Peter May - Extraordinary People

The Rue de la République was a long, narrow street. Some of the brick buildings had been rendered and painted. Green and pink and peach, with grey and maroon and pale green shutters. It was the heart of the city’s Latin Quarter, which was really just an area with a large immigrant population, mostly from the former colonies.

The Hôtel-Dieu St-Jacques stood on the very edge of the Garonne, the walls of its basement cellars plunging down into the river’s slow-moving green water. Essentially, it comprised four-storey buildings around three sides of a long, rectangular garden. The entrance was on the corner of the Rue Viguerie and the Rue de la République, leading to the west wing of the mediaeval former hospital, and a small car park in front of the gardens. On the wall beside an open, glass-paned door, two large scallop shells flanked a sign which read, HôTEL DIEU SAINT JACQUES. A large poster was pasted to a hoarding advertising the museum, and featured the face of a man who looked to Enzo like the Scottish Bard, Rabbie Burns. In fact, it was Dominique Larrey.

A man in uniform sat on the ledge of an open window next to the door and watched them approach.

‘We’re looking for the museum,’ Enzo said.

‘Closed,’ said the man.

‘What?’ Enzo couldn’t believe it. He looked at his watch. Surely it must be open by this time.

‘Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Open every other day from one till six.’

Enzo cursed. It was still only Monday. And they had never thought to check the opening hours. How could they possibly wait another two days to get into the museum?

Nicole flicked her long hair back off her shoulder and did a flirty thing that Enzo had never seen her do before. He wouldn’t have believed her capable of it. Her father would have been mortified. ‘We’ve come a long way.’ She made big eyes at the man in uniform. ‘You couldn’t open up just for us, could you?’

The man let his eyes wander lasciviously down to her quivering breasts. And then he looked up. ‘Sorry.’ Apparently the pleasure of exercising his power outweighed the allure of the girl from the farm.

‘Come on.’ Enzo led a disappointed Nicole back through the gate. Someday, he was sure, her charms would work on someone.

They decided to walk back to the Capitole, and turned left across the Pont Neuf. Over the river they could see the roofs of the ancient city centre rising above apartment blocks and government buildings, a jumble of turrets and bell-towers, an odd blend of European and North African architecture that sat somehow comfortably together in this cosmopolitan old town. On the far river bank, tourist cruise boats were berthed at the quayside, and a Rastafarian in a black tee-shirt and sweat pants practised karate on a strip of grass, watched indifferently by his old Alsatian dog. Joggers trundled laboriously along the towpath before the heat of the day set in.

The Hôtel-Dieu St-Jacques was below them now, on their left. The garden at its centre was ringed by carefully pruned lime trees. The lawn was divided into classical patterns by a low, manicured hedge, and two columns of bushes in the shape of egg cozies created a grassy avenue running from front to back. Enzo barely glanced at it. His mind was stewing over their misfortune. To have come so far in decoding the clues, to be within touching distance of a solution, and yet be denied by a quirk of opening times, was infuriating. He had no idea how he was going to fill the next forty-eight hours. He wasn’t even listening to Nicole. She had begun a diatribe on how he needed to take better care of himself. He still hadn’t had breakfast, she pointed out. He drank too much. He was too old to be getting into fights with her father. It wasn’t easy to shut out the voice. God help the poor soul who married her! There would, of course, be a couple of consolations. Although he doubted if that would be quite enough to make up for the rest. Then he felt her tugging on his sleeve. ‘What?’ he said tetchily, pulling his arm away.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed down to the gardens.

Enzo glanced with irritation towards the expanse of meticulous greenery. Some anal gardener’s raison d’être. ‘It’s a bloody garden!’

‘No, at the far end, beyond the line of bushes.’

Enzo peered in the direction she was pointing and saw what looked like a giant white saucer at the very apex of the lawn. He felt in his pockets for his glasses, but in their hurry to leave he had left them lying on the table in the séjour . ‘I’ve no idea. Why?’

‘Well, it looks to me very much like a giant scallop shell.’

‘What?’ Enzo struggled to try to bring the thing into focus. ‘Let’s go and see.’

And they turned around and went back down to the gate. The man in uniform watched them approach and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘It’s still not open.’

They walked straight past.

‘Hey, where are you going?’

‘A walk in the garden. Any objections?’

Rose bushes in full bloom lined the gravel path which led them around the perimeter of the lawn, and as they approached the far end, it became apparent that Nicole’s eyes had not deceived her. A huge concrete scallop shell, around two meters across, was set in a circle of lawn, and half filled with brackish green water. A rusting pipe poked up through the slime.

‘It’s a fountain!’ Nicole said. ‘A fountain in the shape of a coquille St. Jacques .’ Although it appeared that the fountain had not been in working order for some time.

Enzo stared at it. A perfect scallop shell, ribbed and cupped to hold water, the function for which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims over the centuries had used it ‘That’s it.’ His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, and he had to clear his throat.

‘That’s what?’

‘He’s got to be here. Under the shell.’

Nicole screwed up her nose. ‘You really think so?’

‘He must be. Everything has led us to this spot, Nicole. Every one of those clues. Why else are we standing here? The killer must have had access to the renovation plans. They were probably available to the public at the planning office. He’d have known where the scallop shell fountain was to be sited, and he buried the body right underneath it. The place was a building site at the time. The whole area around here had probably already been dug up.’

She surveyed the shell thoughtfully. ‘Well, how are we going to find out?’

‘The police will have to excavate it.’

Traffic thundered along the boulevards on either side of the Canal du Midi, shaded from the heat of the sun by lines of dusty-leafed trees. The Hôtel de Police , headquarters of the Police Nationale, stood on the corner of the Boulevard l’Embouchure and the Rue de Chaussas. Nicole had barely settled herself on the terrasse of the Café Les Zazous around the corner in the Avenue des Minimes, when she saw Enzo storming across the road towards her. His face was red. It would have been difficult to tell if it was from heat or exertion. But, in fact, it was anger. He threw himself into the seat beside her. ‘Bastards!’

‘What happened?’

‘They thought I was some kind of nutter. I never even got beyond the duty officer.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Have a drink.’ He waved the waiter over.

Nicole lowered her voice. ‘Do you not think you’ve had enough alcohol already, Monsieur Macleod. You’ll be dehydrated.’

The waiter stood over them. ‘Monsieur?’

‘Two Perriers citron ,’ Nicole said firmly before Enzo could open his mouth.

Enzo glared at her. ‘What are you, my mother?’

‘Don’t take it out on me,’ she said evenly. ‘It’s not my fault they won’t take you seriously.’ She cast a critical eye over him. ‘Although it might help if you didn’t look like a tramp.’