A knock at the door on the far side of the room interrupted morbid thoughts. It opened to admit a big man, only a little shrunken by age, a thick shock of wiry white hair above a deeply lined but fleshy face full of character and humour.
“ Salut, salut,” he said. And shut the door behind him to approach them across the room, supported by a gnarled old walking stick with a brass tip, his walk stiff-gaited but steady. He wore a dark suit, tightly buttoned across a patterned pullover, and an open-necked shirt that was grubby and frayed around the collar. If Enzo had been asked to guess, he would have said that the old man was around eighty. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief and humour. “How is the old boy today?”
Alain smiled patiently, and explained to Enzo. “Jacques has a couple of years on my father, and always likes to refer to him as the old boy.” It was a joke that had clearly worn thin.
But Enzo was astonished and looked at the old man anew.
“Ninety-four,” Jacques said, answering the unasked question, fiercely proud of his achievement. He held out a hand to shake Enzo’s. “Jacques Gassman at your service, monsieur.” And Enzo detected the faintest hint of an accent that he couldn’t quite place.
There was still power in the grip of the big, bony old hand.
Alain said, “Jacques and my father each had their own practice on the island until they set up the medical centre together.”
“Oh,” Enzo said. “So it’s Doctor Gassman?”
“It is,” the old man said proudly. “I come to see the old boy every other day, just to keep an eye on him. And he always asked me to keep an eye on that son of his, too.” He winked at Alain. “So I do that as well.”
“You do,” Alain said. “This is Monsieur Enzo Macleod, Jacques.”
“Yes, I know. I do still read the papers, young man.” He turned toward Enzo. “Even if it takes a little longer than it used to.” He paused. “You’ve come to solve our little island mystery.”
Enzo shrugged acknowledgment. “If I can. I had been hoping to discuss Monsieur Killian’s medical condition with his physician.” He glanced at old Emile. “But clearly that’s not going to be possible.”
“Well, you can still look at his medical records.” He turned toward the younger doctor. “Can’t he Alain? I thought you had all Emile’s old paper records brought here to the house when the centre was computerised.”
“Yes, we did. They’re all in boxes up in the attic. I never thought of that. I suppose Adam Killian’s records could be up there among them.” He looked at Enzo. “Would you like me to check?”
Enzo nodded. “That would be very helpful.”
The dust of decades covered every surface in this large, draughty attic. Cobwebs hung in theatrical drifts from skylight windows, and daylight leaked in all around the edges of the slates. Enzo followed Alain carefully over loose floorboards laid across open beams to where stacks of cardboard boxes were lined up against the far gable. The tape that had been used to seal them had long since lost its stick, and the flaps that closed them off were easily prised apart, raising clouds of choking dust into the cold air.
The files had been arranged in alphabetical order, so Enzo and Alain had to move A to J back into the centre of the attic to gain access to K. Alain then tore open the lid and started riffling through the files inside bulging folders of handwritten notes.
“Here it is.” He drew out a file in a faded purple folder that was thinner than the rest.
For a moment Enzo wondered why, but then reflected that Killian had only been an occasional visitor to the island until his retirement. Alain flicked through charts, and yellowing pages of hand-written notes, ink fading now on brittle paper. Enzo squinted at them, trying to read. But the hand-writing was almost indecipherable. “Doctors!” he muttered. “Do they take classes in bad handwriting?”
Alain laughed. “Yes. I think my father got an A-plus.” He tilted his head a little to one side. “But then I’m used to reading it.” He turned over several more sheets. “Ah, here we are. Yes… Killian came to him in March, 1990, complaining of night sweats and chronic fatigue, and a cough that had lingered long after the spring cold that kicked it off. In the end Papa sent him for an x-ray at the radiography centre in Lorient.” He went to the back of the file and pulled out a large green envelope. Inside was Killian’s chest x-ray that the radiographer had forwarded to his doctor. Alain held it up toward the sunshine streaming in through the small rectangle of skylight, and Enzo saw a slow moving cloud of dust drifting through the light beyond it. “There.” He ran his finger along the bottom edge. “The date it was taken. April 15, 1990.” He slipped the transparency back into its envelope and consulted his father’s notes once more. “Inoperable tumour. Terminal. Three to six months, the radiographer thought.”
“But in fact he was still alive after five and must have been pretty close to the end by then.” Enzo was staring at the file in Alain’s hands. But not seeing it. Gazing through it, beyond it. Lost in thought. “If his killer had waited a week or two longer, maybe less, the cancer would have done the job for him.”
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
The bar adjoined the Auberge du Pecheur along the north gable, with windows looking out over the harbour. It was dark when Enzo climbed the steps to its door in search of a digestif after his bowl of pasta in the Thon Bleu, just a couple of hundred meters up the road.
He had no real desire to return to his cold bedroom above Killian’s study, to sit on his own, haunted by the man and the mystery he had left behind him. He felt the need of something to warm him from the inside on this frosty night at the end of a frustrating day.
The search for Killian’s physician had brought no real enlightenment, and he had spent the rest of the day acquainting himself with the island, driving out to its northwest tip and the lighthouse at Pen Men. There, an inhospitable sea devoured the coastline, eating into its hard, black gneiss, creating sheer cliffs and treacherous inlets where it vented its frustration in wave after wave of foaming spume. Then he had driven south-west, through the small coastal town of Locmaria, to the rocky outcrop of the Pointe des Chats, where he had stood warming himself in the late fall sunshine, gazing out over calmer seas.
There were perhaps a dozen customers in the bar when he entered. Heads turned out of habit to register the newcomer, and a spontaneous silence fell across the tables. A strange, self-conscious silence that no one seemed to know how to break.
Enzo was almost amused by it. He smiled and nodded. “ Bonsoir,” he said, and walked the length of the room to the bar, aware of all the eyes upon him. He heard a murmur of bonsoir s in return, and someone cleared his throat noisily. But not a single conversation resumed. The barman was a man in his thirties, with shoulder-length hair and steel-rimmed glasses, tall and thin. He wore a polo-neck sweater, and jeans that hung loose from skinny hips. He seemed quite unfazed.
He nodded. “Monsieur Macleod,” he said, as if Enzo was a regular. “What can I get you tonight?” Enzo looked beyond him to the crowded shelves above the counter, and saw to his surprise that they were well-stocked with good Scotch and Irish whisky.
“I’ll have a Glenlivet.”
“Would that be the twelve- or the fifteen-year-old, monsieur?”
“Let’s live dangerously and go for the fifteen.”
As the barman lifted down the bottle, Enzo glanced around the bar. Dark varnished beams supported its sloping ceiling, and framed pictures, mostly of boats or the sea, crowded every available wall space. A gathering of curtains framed the windows and doors. The faces at darkwood tables were still turned in his direction.
“Well,” he said, startling them, as if they had thought they were invisible. They had not, he was certain, expected that he would speak to them. “Since I seem to have your undivided attention, I wonder if there is anyone here who might be able to tell me something about Thibaud Kerjean.”
Silence.
The barman banged Enzo’s whisky down on the bar top. “You’ll not find anyone here with a good word to say about Kerjean.”
Enzo poured a little water in his whisky and lifted his glass. “Why’s that?”
