“And the bad guys?”
“Four million.” The pilot looked over his shoulder. “And we’re going nuts chasing a guy who killed four people. Not saying we shouldn’t, of course, but it puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?”
“You could look at it the other way,” Hugo said. “Maybe the tragedy of losing those four lives puts the true horror of that war into perspective.”
The plane banked right, taking them southward in an arc around the traveling storm, and almost three hours after leaving Paris they were descending toward a private landing strip barely five miles from Castet. Garcia shuddered and closed his eyes as the Pyrénées rose either side of them, funneling the tiny plane along a green valley dotted with stone buildings and clusters of houses.
On the ground, color returned to Garcia’s cheeks and they stood beside the grass strip as a police car approached. A uniformed officer climbed out of the driver’s seat and Garcia snatched the keys from him, shooting a satisfied look at Hugo, who just smiled.
Garcia spoke to the policeman. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”
“Merci, non. They said you were in a hurry. A colleague will pick me up.”
“And did you bring …”
“Oui, monsieur, in the trunk.”
“Good.” The capitaine nodded. “We’ll call the station when we’re done, if it’s OK to leave the car here.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Hugo went to the passenger door of the white Renault and paused.
“Get in,” Garcia said. “I’ll be right with you.”
Hugo did and looked over his shoulder toward the back of the car, but the trunk was open, blocking his view of Garcia. A minute later, the trunk thumped closed and Garcia climbed into the driver’s seat. He held a.44 Sig Sauer in his hand tucked into a nylon holster.
“You gonna shoot me?” Hugo asked.
“I usually carry a.32,” Garcia said. “But I’m sick of being out-gunned. I had them bring me one of these.”
“You could have brought your own,” Hugo said.
“Nope.” He opened the arm rest between them and placed the gun inside. “I don’t own one and they’d start asking questions if I borrowed one. I don’t like other people asking me questions, that’s my job.”
“And you expect to be shooting that thing?”
“You never know,” Garcia said. “What is the expression? Ah yes, ‘hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.’ Very sensible advice.”
Hugo laughed. “Has anyone ever said that you remind them of Hercule Poirot?”
Garcia flashed a rebuke with his eyes. “He was Belgian, not French.”
“Yes,” said Hugo. “I recall him saying that.”
Garcia shook his head, an exaggerated gesture of frustration. “Alors, you know where we’re going?”
The road from the airstrip wound between pastures that bore just a few of the cows and horses that were supposed to be grazing in the high fields during summer. Hugo wound down his window to let the cool air flow in, and he could hear the faint and hollow tink-tink of the bells that the animals wore around their necks.
They wound their way through Rébénacq and then picked up the clear water of the Gave d’Ossau, whose fishermen sat or stood along the banks and noted the passing of a police car with their eyes, but no expression.
“Left here,” Hugo said, directing Garcia down a narrow street. A bakery appeared beside them but a sense of urgency had taken over. They were too close for casual stops. “Right, then the village is a mile ahead, the road basically dead-ends into it.”
They turned a corner and Hugo recognized the church ahead of them, to their right and high on a hill, with its cemetery that overlooked the Lac de Castet. A cemetery that had been defiled, not even a week ago, by the man they were hunting.
“Where is everyone?” Hugo wondered aloud.
“If it’s like most other small villages,” Garcia said, “most of these houses will be empty.”
“Migration to the cities?”
“Some. But French law does the rest. We are not allowed to leave our homes to one child or the other. By law, all children get an equal share. And when the kids can’t decide who should live there, whether they should sell, if they can rent, then the house goes unused for a week, then a month. Soon a year goes by and the house needs more repairs than any one child wants to pay for.” He shrugged. “You see how it goes.”
“And that explains why no one was in a hurry to do anything with the Villier house.”
“Exactement. An empty house, even for ten years, is nothing strange in a place like this.”
They drove between the stone houses, the road barely wide enough for two small cars to pass. A sign on a pair of double doors advertised honey for sale, another one, three doors down, offered wheels of fresh brebis cheese. Less than a minute later, Garcia steered the car onto a patch of concrete inhabited only by a dirty blue Citroën and two metal skips, one for trash, one for recycling. They were at the midpoint of the village, which spread only a hundred yards either side of them, and they’d not seen a soul.
They climbed out of the car, crossed the narrow street, and started up the hill toward the church.
“Up on the left,” Hugo said. The house was the center one in a row of three stone houses. Crumbling brick walls separated small and overgrown gardens that fronted each one. It was impossible to say whether any of the houses were occupied just from looking, but Garcia had done his homework.
“An old couple live in the first. The middle one is his, the end house is also empty.”
“So even if he has been here,” Hugo said, “if he came at night and parked where we did, it’s unlikely anyone would have seen him.”
The wooden gate was rotting and its metal hinges squealed in protest as Hugo pushed it open. He made short work of the heavy iron lock, it requiring more force than precision. Garcia stood beside him, his hand in his pocket, a firm grip on the.44.
The wooden door swung open and they wrinkled their noses at the dank, wet air that greeted them. Hugo peered into the room, able to make out shapes that he assumed to be furniture, but it was too dark to see much. He felt by the wall and flicked the light switch and a weak yellow light spilled across the room.
“Electricity,” Garcia said. “It shouldn’t be on.”
“Good point.” But Hugo’s eyes were roaming the walls of the small, rectangular living room.
“Merde,” Garcia said, his gaze flowing Hugo’s. “What the hell has been going on here?”
Silently, the two men moved into the house and closed the door behind them.
Chapter Thirty-four
The train was too slow, and he hadn’t dared rent a car or fly. They knew what he looked like, so he needed to stay off the grid. He wasn’t worried about the fingerprints — sure, they had them, but he’d done some research and guessed it would take several days to identify him.
And this trip had to be made, his last trip home. Ever.
After wrapping the whore’s body in a blanket and carrying her up to the old woman’s apartment, he’d gone looking for a car. He wandered the residential streets around his home, widening the circle, waiting for the right moment. It took two hours.
She was unloading groceries by the curb, the trunk of her blue Citroën open, bags collecting on the sidewalk beside her. The car keys were still in the lock of the trunk and the front door to her house was open, she must have done that to make carrying the bags in easier, and he thought for a second about taking the car when she was inside. But that wouldn’t work, she’d notice the car missing and alert the police. They’d probably catch him before he left Paris.