bonuses for good performances. After discussing it with Etienne, I moved to Paris, alone again. Or so I thought.” Marcelle went silent, staring unseeingly in front of her, remembering.

Stefan watched her for a few moments before he squeezed her shoulders. “And then?”

She looked startled, but then she smiled. “And then we decided to take a break for some hot chocolate. Would you like some?”