Peter May - Extraordinary People

‘Where are we going?’

‘My parents have a holiday home in the Corrèze. It’s an old farmhouse. A little primitive. Very remote. We used to go there for our holidays every year when I was a kid. I still use it when I want to escape from everything. My little hidey-hole away from the world. I think we’ll be pretty safe there.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s after six already. We’ll be lucky if we get there by midnight.’

Although the sky was clear the night was dark. There was no moon, and the autoroute was virtually deserted. They had stopped at services just past Limoges for something to eat, and now Enzo was feeling the onset of fatigue. He needed to occupy his brain in order to resist the temptation to shut his eyes, and he had forced himself to recall, one by one, the items found with the legs in the trunk at Château Hautvillers. The salamander brooch, the lion’s head pendant, the lapel pin flag, the sporting trophy, the referee’s whistle with the numbers scratched into the plating.

‘Is there anything that occurs to you about any of them?’ he asked Charlotte.

‘Well, the lion’s head is an interesting pointer. The lion is pretty much symbolic of Africa. So I’d say there was a good chance that the flag on the lapel pin is probably the national flag of some African country.’

‘A lot of countries in Africa.’

‘Given that most of these clues relate to France, it’s probably a former French colony.’

‘Good thought.’ Enzo watched the broken white lines coming at him in a never-ending stream. ‘And the salamander?’

‘The salamander was the emblem of the French king, François Premier. I don’t know if that’s relevant or not. There were dates engraved on the back of the brooch, weren’t there?’

‘1927 to 1960.’

‘Hmmm.’ Charlotte sounded doubtful. ‘François Premier was early sixteenth century. The dates don’t really connect, do they?’

‘Only about three hundred years out.’ Enzo saw headlights in his rear mirror approaching at speed. He had never developed the French penchant for fast driving and had been sitting at a steady one hundred and ten KPH. The vehicle coming up behind was going considerably faster.

‘What about the sports trophy and the referee’s whistle?’ Charlotte asked.

‘What about them?’

‘I don’t know, I’m looking for a sporting connection. It’s hard to see one with François Premier and an African flag. The trophy had a date on it, too, didn’t it?

Enzo nodded and glanced at the approaching car. It was taking its time pulling out to overtake. ‘1996 again. The year Gaillard disappeared.’

‘And you think that’s the only point of it?’

‘It’s the same date that the 1990 Dom Perignon vintage was released, and there didn’t seem to be any other point to that.’ The lights behind were dazzling now. Headlamps on full beam. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘What is it?’

‘You’d think this idiot was trying to blind me!’

Charlotte glanced back into the full glare of the lights. ‘My God, he’s far too close!’

Enzo felt a sudden jolt of fear, as if he had touched the naked copper of a live wire. ‘And he’s going far too fast!’

The bang as it hit their rear bumper seemed inordinately loud, and both their heads jerked back against the headrests before they pitched forward again, straining against the seat belts. Enzo struggled to keep control of the steering as his car began serpentining across the white line. He stood on the brakes, but the vehicle at their back was propelling them forward. There was a sickening screaming of tyres. Smoke billowed up in the headlamps, and the car was filled with the smell of burning rubber. Enzo immediately took his foot off the brake pedal and accelerated hard. They pulled away from the following vehicle and the car stopped swerving.

Charlotte had turned in her seat and was staring out through the back windscreen. ‘It’s a truck.’ Enzo could hear the fear in her voice.

‘What the hell is he trying to do?’

She faced front again. ‘You cut up a truck coming out of the parking at that last stop.’

‘I did not,’ Enzo protested. ‘He was on my right. The road was unmarked. I had right of way.’

‘Well, he didn’t think so, did he? He honked loud enough.’

Enzo looked at the lights in the mirror and screwed up his eyes. They were getting closer again. ‘Do you think it’s him?’

‘I don’t know. It seems a pretty extreme reaction if it is.’

As the truck bore down on them once more, Enzo moved into the outside lane. The truck followed. He swerved back to the inside, and his tyres shrieked in protest. The truck stayed out as if it was going to overtake. The cab drew level with the back of Enzo’s car, and just as Enzo was about to hit the brakes again, it nudged his rear wing. That was all it took to send the car into an uncontrollable spin. The world seemed to be revolving hopelessly around them. Smoke and light and burning rubber. And more smoke, and more light. Enzo pulled the steering wheel one way, then the other. And miraculously they stopped spinning. But they were sliding side-on, now, and a large green drum with a white arrow was flying towards them at speed. Criss-crossed white lines passed beneath them before they hit the drum and spun off again on to a steeply curving exit ramp, coming to a sudden and unexpected stop halfway up it, facing back the way they had come. The truck flew past on the autoroute , and as its lights and the roar of its engine receded, a dreadful silence settled on them, like dust after an explosion.

Enzo clutched the wheel to stop his hands from shaking. He glanced across at Charlotte. Her face was an almost luminous white. Her hands were pressed against the dashboard, arms at full stretch. ‘He was trying to kill us,’ she whispered. And her voice seemed to thunder inside Enzo’s head.

All he could do was nod in acknowledgement. It felt as if he had left his voice somewhere back there on the autoroute . Twice in one day he had been within seconds of death. The first time, there was no doubt that someone had premeditatedly tried to murder him. Whether this time he was a victim of road rage, or another deliberate attempt at murder, he had no way of knowing.

The road was still empty, the countryside around them lost in blackness. There were no lights visible anywhere, except for Enzo’s headlamps pointing back down the ramp. The engine had stalled. He collected himself to try to restart it. It was not until the third attempt that he managed to coax it back to life.

‘We’re not going back on the autoroute , are we?’ There was something like panic in Charlotte’s voice.

Enzo finally found his. ‘No. There’s a map in the glove box.’ With legs like jelly, he manipulated the pedals to put the car in reverse and take them through a three-point turn so that they were facing the correct way. Then he pulled gently away and followed the road to a junction where a road sign reflected brightly in their headlights. TULLE 27km.

Charlotte turned on the courtesy light and squinted at the map. ‘This must take us to the N120. If we get to Tulle, I know the way from there. We should be at the house in just over an hour.’

It was after midnight, and Enzo’s car strained up a narrow road through a tunnel of trees and lush, green foliage. On the main road from Tulle they had passed through village after village swaddled in darkness. Houses shuttered, street lamps extinguished. It was hard to believe that anyone inhabited these grim stone dwellings huddled along the roadside. Everywhere seemed abandoned to the night. The only life they had seen since leaving Tulle were occasional sets of furtive eyes caught in the headlamps, unseen creatures skulking at the roadside.