by Peter May
‘I’m looking for Señora Bright.’
The dark-haired woman shook her head. Enzo tried again in French, but still she didn’t seem to understand, and his grasp of Spanish was limited.
‘Donde esta Señora Bright?’
She raised a single finger, bidding him to wait, and she turned away to be swallowed by the dark. He waited for what seemed like forever, until she returned to hand him a scrap of paper. On it she had scrawled the word, iglesia. It was close enough to église, the French word for church, for him to understand. He pointed up the street.
‘Up there?’
She nodded and closed the door abruptly in his face. He shifted his satchel from one shoulder to the other, the weight of his laptop computer starting to make the muscle ache, and climbed the last few metres into the tiny square in front of the church. A panel on the wall read, Església de Santa Maria. A cat sitting on the step watched him with wary eyes. Església, Enzo figured, must be the Catalan for church. He had read in the archive, downloaded from the internet, that Señora Bright prayed for her lost son here every morning. Perhaps she was also in the habit of saying an evening prayer for Rickie.
Inside it was cool and dark, and he wandered the length of the nave looking for a face amongst the handful at prayer that he would recognise from the newspaper photographs. It wasn’t until he had discounted them all, that he noticed the small side chapel behind net drapes. A solitary figure knelt at its altar, candles burning on either side. He brushed the drapes apart and walked down the aisle between the pews. The squeak of his rubber shoes on the polished tiles echoed high up into the roof. He stopped beside the lady in black. ‘Señora Bright?’
And when she turned to look up at him, he saw that it was her. He saw, too, a strange look in her eyes. Of both fear and hope. And he suddenly felt like a harbinger of doom, bearing news from the Gods. Good news and bad. ‘Yes,’ she said, and got stiffly to her feet.
‘I think I might have news of your son.’ The words she had waited thirty-six years to hear.
* * *
As he walked with her down the steep incline to the house, the sun was setting beyond the red-tile roofs, the sky a blaze of red beyond the hills. The bay below, as still as glass, was the colour of copper.
She opened a door at the side of the house, almost obscured by ivy and bougainvillea, and he followed her into a small, walled garden shaded by tall trees. Grass and flowers grew between the paving stones, and water tumbled across a tiny rock garden into a pool half-hidden beneath fleshy lily leaves. She flicked a switch beside French windows leading to the house, and hidden lamps cast soft light around the garden. They sat in chairs around a white-painted, wrought-iron table, and Señora Bright lifted a small bell and shook it vigorously.
‘Tea, Mister Macleod?’
‘Thank you.’
‘I only have Earl Grey.’
‘That’s fine.’
The maid who had opened the door to Enzo just fifteen minutes earlier emerged from the dark of the house and Señora Bright spoke to her rapidly in Spanish. The maid gave a tiny bow and disappeared again inside.
The old lady sat and looked at Enzo thoughtfully, almost as if she were putting off the moment. She folded her hands on the table in front of her and examined them for several seconds. Then she looked up again, courage summoned, ready to hear the worst. ‘So, tell me.’
‘I’d like to hear your story first, Señora.’
‘Angela,’ she said. ‘Only the Spanish call me Señora.’ She sighed. ‘Are you determined to torture me, Mister Macleod? I’m sure you must have read all about it in the newspaper archives.’
‘I’d prefer to hear it from you.’
She breathed her exasperation into the night, worn down by the years, and endless disappointments. ‘We were a little later than usual that night. We’d met another couple from Essex and Rod had ordered a second bottle of wine. Oh, how we laughed together. When all the time someone was upstairs stealing our son.’ She looked very directly at Enzo. ‘Have you any idea how destructive guilt can be? It eats away at you, Mister Macleod, from the inside out, until there’s nothing left but the most hollow of shells. Just what you see before you.’
‘You had employed the hotel babysitting service.’
‘Oh, yes. Promised to check in every fifteen minutes. Some young girl distracted by the kitchen apprentice. Our son lost to teenage hormones. They were both sacked, of course, but that didn’t bring Rickie back. When we got up to the room Billy and Lucy were fast asleep, like nothing had happened. But my baby was gone.’
‘Did you have any thoughts, then or now, who might have taken him?’
‘At the time I was almost sure I knew who’d done it. I told the police, but I think they thought I was imagining it.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s funny how certainty diminishes with time. Now, I can barely even recall the moment. Just my telling of it.’
‘What moment?’
‘The previous day, I’d taken Rickie down to the pool. It was hot, about midday, and most people had gone for something to eat, or found patches of shade to lie and sleep in. But Rickie had been fractious all morning. Hot, almost feverish, and I thought I would take him into the pool to cool him down. When we came out of the water I took him into the shade of the umbrella to dry him off, and there was a woman sitting at the next table. Rickie was still in a bad mood, trying to push away from the towel, whining and fighting me at every turn. And she was just watching, with this sort of smile on her face, looking adoringly at Rickie. I told her he was hungry. You know, just an excuse for the way he was behaving. And she got all defensive on his behalf. Everyone gets grumpy when they’re hungry, she said. God, I can still hear her!’
‘What nationality?’
‘Oh, she was English. No doubt about that. Bit posh. Sort of Home Counties.’
‘Age?’
‘Thirty, early thirties. I don’t know. Difficult to tell. She had a good figure, but wasn’t showing it off. She had a kind of old-fashioned one-piece swimsuit. Her hair was sort of frizzy, pulled back in an untidy knot. She wasn’t very pretty.’
‘And what made you think it might have been her?’
Angela Bright shook her head. ‘I have no idea. Just something about her. Something in her eyes. Something like hunger. Or jealousy. I don’t know. The way she looked at Rickie. She never once met my eye.’
‘You hadn’t seen her around before?’
‘No. Not that I was aware of. And then when the police began their investigation, there wasn’t anyone staying at the hotel who even looked like her. They definitely thought she was some figment of my imagination. But women have an instinct, Mister Macleod. That woman coveted my child. I didn’t realise it at the time, but when I thought about it later…’ She broke off, almost choking on her words. ‘Too late. Too damned late!’
The maid returned with a silver tray laden with cups, a teapot, hot water, and white sugar. She laid it on the table, then retired once more to the house. Angela Bright poured. She had recovered her composure.
‘Sugar, Mister Macleod?’
‘No, thank you.’ Enzo poured in a little milk and took a sip. He hadn’t tasted Earl Grey for years, and for a moment it took him back to another place, another life. Perhaps that’s why Angela Bright persisted with the habit. A reminder of who she had once been, in her previous life as wife and mother of three, happier days when her family was still intact. He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘The newspaper reports said there was blood all over the hotel room.’
‘They exaggerated. There was a little blood. Smears on the floor, some spots on Rickie’s panda. It seemed so vivid then. Spatters of red on white fur. All gone brown now, like faded rust.’
‘You still have it?’ Enzo felt his pulse quicken.
‘Of course. In the end I persuaded the police to let me have it back. It’s the only thing of Rickie’s I still have. The only part of him that still belongs to me.’
‘May I see it?’
For the first
time she seemed reluctant to co-operate. ‘Why? Who are you, Mister Macleod?’
‘I used to be a forensic scientist, Angela. Thirty-six years ago, the only thing anyone could have told from the blood they found in Rickie’s hotel room was the blood type. Now, we can tell a whole lot more about a person. Their genetic code, for example. Their DNA. It’s unlikely that whoever took your son will be found in any DNA database. It all happened too long ago for that. But we can at least tell the sex of Rickie’s abductor.’
‘From thirty-six-year-old spots of blood on a cuddly toy?’ She seemed incredulous.
‘With luck, yes. Then we’d know for certain whether it was a man, or maybe your woman at the pool, who took him.’
Angela Bright rang again for the maid, and issued a curt instruction. Then turned back to Enzo. ‘You told me you had news of my son.’
Enzo hesitated, uncertain of how much to tell her. ‘I’ve been trying to track down a missing person,’ he said. He chose his words carefully. ‘In the course of my investigation, I discovered two identical samples of DNA, each of which came from a different person. Which is impossible.’ Again he hesitated. From here there would be no going back. ‘Except in the case of identical twins.’
Even in the gathering darkness, Enzo could see that her face had drained of colour. She was not a stupid woman. ‘And one of them was Billy’s?’
‘Your son, William, yes.’
‘Which means that Rickie is still alive.’
‘It meant he was still alive in 1992. It was from then that we recovered his DNA. I also believe that six years earlier he broke into William’s flat in London and stole his passport, and his identity.’
Enzo watched closely for her reaction. But it almost seemed as if she were no longer there. Her eyes were glazed and distant. Then, in a tiny voice that whispered into the night, she said, ‘I knew it.’ And she dragged herself back to the present, finding focus again on Enzo. ‘It was twelve, fourteen years after he’d been taken, sometime in the mideighties. I was sure it was him. As sure as I’ve been of anything in my life.’
‘You saw him?’
‘In a minimarket in town. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. For a moment I thought it was Billy. But Billy had gone back to England. He was just standing there, staring at me. And when I saw him, he turned and ran out of the store. I went after him, but by the time I got into the street he was gone.’ Her eyes lifted slowly towards a darkening sky studded with stars. ‘I’ve replayed that moment so many times. You’ve no idea. So often that in the end I began to doubt it had ever happened.’ She looked back at Enzo. ‘Until now.’
The door from the house opened, and the maid emerged, clutching a toy panda, the same size as a child’s teddy bear. It was tousled, and dirty, and threadbare in places. She gave it to the lady of the house, and Angela Bright pressed it to her chest as if it might have been her lost boy. Enzo held out his hand. ‘Can I see?’
Reluctantly she handed it to him, and he very quickly found the spots of dried blood, still caked amongst the clumps of wool. Some of it had flaked off and it’s colour was faded, but there was enough left to obtain a decent sample. Enough to run any number of tests.
He looked up, hardly daring to ask. ‘May I take this? Please. I promise I’ll return it.’
She stared at him, eyes stripped suddenly of all emotion, lacking any sense of self-deception. ‘A forensic scientist recovering samples of my son’s DNA.’ She paused, her expression hardening. ‘What has he done, Mister Macleod? What has my son become?’
Enzo drew a deep breath. There was no longer any way to avoid the truth. ‘I think your son is a murderer, Angela.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
All light had been leeched from the sky by the night, except for the stars that pricked its blackness. The moon had not yet risen, and the back streets of Cadaquès were almost impenetrably dark. Out of season, its restaurants were closed and its holiday lets empty. Those few residents remaining were locked up tight behind closed shutters, watching television until late, when it would be time to eat.
Enzo made his way carefully down the steeply sloping cobbled street, clutching Rickie Bright’s toy panda in a plastic bag, and carrying with him the memory of a mother’s despair. Thirty-six years of hope, both fulfilled and dashed in the same dreadful moment. He could only imagine how Angela Bright would deal with the truth about her son. In his presence she had been brave, polite. Courteous but cold. God only knew what demons awaited her now that she was left alone to face the night.
Somewhere on the street above him, he heard the sound of footsteps descending through the deserted town. Soft, stealthy footfalls in the dark. The temperature had fallen, but although the evening had not yet turned cold, Enzo felt a shiver of disquiet. He stopped to listen, wondering if perhaps he had imagined it. But no, there they were again. Someone was following him, just out of view beyond the curve of the street.
He turned to his left and hurried down the narrowest of alleyways. There was almost no light at all here, and he had to feel his way along the wall, tripping and almost falling over a short flight of steps leading up to a door that was shut firmly against the night. After a short distance, the alley split into three. One leg of it climbed the hill to his left. One carried straight on. The other descended towards the shore. He could see, beyond the roofs, the first glimmer of moonlight reflected on the still water of the bay. Behind him, he heard the footsteps still following. Faster now, determined not to lose him.
He wondered if Rickie Bright had somehow managed to follow him. Or whether he had simply anticipated his next move. Either way, it would be clear to him beyond doubt, that Enzo knew now who he was. Or, at the very least, who he had been. No point, any longer, in trying to short-circuit an investigation. Only one course would remain open to a desperate man.
Enzo took the turn to his right, leading down towards the bay, and started to run. He could hear the following footsteps increasing in pace, trying to match his. Over his shoulder he caught the merest glimpse of a dark shadow emerging from the labyrinth above, and he squeezed left through a narrow alley, running its length, and then turning right again, descending so steeply that his own momentum was quickly robbing him of control over his legs. The street curved away to his right. Through gaps in the houses he could see streetlights along the waterfront. And almost at the same time, he heard music rising up through the night. An accordion and violins, a Spanish guitar. There were whoops and hollers and the sound of laughter. People. Safety.
At the foot of the hill, the street turned sharply right. Beyond the low wall that bounded its curve, splinters of light forked up into the dark through a weave of rush matting stretched tightly over a wooden frame, a flimsy roof to contain the music and merriment in an open square below. Slithering and sliding on the dew-wet cobbles, Enzo realised he wasn’t going to be able to stop. He raised a foot to brace himself against the wall at the bottom of the hill and pitched up on top of it, arms windmilling as he tried to retain his balance.
He spun around to face back the way he had come, and as he tipped backwards into space, he saw the dark figure of his pursuer turn into the street above. For the briefest of moments he had a sensation of floating, before his full weight landed on the rush matting below. It dipped violently beneath him, breaking his fall, and he thought for half a second that it was going to support him. But then he heard it rip, a harsh tearing sound all along one edge, and it tipped him out of its cradle into a confusion of music and light and bodies.
He landed heavily on a makeshift wooden dancefloor, a softer landing than the cobbles beneath it. Still it knocked all the wind from his lungs. The music stopped very suddenly, and his ears were filled with the sounds of women screaming. Through lights that seemed to be shining directly in his eyes, he saw figures retreating around him like displaced water. Musicians on a small stage were frozen in suspended animation, staring at him in disbelief. Enzo raised a hand to shade his eyes from the light and saw men in d
ark suits, a young woman all in white. He saw tables set out in the square. People with glasses in their hands, cigars in their mouths. Everyone standing now. He had just dropped in unannounced, and uninvited, on some unsuspecting couple’s wedding night.
A short, stocky man, with black hair oiled back over a balding pate, stooped to help him to his feet. He looked up at the hole in the rush matting above, and a hush descended on the gathering. He dropped his eyes again to look at Enzo and fired off a salvo in Spanish.
Enzo was still trying to catch his breath. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. English or French.’ He bent to pick up the panda in its bag.
‘Okay, Eenglish,’ the man said. ‘You no invited to thees wedding, señor.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. But someone’s trying to kill me.’ As soon as the words left his mouth he realised how ridiculous they sounded.
The man translated for the assembly, and there were some stifled sniggers. ‘Why someone try keel you in peaceful place like Cadaquès, señor?’
‘He’s a murderer.’ Enzo compounded the madness. ‘He’s been following me. If you’d just call the police…’
‘Señor, in Cadaquès, I am police. Who is thees asesino?’
But before Enzo could answer, they all heard the footsteps running down the stone staircase from the street above, and the guests fell silent. Everyone turned, as the figure of Angela Bright’s maid ran into the circle of light, and stopped suddenly, breathing hard, blinking in the glare, startled and perplexed.
