Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “Well, Monsieur Lyon, I’m even more impressed, and for that,” I paused, “may I call you John?”

  A smile he couldn’t hide.

  “Of course.”

  “Good. And from now on, please call me Karen.”

  Chapter 21. John.

  68, Avenue Voltaire in Banyuls-sur-Mer had been Ricard Suzman’s address since July 1985. Hardly a distant move if he’d anything to hide, I’d thought, while Martine had returned the grey file in the desk drawer. However, a visit sometime during the early part of next week would be on the pretext of an interest in Les Pins’ history; but really to learn more about his questionable family. The ex-Notaire was hardly a spring chicken. All the more reason to act.

  *

  Before taking the empty lift to the ground floor where there was still no sign of Joel, I’d asked Martine stay with Karen. So, unless her helper had been mistaken, he’d known at least one of the Suzmans. Someone who might have returned for Herman’s head.

  I remember wishing that either Martine or I had memorised that silver Merc’s plate the first time we’d seen it. To state there’d been two males wearing shades up front when she’d been followed, would count for peanuts in a court of law.

  Revolver at the ready, I prowled from the Still Room to the unlit kitchen. Next, having activated the rear door, I was soon outside, pulling up my burn-stained cagoule’s hood, listening hard for other sounds above the river’s din. Those damned noisy trees too. Not for the first time I suspected this collective racket could eventually, drive the sanest soul mad.

  No sign of any intruders either, and the rear door closed behind me. However, the moment I was inside the other tower’s pitch-black interior, my heartbeat filled my ears. The torch battery was dying, but its fading beam soon proved what Karen had said. A junk heap, reeking of damp cardboard and old wood rotting against the earth floor. No footprints either, just the small criss-crossed imprints of mice.

  I probed the murky hills of unusable clobber doomed to degrade to dust, then discovered under a filthy double sheet, an old, metal trunk. The kind my late Dad took with him to the Royal Corps of Signals. Both closed catches had rusted.

  On top lay three stencilled words, now almost invisible with age. LES PINS. URGENT. Finally, after some serious hitting and heaving on my part, those clasps loosened enough for me to open the lid. Clamp my hand over my mouth.

  Shit...

  My torch’s beam wavered and died, but not before I’d seen in close up those worn-out trousers, dresses and coats embedded with active larvae. Items stitched together from different fabrics, as if there’d not been enough of any one material to go round. Portions of animal skins, various feathers and dried flowers sewn on as decoration. Hadn’t Karen said she’d seen a girl’s crumpled dress and a battered spinning top up in the attic? Well, here was more, plus painted, wooden farm animals, carved by hand.

  All for children…

  But why here? To whom had they belonged?

  Suddenly, a noise that made me open that tower’s door to a rush of air, a and, before I could defend myself, something hard and cold connected with my skull. After that, a warm, sticky flow filled my throat. Sealed my lips from crying out.

  Someone else had been in that tower and waited for me. But why?

  *

  Two youngish, strong guys. And was that a whiff of incense? A hint of BOSS aftershave? The same as Paul Suzman had worn?

  My gag and blindfold hurt like Hell. Wire around my wrists and ankles biting to the bone, as four hands gripped my boots, while the deeper I was dragged feet first, on my back into those roaring pines and cypresses, the more disorientated I became.

  Bastards…

  Next, unrecognisable French voices whispering, cursing, pulling me over bigger stones and piles of pine needles whose sharp spikes filled my ears and stabbed at my eyelids. I also heard the loud river close by, and wondered was this the same prelude to murder that Herman had endured? And if these were the two thugs who’d starred on Karen’s CCTV, how the hell had they got in?

  “Wolves here,” observed one of them. “Good place as any to say ciaou.”

  That’s when they let go of my boots, checked the wire still bound around my wrists and ankles, and began deliberating.

  “Leave him. Handy mouthfuls for our wild friends.”

  “You’re being too considerate.”

  “Who’s in charge, hein?”

  *

  Silence, save for those crazy trees.

  I shifted my blindfold and gag against a stray pine log and was just in time to see two black-cloaked figures flapping down the drive, caught in the security light’s beam.

  Shit…

  There I was, John Edward Lyon, former Detective Inspector with two awards for bravery, trussed-up like a fucking turkey. Bait for whatever else might come along. Could my attackers have arrived for Joel as well? To kill two birds with one stone? Me and the cook with the perfect hands? Could they possibly have been Paul Suzman and his saintly brother? Whoever.The way they’d spoken to each other, confirmed what a truly sick world I’d entered.

  *

  The soggy ground penetrated through to my skin. My head was on fire, but I couldn’t smell blood any more. It must have dried on my lips. I pushed thoughts of my sister’s comfortable villa out of my mind. Even the temporary billet here with its pristine furnishings, the glittering chrome ...

  My best, ‘breathable’ cagoule was torn beyond repair, but worse, knowing its right pocket was empty. No revolver.

  Damn them….

  That meant two extra weapons were out there somewhere, loaded and ready. And all the while, where was Joel? Certainly not dirtying his hands on me.

  Hang on…

  Another noise.

  More a snarl like our sniffer dogs made when they hit dope.

  “Keep moving,” I ordered myself. “Put up a fight.”

  I managed to roll back down the slope over deer shit and every other kind of shit and pine needles, just missing an iron-toothed trap half-buried in the humus.

  No thanks.

  I edged away and had just got to my knees when a torch beam scanned my face.

  “Jesus! What the Hell’s happened to you?”

  Martine…

  “Never mind, just help me get rid of this frigging wire,” I wheezed, spitting out pine needles, as she got to work. “And where’s Joel?”

  “Gone. No sign at all. I was about to go back indoors.”

  “But his car’s still there.” I stood up, unsteady. Her arm solid under my armpit.

  “He may have legged it via the river and had a lift.”

  A pause while we imagined it.

  “Where’s your revolver?”

  “They bloody took it. You get back inside. Quick.”

  “Who’s ‘they?’ I never saw anyone.”

  “I’ve a damned good idea.”

  *

  With the outer door secured behind us and the alarm set, we reached the lift, but soon backed out, for there, on the far wall, stuck down by a piece of brown parcel tape to the laminated emergency instructions sheet, was a freshly severed ‘pinkie.’ Definitely from a left hand, judging by its shape and slight curve to the right. Alongside this act of butchery was a small, typed message. TOO MANY PIES, JOEL. TOO MANY PIES...

  Chapter 22. Karen.

  I remembered storms like this at Mas Camps, when Edwige would go crazy in her stall, the oil lamps flickered and our farmhouse’s very stones would tremble. When jittery flames in the grate sent shadows leaping all over our living room’s four walls. But here at Les Pins, this one wasn’t the only reason the three of us would be sharing my space until daylight.

  John had returned resembling a vagabond but at least alive. I wanted to bathe his blood-encrusted mouth, strip off his messed-up clothes and then...

  Stop it. Stop it… I told myself. He shouldn’t even be here.

  “Those morons must have lost their nerve and ran off.” He looked at me. Pine need
les dropping from his hair. His terminally damaged cagoule; those nice eyes sore, their surrounding skin scratched. “Your new revolver’s gone too. I’m sorry, but I can replace it soon as I’m home. I promise.”

  …as soon as I’m home.

  I paused for nature’s din to pass. Scared like I used to be as a kid, but this was no time for histrionics.

  “Did you use it?”

  “No, and I don’t like asking but do either of you have a spare cagoule I could borrow?”

  “I’ll sort that out.” Before more anxiety took over. “Will you be reporting that attack?”

  “When the time’s right. OK? Now look at this. I found it stuck to the lift’s wall. Be warned, it’s pretty sick.”

  TOO MANY PIES...

  One glance was enough. What lay inside John’s handkerchief was Joel’s little finger. I’d know it anywhere.

  *

  My cook’s cuticles were the most perfect half moons I’d ever seen; so unusual in a man. This cruel rellic brought nausea to my stomach. Fear to my heart. What the Hell was going on here?

  “Ugh, gross,” whispered Martine. “He must be in agony.” She placed an arm around my shoulders. “So, he’s been punished too?”

  “This implies it. And pre-meditation. So what’s he into with these so-called ‘pies?’ Been digging around like me? Like Herman? Whatever. Both thugs who roughed me up must have got in while I was in the other tower. Joel forced to reveal the entry code, maybe not.”

  He inpsected the severed finger again. “It’s a clean, quite expert cut; the same as for Herman’s tongue and neck. No sign of a struggle either, unless they knocked him out beforehand.”

  I couldn’t bear to look any more. Not with those vile words ‘dead meat, dog meat’ lurching again into my mind. John returned the finger to his handkerchief. As Joel’s employer, I could have asked to keep the note and finger myself, but a small voice told me I’d enough on my plate.

  “I saw him with that sky pilot, remember?” Martine left my side to wheel the untouched supper trolley outside the door. Her - or rather, my - old rifle on temporary loan, lay on its bottom shelf. “Thick as thieves they were.”

  When she’d gone, the room felt eerily quiet, save for those long-ago threats still pulsing away in my mind.

  “You OK?”

  John tenderly stroked my back, rreeking of the plantation and wolf shit.

  “Don’t worry,” he then added, folding up that weird little note and storing it in his wallet. “But just think, Joel could have disfigured himself then typed the note while he was out at Roche-les-Bains.”

  “No, I can’t see it. He took too much care of himself for that.”

  *

  “I’ll have a whisky if you’ve got it,” John suggested afer a quick shower and change of clothes. “Then, when you’ve recovered from the shock of all this, I’ll fill you in about your attic and that other tower’s secrets.”

  He knocked back two full tumblers of Glenfiddich in quick succession. Next, drew up the vinyl chair that Herman always sat in, askng if old Ricard Suzman had volunteered any information about a possible supply of hooks and a substantial storage chest in the attic. Even a bed.

  “Nothing. Only that a new radiator and a light might be useful.”

  “And you definitely saw that dress and spinning top?”

  Dogged wasn’t the word for him as a fierce gust of rain stung my round window, moaning as it did so.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “This may be difficult for you, but I think those creeps who turned up tonight weren’t just after me. In your other tower I’d found a trunk addressed to ‘Les Pins.’ Urgent.’ Stuffed with kids’ clothes - winter ones mainly, grubby and worn. And toys. All old-fashioned, like what you’d glimpsed in this attic. I’d wanted to show you something from it but...”

  My phone began to ring. A number I recognised. The woman’s voice on the answerphone made me inwardly weep. A mother needing to speak to her son because his only, beloved uncle had just died. We listened as her message crackled on, ending with a plea for Herman to get in touch. Call ended.

  “Thea Oudekerk,” I said in the white space afterwards. “What do we do?”

  “You could have spoken to her. She’s desperate.”

  “And lied?”

  “Next time, then. Or she might turn up here.”

  “She never did when Herman was around. Too busy with some new man, so he’d said.”

  “I’ve told you what I think, Karen.”

  “Thank you. You said how you might not have been those thugs’

  only target. Who else?”

  He coughed unconvincingly as if to bat my question away. Replaced it with another.

  “Where does Michel Suzman’s live? Ten, Rue de L’Église?”

  “I only know his office.”

  He stood up. Tense, his mouth still a mess, whisky on his breath. First, he flicked through the local directory’s pages, then tried Pages Blanches.

  “Not a single Suzman listed. Surprise, surprise.”

  He came over. Stern, unsmiling. “You’re making this almost impossible for me, Karen. Do you really want to see justice done for your missing family? Or is this some weird, attention-seeking game? If so, I bet I’m not the first sucker to fall for it.”

  Serious stuff. Martine meanwhile, had returned, walking on eggshells.

  “And while we’re at it,” he went on, “I visited the Tanguy garage today and learnt not

  only Paul Suzman’s car went in for valeting, but Joel’s. Just after delivering your computer. I’m guessing he’d not been alone at the time.”

  I felt chilled all over.

  “Do you mean he might have taken Herman’s head?”

  “Are you with me or against me, Karen?”

  “I’m appalled you can even ask that. Tomorrow, Martine will find you one of Joel’s skiing jackets. And you’d better take my spare Walther. As you know, it’s new and fully loaded.”

  He thanked me, then suggested I check my hard drive. “I think we may be getting somewhere...”

  Chapter 23. John.

  Saturday 12th April. 07:00 hrs.

  No sleep on a rubber airbed placed next to Karen’s desk. For a start, it had made embarrassing noises whenever I moved. Martine’s the same but more frequent as she’d got up and down to del with her boss’s restlessness. I couldn’t bring myself to watch that anguished face, those clawing hands lit from above by a suspended night light, and knew I was a coward. A guilty coward, for having been so stern with her.

  *

  As fresh, blue daylight gradually lightened the window blind, Karen lay asleep at last, and in that quiet time, with Martine dozing in her rumpled tracksuit, I slipped next door to wash and dress. I also phoned Carol, apologised for calling so early then explained I was still helping someone out. That they weren’t to worry and I’d see them once matters were resolved.

  “Is it that German-sounding woman who pestered me on Thursday evening?”

  “She’s not what you think.”

  “Be careful, John. Remember the others? The broken hearts?”

  I did. Trust her to mention them.

  “So, how can we reach you, just in case?”

  I hesitated. “I’ll call you. OK?”

  “You sound odd. Are you alright?”

  “Just a headache, that’s all. Look, better go.”

  *

  Having whispered my plans for the day to Martine, I hid Joel Dutroux’s little finger in the purring world of freezer 3 and let myself out of the tower into that wild, bright morning where the westerly wind almost whipped my borrowed ski jacket from my body. Not so the headache, embedded for the day.

  My Volvo seemed untouched, but before disabling its alarm, I checked around for any fresh footprints and possible tyre tracks. Then I retraced my earlier escape route from the plantation, and sure enough, by that same fallen log where I’d been abandoned. Where mangled grass exposed soil pitted by paw prints.

&
nbsp; Wolves? Highly likely, though I was no expert in Pyrenean wildlife. All I knew was I’d had a lucky escape. The new revolver however, was still nowhere to be seen. Then something else... I’d not locked the other tower, and still had its key upstairs in my ruined cagoule’s pocket.

  Shit.

  I pushed open its door and soon realised that mysterious metal trunk full of clothes and toys had gone. Any helpful marks and footprints in the dirt floor all erased. Had it been dumped somewhere for collection later?

  On my way to the intercom to alert Karen and Martine, I realised that not only the two-wheeled trolley Joel used for moving heavy cartons, had vanished, and where was the cook, himself? Still nowhere to be seen.

  *

  Ten minutes later, with Karen’s new new Walther 22 snug in Joel’s ski jacket pocket, I headed south-east, once more to Dansac, too disturbed by last night’s events, the missing trunk, and his continued absence, to appreciate the primordial beauty of rock and forest, lit by the clearest of skies.

  I parked in a cul-de-sac lined by old lock-ups and long-abandoned properties. Probably victims of the country’s rigid inheritance laws, where all surviving kids must agree to sell. Then again, I thought of Karen. Should she die between now and the month she’d given herself to solve her mystery, who’d benefit from such a lucrative pile? If not a relative, then the state. Perhaps she didn’t care. Another question to ask her. Nevertheless, the thought of her being dead, kept me in the car for longer than planned.

  Having told myself to get a grip, I short-cutted through to the Impasse des Oliviers – with no olive tree in sight - and my elderly, nameless acquaintance’s house. I’d one more query about a girl called SB before calling on Villedieu’s former priest.

  However, when I reached that same half-scorched, brown door, it was already ajar; two pieces of junk mail wedged in its letterbox. I’d never been a good creeper, even with a search warrant, but this was worse, with the wind blowing towards me down the hallway, slamming that front door shut. I ran towards the kitchen, hand ready on my pistol, to find the one window smashed in and its greasy, billowing curtain attached to the fly strip. Hard to believe that just hours ago, that old woman and I had been sitting here.