Peter May - Cast Iron

Enzo pushed his hands deep in his pockets and trudged around the edge of the lake to the man-made barrier at the west end of it, where he crossed to the other side. From there he climbed up a chalk track to a farm road that ran around the perimeter of a vineyard, its remaining leaves flaming red, discernible even in the colourless light of the moon.

Following the farm road, he came across the metalled single-track that climbed the hill from the main route into Duras, and he could see the lights of the town twinkling in the distance.

Richard Tavel and Lucie had been going out together for years. This would all be familiar territory to him. Local knowledge. If he had been up here before, perhaps many times, wouldn’t he know which was the deepest part of the lake? And how easy would it have been to drive here, unseen from the main road below, just a handful of kilometres from where he lived in Duras? Except that he had been in Paris the Saturday Lucie went missing. Or so the story went. Impossible to disprove now, after all these years.

By the time he had made his way back down to the lake, the first light was dawning in the sky, and the mist rising from the water that filled the valley. As he crossed the lake, trees grew, wraithlike, out of the hillside, and Enzo imagined that this was how it all must have looked at the very dawn of time.

Climbing up through the trees, he kept a wary eye open for the stag which had so startled him in the dark, and the sense of foreboding it had provoked returned to him now. But there was no sign of it.

When he emerged on to the open hillside he saw that it was frosted white, as he had imagined earlier, and he was struck by a sudden clarity which seemed forged out of the cold and his lack of sleep.

There was only one person alive who knew the truth about the relationship, alleged by Tavel, between Lucie and Blanc. Régis Blanc himself. And there was only one way to find out what he knew, which was to ask him. But since Blanc was still incarcerated in the high-security maison centrale prison at Lannemezan, Enzo also knew that getting access to him would be next to impossible.

When he got back to the house he saw lights on in the kitchen, and as he stepped inside breathed in the smell of warm bread and pâtisseries .

Martin looked up, surprised, when Enzo pushed open the door into the kitchen. He was brewing coffee on a worktop by the fridge. ‘You’re up early. Sleep well?’

‘No,’ Enzo said. ‘Hardly at all. I’ve been out walking.’

Martin cocked an eyebrow. ‘Cold out there. You could probably do with a coffee. And I’m heating some croissants in the oven.’

‘That would be fantastic,’ Enzo said, and he sat down at the end of the table, rubbing his hands to try to get the blood circulating in them again.

Martin delivered a basket of croissants to the table and placed a mug of steaming hot coffee in front of Enzo, who gulped down a burning mouthful of it before dipping in the end of a croissant and filling his mouth with soft, buttery pastry. Martin watched him and smiled. ‘You’ve been in France too long, monsieur!’

He pulled up a seat and dunked a croissant of his own. ‘Mireille won’t be up for a while yet. She’s not an early riser.’ A trail of drips fell on the table as he transferred the soggy pastry to his mouth.

Enzo eyed him a little warily, anxious not to arouse the ire of the previous night, but knew there were questions he still had to ask. He took another mouthful of croissant. ‘What happened to Lucie’s bones?’

Martin just shrugged. ‘They’re buried in the garden.’ He took in Enzo’s surprise, and explained, ‘We have a family graveyard out there. Goes back about three hundred years. Most of my ancestors are buried in it.’ He stood up. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

Enzo stood reluctantly. He would rather Martin just told him about it, so he could stay in here, in the warmth, with his coffee and croissant. But the old man crossed to the back door and opened it to let in a rush of cold air, and Enzo was obliged to follow him outside.

Beyond a stone terrace and a thick grove of tall bamboo in full leaf, a small graveyard nestled in the shadow of high hedges on three sides, and the ivy-covered wall of the old chai on the fourth. Fallen leaves, frosted and brittle, crunched underfoot, and Enzo saw a shambles of moss-green gravestones set randomly into the ground.

Martin knelt down to scrape away the moss and lichen that covered the stone plaques on the gravestones, and took Enzo through the litany of ancestors who lay here, going all the way back to some of Gandolfo’s earliest successors.

Some of the stones had circular holes set into them. As he stood up again, Martin explained, ‘On the anniversary of each death, the descendants of the dead would come to the grave with a bottle of wine which they would share in a toast to the deceased. Then they would leave the remaining wine in the hole, here, so that the departed could have a drink with their also departed friends.’ He grinned. ‘They always had a good excuse for a drink.’

Then his smile faded as he turned to the most recent of the stones. It had been kept free of growth and discolouration, and the inscription on the plaque was clearly legible: Lucie Martin, beloved daughter of Guillaume and Mireille (1969–1989) .

‘Just a handful of bones,’ he said. ‘That’s all we had to bury.’ And, with some rancour, ‘They took away her whole skull for the dental comparison and we never got it back. I wrote several times and didn’t even get a reply.’ He turned towards Enzo, who could see him containing his anger with difficulty. ‘I rather suspect they mislaid it. But we went ahead and buried her anyway. The skull is lost, and I wouldn’t open up the grave again to bury it with the other bones, even if we had it. That would seem like sacrilege now. Let her rest in peace, I say.’

The room was cold, and Bertrand and Sophie had spent their second night of captivity huddled together under the blankets they had been given, on a mattress that was lumpy and damp. Now, the first light of day was angling in through the bars set into the window frame high up on the wall behind them. But, as yet, it had brought no warmth.

Bertrand felt Sophie shivering in his arms. She had cried off and on during the night. The previous day they had talked for hours in desperate whispers. Speculating on why they were here, who their captors might be, what it was they wanted. But, when speculation was exhausted, bringing neither insight nor illumination, they had fallen silent, both slipping into a deep despond from which it was proving hard to rouse themselves. Their sense of complete helplessness was absolute. A feeling so alien to Bertrand that he was consumed by frustration and anger, much of it directed at himself.

A routine of sorts had been established during the course of that first day. The men would bring them food on a tray, shouting from the other side of the door that they should retreat to the far wall before they would open the door. Bertrand didn’t know how, but he was pretty sure their captors could see them, because the door would not open until they had done as instructed.

When the door was opened, one man would step in and crouch to leave the tray on the floor. A second stood in the doorway, watching. Both still wearing ski masks.

The food was poor-quality. Stale bread, tubs of yoghurt, mugs of bitter, stewed coffee and a scattering of sugar lumps. Still, they wolfed it down, hunger setting in again long before the next tray was delivered.

If either of them needed the toilet, they had to bang on the door and shout until someone came. Then they would be told, again, to stand against the far wall. When the door opened, one or other would be beckoned into the corridor and led off by two men to a filthy toilet at the far end. There was no lock on the door, and little privacy, and they were given minimal time to do what was required. There was no toilet paper. Only cold water was available in a cracked and dirty sink for washing hands or face, and there was no towel.