The Rift by Rachel Lynch (good book recommendations txt) 📕

Grant not so much saw the anger bubbling up inside Khalil but felt it. It pervaded the small room and Grant could almost touch it. He’d never witnessed it before. Surely there was more to Jean-Luc’s betrayal than his own appointment?

‘I take it this is his replacement? An Englishman? Il parle comme une vache espagnole,’ she said scathingly, jutting her pointy chin again, this time at Grant.

It was a fine insult indeed, and Grant wished they had similar sayings in English. He didn’t think his French was as bad as a Spanish cow but she was entitled to her opinion. Her aspersions were simply designed to buy time.

Khalil smiled briefly, before his face set like stone again. Grant didn’t reply. He just stared at her.

Realising she wasn’t going to get a rise out of either of them, Mme Bisset sighed and changed tactics. ‘You hurt him, Khalil,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ Khalil asked.

‘You lost his trust.’

‘So, this is how he repays me? He hands over my son to that drug-dealing terrorist connard?’

‘Be careful, young Khalil – be mindful of who you are speaking to. My family gave you their lives, literally, and it was you who single-handedly ordered us away from the Nabils, for what? We would be rich indeed by now had we had the courage to defy you and your obsession with correctness and impressing the French.’

‘Is two hundred thousand dollars not rich enough for you, Marie?’ Khalil asked. She didn’t reply.

Grant saw great pain in the woman’s eyes, but from what he’d heard about his employer, he couldn’t help disbelieving the woman. Greed must have played a part, because he knew first-hand of Khalil’s benevolence. He kept way more staff on than he needed, he paid benefits to families camping in stone desert huts in the Sahara and had built three schools so far in remote dust bowls in Algeria. In his book, money was earned, not gifted, and it certainly wasn’t extorted.

‘Thank you for your clarity, Marie,’ Khalil said. He finished his tea and turned to Grant. The meeting was over.

‘These friends of yours, make sure they impress on the madame the importance of finding her son, so that I might have a chance of finding my own,’ Khalil said.

Grant opened his hands and nodded. ‘It’s already taken care of,’ Grant said in perfect French.

Madame Bisset shot Grant a seething look of defiance.

Grant had concentrated on his verb conjugations in his reply and got them spot on. It was a small detail but one that had the desired effect on Madame Bisset. His clean Parisian accent had been picked up courtesy of a posting years ago. He stood up and tapped a number into his phone.

Suddenly reverting back to English, which, Grant guessed correctly, wasn’t Marie Bisset’s strong point, she spoke. ‘Khalil, stop, don’t. I don’t know where he is, I swear. All I know is that he came to me terribly worried about something and I gave him money.’

Khalil didn’t move. The balance of power in the room shifted. Grant turned on her.

‘When?’ he demanded.

‘Last Sunday,’ she replied. Grant looked at Khalil who gave nothing away. It was the day Hakim had landed in Paris and, from there, disappeared.

‘What exactly did he want and why?’ Grant asked in French. ‘Think very carefully how you answer because you’ll pray he took you with him if you don’t.’ Grant towered over her.

Her eyes widened. ‘Khalil!’ she appealed to the young man who’d saved her family, who she’d betrayed.

‘This Englishman knows his security processes, Marie. Unlike Jean-Luc, who was stealing from me all his life. Thirty years ago, it was a fish, last week, it was my son. I cannot help the family to which I was born. I cannot help the fact that my father made something grow out of the shit left behind by the war. I cannot help that your husband became a servant not a master. He had as much opportunity as my own father. You want revenge? Take it and lie in your bed and wait for the roses to grow underneath you. But, be careful, their thorns might prick you and cause you to bleed.’ Khalil got up to put on his jacket.

‘Khalil!’ she wailed.

Grant walked towards her and sat next to her, close by, almost touching, and stared into her eyes. They were the eyes of disappointment and regret. Grant hoped he was never the possessor of such wells of despair.

‘What did he want?’ Grant repeated his question quietly in French as Khalil walked to the door.

Madame Bisset wrung her hands. She was a tough old hag, no doubt hardened by what she saw on the streets of Algiers. But Grant had seen tougher.

‘He said he was knocked clean out and driven to central Paris, where he was left to come round on a park bench in Jardin des Tuileries.’ She fired the words out. Her hands were emphatic and pleading.

Grant didn’t fall for it and he knew his boss wouldn’t either.

‘He made his way here, to my flat,’ she continued, ‘terrified that he would be seen as responsible for the disappearance of Hakim. He didn’t know what to do. I gave him money and told him to lie low. I don’t know where he went.’

‘Your son turns up out of the blue, terrified because Hakim Dalmani is missing, and you tell him to “lie low”?’ Grant’s tone was sarcastic. Khalil shook his head.

‘You’re running out of time, Marie – these aren’t the answers I want or need. Do you know what I might do should any harm come to Hakim?’ Khalil asked, standing by the door.

Madame Bisset went to get up. Grant stopped her. ‘Let me translate,’ Grant added. ‘He knows you’re lying.’

‘He’s my son,’ she said weakly.

‘And Hakim is mine.’ Khalil opened the door, nodding to Grant. ‘She’s all yours.’ He left.

Grant had never hurt an old lady, and he wasn’t about to start, but the point was that