by Peter May
He laughed. ‘Nothing much. A small château on the hill where some of the artworks will go. But The Wedding Feast at Cana, the Coronation of Napoleon and the others will go above a garage that can accommodate their full length.’ Which sounded less than secure to Georgette.
A long, straight stretch of road between towering cliffs followed the line of the railway, leading them through the town of Vayrac and into the village of Bétaille. Most of the village itself climbed the hill to the left of them, crowned by the tiny Château la Tourette. The convoy stopped in the road outside two maisons bourgeoises at the entrance to the village. Both sat in sprawling grounds, and between them stood a double garage with distinctive red-chequered window jambs and door arches. Two windows above roller doors opened into an apartment above the garage. Signs beneath each of them read MUSÉES NATIONAUX. Nothing, Georgette thought, like advertising your presence.
A military-green truck with a crane mounted above eight rear wheels awaited them. Half a dozen German soldiers joined museum staff in carefully attaching each of the rolled canvasses to the crane’s hoist and lifting them to the left-hand window where they were fed in, one by one, to lie on the floor along the full length of the building. The remaining pieces were carried in by hand up a staircase at the rear. Georgette watched Sketch for the Feast with its three yellow dots being taken up to the apartment by an assistant curator. At least she knew exactly where it was.
‘There will be two armed security guards permanently posted here,’ Huygue told Georgette. Then dropped his bombshell. ‘I’m afraid there will be no room for you to sleep at Château de Montal. We’ve managed to secure a house for you in the village of Carennac just across the valley there.’ And he pointed to where distant cliffs rose above the far side of the river. ‘So you’re going to have to give up your sleeping companion of the last year. It’s quite a short cycle to and from the château. Only about forty-five minutes.’
Georgette glared at him. It was his way of attempting to wrest control of La Joconde back for himself. A petty revenge for being kept out of the loop. But she just shook her head. ‘Then I’ll sit up with her at night if I have to, and snatch some sleep at the house during the day.’
He shrugged unhappily, but knew he couldn’t argue. ‘Suit yourself.’
Once the large canvasses were safely installed above the double garage, the convoy set off again towards its final destination. As they passed the pumps outside a petrol station just twenty metres further on, Georgette saw a black Citroën sedan idling on the pavement. A uniformed figure wearing a leather flying jacket stood leaning against the wheel arch smoking a cigarette. And Georgette realised with a sudden stab of apprehension that it was Karlheinz Wolff. She caught her breath and instinctively her hand reached for the packing case that held La Joconde. And she had never been more acutely aware of just how ill-equipped she would be, when the time came, to stop a determined Wolff from seizing it.
Anny Lavigne glances towards the old grandfather clock ticking solemnly against the far wall and places a hand on each arm of her rocker.
She says, ‘I think, perhaps, Monsieur Macleod, I have told you as much as I can for today. I am tired now, and a little hungry. I should eat before I go to bed.’ She eases herself stiffly out of her chair. ‘I’ll finish my story in the morning.’
Outside it is dark now, and for the last hour her tale has been told only by the glow of the fire. She reaches for a light switch and they both blink in the sudden harsh light that casts itself across the room.
Enzo, too, eases himself out of his chair. His hands and feet have become cold without him realising it. He stamps his feet and pushes his hands into his pockets. ‘Thank you, madame, for your patience. It is an extraordinary tale. I look forward to hearing how it ends tomorrow.’ At lunch he had reserved a room for himself to overnight at the Fenelon and phoned Dominique to tell her he would not be home until the following day.
‘It is me who should thank you, Monsieur Macleod, for being such a patient listener. I’m sure you have much better things to do with your time.’
He just smiles. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, madame. I’ll let myself out. Sleep well.’
And she is thoughtful as she watches him go, through her kitchen and out into the cold of the night where the sky is so clear that the heavens seem just a touch away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Enzo closed the door behind him and drank in the cold night air, almost heady after the stuffy warmth of Anny’s salon where he had spent most of the day listening to her story, growing gradually colder with the dying of the fire. He stood for a moment on the terrace replaying it all in his mind. Georgette’s extraordinary journey from London to the Outer Hebrides, and from Paris to Montauban, and finally here. Her relationship with Lange, her brutal encounter with Wolff at the headquarters of the Gestapo. All so long ago, and yet so vividly brought back to life in Anny’s telling of it. He knew he would not sleep tonight, counting off the hours until he could return here in the morning to hear the end of her story. And somehow hoping that it might bring clarity to the killing of Narcisse and the disappearance of Bauer.
He started down the steps to the street below and into a pool of lamplight. To his left, the park from which Wolff’s remains had been recovered simmered in darkness. He was about to turn right, down the narrow street that would take him back to the Fenelon, when a movement among the trees in the park caught his eye. He stood stock-still and listened, but heard nothing.
‘Who’s there?’ he called out, as if believing that someone might actually answer. He shook his head at his own stupidity and was about to turn away again when he heard the unmistakable sound of a twig snapping underfoot. This time he took several paces towards the steps that led up into the park, peering through the darkness.
The shape of a man suddenly detached itself from the shadows to flit almost silently between the trees around the war monument. It was there, and gone again, in little more than a second. But Enzo knew now that there was definitely someone in the park.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted again into the shadows, and in response heard the soft sound of footsteps in fallen leaves. Then the silhouette of the man he had glimpsed earlier moved through the broken light of a street lamp filtering through the trees. Alarmed by the movement he had provoked, Enzo found himself confronted by the fight or flight response. He chose flight, and hurried off down the street, covering ten or fifteen metres before realising he had gone the wrong way.
He cursed under his breath, stopping to turn back, but froze as he saw the shadow from the park hurrying down the steps to follow in his wake. The man’s breath billowed rapidly in the lamplight. Enzo turned quickly to continue down the street. The buildings on either side seemed to close in around him. It was darker here, the glow of the next street lamp hidden by the angle of the street.
He turned right at the bottom of the hill and saw that the way ahead would take him to the far end of the palisade. It was more open there. Better lit. Behind him, he heard the scrape of leather soles on asphalt, hurried footsteps turning into a run. Enzo started to panic and began running himself. It was with relief that he passed the deserted café at the end of the street and moved out on to the palisade. The lit walls of the château rose almost vertically on his right. The tree-lined parking area stretched away on his left above a sheer drop to the river below.
There he stopped in his tracks. A figure at the far end of the palisade was coming towards him. Behind him the rapid footsteps of his pursuer. He was caught between the two. Panic morphed to blind fear and rose in his throat to very nearly choke him. His only escape route was through the arch that led up a cobbled alley to the church. He suspected it could very well be a dead end, but there was nowhere else to go.
He ran through the span of the arch, past an artist’s atelier and a gift shop. Both shuttered up for the season. A wide stone staircase climbed to the gaping entrance of the church, an e
laborate archway supported on ten pillars that led into darkness. The ivy-covered walls of the abbey itself rose sheer into the night. He ran past the tourist office and stopped at the entrance to the cloisters, a pay-gate that would open only with a token from the Office de Tourisme. Ahead of him, as he feared, lay a dead end. He looked back down the hill and saw the figure from the palisade pass through the frame of the arch. A man walking a dog.
Enzo cursed his stupidity. He could simply have continued along the palisade, past the dog walker and the shops, arriving at the safety of the Fenelon in a matter of minutes. Instead of which, he had trapped himself here in this religious cul-de-sac.
Almost as soon as the man with the dog had passed out of view, Enzo’s pursuer from the park ran into the light, a slight figure that stopped, looking either way, before turning to see Enzo at the top of the alley that climbed to the cloisters. He stood breathing heavily for several moments, as though contemplating his next move. Then turned through the sweep of the arch and started walking slowly up the slope towards Enzo.
Enzo braced himself for a confrontation as the figure approached. With the light behind him his face was in shadow. But Enzo could see that he was young.
‘Bauer?’ He called out the name and the man stopped at once. Enzo knew he had a reputation for violence and didn’t want to provoke him. And if he had killed Narcisse, then who knew what he was capable of.
With panic robbing him of clear thought, Enzo turned into the entrance to the cloisters, and yanked hopelessly at the pay-gate. To his astonishment it opened. Someone had forgotten to lock it. Or maybe at this time of year they didn’t bother. He chose not to dwell on it, but hurried through the door and into a courtyard bathed in moonlight. The door swung shut behind him.
He had entered on a corner of the quadrangle. Colonnaded cloisters ran off to his left, and straight ahead. Vaulted stone walkways set around a sad-looking square of lawn bordered by autumn-withered shrubs. Moonlight fell in through the colonnades to lie cold across dusty flags, and he took the option to his left. His footsteps echoed back at him off ancient stone, and as he reached the end of the walkway, he heard the door opening from the alleyway outside. He turned right, still running. Past an open chamber where stone figures stood around the prone figure of Jesus laid out on a slab. A narrow doorway at the end of the passage had been bricked up, and he turned into the third side of the quadrangle. Had his pursuer taken the other route around the square he could easily have cut Enzo off. But Enzo could hear his feet on the flagstones running along the top end of the square, following in Enzo’s footsteps.
Now he saw a maroon-painted wooden door set into the far corner. It had to be the entrance to the church. He slithered to a halt and pulled on the handle. The door didn’t budge. He looked back along the cloister and saw the young man who was chasing him run into moonlight at the far corner. He stopped and they looked at each other along the length of the north passage, the breath of both men rasping in the silence of the night and echoing among the vaults. In desperation, Enzo turned and put his shoulder to the door. It swung violently open, and his momentum carried him staggering in astonishment into the vast breathless nave that rose endlessly above him into darkness. The damned door wasn’t locked. It just opened the other way.
Multiple columns rose up to support an unseen vaulted ceiling. Moonlight bled through stained glass to sprinkle dead light among the pews. Enzo clattered between the bench seats, the chancel and altar away to his right, and sprinted up the central passage towards the entrance. To his immense relief, the door opened on to the covered area at the top of the steps he had passed just minutes earlier. He ran from darkness into street light, and scampered down the steps and out through the arch into the open stretch of palisade.
His legs were shaking, his breath tearing at lungs that hadn’t had to cope with this level of exercise in years. He just wanted to stop. To lean forward, hands on thighs, and try to regain some degree of control over his breathing. He worried that his heart rate was now reaching dangerous levels. It felt like something in his chest was trying to punch its way out through his ribs. But the sound of feet on the steps behind him robbed him of that option. He crossed the road and started running. And it was a full ten seconds or more before he realised that he was sprinting across the bridge that led west out of the village, further away from the sanctity of the Fenelon with every step.
Where was everybody? He wanted to shout for help, but there was nobody here. Full-time residents had long since shuttered up windows in thick stone walls, and were sitting watching TV or preparing dinner.
At the far side of the bridge he stopped again and clutched at the handrail. Looking back he saw his pursuer jogging steadily towards him.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he shouted at the night. ‘What do you want?’
Which brought the chasing figure to a halt at the mid-point of the bridge, and there was a stand-off that lasted almost half a minute. Just enough time for Enzo to regain his breath and look around for some way out.
A cobbled track dropped away from his end of the bridge, past a dark house on three levels, down towards the river and the footpath that ran back below the palisade towards the village.
He set off again on legs that would barely support him, slithering and sliding on dew-wet cobbles, to stagger on to the footpath by the river. The black water of the river itself reflected shimmering moonlight. He saw clusters of narrow wooden rowing boats tethered to trees, bobbing gently on slowly eddying water. And he set off back towards the village, legs burdened by lead weights that made every step a supreme effort of will.
The palisade rose into the night above him now, and he glanced over his shoulder to see his stalker walking after him, no more than twenty metres back. He no longer felt the need to run in order to catch up with his prey.
Enzo had reached that moment in the chase when the will to run had left him. When the need simply to stop was greater than the fear of facing up to his pursuer. But a part of him was still looking for a way out, a brain that remained functioning more efficiently than his body. Just ahead of him, a rowing boat, like the ones he had already passed, was tied to a tree on the riverbank. If he could get himself into that boat and push off into the flow of the river . . .
He stooped quickly to untether the rope, and stepped into the boat. Immediately it moved away from under him, rocking dangerously, and he fell along its length, crashing through the cross boards. To his horror, he felt the whole boat disintegrating beneath him, rotten wood giving way to drop him into icy water.
The cold stole away what little breath he had left, and he was incapable even of crying out with the shock of it. The water here was not deep. No more than a metre. But the riverbed comprised a thick sludge of mud and decaying vegetation, and he found it impossible to get back to his feet. His nostrils were filled with the stench of decomposing flora, and the more he struggled, the more he felt himself being sucked into the alluvium. It was all he could do to keep his head above water. And then he felt it wash over his face and knew that he could not hold his breath for more than a few seconds. The final seconds of his life. Time enough to curse his stupidity and regret all the foolish things he had ever done in his sixty-five years on this earth.
He prepared himself for the shock of cold water filling his lungs, and felt fingers close around a hand still above the surface. Another hand joined it, and their combined strength pulled him clear of the water. They grasped him now beneath the armpits and dragged him free of the clawing sediment and up on to the footpath.
Enzo lay on his back, shivering uncontrollably with the cold. He gasped to fill his lungs with recuperative oxygen, his eyes open, staring up at stars that glistened like jewels fixed to an eternity in which, to his amazement, he still existed. A face swam into view above him. A face caught in the moonlight. A young face, full of concern. This was his pursuer, and Enzo was shocked to see that he was no more than seventeen or eight
een years old.
‘Are you alright?’ the teenager asked him.
When finally he found his voice, Enzo spluttered, ‘No, I’m not alright! Do I look all-fucking-right?’
The young man seemed distressed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. And then he was up on his feet and sprinting away along the footpath, back the way they had just come.
Enzo heaved himself up on to one elbow and glared after him. ‘What the hell?’ he shouted. ‘Come back here, you wee bastard!’ But the youth was gone, quickly swallowed by the night, and Enzo lay for several minutes recovering his breath before attempting finally to get to his feet.
Just a handful of tables in the dining room were occupied when Enzo walked into reception, dripping wet and shaking violently from the cold. His ponytail had long since escaped its clasp, and his hair hung in tangled ropes over his shoulders. The young proprietor looked at him in astonishment, and heads in the dining room turned curious eyes in his direction.
‘Are you alright, monsieur?’ the young man asked. An echo of the question posed by the teenager who had so nearly killed him just five minutes earlier.
Enzo held out an open palm and growled, ‘Key, please.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It was fully daylight, although the sun had not yet risen above the cliffs behind the village. The sky was clear, and it was bitterly cold, mist drifting lazily from the surface of the Dordogne into the early morning air as Enzo stepped from the Fenelon into the village main street.
A hot meal the night before and a full eight hours’ sleep had partially restored him. A copious breakfast of hot milky coffee and pain au chocolat had set him up for the day ahead. Almost. Every muscle in his body had stiffened up. Every joint ached. He walked in pain, but was determined to keep going until the circulation of his blood had restored him to at least some semblance of normal movement.