Scott Mariani - The Alchemist’s Secret

They said little as they took a corner table away from the hard-rock blare of the jukebox. Ben went over to the bar and came back a minute later with a bottle of cheap red wine and two glasses. He poured a glass out for each of them and slid hers across the stained tabletop. She took a gulp and closed her eyes. ‘Boy, what a day. So what’s your story?’

He shrugged. ‘I was just waiting for a train.’

‘You nearly caught one, too.’

‘I noticed. Thanks for stepping in.’

‘Don’t thank me. Just tell me what’s happening and why we’ve suddenly become so popular.’

‘We?’

‘Yeah, we’ , she said hotly, stabbing the table with her finger. ‘Since I first had the pleasure of meeting you earlier today, I’ve had intruders trying to kill me, friends turning out to be enemies, dead men disappearing from my apartment and asshole cops who think I’m a whacko.’

He listened carefully and with growing apprehension as she told him all that had happened during the last few hours. ‘And to cap it all,’ she finished, ‘I almost get mashed by a train rescuing your ass.’ She paused. ‘I take it you didn’t get my message,’ she added indignantly.

‘What message?’

‘Maybe you should keep your phone switched on.’

He gave a sour laugh as he remembered he’d turned it off during their interview earlier on. He pulled the mobile out of his pocket and activated it. ‘Message,’ he groaned as the little envelope logo flashed up on his screen.

‘Nice going, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘Then it’s just as well that when you didn’t call back, I decided to come and warn you in person. Though I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered.’

He frowned. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘Remember? I was there when you got the call from–’

‘Loriot.’

‘Whatever. Charming friends you have. Anyway, I remembered you mentioned you were going to Brignancourt tonight, figured I might catch up with you there if I wasn’t too late.’ She looked at him hard. ‘So are you going to tell me what’s going on, Ben? Do Sunday Times journalists always live such exciting lives?’

‘Sounds like you had a more exciting day than me.’

‘Cut the bullshit. You have something to do with all this, don’t you?’

He was silent.

‘Well? Don’t you? Come on. Am I supposed to think it’s all a coincidence that you turn up asking questions about my work, and we’re being photographed, and someone tries to kill us both on the same day? I don’t buy this journalist thing. Who are you, really?’

He refilled both their glasses. His cigarette was finished. He tossed the stub out of the window. Reached for his Zippo and lit another.

She coughed when the smoke drifted across the table towards her. ‘Do you have to do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s banned.’

‘Like I give a shit,’ he said.

‘So are you going to tell me the truth–or do I just call the cops?’

‘You think they’ll believe you this time?’

The train driver’s heart was still in his mouth as he drove on down the line. By the time his lights had picked out the two cars in his path, it would have been too late to do anything about it. He breathed deeply. Jesus. He’d never had anything more than a deer on the line before. He didn’t like to think what might have happened if the cars hadn’t got out of the way in time.

What kind of idiot would drive under the level-crossing barrier with a train coming? Kids, probably, messing about with stolen cars. The driver let out a long sigh as his heart rate eased back down to normal, and then he reached for his radio handset.

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Told you we should’ve hung around.’

The three men sat in the Audi overlooking the railway line where they’d left the Mercedes earlier on. Naudon shot his colleagues a caustic glare and settled back in his seat. While Berger and Godard had been sitting giggling in the bar, he’d been listening to the radio. If there’d been a train crash it would’ve been mentioned. Nothing–so he’d kept going on about it to the others until they eventually relented, just to shut him up.

And he’d been right. No wreckage, no derailed train, no dead Englishman. The empty Merc was sitting a few metres from the track, and it certainly didn’t look like a car that had been hit by a fast-moving train.

Worse, it wasn’t alone. Its dark bodywork reflected the spinning blue lights of two police patrol cars parked either side of it.

‘This is fucking bad,’ Berger breathed, gripping the wheel.

‘Thought you said the cops never came out this way,’ said Godard. ‘That was the whole fucking point of this spot, wasn’t it?’

‘Told you,’ Naudon repeated from the back.

‘How did–’

‘Well, boys, the boss isn’t going to be pleased.’

‘Better call him.’

‘I’m not doing it. You do it.’

The police officers combed the scene, torch beams darting this way and that like searchlights while radios popped and fizzled in the background. ‘Eh, Jean-Paul,’ said one, holding up a cracked Citroën grille badge he’d found lying in the dirt. ‘Bits of headlamp glass all over the place here,’ he added.

‘Train driver mentioned a Citroën 2CV,’ replied another.

‘Where’d it go?’

‘Not far, that’s for sure. Coolant everywhere.’

Two more officers were casting pools of torchlight around the inside of the limo. One of them spotted a small shiny object lying in the rear footwell. He took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and used it to pick up the empty cartridge case. ‘Hello, what’s this? Nine-mil shell case.’ He sniffed at it, getting the scent of cordite. ‘Recently fired.’

‘Bag that.’

Another cop had found something, a business card lying on the seat. squinted at it in the glow of his Maglite. ‘Some foreign name.’

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