Peter May - Extraordinary People

‘I’m fine, Sophie. What’s all the noise about?’

She grinned then, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. ‘You’ll never guess what we found up in the old town.’

‘You’re right, I’ll never guess.’

‘A restaurant,’ Nicole said before Sophie could respond.

Enzo sighed. ‘Is that a hint that you’re hungry?’

Nicole shook her head triumphantly, but Sophie beat her to the punchline. ‘It’s called The Salamander.’

La Salamandre restaurant was at number 84 rue de Paris, next door to a wine merchant’s, and opposite a shop supplying flowers for funerals. The three youngsters led Enzo up through the narrow streets of the cité médiéval . A cat sat in an open window, above an old bicycle, and watched them go by. Geraniums poured in carefully pruned cascades from hanging pots on almost every corner. Tourists filled the cafés in Place Charles Surugue, soaking up the burgundy wines and the centuries-old ambience of the ancient, beamed buildings that leaned and tilted at odd angles all around them. Enzo watched the town slide by, like a man seeing the world through a fisheye lens. There was nothing here out of the ordinary, and yet none of it seemed quite real. He felt oddly detached, as if fate had taken away his powers of decision-making, and given over his life to the vagaries of chance and serendipity. The same clues which had led Enzo to Diop were leading him now to a restaurant in a quiet back street in this départemental capital of the Yonne. A chance find by these young people he had unwittingly involved in this foolish venture.

Painted salamanders climbed the pale green frames around the door of the restaurant. Poissons — Fruits de Mer , it said in both windows. They stood outside on the pavement, looking at a menu offering oysters, large roasted king prawns, half lobster roasted in its shell with pan-fried chanterelle mushrooms.

‘What do you want to do?’ Nicole asked.

Enzo could almost hear her salivating. ‘I suppose we’d better go in and eat.’

It was still early, and they were seated at a table near the window. The waiter was a young man in his early twenties. Bertrand, at Enzo’s bidding, ordered a 1999 Pouilly Fuissé to wash down their seafood. Sophie asked for a bottle of Badoit, Nicole a diet Coke, and Enzo asked the waiter if he knew of any connection between the restaurant and Auxerre football club.

The young man gave him an odd look. ‘Why on earth would there be?’

Enzo shrugged, a little embarrassed. It must have seemed like a very peculiar question. ‘I don’t know. I just wondered, that’s all.’

The waiter looked puzzled. ‘Not that I know of. I could ask the owner if you like. Monsieur Colas. He’s also the chef. He opened this place more than twenty years ago.’

‘No, that’s all right.’ Enzo knew now that this was a waste of time. No more than a bizarre coincidence. And then a thought occurred to him. ‘Are you a supporter?’

‘Of Auxerre? Sure. My father started taking me when I was just five years old.’

‘You know that the salamander was the emblem of François Premier?’

The waiter looked at him as if he were a sandwich short of a picnic. This was all getting a little surreal. ‘Was it?’ It was clear that he didn’t.

Enzo was disappointed. ‘So you wouldn’t know of any connection between Auxerre football club and François Premier.’

‘I could tell you more about the English Premiership than François Premier. And apart from where they finished in the league last season, the only unusual thing I know about Auxerre football club is their patron saint. Saint Joseph. And I only know that because it’s the name of the school I went to.’

Enzo was beginning to feel like one of the Three Princes of Serendip. ‘There’s a school in Auxerre called Saint Joseph’s?’

‘Sure. Saint Jo’s. It’s a lycée and collège and commercial school all rolled into one. Just up the hill there in the Quartier Saint Simeon.’ He paused. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’

Enzo shook is head. ‘No. Thank you.’

Nicole looked at him. ‘Is that significant?’

‘One of the items we found along with the clues that led us here was a referee’s whistle with numbers scratched into the plating. A nineteen and a three, separated by an oblique.’

‘Nineteen, three,’ Bertrand said. ‘March 19th.’

Enzo was taken aback. It had taken Charlotte to point that out to him. ‘It’s Saint Joseph’s day,’ he said.

Bertrand thought for a moment. ‘So you think the clues only led to Auxerre football club, in order to take you on to the school, via the club’s patron saint?’

Enzo shrugged his eyebrows. ‘It’s possible.’

‘But what could there be at the school?’ Sophie asked.

‘Playing fields, perhaps.’ Enzo shook his head. ‘There has to be some reason for the inclusion of a referee’s whistle.’ The waiter brought an ice bucket to their table, Pouilly Fuissé chilling in iced water. ‘We’d better go and see.’ He caught Nicole’s look of alarm and added, ‘after we’ve eaten.’

Saint Jo’s Collège and Lycée was at the top of the Boulevard de la Marne on the northern edge of town. It was flanked on its west side by suburban villas and bungalows. At the foot of the hill there was a development of residential apartments, and a franchise for Mitsubishi Motors. The school itself stood, in the gathering gloom, behind white walls and blue fencing, in several acres of forested parkland. The sky was a pewtery blue-black, low clouds scraping the surrounding hills. Streetlamps fought to make any impression in the growing twilight. Bertrand drew his van up to electronic gates that were closed and padlocked. There were no lights beyond them, and no sign of life. Immediately opposite, the offices of the Crédit Agricole bank were shuttered and dark. The only light was a moth-infested pool of yellow at a roadside cash dispenser.

There was little or no traffic on the boulevard as Enzo stepped out of the van to feel the first spots of rain, warm and heavy on his face. Somewhere beyond the far hills, the sky flashed and crackled, and several seconds later they heard the distant rumble of thunder. The air was filled with the smell of ozone. A sudden courant d’air moved among the trees beyond the fence like a sigh. The first turbulent breath of the coming storm.

Enzo scaled the gate with the minimum of effort and dropped down on the other side.

‘Papa, you can’t just go breaking into the place,’ Sophie hissed at him from the van.

‘I’m not breaking anything. I’m just having a look.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Bertrand said suddenly. And before any of the others could object, he was out of the van, and vaulting easily over the gate. He grinned at the scowling Enzo. ‘Safety in numbers.’ He snapped on his flashlight. ‘And it helps to be able to see.’

Nicole climbed out of the back. ‘Be careful, Monsieur Macleod.’

‘And for goodness’ sake be quick!’ Sophie called after them as they moved off into the grounds and were consumed by the dark.

They followed the beam of Bertrand’s flashlight along a metalled drive, an empty car park brooding silently away to the right. To their left, a roadway ran off through trees to a cluster of single and two-storey flat-roofed buildings. Up ahead, floodlights mounted on the roof of the school gymnasium were trained on an area of playing fields behind a high wire fence. In the distance, Enzo could just make out a patchwork of baseball and volleyball courts. Immediately to their right was the football pitch. A dusty, chalky, burned-up stretch of what might once have been grass. Bertrand swung his beam across the pitch to pick out the white of the goal posts. The nets had been removed. Big fat raindrops were leaving craters in the dust.