by Peter May
The Italian was in town to lobby against such a vote and to pressurise Italian members of the European Parliament whose constituents back home could lose jobs if the contract fell. He had employed Kirsty as his interpreter, and to be the attractive and acceptable face of his campaign. She had not fully appreciated that until the briefing at his hotel the day before, when no amount of oily charm had been able to disguise his naked intent. But she had already signed a contract and was committed to the job. After all, she told herself, she was just the messenger. She had no control over the message.
But neither had she any control over the traffic. Her eyes closed in despair. She had blown it. She should have ordered the taxi half-an-hour earlier. She fumbled in her purse for her cellphone and hit the speed-dial key.
‘Hi, Kirst. What’s up?’
‘Sylvie, I’m in trouble. I’m stuck in traffic in the Boulevard Tauler. There’s no way I’m going to make it to the Palais des Congrès on time.’
‘Is this the Italian job?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Merde! Is there anything I can do?’
‘You can stand in for me.’
‘Kirsty, I can’t. I haven’t been briefed.’
‘Please Sylvie. You’re five minutes away, and I know you’re not on shift till this afternoon. Just hold down the fort for me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
It was after nine-thirty when her taxi swung in off the Avenue Herrenschmidt. The car park was filled with press vehicles and satellite vans. The flags of the European Union’s twenty-seven member states hung limp in the grey morning light, and wet snow lay like a crust along the curves of an impenetrable bronze sculpture on the lawn beyond. She fumbled to find money in her purse as her driver pulled up below the Strasbourg Evenements sign. Then she flew across the paving stones towards the glass, her coat billowing behind her, concern for hair and make-up long forgotten.
Her voice echoed across the vast, shining concourse, and heads swung in her direction. ‘The press conference! What room?’
A young woman looked up from behind a long reception counter, her face a mask of indifference. ‘Tivoli One. First floor.’
Kirsty ran across pale marble set in dizzying patterns, the click of her heels echoing back from glass and concrete. Occasional standing groups of two and three broke from idle conversation to cast curious glances in her direction. Through open doors, beneath a strange ceiling like rows of silk pillows, she saw caterers laying out food, a young man setting up the bar. If you wanted the press to come, you had to feed and water them. At the foot of a flight of stairs, below a sign that read, 1 er Etage, she quickly scanned the list of names. Salle Oberlin, Salle Schuman, Salle Schweitzer C-D. Then there it was, Salles Tivoli 1-2.
She took the stairs two at a time, emerging onto a wide, carpeted concourse with floor-to-ceiling windows all along one side. The carpet absorbed the sound of her heels, and only her breath filled the huge space overhead, breath that came in short, gasping bursts. Away to her left hung a strange tapestry of warlocks and witches. A sign above a doorway read, Salle Oberlin. High above her, more silk cushions. She ran past a glass balustrade looking down on a sprawling maze of cloakrooms. A triangular overhead sign told her she was still on track for Tivoli 1. Up steps, through open glass doors, and she heard the voice of the Italian coming from the faraway room. Then Sylvie’s clear, confident translation into English then French. The meeting room was full. Cameras ranged along the back wall, TV lights throwing everything into sharp focus. Sylvie sat a little to the Italian’s right behind a desk on the podium, a sales chart projected on the screen behind them.
Kirsty pushed past bodies in the doorway and felt the heat of the explosion almost before the blast knocked her from her feet. Blinded by the flash of it, deafened by its noise, it seemed like an eternity before hearing and sight returned to reveal a smoke-filled world of jumbled confusion. Screaming, shouting, crying. As she struggled to get to her knees, a hand caught her arm, strong and gentle, pulling her back to her feet. She swept long, chestnut hair from her face and looked up into the eyes of the man who still held her. Blue eyes, filled with a strange serenity. He seemed untroubled by the chaos around him. Was he smiling? Someone was shouting from the podium. The man turned his head, and she saw that his right earlobe was missing.
‘Signor Capaldi! Where’s Signor Capaldi?’ The voice was hysterical.
Another voice. ‘He’s alive! Jesus, he’s still alive.’
A woman shouting, ‘The interpreter … ?’
‘Man, she’s gone. There’s hardly anything left of her.’
The sound of someone vomiting.
Kirsty felt her knees buckling beneath her, and only the grip of the hand on her arm kept her on her feet. The man turned back towards her. ‘You’re a lucky girl.’
And Kirsty knew that but for the weather and a taxi that was late, it would have been her in pieces up there.
Chapter Three
The gardens below St. Etienne Cathedral were deserted behind grey railings in the cold November light. Dead flowers had been removed from their beds, and a layer of frost carpeted the lawns. Beyond the Place Champollion at the foot of the Rue Maréchal Foch, a chill mist still hung above the river. Enzo had heard it was snowing in the north. But here, in southwest France, it was just cold. A deep, penetrating cold.
Thursday was training day at the hairdresser’s. Twenty percent off sur la technique. So it was natural that a Scot of parsimonious persuasion would choose a Thursday for his monthly trim. Xavier, his hairdresser, only ever took half an inch off the end of his long locks. Just enough to stop them from tangling when Enzo tied back his hair in its habitual ponytail.
The trainee had shampooed and conditioned his hair when he first arrived and now, under Xavier’s supervision, was dragging a comb back through it before trapping it along the length of her index and middle fingers to snip off the ends. Enzo looked with mild concern at the hair that came away in the comb. Once black hair, now rapidly greying.
‘Am I losing it?’ he asked Xavier.
Xavier shrugged theatrically. He was exaggeratedly gay, somewhere in his middle forties, perhaps five or six years younger than Enzo. ‘We’re always shedding hair. It’s natural. You’ve still got a good thick head on you.’ He paused. ‘I could give you a rinse, though. Something to take away the grey. Good practice for the trainee.’
But Enzo just shook his head. ‘We are what we are.’ He turned to gaze out towards the cathedral gardens across the street, a little knot of fear tightening in his gut.
Zavier cocked his head. ‘You don’t seem quite your usual self today, monsieur.’
‘Then maybe I’m somebody else.’
The hairdresser chuckled. ‘Oh, you are a comic, Monsieur Macleod.’ But Enzo wasn’t smiling.
Neither was he smiling when he emerged ten minutes later, his hair full and sleek after its blow-dry, and held at the nape of his neck by a ruffled grey band. His farewell was a distracted one as he turned away from the river towards the Place Clement Marot, past the internet café on the corner. Waiters in the crêperie, Le Baladin, and Le RendezVous next door, were already setting tables for lunch. In the Place de la Libération, there was the oddest sense of life as usual. Folks queuing at the boulangerie for bread, an old man outside the Maison de la Presse standing with a nicotine-stained cigarette in the corner of his mouth reading La Dépêche. But for Enzo, none of it seemed quite real.
He took the letter from his inside jacket pocket to check the address again. He had been trying not to think about it for days, but there was no longer any avoiding it. He had searched the map in the annuaire to find the Rue des Trois Baudus, and been surprised to discover that it was almost opposite the music shop in the Rue du Château du Rois. It was the shop where he habitually bought his guitar strings. The rue was little more than an alleyway, and he had never given it a second glance. A little further up the street was the old prison in the Château du Roi itself. The Tour des Pendus at the to
p of the hill was where they had once hanged prisoners in full public view. But the Rue des Trois Baudus had always escaped him.
His visit to the doctor had been routine. An annual checkup, which had never given him cause for concern. In fact, his doctor only ever got in touch to fix a date for the following year’s rendezvous. So the letter had come like an arrow from the dark, a harbinger of what could only be bad news. An appointment made with a specialist to discuss his results.
Enzo breathed deeply as he walked up the hill past the pharmacy on the corner, past the comforting familiarity of Alain Pugnet’s music shop, and turned into the Rue des Trois Baudus. He had searched his dictionary to find out what a baudu might be, but disconcertingly it was not to be found. Perhaps it was a name. Graffiti scarred the wall and the Toutounet dispenser which issued plastic bags for the disposal of dog shit. Not that anyone in the town of Cahors seemed to use them.
The alleyway was narrow and deserted. Windows were shuttered, and only a narrow slice of cold winter light from above pierced the damp and the dark below. Number 24 bis was on the right, beyond a brick-arched doorway. The door was pale, studded oak, and the window to its right was barred. A shiny plaque fixed to the wall made Enzo’s stomach flip over.
Docteur Gilbert Dussuet Oncologue
Below the bellpush was a small sign: Ring and Enter. Enzo did as requested and opened the door into a narrow waiting room with four plastic chairs and a tiny table littered with old magazines. It smelled of damp cellars in here, and there was no natural light. Just a single, naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He sat down on the chair nearest the door, as if it might offer some hope of escape, and waited.
By the time the door to the doctor’s surgery opened, Enzo knew every stain and scuff on the faded linoleum, had read and reread every poster on the wall. Exhortations to regularly self test for testicular cancer and cancer of the breast. Dire warnings about the melanomic consequences for the skin of failing to apply protection against the sun. None of it did anything to ameliorate Enzo’s deepening sense of foreboding.
Doctor Dussuet was younger than he had expected. Late thirties or early forties. He was possessed of certain rugged good looks and had a charming smile. He held out his hand to shake Enzo’s and ushered him into his inner sanctum. The office was sparsely furnished. A couple of filing cabinets, a desk, some chairs. There were a handful of posters on the walls, and the blinds were down, although there was hardly any daylight in the street outside. A desk lamp focused a dazzling circle of electric light on to the burnished surface of the desk, and the two men sat down on either side of it. There was a file open on the blotting paper, and Enzo could see his name at the top of it.
The doctor didn’t look at it. Instead he clasped his hands in front of him and leaned his elbows on the desk. He looked at Enzo earnestly, a well-practised look of sympathy and sadness in his eyes.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’
Enzo shook his head. ‘For bad news, I guess.’
The doctor allowed himself a moment of reflection, then refocused on his patient. ‘You have a very rare form of leukemia, Monsieur Macleod.’ He paused. ‘You know what leukemia is?’
‘Cancer of the blood.’ Enzo heard his own voice, but it didn’t seem to belong to him.
‘Cancer of the blood. Or bone marrow. Characterised by an abnormal proliferation of white blood cells. These cells are involved in fighting pathogens and are usually suppressed, or dysfunctional. Leading to the patient’s immune system attacking other body cells.’
Enzo stared at him. His face, in the intensity of the desk lamp, seemed to burn out before his eyes. ‘Is it treatable?’
The doctor sat back suddenly and pressed his lips together. ‘I’m afraid your disease is terminal, Monsieur Macleod. Of course, we’ll put you on an immediate course of chemotherapy.’
But Enzo didn’t want to hear any more. ‘How long have I got?’
‘With treatment … perhaps six months.’
‘Without?’
Doctor Dussuet tipped his head apologetically. ‘Three. At the most.’
Chapter Four
She was, perhaps, forty-five years old. Her hair was cut short into the back of her head, and was curled on top. She’d had it streaked blond, and she looked younger than her years. She had borne two children in her twenties, but still kept her figure. She was slim, attractive, and divorced, and her children were adults now. Which meant she was never short on male suitors. She worked afternoons at La Poste in the Rue du President Wilson, so was at home when her doorbell rang.
Her apartment was one of two in a converted suburban villa near the hospital in the southwest corner of Cahors. Her neighbour worked at an agence immobilière in the Boulevard Léon Gambetta, so she knew it wasn’t her. It was gloomy on the landing when she opened her door, but she saw immediately that her caller wore a strange white mask over his nose and mouth. She barely had time to register surprise before he struck her with an iron fist. Light and pain exploded in her head and she fell backwards, unconscious even before she hit the floor. The man with the mask stepped over her, moving her with his foot so that he could close the door. He knelt over her prone form, pausing for a moment to consider that, really, she was quite a handsome woman. Which was a waste.
He cupped one hand behind her head, placed the other across her face, and felt an instant gratification with the pop that came as he pulled them in opposing directions. The hardest part of life was living. Death was easy.
With his gloved hands he carefully felt for the opening of her blouse, then ripped it apart. Buttons rattled across the floor. Her bra was black with small, frilly loops along the upper edges. He slipped two fingers between the flimsy half cups and tore it off. She had soft, round breasts with dark pink areolae. But that was not what he had come for.
He stood up and strode down the hall into the séjour. This was a woman who had enjoyed order in her life. Everything had a place and, apparently, was in it. His mother had been like that. Anally tidy. So it gave him some pleasure to introduce some chaos. Drawers emptied on to the floor, vases smashed, a display cabinet full of crockery and wine glasses overturned. In her bedroom he yanked clothes from the wardrobe and threw them across the bed. There was a drawer full of black lingerie, suspenders, a red garter. Either she enjoyed her sex, or was just an allumeuse. Whatever, she had no further use for these. He chucked them in handfuls out into the hall.
In the kitchen he swept everything from the worktops, opened the fridge and pulled meat and cheese and half-empty jars onto the floor. Then he spotted the clock on the face of the oven. A clock with revolving counters. He smashed the glass with the side of his hand then stooped to put his ear next to it. He could hear the electronic mechanism behind it trying to turn, but the counters were broken and locked in place. Eleven, twenty-nine.
He went back into the séjour where he had left her laptop computer untouched on the table. Now he opened the lid and booted it up, waiting patiently until its desktop filled the screen. He selected and opened its iCal software and watched as her agenda for the month displayed itself. As quickly as his gloved fingers would allow, he tapped in a new entry and saved it. Job done. Almost.
In the hall he bent over his victim and looked again at her pretty face. He removed a glove and felt her skin with the back of his hand. She was going cold already. He searched for and found a small, clear, ziplock bag in one of his inside pockets, and took it out.
Chapter Five
Kirsty sat motionless, hunched forward, her hands clasped between her thighs. Her eyes were burning, but incapable of spilling more tears. Her head was pounding, her throat swollen. They had questioned her for most of the night, until she had almost no voice left.
What was her relationship with Sylvie? How long had she known her? Why had she failed to turn up at the Palais des Congrès? How long had she been working for the Italian? They seemed not to believe her when she said she had only met him for the first time the day before the pres
s conference.
The young detective had asked all the questions. The woman, who was older, sat in silence, just watching, never taking her eyes off her. She had made Kirsty feel like a criminal.
They had made her go over her daily schedule at the parliament. She had no idea why. She explained that they worked in teams of two during morning and afternoon, or morning and evening sessions. A typical session would be three hours, but each interpreter worked only one half hour at a time, then the other would take over. It was draining work that demanded extraordinary concentration. Between sessions you would eat, recharge your batteries, then take five or ten minutes to refocus and get the adrenaline going again. Just like an athlete. When you finished for the day, you were done. Spent. And it could take several hours to decompress.
Generally, you only socialised with other interpreters. People who understood the process and the toll it took. When you struck up a friendship with a fellow interpreter, it was a bond for life. Kirsty had only known Sylvie for a year, but in the hothouse that was the interpreter’s booth, they had become the closest of friends. They did everything together, told each other their darkest secrets. They had been going to share an apartment when Kirsty began her second year contract on full pay. Which was why, after the initial shock of the explosion receded, Kirsty had found the empty space it left filled by a numbing grief. And then guilt. A dreadful, debilitating, invasive guilt. She had killed her friend, as surely as if she had triggered that explosion herself.
If she hadn’t been late for the press conference, if she hadn’t made that phone call, Sylvie would still be alive.
