A Rush of Blood

Seventy-one

‘I’m glad we had the satellite navigation,’ said Becky Stallings. ‘This place is further off the motorway than I’d thought from looking at the map. And it’s not very big either.’

‘We’d have found it,’ Mario McGuire assured her. ‘My mother lives in Tuscany. Compared to some of the in-country villages there, this Mezin is a metropolis.’ As he spoke, the mellifluous female voice from the box told him to take a right turn into Place Armand Fallières. When he obeyed, it told him that his destination was straight ahead. He drew the car to a halt at the kerbside, in what appeared to be, in the faint light just after nightfall, a square, bounded on two sides by shops and a pizzeria, on the third by a church, and on the fourth, in the direction in which they faced, by houses, with a street opening to the left. ‘That must be Rue St Cauzimis,’ he murmured.

‘What time is it?’ Stallings asked. ‘I can’t find it on this display.’

‘It’s down there in the corner, see,’ he replied. ‘Bottom right. It’s seven, on the dot.’

‘Will we go straight there?’

‘No, let’s check into the hotel and dump the motor. According to the map, it’s just behind the church.’ He engaged gear, and drove slowly towards the foot of the square. There he found, as he had expected, a second road beside Rue St Cauzimis, that led into a large manor house with a sign that read ‘Hotel de Ville’.

He parked the car at the side of the main entrance, and led the way inside. The receptionist smiled as they entered. ‘Our late bookings?’ she asked.

‘That’s us,’ said Stallings, cheerfully, pleased to be addressed in English for the first time since they had arrived at Charles de Gaulle.

They completed the check-in formalities, for one night with an option on a second, and went to their rooms, agreeing to meet back in the foyer at seven thirty.

When they did, McGuire was still in his travel clothes, black chinos, a red Ralph Lauren polo shirt, and a sports jacket, but the DI had changed from her jeans into a light pleated skirt, with a white blouse and a short, elegant, brown suede coat. She caught his glance. ‘I know I’m here as the obligatory female, Mario,’ she told him, ‘so it’s best that I dress like one. How do we play this? Do we call her first?’

‘No. We march right up to number one-oh-five and knock on the door.’

‘Now?’

‘It’s why the boss sent us here. Let’s go.’ He led the way out of the hotel, and down the drive.

The temperature had dropped by a few degrees in the time they had been in the hotel. Stallings pulled her coat tight. ‘This is France,’ she muttered. ‘Should it be this cold?’

‘In the winter it can get a lot worse than this.’

They stepped into Rue St Cauzimis, a cobbled street that sloped downwards from the square, checking the numbers as they walked, ‘One zero nine,’ the detective superintendent muttered, ‘one zero seven. One hundred and five,’ he announced. ‘This is it.’

The house was on a corner, old like those around it, and built in stone that an unthinking owner had decided to ruin by painting white. A light hung over the blue front door, showing a brass knocker in the centre. McGuire seized it and rapped three times, hard. ‘God,’ Stallings whispered. ‘Anyone, anywhere in the world would know that’s the police.’

‘That or the rent collector.’

‘I wonder how much the rents are around. .’

She was interrupted by the opening of the door, not by the woman they were expecting, but by a tall man, McGuire’s equal in height if not width, dressed all in black, trousers and a crew-necked sweater. He looked a year or so short of thirty; his dark hair was close cropped and his tan looked out of place in February. A couple of yards behind him stood a second man, identically dressed, a clone of the first, save for a neatly trimmed beard.

The doorkeeper said nothing; he simply stared, unsmiling.

‘We’d like to see Mrs Regine Zaliukas, please,’ the head of CID told him.

The man replied in a language that neither police officer understood.

McGuire repeated his request, but in French.

‘She’s not available,’ he said, in the same language.

‘Would you like to ask her whether she is or not?’

‘Just go away, will you?’

His French is OK, the detective thought, but his accent’s odd. ‘We can’t do that,’ he said. ‘We’ve come a long way to see the lady, from Scotland. We’re concerned about her welfare.’

‘That’s what we’re for,’ the man retorted.

‘Now why doesn’t that reassure me?’ McGuire murmured, in English.

The man edged forward, until the Scot made him pause with a shake of his head. ‘Don’t do that, soldier boy,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’ve been to the same school as you. And think on this. As long as you’re standing in that narrow doorway, it’s just you and me.’

‘That might not worry me.’

The guardian’s hand moved, reaching behind his back. . but like others before him, he had underestimated McGuire’s hand speed, and was unprepared for the power of the fist that slammed into the pit of his stomach, and upwards, in a surge of agony that drove the breath from his lungs. The detective grabbed him before he could fall and spun him around, making his body a shield against the second man’s advance and, as he did so, snatching the pistol he had sought from the holster that was strapped to his belt, against his spine. ‘Just stop now,’ he ordered. He had reverted to English again, but his message got across.

‘Oui, Zaki; arretez.’ The woman’s voice came from the foot of a stairway to the left of the entrance hall. ‘Je connais cet homme. II est police, mais il est un ami. . je pense. Is that right, Mario, are you a friend?’

He laughed. ‘I’m surprised you can recognise me in the daylight, Regine. We usually see each other under those UV lights of yours in Indigo. Yes, I’m a friend all right, don’t you worry. We’re not police here, though. We’re no more official than these guys are, but somehow we didn’t think you’d want us to turn up with the local plod behind us.’ He released his hold on the doorkeeper, who was still gasping from his punch, slipped the pistol back into its place, and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Sorry about that, Zaki,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Regine Zaliukas. ‘That’s Max. Zaki’s the other one.’ She stepped out into the hall. She wore an outfit that was a cross between a tracksuit and pyjamas, and pink fluffy carpet slippers.

‘Then tell them both I’m sorry, and that I hope there are no hard feelings.’

She did as he asked, adding a lecture for their heavy-handedness. Max nodded, muttered, ‘I sorry,’ in strangled English and offered his hand.

‘Come in,’ she said, turning towards a door at the rear of the hall. ‘Come on through to the living room. We can talk there; I’ve just put the kids to bed. Who’s your colleague?’ she asked as the officers caught up with her.

‘DI Becky Stallings,’ McGuire told her. ‘And who are yours?’

‘Friends of Jonas, my brother-in-law. They served under him in the United Nations army, in the Congo, hence their jungle French. They’re here to protect us. We weren’t expecting you, though.’ Her laugh was quiet, but there was sadness in it. She led them down a few steps into an elegant room, as modern as the exterior of the house was old. ‘Take a seat. Would you like a drink?’

‘To be honest, I could slaughter a beer.’

‘I can do that. I’ve even got Perroni. That’s what you drink, isn’t it? And you, Inspector?’

‘Becky, please. Any sort of white wine would be lovely.’

The widow nodded and disappeared up a second short stairway, shuffling in the backless slippers.

‘Nice house,’ Stallings murmured. ‘I fancy this furniture: cream leather, very nice.’

‘There’s a very good shop in Bordeaux,’ said Regine, returning with a bottle of Italian beer, another of Chenin blanc, and two glasses, all on a tray.

‘Is this your house?’

‘It’s my parents’ place. But they’re not here just now,’ she added, as she handed McGuire his beer and poured two glasses of wine. ‘They have an apartment in Marbella, in the south of Spain. Too cold for them here in winter now.’ She sighed. ‘And for me.’

‘I’m deeply sorry, Regine,’ McGuire told her. ‘You must still be in shock.’

She looked at him. ‘Mario, I honestly don’t know what I’m in.’

‘But you are safe? We need to be sure of that. Things have been happening back in Edinburgh since Tomas died.’

‘I know. But yes, I’m safe now.’

He took a slug of his beer, straight from the bottle. ‘Are you implying that you haven’t always been?’

‘I’m implying nothing. I’m saying nothing; not just now.’

‘Regine, what’s going on? This story about you leaving Tomas: nobody believes it for a second.’

‘As I told Alex Skinner, I didn’t leave him; that must have been what Tomas told people. He made me take the kids and come over here, for safety, he thought.’

‘But why? What was the threat?’

She shook her head. ‘Mario, please, not now. Honestly, I can’t tell you any more tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Yes, you come back tomorrow, and if everything is as it should be, I will talk to you then.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes, I promise. If I feel that I can, then I will. You come back at midday. In the meantime, don’t worry: I’m safe with Max and Zaki.’ She smiled again, weakly. ‘Maybe not from you, if you were an enemy, but from everybody else. Where are you staying?’

‘Hotel de Ville, across the street.’

‘Good. If there is a problem I can call for you. But there won’t be, I’m sure.’

‘OK.’

They sat for a while in silence, finishing their drinks. When they were done, the police officers rose to leave, and Regine stood with them. ‘Valdas and Laima,’ she began, as they walked to the door. ‘They died in a fire, I was told.’

‘That’s what we’re saying, but we believe they were killed before it was started. There’s evidence that he was tortured, but why, we don’t know.’

‘But they were dead before the fire. . reached them?’

‘Yes.’

She shuddered. ‘That’s a sort of kindness, I suppose. He was a greedy, vicious fool, and she was a deeply unpleasant woman, but they didn’t deserve to. .’

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,’ said McGuire, as she opened the door. ‘Good night. See you tomorrow.’

‘What was that about?’ Stallings exclaimed, once they were outside on Rue St Cauzimis.

‘God knows. And hopefully so will we after our next meeting. Something heavy’s happened, that’s for sure. Regine is not a woman to be scared easily, but she has been.’

‘So what do we do now?’

McGuire shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m heading for that wee restaurant up in the square. Right now, a pizza and a few more beers seem to be the only show in town.’