The Bastard is Dead
Page 31
But that was fine, since he had trained for the race and was well ahead of everyone, feeling exceptionally strong on his 1970 Peugeot bike and cycling in flawless spring conditions—sunny, mild, no wind. Plus, the finish line back in the French working-class resort of Saint-Raphaël was not much more than thirty kilometers away.
Ahead were two people sitting in lawn chairs under a beach umbrella by the roadside. There had been plenty of spectators along the out-and-back 110-kilometer-long route that had started in Saint-Raphaël, gone to Antibes and then backtracked along the winding, scenic coastal road. But for this patch, there was virtually no one around—except for this couple.
When he was seventy-five meters away, he saw they looked a little odd, as if they were frozen in motion. They were also wearing bulky clothes and strange-looking headgear.
When he was fifty meters away, he noticed the headgear resembled German helmets worn by soldiers during the Second World War.
At twenty-five meters, he could have no doubts about what he was looking at.
The two people weren’t people—not anymore.
They were skeletons.
AFTER FORTY YEARS AS a journalist and journalism instructor, D’Arcy decided it was time to put his writing skills to work in a fictional way. And so he’s created a mystery series featuring Paul Burke, an ex-pro cyclist from Montréal, Canada who lives on the French Riviera and is killing time while figuring out what to do next. Trouble, however, is never far away from Burke wherever he is in Europe. To ensure the authenticity of the areas (and the food, wine and beer) he writes about, D’Arcy and his wife Lynda spend six weeks each year in Europe cycling the areas featured in his next novel and discussing plot strategies. (Suggestion: Never discuss murdering someone while you’re in a public place.) When he’s not pounding on his keyboard, D’Arcy is a Celtic musician. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.