Chapter Eleven
Eleven
The morning sun was already strong, but Villa Sérénité felt no warmer for it. The hungover guests assembled in the drawing room were a far cry from last night’s glamorous crowd, and the mood was somber to say the least.
“More coffee, sir?” Baxter approached Alec, who held out his cup in answer.
“I think something a little stronger might be in order.” Damian looked around the room. “Bloody Marys?”
Only Sylvie said yes, and Baxter set about mixing their drinks with the spicy tomato blend he’d had the foresight to make while they were waiting for the police to arrive.
There were two gendarmes here now, talking in low voices by the fireplace.
Both were male: one short and barrel-chested with a black moustache, and sunglasses on his head; the other blond and sunburned, with dark circles spreading from his armpits.
“Allons-y!” the barrel-chested gendarme said, having clearly had enough of the guests’ demands for refreshments. He hadn’t been so impatient when Baxter had been making the espressos they had imperiously demanded when they first arrived.
Everyone turned expectantly, except Alec, who was sprawled on the sofa looking as though he’d been forced to attend a board meeting on which he didn’t have a single agenda item.
Damian, Alec, and Francesca were fully dressed, the men in shorts and polo shirts, Francesca in a simple white halter neck dress.
Carter was bare-chested, his tartan pajama bottoms slung low on his waist. Next to him, Jade wore a voluminous caftan patterned with peacock feathers.
“The burglary was not successful,” the barrel-chested gendarme continued. “This is good news.”
Alec gave a short bark of laughter. “Does ‘good news’ mean something different in French?”
“The perpetrators did not gain entry. That is good news, no?”
“They poisoned us, man! I don’t consider that particularly good news.” Alec winced. “My head is killing me.”
Everyone had headaches. Baxter had dished out Tylenol like a dealer in a nightclub queue, and placed jugs of iced water laced with ginger and mint on the table.
“Sleeping gas.” The barrel-chested gendarme nodded. “An efficient and relatively harmless way to keep you all out of the way. We found a piece of narrow piping lodged in the air-conditioning unit, and the wires to the alarm system have been cut.”
“Do you have an idea who might be responsible?” Carter asked.
“We are aware of a gang of Eastern Europeans operating across the area,” said the sunburned gendarme. “And a house of this scale …” He looked around as though sizing up the place for his own nefarious deeds. “It is exactly what they want.”
“Bloody foreigners,” Damian muttered, apparently seeing no irony in making this statement as a visitor to the country himself.
“Tourist spots are always rife with crime,” Francesca said. “I had my phone snatched right out of my hand in central London, in broad daylight. It’ll be just as bad in Cannes—there are signs up all over town warning about thefts.”
Baxter thought of the ease with which “Red” had slipped her hand into the Disney-loving tourist’s bag in the boulangerie, how she would have had Baxter’s own wallet just as easily had he not been on his guard.
He remembered the matchbook in her pocket with Villa Sérénité’s striking branding.
Last night’s attempted burglary was a cut above picking pockets, but could Red be associated with the gang?
Might she have come to the villa to scope it out as a potential target?
“Are you completely certain they didn’t get in?” Sylvie said.
“Quite sure,” the sunburned gendarme nodded. “They were perhaps disturbed by a passing car, or an alarm at a neighboring property. As I say … you were lucky.”
Sylvie didn’t seem convinced. “It’s all right for the rest of you.
” She looked at the others. “You all have partners, but I’m on my own, totally defenseless.
The thought of someone in my room, watching me sleep …
” She gave a dramatic shudder and pulled a cashmere blanket tighter around her satin pajamas.
Alec laughed. “The way you snore, they’d probably leave sharpish.”
Kaitlyn smirked. She was sitting on the wide arm of the sectional next to Alec, her lean legs drawn up to her chest. Tiny cotton shorts were just visible beneath a huge men’s T-shirt. She looked about sixteen.
Sylvie glared at Kaitlyn and her ex-husband. “That was a temporary issue caused by problematic sinuses.”
Alec snorted. “It wasn’t only your sinuses that were problemat—”
“Give it a rest, Dad,” Carter said quietly but firmly. Sylvie threw him a grateful glance.
“The sliding door has a very good locking system,” the barrel-chested gendarme said. “It is time-consuming to open, and the intruders only managed to force two of the locks. Maybe they were disturbed, maybe they went away to get the right tools.”
Francesca’s head snapped up in alarm. “You’re not saying they’ll come back?”
“Madame, I’m afraid it is very possible. You must be on your guard.”
Baxter was standing a few meters away from the guests, with Miriam and Thierry.
They exchanged glances. All three had worked on the Riviera for many years and knew that what the gendarmes were saying was accurate.
A burglar hell-bent on getting inside a luxury villa wouldn’t be deterred by the small matter of a tricky lock.
“We have to leave,” Sylvie said. “Find somewhere else to stay.”
“During the film festival?” Alec laughed. “We only got this place because I’m one of Anya’s oldest clients. The whole of Cannes will have been booked out for months, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not celebrating my son’s twenty-first in a bloody Ibis hotel.”
“We could go somewhere else,” she insisted. “Paris. The Hamptons? It’s lovely at this time of year.”
“Have you any idea how much Anya’s charging me for this place?”
“You can’t put a price on your family’s safety,” Sylvie snapped.
Alec snorted. “Easy to say when you’re not the one paying for it.” An ugly flush had appeared on the side of his neck.
“Darling.” Francesca leaned toward Sylvie. “My film is premiering. Damian and I have a press junket this afternoon, Alec is the lead investor …” She gave an apologetic smile. “We can’t just up and leave.”
“I’m scared,” Kaitlyn said in a small voice.
“It’s fine.” Jade looked at the other girl. “We’ll keep all the lights on. Music too. Make them think we’re all still up.”
“This isn’t Home Alone,” Damian muttered.
“And Baxter will look after us.” Jade flashed him a smile. “Won’t you?”
Baxter dipped his head. “I will do my utmost.” Privately, he doubted there was much he could do, although Jade’s suggestion of leaving lights on was a good one. They had been lucky last night; they might not be so lucky a second time.
“It would be helpful to know exactly what time the attempted burglary occurred,” said the sunburned gendarme.
“Don’t ask me,” Francesca said. “I took one of Damian’s sleeping pills; I slept like a log.”
“Same here.” Damian shrugged. “I was out for the count till Alec woke us all up and told us there’d been a burglary.”
“Attempted burglary,” Jade corrected. She smiled at Kaitlyn reassuringly.
Baxter studied Damian thoughtfully. After Baxter had discovered the break-in, he had knocked at the principal suite. Alec had appeared at the door with mussed hair, squinting at Baxter.
“What in the devil are you doing, man?” Behind Alec, Kaitlyn slumbered in a silk eye mask.
As Baxter had brought his employer up to date, Alec had rolled his eyes as though the inconvenience were entirely Baxter’s fault, before reluctantly agreeing to check on the other guests and establish if anything had been stolen.
I was out for the count till Alec woke us all up, Damian had said, and yet he’d been creeping around the corridor a good half hour before Alec had knocked on his door. Why was he lying?
“I heard voices at around one o’clock,” Kaitlyn said, fear pitching her voice a note higher than usual. “I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard someone swear under their breath—like they were trying not to be heard.”
“That was me.” Carter held up a hand. “I stubbed my toe when we were going to bed. We didn’t hear a thing, did we, babe?”
Jade shook her head.
Nobody had heard anything.
“Then the intruders came sometime between one a.m. and …” The barrel-chested gendarme looked at Baxter.
“My alarm went off at six,” Baxter said. “I must have gone to sleep around one forty-five. When I heard the gas, it felt as though I’d only been asleep for a few minutes, but I was very disorientated—it could just as easily have been later in the night.”
“That is very useful, thank you.” The sunburned gendarme snapped his notebook closed. “We will send a forensics officer to examine the door. Please do not touch it in the meantime.”
“What about tonight?” Sylvie said. “Can you send someone? I’d feel much safer if I knew there was a police officer outside.”
The barrel-chested gendarme looked at her in disbelief. “Madame, it is Cannes Film Festival. There are forty thousand attendees, and we are already overstretched. If you want private security, you will have to arrange it yourself.”
“Typical laissez-faire attitude from the French,” Alec muttered just loudly enough to earn himself a glare from both police officers.
“Bumbling fools,” Damian agreed.
“So if they come back …” Jade said.
“Call 112,” the sunburned officer said. “And do not attempt to tackle the intruders yourself. The gangs operating in the area aren’t looking for trouble, but they won’t hesitate to use violence if they need to.”
There was a beat of silence. Even Alec looked a little pale.
“Should you wake up and hear gas again,” the sunburned officer said, “play dead.” He looked at each of the guests in turn. “Or that’s exactly how you will end up.”