by Alan Norris
Please tell William that I will always love him and will never forget him. I sincerely hope he can understand.
Marie
The other sheets were written in the same neat hand and had been signed and witnessed.
‘Oh, damn it!’ I said, aloud. ‘Dad’s not going to like this. I think I can understand. But he won’t. I know it.’
~ ~ ~
The doc took a step back and inspected the handiwork of his surgery.
‘Well doc, will my new face frighten all the girls?’ I smiled.
‘No more than the old one used to I think.’ he chuckled. ‘Once the swelling’s down and the few stitches removed you’ll be just fine.’
‘That’s good...Thank you.’ I added, nodding. ‘What’s the news about Marie, down the hall. Is she up and about too. Can I see her d’you think?’
‘Ah...I’m afraid she left the hospital late last night. Discharged herself. But I believe she left a note. I’ll ask nurse.’
He muttered something about treatment and a visitor as he was going out. But I didn’t hear.
The thought of Marie leaving without a word was a shock. But I could see how awkward it would have been for her. To see me. To speak to the person who killed her son. Just too terrible.
From somewhere in my brain, a memory-picture suddenly flashed into my mind a dreadfully mutilated face and a swinging shotgun, like a massive club. He’d looked a bit like a life-size wax doll that had been savagely melted. But I didn’t shoot Jacques, if that’s what Marie had been told. If that’s what she thought. And I had a witness. Looking like he did, it’d be impossible for him to stray too far. He had to be a poacher of some sort. I just had to find him and hunting people was something that I’d been trained to do.
I looked up as Rachel came in carrying my old brown, service holdall. Her expression was mixed, both serious and pleased.
‘Well...You do look a lot better. No bandages on either. An interesting paint-job on your face, but a whole lot better. Good to see you up too. I’ve brought you some clean clothes, you’ll be able to get rid of the hospital gown.’ she sat in the other chair. ‘I’ve got some bad news for you.’
‘I think I know. Marie discharged herself last night. She’s left...Gone,’ I said miserably. ‘Can’t blame her I suppose. For not wanting to see me, I mean. She must think that I shot her son. But I didn’t you know.’ I reached for the plastic cup of coffee that Rachel had brought in.
‘It’s only machine coffee I’m afraid.’ she apologised. ‘I think you should read this.’ she said holding out a letter.
I recognised the handwriting immediately. My hand trembled as I reached for it. ‘My eyes don’t work too well yet. Things are a bit blurry. Would you read it for me?’
Rachel read the note to me but had to reread it, I couldn’t understand why she thought she’d let me down.
‘But she hasn’t let anyone down.’ I said, after listening the second time. ‘She doesn’t want me to find her – but I will.’
‘Well, if you ask me. I think the two of you want your heads knocking together.’ she had her serious face on again. ‘Before you go off, firing rockets all over the place, I think you’d better listen to the part of the story that I know.’
And for the next half-hour I did as I was told and shut up to listen.
Rachel had disabled Charles just after we left, knocking him out with a single clean thump. Then she’d used a bucket of icy water from the well to bring him round and spent a few minutes questioning him while she phoned for emergency help to go to Marie and to come and rescue me. Then, with Charles in fear of his life, she left in her car for Marie’s house.
What she found there, she said, was like something out of a battlefield nightmare. Blood splattered all over the place and two bodies in the kitchen lying in a pool of crimson. At first she thought they were both dead. The nearest one, the older woman, certainly was – her throat had been cut so deeply that it was almost half severed. But she could smell vinegar and realised that most, if not all, of the blood surrounding the younger woman, she assumed this was Marie, was in fact pickling vinegar from a smashed beetroot jar.
She told me how she’d made a pad from a towel to stop the bleeding and had fastened it around the knife-blade using some parcel-tape that she found in a drawer. The wound looked awful, with the knife still sticking out like it was. But it had been a long, thin boning knife and they have flexible blades. When she had been stabbed, the blade had penetrated the neck muscle and grazed down her shoulder blade, sliding beneath the muscle. So although horribly painful, it hadn’t been life threatening. It had been very tempting, Rachel said, but she hadn’t moved either of them away from the mess they lay in and shortly after, an ambulance had turned up with paramedics and scene-of-crime investigators. Marie had been whisked off to hospital and Rachel got back into her car and had driven to the Shooting Club.
‘And there.’ Rachel said. ‘I discovered the most horrifying mess. They’d brought you back to the club house on a stretcher. Blood and brain-jelly covered most of you down one side and in the midst of it all was your face that looked as though it had been hit with a cricket bat. The paramedic thought that you were going to lose your eye. But it looks ok to me. In a way, you might have been lucky. Oh....one of the yobs from Jacques little gang had told the police that you were seen driving away from Marie’s house that morning. But we’ve a willing witness that will prove that to be a lie. As well as Marie’s written statement.’
Then it was my turn and I told her, with as much detail as I could remember, what had happened.
‘So you see. I have a witness. A witness to my innocence.’ I added to the end of my tale. ‘I just need to find him! Somehow.’
‘Hmm....I doubt our friendly Bertrand-the-Gendarme will believe the part about your witness and attacker.’ she looked thoughtful. ‘He’s quite happy with the theory that Jacques clobbered you before you shot him.’ she said. ‘But of course, I believe you and we must figure out a way to find this person.’
We were silent for a moment, each deep in our own thoughts.
‘Oh...I’ve good news for you too. Two bits in fact. First, our willing witness.’ Rachel grinned. ‘Charles was waiting for me last night when I got home.’
I must have looked angry – I know I felt a rush of concern. But in my fuddled confusion I’d forgotten Rachel had mentioned a witness.
‘No, no. Not what you’re thinking.’ she said, seeing my alarm. ‘The other young thugs beat him up because he wanted to come clean with the police and, having nowhere else to go, he hid in your woodshed. He’s downstairs waiting for me to bring him up to Bertrand to give his statement.’
‘Wow, that’ll help me out of one hole won’t it. Good lad. Well done Rachel.’
‘Yes and the other bit of good news...Michel’s father will arrange a lawyer for you, should hear from him later today.’
I had closed the blinds on the room’s observation window so we didn’t see Bertrand coming. The door opened and the gendarme put his grumpy face into the room.
‘Madam, a moment please. I would like a word with you.’
Rachel raised her eyebrows and went out into the corridor. I pulled the cord to open the blind a little and watched them go through a doorway behind the nurse’s station.
I looked into the bag that Rachel had brought for me. I didn’t feel up to shaving yet so put the electric shaver back and pulled out the clothes.
‘Time to get dressed I think.’
~ ~ ~
Bertrand was still grumpy and his hot air was on the point of becoming offensive.
‘Madam, I could charge you with withholding evidence and obstructing a law officer.’ he huffed. ‘Do you realise that.’
‘No idea what you’re talking about.’ I told him. ‘But if you’re serious, we’d better proceed with the correct formalities.’
He smiled, maybe a little how a snake might smile. If it physically could.
‘In here, I’ve som
eone for you to meet.’ he waved a hand at a pale, frightened looking Charles. ‘There was a complaint about a man hiding in the men’s toilet and I found him skulking in a corner. He refuses to speak to me. Said you told him not to.’ he huffed some more. ‘So ma’am, do we proceed with charges at the station, or shall we get to the bottom of this now...right here?’
Chapter 16
William tried to think very carefully, he didn’t have any sort of plan. But it was obvious to him that he needed to do something about finding his mysterious witness. And he needed to do it quickly.
As much as William disliked rushing into something unprepared. He knew he must take advantage of every opportunity that might present itself.
~ ~ ~
I reached across to the observation window and closed the blinds to leave just a narrow slot. Looking through the bag that Rachel had brought for me, I found that she had thought of just about everything, even a good jacket, my toothbrush and my wallet.
It took just moments for me to strip off my borrowed hospital gown and pull my own clothes on. And they felt good. Peeping carefully through the gap in the blind I saw the door behind the nurse’s station close. I hoped Rachel would be OK and would forgive me for what I intended to do. But I had no real option, at least, I couldn’t think of any at the moment.
I took the few personal things from the drawer in my bedside locker and dropped them into my holdall, there wasn’t much. Rachel’d had the old Blackberry recharged and I slipped it into my pocket. Opposite, across the corridor and past the Nurse’s desk were the lifts, but somewhere to my right was a stairwell, fire escape I presumed. I’d spotted it when I went for a shower this morning, never thought for a minute that it’d be important. But now I hoped it would be my path out.
The nurse was a problem. I couldn’t allow her to see me trotting out of the ward. I crossed to the telephone on the wall beside my bed. It was an internal line and next to it was a card with phone-numbers for the floor. I knew I was in room four and the farthest one looked to be twelve. That’d do, I thought and dialled the duty nurse station.
As she answered, I suddenly remembered that I needed to speak in french and immediately all the words and phrases that I knew flew to a far dark corner of my brain.
‘Allo.’ she repeated again.
It seemed to be an age before I remembered enough to stammer out that I was in room ten and had fallen, could she help?
I watched through the gap in the blinds as she put the phone down and stared at it for a second before getting up and striding off to my left.
No time to waste. I eased the door open an inch or two and peeped out. All clear.
I had just stepped into the corridor when, right in front of me, the lift doors opened and a tall young policeman stepped out with a white coated doctor that I didn’t recognise. I quickly turned away, so that my injuries were hidden from them and called through the door to my empty room.
‘À bientôt Monsieur Blake, bon journée.’
No hesitation now, don’t stop, I told myself and stepped into the lift they had just left. I punched the button for the ground floor and as the doors closed, I saw the policeman look over his shoulder. He looked straight at me.
I watched the light on the panel slowly count the floors as we went down to the main entrance hall. Unconsciously I was willing it not to stop for anyone else.
The lift stopped with a jerk at the ground floor and, as the lift doors slid back, I felt suddenly weak, kind of fizzy, wobbly. I forced my legs to stride across the foyer. I felt that everyone was staring. I tried to appear casual, I glanced around, but nobody seemed to be looking at me. There was only one receptionist and she had her phone clamped between ear and shoulder and was busy filling in a form with an old couple. A cleaner’s cart was parked near the doorway and hooked over a broom-handle was a dark, broad-brimmed leather hat. Just the thing to pull down and hide some of my face, I thought and I picked it up as I went past.
Outside, the rain that Rachel had complained about had eased to a drizzle but it was still heavily overcast. I gingerly pulled on the hat, it was a little big, which was good. I eased it down toward my right eye, it was well worn-in and I felt that the deep brim might just do a reasonable camouflage job.
But now I had another problem. And I hadn’t thought of a plan. How was I to get home? It had to be done swiftly too, because sure-as-eggs, that’d be the first place the cops would head for and I needed to get in, pick up my stuff and get away. The hospital had been built on the outskirts of Pontivy and quite a way out into the countryside, no hope of walking. A dark blue gendarme’s van was parked to the right of the entrance and facing away from where I stood. The driver was relaxed, leaning back in his seat, listening to his radio and smoking a cigarette. Not wanting to tempt fate, I turned to the left and came across a taxi rank, but it was empty, not a car in sight.
What to do, what to do, I thought. I had to get out of sight, my luck couldn’t last much longer. I turned a corner of the building and almost bumped into a man buckling up a heavy leather jacket. He was about to pull on his crash-helmet when he must have sensed someone close-by. He turned and I recognised him straight away. It was Marcel, the waiter from our favourite restaurant and next to him stood a beefy-looking, Honda motorcycle with a sidecar.
‘What has happened to you?’ he said, looking at my injured face.
‘Oh I had a bit of an accident, fell and woke up here.’ I laughed, gently.
‘And madam, she is ok?’
‘Oh yes. She’s fine. What are you doing here, are you alright?’
‘Oh yes, nothing wrong with me, just dropped off my nephew – he works in the kitchen here.’ he waved his arm towards the back of the building, ‘When will we see you next.’ he asked, fishing in his pockets for keys.
‘Oh...soon I hope. Are you going anywhere near the town? I’d hoped to get a taxi, but there’s none here....’
‘Ah...The lazy drivers. They won’t be here until this afternoon, when there are many visitors around. You have no car here?’ he looked surprised and his eyes held a question.
‘No the car’s at home....It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it when we see you next.’
‘Ahh.’ he shrugged. ‘I was going home to change for work. But I could drop you off on the way if you like. You told me you live near to Madam’s chateau. Oui?’
‘Yes, that’s right, you’ve a good memory.’
I’m a waiter sir, we have very good memories.’ he replied seriously. ‘Afraid I haven’t a spare helmet with me, so if you’d like to hop into the chair, we’ll be off.’
~ ~ ~
It was the fastest ride I’d ever had through the back lanes and I was waving goodbye to Marcel just twenty minutes later. On the way I’d had a little time to think and had a list of things in my mind that I needed to pick up.
My rucksack, or bergen, as we old marines like to call ‘em was always packed with the usual elementary necessities for a long walk. I’d need to cram in some food and fill a water bottle. While I was doing this I put the coffee machine on and went in search of my old archery gear. I’d been quite good with the bow and had brought all the gear with me, I’d thought to set up a practice range amongst the apple trees. Something else I’d not got around to yet. But I hadn’t yet got my firearms permit and had no gun, so it would have to do. From what I’d experienced, my quarry wouldn’t hesitate to use violence. I hate to think how things might have ended up if the cops had been any slower in getting to us.
The bow was a powerful, competition standard, recurve bow and it came apart into three pieces, a handle unit and two arms that were gracefully bent into a shape like a pair of gull’s wings. All the pieces were packed inside a slim carry-bag and I strapped it onto the bergen with a quiver of aluminium arrows.
‘Bit like bloody Robin Hood. Or I suppose, being this side of the channel, William Tell.’ I said to myself as I sipped coffee. ‘Won’t be aiming at apples though!’
I
was about to switch on my mobile to call Rachel, when I remembered what she’d told me about the ease of tracking people who carried one. I put it back in my pocket. Instead, I thought I’d scribble a quick note to apologise, I don’t know why, but I seemed to think I’d all the time in the world. But I was brought back to reality with the sound of a motor coming along the lane. It was going very fast.
I picked up the bergen, grabbed a box of matches from the kitchen counter and slipped out the door. Keeping low, I swung around the corner of the porch and moving as fast as I could, headed for the orchard. There was a low fence at the back and, once over that, I could head across the fields and moorland to the forest. The fields would be the worst bit, the only cover would be the hedgerows. I would have to go around each of the fields, keeping whatever protection I could find, between me and the house.
As I crossed the fence I heard the squeal of brakes and the scrunch of gravel as, what sounded like several cars, pulled up onto my driveway. Being very careful not to trample the tall bank of nettles, I slipped through into the edge of the field. A couple of cows looked up and watched me as I went by, but I guess they found me boring and went back to their tireless chewing. Halfway around the first field, I risked a look through some gaps in the old thorn hedge and saw that in the driveway was a dark blue patrol car and van, lights all a-flicker and behind it, a bright red Peugeot. Rachel had followed them. She’d see that I’d been there. The signs, I thought, would be obvious. But the blustering Bertrand, if he was there, might miss them. For a while. Hopefully for long enough to give me chance to get well clear and heading towards the solid cover of the forest.
The autumn colours of the woodland’s beech, maple and chestnut were stark against the gloomy, storm-ready sky and seemed tantalisingly close. But I knew that, travelling as I was, they were at least two hours away.
Chapter 17
While William had been dressing and getting ready to try to leave the hospital ward, Rachel was trying very hard to hold her anger under wraps and keep smiling.
Blustering-Bertrand was openly seething with a bottled rage that Rachel thought he could probably turn on and off like a tap. The good cop, bad cop games that were often used to intimidate a reluctant witness and tease out information during questioning or interrogation.
