The Critic

II

The gendarme was young, attractive, with short dark hair, and black Mediterranean eyes. She smiled at Enzo across the desk and told him that Gendarme Roussel had taken several days’ leave. Enzo nodded through the open window towards the other side of the courtyard.

‘Does he stay in the apartments?’

‘No, he and his wife moved out when they had their second kid. They live in his family home near Lisle sur Tarn.’

Enzo nodded thoughtfully. ‘The pathologist in the Serge Coste case has a sample for me to collect. But they won’t release it without the proper paperwork. Gendarme Roussel was going to take care of that for me.’

Her smile widened. ‘He did. If you’ll hold on a minute…’

She disappeared through an open door, and Enzo heard distant music and voices raised in laughter. Out in the courtyard, where a group of gendarmes stood smoking, the shadows of clouds raced across the gravel, the advance guard of rainclouds approaching from the southwest.

He couldn’t shake off the depression of Nicole’s news. He had never met her mother, but he knew her father, and knew too how hard it was for a man on his own. Nicole had been inconsolable. No matter how prepared you think you are for the death of someone close, it always comes harder than you could ever imagine. He had sent her straight home, and made her promise to call him once they had fixed a date for the funeral.

‘Here you are.’ The smiling gendarme emerged holding a large buff envelope. She handed it to him. ‘He left it for you.’

As he buzzed the gate open to step out into the street, he saw how dark the sky was beyond the river, sunlight cutting tile-red roofs sharp against the black. He felt the wind strong in his face and smelled the change of weather in it. The rain would not be far behind. He would need to hurry. He did not want to be digging up earth samples in the wet.

The first drops of it fell as he tipped the last trowelful of sandy earth into his plastic carrier bag. When he had first crouched between the vines to dig deep into crumbling, dry soil, the wind had been fierce, whipping through the leaves on either side of his head, filling his ears with a sound like rushing water. Which was probably why he had not heard the motor of the approaching vehicle. Now the wind had dropped, and the rain was starting to fall. He turned his face up towards a sky swollen with cloud and felt it splash warm on his skin. He tied the bag shut and stood up, turning abruptly into the shadow of Fabien Marre. The young man was blocking his way out from between the rows.

They were both big men, and their eyes met on a level. Enzo was startled. He had not heard the other man approach. But he stood his ground, determined to brazen it out. The rain began to fall in earnest, so that within seconds they were both soaked, rain streaming down faces carved in stone.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Fabien’s eyes dropped to the carrier bag and the dripping trowel in Enzo’s hands.

‘None of your business.’ Enzo moved to push past him, but Fabien shoved a big hand into his chest.

‘It’s my land. Which makes it my business. What’s in the bag?’

In his day, Enzo could have met Fabien on an equal physical footing. But although he kept himself fit, there were twenty years between them. He would be no match for the younger man. ‘Nicole says you told her you refused to let Petty taste your wines.’

‘So?’

‘We found his reviews. He tasted five wines from La Croix Blanche.’

Lightning crackled somewhere over the other side of the hill, followed seconds later by an explosion of thunder.

Fabien shrugged. ‘He didn’t get them from me. You can buy my wines in any supermarket or cave around here.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘You’d have to ask him.’

‘I would. Only someone murdered him.’

Fabien held him in a steady, unblinking gaze, face streaming. His change of subject took Enzo by surprise. ‘So, when’s the funeral?’

More lightning, more thunder. Enzo frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nicole’s mother.’

Enzo felt anger rise up his back like bristles on a porcupine. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I thought I might go.’

Confusion diluted anger for just a moment, and Enzo stared at Fabien through narrowed eyes. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘Me and Nicole, we have…an understanding. I think she’d appreciate my support.’

Enzo shook his head. ‘You stay away from Nicole. That’s the only thing you need to understand. You go anywhere near her, you answer to me.’

‘I’m shaking in my shoes.’ Thunder burst above their heads, so loudly that both men ducked involuntarily, momentarily chastened by an anger greater than their own before recovering their dignity and resuming their stand-off. Fabien tipped his head towards Enzo’s carrier bag. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s in the bag?’

Enzo glared at him and sounded much braver than he felt. ‘No.’

‘Looks to me like you’re stealing my land.’

‘Does it?’

‘And you’re trespassing.’

Enzo thrust out his jaw. ‘You know, in Scotland there is no law of trespass. Because we figured out a long time ago that nobody owns the land. We inhabit it for a short time. And when we’re gone, other people inhabit it. The land is forever, we’re just passing through.’

‘Semantics.’

‘That’s a big word.’

‘I read a lot.’

‘Well, read my lips. Stay away from Nicole.’ As Enzo tried to move past him, Fabien’s wet hand pushed into his chest once more. Enzo looked down at it, a hand that could do him a great deal of damage if its owner chose to use it for that purpose. Then he looked into the young man’s eyes. Their faces were only inches apart.

‘I could take you any day, old man.’

‘Maybe you could. But you’d suffer a lot of collateral damage in the process.’

The two men stood dripping in the rain, staring each other down, like animals in the wild. Each daring the other to make the first move. Each knowing that whatever the outcome, it would be bloody for them both. A few moments seemed to stretch into eternity. Then Fabien’s hand dropped to his side, and Enzo pushed past, their shoulders bumping, ungiving and hard, neither man wanting to lose face.

Fabien turned and watched, impassive, as Enzo got into his 2CV, backed it out around Fabien’s four-by-four, and headed back towards the road, down a track which had become a stream. Wipers smeared a fly-stained windscreen. Lightning flashed again across the valley, but the thunder had retreated beyond the hill. Like the threat of violence which had passed, its fury was spent and its roar muted.