Blacklight Blue

by Peter May

  So his mother was not really his mother. And all that suffocating love, her soft warm bosom and rose-scented cologne crowding his senses, throttling his childhood, had in the end driven a wedge between them. He realised now it had really been some desperate attempt to win him over. As if, somehow, he had known the truth.

  Was it possible that he really did remember something? That it was those memories that in some way prevented the two of them from ever having a normal relationship? How disappointed by him she must have been.

  He spooled through the ensuing days. The story was never off the front pages, with background pieces and feature articles inside. Experts speculated on the reasons for the abduction. Everything from the white slave trade and sexual abuse to a secret sale on the underground adoption market. Kidnapping for financial reasons had been ruled out when no ransom demand was made. And in any case, Rod Bright, while a successful businessman in Ilford, could hardly have been described as wealthy.

  There was an in-depth article about the Bright family themselves, Rod and Angela and their three children, but Richard couldn’t bring himself to read it. Not yet, anyway. Days and weeks passed before his eyes as gradually the story slipped from the front pages, a tale of frustrating police failure confining itself to smaller and smaller paragraphs on the inside, until finally it simply disappeared. Upheavals in Northern Ireland were now grabbing the headlines. The Social Democratic and Labour Party had been formed to fight for Catholic civil rights in the troubled province.

  And then suddenly, six weeks later, a young female journalist from the newspaper’s features staff had flown out to Spain to interview Angela Bright. She was still in Cadaquès and refusing to leave until either her child was returned to her, or he was proven to be dead. The blood, it had turned out, was not his. To leave, she told the journalist, would be a betrayal of her son. It would be to abandon him, to admit that he was gone forever. And she simply couldn’t do it. And so this picturesque resort, where discerning people took their holidays, had become a prison, a gilded cage that would hold her until either she found her Richard, or she died. She had already rented a house and was discussing with the local authority the possibility of putting her children into the state school.

  Her husband, meantime, had returned to England, where his business interests demanded his presence.

  There was a photograph of her sitting in a wicker chair staring forlornly at the camera. Richard stared back at her for a very long time. He had evidently inherited his colouring from his mother. Fair hair, and even from the black and white photograph, he could see that she had the palest of eyes, almost certainly blue like his. But she looked substantially older than her thirty-three years. Drawn, haunted.

  He looked away, unable to maintain eye-contact with this ghost from his past, blinking hard to disperse the tears that filled his eyes.

  He stood up and went in search of the index. Now that he knew what story he was following, he would be able to find all future references and go straight to them. As it turned out, there were very few. How quickly the world forgot the suffering it shared over breakfast for a few brief days or weeks.

  The last reference he could find was in September, 1976, on the occasion of his eighth birthday. Some news editor had figured it was an anniversary on which to hang a story. Perhaps it had been a poor month for news. And so a reporter had been dispatched to do a follow-up interview with Angela Bright, who was still in Cadaquès. A free holiday for a journalist from the features desk.

  Señora Bright, as she was now known locally, had purchased a large house just below the church which sat up at the top of the town overlooking the bay. The elder of her remaining children, Lucy, had just started secondary school. Richard’s brother, William, was still in primary school. Angela and Rod had separated eighteen months previously. A good Catholic, Angela was refusing to give him a divorce. But their marriage was over. He had wanted to move on. And she was unable to do so. Still locked up in her gilded cage, resigned to spending the rest of her days there, believing that her son might be dead, but never quite able to release her grip on that last shred of hope that he might somehow, somewhere, still be alive.

  She prayed for him each morning in the church, just a few paces from her door, and spent her days in quiet solitude behind shuttered windows or in the cool shade of her tiny, walled garden. In the photograph she seemed to have aged twenty years.

  There were photographs, too, of his brother and sister, and short interviews with each. And Richard realised for the first time what he had missed by skimming through all those previous pieces, what would certainly have become clear to him had he read the article on his family background.

  He stared at the screen with an extraordinary sense of déjà vu and felt himself freefalling once more into the unknown.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cahors, November 2008

  As they crossed the square, Enzo looked up beyond the red brick of the old town to the tree-covered hills rising all around the far side of the river, cutting a high, dark line against the deep blue of the winter sky. ‘I’m going to get the bastard.’

  As if he hadn’t spoken, Simon said, ‘I have a flight from Toulouse at four.’

  They had walked together without speaking down through Cahors, past the imposing Palais de Justice, where Enzo might yet stand trial, across the busy Boulevard Gambetta and into the Rue Marechal Foch, leading into the Place Jean Jacques Chapou.

  The cathedral stood in chilly silence, casting its shadow of Christian disapproval on the thoughts of revenge that filled Enzo’s head. He had been so wrapped up in them as they passed through the town that he had failed to register Simon’s unusually sombre mood.

  Simon had always been mercurial. At one moment the manic extrovert, saved only by his charm from the consequences of a destructive impulsiveness. At another, the manic depressive who, in the blink of an eye, might descend into a black funk from which it could be almost impossible to rouse him.

  His mood this cold November morning, as a pale sun sent long shadows sprawling north across the square, was neither manic nor depressive. He was subdued, and his breath clouded in frigid air as he spoke.

  ‘I’m in the middle of a court case in Oxford. I only got the judge to agree to a two-day suspension of proceedings by pleading a family emergency.’

  A woman with big, yellow rubber gloves was packing ice around freshly displayed fish in the L’Océan fishmonger on the corner.

  ‘Well, at least come up to the apartment and have a glass of wine with me. I could do with a drink.’

  ‘No, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘We can talk in the apartment.’

  ‘In private.’

  For the first time, Enzo detected something ominous in his friend’s tone. He glanced at him, and saw the shadows beneath his orange-flecked green eyes. ‘I’ll buy you a drink in Le Forum, then.’

  He steered him past a blue and white 2CV with a crumpled fender and into the café on the south side of the square, opposite the indoor market of La Halle. A butcher’s van was unloading fresh meat in the street under the watchful gaze of an alsatian dog whose dreadlocked owner squatted in a doorway, begging cup on the sidewalk in front of him.

  Inside, steam issued from a coffeemaker behind the redbrick bar. Enzo ordered a couple of brandies, and several customers shook his hand as Simon followed him in back. A rerun of a rugby game was being shown on a television screen high up above the door. They slipped into leather bench seats to face each other across the booth by the cheminée. They both felt the warmth of smouldering oak embers that filled the place with a sweet scent of winter woodsmoke.

  They sat in silence until the brandies came, and Enzo could feel Simon’s tension. ‘Santé.’ He lifted his glass to his lips and the liquor burned its way down into his chest.

  Simon just stared at his glass before looking up and meeting his friend’s eye with a curiously loaded stare. ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Magpie, you know that?’

 
‘What?’ Enzo was startled. This was no idle jibe made half in jest. This was a heartfelt criticism made whole in earnest.

  ‘She was better off before.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kirsty. When she wasn’t talking to you. When you had no contact. Nobody was trying to kill her then.’

  Enzo sighed and let himself slip back in his seat. So that’s what this was all about. After Enzo and Linda had broken up, Simon had stayed in touch with Enzo’s ex, playing the role of surrogate father to the surly Kirsty. It was Simon who had been there on school sports day. It was Simon who had taken Kirsty and her mother out for a celebration meal when Kirsty graduated. It was Simon, during all the years that Enzo wasn’t around, who had kept a mindful eye on his absent friend’s daughter.

  ‘She almost died in the catacombs in Paris. Someone’s just tried to murder her in Strasbourg. And why? Because of you. Because of your stupid bets and your stupid pride, and this crazy crusade to solve every cold case in France.’ He paused. ‘Or, at least, all the ones in Raffin’s book.’ He was on a roll. ‘Just to show the world how fucking clever you are. Enzo Macleod. Great mind, great scientist. Smarter than all the rest. Look at me, mammy, I’m dancing.’

  Enzo’s face stung as shock brought colour to cold cheeks. He felt as if he had been struck. There was vitriol in Simon’s accusation, searing words smeared with Scottish sarcasm. And he wasn’t finished.

  ‘Do you care at all that you’re putting at risk the very people you profess to love?’

  Enzo remembered how Simon had been the leading light in the school debating society. And while he could at times be vulgar and foul-mouthed along with the rest of them, he’d had a talent for being able to articulate his opinions with cutting clarity. Making him, of course, an ideal lawyer. And if he meant to pour petrol on the coals of Enzo’s anger, then he succeeded.

  ‘Don’t lecture me on fatherhood, Sy. You’ve never stayed in a relationship long enough to be one. You’re more likely to be having sex with a girl Kirsty’s age than worrying about her well-being.’

  Simon glared back at him, stung by the rebuke. Perhaps because there was more than just a grain of truth in it. ‘You just walked away from her.’

  ‘Not my choice.’

  ‘Of course it was. You were the one who left. Not Kirsty. She didn’t ask for that. Now she’s suffering the consequences of reconciliation. And what are you going to do? You’re going to go after this guy. You’re going to put her in even more danger. You just don’t care, do you?’

  ‘Of course I care! Jesus Christ, man! If I don’t stop this guy, no one else will. And now that I know it’s not just me he’s after, do you not think I’m going to do everything I can to protect the people I love?’

  ‘How? How are you going to do that, Magpie? Send them to Mars? Get real. You don’t know who this guy is. You don’t know the first thing about him. But he knows everything about you. He could be sitting in this café and you wouldn’t even know it.’

  Involuntarily, Enzo’s eyes strayed beyond the booth to the customers smoking and drinking at other tables. It was true. Apart from the regulars whom he recognised, he could not have said who any of the others were. A young man, La Dépêche open on the table in front of him, was sipping a steaming noisette. He glanced up and caught Enzo watching him, before his eyes dipped self-consciously back to his newspaper A middle-aged man at the bar was engaged in an animated conversation with the proprietor. He was dark, muscular, a fading tattoo on his right forearm. Enzo had never seen him before. He forced himself to meet Simon’s critical gaze. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to Kirsty or Sophie or anyone else. I’ll die before I’d let that happen.’ Even as he spoke the words, he realised how hollow they were. And he could see in Simon’s eyes that he knew it, too. How could he possibly keep his children safe from an enemy he couldn’t even see?

  Simon leaned slightly towards him and lowered his voice. ‘Just so you know, Enzo … Anything happens to that girl.’

  ‘And what?’

  But whatever response might have reached the tip of Simon’s tongue remained behind pursed lips. He simply got up, his brandy untouched, and weaved his way between the tables to where cold sunlight slanted across the cobbles outside.

  Enzo had forgotten that Raffin was there. The journalist had not visited him at the caserne, but Enzo remembered seeing his bag in Kirsty’s room when Commissaire Taillard brought him to the apartment to look for the doctor’s letter. He was not particularly pleased to see him. And barely had time to consider why Simon’s disapproval did not extend to Kirsty’s relationship with Raffin, before he was mobbed by the girls. They took it in turns to hug and kiss him and fretted and fussed collectively. Enzo caught Raffin watching him with a slight, sardonic smile. The old sage surrounded by his adoring acolytes.

  He had been surprised, too, to see Nicole. ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked her.

  ‘She’s sharing with me.’ Something in Sophie’s tone communicated a certain discontent. ‘Where’s Uncle Sy?’

  Enzo turned away towards the séjour. ‘He’s had to go back to England.’

  Bertrand rose from the table, where he was poring over papers and catalogues. He gave Enzo a strong handshake. ‘Good to see you back in the land of the living, Monsieur Macleod.’

  Enzo nodded towards the papers strewn across the table. ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Just trying to work out how much I need to borrow from the bank to cover the cost of new equipment.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A lot. I don’t think I can afford my wish list, so I’m trying to cut it down.’

  Enzo crossed to his bureau and returned to the table with his cheque book. He sat down opposite Bertrand and held out his hand for the two estimates. ‘Let me see.’ He scanned the sheets that Bertrand had handed him, then opened his cheque book and started writing.

  Bertrand watched him, perplexed. ‘What are you doing, Monsieur Macleod?’

  Enzo tore out the cheque he had written and held it for Bertrand to take. ‘Get your wish list, Bertrand. Tell the bank you don’t need their loan. You can pay me back when the insurance money comes through.’

  Bertrand looked at the cheque and shook his head. ‘You can’t afford this, Monsieur Macleod.’

  ‘With all due respect, Bertrand, how would you know what I can afford?’ He snapped his cheque book shut. ‘I’ve been to the bank and transferred money from my savings account to my checking account.’

  ‘Papa, that’s all the money you’ve got in the world.’ Sophie was staring at him in disbelief.

  Enzo smiled. ‘You know, one thing that occurred to me, Sophie, when I thought I only had a few months left? What a crime it would be to die with money in the bank.’

  ‘But you’re not going to die now.’

  ‘We’re all going to die sometime, Soph. And, anyway, I expect Bertrand to pay me back before then. So don’t worry, your inheritance is safe. Or, at least, what’ll be left of it after the French government have taken their pound of flesh.’

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ she scowled at him.

  Bertrand stood, still frozen, with the cheque in his hand. ‘I can’t take this, Monsieur Macleod.’

  ‘Of course you can. And anyway, I need a favour in return, Bertrand. There’s no such thing as a free loan.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘I need you to come with us. Someone to look after my girls.’

  Nicole pre-empted both daughters, including herself without a second thought as one of Enzo’s girls. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘There’s someone out there trying to destroy me, Nicole. Someone who burned down Bertrand’s gym, who tried to kill Kirsty. Someone who murdered a woman the same way he murdered a young man in a Paris apartment nearly seventeen years ago.’ He lifted his eyes to meet Raffin’s, and he saw the journalist frown.

  ‘The Pierre Lambert case?’ And when Enzo nodded, ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘M.O. A trademark killing. Spinal cord s
evered between the third and fourth vertebrae. A mistake, because it gives us a starting point. But this guy is still a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who’s prepared to do anything to stop me finding out who he is. So no one’s safe. None of us. Not until we get him.’ He let his gaze wander around the five sets of eyes fixed upon him. ‘We need somewhere that’s not known to him. Somewhere safe. A base from where we can start to track him down.’

  Sophie said, ‘What about Charlotte’s cottage in the Corrèze?’

  Enzo shook his head. ‘He knows everything about me, Soph. Charlotte’s in the States right now, so she’s safe. But he’s bound to know about her. So he’ll know about the cottage. We need to make a complete break with everyone and everywhere we know.’

  Kirsty said, ‘Do you have someplace in mind?’

  Enzo reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of hotel notepaper. ‘Actually, I do.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bertrand drew his van into the curb beneath the stark, leafless skeletons of the plane trees in front of the station. Enzo held the door open for Nicole to step down and glanced anxiously across the street.

  There were a couple of men in the Hertz car rental office, bent over the counter, intent on signing paperwork. The Maison du Vin de Cahors appeared deserted. A man sat reading a newspaper in the weak winter sunshine outside the bar of the Melchior brasserie. He didn’t look anything like either Kirsty or Xavier’s description of the man with the missing earlobe. But that made no difference. The man whom Kirsty had seen in Strasbourg was not necessarily the killer. And the murderer had already employed someone to play the role of Enzo’s oncologist. They had no way of knowing who else might be in his employ.

  Sophie leaned out to kiss her father and squeeze his hand. ‘Take care,’ she whispered. Only by dividing and subdividing themselves, could they hope to shake off anyone with a watching brief. Raffin had already set off in a hire car with Kirsty.