by Peter May
Since then, Enzo supposed, more than two hours must have passed. He had no idea what time it was, since they had taken his watch, along with everything else. Sophie’s fury was intermittent, punctuated by long periods of sullen silence during which indignation simmered and gathered momentum before exploding again in another outburst.
Bertrand had not said a word, sitting silently on the floor, his back to the wall, legs pulled up to his chest. They had made him remove his nose and lip studs, and the shards of metal from his eyebrow. Strangely, Enzo thought, he seemed almost naked without them. Nicole, too, had been unusually quiet, tearstains dried now on her cheeks. Their clothes were still damp beneath the drying mud, and in the chill of their cell, it was all Enzo could do to stop his teeth from chattering. Sophie threw herself down on the single bunk bed and lapsed into another period of brooding silence.
It was Bertrand who broke it. He raised his head suddenly and said to Enzo, ‘You knew what they meant, didn’t you?’
‘What?’ Enzo dragged himself back from a gathering of dark thoughts.
‘The things we found in the trunk. You weren’t surprised by anything.’
Enzo shrugged. ‘They complete the circle, that’s all. They lead us back to the place we started—with the skull under the Place d’Italie.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The first body part, the skull, and the first five clues were found by accident in a collapsed tunnel beneath the thirteenth arrondissement in Paris,’ Enzo explained patiently. ‘Each set of clues led us to the next body part. The ones we found tonight lead us back to the skull.’
‘How?’
‘The Eiffel Tower… What does it symbolise?’
‘Paris,’ Nicole said, emerging suddenly from her cocoon of depression.
Enzo nodded. ‘That’s the first clue to the location. The key ring was made in China. That’s the second. The leaning tower of Pisa. Well, that’s Italy, isn’t it? So now we have Paris, Place d’Italie, and a Chinese connection. We already know that the skull was found beneath the Avenue de Choisy, just off Place d’Italie, right in the heart of Chinatown.’
‘I’ll bet there were thirteen chopsticks,’ Nicole said.
Enzo managed a pale smile. ‘You’re right. Thirteen chopsticks, representing the thirteenth arrondissement and Chinatown.’
‘So the rock hammer must symbolise the quarriers.’ Nicole’s interest was fully engaged now.
Enzo nodded again. ‘Who dug out the catacombes that run right under the Avenue de Choisy. Had we got that far, I’m sure we would have found some sign down there that would have led us to the trunk. As it was, fate beat us to it.’
‘What about the cleaver and the baking tray?’ Bertrand asked.
Enzo shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Each set of clues provided us with a location, and the name of one of the murderers. Presumably the cleaver and the baking tray will lead us to the name of the final killer. But I haven’t really given it any thought yet.’
‘You don’t have to. It’s easy.’
Enzo, Bertrand and Nicole all turned towards Sophie ,who had hoisted herself up on one elbow on the bunk bed. She looked back at them, wide-eyed.
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ asked Bertrand.
‘Of course. I mean, who uses a meat cleaver like that?’
‘A Chinese chef,’ Nicole said. ‘And I suppose that would also be another Chinese clue.’
Sophie shook her head in irritation. ‘Who else uses a meat cleaver?’
‘A butcher.’ This from Bertrand.
‘Exactly.’ Sophie looked at her father triumphantly. ‘Butcher in English, boucher in French. It doesn’t matter which, it’s a surname in both languages.’
Enzo looked doubtful. ‘You can’t jump to quick conclusions with these clues, Sophie. We’d need something else to confirm it.’
‘What about the baking tray?’ Bertrand said.
‘Well, that doesn’t need any confirmation.’ Sophie was piqued by her father’s lack of enthusiasm.
Enzo and Bertrand looked at her expectantly, and Nicole said, ‘Of course, being men, they wouldn’t know.’
Sophie hesitated then, and Enzo saw that her eyes were beginning to fill up. ‘Every young girl makes them with her mum,’ she said. ‘Except me, of course. I made them at school.’ She quickly brushed away a tear with the back of her hand and made a brave attempt at a smile.
Enzo looked at her and felt his own emotions well up inside. However hard he might have tried, and for all the love he had given her over all these years, there were still things she had missed out on. Things that only a mother and daughter can share. And now he had let her down, exposed her to danger. It had been his duty as a parent to protect her, and he had failed in that, too. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, and he heard the crack in his voice.
‘Madeleine cakes,’ Nicole said. ‘As every little French girl would tell you, that’s what the seashell moulds in the baking tray are for. Making Madeleine cakes.’
‘Madeleine Boucher.’ Bertrand tried the name out for size. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’
Sophie looked to her father for his approval. But it was as if he had set eyes on the face of the gorgon and turned to stone.
If Enzo had believed it possible for his heart to stop, then he would have said it had done so. And for the first time in his life he understood how it might feel if his blood were to turn to ice. He remembered the handwritten inscription in the book so very clearly. For Madeleine, aged seven. Happy Birthday, darling. And he remembered how evasive she had been. Why won’t you tell me? he had asked her. And finally she had sighed and told him, She’s me. All right? I’m Madeleine. He remembered, too, how strongly she had reacted against his suggestion that he call her that. No! I don’t want to be Madeleine!
‘Papa?’ Sophie had risen from the bed and crossed to touch his face with her fingertips, leaving a little trail of mud flakes in her wake. ‘Papa, what’s wrong?’
‘Mad à minuit,’ Enzo said. ‘Madeleine at midnight. That’s who he was meeting in St. Étienne du Mont.’
Bertrand was watching him closely. ‘Do you know her?’
Enzo pulled himself back from the brink of an abyss he dared not peer over. ‘Maybe.’
Sophie frowned. ‘Do we?’
‘You met her last night. Charlotte’s her middle name. Her given name is Madeleine.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Papa, I don’t believe it!’
Enzo did not want to. It was almost impossible for him to think of those dark, smiling eyes as the eyes of a killer. He remembered the tenderness of her touch, the softness of her lips, the sweet taste of her on his. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
‘I mean, how many Madeleines must there be in France?’ Sophie persisted. ‘Thousands, tens of thousands. And, anyway, Boucher isn’t her second name, is it?’
Enzo shook his head. ‘It’s Roux.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘We don’t know that Boucher is the right name. But, in any case, she was adopted, Sophie. She told me herself that she tracked down her birth parents when she went to university. It’s quite possible that her mother, or her father, was called Boucher. Or something else that we haven’t figured out yet.’
Sophie threw a defiant hand in his direction. ‘Well, there’s another thing. When she went to university, you said. That was the Sorbonne, right? She told me that last night.’ Enzo tipped his head in reluctant acknowledgement. ‘And you told us that all the other killers were students of Jacques Gaillard’s at ENA. Well, Charlotte wasn’t at ENA, was she?’
‘We don’t know that,’ Enzo insisted. ‘We only know what she’s told us.’ He was playing devil’s advocate to his own feelings. ‘But we do know that she was Gaillard’s niece. And most murders are committed by people known to the victim. Usually a member of their own family. God knows what kind of motive she might have had for hating him. For wanting him dea
d. Maybe he abused her as a child.’
‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Papa!’
‘Sophie, she tried to conceal from me that he was her uncle, that her real name was Madeleine. Why?’ And then he answered his own question. ‘She must have known that in the end I was going to get to these clues in Auxerre.’ The voice of his rational self was fighting to be heard above the emotional one in his head. A voice that screamed down everything he was saying. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. She was the gentlest, loveliest creature he had met in the twenty years since Pascale’s death. She had issues, yes, and dark places in her head that she guarded closely. But there was a spiritual centre to her that was as still and beautiful as her smile.
He tried to picture again all the faces in the photograph of the Schoelcher Promotion, all the students who had flitted across the screen in the video record of the Class of ’96. Had she really been somewhere there amongst them? Ten years younger—hair a different cut perhaps, a different colour? If Charlotte really was Madeleine, then she must have been supremely confident that he would not recognise her. It had been her idea to watch the video. Maybe she had just been playing with him. For wasn’t this, after all, really just a game? An extreme IQ test where the cracking of clues was rewarded with the pieces of a murdered man?
But why? It’s what he kept coming back to. What was the point of it all? He knew now that there had been four killers. But three of them were dead, and so there was only one person left alive who could answer that question. And her name was Madeleine.
The four of them spent the next hour in reflective silence until Bertrand said, ‘Don’t we have the right to make a phone call?’
‘Yes,’ Sophie said immediately. ‘And they can only hold us for twenty-four hours without charging us. But there’s some stupid clause that says if they think it would be against the interests of the investigation, they can withhold the right to the call. Which means we don’t have the right to one at all. It’s ridiculous!’
Enzo never ceased to be amazed by how much kids knew about their rights. Things that had never crossed his mind as a young man. Perhaps it was a sign of the times, that young people had higher expectations of conflict with the authorities.
The cold in the cell was getting into his bones now, and like Bertrand, he pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them for warmth. He felt the bulge of something hard in the knee pocket of his cargos. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said suddenly, startling the others.
‘Papa, what is it?’
‘I’ve still got my phone. They never took my portable.’ They had removed rings and watches and piercings, and made them empty their pockets. But Enzo had forgotten about the leg pockets of his cargos, and in their hurry to lock them up, so had the police. Perhaps they had been obscured by mud.
He squeezed fingers into the pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pressed the on-button. The screen lit up and the phone beeped loudly. They all froze, listening for any indication that someone out there might have heard it. But there was nothing, except the same interminable silence. Enzo looked at the indicator and saw that the battery was low. But there was a strong signal. He hesitated. Who would he call?
Then, to his horror, it started ringing. He was so startled by the electronic rendition of Scotland the Brave that echoed thunderously around the cell that he almost dropped it.
‘For goodness’ sake, Papa, answer it!’
He fumbled for the answer button and pressed the phone to his ear. ‘Jesus Christ, Magpie, where the bloody hell are you?’ It was Simon. In spite of years in London, his Scottish brogue was always particularly strong when he was stressed. Enzo started telling him that he was in a police cell in Auxerre, when the voice cut over him, and he realised it was a recording on his messaging service. ‘Call me when you pick this up. It’s important.’ And the line went dead. There was something in Simon’s voice that sent a strange chill of premonition through Enzo. He hung up on the soporific voice telling him that he had no more messages.
‘Who was it?’ Sophie asked.
‘A message from Uncle Simon.’
‘Well, call him back, quick. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?’
‘In England, not France.’
‘Well, he must know someone in France who can help.’
Enzo pulled up the recall option and and listened as the phone began ringing at the other end. It was answered almost immediately. ‘Magpie, where in God’s name have you been? I’ve been trying to get you all bloody day.’
‘Simon, just shut up and listen.’ Enzo knew he had to make this quick and concise. ‘I’m in a police cell in Auxerre. Nicole, Sophie, Bertrand and I have been arrested. We need help. Legal representation. Someone to get us out of this mess.’
‘Jesus, Magpie, what have you been up to?’
‘It’s a long story. I’m going to give you a name and a number in Paris.’ He flicked through the repertoire in his phone’s memory and rhymed off the number. ‘His name’s Roger Raffin. He’s a journalist. His paper’s lawyers got us out of trouble before. Tell him I know the names of all of Gaillard’s killers.’ There was a long silence at the other end of the line. ‘Simon, are you still there?’
‘Give me his address,’ Simon said. ‘I’ll go and drag him out of bed personally.’
Irritation creased Enzo’s face. ‘Simon, there’s no time for you to fly to Paris.’
‘I’m in Paris.’
And something in his voice brought earlier forebodings flooding back. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘Enzo, that’s why I was trying to get you.’ Enzo heard him draw a deep breath. ‘Just don’t panic, okay?’
‘Why would I panic?’ But he was starting to already.
‘Magpie, Kirsty phones her mum once a day, every day. She has done ever since she arrived in Paris.’
Just the mention of Kirsty’s name made Enzo tense. ‘What’s happened to her?’
‘Just listen!’ Simon’s voice was insistent. ‘She hasn’t phoned home in three days. Her mum’s tried to get her several times on her cell phone, but it’s always switched off, and she hasn’t responded to any messages. Linda phoned me in a panic yesterday, and I got the first flight over. According to the concierge, Kirsty hasn’t been home in three days. She hasn’t been at work either. Magpie, she’s just vanished. Into thin air. And no one seems to know where the hell she is.’
The single fluorescent strip in the ceiling burned out everything around it. The world turned a blinding white. Enzo closed his eyes tight to shut it out. A line had been crossed, and there was no going back. His life, he knew, was about to change again. Forever.
‘Magpie?’
‘Just get me out of here, Simon. As fast as you can?’ His voice was barely a whisper.
He hung up and the phone slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He stared at it blindly.
‘Papa?’ Sophie was kneeling beside him. She picked up the phone and looked at him. He could hear the fear in her voice. ‘Papa, what’s happened?’
He looked at her, and saw her mother in her, as he always did. ‘They’ve got her.’ His voice was strained and quiet. There was no doubt in his mind. No question of innocent coincidence.
‘Who’s got who?’
‘Gaillard’s killers.’ Then he corrected himself. ‘Killer.’ He looked into Sophie’s eyes. ‘Madeleine. Whoever she is, she’s got your sister.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I.
They had no idea what time it was, or how long they had been sitting in the interminable fluorescent glare of this square, featureless police cell. Without windows they did not know whether dawn had broken, or if it was still dark outside. But they had not slept. Tired eyes scratched and burned with every blink, heads aching, necks stiff, faces shadowed and drawn.
The first indication that things were about to change came with the sound of raised voices from the corridor. Then the door flew open, and Simon stood there grinning, his beard bristling, and he
looked greyer than Enzo remembered. In spite of the smile, he too had dark penumbrae beneath his eyes.
Sophie hurled herself across the cell and threw her arms around him. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said, mock embarrassed. ‘You’re dad’ll think I’m only after your body.’
‘Thank God you’re here,’ she said, and she gave him a big hug.
Simon put his arm around her and shook hands with Enzo and Bertrand and Nicole. ‘You guys okay?’
Enzo nodded.
‘No, we’re not!’ Sophie protested. ‘We weren’t allowed a phone call, we weren’t allowed to talk to a lawyer.’
‘You called me, didn’t you?’
Sophie’s laugh of contempt sounded more like a bark. ‘Only because they forgot to take my Papa’s portable off him. I was refused access to a doctor after all their manhandling.’
Simon raised an eyebrow. ‘Were you? One more to add to the list, then. These guys are in deep shit. Roger figures they were trying to keep you under wraps and out of the way for forty-eight hours so they could make some kind of announcement to the press.’
Enzo nodded, realising now why they had been locked up like this. ‘To claim the credit for finding Gaillard’s remains and revealing his killers.’
‘Before we could run the story in Libé.’ Raffin appeared next to Simon. He looked flushed and weary, and he shook all their hands gravely. ‘Your detention order was signed by Juge Lelong. Again.’ He nodded back along the corridor. ‘He’s here, you know. He might try to argue that you damaged public property, or that you were interfering with a police investigation. But it’s not going to wash. Not now.’
Simon grinned. ‘He’s fucked,’ he said. ‘And you guys are free to go.’
Enzo put a hand on his arm. ‘Any word of Kirsty?’