The station platform was deserted, a sign that the next train was not due for some time yet. The timetable was almost impossible to decipher, but it appeared that they had missed a train heading all the way to Marseilles. There was a connection to Nice due in fifteen minutes. Ryan’s hand had grown cold in hers, and she knew he would soon start protesting. She was still deciding what to do when a crackle of gravel heralded the arrival of the stolen Mercedes in the station forecourt. Lifting her surprised son into her arms, she abandoned her bags and ran through the underpass beneath the track, climbing the staircase back to the main road.
Above them stood the village, its barred, unlit houses offering little refuge.
He saw her moving and reversed the car, but the parking area was too narrow to offer a turning circle. Not daring to look back, she carried on up the slope to the grand white houses cut in against the base of the cliff. All the villas had barred gates, automatic floodlights and entry-phones. Setting Ryan down, she tried the first buzzer she reached, but there was no answer. Someone must be in, she thought. They can’t all be summer homes; somebody must live here. She ran from bell to bell, slapping them with her palm, but they rang in darkened dead hallways, and no lights came on.
Somewhere a dog began barking, the sound echoing around the hills, but every villa was shuttered and dead, ghost buildings in a village that could only be brought to life by the warmth of summer.
Behind them, the sleek Mercedes coasted a curve and began its unhurried approach. There was nowhere for them to hide; the cliff rose on one side of the road, and bare walls lined the other. On their left, an alleyway overhung with pomegranate trees led to a pair of small houses built onto the steps, the remnants of the original village. Ryan resisted as she pulled him up towards the first front door. There was no doorbell or buzzer for the property, so she rapped with her knuckles.
At the base of the alley, the Mercedes halted as Johann ducked his head and watched them through the passenger window.
Madeline was sure she had seen a curtain twitch from the corner of her eye, but no-one came to answer her call. The sound of the car door opening propelled her to the second building, a lopsided two-floor house with peeling green shutters. She slapped at the door with her hand, calling ‘S’il vous plait! Au secours! but there was silence within. He was striding up the alley stairs towards them now, calling to her, “Madeline, I have to talk with you.”
The door before her suddenly opened, and a miniscule old lady peered up at her from the gap. “Please, do you speak English?” Madeline asked. “There is a man following us.”
‘Alors, vous devez entrer.“ She slipped the chain and widened the door as Madeline pushed Ryan forward. The old woman remembered the village as it had been before the arrival of the foreigners, when residents still took care of each other. For centuries these hills had offered refuge to smugglers, and old habits were slow to die.
“We don’t want to get you into trouble,” she insisted. “Is there another way out of the house?”
“Madeline!” She heard the call from the street. “I know where you are. I just want to talk.”
‘Est-ce votre mari?“ asked the old lady, squinting suspiciously from the window.
“No, he is a burglar,” she said, searching for her schoolgirl French. ‘Un cambrioleur.“
‘Je comprends. Venez avec moi, il y a une porte arriere.“ She led the way through a small Provence-style lounge crowded with dark turned wood and overstuffed floral chairs. They reached the kitchen as Johann started hammering at the door. ’Allez, allez avec votre beau fils. Je me debarrasserai de lux. Toute vite.”
Madeline found herself in the dark rear garden of the house as the old woman closed the door on her. Gripping Ryan’s hand tightly, she pushed into the wet hibiscus bushes, searching for the back gate. As they slipped along the side of the house she could hear Johann arguing with the old woman at the front door, and prayed he would not hurt her. He was swearing loudly at her now, and she was shrieking back. Ryan yelled at her, complaining that she was hurting his arm as they hurtled back down the steps to the road.
The train had left Cap-d’Ail and was already coasting the headland as they ran towards the station. The underpass to the correct platform was too far away. “We’ll have to go over the line,” she told Ryan. “Can you run?”
“Mum, the barrier’s down. I can see the train coming.”
She swung him up into her arms before he could think further, and ran across the track as the light from the double-decked train illuminated the pine trees around them. Their bags were still lying on the platform. The sight of Johann appearing on the other side was cut off as the carriages flashed past and the train came to a stop. She prayed he would not have enough time to reach the underpass.
They boarded the train without tickets and found their way to an upstairs seat. She watched anxiously from the window as the train stayed at the platform, its door wide open. Please, she prayed, let the doors close before he reaches us.
As they finally pulled out of Eze-sur-Mer in the direction of Nice, she had no idea whether he had managed to board the train or not.
14
At five to twelve on Tuesday morning, DS Janice Longbright pushed open the door of the Bayham Street mortuary and entered the musty passageway that ran beside the former school gymnasium.
She looked up at the narrow windows, paused, and took a slow, deep breath. Having resisted promotion from the status of Detective Sergeant for so many years, it now seemed that she was to have the responsibility of leadership placed upon her whether she liked it or not. An uncomfortable-looking Giles Kershaw was waiting for her outside the door. The young forensic scientist coughed loudly, but remained at the threshold of the room. He leaned around the jamb, reluctant to enter.
“Giles, either go in or stay out,” said Longbright, more in puzzlement than irritation. “What on earth’s the matter?”
Kershaw looked sheepish. “Oswald didn’t want me here at all, so I’m not sure I should be intruding upon his turf.”
“Oh, don’t be so sensitive and territorial. I don’t understand what’s so important that you couldn’t talk to me about it on the phone.” The sickly look on his face stopped her. “Tell me what’s happened.”
“I think you’d better take a look,” said Giles, running a hand through his lank blond hair as he stepped back to admit her first. “The door was locked on the inside. I had to use one of the spare keys to get it open. This is just how I found the place.”
She moved carefully into a room that was still more like a gymnasium than a morgue. Most of it was below street level, with five short windows near the ceiling framing a dusty view of passing ankles on the pavement outside. An old wood-and-steel climbing frame still stood in the corner, the last surviving remnant of the St Patrick Junior Catholic Boys’ School gym. The bare brick walls had been painted gloss white, and the aluminium-cased strip lights that hung low across the steel desks added a forensic glare to a room which still smelled faintly of plimsolls and hormonal teens. The sprung wood basketball floor had been covered with carpet tiles. Longbright noted a folded pile of black micromesh sheets, a scuffed stainless steel dissecting table, several glass-fronted equipment cabinets, Finch’s old wooden desk and, at the rear of the room, a bank of four steel body drawers, but there was no sign of the pathologist.
She had expected to find Finch in his usual spot, seated on a bentwood chair beside one of the sinks, reading a gardening magazine. He was now past the age when he could spend much of his day standing. She looked about, puzzled. “I don’t understand. Where is he?”