Page 5

5

A SPARK OF MURDEROUS INTENT

“ é mile!” Léon burst into his single-room lean-to, little more than a glorified shed, to find émile’s babysitter, Madame de Luc, unconscious at the table with her face half sunk into a plate of stew.

“Madame!”

His eyes ran frantically over every inch of the dim room as he dashed towards her, calling out in the same breath, “émile? émile!”

Not a sound answered him.

émile’s bed, he could already see, was unruffled, un-slept in.

“Madame?” He sank down beside her, raising his chill fingers to her warm cheek.

She let out a loud snort-snore at the touch, but roused no more than that.

He tapped her cheek, called her name repeatedly, to no avail.

Her face had settled into the dish with the right half almost fully submerged, nostrils just poking out enough to allow her to breathe, as though she had fallen asleep mid-bite.

Across the table sat a second plate, barely touched, émile’s spoon deep in the stew, readied for a mouthful.

An almost-empty bottle of wine sat uncorked next to her drained glass.

The single candle that stood between the two dishes had burned to its base, one final flickering glimmer illuminating all the horror of a loved one’s disappearance, then black.

“émile!” Léon crashed through the dark room to a side table, where he set a lamp aflame.

He tore the sheets from émile’s bed.

His own bed, pushed side-by-side with the little boy’s, was in tatters seconds later.

He ripped their threadbare curtains to the floor in his haste to check if he was hiding there.

Every basket and box was searched, beneath the table, on top of the cupboard, but he knew the whole time—he knew hopelessly—that his little brother was gone and in the hands of that degenerate.

Léon stood bereft in the centre of the small space, frigid and empty.

They could afford better.

They should have afforded better.

Had Léon not been saving that money—had he put émile in the care of a proper family instead of this old drunk…

“Madame? Madame, wake up! Please!” But no entreaty, however urgently made, could wake the woman from her slumber.

He took a cloth from the washstand, pulled her head up and cleaned her face.

He ran it through the slick of wet hair, down her chin, over her neck, and nothing more than a grunt met these ministrations, even when he settled her light old body on his bed to sleep it off.

Léon crossed the room in two strides and ripped the lid off a sweets tin.

All his money was still there.

All their money. But that man didn’t want money.

He wanted keys. And how the hell was Léon to get them?

Of course the prick didn’t say which prisoner he wanted released.

Why give anyone forewarning that he was coming for them?

But all the keys were with the warden, who was a complete shit, and the prison was closed.

And it wouldn’t open until broad daylight when Léon had no reason whatsoever to show his face there.

He dropped onto the bed and thrust his fingers into his hair, ramming his forehead into his palms. What excuse?

What excuse?

It was the one place in town he couldn’t sneak into.

The warden’s desk was deep inside the prison, and he kept the keys there with him all day.

There or swinging on his belt.

From the second he got to work, they were unobtainable.

But… before he got to the prison…

Léon was back out the door, making for the prison in a blind panic.

He had no clue where the warden lived.

No idea what time he would arrive for work.

Would anyone else arrive earlier?

It wasn’t that uncommon for Léon to hang around the prison.

He’d been trained in the art of the rope, like any other executioner, and it had, for a time, been routine for him to measure the condemned, their height and weight, in the hopes he could snap the neck at the fall and save a long and brutal public strangulation.

But he’d never been good at it.

He shuddered at the memory.

He was, nevertheless, good at persuasion, and much like he’d persuaded the region’s head administrator that a devoted torturer would better fulfil their cause than ever he could, he’d managed to convince the local authorities that his axemanship would draw a better crowd to executions, and thereby set a better lesson for the townsfolk, than hanging ever would.

And he’d been right about that, sans the one or two fanatics who’d gotten themselves imprisoned in the hope of dying by his hands.

There was no accounting for madness.

But Léon had done himself and the town a good turn with his axe, until just now, when his need to be inside that prison was greater than ever.

All this to say, he should have been capable of talking his way out of the mess.

But the warden… Thibault Mollard was a bastard and no doubt.

He’d never do Léon a favour.

In fact, chances were he’d do just about anything to make Léon’s life as difficult as possible.

He could tell him he needed to measure one up anyway…

That he was bringing hanging back.

But which prisoner to ask for?

Maybe… Maybe he would say he needed to do a count of the condemned, to put in an order for rope?

Yes! That was perfectly logical.

But then, would he really need to see them in person to do that?

Léon stumbled through the night, boots scuffing noisily on the cobblestones, considering all his options.

That stupid fool with his secrecy had set them both up for failure.

If only Léon knew who it was he wanted and when they were due to die.

If they were due to die!

For perhaps this prisoner wasn’t even condemned, which would only make it more difficult for Léon to gain access to them.

He arrived at the prison to find the enormous wooden doors, as expected, locked up tight and bolted with iron.

The stone edifice of the complex ran high into the night, disappearing into sickly, looming clouds.

The thin slits in the solid wall, what few of them there were, sat high—too high for Léon to peer into.

He skirted some way around the perimeter, not really sure what he was looking for.

After all, even if he could see in, what was he going to do?

Call out, ‘Is one of you in there the accomplice of…’ He didn’t even know the man’s stupid name.

All the short transit did was strengthen the conviction that there was only one way in: straight through those forbidding doors at the front of the building with the warden’s blessing.

Coming back to stand by the entrance, Léon threw himself against the solid wood to wait.

His closed eyes brought up one horror, then another, visions of his brother crying for him, terrified, held at the end of that same knife the man had pulled on him, bound and gagged, hands tied, rope cutting into his delicate skin.

He began to pace, filling his eyes with everything real and not those terrible imaginings of his brother.

Midday. He had until midday.

And the sky was just turning purple on the horizon.

Plenty of time, he tried to tell himself.

But Mollard would never give him those keys and he knew it…

Head pounding, swimming with wine, Léon turned back sharply, then tripped, falling on his wrist with a painful whack before rolling onto his backside.

Furiously, he searched about for the offending object that had done it, and like sunlight cutting through the clouds on a stormy day, his eyes lit on the very thing that seemed sent from Heaven to save him and his brother.

Léon scrambled forward, wrapping fingers around a cobblestone that was turned up with a particularly sharp corner protruding.

It was loose enough to pull free with his bare hands.

It was large and cream-coloured and heavy.

In his strong grip, it would easily wield fatal damage…

He ripped it from the mud, and he paced, and he waited.