The Boy Who Saw: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

by Simon Toyne

  Amand glanced right, past the Horloge with its display window of elegant clocks, to L’Escalier Pater Noster, a broad flight of shallow stone steps meant for pedestrians but thankfully empty. He threw the wheel to the right and stamped on the brakes. The Citroën slewed across the road, the sudden change of direction tipping it on two wheels for a teetering moment before righting itself again with a bang.

  Amand fought the car, the tyres slipping and juddering over uneven cobbles. They hit the top of L’Escalier with a thump that almost ripped the steering wheel from his hands and sent a hubcap spinning away down the steps. The front of the car lifted then crashed down, sending sparks flying off the stone steps.

  Amand tried to brake but the tyres were hardly touching anything as they bounced down the steps. He dropped a gear and the engine screamed. The road at the bottom of the steps drew closer. Amand hit the horn to warn anything or anyone coming up it. He tried to brake again but the wheels locked and the car started to slide sideways. He steered into it and prepared to make the turn, hoping to God there were no cars and equally aware of a solid stone wall on the opposite side of the road that was not going anywhere, no matter how much he leaned on the horn.

  The dusty black road filled the windscreen and they hit it hard, knocking the air out of Amand and almost ripping the wheel from his hands. A front headlight shattered sending shards of plastic skittering across the road. He stamped on the brakes and threw the wheel to the right as the car bounced and his windscreen filled with pale stone wall.

  He hit the accelerator, flooring it, feeding power to the wheels and feeling them slip as the wall slid closer. Dust and dirt and bits of broken plastic were thrown into the air. The tyres gripped and the car lurched forward and away from the wall. They fishtailed for a moment and the back end caught the wall with a loud bang before the car surged forward. A smell of burning rubber filled the car and a knocking sound was coming from where bent metal was catching the wheel, but Amand kept his foot down. He could see the street where Marie-Claude lived up ahead. The smell of rubber got worse but he made the turn and screeched to a halt outside Marie-Claude’s house. He drew his gun for the third time that day, bundled out of his door and ran towards the passage, heading to the back of the house.

  The passage was cold and dark after the glare of the morning sun and Amand blinked to adjust his eyes to the shadows. The tightness in his chest was building and his head felt as if a huge hand had seized his brain and started to squeeze. He heard Parra behind him and vague noises up ahead, the crackle of static, fragments of voices on a radio. He reached the corner and paused, long enough to take a breath and let Parra catch up, before crouching low and peering round the edge of the wall.

  A leg lay half in and half out of the doorway, dark blue cotton tucked into a black boot. Police uniform. Amand moved past the edge of the wall, eyes wide and watching for movement. The radio continued to pop and crackle, Henri’s voice calling for backup on the same emergency channel Pierre had been using when they’d lost contact. Amand reached the door and peered into the kitchen.

  Pierre was lying on his back, blood forming a dark halo around his head, his radio on the floor by his hand with wires poking out of cracked plastic but still working. Amand listened through the crackle and squawk to the house beyond. It seemed silent and empty but that didn’t mean it was. He got ready to move and something caught his eye. He jerked his gun down as Pierre’s head lolled to the left slightly. He opened his eyes.

  ‘Stay down,’ Amand hissed.

  Pierre raised his hand to his head and it came away bloody. ‘Someone hit me.’

  ‘Did you see who?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are Marie-Claude and Léo inside?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry. There’s an ambulance on its way.’ He turned to Parra. ‘Look after him and watch my back. I’ll check inside.’ He raised his gun and moved forward, past Pierre and into the house, listening through the noise of the radio and his hammering heart.

  Keep your heartbeat steady, his doctor had told him. Avoid stressful situations.

  He reached the kitchen door and looked across the hallway. The door to Léo’s bedroom was half open, revealing paintings and posters of superheroes on the walls and a Marvel duvet bunched up on the bed in a way that looked like a sleeping child. Amand crouched low and ducked his head into the hallway. Glancing left and right before switching his attention forward again. He took a breath and surged across the hallway, kicking Léo’s door open to catch anyone waiting on the other side. It hit the wall and bounced back. No one there. The room was empty, the duvet just a duvet.

  Outside, a siren wailed closer and he spun round and moved down the hallway, checking Marie-Claude’s bedroom first. There was no sign of Marie-Claude or Léo, but the room was messier than before, drawers emptied, clothes everywhere, the chair he had sat on earlier was lying on its side, the hessian webbing underneath sliced open and the mattress was crooked too, like someone had lifted it to look underneath before dropping it down again. He looked around for Marie-Claude’s laptop. Couldn’t see it. It had been here earlier, he remembered the image of the crying man on the screen.

  Amand leaned against the wall and took deep breaths to try and calm down. He glanced over at the front door. The baseball bat was there but Marie-Claude’s coat was missing and so were Léo’s trainers. He took deep breaths, trying to focus and steady his heartbeat. The siren howled to a stop and cut out, blue lights flashing beyond the glazed panel by the front door. The pain in his head was like a slowly twisting knife now and he felt like there was a stone on his chest, weighing him down, making it difficult to breathe. He blinked as the edge of his vision began to blur.

  He holstered his gun and started walking back towards the kitchen door, steadying himself against the wall. The door seemed like it was at the end of a tunnel and everything felt like it was moving away from him. He tried to breathe deep and slow, but the tightness in his chest made it impossible. He needed to let everyone know that Marie-Claude and Léo were missing: needed to tell people that they were in danger. If he could just reach the door at the end of the tunnel.

  He took a breath to try and call out but no breath came and he felt panic rise up as he struggled for air. His heart hammered harder. The door moved away from him, further and further down the end of the long tunnel. Then the world tilted, and everything went black.

  24

  Léo had almost made it to the top of the hill in the centre of town when Marie-Claude finally caught up with him. She grabbed the back of the rucksack he’d snatched on his way out the door and spun him round.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ she said, pulling the rucksack off his shoulder. ‘This has got my laptop in it. You could have dropped it.’

  Léo looked past her and back down the hill. ‘I had to make sure … you’d follow,’ he panted, trying to catch his breath.

  ‘Why?’

  Léo stared down the road. ‘The shadow. You were going to let it in.’

  Marie-Claude looked back down the road. ‘Well, there’s nothing there now,’ she said, struggling for breath herself. She smiled and pulled him in for a hug to show that she wasn’t angry with him. If anything, she was worried. Léo was usually such a cautious child, happier to hang around at the edge of the playground and check everything out before tentatively joining in, always on the tamest ride. She couldn’t ever remember him running with no shoes before, not even on grass, let alone a hard road. She’d grabbed his trainers as she ran after him but he’d never stopped running, barely even looked back. She knew how he felt. She felt like running too. Maybe that was what her grandfather had been doing all his life: running away from the shadows in his past. She looked over the red-tiled rooftops of Cordes to La Broderie. It was closer than home or the Commissariat. She pictured the canvas suit-carrier hanging on the back of her studio door. Maybe it was nothing. In which case, she should rule it out herself rather than waste police ti
me with it. She picked Léo up, sat him on a wall and started brushing the dirt from his socks.

  ‘Why don’t you skip school today?’ she said, and smiled at the relief that lit up Léo’s face. ‘I need to stop by work first, then maybe we’ll pay Uncle Benny a visit. Would you like that?’

  ‘Can we stay hidden?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She fitted Spider-Man over his left foot and brushed dirt off his other sock.

  ‘I mean, stay off the main road. Keep out of sight.’ He looked back down the road they’d run up.

  She wiggled the trainer on to his foot and closed the Velcro fastener. ‘OK, if it makes you happy.’ She lifted him down and took his hand. ‘But no more running off, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Léo said, dragging her away to the side of the road and down one of the shadowy walkways that honeycombed the ancient town of Cordes.

  25

  Belloq pulled the pay-as-you-go phone from his pocket, cleared his throat and dialled a number from memory. He was in the private dining room above the bar, looking out at the memorial square. He had hoped to have more information before calling the leadership but a journalist had already been in the bar asking if anyone had known Josef Engel and he couldn’t let the party executive find out what had happened through the news channels. He listened to the purr of the phone and stared out at the part-built stage.

  ‘Hello?’ a female voice answered.

  ‘This is Gaillac. I need to speak with the Leader … Yes, he’s expecting my call.’

  There was a click, a brief blast of a chanteuse singing about a France that no longer existed and probably never had, then a man’s voice answered, old and dry. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The tailor is dead. He was murdered last night.’

  A pause. ‘What about the list?’

  ‘We think someone may have been looking for it. We have a man on the inside, part of the police investigation. They have already apprehended a suspect.’

  ‘Do you have his name?’

  ‘Solomon Creed.’ Belloq heard breathing and the faint sound of a pen on dry paper.

  ‘It’s possible one of our enemies hired him,’ the Leader said. ‘One of the major parties; the media maybe. I’ll see what I can find out about him and pass on any useful information.’

  ‘There’s something else. The suspect has escaped from police custody.’

  ‘Escaped!’

  ‘Yes. We are endeavouring to locate him before the police so we might question him ourselves. The tailor’s granddaughter and great-grandson have also gone missing. We are searching for them too. Maybe Monsieur Engel gave her the list before he died to assist her in this Jew history project she’s doing.’

  ‘No. Monsieur Engel would never have given it to her for that purpose.’ There was a pause and Belloq listened to the dry rasp of the old man’s breathing. ‘However, he may have given it to her without telling her what it was. Find her, find this missing suspect too, but above all find the list. It is imperative it does not fall into the wrong hands.’

  ‘Of course.’ Belloq looked across at the Jewish memorial, all traces of graffiti now washed clean from it. ‘May I ask – what is this list, exactly?’

  ‘It’s a dangerous link to our past and also to the party’s origins. It could be disastrous to our cause if the wrong person got hold of it. Locate this missing suspect and Engel’s granddaughter quickly, find out what they know, and deal with them. Do you understand? None of this can be allowed to come back to us, not with the election this close.’

  ‘Yes.’ Belloq sat down in one of the dining chairs, his body feeling suddenly heavy. ‘The woman’s son is also missing. He’s seven years old. If we do find her, chances are he will be with her too. Which means we may also have to …’

  ‘I understand.’ Belloq heard a sigh then the Leader spoke again, softer now. ‘Never forget that we are at war here. Sometimes sacrifices must be made in order to secure victory for the greater good. When we are in power, we will have many battles to fight and we must be strong in our leadership if we wish to prevail. It is right that you are troubled by these difficult decisions, it does you credit as a man. But to lead you must look beyond such personal reservations and rise above the ordinary moral and emotional considerations. You must behave not like a man, but as a leader of men. Presidents, kings, emperors – they all face decisions like these, decisions they know will result in the deaths of others: men, women, even children. But it is the security of the many they are thinking of when they make such choices. The country is more important than any one life. Your country needs you to be strong, monsieur, resolute and unwavering. Your country needs you to lead. Can you do that?’

  Belloq stared up at his own image, larger than life on the poster with the slogan beneath promising a brighter future and a new France. ‘I can,’ he said. ‘I will find these people and discover what they know. We have someone loyal to the party and close to the missing woman who can help us find her. As for the police investigation, I have already taken steps to lead it in the wrong direction.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By giving them another suspect.’

  26

  Madjid took a last look around the dusty hayloft he had called home for the past four years. Four years, and it had taken him less than ten minutes to pack. He had never expected to stay here this long, maybe enough time to prove his worth to the vineyard and be put on the payroll so he could afford a place of his own, but it had never happened. Payment had stayed on the black, cash in hand and subject to random fines and deductions for vague rules broken or displeasures incurred. Even so, he had stuck at it, like a losing gambler at the table, constantly hoping for his luck to change. And now it had in the most unexpected of ways.

  This land is rotten – the stranger had said. And he was right.

  Madjid pulled the drawstring tight on the canvas backpack he’d carried from Algeria, heaved it on to his back and shifted it until the weight felt comfortable across his shoulders. There was something frightening and exhilarating about embarking on a journey, something pure. He would head west, towards Bordeaux. Plenty of work there, particularly at this time of year. He could walk there in a couple of days, maybe sooner if he managed to catch a ride for some of the way. He stamped hard on the floor by way of a goodbye and watched the dust thicken the fingers of sunlight needling in through the gaps in the roof. No more baking here in the summer. No more freezing in the winter. He listened to the echo of the bang fade away. Then another sound replaced it: the sound of a car engine – some way off, but getting louder. He had wanted to be on the road before LePoux came back but it made no difference. There was nothing LePoux could do to stop him leaving. He did not own him.

  Madjid creaked down the loose wooden stairs and stepped out into the sunlight and surveyed the land he had worked for the last four years. A dust cloud was rising above the gently nodding heads of sunflowers, the sound of it drowning out the whine of insects in the fields. It was a smooth sound, not the rattle and squeak of LePoux’s battered old Renault. He watched the car emerge from behind the wall of thick sunflower stalks and felt the skin on his neck tighten when he saw what it was. The police car turned a half circle and pulled to a stop directly in front of him in a cloud of dust that forced Madjid to narrow his eyes.

  ‘Monsieur Lellouche?’ the driver said, getting out of the car.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Madjid Lellouche?’

  The other gendarme got out and looked up at the barn.

  Madjid nodded. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Step up to the car please, monsieur.’

  Madjid did as asked. ‘What is this about, please?’

  ‘We need to take you in to the Commissariat and ask you some questions.’ He pulled Madjid’s arms behind his back and produced a set of handcuffs.

  ‘What questions? Are you arresting me?’ The officer snicked the cuffs over both wrists and nodded at the second officer, who started walking towards the barn.

  ‘Wait,’ Madji
d shouted. ‘You can’t go in there. You need permission.’

  ‘We have permission.’

  Madjid watched the second officer disappear into the shadow of the barn. LePoux wouldn’t like this, he had a low opinion of the law and generally did what he liked. He glanced over at the track, hoping he might see more dust and hear the rattle of the old Renault. LePoux would throw these men off his land if he found them here. He wondered where he was. Then it dawned on him what was happening. ‘What did he tell you?’ he said, turning back to the gendarme. ‘What did LePoux say that made you come out here to arrest me?’

  The officer glanced over at the barn as the second officer reappeared. He was wearing blue gloves and holding something in his hand, a thin length of vine cane that looked like it had been dipped in something dark and wet. He took a bag from his pocket, shook it out and put the stick inside before sealing it.

  ‘This is wrong,’ Madjid said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what that is. Whatever LePoux told you is lies.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ the gendarme said, opening the rear door of the car and pushing Madjid inside. He threw his canvas bag in after him, packed and ready for a journey he was not going to take.

  27

  Marie-Claude stopped by the main road and felt Léo press against the back of her legs. La Broderie was directly in front of her, its roof almost level with the road and the main building below it, all that remained of a much bigger factory complex that had been the town’s main industry until the Swiss then the Chinese started producing embroidered goods at a fraction of the cost.

  Three cars were parked on the square of gravel where a loom shed had once stood: two belonged to people who lived close by and the other one was hers, an old Peugeot 205 that had been red before a couple of decades of summers bleached it salmon pink. She parked it here because she didn’t use it much and the battery was old and often needed a bump start or a jump, which was easier to get here than at home. She looked at it sitting in the shade of a walnut tree, its windscreen speckled with aphid dew, one of the rear tyres looking slightly soft – something else she needed to fix but couldn’t really afford. All the shutters in La Broderie were closed; it was too early for most of the artists, web-designers and other creative types who inhabited the building.