Peter May - Cast Iron

Enzo exchanged a glance with Dominique and saw the sympathy in her eyes. He wiped away his own tears, embarrassed, and went into the bedroom through glass-panelled double doors that led straight off the séjour .

The wardrobe was a big, antique garde-robe in polished walnut. A family heirloom, perhaps, from Raffin’s family or Marie’s. He opened both doors and searched among all the coats and jackets hanging there for Kirsty’s fawn raincoat with the belt at the waist. People have their own distinctive scent, whether from the traces of perfume, or soap or aftershave, or from the oils secreted through the skin, earthy, musky, unmistakable. He could smell his daughter among these clothes, a scent as familiar to him as fresh air on a Scottish winter’s day. And he could smell Raffin, too. Some aftershave or hair oil that he must always have been in the habit of using. Just behind Kirsty’s coat he saw a pale green linen jacket with the breast pocket torn away, threads still hanging from it where the material had been violently ripped. The remnants of some crest or emblem embroidered into it were still visible along the inside edge.

Enzo stopped dead, and for a moment thought his heart might have stopped, too. In his head he tumbled back through time to an open gallery running around the roof of the château at Gaillac, where a shadowy figure had lured him in the dark and tried to drive a knife into his heart. Someone who had cut himself in the attempt, and fled in panic at the arrival of Bertrand, leaving Enzo dazed on the floor, and clutching the bloodstained, torn pocket of a pale green linen jacket with a maker’s emblem embroidered on it.

His breath was coming to him with difficulty now. It was Raffin! Raffin who had lured him up a stone staircase on that dark night and tried to kill him. And here was the jacket he had worn. Freshly laundered to get rid of the blood, but still missing its breast pocket.

Enzo’s world was collapsing about him like a house of cards. If it was Raffin, then Raffin must have killed Marie. And somehow it was Raffin who was implicated in the murder of Pierre Lambert. Raffin who had kidnapped one of his daughters and was intent on marrying the other. Raffin, the father of Enzo’s grandchild!

He had accepted Enzo’s offer to use new science to resolve the cold cases he had assembled in his book. Because how could he refuse? But he could never have imagined just how successful Enzo would be. And it must have become apparent to him at a very early stage that sooner or later Enzo was going reveal Raffin himself to be the killer of his wife.

The implications were igniting in Enzo’s mind like firecrackers on Guy Fawkes night, though there was still too much missing for him to make all the connections and see the whole display. He felt weak, and sick, and angry, but he knew that somehow he had to stay in control.

‘Dad?’ Kirsty’s voice crashed into his thoughts from the other room.

‘Coming.’ He grabbed her coat, his mind still a mess of confusion, and hurried through to the séjour .

Alexis was wrapped up warm in her arms, his pram sitting out in the hall, ready to go. She passed him to her father while she pulled on her coat. And, as Enzo handed her the baby back, she looked at him quizzically. ‘What’s wrong?’

He had no idea how to be natural in this situation, and just shook his head. A forced smile, he was sure, appearing more like a grimace on his face. ‘Nothing. Don’t get cold out there.’

Still she looked at him oddly, before shrugging it off and heading out to the hall. ‘Will you wait till Roger gets back?’

Just the mention of his name caused Enzo to quite involuntarily clench his fists. He would never tire of punching that bastard’s duplicitous fucking face!

Dominique said, ‘Actually, we have a rendezvous very shortly. But we’ll come back.’

‘Okay. See you later.’ And Kirsty was gone.

Dominique stood up immediately. Their coffee had gone cold, untouched in their cups. And all her instincts told her that something was very wrong. ‘What is it?’

Enzo turned and strode back into the bedroom, ripping the linen jacket from its hanger. ‘This!’ he hissed. And he could hardly find his voice to speak, his face dark now with anger and hatred.

Dominique looked at him, utterly bewildered. And he fought to control his breathing so that he could explain. Painting a picture for her of that night, high up in the roof of the château, vivid and clear, when Raffin had tried to murder him in cold blood. ‘I’m going to fucking kill him!’

The colour had risen high on her cheeks. But she put a hand on his arm and gripped it tightly. ‘Enzo, you can’t afford to do anything silly. We have the advantage of knowing what he has tried so very hard to stop you from finding out. But he still has Sophie, and we have no idea how any of this ties together. We have to play it smart.’

All Enzo wanted to do was inflict violence on the man who had done this to him. But he knew that Dominique was right, and was glad that she was there to moderate his more intemperate instincts. The quick emotions inherited from his Italian mother, and the even quicker resort to violence and swearing born of a tough Glasgow upbringing.

‘Where is the bloodstained pocket now?’

‘The police have it. Hélène had it run through the DNA database at the time, but of course it came up blank.’

‘Good. So now we need a sample of Raffin’s DNA for comparison and we’ve got him. At least for attempted murder. But I’m pretty sure the rest of it is just going to unravel from there.’

Enzo took a deep breath and nodded, and he turned and marched purposefully into the bathroom. His eyes scanned the sink and the bath, the shower cubicle. Then he opened the mirrored cabinet above the sink. ‘There.’ He reached in and retrieved Raffin’s razor. A triple-bladed head that he detached from its handle. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. ‘More than enough bristle and skin, maybe even some blood, to provide the bastard’s DNA.’ He was getting some of his control back now. He laid it carefully on the rim of the sink, took a fresh razor head from a dispenser in the cabinet, and snapped it on to the handle, replacing the one he had removed. ‘He’ll never know.’

Dominique followed him back to the séjour where he retrieved a small plastic evidence bag from the pocket of his shoulder bag and dropped the razor head into it. She said, ‘If we FedEx that to Cahors tonight, Hélène will get it first thing in the morning. We can do that on our way to meet Franck.’

Enzo frowned. ‘Franck?’

‘The Tracfin guy. And you can call Commissaire Taillard to let her know it’s on its way.’

They met Franck at the L’Ecritoire, in the tree-lined Place de la Sorbonne. Smokers, mostly students, sat out of the rain under a red canopy that cast its gloom over the tables and chairs lined up along the pavement outside, yellow light and laughter spilling out into the darkening day. At the far end of the square, floodlit figures atop high columns flanked a clock set into the arch of a tall, stone building that dominated everything else around it. Fountains played in a rectangular water feature, lit along its length by concealed underwater lighting. The whole square resounded to the sound of voices. Student voices, animated by youth and aspiration and unbounded optimism. They made Enzo feel very old and tired.

Franck was a good-looking young man in his mid-thirties. He had a mischievous smile and rich brown hair that fell in luxuriant curls over quizzical eyebrows. He still carried about him the natural confidence of youth, and so seemed not at all out of place among all these students from the university. His black coat hung open and a red scarf dangled from his neck. A scarred leather satchel lay on the chair next to him.