by Rhys Bowen
Half an hour later they were sitting over plowman’s platters, with crusty rolls, four kinds of cheese, and pickled onions, as well as pints of Whitbread Pale Ale.
“Ah, that’s better.” Watkins put down his glass. “I’m beginning to feel human again. I think I could even face talking to the D.I. Now what did we need to ask him?”
He got out a notebook.
“About the insurance policies, for one thing.”
Watkins nodded and scribbled. “And the fingerprints.”
“And if there’s been any news from France yet—about Philippe du Bois and who might have decided to apply for a passport in his name.”
“Right.” Watkins got up. “I think the D.I. will have to be impressed with the amount we’ve ferreted out in one morning, don’t you? Maybe it will prompt him to have another chat with Madame and see if she’s more forthcoming.”
“As long as he doesn’t scare her off with his usual heavy-handedness.”
He went to the phone on the pub wall. Evan finished his roll and double Gloucester and washed them down with the last of his pint.
Watkins was on the phone for a long while. Evan noticed him smiling and glancing in his direction. He was still smiling when he came back.
“That was young Glynis,” he said. “She sends her regards, by the way. I’ve asked her to send the fingerprints from the two threatening notes to the Sûreté in France to see if they can find a match. There’s nothing from the mental hospital yet. The D.I. is out working on Operation Armada—bloody silly name if you ask me. Still he always did fancy himself as Lord Nelson. . . .”
“The Armada was Drake,” Evan pointed out.
Watkins grinned again. “Bloody know-it-all. Anyway, I spoke to Constable Perkins. I gather they’ve removed various kitchen implements from the scene of the fire and they’re trying to determine the murder weapon and come up with prints. I asked him to check on the insurance policies and see who benefits.”
“So they’re no further along, really,” Evan said. “They haven’t identified the body or found the murder weapon.”
“I wouldn’t mind betting my paycheck that the body is her vanished husband,” Watkins said.
“And you think she killed him?”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? She thought she’d got rid of him five years earlier and was annoyed to find him turning up again, still alive.”
A memory was beginning to stir in Evan’s mind. He had been so preoccupied with making a graceful escape from her sofa that he’d forgotten until now. “She did say that he was a bastard and a monster and it was her happiest day when she escaped from him.”
“Well, there you are, then. Perfect motive. We’ll get this case sewn up in no time at all. Now all we need is positive identification of the body.”
“Got any thoughts on how we’re going to do that?” Evan asked.
“A wedding photo of the happy couple? That might shake her composure, wouldn’t you say?”
“So we prove she was married to him. That doesn’t prove that she killed him. And if they really were on the run and hiding from someone, maybe this proves they were found.”
Watkins nodded. “Okay, so what do you think we should do?”
Evan stared out of the pub’s bay window to the seafront beyond. The wind had sprung up, making flags stand out stiffly and awnings flap wildly. “I think we have to find out more about their life in France. We need to know what happened to them and why they came to England.”
“And how do you propose doing that?”
Evan pointed to the copy of the obituary. “This mentions the town where he was born and we know she went to the Cordon Bleu school in Paris. Two known facts. We can work from there.”
“Go to France, you mean?” Watkins laughed.
“Why not? I told you it’s only half an hour through the chunnel these days. We could go over there for the day.”
Watkins grinned uneasily. “I’m not too hot at driving on the proper side of the road. And I don’t speak Froggy.”
“We’ll manage,” Evan said. “I don’t mind driving. I think we should do this if we want to solve this case, Sarge. We’re not going to get too much help in a hurry from the French police—that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Let’s find a map of France and see where his birthplace is.”
There was a W. H. Smith’s on the corner and they found a map of France. “Port St. Valéry—how do you spell it?” Watkins asked, looking at the index.
“Here it is on the coast, not far from Calais.” Evan pointed at the entry. “The sort of place where you’d expect a man to be interested in boats.”
He studied the map, his finger on St. Valéry, tracing the line from the Channel crossing. Then he tapped the page excitedly. “And look here, Sarge. It’s only a few miles from Abbeville, where Philippe du Bois is in the mental hospital. Another coincidence, do you think?”
Watkins grabbed the book. “All right. Let’s buy the map. But we can’t just go jaunting off to France without permission, you know. They weren’t even too keen about letting us come to Eastbourne. And D.I. Hughes is out playing at drug wars.”
“So call the old man.”
“Call the D.C.I.?” Watkins’s eyebrow twitched. “Oh, I don’t know about that, boyo. He’d say I was overstepping the bounds of my authority and getting too big for my boots.”
“It’s only a day trip we’re talking about—it’s not as if we’re going on our holidays at their expense!” Evan paused. Watkins stood clutching the Michelin guide, still undecided.
“Tell him we’re in the middle of a murder investigation and if we wait for the French authorities to come through, it might be too late. It’s possible that Madame Yvette’s life is still in danger, you know.”
“You could be right there,” Watkins agreed. “I’ll ask the D.C.I. to put surveillance on her. That would be a good way to start the conversation, wouldn’t it? Make him realize this is important.” Evan nodded. Watkins swallowed hard. “All right. I’ll call him.”
They paid for the map and then found the nearest phone booth. Evan waited outside on the busy pavement. He saw Watkins’s face twitch as he started speaking. Evan heard him say, “I’m only talking about going over there for a day trip, sir, not for my summer holidays.” Then, “No sir. I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just pointing out that it’s only half an hour through the chunnel.”
Finally he hung up and came out of the booth.
“Well?” Evan asked. “Did he chew you out?”
A smile spread across Watkins’s face. “He said go ahead, but if he gets expenses for Paris hotels and the Folies Bergères, he’s going to veto them.”
“It doesn’t make sense to go until the morning,” Watkins said. “By the time we got over there everything would be closed. And we’ve already paid for our hotel here. I bet that old dragon wouldn’t refund us our money.”
“So what shall we do for the rest of the afternoon?” Evan asked. “We could always go and talk to the ex-neighbors in the village. One of them might have been friendly with her or might have seen something useful.”
“It’s worth a try,” Watkins said. “It’s either that or an hour’s kip in a deck chair—and the wind’s a little cold for that.”
They drove back along the windy Downs road to the village of Alfriston. A coach was parked outside the Packhorse pub and tourists were cluttering the high street, taking pictures and looking into antique shop windows.
They went into the pub first and chatted to the landlord. Yes, he remembered the restaurant. It hadn’t done too well, although people said the cooking was very good. Still, most folks didn’t go in for fancy French muck, did they? he asked genially. And most trippers came out for an afternoon drive, had a cup of tea and went home.
“Tell me about the couple who owned it—the Bouchards,” Watkins asked. “Did you know them?”
“I said good morning when we passed in the street,” the publican said, “but I can’t say that I knew
them. They kept themselves pretty much to themselves. Always together, they were. And after he died, you hardly ever saw her. Of course, she was trying to run that place alone. I don’t know how she did it. I’m run off my feet here and I’ve got the two girls to help me.”
“But what did you think of them?” Evan interrupted.
The man shrugged. “I don’t know what to say to that. They didn’t cause no trouble, if that’s what you’re getting at. Quiet. Good-looking couple, in a foreign kind of way. She was more friendly than him. He was a bit on the surly side, but maybe his English wasn’t as good as hers. I know he did all the heavy work and she did all the cooking. She told me that. She said she was a trained chef—very proud of it, she was.”
“Did she have any friends here in the village?” Evan asked.
“I think she was quite chummy with Brenda in the greengrocers. She used to buy a lot of her fresh produce from them.”
“The greengrocers?”
“Just down the street. You can’t miss it. There’s five shops and that’s one of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got customers waiting.”
He turned away, wiping his hands on his apron as he went. “Now then, ladies, what will it be?”
Watkins and Evan walked around the trippers and continued along the high street until they came to the greengrocers. A large-boned woman was carrying out a box of cabbages as they approached. She put it down and smiled as she saw them standing there.
“What can I get for you gentlemen?” Her voice had a pleasant country softness, and her face had the rosy cheeks of a life spent in the open air. It was hard to judge her age, but Evan thought she was possibly younger than she looked. This was borne out by a toddler on a trike appearing from inside the shop.
“Get that thing back inside, Jimmy. Not near the street. I’ve told you a thousand times,” she said and gave him a little shove to redirect him. “Sorry. He’s at that age,” she said. “A right terror like his big brother was.”
“Are you Brenda? We’re from the North Wales Police,” Sergeant Watkins said. “We understand that you used to know the French couple who owned the restaurant that burned down.”
“The police?” A wary look came over her face.
“We’re investigating another restaurant fire and we think they might be linked,” Evan explained.
She nodded. “What a terrible thing to happen. I looked out of my window and I saw those flames. There was nothing anyone could do. It went up like a torch—well, it would do with the thatched roof, wouldn’t it? Regular firetraps, those old buildings are. I’m only glad they got her out alive, although I hear she was badly burned. I often wandered how she was doing.”
“She’s fine,” Evan said. “She moved to North Wales and opened another restaurant.”
“Did she? Fancy that. North Wales, eh?”
“Did you know her well?” Watkins asked.
“I wouldn’t say well. We didn’t go out together socially or anything—not that either of us had time for socializing, especially after her husband died. She was running herself ragged trying to keep that place going. Hire someone to help you, I told her, but she said she couldn’t afford it at the moment.”
“Did she ever talk to you about her husband’s death? Did she seem very upset by it?”
“Oh yes. Very upset—well, you’d expect it, wouldn’t you? She thought the world of him. She said she didn’t see how she was going to manage without him. And it was worrying for her, too, not knowing. They never found the body, see.”
“Did she ever seem afraid to you? Did she ever hint that her husband’s death might not have been an accident?” Evan asked.
Brenda looked shocked. “Oh no. Nothing like that. She was surprised, I think, because he was such a good sailor. She said it wasn’t like Jean to go taking risks. He knew the sea too well. His family had been fishermen, so I understand. He used to go to Hastings and buy fresh fish from the boats for their restaurant. I never ate there personally. I wanted to go but my hubby flat refused. He’s very finicky about his food.”
“So you don’t know if she’d had any threatening letters? You never saw any strange visitors?”
Brenda shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that. But like I said, we didn’t know each other well—not well enough to tell me that kind of personal thing. Are you saying that someone burned down that restaurant on purpose?”
“It’s possible,” Evan said. “We’re trying to find out if anyone might have had a grudge against her. Did she ever talk to you about her life in France before she came here?”
“She told me about the cooking school,” the woman said. “And about meeting her husband in Paris.”
“Did she come from Paris?” Watkins asked.
A puzzled look crossed her face. “She wasn’t really French, was she? I always thought she was English.”
Chapter 18
“Well, that’s a turn-up for the books,” Sergeant Watkins muttered as they drove back to East-bourne. “Not really French, eh?”
Evan stared out of the windscreen at the rolling hills. “I can’t believe that, Sarge. I’ve spoken to her several times. There was no hint that she wasn’t French.”
“Like I said before, she might be a bloody good actress.”
Evan shook his head. “But even the best actress would slip up. You know when they’re doing dialects on telly. Every now and then you hear a word that’s wrong and you think, She’s not really Scottish or Yorkshire. Madame Yvette never slipped up. She even put in French words when she couldn’t think of English ones. I’d swear that she was really French.”
“Then what made Brenda think she was really English? Certainly not if she spoke with an accent like that.”
Evan shook his head. “I’ve no idea, but this whole thing is getting more and more confusing. Brenda said she idolized her husband and Yvette told me that he was a bastard. That doesn’t make sense either. Get onto HQ and see if they can get her date and place of birth verified. Then we can check that out as well when we’re in France tomorrow.”
“I’d say we have a busy day ahead,” Watkins said. “I just hope we come up with enough useful information to justify the chunnel crossing, or else the chief’s going to blow his top.”
A heavy sea fog draped the South Coast as they arrived at the Channel tunnel early on Thursday morning. The terminal building loomed ominously from the swirling whiteness and added to the surreal quality as they drove their car onto a train.
Half an hour later they emerged into a similar sea fog on the French side.
“Phew, I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic,” Watkins said as Evan drove out of the terminal and onto a French motorway. “It doesn’t bear thinking about—all that water over our heads. I wouldn’t like to think what a breakdown would be like in that tunnel.” He glanced at Evan, then looked at him critically. “You’re sweating like a pig,” he said. “Don’t tell me that you—”
“I’m a mountain man, aren’t I?” Evan demanded, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his forehead. “I’m not designed to go burrowing into the earth like a bloody Rhondda Valley coal miner.” He smiled sheepishly. “I never could stand being shut in. When I was a little lad the teacher shut me in the cupboard as a punishment for fighting and I got so hysterical that they had to get my mother. I thought I’d grown out of it, but obviously I haven’t.”
“I can see we’ll have to make sure you have a couple of brandies before we make the return trip,” Watkins said, “or maybe champagne. Let’s hope it’s a victory celebration, eh?”
Evan nodded. The clammy nausea was retreating as good fresh air blew into his face from the open window. He felt ashamed of himself for betraying a weakness. He was glad it was Watkins who had seen and not Bronwen—or P.C. Glynis.
“Now I really wish we’d brought young Glynis along,” Watkins said, making Evan wonder if he had been reading his thoughts. “Look at these signs—they’re all in bloody French!”
“Don’t wor
ry about it, Sarge.” Evan felt fully recovered and ready for anything. “You’re dealing with an expert here. I did the navigating when I came over here with the rugby team.”
“Hmm.” Watkins nodded, impressed.
“Actually I was the only one who wasn’t pissed out of his mind and who could still focus on the road signs,” Evan admitted. “We had an awful lot of victory celebrations during that trip. Ah, here we are.” A bank of road signs appeared from the mist. “We need the Dieppe road, I think.”
Fields of stubble lined the road with the dark shapes of hay rolls looking like large reclining beasts. A distant line of poplar trees appeared like eerie sentinels. Now and then they passed a few sorry sunflowers, left to die at the edge of what must have been an impressive field of gold. They saw no sign of houses until they left the main road and followed the signs to St. Valéry. They began to pass isolated farmhouses, then cottages with slatted shutters over their windows—the first indication that they were in France.
By the time they drove through the narrow cobbled streets of St. Valéry and came out to the sea front, the mist was rising, giving glimpses of a blue sky above.
“It doesn’t look very foreign, does it?” Watkins commented. And indeed it could have been a replica of one of the towns on the English side of the Channel, except for the shutters on the windows, the striped umbrellas at the corner café, and a peeling advertisement for Dubonnet painted on a building wall.
“Hôtel de Ville,” Watkins commented, pointing at a red brick building set back from the street. “That looks quite posh if we have to stay here the night.”
Evan smiled. “That’s the town hall, Sarge.”
“Bloody silly name. What call it a hotel then? Why don’t you park over there and we’ll start at the hôtel de ville. That’s where we’d expect to find records, wouldn’t we?”
