The Night Gate - Enzo MacLeod Investigation Series 07 (2021)

  Also by Peter May

  fICTION

  The Lewis Trilogy

  The Blackhouse

  The Lewis Man

  The Chessmen

  The Enzo Files

  Extraordinary People

  The Critic

  Blacklight Blue

  Freeze Frame

  Blowback

  Cast Iron

  The China Thrillers

  The Firemaker

  The Fourth Sacrifice

  The Killing Room

  Snakehead

  The Runner

  Chinese Whispers

  The Ghost Marriage: A China Novella

  Stand-alone Novels

  The Man With No Face

  The Noble Path

  Entry Island

  Runaway

  Coffin Road

  I’ll Keep You Safe

  A Silent Death

  Lockdown

  NON-fICTION

  Hebrides (with David Wilson)

  First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

  an imprint of

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2021 Peter May

  The moral right of Peter May to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  HB ISBN 978 1 78429 504 2

  TPB ISBN 978 1 78429 505 9

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78429 506 6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organisations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  www.riverrunbooks.co.uk

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Maud Taillard

  ‘Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth.’

  Pablo Picasso

  Contents

  The Night Gate

  Also By

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Emile Narcisse is pleased by his appearance. Vanity has always been a weakness. Where, perhaps, others see him as just another old man, he still perceives himself as the young Emile whose smile won hearts, whose blue-eyed looks turned heads. And after all, sixty-five is not so old. Vintage. Like a good wine, some men just get better with age. Were he not so focused on his reflection in the mirror as he adjusts his tie and straightens his collar, he might have been able to look beyond it and see the certainty of death that lies in wait. But pride and greed blind him to his fate.

  He has chosen a room at the back of the hotel with a view of the river. Or, rather, its black slow-moving backwater broken only by the reflection of trees on the sliver of island beyond. On the far side of the island the River Dordogne, swollen by recent rains, makes a stately but more rapid progress towards the Atlantic two hundred and fifty kilometres to the west. But it is dark now, and he can see nothing beyond the glass.

  He glances at his watch. Time to go. He feels a tiny, excited frisson of anticipation. But also doubt. Is it really possible that fate could have sent such good fortune his way? It is hard to believe. And, yet, here he is.

  Floorboards creak softly beneath his shoes as he descends lightly to reception. The hotel is quiet, the tourist season a distant memory. A notice on the counter reminds customers that the hotel will be closed in just a few weeks for a full month. The annual congés. It will reopen in December in time for Christmas and la nouvelle année, if indeed Covid will allow for a celebration of either.

  Narcisse glances through double French windows that open into the restaurant. Empty tables beneath cold yellow light, the chill October night pressing darkly against windows all along the far side. Not yet seven-thirty. Too early for the French to dine. But on his return he expects to eat, and crack open a celebratory bottle of Bordeaux. A car passes in the street outside. He drops his key on the counter, pleased that there is no one around requiring him to wear his mask. He fingers it in his pocket, glad to keep it there. He detests the damn thing, stuffy and claustrophobic. Yet, he knows, it is a significant barrier against the virus. And at his age he cannot afford to take any risks.

  He does not see the man sitting in the bar, face obscured by a local newspaper, a half-drunk beer on the table in front of him. But as Narcisse steps out into the frosted air, the solitary drinker lowers his paper, rising to cross quickly to a door that leads to the terrace. From here he watches the art dealer make his way towards the palisade, breath billowing in the street lights. Anger burgeons in this man’s breast, a seething rage close to boiling point. The duplicitous peacock has no idea that Bauer is even here. Bauer knows he is not expected for another thirty minutes. But he knows, too, that beyond the gate opposite, a path will lead him through a garden straight to the top of the hill, where another gate will provide direct access to the terrace at the side of her house.

  Narcisse turns left at the post office, before he reaches the palisade. Above it, the château cuts a shadow against the starlit sky, and Narcisse shivers, pulling his collar closer to his neck. Medieval shuttered stone dwellings crowd him on either side, reducing the sky to a ribbon of black overhead. The icy air is almost heady with the sweet-smoke smell of autumn oak, the cold of it burning his nostrils.

  Where the road opens out left and right, the gate to the small park at the top of the hill lies open. Some wo
rk in progress near the war monument has been taped off, and Narcisse sees the thin strip of plastic catch light from the street lamps as it flutters gently in the cold air that snakes through these fifteenth-century streets. But before he reaches the park he turns off to climb the long flight of stone steps to the house that overlooks it. A small covered landing at the door lies in shadow. He pauses and takes a deep breath before slipping on his mask, as if to hide his identity. This is the moment of truth, perhaps the moment to which his entire career has led him. The window shutters to the left of the door stand open, but only darkness lies beyond. There is not a light to be seen anywhere in the house, and Narcisse experiences his first sense of apprehension. He lifts the cast-iron knocker and sharply raps it twice against the wood. Inside he hears the echo of it smothered by the dark. Apprehension gives way to irritation as he knocks again, louder this time. Irritation burgeoning to anger, and then frustration. Is it all just some elaborate hoax? He tries the door handle and to his surprise feels it yield to his hand. The door swings into darkness.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice seems strangely disconnected from his body.

  There is no reply. He steps into the doorway and reaches around the wall, searching for a light switch with his fingers. He finds it. But it brings no light to this world. He curses softly behind his mask and calls again.

  ‘Hello?’

  Still nothing. He takes another step forward. He knows that he is in the kitchen because he was here earlier. A door at the far end, beyond a long table, leads to a short hallway, and then the grand salon. But he can see almost nothing, his eyes made blind by the streets lights he has just left behind. The house feels cold and empty, and his anger becomes incandescent, as if that might light the way ahead. He takes less cautious steps further into the kitchen, his fingertips finding the tabletop to guide him. Shapes are starting to take form around him now.

  A sound that whispers like the smooth passage of silk on silk startles him. Movement in the darkness ahead morphs into silhouette. Momentary light catches polished steel, before he feels the razor-like tip of it slash across his neck. There is no real pain, just an oddly invasive sensation of burning, and suddenly he cannot breathe. His hands fly to his neck, warm blood coursing between cold fingers. He presses both palms against the wound as if somehow they might keep the blood from spilling out of him. He hears it gurgling in his severed windpipe. Just moments earlier he had been consumed by anger. Now he understands that he is going to die, but somehow cannot accept it. It is simply not possible. Consciousness rapidly ebbs to darkness and he drops to his knees. The last thing he sees, before falling face-first to the floor, is his killer. Caught in a fleeting moment of moonlight. And he simply cannot believe it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  South-west France, October 2020

  A notice pinned to the door warned that the maternity unit was open only from 7 a.m. until 8.30 p.m., and Enzo wondered what happened if a woman’s waters broke in the middle of the night. Or were all births scheduled to fit into working hours these days?

  He held the door open for Sophie who stepped out carefully, her left arm linked through Dominique’s right. They all removed their masks, and watched their breath billow in the cold afternoon air that blew up the Rue Wilson from the River Lot and the historic Valentré bridge that spanned it.

  Sophie was radiant and just six weeks from full term. Her check-up had gone well, and she had gazed in wonder at the ultrasound images of her baby boy. But she was thirty-five now, and with two miscarriages behind her, and a pandemic still sweeping the country, it was impossible to be too careful.

  Enzo walked behind his daughter and the woman who had been such a large part of his life these past nine years and felt a wave of emotion wash over him. They were just like mother and daughter, even though Sophie’s birth mother, Pascale, had died giving birth to her all those years ago. He found himself fighting an internal conflict between happiness and regret. But only briefly. How could he be anything but happy for them both?

  He listened to their excited chatter in the late autumn chill and felt a twinge of sadness for Dominique. They had both known from the start that she could not have children, and she had claimed to have come to terms with it. But he had seen that look in her eyes when glimpsing a baby in a pram, or a heavily pregnant woman, and knew that the absence of children would always mean there was something missing in her life.

  In a way she had lived through Sophie’s pregnancy vicariously, and Enzo knew that she anticipated the imminent birth with the same unbridled joy of any grandmother. She had, too, been the only mother that Laurent had ever known beyond the first few months of his life. The child that he and Charlotte had made together. And even after all these years, Enzo could not shake off the image of Charlotte standing over the father of her son in the rain, a gun in her hand. Preparing to kill him.

  They passed plasticised posters tied to rusted railings, and on the other side of the street the spreading branches of a pin parasol cast its shadow over the facade of the Banque de France. At the post office they took a right, and turned down towards the Place Gambetta.

  ‘Can’t wait till this is all over,’ he heard Sophie say, ‘and I can have a drink again!’ He grinned. Like father, like daughter.

  In five minutes they were crossing the Boulevard Léon Gambetta opposite the Théatre de Cahors, to stroll down the Rue Georges Clemenceau to the little tree-lined square in front of La Halle. The trees were almost naked now, drifts of brittle, brown leaves blowing along the gutters. Tables and chairs still stood on the pavement outside La Lamparo pizzeria, peopled by a few hardy customers huddled in coats, to smoke or avoid wearing masks.

  A familiar figure stood outside the door to Enzo’s apartment. She was in uniform, her brown hair neatly pinned beneath her hat. She had put on a little weight, but was still an attractive woman. Enzo had not seen her for some years, and his first thought was that something bad had happened. But her smile when she saw them allayed his misgivings. His instinct was to kiss her on each cheek, but he forced himself to leave a socially distanced two metres between them.

  ‘Hello, Hélène,’ he said, a little awkwardly. It must have been fifteen years since their nearly relationship.

  ‘Enzo!’ She beamed at him. ‘You’ve aged.’

  He didn’t dare return the compliment.

  Sophie said, ‘My dad’s always been old. Ever since I’ve known him.’

  ‘Ancient,’ Dominique chipped in.

  Enzo spread his arms in despair. ‘My life is full of women who do nothing but abuse me.’

  Hélène examined him more closely and frowned. ‘What happened to your hair?’

  ‘It’s still there,’ he said, reaching back to grasp his ponytail and run it through his hand, as if for reassurance.

  ‘A little thinner, perhaps. But that’s not what I meant. Your white stripe. It’s gone!’

  Enzo pulled a face. The white stripe in dark hair running back from one side of his forehead had been a distinguishing feature for most of his life. A physical manifestation of a condition known as Waardenburg syndrome, which had also gifted him one brown eye and one blue, but left him otherwise unaffected. At school it had earned him the nickname Magpie. ‘It’s still there, too,’ he said. ‘You just can’t see it any more for all the grey.’

  ‘Shame.’ Hélène stifled a smile. ‘Now you’re just plain old Enzo Macleod. Nothing to distinguish you from any other Enzo Macleod.’

  ‘Except for the ponytail,’ Sophie said, ‘and the donkey jacket, and the cargoes.’

  ‘And the hippy canvas shoulder bag.’ Dominique gave it an affectionate tug.

  And Sophie added, ‘He still looks like an exile from the sixties.’

  Hélène seemed to notice her bump for the first time. ‘Looks like you and Bertrand have been busy.’

  Sophie’s pleasure showed in her smile. ‘Due next month.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, congratulations.’

  ‘Are you coming up?’ Enzo said.

  But Hélène shook her head. ‘I won’t invade the Enzo bubble.’ It’s what the government was calling allowed family groupings to prevent spread of the Coronavirus. ‘I just came to pass on a message.’

  ‘See you upstairs, then,’ Sophie said, and she and Dominique pushed open the door of the brick tenement to release a breath of warm, damp air into the late October afternoon.

  When they were alone, Enzo said, ‘So who’s trying to get a message to me?’

  ‘An old friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Professor Magali Blanc.’

  ‘The forensic archaeologist? Why didn’t she get in touch herself?’

  ‘Lost your contact details it seems. She’s based in Paris these days, and her request for help in finding you landed on my desk.’

  Enzo frowned. ‘What would she want with me? It’s years since I worked with her.’

  ‘She appears to be engaged on a rather interesting unsolved murder, not far from home. Your home, that is.’

  Enzo let his eyes wander towards La Halle and the little bistro that had opened on the terrace. He and Dominique quite often caught lunch there. In the square beyond, in the shadow of the twin-domed cathedral, he still took coffee every morning at the Café Le Forum. Life in south-west France, in this 2000-year-old Roman town contained by a loop of the river, flowed by as gently as the Lot itself. No stress. And he was enjoying it. He sighed. ‘I’m retired from all that these days, Hélène. Five years since I packed in my position at Paul Sabatier.’

  ‘I thought cold cases were your speciality.’ There was mischief in this.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Only when I get conned into it by accepting a bet after too many glasses of wine.’ He had solved all seven murders in journalist Roger Raffin’s book on French cold cases, but still lost his bet with Hélène and the préfet on a technicality.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that a man with your forensic talents would ever lose his appetite for the challenge.’