by Peter May
Enzo said, “I think if you were to conduct a straw poll in the street, nine out of ten people would probably tell you I was.”
The doctor laughed. “Oh, I think you’re wrong, Monsieur Macleod. I doubt if there’s anyone on the island who wouldn’t tell me that.”
It was Enzo’s turn to laugh. “Not an easy place to keep a secret.”
“Almost impossible.”
“All the more extraordinary, then, that a man’s murder should go unsolved all these years.”
The doctor inhaled deeply. “Well, if you were to conduct that same straw poll of yours, Monsieur Macleod, I think that nine out of ten people would tell you that Thibaud Kerjean did it.”
“And did he?”
“I have absolutely no idea. But according to the courts he didn’t. So who am I to argue with the considered opinion of the French justice system?”
“Of course, sometimes guilty men go free simply because the prosecution can’t prove it.”
“That’s true, monsieur.”
“In Scotland we have a third verdict. Guilty, not guilty, and not proven.”
The doctor sat back in his seat and nodded thoughtful approval. “Ah. Interesting idea. Perhaps that would have been the verdict in this case, had it been tried in a Scottish court.”
“Perhaps it would.” Enzo smiled. “I believe your father was Adam Killian’s physician at the time of his death.”
“Yes, he was. And retired not long afterwards. He was a good age, even then. He and a couple of other island practitioners were involved in setting up the Maison Medicale in the seventies. Prior to that he had his own cabinet in the family home in Le Bourg, where I live now with my own family.”
“And I don’t suppose you could cast any light on his medical dealings with Killian?”
“I’m afraid not. I had only been in the practice a short time then, and I never had any contact with Killian myself. My father’s really the only one who could have told you. But there wouldn’t be much point in asking him now. He’s over ninety.”
“He’s still alive?” Enzo couldn’t conceal his surprise.
“Oh, yes. Very much so. And still lives with us at home.”
“Do you think I might be able to talk to him anyway?”
“Well, yes, of course you could.” A momentary sadness seemed to flit across his face, so fleeting that Enzo almost missed it. “But I’m afraid it won’t do you any good.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s almost midi. I won’t have any more patients now before lunch. Why don’t you come back with me to the house?” He lifted his cellphone and hit the speed dial. “I’ll just call my wife and let her know to set another place at the table.”
The Servat family lived in a big rambling house on the corner of the Place du Leurhe opposite Le Triskell, a pub that offered coffee and rooms. This was a small square behind the church, at the centre of a maze of tiny streets that fanned out from it like the spokes of a buckled bicycle wheel. The tiny terrasse in front of Le Triskell was deserted, parasols tied up for the winter, the sun melting frost on plastic tables and chairs.
Opposite a peach-painted cottage with green shutters that housed the Credit Agricole bank stood the building that characterised and dominated the square. It was a crumbling, white two-story house with a square tower punctuated on three sides by rows of holes the size of cantaloupes. At first, Enzo thought it might be some elaborate sort of pigeonnier, but Alain Servat caught his curious glance in its direction and laughed. “A hard one to guess, isn’t it? It used to be the town’s fire station. They hung the hoses up in the tower after use. The holes were to ventilate it so they would dry quickly.”
He led Enzo through a gate into a narrow path between extravagantly towering shrubs that almost completely obscured the pale lemon and blue of the house: giant hydrangeas with pink and blue flowers fading now in the late autumn; tall, corn-coloured fronds, sprouting through a profusion of yellowing leaves; spiky green grasses that grew taller than a man.
The front door opened into a long, narrow hallway that stretched all the way to the back of the house, where a glass door spilled dazzling sunlight on to polished wooden floors.
“We’re home, ch e rie,” the doctor called, and steered Enzo off to their left, into a large, square dining room with a door leading through to a farmhouse-style kitchen. A slim woman with long chestnut curls appeared in the kitchen doorway. She wore a maroon apron over jeans and a white blouse, sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
“Hi, darling,” she said. “Lunch won’t be long.”
“Elisabeth, this is Monsieur Enzo Macleod. He’s a private police scientifique, come to reopen the investigation into the Killian murder.”
“Oh.” Elisabeth Servat wiped her hands on her apron and stepped into the room to shake Enzo’s hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Monsieur.” She smiled. “I’m never very sure whether it would be better to solve the Killian case or to bury it. It’s a little like Killian himself. Dead, but keeps coming back to haunt us.”
Enzo became aware that she was still holding his hand. Longer than he might have expected. But she was in no way self-conscious about it, and so he did not feel ill at ease. “Well, I hope I won’t be stirring up too many ghosts.”
She laughed and released his hand, a handsome woman with wide, cupid-bow lips and lively dark eyes. “You never know, Monsieur Macleod, with Halloween just around the corner.” She glanced at her husband. “Why don’t you two sit in at the table. The girls will be back any minute.”
The table looked as if it might have been in the family for generations, its dense wooden surface scarred and burned and stained by countless meals. Who knew how many souls had sat around it, eating and drinking across the years, how many dramas and conversations it had witnessed. Enzo remembered his father telling him how he had been laid out on his kitchen table as a boy to have his tonsils removed by the family doctor. But it was not a thought conducive to sharpening the appetite, and he quickly banished it.
Mats and crockery now littered the Servat table, two sets of condiments, a large grek, and cloth napkins laid at each place. The smells coming from the kitchen were delicious.
Dressers were pushed up against blue walls beneath paintings and family photographs, and a large brass lamp hung low over the table from the ceiling. But its light was not required. Sunlight tumbled through the open kitchen door, and the room seemed to glow in its reflection.
“I suppose you must feel right at home here on the island,” Alain Servat said. “A Celt among Celts.”
Enzo was no longer surprised by how much people seemed to know about him. “I do. Groix feels like any west-coast Scottish island to me. Particularly yesterday, when I arrived in the rain.”
“Ah, yes. The famous Scottish rain. Is that why you went to live in the south of France, monsieur? To escape it?”
Enzo laughed. “Yes. I’d spent so many years in the rain I was starting to go rusty.” He took his napkin from its holder and unrolled it. “And what about you, doctor. A fellow Celt?”
“Near enough. My family came from the Paris area originally. But I’m island-born and bred. The only time I spent away from the place was at medical school, and earning my stripes as an intern at various hospitals.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Elisabeth, on the other hand, can trace her island roots right back to the fifteenth century.”
Elisabeth emerged from the kitchen with steaming bowls of leek and potato soup which she placed in front of the two men as the door burst open and two teenage girls bustled into the room, dragging cold air behind them.
“All right, girls, calm down. Behave yourselves now. We have a guest for lunch. Monsieur Macleod, meet Oanez and Seve. Twelve and fourteen, monsieur, and both with far too much energy.”
An energy immediately subdued by teenage awkwardness, as the girls self-consciously presented themselves to Enzo to be kissed on either cheek. “Unusual names,” he said.
“Breton.” Alain waved the girls to their seats, putting a
finger to his lips to quell their urge to chatter and giggle. “Our son’s called Primel. We wanted traditional Breton names for all of the children. He’s now studying at the Sorbonne. Philosophy rather than medicine, I’m afraid.”
“Which means he probably won’t be back,” Elisabeth said, bringing another two bowls to the table. There was the hint of regret in her voice. “The young ones can’t wait to get away from the island these days.” She returned to the kitchen to fetch a bowl for herself and then joined them at the table. Enzo noticed that there was no place set for Doctor Servat senior. He had expected the old man to join them for lunch, but decided not to ask about him just yet.
The soup was thick, and hearty, and delicious, great lumps of waxy potato breaking up in it as he ate. He looked up at Elisabeth. “So did you not feel inclined to leave the island yourself?”
“Oh, I did. I trained as a nurse on the mainland, Monsieur Macleod. But in the end, something drew me back.”
Alain Servat chuckled. “Yes. Me.”
Elisabeth grinned. “Yes, you, Alain. Damn you!” She turned a fading smile toward Enzo. “And an unfortunately ailing father.”
Alain said, “He was one of the last of generations of tuna fishermen. You know, that’s what Groix used to be famous for it. Its tuna fleet.”
“When I was a girl,” Elisabeth said, “we could see the boats from our house, as they sailed back into the harbour at Port Lay. Of course, they were motorised by then. But in the old days they used to come in under full sail. I have some pictures somewhere. A marvellous sight. All the more amazing when you see the harbour today. It seems so small. But in my memory it was huge, filled with boats, and the raised voices of men landing their catch, and the wagons that took them up the hill to the fish processing factory.” Her smile was tinged by sadness. “All gone now. Just like my papa.”
Enzo swung his head toward her husband. “And where is your father? I thought he lived here with you.”
But it was Elisabeth who answered for him. “Oh, he does. But I’m afraid old Emile doesn’t eat with us any more.”
“Elisabeth’s been wonderful with him. If it wasn’t for her, we’d have had to put him into care long ago.” Alain looked adoringly at his wife. “And it’s not been easy.”
Elisabeth laughed it off. “It seems I have built a career out of looking after old people.”
Alain raised a hand, like a schoolboy in class. “Me next,” he said. He turned to Enzo. “A man couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Oh, by the time you reach that stage, darling, I’ll be needing someone to look after me, too. Then it’ll be up to the children.” Elisabeth turned toward her daughters. “Isn’t that right, girls?”
They both pulled faces, embarrassed by suddenly being drawn into the conversation and clearly unattracted by the idea of caring for elderly parents.
Alain laughed aloud. “God help us!” He turned to Enzo. “My father has his own room at the back of the house. I’ll take you to see him after we’ve eaten.”
Emile Servat’s room was off to the right at the end of the long hallway that transected the house from north to south. Alain stopped to peer through its glass-panelled door before entering. It was a large, airy room, with high ceilings and tall windows that gave out on to the street that ran along the side of the house. The walls had been freshly painted a rich cream colour, in contrast to the dark wood of the floor and the furniture. Bookcases lined the walls and were cluttered with all manner of maritime memorabilia. A ship’s brass bell. An enormous compass mounted on a mahogany pedestal. Paintings of sailboats and framed marine maps and charts lining the walls. Model boats on side tables fought for space with miniature lifebelts, and globes of the world. “This used to be his surgery,” Alain said. “He was crazy about boats. We went out sailing almost every weekend when I was a boy.”
Enzo was struck almost immediately by the smell of stale urine, the perfume of old age and incontinence. The room was warm and was filled by the stink of it, a suffocating and depressing odour that signalled decay and loss of control.
A television against the near wall was switched on. The applause and laughter of an audience quiz show on FR3 rang around the room. Sitting in a wheelchair, with his head tipped in the direction of the set, was the shadow of what had once been a man. A wizened creature, shiny skin stretched tight over a skeletal frame, clothes hanging loosely on his shrunken body. Vacant eyes were directed toward the TV but were completely unresponsive. Thin wisps of pure white hair were scraped back over an otherwise bald skull. Old Emile Servat’s jaw hung slack, purple lips shiny and wet, globs of drool hanging from his jowls and crusting down the front of his cardigan as it dried.
Alain immediately stepped forward, producing a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the saliva from his father’s face. “Oh, Papa.” He whispered it, almost like a quiet admonishment, and he turned apologetically toward Enzo. “It’s no life, really. But we make him as comfortable as we can. Who knows how much he feels or understands. If I were to pinch his arm he would feel the pain. Sometimes he looks at me, but I have no idea what he sees. He’s barely spoken in the last three years.” He drew a deep breath. “So you see why there would be no point in asking him about Killian.”
Enzo nodded. “I am sorry, I had no idea.”
“Of course not. He was already over seventy when Killian died. He should really have retired before then, but he wanted to carry on. Unfortunately, the dementia had already begun to set in, even then. We had to force his retirement. It was a difficult and heartbreaking time.”
“It must have been.” Enzo remembered his own father’s descent into senility. A gradual process of forgetfulness and frustration. Forgetting how to spell, forgetting the songs he had played on the piano all his life, forgetting his friends, his family. And the day, burned forever into Enzo’s memory, when he had arrived to take the old man out for lunch only to be met by a blank stare and the plaintive query, “Who are you?”
“At least now he seems to have found some kind of inner peace. Some place inside his head that he inhabits, untouched by the world around him. We will look after his physical needs until such time as his body decides to give up. Which could be a week, a month, a year. Who knows?” Alain Servat shook his head sadly. “It is a dreadful thing to see an intelligent and vigourous man reduced to this. All the more affecting since we know that it is what awaits us, too. If we survive.”
A knock at the door on the far side of the room interrupted morbid thoughts. It opened to admit a big man, only a little shrunken by age, a thick shock of wiry white hair above a deeply lined but fleshy face full of character and humour.
“ Salut, salut,” he said. And shut the door behind him to approach them across the room, supported by a gnarled old walking stick with a brass tip, his walk stiff-gaited but steady. He wore a dark suit, tightly buttoned across a patterned pullover, and an open-necked shirt that was grubby and frayed around the collar. If Enzo had been asked to guess, he would have said that the old man was around eighty. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief and humour. “How is the old boy today?”
Alain smiled patiently, and explained to Enzo. “Jacques has a couple of years on my father, and always likes to refer to him as the old boy.” It was a joke that had clearly worn thin.
But Enzo was astonished and looked at the old man anew.
“Ninety-four,” Jacques said, answering the unasked question, fiercely proud of his achievement. He held out a hand to shake Enzo’s. “Jacques Gassman at your service, monsieur.” And Enzo detected the faintest hint of an accent that he couldn’t quite place.
There was still power in the grip of the big, bony old hand.
Alain said, “Jacques and my father each had their own practice on the island until they set up the medical centre together.”
“Oh,” Enzo said. “So it’s Doctor Gassman?”
“It is,” the old man said proudly. “I come to see the old boy every other day, just to keep an eye on him. And h
e always asked me to keep an eye on that son of his, too.” He winked at Alain. “So I do that as well.”
“You do,” Alain said. “This is Monsieur Enzo Macleod, Jacques.”
“Yes, I know. I do still read the papers, young man.” He turned toward Enzo. “Even if it takes a little longer than it used to.” He paused. “You’ve come to solve our little island mystery.”
Enzo shrugged acknowledgment. “If I can. I had been hoping to discuss Monsieur Killian’s medical condition with his physician.” He glanced at old Emile. “But clearly that’s not going to be possible.”
“Well, you can still look at his medical records.” He turned toward the younger doctor. “Can’t he Alain? I thought you had all Emile’s old paper records brought here to the house when the centre was computerised.”
“Yes, we did. They’re all in boxes up in the attic. I never thought of that. I suppose Adam Killian’s records could be up there among them.” He looked at Enzo. “Would you like me to check?”
Enzo nodded. “That would be very helpful.”
The dust of decades covered every surface in this large, draughty attic. Cobwebs hung in theatrical drifts from skylight windows, and daylight leaked in all around the edges of the slates. Enzo followed Alain carefully over loose floorboards laid across open beams to where stacks of cardboard boxes were lined up against the far gable. The tape that had been used to seal them had long since lost its stick, and the flaps that closed them off were easily prised apart, raising clouds of choking dust into the cold air.
The files had been arranged in alphabetical order, so Enzo and Alain had to move A to J back into the centre of the attic to gain access to K. Alain then tore open the lid and started riffling through the files inside bulging folders of handwritten notes.
