Peter May: The Critic

He passed a small, private chapel and graveyard, and turned towards the recently restored Chateau de Salettes on the crest above. The chateau was cradled in the heart of the vineyard which produced the wine that bore its name, white stone reflecting bright light around mediaeval towers and high walls built to defend against attack. Enzo pulled up in the car park and walked through an arched gate to a timeless courtyard beyond. A vast, milky, canvas sail was stretched across it to provide shade for diners at tables set below. Potted poplars lined the walls, modern sculptures echoing their theme outside a tasting room where chateau wines could be sampled and bought. A degustation. Enzo turned into a cool, dark, reception room and asked the girl behind the desk if Michelle Petty was still a guest in the hotel.

She had her back to him when he emerged from the castle wall onto a lawn that ran the length of the building. It was south-facing and commanded spectacular views across the hills to the Tarn valley far below, a dusty road, laid like a ribbon of chalk over its undulations, vanishing finally into a haze of green. She sat reading at a mahogany table and raised her head as he cast his shadow across it. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, and he could not at first detect her reaction to him, until she lowered her glasses and he saw the curiosity in their cool, green assessment. He was not the sort of guest you would expect to find in a place like this. A voluminous khaki shirt over baggy cargo pants, a well-worn canvas bag hanging from his shoulder. And he was clearly not on the serving staff.

‘Jees,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Is that real or an affectation?’

Enzo was taken by surprise. ‘Is what an affectation?’

‘The hair. That white stripe. You get that specially dyed?’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ve had it since I was a teenager. Waardenburg Syndrome.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘If you look closely you’ll see one eye is a different colour from the other.’

She removed her glasses altogether and squinted at him in the sunlight. ‘So they are. One brown, one blue. Is it serious?’

‘Well, I haven’t died from it yet.’ He noticed for the first time that she was an attractive girl. He knew, from Raffin’s notes, that she was twenty-five, had barely been out of her teens when her father went missing. Even although she was seated, he could see that she was tall-long, elegant legs in cut-off jeans, a white blouse partially unbuttoned and tied above her waist, revealing a taut, tanned belly. Long, chestnut hair was held back from her face in a clasp, and tumbled carelessly over square shoulders. Her face was handsome, without being pretty. Strong features, full lips, large eyes, and not a trace of make-up. She seemed only now to become aware that he had joined her uninvited, and she became self-conscious and wary.

‘Is there something I can do for you, Mister…?’

‘Macleod. Enzo Macleod.’

She seemed amused. Her caution hadn’t lasted long. Eroded, perhaps, by his charm. ‘What kind of name is that?’

‘My mother was Italian. Enzo is short for Lorenzo. My father was Scottish. I grew up in Glasgow.’

‘So what are you doing here Mister Lorenzo Macleod?’

‘I’m going to find out who murdered your father.’

She flinched, almost as if he had struck her, and all animation left her face. It was a moment or two before she found her voice, and when she spoke it was softly, in contrast to her words. ‘Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘So am I.’

‘Don’t you want to know?’

‘I couldn’t care less.’

‘But you’re here to collect his things.’

‘Only to put an end to it. Once and for all. Ever since that Goddamned book got published in the States, it’s like he’s come back from the dead to haunt me. Newspapers writing articles, wanting interviews. An hour-long documentary on “Forty-Eight Hours”. He never had five minutes for me when he was alive. Now he won’t let me be. I want it to stop.’

‘There’ll never be closure as long as his killer walks free.’

Some of her emotion spent, she took a moment to assess him a little more carefully. She slipped on her sunglasses to hide her eyes. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘Before I came to France, I was a forensics expert in Scotland. I’m using my experience and my science to burst open some of those cold cases in Raffin’s book. I’ve already laid one of them to rest.’

‘And my father’s just the next one on the list?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

‘You could put it that way.’ He took a moment to compose his proposal. ‘I know that Gendarme Roussel is reluctant to let go of your father’s possessions. Maybe if you made me your official representative, I could do something about that.’

She held him in her gaze for a long time, impenetrable behind her dark lenses. When, finally, she spoke, it was in the same soft tone as before. ‘I don’t think so.’ She picked up her book and started reading, or at least pretended to. Enzo was dismissed, and she wasn’t going to engage him any further.

He sat for a full minute before standing up and dropping his card on the table. ‘That’s my cellphone number. If you want to find me, I’ll be staying at the gite your father was renting when he disappeared.’

Her attention remained focused on the pages of her book, and he gazed out for a moment over the shimmering vineyards below before heading back to the carpark where his 2CV sat baking in the afternoon sun.

This was wine country. So it was not unnatural that Gil Petty would have stayed at a chateau. Except that he hadn’t. He had rented a small country cottage in the shadow of a restored castle that dated back to the eleventh century. A tiny, cramped estate-worker’s house with a single room serving as kitchen, dining and living area, and just one bedroom. It was a beautiful cottage, though, covered in autumn-red ivy. A small terrasse looked out over a fifteenth century pigeonnier that stood on stilts of stone in the dappled shade of three massive chestnut trees. The towering walls and turrets of the imposing Chateau des Fleurs were a stone’s throw away, catering for wealthy tourists in sumptuous chambres d’hotes off the open gallery that ran all around the top of the building. The lady of the house was renowned for her cuisine. As Enzo drove up the long drive to the castle, he wondered not for the first time why a man of Petty’s means had chosen to spend a month in a cramped and inexpensive gite when he could have opted for the comfort and fine cuisine of the chateau.

A worker’s white van was parked at the foot of the steps to the gite, and as Enzo got out of his car, Pierric and Paulette Lefevre hurried out from the tiny estate office they had made in its cellar. Paulette had struck Enzo as a tall, attractive, older woman when they first met. And then he realised she was probably the same age as he was, and wondered if that made him an “older man”-attractive or otherwise. Certainly, it had been clear from Paulette’s warmth, that she had found him attractive. Something of which Pierric had not been unaware. He had ill-concealed his irritation. A beanpole of a man with a loping gate, and thinning, grey hair, he had deeply etched lines on either cheek which gave him a somewhat simian look. He was irritated again now. He waved an arm towards the worker’s van.

‘I’m not at all sure about this, monsieur. There’s bound to be damage to the wall.’

‘I’ll pay to have it fixed,’ Enzo said. ‘But I need my whiteboard. I think visually, you see.’

When he had first come to arrange the let, he had thought it might be useful to let them in on why he was here. It helped to have local knowledge on tap. And they had met Petty. They had been enthusiastic and helpful, anxious that the stain of the wine critic’s disappearance and murder should be removed once and for all from their castle and cottage. Now, perhaps, Pierric at least was having second thoughts. Paulette stood anxiously in the background, gently wringing her hands. She gave Enzo a pale smile when he caught her eye, then winced as the sound of hammering reached them from inside.