The Critic

III

Nicole saw the floodlit facade of the chateau at the end of its long avenue of trees. Dust rose up in the night all around them from the wheels of Fabien’s four-by-four. It had been his suggestion they come here, after they had failed to find Enzo at the gite.

As they circled the lawn in front of the main entrance, Nicole pointed with excitement to Enzo’s 2CV parked outside the chai.

‘He’s here!’

Fabien pulled in beside it and they jumped out on to the gravel forecourt. Nicole started for the chateau, but Fabien grabbed her arm. ‘There’s a light in the chai. I can hear pumps going.’

They followed the old brick wall of the chai along to a door that stood open, bleeding feeble light out into the night. The crumbling brickwork of Hubert de Bonneval was patched and repaired with pebbles from the river. Fabien pulled the door wide, and they stepped over the tube that fed carbonic gas up from the maintenance pit below the cuves.

Laurent de Bonneval looked up, startled, as Nicole followed Fabien inside. He had failed to register their arrival above the thunder of the pumps. He was crouched at the top of the steps with a bucket and brush, scrubbing at the concrete. Beyond him, a sack of sand dangled from the roof on the end of a rope. A candle burned on the apron above him, down now to its last inch. Dull fluorescent strip lights flickered overhead. Bonneval stood up and climbed quickly on to the apron.

‘What do you want?’

Fabien stared him down. ‘It was you who killed Petty and Coste, wasn’t it?’

Bonneval gave a small snort of derision. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’

‘Because the mineral fingerprint of the wine taken from Serge Coste’s stomach shows that the grapes were grown at La Croix Blanche.’

Bonneval raised an eyebrow. He seemed almost amused. ‘Do they? In that case it must have been you who killed them, Fabien.’

‘That’s what Macleod thought.’

‘Did he?’

‘But what he didn’t know, that you and I do, is that I didn’t make any wine the year Petty went missing. I was reequipping my chai. Remember? You should, because I sold all my grapes to you.’

Nicole stepped forward, fearful and aggressive, and Fabien held her arm. ‘Where’s Monsieur Macleod?’

‘I have no idea.’

Fabien said, ‘His car’s outside, Laurent.’

‘What were you doing when we came in?’ Nicole pulled free of Fabien’s grasp and moved towards the stairs that led to the pit. She looked down at the bucket. Soapy water on the floor around it was marbled with veins of red, seeping across the cement and spilling onto the top step. ‘That’s blood.’ She swung towards Bonneval. ‘What have you done?’

There was a strange, sick smile on his face, but he said nothing, and then looked startled as she lunged for him. He stepped back to avoid her and caught his feet in a tangle of coiled tubing. The moment hung in the air, as if some unseen finger had pressed a pause button. Bonneval glanced behind him, as he tried to catch his balance. There was no containing rail here along the edge of the apron, only a sheer drop into the pit. His arms windmilled as he fought to prevent the fall. Wide eyes stared at Fabien, a silent plea for help. But there was nothing the young winemaker could do. And, as if the pause had been released, he toppled backwards into space. Nicole’s scream filled the room, before they heard the smack of his body as it hit the floor below.

‘Oh, my God, I’ve killed him!’ She jumped down from the apron, and started down the stairs.

Fabien covered the distance between them in four quick strides and grabbed her wrist. ‘Don’t go down there!’

‘Why not?’

He jumped down beside her and lifted the candle. ‘I showed you before, remember?’ And he pushed her aside and started slowly down the stairs, holding the candle ahead of him. He had gone only three or four steps before the flame separated from the candle, and he dropped it, retreating quickly to the top of the stairs, grabbing fast lungfuls of air. He looked down into the pit where Bonneval’s body lay at an oddly twisted angle, blood pooling slowly across the tiles around his head. ‘It’s full of gas down there. He was probably gone before he hit the ground.’

Nicole was in shock. Chalk white. ‘It’s my fault. I killed him.’

‘He killed himself, Nicole. And God knows how many others.’

And the memory of fear replaced guilt. ‘Monsieur Macleod! What’s he done with him?’

Fabien’s face reflected a grim acceptance of the worst. But he didn’t express it. ‘I don’t know.’ He cocked his head, listening for a moment to the sound of pumps thundering in the chai. He took her hand. ‘Come on.’

They ran through into the old shed and Fabien flicked a row of switches, one after the other. Strip lights hummed and flashed overhead, and they realised that the sound of the pumps was coming from the next shed along.

Three pumps roared in the narrow aisle between two rows of stainless steel cuves. Pink tubing, like giant worms, lay around the floor, feeding in and out of red plastic tubs. Yet more pumps sat idle on trolleys. Nicole glanced helplessly at Fabien as his eyes darted around the chai, following tubes up to the metal catwalk above them. ‘He’s pumping must from one cuve to the other.’ He frowned, and then clarity filled his eyes. ‘Jesus. Macleod must be in the tank.’

He let go of her hand, and she ran after him, as he sprinted for the stairs that led up to the access grilles. By the time she had climbed up after him and run along the walkway, he was crouching down at the neck of a cuve. She could see the dark must pulsing through the semitranslucent plastic of the tube and heard the sound of it crashing into the tank. Fabien held an inspection lamp over the open edge of the neck and they peered inside. The foaming red juice was nearly up to the top. Nicole’s face was creased with anxiety. She turned to look at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eye.

‘If he’s in there,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’

A small cry of anguish broke from her lips, just as an arm broke the surface of the must, streaming red fingers grasping for the black pipes that fed water to the radiator. Enzo’s upturned face, mouth open, gasping for air, followed it for the briefest of moments before disappearing again into the froth.

Fabien grabbed for the hand as it lost its grip on the pipes, and Nicole watched in horror as fingers slipped through grasping fingers. And then somehow, at the last, formed a bond, and Fabien reached further in to seize his wrist. He braced himself against the neck of the cuve and pulled with all his might.

Enzo broke the surface once again, and this time his free hand grasped the lip of the neck. Nicole reached over, and between them she and Fabien pulled him free of the cuve. He scrambled for footholds and toppled over the rail, to lie gasping on the catwalk, stained red by juice that seemed to stream from every pore.

Nicole was sobbing with relief. She knelt beside him, repeating his name over and over again. He opened his eyes, and for a moment met Fabien’s, a world of misunderstanding still between them. And as he pulled himself up on one elbow, Nicole threw her arms around him and pulled his head into the cleavage between large, quivering breasts. Where he was sure, for several long seconds, that he was going to suffocate.