‘Maggie?’
‘McCabe? What is it?’ Instantly alert, Maggie the lover morphed into Maggie the cop.
‘Listen. I’m up here in hell and gone, and Casey’s down there on her own. I think the note may have been designed to draw me away.’
‘Okay. Any reason you think that?’
‘Other than the fact she’s unprotected, no, and our friend hasn’t turned up yet. I’m sorry. I know you have a date. My mind’s playing games with me. I just need to have Casey covered. I’ll make it up to you.’
A long sigh, then, ‘I understand. It’s okay. You’re right. Call Casey. Tell her I’ll be there in five.’
‘Apologize to Einar for me. I’m really sorry.’
‘It’s alright. I’m a big girl. Just remember you owe me.’ She hung up.
McCabe’s anxiety faded. He decided to wait another ten minutes. If the note writer didn’t show, he’d head back to Portland and let Maggie get on with her life. The night outside was dead quiet. Not even the chirp of cicadas disturbed the calm – but the sound of a shoe scraping on gravel did. It was coming from the right and rear of the Bird, along the shoulder of the road. So soft that in the city he wouldn’t have heard it. McCabe sat still. Moving only his right hand and wrist, he disengaged the safety on the .45 and rotated it so that when the door of the Bird swung open, it was pointed right at the woman’s face.
It was a face he knew. The face of the woman he chased down Exchange Street. The woman he spoke to in the cathedral. She was dressed differently, more casually, in jeans and a black cotton shirt, but it was definitely the same face.
‘Pulling a door open like that is a good way to get yourself killed,’ said McCabe. ‘Get in. Generally speaking, I’d recommend not sneaking up on armed men in the dark.’
She ignored both his words and the gun pointed at her and slipped into the seat beside him. She closed the door. ‘Drive,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk as we go.’
‘Where’s your car?’
‘Hidden. About a mile from here.’
He started the engine and pulled out onto the road. ‘Anywhere in particular you want to go?’
‘Just drive. These country roads go on for miles.’ The accent was French and the woman attractive. McCabe noticed a more than passing resemblance to the actress Jeanne Moreau in Fran?ois Truffaut’s 1962 classic Jules et Jim. A little older than Moreau was then. Maybe forty or forty-five.
‘You’re not wearing a wire, are you?’ she asked.
He pulled back onto the road. ‘No. There’s a small digital recorder in the glove box, but it’s not turned on.’
She opened the box, examined the device, saw he was telling the truth, and put it back. She picked up the extra magazine and some shotgun shells. ‘Are you planning a war?’
‘You never know these days, do you?’
She put the mag and the shells back and closed the door.
‘Québécoise?’ he asked.
‘Non. Fran?aise. Je suis de Montpellier. Près du Méditerranée.’
McCabe didn’t respond.
‘You speak French?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Okay. We’ll speak English.’ Her English seemed good, though accented.
‘You’re the note writer?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘I didn’t think anyone was going to show up.’
‘I had to be sure you weren’t followed.’
‘Why would I be followed?’
‘Because of me.’
McCabe checked the rearview again. No lights. He drove faster, turning from one small country road onto another, occasionally doubling back, using the map in his mind to track every twist and turn. The Bird wasn’t a Porsche, but with its 312 V8 and a three-speed stick, it had plenty of kick and was more than passably agile. If anyone was attempting to follow, he’d either lose them or they’d reveal themselves soon enough. Unless, of course, they were attempting to follow with lights turned off. Treacherous on these roads. Especially at high speeds, even on a moon-filled night.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘My name is Sophie Gauthier. As I told you, I’m French. French-Algerian, actually. Born in Algiers. My father was in the colonial army. My mother was Algerian. Like most of the colonials, we left after independence in 1962 and resettled in France. I was two at the time. I was brought up in Languedoc. That’s in the south of France, west of Provence.’ Sophie Gauthier kept looking to the rear for signs of a following car.
‘Keep going,’ said McCabe.
‘I’m a cardiac perfusionist. Until last year I worked at the university hospital in Montpellier in France, specializing in cardio-thoracic transplant procedures.’
Transplant, thought McCabe, Spencer’s assurances that it couldn’t be done ringing in his ears. It was a fucking transplant. ‘Heart transplants?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and heart/lung transplants.’
‘Were you involved in the murder of Katie Dubois?’
‘No. Not directly, but I believe I know how she was killed and why.’
‘And by whom?’