Wish You Were Dead

12

Roy did a double-take. He shone his torch around. A near full moon was breaking through ragged clouds, sending an eerie glow, enough to see the driveway was empty. For a moment he wondered, had he come out of the same door as before?

Of course he had.

Someone had moved the Citroën whilst they had been eating. But who? He frowned. So far as he was aware there was only Madame here, with her husband, the Vicomte, in a wheelchair. One of them must have moved it. Where to? Was that why her husband had left the dining room, to very kindly call a garage out? Had he been wrong about their hosts? Had the old man pulled a favour with a local garage and arranged a breakdown truck to come out, after hours, to take the car away and bring it back tomorrow, fixed?

It seemed unlikely, yet this whole strange place was full of surprises. Could it be that their hosts were trying to make amends for Madame having been so rude to them when they first arrived?

The more he thought about it, the more he thought that must be what had happened. But, he worried, if they decided to leave in the morning, when would the car be back?

He turned and looked at the front door, as if he was going to find an answer there. But all he saw were the eyes of the two sinister cats, who had returned and were staring at him. Yellow eyes brighter than before. Was that humour in their faces? Were they mocking him?

Although he was on holiday, for a moment he switched back to being a detective. In all his experience, the most obvious answer was likely to be the correct one. And the most obvious answer right now was that Madame or her husband had called out a breakdown service and they’d towed the car off to fix it in the morning.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t they told him? It made no sense. Then again, they were a pretty weird couple. Was it all part of the service? A nice little surprise? Or, as he had wondered, to make amends?

Should he believe that?

So why did he have doubts, he wondered?

Deciding to find his hosts and ask them, he hurried back inside. Only to find, to his astonishment, that the hall was in pitch darkness. All the lights had been switched off.

Charming, he thought. Without looking for a switch, he used the beam of his torch — the battery marker now on red, 18 per cent left — to guide him to the dining room. There he crossed to the door from which Madame had carried their platters of food. He went in and shone the feeble beam around a large, spotless kitchen. Their hosts had evidently gone to bed — wherever in this vast place their private living area was.

Go to bed, Roy, you’re on holiday. You’re meant to be taking time off, relaxing. Jack will be fine, the holiday voice inside his head told him. He’ll rock up with a perfectly good reason for being so late. All will become clear in the morning!

But what if something’s happened to Jack and he needs to get in touch urgently? the professional voice said. You won’t sleep tonight until you’ve done every single damned thing you can to contact him.

And he knew he had to get a phone signal. Whatever it took.