Peter May - Extraordinary People

He began drifting backwards in space, falling softly through the dark, as tiredness overwhelmed him and sleep started wrapping him in its embrace. And then her voice drew him back to the surface, coming, it seemed, from a very long way off.

‘Do you really think Jacques Gaillard was killed by a group of his own students at ENA?’

He broke the surface of consciousness with his heart pounding. ‘Yes,’ he said, with a sudden, frightening clarity. ‘I do.’

‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘There’s another set of clues to decipher.’

‘Will you stay in Paris?’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

He hesitated. ‘No. I have to go back to Cahors.’ Her disappointment was almost palpable, even in the dark. ‘But first I’m going to go to ENA to see if I can’t get a photograph of the Schoelcher Promotion, and a list of the names of all the students.’

‘Then you’ll have a long way to go.’

‘What do you mean?’ Enzo raised himself up on one elbow and made out the pale shape of her face looking up at him from the bed. ‘I checked. ENA’s based here in the Rue de l’Université, about ten minutes’ walk from the studio in St. Germain.’

‘Not any more, it’s not. They quit that building earlier this year, and moved everything, lock, stock and barrel, to Strasbourg.’

The building at No. 2 Rue de l’Observatoire stood cheek by jowl with the huge Lycée Montaigne opposite the south end of the Luxembourg Gardens. Even from the outside, it was apparent that its architecture was influenced by a history of North African colonialism. Arabic arched windows and doors, intricate mosaic and ceramic decoration. It had taken Enzo most of the day to discover that this place even existed.

Madame Francine Henry was close to retirement. Which, Enzo reflected, was probably why ENA had left her behind when the school moved to Strasbourg. She had worked as a publicity officer for the École National d’Administration for nearly thirty years, she told him. And now she was based here, in this oddly arabesque building, originally built to train administrators from the French colonies in Africa and Indochina. It had been taken over by ENA in recent years to house its international school, and was the only part of the institution to remain in Paris.

She led him through an inner courtyard which more resembled a Moroccan riad than a Parisian school. Windows rose in peaked arches through three tiers on all sides. A square of lawn was gently shaded by two tall silver birches. A patterned frieze of moulded green ceramic separated the first and second floors.

‘It’s beautifully tranquil, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Hard to believe that Paris is just out there.’ She turned and pointed up into a corner of the main building. ‘You can’t see it because of the lower roof on this side. But there’s a painted panel just below the gable which bears the name Schoelcher . Quite a coincidence, really.’

‘Yes,’ Enzo agreed.

‘I suppose they must have chosen to dedicate the building in his name because of his fight against colonial injustice.’

‘That would make sense.’

‘You know, you’re very fortunate,’ Madame Henry told him. ‘Almost all of the archival material went to Strasbourg with the school. But I suppose when they realised they were going to be tight for space, it made a kind of poetic sense to store the archives from the Schoelcher Promotion here.’

‘It’s very good of you to help’

‘It’s the least we can do. ’ Madame Henry composed a solemn expression. ‘I remember him, you know. The young Hugues d’Hautvillers. He was a character. A stunning intellect. It must be a terrible blow for the family.’

Madame Henry was an attractive woman for her age. Gently old-fashioned. But her soft, brown eyes were filled with a warmth and sympathy which only increased Enzo’s sense of guilt at his deception. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘They’ll be very pleased to receive any mementos you might have of his time here.’

He followed her through a wide arch, and she pushed open glass doors into a lobby at the far end of a long, narrow corridor lined with paintings. Down steps, then, into a gloomy stairwell. Madame Henry indicated the door at the foot of the stairs. ‘It opens on to the street. It used to be the private entrance for overseas students when they lived here in rooms on the upper floors.’ She opened a door to their left. Enzo could see a staircase descending into darkness. She flicked a light switch, and they went down into the cellars.

It was a rabbit warren of brick walls supporting the building above. They were lined with shelves, piled with papers and box files and books, and Madame Henry pointed up to a row of levers high along the facing wall. Ceramic panels beneath them were labelled Séjour, Salle à Manger, Cuisine …‘The original mechanisms,’ she said, ‘for opening up the heating vents around the building.’

He followed her along a dimly lit passage.

‘So much history, just shut away in the dark. Sometimes I wonder what purpose there is in keeping it all. And then someone like you comes along, and you realise why.’ She stopped, and started searching through files along upper shelves which were labelled alphabetically. ‘Fascinating thing, history. You wouldn’t know it now, but this place was built on the site of a former monastery, established by the monks of the Order of Chartreux in 1257. They dug the stone to build it out of the ground underneath, and created a network of tunnels and salles down there in the process. Somewhere right below where we’re standing now. They used them for the brewing of beer and the distillation of liqueur. I’m sure you’ve heard of Green Chartreuse.’

‘Yes,’ Enzo said.

‘Well, this is where they used to make it. Right beneath your feet.’ She moved along the shelf. ‘Ah. Here we are.’ And she drew a box file out from among the others. ‘Schoelcher.’ She took the file to a table and opened it up, and began riffling through wads of documentation. Finally, a gasp of satisfaction. ‘Ah-ha.’ She pulled out a photograph. ‘I knew there would be one somewhere.’ Enzo peered at it in the poor light. It was a black and white group photograph, like any school photograph. Something more than a hundred pupils and professors, arranged in five ascending rows in front of a long building, all smiling for the camera. It was captioned,

Promotion Victor Schoelcherë

1994–1996

Straight away, he spotted Gaillard sitting near the middle of the front row, hands folded in his lap, legs crossed, looking faintly bored. Neither Hugues nor Roques were immediately apparent. ‘I can have a copy of this made upstairs,’ Madame Henry said. Then from deep in the box she pulled out a VHS video tape marked 1994-96. She waggled it triumphantly. ‘Each promotion makes its own video record of the year. A pretty amateur hotchpotch. But I’m sure Hugues will be on it somewhere. If you want to wait about twenty minutes, I can have a copy made of that, too.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ Enzo said. ‘You wouldn’t have a list of all the students from the Schoelcher Promotion, would you? It may be that the family will want to contact some of them.’

‘Yes, there’ll be a list in the annuaire . I can photocopy that for you in the blink of an eye.’

Enzo sat in the still of the courtyard, sunlight sloping in across the rooftops. Through glass doors leading to the entrance lobby, he could see delegates coming and going from a conference in the amphitheatre. He had been staring for some time at the copy of the photograph that Madame Henry had made for him. By now he had identified both Hugues d’Hautvillers and Philippe Roques among the rows of faces. He looked at all the others, and wondered how many more of them had been responsible for the murder of their maître . Most of them seemed so young, such innocence in all their open, smiling faces. He turned to the photocopied list of names and ran his eye down them. And there they were. D’HAUTVILLERS Hugues, and ROQUES Philippe, and one hundred and twelve other names. In his hand he held the faces and the names of Gaillard’s killers. He had identified two of them. Both were dead. He had no way of knowing if he would ever unmask the others. And if he did, how long they would live.