Body on the Rocks: Crime in the south of France (Madame Renard Investigates Book 1)

by Rachel Green

  She felt like an actor taking to the stage as she trod quietly across the terrace. She imagined Raul watching the performance from the comfort of the yacht, cheering her on. It looked like several sets of doors were integrated into the glass wall, but the joints were so seamless there was no obvious way of opening them from outside. When she reached the door to the office there was nothing resembling a handle.

  The end of the terrace was in line with the side of the house and when Margot turned the corner she found yet more steps leading up. This elevation was clad in metal, and with no windows in sight she risked turning on her penlight. It revealed one small window, quite high up, and her heart gave a flutter of excitement when she saw that it was open. It was too high to reach unaided, but the edge of a planter made a perfect step up. She hooked her fingers onto the frame, and with one determined heave managed to feed her head through. The rest of her body followed suit and Margot dropped down onto a tiled floor.

  She paused, hunkered down. She was in some kind of utility room. An array of electrical boxes covered one wall, complete with a huge bank of controls for the lighting. On the opposite side, Margot’s penlight picked out two large washing machines, an industrial sized dryer, a huge chest freezer. It was tempting to have a peek inside – what would a man like Enzo keep in his freezer? – but she kept her mind on the job in hand.

  The room had only one door. Easing it open she found a short blank corridor. She stepped out, carefully closed the door behind her, and then moved to the nearest corner. Now she was in the stairwell – one flight leading up, another going down. If she’d visualised the layout of the house correctly then Enzo’s office would be down one level and around to her left so she took the stairs down. It landed on a balcony from where a handrail separated her from the vaulted ceiling of the living room. Beyond it, the wall of glass was a magnificent thing to behold.

  Margot paused again. If anyone found her here like this there would be no way out, no phoning Pierre, no way to alert Raul, not even Captain Bouchard to intervene. But she wasn’t turning back. She checked for cameras and alarm sensors – there didn’t appear to be any. Either they were very well concealed or Enzo was confident his reputation alone was enough to deter potential intruders.

  She crept down to the living area. Nightlights built into the skirting gave her enough light to see by so she switched off her penlight. A trio of huge white sofas occupied the main space with a dining table off to the right, the kitchen some distance beyond. To her left was a single door which she assumed lead to the office. Margot was so tense she was afraid her lungs might seize, but she held her nerve and crossed to the office door. Pausing with a hand on the handle, she cast one last look back, and then quietly went in.

  She left the door open. In contrast to the modern style of the rest of the house, the furniture in the office belonged to an earlier century – an antique partners’ desk sat squarely in the centre while oak bookcases dominated two of the four walls. An old clock on the shelf ticked noisily. She might have been entering a bank manager’s office, or a gentleman’s study – not what she’d imagined for the lair of a crime boss. Margot paused at the edge of the desk, wondering what things had gone on in this room, what decisions made, what deals done. Strands of carpet crept between her bare toes as she rounded the desk and looked down at the overstuffed leather armchair. Was this where he’d sat when he’d given the order to firebomb her house? Heat rose to her cheeks when she spotted the lighter on his desk. How easy it would be to set fire to a piece of paper, casually drop it on the floor, retreat to a safe distance and watch this place burn down. Destroy something that was precious to him.

  Margot refocussed. That’s not what she was here for. Despite what Raul had said, this was about justice not revenge.

  She searched for a place to hide the bug. A cigar box on the desk, a pot plant in the corner … a dozen locations immediately suggested themselves. It had to be close enough to the desk to pick up the sound of his voice but not too close that it was likely to be found. She got down on her knees to look under the desk, and then somewhere nearby a door opened.

  Margot looked up so abruptly her head caught the underside of the drawer. Pain shot through her skull but she gritted her teeth and choked any sound.

  Someone was coming down the stairs. Quickly moving footsteps, heavy enough to suggest they belonged to a man. Margot got to her feet and hid behind the open door.

  In contrast to the urgency with which they’d descended the stairs whoever it was now appeared to be in no hurry. Quiet footsteps approached from the direction of the living room. Margot’s heart was beating so wildly she feared the sound would give her away, but she held her breath and didn’t make a sound. Through the gap between the door and the frame she watched a man move cautiously into the room. She got ready to slam the door in his face, make a dash for the terrace, go back down the wooden staircases and hurl herself into the sea.

  But the man didn’t appear to have noticed her. He remained stationary on the other side of the door, little more than five centimetres of timber separating them. Margot could hardly believe he couldn’t sense she was there. It wasn’t Enzo; when her eyes switched focus to a shadow on the wall she had the strongest suspicion it was Paolo.

  He sniffed the air. Any moment now he was sure to snatch back the door and confront her. Margot considered striking first, lash out while she had the element of surprise, but after a few more seconds Paolo turned on his heel and retreated into the living room. Receding footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  Margot blinked. It was hard to believe she’d got away with it, but now she needed to get out. She peeled some sticky tape from the dispenser, formed it into a loop, and then stuck the bugE to the underside of the desk. A delicate close of the door, and then she quietly made her escape.

  ***

  Fighting the urge to look back, Margot crossed the terrace with her head down. No alarms had gone off; no lights come on. She raced through the shrubbery and ran across the lawn, face glistening with sweat. She bolted down the staircases, three steps at a time, amazed she didn’t trip up. It seemed too good to be true, but the further she got from the house the more she allowed herself to believe it. By the time she reached the beach she was mildly euphoric.

  Even so, she didn’t relax. She grabbed her bag from behind the rock and quickly put on her cap and goggles. She secured the float bag while she was wading into the water, and after one final glance back, threw herself onto the waves.

  Boosted by adrenaline, Margot swam the first two hundred metres in next to no time. As the elation wore off and fatigue crept in, she paused to tread water, the black sea rolling around her. The house had been reduced to a blur in her steamed-up goggles, but she was certain no one had come after her. In her haste to get away, however, she’d neglected to check what time she’d left the beach. The journey in had taken her thirty-eight minutes; when she lifted her goggles to look at her watch the time was 23:56. She must have been swimming for at least twenty minutes, but there was no sign of a buoy. She pivoted, checking her orientation, making sure the house was still directly behind her. Satisfied she was on the right course, she swam on for another fifteen minutes. Still there was no sign of a buoy.

  Margot paused again. She looked all around, twisting her body through a full 360. Where was the boat? All that surrounded her was dark open sea.

  “Raul!” she called out.

  A shudder passed through her. She hadn’t veered off course.

  The boat had gone.

  And so had Raul.

  Chapter 27

  A beep-beep pulled Enzo from a light sleep. Hand roving the bedside table, he located the phone and brought the screen right up to his face.

  Message from Mutt: need 2cu.

  He closed his eyes and groaned. It was almost one a.m., and he needed his beauty sleep.

  In the bed on the other side of the room, Marielle made some grunting sounds but didn’t wake up.

  Mutt was waiting jus
t outside the door.

  “What?” Enzo whisper-snapped.

  “Sorry, Boss. That yacht’s just turned up. The one we were watching in Argents.”

  “Turned up where?”

  “Outside the cove. It was just anchored there, lights out. Mule spotted it from the powerboat.”

  Enzo fixed him with a baffled frown. “What the hell were they up to?”

  Mutt shrugged.

  “How long have they been out there?” He turned to look out to sea but there were no windows in this part of the corridor.

  “We don’t know. Mule’s taken it down to Nazaire. He wants you to call him.”

  Enzo screwed shut his eyes, finding this hard to get his head around. “Was that woman on board?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Jesus! Why was she still interfering? Had she got a death wish or something?

  “All right.” He calmed down and then went downstairs to make the call on an encrypted phone. He raised the blind on his office window while he waited for an answer. If she’d been out there spying on him she was going to regret it. Mule picked up.

  “Boss?”

  “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve got that guy from the yacht. I’ve put him in the Old Customs House, but what do you want me to do with him?”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “No. But both cabins had been slept in.”

  “So where the hell is she?”

  “The guy won’t say.”

  Enzo clenched his fist. “Then persuade him, for god’s sake.”

  “Okay.”

  He almost tapped the call end button but quickly had second thoughts. “Wait a minute. Don’t do anything yet. I’ll come down and deal with it myself.”

  Enzo took the elevator up to the second level and strode down the corridor to Paolo’s room. He knocked lightly, and opened it before receiving an answer. The lights were out, but his brother was still up, sitting at the window, still in his outdoor clothes. Enzo frowned.

  “You okay?”

  Paolo slowly turned his head. “Just thinking.”

  Enzo nodded, though was none the wiser.

  “Listen. I’ve got a job for you. Meet me down in the hall in five minutes.”

  ***

  The car wound its way along the narrow coastal road. In the back seat, Enzo and Paolo lurched from side to side as Mutt swung the Mercedes through a series of tight bends. The lummox always drove like his favourite fast-food joint was about to close.

  “Hey, Mutt, slow down, will you? You’re making my brother get car sick.”

  Paolo remained slumped in the seat beside him, hands pushed into his coat pockets. He’d not said a word in the five minutes since they’d left the house, and Enzo hadn’t tried to make smalltalk. Marielle’s words echoed inside his head: He hates you and everything you represent … Maybe that was true, but he could be turned. Everyone could. All you had to do was find the right buttons to press.

  “Where’re going?” Paolo finally piped up.

  “Not far.”

  Enzo looked at the side of his brother’s face and gave him a playful nudge. “What do you think of Crystal?”

  Paolo shrugged.

  “You couldn’t take your eyes off her, you dog.”

  “You get what you pay for, I suppose.”

  Enzo widened his eyes. “You think I pay her?”

  “I doubt she’s attracted by your looks.”

  “I pay her as a PA, yes. Everything else comes of her own volition.”

  Paolo smirked, slowly nodding his head, and then turned to look out the window. “Right.”

  “It’s true. And do you want to know why?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “Women are attracted to power, not looks. I could have a dozen like her every day of the week if I wanted to and it wouldn’t cost me a bean. And so could you.”

  Paolo didn’t turn away from the window, but Enzo sensed him tense up. It was just a matter of planting the right seeds, getting him thinking, leading him in the right direction.

  “Everything in life is about power,” Enzo went on. “That’s what we all want, isn’t it? The ability to make other people do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Work for you, have sex with you, be so afraid of you that all you have to do is click your fingers and they’ll come running.”

  “You brought me out here to talk philosophy?”

  “No. I brought you out here to give you a taste of power. Once you’ve felt it you won’t want to go back.”

  The car slowed down as they came into Nazaire. Mutt turned off the main drag and took the access road into the harbour. He steered his way between potholes, and pulled up in front a chain strung between bollards. Mutt got out to unhook it, and then drove up to a pair of tall wooden gates where a big white sign read: CONDEMENED – KEEP OUT. The Old Customs House was a three-storey lump that looked like it had been built to withstand a nuclear blast. Enzo had bought it a while back with the intention of turning it into swanky apartments, but in the past few years the town had gone steadily downhill. The harbour was too shallow to accommodate the bigger ships, and the town had got bypassed in favour of the more developed ports to the north and south. It was little more than a ghost-town these days, a curio for those taking the old road down to Spain, but it did have its uses.

  Mutt got out to open the gates and then drove into a cobbled courtyard. When he turned off the ignition, the air was so quiet you could have heard a mouse sneeze.

  “Hey, Mutt – give us a minute.”

  For the third time the big lummox hauled his weary ass up out of the driver’s seat.

  Enzo waited for the door to shut and then lit a cigar. He lowered the window a touch and emptied his lungs before turning to face his brother. “Remember that kid in school who used to bully you?”

  Paolo narrowed his eyes.

  “The lanky one with the greasy hair,” Enzo prompted.

  “What about him?”

  “Remember how I taught him a lesson?”

  “You smashed his hand with a hammer. Broke every bone up to his wrist.”

  Enzo chuckled. It had been thirty-five years but he remembered it clearly: the snot running down the kid’s face, the terror in his eyes. He’d been nine years old at the time, maybe ten. Ended up so traumatised people thought he’d gone mute. “Got me out of school, though, didn’t it?’

  Paolo wasn’t amused. Enzo sucked his cigar while he went on chuckling to himself. Truth was he liked hurting people, got a kick out of it. Cigarette burns were probably his favourite. You could have someone binning their granny with a few well-placed stubs on the inside of the forearm. He’d lied. It wasn’t just about power. But that was a confession that belonged to another day.

  “The point is, if I hadn’t taught him a lesson he’d still be pushing you around right now, wouldn’t he? Instead, he was scared of you. You were the one with power. All you had to do was whisper a few choice words in his ear and he’d have dropped his pants in front of the whole class. That’s a good feeling to have, don’t you think?”

  Paolo sighed wearily. “Is this going anywhere?”

  Enzo gave him a long hard look. “Inside that building is someone who needs to be taught a lesson. You and I are the ones who are going to do that.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He’s been spying on me. Sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  Enzo rolled the cigar between his fingertips, studying his brother’s reaction. The cool detachment had left him and he was looking a little uncomfortable. Violence had never come naturally to Paolo. He could hit out in anger and frustration, but not sit down and calmly pull the wings off a fly. It was time he learned.

  “There’ll be no comeback,” Enzo went on. “We can do whatever we want to him in there, no one’ll hear. But now you’re in with me, you’ll need to do everything I say. You got that?”

  Paolo got the seriousness in his tone. He nodded.

&n
bsp; “Good.” Enzo raised a fist; Paolo reluctantly bumped it.

  The three men crossed the moonlit courtyard, shoes clicking on cobbles. Mutt unlocked the back door and they went in through a storeroom, then a kitchen, then a hall. The windows were shuttered so they switched on the light and breathed in air that felt like it hadn’t seen the inside of a lung in fifty years. Stacks of dusty old furniture had been pushed to the walls; cobwebs the size of arachnid cities smothered the once-grand light fittings. Mutt halted next to a door under the stairs and took a single large key from his pocket. He opened it, reached inside to flick on the lights, and then stood aside to let Enzo and Paolo go first.

  A steep narrow staircase led down to the basement. The air at the bottom must have been five degrees cooler and was laden with a dampness that betrayed their proximity to the sea. Puddles filled the sunken patches in the old stone flags. This room was also crowded with packing crates, but in the centre of it all was a cleared space where a man sat on a chair, arms tied behind his back, mouth sealed with tape.

  The three men took up their positions. The man’s eyes widened to circles and he let out a whimper like a dog that had just disgraced itself. A bruise on his forehead had started to swell.

  “We found his ID on the yacht,” Mutt said. “His name’s Raul Pérez.”

  “Spanish?”

  “That’s what it says on his passport.”

  Enzo nodded thoughtfully. That kid he’d beaten up at school had been Spanish. Strange how these things came around.

  “You brought the hammer?”

  Mutt reached into his coat.

  “Okay. Let’s see what else he can tell us.”

  Enzo took off his jacket and carefully rolled up his shirtsleeves. He didn’t want the silk to get spoiled.