Authors: Peter May
Tags: #Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, #Mystery fiction, #Murder, #Murder - Investigation, #Murder/ Investigation/ Fiction, #Enzo (fictitious character), #MacLeod, #Cahors (France), #Cold cases (Criminal investigation), #Enzo (Fictitious character)/ Fiction, #Cold cases (Criminal investigation)/ Fiction
Aubagne, South of France, 1986
William Bright’s diary
December 5
We arrived by train this morning from Paris. Fifteen of us. EVs, they call us.
Engagés Volontaires
. This is the home of the
1er Régiment étranger
, the headquarters of the Foreign Legion. It’s a lot warmer in the South. More like I’m used to. We’re still a long way from the sea, but I like the sharp colour of the Provençal sun on the hills and that clear blue of the sky. It reminds me of home.
They took everything I had. My clothes, everything, and put them in plastic bags and made an inventory. They said that if I fail selection, they will be returned to me. If I go on to take
La Déclaration,
I will never see them again.
They gave us all track suits, and that marks us out as newcomers. Someone said we’d be up at five every morning, and that they’d have us loading trucks and cleaning the toilets and stuff like that. And that they’d be watching us to check for bad attitude.
Mostly we are English. But there is also a Jap, and a French Canadian called Jacques—at least, he said that’s what his name was—and a guy from New Zealand. There are lots of nationalities here, but the common language of the new guys is English.
The first officer who spoke to us said we would be paired with a French-speaker for the first week. When I said I spoke French, he laughed and asked me to say something. I reeled off the words of the
Marseillaise
, and it was all I could do not to laugh when I saw his jaw drop. I told him I spent all my childhood holidays in the south of France, and he said he would pair one of the other newcomers with me. I got the Jap.
The corporal said that over the next three weeks we would be tested for physical and psychological health, security, intelligence, and physical fitness. Next week, he said, those of us who were still here would be issued with a set of combats, and given a green flash to wear on the shoulders. If we survived to the third week, we would wear red flashes on the epaulettes. But not to hold our breaths, because most of us would never get that far. If we did, then we would sign the oath, a commitment to put our lives in the hands of the Legion for the next five years. And we would be sent to Castelnaudary for basic training. I can’t wait.
My first one-to-one interview was in the afternoon, with the major. He looked at my passport and said they would be checking that I had no criminal record. I figured my brother would turn up clean. Then he put my passport in a drawer and said that’s the last I’d be seeing of it—unless I didn’t pass muster.
From now on William Bright no longer exists. From now on I have a French name and a French identity. I am Yves Labrousse. I’ve always liked the name Yves. The English think it’s a girl’s name because it sounds like Eve. But it’s a good French name.
The major said after three years, if I wanted French nationality I could have it.
He didn’t know I was French already. But now they’ve given me a gift. I’m someone else altogether. Not even who they thought I was. If I can stick this out, I’ll be Yves Labrousse for the rest of my days. A man with no past. And a future only I’ll decide.
***
December 26
It was hot when they dropped us off in Aubagne today, in the Rue de la République. It didn’t feel at all like Christmas. We were all wearing red flashes on our combat fatigues. The corporal told us we had five minutes to write and post letters or cards. It was the last time we could write to anyone outside of the Legion, he said. It was the last time we would be allowed out on our own.
I followed the others into the Maison de la Presse, but I don’t really know why. I had no one to write to, no one to share any last thoughts with before my life would change forever. Only a handful of the guys I arrived with in Aubagne three weeks ago have lasted the pace. Jacques, the French Canadian, who’s now Philippe, the Jap—it seems strange calling him Henri—and a few others. The New Zealander and several of the English were sent packing days ago.
I watched Philippe scribbling on the back of a postcard and wondered what he was writing. What do you say to someone when it’s for the last time? It was on a pure impulse that I lifted a card from the rack—a sunset view of red light washing over the foothills of the Alpes Maritime. I turned it over and picked up a pen from the counter, and wrote her name, and the address I’ve known all my life. It’s funny, but I’ve never really thought about what she might be thinking, how she felt when she went to my room and found I’d gone. Is she any happier, or is she mourning for me just like my real mother did for all those years?
After I’d written the address, I had no idea what to say.
Philippe punched me on the shoulder. ‘Come on, pal. We’ll get shit if we’re late!’
I still didn’t have a clue what to say to her, and I almost tore up the card.
‘Come on!’ he was shouting at me from the door. ‘The truck’s waiting.’
And so I scribbled very quickly, and very simply, Au revoir. And signed it, Yves. I licked the stamp and thumped it with the heel of my hand and ran the ten metres down the street to the post box.
It wasn’t until I was climbing into the back of the truck that I wondered what on earth she would make of it.
I can see her face, picture her confusion. And the thought makes me laugh. Good riddance. I’m off to a new life, off to learn how to use a gun, how to fight. How to kill.
There was an embarrassed silence in the room. No one knew quite where to look. Sophie’s instinct was to leap to her father’s defence, but she saw the warning look in Bertrand’s eye and held her peace. Their stay in this big, rambling “safe” house, hidden away in what others might have viewed as an idyllic mountain valley, was turning into a nightmare. Endless days of boredom and frustration, lives on hold while the world passed them by. It had become like a prison. And now this.
Nicole, too, was tempted to speak up for her mentor, but she knew better than to interfere in another family’s conflict. And so it was with difficulty that she kept her own counsel, and sat staring at her hands, pink-faced with embarrassment.
Anna, across the hall in the kitchen, could hear every word, but carried on with the preparations for lunch as if nothing was happening.
‘You’re unbelievable, you know that? Unbe-fucking-lievable!’ Kirsty’s face was pink too, but with anger verging on tears. She was still in shock. The shock of learning that Roger had been shot, and then anger that Enzo hadn’t even phoned. That it had happened forty-eight hours ago and she’d known nothing about it.
She’d called Roger several times in the last few days, and couldn’t understand why he never answered, either his home number or his cellphone. Now she knew.
‘If I hadn’t been here to stop you, you’d have gone running off the Paris without even stopping to think.’ Enzo tried to reason with her.
‘Damned right I would.’
‘And put yourself straight into the firing line.’
Kirsty shook her head vigorously. ‘No. Not as long as I kept well clear of you. You’re the one who’s caused all this. You’re the Jonah. You ought to have a fucking health warning stamped on your forehead. Stay away! Anyone who gets too close is in danger of being blown up or shot!’ A look flicked at Bertrand. ‘Or having their world burned to the ground.’
As she turned away, Enzo grabbed her arm. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Where do you think? I’m going to Paris.’
‘No, you’re not.’
And so now they were in a state of stand-off.
‘You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘I can stop you being an idiot. Going to Paris will not make a blind bit of difference to whether Roger recovers or not.’
‘So what are you going to do? Ground me? Lock me in my room?’
‘If I have to.’
‘Oh, fuck off. I’m not five any more. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.’
‘So how are you going to get there? Walk?’
‘Bertrand’ll give me a lift to the station at Aurillac.’
Bertrand flushed deeply.
‘No, he won’t. Because he knows I’m right. And because he’s not going to do anything that would put you at risk.’ Enzo looked at Bertrand. A look that required no words. Bertrand’s nod was almost imperceptible. ‘And neither will Anna.’
Kirsty stared at him, eyes wide and glazed with tears. ‘You’ve no right…’ She was starting to lose control. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘No, you can’t!’
‘I’m your father.’
Anna appeared in the doorway, the movement registering in Kirsty’s peripheral vision, and she turned her head quickly to catch Anna’s look, the tiny shake of her head. She turned back to meet her father’s eye. She wanted to shout, no you’re not! You’re not my father, you’ve never been my father! The words were right there in her mouth, balanced precariously on the tip of her tongue. But something stopped her, some instinct that made her swallow them before they could escape. Instead she said, ‘You never liked Roger, did you? You never wanted me to be with him.’
Kirsty’s dam finally burst, a flood of tears sweeping her out of the room and up the stairs. They could hear her sobbing all the way up to the landing, and then the door of her room slamming shut.
In the silence she left behind, Enzo could hear the slow tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. Motes of dust hung in suspended animation in the sunlight. Outside, the sound of children in the playground of the village school came to them across a frosted field. A normal, happy world, that seemed to exist in another universe entirely.
***
Enzo found Nicole in the computer room. It was half an hour after Kirsty’s outburst. Sophie and Bertrand had gone out. For a walk, they said. Anything, Enzo figured, to escape the awful atmosphere in the house. Anna had returned to the kitchen, and Enzo had found himself alone, reliving his conflict with Kirsty.
He felt a sudden surge of anger towards Rickie Bright. All of this was his fault. None of them would be here if it wasn’t for Bright. The man had set out to deconstruct Enzo’s life, to stop his investigation, but he could never have known just how successful he would be. In many ways, Enzo no longer cared why Bright had murdered Lambert. He just wanted to get him. To make him pay. To peel away all the layers of his deception, to reveal him to the world for the callous, cold-blooded killer he was. A destroyer of lives. A purveyor of pure, undiluted evil.
Nicole was embarrassed to meet his eye. She had retired to the safety of the computer room immediately after Sophie and Bertrand went out, seeking solace in the ether where she controlled the world with her fingertips.
‘I’ve got some more faces for you to look at,’ she said.
‘Faces?’ For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about.
‘Your phony doctor.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ He wasn’t sure how much that mattered any more.
‘I came across a really good website. An
annuaire
called the
Bellefaye Directory
. It’s a listing of all the writers, technicians, directors, and actors working in the French film and television industry.’
She ran nimble fingers over her keyboard and brought the
Bellefaye Directory
up on screen.
‘It’s really great if you’re a producer or director wanting to cast someone with very specific looks.’ A row of different coloured boxes along the top of the screen allowed you to choose from among
Actors, Agents, Technicians, Companies, Film Schools
. Nicole clicked on
Actors
. More boxes appeared.
Gender, Type, Language, Age, Height, Weight, Eyes, Hair
. ‘It’s easy, you just select each of these criteria in turn and define what they should be.’ She clicked on
Gender
and selected
Male
. Then
Type
, and chose
European
from a selection of nine ranging from African, through Nordic and Asiatic, to Indian. She looked up at Enzo, I just entered your description of him in each category. Hair and eye colour, height, weight. And it came up with a list of fifty-six actors matching those criteria.’
She slid her mouse across its mat and pulled up a page saved in
Bookmarks
. It was the list produced by the
Bellefaye Directory
. She scrolled down it.
‘As you can see, they don’t all have photographs. But twenty-one of them did. I pulled them all out and copied them into a single folder for you to look at.’
She brought up the folder, selected the jpegs and opened them up in a full-screen slideshow. Images of men in early middle-age, with short, dark, greying hair, mixed one into the other, all smiling for the camera. What felt like an endless sequence of unfamiliar faces. Enzo stared at the screen, almost without seeing. He was still replaying the fight with Kirsty. And he was finding it hard to rid his mind of the image of Raffin lying in his bed in intensive care, tubes and wires trailing from his broken body to machines that beeped and flashed, delivering blood and fluid to replace the litres he had lost. His face had been unnaturally pale. Unreal. Like a death mask laid over living features. And Enzo hadn’t needed Kirsty to tell him that he was to blame.
Suddenly he became aware that a man he knew was looking back at him from the monitor. ‘Stop!’ Nicole paused the slideshow, and Enzo found himself staring at the face of the man who had told him he was dying. How could he ever forget what he had taken for the sympathetic sincerity in those cold blue eyes? Only now they were smiling, full of warmth, hoping to persuade some producer or director to cast him in a starring role. And maybe he deserved to be. The role he had played for Enzo had been brilliantly convincing. ‘Who is he?’
Nicole toggled back to the
Bellefaye
list and clicked on the name Philippe Ransou. Up came his CV. She scanned it. ‘French-Canadian. Also speaks English. Seems to get a lot of work. But mostly small roles in action movies and TV dramas. Military types, or thugs. Sometimes does his own stunts. No one seems to have cast him as a doctor, though.’
‘Until Bright. I wonder how he chose him.’
‘Is it him?’
‘Yes.’
She beamed with pleasure. ‘I told you I’d find him. What do you want me to do with the information?’
‘Print out a couple of copies of his photograph and CV, his agent. Everything you’ve got. We’ll send them to the chief of police in Cahors, and to Monsieur Martinot in Paris.’ One way or another, Enzo was determined that Philippe Ransou would pay now for the pain he’d caused. ‘But before that, there’s something else I need you to do, Nicole.’ He had to force himself to focus.
‘Anything.’
‘I want you to try to get hold of a list of all hemophiliacs living in the Roussillon.’
He saw her surprise. The question forming behind her eyes. But all she said was, ‘That’s the
département
of the Pyrénées-Oriental, isn’t it?’ Enzo nodded. ‘So Perpignan’ll be the administrative capital.’
‘Probably.’
‘Okay. Hemophiliacs.’ She paused. ‘Is there anything in particular I should be looking for?’
Enzo drew a deep breath. ‘Yes. A woman.’