Blacklight Blue

by Peter May

  Enzo slammed the door, and Bertrand revved his engine, peeping on his horn before pulling away, and accelerating up the steep incline of the tree-lined Avenue Charles de Freycinet.

  Nicole clutched her suitcase nervously. It was, as always, huge, and packed to capacity. Enzo had no idea what she took with her on her travels, but her valise was invariably too heavy for her to lift. He was pleased to see that she had invested for the first time in a case with wheels and offered to take it from her without fear of slipping a disc. ‘Do you think he’s watching?’ she said in a low voice, trying not to move her mouth.

  ‘Probably not, Nicole. But even if he is, I doubt if he can lip-read.’

  He trundled her case across the tarmac, and doors slid open to admit them to the main concourse. It was crowded with passengers awaiting the imminent arrival of the train to Paris. Others were gathered to greet friends and family travelling up from Toulouse. Through yet more sliding doors, they stood in a queue at the billetterie, until waved forward to a guichet. The girl behind the glass said a weary bonjour. Enzo slipped her a sheet of paper containing the code and details of the booking they had made on the internet just an hour before.

  The girl glanced at the two faces watching her through the window. ‘Just the one ticket?’

  Enzo nodded. ‘Just the one.’

  A dot-matrix printer chattered and spat it out. The girl slid it under the glass. ‘Bonne journée.’

  They passed back through to the concourse, and Enzo made an extravagant show of validating the single ticket in the borne by the door to the platform, and then handing it ostentatiously to Nicole. The message would be clear to anyone watching. Only Nicole was travelling. Enzo bumped her case downstairs to the underpass, and then up again to the platform, where they stood shivering in the cold wind that blew down the railway lines from the north.

  ‘I’m scared, Monsieur Macleod,’ Nicole whispered. Her eyes were darting back and forth along the length of the quai, flickering from face to face, assessing each as a potential killer, ruling some out and some in. ‘Do you really think he might be here?’

  ‘Impossible to know, Nicole. Which is why we’re not going to take any chances.’

  The SNCF jingle echoed high among the steel girders of the steeply pitched glass roof, and a voice warned passengers to stand back from the edge of the platform. The Paris train from Toulouse would be arriving in just a few moments. Enzo peered south and saw the train rounding the bend in the distance.

  When finally it groaned and creaked to a halt, doors flew open up and down its length and passengers streamed out to fight for space with those queuing up to get on, a confluence of conflicting interests. Enzo waited until others ahead of them had climbed into the train before he hoisted Nicole’s case up to chest level to push it through the door. The effort left him perspiring, tiny beads of sweat turning immediately cold as they formed around his eyes. Nicole threw her arms around him and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Goodbye, Monsieur Macleod.’ Enzo could almost believe she had tears in her eyes.

  He stood back as she climbed aboard and swung the door shut, and then he walked along the platform, following her progress through the coach until she found her seat. She sat by the window and pressed her forehead against it, looking down at him with concern. She gave a tiny wave. Enzo waved back, and as the crowds thinned, swallowed by the stairway that led down to the underpass, the guard raised his hand and gave a sharp blow on his whistle.

  Several more doors slammed, and the train jerked and sighed, and began its slow progress out of the station. Enzo walked with it, waving at Nicole as it gathered speed, until he could only have kept up with it by running. He glanced down the platform. There were just a handful of people left on it now, and he grabbed a door handle as it passed, running with it and swinging the door wide. He heard the shouts of the guard somewhere behind him. If he mistimed his leap he would be in serious trouble.

  He took off, and felt himself flying through the air, hovering for what seemed like an eternity on the swing of the door, before his feet found the steps, and he scrambled up into the train. As he leaned out to pull the door closed, he glanced once more back along the platform. No one else had attempted to jump aboard the moving train, and he felt confident that if anyone had been following him, then they had just lost him. The door slammed shut and he stood breathing hard, back pressed against the wall. He was too damned old for this.

  Nicole was watching for him as the carriage door slid open, and he staggered unsteadily along the central aisle. She gave him another hug. ‘I was so worried you were going to break your neck, Monsieur Macleod.’

  ‘Yeh, well that’s exactly what’ll happen to me if we let this guy get too close.’ He slumped into the seat beside her and glanced at his watch. They would be at Souillac in an hour and meet up again with Bertrand and Sophie. He looked up and saw the conductor approaching from the far end of the carriage. He sighed. The more immediate problem was going to be trying to explain why he didn’t have a ticket.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Late afternoon sunlight slanted yellow across a landscape that lay somewhere between fall and winter. Trees clinging to the hillsides that rose up around them had retained much of their foliage, late autumn colours of russet and ochre smeared on green.

  As the sun sank lower, the valleys fell into deep shadow, while the rocky volcanic outcrops that broke a reddening skyline glowed orange in the last of the sun. The streams and rivers that cut and wound their way through them lay like silvered pink ribbons. Everything magnified into pin-sharp focus by the cold, clear mountain air.

  The motor of Bertrand’s van strained as they continued to climb, leaving below them the lush pastures of southwest France for the rocky wastes of the country’s central plateau. Enzo could almost feel Raffin’s impatience in the car behind. The road was climbing more steeply now, and their progress had slowed since leaving Aurillac. As night approached, the temperature was dropping fast. Even in the blast of hot air from the van’s heating system, they could feel the cold creeping into their feet.

  Nicole sat in the front, between Sophie and Bertrand, the map on her knee. Enzo and Kirsty sat in the back watching the changing landscape unfold, lit from behind them by a dramatic sunset. Nicole peered through an increasing gloom, into which their headlights now barely penetrated. ‘There should be a left turn just up ahead. I guess it’ll be signposted.’ Conifers scaled the slopes around them, and night seemed to fall suddenly, like a cloak of darkness settling on the land. ‘There it is!’

  The signpost caught their lights. Miramont 4. Bertrand dropped to second gear and swung them into the narrow, single-track road. There would be a problem if they met another vehicle in the next four kilometres.

  They continued to climb through the trees for several minutes, before suddenly the road took a sharp turn and they emerged on to a high plateau bathed in unexpected moonlight. Away to the west, the sky still glowed the deepest red. Above them it was already crusted with stars sparkling like frost. The road followed a straight line then, for two kilometres or more before beginning a slow descent through folds of rock and stubbled pasture into a shallow, tree-filled valley, and they saw the lights of Miramont twinkling their welcome in the gathering night.

  Although the school and the church were floodlit, there was no sign of life in the village. Granite cottages huddled together under steeply pitched Auvergnat roofs of hand-chiselled stone lauzes, shutters closed already against the cold and the night. The water in the fountain in front of the church would be frozen by morning.

  ‘She said it was a right turn at the head of the village.’ Enzo leaned forward from the back, then pointed. ‘There, I think that’s it.’ And across a barren winter field, surrounded by tall trees, stood a big, square house, lights blazing into the night from its tall, arched windows. They passed a swimming pool covered over for the winter, and a pigeonnier with a double-tiered roof, before drawing up in front of stone steps climbing to the front door from
either side of it. Raffin pulled in behind them, and they all got out stiffly on to the pebbled drive. Gardens dipped away below to a wall, and the field beyond. And the lights of the distant village spilled towards them across its fallow, furrowed rows.

  The front door opened, throwing light on to a slabbed terrace, and Anna stepped out to lean her hands on the wrought iron rail. She smiled down at the upturned faces and found Enzo’s.

  ‘Glad you could make it,’ she said. She cocked an eyebrow. ‘I hope I have enough rooms.’

  Her breath billowed in the chill night air. ‘I have to confess, I didn’t really expect to see you again.’ She glanced at him by the yellow of the streetlights in the deserted main street of this ghost village. The only sign of life came from behind the steamed up windows of the Bar Tabac Restaurant, Chez Milou. They could hear voices raised in laughter inside.

  Enzo had known that they needed to talk and suggested they take a walk somewhere away from the house. She had wrapped up in a winter coat and scarf, and slipped her arm through his for added warmth. He glanced at her now and saw the lights in her coal dark eyes, and remembered how attractive she was. He remembered, too, the touch of her skin, the firm, fit body of an athlete. He had made love to her, a dying man in desperate need of comfort. Now that his death sentence was lifted, he found himself wanting to make love to her again. This time slow and sure and gentle, in the knowledge that tomorrow could always wait. He smiled. ‘I was convinced of it.’

  She tipped her head and looked at him quizzically. ‘There’s something different about you, Enzo. Hard to define. When we met in Strasbourg you seemed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. But now you seem … I don’t know … less burdened.’

  ‘When we met in Strasbourg, I had three months to live, Anna. Now, I’ve got as long as the next man. However long that might be.’

  She frowned, and he laughed.

  ‘Some day, maybe, I’ll tell you about it. But right now, I owe you an explanation about why we’re here. It wasn’t something I could tell you on the phone. And if you want us to go, then we’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

  She tightened her grip on his arm. ‘Why would I want you to go? Even if I don’t have you to myself, I’m not going to turn you away. It was starting to get pretty lonely up here. This is almost like having a family again.’

  They passed the mairie with its French and European flags and tattered notice board, and he told her everything. About his history in forensic science in Scotland before coming to France to teach biology in Toulouse. About cracking the cold cases in Raffin’s book of unsolved murders. About how one of the murderers was out to stop him any way he could. The attempt on his daughter’s life, the burning of Bertrand’s gym, the killing of an innocent woman to set up Enzo as the prime suspect.

  She listened in thoughtful silence, and as he glanced at her it seemed to him that she had paled just a little. They needed a place, he said, where they would be safe from the killer. From where they could figure out who he was and how they could catch him.

  When he had finished, they walked on for some way in silence. Past the three storeys of the floodlit school to the end of the village, where finally she stopped and gazed across the ploughed field to the lights of the house. They could see Bertrand heaving Nicole’s case up the steps to the door. She turned suddenly towards Enzo. ‘That’s pretty scary stuff.’

  ‘If you want us to go, I’ll understand. But if we stay, we’ll pay for our keep. And the kids’ll do what needs to be done around the house.’

  She pursed her lips, lost in momentary thought. ‘And if you didn’t have here, where else would you go?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We’d find a hotel somewhere, I guess.’

  She looked very directly into his eyes. ‘I don’t know anything about you, Enzo. Not really.’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘But you’ll let us stay tonight, at least?’

  She hesitated for a long moment. ‘You can stay as long as you like. That night in Strasbourg, I knew nothing about you then. We were complete strangers. But you made me feel … I don’t know … safe somehow. You still do. And if I can offer you safety in return …’ She reached out and took his face in her hands, and he put his on her waist and leaned forward to kiss her. A soft, gentle kiss on cool lips. Then he took her in his arms and held her there. ‘Thank you, Anna.’

  He felt her soft breath at his ear. ‘Are you sure your daughter won’t be jealous of me? She didn’t seem very pleased to find me in your room in Strasbourg.’

  ‘Daughters, plural,’ Enzo said. ‘And since I have no say in their love lives, I don’t see why they should have any in mine.’

  ‘A one-night stand?’ Sophie looked at Kirsty incredulously.

  ‘Well, that’s just typical,’ Nicole said, and the sisters turned to look at her. She flushed with embarrassment and back-tracked. ‘Well, I mean, when your father’s around, there never seems to be a woman very far away.’

  Sophie turned back to Kirsty. ‘Someone had just tried to kill you, and he was picking up a woman in a bar?’

  They were in a wood-panelled sitting room with double doors opening off a long stone-flagged hallway. Immediately opposite, the doors of an enormous kitchen stood wide, and good smells issued from a Raeburn stove set in the original cheminée. In the séjour a log fire burned in a marble hearth laden with ornaments and candlesticks. The room was filled with big, comfortable sofas and armchairs, its walls hung with myriad paintings of washed-out, watercolour countryscapes of an alien land.

  Kirsty slouched in an armchair, relaxing for the first time in days, and felt guilty for having betrayed her father’s secret. ‘I guess he had other things on his mind. He thought he was dying, after all.’

  But Sophie wasn’t about to be so forgiving. ‘So his answer was to go off and spend the night with someone he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Leave him alone.’ Bertrand perched on the sofa beside Sophie. ‘The only reason we’ve got somewhere to stay is because he met this woman in Strasbourg.’

  ‘And we don’t know any more about her than he does!’ Sophie was incensed. ‘What do you think, Monsieur Raffin?’

  They all turned towards Raffin, who was sitting at a small table by the window with his laptop running and a book open beside him. He looked up when he heard his name. ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind, Roger, it’s not important.’ Kirsty waved a dismissive hand and turned towards her sister. ‘Let it go, Sophie, please. We’re here now. Like her or not, she’s given us a roof over our heads when we had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘How much do you think she knows?’ Bertrand said.

  ‘As much as Dad’s telling her right now, I imagine.’ Kirsty ran long fingers back through silky hair. ‘Though how much that is, who knows? It’s a lot to dump on someone out of the blue. Particularly someone you’ve only known for one night.’

  They heard the sound of the front door opening and turned expectantly towards the hall. Enzo and Anna brought the cold in with them, chilled faces flushing pink in the warm air. Anna smiled uneasily. The awkward silence made it clear that she and Enzo had almost certainly been the topic of conversation.

  She said, ‘I’ve got a stew keeping warm on the stove. Should be enough to feed us all. But we’d better sort out the sleeping arrangements first. There are only five bedrooms.’

  A further few moments of awkward silence were broken by Sophie. ‘Bertrand and I will share,’ she said boldly, daring her father to contradict her. Enzo held his tongue. ‘And Kirsty and Roger.’

  Roger looked up from his computer and caught the glare that Enzo turned in his direction.

  ‘Good,’ Anna said. ‘That solves any problems, then. Enzo and …’ she turned towards Nicole, ‘ … the young lady, can have a room each.’

  Enzo was stung. He had imagined that he and Anna would be sharing, as had everyone else in the room. No one wanted to meet his eye. To cover his embarrassment, he said, ‘We’d better get
settled in then, and have something to eat. I’d like Roger to brief everyone on the Pierre Lambert case tonight.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘The point is this,’ Enzo said. ‘If he is so keen to stop me investigating this crime, he must believe there is something in all the old evidence that could lead to him. And he thinks I’ll find it.’

  The debris of the meal lay scattered across the long dining table. The civet de sanglier, wild boar stew, had been rich and delicious, served with steaming new potatoes, and haricots verts with garlic. They had got through three bottles of wine, and Enzo and Roger were sipping cognacs with their coffee.

  Oak doors opened on to the kitchen, and French windows led onto what, in summer, would be a shaded terrace that looked out across the fields. An oil painting of an English hunt scene hung on the end wall. A retractable lamp had been drawn down from the ceiling so that the table was brightly illuminated, but the faces around it were half in shadow.

  Anna had sat at the opposite end from Enzo, and he had watched from a distance as Raffin chatted easily to her, exerting the full force of his charm. He had noticed, too, how Raffin’s attentions had put Kirsty’s nose out of joint. He wondered what she had ever seen in him. He was a man obsessed by his own image, convinced of his own intelligence. And while he had a certain charisma, there was a sense that his charm was something he could turn off and on at will. That it was phony, a façade that failed to reflect the real Raffin. Whoever that might be. Enzo certainly had no idea, and wondered if his daughter had somehow managed to find something more substantial beneath the veneer. But he doubted it, and remembered someone once saying of a shallow acquaintance, Scratch away that surface veneer and what do you find? More veneer. Enzo suspected that something a little more sinister lay behind the image the journalist presented to the world. Something dark, as Charlotte had once said to him. Something you might find lurking under a stone. For all her twenty-eight years, Enzo feared that Kirsty’s experience of life was limited, and her interpretation of it naïve. He was afraid that her relationship with Raffin would only end in tears. Hers.