‘And when you finished school?’
‘I got a place at Bordeaux University, and Lucie didn’t. Not that she wasn’t bright enough.’ He seemed to feel the need to apologise for her. ‘She just wasn’t interested in continuing her education.’
‘But she still ended up in Bordeaux.’
‘Yes. A job with the prisoners charity, Rentrée. Took it to be close to me. Or so she said. My folks weren’t that well off...’ He flicked his head towards the house. ‘They inherited this place from my mum’s parents. So I was in digs with half a dozen other students in a pretty seedy apartment block near the university. Lucie’s dad bought her a studio.’ This said with what Enzo perceived to be the green monster of envy sitting on his shoulder. ‘There was money in the Martin family, and her father was happy to indulge her in whatever took her fancy.’ Again he darted a look at Enzo. ‘In anything and everything except me. He never really liked me very much. Not good enough for his daughter. Didn’t say it in so many words, but made sure I knew in other ways.’
‘And you never stayed at her studio?’
‘Oh yes, I did. All the time. Except when I had a lecture first thing in the morning. Her place wasn’t exactly close to the uni. It was amazing, those first few months. Free from parental constraints. Free to do exactly as we wanted, when we wanted.’
Enzo watched him closely. ‘I sense a “but” somewhere in the not-too-distant future.’
Tavel shrugged, and the tiny laugh that slipped from his lips was entirely without humour. ‘She dumped me.’ His fingers seemed locked together and his hands made a single fist, as if he was indulging in some desperate kind of prayer. ‘Not immediately. I mean, there was no “It’s finished” speech. It just became “inconvenient” for me to stay over. We saw less and less of each other, and I could feel her slipping away.’
‘Did you have any sense of why?’
Tavel simply shrugged. ‘She’d found someone else.’
‘She told you that?’
‘No.’
‘So how did you know?’
Tavel was avoiding eye contact with Enzo again. ‘Educated guess.’
A tiny gasp of exasperation escaped Enzo’s lips. ‘Because, God knows, it couldn’t possibly have been that she’d simply lost interest in you.’
Tavel looked sharply at Enzo, the implication of vanity had not escaped him, and Enzo saw a little spike of angry pride pierce his agitation. ‘I saw her with him.’ Tension levelled his voice.
‘Where?’
And Enzo saw embarrassment, and maybe shame, cloud his anger. ‘I waited outside the offices of Rentrée one night and followed her. She met this man, an older man, in a café. I can’t tell you how shocked I was as I saw her reach up and kiss him when they met. Just a brushing of the lips. But it was so casual and intimate, you could tell immediately that this wasn’t some new relationship.’
Enzo watched him replay the scene in his mind’s eye.
‘They slipped into a stall at the back of the café. It was dark and I couldn’t see too well. And I couldn’t go in without being seen myself. But I saw them holding hands across the table.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
Tavel’s knuckles whitened. ‘Hurt. Angry.’
‘Did you recognise the man?’
There was an almost imperceptible pause, but Enzo didn’t miss it. ‘No.’
‘So you had no idea who he was?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
Enzo stood watching him in a silence that went on for so long that Tavel was finally compelled to lift his eyes and look at him. Almost immediately, they heard his wife calling up from downstairs. ‘Richard! The boys are waiting for you to help them with their homework.’
Enzo said, ‘You know, this is material evidence in a murder case. Evidence that you withheld from the police.’
Fear widened Tavel’s eyes. ‘I didn’t think it was important.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be able to explain that to them when they take you in for questioning again.’
‘Richard!’ His wife called once more, and Enzo could hear the irritation in her voice.
There was almost panic in Tavel’s. ‘Be down in a minute.’
‘So,’ Enzo said, ‘you had absolutely no idea who this man was?’
Tavel sucked in his lower lip and bit down on it, getting to his feet and turning away towards the window. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, and Enzo could see his anguished reflection in the window in front of him. ‘Not at the time.’
Enzo frowned. ‘But you did later?’
Tavel nodded. And after a long pause, ‘When Blanc was arrested for the murder of those prostitutes his picture was all over the papers.’
And Enzo knew he was just a breath away from a breakthrough in the Lucie Martin case. ‘It was Blanc she met at the café?’
Tavel turned, then, an appeal for understanding in his eyes. ‘I didn’t want to get involved. There was no point in telling the police I’d seen her with Blanc.’
‘Because that would mean admitting you’d been following her. And the press would have had a field day with the whole story, wouldn’t they? Childhood sweetheart jilted for serial killer.’
‘If it was Blanc who killed her, he got locked up for those other killings anyway, so what difference would it have made?’
‘The difference is, Monsieur Tavel,’ Enzo said slowly, ‘it would have given you a clear motive for murder.’
‘Except it couldn’t have been me. I was in Paris!’ There was an almost hysterical edge to Tavel’s voice now.
And Enzo recalled what old Guillaume Martin had told him: I didn’t spend all those years sitting on the bench, monsieur, without coming to the realisation that alibis can be fabricated. He said, ‘You might have had an alibi for the weekend she vanished. But who knows when she was murdered, or where you were at the time?’
And every last drop of blood drained out of Tavel’s face.
When the door closed, Enzo knew he had left behind him a house fibrillating with tension. He stood for a moment on the top step, wondering how Tavel would explain him to his wife. What new lies he would fabricate to conceal a past filled with self-perceived shame. And — who knew? — maybe even guilt.
The moon was already rising in a clear sky, although it was not yet fully dark. The day was hanging on, reluctant to give way to the night. Enzo reached his car, pulling his keys from the pocket of his cargoes, and saw the note pinned to his windscreen beneath the wiper. A single white sheet, folded once. He lifted the wiper to retrieve it and opened it up. Four words. Meet me at the château.
For a moment he wondered which château. Did the writer of the note mean Château Gandolfo? Or the château right here in town? He lifted his head and saw the dark shape of Château Duras, with its circular tower pricking the sky, silhouetted against the western horizon, and realised it was there that he was meant to meet with the author of this message. What he couldn’t divine was why, or who that author might be. And he remembered Michel Bétaille’s words in Bordeaux: There must be a couple of killers out there getting pretty nervous by now. If I was you, I’d be watching my back.
Chapter eleven
It took him no more than two minutes to drive through the narrow arteries of the old town and emerge into the Place Jean Bousquet, which sloped down to where Château Duras stood in a commanding position above the valley below. A couple of cafés spilled light out into the evening, but there was no one sitting at the tables outside. It was getting too cold now, even for the smokers.