Chapter Twenty-Two
“Louis?” The door to Villa Glorieuse swung open, and the house greeted me with the familiar olfactory jumble of mold, spices, and scented candles.
No whiff of cat, though. No padding of paws either, no signs of the furry person who shared my home with me. For a gut-wrenching moment, I feared Paulette had returned during my absence and stole the adorable mop.
“Merow.” The cat plopped down the staircase, his tail upright, quivering with cheer. My heart did a happy little skip and hop, the relief welcome after this crap day.
“Murp.”
I kicked the door shut and rid myself of shoes and rucksack. That done, I hoisted Louis onto my shoulder.
My gaze fell on Yvon’s bouquet, forgotten on the sideboard. Well past their prime, the glorious roses drooped.
Louis nuzzled my chin and licked my neck.
“Eek, your tongue is all raspy. Okay, got the message. I’d better fetch you something to eat.” My voice drew eerie echoes from the hallway, so I headed for the kitchen and gently placed my furry friend on the tiles.
What a trusting little soul. And how unfair to leave him alone the whole day when he wasn’t used to his new home yet and couldn’t get outside. To compensate, I would play with the cat later and shower him with cuddles. After ringing a locksmith. And Arbadonaro. He loomed large in my mind, even if it was one call I didn’t want to make.
Suddenly, the kitchen was a much darker place, as if something unclean had sucked up the evening sunshine.
I called my wayward imagination to order and fed my cat. Water on the boil for tea, I strolled to the window and pushed aside the curtain, the floor tiles warm under the soles of my feet. Outside waited an unkempt garden and a rioting rose hedge.
No changes there.
Call Arbadonaro. And get a grip on yourself.
Did I heck. Instead, I conducted a mental check of my remaining chores. The article I owed the Guide Douchevin would have to wait until I was at Yvon’s place later this evening, pretending to be with him. We hoped our ruse would fool Paulette and her gang and keep them busy watching his house. His supporters would be around to keep guard and stop the Sansculottes from following the divers, should she refuse to be hoodwinked by our feeble ploy.
How much writing I would get done remained to be seen, not with my lover braving the sea, going after the treasure of Capbreton and the golden spoon.
The kettle expelled hot steam and bleeped itself off.
With a deep sigh, I fished my phone from my pocket and thumbed a number I had committed to memory.
“I knew you would call,” Arbadonaro answered on the second ring. “It was a question of time.”
“Time is what we don’t have enough of.”
“We? You mean Batz, don’t you?”
My innards cramped. Stupid, stupid, stupid. When I first visited, Arbadonaro had refused to even talk to Yvon. Now, the old fighter knew we were a team, despite my plans to break the news gently. If I’d misread the man, we would be in trouble.
“Yes. This is not about me but about Yvon. I believe you’re aware of his story. It’s got worse. Some disgusting people seem to mistake him for the fountain of eternal youth. Paying customers only. You can’t let that happen.”
All I heard was buzzing.
My stomach plummeted. “Are you still there?”
More buzzing, followed by, “Yes. Though, I must admit, your comment took me by surprise. Consider me intrigued, and if I can, I will help. You see, I feel sorry for your friend. And guilty for the way our people treated him. It’s the reason I couldn’t face him.”
What a huge relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I have no idea how to help you and your, eh...partner.”
“Hopefully, I’ll bring something with me that might serve as inspiration.”
A hush of indrawn breath fluttered into my ear. “You can explain when you’re here. Don’t expect this to be too easy, though.”
“I don’t. If not you, I wouldn’t know who else to approach. What time would suit you?”
A soft laugh. “Melody, at my age one doesn’t party. I can’t sleep much, either. Come whenever it suits you. I’ll be here. Goodnight.”
The moment I thumbed the call away, the doorbell shrilled. I ran a mental checklist of visitors. Too early for Raoul, who never bothered with doorbells anyway. Berthe? No, it would be too fast. Not impossible, though.
Paulette? My heartbeat ratcheted up. If it were her, the woman would regret her cheek. I stormed into the corridor and stopped at the door.
I pricked my ears, but the silence was too loud.
Rattle.
An envelope slid through the letterbox and dropped onto my bare feet. I knelt and grabbed it.
“Hello?”
Crickets. Nobody was visible in the spyhole either. With trembling fingers, I put the chain in place and opened the door. Peeked through the slit and beheld an empty stoop.
The next moment, the garden gate clicked shut. Rapid footsteps strode away.
I should have dashed after the anonymous postman, but I wadded and tossed the thought. No way would I chase anybody today; I was too shattered for exercise. Instead, I ripped open the envelope. The note inside was printed on standard writing paper.
Meet me at the bunker in fifteen minutes. The one with the Miss Piggy graffiti.
I’ve got something you can use to save your man. A friend.
A friend? That was a rare commodity in this town. I stared at the rose hedge, glowing in the light of the summer evening, every serrated leaf, every flower outlined in magnificent precision.
Could the message have been left by one of Yvon’s supporters? It made no sense since none of them ever talked to me. Of course, Bruno did, but only in his function as Douchevin coordinator. Perhaps it had been Berthe after all, though I couldn’t envisage a nonagenarian heading for the bunkers at this time of the day. Unlikely also she would walk fast enough. Not Berthe, then.
Who else?
Even if I wouldn’t put it past Paulette to lure me to the beach under a false pretense, the person walking away hadn’t been wearing high heels. I’d never seen the woman without them, which made her an unlikely candidate. My money was on the man from the tree.
Could I trust him?
Not at all.
I didn’t have a choice. For Yvon’s and my sake, I would have to investigate but not on my own. Occasionally I tended to be a trifle daft, but I wasn’t suicidal. No, I needed to get my sorry bum covered, but I would have to act pronto.
He had wanted to take a nap before diving, but the new developments were a game-changer and might save me from having to do something super scary like cursing him.
I reached for my phone—and dropped my hand again. If I woke him now, he might later suffer from whatever happened to stressed divers. Better to go across in person. If he wasn’t awake, I could always leave a message.
Unfortunately, once I arrived on his terrace, I found the French windows closed. I sprinted to the front door and rang the bell. It shrilled through the house, but I didn’t get as much as a curtain twitch in response. No response to my frantic shouts either, other than the dogs rioting in their kennels.
Rats. He must be lost in slumber land.
His friends. They would help.
I buzzed the front gate open and scanned the quiet street. If his mysterious supporters were around, they hid well. No cars with tinted windows crawling by or waiting at the curb. Nobody lurking in the driveways, or the gardens.
Double crap.
I waved at the nearest house. Waited. Swung the other way. Waved again, with the same daunting result. A glance at my phone made my heart clench. Seven of my fifteen minutes were already gone.
The next thought trundled in, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. While we weren’t far from Raoul’s rising time, we weren’t there yet. On the other hand, he must have been working the ghostly equivalent of the nightshift in the last few days and had told us he was “flexible.”
Please, let him be flexible now.
I raced back to Glorieuse, rummaged in the sideboard drawer until I found a pencil stub, and added a note to the message. Raoul, I know this isn’t a good idea, but there’s no way I’ll ignore this tip. Can’t wake Yvon; can’t locate his friends. Can you join me at the bunkers? Mel.
I added the time. Then I dashed outside, locked my door, and jammed the slip of paper into the letterbox where Raoul would hopefully notice it. The next moment, I pulled it back out again. Paulette or her minions, if they were lurking in the vicinity, might also notice the message. I’d never met more than two, but there would be more. Idiocy tends to be contagious.
I swung around, found a stone, and used it to pin the note in the spot where Louis had been squatting when Paulette let him loose.
Another glance at my phone showed I was cutting things fine, so I left a final voice message for Yvon and darted from my garden.
On top of the dunes, I stopped and surveyed the panorama. The wind was stiff enough to tug at my unruly locks, and its breezy fingers sneaked under my T-shirt. Warmer than yesterday, the draft wasn’t exactly chill, but still far from mild. Even the suited surfers climbing the trail, their boards under their arms, were wrapped up in their towels.
From my vantage point, I let my gaze roam the never-ending strip of beach, glowing in the evening sun, here and there decorated with busy dust eddies. The sea...oh blast, the sea.
The tide was washing in. The ocean was an expanse of glittery blue, scarred by squabbly wavelets running in crosscurrents when they hit the far side of the bunkers, mini whirlpools swirling at the collision points. Like watery veins, the tidal pools and runnels were filling fast, even if there seemed to be enough sand left to reach the ruins without getting too wet.
With a bang , the surge rammed into the farthest bunker. Spray and foam shot up and slapped onto the concrete roof, while greedy tongues of water lapped at both sides.
I stood on tippy toes. Of course, it was the one with the Miss Piggy graffiti.
My stomach lurched. So not good. Instead of Miss Piggy, the bunker should have featured four letters.
Trap.
I checked my phone. No response from Yvon. Deep inside, I knew he wouldn’t come, knew I was on my own. Though not alone, not really. There were people on the beach, people walking, drinking to the sunset, surfers bobbing in the foamy carpet gobbling up the sand.
They might help me. If not, they might film my last moments and sell them to the highest bidder. On that happy note, perhaps I was exaggerating the danger? The water wasn’t running too high, and the wind was strong but no storm. I had seen worse. And the bunkers would serve as shields in case someone got trigger-happy.
And if the same someone did, the people would alert the police.
Surely.
What was that? A small figure emerged from behind the concrete rock in the surf. Something glinted. A camera? A telescopic lens on a gun?
Crap.
I flung myself behind a tall bushel of seagrass and observed the figure through the swaying switchblade leaves.
The distant person was signaling. A man most likely, standing close to the bunker on a peninsula made of sand. He must have recognized me. By using binoculars, perhaps? It would make sense. No gun then, which was good.
I unfolded myself from behind the grass and waved. The figure waved back. I shook my head and pointed at the water.
The figure mimicked my motion, beckoned for me again, then stomped the sand as if to demonstrate its firmness. Hollered something, but the sound was swallowed by the surf.
Oh, blast, what to do?
Decision time.
I rose, ripped off my espadrilles, and shoved them into the pockets of my shorts. Then I dashed through the sand and onto the beach until I reached the first tidal channel.
Down here, the salty wind was much fiercer; it tore at my shirt and blew sand into my face. I entered the first channel and sloshed ahead, driven by a determination wilder than the water. At least the channel wasn’t wide, wasn’t deep; the brine only covered my feet, then my ankles.
Until I stepped into a dip and lost my footing.
Splash. I was soaked up to my knees.
With an eerie moan, a gust of wind rushed around the concrete structures looming over me like alien relics stranded in time. A series of waves thundered against the Miss Piggy bunker.
The ground rose, and for a moment I was back on moist sand, until the ground dipped again, into the next channel. Only the current was much stronger here. It splashed against my shins and disappeared behind me in a mini wake.
The water boiled around my knees when I waded up the sandy peninsula I had spotted from the dunes. Another step caused my feet to sink into a treacherous sludge. Lying at a crazy angle like a crashed spaceship, one edge of the bunker was already submerged, the other pointed at a sky crisscrossed by contrails and dotted with circling seagulls. Miss Piggy grinned at me in faded glory when I finally arrived on firmer ground.
I was there. Where was the man who left the message? The adrenaline that had lashed me forward drained away. In its stead came first wariness, then dread.
I flung myself against the bunker’s rough and wet wall. My breath was coming in painful, hot gasps while my legs tingled with cold. This was supposed to be summer; people were swimming in the ocean, and the temperature should be fine.
The skin of my trembling legs didn’t agree.
Other than the sloshing, booming, and moaning of tide and wind, I seemed to be alone.
“Where are you?” I rounded a corner and found the bunker entrance. At the same moment, a frothy spray hit the other side of the building, the side where the man had been standing.
“Hello?”
I whirled around. Faced the maw gaping in the belly of the old structure. Peeked inside, inching my head past the edge.
The bunker was empty.
Movement in the corner of my eye.
Instinct propelled me sideways, up the steps and straight into the slimy opening. Slippery with algae, streaked with rust, the bunker swallowed me into darkness and protected me from the bullet whizzing past the entrance.
“No, no, no.”
White panic surged through my veins as I clambered farther into the clammy depths of the concrete ruin, chilled to the core by a raging sea.
The thundering of the waves increased. Like an evil drumbeat it echoed through the structure, shook at its foundations. Water trickled from the ceiling and bubbled up at the far end.
If the bunker flooded now, I would be caught inside and drown like a rat. I scrabbled back to the entrance.
Wrong thinking.
The tide hadn’t reached its peak yet. The ruin would take a while to flood. The man with the gun was there now, the more dangerous of the two. Soon, the rising waters would flush him out. Then, I could leave.
I hid behind a half wall in case the shooter showed his face. Waited. And waited some more.
No gunman.
I drew in a deep breath tasting of dead sea critters and mud. Grit crunched between my chattering teeth.
“Calm down. For freak’s sake, call for help.” I was reaching for my phone when something slopped, and a coldness washed over my feet.
When I looked down, water flowed where there had been a concrete floor. Since I entered the building, the sea must have risen by half a meter.
What the heck was wrong with this tide?
From nowhere, Yvon’s words snapped into my mind. A heavy hand reached for my heart. I was trapped in the bunker in a frigging spring tide.
Use your phone.
When I pulled it from my pocket, I had no signal.
Too much concrete. Get out of here. Now.
My hands on the drippy walls, I fumbled my way back to the entrance, my body shaking with feverish shivers, my heart slamming away.
The shooter. Would he still be around? Surely not.
What if?
I removed one espadrille from the pocket of my shorts and threw it from the opening.
No shots.
I sneaked closer to the doorway. Dangled the second shoe into the wet air.
More sea washed over my feet, and I forced myself to face my surroundings.
Where there had been a sandy beach between the ruined structures, a cauldron raged, with waves rolling in from everywhere until they collided. A salty spray filled the air, accompanied by the deafening impact of water against concrete. The wind no longer moaned but howled. The watery mist hid the next concrete box from view. The dunes I couldn’t see at all. Yet, somehow, I needed to get back there.
A thought crashed into my brain, and my knees went to jelly. Yvon was somewhere in this waterlogged hell, diving.
I pushed the panic aside. I would worry about him later. First, I needed to survive.
The next thought was no better. Where did the shooter disappear to? Unlikely, he would hang around, but I needed to be sure. I threw the second espadrille. For a moment, it bobbed on the water until it got sucked into the maelstrom.
I inched toward the edge of the entrance and the foamy stream surged in. Should I stay at the back, waiting until the tide turned?
No. Whenever that would be, it couldn’t arrive soon enough.
“Have you lost your flipping mind?”
Hypothermia speaking? No, that hadn’t been my voice.
Raoul’s face took shape in mid-air, eyes blazing with wrath, lips drawn away from his teeth. “You suicidal or what?”
Never had I been happier about being told off.
“Hello. Looks like I’m in a spot of trouble, eh?” My teeth chattering wildly, they mashed the words.
“You shouldn’t be in here in the first place,” he snapped. His upper body became visible, and he put two fingers into his mouth and whistled.
“Did you spot a man in the vicinity? He shot at me. I feared a trap, knew this would happen.”
“Why did you come here, verdammt nochmal ?” He sighed. “We’re alone. I checked. I won’t be of much use since I need to conserve my spectral energy. My time on Earth is coming to an end, I can feel it, and I’ve already opened the kennels from here. Ah, they’re coming.”
Kennels? My lips were ready to frame the question when three heads popped up among the froth. Heads on dark bodies, sleek like otters, only bigger. The canine musketeers were swimming for me. They got tossed around but kept going with—dogged determination. Slowly, they came closer.
“Once they’ve arrived, you jump.” His face had stilled into aloofness. “Hold on to their collars. Do their master a favor and don’t choke them. At the next bunker, you should have ground under your feet again. It’s not far and not too deep, but I don’t like your blue lips. Make sure to avoid the blasted currents. Once you can walk, you must help your helpers. This is hard going, even for big, strong dogs like those three. Yvon won’t thank me for putting them in danger. But if you snuff it, he’ll blow a fuse.”
A thousand explanations quivered on my tongue, but I swallowed them together with the grit and the salt burning my lips. Later, all this was for later.
The dogs reached the bunker, and I jumped.
Water so cold it felt hot lashed at my body. A leaden numbness weighed on my legs. I swallowed brine and choked. Spat it out again.
Swim, I had to swim.
A hound splashed into view. Then another one. I placed my arms around their necks and churned away with my legs, in the wake of the third sleek head, coaxed on by a man I could only hear, not see. The animals’ bodies were lean like Yvon’s, faithful, loyal muscle machines pumping away. But I sensed them slowing already, slackening. There was water everywhere, salt burning in my face, currents dragging at my legs, throwing us around like pieces of driftwood.
Until there was firm sand under my feet.
I grabbed the dogs’ collars and surged ahead, half-staggering, half-pulling the creatures that had come to my rescue. The one at the front was well clear, racing into the surf where he shook himself, sending his ears flapping and droplets flying.
Together with his pack-mates, I limped from water that seemed to have morphed into glue, refusing to release me.
Why was nobody there to help us? Where did all the people go?
Oddly enough, I wasn’t cold anymore.
“I think I’ve spotted the chap who got you into this mess,” Raoul’s voice said, matter-of-factly.
“Who?” My teeth were chattering too fast for talking.
“The Armagnac fancier. Let me see where he’s going.”
Raoul vanished. I sat on the wet sand, staring at the ocean without seeing it, my limbs as heavy as concrete. And I was cold, so cold.
Next to me, a dog whined. His flanks were heaving. Porthos, the nametag read. He moved closer. As did the other two, their bodies damp, the fur spiky with salt water. They kept scratching at their floppy ears.
It wouldn’t do. I needed to take the three musketeers to safety and dry them off. They had gone beyond the call of duty and shouldn’t suffer for my stupidity. Prompted by Raoul, no doubt, but they did it without once questioning their orders.
With a groan, I heaved myself off the sodden sand. The dogs stood and stared at me with what might have been either adoration or pity in their soft brown eyes.
As one, they lifted their noses into the air, woofed and trotted back to the waterline. A fishing boat had puttered in, and a man in a diving suit, a dripping bundle in his hands, was wading to the shore.
That man was Yvon.