on the disused railway track, and it had suddenly come to life, and the train was bearing down on him. Carrying the terrible truth in its rusted brown trucks.
‘So where were they killed? My mum and dad?’
Madame Bentayou pointed to the main road at the edge of the camp. Beyond it was a sunflower field; the withered plants of autumn looked like tiny dead trees, made of charred and ragged paper.
‘Right there. In the car. An explosion. Someone blew up the car…or at least that is what everyone in Gurs and Navvarenx believed. The police did not investigate properly. Just like they did not investigate…my son’s murder, his wife’s murder, weeks ago.’ Madame Bentayou’s voice was tremulous. ‘I wonder if this is the same people killing. I wonder if I saw someone in the town, the same man, tall, both times. But I am sorry, I am talking too much, I am crazy, is that what you say? My granddaughter thinks I am losing my head. I am going now. I want some time alone. We can talk more later.’
Madame Bentayou got up wearily. She stepped close to David, and pressed his hand between her two cold small hands, gazing into his eyes. Then she turned, taking a wooded footpath back to her bungalow.
David watched her go. He also felt a need to be alone: a fierce need. He walked to the edge of the road.
Looking down at the tarmac he wondered, ludicrously, if there would still be skidmarks. Evidence of the explosion. Fifteen years later. Little quartzite nuggets of windscreen glass still sprinkled in the gutter. Patches of his mother’s blood. A grass stalk smeared red.
And a car, black and gutted, with two bodies inside.
There was nothing. He stood there for ten minutes in the chilly breeze, wondering, remembering. His mother in a blue dress. Smiling and alive. He felt as if he was trying to reach out to her – here – hoping to see her ghost, here where she died. He was a small boy running along a path to the waiting arms of his smiling mother. The sadness of it was palpable, like the wind from the mountains.
The sun was gone and the air was cold.
He made his way back to the girls. Eloise was taking a phone call. Her expression was very engaged. She turned to David.
‘It is my grandmother again. She remembers the name, Monsieur David. The name of the traitor. It was José. José –’
‘Garovillo?’
‘Yes.’
David flashed a glance at Amy: what?
But Eloise was now shouting down the phone. ‘Grandmère? Grandmère!’
Amy called over: ‘What! Eloise! What!’
The young Cagot girl shoved her phone in a pocket.
‘She says there are men coming up the drive. She says she recognizes him – it is him – the man she saw before –’
Eloise was already running across the camp.
Running to her grandmother.
Before Miguel got to her.
They all ran. The sweat dripped in David’s eyes as he sprinted after Eloise – she was fast, young, seventeen. Soon they were over the old railtrack, and sprinting past the peeling wooden doorway of the brasserie. Eloise was running to save her grandmother; David was trying to save Eloise, and maybe to save them all. As he ran, the logic of it all exploded in his mind like a speeded up film of some natural organic process: a blossoming dark rose.
It was obviously Miguel: Miguel was doing all the killing. It was always Miguel, the Wolf, slaughtering the Cagots, slaughtering everyone. A fox that kills all the chickens: for fun.
They came in sight of the bungalow beyond the woodlands, and David stared.
Were they too late? The twilit road looked quiet, and deserted. There was no red car. The bungalow seemed undisturbed. But then David saw – for a moment – a dark face at a window. A tall man. The head vanished. Eloise yelled – and then David grabbed her, pulling her back into the trees. He clamped a hand around her mouth.
He hissed, ‘Eloise, the man in there is a psychopath. Brutal. He tried to kill us. He is killing everyone. Your mum and dad. He will kill you too –’
Eloise was half fighting, half sobbing, struggling against his restraint. What to do? What to do? David realized he couldn’t keep hold of her – it was somehow wrong. If she wanted to save her grandmother, if she wanted to die doing that, then he had to let her do it. With a gasp of exhaustion, he released her – and