‘What’s that on her face? Is she injured?’
Picaro held the girl’s head up towards the light as if he were exhibiting a vase to a potential buyer at an auction house. ‘No. Birthmark. It’s a fucking shame, isn’t it?’
Calque recognized the girl’s facial disfigurement at once. She had been one of the members of the first party to arrive at the house – the party which had preceded the arrival of the two men. She had to be one of the Countess’s daughters, therefore – one of the Devil’s dozen. But what could she possibly have done to turn the Countess against her? Either way, he desperately needed to talk to her.
At that exact moment, Lamia opened her eyes.
Picaro raised his hand, ready to rabbit-punch her before she could catch a glimpse of his face.
‘No. No. Wait!’ Calque hurried forward. He scrabbled in his pocket and held out his badge. ‘Police, Mademoiselle. For your own good, do not look around. I’m going to ease you out of the car.’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Keep looking at me. Don’t look around. Trust me.’
Lamia was still dopey. She stumbled forwards and fell against Calque’s chest, her knees buckling.
Calque nodded at Picaro.
Picaro jumped into his car and slewed away. The back door slammed shut of its own accord as he revved up through the gears.
20
Philippe Lemelle had been one of the Countess de Bale’s footmen for eighteen months now. It was the single longest period in his life that he had ever held down a job, and he was beginning to get itchy feet. Something good needed to happen, or the old cow wouldn’t see his trail for dust.
Lemelle’s father and his grandfather had both worked for the old Count, and it was this fact, and this fact alone, which had secured the slow-witted and low IQ’d Lemelle the job. As a result, Lemelle was fully conversant – or so he fondly thought – with all the Corpus’s aims and aspirations. If it wasn’t for the butler, Milouins, who was clearly jealous of his good looks and his success with women, Lemelle was firmly convinced that he would have risen far more rapidly in the Corpus hierarchy, with the Countess using him for something just a little more onerous than the cleaning of people’s rooms and the mounting of guard duty on her disfigured bitch of a daughter.
Lemelle felt personally humiliated by Lamia’s escape during his watch, and his sense of humiliation was further compounded by Milouins’s triumphant recapture of the stuck-up bint just a few seconds after she’d touched down in the courtyard. He derived belated comfort from the fact that it was to him, and not to Milouins, that the Countess had reassigned Lamia after the escape fiasco. Madame la Comtesse had clearly marked him out from the herd, and intended him for higher things.
From the very first moment that he had seen her, fourteen months before, during a brief visit on the occasion of her mother’s birthday, Lemelle had found Lamia sexually attractive – despite, or perhaps even because of, the strawberry birthmark that marred her face. After all, as his father used to say, you don’t stare at the mantelpiece while you’re poking the fire.
As a result he had taken an unusually keen pleasure in knotting her to her chair, and forcibly dosing her with twice the regulation measure of tranquillizers. He was beginning to regret his final sadistic flourish, however, which had seen him balancing the now unconscious woman on top of the council room table for reasons which, in retrospect, eluded even him. In fact the memory of his stupidity had positively begun to haunt him. What if she woke up in a panic, fell off the table, and broke her stupid neck? That would complete Milouins’s triumph over him, wouldn’t it? The Countess would have every reason to bury him alive.
Lemelle threw on a few clothes and padded furtively downstairs. The stillness of the sleeping house was oddly comforting to him, for ever since childhood Lemelle had been prone to passages of voyeurism, and night time – with its secrets, and its recondite laws, and its infinite promises of concealment – held deeply stimulating associations for him.
The in-built connection between darkness and sexual promise now provided Lemelle with his next brainwave – with Lamia dosed up to the eyeballs on tranquillizers, what possible harm could there be in paying her something more than just a fleeting visit? If he was caught, he could always claim that he’d simply gone downstairs to check on her welfare.
For the fact remained that when Lemelle wasn’t working, sleeping, or eating, he was busy constructing elaborate sexual fantasies about any real-life women he happened to encounter. And ever since he had first heard of people using roofies to drug women so that they would neither resist nor remember anything that occurred, Lemelle had dreamed of getting hold of the stuff and using it as a means of self-empowerment. And if he couldn’t get his hands on the date rape drug Rohypnol, surely a double dose of Temazepam was the next best thing?
Even a cursory glance at Lemelle’s computer would have thrown up thousands of images from rape, BDSM, and sleep-attack websites. Here was his chance to turn fantasy into reality. If Lamia was still out cold, he could do whatever he wanted to her. The thought turned his legs weak with anticipation. He patted the digital camera in his jacket pocket. It would serve the bitch right if she found out in a month or so’s time that she was unexpectedly pregnant by her mother’s footman – and that if she decided to cut up rough he could take his revenge by plastering pornographic pictures of her all over the internet. She’d have to notice him then, wouldn’t she? She’d have to come to terms with him then. And Christ, how he’d make her suffer.
Lemelle’s first hint that his future plans weren’t going to run quite as smoothly as he expected came at the library door. It was wide open. And the Countess’s standing orders were that every unused door in the house be kept tightly sealed unless the room was actually in use. In fact the bastard Milouins set such store on pleasing the Countess on this subject that it would have been more than Lemelle’s job was worth not to double-shut the damned thing after he’d trussed the woman up and stuck her on the table like Quasimodo. Shutting doors had become an automatic part of his make-up – rather like a man who runs around the house switching off unnecessary lights.
The Corpus chamber door was wide open too. A wave of nausea leached through Lemelle’s body. If the woman was gone a second time, he’d get the blame for that too. That was as clear as day. He’d lose his job. Even his mother wouldn’t be able to protect him this time.
Lemelle eased himself around the open door. Lamia was nowhere to be seen. Her chair lay upside down on the floor, next to the council table. Lemelle picked up one of the discarded ropes and thumbed its end. It had been cut – clearly cut. So the bitch had got someone in to help her. Lemelle could already hear the triumph in Milouins’s voice when this new disaster came to light.
‘Twice? You let her go twice? We told you to tie her up and dope her, for Christ’s sake. What did you do, Lemelle? Give her a double espresso?’
Lemelle hurried through the empty house, his eyes searching for anything remotely out of place. Yes. Here was another door left wide open. Lemelle descended towards the buanderie. He could already feel a current of colder air playing against his forehead. Should he call Milouins and tell him what had occurred? Of course. That would be the smart thing to do.
Lemelle took out his cell phone and glared at it. He was near the back of the house now, looking out over the fields. As he watched, some car headlights cut a circular swathe across the vineyard.
Lemelle thrust the cell phone back in his pocket and hurried around to the servant’s garage. In the fantasy world Lemelle had constructed for himself, heroes didn’t fritter away their second chances. As he passed the gunroom he helped himself to Milouins’s precious Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun and a box of twelve-gauge cartridges.
Whatever route they intended to take, Lamia and her white knight would have to pass within half a kilometre of the front of the property. This meant that Lemelle would have ample time to get the estate Land Rover out, douse the headlights, and follow on behind.
; Fuck Milouins. This time around, he’d get the woman back himself.
21
Twelve minutes into his pursuit of Picaro’s car, Lemelle’s cell phone started to vibrate. The shock of it nearly launched him out of his seat.
He glared down at the lighted screen. It was Milouins. Best answer it then. He wasn’t on the strongest ground.
‘Yeah?’
‘What the blazes is going on? I heard an engine start up down in the garage.’
Lemelle ground his teeth together and hammered silently at the steering wheel.
‘Lemelle? What’s happening? Out with it.’
While Lemelle was still debating what to say, the car he was following turned unexpectedly down the track towards Pampelonne beach. Lemelle thought for a moment, and then pulled off the road. He backed the Land Rover just inside a stand of trees and cut the engine.
‘Answer me, Lemelle – I know you’re listening.’
Lemelle made a violent arm gesture at his cell phone. Then he switched it on to hands-free, and threw himself back in his seat. ‘The girl. Lamia. She’s bolted again.’
‘I can see that. I’m standing in the library.’
‘Listen to this, then. She had help. One man. I was just in time to see them getting into their getaway car. So I borrowed the Land Rover. I’ve been following the two of them ever since they left the house.’
There was a brief silence. Well thank me, you bastard, thought Lemelle.
In a pig’s ear.
‘Where are they now?’
‘The guy must be an idiot. He’s backed himself into a corner. He’s just headed down the cul-de-sac at Pampelonne. You know. The road to the beach. There’s no possible way out but back past me. Because I can’t see that shit-heap of a car of his ploughing off around the point through the sand.’
‘Does he know you’re following him?’
‘Of course not. I held way back with my lights off. There’s no way he can have seen me.’
‘What if he’s simply dropping the girl off?’
‘Oh come on. That’s bullshit. Why would he drop her off down there? The place is as good as abandoned this time of year. He’d get the fuck away, that’s what he’d do. He’s made a mistake, that’s all. He’ll be back past here in five minutes. Then I’ll have him.’
‘What do you mean, you’ll have him?’
‘Just that. I borrowed your shotgun too.’
Milouins’s voice crackled through the speaker. His tone was urgent. ‘Don’t even think of it, Lemelle. If Lamia is in that car, and she gets hurt…’
‘Wait. Wait. I think I can see his headlights coming back. Yes. Yes. I’m sure of it.’ Lemelle broke the connection as fast as he could, a wolfish grin on his face. There were no headlights, of course. But there was also no way he would allow that bastard Milouins to queer his pitch again. This time he would do the job himself. It was still dark. There were no houses around. No one to see what happened. He had the whole fucking place to himself.
Lemelle eased himself out of the Land Rover and slammed the door. He fed eight cartridges into the Mossberg and then positioned himself behind a nearby tree. He was only ten yards from the road. The bastard who took Lamia would have to pass right by him when he returned from the beach after realizing he’d taken a wrong turn. Lemelle would simply spring out from cover and take the guy’s tyres out – after that he could do over the engine or not, depending on circumstances.
Lemelle could already taste the crump of lead as it bit into sheet metal – already feel the power the shotgun would give him over the two passengers in the car. Christ, how he’d make them grovel. There was no danger in all that, surely? When it was all over, and he’d had his kicks, he’d head back in triumph to the Domaine with his prisoners.
‘I’m returning your daughter to you, Madame la Comtesse. No. No problem at all. Just doing my job.’
Lemelle’s fantasy world had switched to overtime.
22
Jean Picaro was relieved to be rid of the girl. There had been something uncomfortable about the whole affair – as if it were tainted in some way. Devil-struck. It didn’t make sense to leave a woman tied up and doped like that, in a sealed room, stuck up on top of a table. What sort of a maniac would do a thing like that?
Privately, Picaro had made up his mind that this would be his last ever job. His wife and son were secure, his business, on the surface at least, was legal – or if it wasn’t strictly legal, at least it didn’t involve breaking into people’s houses and kidnapping sex victims.
He was too old for the action stuff now. Didn’t crave it. He’d experienced enough of that to last him a lifetime, and he didn’t want any more. His conscience was clean. He could have left the woman behind, but he hadn’t. While that didn’t make him a hero, it didn’t make him a total villain either.
He saw the stationary Land Rover first. Then he caught a flash of movement from behind the tree. He was already travelling faster than was strictly wise, thanks to his relief at getting away from the flic .
As a Foreign Legionnaire, Jean Picaro had spent the formative years of his life being trained to look out for – and to counter – ambushes. And he was still hyper-keyed up from the break-in, and angry about the way the woman had been treated, with its revocations of what had happened to the boy at La Sante.
He didn’t even need to think.
As the man raised his shotgun, Picaro wrenched the steering wheel over to the left and headed straight for him.
The man’s mouth dropped open in shock. He didn’t even have time to fire off a single shell.
Picaro’s car careened off a ridge of earth and struck the man mid-thigh. The man’s face and chest slammed down onto the bonnet, the shotgun skittering off to one side.
Picaro backed up and made a second pass over the man’s body. No point leaving witnesses. This one wasn’t going to blab to the flics if Picaro could possibly avoid it. There would be no more prison for him.
Leaving the engine running, Picaro stepped out of the car. He gathered up the Mossberg, checked it for damage, and threw it onto the back seat.
Then, without so much as a backwards glance at his victim, he got into his car, manhandled it back onto the road, and headed off in the direction of Ramatuelle.
23
Milouins arrived at the scene twelve minutes later.
He saw the Land Rover straight away, and marked its position. No sign of Lemelle, though.
Milouins hesitated, debating with himself whether to ignore Lemelle entirely and continue on towards the sea, or rope him in as back-up. But the fool was right about one thing. There was only one possible route back from the beach. Lamia and her chance abductor – because there was no conceivable way in Milouins’s mind that her kidnap could have been pre-planned – had no choice but to come back past here, if they hadn’t done so already.
And this time of morning, who else would be using the beach road? It wouldn’t do to meet them on the narrow road coming back from the beach. Best to wait here and follow them with his lights off – just as Lemelle had done from the house – when they eventually came back on by. Find out where they were heading. Who was behind the whole thing.
Checking in every direction, Milouins pulled his car off the road, facing back towards St Tropez. Where was that stupid bastard Lemelle hiding himself? He’d have his guts for garters.
It was then, with the dawn slowly breaking in the eastern sky, that he saw the body.
‘ Oh, putain. ’
Milouins glanced up and down the road. Nothing was moving. It was five o’clock in the morning, and the holiday season was over. Builders and maintenance men wouldn’t be about for another hour or so at the very least.
He moved across to Lemelle, his gaze focused away from the body and towards the beach road, watching for traffic.
He ducked down and pressed a finger against Lemelle’s carotid artery, his gaze still fixed on the road.
Then he took a deep breath and looked down.
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Whoever had done Lemelle over had done him good. His head looked as if it had been laid open with a baseball bat. He had bled from the chest cavity, but the blood flow had staunched itself, and strings of coagulated gore lay scattered across his belly, his groin, and the surrounding tussocks of grass. If Milouins had wanted to, he could have reached in past Lemelle’s shattered breastbone and plucked out what remained of his heart.
Milouins dry-retched. Then he stood up and glanced over at the Land Rover. Only one thing to do.
Still gagging, he hefted Lemelle in both arms and manhandled him across to the vehicle. The man reeked of shit from his ruptured bowels. Milouins threw open the cat-flap and windmilled Lemelle in over the lower tailgate. Then he hunched down behind the Land Rover and vomited up his supper.
With Lemelle safely tucked inside the vehicle, Milouins set about covering the body with some sacking and a scattering of loose straw. Then he tidied himself up as best he could with a horseman’s wisp made from the remainder of the straw. When he was done, he refastened the tilt and went to look for his Mossberg.
A ten-minute search produced a grand total of three unused cartridges that had probably been ejected from Lemelle’s pocket when the vehicle – and Milouins now accepted that it had to be a vehicle – had hit him. But no Mossberg.
So either Lamia and the man who had rescued her had clean escaped, or Milouins’s original hunch still held, and her abductor had dropped Lamia off at a secondary vehicle, fallen foul of Lemelle on the way back out, and driven straight at him.
Lemelle, being Lemelle, had no doubt brandished the shotgun menacingly at his intended victim before actually getting around to firing it. That’s what the tracks told Milouins, anyway – and Milouins was a man who always believed the evidence of his own eyes.
Milouins glanced down at his watch – 5.20. And the rapidly stiffening Lemelle was obviously in no hurry to go anywhere.
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 7