Despair gave way to anger as he walked briskly to the other side of the Jeep and saw that the front nearside tyre was also flat. He crouched down to run the tips of his fingers over the deep slash cut into the tyre wall, and closed his eyes, breathing out through clenched teeth.
Not content with almost killing him, his tormentor was determined that he would now have to walk across the island in the dark to get back to Le Bourg. Enzo stood up slowly and leaned both hands against the roof of the Jeep, his anger simmering dangerously inside him.
There would be a reckoning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lights burned in several windows of the doctor’s house as Enzo pushed open the gate and followed the path through the jungle that was the front garden up to the door. He heard the weary hammering of his knock echo along the hallway behind it. And after a moment, footsteps approaching. The door opened, and the Servats’ elder daughter, Oanez, peered out at him.
For a moment her face was frozen in something like shock, or disbelief, before she let out a shriek that almost burst Enzo’s eardrums. He recoiled, startled, as Elisabeth, followed by Alan, appeared hurriedly in the hall behind her and looked at him in astonishment.
The doctor said, “For God’s sake, man! What’s happened to you?”
It wasn’t until he saw his reflection in the hall mirror that Enzo realised why Oanez had screamed as she had. His face was streaked with dried blood. Most of his hair had pulled itself free of the band that held it in a ponytail, and, where it wasn’t matted with blood, hung wild and unkempt over his shoulders. His jacket and trousers were blood-stained and filthy, the lower half of his right-hand trouser leg almost hanging off where it was torn open at the knee. He was pale with the cold, and shivering.
“Come in, come in, for Heaven’s sake.” Elisabeth took his arm and led him through the dining room to the kitchen and sat him in a chair at the kitchen table. The whole family gathered round to stare at him as he described how he had been attacked at the Point de l’Enfer and fallen into the trou.
Alain boiled up some water and poured in disinfectant, and began methodically cleaning the wounds and scrapes around his head as he talked, holding him steady as he winced from the pain of the antiseptic. He didn’t tell them who he had been expecting to meet, or why. Only that it was connected in some way with his investigation into the Killian murder.
“Did you get a look at who did it?” Elisabeth said.
Enzo shook his head. “It was too dark.”
Alain tipped his head to one side and dabbed carefully at a gash on his right temple. “But you have your thoughts?”
“I do.”
“And?”
“It could only have been Kerjean.”
Elisabeth said, “Are you sure?”
“No. But if it wasn’t him and he didn’t murder Killian, then it must have been the real killer who attacked me out there.”
Alain secured a dressing over the wound. “And do you have any idea who that might be?”
Enzo breathed out his frustration. “No, I don’t.”
Alain stood back and looked at him. “You’re going to be black and blue by tomorrow, Monsieur Macleod.” He smiled wryly. “You’ll make a pretty sight.” Then he crouched down to examine Enzo’s knee and drew a sharp breath. “Going to have to get these trousers off you, I’m afraid. That’s a terrible gash in your knee. I might have to put stitches in it.”
The girls were sent out of the kitchen as Enzo removed his trousers with difficulty. Then he sat with eyes closed while Alain cleaned the wound and injected anaesthetic into the knee, before taking needle and thread and closing it up with four neat stitches. The doctor smeared his handiwork with disinfectant cream then placed a dressing over it.
When Enzo opened his eyes again, he found Elisabeth there holding out a glass. He smelled the whisky immediately.
She smiled. “Something for the pain.”
He took the glass with still trembling fingers and sipped a mouthful of amber heaven, letting it trickle slowly back over his tongue, burning down his throat and into his chest. “I don’t know how to thank you both,” he said. “During all the walk back across the island, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting here. I’d never have made it back to Port Melite.”
“Well, I’m glad it was us you came to. Here.” Elisabeth passed him his trousers. “I’ve sewn up the knee.” She grinned at her husband. “A little more neatly than Alain did yours.”
“I made a wonderful job of it,” Alain said. He smiled at Enzo. “Don’t listen to her. You’ll be left with barely a scar. But you’ll probably need a new pair of pants.”
They each supported an arm as Enzo stood up to pull his trousers back on, and then slump into his chair again to finish his whisky.
“Now,” Alain said, “we’d better call the police.”
“No,” Enzo said quickly.
Elisabeth looked at him, perplexed. “But, Enzo, someone just tried to kill you.”
Enzo shook his head. “I don’t think so. If he’d meant to kill me, I’d have been dead by now, or still lying on that ledge. The irony of it is, he actually saved my life. Whatever his intentions, killing me wasn’t one of them.”
Alain said, “But he attacked you, assaulted you, slashed your tyres. These things are all matters for the police.”
But again, Enzo simply shook his head. “No. They’re between him and me.” He looked up to see their shared disapproval. “But I’d very much appreciate it if one of you could run me home.”
Alain took the SUV right up to the gate of the Killian cottage and came around to the passenger side to help Enzo out. All of Enzo’s muscles had stiffened up, and he was finding it hard to move. The anaesthetic had also worn off, and his knee was hurting like hell.
“Do you need a hand into the house?”
“No I’ll be alright from here, thanks.” Enzo shook his hand. “I owe you, doctor.
“You owe me nothing. Just take care that none of those wounds becomes infected. Come and see me if things aren’t healing properly.”
“I will.”
By the time Enzo had reached the door of the cottage, Alain had reversed back to the parking area and turned the SUV. Enzo watched as the headlights dwindled into the distance, and turned as the door opened.
Jane’s initially cold expression dissolved immediately to shock, and then concern. “Oh, my God! What’s happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
She took Enzo’s arm as he hobbled into the warmth of the living room to find Charlotte curled up in one of the armchairs. Discarded dinner plates lay on the floor, and glasses of red wine stood on the tables beside each chair. “We were hungry and couldn’t wait for you,” she said. And then saw the state that he was in. She stood up, immediately anxious. “My God, Enzo! Are you alright?”
“Not really. Turned out it wasn’t so much a rendezvous as a trap.”
Charlotte said, “What happened?”
He slumped into the settee and let his head fall back. “If you put a drink in my hand I might think about telling you.”
“I’d better open another bottle, then,” Jane said. “And I’ll heat up something for you to eat.”
It was almost an hour before Charlotte helped Enzo across the lawn in the dark to the annex. They heard the
