The Critic by Peter May Read Free Book Online Page B

it seemed, nothing she didn’t know about computers, and she could surf and navigate her way around the internet like an experienced sailor. He needed help again, so he had asked her for a few days of her time before the first semester of the new university year got under way. He knew, too, that she had spent much of the summer nursing her dying mother, and that she could probably do with the break.
    When he came out of the shower wrapped in a towelling robe, blood was running down the side of his head where the hot water had reopened his wound. She made him sit in a chair while she pressed a clean towel against his head to stop the bleeding. Her large breasts quivered at eye-level, just centimetres from Enzo’s face, and he tried hard not to look at them. They were, he reflected, Nicole’s most outstanding feature, a subject of discussion on more than one occasion amongst male lecturers in the staffroom at the university. She always seemed intent on making the most of them, wearing tee-shirts a size too small, or low-cut tops that revealed acres of cleavage. Hoping, perhaps, to attract attention. Which, of course, they did. Always of the wrong kind.
    Enzo closed his eyes.
    ‘Do we have any disinfectant, Monsieur Macleod?’
    ‘Coping with the aftermath of an attempt on my life wasn’t one of the things I considered when packing my bags, Nicole.’
    ‘You should always be prepared.’ Nicole was nothing if not practical.
    ‘There’s really nothing prepares you for someone trying to kill you.’
    ‘You must be exaggerating. Are you sure you didn’t just trip, or something, and fall in front of that harvester.’
    Enzo contained his irritation by clenching his teeth. ‘Someone hit me on the head, Nicole.’
    ‘Had you been drinking?’ She sniffed his breath.
    ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
    ‘I thought as much.’ She looked around the room. ‘Ah, that’ll do.’
    Enzo turned to watch as she headed for the bottle of malt whisky on the table. ‘Good idea. Make it a large one.’
    She lifted the bottle and tutted. ‘You’ve probably had more than enough already, Monsieur Macleod.’ She unwrapped the seal and pulled out the cork. ‘It’ll make an ideal disinfectant.’
    ‘Nicole, that’s a thirty-year-old Glenlivet single malt!’ Enzo watched in horror as she soaked the towel in the pale amber liquid and came back to press it once more to his head. ‘Jesus!’ He flinched from the pain. Not only was it a criminal waste of good whisky, but it hurt like hell.
    Nicole held him firm. ‘Don’t be a baby.’ She glanced up at the whiteboard. ‘So this is the Petty case we’re looking at?’
    ‘You’ve read up on it, haven’t you?’
    She nodded. ‘Disappeared four years ago.’
    ‘From this very
gîte
.’
    ‘Really? God, that’s spooky.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘The autopsy report said he’d drowned in wine, then twelve months later turned up in a Gaillac vineyard pickled red and partially preserved. Why would he do that?’
    ‘Petty?’
    ‘The killer. If he’d got away with it for a whole year, and no one even knew for sure that Petty was dead, why did he suddenly draw attention to it?’
    ‘If we knew that, we’d probably know who did?’
    ‘Did you bring the laptop?’
    He nodded, then winced from the pain. ‘We’ll set it up in the morning.’ And, as an afterthought, ‘Where are you staying?’
    ‘Here, of course.’
    He pulled away from the towel. ‘Nicole, you can’t!’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because there’s only one bedroom. And I don’t want your father storming in here and accusing me of trying to have my wicked way with you.’
    She blushed to the roots of her hair, and her eyes strayed away self-consciously towards a rickety open staircase leading up to a gloomy mezzanine built into the roof. ‘What’s up there?’
    ‘A couple of kid’s bunk beds that wouldn’t do for either of us.’
    She looked at the settee. ‘That’s a clic-clac. Folds down