Trapped Read online

  ‘If Wendy thinks you’re OK, then you must be,’ Lulu said grudgingly. ‘But a word of warning, my dear. Don’t get above your station. And you may be a pretty young thing but don’t even think about flirting with Nancy’s boyfriends. She really, really, hates it when servants do that.’

  Jules nodded gravely. There was silence. Cate looked at Wendy, who gave her the smallest of winks.

  ‘So no kids today, Lulu?’ Wendy asked, changing the subject tactfully.

  ‘They probably don’t even know Nancy’s gone yet,’ said Lulu, shaking her head and glancing at her large diamanté watch. ‘I expect the nanny will tell them sometime today. Nancy says she needs a break from the demands of motherhood. She says she is exhausted and badly in need of some “me” time.’

  As if on cue, Cate became aware of a furore just along the walkway. She turned to look and saw two young men each pulling three large leather suitcases, followed by the unmistakable figure of Nancy Kyle. She looked magnificent, striding along with the grace of one who had spent years on catwalks and in front of cameras. She was a dazzle of primary colours – her short red hair glinted like a helmet, her canary yellow, skin-tight top barely reached down to the sky-blue pencil skirt which clung lovingly to every curve of her shapely bottom and willowy thighs.

  Wow, thought Cate as she stared helplessly at Nancy.

  ‘Wow,’ whispered Bill who together with Marcus had come out to greet their boss.

  ‘Ahoy there, beautiful people. I’m back.’

  Bill, Wendy and Marcus all made a rush for the gangway. Bill got there first and offered Nancy his hand, Wendy got a kiss and Marcus definitely an admiring glance. Cate was entranced by the whole spectacle, but in the general mêlée Marcus grabbed her by the elbow and suddenly the racket faded into the background.

  ‘You and I need to talk,’ he said ominously. And with that he was gone, leaving Cate feeling deflated and anxious.

  An hour later, as the heat climbed to its midday high, Nancy summoned her entire staff to the top deck. Lying flat on her back on a teak sun lounger, her long legs covered in sun cream and her pale face protected by a parasol, she waved for them to sit down.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ said Nancy quietly, keeping her eyes firmly closed. ‘I want a really chilled time in the next week or so, OK? No visitors, no fans and definitely no horrible paparazzi. It’s been catwalk, catwalk, magazine covers, interviews, aeroplanes, kids, God knows what since January and I’m bloody shattered. All I want is sleep, sunshine, good nosh, peace and quiet. Got it?’

  Everyone nodded vehemently. A bit of a waste of time, thought Cate, as Nancy still hadn’t bothered to open her eyes. Suddenly the strains of a mobile phone rang out harshly, cutting through the hot silence like a bullet. Nancy grabbed her diamond-encrusted BlackBerry and sat bolt up right.

  ‘Darling,’ she said loudly, valiantly trying to tone down her Essex accent. ‘Darling, why didn’t you tell me you were at the Roc? How fabulous, I’d love to. Tonight? You know me, always ready to party – especially with you lovely, lively Irish lads. See you tonight, darling – later!’

  She lay back down again. ‘The Irish Saint,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘Can someone book me a car for ten tonight? And Marcus, I’m hungry; I want some chips. Those fat ones not the thin ones. Proper British chips. No salt. Tomato ketchup – Heinz, no French muck. And still water. I don’t want to bloat.’

  ‘On its way,’ said Marcus cheerfully, heading off towards the stairway. ‘By the way, can I borrow Cate for an hour or so later, Wendy?’ he said as he passed her. ‘Just need help with some shopping and forward planning.’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Wendy. ‘But she has to unpack Nancy’s clothes first, all right?’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Marcus, without even looking in Cate’s direction.

  Cate was soon standing in the vast walk-in wardrobe of the master bedroom suite. Six suitcases worth of clothes had been laid out on the bed and she was surrounded by a chaotic mass of tissue paper and other packing paraphernalia, but for all that, she felt as if she had died and gone to heaven.

  Dresses from every designer in every hue lay on the vast bed. There was a midnight blue Roland Mouret cocktail dress and a flamboyant Roberto Cavalli evening number. Nestling underneath them, Cate spotted a tiny scrap of a Dolce and Gabbana skirt in asymmetrical orange and lemon and next to that lay a Jill Birkin multi-coloured kaftan and a vivid pink Versace shift dress.

  She counted twenty Jil Sander T-shirts in an entire spectrum of colours, four swimsuits and eight bikinis, ranging from teeny bits of string to Fifties-styled short briefs. There were Hermès scarves and Mulberry beach bags. And then there were the shoes! Cate took them pair by pair and laid them reverentially on the floor.

  Impossibly tall Jimmy Choos competed with red-soled Louboutins for attention, whilst several pairs of strappy peep-toes by Manolo Blahnik mingled with gorgeously frivolous flip flops from Miu Miu. Cate had a brief flashback of trying on eight pound flip flops in Accessorize with Louisa and felt slightly hysterical. So much for just one person. Was this what it meant to be really rich?

  She had just finished unpacking when Jules marched into the bedroom and plonked himself down on the glossy captain’s chair.

  ‘Get rid of the suitcases,’ he said, without looking up from his BlackBerry. ‘Then leave me in peace. I’ve got to style Nancy for tonight and I need space to get in the vibe.’

  It took a few trips to haul all the empty, but surprisingly heavy, Louis Vuitton cases down to a locker on the bottom deck. Then she grabbed her rucksack and hurried back upstairs to look for Marcus.

  ‘Cate – good, there you are.’ Marcus was business-like, clutching a notebook and peering into the galley cupboards. ‘I want to show you where I buy provisions so that you can shop for me.’ He thrust a wicker basket into her hand. ‘Cate and I are nipping to the shops,’ said Marcus loudly to no one in particular. ‘Back later.’

  They walked down the gangplank, Marcus loping slowly along, ostentatiously reading from the notebook.

  ‘We need to split up when we get through the arch,’ he said urgently, looking ahead as he spoke. ‘You head off to the right and walk along by the cafés. Cut back up through the first alleyway and work your way to the top of town. You’ll come to the town square eventually and there’s a playground. We’ll meet there.’

  Cate nodded, puzzled, but not inclined to argue.

  They passed under the thick city walls and, as they came out into the bright sunshine, Cate immediately struck off to the right, the long, cobbled walkway in front of her edged with cafés and buzzing with the laughter and chat of the lunchtime crowd.

  She spotted an alleyway ahead of her. She took a diagonal path, cutting through a café terrace, and headed up into the cool whitewashed alleyway out and away from the noise and bustle of the main street. If Marcus was watching, she had done as he had told her to.

  But the quiet stillness of the empty alleyway was making her feel vulnerable and insecure. Why had Marcus sent her this way? She still didn’t know if she could trust him. If he had been involved with Andrei’s beating, he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of a witness. And she was the only witness there was.

  With doubts whizzing through her mind, she turned down into another tiny side street and, at the first doorway she came to, she pushed herself back into the porch so that she could hardly be seen. She waited, her heart beating fast. It seemed almost comical to think that someone would want to follow her, but then the events of the day before hadn’t exactly been normal.

  The seconds ticked slowly past. Cate was just about to step out of her hiding place when she heard someone coming up the main alleyway. He or she wasn’t walking at a normal speed, or even sauntering as a tourist might do. The gait was stealthy, quiet, stop-start. Was it possible that someone really was looking for her?

  She waited, her breathing quiet and shallow. Then, nervously, she inched her head forward to look around the door post. Her heart jumped. Just a few
metres away from her, a man was walking slowly up and down the alleyway. His face was obscured, but he was tall – over six foot – with large muscular shoulders. Was he looking for her?

  Cate drew back into the doorway and held her breath. It looked as if it could be Piot but she daren’t stick her head back out again to check. And if it was him, was he friend or foe? She forced herself to stay calm. Either way, she heard his footsteps slowly walk away and, a few minutes later, Cate sidled back down the street and looked carefully around the corner. There was no sign of her blond tracker but she was taking no chances.

  Instead of continuing up the alley, she doubled quickly back the way she had come and, knowing that she was safer in a crowd, stayed on the busy high street that led up towards the town square.

  The market was finished for the day and the water cannons from the town’s cleaning department were hosing away the last of the day’s litter. Cate narrowly missed being splashed with dirty water as she walked briskly through. Now the dusty town square was in front of her, the traffic roaring around it at a tremendous rate.

  Everyone seemed to be ignoring the pedestrian crossings and Cate felt she had to take her life in her hands just to cross over into the child’s playground which dominated the centre of the square.

  There was no sign of Marcus. Young children wandered about in the heat, pottering from slide to swing to roundabout, whilst their parents lounged on wooden benches in the shade.

  Suddenly Cate thought of Arthur, remembering how cute he was when little and how the two of them had clung together after her mother had suddenly and inexplicably left home.

  With a huge effort she brought herself back to the job in hand and, reminded of Arthur and his advice, she sat down on one of the park benches and brought out her phone. She still wasn’t sure about these two men and no one knew she was meeting them. She didn’t want to overreact but she needed to tell someone where she was going.

  She searched around in her rucksack for the tracker device and to her relief found it in a side pocket. She texted Arthur. Just checking out the tracker. I’ll call in one hour.

  Overreacting or not, she felt happier knowing that he was monitoring her. The text sent, she activated the tracker. From now on Arthur would be following her every move – wherever it was she was being led.

  Cate stowed the phone back in her rucksack and walked around the edge of the square, skirting the scrubby sand that stood between the playground and the road. She had all but given up looking for Marcus when he appeared through a cluster of trees. He was not alone. By his side was the man who she had just shaken off in the alleyway – it was indeed Piot.

  ‘Well done, Cate,’ said Marcus. ‘Good work. You completely lost Piot here.’

  For a few seconds Cate was speechless. Then she let rip. ‘Why was Piot following me?’ she demanded. ‘You asked me – well, begged me – to help you last night and I told you everything I knew. Now I find that you are playing some stupid game with me. I’ve had enough, really I have. I’m out of here.’

  ‘Wait, Cate, calm down.’ Marcus had her by the arm now. ‘Cate, I won’t deny we need some help. And we – I – think that you’re the ideal person to give us that help. You’re clearly brave – you showed that when you saved Andrei’s life – and you are great at thinking on your feet.

  ‘Not many sixteen-years-olds are as smart as you. You were right to trust your instincts and confide in me. Shaking off Piot just now – well, that was just a test – and you passed with flying colours.’

  Cate’s eyes opened wide and she stared from one man to the other. Now she really had no idea what to think. Outrage took over. These men were not being straight with her. Finally she spoke, trying hard to contain her anger. ‘Just who the hell are you to be setting me a test?’

  Marcus shot Piot a questioning glance. There was a silence and then Piot slowly nodded.

  ‘That, Cate Carlisle,’ said Marcus, looking her full in the eye, ‘is what you are just about to find out.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Marcus led Cate back down the hill at a pace so fast she had to jog; her rucksack holding her phone and tracking device bumped comfortingly into the small of her back. The trio – Piot behind her – came to a halt outside a fish shop. The fishmonger was still doing a roaring trade.

  Today’s main catch was sardines, and hundreds of the little fish were piled high in a shimmering pyramid of silvery scales. A middle-aged woman with two tiny children simply held open a large plastic bag by the edge of the counter and one of the fishmongers liberally shovelled in a couple of dozen fish with his bare hands. There was no attempt to weigh the purchase, there was not even a price on the fish, but the shopper seemed to know exactly how much money to hand over and the deal was done without a fuss.

  Two large, shiny lobsters, claws still waving, were wrapped up in damp newspaper and shoved into a basket; an old man reached up and helped himself to one of the huge nets of furry mussels which were still dripping pungent sea water. It was a cheerful, colourful spectacle and Cate could have watched it for hours, but Marcus was nudging her shoulder, ushering her down an alleyway by the side of the shop.

  A set of rusty iron stairs led steeply up, before turning into a walkway which crossed over the narrow alleyway roughly five metres above them. It was little more than a fire escape, wobbling and clanking slightly as the three of them climbed it in silence. Cate felt calm. She had made her decision to listen to what Marcus was going to say, to trust him and now, she had to admit, she was curious about what she was going to find out.

  Ahead, Cate could see a door with dark green, peeling paint marked with a grubby brass plate: Tomas Bourgoyne. Accountant.

  Piot pushed at the door and it opened into a gloomy corridor, remarkable only for the grubbiest lino Cate had seen in a long time. A door was half open into a tiny office where Cate could just about make out the profile of a dark, curly-headed man focused intently on a computer. He didn’t even look up as they passed his door and likewise Marcus and Piot made no sign of recognition. Mr Bourgoyne, Cate presumed. Clearly he was not the person they were coming to see.

  As Cate’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she spotted the tiny camera lenses positioned at intervals along both sides of the ceiling, whirring through tiny silent arcs following, in perfect synchronicity, the movements of the humans below.

  At the far end of the corridor was a door marked Stocker – Stores, a door clearly important enough to have been made secure with numerous bolts and locks controlled by a numerical keypad. Cate watched carefully as Marcus, turning half away from her, rapidly punched in a long sequence of numbers.

  But Cate was far too quick for him. The keypad was in standard formation, so she could work out from the position of his fingers the keys Marcus had just pressed. Now all she had to do was remember them, and her father had taught Cate and Arthur how to do just that when the three of them were whiling the hours away at yet another airport.

  Cate’s dad’s system went like this. Numbers – make a date and find something that reminds you of it. Marcus had just punched in 1068 – the Battle of Hastings plus two. Switching to the letters on the keys to aid her memory, the next part was CZHH – Christmas in Zambia is Heavy and Hot. Followed by another number sequence: 3110 – Hallowe’en.

  The door opened and the three of them walked through to a dark hallway. Opposite them was a lift, the old-fashioned sort with metal folding gates As Cate watched in amazement, Marcus slid aside a filthy panel to reveal a screen no larger than her iPod. He pressed his thumb against it, a green light flickered for a few seconds and then the lift doors slowly opened.

  ‘Welcome aboard,’ said Marcus, punching the down button.

  The lift juddered and rocked alarmingly before coming to a sudden, almost violent halt. It had covered, Cate reckoned, at least fifty metres, right down into the centre of the massive rock on which Antibes itself stood and certainly deep enough to render Arthur’s tracking system useless. She put the thought ou
t of her mind.

  There was a protective metal door which had to open before the trio could leave the lift and, as it began to clank slowly to one side, Cate could see it was a good ten centimetres thick – bulletproof. Wherever she was going, it was somewhere that required full security. Despite her determination to stay cool, her heart was beginning to race. She looked up at Marcus, who seemed like a stranger now, and it took all her will power not to stay in the lift and flee back up and out again to the world of sunshine and blue skies.

  He looked back at her and smiled. ‘Welcome to the Mediterranean HQ of the International Maritime Intelligence Agency.’

  They stepped out into a vast underground space. The air felt thin and sharp, a salty cold hitting at her bare legs and arms and making her shiver.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked in astonishment.

  ‘The caves have been here forever. This part of the world has loads of them,’ explained Piot. ‘But it took the German High Command to work out that this could be a good place to hide, in the unlikely event that the Allies would invade France from the Mediterranean.

  ‘They put these lifts in and then tunnelled escape routes out through the rocks to the sea at the back of the caves.’ His voice took on a sardonic note. ‘They happened to have a lot of cheap labour on their hands.’

  From one side to another, the area measured at least thirty metres, each high dark wall lit only by the light coming from an almost continuous row of cinema-size screens. In front of many of them stood small groups of men and women either watching the films or bent over computers.

  Some screens were blank, emitting a silvery, flickering glow. Others were screening films and, as Cate looked from one to another, she began to recognise what she was seeing.

  ‘Liverpool,’ murmered Cate as one film showed running footage of the famous Liver Birds, and the river Mersey.

  ‘Marseilles,’ answered Piot for her as she moved her gaze to another screen. ‘That’s Bremen in Germany; over there is Naples, and look – wonderful Copenhagen. Just like the song. Have you made the link yet?’ He grinned at her mischievously. ‘Just how good is your geography?’