Lost (10 page)

‘What about the children?’ Liliane had asked.

‘He showed me pictures,’ Betty said. ‘He’s got two. A boy and a girl.’

‘What are their names? How old are they?’

‘I don’t know their names. Oh, they must be about three and one. One of them was a baby. The other one was on a swing.’ Then, seeing Liliane’s disappointment, she said, ‘They were very sweet-looking. I think they looked like Rémy.’

Liliane could hear Raymond’s tennis shoes squeaking on the flagstones. They were coming into the kitchen. She took off her gloves and threw them into the sink. She hurriedly replaced the fly curtain. As they came in she was sniffing her hands, which smelled of bleach.

Nathalie smiled at her mother.

‘Has he gone?’

Liliane nodded. Nathalie went straight to the fridge. Raymond hung in the doorway.

‘Hello, Raymond. Come in.’

‘Hello, Madame Santini.’

He was a handsome boy but he looked ill. His skin was very pale and he had purple shadows under his eyes.

‘Are you hungry, Raymond?’

‘No thank you, Madame Santini.’

‘Liliane.’

‘Liliane,’ he repeated.

He smiled at her, a sweet smile. He was a gentle boy, always had been. She watched him fold his thin body into Coco’s chair. She looked at Raymond’s bony chest, livid against the scarlet of his tracksuit top, which he wore unzipped to the navel.

‘Will you have a Coke?’ she asked.

‘Yes, please.’

Nathalie stood behind the open door of the fridge, gulping
from a bottle of strawberry-flavoured yogurt. When she had finished she brought Raymond the Coke. The way she set it in front of him with a glass chosen from the cupboard and inspected for cleanliness spoke to Liliane of how she felt about him.

‘I’m going to see what the wind has done to my vegetables,’ she told them, and left the room.

The wall had protected her garden. She walked along the narrow paths, muttering, letting the wind carry off her prayer. ‘Keep her a child. She’s my little girl. Please make her stay a child. A little longer.’

Outside Liliane cast her eyes across the floor of the garden. Every plant had been touched and tended by her own hands. Every leaf that sprouted, too violently green from the yellow soil, was the result of her labour. This was the domain she had been left. She was filled with rage at the sight of the garden, growing obscenely intact behind its high walls. She felt the urge to spit upon it, but turned away and walked back into the house.

Though she was expecting him, Alice started when Babette opened the door of the sitting room and showed him in. Coco Santini did not look at her but strode across the flagstones in his silent shoes to the three French windows that gave on to the terrace and threw open their shutters, one by one, letting the afternoon heat and the sound of the cicadas into the room.

‘It stinks of spinsters in here.’

Alice stood near the fireplace and watched. When he had finished he went and sat down on one of the frail pieces of upholstered furniture that were arranged around the fireplace. It was a sofa that offered room for no more than two people of average build. He spread his arms out along the back.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ His voice was very deep. It sounded as if he had not been wound up properly.

For the first time Alice felt her own tiredness washing over her pleasantly and leaving her a little worse off. She went and sat opposite him on a small, uncomfortable chair with thin, bowed legs. A circular rug with a pattern of garlands in pink, yellow and red lay between them. The upholstery too was predominantly pink. Santini looked incongruous in the room. But Constance Colonna had never had to share her home with a man.

He sat with his legs crossed and his arms draped over the back of the sofa. He wore no socks and she saw his pale feet, streaked with blue veins. His beard was dark blue. Blue-beard was Sam’s favourite villain.

They both spoke at once.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Go ahead.’

He smiled, brought one leg on to the opposite knee and gripped his ankle.

‘I was one of the last to hear about your son. I was in Massaccio at the time. I wish I had been here.’

‘Why? Could you … Do you know anything?’

He glanced at her and then continued. She was not expected to interrupt.

‘I gather the police now think it’s a kidnapping.’

‘They wasted time,’ she said.

He put both feet on the floor and leaned forward, his palms pressed together as though praying for silence.

‘I can’t tell you what has happened to your boy. All I can say is that it’s the work of an outsider, someone not from the island. It’s also someone who’s not very careful.’ His hands made a series of soundless claps while he considered. ‘They took him in the square at noon, which was very stupid. It’s a miracle nobody saw them.’

Alice realised that in any other circumstances she would have strongly disliked this man.

‘I know who’s in charge of the case and I don’t need to tell you what I think of him. You probably know already.’ He paused, but she now knew not to interrupt. ‘I think Stuart is a bitter, incompetent little shit,’ he said, ‘but you’ll soon find that out. Meanwhile, I’ll make my own inquiries. We’ll see who gets there first. How’s that?’ He grinned and she caught a glimpse of gold at the back of his mouth.

When he rose to his feet, she realised how rigidly she had been holding her body, for her neck ached and her upper arms were numb. She stood up and faced him. He had an inappropriate spattering of freckles across his nose and his eyes were a pale green, almost yellow.

‘As soon as I have anything, I’ll let you know. Through Babette.’

When he spoke to her he looked at her mouth.

‘Would they hurt him?’ she asked.

His expression seemed to darken. Perhaps she was expected not to speak at all.

‘Of course they wouldn’t. These are wannabes. No one
who’s established would make a hit like this. Stuart should know this.’ He suddenly smiled at her. ‘No, they won’t hurt your boy. He’s their only hope for stardom.’

He held out his hand. His skin was soft and remarkably cold and dry. She inwardly recoiled from this man. He let go of her hand. He was standing too close to her. She stepped back.

‘They’ll be in touch soon. You’ve got to make sure the money is somewhere you can get at it. The money must be to hand. Then we can make them wait a little. Not too long. But we must be in control.’

‘We’re not in control,’ she said. ‘They are.’

His impatience returned.

‘That depends on who they’re dealing with.’

He was looking at her mouth again. She was aware that her personality was immaterial to him. This was why her voice so irritated him. His technique was to seek out only that in a person which was of use to him. Women, she suspected, were principally for sex. This was what Babette had called womanising.

‘How much will they want?’

‘How much are you worth?’

She hesitated; she wanted to be truthful.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘If they’ve done their homework, they’ll know. When did you lose your husband?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Three years ago.’

‘I’m sorry. How did he die?’

‘A skiing accident.’

He said nothing, allowing the fatuousness of this fact to speak for itself. He was taking in her eyes now, first one, then the other. She held his stare until he suddenly smiled. He patted her on the arm in a gesture of unexpected simplicity, and left.

She stood in the empty room. She felt she had hardened in his presence and she knew this was a good thing, better for her purpose than the spilling over that had occurred with the
policeman. It worried her that Stuart was so widely despised. To her both men seemed equally strange and equally repulsive. If Mathieu had been with her, they would have kept a respectful distance from her grief. But if Mathieu had been there, Santini would not have offered his help.

A silence had settled in the room. The metallic sound of the crickets had stopped. The pain in her head had gone. For the first time since her childhood, she closed her eyes and prayed: Please give me Sam back, Dear Lord. She began again. Heavenly Father, please don’t punish me. She opened her eyes and looked round the room. There was a large bunch of gladioli standing in a vase in the fireplace, giving off a strong peppery smell.

Please. Give me Sam back.

What could she give in return?

She would give whatever was asked of her. Anything.

When she opened her eyes, one of Stuart’s men was standing in the doorway,

‘Do you want those open?’ he asked.

She looked over at the French windows.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘The wind’s dropped,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

He nodded, trying to drive his hands into the pockets of his jeans, but they were too tight and he gave up. He scratched his eyebrow with his index finger, hesitating.

‘Santini was here,’ he said, indicating the door behind him with his head. ‘I just saw him leave.’

Alice folded her arms, facing him head on.

‘Yes.’

‘Babette showed him in.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To introduce himself, I suppose.’

‘Please don’t receive people without telling us.’

Alice nodded, suddenly eager to get past him. She looked
at the closed door. She would not be reprimanded.

‘I’ll be by the phone,’ she said, skirting round him. She opened the door and left the room.

Stuart took the coast road to Evelyne’s night-club. Gérard sat beside him, making his ritual search for a radio station. He would soon give up. Stuart looked out of his window at the sea, slick and impenetrable as celluloid, and at the lights at the mouth of the bay.

‘I want you to go and pick up Raymond Battesti,’ Stuart said.

Gérard sat back in his seat.

‘You think we’ll get anything out of him we can use? Junkies have a sixth sense. It’s called knowing what people want to hear.’

‘Coco’s overfed him,’ Stuart said. ‘He’s dying. You look into his eyes and you can see it.’

‘When did you last look into Raymond Battesti’s eyes?’ Gérard asked, trying the radio again. ‘Raymond’s no use to Santini any more.’

‘Raymond will do anything for heroin. There begins and ends his usefulness,’ Stuart said. ‘But Coco’s going to unplug him. It’s only a matter of time. He’s chasing his daughter.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Beatrice told me.’

‘Beautiful Beatrice,’ Gérard said.

‘You stay away from my sister,’ Stuart said.

Gérard smiled and looked out of the window. Stuart drove fast through the salt marshes, pushing the tired engine.

Gérard never drew attention to the familiarity between them. He was the only person who had seen Stuart outside the island and the only one who had ever seen him with a woman. They had met as inspectors in Paris. Gérard had watched Maya pick Stuart and marry him in the first two
months. He had seen their cramped, circular flat in the experimental tower block with lilac clouds painted on it and tear-shaped windows. He had teased them about being on the thirteenth floor, the last frontier for whites, because the upper floors were for the Arab families who threw their rubbish out of the windows. And he had probably seen Maya’s desertion long before it happened. Stuart remembered coming home and finding his letter box in the entrance dripping with piss. He remembered retching at the smell of his burned doormat that was a smouldering, sticky mass; stepping over it and nudging open the door; contemplating the ransacked interior through a snow of feathers (the cheap furniture had buckled under one firm kick); and knowing all this was a signal that his brief marriage was over. In fact, there turned out to be no link between her departure and the destruction of his flat. Some kids in the building had simply discovered his profession.

That night he had slept on Gérard’s sofa and never moved back. When Stuart turned commissaire and got his posting on the island, Gérard had asked him if he could find something for him, too.

Gérard was watching him.

‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ Stuart said.

They were on the dual carriageway a few kilometres short of Evelyne’s club. The needles were quivering in their dials and the dashboard was rattling.

‘There’s been a real change,’ Stuart said. ‘For the first time it was the FNL who got Russo in.’

Gérard tried the radio again. It was a nervous thing.

‘You know what I think?’ The radio hissed and flailed under his fingers. ‘Coco’s looking for respectability. Russo’s in and his interests are safe. He’s not going to sabotage that now.’

‘Who fixed the deal with the FNL?’ Stuart asked.

Gérard left the radio alone but didn’t answer.

‘What do they need most? What do they always need?’

‘Ammunition.’

‘And?’ Stuart urged.

‘Funds,’ Gérard said.

Stuart lifted a hand from the steering wheel.

Up ahead was the sign bearing the name of Evelyne’s club. At the top of a ten-metre pole, ‘La Bomba’ was scrawled in blue neon over an orange sun. The sign rose up out of the flat marshland and concrete plains of Massaccio’s airport and industrial zone. Stuart pulled into the car park. It was empty but for Evelyne’s red Mazda convertible. Monday nights the club was closed. Stuart parked and turned off the engine.

‘He doesn’t need to get involved in something like this,’ Gérard said.

‘He’s getting old,’ Stuart said. ‘He’s tightening his grip.’

Gérard stared ahead of him and shook his head. Stuart pulled the keys from the ignition.

Evelyne had decided not to open up. Gérard went to get the megaphone from the car and Stuart began gathering pieces of driftwood, cardboard and pampas from the surrounding wasteland and making a brittle pile on the doorstep of the club. Gérard raised the megaphone to his mouth.

‘Okay, Evelyne, sweetie,’ he called, his voice blasting into the night. ‘Open up or we’ll take in all your girls and you’ll have to get pinball machines instead.’

Stuart was already sitting on his haunches, lighting the small bonfire. Smoke curled up into the brown sky. On the ground beside him was one of Evelyne’s large metal dustbin lids.

‘Evelyne!’ Gérard called again. ‘We’ve started a fire on your doorstep.’ Above the entrance, which was of Moorish design, was a horizontal window of coloured glass. A light came on and Evelyne’s legs, deformed by the convex panes, passed before them. Gérard lowered the megaphone. ‘Okay,’ he said to Stuart.

The fire flared and spat impressively. As the door opened,
Stuart lowered the dustbin lid over the flames. He rose to his feet and stood face to face with Evelyne.

‘It’s after nine. I’m not letting you in,’ she said, staring calmly at Stuart.

‘I don’t want to come in. Thank you.’

Evelyne looked at Gérard and then back at Stuart. Stuart noticed how rare and slow Evelyne’s gestures were. She held herself still as if to mark her own delicacy. When she spoke she hardly moved her lips and she did not blink but lowered her lids over her eyes like a reptile. Her mouth was wide and thin and painted red. Her dark hair, scraped brutally from her forehead, lay flat and sleek on her skull. What looked to Stuart like cherries hung from each ear. Slowly, she folded her arms.

‘What are you doing anyway? I heard about the kid. Shouldn’t you be out looking for it instead of pissing around with your gorilla here?’ She did not bother to designate Gérard but kept her lazy eyes on Stuart. Her heels enabled her to look down on him.

‘Where were you Sunday afternoon?’

‘At the villa.’

‘Who with?’

She stared at him, full of weariness.

‘Who with?’ he said again.

‘You come and see me when you’re going in circles. You never get anything but you keep coming, don’t you? You’ve got to keep sending him that message: I’m on your tail. But you’re not. There’s never been so much ground between you.’

‘Who were you with?’

Evelyne sighed. ‘Coco.’

‘He broke the summer rule then?’

She blinked.

‘Why was that?’ Stuart said.

‘He had a stiff neck. He needed a massage.’

‘Excellent,’ Gérard said. At last Evelyne looked at him. ‘That’s excellent.’

She blinked at Gérard and then turned back to Stuart.

‘The boy disappeared on Sunday afternoon,’ Stuart said. ‘It’s July. For the first time in at least ten years Coco wasn’t in the village.’

Stuart saw Evelyne select and reject a number of responses. She was not one to waste her breath.

‘Coco’s retired. Why don’t you?’

‘Come on, Evelyne. You know Coco can’t retire. The minute he retires he’s a dead man. He’s surrounded himself with half-wits, so he hasn’t got an heir. The teenagers from the Pescador are snapping at his heels and he owes one to the FNL. No wonder he’s got a stiff neck.’

Slowly Evelyne raised her hand and scratched her eyebrow with the point of her red nail.

‘If he was involved, he wouldn’t tell you. But what interests me is how much you can accept.’ Stuart paused, but Evelyne’s mask of boredom was unchanged. ‘He’s done some repulsive things, but a child.’ He looked at her hard mouth. ‘You don’t have children …’

‘And you do,’ Evelyne said, folding her arms.

‘If you can’t think of the mother,’ Stuart said, ‘think of the child. You were a child, weren’t you?’

Stuart held her stare. Her hatred was as palpable as desire. Her earrings swung back and forth, the only signal of the disarray inside her. Stuart waited for her last word. But she stepped back, two sure, steady paces on her narrow heels, and closed the door.

Before Gérard could speak, Stuart turned away and walked back to the car. He felt no gratification, but a great tiredness that overcame him suddenly.

Inside the car, the green letters ‘call received’ glowed on the telephone. Stuart called the house. The two men sat side by side in the car, listening to the pleasant breathiness of the ring tone.

‘Yes?’ Paul Fizzi’s voice sounded from a great way off.

Stuart picked up the receiver.

‘The call came ten minutes ago,’ Paul said. ‘They played a recording of the kid.’

‘Did you get it?’

‘It’s a call box in Massaccio.’

‘Where?’

‘The one near the Fritz Bar.’

‘Did they let her talk?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll go and collect the tape, then I’ll come up to the house.’

‘Stuart?’

‘Yes?’

‘The prosecutor wants you to call him and Zanetecci. Lasserre has been waiting for your call all day.’

‘There’s no point calling her when I’ve got nothing to tell her. I’m coming up.’

‘Mesguish has arrived. He’s brought twelve people and four cars.’

‘Good. That’s fine. They can watch call boxes.’

‘And Stuart,’ Paul said. ‘Coco was here.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He wanted to talk to the woman.’

‘And did he?’

‘He did.’

Stuart did not answer. He replaced the receiver and then turned on the ignition. He reversed, spinning the wheel, numb with anger. The car swerved out of the car park, leaving a twisted tyre track on the road.

They did not speak on the way to the office. Stuart drove fast along the coast while Gérard watched the road in respectful concentration. The compound gates opened haltingly. Stuart swore, driving the heel of his hand into the remote control.

Fifteen minutes later he ran down the steps of the office clutching the cassette in a brown Ministry of the Interior envelope. He climbed back into his car and paused a moment before turning the ignition. Santini had been to the house. He
had met the woman. He had rested his eyes on her, considered her, carried her away with him in his mind. Stuart started the car and drove out of the compound. When he was on the road into the mountains he loaded the cassette.

The recording was poor and there was a hissing noise. The speaker had a handkerchief over his mouth. Stuart took his foot off the accelerator to hear better. He could detect an accent. He rewound. They only wanted nine million. Even though he was expecting it, when it came the child’s scream made him start. He played it back, once, twice. He stopped the car on a sharp bend in the road and played the scream a third time. It was not pain, he believed, but fear in anticipation of pain. He started forward again and listened to the end. They gave no deadline, just a bouquet of threats.

As he drove past the petrol station at the entrance to the village, Stuart thought of the woman and Coco’s visit. He accelerated so sharply his tyres shrieked, filling the silent village, waking Beatrice, who rose in time to see her brother’s car race beneath her window.