He sprinted up, two at a time, with a rush of adrenaline, and was blinded by a light that shone suddenly and directly into his eyes. He yelled and swung out blind, with a clenched fist, punching the wall and gasping in pain.
He heard a startled exclamation and a woman’s voice. ‘For God’s sake, Enzo, what are you doing?’
As he hopped around the landing, waving his injured hand, and dredging up infantile swear words from his childhood, it occurred to him that it was a voice he knew. He shielded his eyes from the light and saw Charlotte’s frightened face peering at him out of the dark. ‘Could you please stop shining that thing in my face?’ And when she diverted it to the floor, he saw that it was the kind of small penlight you might carry on a key ring. ‘How did you get in?’
‘I remembered the code from the night you brought me up for coffee. The lights weren’t working, but I had this little flashlight, so I decided to sit on the stairs and wait till you got back.’
Enzo was opening and closing his hand, flexing bruised joints.
Charlotte added, ‘But I didn’t expect you to try to assault me.’
‘I didn’t know it was you.’ Enzo realised he wasn’t making a very good impression.
‘So do you normally try to punch people you meet on the stairs?’
‘I thought someone was waiting to jump me.’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’
‘Because it wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried it tonight.’ Enzo unlocked the door to the studio and reached in to switch on a light.
Charlotte laughed. ‘Wha-at?’
‘I was being followed. On the ële St. Louis. At least, I think I was.’
‘What were you doing on the ële St. Louis? I thought you were having dinner with the Garde des Sceaux.’
‘It’s a long story.’
She followed him into the studio and watched as he poured himself a large whisky. ‘What on earth have you been up to?’ She looked at the state of his suit. ‘You’re covered in sand. And your trousers are ripped.’
‘I jumped off the Pont St. Louis into a passing barge.’ He avoided her eye.
‘I think I’d better have one of those, too.’ She nodded towards the whisky bottle. ‘And maybe you should tell me what happened.’
As Enzo related the story to Charlotte, his fears seemed absurd, and his response to them verging on the ludicrous. She was hardly able to drink her whisky for laughing.
‘It’s not funny,’ he said. ‘I really thought these guys were after me.’
‘But why?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid. This whole Jacques Gaillard thing is getting out of hand. His killers must know I’m getting close to them.’ He looked up, struck by a sudden thought. ‘How did you know I was having dinner with the Garde des Sceaux?’
‘Roger told me.’
‘Oh, did he? You two seem to do a lot of talking for a couple who’ve just broken up.’
‘It wasn’t an acrimonious split,’ Charlotte said, and then immediately qualified herself. ‘Well, not really.’ But it wasn’t something she was going to discuss further. ‘So what did Marie Aucoin have to say for herself?’
‘She’s set up a special team to investigate Gaillard’s killing. And it was made clear to me that I was to have nothing further to do with it.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to have everything further to do with it.’
Charlotte smiled. ‘Of course you are.’ She took his whisky glass from him. ‘Why don’t you take off your trousers and sit up on the breakfast bar, and I’ll dress that wound for you.’
‘Best offer I’ve had all night.’ Enzo kicked off his shoes, undid his belt and stepped out of his trousers. He hoisted himself up on to the breakfast bar, his legs dangling, and for the second time that night felt like a big kid. He remembered his mother sitting him up next to the kitchen sink to clean the gravel out of skinned knees when he was a little boy in Scotland.
Charlotte found a sponge in an unopened pack under the sink, and some disinfectant. She boiled a kettle and mixed up a solution of water and disinfectant to clean out the gash on his knee. It stung, and he yelled out, flinching from the sponge. ‘Don’t be a baby,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to get an infection in that.’ She discovered a roll of bandage in a drawer and taped it over the wound. ‘I think you’ll live.’
Enzo wanted to keep her close. ‘Tell me, in your considered opinion as a forensic psychologist, why would Jacques Gaillard’s killers leave clues with each of his body parts?’
‘Clues to what?’
‘To the location of the next body part.’
She shrugged. ‘Without knowing more about the case I can only offer an uninformed guess.’
‘Which is?’
‘He, she, they…want to be caught.’
‘But that’s crazy. Why?’
‘Well, if they don’t get caught, no one will ever know how clever they were. After all, they got away with murder. It’s not uncommon for a killer to want to be caught so he can claim the credit.’
‘But they went to great lengths to hide the body parts so that they would never be found.’
Charlotte sighed. ‘Then your guess is as good as mine.’
Beyond the initial jagged pain when she dabbed his knee with the sponge, he had enjoyed the cool, soft touch of her fingers on his skin. And after she had finished, she left a hand draped over his thigh, her belly still pressed against his other leg as they talked. He could smell her perfume, and felt the warmth of her through her dress. She looked up at him, and her face was very close. Her eyes were like big, dark saucers, and they fixed him with a twinkle that was half serious, half amused. He felt blood rushing to his loins, and on an impulse leaned forward to kiss her. To his surprise and delight, she made no attempt to move away. Her lips were soft and moist, and there was a sweetness on her tongue. He cupped the back of her head in his hand, feeling the soft, silky texture of her curls, the smooth curve of her skull as it swooped down to her neck. He felt her hand on his chest, fingers moving up to his face.
And then it was over, and they broke apart and looked at each other for a long time without a word passing between them. Finally Enzo said, in almost a whisper, ‘Stay over.’
But she shook her head. ‘I have an early client. Another time.’
‘There might not be another time. I have to go to Toulouse tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
‘The Président of my university has requested an audience. I think he’s going to sack me.’ He tried a smile, but it was a poor attempt at masking his disappointment.
I.
The Université Paul Sabatier was smudged across a great, sprawling campus on the southern outskirts of Toulouse. Sabatier had been the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Toulouse University in the early part of the twentieth century, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1912. Enzo had often thought how the great man would have been horrified to see the crumbling collection of faculty buildings thrown up in his name thirty years after his death. The science-based university consisted of disparate, ugly concrete blocks separated by vast car parks and scrubby patches of sun-scorched grass which turned to mud in winter.
From the dilapidated administration building, an avenue of trees flanked a long rectangle of green, stagnant water leading to a series of lawns providing a perspective to the distant, classical Lycée Bellevue on the other side of the Route de Narbonne.
Enzo parked in front of the administration block and climbed broken steps, past graffitied pillars, to the main entrance hall. The office of the Président was one floor up on the mezzanine level. His secretary ushered Enzo into his office and told him that the Président would be with him shortly. Huge glass windows gave out on to the view towards the Lycée Bellevue whose
belle vue
the university was spoiling. Students attending summer courses ambled across the concourse below, unhurried in the striking heat of the southern sun. The office was airless and hot. There was no air conditioning, and Enzo took a handkerchief from his satchel to mop his forehead. He sat down in front of the Président’s vast desk and let his eyes wander across the shambles of paperwork which littered it. The Président’s glasses lay, half open, on top of a pile of exam papers. Designer tortoiseshell frames, lenses divided in two for distance and close work. On an impulse, Enzo reached over to pick them up. They were handsome spectacles, and he wondered if they might suit him. He put them on and stood up to try to catch his reflection in the window. As he did, he heard the door opening behind him, and he snatched the glasses from his face. He turned, slipping his hands behind his back to hide them.
‘Macleod,’ the Président said, and he held out his hand.
Enzo swapped the Président’s glasses from one hand to the other, and firmly shook the one being proffered. When he returned his right hand to its place behind his back, it was only to discover that somehow the index finger of his left had become jammed in the bridge between the two lenses. He pulled discreetly, but it wouldn’t budge.
The Président dropped into his chair and regarded Enzo thoughtfully. ‘You’re a damned nuisance, Macleod.’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’
‘Well, sit down.’ He waved a hand at the chair opposite.
But Enzo knew he could not very well sit down with his hands behind his back. He yanked again at the glasses. ‘I’d rather stand.’ He felt awkward and foolish.
‘As you wish.’ The Président began searching about his desk, lifting and laying papers, a frown forming itself in deep lines between his eyes. ‘I spent an unpleasant fifteen minutes on the phone with the Chief of Police yesterday. I suppose you can imagine the topic of conversation?’
‘I suppose I can.’
The Président flicked him a fleeting glance, suspecting sarcasm, then returned to his search. ‘He was adamant that the place for a Professor of Biology is in the classroom. And I have to tell you, I agreed with him.’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’
Finally, the frustrations of his fruitless search boiled over. ‘Where the hell are my glasses! I’m sure I left them on the desk. Damned things cost an arm and a leg.’ He looked up at Enzo. ‘You didn’t see them, did you?’
‘No, Monsieur le Président.’ Enzo wedged the glasses in his right hand and pulled hard with his left. There was a loud crack as the frame broke in two across the bridge.
The Président looked up. Enzo moved his head around as if his neck was troubling him. ‘Good God, man, I’d get that seen to,’ the Président said. He opened a drawer and pulled out that morning’s edition of
Libération
, and Enzo slipped the broken halves of the glasses into his pocket. ‘And then this appears in the paper this morning.’ He held it up. But Enzo didn’t need to look. He had read Raffin’s account of the find in Toulouse during his flight down from Paris. ‘I know your background is in forensic science, Macleod, but that is not the capacity in which you are employed by this university. Your antics are attracting unwelcome publicity. We require state as well as private funding, and we cannot afford to offend our political masters. There could be financial implications. You understand?’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’ Enzo was wondering what to do with the broken pieces of the Président’s glasses, which were burning a hole now in his pocket.
‘I’ve always thought you were a maverick, Macleod. You’re too chummy with the students. I hear that you’ve been known to go drinking with them, and that they even invite you to parties. Is that true?’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’
The Président shook his head. He was feeling about in his pockets. ‘Doesn’t do. Doesn’t do at all. Not good for discipline.’
‘Is there a problem with my student pass rates?’
‘No.’ The Président gave a little defensive shrug of each shoulder. ‘But that’s not the point.’
‘What is the point, Monsieur le Président?’
‘The point is, Macleod, that I want you to lay off this amateur detective nonsense.’
‘I’m on holiday, Monsieur le Président.’
The Président stood up. ‘Yes, you are, Macleod. And I can arrange for it to be permanent if that’s how you’d prefer it.’
‘No, Monsieur le Président.’
‘Good, then we understand one another.’ He stretched out a hand to indicate that the interview was at an end.
Enzo shook it. ‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’
And as he walked through the outer office he heard the Président shout to his secretary, ‘Amélie! Have you seen my glasses?’
‘No, Monsieur le Président.’ Amélie hurried through to help him look for them.
Enzo took the pieces from his pocket and dropped them in the wastepaper bin. He didn’t feel so bad now about breaking them.
II.
It was early afternoon by the time he stepped off the Toulouse train in Cahors. He was depressed and disheartened. Warned off the Gaillard case twice. Once by the government, once by his employer. And he had spent most of the previous night dwelling on what might have been with Charlotte. He had known from their first meeting at Raffin’s apartment that she was special. She was affecting him in a way no woman had since Pascale. Dry mouth, palpitations, loss of self-confidence. It was uncomfortably like being a teenager again. He hardly knew her, and yet he knew that what he felt was more than just attraction. And last night, when they kissed, he had wanted simply to possess her. Entirely. It had been hard for him to accept her rejection, and he had lain awake most of the night thinking about it. There was no knowing when he would next be in Paris. And so he had no idea when he might see her again. The only redeeming thought in which he found comfort was that last night it was she who had come to see him.
He let himself go with the flow of disembarking passengers, out through the station foyer and into the afternoon sunshine.
It was a fifteen minute walk back to his apartment, where the final straw awaited him. He saw it as soon as he opened the door. Bertrand’s metal detector. He could not believe it was still there. ‘Sophie!’ he bellowed. But there was no response. The apartment was empty. He had no idea where Nicole might be. He picked up the metal detector and stormed off down the stairs in search of his car.
***
Bertrand’s gym was on the west side of the river, across the Pont Neuf, at the far end of the Quai de la Verrerie. The gym had been converted to its present purpose from a disused
miroiterie
. Tall windows along the front of the building flooded the interior with light. It was divided in two. There was a
salle des appareils
, filled with heavy weightlifting and fitness training equipment. A room beyond it with a sprung wooden floor was used for aerobics and dancing. One of its walls was lined entirely with mirrors so that overweight housewives could watch their flesh heaving as they tried to exercise it away.
Enzo had never visited the gym. He knew that it had an older clientele during the day, and that in the evening it was a popular haunt for the town’s teenagers. There were nearly twenty cars parked outside, and Enzo had trouble getting parked himself. He took the metal detector and pushed open the door. A number of middle-aged men and women looked up from miscellaneous pieces of equipment, and nodded and mumbled
bonjour
. A television set mounted on the wall was belting out MTV music videos. There was a sour smell of body odour and feet. Through windows along the back wall, he could see thirty or more women, ages ranging from twenty-five to sixty-five, dance-stepping in time to an endlessly repetitive beat. Bertrand was leading them, calling out each change in step. He wore a muscle tee-shirt, and close-fit shorts that cut off just above his calf. Enzo had only ever seen him in jeans and loose-fitting tee-shirts, and was almost shocked by his beautifully sculpted physique. God only knew how many hours of muscle-burning weight training it took to build a body like that.
Now that he was here, the metal detector in his hands, Enzo was not quite sure what to do with it. He could hardly burst into the aerobics class waving it at Bertrand. He decided to wait until the class was finished. He sat down on an exercise bench and waited through another ten minutes of mind numbing dance beat before the women began streaming out towards the changing rooms, a babble of breathless, excited voices.
He stood up and saw Bertrand laughing and joking with a group of them. Hard as it was to see past the facial piercing and the gelled, blond-tipped spikes, with reluctance Enzo supposed that Bertrand was a good-looking young man. The women couldn’t keep their hands off him, all anxious to kiss him goodbye. And he seemed to be enjoying it, flirting with them, encouraging them. His smile faded when he saw Enzo and the metal detector. He detached himself from the ladies and came across to shake his hand, the diamond stud in his nose glinting in the sunlight that slanted in through the front windows. Enzo grudgingly took the proffered hand. ‘You left something at the apartment.’ He thrust the metal detector into Bertrand’s chest. He was taller than Bertrand, but the boy’s physical presence was almost intimidating. A confrontation between the young buck and the grizzled old stag.
‘I can’t leaving it lying around here. It would be dangerous.’
‘I can vouch for that. And I don’t want it in my home.’
‘Fair enough.’ Bertrand turned and headed out of the door with it. Enzo followed him across the car park to a battered white Citroen van. Bertrand opened the back doors and threw the metal detector inside. He closed the doors and turned to face his girlfriend’s father. ‘You don’t like me much, do you, Monsieur Macleod?’
‘So you’re quick as well as fit.’
Bertrand looked at him with hurt in his soft brown eyes. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Because I don’t want Sophie throwing her life away on a waster like you. I saw you in there with those women. Like some kind of…’ Enzo searched for the right word, ‘…gigolo. Disgusting.’
‘Monsieur Macleod,’ Bertrand said patiently, ‘these women pay good money to come to my fitness classes. It does no harm to be nice to them. It’s good for business. And as far as women are concerned, there’s only one in my life. And that’s Sophie.’
‘She’s not a woman, she’s just a girl.’
‘No, she’s a woman, Monsieur Macleod.’ Bertrand’s patience was wearing thin. ‘She’s not your little girl any more. So maybe it’s time you started letting her grow up.’
Enzo exploded. ‘Don’t you tell me how to bring up my daughter! I’ve done it for twenty years without any help from anyone. If it wasn’t for you she’d still be at university. She’s thrown away her future. And for what? Some muscle-bound dick-head who spends his days prancing about a gym with a bunch of middle-aged women. What possible future could she have with you?’
All the colour had drained now from Bertrand’s face. He stared back at Enzo with eyes that blazed anger and humiliation. He pointed at the gymnasium. ‘You see that gym? That’s mine. I created that. It was a derelict old factory until I raised the money to convert it. My father died when I was fourteen, and my mother couldn’t afford to put me through college, so I did it myself. I took two jobs, working nights and weekends.’
Enzo was already regretting his outburst. ‘Look…’ he said, determined that things should take a more conciliatory turn. But Bertrand wasn’t finished.
‘I’ve got a diploma on the wall in there. Top of my year. Do you know how hard it was to get that? Ten gruelling months at CREPS in Toulouse, studying anatomy, physiology, accounting, diet, muscle development. Do you know how many people apply for entry each year?’
Enzo shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Hundreds. And do you know how many they take? Twenty. The physical test’s tough. Twenty tractions, twenty push-ups, forty dips, twenty squat-lifts, and as many laps of the stadium as you can run in twenty minutes. Then there’s the written exam. General knowledge. An oral address to a panel on motivation and ambition, and then a gruelling question and answer session where they can ask you any question they damn well like for half an hour. It would be easier getting into one of the
Grande Écoles
.’
He paused for a moment, but only to draw breath. ‘So don’t call me a waster, Monsieur Macleod. I may be many things, but I’m not that. I do what I’m good at, and I’m good at what I do. I’ve worked damned hard to achieve what I have. And as far as Sophie’s concerned, I did everything I could to persuade her to stay on at university. But she’s the one who wanted to drop out. She told me there was no point in even trying to compete with her
genius
of a father.’
Enzo was stunned to silence, and felt the colour rising on his face.
‘Thanks for bringing the metal detector.’ Bertrand turned and went back into his gym.