by Peter May
It took nearly half-an-hour to get to Perpignan, and he spotted what he was looking for in a strip mall on the outskirts. He pulled into the parking lot and stood watching the other cars that turned in after him. Still no sign of Bright. He waited for several minutes before deciding that if the killer was anywhere around he wasn’t going to show himself. Which made the thought that he was still out there, unseen, all the more unnerving.
He went into the Halle aux Vêtements and selected an extra large, dark blue suit from a long line of hangers, and then an XXL white shirt. Enzo’s big frame would require the largest size in a range of clothes designed for the slighter built Mediterranean man. Finally, he chose a tie. He couldn’t remember the last time he had worn one. He paid for it all at the cash desk and asked if he could change in the store. He emerged from the shop with his old clothes in a plastic bag, and caught sight of himself reflected in a window. Someone he nearly didn’t recognise. A stranger in a suit, stiff and uncomfortable. Only the ponytail marked him out as less than the conventional figure he wished to present. And the scuffed white training shoes. They wouldn’t do at all.
He went into the Halle aux Chaussures next door and bought a pair of unyielding, black leather shoes. His feet felt constrained by them, constricted, and during the short walk to his car they had already started to chafe. In the driver’s seat he loosened his hair, and then pulled it back as tightly as he could to minimise the effect of the ponytail. In the end he decided that he had probably done enough to pass muster as a lawyer, even if he did look like one more used to chasing ambulances.
He drove out of the car park into the stream of traffic heading north on the ring road to the A9 autoroute, and glanced in his rearview mirror.
The car immediately on his tail was a black Renault Scenic. Rickie Bright sat at the wheel, his cold blue eyes obscured behind a pair of Ray-ban sunglasses.
* * *
Bright remained within a few cars of him all the way to Aubagne. It was the most stressful three-and-a-half hours Enzo had ever endured. He checked continually in his side and rearview mirrors. Bright was always there, no more than a car or two away, keeping Enzo constantly in his sights.
There must have come a point on their journey when Bright realised where it was that Enzo was going. And he must have known then, beyond doubt, that the Scotsman was on the point of putting the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle in place.
As they drove into Aubagne, the sun was starting to sink behind them in a sky streaked with pink cloud. Enzo followed the road out to the southern suburb where the Foreign Legion occupied a sprawling plot of land behind high walls and fences. Large signs read Terrain Militaire, and Défense d’entrer.
Bright pulled up on the sidewalk, fifty metres back, as Enzo turned into the main entrance. The gatehouse was a long, low building with shallow sloping red roofs. A pink stone wall was emblazoned with the name of the regiment. Beyond the barrier stretched a vast parade ground. At its centre was a globe mounted on a marble plinth above the legend, Honneur et Fidélité. It was guarded by four bronze Legionnaires. White barracks and administration blocks rose up the hillside on the south side, tall trees casting long shadows over manicured lawns.
A sentry stepped out to stop him at the barrier. Enzo handed him Simon’s business card. He had to work hard to keep the tremor out of his voice. ‘I’m a lawyer from the London law firm of Gold, Smith, and Jackson. We telephoned last week. I represent the estate of the late William Bright, an Englishman whom we believe spent a number of years in the service of the French Foreign Legion during the nineteen eighties. We’re trying to trace next of kin, and I’m here to see if the Legion can provide us with that information from its records.’
The soldier looked at him as if he had two heads, then did what all foot soldiers do when presented with an insoluble problem. Passed it on up the chain of command.
‘One moment, sir.’
He disappeared inside the gatehouse, and Enzo could see him speaking animatedly on the telephone, glancing frequently at the card Enzo had given him. Finally, he hung up and emerged into the fading sunlight. He leaned down to Enzo’s open window and pointed.
‘If you turn around and go back out, turn left and left again, and then follow the road round to the museum. You’ll see it behind the fence on your left. Park there and wait inside. Someone will come and get you.’
As he turned out of the entrance, he saw Bright’s car bump down off the sidewalk further along the street, and then trail him at a discreet distance. He turned left and followed the sentry’s instructions, cruising slowly along a tree-lined country road to the museum, which was housed in a two-storey white and brownstone building on the far side of the parade ground.
The car park was empty. Enzo pulled into the slot nearest the museum. He climbed out of his car as Bright turned his Renault into the lot behind him and drew up at the far side of it. He left his engine idling, and watched Enzo from behind his dark glasses. No attempt at concealment now. Enzo looked back at him across the tarmac. Only twenty metres separated them. The hunter and his prey. The palm trees, the pink sunlight on blue hills, warm air filled with the fragrant scent of Mediterranean flowers in winter bloom. None of it seemed quite real. It could hardly have been less threatening. But all of it served somehow only to heighten the sense of menace that hung incongruously in the air between them. Enzo felt sick.
He turned and walked by the mementos of the Legion’s military past carefully placed among the trees. A tank, an armoured jeep, a cannon, a machine gun. Carved blocks, like tombstones, were set in the grass, a commemoration of battles fought and lives lost. Ile de Mayotte. Indochine. Algérie. Maroc.
Inside, military mannequins in glass cases stood guard over a celebrated history. Rifles lined the walls, flags and emblems, display cases filled with medals and memorabilia. A red képi, a pair of white gloves, a belt, a letter written to a long forgotten lover but never sent. Enzo peered into the darkness of the room where they kept the wooden hand of Capitaine Jean Danjou, one of the most decorated officers in the history of the Legion. With only a few hundred troops at his disposal, he had taken on the might of the Mexican army in 1862, and fallen in battle. Only two of his soldiers survived the fight, and were spared to accompany his body back to France.
‘Monsieur Gold?’ Enzo turned, and a young soldier in khaki emerged from a brightly lit bureau. ‘Follow me, please.’
They went down a corridor and out through a door at the back of the building. As they climbed the steps towards the long, white administration block at the top of the hill, Enzo glanced back and saw that Bright was still waiting for him in the car park.
* * *
‘Who was it you spoke to on the phone?’ Captain Mérit examined him with uncomfortably intelligent eyes from the other side of his desk.
‘I didn’t. It was a legal secretary in the office. She was simply told that if we wished information of that sort we would have to present ourselves in person.’
‘Our records are confidential, Monsieur Gold.’
‘I understand that Captain. I have no wish to see them. Only to obtain the names of next of kin, if any.’ He reached into his bag for a notebook. ‘The young man is dead, after all, so we won’t be compromising his right to anonymity.’ He started flipping through his notebook. ‘From my records, I see that William Bright joined the Legion in December, 1986, at the age of eighteen. You provided him with a new identity. Yves…Yves…’ Enzo flipped through more pages, as if had momentarily forgotten the surname and was searching for it.
Captain Mérit conveniently filled the gap. ‘Labrousse.’ Enzo could hardly believe his luck. He would have been happy to leave there and then. But he was obliged to continue with the deception for at least a little longer. Mérit opened the folder on the desk in front of him and lifted up the top file. Enzo could see that there was a photograph attached to it. ‘Applied for and was given French citizenship in 1989. Was honourably discharged at the end of 1991. Saw active service
in Chad in 1987, and the Gulf War in 1990, where he was wounded and lost half of his right ear.’ He riffled through the other sheets of paper attached to the file and cursed. ‘Merde! It seems his application form and background checks are not in this file.’ He closed the folder. If you’ll excuse me for a moment.’ He got up and left the room.
Enzo sat listening to the silence. It was almost dark outside now, the last red glow fading on the western horizon. He twisted his head to read the label on the front of the folder on Mérit’s desk. Recruitment Intake, December, 1986. On an impulse, he turned it towards him and somehow managed to spill its entire contents over the floor. ‘Jesus!’ In a panic he scrambled to retrieve it all and stuff everything back in the folder. As long as Mérit didn’t look inside again, he wouldn’t notice that it was all now in a different order. Enzo was about to close it and put it back where he had found it, when his eye was caught by the photograph clipped to the file which was now on top. He caught his breath, and found himself looking at the face of the man who had condemned him to death. Philippe Ransou. French-Canadian. Real name Jacques Of. So Bright, or was it Labrousse, had not chosen Ransou at random to play the good doctor. They had joined the Legion in the same month. Had probably trained together, been comrades in arms together. Someone he could trust without question.
He heard footsteps outside the door and quickly closed and replaced the folder. Mérit came back in holding a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve copied this for you. He only listed three names under next of kin.’ And he proceeded to reel them off. ‘Parents Rod and Angela. Sister Lucy.’ He handed Enzo the photocopy. ‘And I’m afraid there’s really not much more that I can tell you.’
And Enzo thought that, actually, there was nothing more he needed to know.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The car park was floodlit, white buildings on the hill stark against a black sky. He had only ever spent three weeks here, but it felt to him like he was back on home ground. Day had departed with the final setting of the sun, and Yves’ sunglasses now sat on the dash. His face was stinging from shock and anger. If he had looked at himself in his rearview mirror he would have seen how his skin had darkened. He slipped his cellphone back in his pocket. He had wanted to finish it here. Tonight. Back in the place where, in many ways, it had all started. He could not understand the instruction to wait. But like the good soldier he was, he always followed orders.
He saw Macleod, accompanied by a legionnaire, coming back down the steps and into the museum. A few moments later the Scot emerged on his own to walk through the trees to the parking lot. He stopped by his car and glanced across the asphalt towards Yves. He looked weary. Yves had no idea why he had bought himself a suit, but it seemed oddly out of character. Their eyes met, and Yves saw the indecision, before suddenly Macleod began walking towards him.
Yves was startled. Perhaps the Scotsman felt safe here in the full glare of the floodlights, several hundred armed soldiers working, eating, sleeping in the garrison behind him. Not that it would have mattered to Yves. A single shot and he’d have been gone. Soldiers would have run out to find a man dead by his car, lying in a pool of his own blood. And if they’d seen Yves at all, it would have been the merest glimpse of a dark car vanishing into the night.
He leaned forward to start the engine. Still Macleod was striding purposefully towards him. He slipped the car into gear, revved the motor and accelerated hard from a standing start, to the accompaniment of squealing tyres. His Ray-bans flew off the dashboard. Macleod stopped, frozen like an old stag caught in the headlights. How easy it would be simply to run him down. To spin him through the air, then reverse over the body just to be sure. He could see fear, and the certainty of death in Macleod’s eyes, before he pulled the wheel hard to his right. He missed him by centimetres, leaving tracks of rubber on the tarmac, then accelerated out through the gate and off into the darkness.
* * *
Enzo stood breathing hard, the revving of Yves car fading into the night. He knew just how close he had come to dying right there and then in the car park of the Légion étrangère. It had been madness. Trying to beard the lion in his own den. Enzo was not sure what had possessed him. Why had he ever thought he might be safe anywhere from a man like Yves Labrousse? A professional killer desperate to keep his identity to himself. And yet he had just given the man every opportunity to kill him, and he hadn’t taken it. Why not? Was he toying with Enzo? Playing some kind of game? Procrastinating for pleasure? Somehow Enzo doubted it. This man was a professional. He killed for money, not pleasure. And he was desperate to stop Enzo in his tracks. So why hadn’t he?
Enzo walked slowly back to his car and slipped into the driver’s seat. He was shaking from head to foot, trembling as if from the cold. But the night was warm, almost balmy. The worst thing was the unpredictability of it all. Not knowing. Not understanding. He would have to find a hotel room now, and he saw a long, sleepless night ahead of him.
Chapter Fifty
Kirsty sat staring at herself in the mirror. The soft glow of the bedside lamp barely reached across the room to the dressing table. She looked terrible. Perhaps it was just the light, or the lack of it. But her eyes were lost in dark smudges, her cheeks seemed hollow. Her hair had somehow lost its lustre, and she had drawn it back to tie in a loose ponytail, just like her father. Except that he wasn’t her father. No matter what had happened, the thought still haunted her.
She rose suddenly from the dressing table, cursing herself. How many times was she going to replay it? Like the words of a song you can’t get out of your head, it just kept going round and round and round.
She left the room, and the old floorboards on the upstairs landing creaked beneath her feet. As she wound her way down the spiral stairs, she heard the murmur of the television from the séjour. Voices, laughter. It seemed like such a long time since she had laughed. The laughter subsided as she walked into the room. Sophie and Bertrand and Nicole looked almost guilty. Nicole said, ‘How’s Roger?’
‘Out of intensive care. They say it’ll take time, but they expect him to make a full recovery.’
‘So cheer up, for God’s sake!’ That Sophie had lost patience with her was clear. And she probably harboured resentment towards her for the way she had treated Enzo. He was her father, after all. Her real father. And Kirsty knew that she loved him unconditionally.
It seemed that everyone loved Enzo, including her. But she was the only one who didn’t know how to express it.
‘You’ve been moping around for days. You’re not the only one affected by this, you know. We’re all in it together.’
‘I think, perhaps, that Kirsty’s had more to deal with than the rest of you.’ Everyone turned at the sound of Anna’s voice as she emerged from the computer room. She gave Kirsty’s arm a tiny squeeze, a silent acknowledgement of a secret shared, an implicit understanding. ‘I’ll get dinner on.’ And she headed on through to the kitchen.
‘I’ll give you a hand.’ Nicole leapt up from her armchair and hurried through after her. If there was going to be a scene, she didn’t want to be any part of it.
But Kirsty had no intention of staying around to trade accusations with Sophie. ‘I’m going to get some air.’ She lifted her coat and scarf from the coatstand on the way out. But once she had closed the door behind her, she had no desire to go walking off into the night on her own. So instead she stayed on the terrasse at the front of the house, leaning on the wrought-iron railing, and gazing out across the frosted field to the floodlit church and school. She lowered her head to rest on her clasped hands, and closed her eyes.
There was nothing she could do to change the past, to alter the events that had so transformed her life. But as Anna had said, she could still play a major role in shaping its future. She still had that power within her gift. Anna was right. There was no future in secrecy. If there was love between people there should be no secrets. She thought about her mother, and the truth she had kept from Enzo all those years. And Simon, and how he
had shared in that secret with Linda. An ugly, deceitful secret that, in the end, could only ever destroy them. He might be her blood father, but in truth she didn’t think she really liked him very much.
She stood up straight, pressing her hands into the cold metal rail. She breathed deeply and made a decision. She couldn’t continue to live the lie with Enzo. She had to come clean and tell him that she knew.
Chapter Fifty-One
The hotel was in a commercial park on the east side of Aubagne, a vast, sprawling suburban shopping mall ringed by hills on the edge of town. By the time Enzo had eaten and driven out there, it was completely deserted. Acres of empty parking lots shimmered under yellow street lamps. The hills cut dark shapes against a starry sky, and the air was filled with the smell of pine from the Mediterranean pins parasols that lined the streets.
He drove past fast food restaurants closed up for the night, brooding, boxy, corrugated stores with flashing neon and dimly lit windows. A motor mall, rows of shiny cars gleaming under floodlights. Citröen, Renault, Peugeot, Mercedes. There was not a living soul in evidence, not another vehicle on the streets.
He saw a sign for the Palais des Congrès, and his mind drifted back to Strasbourg, where the nightmare had begun. But Aubagne could hardly be further removed from the sleet and snow of a frigid Alsace, and it was simply a reminder of how far he had come in only a few days, and of how much everything on which he had built his life had shifted seismically beneath his feet.
He had found the man who murdered Pierre Lambert in Paris all those years ago. But the killer was still free, and still intent, it seemed, on despatching Enzo to the same fate. The only thing Enzo didn’t know was where and when. Yves Labrousse, aka Richard Bright, aka Richard Archangel had spurned the opportunity just a few hours earlier, but Enzo was certain that it wasn’t the last he would see of him.