Peter May - Freeze Frames

But Doctor Gassman got stiffly to his feet. “Not for me, thank you, Monsieur Macleod. I must be on my way. Don’t want to spoil lunch for you young folk.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Elisabeth chided him.

But the old doctor just raised a hand and smiled. “Bon appetit,” he said, and he shuffled off across the cobbles toward where his Range Rover was parked at the quayside.

Enzo lifted the glasses from the table. “Same again?”

“Please,” Elisabeth said. “We’re both on red.”

When Enzo got to the bar inside he cast a quick glance back toward the door. Both Alain and Elisabeth were facing toward the harbour, and he could see old Gassman behind the wheel of his Range Rover, starting the motor. He turned back to the counter. The barmaid was busy serving someone else, and he carefully set out the three glasses in front of him. For a moment, she had her back turned as she poured a measure of pastis, and he lifted one of the glasses by its stalk and slipped it quickly into his shoulder bag.

When he looked up again, he saw a vacant-eyed regular at the far end of the bar watching him. The man was unshaven, and wore a Breton peaked cap pushed back on his head. The glass in front of him was empty. There was no way he had not seen Enzo slipping the wine glass into his bag. Enzo almost blushed. It was the first time he had ever been caught stealing a glass from a pub. He recovered a little of his composure, winked at the man and put a finger to his lips.

The barmaid turned toward him, and he gave her his best smile. “Three glasses of red please, for the table on the terrasse, and whatever my friend at the end of the bar there is having.”

“Cognac’ she said, and turned immediately to lift his glass and fill it from the optic. A slight smile passed across the lips of the man with the peak cap as he lifted his glass toward Enzo, winked, and took a sip.

“I’ll bring them out,” the barmaid said.

Enzo felt the warmth of the sunshine on the back of his neck as he took his seat at the Servats’ table. “Suddenly we have an Indian summer,” he said.

Alain nodded. “Sometimes it happens that way. Just to lull us into a false sense of security before winter comes to force us back indoors.”

“Pity I won’t be staying to enjoy it.”

Elisabeth raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re leaving us?”

“I’m going to Paris tomorrow. Not quite sure when I’ll be back.”

“To do with your investigation?” Alain asked.

“Yes.” He could see that he had piqued their interest, but was not going to volunteer any further information. Instead he changed tack completely. “Tell me, doctor, do you have any idea when it was that Doctor Gassman first came to the island?”

Alain shrugged. “I would just have been a kid. Sometime in the early sixties I would guess.”

“You couldn’t tell me any more specifically than that?”

“I’m afraid not.” Alain tilted his head a little, a slight frown of puzzlement about his eyes.

Elisabeth said, “You can find out, of course, from the mairie. They are bound to have a record of when he first arrived in the commune.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll do that.”

Their drinks arrived, and they chinked glasses and wished each other good health before sipping on soft red wine, rich with fruit and tannins.

“So…” the doctor said. “What about Kerjean? Is he still in your sights?”

Enzo shook his head. “No. Not at all. If there’s one person on this island who I know for sure didn’t murder Killian, it’s Thibaud Kerjean.” He took another sip of his wine.

“You have another suspect, then?” The doctor was looking at him, wide-eyed with curiosity.

“Perhaps. I’m not sure yet. I’m still looking for a motive. But I’m hoping that’s what I’m going to find in Paris.”

The mairie stood in the corner of the Place Joseph Yvon, in an old two-storey house opposite the church. On Groix, the town hall had been given the more elevated status of Hotel de Ville, which was emblazoned black, on white, above a small, semicircular balcony from which the tricolour furled and unfurled in the afternoon breeze.

Enzo climbed a short flight of steps to an arched doorway and pushed dark blue doors into a tiled foyer. Through frosted glass he saw a staircase wind its way up to the second floor. The accueil was through an opening to his left.

A young woman behind the counter raised her eyes and smiled. There was clear recognition in her smile, giving way almost immediately to a quizzical curiosity. “Can I help you, monsieur?”

“Yes.” Enzo beamed at her and thought what an attractive woman she was. Something of that assessment must have transmitted itself to her, for she beamed back. Flattered, and not uninterested. Enzo leaned on the counter, lowering his head confidentially. He saw her eyes widen, sensing that he was about to admit her to some inner circle where secrets might be shared. “I was wondering if you might be able to to tell me when certain individuals first came to the island.”

She nodded slowly, realising that to answer in the positive would lead to the sharing of a confidence that would indeed make her a part of that inner circle. “I’m sure I can.”

Enzo’s smile faded suddenly, and he lowered his voice. “But I need to be certain that I can rely on your absolute discretion.”

She lowered her voice to match his. “Of that, Monsieur Macleod, you can be quite certain. Any information that passes between us will do so in the strictest confidence.”

Enzo smiled.

The breeze had stiffened again during the afternoon, but was still soft on the skin. Enzo looked south, out across the coruscating waters of the Bay of Biscay, and saw smoke being whipped away on the edge of the wind as soon as it rose from Jacques Gassman’s chimney. The whitewashed stone cottage was probably somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years old, and had survived every assault the winter sou’ westerlies had thrown at it over nearly two centuries. It seemed to stand braced, once more, for the winter to come. Weary but resolute. It was nothing new.

Enzo abandoned his jeep and walked around to the front of the house, clutching the manila envelope that Gueguen had left for him at Port Melite. To his disappointment, he saw that the old doctor’s Range Rover was not parked in the lean-to. Either he had not yet returned from town, or he had come and gone again. Enzo decided to wait.

He tried the door, and found that, as before, it was not locked. Gassman’s old labrador was stretched out in front of the dying embers of the fire, and raised a lazy head to cast a glance in Enzo’s direction as he came in. A few sniffs in the air was enough to satisfy him that Enzo was someone he knew, a scent matched as accurately as a fingerprint to the catalogue of smells filed away in some compartment of his memory dedicated to that purpose.

Enzo crossed the room and crouched down in front of the fire to ruffle the dog’s head and ears, further reassurance if any were needed. But Oscar had already closed his eyes again, and issued only the merest whimper of acknowledgement. Enzo stood and looked around the room, checking his watch impatiently.

The place smelled of old age. Of stale cooking and body odour. And the ever-present perfume of dog hair. Enzo perched for some minutes on the edge of the armchair nearest the fire, watching as glowing logs slowly crumbled to ash. But he couldn’t contain his impatience for long. Or his curiosity, and he stood and began to wander around the room, touching things. Ornaments, books, a discarded pair of reading glasses, a framed photograph of an attractive young woman. Black and white, dated to early or mid-twentieth century by hairstyle and make-up. It was strange, he thought, how photographs from an era when the world was at war and millions had died seemed somehow innocent. It was, he imagined, Doctor Gassman’s dead wife, taken when she was still barely more than a girl.