The Critic

by Peter May

  Roussel ushered him into the gloom of his office, a small cluttered space with three desks, both windows shuttered against the glare of the outside world. A life-size cardboard cut-out of Lara Croft leaned against the back wall, thrusting outsized breasts into the room. A U2 poster was a visual counterpart to the music that played through the speakers of Roussel’s computer. Roussel positioned himself behind his desk, hands on hips. ‘Best rock group in the world.’ He allowed time for Enzo to absorb this wisdom, then added, ‘You know, there are people out there campaigning to stop prisoners being kept three to a cell. Cells bigger than this.’ He waved a hand around his office. ‘There are three of us in here—and we’re gendarmes!’ He barely allowed himself time to draw breath. ‘What do you want, Monsieur Macleod?’

  ‘You received a fax from Madame Taillard, the police chief in Cahors?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then you’ll know I’m here about the murder of Gil Petty.’

  Roussel allowed himself to drop into his seat, and he folded his arms across his chest. Enzo noticed a foot-high plastic model of Lara Croft standing to one side of the computer, the cardboard box it had come in discarded amongst the detritus piled up on the floor behind the desk. ‘I don’t like the Police Nationale, monsieur. They’re civilians, we’re army. They get funded, we don’t.’ He picked a pen out of a jar of them standing on his desk and scribbled with it on his inkpad. It left nothing but an indentation in the paper. ‘Gendarme-issue. Doesn’t work.’ He picked up a file on his desk and pulled off the paper clip that bound it, holding it up for Enzo to see. ‘Paper clips? Got to buy them ourselves. You think the Police Nationale buy their own paper clips?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘No, of course you don’t. And I have no idea how I can help you.’

  ‘I’d like access to your files on the Petty case.’

  Roussel gazed at him very directly for a long time. Then his face broke into an unexpected smile of genuine amusement. ‘I like a man with a sense of humour, Monsieur Macleod. What makes you think I would give you access to the files?’ But before Enzo could reply, he lifted a hand to stop him. ‘No, tell me this first. Who are you?’

  Enzo was taken aback. ‘Well, you know who I am.’

  ‘Do I?’

  Enzo sighed. ‘My name’s Enzo—’

  Rousell cut him of. ‘No, I know who you are. Or, rather, I know who you tell me you are.’ He reached across the desk. ‘And what I read in a fax from someone purporting to be the chief of police in Cahors. You could be the killer for all I know. And you want me to hand over my files?’

  Enzo was at a loss.

  ‘And in any case, the Gendarmerie Nationale doesn’t give out information to private investigators.’

  ‘I’m not exactly a private investigator.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Roussel opened a slim file on his desk and lifted a sheet of paper to examine it. ‘You’re a former forensics officer from Scotland. You’ve lived in France for twenty years and you teach biology at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t know anything about me.’

  ‘I did some checking. In my business it pays.’

  Roussel had done his homework, but it was time, Enzo thought, to turn defence into attack. ‘It’s easy enough, monsieur, to find facts that are readily available on the internet. It’s quite another to solve a crime when none of the facts are apparent, and it requires some intelligence to unearth them.’

  Colour rose high on Roussel’s cheeks, marring a smooth, tanned complexion. ‘Your point being?’

  ‘Petty was missing for a year before his body turned up. Not only did you fail to find him, you didn’t even know he’d been murdered until his killer decided to put him on public display.’

  Roussel’s anger was apparent only in the almost imperceptible clenching and unclenching of his jaw. He gazed at Enzo with steady dark eyes. ‘People go missing all the time, Monsieur Macleod.’ He tapped another file on his desk. A fat one this time. ‘I have nearly half a dozen cases in my missing persons file. Very often people have their own reasons. Nothing sinister. A marital break-up, a secret affair, redundancy, mental illness. Sometimes they just want to disappear.’ He opened the file and lifted out a sheaf of papers held together with a clip he had no doubt bought himself. ‘This one I was at school with. Serge Coste. Just upped sticks and left a year ago. His wife says she has no idea why. But I figure they had a big bust up. They were childless. She wanted to adopt, he didn’t. That sort of thing can put people under all sorts of pressure. But we’ll probably never know why he left, or where he went.’ He closed the file and slapped his hand on top of it. ‘We had no reason to suspect foul play when Petty disappeared. Even when we came under pressure—he was an international personality, after all—we could find no evidence that there had been any crime committed.’

  ‘Even when he turned up strapped to a cross like a scarecrow in a vineyard?’

  ‘That was twelve months later. The trail was cold as ice.’

  ‘Not where he was found. He’d only been there a matter of hours. You had a fresh crime scene. And a killer always leaves something behind. Some clue. No matter how small. Always.’

  Roussel pursed his lips to contain his anger. ‘Officers from the Police Scientifique in Albi examined the scene in the minutest detail, Monsieur Macleod. If the killer had left some trace, we would have found it.’ He pushed himself back in his seat and pulled open a drawer. He took out a book and dropped it on his desk.

  Enzo inclined his head to look at it.

  ‘Your friend, Roger Raffin is causing me no end of trouble, Macleod.’ Enzo noticed that Roussel had dropped the monsieur. ‘Especially now that it’s been translated and published in the United States. Although no doubt only because it contains the Petty case. You just missed his daughter.’

  This time Enzo’s interest was piqued. “Michelle Petty? She’s here?’

  ‘Not for long. She was looking for his personal belongings.’

  ‘After three years? She’s taken her time.’

  ‘Four years since he went missing. And it’s the first contact we’ve had from any member of the family—apart from arranging to ship the body back for burial.’

  ‘So what did you tell her?’

  ‘That his personal effects are still regarded as evidence in an open case. So I don’t think she’ll be here for much longer.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d know where she’s staying.’

  Roussel fixed him with hard eyes. ‘And why should I tell you?’

  ‘To get me off your back.’

  Which brought a smile to the gendarme’s face. The first in a while. ‘Now there’s an offer. She’s staying at the Château de Salettes, Monsieur Macleod. It’s where all the really wealthy tourists stay. I’d say Michelle Petty has done pretty well from her father’s death.’

  Chapter Two

  I.

  The narrow road wound upwards amongst vineyards that stretched away through chalk hills north and south, as far as the eye could see. Some of the vines were still laden, heavy bunches of tightly packed black braucol or duras grapes, or the yellow-green mauzac or loin de l’oeil—romantically named “far from the eye” because of it’s long stalk. Others had already been harvested, and seemed naked somehow, stripped of their fruit under the hot September sun. The vendange was early this year after a heat wave in July and a warm, wet August. It promised a fine vintage.

  The landscape was punctuated by tall, thin poplars, like exclamation marks, and the distinctive pins parasols, pine trees that spread their dark canopies like giant parasols to provide shade from the heat of the day. Hilltop villages in shimmering white stone were roofed with red Roman tiles and set at shallow angles, in the Mediterranean style. Enzo’s polished cream Citroen 2CV rolled on soft suspension as he steered it right at the crossroads. The car was his pride and joy, lovingly restored by a specialist in Belgium from the
carcasses of cars long since extinct. It was quintessentially French, and with its roof rolled back like a sardine can, gave Enzo’s big frame all the space he needed.

  From its windows he had a panoramic view across the rolling hills to the valley below, and he reflected that this landscape would not have looked so very different in Roman times. Stone-built villas, poplars, vines. Land tamed and cultivated by men in skirts and sandals. The only difference now was that the roads were metalled, and the grapes were harvested for the most part by machines that shook them violently from their stalks. Enzo could see one now, in the distance, huge wheels straddling vines carefully pruned to accommodate them. A monster of a machine, towering over the vineyard as it made its steady progress up the hill, grapes drawn into huge containers on either side.

  He passed a small, private chapel and graveyard, and turned towards the recently restored Château de Salettes on the crest above. The château was cradled in the heart of the vineyard which produced the wine that bore its name, white stone reflecting bright light around mediaeval towers and high walls built to defend against attack. Enzo pulled up in the car park and walked through an arched gate to a timeless courtyard beyond. A vast, milky, canvas sail was stretched across it to provide shade for diners at tables set below. Potted poplars lined the walls, modern sculptures echoing their theme outside a tasting room where château wines could be sampled and bought. A dégustation. Enzo turned into a cool, dark, reception room and asked the girl behind the desk if Michelle Petty was still a guest in the hotel.

  ***

  She had her back to him when he emerged from the castle wall onto a lawn that ran the length of the building. It was south-facing and commanded spectacular views across the hills to the Tarn valley far below, a dusty road, laid like a ribbon of chalk over its undulations, vanishing finally into a haze of green. She sat reading at a mahogany table and raised her head as he cast his shadow across it. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, and he could not at first detect her reaction to him, until she lowered her glasses and he saw the curiosity in their cool, green assessment. He was not the sort of guest you would expect to find in a place like this. A voluminous khaki shirt over baggy cargo pants, a well-worn canvas bag hanging from his shoulder. And he was clearly not on the serving staff.

  ‘Jees,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Is that real or an affectation?’

  Enzo was taken by surprise. ‘Is what an affectation?’

  ‘The hair. That white stripe. You get that specially dyed?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ve had it since I was a teenager. Waardenburg Syndrome.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘If you look closely you’ll see one eye is a different colour from the other.’

  She removed her glasses altogether and squinted at him in the sunlight. ‘So they are. One brown, one blue. Is it serious?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t died from it yet.’ He noticed for the first time that she was an attractive girl. He knew, from Raffin’s notes, that she was twenty-five, had barely been out of her teens when her father went missing. Even although she was seated, he could see that she was tall—long, elegant legs in cut-off jeans, a white blouse partially unbuttoned and tied above her waist, revealing a taut, tanned belly. Long, chestnut hair was held back from her face in a clasp, and tumbled carelessly over square shoulders. Her face was handsome, without being pretty. Strong features, full lips, large eyes, and not a trace of make-up. She seemed only now to become aware that he had joined her uninvited, and she became self-conscious and wary.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you, Mister…?’

  ‘Macleod. Enzo Macleod.’

  She seemed amused. Her caution hadn’t lasted long. Eroded, perhaps, by his charm. ‘What kind of name is that?’

  ‘My mother was Italian. Enzo is short for Lorenzo. My father was Scottish. I grew up in Glasgow.’

  ‘So what are you doing here Mister Lorenzo Macleod?’

  ‘I’m going to find out who murdered your father.’

  She flinched, almost as if he had struck her, and all animation left her face. It was a moment or two before she found her voice, and when she spoke it was softly, in contrast to her words. ‘Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know?’

  ‘I couldn’t care less.’

  ‘But you’re here to collect his things.’

  ‘Only to put an end to it. Once and for all. Ever since that Goddamned book got published in the States, it’s like he’s come back from the dead to haunt me. Newspapers writing articles, wanting interviews. An hour-long documentary on “Forty-Eight Hours”. He never had five minutes for me when he was alive. Now he won’t let me be. I want it to stop.’

  ‘There’ll never be closure as long as his killer walks free.’

  Some of her emotion spent, she took a moment to assess him a little more carefully. She slipped on her sunglasses to hide her eyes. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Before I came to France, I was a forensics expert in Scotland. I’m using my experience and my science to burst open some of those cold cases in Raffin’s book. I’ve already laid one of them to rest.’

  ‘And my father’s just the next one on the list?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  ‘You could put it that way.’ He took a moment to compose his proposal. ‘I know that Gendarme Roussel is reluctant to let go of your father’s possessions. Maybe if you made me your official representative, I could do something about that.’

  She held him in her gaze for a long time, impenetrable behind her dark lenses. When, finally, she spoke, it was in the same soft tone as before. ‘I don’t think so.’ She picked up her book and started reading, or at least pretended to. Enzo was dismissed, and she wasn’t going to engage him any further.

  He sat for a full minute before standing up and dropping his card on the table. ‘That’s my cellphone number. If you want to find me, I’ll be staying at the gîte your father was renting when he disappeared.’

  Her attention remained focused on the pages of her book, and he gazed out for a moment over the shimmering vineyards below before heading back to the carpark where his 2CV sat baking in the afternoon sun.

  II.

  This was wine country. So it was not unnatural that Gil Petty would have stayed at a château. Except that he hadn’t. He had rented a small country cottage in the shadow of a restored castle that dated back to the eleventh century. A tiny, cramped estate-worker’s house with a single room serving as kitchen, dining and living area, and just one bedroom. It was a beautiful cottage, though, covered in autumn-red ivy. A small terrasse looked out over a fifteenth century pigeonnier that stood on stilts of stone in the dappled shade of three massive chestnut trees. The towering walls and turrets of the imposing Château des Fleurs were a stone’s throw away, catering for wealthy tourists in sumptuous chambres d’hôtes off the open gallery that ran all around the top of the building. The lady of the house was renowned for her cuisine. As Enzo drove up the long drive to the castle, he wondered not for the first time why a man of Petty’s means had chosen to spend a month in a cramped and inexpensive gîte when he could have opted for the comfort and fine cuisine of the château.

  A worker’s white van was parked at the foot of the steps to the gîte, and as Enzo got out of his car, Pierric and Paulette Lefèvre hurried out from the tiny estate office they had made in its cellar. Paulette had struck Enzo as a tall, attractive, older woman when they first met. And then he realised she was probably the same age as he was, and wondered if that made him an “older man”—attractive or otherwise. Certainly, it had been clear from Paulette’s warmth, that she had found him attractive. Something of which Pierric had not been unaware. He had ill-concealed his irritation. A beanpole of a man with a loping gate, and thinning, grey hair, he had deeply etched lines on either cheek which gave him a somewhat simian look. He was irritated again now. H
e waved an arm towards the worker’s van.

  ‘I’m not at all sure about this, monsieur. There’s bound to be damage to the wall.’

  ‘I’ll pay to have it fixed,’ Enzo said. ‘But I need my whiteboard. I think visually, you see.’

  When he had first come to arrange the let, he had thought it might be useful to let them in on why he was here. It helped to have local knowledge on tap. And they had met Petty. They had been enthusiastic and helpful, anxious that the stain of the wine critic’s disappearance and murder should be removed once and for all from their castle and cottage. Now, perhaps, Pierric at least was having second thoughts. Paulette stood anxiously in the background, gently wringing her hands. She gave Enzo a pale smile when he caught her eye, then winced as the sound of hammering reached them from inside.

  ‘Petty’s daughter is here,’ Enzo said, as a way of distracting them. ‘She’s staying at Château de Salettes.’ It worked. The whiteboard was suddenly forgotten.

  ‘What has she come for?’ Pierric wanted to know.

  ‘Her father’s things.’

  ‘Some of his stuff was here for ages after he vanished,’ Paulette said. ‘The family never showed any interest at the time.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll want to come and talk to you.’

  Neither of them seemed happy at the prospect. They were an odd couple. Parisians. He had been something big in insurance. Then twenty years ago they had given up everything to buy and restore what had been little more than a ruin when they bought it, living in the little cottage while the work was carried out on the château. Now they catered to wealthy tourists and made organic wine from fourteen hectares of vineyard they had planted themselves. They had given Enzo a bottle of their red and it wasn’t bad.