Free Presumed Dead by Vince May

‘Did you sleep
well?’
    Alice put her hands above her head and
stretched like a cat. ‘Wonderfully,’ she said, with a dreamy smile. ‘Where are
we?’
    ‘Nearly home, just another five minutes.’
    Alice straightened her seat back and looked
around as they followed a narrow road for about a mile before coming to the
small village, which was nothing more than a church, a few houses, a general
store, a boulangerie and a bar tabac. Carrying on out the other side, they were
soon in an arid scrubland where the road carved a swathe through brown,
sun-parched bushes and stunted trees. After another mile and a half, Philippe
turned right into a driveway and pulled up at a set of iron gates, which were
just swinging open under remote control, activated from the car. Once through
the gates, they followed the driveway up hill slightly, around a curve to the
left, then parked outside a single story, white stucco house with a red tile
roof.
    ‘Here we are,’ he said, ‘home sweet home.’
    ‘It’s very pretty,’ Alice said, craning her
neck to look around.
    ‘It used to be a hunting lodge,’ Philippe
explained. ‘When I bought it, it had no electricity or heating, and the only
water was from a hand pump outside the kitchen door. But now you will find all
the comforts of home.’
    Philippe jumped out of the car and went
around to the passenger side to help Alice out. They were still wearing their
thick jackets and the heat hit Alice like a hammer blow as he opened the car
door.
    ‘Whew! It’s a bit warmer here than
Chamonix,’ she exclaimed.
    ‘Come on inside, it will be much cooler
there.’ Philippe opened the front door and they went in. All the shutters were
closed and the inside of the house was cool and dark, lit only by thin shafts
of sunlight penetrating the louvres. He led the way through a large kitchen and
living room towards the back of the house, where there were two bedrooms, a
bathroom and a toilet. He showed Alice into the back bedroom then opened the
window and threw open the shutters. The room was fairly small and had two
single beds, a small dressing table with a stool, and a chest of drawers. The
window looked out onto a large back garden planted with pine trees, which cast
patches of dappled shade onto the parched earth.
    Turning back to Alice, Philippe said
nervously, ‘This is my guestroom. It is yours for as long as you wish to stay.
You are very welcome.’
    Alice came to him and taking both his hands
in hers, looked up into his dark eyes and said warmly, ‘You are the kindest
person I have ever met, thank you.’
    They smiled at each other for a moment, then
Philippe broke away saying, ‘I expect you would like a nice long soak in the
bath. I will run it for you.’ With that, he went along the passage and into the
bathroom.
    Alice heard the water splashing into the
bath and was just taking her jacket and fleece off, wondering what she was
going to do for clothes when Philippe came back into her room with a pink
toweling bathrobe. ‘Here you are,’ he said, handing her the robe. ‘I have put
some clean towels in the bathroom and while you are having your bath, I will
put some more of Louisa’s things out for you.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I know how
hard this must be for you. I’m very grateful.’
    Philippe looked sad for a moment, then
brightened and asked. ‘How about some dinner after your bath? You must be starving.’
    ‘Mmm, I could eat a horse!’
    ‘I don’t have a horse,’ he said seriously,
‘but I make a great spaghetti bolognese, if that would do.’
    She laughed. ‘That’ll do fine.’
    ‘I’ll wait until I hear you get out of the
bath before I start it, then you can take as long as you want.’
    ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘see you later, and thank
you again.’
    .
    Alice sank down into the steaming bath
water and started thinking about Ross again. The one thing she just couldn’t
get her head around was the fact that he’d actually tried to kill