Peter May - Cast Iron

It was, Enzo thought, a classic example of being moulded by your environment. Whatever good there might have been in Régis Blanc, he had never stood a chance. He became the mirror image of those who had corrupted him. And he wondered what it was that Lucie had seen in him. What it was that could possibly have attracted her, or suggested the possibility of redemption.

Nicole said, ‘In 1985 he married a young woman called Anne-Laure Couderc. She had been one of his girls. But like Arnaud before him, he made her give all that up when she married him. Two years later she gave birth to a baby girl that they called Alice. From all accounts, Blanc was absolutely smitten by the child, but he and Anne-Laure weren’t getting on, and after he was sent to Murat for nine months in late eighty-eight she quit their apartment and got a place of her own.’

Dominique said, ‘What was he sent to Murat for?’

‘Aggravated assault,’ Nicole said. ‘Blanc had got away with murder, only to be sent down for getting into a drunken brawl. Made a bit of a mess of the other guy, apparently. The only time he was ever actually convicted of anything. Before he murdered those girls, of course.’

Her fingers rattled across the keyboard, and Enzo saw her eyes scanning the text that she next brought up on her screen. He saw the earnest concern in them, and the studied concentration as she read.

‘A condition of his early release from Murat was that he attended sessions at Rentrée, the Catholic charity for the resettlement of prisoners. Which, of course, is where he met Lucie. He had come out of prison to find that Anne-Laure had left him, and maybe that was a contributing factor, but it seems he became besotted by Lucie Martin. And, well... the rest we know.’ She glanced at Enzo. ‘Do you want me to go through the murders of the prostitutes?’

But Enzo shook his head. It was all a matter of public record, and he had been over those killings many times. Blanc’s story was not untypical of the lives of the petty criminals who inhabited that dark and dangerous underworld concealed by the wafer-thin veneer of civilisation that society papered over it. A world inhabited by criminals and cops alike, creatures found crawling beneath the stones we never want to lift. But it told him nothing new, providing not even a foothold from which to advance the investigation. He felt the fingers of despair closing around him.

Dominique said, ‘We should go and talk to his wife.’ She looked at Nicole. ‘Or is it ex-wife?’

Nicole shrugged. ‘There’s no mention anywhere of them ever getting a divorce.’

‘Can you get us an address? We’ll go first thing in the morning.’

‘I’ll try.’

Enzo reached down to retrieve a bundle of folders from his shoulder bag. He pushed them across the table towards Nicole. ‘Those are the files on the Bordeaux Six.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve been through them and through them. But a pair of fresh eyes...’

Nicole pulled them towards her. ‘I’ll go through them myself with a fine-toothed comb, Monsieur Macleod.’

‘I’m going to have to take Alexis back to Paris tomorrow.’ Kirsty’s face said it all. ‘I hate to leave you, Papa. But I’ll brief Roger on everything that’s happened.’

Enzo nodded, then the ringing of his mobile phone startled everyone around the table. He glanced at the screen and saw that the call was from Commissaire Hélène Taillard, and he was almost afraid to answer it.

‘Hélène?’ Everyone watched as he listened and nodded. He glanced at his watch. ‘What are you doing there at this time of night?’ His eyes grew moist at her response, and he blinked furiously to clear them. ‘I’ll be right over.’ He hung up and looked around the expectant faces. There was a break in his voice as he said, ‘She’s been at the caserne all evening. Taken personal charge of coordinating the investigation into Sophie’s abduction. She has the forensics report on the house she was held in.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Dominique got quickly to her feet. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Much of the police headquarters lay in darkness. It stood at the north end of the loop in the River Lot that contained the old town of Cahors, and was manned only by a skeleton night staff. An officer at reception led them back through a half-lit corridor towards a slab of yellow electric light that fell from an open door to lie across the floor and fold itself up the wall. They could hear Hélène’s voice all the way down the hall. Rapid, insistent. One end of a telephone conversation.

Hélène hung up and rose from her desk as the officer showed Enzo and Dominique into her office. She took Enzo in her arms and held him close for several long moments before standing back. Enzo was almost shocked to see the hint of tears gathering themselves in her eyes. ‘We’ll get her back,’ she said.

She was still in uniform, but had dispensed with the hat, her hair piled up and pinned neatly to her head. There was barely a trace of make-up remaining on her face after a long day. She looked tired. She shook Dominique’s hand and turned to lift a folder from her desk.

‘They emailed me a preliminary report.’ She forced a smile. ‘I know we’re all supposed to be on the same side, but you’ve no idea how difficult it is to get cops from one département to share information with cops from another. You can thank the préfet for exerting his influence.’

And Enzo felt himself choked at the realisation that friends from all sides were stepping up to the plate to help him. She handed him the folder and he pulled out the three printed sheets from inside.

‘There’s not much to go on, I’m afraid. The house has been on the market and lying empty for nearly a year. The owners pay someone to check up on it occasionally. Air the house, cut the grass, that sort of thing. He says he was last there about two weeks ago.’

Dominique said, ‘And he was the only key holder?’

Hélène shook her head. ‘No. The house is with several estate agents, and they all hold keys. There have been eight or ten visits to the property by prospective buyers over the last few months. The last one just ten days ago. And apparently the keys from that visit have gone missing.’

Enzo looked up from the folder. ‘Who were the last people to visit?’

‘Don’t raise your hopes, Enzo,’ Hélène said. ‘If it was the people behind the abduction, they wouldn’t have given real names. But we’re chasing it down.’ She nodded towards the folder in his hands. ‘And you’ll see the forensics people haven’t come up with much. The house is full of fingerprints, of course. But probably none of them belonging to the people we’re interested in. The one possibility is DNA.’

Enzo frowned. ‘How so?’

‘Saliva traces on cigarette ends. The ashtrays are all overflowing. Depends whether or not they’re in the database, of course.’ She paused and examined the big Scotsman with concern. ‘How are you holding up?’

He shook his head. ‘Not well.’

‘If we were to take bets again, Enzo, I’d put money on whoever took Sophie being the same people who’ve been trying to kill you for the last three years.’

‘Then we’d be betting on the same side. Pretty short odds, too, I’d say.’ And he told her about the text from Sophie’s phone, and calling it back.

‘Enzo, there are ways of tracking phones down to locations these days.’

But he shook his head. ‘I’ve tried it several times since. It’s dead. Whatever else they are, these people aren’t stupid.’

‘So what will you do?’

He pursed his lips to contain his anger and frustration. ‘Catch them.’

She put a hand on his arm. ‘Leave it, Enzo, please. That’s our job.’