Stealth Read Free Page A

the vice trade and drug dealing and eventually fled to Spain. He was sent on the run again by Operation Captura, which as you know we, SOCA, are working on together with Crimestoppers to arrest British criminals living on the Costas. Danny – the name he mostly uses is Daniel Coates – is now thought to be in this area – Cannes. Mike’s theory is that he might owe Hamlyn money, his share of whichever scam he missed the pay-off due to having been inside.’
    â€˜Does Hamlyn need money?’ I asked dubiously.
    â€˜You’re normally good at criminal profiling. Think about it.’
    OK, never open mouth before clutching in brain. ‘He would want what he probably regarded as compensation for the time he spent behind bars.’
    â€˜Correct.’
    â€˜Are you going to search his room?’
    â€˜I am.’
    â€˜And follow him when he goes out?’
    â€˜That, too.’
    â€˜I take it he’s arrived.’
    â€˜Late yesterday afternoon. I had to get the hotel manager on board. Luckily for me his son’s in the local
gendarmerie
and he was delighted to cooperate once I’d produced my ID card. I just hope he doesn’t gossip.’
    â€˜The man might have gone out already.’
    Patrick looked pained. ‘He hasn’t. While you were stuffing your face last night I was watching him in the bar. He drank enough Bourbon to drown himself in and then reeled off to bed.’
    â€˜It’s a wonder he has enough brain cells left to be able to write.’
    â€˜You could always ask him about that.’

TWO
    C lement Hamlyn remained elusive, not appearing for breakfast that morning, for the short opening ceremony or the address by the Norwegian author. He may well have been forewarned as the latter was so stupifyingly dull I will not bother the special characters application of my computer in order to type his name. Afterwards, everyone seemed to be drinking coffee and chattering with huge relief. I glanced around but failed to spot the black-haired Hamlyn. Surely he would tower over just about everyone else? I had made sure that I was on the same panel as he was – we were both, after all, crime writers – and made my way to the room set aside for it.
    The whole affair was still giving the impression that the visitors to the festivals of Cheltenham or Bath had been picked up, wholesale, and dumped down on the south coast of France. Most of the voices I heard were British, seemingly from every possible region, very few speaking English with foreign accents.
    â€˜Are you still giving a reading?’ asked a woman suddenly appearing at my elbow.
    I turned to see someone I knew to be one of the organizers: slightly out of breath, glasses awry, her long fair hair escaping from an untidy bun on the top of her head.
    I told her that I was, at two thirty.
    She frantically scrabbled at the papers attached to her clipboard. ‘Oh, God, I’ve got you down for three.’
    â€˜No, it’s definitely two thirty, with Ian MacBride and Stephanie Blackwood.’
    â€˜You are Barbara Somerville, aren’t you?’
    â€˜No, Ingrid Langley.’
    â€˜Oh, oh, sorry. You won’t be late, will you?’
    â€˜I’ll try not to be,’ I replied evenly.
    â€˜They’re complaining already, you know.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜People always complain. I really don’t know why I do this year after year seeing as . . .’
    Still talking she rushed off before I could ask her if Clement Hamlyn was still expected on the panel session. To my disappointment, as I had been hoping to find out something about him for the commander, he did not appear. His place was taken by a volunteer from the audience, a young writer who had had two crime novels published, modestly hoped to learn something and, not having thought of himself as sufficiently famous, had not put his name forward. As it happened he was very articulate and amusing and when