The Night Gate

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It was fully daylight, although the sun had not yet risen above the cliffs behind the village. The sky was clear, and it was bitterly cold, mist drifting lazily from the surface of the Dordogne into the early morning air as Enzo stepped from the Fenelon into the village main street.

A hot meal the night before and a full eight hours’ sleep had partially restored him. A copious breakfast of hot milky coffee and pain au chocolat had set him up for the day ahead. Almost. Every muscle in his body had stiffened up. Every joint ached. He walked in pain, but was determined to keep going until the circulation of his blood had restored him to at least some semblance of normal movement.

Besides, he wanted to retrace the footsteps of his chase the night before, to get to know and understand the layout of this village that had been so bewilderingly confusing to him in the dark. To place Anny’s house, and the park next to it, in the greater context of the whole place. And he spent the next half hour simply wandering through the labyrinth of streets and alleys and footpaths of this medieval jumble of stone houses. Courtyards and gardens, bridges and lanes, and crystal-clear streams that disappeared beneath narrow streets to emerge tumbling through rocky outcrops and into the river.

Finally he found himself standing on the palisade looking down on the scene of carnage which had played out in the dark the previous evening. The remains of the boat he had attempted to climb into were no longer visible. Sucked down into the glaur. Its tethering rope lay in a tangle on the footpath next to the debris he had dragged with him from the water. The ground was still wet.

A voice at his shoulder startled him. An elderly man, shrunken by age and tanned to leather by years in the sun, stood next to him, smiling behind his incongruously pale blue mask. He wore a cloth cap and a threadbare blue jacket. ‘Ah, there’s not many of the old boats left,’ he said. ‘I think they only keep them tied up along the bank for the tourists to take photographs. Most of them are full of water half the year and the wood’s just rotted.’ He nodded further downriver. ‘They’ve got new ones now that actually float, though I wouldn’t want to risk falling into that water myself. Centuries of sewage in it.’ He chuckled. ‘Find yourself just going through the motions.’

Enzo blenched.

When he got back to the hotel, he stood out in the street, where he still had a Wi-Fi signal, and called up a Google Earth image of the village on his phone, and tried to make sense of everywhere he had been in the last thirty minutes. Arriving, belatedly, at some kind of understanding of its layout.

He slipped his phone back in his pocket, and went in search of his car to drive across the river and over the flood plain towards the village of Bétaille. He glimpsed the château on the hill, dominating the disparate collection of houses below it, and the red-brick church that stood on its eastern edge. And as he headed out of the village towards Vayrac, he spotted the double garage with its chequered doors and windows that Anny had described. He marvelled at the thought that the apartment above it had once, long ago, played host to some of the most priceless canvasses in the world. And a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa.

In a quiet Vayrac cul-de-sac, he parked outside the single-storey gendarmerie lying in semi-anonymity behind green metal gates, and told the duty officer across the intercom that he would like to talk to Capitaine Arnaud.

When, at length, they let him in, he sat waiting in reception until the capitaine was free. Time to reflect on exactly what he would tell the investigating officer. About what he had discovered to date. About the attack which had so nearly killed him the night before. But he could barely concentrate for a middle-aged woman loudly haranguing the duty officer at the bar. She wore mud-caked gum boots and filthy blue overalls, and looked like she might just have stepped off a farm. A tangle of grey hair, like fuse wire bursting from its sheath, was held in a clasp behind her head, and her cheeks glowed red with indignation.

‘Well, just how far down your list of priorities am I?’ she demanded, her mask dragged beneath her chin. ‘Or are you too busy hiding round street corners to catch law-abiding folk going five kilometres an hour over the speed limit?’

The duty officer recoiled a little and pulled his mask higher up his nose. He sighed patiently. ‘We’re doing our best, madame, but we’ve got a murder under investigation, and there’s been a spate of burglaries in the area. And last night there was a serious bust-up between locals and gitanes in a bar in town. A missing bicycle hardly qualifies as a pressing concern.’

‘Of no concern at all, if you ask me. More than a week’s gone by, and no one’s even called by the house. That bike cost a small fortune. Money that me and my husband could ill afford. And the boy’s heartbroken. It was his sixteenth birthday present, you know.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘What kind of world do we live in where folk would steal a boy’s vélo from his own door?’ But she didn’t wait for the gendarme’s reply, and answered for herself. ‘One policed by a useless bunch like you.’

She turned and marched towards the door. When she reached it, she held it open to throw one final recrimination over her shoulder.

‘Putain con!’

Which Enzo translated for himself as a boldly vulgar epithet, and wondered at her fearlessness. In France, gendarmes were not to be taken lightly. By way of mitigation, he smiled sympathetically at the duty officer whose loss of face prompted him glower back.

The door to Capitaine Arnaud’s office opened, and he gestured Enzo in, pulling up his mask as he rounded his desk and waving Enzo into a seat. ‘So sorry to keep you, Monsieur Macleod. It’s been a hectic few days.’

‘You’ve made progress, then?’

‘We have.’ He sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘I think we’ve pretty much worked out what happened.’

Enzo sat forward, interested. ‘Oh? Tell me.’

‘We conducted door-to-door interviews in the village and found an elderly lady who encountered Bauer early in the afternoon on the day of the murder. He approached her at a bus stop and asked for directions to Anny Lavigne’s house. Obviously establishing in advance where she lived. Then the proprietor of the Fenelon reported that Bauer had been seen in the bar of the hotel shortly before Narcisse left that evening. Although no one actually saw Bauer himself leave, he was not in the bar very shortly afterwards.’

‘So you think he followed Narcisse to the house?’

‘No. I think he knew where Narcisse was going, and took a different route. Immediately opposite the hotel, monsieur, a gate leads to the garden of a house belonging to a summer resident. A path leads up through that garden to the top of the hill, where another gate leads into an alleyway behind Madame Lavigne’s house. Steps lead up from there to the terrace at the side of it. Taking that route, Bauer could have got to the house before Narcisse and entered from the side terrace, since the door is never locked.’

Enzo thought about it, visualising the route from his exploration of the village that morning, and from the Google Earth image he had called up on his phone. He also remembered the gate opposite the hotel, the path up through the garden, and the night gate that Bauer would have used to access the side entrance to Anny’s house. ‘And what was his motive?’

‘Bauer’s?’

‘Yes. For killing Narcisse.’

Arnaud shrugged. ‘I have no idea. Is it so important to know why he killed him?’

‘Not if you’re Chinese and don’t believe in motive. All you would need then is sufficient evidence to know that he did. But in this case you don’t have that. So motive is important. To understand why he would do it is crucial to establishing whether he did or not.’

‘You think he didn’t?’

‘I think there is sufficient doubt to make us look for another explanation.’

‘What doubt?’ Arnaud was genuinely puzzled. ‘We know he was there. He left bloody fingerprints all over the door, and in his hotel room before he disappeared.’

‘Let’s come to that in a moment,’ Enzo said. ‘Did you know that Bauer and Narcisse had met at Narcisse’s gallery in Paris two days before the murder?’

Arnaud paled, perhaps starting to suspect that his investigation might not have delved as deeply as it should. ‘No, I didn’t. We had someone talk to Narcisse’s people in Paris, and take possession of all his computers.’ He shook his head. ‘But we didn’t find anything useful.’

Enzo said, ‘His protégé told me that his meeting with Bauer was brief and fractious. Bauer left in a temper, and an hour or so later Narcisse reserved his train tickets to Brive and a room at the Fenelon.’

‘You’ve been to Paris?’

‘And to Germany.’ He saw Arnaud’s jaw drop behind his mask. ‘I’ve done quite a bit of research on Bauer. You already know, of course, that he had a conviction for assault. But that wasn’t the only fight he got into. He’s a young man, it seems, with a fearsome temper and a history of violence. Most recently against his girlfriend. Violence followed by shame and remorse. Which doesn’t appear, however, to have stopped him from doing it again.’

‘So he had some kind of grudge against Narcisse and got to the house ahead of him to lie in wait and take his revenge.’ Arnaud felt back on safer ground.

‘Perhaps,’ Enzo said. ‘But this was no temper-driven frenzied attack. It was one single deliberate slash of a knife.’

‘And then he panicked and tried to get out of the house fast.’

‘Slipping in the blood of his victim, and leaving messy handprints all over the door?’ Enzo’s scepticism was patent.

Arnaud was defensive. ‘Which would be consistent with panic.’

Enzo shook his head slowly. ‘Why didn’t he leave the house the same way he entered it? By the door to the side terrace. That way he would have avoided having to pass the body and slip in the blood.’

Arnaud opened his mouth to suggest some plausible explanation, but none would come.

‘And why did it take several minutes before his panic set in?’

Arnaud stared at him in silence for a very long moment. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘Because the drops on the periphery of the blood spatter had partially dried before he slipped in them. That would have taken two, maybe three minutes. It makes no sense, capitaine. Premeditation is out of character for Bauer. He would have had to plan this. Be lying in wait for Narcisse and kill him in cold blood. Then, apparently, stand around for a few minutes before suddenly panicking and charging out of the house through the blood of his victim.’

Arnaud sat back. He could find no fault with Enzo’s logic. ‘So what do you think happened?’

Enzo sighed. ‘I don’t know. Yet.’ He paused. ‘But someone is clearly worried that I’m going to figure it out.’

Arnaud frowned. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t know that either. But someone nearly killed me last night.’

Now Arnaud sat forward, alarmed. ‘What?’

And Enzo related the whole sorry tale of the chase through the dark streets of Carennac which ended in the river. Arnaud listened with increasing incredulity. ‘And this teenager tried to kill you?’

‘Not exactly. In fact, he ended up saving my life.’

‘So why was he chasing you?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘What did he look like?’

Enzo shook his head. ‘I couldn’t really say. I wasn’t exactly making notes at the time.’ He stood up, and Arnaud rose hastily to his feet.

‘Monsieur, perhaps it was a mistake to involve you in this. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.’

‘I wouldn’t be too happy about it either.’ Enzo turned towards the door then stopped. ‘Oh, by the way, those remains found in the park a couple of weeks ago...’

‘What about them?’

‘They belong to a Luftwaffe officer who was an art dealer in civilian life. His name was Karlheinz Wolff. Apparently he obtained looted art for Hermann Göring, who asked him to acquire the Mona Lisa for his private collection.’

Arnaud blinked in astonishment. He waved an arm vaguely towards the door. ‘But... but the Mona Lisa was kept just a few kilometres away at Château de Montal, for most of the latter stages of the war.’

‘Which explains why he was here.’

Enzo turned towards the door again, but stopped once more to give voice to an apparent afterthought. ‘One other thing. Hans Bauer is Wolff’s grandson.’

Having dropped a hand grenade into Capitaine Arnaud’s day, Enzo closed the gendarme’s office door behind him and crossed to the counter, where the duty officer was filling in forms. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

The officer didn’t bother to look up. ‘Yes?’

‘That woman who was in earlier.’

The man’s face coloured a little as he raised his eyes towards Enzo. ‘What about her?’

‘She reported a bike stolen.’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘That’s confidential information, monsieur.’

Enzo said, ‘Well, let’s ask Capitaine Arnaud, shall we? Though I imagine he won’t be very pleased if we disturb him in the middle of a murder investigation.’ He started towards the office of the investigating officer.

The duty officer stood up. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said quickly, and glared at Enzo. ‘I’ll need to check.’

Enzo waited as the gendarme went to his desk and sat at the computer. Two fingers tapped at the keyboard. ‘Ten days ago. It disappeared overnight.’

The Scotsman did a quick calculation. ‘That was the same night as the murder in Carennac.’

The policeman thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes.’

‘So where do these people live?’

The duty officer returned his eyes to the screen and scrolled up. ‘A farmhouse at Les Arses.’

Enzo laughed involuntarily. ‘Really? A-R-S-E-S?’

The gendarme frowned. ‘Yes. What about it?’

Enzo shook the thought away. ‘Doesn’t matter. Where is that?’

‘A couple of kilometres outside Carennac off the road to Alvignac.’

The farmhouse at Les Arses was visible from the main road. A well-rutted track led through trees to a yard flanked by an open barn in front of a large, picturesque stone house with electric-blue shutters. Ducks scattered left and right as Enzo drove into the yard. The woman he had seen at the gendarmerie emerged from the barn with a bucket in her hand and a scowl on her face. Her mask was still hanging beneath her chin. As he stepped out of the car she said, ‘You were at the gendarmerie.’

He was surprised she had noticed him. ‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got news about the bike?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘What do you want, then?’

‘I’m consulting on the murder that took place in Carennac the night your son’s bike was taken.’

She seemed taken aback. ‘Is there some connection?’

Enzo shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it would be helpful if you could tell me exactly what happened.’

She exhaled loudly and started throwing handfuls of feed from her bucket for the ducks. They gathered excitedly around her, making such a racket that she had to raise her voice above it. ‘It was sitting here just inside the barn, propped against the upright. You’d never have imagined that it was anything but perfectly safe.’

Enzo glanced over his shoulder and realised that the bike must have been visible from the road.

‘It cost an arm and a leg, monsieur. A fine, eighteen-gear racing bike. It’s Enzo’s passion, you see. He has the whole outfit, everything. The shoes, the helmet. Can’t keep him away from the TV when the Tour is on.’

Enzo’s smile was curious and laced with surprise. ‘Enzo?’

‘My son, yes. That’s his name. Is there something wrong with that?’

Now a full smile creased his face behind the mask. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Absolutely nothing at all.’

It was a little after ten when he got back to his room at the Fenelon and sat on the end of the bed going through the tourist maps and leaflets which were presented in a holder on the dresser below the mirror. There was a simplified large-scale map of the whole area that stretched as far as the town of Rocamadour, the second most visited tourist site in France, which was twenty kilometres away. With his finger he traced the blue line that represented the road to Alvignac as it serpentined up the hill to Les Arses. He laid it aside and sat thoughtfully replaying everything he had learned this morning, sifting idly through the other leaflets as he did. He paused at a trifold advertising a gîte for rent at Padirac. The name seemed familiar, and he returned to the map to find the village of Padirac just thirteen kilometres south of Carennac. What looked like a farm track cut cross-country from a place called Broche, just beyond Les Arses, knocking a good couple of kilometres off the journey. He opened up the trifold and saw that the holiday home was just minutes from the Gouffre de Padirac. Another consultation with the map showed him that the Gouffre was even closer. The gîte was available from Easter until the end of September. So it would be closed up for the season by now.

A gouffre, Enzo knew, was a chasm, or just a great big hole in the ground, but he knew nothing about the Gouffre de Padirac. Another of the leaflets from his dresser provided elucidation. It offered tickets for sale, online or by telephone, to a tour of what it described as the biggest underground attraction in the country. The hole itself was 103 metres deep, and 33 metres across. It led to an underground river and cave system, and was accessed by a lift and staircase that took tourists all the way down. Punts were available to travel along the underground river to visit the caves.

Enzo laid the leaflet aside and picked up the advertisement for the gîte again. He tapped it thoughtfully with his fingers before checking the time. Madame Lavigne would have been expecting him some time ago. He picked up his satchel, which he had left drying on the radiator overnight, and hurried down to reception. There was no one there. But he could see the room keys hanging on a board behind the counter. Number five, he knew, was the room that Bauer had occupied. He took a quick look around before slipping behind the counter to lift the key to Bauer’s old room, and hastened back up the stairs.

Bauer’s room was remarkably similar to his own. He knew it had not been occupied again since the murder, and he went straight to the dresser and the holder with the map and the leaflets. He flicked quickly through them with nervous fingers, searching for the trifold advertising the gîte at Padirac.

The opening of the door startled him, and he looked up guiltily to see the young proprietor standing in the doorway looking at him curiously. ‘What are you doing in here?’ he asked.

Enzo searched for a plausible excuse. ‘Lifted the wrong key,’ he said, laughing at his own stupidity. ‘Only just realised it wasn’t my room.’

He saw the proprietor’s eyes drop to the leaflets in his hand.

‘I was trying to find a trifold on a gîte at Padirac that I was looking at earlier.’ He paused. ‘Do you put the same tourist information in every room?’

‘Each room gets exactly the same maps and leaflets. Why?’

Enzo shrugged and held the leaflets out towards him. ‘The trifold on the Padirac gîte doesn’t seem to be here.’

The proprietor frowned.

Anny called that he should let himself in when he knocked at the kitchen door. She was sitting in her accustomed rocking chair by the cheminée. The house felt warm, and he expected that she had stoked the fire early and been waiting for him.

‘You’re late,’ she said.

‘My apologies, madame. I had to go to the gendarmerie for a meeting with Capitaine Arnaud.’

‘Hah!’ Her exclamation was laden with derision. ‘And is he any further forward with his investigation?’

Enzo shook his head. ‘It would seem not. Can I make you a tea or a coffee before we start?’

‘No, thank you.’ She waved him towards his armchair. ‘Have you heard the news?’

He looked up, filled with curiosity as he dropped into his seat. ‘What news?’

‘The government announced last night that they are going to reintroduce a national lockdown. Apparently Covid infections are increasing exponentially again.’

This was a shock to Enzo. He had not been following events in recent days. ‘When?’

‘From midnight tonight. Though it won’t affect me. I have nowhere to go.’

But Enzo knew that if restrictions mirrored those imposed the previous spring he would not be permitted to travel any further than a kilometre from his home. Consulting on this murder enquiry was unpaid and would not qualify as work. So he would not be exempt from the travel ban. Which meant that if he could not conclude his investigation by midnight, he would be forced to retire from it without resolution. And he had no confidence that Arnaud would be able to bring it to a conclusion without his help.

No pressure, then, he thought.

‘Circumstances beyond our control, Monsieur Macleod. But in any event, I am anxious to finish this now. The telling of my story has aroused some unhappy memories. Having a murder committed in my house has been very upsetting. And I’ve indulged you thus far. But I would really like to put the whole thing behind me.’

‘Of course. Again, my apologies.’ Enzo looked at her expectantly. ‘I’m ready when you are, madame.’