The Sunshine Cruise Company (21 page)

‘Oh please,’ Julie cut in. ‘Look at the size of the place. You must have two little rooms.’

‘I am afraid not. It is the height of the season. I can recommend some other hotels …’

‘Sorry, Ethel,’ Susan said, going to push her away.

‘We understand,’ Julie said. ‘Perhaps if we …’ She slid a fifty-euro note across the counter towards him. ‘Could come to an arrangement …’

What was wrong with these old fools? Claude wondered.

‘Ah, madame. It is not a question of –’

‘Oh, come on,’ Susan said. ‘We’ll just go somewhere else. Let’s tr—’

‘It cannot be!
’

They all turned to see a tiny gentleman standing there, leaning on his cane. He was wearing what looked like a very expensive pale blue suit, which had almost swallowed him whole – for he was ninety if he was a day, made Nails look sprightly. His eyes blinked behind lightly tinted gold-rimmed sunglasses. He looked like a very well-dressed mole. ‘Ah, sorry?’ Susan said.

‘I thought it might be, but, after all these years, and then I heard your name and … it cannot be …’

He continued to stare straight past Susan and Julie, staring straight at Ethel. ‘Mademoiselle Merriman? Ethel Merriman?’

‘
Oui,
’ said Ethel as they all joined the mole fellow gazing at her. Claude behind the counter was suddenly starting to colour.

The man stepped closer. ‘May I?’ Ethel extended her hand and he leaned down to kiss it reverentially.

‘My name is Armand Ferrat. I saw you dance at the Bamboo Lounge in Paris, just after the war. You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen …’

‘Oh, get away, you daft thing,’ Ethel said. ‘Still, always nice to meet a fan.’ The others were openly staring at her now.

‘What brings you to Cannes?’ Ferrat asked.

‘Oh, my health. The waters.’

‘Well, we’ll be delighted to have you here with us.’

‘Or not …’ Julie said.

‘I’m sorry?’ Ferrat’s brow furrowed.

‘Ah, Monsieur Ferrat,’ Claude the receptionist began, ‘we … I was just explaining to the ladies that we are completely full.’

Ferrat straightened up and looked at the man. Suddenly he didn’t look like a little old mole at all. Suddenly he looked like Michael Corleone with a hangover. ‘I believe the Connery Suite is available.’

‘The … but it is twelve thousand euros per –’

‘You are quite right,’ Ferrat said. ‘It is an outrageous sum. You will give it to Madame Merriman and her party for the standard room rate.’ He waved a hand. ‘Bill the difference to my account. Now, show these ladies to their suite immediately. It is outrageous that they should be made to wait in this intolerable heat.’

‘Of course, Monsieur Ferrat …’ Claude was now simultaneously filling in a form, preparing room keys and ringing a bell. Porters seemed to appear from all sides.

‘Mademoiselle Merriman,’ Ferrat said, his tone softening as he bent to her once again, ‘please let me know right away if there is anything we could do to make your stay more comfortable.’

The other four stared at Ethel in wordless amazement as the lift made its way up the building, the handsome young bellboy with their bags (not
the
bags of course. These were tucked into the spare wheel compartment of the Porsche, which was safely parked in the hotel car park) standing with his back to them watching the numbers slowly ascend. The lift doors pinged open and the bellboy started leading them down the corridor, across carpet as thick and lush as turf.

‘Who was that man?’ Jill whispered.

‘God knows,’ Ethel shrugged. ‘Some crazed fan or other. Not many of them left now I don’t suppose.’

‘You were famous, Ethel?’ Vanessa asked.

‘Infamous, darling, infamous,’ Ethel said.

‘
Mesdames
,
mademoiselle
?’ the bellboy said, sliding the key through the lock. He pushed the double doors open with a flourish as he said,
‘Voilà!
’

‘Oh. My. God,’ Susan said.

The suite was
enormous.
Over one thousand square feet easily, with glass doors leading onto a balcony running all the way along one wall, overlooking the Croisette and the beach seven floors below.
Beats Wroxham on a wet Wednesday
, Susan thought.

‘Cheers, my lovely,’ Ethel was saying to the bellboy as she slapped a hundred-euro note into his hand.

‘Anything you need, ladies, just call.’

‘Oh, I love going first class,’ Ethel said. ‘No one messes with you.’

‘It’s like a film …’ Jill whispered.

‘Cocktail?’ Julie said, turning round from the fully stocked wet bar at the far end of the room.

‘Maybe later,’ Susan said. ‘There’s something I thought we might do first …’

‘What?’ Vanessa said.

‘Well, we’re not short of a bob or two and we’ve been wearing these bloody clothes for nearly three days now …’

She and Julie looked at each other for a moment before – in chorus, like they had been doing since they were teenagers, for nearly fifty years now – they both trilled ‘
SHOPPING!
’

WESLEY SAT IN
the passenger seat, moving his mobile phone around, trying to get a signal, trying to reactivate the satnav app he’d downloaded. It was pitch dark outside now, the only light coming from the tiny screen. He glanced back up the path towards the tiny hotel. The sarge was taking his time. Probably working his winning way with the locals with his aggressive blend of English and commonplace French. It was almost touching in a way that, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, the sarge never lost his faith in the concept that repeatedly shouting the same phrase in English, gradually increasing the volume and the level of gesticulation as you went, would eventually result in some sort of osmotic translation from English into French occurring. That the listener’s face would suddenly light up in recognition as they said, ‘AH! Yes, of course. Here is the thing you asked for, kind sir.’

How had they got so lost? They’d taken the turning the device had told them to take off the E15, heading east, supposedly in the direction of Cannes, now here they were: somewhere on a B-road in Aix-en-Provence, past midnight, both of them absolutely shattered and still miles from Cannes. This was the fourth hotel they’d tried. Summer. Height of the tourist season.

Wesley heard a gate slamming and looked up to see Boscombe coming through the night into the headlights of the car, sourly frugging his head from side to side, gesturing downwards with his left thumb. Shit.

‘Full,’ he said flatly as he crumped down into the passenger seat of the tiny car, before adding, inevitably, ‘fucking collaborators.’

‘Bollocks,’ Wesley said. ‘What now?’

Boscombe yawned and looked around at the dark hedgerows, the night sky. He reached up, turned the interior light out and began the process of cranking his seat back into as close to the horizontal position as it would go. He turned onto his side, his back to Wesley, and pulled his mac tighter around him. ‘Night, Wesley,’ he said.

Christ
, Wesley thought. Somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted mournfully – the saddest sound. The saddest sound for a moment or so at any rate, until Wesley sensed Boscombe’s body stiffening in the dark as he raised himself very slightly before emitting a shrill, high-pitched fart directly at Wesley.

‘Fucking
hell
…’

‘Sorry,’ Boscombe said sleepily. There was not one trace element of sincerity in his voice.

Now came the moment of terror – of seeing the mushroom cloud on the horizon, but being incapable of comprehending the damage the blast wave will do when it finally reaches you. Four seconds later the true horror began as the vaporous evidence of his boss’s recent diet began to fill the scant few feet of cubic space: city rubbish heaps, festering landfill, cabbage that had been boiled for days in sour milk, corpses.

‘Oh fuck me, fuck me, fuck me …’ Wesley gagged as he wound his window down and began craning his neck for relief.
What the fuck had he been eating?
Actually Wesley knew very well what he’d been eating – pies, sausages, burgers, hotpots, stews, cheap steaks, bacon sarnies: the all beige diet, the spackled abattoir of his boss’s bowels. But it actually smelt worse than all that, like his food intake consisted solely of neat sulphur.

‘Jesus Christ, Sarge …’

But Boscombe was already fast asleep.

WHAT A DAY
it had been, Ethel thought, propping herself up on the mass of thick pillows. Jill was snoring lightly in her bed, far away on the other side of the enormous bedroom. They must have spent a fortune in those shops – Chanel, Versace, Gucci, Hermès. They’d bought things for pleasure – clothes, shoes and bags – and some things that would be essential for phase two of the plan: a large new make-up kit for Susan, a very loose-fitting summer suit cut for the larger gentleman, and some wigs. Julie also picked up two cheap mobile phones in case ‘we need to split up’. ‘Burners’ she’d called them. She watched too much detective stuff on TV Susan thought. Ethel looked down at the side of her bed where her new Prada slippers nestled. Julie had insisted she had them. At one point Susan had started to get a bit uncomfortable about all the spending, making the point that if they were caught then giving back as much of the money as possible would help their case, but in the end she was overruled. Then on to dinner at a very fashionable restaurant on the Croisette, which the hotel manager had arranged for them, doubtless at the urging of Monsieur Ferrat who had also arranged for a magnum of iced champagne to be on their table when they sat down. My goodness they’d put it away. Even Jill was drinking a bit now, which you never saw her do back home in Dorset. (Dorset! How far away and dreary the very name sounded now.)

Ethel looked over to the huge velvet curtains covering the window and tried to guess the time of morning by the strength of the crack of light coming between them. It was weak and pale – maybe between five and six?

She wasn’t even tired, hadn’t even the trace of a hangover, even though she’d put away a useful train of brandies after the meal, back here, sitting out on the terrace after the others had gone to bed. This was one of the few upsides of age, Ethel often thought, the ability to function perfectly well on four – or even three – hours of sleep. As long as she got her afternoon nap in, which she was planning to do today on the drive to Marseilles. Anyway, she wasn’t going back to sleep right now, that much was clear. Coffee. There was a machine in the little kitchenette they had, off the main living area. Give that a go. If the machine wouldn’t play ball she could either call room service or go down to the restaurant if it wasn’t too early. She swung her legs out of the bed and snuggled her toes into the luxuriant lining of the new slippers. She pulled her wheelchair as close to the bed as she could and – with great effort – hauled herself into it. Oof. Bastard knees, riddled with gout. Still, what were you going to do? Live on water and kale? Not in this bloody lifetime. She glanced at the clock by her bedside – yep, 5.45 a.m.

Ethel came trundling out of the bedroom into the hallway, softly closing the door behind her so as not to wake Jill, and rolled straight into young Vanessa.

‘Oh!’ Ethel said. ‘You’re up ear—’

Then she took it in. Vanessa was fully dressed, with her bag hooked over her shoulder and a guilty expression on her face. ‘Well,’ Ethel said. ‘I see.’

‘Ethel, I …’

‘I’m not much on big goodbyes myself, Vanessa.’

Vanessa looked at the floor and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. She looked incredibly young. ‘Say goodbye to the others for me, Ethel.’

Ethel nodded. ‘Off to your big dancing audition, are you?’

‘
Oui
.’

‘Good luck to you, love. I’ll just say this: in my experience there’s two kinds of dancing gigs. There’s dancing A, the kind that involves, you know …’ Ethel started miming a sort of disco hand-jive while she sang,
‘I love the night life, I love to boogie, on the disco ah-hhh …
actual dancing. Then there’s dancing B. Which is the kind that tends to involve having a stranger’s willy in your mouth.’

Vanessa frowned. ‘Willy? I – oh.’ The penny dropped. ‘Look, I can handle myself, you know?’

‘I’m sure you can, darling,’ Ethel said, trundling closer to her. ‘But remember, no matter what anyone tells you, or what you tell yourself, it takes something away from you. And you never get it back.’

Vanessa met Ethel’s gaze.

‘Do you understand?’ Ethel said gently. Looking into her eyes Vanessa could see it all there, shining softly, many, many years of it, of moments in hotel rooms and apartments and cars. Experience.

‘I understand,’ Vanessa said, nodding.

‘Good girl, here …’ Ethel was holding out a thick roll of euros. Vanessa shook her head.
‘Here …
’ Ethel said, stuffing the notes into the pocket of her denim jacket. ‘Be one less thing on my conscience, OK?’

‘Thank you, Ethel.’ The girl leaned down and kissed her. She really was something, Ethel thought. So beautiful. Yes, tough times ahead for this one and no mistaking.

Ethel watched her leave and rolled on down the hall, towards that coffee machine.

Vanessa came down the steps of the Carlton, smiled shyly at the uniformed doorman who tipped his hat to her, and turned right onto the Croisette, which was almost deserted in the dawn, apart from two men who were standing on the pavement beside their tiny Citroën car. They were discussing something in English, she recognised the word ‘bollocks’, from hearing Ethel say it. Tourists.

Vanessa turned up a side street and started heading away from the sea and into the town of Cannes, towards the address her friend had given her. It really wasn’t far.

‘Bollocks,’ Boscombe said again, casting a glance at the departing back of the young girl before turning back to survey the empty Croisette and the beach beyond it. ‘Blackpool with bloody palm trees, Wesley.’

‘Don’t go much on the finer things, do we, Sarge?’

‘Right, here’s the plan. We’re about in the middle. I’ll go to the far end up there –’ Boscombe pointed up the street – ‘you go to the other end. We’ll check all the hotels and meet back here in a couple of hours. In front of that one.’ He pointed to the Carlton.