BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING was served on the terrace at Le Relais. It was a spectacularly beautiful Provence day. The sky was cloudless and a freshly-washed blue. Long-tailed birds reveled in the gentle breezes, soaring and wheeling, raucously applauding one another’s aeronautical skills.
By the standards of many other countries, a glass of orange juice, a cup of steaming black coffee, and two croissants, crisp and hot though they may be, do not constitute any kind of breakfast. There was fresh butter, which helped, and, as a concession to English and American visitors, a bowl each of raspberry jam and marmalade. It wasn’t much of a meal on which to go out and confront an informer who professed to have information on a suspicious death, but I resolved to have a good lunch in Colcroze and make up for it.
I had brought my Michelin map to the table and soon found that the map did not show Colcroze. Col means “hill” and croze is an old Provençal word for “cross.” Many villages in Provence have names with ‘croze’ as part of them, bestowed in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries by returning Crusaders.
The waiter had never heard of it, he said, adding that he was from Montpellier anyway and a “foreigner” to Provence. Madame was in the village on a buying mission and I was passed on to Henri, the headwaiter. He tried to explain where it was and eventually put an X on the map. When I asked him why it wasn’t marked, he shrugged as if that were a strange question. I thanked him and went out to the car. I was early, but indications were that finding Colcroze might not be easy.
An hour later, I was able to confirm that. I was in delightful Provençal countryside, fields of heather and lavender on all sides. I was also at a crossroads with no signpost. I made a guess and turned left.
The terrain was getting more hilly and I guessed I must be approaching two thousand feet in altitude. The air was fractionally cooler but the temperature was still very pleasant. I kept climbing. I hadn’t seen a car or any sign of habitation for some time but I continued. Then the ground fell away to my left, giving a clear vista that allowed me to see a village a few miles ahead.
It looked like most Provençal villages, an untidy sprawl of houses huddled together behind massive, towering stone walls. The ruins of a castle struggled to reach above the rooftops … but I could see no more and drove on slowly, hoping that Colcroze was not like Brigadoon, appearing only once a century. I was experiencing doubt when a huge stone arch appeared ahead. It was set into massive walls and the entrance to the village.
It was so dark I was tempted to turn on lights. Houses on both sides reached up four and five stories, with irregular fronts, tiny windows, and large forbidding doors. The street narrowed and if a vehicle came in the opposite direction, one of us would have to back up.
At an intersection, an old church looked gray and forlorn. My eyes were adjusting to the gloom and it seemed I was in one of the less desirable parts of the village. Shops were either closed or out of business and—I suddenly realized—I had not yet seen a person. I went on slowly and came out into the dazzling brightness of the main square.
It was deserted.
There was not a car, not a human being in sight.
I didn’t have to park the car, I just left it and walked across the square.
The village was abandoned and had been for some time. How long, it was hard to tell. In this dry climate and at this altitude, it must have been many years. It could have been decades … could it have been centuries?
I felt a shiver of apprehension.
It was not a good place for a meeting. It was ten minutes before the appointed time. I made a tour of the square, silent in the drowsing sunshine. Shop fronts were boarded up, the beams cracked and turning to powder, nails rusted till no metal remained.
There are a number of ghost villages in Provence. The oldest date back to the years of the Plague when a third of Europe’s population was wiped out. During the following years, other pestilences and epidemics swept through weakened communities. Towns and villages were desolated. Biot, near Antibes, is an example of a village brought back to life after more than a hundred years when the bishop of Genoa sent fifty families there to regenerate it. Some villages were bypassed by new roads, others “died” as the industries that had sustained them were rendered obsolete.
Colcroze had a brooding air of mystery as if it might spring back to life at any moment. I looked uneasily around the square. Was my informant here already, waiting for me?
The inference of the note was that there was more to Emil’s death than appeared. If he had not been gored by wild boars … the lurking suggestion was that he had been murdered. By whom and why were the inevitable questions. Was there a connection between Emil’s death and the puzzle of the Willesford/Peregrine buyout offer?
The faintest of breezes brought up tiny swirls of dust from the cobbled square. A sharp noise startled me but it was a damaged shutter, slamming open and shut. An open space had a few stone benches under ancient plane trees.
The possibility that I was in danger had to be faced but it didn’t seem too likely. If an unknown assailant wanted to dispose of me, it surely could have been done sooner and without the need to bring me out here. On the other hand… I pushed away all the thoughts that were on the other hand.
It was a minute or two before eleven, the witching hour. The breeze had died and it was utterly still and quiet again. I walked across the square and sat on one of the stone benches. It was warm and I felt drowsy. I thought I could hear the hum of a large insect but then it was gone and the silence spread like a cloak. I stretched out and must have closed my eyes and dozed.
I awoke, suddenly aware of a dull, low-pitched buzzing. A shadow passed across the sun and I looked up but could see nothing. I must have been dreaming. The buzzing noise was louder and the sky darkened by a shape above me. It was a monstrous insect—no, that was impossible … it was too enormous, too gigantic. It had green and brown wings and a beaklike nose—it was peering down, searching for prey.
I awoke—or thought I did. I stood up in alarm—or thought I did. Was I awake or still dreaming? A black dot materialized and grew larger, larger … it was blotting out the sun. Was the terrifying creature diving down at me? The only thought in my mind was to escape from this haunted place but I felt the terrifying certainty that it was too late.