Blood Counts

JACQUOT WAS RATTLED. HE WAS also tired, more than a little frightened and, for the first time he could remember, running short on confidence. What made it worse was not that they’d targeted the wrong house, but the way the Englishman, Somers, had come from nowhere, taken him so completely by surprise. If it had been the right house and those barbecue tongs had been a knife, an axe, a gun, the game would have been over. That basic mistake, that moment of carelessness, had really thrown him.

But he was angry too, a low, simmering agitation that made him grit his teeth and narrow his eyes, and try hard not to acknowledge his beating heart but think instead of all the things he might do to the Manichella sisters and Virginie Cabrille if anything – anything at all – happened to Claudine and Midou. He was certain they were there, in the second house, and that closeness, coupled with his inability to break down the door immediately, right now, without any further delay, and free them, fed his anger. Equally nourishing was the horrible possibility that they might not be there, might have been hidden elsewhere, and were even now dead or dying.

At the top of the Somers’ drive, the six men gathered in the shadows and looked down the road towards the line of cypresses and, beyond it, the next turning. Jacquot wasn’t taking any chances. Singling out one of the older képis, he told him to get back to the cars and radio Cavaillon for back-up, as well as all available squads from Salon and an ambulance.

‘The képi gave a swift and, Jacquot suspected, relieved salute and set off down the road at an energetic jog, as though keen to be far enough away to be out of earshot if Jacquot changed his mind.

Crossing the road at a run they reached the trees and started forward down the slope, Jacquot and Brunet leading the way, the sky now starting to darken, the buzz of insects falling away. Half way down the incline the house finally came into view, its low pantiled roof cut by branches and framed by tree trunks. It looked like a distant swimming pool, rust-coloured not blue, set in shadow. And not a light showing. Something still, silent and . . . evil.

It was, Jacquot decided, a perfect hide-out. Far enough from the road and so thickly bordered by trees that you could walk or drive right past it and have no idea that it was there, a steep limestone bluff rising beyond. No lights would show through the trees or above the incline, no sound was likely to reach beyond its walls. Pausing on the slope, with maybe twenty metres of trees before the land levelled into the front yard, Jacquot briefed his team – two of the képis to go round to the back of the house and one to stay where he was and watch the drive – while he and Brunet carried on ahead.

With every crouching step, the sharper, more focussed, Jacquot became, listening out for any sound, watching for any movement, momentarily distracted by the flitting passage of a bat.

‘Looks dead,’ whispered Brunet, squatting down beside him, both men giving the two képis sufficient time to take up position at the back of the house. Away to their left, among the trees, could be heard a distant whisper of their progress, the shuffle of leaves, the occasional crack of a twig that made Jacquot wince. Finally it was silent again.

As quietly as he could, Jacquot stepped forward, out of the trees, joining the narrow track that led down from the road and opened into the villa’s sloping front yard. There was no car, and no garage that he could see, no sign of habitation. Glancing back, he tried to make out Brunet but the shadows were deepening and his assistant was lost in them.

Moving forward, out in the open, uncomfortably aware of every step, Jacquot slid his gun from its holster and took in the house. Whoever owned it, he thought, had taken little care of it. Snaking weedy tendrils had crawled forward into the gravel, the paint on the wooden shutters was peeling badly, and one of the two urns either side of the front door had cracked in half, spilling soil on to the step. There was a stale, sun-slaked smell to the place – of dry earth and abandonment. Maybe, thought Jacquot, like the owner of the VW, the person who lived here had been called away for a longer time than he or she had expected.

Just a few metres from the front door, he had a change of heart. Rather than ring the doorbell, he decided to skirt the property, take a look around it first. In an instant he was glad he had. Turning down the right hand side of the house he came to a kitchen door, a bulging black bin liner set on its step, knotted at the top. After the leafy scent of the woods and the sun-dried staleness of the front yard, the warm smell of rotting food was a sudden and forceful reminder that this house might look deserted, but it clearly wasn’t.

He peered through the glass panel of the kitchen door but the room was too dark to make out anything. He tried the handle. The door opened. No lock. But he closed it again, unwilling to make his move, wondering, as he continued down the side of the house whether they were watching him, the sisters, like that Somers man, waiting for their moment.

He reached the back yard and, for the first time, felt a human presence, there on the decked terrace jutting out from the house. Two canvas-backed chairs set at a square wooden table. A magazine. Two glasses.

Keeping close to the back wall, he climbed the steps to the deck, placing his feet carefully, feeling for squeaks and creaks. As he drew closer he could see that the magazine was curled open at the horoscopes, that there were small cubes of ice still to melt in the glasses, and that the big square ashtray was filled with a jumble of lipstick-stained stubs, one of which smouldered gently.