And then Nicole appeared from behind the east stand. As she approached them Enzo saw that she was frowning. ‘Why are we here, Monsieur Macleod?’
Enzo sighed. Facts were easier to explain than instinct. ‘Because Metz won the League Cup in 1996. A replica trophy was one of the clues we found at Hautvillers. And because the club’s emblem is a salamander. That was another of them.’
‘Do you have photographs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s have a look at them, then,’ Sophie said, and they all crowded around Enzo at the open back door as he took the prints out of his bag and laid them along the floor of the van.
Bertrand craned his neck to see. ‘Is that the trophy?’ He stabbed a finger at the picture of the cup.
‘Yes.’
‘Then that’s not the League Cup. Not even the old one. The League Cup’s a unique design. Unmistakeable.’
‘So what it is, then?’ Nicole asked.
Bertrand lifted the photograph. ‘This is the
Coupe de France
.’
‘What’s the difference?’ Sophie said.
‘The difference is that in 1996, the
Coupe de France
was won by Auxerre. Not Metz.’
I.
The mediaeval city of Auxerre stood on a hill on the banks of the river Yonne, one hundred and seventy kilometers south-east of Paris, in the heart of the Bourgogne. It was early afternoon by the time they reached it, and ominous, dark clouds had already begun rolling in from the west. The air was humid, hot, filled with the promise of summer rain. As they crossed the Pont Paul Bert, daylight darkness settled like a shroud on the towers and buttresses of St. Étienne Cathedral, which dominated the skyline on the west bank. Cruise boats lined up along the quays opposite, rising and falling as if in slow motion on the gentle slate grey swell of the river.
The Stade Abbé Deschamps stood along the banks of the Yonne at the south end of town, surrounded by playing fields and running tracks. Bertrand turned left off the main road into the car park in front of the main stand, and Enzo got out of the van stretching and flexing limbs that had stiffened up during the three-and-a-half hour drive.
Kids were playing football on the far side of a fence, aspiring future stars, shouting and chasing, attracted to the ball like metal filings to a magnet. Enzo left Sophie and Bertrand and Nicole in the van and walked along the length of the stand, past the boutique and the ticket office and the administration block. He had a sickening sense of
déjà vu
. One football stadium was much like another. Metz had been a wild goose chase. Auxerre might well be the same. He had no idea what he was looking for.
Behind the Leclerc stand, which backed on to the river, youngsters were chasing one another up and down the concrete steps, their catcalls and laughter echoing between rows of grey plastic seats. In the dark beneath the overhang, he saw two young lovers backed up against a wall, oblivious to the kids playing on the staircases and landings above them, driven by adolescent hormones to fulfil some desperate fantasy amongst the broken bottles and discarded beer cans. Beyond the trees, two teams of rowers cut through choppy waters, the blades of their oars rising and falling in perfect unison, throwing cool spray into warm air.
Even as he found his way between the stands to the very edge of the pitch, secure behind its moat and fences, he knew that there would be nothing for him here. Cut grass and advertising hoardings, rows of empty seats rising into the stands.
When he got back to the van Nicole looked at him expectantly. ‘Well?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m wasting my time here. And yours. We should go back to Cahors.’
‘It’s a long drive,’ Bertrand said.
Enzo looked at him. The young man was exhausted. He had driven through the night to Metz, and then again all morning to Auxerre. It would be six or seven hours back to Cahors. ‘Why don’t we stay overnight?’ Enzo said. ‘I’ll pay for a hotel. We can head back in the morning.’ After all, what was there to hurry back for?
***
The Hôtel l’Aquarius was at the end of the Avenue Gambetta, east of the river, in the new part of town. The rooms were small, windows looking out over a shambles of red-tiled rooftops and seedy back yards. Nicole went off with Sophie and Bertrand to explore the old city, and Enzo lay down on his bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling. He thought again about all the clues which had brought him here. There were too many anomalies. The referee’s whistle with the numbers 19/3 scratched into the plating. They didn’t seem to fit with anything else. The salamander which had sent him on a fool’s errand to Metz. How certain he had been that he would find the answers he was looking for at Metz football club. A certainty so easily punctured by Bertrand’s revelation about the
Coupe de France
and Auxerre. Perhaps Enzo had misread the clues completely. Perhaps there was no football connection at all. When conviction is fractured, doubt creeps in through all the cracks.
The silence in Enzo’s room pressed in around him. He wondered what awaited him in Cahors. Was he still in danger? He wished he had never heard of Raffin and his seven most celebrated unsolved murders. It was one thing to make an argument in the abstract during the course of a dinner, to deliver bold statements and accept wagers, it was quite another to come face to face with reality. Real life. Real death. Murder. Personal tragedy. He thought of Charlotte, and of how things had been between them, and he remembered an old Chinese proverb.
It is not an easy thing to mend a broken mirror
.
He reached for the remote control and turned on the television. The melodramatic orchestral overtures of some dubbed American soap filled the room. But anything was better than the silence which accompanied regret. He closed his eyes and let the sounds of it wash over him without listening.
He was not certain how long he had been asleep, but something in the voice that wakened him penetrated deep into his subconscious to bring him bubbling back to the surface. The national television news was playing on France 3, and he realised with something of a shock that it was after seven. His thoughts were quickly focused on the commentary of the reporter. He squinted at the picture to see helicopter footage of long traffic tailbacks on the
périphérique
ring road around Paris. His heart was pounding, but he wasn’t quite sure why.
It took firemen more than half an hour to cut through the wreckage to recover the body
, the voice-over told him.
An investigation has already begun into what caused the vehicle to swerve across three lanes of traffic and into the containing wall before bursting into flames
. A still photograph filled the screen, and Enzo sat abruptly upright. It was the same photograph he had seen on the internet yesterday. A stock shot, apparently in use by all the media. Diop’s unmistakable lopsided smile.
François Diop was being tipped for high office at the United Nations before today’s tragedy. He is survived by a wife and two young children
.
Enzo sat with the blood pulsing at his temples. Diop was dead. The man who had tried to kill him just two days ago. The man whose footballing past had led Enzo to this provincial hotel room in the ancient city of Auxerre. Dead because of Enzo. He was sure of that.
An urgent knocking at the door startled him. Sophie’s voice called from the hall. ‘Papa? Papa, are you there?’ He slid off the bed, and as he stood the blood rushed to his head. He steadied himself against the door jamb and unlocked the door. Sophie and Bertrand and Nicole stood in the darkness. Sophie seemed shocked by his appearance. ‘Papa, are you feeling all right?’
‘I’m fine, Sophie. What’s all the noise about?’
She grinned then, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. ‘You’ll never guess what we found up in the old town.’
‘You’re right, I’ll never guess.’
‘A restaurant,’ Nicole said before Sophie could respond.
Enzo sighed. ‘Is that a hint that you’re hungry?’
Nicole shook her head triumphantly, but Sophie beat her to the punchline. ‘It’s called The Salamander.’
II.
La Salamandre restaurant was at number 84 rue de Paris, next door to a wine merchant’s, and opposite a shop supplying flowers for funerals. The three youngsters led Enzo up through the narrow streets of the
cité médiéval
. A cat sat in an open window, above an old bicycle, and watched them go by. Geraniums poured in carefully pruned cascades from hanging pots on almost every corner. Tourists filled the
cafés
in Place Charles Surugue, soaking up the burgundy wines and the centuries-old ambience of the ancient, beamed buildings that leaned and tilted at odd angles all around them. Enzo watched the town slide by, like a man seeing the world through a fisheye lens. There was nothing here out of the ordinary, and yet none of it seemed quite real. He felt oddly detached, as if fate had taken away his powers of decision-making, and given over his life to the vagaries of chance and serendipity. The same clues which had led Enzo to Diop were leading him now to a restaurant in a quiet back street in this
départemental
capital of the Yonne. A chance find by these young people he had unwittingly involved in this foolish venture.
Painted salamanders climbed the pale green frames around the door of the restaurant.
Poissons—Fruits de Mer
, it said in both windows. They stood outside on the pavement, looking at a menu offering oysters, large roasted king prawns, half lobster roasted in its shell with pan-fried chanterelle mushrooms.
‘What do you want to do?’ Nicole asked.
Enzo could almost hear her salivating. ‘I suppose we’d better go in and eat.’
It was still early, and they were seated at a table near the window. The waiter was a young man in his early twenties. Bertrand, at Enzo’s bidding, ordered a 1999 Pouilly Fuissé to wash down their seafood. Sophie asked for a bottle of Badoit, Nicole a diet Coke, and Enzo asked the waiter if he knew of any connection between the restaurant and Auxerre football club.
The young man gave him an odd look. ‘Why on earth would there be?’
Enzo shrugged, a little embarrassed. It must have seemed like a very peculiar question. ‘I don’t know. I just wondered, that’s all.’
The waiter looked puzzled. ‘Not that I know of. I could ask the owner if you like. Monsieur Colas. He’s also the chef. He opened this place more than twenty years ago.’
‘No, that’s all right.’ Enzo knew now that this was a waste of time. No more than a bizarre coincidence. And then a thought occurred to him. ‘Are you a supporter?’
‘Of Auxerre? Sure. My father started taking me when I was just five years old.’
‘You know that the salamander was the emblem of François Premier?’
The waiter looked at him as if he were a sandwich short of a picnic. This was all getting a little surreal. ‘Was it?’ It was clear that he didn’t.
Enzo was disappointed. ‘So you wouldn’t know of any connection between Auxerre football club and François Premier.’
‘I could tell you more about the English Premiership than François Premier. And apart from where they finished in the league last season, the only unusual thing I know about Auxerre football club is their patron saint. Saint Joseph. And I only know that because it’s the name of the school I went to.’
Enzo was beginning to feel like one of the Three Princes of Serendip. ‘There’s a school in Auxerre called Saint Joseph’s?’
‘Sure. Saint Jo’s. It’s a
lycée
and
coll
è
ge
and commercial school all rolled into one. Just up the hill there in the Quartier Saint Simeon.’ He paused. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’
Enzo shook is head. ‘No. Thank you.’
Nicole looked at him. ‘Is that significant?’
‘One of the items we found along with the clues that led us here was a referee’s whistle with numbers scratched into the plating. A nineteen and a three, separated by an oblique.’
‘Nineteen, three,’ Bertrand said. ‘March 19th.’
Enzo was taken aback. It had taken Charlotte to point that out to him. ‘It’s Saint Joseph’s day,’ he said.
Bertrand thought for a moment. ‘So you think the clues only led to Auxerre football club, in order to take you on to the school, via the club’s patron saint?’
Enzo shrugged his eyebrows. ‘It’s possible.’
‘But what could there be at the school?’ Sophie asked.
‘Playing fields, perhaps.’ Enzo shook his head. ‘There has to be some reason for the inclusion of a referee’s whistle.’ The waiter brought an ice bucket to their table, Pouilly Fuissé chilling in iced water. ‘We’d better go and see.’ He caught Nicole’s look of alarm and added, ‘after we’ve eaten.’
III.
Saint Jo’s Collège and Lycée was at the top of the Boulevard de la Marne on the northern edge of town. It was flanked on its west side by suburban villas and bungalows. At the foot of the hill there was a development of residential apartments, and a franchise for Mitsubishi Motors. The school itself stood, in the gathering gloom, behind white walls and blue fencing, in several acres of forested parkland. The sky was a pewtery blue-black, low clouds scraping the surrounding hills. Streetlamps fought to make any impression in the growing twilight. Bertrand drew his van up to electronic gates that were closed and padlocked. There were no lights beyond them, and no sign of life. Immediately opposite, the offices of the Crédit Agricole bank were shuttered and dark. The only light was a moth-infested pool of yellow at a roadside cash dispenser.
There was little or no traffic on the boulevard as Enzo stepped out of the van to feel the first spots of rain, warm and heavy on his face. Somewhere beyond the far hills, the sky flashed and crackled, and several seconds later they heard the distant rumble of thunder. The air was filled with the smell of ozone. A sudden
courant d’air
moved among the trees beyond the fence like a sigh. The first turbulent breath of the coming storm.
Enzo scaled the gate with the minimum of effort and dropped down on the other side.
‘Papa, you can’t just go breaking into the place,’ Sophie hissed at him from the van.
‘I’m not breaking anything. I’m just having a look.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Bertrand said suddenly. And before any of the others could object, he was out of the van, and vaulting easily over the gate. He grinned at the scowling Enzo. ‘Safety in numbers.’ He snapped on his flashlight. ‘And it helps to be able to see.’
Nicole climbed out of the back. ‘Be careful, Monsieur Macleod.’
‘And for goodness’ sake be quick!’ Sophie called after them as they moved off into the grounds and were consumed by the dark.
They followed the beam of Bertrand’s flashlight along a metalled drive, an empty car park brooding silently away to the right. To their left, a roadway ran off through trees to a cluster of single and two-storey flat-roofed buildings. Up ahead, floodlights mounted on the roof of the school gymnasium were trained on an area of playing fields behind a high wire fence. In the distance, Enzo could just make out a patchwork of baseball and volleyball courts. Immediately to their right was the football pitch. A dusty, chalky, burned-up stretch of what might once have been grass. Bertrand swung his beam across the pitch to pick out the white of the goal posts. The nets had been removed. Big fat raindrops were leaving craters in the dust.