CHAPTER 3
The next evening, Lloyd was woken by the ringing of his mobile phone.
It did not play a tune. It went, ‘ring-ring’- like a phone ought to.
Lloyd did not like his phone. He could not understand text messages at all. He very rarely gave out his number. But he did not have a land line, in case people found out where he lived, so he was stuck with the mobile.
He dragged himself out of bed and answered it.
“Hi, it’s me,” the girl’s voice said. “There’s a nice café near my B and B, meet me there in half an hour.”
“As you wish lady. And what is this café called?”
“I don’t know, I can’t read French. It’s got a blue sign, really near the sea.”
“I shall find it, see you there.”
Lloyd washed, spent a long time brushing his teeth, tied back his hair in a red ribbon, brushed down his suit and shoes and went out into the street.
The sun had not quite set, so he put on a pair of sunglasses.
The problem with France, he reflect, apart from being filled with the French, was that it had an awful lot of cafes.
He struggled to see in the light, so he relied on his other senses. He could hear the distant crash of the waves on the shore and smell the salty water, and headed west. On the way he passed a florist’s and casually picked up a bouquet of lilies. A few streets later he found a café with a blue sign. The girl sat on a table on the street out side, sipping a half litre of beer. He presented the flowers to her.
“Thank you, how nice,” she said.
“I stole them for you myself,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing it. “How do you do?”
“Not bad, how are you?”
“Quite good, considering how early it is. May I ask how long you are in France for?”
“Until I get bored.”
“I too operate on a similar time frame. Have you ever been to Paris?”
“No, I’m going there tomorrow, do you want to join me?”
“Yes, I would like that a very much. I think you and I could have a wonderful time together.”
She smiled. Not a smile of happiness, but one of satisfaction and cruel intent.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Indeed, but not here. Too many people. Come back to my hotel room.”
Inside Lloyd’s lavish hotel room they sat opposite each other on plush leather armchairs. The girl made herself comfortable, sitting with her knees together and her feet wide apart, then she drew a large hunting knife from her boot and started cleaning her nails with it.
It was an image which Lloyd knew he would not soon forget. The girl look that some giant doll brought to life. The dagger in her hand contrasting sharply with the innocent look on her fresh face.
Lloyd lit a cigar, took a long drag from it and savoured the moment.
“Allow me to make sure that we have an understanding,” he said. “We are to go to Paris together, and kill people, and you are quite fine with that?”
The girl held her dagger in both hands, stroking the blade. She tilted her head as she always did when thinking deeply.
For a moment Lloyd hoped that she would say no, so that he would have the pleasure of killing her right there and then.
“Yes, that’s cool,” she said. “On two conditions. Number One; that we do not kill any children. I don’t want to kill any children.”
“That is fine. Killing children: it becomes so dull so fast, what?”
“Good. Number Two; everything that we take from the people we kill is shared equally.”
“Agreed,” Lloyd held out his hand for her to shake.
She took his hand, gripped it tightly, pulled it to her lips and kissed it.
“Splendid,” said Lloyd when she had finished with his hand. “I shall arrange transport for us at sunset tomorrow. There is, however, one more matter which I must attend to… Would you spend the night here with me?”
She stood and leaned over him, so her breath was hot against his neck. Then she bit him, not quite hard enough to break the flesh.
Then she released him and whispered in his ear, “not tonight Josephine.”
He sat and watched, half paralysed with pleasure and half mad with lust, as she sauntered out of the room.
A few minutes later, after another cigar and a glass of cranberry juice, Lloyd pulled himself together. He ordered a taxi to the train station, and two tickets to Paris. Then he went out into the street.
Everything is fine, he told himself, this is a port, there will be whores.
Lloyd dabbed the blood off his face and hands using his black silk handkerchief.
He had enjoyed the last few hours, and almost completely forgotten about the girl.
He collected the last of his things, then shut the door to her flat carefully. It would be days before anyone found her, and he would be long gone by then.
It was nearly sunrise and he was tired. He lit a cigar, then walked home to his hotel to sleep.
The next evening he found the girl sat outside his hotel room. Sitting on the thick carpet, idly playing with her hair. A large hand bag with a picture of a cat sat beside her.
“Keen,” he greeted her casually.
“Very,” she replied.
“Jolly good, our taxi awaits.”
Their taxi took them to the station where, after a few minutes wait, they were on a crowded train to Paris.
“What is Paris like?” she asked him half way through the journey.
“Most cities look very much the same in the dark. Notre Dame, however, is quite pretty.”
“I would like to see it.”
“All in good time, lady.”
They reached the station and he led her out into the streets of Paris. It was almost midnight Tall and elegant buildings loomed down on them from all sides. The air was still warm and the streets still busy.
“Can we kill him?” she asked of the first homeless man they came across.
“Certainly not. He would taste terrible. Aim higher.”
“How about him?” she pointed to a smartly dressed man with gelled back hair.
“That more like it. Stay quite and follow me.”
They followed the man down the street, keeping a couple of dozen yards behind, but always keeping him in sight. They trailed him to the end of the street, then down another road. Then he turned into an ally way and Lloyd burst into a run. The girl followed him.
The man stopped when he heard their rapid footprints and stared behind him in alarm. He saw them and broke into a run- but it was too late.
Lloyd tripped him up. He fell heavily. Lloyd dropped his suit case and grabbed him by his neck with both hands and pulled him to his feet, then smashed his face into the grimy brick wall of the ally. Then he turned him round, holding him still by the neck, and banged the back of his head into the wall. The man’s eyes were mad with fear and his face bled. His body was limp and useless. Lloyd took his left hand from the man’s neck and put it firmly over his mouth.
The girl was at their side, staring.
“Would you like the honours?” Lloyd asked her.
She smiled and nodded, then took her dagger from her boot.
“I want to talk to him,” she said.
“Make it quick,” Lloyd took his hand from the man’s mouth but held him tightly under his chin so that he could not open his mouth wide.
“What are you called?” she asked him.
He stared wildly at her, too shocked to act.
“What is your name?” she demanded, putting her dagger to his face.
“Simone,” he gasped.
“Well now, Simone, you are going to die now.”
She suddenly stabbed at his face, sinking the dagger deep into his eye socket. Lloyd let go of his neck, and she slashed his throat. The man feel forward, but she held him up against the wall by the hair, stabbing again and again at his chest and neck and face.
When he stopped moving, she let him fall to the ground. Then she fell on his body and feasted at his bleeding neck like a starved animal.
Lloyd watched as she drank the rapidly flowing blood. He felt oddly proud for a moment, then his own instinct to drink overcame him.
“You said we share,” he hissed at her.
She looked up from the body, blood dripping from her mouth and down her slender neck. For a moment her eyes flashed with rage, then it faded and she smiled sweetly.
She moved away from his neck to let Lloyd drink, and then cut one of his wrists and drank from that.
In less than a minute they had finished and stared at each other over the copse in that dark ally. Lloyd looked at her, saw her pale skin splashed with crimson, her golden hair matted with it, her eyes dark as sin yet warm with pleasure, and he was mesmerised.
He smiled dryly and she smiled back with all the innocence of a child at play.
“Was it your first time?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Rather good, isn’t it?”
“Wonderful…”
“Splendid… Now let us tidy ourselves up and get out of here.”
Lloyd wiped his face and hands with his handkerchief then offered it to her. As she cleaned herself off, he patted the corpse down until he found a wallet; he took half of the money and passed the rest to the girl.
“Thank you,” she said. “What next?”
“We get far away from here. I know a place where we can stay where we will not be asked any awkward questions.”
They collected their luggage then left the ally from the opposite end to which they had walked in. This led to a quiet road, then to a busy street. After a few minutes of walking down the street, Lloyd was able to hail a taxi. He gave orders to the taxi driver in bad French and they were away.
After half an hours drive they arrived at a large but slightly shabby house on the edge of a small park.
After paying the driver, they went to the door of the house where Lloyd rang the intercom.
“Yes?” a deep voice demanded after a few moments.
“Require a room for the night, old chap.” Lloyd said.
“An Englishman, thank God!” the intercom replied.
A minute later the door was opened by a fat man in a dirty white shirt, brown trousers and braces.
“Baron-old-man!” Lloyd greeted him.
“Lloyd!” Baron, the fat man, shuck Lloyd’s hand and then looked over his shoulder at the girl and winked at her. “And a lady, wonderful. Do come it, it is a pleasure to see you.”
“I am glad to see that you are still here,” Lloyd said.
“Still here,” Baron said grimly.
“I do not know how you manage to live amongst the French.”
“I must stay,” the big man said darkly. “I may never return to England, not after the things that I have done…”
Baron led them along the hallway into a lounge where they sat on battered leather chairs.
“Now, my friends, what can I do for you?”
“We would like a room for the night,” Lloyd replied.
“Two single rooms,” the girl said.
“Yes, two single rooms please.”
“As the lady wishes,” Baron said with another unsubtle wink.
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Rooms six and ten are free,” Baron passed them each a key from a huge chain in his pocket. “Would you like a drink?”
“Not yet, I would like a shower,” the girl said. “I can smell him on me.”
“Of course, all my rooms are on-suit. Make yourself at home.”
Baron watched her closely as she walked away, then turned to Lloyd.
“Still up to your old tricks, my friend?”
“You cannot teach an old dog new tricks, what?” Lloyd replied, lighting a cigar.
“So they say. Drink?”
”Thank you.”
Baron poured a glass of tomato juice and a glass of port from an oak cabinet in the far corner of the room.
Half an hour later the girl returned.
“I shall leave you two to it,” Baron said with yet another ridiculous wink. “Help yourselves to the drinks cabinet, don’t worry about the bill until you leave!”
When he had gone, the girl took a bottle of beer from the cabinet then sat beside Lloyd.
“Feeling better, my dear,” he asked her.
“Much better. But I think that next time I would like to kill someone who deserves to die.”
“What ever do you mean?”
“Someone who should be killed. A politician, a bank manager, a rapist. A real bastard.”
“This is France, lady, there is no shortage of bastards.”
“Good. And I would like to see Notre Dame.”
“That can easily be arranged. Follow me.”
He led her out of the room, down a long corridor and out of a fire escape at the end. Once outside they ascended a set of rusty iron external stairs which connected the fire escapes on the first, second and third floors. They climbed past those to the roof of the building. They stood on a small balcony on the edge of the sloping roof.
Paris was all around them. A vast sheet of lights amongst the darkness which spread from horizon to horizon, dissected with roads where trails of light raced and rivers like molten mirrors.
“Gaze over there,” Lloyd pointed to their left.
Far in the distance stood a vast cathedral on an island in a broad river, artfully illuminated and towering above its surroundings. On one side massive flying buttresses reached from the roof to the earth, on the other stood a huge square tower, in the centre a spire stabbed into the sky like the needle of a God.
“Notre Dame? It is beautiful,” she gasped, then pointed to another distant spire. “And is that…”
“Yes, my dear, that is The Eiffel Tower.”
“How wonderful. I would like to see them more closely.”
“If you wish.”
“Yes, I do. Paris is more beautiful than I imagined.”
“There are worse places.”
“You don’t like France, do you?”
Lloyd turned to her, his pale face suddenly serious and grim.
“I detest France,” he said.
“Then why do you come here?”
“Unfinished business… to take revenge on my enemies… to feed in a place far from home where I am not known… many reasons. But I hate the French, I hate them utterly.”
“Why?”
“France and I have a long and terrible history.”
“Tell me.”
“Not tonight.”
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