The Mayan Codex

23

Milouins arrived at the scene twelve minutes later.

He saw the Land Rover straight away, and marked its position. No sign of Lemelle, though.

Milouins hesitated, debating with himself whether to ignore Lemelle entirely and continue on towards the sea, or rope him in as back-up. But the fool was right about one thing. There was only one possible route back from the beach. Lamia and her chance abductor – because there was no conceivable way in Milouins’s mind that her kidnap could have been pre-planned – had no choice but to come back past here, if they hadn’t done so already.

And this time of morning, who else would be using the beach road? It wouldn’t do to meet them on the narrow road coming back from the beach. Best to wait here and follow them with his lights off – just as Lemelle had done from the house – when they eventually came back on by. Find out where they were heading. Who was behind the whole thing.

Checking in every direction, Milouins pulled his car off the road, facing back towards St Tropez. Where was that stupid bastard Lemelle hiding himself? He’d have his guts for garters.

It was then, with the dawn slowly breaking in the eastern sky, that he saw the body.

‘ Oh, putain. ’

Milouins glanced up and down the road. Nothing was moving. It was five o’clock in the morning, and the holiday season was over. Builders and maintenance men wouldn’t be about for another hour or so at the very least.

He moved across to Lemelle, his gaze focused away from the body and towards the beach road, watching for traffic.

He ducked down and pressed a finger against Lemelle’s carotid artery, his gaze still fixed on the road.

Then he took a deep breath and looked down.

Whoever had done Lemelle over had done him good. His head looked as if it had been laid open with a baseball bat. He had bled from the chest cavity, but the blood flow had staunched itself, and strings of coagulated gore lay scattered across his belly, his groin, and the surrounding tussocks of grass. If Milouins had wanted to, he could have reached in past Lemelle’s shattered breastbone and plucked out what remained of his heart.

Milouins dry-retched. Then he stood up and glanced over at the Land Rover. Only one thing to do.

Still gagging, he hefted Lemelle in both arms and manhandled him across to the vehicle. The man reeked of shit from his ruptured bowels. Milouins threw open the cat-flap and windmilled Lemelle in over the lower tailgate. Then he hunched down behind the Land Rover and vomited up his supper.

With Lemelle safely tucked inside the vehicle, Milouins set about covering the body with some sacking and a scattering of loose straw. Then he tidied himself up as best he could with a horseman’s wisp made from the remainder of the straw. When he was done, he refastened the tilt and went to look for his Mossberg.

A ten-minute search produced a grand total of three unused cartridges that had probably been ejected from Lemelle’s pocket when the vehicle – and Milouins now accepted that it had to be a vehicle – had hit him. But no Mossberg.

So either Lamia and the man who had rescued her had clean escaped, or Milouins’s original hunch still held, and her abductor had dropped Lamia off at a secondary vehicle, fallen foul of Lemelle on the way back out, and driven straight at him.

Lemelle, being Lemelle, had no doubt brandished the shotgun menacingly at his intended victim before actually getting around to firing it. That’s what the tracks told Milouins, anyway – and Milouins was a man who always believed the evidence of his own eyes.

Milouins glanced down at his watch – 5.20. And the rapidly stiffening Lemelle was obviously in no hurry to go anywhere.

Milouins checked back down the road again, one forearm clamped to his nose in a vain effort to obviate the smell that still permeated his clothes. Either Lamia and her St George were long gone, or she was still down there, cash on delivery. What did he have to lose by backing his hunch? He’d either lost them, or he hadn’t. If they came back down the road he would follow them – to hell and back if necessary. If not, he would go back to the Domaine and arrange Lemelle’s secret burial.

Satisfed that he had cleaned up the area and secured Lemelle’s body, Milouins got back inside his car and settled down to wait.