“Impossible.” I could hardly speak. “I’ve never been near the place.”
“Your image matched up.”
“Plenty of elderly women look like me.”
An uncomfortable pause followed. My grip on the phone loosening.
“Remember when your daughter accused you and your husband of seriously wounding her during an altercation at Les Tourels?”
Now my heart began to struggle. Again.
“Who’s told you this?”
“We’re working with Interpol and the French police, Madame. Everything’is shared…”
How nice.
“She accused my husband of hurting her,” I corrected him. “That he was drunk.”
“You were both photographed and fingerprinted. Remember?”
I did. All too clearly.
“But I’ve just heard from Detective Constable Evans in Wales, that Gilles Dugard the farrier, claims it was…”
“Madame,” he interrupted. His voice quite different now. Losing patience with a stubborn old vieillarde. “Would you believe some dangerous ex-con who’s back again in custody?”
Silence, in which I wished for death to come and take me away from this deepening Pit of Caina where Elisabeth had led me, and doubtless hoped I’d rot there.
32. Elisabeth.
Sunday 13th March. 9.40 a.m.
Something was wrong. Apart from the helicopter fiasco, I’d already sensed loyalties diminishing. Subtly, incrementally. After Eduard had been dropped back at the Berthigny windmill, both flics had insisted on stopping all too publicly here at Les Saules Pleureurs for tepid showers and coffee before setting off to a hidden field in Bellac. My nephew’s altered destination, where, by three o’clock, that same police helicopter would, thanks to that friend of mine in a very high place, have arrived. Didier Rousson and Raoul Paranza would keep the boy hidden and fed until I made contact.
When everything was in place.
Another worry was how those two men had cut it too fine before Alain’s taxi had been due to arrive here from Brive airport. Sniggering at my concern, Paranza threatened that if I didn’t stop criticising, they’d be demanding more pay. And perhaps squealing?
Charmant.
I was also annnoyed with my ex-lover for complaining I’d brought him down here on false pretences. That I’d known his kids’ possible wherebouts. However, what really worried him was that the disappearances and Danny Lennox’s murder had already drawn too much negative attention to his racehorse training, making him seem not only incompetent but uncaring. Twin kisses of death for any prospective owner.
Laure had seen to that.
As for my exploits, either he’d not heard how I’d been seen on that same ferry as Danny Lennox or blocked it from his mind. Whatever, I certainly wasn’t going to re-open that can of worms. Instead, once we’d been on our own and he’d kissed my bruise better, leaving his lips spotted with blood, I’d diverted him elsewhere in my own special way, while the morning light sliced its way through the sullen clouds and the ominous beginnings of snow. The former gallops, now overgrown; the garden run to seed and more significantly, ‘La Cathédrale,’dusted by a deceptive innocence.
However, self-preservation not whimsical musings had to be my focus. My niece turning up here like that with the horse in that disgusting transporter, and felling her own father, had tested me to the limit. The sly vixen whose impulsiveness and lies had already loosened the Gorgon’s knot of my meticulous planning.
*
Our bed had been the reserve tack room floor, leading from the main one that still held a few old bridles, faded, moth-eaten saddle cloths. The odd whip. Much more private, though, but barely big enough for two adults, he’d had to lie diagonally on its old rug, while I’d ridden him as in the old days whenever my stupid sister had pushed him away from her.
The moment he’d released his wet heat, I’d thought of Eduard Gallas, who’d neither been in touch nor yet returned my car still containing some of my personal belongings. He’d probably deserted. Why I’d never let him use me ever again.
As for Rousson and Paranza, I’d been reckless hiring them without first doing my usual thorough research. Didier Rousson, it seemed, was corrupt from birth while Raoul Paranza, psychopathic liar, had fooled me into believing he was no longer a player in the murky world of people trafficking. Mathieu could have ended up a child slave in London…
“Does it feel good?” I said, having given Alain a second delicious fellatio, and swallowed the lot. For strength. For the memories…
“You mean, doing that to me?” he repeated sleepily.
“No. You back again in your old home.”
He turned his head to face me, flushed, depleted. “Better to have Laure and Mathieu here as well.”
Not Christine, then…
“Laure hit you, remember?” I reminded him. “I don’t know why you still care about her. It’s so misplaced.”
But le petit mort had made him deaf.
“We must find them,” he murmured to himself. “Today. She can’t get far, and as for Mathieu, I’m taking it right to the top. Mark my words.”
“Indeed,” I said, dismounting and getting into my clothes still harbouring dust from that windmill. My coat especially. “But the only way you’ll see them again is by staying here. With me. Doing as you’re told. Agreed?”
“I’m not sure.”
I’d sensed from the start, he might have been planning to flee. His strange eyes fixed on the cobwebbed ceiling and its shadeless light bulb. His lips faintly moving on words I couldn’t decipher. No doubt an experienced psychologist having seen us lying together would assume we’d mated for life. That we were indestructible. But how misguided they’d be. Nothing more than fear kept us close in our own double coffin, with its lid screwed down tight on a madness that belonged to the darkest, most inhospitable fissures of Hell. That’s when I’d known the time was right.
*
I’d been wrong about Eduard Gallas’ desertion. He’d indeed brought my car to Les Saules Pleueurs, but not where I’d told him. Instead of being hidden round the back or in one of the barns, it stood too prominently parked up on the snowy verge just a few metres beyond the gates. Empty, or so I thought until I realised someone was sitting in the drive’s seat. The engine ticking over.
Eduard? If so, why wasn’t he moving?
I felt my coat’s three pockets in turn. No Browning. Damnation. It must have fallen out after I’d seen to Alain, and he’d somehow hidden it before I’d run outside.
Hélas.
I was even more vulnerable. A truly soft target for an armed enemy and, because that Renault might still harbour too many giveaways. I had to valet it far more thoroughly, unlike my earlier efforts in that Aire de Repos. I also needed some explanation from the man with the interesting kink in his penis. Numéro uno in my Holy Trinity workforce. Surely, he could wave at me or smile?
As I skirted round that empty, odorous transporter, my boots slipped a little with each step on the treacherous gravel. Another vulnerability when I needed to be in full control. I scoured the area where my niece had stood, hoping to find those two bullets that had missed her, cursing my earlier carelessness at leaving them lying around, and the fact she was still alive.
While close to the open gateway, my phone suddenly began to vibrate inside my coat’s inner pocket. My bruise stinging deep to the bone.
I couldn’t ignore the call. Maybe it was Eduard, Rousson, or Paranza with good news. Not my special friend, who’d puzzlingly refused to use a phone.
“Tante Elisabeth?” Said the last, damned voice I wanted to hear. “I’m really sorry about your bruise. I didn’t mean it.”
Liar.
“Where are you?”
“Only if you promise we can meet up again. We need to clear the air, you know. Talk about stuff…”
I loathed the way she abused our beautiful language without a thought for future generations and the threat of even more lowering of
standards. “I said, where are you?” Aware that the figure sitting in my car had finally moved to lower the visor. “Are you safe?” I said sweetly. “That’s the main thing.”
She brushed that aside. What else did I expect?
“I’m at the Kassels. Where we’ll meet at 11 a.m. unless…”
My heart seemed to stop. The snow around me suddenly too bright, too treacherous. She, hard as an icicle.
“No-one threatens me. Least of all someone with your history.”
“Bring Papa as well,” ignoring me a second time. “That’s the deal. Like I said, we need to catch up. Sophie Kassel’s place isn’t far as you know.”
Sophie Kassel… Poor kid…
End of call.
My cold fingers were trembling as they pushed my phone back into my coat pocket. The blazing whiteness of everything didn’t help. I was between a rock and a very hard place, and all the while, a man was exiting my car. The thud of the driver’s door shutting made me jump, slip again, almost fall. And when I’d righted myself and blinked twice, realised who it was.
*
I’d given Eduard my makeshift ignition key. But this wasn’t Eduard.
Con…
“You wrecker,” John Lyon snarled, coming towards me with that noticeable limp, dishevelled clothes, dusty hair and a swollen top lip, but otherwise very much alive. His right hand carrying my orange jump lead. “You’ve some explaining to do, Elisabeth Jourdain. And quick.” His eyes settled on my damaged bruise in all its vile glory. But did it deflect him? Non.
“Your Monsieur Gallas has been very helpful indeed,” he said instead.
“Where is he?”
“Two guesses. Oh, and by the way, he might be needing a few stitches.”
Not funny.
For a split second, that black, bare forest and that ancient windmill blocked my mind. The word ‘betrayer’ overlaying it like a mocking mantra.
“And that Peugeot’s my property,” I said. “Hand over the key.”
“For you to destroy any evidence that might remain? Don’t treat me like an idiot.” And before I could turn and slither back to the house, he’d wrenched my hands behind my back and bound them together with that cold, orange coil, dodging my slippery kicks, steering me behind the wild hedge that now almost covered the gatepost.
Here was quite a different specimen from the victim at the windmill with that cold fish, Alison McConnell. Where was she now? I half-wondered. Doubtless causing more trouble. However, I wasn’t going to show any interest, but I’d been a sucker to believe he might have been Eduard…
“I know what you’re going to ask, so I’ll save you the bother,” I began, wincing at the tight rubber on my skin. “I have no idea where my nephew and niece are. I just want them brought to safety as soon as possible. I had nothing to do with Danny Lennox being shot - oh yes, I’ve seen what’s in Le Figaro and the rest, and am as upset as everyone else. I’ll be getting a lawyer in place first thing tomorrow.”
He gave a sneering laugh.
“But you were on that same ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. On the same car deck as his Land Rover. Interpol now have pictures and certain proof. But the big question is why you were on that La Princesse Poole in the first place? And don’t say you fancied a cruise across the Channel. Odds on it was a return trip.”
I stopped in my tracks. He collided with me. His breath too hot on my one normal cheek. I couldn’t help myelf. I was a tin being opened… “The truth is, Monsieur, I’ve been set up. You’d better believe it.”
“Set up? You mad…” From the shape of his mouth, I knew he’d been about to say ’whore.’
“I’ll remember that defamation and see you at the Enquête. You wait.” And as for being tied up like this, I’m innocent until proved guilty.”
That gave him pause, but not for long. My phone pulsed again in my inside pocket. He reached round for it, touching my left breast as he did so. With the phone in his grasp, he pulled up its aerial and clamped the vinyl to his ear, staying silent. I heard every word of what followed.
“Hi, Laure again. I hope you’re both on your way here. We’re waiting…”
“You’re speaking to John Lyon,” he hissed, not realising I could hear snakes from a kilometre away. “Are you OK?”
“Later. Just listen, please. My battery’s running low. We have to meet at eleven at the Kassel’s place. Trois Ruisseaux. Five kilometres from our old house in Soulebec.”
“Who’s we?”
“You, me and her. The nut job.”
“Your aunt?”
“Who else?”
“How did you know I was with her?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Why there?”
She then spat out everything. She, with no shame or conscience. For me, her generous aunt, it had been like drinking bleach to hear one gross fabrication after another.
“…and while you’re at it, Monsieur, ask her where Papa is,” she said finally. “He was at our old house when I showed up with Vervain early this morning. I have to see him, too.”
“Is Vervain still with you?”
“À bientot.”
The Anglais swore as he shoved in the aerial and stuffed my phone in his own jacket pocket. Black leather, torn and shabby. Like him, still mostly dressed in Alain’s clothes. There was no way I could reclaim the phone. Nor free myself, except with my tongue.
“Don’t trust her,” I said. “She’s an unscrupulous harpy who lures the unwary on to dangerous rocks. I’ve known her for twenty-one years…”
His eyebrows moved skywards.
“You mean seventeen?”
A pause.
“Take your pick, Monsieur. Makes no difference… Well, actually, it does. You have to trust me instead.”
But had he listened to a word?
“At least she’s alive,” he said doubtfully.
Incroyable…
“Do you fancy her?” I said, past caring. “Boy’s hips? Do I need to go on?
His look of utter revulsion, like his blush, was impressive.
“Where are those bent cops, Paranza and Rousson?”
I shrugged. He should never have known their names. “Don’t ask me.”
“And Laure’s father?”
“Wales,” I replied rather too quickly. “Where else?”
“She said he’d been here.”
“Go look. Feel free.”
Another pause. That sickly sun risen beyond the gallops, wouldn’t be melting anything. I’d lived in this area too long to realise that.
“How about you show me around?” He caught me unawares. “And while we’re at it, where your younger sister ended her life.”
*
His grip on the rubbery coil’s knot behind me didn’t let up throughout our whole tour of the house’s bare, beamed rooms. He, the limping gundog. I, the prey. Snow meanwhile, falling too fast.
“Alain?” He called out as if to some kid on a shopping trip. “Please answer.” But only the creaking floorboards replied.
“It’s John Lyon.”
Just fifteen minutes left to get to Trois Ruisseaux. That hideous pile of faux-colombage beloved of Normandy’s exiles with too much money to grease the planning officials’ wheels. The Kassels had moved south from the muddy Mayenne. And it showed. Yet going there was the one thing I must do. I had to set the record straight. Re-tie loose ends.
“Alain?” The Anglais shouted again as we began to climb the second-floor stairs. Me in front, still kicking out, to no avail. “We have to talk. Laure’s OK. She’s just phoned, and Mathieu’s been taken to Paris, for safety. All good news…”
“You’re wasting your time,” I said. “Don’t blame me if it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” He clearly didn’t like riddles
“You’ll see. Now let me go.”
“Beti Morgan, another of your acolytes, has been found dead on the N147 near L’Hommaizé. Very nasty. Maybe not an accident.”
&nbs
p; I gripped the banister. Dizzy at the drop down through the stairwell. This was bad news.
“Never heard of her.”
“Delay? Money? Knife?” he chanted. “Someone paying you…? Mean anything?”
Keep stumm…
‘Time’s running out,” I said instead, and that’s when he decided to re-trace our steps and try La Cathédrale. Once inside that cavernous space, he listened hard, tensing up as he did so. Could he hear the soft weeping coming from near that main beam? The calling out of Danny Lennox’s name? Could he sense that we weren’t alone? That my wretched sister even after death, had to have the last say?”
He briefly eyed the old, worm-eaten wooden ladder propped up against the far wall, without realising its significance. The one she’d used, that I’d begged the new owners to keep.
10.55 a.m.
Merde…
“Laure,” I reminded hm, once he’d had his fill of that haunted place where Christine’s blue tongue had waggled from side to side between her bloodless lips. Her cornflower-coloured eyes popping from their sockets as if seeing me and Alain together for the first time. Alain nowhere to be seen.
The stables and other outbuildings came next. All freezing cold. All abandoned.
Be careful.
“Is there somewhere you’ve been that not showed me?” he pestered. “Say, an attic or grenier…”
He’d obviously not noticed a more discreet, steel ladder and a trap door almost blending with the top landing ceiling. My first choice, until I’d taken a reality check.
“No attic. No grenier I should bloody know.”
I was here often enough.
“Sorry, don’t believe you. Such a big roof must have some kind of space under it. Where’s the water tank?”
“There isn’t one. Water comes direct from the mains.”
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