Seen and Not Heard (35 page)

“This is the fourth goddamn barn we’ve tried in the last hour,” Josef fumed. “Can’t your men do any better?”

“This is a poor section of France, Inspector Summer,” the local prefect said. “We have more than our share of barns standing empty.”

“How many more?” Malgreave interrupted.

The local shrugged. “Perhaps a half dozen, perhaps less. There’s one not far from here, though I doubt it’s what you’re looking for. It hasn’t been used for much during the last few years—too remote. Americans could never find it.”

“These Americans are particularly inventive,” Vidal said.

“They must be, to have eluded the illustrious Paris police for so long,” the man sneered.

“Damn you …” Josef began, but Malgreave interrupted.

“We’ll check this next one,” he announced, “and then we’ll split up. At this rate it will take all night, and I don’t know if Nicole Bonnard or Claire MacIntyre have all night.”

The petty bickering abruptly ceased. “Maybe this time we’ll be lucky,” Vidal said diplomatically. Josef looked at him and snarled.

Claire had never liked heights. She’d grown dizzy at the Grand Canyon, she’d never attempted the Eiffel Tower, and hadn’t even been too happy with the outside escalators at one of the museums Marc had taken her to. She’d had a moment of suspecting he’d subjected her to it on purpose, knowing her fear, and then she’d dismissed the idea,
thinking she was being absurdly paranoid. In retrospect it was clear that was exactly what he’d done.

The wooden walkways were set into the old stone walls with thick, splintery chunks of wood. Here and there the braces had rotted through, and the narrow balcony swung a bit over the stone floor. She refused to look down once she passed the first flight. Somewhere down there was Tom’s body. Somewhere down there was Nicole, hiding, waiting, unable to protect herself.

Somewhere above her was Marc, moving silently along the walkways. She could hear the unmistakable creak of aging wood. Even someone as graceful as Marc couldn’t overcome the hazards of ancient, rotting wood, and his noiseless tread could bring forth occasional, telltale sounds.

From the moment she’d looked over her head and known Marc was up there, Claire had had no choice. There was only one way down, and she had to cut off that exit. He would have to go through her to get to Nicole, and she had no intention of letting him do so. She had no weapon, other than her hands and a fury so deep and powerful it frightened her, but she had no hesitation. She would stop Marc, no matter what the cost.

“I know you’re up there, Marc,” she said again, holding on to the railing and pulling herself upward. “You’re not as good as you think you are. I can hear you. I can see your shadow on the walls, I can hear you moving. You’re moving away from me. Why? Do I frighten you, Marc? Have you finally found someone who won’t cower before you, who won’t just sit there and let you kill them?” she taunted. “It’s no wonder you kill old women. They’re the only ones who are too weak to fight back. You’re a bully, Marc. A childish, murdering bully.”

Another creak, directly overhead, and she jerked her head up. She could see his slippered feet, the flash of white gloves and something else, something shiny and metallic and very deadly, before he disappeared into the shadows once more, silent as the grave.

“Did you think I didn’t know?” she continued, climbing
higher, splinters in her hand from the railing. “Did you think I didn’t see through your little games, your twisted idea of lovemaking? I knew. I knew a long time ago. I just hadn’t decided what to do, especially about Nicole. I knew you were crazy, I just didn’t know how crazy you were.”

A sudden, hideous, high-pitched shriek tore the air above her head, and she nearly lost her grip on the railing. Something dove at her head, followed by another, and she ducked, stilling her own terrified scream, wondering what Marc was throwing at her.

Bats, she realized as they flew blindly away. Marc had disturbed a horde of sleeping bats overhead, sending them flying wildly into the night. She only hoped they scared him half as much as they scared her.

She allowed herself one brief glimpse down to the stone floor beneath them. There was no sign of Nicole in the candlelit darkness, no sign of life at all. Maybe Nicole had come to her senses, had gone to hide in the car. Or maybe she was just waiting for death to come and claim her.

Out of the corner of her eye Claire thought she saw a flash of light through one of the narrow slits of windows. She dismissed it as wishful thinking, and climbed higher. “I’m not going to let you get away with this,” she announced, her voice calm and dispassionate. “To get to Nicole you’ll have to go through me. And I’m not going to let you.”

The silence above her was as thick as a velvet shroud. One more flight, one more rickety expanse of walkway, and there’d be nowhere else to go. Maybe he’d found a place to hide, maybe she’d been fooling herself and there was another way down. Sudden panic clamped a fierce hand around her heart.

“Marc?” She cursed the fear that came through her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She willed herself to calm. “Cat got your tongue?” she taunted, climbing up the final flight. The walkway swung beneath her weight, pulling from the wall, the flimsy wood rotting beneath her fingertips. “Marc?”

He was there. It was so dark she could scarcely see him, but the white gloves and face stood out with eerie luminescence.
He stood absolutely still, not making any move toward her, waiting for her to come to him.

“Two can play at this game,” she said, holding still. “If you think I’m going to come any further you’re crazier than I thought, and that would be downright impossible, my friend. Why are you wearing face paint?”

His body moved, an expressive pantomime with short, graceful gestures that were a perfect communication. His face was himself, he said, sorrow and laughter hiding from the world. He reached up a white-gloved hand and gestured her closer, that gesture promising her love and redemption and oblivion, and for one brief, horrifying moment she was tempted.

“I’m not taking one step further,” she said, her voice deliberately mocking, “so you can stop making like the Ghost of Christmas Future. If you want me, Marc, you’re going to have to come and get me.”

He twisted in the darkness, and she could see the silvery glitter of the knife in his hand. In a weird, inexplicable way it was reassuring. He was so mesmerizing in his grace and talent that she was half ready to do or believe anything. The knife was a blessedly prosaic instrument of death.

She could make gestures, too. She held up a hand in the murky darkness, beckoning him. Her hand didn’t shake. “Come and get me,” she cooed again. “Or we can just stand here all night long.”

She thought she heard noises far beneath her, but she didn’t dare look. Maybe Nicole was fool enough to come out into the open, but it wouldn’t matter. As long as she stood between Marc and Nicole, the child would be safe. And Claire was prepared to stand there forever.

He moved again in the darkness, coming infinitesimally closer, shrugging his shoulders, curving his arms in a defenseless gesture only slightly marred by the knife. His head was cocked to one side; his whole body shivered with sorrow and longing and a twisted sort of love.

And then he lunged. She could never be certain where her energy came from. She was standing motionless, awaiting
the knife, when she heard the noise from below, jerking her from her dreamy state. “Damn you, no!” she shrieked as he leapt on her, hitting at him, the knife slicing painlessly into her hand.

He was standing there, motionless, staring at her for a timeless moment, shock and sorrow in his mad dark eyes. And she realized he was standing on air, as he fell, slowly, silently, his soundless scream filling her ears as she watched him tumble, gracefully—oh, so gracefully—to his death on the flagstones far below.

There were people below, people surrounding the curiously flattened shape of Marc Bonnard. The catwalk shifted and swayed as Claire climbed down, her bloody hand clinging to the splintery railing. When she reached the ground floor, men rushed up to help her, but she hit them away. In her confusion she saw two men lying on the floor. One was Tom, and people were working feverishly on him. She wanted to rush to his side, to assure herself that he was still alive, but her feet refused to obey her.

Slowly, dazedly, she crossed the stone floor, pushing the huddle of police aside, until she stood over Marc’s body. There was no doubt about him—the back of his head was crushed, his neck at a hideous angle, his beautiful, graceful body destroyed. The black, mad eyes were still and staring, and he was very, very dead.

She looked across the corpse into Nicole’s eyes. The blankness was gone as she looked down at the man who’d murdered her mother and grandmother, the man who had tried to kill her.

“Bon,”
she said succinctly, meeting Claire’s questioning gaze.

“Bon,”
said Claire, speaking French for the first and only time in her life. And holding out her arms, she waited for Nicole to run into them.

Malgreave lit another cigarette. God, he was getting sick of the taste of these wretched things. He ought to toss them out. After all, he was going to have to accustom himself to a new life. Might as well make a clean sweep.

It was eleven o’clock the next morning. He hadn’t been back to his house in the suburbs, and if it were up to him he wouldn’t return. The house was empty without Marie, and he didn’t know if he could stand it.

Josef was standing in the office he coveted, staring out the window. His thinning hair was standing up on his high, domed forehead, his suit was rumpled, his face set in an expression of gloom and disappointment.

Malgreave grinned sourly. Helga was going to give him hell, and Josef deserved it. “Look at it this way, old friend,” Malgreave said gently, “at least the Americans are alive. Both of them, and the child, too.”

Josef snorted, and Malgreave felt once more that disquieting feeling. When it came to the human angle Josef was missing something. Malgreave could sympathize—fifteen years of Paris police work could take the humanity out of anybody. You had to fight to keep it. Malgreave had, Vidal had. If Josef had lost it, he’d be a worse cop for it.

Finally Josef whirled around. “Did you see what the
papers said? Calling us inept, incompetent, a bunch of Keystone Kops bumbling around while people were being murdered?”

“No, I didn’t see it. What good would it do? We did some things well, some things very badly. The problem with this job, Josef, is that when we screw up, people die. And we screwed up.”

Josef swore, an obscenity unusual from his chaste lips. “You said you were going to retire when we caught the killers?”

Malgreave nodded. “I am.”

Josef’s face brightened. “Then …”

“Then you can prepare yourself for your next assignment,” Malgreave said gently.

“Assignment?”

“Vidal is being named chief inspector in my place. You’ll be his assistant.”

Josef’s face whitened. “You haven’t even handed in your resignation yet. How do you know … ?”

“I handed it in several hours ago. In it I made my recommendations.”

“And I get screwed,” Josef said bitterly. “All for one little fuck-up.”

“For one little fuck-up that nearly cost three innocent people their lives, Josef. I’m sorry.”

“The hell you are!” Josef slammed out of the office, out of the building, without a backward glance.

Malgreave stubbed out his cigarette. God, it was about time he retired. He was getting too old for this. He’d finish his report, give it to Gauge to type, and then take off. He’d spent too much of his life swamped by the Grandmother Murders. It was time to break free.

He stared down at the torn and tattered paper in front of him. They’d found it on Bonnard’s body, and it explained a great deal of what Malgreave had begun to suspect. Scrawled in a boyish, almost illegible hand, written in human blood, it was the pact, made by a bunch of abused young boys. It was all spelled out, from the weather to the victims, all very ritualistic and depressing. And twenty-five
years later they’d all tried to live up to it, with varying degrees of success.

He leaned closer to the paper, peering at it. He’d left his glasses at home, and his eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be. Half the words were illegible; he could make out two of the signatures, but he had to guess at the other two. Except that it looked as if there were five signatures on the shredded paper, and only four murderers accounted for.

Claire sat outside the hospital room, her bandaged hand resting lightly on Nicole’s shoulder. They both looked like hell, she thought. Exhausted, tear-stained, filthy and hungry, they looked like refugees. But neither of them was going anyplace until she found out whether Tom was going to make it.

The police said he would, but the police were very low on her list of trusted personnel. The gash on his head required countless stitches, but at least Marc hadn’t had a chance to use his knife. Rest was what he needed, rest and antibiotics to ward off infection. The hay Marc had stashed him under was laced with chicken manure. Neither the smell nor the sanitation of it was to be recommended.

The door to Tom’s room opened, and Claire rose, followed by Nicole. “How is he?”

The doctor launched into a spate of French, but Claire, instead of feeling miserable and inadequate, held up her hand. “In English, please,” she said regally, knowing full well the doctor could manage if he tried.

The doctor, like his American counterparts, considered himself to be one step below the Almighty and didn’t like taking orders from a mere mortal. With an irritated sigh he launched into a halting explanation. “He’s resting comfortably. With luck we’ll take him off the intravenous tube tomorrow. We’ve given him something to help him sleep, and by tomorrow he’ll be feeling much better. Go home.”

Claire smiled sweetly. “Thank you, doctor.” And pushing past him, she walked into Tom’s room, with Nicole trailing behind her.

He looked like hell, tubes going into him, tubes coming
out, his face pale, his sandy hair in a tangle around his face. For a moment Claire panicked, wondering if the doctor had lied to her, when he opened his beautiful blue eyes and smiled at her.