Blacklight Blue (27 page)

Then suddenly the weight was lifted, and Labrousse rolled off and into the dark. Another figure leaned over him, and he felt a warm hand on his face. The snow seemed to have stopped.

‘Are you hit?’

This was a dream. It had to be. He was certain it was Anna who had spoken. ‘No. I don’t think so.’ He tried to catch his breath. ‘Anna?’

‘Poor Enzo.’ She ran the back of her hand lightly across his cheek. ‘You really don’t deserve this.’

‘What are you doing here, Anna?’ He forced himself up on to one elbow, and in that moment the sky parted and the light of the moon washed silver across the white peaks of the Cantal all around them. He saw the gun in her hand. ‘You shot him?’ He knew for certain now that he was either dead or dreaming.

She said, ‘The scenario where two people shoot one another is never very believable. But if you shot Labrousse and then somehow lost your way and slipped and fell, you’d die of exposure long before the night was out and anyone found you. That would work. I’m pretty sure they’d go for that.’

‘Who? What are you talking about?’

She sighed and sat down in the snow beside him. ‘The people who employed Labrousse to kill Lambert never did trust him to shut you up. They were scared that anything that led to him would lead ultimately to them. So I was their back-up. If you got too close to Lambert I was to take him out. And you.’

Enzo looked at her in disbelief. ‘You’re going to kill me?’

She looked at him and smiled sadly. ‘Oh, Enzo. I don’t want to. I really don’t. You and me…well, in another life we could have, you know, been good together. But if I don’t kill you, they’ll kill me. Because I could lead you to them, and they don’t like loose ends. You’re too Goddamned smart for your own good. And mine.’

She got to her feet and pointed her gun at him. ‘Come on, get up.’

Enzo got stiffly, painfully, to his feet. ‘Are you going to shoot me?’

‘No, I couldn’t do that to you, Enzo. I’m going to leave you to fall asleep here on the mountain. Only, you’ll never wake up, and you won’t feel a thing. Turn around.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘Just turn around.’

He did as she asked and she hesitated for only a moment before felling him a with blow from the butt end of her pistol. He dropped to his knees and fell face-first into the snow. She turned him over and dragged him by his feet ten metres to a line of wooden fencing that ran along the edge of a steep drop. She kicked away the cross slats and stooped to press her gun carefully into Enzo’s right hand. She looked at him for a moment before bending over to kiss him lightly on the forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Enzo,’ she whispered. She stood up and pushed him with her foot through the gap she’d made in the fence. He slid over into darkness.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Bertrand clutched the tyre-iron from his van in gloved hands. It was the nearest thing to a weapon he could find. Kirsty had been here before, and so the others followed her as she pointed her flashlight into the sleet ahead of them. Clattering up grilled metal stairs from the car park and slithering across the concourse, past the tourist office, towards the brooding dark of the
téléphérique
building. The sleet in their faces was nearly blinding as they ran around the side of it to the red staircase that climbed up into the night.

The landing stage was deserted, and only one cablecar was in its dock. It stood in darkness, its doors locked. ‘There’s no one here!’ Kirsty shouted above the wind.

Nicole bellowed, ‘Look!’ She pointed, and they all peered up through the storm of sleet to a distant light on the mountain top. Which was suddenly gone.

‘They’re up there. They must be up there!’ Sophie’s voice wailed among the metal struts and beams overhead. She ran along the dock. ‘Can’t we get this thing to go?’ With icy fingers she tried to pry open the nearest of the cablecar’s doors.

Bertrand said, ‘Hang on.’ He crossed to examine a large metal box bolted to the outside wall of the
téléphérique
building. Thick cables exited from the bottom end of it, trunking fixed to the wall every few centimetres until it disappeared into the concrete of the floor. A stout steel clasp on its door was fixed with a heavy padlock. He started hacking at it with his tyre-iron.

‘’What are you doing?’ Sophie shouted.

‘Looks like this could be the power box. If I can get it open we might be able to start the cablecar. Kirsty, bring the flashlight over here.’

By it’s light they saw that the metal of the door was peppered now with small dents around the lock. But Bertrand was making little impression on it. He stopped and examined it for a moment, then slotted the straight end of the iron through the hoop of the padlock, and braced himself with his foot against the wall. He pulled with both hands, arm and shoulder muscles straining, veins standing out on his forehead. Years of pumping iron finding practical use beyond mere aesthetics. The metal of the box groaned loudly as the door buckled inwards. But still the padlock held.

Bertrand stopped to take fresh breath and gather himself, then got himself back into position and pulled again, yelling finally with the sheer effort of it, as the whole front of the box ripped free of its fixings. He almost fell as it gave. Inside was a large power switch, and when he threw it, the control panel below it lit up, and the whole landing stage was flooded with light. He punched the button marked
Portes
and the doors of the cablecar slid open. Fluorescent lights flickered inside it then filled it with luminous bright light.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Someone’s going to have to stay here to operate the thing.’

But Kirsty shook her head. ‘No. The operator rides up with it. There are controls inside.’

They all bundled in, and Bertrand found the control panel beside the far door. He closed the doors and hit the green start button. They heard the whine of a distant motor, and the cablecar jerked forward, scraping its way out of the dock before swinging clear and rising steeply towards the first pylon.

Only now did young imaginations start working overtime. None of them had the least idea what, or who, they might find at the top. And they stood avoiding each other’s eyes, afraid almost to acknowledge the sudden fear that moved amongst them like a fifth presence. Their silence was laden with anxiety. Bertrand tightened his grip on the tyre-iron.

They reached the dipping point at the first pylon, then rose rapidly again into a darkness almost obscured by snow.

It was Sophie who broke the silence. ‘Look, there’s a light.’ She pressed her face against the window at the front of the car, peering up towards the peak. A faint glow was threading it’s way through the snow and the dark towards them, descending at speed. Kirsty shielded her eyes from the interior light and strained to see.

‘It’s the other cablecar. It’s coming down.’

‘Shit,’ Bertrand muttered, and he examined the control panel. But there didn’t seem to be any way to stop the car in midascent. They all rushed to the side window, shadowing the glass to see out as the other cablecar approached. When the two converged, they almost seemed to pick up speed. The light of the other car arced out through the driving snow, and in the few seconds it took to pass, they saw Anna looking back at them, her face pale, angry, intense. Her lips moved in a curse they could read, and then she was gone, dipping away below them into the dark.

Silence returned to the ascending car. None of them knew what to say. Fear was replaced now by apprehension verging on dread.

Bertrand turned to Kirsty. ‘How much longer does this take?’

‘Just another few minutes.’

But it seemed like an eternity before the cablecar was sucked into the darkness of its concrete berth and shuddered to a halt. Bertrand took the flashlight from Kirsty. ‘Stay close behind me. We don’t want to get separated up here.’ And he stepped out on to the grilled walkway and shone the flashlight around the cavernous arrivals hall. The wind was so much stronger at the peak and the noise of it reverberated around the stark planes and angles of the concrete construction. The beam of the flashlight pierced its emptiness, pausing for a moment on the open door of a wall-mounted control panel like the one Bertrand had broken into down below.

There appeared to be nobody here, and cautiously Bertrand moved forward, tyre-iron held ready. The girls followed him up the steps and through to the concourse that led to the cafeteria. Here, too, there was no sign of life. Just the mournful holler of the wind. Bertrand lowered the beam of the flashlight and they all saw the trail of wet footprints across the concrete. There was something almost reassuring about them. Something that said people had been here, but were gone. Bertrand broke into a run, following them to the exit doors.

The blast of snow in the wind took their breath away. And as soon as Bertrand stepped through the doors, the motion sensor triggered the exterior light. Immediately he saw the tracks in the snow, footprints not yet covered over. He kept the beam focused on them, and followed their trail up the incline towards the peak. They hadn’t gone far before the lights behind them went out, and it felt suddenly very dark and exposed up here.

Sophie grabbed his arm and pointed beyond the ring of light. ‘There’s something on the track up ahead.’ Bertrand raised the beam and they saw the dark shape of a man lying in the snow, the scarlet glow of fresh blood glistening on virgin white.

Kirsty ran past them and knelt by the body, and as Bertrand brought the light up close, she found herself looking at the face of the man who had picked her off the floor of the convention centre in Strasbourg. The man with the missing earlobe. His eyes were open, staring emptily into eternity. She almost cried out in relief. Sophie’s voice rose above the wind. ‘Where’s Papa?’

‘What’s that?’ Nicole grabbed the flashlight from Bertrand. Something or someone had been dragged away through the snow. Blood was smeared among the tracks. ‘Oh, God.’ She started running. The others chased after her, an awful inevitability somehow in what they expected to find at the end of it.

The trail stopped abruptly by the broken fence, and Nicole leaned past it and shone the flashlight into darkness. Snow sliced through its beam as it scanned the slope beneath them, before picking out a huddled shape lying at the foot of a fifteen foot drop.

Bertrand snatched the flashlight back and plunged over the edge, slithering down the slope to the body below. As he reached it and turned it over, the girls came sliding down after him, and they saw blood all over Enzo’s chest.

‘Oh, my God, she’s shot him!’ Sophie was nearly hysterical.

But Bertrand was feeling the pulse in his neck. ‘He’s still alive.’ And he tore away Enzo’s bloody shirt. ‘It’s not his blood. There’s no wound.’

Kirsty stripped off her coat and quickly wrapped it around him. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, just as Anna had done ten minutes before. ‘We’ve got to get help,’ she said.

But Bertrand was already punching the emergency number into his cellphone.

Perhaps it was her warm breath on his face, or the familiar scent of her perfume. But Enzo opened his eyes and saw her bent over him, and from somewhere found a smile that made her cry. ‘Hold on, Dad,’ she said. ‘Hold on.’ And he took her hand and held it. Blood or not, she was still his little girl.

***

Anna strode across the car park in a fury and slammed the door of her car shut behind her. She sat gripping the wheel, teeth clenched, glaring at the sleet on the windscreen. For the rest of the descent, after she had passed them in the cablecar, she had been trying to figure out how they had known. What it was that had led them here.

And then it had come to her. Her own stupid fault. She hadn’t erased the e-mail after she sent it. She had meant to. But the sound of voices in the
séjour
had prompted her to close down the mailer prematurely. They must have found it, God knows how. They would find Enzo, she was sure, and the only way to be certain of putting an end to this, finally, would be to kill them all.

But she couldn’t wait for them to come back down. All of the kids, she knew, had cellphones. They were probably phoning for help right now. She banged the steering wheel with the heel of her hand and cursed her carelessness. Now she was the loose end. The only thing left for her to do was to run. And run. And hide. Looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

‘Damn you!’ she shouted at the night. And she slipped her key into the ignition.

***

They saw the explosion from the peak. A huge plume of fiery orange light that shot up into the night sky, before subsiding again almost as quickly. The sound of it came seconds later, like thunder following lighting.

Chapter Fifty-Five

From his hospital room he had a view out across the rooftops of southwest Cahors to the wooded blue hills that rose steeply on the far side of the river.

During the long transfer by ambulance, depression had settled on him like a winter fog. And now even the sunshine outside couldn’t lift it. He had found a killer, but not those who had hired him. He was no closer now than he had been before to knowing who had wanted Lambert dead or why. He had failed.

And even although she had tried to kill him, he mourned for Anna. He knew that wasn’t her name, but he couldn’t think of her as anything else. Poor Anna. There had, somehow, been something immeasurably sad about her. Who knew what truth there had been in anything she had told them? But that her life had been blighted in some way by tragedy seemed to him beyond doubt.

The only chink of light in his darkness had been the visits from Kirsty and Sophie. He had worked hard to put on a brave face for them. Strangely, the two seemed closer than they had before. Like real sisters. Blood sisters. Not even half sisters. And between Kirsty and Enzo there was a bond stronger now than blood. Unspoken, but shared nonetheless. The bond they had forged during those first seven years of her life, more durable than all the torment that had followed. Greater even than Simon’s revelations. Simon had never been her father and never could be.

Bertrand expected to have his gym functioning again in its temporary home of the Maison de la Jeunesse within two weeks. The insurance cheque might take a little longer, but Enzo had told him he was in no hurry for it.

Raffin had been moved from hospital in Paris to a recuperation unit in the suburbs, and was continuing to make a good recovery. But there was, Enzo knew, still unfinished business between them.

He turned his head from the window as the door opened, and Commissaire Hélène Taillard stood in the doorway clutching a dark green folder. Her uniform jacket was buttoned tightly against the swell of her bosoms, and carefully contrived licks of hair hung down from either side of the blue hat pinned to the coiffure piled up beneath it. She smiled at him. ‘You just can’t keep out of trouble, Enzo, can you?’

He forced a smile. ‘You always did look sexy in that uniform, Hélène.’

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed, smiling at him fondly. ‘I always thought I looked good out of it, too.’

‘What, you mean…naked?’

She tilted her head and gave him a look. ‘You know what I mean.’

He grinned, but her smile faded.

‘We arrested Philippe Ransou in Paris. As soon as you’re able, they’ll want you to identify him. He’s already been picked out by the manager of the
agence immobilière
as the man who took the lease on the building in the Rue des Trois Baudus. He’s admitting everything, except any involvement in the murders.’ She forced a rueful smile. ‘But at least it gives you your alibi. You’re no longer in the frame for the murder of Audeline Pommereau.’

Enzo remembered poor Audeline with a stab of guilt, and grief. He knew that in the coming days and weeks her death was something he would dwell upon, feel responsible for.

The
commissaire
opened her folder and glanced inside it. ‘Amazingly the
police scientifique
in the Cantal recovered DNA from the burned out car at Le Lioran. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in any database we have access to, so we’re none the wiser about the true identity of the woman who called herself Anna Cattiaux.’ She closed the folder and looked thoughtfully at Enzo. ‘These people really didn’t want you to find them, did they? And they don’t seem to care who they have to kill to stop you. And that includes you.’ She paused, and her sigh was filled with concern. ‘You know there’s every chance they’re still going to try?’

Enzo nodded grimly. ‘I guess it all began with the attempt on my life at the
château
in Gaillac last year. That must have been Bright.’

But the chief of police was slowly shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid it wasn’t, Enzo. We ran a DNA check with the blood sample recovered from the
château
. It wasn’t Bright who tried to kill you in Gaillac. So you can probably assume it wasn’t even related to the Lambert case.’ She drew a long breath. ‘Which means it’s likely that there are still two unrelated sets of people out there who want you dead.’

Enzo glanced from the window to see the sunlight turning pink across the hills, the sky beyond them shading to a dusky blue. Then he turned back to the
commissaire
and contrived a pale smile. ‘I’m glad you dropped by to cheer me up.’