Blacklight Blue ef-3

by Peter May

  He sat at a table in the window, a bitter, black, watery coffee in front of him. He had known to ask for his coffee black, but had forgotten how bad it would be and wished he had ordered tea instead. Kirsty sat opposite, sipping a diet Coke. She was more freshly acquainted with British bad taste.

  He still heard Sophie whining in his ear, begging him to take her with him. That she was becoming more jealous of her half-sister was clear, and she didn’t want to hear it when Enzo explained that the only reason he would risk taking Kirsty was because she could identify the man from Strasbourg. If, indeed, the man whose London address Martinot had given him was the same one. Which was a long way from certain.

  They had lunched in the café and spent much of the afternoon there, watching the comings and goings across the street. There had been quite a few. But no one remotely resembling the man who had picked Kirsty off the floor in the Palais des Congrès. Enzo was finding it hard to contain his impatience. He had checked the nameplates when they first got there. And now he wanted simply to cross the road and press the buzzer marked Bright. But if this really was their man, then he would be putting Kirsty, as well as himself, at risk.

  He looked up to find Kirsty watching him. ‘Whatever happened with you and Charlotte?’ she said out of the blue.

  He had met Charlotte when he first began his investigations into the murders in Raffin’s book. She had been in the throes of breaking up with Raffin at the time, and Raffin had never forgiven him for getting into a relationship with her. ‘Charlotte’s a free spirit, Kirsty. She’s happy to sleep with me, but doesn’t want a relationship. I was happy to sleep with her. But I wanted more.’

  ‘It’s over then?’

  ‘With Charlotte, I never know.’

  ‘Roger says she’s real bitch.’

  ‘She speaks well of Roger, too.’ In fact she’d told Enzo that there was something dark about Raffin. Something beyond touching. Something you wouldn’t want to touch, even if you could. He wanted to tell her that, but didn’t, and Kirsty didn’t pursue it.

  Instead, she said, ‘And Anna?’

  ‘I like her a lot, Kirsty. I know you don’t approve…’ He raised a hand to pre-empt her objections. ‘But that night, in Strasbourg, we were both, you know, pretty low. It was good for each of us.’

  ‘She told me. You thought you were dying. She’d just come from a funeral.’

  Enzo shook his head. ‘No, she’d been visiting her parents, and they’d given her a hard time.’

  Kirsty looked at him. ‘That’s not what she told me. She said she’d just been at the funeral of a friend.’

  Enzo shrugged and contemplated another sip of coffee, but decided against it. ‘Maybe she’d been at a funeral, too. Doesn’t really matter. The fact is that our paths crossed, and I’m not sorry that they did.’ He looked up to see Kirsty staring out of the window, her face pale, fear frozen in her eyes. ‘What is it?’

  He turned to see a man standing on the other side of the glass, cupping his hands around a cigarette to light it. He had close-cropped fair hair, and wore a dark, Crombie overcoat. ‘It’s him.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘He just got off the bus.’ If there had not been a window between them she could have reached out and touched him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. I’d know him anywhere.’ The bus moved away, and he turned towards them, blowing smoke at the window. He was looking straight at them. Enzo heard the panic in Kirsty’s voice. ‘Dad, he’s seen us!’

  But a hand went up to smooth back his ruffled hairline, and he inclined his head slightly to one side, lifting his jaw. And Enzo realised that he didn’t see them at all. He was looking at his own reflection in the glass. And then, as he turned away, Enzo heard Kirsty gasp.

  ‘Oh, my God!

  He looked at her concerned. ‘What?’ The man was starting to cross the road.

  ‘I don’t think it is him. I mean, it can’t be.’

  ‘How’s that possible, you were absolutely certain just a moment ago?’

  ‘The man in Strasbourg was missing his right earlobe. I told you that. The same as the man in the hairdresser’s in Cahors. But that man’s ear is intact. Just as he turned away from the window I could see it quite clearly. Earlobe and all.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Enzo said suddenly. ‘That explains everything. Come on.’ And he grabbed her hand and they ran from the café. They could see the man in the Crombie overcoat climbing the steps to the door of the apartment block, but the traffic lights were at green and they couldn’t get across. Then there was a break, and Enzo dragged Kirsty between the cars, to a chorus of horns, and they reached the far sidewalk just as the man was punching numbers into the door-entry system. By the time they were running up the steps, the door was swinging shut and nearly closed. Enzo caught it before the lock engaged, and pushed it wide. The man was entering the elevator at the far end of the hall. ‘William Bright!’

  The man put his hand between the doors to stop them closing and took a half-step out as Enzo and Kirsty ran up the hall. ‘Who the hell are you?’ Kirsty felt a chill of fear run through her. But he looked at them both without recognition.

  Enzo tried to catch his breath. ‘My name’s Enzo Macleod. I need to talk to you, Mister Bright. About your family. Just a few minutes of your time.’

  * * *

  Bright’s apartment, on the fourth floor, was small. A typical bachelor pad, cluttered and untidy. ‘Scuse the mess. Cleaner doesn’t come till tomorrow.’ He held the door open for them. ‘Go on through to the living room. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  The living room floor was piled high with books. A small gate-leg dining table was stacked with cardboard boxes. There was a huge plasma TV mounted on the wall and a couple of recliners positioned for watching it. They heard the toilet flush, and the faucet running, then Bright came into the room and looked around it with sad resignation. He seemed to feel the need to explain. ‘Half this stuff isn’t mine. Been letting it for years. Had to give the last tenant notice when my bloody wife kicked me out. I’ve only just moved back in.’ He found Kirsty staring at him with an odd intensity and turned to Enzo. ‘So what can I do for you people?’

  ‘You spent nine months in prison in 1992 after a brawl in a night-club.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! What are you, cops?’

  ‘I’m a forensic scientist, Mister Bright, investigating a murder.’

  Bright shook his head. ‘I never killed the guy.’

  ‘I know that. Just beat him unconscious.’

  ‘It was self-defence. A bloody miscarriage of justice!’

  ‘Then you were re-arrested twelve years later on suspicion of dealing drugs.’

  ‘And never charged. What the fuck is it you want, mister?’

  ‘Maybe you weren’t charged. But they held you for questioning for twelve hours, during which time they took a DNA swab from the inside of your mouth. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but from that time on, your DNA has been held in the UK national DNA database.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘That’s how we found you. A sample of DNA recovered from a crime scene in France was a perfect match with the sample you provided the British police. ’

  Bright frowned. ‘That’s not possible. I’ve never even been to France.’ Then he paused. ‘What crime scene?’

  ‘The murder I’m investigating.’

  Bright laughed in their faces. ‘Got fuck all to do with me! I never murdered anyone.’

  ‘I know that, Mister Bright. You were in prison here in the UK when the murder was committed.’

  ‘Then you couldn’t have found my DNA.’

  ‘But we did.’

  Bright was shaking his head. ‘Not possible.’

  Enzo drew a deep breath. ‘Do you have a twin, Mister Bright?’

  ‘No.’

  Enzo was momentarily discomposed. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking sure. I’d know if I had a twin, wouldn’t I?’ Then he pau
sed, and pulled a face, and waved a dismissive hand towards no one in particular. ‘Well, okay, technically maybe I did. Once. I mean, I did have a twin brother. But he’s dead. Has been for nearly forty years.’

  Enzo stared at him wondering how that was possible. ‘Explain.’

  Bright pushed his hands in his pockets and wandered away towards the window. ‘Jesus, I don’t even know that I want to talk to you people about it.’ He pressed his forehead against the glass and looked down into the street below. ‘It’s something I never think about. Christ, I can’t even remember him.’ His breath exploded in little patches of condensation.

  He closed his eyes, and it seemed as if he had been somehow transported to another place. That his spirit had left the room, and only the body remained. Then his eyes snapped open and he turned to face them. ‘We were on holiday in Spain. July, 1972. A place called Cadaquès, on the Costa Brava. My parents, my sister, my twin brother and me. They used to put us to bed in our hotel room before they went down to eat every night. The hotel had a babysitting service that was supposed to keep an eye on us.’ A small explosion of air escaped his lips. ‘Fat lot of fucking good they were. My folks came back up one night to find blood all over the place, and Rickie was gone.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘Yeh. We were about twenty months old at the time. Me and Lucy, that’s my older sister, never heard a thing. Turned out the blood wasn’t Rickie’s. But he was never found. No one ever knew who took him, or why.’

  ‘So what made you think he was dead?’

  ‘The cops. After about three months, they gave up. Told my folks he was almost certainly a goner. ‘Course, my mother never believed it.’ He looked at them and shook his head. ‘She’s still there, you know. Couldn’t bring herself to leave, as long as there was a chance Rickie was still alive and might come back. Kept us there, too, Luce and me. It’s where I grew up. Speak Spanish like a native. For all the fucking good it does me.’

  Enzo stared at the strangely sad face of the twin who’d been deprived of his brother, and felt all the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know whether this is good news, or bad, Mister Bright. But your brother’s not dead.’

  William Bright said nothing. Simply stared back at Enzo, as if he had just seen a ghost.

  Enzo said, ‘Only identical twins share identical DNA. Which means that when you were in prison here in England in 1992, your twin brother was murdering a male prostitute in a Paris apartment. And he’s still very much alive today.’

  All colour had drained from Bright’s face. He opened a pack of cigarettes with trembling fingers and lit one. ‘I need a drink,’ he said, and he went through to the kitchen to get a can of beer from the refrigerator. They heard the fizz of the can opening, and Bright came back clutching it in an unsteady hand. He took a long pull at the beer, then dragged on his cigarette. His mouth curled into an expression of something like anger. ‘So it was fucking Rickie that nicked my passport.’

  Enzo frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was years ago. Sometime in the mid eighties. Not that long after I came back from Spain. It was a real fucking mystery. Never forgotten it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I stayed with my old man for a while when we first got back. Then he set me up with this place. Couldn’t believe my luck. Eighteen years old, and I had my own private knocking shop. He said it was a good investment. Bloody right. It’s worth a fortune now.’ He blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling. ‘So I came in one night to find the place had been broken into. Bastard nicked half my clothes, credit cards, passport. But this is the weird bit. When the cops talked to the other residents, this girl two floors up said I came in with her that day, and that we’d shared the lift on the way up.’ He looked at Enzo. ‘But that was impossible. I was in Ilford. A party at my dad’s place. I think the cops thought I was trying to pull some kind of insurance scam. But it wasn’t me. I had a dozen witnesses to place me on the other side of town.’ He paused. ‘Must have been Rickie.’ He shrugged his consternation. ‘What the hell would he want with my passport?’

  Enzo said, ‘Your identity.’ And he knew that if he was to solve Lambert’s murder, he was going to have to go back another twenty-two years, to find out who abducted a little boy from a coastal resort in northern Spain.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The light was fading fast when they emerged from the apartment block on to the steps. There was a fine, cold mist in the air, making haloes around the streetlights. The traffic, like cholesterol, was clogging the artery that was Clapham High Street, belching carbon monoxide into air fibrillating with the sound of petrol and diesel engines.

  Kirsty said, ‘So now you know who he is.’

  But Enzo shook his head. ‘We know who he was, thirty-eight years ago. A little boy abducted from a holiday hotel in Spain. We’ve no idea who he became, or who he is now.’

  ‘You said he’d stolen his brother’s identity.’

  ‘Sometime in the eighties, yes. For however long it suited him then. But it would be no long term solution to take on the identity of another living person. Too risky.’

  ‘So we’re not really any further on at all?’

  ‘Yes, we know what he looks like, Kirsty. We know that the man you encountered at the Palais des Congrès in Strasbourg is the man who killed Lambert, the man who tried to kill you and who murdered Audeline Pommereau in Cahors. From the tape in Lambert’s answering machine we know that he speaks French with a southern accent. Speaks it like a native. Which means he probably grew up there. What we don’t know is who, or exactly where he was all those years.’

  ‘So how do we find out?’

  ‘By going back thirty-eight years to a hotel room in Spain. To find out who took him. And where they went.’

  Enzo felt Kirsty’s fingers tighten around his arm. ‘Dad…’ He barely heard her above the roar of the traffic.

  He turned. ‘What?’

  But her gaze was transfixed. She was staring straight ahead of her, almost as if trapped in some demonic trance. Enzo followed her eyeline, and as a truck cleared his line of sight he saw, standing on the sidewalk on the far side of the street, the man they had just left in the apartment four floors up. But it couldn’t be him. Enzo felt a chill run down his back, like a trail of cold fingers. He shivered. He was looking straight at Lambert’s killer. The man who had murdered Audeline Pommereau and tried to kill his daughter. And the man was looking straight back at him.

  For a moment Enzo lost all reason, an irresistible surge of anger robbing him of both fear and rationale. He tore his arm free of Kirsty’s grasp and leapt down the steps to the sidewalk. He heard her calling after him. A taxi driver leaned on his horn as it seemed that he would plunge out into the flow of traffic. And he was forced to stop on the curb as a bus thundered past, the air it displaced nearly knocking him from his feet.

  When it cleared his vision, Rickie Bright, or whatever he might call himself now, was gone. People in coats and scarves stood in a line at the bus stop. Others, with collars turned up, huddled against the cold and moved in rush hour streams in either direction, silhouettes against the brightly lit shopfronts opposite. Now Kirsty was at his side, clutching his arm again, her voice insistent. ‘For God’s sake, Dad, what are you doing?’

  And as his first flush of anger subsided, fear rushed in to fill the void. ‘Jesus, Kirsty, I don’t know. I must be off my head.’ He turned to look at her. ‘He knows we know. We’re in more danger now than ever.’

  * * *

  The platform of the underground station at Clapham Common was jammed with rush hour commuters. They were heading back into the city on the Northern Line. Their train, preceded by a blast of warm air, screeched to a halt with a penetrating squeal of brakes. Doors slid open spewing people on to the already overcrowded strip of concrete. War broke out as passengers fought to get on and claim their place. Enzo and Kirsty were carried along by the flow, squeezing into an impossibly small space
between the doors and those who had got in ahead of them. A buzzer sounded, and the doors slid shut. The train jerked, throwing everyone off-balance, before accelerating into the dark of the tunnel.

  On the way to the station, Enzo had looked for another glimpse of Bright, turning constantly to check behind them, eyes flickering among the myriad faces that flowed past them like a river in spate. Now he craned to check up and down the carriage. Those who had already claimed seats had faces buried in newspapers and books. Those forced to stand, studiously avoided eye contact. Above the roar and rattle of the train, he could hear people sneezing and coughing germs into the fetid air of this winter incubator of flus and colds.

  And then he saw him. In the next carriage, face pressed against the window of the separating door, making no attempt to conceal himself. He wanted them to know he was there. He wanted them to be afraid. Enzo tugged at Kirsty’s arm and nodded towards the following carriage. Her eyes tracked his to meet Bright’s, and she turned ghostly white. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We need to lose him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. As long as we’re in a crowd we should be safe.’ But he was thinking of the dark, quiet backstreets of Shad Thames behind Butler’s Wharf, where they were going to spend the night at Simon’s apartment. Simon was still tied up by his court case in Oxford but had e-mailed them to say they could pick up the keys from a neighbour and use the place in his absence. Enzo knew they would have to try to lose Bright before they changed at Cannon Street to board the train for Tower Bridge.

  He watched the names of the stations glide past as they pulled up, one by one, breathing out passengers, sucking in others, and then moving on to the next. Kennington, Elephant and Castle, Borough. London Bridge was the last stop before Cannon Street, where they would have to negotiate a labyrinth of foot tunnels to get to the Monument tube station on the Circle and District line. He checked to see that Bright was still there, then whispered to Kirsty. ‘We’ll get off here. Wait till we see him on the platform, and then jump back on just before the doors close.’