Peter Guttridge - The Thing Itself

‘Lunch, I’d say. This place on the right is supposed to be good.’

They’d flown from Gatwick to Toulouse the previous afternoon and hired a car to drive over to Homps. She felt awkward and had done so since they’d met at the airport to take the budget flight. This would be the longest time they had spent together and, given their history, it wasn’t the easiest situation. Especially as a part of her felt rejected that he had been trying to get back with his wife.

Not that she wanted him, she told herself repeatedly; it was simply a pride thing.

Both tall, they had been scrunched up on the plane, their knees tucked under their chins. It hadn’t been much better in the car they had rented, the smallest in the rental agency’s fleet but the largest they had available at short notice.

Gilchrist had driven the thirty kilometres to the inn they’d booked just outside Homps. Conversation had been desultory.

‘Jancis Robinson is supposed to have a place round here,’ Watts said.

‘Jancis-?’

‘The wine writer?’ he said.

Gilchrist liked wine but didn’t know anything about it.

‘How do you want to play this?’ she said.

‘I want you to take the lead,’ Watts said.

‘He’s going to be armed, you know,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Depends where we find him,’ Watts said. ‘We find his house but we don’t necessarily go there.’

‘Wait for the cocktail hour, you mean?’ Gilchrist said.

‘Or the morning trip to the boulangerie ,’ Watts said.

‘My French isn’t great,’ Gilchrist said. ‘The where?’

‘To pick up his French stick,’ Watts said.

They’d scouted around, then Watts had insisted he go off alone to ‘do a bit of business’. Gilchrist had bridled at this, which is perhaps why they’d slept in separate bedrooms. Any other notion hadn’t seemed to come up. Gilchrist had been cross but she was curious about Watts’s reasons for not bringing it up.

The restaurant on the right was set back about twenty yards from the canal bank. A brightly lacquered barge was moored on the water directly in front of it. Gilchrist saw Watts pause as they passed it and give it the once-over.

There were wooden tables and chairs laid out in a courtyard, then a rustic-looking two-storey restaurant with a wall of glass facing out on to the canal.

The entrance was at the side and when they walked in they saw that it was in fact only one storey, with a very high, oak-raftered roof. The restaurant was half full. They were seated at a table by the large window. They could see both the restaurant and the courtyard.

Gilchrist sensed Watts’s awkwardness. He ordered a carafe of wine.

‘We’ve got to be alert,’ she said.

Watts looked at her intently.

‘You’re thinking he might come in here?’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Well,’ he said, looking at the white tablecloths and the silver cutlery on each table. ‘This might be a bit posh for him. There’s a pizza place in town that’ll be more his style. We can relax and enjoy the Languedoc. Do you know about the Cathars?’

Gilchrist punched his arm.

‘Don’t start.’

He rubbed his arm.

‘You pack a punch.’

‘That’ll teach you to go off on secretive missions leaving me to tend hearth and home.’

‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

He put his hands up quickly in a pacifying gesture.

‘You’ll see why I went off alone.’

He smiled at her, almost shyly, and they looked at each other, then both looked down. She found herself thinking that Watts’s voice when it was low was immensely seductive, as she vaguely recalled from their drunken first night.

Bernie Grimes walked in as they were sharing a cassoulet and Gilchrist was feeling flushed from the wine. She flicked a glance, then looked back at Watts and reached out to take his hand as Grimes scanned the room.

Watts, surprised, started to withdraw his hand but she squeezed tightly whilst giving him her best approximation of a lingering look.

He got the message. He leaned towards her.

‘Alone?’ he murmured.

She gave him a brilliant smile and nodded slightly.

‘OK, then,’ he said.

She laughed as if he’d said something hilarious. Grimes was being seated at the table for two directly behind Watts.

Gilchrist had been expecting bling. But Grimes was wearing a conservative suit with a crisp white shirt open at the neck. Admittedly, three buttons were open to show off his tanned chest but there was no gold chain round his neck. He was trim and would have looked like a lawyer or accountant on holiday except for his face.

Not his face per se. His face was fine — regular features, neat haircut. His eyes and the mouth were the giveaway. Gilchrist could only flick quick glances because Grimes’s eyes were roving, but she could see how cold those eyes were, how tight the mouth. This man chilled her.

She leaned closer to Watts, who also leaned in. She could smell the wine on his breath.

‘I used to think that stuff about killers having cold eyes was writers’ rubbish,’ she said. ‘You know — poetic licence. Eyes are muscles, right? They can’t possibly show emotion or killer instinct or anything.’

‘But then you started seeing killers’ eyes. Gary Parker maybe?’

She glanced over Watts’s wide shoulder to see if Grimes was listening. She’d bet the house he would know the name Parker. Grimes was looking at the menu.

Watts said: ‘The first time I looked into your eyes, I remember thinking that you would have trouble with the tough guys.’

She frowned, her guard rising.

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he said, his voice falling to a whisper, ‘you can’t disguise your essential softness.’ She started to jerk her hand away. He held on to it. ‘That wasn’t meant as an insult,’ he almost hissed. ‘Your eyes reveal your emotions. That’s a good thing.’

They ate in silence for the next ten minutes. Grimes ordered only a main course and was quickly tucking into it.

Gilchrist could tell by the set of his shoulders that Watts was impatient to turn round but knew better than to do so. Slightly wine-fogged, she was thinking about what he had said about her eyes. He was right, of course, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

She also wasn’t any clearer about what they were going to achieve here. Bernie Grimes was a tough cookie. He wasn’t going to fold when confronted. She looked again at Watts. He sipped his wine.

Grimes was a smoker. Even in France, the non-smoking rules applied. After his main course, whilst Gilchrist and Watts were lingering over their coffee, he went out into the courtyard to light up a fag.

Gilchrist and Watts watched him wander down to the canal, trailing smoke behind him. Gilchrist looked at Watts.

‘And?’

Tingley was being sick on the side of the road. Bent double, trying to expel the thing chewing his insides. Except now he didn’t know whether it was the serpent or Radislav’s bullet that was killing him.

He’d used the medical kit to try to staunch the blood and a couple of shirts as wads but he couldn’t get the bullet out. He was dripping sweat and blood, and his mind was swirling in and out of reality.

When he had finished vomiting, he slumped into the passenger seat of his car and wiped his mouth with a tissue. He was exhausted.

He blearily wondered what to do. He knew he had to make it right with the Di Bocci family in Orvieto for what had happened with their cousin in Chiusi. Then what? He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

The wind tugged at Charlie Laker’s jacket as he waited for Claire Mellon to open her door. He needed to be out of sight for a bit and nobody knew of his relationship with her. Nobody alive, anyway.