‘No time,’ Enzo said. ‘Marie Aucoin must have had her own way of getting in. So there must be a way out to the Rue d’Assas from here.’
‘It used to be bricked up at the far side there,’ Samu said, and they followed him through the dark cavern, Bertrand hefting his sledgehammer on his shoulder. A tunnel led off from the north-west corner. Two meters along it they reached a dead end. It was sealed off. Red brick covered in graffiti, a cartoon image of a white pig with a curling tail, the names of countless visitors sprayed in red and black and green. There was a pile of loose rubble gathered against the foot of the wall. Enzo dropped to his knees and started pulling the stone away with desperate fingers.
‘There’s a hole behind this.’
They all joined in, and very quickly uncovered a hole hacked in the brick. It was wide enough for only a very slight person to crawl through.
‘Get out of the way,’ Bertrand said quietly. And when they had moved aside he swung his sledgehammer at the brick, sending sparks and splinters flying through the air. He let the heavy head of it fall to the floor before heaving it back above his shoulder and swinging it down again through an arc at the wall. Enzo saw the impact of it shudder through the young man’s body. There was sweat trickling down from his scalp. It took five swings before, finally, brick and mortar cracked, and the wall collapsed around the initial hole. Cold, damp air rushed through the opening.
They could hear Kirsty screaming now, desperate pleas for help. Enzo clambered over the shattered brickwork and into the east tunnel of the Rue d’Assas. ‘Which way?’ he shouted.
‘Turn right.’ Samu’s voice was right behind him.
Water fell like rain from the cold stone above their heads, making it slippery underfoot. The light of their flashlights barely penetrated the fog of humidity that filled the tunnel, and they very nearly ran into a second wall blocking their progress. It, too, had been holed, but this time the gap was big enough even for Enzo to get through.
Kirsty’s voice was closer now, but it had lost its fire, shredded and chopped by sobs and tears.
‘Kirsty, hold on!’ Enzo shouted.
‘Da-ad-y!’ she screamed back, and he felt tears of shock and fear fill his eyes, burning them like acid.
‘There, on your left,’ Samu called, and Enzo saw a narrow opening on the west side of the tunnel, just ahead of them. The ground sloped away steeply into the turn, and down into the transversal. Somewhere along the way, Enzo had lost his helmet. He shone the flashlight Samu had given him down into the tunnel and saw that it was full of water.
‘Oh, my god!’ He started wading into it, almost surprised at how warm it seemed, and very quickly he was up to his chest. He raised the flashlight above his head and kept going. The water was almost up to his neck before finally the ceiling levelled off, and he found himself looking along the gap between the water and the roof. It was maybe fifteen centimeters. He shone his flashlight along the surface and saw Kirsty’s head tipped back so that her mouth and nose were above the water level, only just still able to draw breath. She turned her head towards the light, and he saw the terror in her eyes.
‘Daddy!’
‘Hold on, baby, I’m coming.’ Enzo plunged under the water, kicking hard to propel himself forward. It was cloudy. The light of his flashlight barely penetrated it, and he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He bumped into Kirsty before he saw her, and immediately surfaced to gasp for air. The water level was rising fast. There was hardly any gap left at all now. He ducked under again and grabbed his daughter’s arms, following them to find metal cuffs at the wrists attached to a chain. The chain was half a meter in length and looped through an iron ring set into the stone. The loop was padlocked. He took the chain in both hands, braced his feet against the wall and pulled with all his might. There was not even the hint of movement. The chances were the ring had been sunk in the stone years ago and was rusted solid into it.
His lungs were bursting now, and he surfaced again for air. This time he smacked his head against the roof. There was no longer any gap. There was no more air. He saw his own blood colour the water red. And he turned to see Kirsty looking at him through cloudy water, eyes wide, filled with resignation, bubbles streaming up from her nose and mouth. He knew he couldn’t hold his breath much longer, and so he grabbed her and hugged her to him, wondering if it were possible to make up for all those years of lost love in their last seconds together.
A hand grabbed him and pulled him roughly aside. He saw Bertrand’s piercings and his nose stud and the grim set of his mouth. He had strapped on Samu’s hard hat, and its lamp cut a sharp beam through the murk. The boy took the chain and, like Enzo, braced himself against the wall. Well-toned muscles, built during hours of patient exercise, bulged and strained. Enzo saw the veins stand out on his forehead. Still the ring did not move. Bertrand let go, then, and wound the chain around both elbows, bending his arms and placing his feet flat against the wall again. Enzo held on to Kirsty, air escaping now in great billowing bubbles from his lungs, and saw Bertrand strain every living fibre, jets of air exploding from his mouth and nostrils. He heard himself saying,
I don’t want Sophie throwing her life away on a waster like you
, and felt a dreadful surge of guilt. And then, suddenly, the ring gave, in a cloud of brown rust, and they were free. Bertrand grabbed Enzo by the collar and pulled him back along the transversal. The limp form of Kirsty trailing along behind them.
As soon as they hit the ramp, Bertrand hauled them both clear of the water, and Enzo felt air tearing at his lungs, choking and wretching and gasping for breath. Charlotte and Samu helped drag them up into the tunnel.
Enzo got himself on to his knees, tears streaming from his eyes. Kirsty lay on the floor, eyes shut, mouth gaping. She was no longer breathing. He was too late. He had always been too late.
Samu pulled him away as Bertrand bent over the prostrate form of his daughter, pinching her nose, and putting his mouth to hers. He blew air into her lungs, and then placed his hands on her chest to pump it out again. Water spluttered and spurted from her mouth. He repeated the action. More water. A third attempt, and this time a cough, and then an involuntary gasp, followed by a fit of coughing and water bubbling from her lips and nostrils. Her eyes opened, full of fear and incomprehension.
II.
Warm summer rain poured down on them out of the night as Bertrand slid aside the heavy IDC plaque. He pulled himself up on to the pavement, and then knelt to help Enzo out after him. Kirsty was still only semi-conscious. Enzo had insisted on carrying her, and now he laid her out on the hard wet paving stones, easing her down from an aching shoulder, before collapsing beside her, utterly exhausted. He saw neon lights in the window of the Brasserie Les Facultés. Traffic lights on the corner of the Rue Joseph Bara were at green, but there was no traffic. He rolled his head the other way and saw, at the far end of the street, the Faculté de Droit et Sciences Économiques d’Assas, from which the young Jacques Gaillard had graduated all those years before.
Hands helped him to sit up, and he turned to find himself looking into dark eyes full of concern, and something more. Something he couldn’t quite define. Charlotte smiled and kissed him on the forehead. ‘No more secrets,’ she whispered.
Samu and Bertrand pulled him across the pavement so that he was propped up against the wall below a line of billboards. And then they leaned Kirsty against his chest, and she drew up her legs like a child in the womb. He put his arm around her shoulder and let his head fall back against the wall, and he found himself looking up at Bertrand. He held his gaze for several seconds, and then reached up a hand. When the young man gave him his, he held it tight. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
He was only vaguely aware, then, of Bertrand talking on a cell phone, and no idea how much time had passed before he heard a car draw up at the kerbside, and the sound of sirens in the distance. There seemed to be people and voices all around them. He saw Nicole’s pale-faced concern drift in and out of his field of vision. He heard Raffin say something about the police. He looked up and saw a tearful Sophie looking down at them. ‘I promised you I’d come back,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I still hate her, though.’
Kirsty turned her head, something in the voice that dragged her back from the deep. That strange, whisky-sweet Scottish accent. ‘Who? Who does she hate?’
‘You,’ Sophie said.
Kirsty looked at her father with eyes that she could barely keep open. ‘Who is she?’
Enzo smiled. ‘She’s your sister, Kirsty. But she’s only kidding. Aren’t you, Sophie?’
Kirsty looked up at her again. Sophie smiled. ‘Sure I am.’ And she got down on her knees to put her arms around them both, and buried her face in her father’s neck.
Enzo stood in front of the Président’s desk. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and lay in geometric patterns across the blue carpet. The Lycée Bellevue shimmered distantly in the August heat. Summer courses were drawing to a close. A fresh intake would soon be arriving, young minds exercised in the arts of science and technology. The Président’s desk was as untidy as it always was. He came through from the outer office with his nose buried in an open folder. He wore a pair of frameless designer glasses perched lightly on the bridge of his nose.
He looked up and over the top of them at Enzo, and shook his hand. ‘Congratulations, Macleod. Damn fine job.’
Enzo was surprised. After their last meeting he was half-expecting to be sacked. ‘Thank you, Monsieur le Président.’
‘Take a seat, take a seat.’ And he took his own advice, flopping into the captain’s chair behind his desk and dropping his folder in front of him. He removed his glasses and let them swing gently from his thumb and forefinger. He rubbed his chin and regarded Enzo thoughtfully. Enzo pulled up a chair and sat down, and the Président picked up his folder again and held it out. ‘You’ll have seen most of these, no doubt.’
Enzo opened the folder to find it full of newspaper cuttings about the Jacques Gaillard case. He looked up. ‘Yes, Monsieur le Président.’
The Président leaned forward on his elbows. ‘There’s been a lot of interest, Macleod. We’ve had offers of funding.’ He waved a hand to indicate the paper blizzard on his desk. ‘A proposal to establish a Chair of Forensic Science. That would be quite a feather in our cap. Of course, I’d expect you to head up the department.’
Enzo raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting idea, Monsieur le Président.’
‘It’ll take time, naturally, to set things in motion. So I’ve appointed a new head of biology, and I want you to take some time off. A sabbatical. Paid, of course. Come up with a concrete plan of implementation. A budget. Nothing too outrageous, mind.’
‘No, Monsieur le Président.’
‘And while you’re at it, it wouldn’t do any harm at all if you applied your very particular talents to unravelling a few more of those unsolved cases that Raggin’s been collecting.’
‘Raffin.’
‘What?’
‘Raffin. His name’s Roger Raffin.’
‘That’s what I said.’ The Président replaced his glasses carefully on the bridge of his nose and looked over them again at Enzo. ‘So what do you say?’
Enzo cocked his head and looked at him for a very long time. ‘Are those new glasses, Monsieur le Président?’
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