Peter May - Extraordinary People

‘They’ve got a website,’ Nicole said, and she started back to the computer. ‘I found it while you were out.’ She began tapping at the keyboard. ‘It didn’t seem very interesting, though.’ She brought the site up on screen, and read, ‘The Ordre de la Libération is France’s second national Order after the Legion of Honour, and was instituted by General de Gaulle, Leader of the Free French movement, with Edict Number Seven, signed in Brazzaville on November 16, 1940. Admission to the Order is meant to reward individuals, military, and civil organisations for outstanding service in the effort to procure the liberation of France and the French Empire.’ She sighed and clicked on a link to the site map, which brought up dozens more links. ‘There are links to all sorts of pages about the history of the Order, the chronology, official texts…You can download a PDF file with the names of all one thousand and thirty-eight recipients of the Order. There’s even a list of only those recipients who are still alive. Which no doubt needs regular updating.’

Enzo thought about it. ‘And the date? May 12th, 1943?’

‘There’s no reference to it on the site.’

‘Can you search Google just for the date?’

‘Sure.’ She tapped the date into the search window and hit the return key.

Enzo stood by her shoulder as the first ten results of three hundred and fifty-nine appeared on the screen. He groaned. ‘That’s a lot of links to wade through.’

‘We only need to look at ones that seem interesting.’ She began scrolling quickly through them, seemingly able to read them much more quickly than Enzo. The first site she brought up was about the capitulation of German and Italian forces in Tunisia on May 12th, 1943. Many of the other sites also related to the same event. But Enzo couldn’t see any connection. Nicole carried on scrolling. There was some Nazi documentation on anti-semitism issued on that day, an Italian army commander who received his promotion, a Swiss composer whose date of birth it was. Nicole moved on to the second page. Several of the links led to German websites which neither of them could read. Nothing seemed relevant until Nicole moved on to page number three. And it leapt off the screen at them — the second last link. ORDRE DE LA LIBéRATION. Nicole let out a tiny shriek and clicked on the link.

They found themselves back on the website of the Ordre, on the biography page of one of the medal’s recipients. A soldier in the French army called Édouard Méric. There was a black and white photograph of him, wearing what looked like an old sackcloth coat over his uniform. He had a cigarette burning between his fingers, and a slight, enigmatic smile below a thick mop of untidy hair. Nicole scrolled quickly through his life. He had been trained at Saint-Cyr military school in the nineteen twenties. He had spent two years in Germany before being transferred to Morocco, where he was wounded in action in 1926. He seemed to have remained, then, in North Africa, in various capacities, until the Second World War when he led a Moroccan unit of the French army to victory over the Germans in Tunisia. On May 11th and 12th, 1943, he and his men crushed the final resistance of German and Italian troops, capturing a large number of prisoners and a significant amount of equipment.

Both Enzo and Nicole were disappointed. ‘Is that it?’ Nicole asked.

‘It looks like it.’ Enzo scratched his head. ‘It’s not even very specific about the date. It’s May 11th and 12th. And I’m not sure what Tunisia has to do with anything else we’ve come up with.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I’ll mark the name up anyway, since we’ve not come up with anything else.’ And he went to the board and wrote Édouard Méric next to the medal. He heard Nicole still tapping away at her keyboard.

‘Do you know what’s odd?’ she said, and then answered her own question. ‘You can get back to the main website from Méric’s page, but there doesn’t seem to be a link to it from the site. Which is very strange. I mean, I’m assuming that if there’s a biog page for Méric, there must be pages for all the others. But I can’t see any way of accessing them.’

‘Maybe we’re both tired, Nicole,’ Enzo said. ‘My brain hurts, so maybe I’m not thinking too clearly. And maybe you’re not either. Why don’t we take a break?’

‘Good idea.’ Nicole seemed to brighten. She put the computer to sleep. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t want to do anything. That’s the point.’ Enzo slumped into his recliner. A couple of glasses of red wine with lunch always made him sleepy in the afternoon. ‘I’m going to close my eyes for a bit. Maybe you want to go shopping or something.’

Nicole shook her head gloomily. ‘Haven’t got any money.’ And Enzo felt a stab of guilt. ‘Maybe I’ll go and see Audeline. You remember Audeline, don’t you?’

Enzo was already starting to drift. ‘No.’

‘She’s in your first year biology class. We always sit together. Her parents live here. She’s got a summer job at a filling station….’

He felt soft breath in his face, and the back of a hand gently running down his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw her just as she had been all those years before. Just as he remembered her.

‘Pascale,’ he whispered, and she kissed him gently on the forehead.

‘It’s Sophie, Papa,’ he heard her say, and he sat up with a start. Sophie was sitting on the arm of his recliner. The air was very warm, the square below still crowded, although the shadows of the trees were lengthening towards the east. ‘How long have you been asleep?’ she asked.

He blinked, still groggy. ‘What time is it?’

‘After six.’

And he realised with a shock that he had been asleep in the chair for nearly four hours. His trip to Paris had taken more out of him than he thought. ‘Too long.’

‘Where’s the Amazon?’

‘What?’

‘Nicole.’

‘She’s not an Amazon.’

‘She looks like one.’

‘She can’t help the way she’s built. And, anyway, Amazon women cut off their right breasts so as not to hinder the action of drawing back their bow strings.’

‘Right enough,’ said Sophie. ‘She’s not lacking anything in that department.’

‘She’s gone to visit a friend.’ He heaved himself out of his chair.

‘Are you two planning a cosy evening in together, then?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sophie.’ His sleep had done nothing to improve his mood. ‘And I don’t suppose you’ll be gracing us with your company tonight?’

‘I’m going to a concert with Bertrand.’

‘Of course you are.’ His voice was laden with sarcasm. He picked up a crumpled linen jacket and pulled it on over his tee-shirt, and headed out to the hall.

Sophie followed him. ‘Papa, why are you so down on Bertrand?’

But he didn’t want to get into that right now. He spotted the metal detector and poked it with his foot. ‘Because he leaves booby-traps for me in my own house.’ He turned to face her. ‘Sophie, if that thing is not out of here by the time I get back, I’m going to throw it out of the window.’ He opened the door to the landing.

‘Aw, Papa….’

‘I mean it.’ And he headed off down the stairs.

The night could hardly have been clearer. The Milky Way was like smoke smeared across the sky. Pinpricks of light burned through the darkness, encrusting it like jewels, each one a sun with its own solar system. Millions of them. The possibilities of other life forms existing somewhere out there in the universe seemed infinite. And yet Enzo’s sense of being alone in it was almost crushing.

Mont St. Cyr was not so much a mountain as the highest hill around. It was on the south side of the River Lot, at the bottom end of the loop which defined and contained Cahors. And from here, the town lay spread out below, almost at Enzo’s feet, its lights washing the darkness and reflecting in the water. On the far side of the loop he could see the floodlit towers of the Pont Valentré, and far beyond it, cutting through the hills, headlights on the autoroute heading south towards Toulouse.