Cupid's Arrow (25 page)

I'm back at the place where the paths meet. I can see the two cars from here. Christine isn't back. For a moment I am stricken by the absolute certainty that she's met her end too, in these dark woods. That she's lying dead on the path with a crossbow bolt in the back of her neck. Then I'm running to the other path, the one that she took, and I'm calling her name and shouting and crashing around, without caring anymore who's behind me, if it's Remy or anyone else – Laurie, for instance. Because didn't Christine say that was Laurie's car? She wouldn't have said it if she didn't recognise it. She'd know if it was Oscar's car. But no,
she
has Oscar's car. Remember? She borrowed it. It's the one we came in, here. So therefore it must be as she said. It's Laurie's car. And that means Laurie might be here too. It might be him, rather than Remy, who killed Oscar. But why Oscar? And why was Oscar here, if it wasn't him who . ..

The thoughts buzz in my head like angry bees but they make no sense at all. Nothing fits. I don't understand. But I cling to the possibility that it is Laurie, and not Remy, who killed Oscar.

But if Laurie is the murderer, then he's killed four times. And he's somewhere out here. Somewhere in these woods. And Remy – Remy is out here too. Tracking him – or being tracked? Hunter, or hunted?

The nightie is clammy around my legs now, it's one of those short ones and I'm wearing boxers with it and the jumper, so I should be feeling pretty hot. But I'm not. I keep shivering. I call out once more, 'Christine! Christine!' and I edge along the path, which is getting darker and darker and more and more overhung with trees. Then suddenly, there she is, appearing it seems from the trees themselves. She has the gun in her hand. She sees me and stops and I run forward, crying, 'Thank God! I thought you were, I thought you were –'

'What?' she says, calmly, putting the gun into her jacket pocket.

'He's back there – I mean I saw – he's –'

'Who? Remy? What are you saying?'

'No. Not Remy.' I remember she's Oscar's fiancée. I have to break it to her gently. I say, 'It's, it's not who we thought it was.'

'What are you talking about? Is it Laurie?' She sounds impatient.

'No. I don't know where he is. If he's here. He might be. It's Oscar.'

She freezes. I can see the white of her eyes in the shadows under the trees. She says, very quietly, 'It can't be.'

'It is. I'm so sorry. It is. He's dead. Shot with a crossbow bolt.'

'Oh my God.' She crumples suddenly, the strong woman folding at last and I rush to her before she falls to the ground. I help her up, make her walk to a nearby tree-stump, get her to sit down. I say, 'I'm so sorry, Christine. I'm so sorry.'

Pretty weak, I know, but it's all I can think of to say, right at that moment.

She is silent a moment. I can see her shoulders heaving a little but she has command of herself very quickly. She says, 'Then we had everything wrong.'

I nod. I say, 'Are you sure that was Laurie's car?'

'I–I think so.' But I think she sounds a little doubtful now.

'Because if it is,' I say, swallowing, 'it means that Oscar was in league with Laurie.'

'What! Don't be silly. Why would he be in league with –'

'He lived in Canada, didn't he? How do we know what he did there? The sorts of people he met? Maybe he was in with those gangsters.'

'You mean that Oscar was Laurence Ferrier? That's absurd.' She looks a bit recovered now.

'No. No. I mean that maybe he knew Laurence Ferrier – Laurie. He
couldn't
be Laurence Ferrier. But he might have known him, back there.'

She shakes her head. 'I can't believe it. Not Oscar.' Then her eyes widen. She says, very slowly, 'He was very worried about something, the last couple of weeks since his uncle died.'

'Yes,' I say sadly. 'He looked haunted. Maybe he felt guilty, if he felt responsible, in some way, for Raymond's death – I mean if he and Laurie –'

She nods, bites down on her lip, gives me a quick glance. 'What about Remy?'

'I don't know.' I take a deep breath. 'I think he's somewhere here. Hiding.' I swallow, continue. 'Hiding either from Laurie, or because he –'

'Because he killed Oscar, you mean.' She sounds almost brisk. She gets up.

I can see the picture in my head, but it still doesn't make sense. I never would have thought, never, that Remy could cold-bloodedly kill someone like that. Even if he thought he was his mother's murderer. 'I don't understand,' I said, and it was only when I saw Christine's expression that I knew I'd spoken out loud.

'What don't you understand, Fleur?'

'I don't understand. Why did he shoot Oscar? Why would he think Oscar was the one?'

She shrugs. 'I don't suppose he did. He just saw a man skulking around, didn't he? If he shot him from behind, he'd just have seen a hooded jacket, wouldn't he? A man in a hooded jacket lurking around doesn't inspire confidence, does it?'

'But you don't just shoot – I mean, it could be anyone. If he didn't know who it was, he wouldn't shoot, just in case it turned out to be someone innocent. You'd want to know for sure. You'd want to get them to turn around. And then he'd have seen it was Oscar and –' Suddenly, I break off as something bursts in on me. A lightning flash of memory, searing into my brain. My scalp clenches. My hands shake. I look into Christine's eyes, and I know. I just know. Not how. Not why. But who, and the knowledge drops into my heart like a stone.

She's seen my expression. She's bright. Quick. Clever. Like the fox, she's sensed the change in atmosphere, the sudden disturbance. She looks at me, raises an eyebrow.

'What were you going to say, Fleur?'

Her hand's in her pocket. Fascinated, I stare at her as she calmly takes the gun out again. She lifts it casually. She can be casual. Slow, even, because I'm paralysed. Not likely to run away.

I say, and every word feels heavy, 'I never told you. I was too scared. I just said there was an intruder. I never described him to you. Never told you he wore a hooded jacket. And you haven't seen Oscar's body yet either. Or have you?'

'That was silly of me,' she agreed. She sounds quite cheerful, quite normal. 'You're quite right, of course. You didn't say.'

'You – you killed him. With the crossbow. It was you who stole it.'

'There was no crossbow,' she says, just as cheerfully, taking a step towards me. 'You, well, you sort of suggested it to me, with your talk of bows and arrows, and Remy, hunting him down.'

'But, but I saw the wound.' I stare at the gun in her hand. 'It wasn't a bullet hole. At least I –'

'No,' she says, smiling. She is so pretty and her eyes shine so brightly and I am so scared of her that I can hardly breathe. 'It wasn't a bullet. It was a bolt.'

'But –'

She jerks her head at the gun. 'You don't know much about guns, do you, Fleur?'

I shake my head.

'Have you heard of captive-bolt guns? Used to slaughter cattle in abattoirs. No need to waste bullets. Well, that's what this is.' She smiles. 'You just put it up to their head, press the trigger, wham. In goes the bolt, down they drop, stone dead. The bolt goes back into the gun, to be used again on the next one.
Voila.'

She looks so pleased with herself. Her eyes shine. It's horrible. More horrible than anything I could ever have imagined.

'I had a boyfriend once who worked in an abattoir. He got one for me. Kept it, just in case. For an emergency like this. Oh, it's painless, I assure you,' she says, coming closer still. 'Instant, if you know where to aim. Head. Or top of the spinal cord. Both are good. Oscar never felt a thing.'

'Did you? Is that how you killed the others?'

'No. Just him.' She shakes her head. 'I didn't want to do it, Fleur. If he hadn't come nosing around –' She shrugs.

'Remy?' I whisper, still unable to move, watching her as a bird watches a snake. She is right up next to me now. So close that she can just shoot a bolt right into my brain and I wouldn't have had time to resist. But she isn't ready yet. She wants to talk.

'I knew Oscar had begun to have doubts about me. But I didn't know how far it went, till tonight. He came to have it out with me, he said. He wanted to give me a chance.' She laughs. 'Ha! I knew though that he'd go to the police, once he knew for sure. He was weak. Weak as water.' She looks at me. 'I'm afraid I had to deal with your Remy too. I found him in the living room, looking up stuff on the computer. He was about to get in touch with that dream person in Canada, that ex-cop who you reckon knew so much about the case. And he told me – he told me, you see, that he'd realised something.'

'What?' I ask, forcing the words out through my thick throat.

'That in France and French-speaking countries, Laurence can be just as much a woman's name as a man's,' says Christine, with a bright smile. 'Because we'd been talking in English about it – and because in English Laurence is always a man's name – it hadn't clicked with him. Till that moment. When he said the name in French to himself.' She sighs. 'I knew one of you would get to it sooner or later. Sooner rather than later. And then you might start putting two and two together – and making not twenty-two, as you had up till now, but four. Just like that old horror of a Raymond Dulac had done.'

I stammer, 'So Laurie had nothing to do with it?'

'Of course not. Never seen him before in my life. I expect he's exactly what he says he is. A Yank movie producer. I knew he was leaving early, you know. He told me. I just kept that little fact to myself. I thought it might come in useful, if his absence was felt to be mysterious.' She smiles, as though she's really pleased with herself.

I shudder. 'I don't understand. You don't have a Canadian accent. I thought you were Irish, not –'

'I left Canada when I was sixteen,' she says. 'I went to Ireland. My dad was Canadian but my mum was Irish. She took me to her family. She wanted me to start a new life. She changed our names. She wanted me to forget all the trauma of the past, and how I'd been falsely suspected of starting that fire ...' She grins, and it's like seeing Death smiling. 'Only it
wasn't
false. Mama never knew that. She was a fool. She couldn't believe that her little girl could do any wrong. I was just a bit wild, that's all, and that was my dad's fault. His family's fault. The wild Ferriers.' Her eyes narrow. 'I was going to marry my cousin, Maurice, when I was old enough, you know. He was six years older than me. I loved him so much. And he loved me. We were made for each other. And then that, that dog of an undercover cop – he betrayed them. I could never forgive them. Never. They'd destroyed Maurice. Destroyed everything that made life worth anything to me. I wanted them to suffer as I had suffered. I wanted to wipe them out. All of them.' Again that dreadful grin. 'And now I've done for nearly all of them. The father, the uncle, the mother. I only need the son to complete it.'

I stare at her. I know now, without a shadow of doubt, that she is mad. Stark staring raving psycho mad. I know I won't survive this night. But something in her words gives me a tiny shred of hope. For Remy, if not for me. I whisper, 'You haven't killed Remy. Not yet.'

She smiles. 'Not yet. No.'

'Why not?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know. Perhaps because he'd been hunted too, by the police. Perhaps because my rage at that family has died down. Because he reminded me a little of Maurice. Does it matter? I can always do it later. I've got him in my cellar. He can't get out. I had to kill his dog though. Pity, because I like dogs and she was nice, eh?'

I hate her so much at this moment. She sees it, and says, earnestly, 'You understand, I didn't want to do it. But she went for me.' She pulls up her sleeve, exposing bite marks. I think, good on you, Patou. Poor, poor little brave Patou.

'I had no choice. So there you go.' She eyes me with a speculative glance. 'I don't think your Remy had actually put two and two together yet, anyway. Oh, he'd realised about Laurence perhaps being a woman's name – but it hadn't yet clicked in him
which
woman it might be. He didn't know about me and Canada, of course. And the knock on the head I had to give him wouldn't improve his perception.' She sighs. 'But you – you're rather further ahead, aren't you, Fleur? It's a pity. A real pity. I like you. I really do. You've got guts. But –'

She raises the gun.

'Please – Christine. Please. You don't have to do this. I won't say anything. I promise. And neither will Remy. I know he won't. We'll go away together. We'll disappear. You'll never hear about us again.' I'm now sobbing, I can't help it.

'And what about your mother?' she says, disapprovingly. 'Really, haven't you got any thought for how she might feel if you just up and leave without a word?'

Here I am in danger of death, being lectured by a four-times murderer about the right way to behave! And, strangely, I do feel shame, thinking of poor Mum and how I really hadn't had any thought for what she might feel, all the way along. I say, 'Please, Christine – don't do it. Let Remy and I live. We won't tell anyone. We won't. Cross my heart.'

'Hope to die?' she says. Suddenly, she grabs me by the chin and looks searchingly into my eyes. 'How much do you love this Remy of yours? Enough to die for him?'

I stare back at her, into those beautiful, murderous eyes. I say, very quietly, 'Yes. As much as that.'

'I respect that,' she says, still with her eyes fixed on me. 'I really do. But are you ready to prove it?'

For an instant, my tongue feels glued to the roof of my mouth. This is it. I'm going to die, a bolt shot into my brain as though I was an animal to the slaughter. I nod. I manage to say, 'But you must swear. You must swear that you will let Remy go, unharmed. You must swear on the memory of your Maurice.'

I don't know why I say that. It has come to me instinctively, this thing to seal a devil's vow. But it is the right thing to say. I see that at once. The expression in her eyes changes, becomes almost tender. She drops my chin. She says, softly, 'I swear by Maurice's memory. By the memory of the best and bravest man who ever lived, I swear that I will let Remy go free.'