The Hunter's Prayer (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

H
e should have brought his own car. The heater wasn’t working in the rental car, which hadn’t been a problem the previous day, but today was much colder. Even his feet were cold. He’d have found it amusing if he didn’t feel so completely ridiculous.

It wasn’t much of a walk between here and the rue Saint Benoit, but the idea was that the rental car could act as a blind, which would be less conspicuous than simply standing across the street from the house. That was the idea, anyway, but the rental car was freezing.

He got out and started to walk, heading for the cafe that he now knew was a frequent haunt of hers. He’d wait in there; if she showed, all well and good. If she didn’t, at least he’d be warm.

The car acted as a barrier to the truth. For the most part, as he sat there, he could fool himself that he was on just another job. Out on the street, though, walking past the house, he felt ill at ease in his own skin, full of self-doubt.

It was a feeling he carried with him into the cafe and he sat dwelling on it as he waited for his coffee. At home, in isolation, he convinced himself that he was ready to come back out into the world, but every time he ventured out, it was as if he’d made no progress at all.

What had really changed since his previous visit when Madeleine had pleaded with him to stay away? He’d turned his back on his old life again, retreated from the world again. This time he was certain he was done with it, but then he’d felt like that before, so how certain could he be? How certain could he ever be that there wouldn’t be another phone call that he’d feel obliged to respond to?

By the time he’d finished his second cup of coffee, he was close to giving up, not just on the cafe, on this cold January day, but on the whole thing. He still didn’t think he had the courage to speak to her or face Madeleine again, so maybe it was better just to go and wait for her to find him if ever she wanted to.

Then she came in, alone this time, and he was captivated all over again. He panicked when he realized he hadn’t brought his newspaper. He considered getting up to take one of the cafe’s papers but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

The young waiter came over to chat, helping her with her coat and scarf. She was wearing a red sweater, a color that suited her like it suited her mother. She didn’t appear to order anything and he was curious to see who she was meeting.

For ten minutes, he was happy just watching her. He could have sat looking at her all day. He only wished that she would see him, too, but the couple of times she looked in his direction she appeared not to notice him at all. Then, after ten minutes, she checked her watch and reached into her coat pocket for a phone.

At first, he couldn’t hear her speaking but she became angrier as the brief conversation ran its course and the final few words of the call carried across to him. It bothered him that she was angry, that someone had stood her up.

She grabbed her coat and got up to leave. Without even thinking about it, Lucas stood too and then didn’t know why except he was fired up with adrenaline. He went to sit down again but realized that for the first time she was looking at him, probably curious at the way he’d responded so directly to her movements.

He’d always felt with a hit that there was one moment when everything was right for doing the job perfectly, and that unless that moment was seized it would turn messy—still feasible, but messy. This wasn’t a hit, but this was that moment.

He took a step towards her, going through the words in his head, trying to imagine himself saying them. She didn’t move, just kept her ground, staring at him with the same look of expectancy and curiosity.

He smiled apologetically and, painfully slowly, he said, ‘
Excusez moi, mademoiselle, vous ne me connaissez pas, mais, uh, je suis
. . .’ He was grinding the words out one by one.

‘It’s okay. I speak English.’ Her accent was flawless. She appeared to register his shock but couldn’t know why he was surprised. ‘And I know who you are, I think.’

‘You do?’ She took her eyes off him for the first time now, looking around to see if they were attracting attention standing there.

‘Would you like to sit down?’ He nodded but it wasn’t so much an invitation as a request for some discretion. As soon as they were sitting, the waiter came over and she ordered in French before saying to him, ‘What would you like?’

‘Coffee, please. Decaf if they have it.’ He felt like he could do without any more caffeine; two coffees down and his heart was running at a canter.

She gave the order, then said, ‘You’re my father?’ Her tone was businesslike, a clarification, a coolness in her voice that gave him a bad feeling.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Why didn’t you come sooner? I’m fourteen now.’

‘Two reasons.’ He paused for a second. He’d thought about this meeting so many times and yet still found himself uncertain about how to put the failings of his life into words. ‘I loved Madeleine, so much that I didn’t want her to know who I really was. When she became pregnant, that changed everything; I had to tell her. She ended the relationship, and we agreed it was best for you that I wasn’t around. My life was, uh . . .’

‘She said you were a criminal.’

He was hurt that Madeleine had described him like that and yet she’d been right. He’d never been to prison, never been troubled by the police, but he was a criminal. He couldn’t even claim the dubious justification of having worked for governments; the people he’d worked for had paid more and asked for worse than any government agency would ever have done.

‘Yes, until maybe four years ago, I was a criminal.’ He felt like a liar. The work for Mark Hatto didn’t trouble him, even killing to keep Ella alive. But what he’d done for her—killing Novakovic, leading her to Bruno—that had been too close to his old life, close enough for him to feel guilty for not mentioning it, for not admitting that those four years had culminated in one bloody fall from grace.

‘You said there were two reasons.’

He nodded.

‘I was scared.’

She looked skeptical and said, ‘Of a little girl?’ She was teasing him, with a slight smile that encouraged him. He had been scared, though—so scared of loss that he’d preferred to make himself invulnerable in the first place by always keeping life at arm’s length.

The waiter brought his coffee, hot chocolate for Isabelle. Lucas could see him smiling slyly at her, as if making clear that he’d want an explanation at some later date. She dipped a finger in her drink and tasted it and then said, ‘Why did you stop being a criminal?’

He found the word grating now but certainly didn’t want to have to explain the exact nature of the things he’d done.

‘Partly because I could. Partly so I could sit here one day and tell you I’d given up.’

She smiled, her first real smile since he’d sat down, and said, ‘You thought about me?’

‘Not at first. The last four or five years, though, more and more, every time I saw a kid I thought might be your age. I’d never seen a picture, didn’t know your name. I came here last summer but . . .’

‘She told me you came. We had a fight.’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘Nothing serious.’

He smiled, pleased that she’d fought with Madeleine for sending him away, even if she dismissed it now.

‘You look just like her. I’d been worrying that I wouldn’t recognize you but I knew the second I saw you. Short hair but otherwise you could be her double.’

‘My eyes are blue, like yours.’ No sooner had she said it than she looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me.’ She got up, looking ruffled.

Lucas turned in his seat and followed her progress to the door of the cafe, where she intercepted a boy. It looked like one of the boys he’d seen her with the previous summer but he couldn’t be sure.

Isabelle had her back to Lucas and as she talked; the boy looked mischievously over her shoulder, trying to get a good look at him. He wondered if this was who she’d planned to meet and what she was saying to him now.

When she came back, she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Was that who you were waiting for?’

‘Yes. And no, he isn’t. We’re friends.’ He smiled at her defensiveness and neither of them said anything for a moment, a pause that seemed to embarrass her. ‘So, what do you want to know about my life?’

He sipped at his coffee, which he guessed
was
a decaf because it tasted much worse than the others had, and then he said, ‘I already know a little. I know you have a brother now. I saw him last summer.’

She smiled. ‘Isn’t he adorable? Louis. He’s five years old.’

‘Louis. After your grandfather.’

She looked surprised, saying, ‘You know my grandparents?’

‘I met them a few times. I liked them. Are they still alive?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She looked suddenly intrigued and said, ‘What about my other grandparents?’

‘They died a long time ago. I don’t even remember them.’

‘Oh. Do you have brothers or sisters?’

He shook his head, feeling like a disappointment. For years, she’d probably imagined this whole other side to her family and now she was faced with the stark truth, that he brought only himself, half a person.

‘And Louis’ father?’

The question appeared to sadden her and for a moment his imagination started building visions of an unhappy relationship between them, but then she said, ‘He died too, three years ago. An accident driving his car.’

Lucas was annoyed with himself because his first instinct was to be happy, relieved that this man was dead. It made no difference to him because he knew Madeleine wouldn’t let him back into her life, but it still made him happy to know that no other man was there.

He realized then, though, how saddened Isabelle was just in mentioning it and he felt sad for her, and for Louis, who’d come to the door last summer to see who was there. And he was sad for Madeleine, because she deserved to be happy but had been poorly treated instead, by him first and then by fate.

She recovered herself now and said, ‘We shouldn’t talk about sad things today. Do you live in England?’

‘No, Switzerland.’

She laughed and said, ‘But your French isn’t very good!’

‘That’s true. I live in a German-speaking area.’

‘You speak German?’

‘No.’ She laughed loud enough this time for a couple of people to look over and smile at her.

‘I could teach you French. Some German too. Can you ski, where you live?’

‘Yes, good skiing. I hope you’ll come one day.’

‘I hope so too.’ He smiled. He wanted to stand up and tell the whole cafe in his hopeless French that this was his daughter. It was enough for him just to be with her, though, and for her not to hate him.

He walked back with her, both of them coming to a halt before they reached the house.

‘I’ll be in Paris for a few more days at least. Maybe we can meet again.’

‘Of course, we must. I’m happy you came.’

‘Me too. And I’m sorry for . . .’ What was he sorry for? For not being around, for being the person he’d been? ‘I’m just sorry.’

‘It’s the past,’ she said, a protective lie.

She seemed to hesitate, unsure of herself, and then she hugged him. He panicked briefly, thinking she’d feel the gun through his clothes, but with a strange feeling of lightness, of being suddenly unburdened, he remembered that he wasn’t carrying one.

He watched her walk away and as she neared the house he crossed the street and collapsed into the driver’s seat of his car as he finally allowed it all to sink in. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this happy, a deep-seated euphoria that made him want to scream, that filled him with energy and left his hands trembling. He sat there for a couple of minutes, unable to do anything, traumatized by the happiness of finding her.

Then from the corner of his eye he noticed movement at the door of the house. Before he’d even registered her, Madeleine had covered a good part of the ground between them, her face burning with anger. She was wearing pale, fitted trousers, a clingy sweater, and even as he braced himself he was amazed again at how she’d kept her figure.

She got into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. She didn’t say anything at first and he turned to look at her. He knew she’d aged in fifteen years, but he couldn’t see it; she looked as beautiful as the first time he’d seen her.

‘You promised,’ she said, still looking straight ahead.

‘Well, I was wrong. I should have stayed.’

She turned to face him. ‘That choice wasn’t yours. What kind of life would we have had, Luke? You, a murderer, consorting with murderers. How can you even have the audacity to come here now, to expose her to that?’

‘I haven’t exposed her to anything. I left all that behind a long time ago.’

‘And how do you know it won’t come back?’

‘I just know. It isn’t an issue.’

‘It is an issue! You’re a murderer—that doesn’t go away.’

‘Doesn’t it? Not ever? I’ll always be a murderer and she’ll always be the child of a murderer. Is that it?’

‘The world you inhabit . . .’

He cut her off, saying, ‘I told you, I’m finished. I’m out. You have to believe me, Madeleine.’ She didn’t respond and a second later he said, ‘Do you honestly think I’d have come here if there was any risk to either of you?’

She threw her arms up, exasperated, and said, ‘I don’t know what to do! The genie is out of the bottle. If I forbid her now it makes me look like a bad parent. Me! Could you not have waited a few more years?’ He didn’t answer, because it hardly seemed necessary. He’d waited too long already. She didn’t say anything for a short while and then said, ‘I propose a cooling-off period, give her time to think about this. If she still wants to see you, we’ll have to make arrangements. It can be done through our lawyers.’

‘Lawyers! What need have we of lawyers? Surely after all this time we can speak face to face.’

‘No. Perhaps Isabelle wants you to become part of her life, but I don’t want you to become a part of mine. Is it too much, to ask you to stay away?’

‘Yes, it is.’ She looked at him, surprised because he’d given the wrong answer, one he wasn’t qualified to give. ‘Maybe I shut it out because I thought you had a husband. I wouldn’t have interfered, and I’m sorry about what happened to him but, Madeleine, I didn’t just come back here for Isabelle.’