Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  *

  Our crossing was crowded and rough enough for none of us to want any kind of meal. Laure had sat curled up with another Coke in one of the more comfortable armchairs, oblivious it seemed to the stares of passing school coach party kids. Their pointing at her ragged hair, the noticeable scarring on her lower arms once her sleeves were rolled up.

  Particularly the initials CAJ.

  “That’s one helluva liquorice allsort,” whispered Alison, not unkindly, glancing the French girl’s way as we queued up in the Cafeteria for our small bottles of Bordeaux red apiece. “Big issues with Dad, but how to get to the bottom of it without losing her? Seems the same old story about the randy aunt is all a little too convenient. Your French forensic guy may be right about doubt.”

  “It was Alexandre Lacassagne.” I stroked her hair. Stared at her strong, but perfectly-formed profile and her hand now holding the neck of the wine bottle the way she’d held a certain part of me, and If there’d been a bed nearby, I’d have pulled her towards it, but this short crossing didn’t do cabins, and besides, Laure was looking our way. I gave her a brief wave. Alison, who’d once said she’d like to start a family before reaching forty, had been drawing closer to the young French woman than I’d thought wise. Once in, harder to retreat. She of all people should have known that, given the repercussions of her fling with Ben Rogers.

  “If we don’t pressurize her, perhaps it’ll happen,” I said, eyeing my bottle’s picturesque label showing a verdant, never-ending vineyard lit by a sunset. “Worth a try?”

  She nodded. And for just the second time that day, smiled.

  We swayed towards a table nearest to Laure who’d dropped off to sleep. Her half-empty Coke bottle stood next to her in the chair. She seemed just then, so vulnerable, carrying too much on her thin shoulders. While I gently removed the bottle, her eyelids flickered, then opened in the kind of stare I’d seen from Vervain in the transporter. Blind, fearful.

  “Are we nearly there, Maman?” She murmured. “When will we all be home again? Happy again?”

  “All?” I queried above surrounding chatter.

  “Except Papa. He’ll be too busy with you-know who. I hope he dies…”

  *

  “Perhaps we could use some of those knock-out drops,” Alison said, finishing her wine, pulling her mac closer around herself.

  “Not funny. One too many milligrams of what’s been stolen can be enough to stop an elderly person’s heart. Why the Director at that Maison de Repos got everyone there on alert.”

  “I’m not following.”

  I lowered my voice. Again, she leaned in to me. “Who inherited Christine Deschamps’share of Les Saules Pleureurs when it sold? Who put her not out of harm’s way, but maybe in harm’s way?”

  “Jesus…”

  Just then, a green-suited member of staff came over, looking concerned. “Monsieur Lyon?” she said. “John Lyon?”

  “Yes,” beginning to get out of my seat.

  “It’s the gendarmerie in Aucentrelle. A Lieutenant Desoulis is on the line. Please follow me.”

  Alison signalled that she’d stay with Laure, and I was glad, because the

  news relayed to me, made the boat seem to roll even more. Made my borrowed boots’ grip on the shiny, tiled floor even more precarious. My stick a useless appendage.

  *

  Ten minutes later, I rejoined Alison. Took her hand and even though Laure was still asleep, delivered my news into her ear.

  “Mathieu’s been spotted on a bridge over the N147 not far from a village called Dienné. Also, his grandmother Odette’s not in her room, nor is she anywhere to be found. And guess what?” I took a deep breath to steady myself against that Lieutenant’s final shot. “The thumb print on that Smith & Wesson dumped in the wc. cistern on La Princesse Poole, has matched up with one found on Danny Lennox’s Range Rover.”

  “Whose?”

  “Elisabeth Jourdain.”

  24. Laure.

  Saturday 12th March 7.p.m. CET.

  Since reaching French soil, the atmosphere inside the VW had changed. John and Alison seemed to know something I didn’t, and despite my badgering, had refused to spill. I didn’t want to start cutting myself again, but neither did I like being treated like a kid.

  We’d been on the unlit N20 out of Paris to Bordeaux for too long and John seemed on occasions, to be losing concentration, letting the car slide over on to the hard shoulder or into the adjoining lane. Not good. I didn’t want to die before I’d saved Vervain and Mathieu.

  I clapped my hands. He started, then swore.

  Good.

  “That’s dangerous,” snapped Alison who’d also been doing her best to stay awake. “Don’t do that again.”

  “Well, let me drive then,” I said. “Why not? I‘ve a British licence. It’s clean. I’m fresh.”

  You could have only cracked the silence that followed with a sledge hammer.

  I’d been asleep for most of the Channel crossing and woken up unsure where I was. As if, for the whole of my life, I’d been dream-walking. Seeing everyone both dead and alive; hearing their voices, guessing what lay buried deep in their hearts. And then riding work on Vervain as a two-year-old, but not over Glan y Mor’s spongy grass No, this had been at Les Saules Pleureurs. My very own centre of that region’s flat, hard earth, with him galloping his young heart out and Danny behind me on his hack, waiting until Vervain had begun to blow and I’d pulled him up by a copse of oaks. Danny who’d lifted me from the saddle. Felt my breasts under my blouse, tearing off a button as he’d done so while his other hand, like the first time, had reached down below...

  And someone had been watching. I’d seen sunlight reflected in their binoculars’ lens. The sudden turning away and the disturbance of long grass and weeds at the edge of the copse. Why I’d woken up with a start, sweating, trembling so much that Alison had wanted to call the ferry’s doctor.

  *

  So, Mathieu had been spotted. What about Vervain? There’d been no further news of the transporter nor of Elisabeth with that weird tattoo on her plucked ’mons veneris’ - as she’d once proudly called it, which I’d noticed while she’d changed into her swimming costume along with the rest of us at Hyères. The one time we’d gone away together en famille. When my first bleed had come and she, not Maman had explained what it meant. About eggs and sperm and how, if I was careless, I could end up having a baby…

  “Do we have to stop?” I shouted as we pulled into a small Bed and Breakfast in Nieuil l’Êspoir just south of Poitiers. Its four blue, neon lights revealing an almost empty car park. “What about Vervain? He might be…”

  I couldn’t bear to say any more. I knew I was being unreasonable, but to imagine him being hauled by his back legs, still conscious, into some stinking tomb of a place; beaten, kicked, pulled some more, screaming like he did whenever Gilles’s red, iron rods connected with his hooves… while nearby, with a zinc tank waiting, a knife was being sharpened.

  “You know where this abattoir is.” I added instead. “I heard Mamie tell you. We could be there in two hours.”

  “If we keep driving, we’d be dead in two hours,” Alison said, her arm draped around my neck as we made for the entrance. Then what use would that be?”

  *

  They were in the next bedroom to me, and when I turned off the TV, pressed my ear to the adjoining wall. John Lyon was on the hotel phone. Agitated, I could tell. I went over to my window to check theirs wasn’t open either. It was. A fraction, and I heard every word. I could also see his naked back. Not bad for someone nearly old enough to be my Papie. I also wondered if, like Danny, he’d been cut.

  “Madame Jourdain must be found as a matter of urgency,” he said into the room’s telephone receiver. “Either she’s gone searching for her grandson or…”

  Just then, Alison in a white, frilly nightdress, came over to lift the window catch, close it and draw the curtains. That was the end of that, but nevertheless it had got me thi
nking. What on earth was Mamie doing? She was seventy-two for God’s sake. And then it occurred to me that if she had left her prison, then so could I.

  Nearly midnight.

  I’d got a phone. Cash too. I was so near yet so far… I felt my blood begin to burn; to churn. I’d been on Vervain only yesterday morning - his lithe body beneath me, between my legs as responsive as Danny had been to my squeezing thighs, the urgent whispers…

  I’d need a weapon of some sort. In every crime movie I’d seen on TV or at the cinema, lone women hitch-hikers, fugitives and Resistance fighters like Mamie herself, usually carried a small, sharp knife, but unless I stole one from the hotel’s kitchen, that was impossible. Quel dommage - big shame. All I could find was a plastic coat hanger with a metal hook. I snapped off both plastic ends and shoved the hook deep into my pocket next to my phone. My rucksack could stay on the bed and I’d push my room key under John’s door.

  What else?

  A change of briefs. That was all. My period was due next day, but as there’d been no show for so long, no need for Tampax and their horrible strings. Time to go. To make a difference to what so far had been a disaster.

  *

  Our third-floor corridor smelling of stale disinfectant, stale everything, was deserted. As was the carpeted staircase. I emerged into the reception area, but instead of passing the desk where the same woman who’d checked us in still sat at her computer, I chose a door marked POUBELLES. PRIVÉE. The wind that burst through the outside door when I opened it, almost knocked me over. I knew this freak of nature only too well. It had blinded my eyes at Les Saules Pleureurs often enough and again at Glan y Mor. But nothing was going to stop me now, whatever that bad, uncaring God up there had in mind.

  I almost had to crawl on all fours against the gale-force blast. It filled my ears, nose and mouth and even seemed to inflate my brain so that once I’d left the car park, and reached the access road leading to the N147, I almost headed back towards Paris by mistake.

  *

  I didn’t feel frightened, instead pushed on along the overgrown verge until I found a lay-by. Black sky above, black below, save for the rare, strobing headlights of passing vehicles and silver rain spray thrown up by their wheels.

  I hung back as one after the other came and went. My watch face showed almost 1a.m. It was Sunday and Vervain had been gone for almost nineteen hours. Mathieu too, was out there in this dark universe, maybe in the gravest danger.

  For a moment I was tempted to use my phone and dial emergency to say my car had broken down at the B&B and beg whoever answered to take me to Ets. Gallas in Mignonville. A name meaning ‘Pretty Town.’ Sick joke. Sick people.

  But no.

  I had to do this alone and as I began to reach that lay-by’s far end, sensed the dipping of approaching headlights blurred by more spray. The nearside indicator winking red.

  Something was pulling over. Huge, stinking of diesel. I faced it. My arms moving up and down like Danny had showed me to stop a bolting horse. But this was no horse. Whatever it was, had a radiator grille as big as a house. Exactly as John Lyon had described it. Except he’d been trapped inside a dark blue one. This was brown, smelling of a recent re-spray. The driver and whoever sat alongside were two, unmoving silhouettes. Then I realised what was bearing down on me, growling like a wild beast.

  Jesus… Jesus…

  The last two digits on the filthy number plate represented the Vienne.

  To stay or go?

  I’d be more use to my darling horse alive than dead or injured, and within seconds was stumbling, falling, up again and over the mesh barrier into a soggy mess of long grass and debris. Glass too, and jagged bits of corrugated iron. All killers. All weapons, when my only protection was a remnant of coat hanger.

  I lay still, trying to listen above that engine’s noise to the voices. A man and a woman, but not French. Definitely not French. They were arguing, swearing at each other with growing vehemence. I thought he’d hit her, and she screamed. Was it Sion Evans and Beti Morgan, that weird woman with the black, fringed headscarf? If so, then Vervain must be inside that truck. But why so quiet?

  “I told you. Go that way!” I heard him yell at her. “The cunning little bitch must be over there somewhere. Find her. I’ll try further along. Christ, I wish I’d found me frigging rifle.”

  “Got my gun somewhere…”

  Gun? Shit.

  I shivered.

  Their voices faded, but not for long. Then, despite the gale and rain, I smelt blood. Mine. I reached down to touch my right leg. It was slimy, warm. I was also beginning to feel dizzy.

  “She’s gone,” said the Welsh woman suddenly. “So’s my Elite. Must have fallen from my pocket. Damn, dammit. I could re-trace my steps, but we’ve got to get moving. Remember the deal?”

  “We track her down,” he panted. She’s bloody seen us, and our plate and I can’t get new till morning. Come on, woman. Over here. Let’s try this fuckin’ barrier. She can’t have got far.”

  Go.

  I thought of Maman. Her voice urging me on. Willing me to take a chance…

  I will…

  *

  Their truck’s cab door was still unlocked. Heavier than I imagined. The step up too, was steeper than I expected. But I was up there, on the smelly, torn leather seat with the ignition key dangling sweetly in place. Then in my grasp, turning…

  I didn’t dare bang the cab door shut, instead clicked it to, and the seat belt tight around me.

  “Vervain?” I said, without turning around, watching the lay-by. “Just hang on in there. Won’t be long…”

  As if in answer, came hoof beats heavy against the first partition. Once, twice, three times and, before either of the two Welsh cons could reach us, I was gently revving the eight-wheeled giant, moving forwards in first gear then second, then away, off the gravel and on with my beloved horse into the night.

  25. Elisabeth.

  Sunday 13th March 2a.m.

  The ungrateful piece of shit. At least I’d kept him alive, and now what? He could get run over. Eaten by one predator or another. Kidnapped by some pervert…

  Life isn’t fair, and the tail end of yesterday had seemed unending, with me sitting tight in that Aire de Repos in my wind-rocked car, watching daylight turn to night. Waiting for the Welsh couple to make contact. To join me as agreed. More than that - what they’d been paid for in advance at that strangely outdated Sea Breeze Hotel.

  I was alone, with just the jibbering France Musique for company and the realisation that the knot I’d so meticulously created, had begun to unravel. The night sky like a deathly shroud, pressed against my car’s thin skin. I could barely keep my eyes open, but stay alert I must, because too much was at stake. Every vehicle coming and going could still be significant.

  At least my replacement, home-made number plates for the Aude were useful. I’d chucked the original ones and the fake spectacles into the suitably deep Ouisterham Canal outside Caen. At least I’d also managed to to clean and destroy all trace of my malicious little passenger, and with help from my cigerette lighter, burnt my nurse’s uniform behind a convenient hedge, stamping its black, flaky remains into the ground.

  What to do?

  Keep calm.

  For the sixth time, I tried calling Eduard. No reply from his home or workplace, and I wasn’t going to repeat my original, frank message for his sick amusement. I’d just have to wait and hope that the runaway would soon be an unrecognisable mess on some roadside verge. Or should he survive, be too scared to point the finger at his doting aunt. He wasn’t stupid. Hadn’t drawn me with a black face for nothing.

  My phone. Fainter than usual. I slapped its cold vinyl against my cheek.

  La Sainte-Marie…

  A man’s voice I didn’t recognise. Definitely English. My silence let him ask the usual empty questions until he gave his name and the rest.

  “John Lyon. Former Detective Inspector with Nottingham CID…” The French was true to typ
e. Schoolboy level. “Elisabeth Jourdain?”

  Go away…

  “Hello?”

  Ssshhh…

  “I was given this number by a reliable source, so for your information, I’m investigating Friday’s murder of Head Lad, Daniel Lennox and the disappearance of both his boss’s children and a valuable racehorse from Ty Capel in Cardiganshire. In case you ask, it’s on behalf of Alain Deschamps. Your brother-in-law,”

  So, this was the cripple…

  I sucked in my breath. Held it. He’d somehow found my number and that was enough. I’d been a fool to even pick up my phone. I covered it as he continued. “You may be able to give us useful information, and for that reason, please call into the nearest gendarmerie as soon as possible. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can be eliminated from the enquiry.”

  Fuck you.

  But each flat, expressionless syllable had made my mouth dry. My eyes forget to blink.

  “There is hope, however,” he added, catching me unawares. “And I’m sure you’ll be relieved to learn that a travelling salesman saw a young lad answering Mathieu Deschamps’s description on a bridge over the N147 close to Dienné. A full ground-to-air search is in operation for him and his sister. Also, the Scania transporter from west Wales believed to contain that same horse.”

  St. Thérèse, aide-moi…

  I heard a woman’s voice instruct him to add quite what I wasn’t sure. Then the torment ended. That icing on the rotten cake lingering like poison in my system. What did any of this have to do with me? And yet my blood seemed to be scalding my veins. My special tattoo down below, on fire. And not even Eduard Gallas was answering my calls…

  Be prepared.

  I was. Especially since that cripple hadn’t mentioned any gun and its giveaway thumb print, or that I’d been on two ferries’ passenger lists and maybe reported by that orange-clad man on La Princesse Poole with those oil smears on his nose.

  . That Anglais was certainly a sly one…