A Foreign Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

conversational vacuum. Tendency to talk when he might be wiser keeping his counsel.’
    ‘That’s OK,’ Kell said. ‘Easy mistake to make.’
    The Knights’ vehicle, parked alongside the C6, was a right-hand-drive Mercedes with twenty-year-old British plates and a dent on the front-right panel.
    ‘An old and somewhat battered Merc,’ Knight explained unnecessarily, as though he was used to the car attracting strange looks. ‘But it does us very well. Once a year Barbara and I are obliged to drive back across the Channel to have an MOT and to update the insurance paperwork, but it’s worth it …’
    Kell had heard enough. He slung his bag in the back seat of the Citroën and got down to business.
    ‘Let’s talk about Amelia Levene,’ he said. The car park was deserted, the ambient noise of occasional planes and passing traffic smothering their conversation. Knight, who had been cut-off mid-sentence, looked suitably attentive. ‘According to London, Mrs Levene went missing several days ago. Did you speak to her during the time she attended the painting course?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Knight, as if Kell was questioning their integrity. ‘Of course.’
    ‘What can you tell me about Amelia’s mood, her behaviour?’
    Barbara made to reply, but Knight interrupted her.
    ‘Completely normal. Very friendly and enthusiastic. Introduced herself as a retired schoolteacher, widowed. Very little to report at all.’
    Kell remembered another line from the Knight file: ‘Not always prepared to go the extra mile. A feeling has developed among colleagues over the years that Bill Knight prefers the quiet life to getting his hands dirty.’
    Barbara duly filled in the blanks.
    ‘Well,’ she said, sensing that Kell wasn’t satisfied by her husband’s answer, ‘Bill and I have disagreed about this. I thought that she looked a little distracted. Didn’t do an awful lot of painting, which seemed odd, given that she was there to learn. Also checked her phone rather a lot for text messages.’ She glanced at Kell and produced a tiny, satisfied smile, like someone who has solved a taxing crossword clue. ‘That struck me as particularly strange. You see, people of her vintage aren’t exactly glued to mobiles in the way that the younger generation are. Wouldn’t you say, Mr Kell?’
    ‘Call me Tom,’ Kell said. ‘What about friends, acquaintances? Did you see her with anybody? When London asked you to keep an eye on Mrs Levene, did you follow her into Nice? Did she go anywhere in the evenings?’
    ‘That’s an awful lot of questions all at once,’ said Knight, looking pleased with himself.
    ‘Answer them one at a time,’ Kell said, and felt an operational adrenalin at last beginning to kick in. There was a sudden gust of wind and Knight did something compensatory with his hair.
    ‘Well, Barbara and myself aren’t aware that Mrs Levene went anywhere in particular. On Thursday evening, for example, she ate dinner alone at a restaurant on Rue Masséna. I followed her back to her hotel, sat in the Mercedes until midnight, but didn’t see her leave.’
    Kell met Knight’s eye. ‘You didn’t think to take a room at the hotel?’
    A pause, an awkward back-and-forth glance between husband and wife.
    ‘What you have to understand, Tom, is that we haven’t had a great deal of time to react to all this.’ Knight, perhaps unconsciously, had taken a step backwards. ‘London asked us simply to sign up for the course, to keep an eye on Mrs Levene, to report anything mysterious. That was all.’
    Barbara took over the reins. She was plainly worried that they were giving Kell a poor impression of their abilities.
    ‘It didn’t sound as though London
expected
anything to happen,’ she explained. ‘It was almost pitched as though they were asking us to
look out
for her. And it’s only been – what? – two or three days since we reported Mrs Levene missing.’
    ‘And you’re convinced that she’s not in Nice, that