Enzo’s brows creased in consternation. ‘He was at an editorial meeting at Libération.’
‘Apparently. But, as you very well know, Enzo, in such matters timing is everything.’
Enzo did, but found himself instinctively shying away from the implication that the father of his daughter’s baby could have murdered his own wife. He searched Charlotte’s eyes for some hint of the motivation that might have made her put the thought out there. After all, she had been Raffin’s lover, too. But she just smiled and laughed and changed the subject.
‘So, how are things progressing with the Lucie Martin case?’
He shrugged, and they turned and headed back along the pavement, casting shadows among tables that were rapidly filling up for lunch. ‘There have been developments.’
She turned a look of curiosity towards him. ‘Oh?’
And he told her about the damage to the skull, and the forensic anthropologist’s suggestion that it could have been the cause of death. ‘In which case,’ he said, ‘strangulation would have taken place post-mortem, ostensibly to make it look like she’d been killed by Blanc.’
Her face hardened. ‘Obviously you knew this when you came to Paris the other day.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you never thought to tell me then.’
‘You never asked. And, anyway, we had other things to talk about.’
He saw her jaw set. ‘Yes, we did.’ She stopped and turned to face him, almost confrontational. ‘So why do you still want to see Blanc?’
‘Because there’s a connection between Blanc and Lucie that goes beyond the letter.’
‘What the boyfriend saw?’ Charlotte could barely keep the scepticism out of her voice.
‘Not just that. The whole tone and content of his letter has always suggested to me that there was more to it.’
‘Ah, yes, the famous Macleod instinct.’ She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘So you still think Blanc might have done it?’
‘I’m keeping all options open.’
‘And is there another suspect in the frame?’
Enzo nodded. ‘The boyfriend, of course. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart for a lowlife ex-con, he kills her in a fit of jealousy.’
She frowned. ‘From my recollection, he was in Paris the weekend she went missing.’
Enzo shrugged his shoulders very casually. ‘As you very well know, Charlotte, in such matters, timing is everything.’
She glared at him for a moment, then her face cracked into a smile and she laughed. ‘Touché, Enzo. Touché.’
‘Monsieur Macleod!’ Nicole’s voice was raised to carry above the noise of the diners below. Enzo and Charlotte looked up to see her on the Juliette balcony outside Enzo’s apartment, still holding Laurent. ‘I just got a text from Sophie. Apparently the van’s broken down on the motorway. They’re not going to make it.’
Enzo gasped his frustration. ‘Typical bloody Sophie!’ he said.
Chapter twenty-one
Sophie became aware of the rhythm of the wheels beneath her and, with a start, realised that she had drifted off to sleep. She was lying on her side on a cold, hard, metal floor, hands bound behind her back, a hood pulled over her head and tied at the neck.
They must have been driving for hours, and although she couldn’t see anything, she was aware that it was light around her now, beyond the hood.
At one point during the night she had begged them to let her out to pee, and had suffered the humiliation of knowing that they were watching her as she squatted somewhere at the side of the road to relieve herself. There were, she had told herself with a great effort of will, worse things.
Now she managed to wriggle herself into a sitting position, knees pulled up to her chest, back against the side of the van. For the first hour or more she had fought the temptation to cry. She was damned if she was going to give them that satisfaction. But after so long in the discomfort of the van, she just felt numb. They must have travelled a very long way in all this time, but she had no idea where.
For a while she could hear traffic around them on the road, vehicles overtaking at speed, and she figured that maybe they were on a motorway. Then they seemed to leave the traffic behind, and the road surface became bumpy and uneven. They turned left and right, slowing several times almost to a standstill. Before finally the van drew to a halt and the driver cut the engine.
She heard other vehicles draw up beside them on what sounded like a gravel surface. Car doors banging, the sound of voices. And whoever had been riding in the back of the van with her threw open the door and jumped out. There was a rush of cold air, and Sophie smelled sulphur in it, and iron. Pollutants. Atmosphere thick with them. Somewhere industrial, she thought.
Rough hands pulled her out and she stumbled and fell. The ground was wet, the air much colder than it had been at her last place of incarceration, and she realised she was not afraid. If they had been going to harm her, why would they have driven all this way to do it?
Forced back to her feet, fingers closed roughly around her upper arm, very nearly cutting off the circulation, and she was led across a flat area pitted with ruts and puddles. There was a fine rain in the air, and she felt it starting to soak through the thin material of her hood. They stopped, and she heard the scraping of a metal door sliding aside on rusted runners. The sound of it echoed off into a vast space beyond, and she found herself pushed inside. Concrete suddenly beneath her feet, and despite them being indoors, water all across the floor, lying in pools that they splashed through as they walked.
There was no conversation among her captors, just a strangely forced silence as they led her over a huge empty floor area before finally reaching a metal staircase. Sophie felt it shake as they forced her to climb it, the sound of their footsteps echoing up into what seemed like a very high roof space. She was amazed at the pictures in her head that were conjured purely from the sounds and sensations around her. She envisaged a pitched glass roof, like a railway station, supported on a network of rusted girders. A sprawling, empty concrete floor that had once housed industrial equipment of some sort. This rattling old staircase leading up to a staging area, where there were maybe offices or workshops.
She was pushed across a grilled floor, then through a doorway and on to concrete again. The confines of a narrow corridor. There appeared to be just one man with her now, and she could hear his breathing and smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. They stopped. A key turned in a lock and a door swung open. Cold, stale air met her, and she was pushed violently forward, losing her footing and sprawling on the floor, hands still tied behind her back. She rolled on to her side and sensed her captor crouching down beside her.
‘If you’re a good girl,’ he hissed, ‘maybe we’ll take off the hood and untie your hands.’ She felt the flat of his hand run over the swell of her breasts, and she rolled quickly away. He stood up and laughed. ‘And maybe I’ll have to teach you exactly what good means.’
She tensed, but he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him and turning the key once more in the lock.
All of the resolve that had seen her through the night dissolved in the tears that burned hot now on her cheeks.
Bertrand had lain in a state of semi-consciousness for some time before the world formed any coherence around him. It seemed impossible, somehow, that pain could maintain its intensity for this long. And yet it had. Relentlessly so. And he wondered how much more of it he could possibly take.