by Michelle Wan
A sickening picture began to form in Mara’s head. Bedie alone in the forest. Something, perhaps a sound, alerts her. She looks back, listens. Uncertain, she moves on. Other sounds, soft, persistent, follow in her wake. Looking over her shoulder, she begins to have her first intimation of real danger. Her pace quickens to a rapid walk. Now, as she realizes the full nature of her peril, she begins to run, fleeing in terror, throwing off her backpack, her camera, all encumbering gear, to speed her flight.
A car honked frantically as it swept past, missing the Renault by centimeters. Mara careened wildly, downshifted, and pulled to a lurching stop onto the verge of the road. She pressed her face into her hands, trying to get her breathing under control.
It wasn’t good enough for Julian to attack and kill. The predator needed to stalk his prey. Just as he had “lost” her in the bog and directed her to pace off squares in the forest in order to afford himself the pleasure of the chase, so must he have sent Bedie on her way and then, cruelly and at his leisure, hunted her down. Orchid freak though he was, his focus would have been entirely on his victim, not on what she was photographing. He never thought about the camera she had been carrying. He never knew about the flower that he now coveted so greatly. And the irony of it was that she, Mara, had put the evidence of Bedie’s remarkable discovery right into his hands!
Then something else occurred to her that further underscored Julian’s capacity for duplicity. The cheapness, the gratuitousness of it almost made her cry with rage. The newspaper she had been pretending to read in Julian’s house had been a copy of last Tuesday’s Sud Ouest. Every paper in the region covering le Mur’s fatal accident had been sold before midday, according to Paul. So how had Julian, who was supposed to have been at La Binette from the crack of dawn until late afternoon on Tuesday, gotten a copy?
“The bastard,” she fumed to Jazz, putting the car in gear and shooting forward in a spurt of gravel. “It was a lie. He never went there at all.” The whole thing had been a fabrication from start to finish.
•
“Mara was around yesterday,” Mado called out from the back of the bistro. “She was asking questions about you.”
Julian paused, thumbtack in hand. He had stopped by to post a notice on the Chez Nous bulletin board for old Hilaire. In fact, he had helped the farmer to compose it: Perdue. Chienne pointer blanche et truitée noir. Très gentille. Lost. White-and-black-spotted pointer bitch. Very gentle. Julian had wanted to add très gourmande, but had held his tongue.
“Oh? Like what?”
“Oh,” the redhead said evasively, coming up to peer at his hand-lettered sign, “your background.”
“My background? What d’you mean, my landscaping qualifications?”
“Of course not,” said Mado, giving him a shove. “Your romantic background, abruti.”
“Cut a long story short,” broke in Paul from the bar, “I think she’s making moves on you. She was asking me about your love life, former girlfriends, names, dates, the lot.”
“Names—?” Julian was extremely alarmed.
“Don’t worry,” Paul grinned. “I didn’t tell her much. Anyway, she already knew about your ex. I just said that since then you’ve had a couple of girlfriends, nothing serious. Oh, and she wanted to know if any of them were still in the area.”
Julian looked aghast. “What did you tell her, for Christ’s sake?”
Paul shrugged. “Well, what could I say? I mean, I’ve never seen any of them since, have I?”
“She’s got a bloody nerve!” Julian fumed. “It’s a damned invasion of privacy.” And it wasn’t the only one he had experienced of late. Someone—he now knew exactly who—had been in his house, rummaging about in his mess. Nothing had been taken, but the telltale signs of disturbance were everywhere.
“Take it from me, mon vieux,” Paul advised, enjoying his friend’s discomfiture, “when a woman starts checking up on you like that, it’s a serious sign. They only ever ask those kinds of questions if they’re planning on moving in.”
•
The card was slightly soiled, printed on heavy buff stock in Garamond type. Alain studied it carefully, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
“It was the very last place I looked,” Mara exclaimed. “I could so easily have missed it.”
“Things happen for a reason,” Alain said softly.
“You see what it could mean, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Then she told him what she wanted them to do.
He thought about it for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’m game.”
Later that night, Mara dialed a number and spoke with a woman named Ingrid. Swedish, Mara judged, from her up-and-down accent.
•
The property, situated outside of Souillac, was set into a hillside well off the road. A modern wing—mostly glass, from what Mara could see—had been added to the original stone structure, giving the house the appearance of being at odds with itself. The result, Mara thought, of a combination of money and bad taste.
Ingrid, or so Mara guessed, answered their knock. She was tall, white-blonde, friendly, and wore a bikini that left most of her buoyant breasts and buttocks bare.
“Bonjour. Yes? Ah, c’est vous. You must be the one who called last night,” she said, mixing singsong English and French.
They introduced themselves. She smiled broadly and shook their hands. Mara was amused to note that Alain seemed to regard Ingrid, and at the moment he was regarding quite a lot of her, with a look of stern disapproval.
“Entrez. Jackie is on the phone, but I can show you around, if you want.” She took them through a large room furnished in glass and chrome and out to a rear terrace.
The garden, Mara had to admit, was magnificent, built on several levels to accommodate the uneven lay of the land. Steps led down past beds of perennials to a free-form pool bordered by bamboo and fed by a fall of water running over deeply pitted boulders, giving it the air of a secret grotto. A winding path led the eye away to a line of cypress standing like sentinels against a clear blue sky. The sloping side of the garden was built out as an extensive rockery.
At that point, Jackie appeared, cell phone clamped to his ear. He was a short, square man in his fifties, dressed in swimming trunks and a pool robe, which was open at the front, exposing a hairy chest and a creased belly. His skin was tanned to a deep mahogany, his lips were full, and his eyes took in Mara appraisingly as he ended his conversation and switched off.
They introduced themselves and raised the matter they had ostensibly come about:
“We’re thinking of landscaping our property,” Alain lied with surprising fluency. “This fellow Julian Wood gave us your name. Said he’d done work for you. Must say I’m pretty impressed with what I see. I take it you’d recommend him?”
“Sure,” said Jackie. “Mind you, he’s not cheap. And he took his own sweet time finishing.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Mara.
Jackie shrugged. “Parbleu! Fifteen—no, fourteen years ago. Eighty-nine, it was.”
Yes, Mara thought, the timing fit.
“Do you”—Alain looked around him—“still use him?” Someone had to maintain the place.
“Pas question! Not at his prices. I have a gardener come in from the town.”
Jackie showed them out, leading the way with Mara. Alain lingered behind with Ingrid. Together they paused to inspect a flowering bush.
“So,” Jackie said, taking Mara’s left elbow to steer her unnecessarily along the walkway, “you’re interested in gardening?”
“Oh,” she extemporized, “it’s really more my husband.”
Jackie let his large, square fingers slide lightly down her arm. He raised her hand. “No ring? Pretty woman like you needs a ring. People might get the wrong impression.”
“These visible signs of ownership, rather passé, don’t you think?” Mara parried, rather smoothly, she thought, and freed herself from his grasp. At the same
time, she seized the opening he had provided. “Speaking of that, Monsieur Ménard, I think I used to know your wife.”
He stopped to study her carefully. “Which one?” he asked bluntly.
“Which—? Oh. Julie. You were married to Julie Ménard, weren’t you? Or have I made a mistake?”
Jackie Ménard’s stare was now coldly assessing. “No mistake,” he said after a moment. “But you couldn’t have known her very well or you’d have heard. She took off. Left me. Years ago.”
“Oh dear.” Mara contrived to look genuinely flustered. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“I’m not. Quite frankly, she was a bitch in heat.” He turned on his heel and walked on.
Bingo. Mara turned to shoot a triumphant glance over her shoulder. She was in time to see Ingrid jump as Alain slid a hand casually over her protuberant and inviting bum. Men, Mara thought, only partly amused. So much for disapproval.
•
> … So you see, Patsy, the evidence is stacking up against Julian. He worked for the Ménards at the critical time, and he said nothing about it when Loulou mentioned that Julie was one of the missing women. For that matter, he had to be pushed before he’d admit that he’d even heard about Bedie and Valérie Rules. But Valérie lived just down the road from him. She probably walked past his house to and from school every day. He could have given her a ride, and then, who knows what happened. As for Bedie, I suspect she bought his wildflower book and contacted him from the information on the cover. He’s a local orchid expert. It’s also unlikely that she found the Bird’s-nest Orchids on her own. Much more probable that Julian took her there.
There are other things, too. He really did look pretty rattled when I turned up, as Alain said, like a face out of the grave, asking him to help me find a woman he might have murdered. His past is pretty cloudy. Paul told me that all of the women in his life seem to have dropped out of sight. And although I’m sure Julian genuinely wants to find his mystery Lady’s Slipper, I think he faked the orchid hunt to throw suspicion on Vrac and the de Sauvignacs. It’s true that the pigeonnier is on La Binette land, but apart from that, we only have his word that he actually reconstructed Bedie’s trail leading from there to Les Colombes. And, finally, I’m now convinced that he purposely “lost” me in the swamp and stalked me in the forest. His version of fun and games. Oh, and by the way, do you remember what you said about psychos going off their medications? When I was searching his house, I checked his bathroom cabinet. I found some pills, something something acétaminophène. Does this mean anything to you? <
Patsy wrote back:
> For Pete’s sake, Mara, what have you got by the tail? Look, you need to understand that you could be dealing with a seriously sick and dangerous person. Corner him and he becomes a land mine. Hidden but highly explosive. Be sensible and turn this over to the fics!
> P.S. To answer your question, the something acétaminophène is probably the French version of prescription-strength Tylenol. Maybe our boy suffers from bad headaches. Not surprising if what you’re telling me is true. <
> Don’t worry, Patsy. I intend to hand this over to the cops. And I don’t plan on taking any stupid risks. According to Loulou, this predator has always chosen his victims so that he can’t be linked to them. That’s why he’s never been caught. I figure too many people have seen me in Julian’s company and know about Bedie for him to try anything. Nothing more serious than his sick games of cat-and-mouse, that is. <
> Mara, don’t count on it. Moreover, being careful also means not jumping to conclusions. Above all not trusting anyone. And while we’re on the subject, there’s something I think you’re overlooking. Julian isn’t your only candidate for stalker. Alain de Sauvignac was also there in the woods. I know you think you fell into his arms. Or did he lunge out and grab you? <
SIXTEEN
Mara was sitting very upright on the same hard wooden chair she had occupied two months ago in Commissaire Boutot’s office at Périgueux Police Headquarters. This time she was there at the Commissaire’s invitation. He sat facing Mara across his desk. With his baggy eyes and wilting mustache, he looked more melancholy than ever. Nevertheless, he had been listening to her with evident interest for thirty minutes. While she spoke, he rolled a blue pencil between his palms. His hands were dry, and the friction of the rolling made a scratchy, rhythmical sound. Loulou, who had set up the interview, was strolling about the office, chuckling softly at framed photographs of former commissaires, as if sharing a private joke with each of them. He paused to squint at a book on a shelf. It proved to be a biography of master thief-catcher Eugène François Vidocq—Boutot was something of a classicist when it came to crime.
“Alors, madame, your information is interesting,” the commissaire said when she had finished. “As long, of course, as it is sans spurious embellishments.”
Mara blushed at his reference to the faked initials. “Did you check Scott’s statement to find out if Bedie had a copy of Julian’s wildflower book?”
Boutot was cautious. “In his déclaration Monsieur Barrow did state that your sister had taken with her a Michelin guide to Périgord-Quercy and a book on wildflowers in the Dordogne.”
“I knew it!” Mara exclaimed.
Boutot shook his head. “We can conclude nothing from this. Even if she had a copy of the book, it doesn’t follow that she met up with Monsieur Wood. Indeed, I must point out that much of your so-called evidence against him is circumstantial.”
“Maybe.” She was undaunted. “But when so many things come together, as they do here, I think the coincidences stop being mere chance.”
Boutot considered this, temporarily ceasing his pencil rolling. He dipped his head from side to side. “In fact, we have begun inquiries. Loulou has forwarded a rather interesting theory.”
“Landscaping,” pronounced the chubby ex-flic, bustling over. “You see, at first I thought our perpetrator chose his victims at random along major roads. I now think the link is landscaping. Julian is a landscape gardener. What better than to use his jobs to size up potential victims? Moreover, the distribution of the disappearances suggests the perpetrator was someone who moved around a lot. Julian’s work—mon dieu—it takes him all over the region. He also has a van. Handy for transporting bodies.”
Loulou plopped himself down on a chair next to her. “Look at it this way. Landscaping lets him get near his victims, observe their habits in situ, as it were. Picture that he’s trimming the hedges around the house.” He pumped his arms together in an enthusiastic hedge-clipping motion. “The target gets used to seeing him about. He’s just the nice English fellow who tends the garden. That meets the criterion of trust. Child’s play for him to get to know her routine, follow her somewhere, or even make an assignation, and paf!” Loulou slammed his right fist into his left palm with a look of shining satisfaction. The commissaire winced.
“Of course,” Loulou conceded, “we still need to find out if our man also worked for Valérie Rules’s parents and the Charlebois woman.” He looked at his former colleague. “Any feedback on that, Antoine?”
Boutot sighed. The pencil started up again. “Monsieur and Madame Rules are now divorced, but one of my men spoke with the wife, who says they never employed a gardener and she’s never heard of Monsieur Wood.”
“Ah,” said Loulou with a vigorous wag of a forefinger, “but in that instance perhaps he didn’t need to work for them. He only lived a couple of kilometers away. He would have had ample opportunity to approach the kid.”
“To the mother’s knowledge, Valérie didn’t know him, either. But maybe, as you say, he noticed the girl and events proceeded from that. As to the other, old Madame Charlebois died a couple of years ago. So there’s no way of knowing if she or her daughter, Mariette, employed our suspect. However, I have someone questioning the neighbors.”
“But in any case, Julian’s link to the Ménards is solid,” declared Mara. “He worked for them the same year Julie Ménard disappeared. We’ve establ
ished that.”
“Bien sûr, we are also reexamining the Ménard affair,” the commissaire assured her. “All the same”—he thrust his chin in Loulou’s direction—“I have a little problem with your landscaping theory.”
“What problem?” demanded Loulou.
“It doesn’t explain Madame Dunn’s sister or the Dutch tourist whose body we found in the Quercy woods. Neither of those two had any connection with landscaping. Your idea, moreover, implies a certain amount of planning. Yet the Tenhagen woman was probably hitchhiking, suggesting a random encounter. Mademoiselle Bedie was probably a chance meeting, too. Valérie Rules?” He shrugged. “And Mariette Charlebois, who knows?”
“In Bedie’s case the link was orchids,” Mara said. “Maybe Hanneke Tenhagen had an interest in orchids as well. Have you looked into that?”
The commissaire’s hands paused again. His mournful gaze fixed on her. “No. We didn’t know about the orchids at the time. But it’s an interesting angle to pursue. However, what about the other missing women? Were they also interested in orchids?”
“Pooh,” said Loulou with an explosive breath. “I think we’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.”
Boutot cast a weary look at the chubby ex-lieutenant. “And your idea is?”
“Why, simply that, in addition to using his landscaping contracts to size up his victims, our man also seized his openings as they came, whether his victims were clients or strangers, as in the cases of Mara’s sister, who might have approached him; the Tenhagen woman, who was hitchhiking; or la petite Valérie on her way home from school. As for Mariette Charlebois, maybe he did work for them.”
