The Critic by Peter May Read Free Book Online Page A

the night, his own breathing seemed thunderous.
    Fear wrapped itself around him like a cloak, raising goosebumps across his shoulders. He began to shiver in the warm night. Someone had tried to kill him little more than half an hour before. It had taken him that time to make his way home. Why couldn’t his would-be killer have got there ahead of him, having failed at the first attempt?
    Enzo had no idea what to do. Confront his assailant and risk further injury or even death? Or retreat to somewhere safe where he could think? But where? In the end, he decided on a middle course—to try to get a closer look at whoever was waiting for him on the
terrasse
.
    Away to his left was Pierric Lefèvre’s
chai
, a long, low building covered in ivy. He backed off towards it, still in the shadow of the trees, until he was within a metre or two of the far end. Quickly, he ducked across the path and out of sight of the cottage. He stopped to listen for any sound of movement. But all he heard was the distant hooting of an owl.
    He circled around the back of the
chai
until he reached the far end. From here he had a direct view across a short stretch of gravel path towards the steps of the cottage. It was still mired in darkness, but he could just make out the shape of a figure sitting at the table. Waiting for him.
    Staying within the long shadow cast by the wine shed, he moved carefully across open ground to press himself against the gable end of the house. Anxious not to disturb the ivy, he craned his head around the wall to try to get a better look at his unwanted visitor. To his horror, the detector on the halogen lamp high up on the end of the
chai
picked up his movement, and the whole area was flooded with light. He cursed under his breath. Run? Or attack while he still had the element of surprise? He decided in the fraction of a second to opt for the latter and ran for the steps, exposing himself to the full glare of the light.
    Something soft and heavy caught him just above the knee and he went toppling over it, sprawling across the lower steps. He looked back to see a large suitcase as it fell with a thud. It seemed strangely familiar.
    A figure rose up above him as he turned.
    ‘Monsieur Macleod! What on earth are you doing?’ Nicole gawped at him in amazement as he scrambled to his feet.
    He looked up at her, holding on to the rail to stop himself falling over again, and saw the look of incredulity verging on horror that wrote itself across her face. Were he able to see himself he would have realised why. He was spattered head to toe with red grape juice, pants and shirt mud-stained and torn. Bits of leaf and dirt clung to him, fixed by the glue of the fruit. There was dried blood down one side of his face. His ponytail had long since lost the band that held it, and his hair was a shock of sticky clumps and curls tumbling wildly over his shoulders.
    She opened her mouth to speak, but for several moments nothing came out. Then she said, ‘Are you alright?’
    Fear, which had given way to humiliation, now lurched towards anger. ‘No, I’m not alright. Do I look alright?’
    She shook her head slowly, still staring in wide-eyed astonishment. ‘No. No, you don’t.’
    ***
    Nicole was a big girl of good farming stock, wide-hipped and large-breasted, the antithesis of the skinny, flat-chested French girls in the TV ads and on magazine covers. She had a pretty face, though, and long silky brown hair which she gathered loosely at her neck before leaving it to cascade down her back. She was, by a long way, the brightest student in Enzo’s biology class, perhaps the brightest student of her year. But her upbringing on a remote hill farm in the Auvergne had left her somewhat lacking in sophistication. She was gauche and shy and had suffered the gibes and taunts of her more streetwise peers during her first year of university in Toulouse.
    Enzo had taken her on early that first summer to help him crack the Gaillard case. There was,