The Critic Page 22

  The sight of her mother disappearing into the dark brought fresh tears to eyes that had fought to stay dry, and she felt the comfort of Fabien’s arm as it slid around her shoulder. She looked up and saw Enzo standing at the other side of the tomb, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes full of sadness. She knew that Scotsmen often wore their kilts to weddings. She’d had no idea that they wore them to funerals, too. And she was moved that Enzo had taken the trouble. He made a striking figure with his white shirt and black tie, black dress jacket, and the eight metres of pleated tartan wool that made up his kilt. Silver trim on a black leather sporran gleamed dully in what little light the sky let through. There were small, thoughtful touches, too. The black flashes on either side of long, dark socks that stretched over sturdy calves and folded down below the knee. Black shoes laced up above the ankles. His black hair, pulled back in its habitual ponytail and held by a black ribbon. But it seemed greyer somehow, its white flash less distinctive.

  And then it was over, mourners drifting away from the graveside, among the tombs and headstones of this tiny cimetière in the shadow of the hills. Past the old stone chapel with its faded stained-glass windows, out on to the narrow road that wound through the jumble of mediaeval houses gathered around this final resting place. Acorns fallen from a towering oak beyond the wall crunched underfoot, the only sound to break the shuffling silence as they left.

  Nicole took her father’s arm as they walked towards the car. He was a big man reduced by loss, stooped and defeated. He looked awkward and uncomfortable in a suit that didn’t fit him, that would not button shut across a belly that had expanded since last he wore it.

  Enzo stood back and watched father and daughter with an ache in his heart. Sadness for them, discordant memories for him. He became aware of someone stopping at his side and turned his head to find himself looking into Fabien Marre’s cautious black eyes. Anger displaced melancholy. He kept his voice low. ‘I thought I told you to stay away from Nicole.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to listen to a man in a skirt?’

  If they had not been at a funeral Enzo would have taken him down with a swift left hook. In his imagination, at least. He contained his anger by making and unmaking fists at his side, then shoved his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them under control. He thought about all the hours they had spent decoding Petty’s Gaillac ratings. Enzo had been keen to read what Petty had written about Laurent de Bonneval’s Cuvée Special, since he had tasted it himself. But it hadn’t been among the coded reviews downloaded from the server. The wines of La Croix Blanche, however, had. He said, ‘We decoded Petty’s reviews of your wines.’ And saw Fabien tense.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Don’t you want to know how he rated them?’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what Petty thought.’

  ‘Three A2s and two B1s. We figure he must have been planning to change his value ratings for the Gaillac wines, otherwise they’d all have been 1s. There’s hardly a single wine that costs more than fifteen euros.’

  Fabien said nothing.

  ‘He liked your wines, Monsieur Marre. If he’d published those ratings, you’d have been selling them all over America by now.’

  ‘So why would I want to kill him?’

  Enzo looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know that you would. But, then, you had no way of knowing he was going to rate you at all, if we’re to believe that you threw him off the vineyard.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me what you believe.’

  ‘And what about Nicole? Does it matter to you what she thinks?’

  A frown gathered the young man’s brows into a knot. ‘Why don’t we just leave Nicole out of this?’

  ‘You’re the one who’s bringing her into it. You’re the one who’s here.’ He glanced towards the line of cars and saw Nicole’s father and aunt driving off, leaving her standing in the road. She turned and looked back at Enzo and Fabien, and her concern was clear for them both to see. ‘You shouldn’t have come to the funeral, Marre. You’ve no business here.’

  And as he walked across the small car park towards Nicole, he realised that the rain had stopped, and he lowered his umbrella. He took her in his arms and held her for a long time, before releasing her with unexpected tears in his eyes.

  She said, ‘Thank you for coming, Monsieur Macleod.’ She reached up and touched his face briefly with cold fingertips. A tiny expression of gratitude and affection. ‘When do you leave for America?’

  ‘I fly out tomorrow. I’m going up to Paris this afternoon.’

  She nodded almost imperceptibly towards Fabien, who remained standing, a lone figure, by the cemetery gate. ‘I hope there’s no trouble between the two of you, Monsieur Macleod. I really do.’ She avoided his eye, focusing somewhere off into the middle distance. ‘I think he’s really special.’ And she flicked a quick, apprehensive look at Enzo to guage his reaction.

  But he remained impassive. ‘Be careful, Nicole,’ was all he said.

  Then she took both of his hands in hers and stared studiously at the ground. She took a deep quivering breath and turned her face up towards him. ‘There’s something you should know.’ He saw the pain in her eyes. ‘I won’t be coming back to university, Monsieur Macleod.’

  ***

  The yard was still crammed with vehicles, and the house full of mourners eating the quiche and petit fours that Nicole’s aunt had made the previous day, drinking the wine that Fabien had brought in the back of his four-by-four. Nicole’s father had changed out of his suit as soon as he got back to the house. Now he was comfortable again in his dungarees and cloth cap, anxious to move on, to fill his head with work and leave no room for thought or memories. He and Enzo followed the track up the hill above the house to where he had walked with Nicole the day she got back. A warm breeze had sprung up out of the south to sweep the sky from the tops of the hills. The worst of the rain had passed. Battered and torn clouds let fragments of light break through to rush in ever changing shapes across an undulating landscape, messengers bearing the promise of better weather to come.

  ‘It breaks my heart, Monsieur Macleod. It really does.’ The dogs went barking off ahead of them, scattering a gaggle of hens around the boarded-up remains of the abandoned farmhouse at the top of the hill.

  ‘She’s a smart girl, Monsieur Lafeuille. Brightest of her year.’

  Her father raised his hands in a gesture of guilt and frustration. ‘I know, I know. She deserves better. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for her, I really do.’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘But I just don’t have the money.’ He waved an arm vaguely in the air. ‘The farm is all I have. It’s how I make my living. I have no choice but to work it. And I just can’t do it on my own. God knows, I might even have to let a few fields to my neighbours. We did that once before, for a season, after I nearly cut my foot off with a chainsaw.’

  They stopped at the top of his world and looked out over the land that bound him as well as fed him. Land that demanded not only his life, but that of his daughter.

  ‘The one bright spot for Nicole in this dark place we’re in, Monsieur Macleod, is young Fabien Marre. He arrived yesterday. He’s been a great support to her. A nice lad.’ He managed to raise a smile and turned it towards Enzo. ‘And he’s of the land. Just like us.’ He shook his head. ‘And there was me thinking she was never going to find herself a man.’

  Enzo nodded. Whatever doubts he had about Fabien Marre, this was neither the time nor the place to voice them. But where Nicole’s father saw the young winemaker as light in their darkness, Enzo feared he might only be casting ever deeper shadows. He hoped he was wrong.

  II.

  A dusky, pink twilight fell like a veil across the Paris rooftops. The rain in the southwest had not touched the capital. The air was autumnal soft, vibrating to the sounds of traffic in the boulevards. People sat at tables outside cafés enjoying an Indian summer, sipping chilled wine, animated chatter fusing with the sounds
of birds that dived and swooped-in darting clouds between the buildings.

  Enzo walked up the Rue de Tournon from the Boulevard Saint-Germain towards the Sénat, the floodlit stone of the Upper House painted gold against blue fading to red. He stopped outside huge green doors that opened into a hidden world of Parisian courtyards, and hesitated for just a moment before tapping in the entry code.

  From the courtyard beyond, he could see that Raffin’s windows were open to the night. Soft classical music from a stereo drifted in gentle evening air, carried on the light that fell from unshuttered windows across the cobbles. The indignation that days before had fuelled his determination to speak to Raffin, gave way now to a nervous apprehension.

  Raffin, too, seemed nervous. He had been hesitant about his availability to see Enzo that night. But Enzo had stressed that it would be their only chance to meet, and so he had cancelled an engagement and called back to tell Enzo to come to the apartment.

  There was a bottle of wine open on the table and two glasses set beside it. Raffin wore immaculately pressed, pleated pants that gathered around brown suede Italian shoes. His white shirt looked freshly starched, open at the neck, collar turned up to where soft brown hair grew to meet it. It was longer than when Enzo had last seen him. His sharp, angular jaw was shaved smooth and still carried the scent of some expensive aftershave that Enzo couldn’t identify and probably couldn’t afford. Raffin lit a cigarette, which he held between long fingers, and looked at Enzo with pale green eyes. ‘You’ll take a glass?’

  Enzo nodded and sat down uncomfortably at the table.

  Raffin poured two glasses. ‘So how’s the investigation going?’

  ‘Well. I hope this trip to America is going to help me crack it.’

  ‘Will you be away long?’

  ‘A couple of days.’ Enzo took a sip of his wine and glanced at the bottle. Of course, it was something good. A Clos Mogador 2001 Priorat. An inky-purple Bordeaux with rich, full tones of blueberry and raspberry and toasty new oak. Enzo thought that it probably cost fifty euros, or more.

  Raffin sat down opposite. ‘Tell me.’

  And so Enzo told him everything. About Petty’s coded ratings, and how they had broken the code. About his article on GM yeasts recommending a boycott of American wines. Which drew a whistle of astonishment from Raffin. About the attempt on Enzo’s life in the vineyards of Château Saint-Michel. Jean-Marc Josse and the l’ Ordre de la Dive Bouteille. Gendarme Roussel and his missing person’s file. The discovery of Serge Coste who, in the space of one evening, had moved from the missing person’s folder to a murder file all on his own. And, of course, Fabien Marre, whose vineyard had played host to two corpses, and who seemed consumed by an unnatural hatred of Gil Petty.

  Raffin listened in silence. ‘And the trip to America?’

  ‘I’m taking soil samples for analysis. If we can match them to the wine taken from Serge Coste’s stomach, it might well lead us to our killer.’

  ‘Any thoughts?’

  Enzo shook his head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘What about this Fabien Marre?’

  Enzo pursed his lips grimly. ‘I hope not, Roger. Nicole seems to have formed a real attachment to him.’

  Raffin raised an eyebrow in surprise, but Enzo didn’t elucidate. ‘And that’s it? That’s what was so important for you to come and tell me? You couldn’t have briefed me by e-mail?’

  Enzo nodded. ‘I could.’

  ‘So what are you really here for?’

  Enzo returned his unblinking gaze. ‘Kirsty.’ He saw Raffin’s jaw set.

  ‘I thought as much. How did you find out?’ But he raised a hand to preempt Enzo’s response. ‘No don’t tell me. It was Charlotte, right? She come down to see you in Gaillac?’

  ‘I had a right to know.’

  ‘It’s none of her damned business!’ Raffin’s voice raised itself in anger. ‘Jealous bitch!’

  ‘That’s not how she tells it.’

  ‘No. Well, she wouldn’t, would she?’

  ‘She figures you’re the one who’s jealous of me and her.’

  Raffin flashed him a dark look. ‘The way I heard it, there is no you and her.’

  ‘Well, you might be right there. But I didn’t come to talk about me and Charlotte. Or you and Charlotte.’

  ‘Kirsty’s a big girl now, Enzo. She doesn’t need her daddy vetting her boyfriends.’

  ‘I don’t want you seeing her, Roger?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t think you’re right for her.’

  ‘Why?’

  Enzo stared at him and struggled to find an answer. It wasn’t their age difference, which was only seven years—no more than the gap between Enzo and Pascale. So what was it? Roger was a successful journalist. A good-looking young man. Widowed, so he was available. As much as anything it was what Charlotte had said: ‘There’s something dark about Roger, Enzo. Something beyond touching. Something you wouldn’t want to touch, even if you could.’ ‘You’re just not.’ Even to Enzo, it sounded like the most feeble of reasons.

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Enzo.’ There was no rancour in it, just a weary dismissal. Raffin stood up, but Enzo reached across the table and held his wrist.

  ‘I’m not asking you, Roger….’

  ‘Well, that’s really rich coming from you!’ Her voice startled him. He turned around to find her standing in the bedroom doorway. Enzo could see himself beyond her in the mirrored doors. He could see the shock on his own face.

  ‘Kirsty.’ He flicked an angry glance at Raffin. ‘You bastard, you set me up.’

  ‘No.’ Kirsty stepped into the room. ‘I set you up. I couldn’t believe it when Roger said he thought you might be coming to warn him off.’ Her long, chestnut hair fanned out over square shoulders. She wore a powder blue shirt knotted at the waist above cut-off jeans. She was tall and elegant, and Enzo thought her quite beautiful.

  He stood up. ‘Listen, Kirsty—’

  But she wasn’t listening. She moved into the room. ‘I couldn’t believe that the man who didn’t care about leaving his seven-year-old daughter would turn up twenty years later telling her who she could and couldn’t see. I didn’t believe anyone would have that kind of gall.’ She issued a tiny snort of self-disgust. ‘Shows you what I know.’ She looked very directly at her father. ‘Certainly not you, anyway.’

  ‘Kirsty, I’m not trying to tell you what to do.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’m just concerned, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, you know what, father? I never needed your advice in all the years you weren’t there. I don’t need it now.’

  The three of them stood in a tense silence, and from one of the other apartments they heard someone playing the piano. Some jolly ragtime romp that seemed only to mock them.

  ‘I think you’d better go,’ Kirsty said. And when Enzo made no move to leave, she added, ‘I’m not asking you….’

  III.

  ‘I can’t believe you did that, Enzo!’

  ‘You sound just like her.’ He was huffy and defensive.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Anyway, it was you that told me about them. What did you think I was going to do?’

  Charlotte shook her head, eyes wide with disbelief. ‘I didn’t think for one minute you’d go charging in there to lay down the law. These are two grown people, Enzo. You don’t have the right.’

  ‘Why did you tell me, then?’

  ‘Because I thought you had the right to know.’

  Enzo breathed his anger and frustration through clenched teeth. He looked down into the street from Charlotte’s kitchen window and saw a man walking his a dog. Otherwise the Rue des Tanneries was deserted beneath the street lamps of this slightly seedy quartier in the thirteenth arrondissement where mills and tanneries once poured their industrial bile into the river Bièvre.

  Charlotte had made her home in the offices of a former coal merchant, c
reating an indoor garden and atrium in the one-time courtyard, where she now consulted with her patients. Galleries on each floor looked down into the garden and opened onto bedrooms like fishbowls behind walls of glass. Its eccentricity reflected the character of its owner.

  He turned away from the window to face her. ‘I think maybe I also have the right to know what it is about Roger that so concerns you.’ He took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. ‘Something dark, you said, Charlotte.’

  She pulled away from him and crossed to the work counter to refill her wine glass. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You mean you won’t.’

  ‘No, I mean I can’t. It’s not something I can point a finger at and say, “it’s this,” or “it’s that.” It’s just a feeling.’ There was pain in her face. The pain of searching and failing to find a way of expressing something felt deep inside. ‘I lived with him for eighteen months, Enzo. It was a feeling that grew on me. That sense of something dark in him, something hidden. In the end it overshadowed everything that had ever drawn me to him, his charm, his humour, his intelligence. I grew to dislike him so much I could barely stand to be in his company. It’s why I left him. It’s why I told you about him and Kirsty.’

  Enzo threw his hands out to either side of him. ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. Except be aware, and be there when she comes to you, as one day she will, and says, Papa, you were right.’

  ***

  He straightened the waistband of his kilt, fastened the buckles, and carefully clipped it to its hanger. Then he crossed the bedroom to hang it from the rail. His suitcase lay open on the bed, clothes and toiletries strewn about it. He felt a tiny worm of apprehension, maybe even fear, turn over inside him. If he was caught… But he didn’t want to think about it. If he did, he would probably be unable to see it through. From the far side of the bed, he looked through glass to the darkness beyond and had the uncomfortable sensation of being watched, as he always did here. Of someone being out there on one of the galleries, made invisible by darkness, while he was exposed to full view by the light. He invariably felt vulnerable until he turned off the lamps, and then, with moonlight spilling through the glass above the garden, would lie and watching strange things take shape in the dark. He had never understood how Charlotte could live on her own in this place, with its ghosts and shadows and obfuscations.