Painter Palaver

by Curtis Bausse

  From The Tulsa World, March 5, 1979. Joseph Carmichael, entrepreneur, testified that he arrived at a house on South Irvington Avenue belonging to 72-year-old widow, Doreen Wickley, to give a quote on some renovation work. As he approached, a man rushed out, scattering coins and papers. Carmichael picked up some of the items, then went inside. He heard sounds of distress upstairs where, he said, “I saw the worst thing I ever saw in my life.” He further testified that he found Wickley with a knife in her throat “and her hand on the knife like she’d been trying to get it out and her mouth was just moving but the words had faded away. And I didn’t know what to do.” Wickley was bleeding profusely. Carmichael said he pulled the knife from her throat, covering himself in blood in the process, and went outside to try to flag down help. “As soon as I left out the door I saw a car, and some other feeling went all over me and I panicked, like, oh, look at this. I’m coming out of here with blood on me and everything.” Carmichael, a father of two, was arrested for the murder of Wickley later the same day.

  Chapter 15 Topic Avoided

  ‘He agreed straight away, no problem.’ Judging that in the circumstances, their presence was neither needed nor helpful, Magali had asked Praud if they could go out for lunch. ‘Not you, I’m afraid. The rest of us.’

  ‘What?’ Luc was aghast. ‘Why not Sophie? Surely he doesn’t think she did it?’

  ‘Of course not, darling.’ Sophie stroked his arm. ‘No one’s a suspect yet. It’s called helping with the enquiry.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay behind,’ said Tatty. ‘After all, I’m helping too. As Sophie’s second-in-command, I need to be on hand.’

  ‘No, helping just means answering their questions, Tatty. You all arrived after the murder so there are no questions to ask. He doesn’t mind what you do as long as you don’t trample over the garden.’

  ‘Well, that’s not very professional, is it? I was there in the leisure room for that very interesting talk about the closed circle. Who’s going to tell them about the formula? If the main mode of transport is by car, they need to be looking for a woman. I bet they don’t even know.’

  ‘And no one’s going to tell them because...’ Sophie sighed; sometimes she couldn’t help thinking that being a nuisance was Tatty’s favourite pastime. ‘Look, go out and enjoy your lunch. You can help when you get back. I just need a bit of time to think it over, and I’ll give you your instructions. How’s that?’

  Tatty acquiesced with a gracious nod, while Magali did her best not to laugh, and Luc, a little desperately, said, ‘I’m sorry, Fernande, but you can’t be Sophie’s second-in-command because she’s not in command of anything. She’s here to do an art course.’

  ‘Yes, dear, naturally, and so am I. But the workshop’s been cancelled because of a murder next door and as a qualified Private Investigator, she has a duty to contribute whatever she can. And I happen to be her prime resource.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Magali, diplomatically changing the topic, ‘I couldn’t resist asking Adeline about that painting in the alcove. She seems so close to the edge I thought she might tell me to piss off, but she was actually quite happy to have something else to talk about. Apparently it belonged to the previous owners – it was among a pile of stuff they left behind. I didn’t want to raise her hopes that it might be a proper Granet but I said I’d look into it. She gave me their number so I’ll give them a ring and ask them where they got it.’

  ‘Now that’s fair enough,’ said Luc. ‘Investigate a painting, fine. But this? It’s a criminal case, the gendarmes deal with it and Sophie’s only duty is to stay out of it. End of story.’ His tone, as he glared at all three women, didn’t just end the story but added the last full stop and closed the book. Tatty acquiesced again, the graciousness a performance in itself; but the look on her face told Sophie they’d done no more than turn a page, and in Tatty’s book there were many more episodes to come.

  ‘Well.’ Adeline stood brightly smiling, as if Isadora, by putting a Salade Niçoise on the table, had somehow restored normality. The continued absence of Penelope loudly proclaimed the opposite, but she made no allusion to that, clasping her hands as if she was about to say the blessing. ‘This has all been very unsettling. How are you coping?’ Then before anyone could answer: ‘Not disturbing your creativity, I hope. Though of course, I understand it might be difficult to concentrate. The Zenhouse is there whenever you want. Just to lie down, listen to music, I always find it does me the world of good. Anyway, don’t forget that we have dedicated software and a printer below the stairs. And all the board games in the leisure room. I’m told the swimming pool will be accessible from two p.m., but not by the path, only by cutting across the lawn. We’re all to remain accessible for interviews after lunch with Captain Praud. He wanted to take over our office but we persuaded him it wasn’t feasible, so we’ve set up a table in the utility room next to the kitchen. It sounds gruesome but it’s actually very big and bright. Meanwhile –’ at this point she twisted her hands a little frantically – ‘I think it would be a good idea if we avoided the topic while we eat. There are other things going on in the world. Have you heard the figures? Something like six thousand dead from the heatwave!’

  She said it as if it made for light relief, which perhaps it did, like a trip to the bar during the interval in Wagner. Claire, at any rate, took the cue straightaway. ‘The government’s only just starting to react. There are literally hundreds of elderly dying every day. Some of them so alone that no relative comes to arrange a funeral. It’s heart-breaking!’

  Lyle weighed in with the information that the morgues in Paris being full, bodies were being stocked in a cold storage warehouse in the meat market in Rungis – this macabre item greeted with murmurs of shock all round, with the notable exception of Martin, whose whispered comment to Eddy caused him to utter a brief, disgusted laugh.

  ‘We’re relatively lucky here,’ said Gareth. ‘A mere thirty-nine degrees. They hit forty-two in Fréjus yesterday.’

  ‘Climate change, here we come,’ said Lyle. ‘The house is burning and what do we do? Put another log on the fire.’

  ‘And that’s not a metaphor,’ said Isadora. ‘I read about a man in Texas – outside temperature a hundred and something Fahrenheit – he deliberately set the air con cold so he could sit by the fire.’

  The incredulous splutters over, Lyle observed, ‘Nothing about my country surprises me any more – sad to say. What’s the statistic? If the world consumed like the US does, we’d need four planets. Something like that.’

  ‘You’re all assuming,’ said Martin, ‘that this is man-made. But look, it’s been going on for millions of years. Up and down, natural cycles. We’re not going to change it. All we can do is adjust.’

  ‘What tosh!’ spouted Isadora. ‘You sound like that awful man, whatsisname. Jeremy Clarkson.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s causing it,’ said Eddy, ‘but hell, we need to do more than adjust. Before too long we’ll have climate refugees crawling all over us. Already do in some places.’

  ‘The fishermen in Kribi told me it was getting more difficult every year. The fish are all... pfft!’ Maya flicked a hand. ‘Their livelihood gone.’

  ‘Fifteen years I’ve been going there,’ said Eddy, ‘and each one drier than the last.’

  No one coming up with any appropriate comment, the ensuing lull prompted Sophie, as casually as she could, to remark, ‘Fifteen years – you must know it very well. What were you doing there?’

  ‘Oh, business.’ He waved his fork. ‘A hotel. Various investments. Mining.’

  ‘Is it easy doing business there? We hear so much about, you know, corruption and so on. Is there any truth in that?’

  ‘No worse than anywhere else in Africa. You have to know the local customs.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We say corruption, they say baksheesh. To them it’s part of the deal. You have to make them think they’ve had something even if it’s just a fancy dinner. Flatter the
ir ego without overstepping the mark.’

  ‘The mark of what?’

  ‘The mark that could get me into trouble, Madame Kiesser.’ He flashed an impish grin. ‘No one wants to go to jail now, do they?’ Whatever fiendish scam he was involved in, he wasn’t about to divulge it over lunch.

  ‘I can see it could have the potential for a book. Is that what yours will be about?’

  ‘Ha! If the workshop ever gets started, maybe.’

  At that moment, Penelope Best appeared, back to her normal impeccable self, the dress of that morning swapped for a pale skirt and a pink silk blouse with frilly cuffs. Apologising for her absence, she sat down and helped herself to a small plate of food, which she ate with rapid movements, head lowered. But any hopes she might have had of being ignored were dashed by Eddy. ‘You’ve missed all the fun. Gendarmes scurrying about like ants. The course is scuppered but your husband’s given me some useful tips. More whodunit than thriller but still, just needs adapting, maybe. I missed your input though. Seems like you’re the real writer here.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I was just a little upset. First my necklace, then Martin... I could have come down earlier but I’ve been in my room writing. I’ve actually been quite productive.’

  ‘The secret of her success,’ said Martin. ‘Gets into the zone – a bomb could go off right next to her, she wouldn’t notice.’

  There were murmurs of admiration, which she brushed aside. ‘Oh, it doesn’t mean that what I do is any good. Just that I get something done.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Gareth beamed, as if this was a nugget that had saved the whole week from disaster. Penelope looked at him blankly, gave a brief nod, and returned to her food.

  Sophie had looked it up (another advantage of pumping – you could visit Penelope’s author page at the same time): as Martin had said, to a certain age group, the Lucy Locket series was well-known. Heroine of fourteen books already, Lucy was ‘a girl whose days and nights are the wrong way round: waking life is a dream and dreams are real.’ Whatever events occurred in the day were forgotten as soon as her head touched the pillow, whereupon her real life resumed in the crazy adventures of a dream.

  ‘Get the first draft down, that’s the thing,’ said Gareth, adding that with a bit of luck, they’d all have plenty to show by the end of the week. ‘Assuming they don’t bang us up,’ he concluded with a bright, brittle smile. Nobody had the temerity to laugh.

  The conversation moved on to art, with the Forsters encouraging group participation by asking questions like, ‘And how would you define style?’ This led to a lecture from Lyle which ended with the class getting bored, and another squabble between Maya and Eddy. ‘Of course you have it in you!’ she snapped. ‘It’s the discipline you lack. At least Gareth’s got that. You need to let him tell you how it’s done.’ Meanwhile, Penelope listened, agreed, murmured approval and assent, all the while saying nothing herself. As the coffee was served, they settled on one topic which ruffled no feathers – food. And even then, Martin’s insistence that the best dish in the world was steak and kidney pie didn’t go down well.

  Then Praud and Bondy appeared, with Cyril skulking a few yards behind, hands in pockets, pretending to take an interest in the petunias. ‘Right,’ said Praud. ‘If you’ve finished eating, we can start the interviews. Madame Best? Would you like to come with us?’

  Penelope clearly hadn’t expected to be first. She pointed to herself, mouth agape, her bland demeanour transformed into something close to terror. Then she rose from the table and followed them inside.

  Chapter 16 A Matter Of Minutes

  ‘Observe the body, take photos, secure the site, speak to witnesses. Make a sketch of the surroundings, possible routes of access and getaway. Start making notes for initial report: probable cause of death, estimated time, external conditions, objects in immediate vicinity, estimated movements of perpetrator and victim. Hah! I do all that, everything pertaining to scene of crime procedure, before Plodder Praud even gets here. And Pico goes and gives it to him!’ Cyril brandished a fist to the sky. ‘Why, Sophie? Why is he doing this to me?’

  The rage in Cyril’s features was enough to dispel any hope that he might have taken Pico’s decision serenely – not to mention the rage inside his mind, which Sophie could only guess at. ‘He’s not doing anything to you, Cyril.’ She repeated Magali’s take on the matter. ‘It’s purely administrative.’

  ‘Bondy informs Aix at 8.34 and Praud doesn’t get here till 9.42. A whole hour! What the hell kept him? Nattering by the coffee machine, I’ll bet.’ They were sitting on the recliners by the pool, though far from reclining themselves – on the edge, facing each other, Cyril hunched forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped.

  ‘Well, it’s done now, anyway,’ said Sophie. ‘No use moaning about it.’ At the back of her mind gnawed the thought that from now on, everything he said and did would have to be written up in her report. We often see only what we want to see. Did Pico think she’d choose to ignore the flaws in Cyril’s behaviour? If Magali was right, this was about herself as much as Cyril – what Pico wanted to judge was her own willingness to see and report the truth, warts and all. Fine. Let’s go for it in that case. ‘You’re to take your instructions from Praud and that’s an end to it. And you’d better toe the line. Your promotion might be at stake.’

  ‘It might be better if he gave me some. But all he does is gloat. I can see it in that little smirk of his.’

  ‘You really don’t like each other, do you? Why? I mean, I know you’re after the same job but it seems to run deeper than that. I’ve never heard you speak ill of a colleague like this.’

  He was silent for a moment, lips together, staring into the distance. ‘There was... I was in my office one day and he came in and saw me in... communication.’

  ‘Ah.’ So that was it. Communication. He didn’t mean on the phone. He meant Auguste. Exactly how they communicated, she had no idea, but he’d told her once that for it to work properly, he had to be in a ‘suitable’ frame of mind. ‘And what happened? Did you tell him?’

  ‘Christ, no!’ He sat up, horrified. ‘You know I can’t do that! You’re the only person who knows, apart from Gabrielle. I told him I was concentrating. But I think he... ever since then he’s treated me like I’m some sort of nutcase. I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he told Pico. He’s sneaky enough for that.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t let it bother you. Even if he did, it can hardly count against you. He probably just thinks you have a special way of concentrating. A technique.’ All the same, she couldn’t help wondering what a ‘suitable frame of mind’ looked like. Maybe he’d been rigid on the floor with only the whites of his eyes showing. In which case Praud had every reason to be worried. ‘Anyway, why don’t you tell me what you found? All that work you did before he arrived. Did you come up with anything?’

  ‘Come next door,’ he said, standing up. ‘You can see for yourself.’

  ‘Next door? We’re not allowed. He’ll be wanting me for an interview soon in any case.’

  ‘Fuck Praud. You’re with me, so no problem.’ He strode away towards the thicket. ‘Forensics have finished on the path so stick to the middle. They’re searching the rest of the wood now.’

  Fuck Praud. Would that go in the report? Would she write that he’d invited her to go against Praud’s orders? If she’d known he’d be like this, she wouldn’t have agreed so readily to ‘observe’.

  As they walked through the wood, she spotted a couple of gendarmes progressing carefully between the trees, poking the ground with sticks. ‘No footprints on the path, I suppose. Dry like this.’

  ‘Nothing we can exploit. We’re not expecting anything here in any case. More likely on access B. The side path.’ They came to the gate, where the path on the right, running back down along a fence lined with trees, was cordoned off. Further down, more gendarmes were searching behind the garden shed and the pump house. ‘Access A, in fact, for th
e killer. Much quicker than through the wood. It takes about ninety seconds along that path. And that’s at a normal pace.’ He pushed open the gate. ‘Here we are.’ There wasn’t much to see. Guarded by a pimply young gendarme was the taped off spot where Henri Seibel had been killed. Both the body and the weapon had been removed. A dark patch of blood next to the incinerator was the only sign that anything nasty had happened. ‘It’s down to a matter of minutes. Could all be done in less than five. Forensics have done a first sweep, but what they found I don’t know. They report to Praud, not me. The only thing I saw myself – apart from the weapon – was a gardening glove.’

  ‘Just one, you mean? That’s odd.’

  ‘Indeed. Seibel’s presumably, but in that case where’s the second? Thibault Seibel didn’t think it was his father’s – he rarely used gloves, he says. But we’ll check in the old man’s cabin when we get the key.’

  ‘Cabin? You mean he lived there?’

  ‘No, just a tool shed really. But he called it the cabin. Got a lot of fancy stuff in there, apparently.’

  They walked down to the fish pond, where they sat on the bench as she had with Claire the day before, opposite the clump of bamboo that had served as a Peeping Tom screen for Henri Seibel. ‘You said just now the killer came up the side path. So it’s definitely one of us from Venturi View? Thibault’s been ruled out?’

  ‘He was on the drive at five past, he says, and before that with his son Jérôme, whom he put in front of the TV while he went to speak to the tree surgeons. Jérôme’s only four, so he’d say whatever his father tells him, but the men on the drive corroborated it – maybe seven minutes past at the latest. He also spoke to his wife, a six-minute call which ended at 8.02. I gave her a call myself and she confirmed that he was in the house at that point because she spoke with Jérôme as well. So assuming she’s telling the truth, it all comes down to the timing. I’m no expert but when I got here at 8.53 the signs of lividity were only faint, suggesting a time of death... well, at first I thought 8.15 to 8.30, but then you have to take into account external conditions: direct sunlight, outside temperature exceptionally warm, meaning it could have been earlier. The pathologist confirmed that – maybe by as much as twenty minutes.’