Labyrinth

CHAPTER 15

Foix

Alice was jolted awake by a persistent ringing in her ear.

Where the hell am I? The beige phone on the shelf above the bed rang again.

Of course. Her hotel room in Foix. She’d come back from the site, done some packing, then had a shower. The last thing she remembered was lying down on her bed for five minutes.

Alice fumbled for the receiver. “Oui.Allo?”

The owner of the hotel, Monsieur Annaud, had a strong local accent, all flat vowels and nasal consonants. Alice had trouble understanding him face to face. On the phone, without the benefit of eyebrows and hand gestures, it was impossible. He sounded like a cartoon character.

“Plus lentement,”s’il vous plait,“ she said, trying to slow him down. ”Vous parlez trop vite. Je ne comprends pas.“

There was a pause. She heard rapid muttering in the background. Then Madame Annaud came on and explained there was someone waiting for Alice in reception.

“Une femme?” she said hopefully.

Alice had left a note for Shelagh at the site house, as well as a couple of messages on her voicemail, but she’d heard nothing.

“Non, c’est un homme,” replied Madame Annaud.

“Okay,” she sighed, disappointed. “J’arrive. Deux minutes.”

She ran a comb through her hair, which was still damp, then pulled on a skirt and T-shirt, pushed her feet into a pair of espadrilles, then headed downstairs, wondering who the hell it could be.

The main team were all staying in a small auberge close to the excavation site. In any case, she’d already said her goodbyes to those who wanted to hear them. Nobody else knew she was here. Since she’d broken up with Oliver, there was no one to tell anyway.

The reception area was deserted. She peered into the gloom, expecting to see Madame Annaud sitting behind the high wooden desk, but the was no one there. Alice took a quick look round the corner at the waiting room. The old wicker chairs, dusty on the underside, were unoccupied, were the two large leather sofas that stood at right angles to the fireplace draped with horse brasses and testimonials from grateful past guests, lopsided spinner of postcards, offering dog-eared views of everything Foix and the Ariege had to offer, was still.

Alice went back to the desk and rang the bell. There was a rattle of beads in the doorway as Monsieur Annaud appeared from the family’s private quarters.

“II y a quelqu’un pour moi?”

“La,” he said, leaning out over the counter to point.

Alice shook her head. “Personne.”

He came round to look, then shrugged, surprised to find the lounge was deserted. “Dehors? Outside?” He mimed a man smoking.

The hotel was on a small side street, which ran between the main thoroughfare-filled with administrative buildings, fast-food restaurants as well as the extraordinary 1930s Art Deco post office-and the more picturesque medieval center of Foix with its cafes and antique shops.

Alice looked to the left, then to the right, but nobody appeared to be waiting. The shops were all closed at this time of day and the road were pretty much empty.

Puzzled, she turned to go back inside, when a man appeared out of doorway. In his early twenties, he was wearing a pale summer suit that was a little too big for him. His thick black hair was neatly short and his eye were obscured behind dark glasses. He had a cigarette in his hand.

“Dr. Tanner.”

“Qui,” she said cautiously. “Vous me cherchez?”

He reached into his top pocket. “Pour vous. Tenez,” he said, thrusting an envelope at her. He kept darting his eyes about, clearly nervous that some one would see them. Alice suddenly recognized him as the young uniformed officer who’d been with Inspector Noubel.

“Je vous ai deja rencontre, non? Au Pic de Soularac.”

He switched to English. “Please,” he said urgently. “Take.”

“Vous etes avec Inspecteur Noubel?” she insisted.

He had tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He took Alice by surprise by grabbing her hand and forcing the envelope into it.

“Hey!” she objected. “What is this?”

But he’d already disappeared, swallowed up into one of the many alleyways that led up to the castle.

For a moment, Alice stood staring at the empty space in the street, half-minded to follow him. Then she reconsidered. The truth was, he’d scared her. She looked down at the letter in her hand as if it was a bomb about to go off, then took a deep breath and slid her finger under the flap. Inside the envelope was a single sheet of cheap writing paper with appelez scrawled across it in childish capitals. Below that was a telephone number: 02 68 72 31 26.

Alice frowned. It wasn’t local. The code for the Ariege was 05.

She turned it over in case there was something on the other side, but it was blank. She was about to throw the note in the bin, then thought better of it. Might as well keep it for now. Putting it in her pocket, she dumped the envelope on top of the ice-cream wrappers, then went back in, feeling mystified.

Alice didn’t notice the man step out from the doorway of the cafe opposite. By the time he reached into the bin to retrieve the envelope, she was already back in her room.

Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Yves Biau finally stopped running. He bent over, hands on his knees, to get his breath back.

High above him, the great Chateau of Foix towered over the town as it had done for more than a thousand years. It was the symbol of the independence of the region, the only significant fortress never to be taken in the crusade against the Languedoc. A refuge for the Cathars and freedom fighters driven from the cities and plains.

Biau knew he was being followed. They-whoever they were-had made no attempt to hide. His hand went to his gun beneath his jacket. At least he’d done what Shelagh asked him. Now, if he could get over the border into Andorra before they realized he’d gone, he might be all right. Biau understood now that it was too late to halt the events he’d helped set in motion. He’d done everything they told him, but she kept coming back. Whatever he did would never be enough.

The package had gone by the last post to his grandmother. She would know what to do with it. It was the only thing he could think of to make up for what he’d done.

Biau looked up and down the street. No one.

He stepped out and started to walk, heading home by a circuitous, illogical route, in case they were waiting for him there. Coming from this direction, he’d have a chance of spotting them before they saw him.

As he crossed through the covered market, his subconscious mind registered the silver Mercedes in the Place Saint-Volusien, but he paid little attention. He didn’t hear the soft cough of the engine ticking over, nor the shift of gears as the car started to glide forward, rumbling softly over the cobbled stones of the medieval old town.

As Biau stepped off the pavement to cross the road, the car accelerated violently, catapulting forward like a plane on a runway. He spun round, shock frozen on his face. A dull thud and his legs were taken out from under him as his suddenly weightless body was thrown into and over the windscreen. Biau seemed to float for a fraction of a second before being hurled violently against one of the cast-iron stanchions that supported the sloped roof of the covered market.

He hung there, suspended in midair, like a child in a centrifuge at a fairground. Then gravity claimed him and he dropped straight to the ground, leaving a trail of red blood on the black metal pillar.

The Mercedes did not stop.

The noise brought people in the local bars out on to the streets. A couple of women looked out from windows overlooking the square. The owner of the Cafe PMU took one look and ran back inside to call the police. A woman started screaming and was quickly hushed as a crowd formed around the body.

At first, Alice took no notice of the noise. But as the wailing of the sirens grew closer, she moved to her hotel window like everyone else and looked out.

It’s nothing to do with you.

There was no reason to get involved. And yet, for some reason she couldn’t account for, Alice found herself leaving her room and heading for the square.

There was a police car blocking the small road that led from the corner of the square, its lights flashing silently. Just the other side, a group of people had formed a semicircle around something or someone lying on the ground.

“You’re not safe anywhere,” an American woman was muttering to her husband, “not even in Europe.”

Alice’s sense of foreboding got stronger the closer she got. She couldn’t bear the thought of what she might see, but somehow couldn’t stop herself. A second police car emerged from a side street and screeched to a halt beside the first. Faces turned, the thicket of arms and legs and bodies thinning just long enough for Alice to see the body on the ground. A pale suit, black hair; sunglasses with brown lenses and gold arms, lying close by.

It can’t be him.

Alice pushed her way through, shoving people out of the way until she reached the front. The boy was lying motionless on the ground. Her hand went automatically to the paper in her pocket. This can’t be a coincidence.

Struck dumb with shock, Alice blundered back. A car door slammed. She jumped and spun round, in time to see Inspector Noubel levering himself out of the driver’s seat. She shrank back into the mass of people. Don’t let him see you. Instinct sent her across the square, away from Noubel, her head down.

As soon as she rounded the corner, she broke into a run.

“S’il vous plait,” shouted Noubel, clearing a path through the onlookers. “Police. S’il vous plait.”

Yves Biau was spreadeagled on the unforgiving ground, his arms flung out at right angles. One leg was doubled under him, clearly broken, a white ankle bone protruding from his trousers. The other leg lay unnaturally flat, flopped sideways. One of his tan loafers had come off.

Noubel crouched down and tried to find a pulse. The boy was still breathing, in short, shallow gasps, but his skin was clammy to the touch and his eyes were closed. In the distance, Noubel heard the welcome wail of an ambulance.

“S’il vous plait,” he shouted again, hauling himself to his feet. “Poussez-vous.” Stand back.

Two more police cars arrived. Word had gone out over the radio that an officer was down, so there were more police than bystanders. They cordoned off the street and separated witnesses from onlookers. They were efficient and methodical, but the tension showed in their faces.

“It wasn’t an accident, Inspector,” said the American woman. “The car drove right at him, real fast. He didn’t stand a chance.”

Noubel looked at her intently. “You saw the incident, Madame?”

“Sure I did.”

“Did you see what type of car it was? The make?”

She shook her head. “Silver, that’s as much I can say.” She turned to her husband.

“Mercedes,” he said immediately. “Didn’t get a good look myself. Only turned around when I heard the noise.”

“Registration number?”

“I think the last number was eleven. It happened too quick.”

“The street was quite empty, Officer,” the wife repeated, as if she feared he wasn’t taking her seriously.

“Did you see how many people were in the car?”

“One for sure in the front. Couldn’t say if there were folks in the rear.”

Noubel handed her over to an officer to take down her details, then walked round to the back of the ambulance where Biau was being lifted in on a stretcher. His neck and head were supported by a brace, but a steady stream of blood was flowing from beneath the bandage wrapped around the wound, staining his shirt red.

His skin was unnaturally white, the color of wax. There was a tube taped to the corner of his mouth and a mobile drip attached to his hand.

“Il pourra’s”en tirer?“ ‘Will he make it?

The paramedic pulled a face. “If I were you,” he said, slamming the doors shut, “I’d be calling the next of kin.”

Noubel banged on the side of the ambulance as it pulled away, then, satisfied his men were doing their job, he wandered back to his car, cursing himself. He lowered himself into the front seat, feeling every one of his fifty years, reflecting on all the wrong decisions he’d taken today that had led to this. He slid a finger under the collar of his shirt and loosened his tie.

He knew he should have talked to the boy earlier. Biau hadn’t been himself from the moment he’d arrived at the Pic de Soularac. He was normally enthusiastic, the first to volunteer. Today, he’d been nervous and on edge, then he’d vanished for half the afternoon.

Noubel tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. Authie claimed Biau had never given him the message about the ring. And why would he lie about something like that?

At the thought of Paul Authie, Noubel felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He popped a peppermint in his mouth to relieve the burning. That was another mistake. He shouldn’t have let Authie near Dr. Tanner, although, when he thought about it, he wasn’t sure what he could have done to prevent it. When reports of the skeletons at Soularac had come through, orders that Paul Authie should be given access to the site and assistance had accompanied them. So far, Noubel hadn’t been able to find out how Authie had heard about the discovery so fast, let alone worm his way onto the site.

Noubel had never met Authie in person before, although he knew him by reputation. Most police officers did. A lawyer, known for his hard-line religious views, Authie was said to have half the judiciaire and gendarmerie of the Midi in his pockets. More specifically, a colleague of Noubel’s had been called to give evidence in a case Authie was defending. Two members of a far-right group were accused of the murder of an Algerian taxi driver in Carcassonne. There’d been rumors of intimidation. In the end, both defendants were acquitted and several police officers forced to retire.

Noubel looked down at Biau’s sunglasses, which he’d picked up from the ground. He’d been unhappy earlier. Now he liked the situation even less.

The radio crackled into life, belching out the information Noubel needed about Biau’s next of kin. He sat for a moment longer, putting off the moment. Then he started to make the calls.