Peter May - Extraordinary People

‘That’s right?’

‘On purpose?’

‘Yes.’

Nicole leaned forward from the back and peered at him in the gathering darkness. ‘Why?’

Enzo took a deep breath. ‘I suppose you all have the right to know.’ He hesitated. ‘This murder I’ve been trying to solve….’

‘Jacques Gaillard?’ Sophie said.

Enzo nodded. ‘I’ve found three of his killers so far. Two of them are dead, and the third one has tried to kill me at least once.’

The youngsters were shocked to silence. Then Sophie said in a very small voice, ‘Why are we going to Metz?’

‘To find another body part, and the clues that’ll lead us to the fourth killer.’

By midnight, Enzo could not keep his eyes open. His head was rolling about on his chest. At Vierzon, Bertrand left the autoroute and took a D-road cross-country towards Troyes. Metz was an industrial town in north-west France, not far from the German border. It would be several more hours before they got there.

Bertrand said, ‘Why don’t you lie down and sleep, Monsieur Macleod? There’s a mattress rolled up in the back there. Nicole was using it earlier.’ He flicked his head towards the back of the van.

‘It’s very comfortable,’ Nicole said. ‘And I could do with some company back here.’

Sophie stifled a smile. ‘On you go, Papa. We’ll wake you up when we get there.’

Bertrand pulled in at the side of the road, and Enzo got out into the warm night air. There was nothing else on the road. He went around the back and climbed into the dark interior. The courtesy light below the rear view mirror barely reached beyond the driver’s seat, but what little light it cast illuminated Nicole’s beam of pleasure. ‘Over there behind the seats,’ she said, pointing. ‘I tied it up again.’

Enzo fumbled about until he found the mattress, rolled up and tied with string. As he untied it, the mattress flopped open across the floor of the van, and something struck him a glancing blow on the side of the head

‘Ow!’ he yelled. ‘What the hell….’

Bertrand retrieved a flashlight from the glove compartment and shone it into the back. Caught in its beam, Enzo saw the familiar shape of Bertrand’s metal detector.

‘Bloody thing!’ It was as if it were following him. And he heard a muffled snigger coming from the front. He kicked it to one side and lay down on the mattress as Bertrand extinguished the flashlight and forced his gearbox through shot synchromesh into first gear. They moved off with a jerk.

‘Night, Papa,’ he heard Sophie saying, then after a moment felt the warmth of Nicole’s body as she plumped herself down next to him.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she said in the dark. ‘There’s plenty of room for both of us.’

He had no recollection of whether or not he responded. The rhythm of the engine, the thrum of tyres on tarmac, very quickly dragged him down into a dark, dreamy sleep where he was chased by salamanders and confronted by creatures with bloodied faces. He had no idea how much later it was that he awoke with a sudden, startling thought in his head. It was still dark, and the ever-present roar of the diesel seemed never-ceasing. Like jet engines on a transcontinental flight, it had become part of the very fabric of his existence. Nicole was fast asleep. He scrambled on to his knees and pulled at Bertrand’s shoulder from behind. Bertrand half-turned his head and Sophie looked back in surprise and alarm.

‘Are you all right, Papa?’

‘Why have you got a mattress in the back of your van?’

Bertrand turned away and fixed his eyes on the road. He said nothing. Enzo was sure he could see colour rising on his neck.

Sophie laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Papa. What do you think it’s for?’

This was not a thought that Enzo wanted to entertain. ‘For heaven’s sake, Bertrand, she’s my daughter ,’ was all he could think to say. And immediately it occurred to him that his concern was more for himself than for his daughter, his fear of losing her.

Bertrand kept his eyes front. ‘I’m sure Sophie’s mum was someone’s daughter, too. And I’m sure you loved her just as much as I love Sophie.’

Sophie reached out to touch Bertrand’s cheek. Enzo could almost feel her pleasure in Bertrand’s words.

‘There’s no room at my mum’s,’ Bertrand said to Enzo. ‘And I know you don’t approve of me. So…’ He left the sentence hanging, with all its implications. Where else were they to go? Enzo was depressed by the thought that somehow he was to blame. Forcing them to make love on some seedy mattress in the back of a van. He felt even more uncomfortable on it now, and he retired silently into the back of the van like an animal with a self-inflicted wound.

He lay on his back, then, leaving a discreet distance between Nicole and himself, and thought of Pascale. How she had turned his life upside down, touched him with a forbidden happiness, and then left him with only the memory of it. He remembered Bertrand angrily saying to him of Sophie, She’s not your little girl any more. So maybe it’s time you started letting her grow up . Sophie was just three years younger now than her mother had been when Enzo first met her. But all Enzo could think of was the little girl he had raised, all her moments of tears and triumph. Her tearful first day at school, the first wobbling moments on a bicycle. Don’t let go, Papa, don’t let go! The hours spent in the open-air pool on the ële de Cabessut teaching her to swim. The joy of passing her baccalaureate. Moments replayed, some of them too close to those he had lived through once before with Kirsty as a child. Only, he had lost Kirsty through his own selfishness, and had no idea what he would do if he lost Sophie, too. Bertrand would never know how hard it was for him to let go.

He closed his eyes and succumbed to dreams of Charlotte, with her beautiful black eyes, and the soft touch of her fingertips on his face. Even in sleep there was no escape from the melancholy reminders of his life’s failures. And somewhere, in the last shreds of consciousness he found regret again that he had not handled his confrontation with her differently.

Sunlight poured in the back window and splashed across the mattress, hot through the glass, burning his clothes and his skin. Enzo stirred and rolled over, turning face-first into the large, round sensor pad of Bertrand’s metal detector. He awoke, startled and disorientated.

‘Morning, Papa.’

He turned to see Sophie smiling back at him from the passenger seat. ‘Where are we?’

‘Metz. We got here in the middle of the night. It seemed a shame to wake you. And, anyway, there was nothing you could do while it was still dark. So we just snatched a few hours sleep here in the front.’

The driver’s door opened, and Bertrand’s face appeared. ‘Is he awake yet?’

‘Yes, he is,’ Enzo said.

Bertrand grinned at him. ‘Morning, Monsieur Macleod.’

Enzo looked around. ‘Where’s Nicole?’

Sophie couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Still in seventh heaven after spending the night with you. If only her father could have seen you.’

Enzo glared at her and Bertrand said, ‘She went for a wander round the stadium.’

Enzo opened the back doors and climbed stiffly out into the morning sunshine, blinking in its glare. He slipped on his jacket and saw that they were parked beside a small river running along behind the stadium. He also noticed, with some disappointment, that they were not in the Rue du 19 Mars 1962. This was the more prosaically named Rue du Stade. Trees grew alongside the river, opposite a row of terraced houses and a sports shop. He turned to see the main stand stretching away towards the distant motorway. Stade Symphorien. The home of FC Metz since 1987. He saw the club shield on the side of the north stand, the double-cross of Lorraine on one side, a salamander on the other.