Blacklight Blue (24 page)

Chapter Forty-Seven

From his seat in the window of the Café Sola, Enzo could see across the street to the market square, and the repair truck from the garage parked next to his car. The mechanic, in his blue overalls, was pumping the handle of a pneumatic jack to lift up the far corner of the vehicle. Enzo had found that the trunk contained only an emergency spare, so there had been no point in changing the punctured wheel himself. The garage had sent a mechanic to come and remove the wheel. Now he had returned with a new tyre.

Enzo refocused on his laptop, and heard it ringing as he waited for Nicole to respond. His own image from its built-in webcam looked back at him from an open window on the desktop. Then the ringing stopped, and his head shrunk to a postage stamp in the top corner, to be superseded by Nicole’s smiling face.

‘Monsieur Macleod. Where are you?’

‘Still in Collioure.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

‘I’ll tell you all about it later, Nicole. Right now, there’s something I need you to do for me.’

‘Of course.’

It was something he could have done himself. But he had other reasons for making the iChat call. ‘How’s Kirsty doing?’

Nicole shrugged. If she was embarrassed, she was masking it well. ‘Okay. At least she’s talking to us all again. Apparently Roger’s off the critical list, so it looks like he’s going to pull through.’

Enzo found himself entertaining uncharitably mixed feelings. But all he said was, ‘Good.’ Then, ‘Nicole, I need you to find out anything and everything you can for me about a place called Aubagne. Have you heard of it?’

She shook her head. ‘Do you know where it is?’

‘No idea.’

‘Okay. Let me have a look on the net. I’ll call you back.’

As he disconnected, the café door opened and the blue overalled mechanic came in. He sat in the seat opposite. ‘All done, Monsieur Macleod.’ And with scarred, oily fingers, broken nails delineated in black, he wrote out an invoice and tore off the top copy ‘One hundred and twenty euros.’

Enzo wrote him a cheque which the mechanic took and examined briefly before standing up. He hesitated, scratching his head through a thatch of thick, wiry hair. ‘It wasn’t no accident, monsieur.’

Enzo frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your puncture. Someone put a blade through the wall of the tyre.’

Enzo felt his face tingle as if he had been slapped, and fear stabbed him suddenly in the chest like the blade which had pierced his tyre. All he could do was nod.

The mechanic gave him a peculiar look, then folded the cheque and slipped it in his pocket. ‘
Bonne journée
,
monsieur
.’ And he was gone. For the second time, Raffin’s words rang in Enzo’s recollection.
He’s just a breath away. I can feel it
. He looked up through the window and let his eyes wander across the square opposite, searching for a familiar face amongst the residents of Collioure going about their daily business. But he saw no one he recognised. The huge stone edifice of the Château Royal rose dark against the grey sky, and in the bay beyond, a sail boat was banked steeply in the wind, tacking out past the harbour wall. He was startled by the ringing of his computer.

Nicole’s face reappeared. ‘Aubagne is in Provence,’ she said. ‘Somewhere between Aix and Marseilles. In the
département
of Bouches-du-Rhone. It’s not very big. About forty thousand people. Nothing much to distinguish it. The only thing it’s really known for is being the home of the Foreign Legion.’

‘Jesus,’ Enzo said, as the full impact of what she had just told him sank in. ‘He must have joined the Legion.’

‘Do you think? Hang on…’ He could hear her tapping away at her keyboard. Then she was silent for more than a minute, and he could see her scanning something onscreen. ‘Well, that would make sense, Monsieur Macleod. Apparently joining the
Légion étrangère
, is a well-travelled route for foreigners wanting to change their identities. Frenchmen aren’t allowed to join. If they do they have to take on the persona of someone foreign, like French Canadian or French Swiss. Then everyone’s given a new identity as soon as they’ve enlisted.’

But Enzo knew that Bright had already acquired a custom-made foreign persona. That of his brother, William. An Englishman.

More tapping on Nicole’s keyboard. ‘It seems they have to sign up for a minimum of five years, but they’re allowed to take French citizenship after three.’

Enzo sat back in his seat as full realisation washed over him. ‘Bright had effectively laundered his identity. Stolen his brother’s, then traded it in for a new one in the French Foreign Legion. Five years later, at the age of just twenty-three, he would have rejoined the real world as someone else altogether, with no ties to the past. Fit, experienced, and trained to kill.

‘Thanks, Nicole. I’ll get back to you.’ He disconnected, and felt fear and excitement welling in his chest. Rickie Bright’s carefully managed trail of obfuscation was rapidly unravelling. Enzo already knew the Christian name of his new identity.
Yves
. All he needed now was the surname.

He went into his wallet and found a slightly dog-eared business card. He straightened its corners between thumb and forefinger and looked at it with a renewed sense of betrayal. Perhaps now Simon could do something useful for his old friend. He slipped the card into his pocket, and brought Google up on his computer screen. He searched for, and found,
Mappy
, the online French route planner, and plumbed in Collioure and Aubagne. The map and directions it presented were straightforward enough. It was
autoroute
nearly all the way, east across the southern fringes of France. A drive of less than four hours. He checked his watch. If he left now he could be there by late afternoon.

He closed down his computer and shut the lid, dropping a few coins by his empty coffee cup. As he got up he glanced through the window. Rickie Bright was standing in front of the Hôtel Frégate across the street, watching him.

Chapter Forty-Eight

By the time he had packed his computer into its bag and stepped out on to the street, Bright was gone. Enzo stood for several minutes with the blood pounding in his head, looking up and down the Rue de la République and across the square. The traffic filed past, belching its bile into the cool November air, but there was no sign of Bright. Enzo had taken his eyes off him for a only moment, but in that time he had somehow contrived to disappear.

His legs were like jelly as he crossed the road and placed his computer in the trunk of his car, all the while glancing around him, afraid that at any moment Bright was going to lunge at him from some unsuspected place of concealment. But nothing. No Bright. No attack. Just the old Mediterranean fishing port of Collioure going about its unhurried, out-of-season business.

Enzo sat in his car and gripped the steering wheel, made tense by a mixture of fear, anger and uncertainty. For a brief few seconds, he considered abandoning his plan to drive to Aubagne. But he had no other options open to him. What else could he do? He had embarked on a course and had no choice but to see it through.

He drove out of the square and up through the town, past the anchovy processing factory, and on to the road that wound up the hill to the dual carriageway that would take him to Perpignan. In his rearview mirror, he saw the town disappearing below, the sea levelling out towards a hazy, distant horizon. There were several vehicles on the road behind him. A solitary driver with dark hair, a car containing a family of four. He couldn’t see the others, and almost drove into the car in front as it slowed to take the exit to Argelès sur Mer.

It took nearly half-an-hour to get to Perpignan, and he spotted what he was looking for in a strip mall on the outskirts. He pulled into the parking lot and stood watching the other cars that turned in after him. Still no sign of Bright. He waited for several minutes before deciding that if the killer was anywhere around he wasn’t going to show himself. Which made the thought that he was still out there, unseen, all the more unnerving.

He went into the Halle aux Vêtements and selected an extra large, dark blue suit from a long line of hangers, and then an XXL white shirt. Enzo’s big frame would require the largest size in a range of clothes designed for the slighter built Mediterranean man. Finally, he chose a tie. He couldn’t remember the last time he had worn one. He paid for it all at the cash desk and asked if he could change in the store. He emerged from the shop with his old clothes in a plastic bag, and caught sight of himself reflected in a window. Someone he nearly didn’t recognise. A stranger in a suit, stiff and uncomfortable. Only the ponytail marked him out as less than the conventional figure he wished to present. And the scuffed white training shoes. They wouldn’t do at all.

He went into the Halle aux Chaussures next door and bought a pair of unyielding, black leather shoes. His feet felt constrained by them, constricted, and during the short walk to his car they had already started to chafe. In the driver’s seat he loosened his hair, and then pulled it back as tightly as he could to minimise the effect of the ponytail. In the end he decided that he had probably done enough to pass muster as a lawyer, even if he did look like one more used to chasing ambulances.

He drove out of the car park into the stream of traffic heading north on the ring road to the A9
autoroute
, and glanced in his rearview mirror.

The car immediately on his tail was a black Renault Scenic. Rickie Bright sat at the wheel, his cold blue eyes obscured behind a pair of Ray-ban sunglasses.

***

Bright remained within a few cars of him all the way to Aubagne. It was the most stressful three-and-a-half hours Enzo had ever endured. He checked continually in his side and rearview mirrors. Bright was always there, no more than a car or two away, keeping Enzo constantly in his sights.

There must have come a point on their journey when Bright realised where it was that Enzo was going. And he must have known then, beyond doubt, that the Scotsman was on the point of putting the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle in place.

As they drove into Aubagne, the sun was starting to sink behind them in a sky streaked with pink cloud. Enzo followed the road out to the southern suburb where the Foreign Legion occupied a sprawling plot of land behind high walls and fences. Large signs read
Terrain Militaire,
and
Défense d’entrer
.

Bright pulled up on the sidewalk, fifty metres back, as Enzo turned into the main entrance. The gatehouse was a long, low building with shallow sloping red roofs. A pink stone wall was emblazoned with the name of the regiment. Beyond the barrier stretched a vast parade ground. At its centre was a globe mounted on a marble plinth above the legend,
Honneur et Fidélité
. It was guarded by four bronze Legionnaires. White barracks and administration blocks rose up the hillside on the south side, tall trees casting long shadows over manicured lawns.

A sentry stepped out to stop him at the barrier. Enzo handed him Simon’s business card. He had to work hard to keep the tremor out of his voice. ‘I’m a lawyer from the London law firm of Gold, Smith, and Jackson. We telephoned last week. I represent the estate of the late William Bright, an Englishman whom we believe spent a number of years in the service of the French Foreign Legion during the nineteen eighties. We’re trying to trace next of kin, and I’m here to see if the Legion can provide us with that information from its records.’

The soldier looked at him as if he had two heads, then did what all foot soldiers do when presented with an insoluble problem. Passed it on up the chain of command.

‘One moment, sir.’

He disappeared inside the gatehouse, and Enzo could see him speaking animatedly on the telephone, glancing frequently at the card Enzo had given him. Finally, he hung up and emerged into the fading sunlight. He leaned down to Enzo’s open window and pointed.

‘If you turn around and go back out, turn left and left again, and then follow the road round to the museum. You’ll see it behind the fence on your left. Park there and wait inside. Someone will come and get you.’

As he turned out of the entrance, he saw Bright’s car bump down off the sidewalk further along the street, and then trail him at a discreet distance. He turned left and followed the sentry’s instructions, cruising slowly along a tree-lined country road to the museum, which was housed in a two-storey white and brownstone building on the far side of the parade ground.

The car park was empty. Enzo pulled into the slot nearest the museum. He climbed out of his car as Bright turned his Renault into the lot behind him and drew up at the far side of it. He left his engine idling, and watched Enzo from behind his dark glasses. No attempt at concealment now. Enzo looked back at him across the tarmac. Only twenty metres separated them. The hunter and his prey. The palm trees, the pink sunlight on blue hills, warm air filled with the fragrant scent of Mediterranean flowers in winter bloom. None of it seemed quite real. It could hardly have been less threatening. But all of it served somehow only to heighten the sense of menace that hung incongruously in the air between them. Enzo felt sick.

He turned and walked by the mementos of the Legion’s military past carefully placed among the trees. A tank, an armoured jeep, a cannon, a machine gun. Carved blocks, like tombstones, were set in the grass, a commemoration of battles fought and lives lost.
Ile de Mayotte. Indochine. Algérie. Maroc
.

Inside, military mannequins in glass cases stood guard over a celebrated history. Rifles lined the walls, flags and emblems, display cases filled with medals and memorabilia. A red
képi
, a pair of white gloves, a belt, a letter written to a long forgotten lover but never sent. Enzo peered into the darkness of the room where they kept the wooden hand of Capitaine Jean Danjou, one of the most decorated officers in the history of the Legion. With only a few hundred troops at his disposal, he had taken on the might of the Mexican army in 1862, and fallen in battle. Only two of his soldiers survived the fight, and were spared to accompany his body back to France.

‘Monsieur Gold?’ Enzo turned, and a young soldier in khaki emerged from a brightly lit bureau. ‘Follow me, please.’

They went down a corridor and out through a door at the back of the building. As they climbed the steps towards the long, white administration block at the top of the hill, Enzo glanced back and saw that Bright was still waiting for him in the car park.

***

‘Who was it you spoke to on the phone?’ Captain Mérit examined him with uncomfortably intelligent eyes from the other side of his desk.

‘I didn’t. It was a legal secretary in the office. She was simply told that if we wished information of that sort we would have to present ourselves in person.’

‘Our records are confidential, Monsieur Gold.’

‘I understand that Captain. I have no wish to see them. Only to obtain the names of next of kin, if any.’ He reached into his bag for a notebook. ‘The young man is dead, after all, so we won’t be compromising his right to anonymity.’ He started flipping through his notebook. ‘From my records, I see that William Bright joined the Legion in December, 1986, at the age of eighteen. You provided him with a new identity. Yves…Yves…’ Enzo flipped through more pages, as if had momentarily forgotten the surname and was searching for it.

Captain Mérit conveniently filled the gap. ‘Labrousse.’ Enzo could hardly believe his luck. He would have been happy to leave there and then. But he was obliged to continue with the deception for at least a little longer. Mérit opened the folder on the desk in front of him and lifted up the top file. Enzo could see that there was a photograph attached to it. ‘Applied for and was given French citizenship in 1989. Was honourably discharged at the end of 1991. Saw active service in Chad in 1987, and the Gulf War in 1990, where he was wounded and lost half of his right ear.’ He riffled through the other sheets of paper attached to the file and cursed. ‘Merde! It seems his application form and background checks are not in this file.’ He closed the folder. If you’ll excuse me for a moment.’ He got up and left the room.

Enzo sat listening to the silence. It was almost dark outside now, the last red glow fading on the western horizon. He twisted his head to read the label on the front of the folder on Mérit’s desk.
Recruitment Intake, December, 1986
. On an impulse, he turned it towards him and somehow managed to spill its entire contents over the floor. ‘Jesus!’ In a panic he scrambled to retrieve it all and stuff everything back in the folder. As long as Mérit didn’t look inside again, he wouldn’t notice that it was all now in a different order. Enzo was about to close it and put it back where he had found it, when his eye was caught by the photograph clipped to the file which was now on top. He caught his breath, and found himself looking at the face of the man who had condemned him to death. Philippe Ransou. French-Canadian. Real name Jacques Of. So Bright, or was it Labrousse, had not chosen Ransou at random to play the good doctor. They had joined the Legion in the same month. Had probably trained together, been comrades in arms together. Someone he could trust without question.

He heard footsteps outside the door and quickly closed and replaced the folder. Mérit came back in holding a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve copied this for you. He only listed three names under next of kin.’ And he proceeded to reel them off. ‘Parents Rod and Angela. Sister Lucy.’ He handed Enzo the photocopy. ‘And I’m afraid there’s really not much more that I can tell you.’

And Enzo thought that, actually, there was nothing more he needed to know.