The Critic

IV

It was almost dark when Nicole drove into the yard at La Croix Blanche. She was dry-eyed and determined. But behind that determination, there was a disconcerting sense of apprehension. Her mouth was dry, and her heart-rate increased as she stepped out of the 4L. There wasn’t a light anywhere. Not in the chai nor in any of the sheds. Nor at the house. Security lamps that would normally have responded to the arrival of a vehicle remained stubbornly dark.

She stood listening, but could only hear the tick of her radiator as it cooled in the falling temperature. The wind filled her flimsy jacket, and she shivered beneath her tee-shirt. She drew her hair from her face and fixed it behind her head with a rubber band and started up the path to the house.

The front door was not locked, but the house beyond lay choked in a darkness that swallowed her voice when she called into it. The only response was silence. She tried the light switch, but there was no light, no reassurance. Apprehension now verged on fear. She had been determined to confront Fabien. There had to be some logical explanation. But something was wrong. Where was his mother? Why was everything dark?

She retreated from the house, scared by its unnatural silence. On the far western horizon, the last light was dying in the sky. Fiery red fading to black. A flash of electric light drew her eye towards the chai. Double doors opened into blackness stabbed by the beam of a flashlight. There was someone moving around in there.

She wrapped her courage around herself to stifle rational thought and started across the yard towards it, clinging to the memory of the night with Fabien at the source. He had been so gentle with her. So affectionate and loving. She just knew he wasn’t capable of murder.

And then his conversation with Enzo at the foot of the stairs replayed itself in her mind:

Anything happens to that girl…

And you’ll what, old man?

They’ll need DNA to identify your remains.

And the night they found Serge Coste up in the woods, and Enzo and Fabien had their first confrontation: ‘If you want to know what I think, whoever killed Petty deserves a medal.’

Conviction diminished with every step, to be replaced by fear and uncertainty. She stopped at the entrance to the chai. Double rows of stainless steel cuves disappeared into darkness. She hesitated. There was no sign of the flashlight now, or its owner. She called out in a feeble voice. ‘Hello? Is there someone there?’

As at the house, she was greeted only by silence. And then a loud clunk came from somewhere deep within. From the pressoir, maybe, or the shed with the sunken tanks. It was followed by a dragging sound, and then a feeble blink of distant light from the adjoining shed. And then silence and darkness again.

She moved cautiously into the chai, and felt herself consumed by the dark. The smell of fermenting wine carried on falling carbonic gas was almost suffocating. As she reached the opening between cuves that led to the next shed and the pressoir, she stopped to listen. There was no sound, no light, no hint of any human presence. But she knew there was someone there.

A sudden light in her face blinded her, and she screamed. A startled, terrified scream that echoed back at her from every stainless steel surface. And almost as if triggered by the scream, unexpected light washed down from the roof, and Fabien stood no more than a foot in front of her, his flashlight still directed in her face. Fluorescent tubes buzzed and flickered all around the chai.

‘What in the name of God…?’ Dilated pupils had turned Fabien’s eyes even blacker than usual. He looked pale and startled.

‘Fabien, what are you doing here in the dark?’ Her own expression, she was sure, was as startled as his.

‘We had a power outage. There’s been no electricity for nearly an hour. Must have been the wind. A cable down somewhere. I’ve been checking temperatures in the cuves. If they’d got any warmer I’d have had to start up the generator.’ He looked around the chai. ‘But we’ve got power again now.’ He turned off his flashlight. ‘I thought you’d gone home, Nicole.’

‘Where’s your mother?’

He frowned. ‘She made soup and took it over to Pappy’s.’ He gave her a long look. ‘Nicole, what’s going on?’

With the light, a little of her confidence had returned. But she still needed reassurance. Her feet planted firmly on the concrete, she summoned all her courage and decided to confront him head on. ‘The wine those people drowned in. You know, Petty and Coste. It was made from grapes grown on your land, Fabien.’ She saw confusion furrow his brow. ‘How is that possible?’