Peter May - The Critic

Nicole held him firm. ‘Don’t be a baby.’ She glanced up at the whiteboard. ‘So this is the Petty case we’re looking at?’

‘You’ve read up on it, haven’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Disappeared four years ago.’

‘From this very gite.’

‘Really? God, that’s spooky.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘The autopsy report said he’d drowned in wine, then twelve months later turned up in a Gaillac vineyard pickled red and partially preserved. Why would he do that?’

‘Petty?’

‘The killer. If he’d got away with it for a whole year, and no one even knew for sure that Petty was dead, why did he suddenly draw attention to it?’

‘If we knew that, we’d probably know who did?’

‘Did you bring the laptop?’

He nodded, then winced from the pain. ‘We’ll set it up in the morning.’ And, as an afterthought, ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Here, of course.’

He pulled away from the towel. ‘Nicole, you can’t!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s only one bedroom. And I don’t want your father storming in here and accusing me of trying to have my wicked way with you.’

She blushed to the roots of her hair, and her eyes strayed away self-consciously towards a rickety open staircase leading up to a gloomy mezzanine built into the roof. ‘What’s up there?’

‘A couple of kid’s bunk beds that wouldn’t do for either of us.’

She looked at the settee. ‘That’s a clic-clac. Folds down into a bed. You could have that.’

‘Why couldn’t you have that?’

‘Monsieur Macleod! I need the privacy of my own room.’

Enzo sighed.

‘And one other thing,’ she made a face, ‘I hate to ask, but… do you think you could bring my suitcase up the steps? It’s too heavy for me.’

Enzo’s frustration released itself in an explosion of air from between his lips. ‘Nicole, why can’t you ever travel light?’

‘Because unlike you, Monsieur Macleod, I always come prepared.’

Enzo knew of old that when it came to things practical, there was no point in arguing with Nicole. She would make a fine wife and mother some day, if she could ever find a man. He eased himself to his feet and walked stiffly across the room, every muscle in his body complaining. In the doorway he stopped and turned. ‘How’s your mom?’

A shadow fell across Nicole’s face as if the light had dimmed. ‘Not so good.’

She lay in the dark, the bedroom window open to the night, and gazed up at the reflected moonlight on the ceiling. For a short time she had been able to forget, to occupy herself with Monsieur Macleod and his injuries. To listen to his story of attempted murder among the vines and feel the thrill of his danger. It hadn’t occurred to her that if her mentor were in danger, then she might be too.

But any such thoughts were crowded out by the returning memory of her mother wasting away in the dark, holding her daughter’s hand, like she was holding onto life. She felt hot tears filling her eyes and turned over to blink them away, spilling them onto the pillow. And for a moment she fantasised that maybe the door would open as she was drifting off and Monsieur Macleod would slip between the sheets beside her, folding himself into the curve of her back. And that he would just hold her. Just for the comfort of it.

Peter May

The Critic

The early morning sky was a burnished gold, painting the edges of the leaves a fiery red, and throwing long shadows from the pigeonnier towards the gite. And as the sun slid slowly up above the distant treeline, it suffused the main room with a warm autumn light to accompany the rap of knuckles on glass.

Enzo lifted his head sharply, painfully, at the sound of knocking on the half-glazed front door, only to be blinded by the light that flooded through it. He could see the silhouette of a figure on the terrasse trying to see beyond the reflections in the glass.

He had slept soundly enough, but the clic-clac was hard and uncomfortable and had done his aching body no favours. He groaned as he swung his legs out from the covers and found the floor with his feet. He reached for his bathrobe and dragged it on, sweeping his hair back from his face and walking stiffly to the door. Blinking in the sunlight as he swung it open, he found himself looking into the quizzical green eyes of Michelle Petty.

She looked him up and down with naked curiosity, eyes lingering a moment on the blood-stained lapel of his robe, before examining the dried blood around the wound high up on the side of his head. Then she focused on his eyes and he blinked self-consciously.

‘Been in a fight?’

He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. ‘You could say that.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me in?’

‘Sure.’

He opened the door wide, just as Nicole stepped out from the bedroom, stretching sleepily, her dressing gown hanging open over a flimsy nightdress. ‘What’s all the noise?’

Michelle looked at her, surprise giving way to…what? Disapproval? Enzo wasn’t sure. But when she turned her eyes back towards him, all warmth in them had vanished. ‘I think maybe I’ve made an error of judgment,’ she said. ‘I’ll not bother you any further, Mister Macleod.’ She turned to hurry down the steps.

‘No, hang on…’ Enzo started after her.

‘Who was that?’ Nicole said.

He turned back in the doorway and stabbed a finger in her direction. ‘You. Make yourself decent and pack your bag. You’re not staying here another night.’

‘Well, where’ll I go?’

‘I don’t know. Get yourself a cheap room somewhere.’

‘The chateau does chambres d’hotes.’

‘Aye, at a hundred and twenty euros a night. Cheap, I said. I’m not made of money. And try and get somewhere close by. I don’t want you sleeping over, but you’re going to be spending most of your days here.’

Michelle had passed under the pigeonnier where a child’s swing stirred slightly in the early morning breeze and was heading towards the parking at the end of the drive when Enzo caught up with her. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Nicole…she’s not what you think.’

Michele didn’t miss a step. ‘Why would it matter to you what I think?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want you thinking I’m the sort of man who preys on young women.’

‘She certainly is young. More girl than woman, I’d have said.’

‘She’s one of my students.’

They reached her rental car and she turned to face him. ‘It just keeps getting worse.’ She paused. ‘I thought you were a forensics expert.’

‘ Former forensics expert. I’m a professor of biology now at a university in Toulouse. They asked me to set up a department of forensic science after we cracked the Gaillard case.’

‘We?’

Enzo glanced back towards the gite. ‘Nicole’s been working as my assistant for a bit of extra cash.’ He added quickly, ‘I’m not sleeping with her.’

‘It’s of absolutely no interest to me who you sleep with.’ She looked down at his bare feet on the gravel path and then again at his bruised face and the dried blood matting his hair. ‘You seem an unusual sort of man, Mister Macleod. Who were you fighting with?’

‘Someone tried to murder me last night, Miss Petty. Cracked me on the skull and dumped me in the path of a mechanical harvester. I was very nearly just another elusive flavour in a bottle of wine.’

She frowned. A look of genuine shock in her eyes. ‘Why would someone want to murder you?’

‘Because they don’t want me finding out who killed your father.’ She drifted away into unspoken thought. ‘Why did you come here?’

She dragged back her focus from some distant place. ‘I didn’t sleep much last night, thinking about what you said yesterday. I thought maybe…’ Her voice tailed away.