Although my colleague didn’t seem on good form, he was convinced he could get the better of Heaulme.
‘I have some incriminating evidence,’ he retorted.
On his way to the interview room, Heaulme walked past me escorted by a gendarme. He hadn’t changed. His eyes betrayed his surprise at seeing me there. He called out, ‘Hello, François!’ He remembered me all right, still calling me by the wrong name. I proffered my hand. His limp handshake took me right back to Normandy …
It was going to be a long tough interview. The chief announced point-blank that he was investigating a homicide and that Heaulme was in the frame. Francis Heaulme declared he knew nothing about it before describing his journey from Marseille to Orange, from Courthézon to Bédarrides. He went into masses of detail … Stories that could not be corroborated, I was convinced.
Heaulme was ice-cool. At 1.30 a.m., the interview was over. The chief was visibly irritated and told me he was wasting his time. He left the gendarmerie at once. The next day, there was to be a search of the room Francis Heaulme had slept in at the Emmaüs community in Mont-sur-Meurthe. Meanwhile he was to spend the night at the gendarmerie. I took my chance and walked him back to his cell, starting up a conversation.
‘Well, Francis, you often end up in custody. When I heard you were here, I thought I should come and see you.’
Francis turned his head towards me but did not reply. He was pensive, tired. He put his belongings down on a little table – a few coins, an old lighter – and then removed his shoe laces. On entering the secure cell, he turned towards me. We were standing very close, and I had to look up to see his face. Calmly, he replied, ‘François, I know you know … this business was a bit of a cock-up.’
A confession in disguise? Francis Heaulme in all his ambiguity. I tried to cover up my surprise.
‘I’m listening, Francis, that’s what I’m here for.’
‘Leave me alone. I know you know, but it’s all “The Gaul’s” fault. That’s all, now I’m going to sleep.’
His tone had changed. Heaulme had recovered his composure. He was back in his own world again. It was worse than I had thought. He had almost been within my grasp but he had slipped through my fingers. My hunch was that the Moulin Blanc killing was not his only murder, but once again I couldn’t nail him.
The next day, at 11 a.m., the chief had finished his checks. My conversation with Francis did not convince him. His mind was now made up.
‘He was in Marseille-Nord hospital, wasn’t he?’
Three-quarters of an hour later, when Heaulme was released, I tried one last tactic.
‘Francis, are you sure you haven’t got something you want to tell me?’
‘No!’ he replied obstinately.
‘Who’s “The Gaul”?’
‘He’s a Gaul, that’s all!’
He didn’t want to talk any more, and asked me to leave him alone. I walked with him to the gate. Powerless, I watched him leave for the second time. I felt isolated and above all concerned. Nobody seemed to realise that Heaulme’s beanpole physique, which was not much to look at, could be concealing a highly dangerous murderer. Had we let a vicious killer get away with murder?
4
‘The Gaul’
January 1990. Time was going by and the Moulin Blanc murderer was still at large … As was the Brest castle attacker. In the latter case, the police investigation was following the line that it was just a gangland incident – as a matter of fact, the victim was now behind bars.
As for my investigation, my staff had been squeezed even further. Jean-Claude and Jean-Paul had gone off to work on other cases. They had left me their charts of Aline’s life. An entire existence mapped out on paper, in the tiniest detail, but nothing that shed any light on why she had been murdered. Meanwhile, Bertrand had gone back to his local unit at Le Relecq-Kerhuon. In Brest, thanks to my boss’s extremely diplomatic intervention, the differences of opinion had softened somewhat. The criminal investigation unit agreed to share information that might be of interest to us. Time would tell. Meanwhile, I no longer had a permanent partner. The original team had been pared down to the bone. Anyone would think that Aline Pérès’s death no longer mattered.
These lengthy investigations are rarely welcomed by the various department heads. They balk at staffing an incident room for more than a few weeks. Those who are working on a murder case do nothing else. When it drags on, as it often does given the extensive investigations involved, the case is soon seen as a waste of time and money. Dramatic reductions in resources are quite often preceded by sometimes futile arrests. A way of justifying themselves before the magistrates: if the culprit hasn’t been nailed, it’s not for want of trying.
But a few investigators continue to keep their ear to the ground and will come and lend a hand at any point.
Meanwhile, I pursued the investigation. The homeless had become my priority, with ‘The Gaul’ as my chief target. Francis Heaulme had deliberately mentioned his name. He was surely one of the keys to the puzzle. Most of the drifters who hung around the Moulin Blanc beach had been identified and located. Since the murder, they had scattered all over France. Some were in Saint-Brieuc on the Côtes-d’Armor in Brittany, others at Douai in the north, in Lyon, Bordeaux or Paris. One by one, I went and interviewed them. A venture that required a lot of patience, for they are always on the move, and I sometimes had to approach them in unorthodox ways. In once instance, in the 13th arrondissement in Paris, I had to masquerade as a benefits office clerk. There was no photograph of this witness. We only knew his name and the district where he was supposedly living. I had to wait several days until he came to collect his benefits and I could finally interview him.
The twenty or so vagrants interviewed and the thousands of kilometres covered yielded very little useful information. Nothing, in any case, that would lead me to ‘The Gaul’, who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Nothing about Heaulme or his stay at the Emmaüs community either, or about the beach on the day of the murder. But I was not overly worried. From experience, I knew that clues could come to light even a long time after the event.
Paris, Monday 13 June 1990, 12.45 p.m. Didier M was stopped by a police patrol at the Austerlitz railway station. This man was the former cook at the Emmaüs community in Le Relecq-Kerhuon. He had been there over a year ago, that fatal Sunday 14 May 1989. Luckily my former colleague Jean-Claude was working in Paris. I asked him to hold the fort until I could get there. He and a colleague took charge of this witness.
Meanwhile, I grabbed the photo album from the file, which had a list of all the witnesses interviewed since the beginning of the investigation, and set off for the capital. I got caught in the traffic jams just outside Paris, and it was after 9 p.m. when I reached the gendarmerie in the Rue des Minimes. More than three hours wasted …
The minute I arrived, Jean-Claude came out to greet me.
‘He’s been told he’s being held for questioning,’ he informed me, ‘and we’ve started going through his history. He’s relaxed, but not very talkative. We haven’t mentioned the murder.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Age thirty-five. Born in northern France. Fair hair, average height, solid. He’s been homeless for about ten years. We found a knife in his belongings. He says he’s had it since the army. In any case, this knife can’t be the one used by the killer. It’s a chrome and nickel alloy … There, he’s all yours. He’s expecting you.’
When I walked into the office where we were going to be interviewing him, Didier M was in a truculent mood. He had been returning from the funeral of his twin brother when he’d been stopped. He did not understand why he was being kept in custody, especially under the circumstances … He had the blank, hard face of a man who’d not been dealt many favours. His story reminded me of that of the many drifters I’d met those last few weeks. Family hard up, failure at school, petty crime, spells in jail … But that didn’t make Didier M a criminal. He had left his turbulen
t past behind him long ago.
He moved from community to community, working as a cook. That gave him board and lodging, and at the end of the month a small wage of barely 500 francs [£50]. That day, he had 200 francs in his pocket. His entire fortune.
The introductions over, I began the interview with the usual general questions so as not to upset the witness from the outset. We began by retracing his road journey before his arrival in Brest in spring 1989. Boulogne-sur-Mer, Lens, Châteauroux, Bordeaux, Brest and Le Relecq-Kerhuon.
‘You know, when you’re homeless,’ he explained as if by way of an excuse, ‘it’s impossible to settle in one place. Hostels only allow you to stay for a few days and you have to move on.’
‘Can you tell us about any significant events that occurred during your stay in the community of Le Relecq-Kerhuon?’ asked Jean-Claude.
‘Yes,’ he replied animatedly. ‘One evening, a new arrival stole something from another resident. When he was found out, he ran away without waiting for the director. I saw him again at Saint-Brieuc. I don’t know his name, but I could recognise him. He’s tall, thin, has dark brown hair and wears glasses. He looks about forty. The other cook and I thought that there was something wrong with him, that he must be on medication or the bottle. He seemed to have memory problems.’
I showed him my album. ‘Can you see him among these photographs? Take your time. Look at them all carefully.’
Didier M hadn’t got to the end of the first page when he pointed at photo number 3. He was categorical, this was definitely the man who had committed the theft in the Emmaüs community. To our great surprise, Didier M had just identified Francis Heaulme. Our suspect had been careful not to disclose to me the precise reason for his departure …
‘Can you remember any other striking incidents that happened either inside or outside the community?’
‘Yes, the murder on the beach. It was a Sunday … Actually it was the day after the theft I just told you about … That day almost the entire community was out.’
Hour by hour, Didier M pieced together that Sunday after noon, detailing the various conversations and comings and goings of the residents. He spoke freely and tried to be as exact as possible. From having interviewed the other members of the community, I knew he was not lying. However, he did forget to mention where he was at 5 p.m., the time of the murder. Nothing about the following two hours either. This omission was suspect to say the least. What was he trying to hide?
I interrupted him.
‘We know it’s hard to remember what you were doing a year ago, but to build up the full picture of events, we need as many details as possible. Try to remember that particular weekend. Tell us what you did between Saturday 13 May and Monday 15 …’
‘I’ll do my best, but it was a long time ago,’ he continued wearily. ‘On Saturday 13 May … At 8 o’clock I served breakfast … Around 1.30 I went for a stroll outside. I went and bought a bottle of rosé at the Super U and I sat on the rocks, under the trees, at the point that overlooks the beach. I liked going there. I often used to go and sit there. Around 3 o’clock, a former resident of the community, Philippe D, came up to me. He was a carpenter at the Emmaüs. We chatted and had a drink together. I thought he’d left the area and I was surprised that he was still around.’
So the day before the murder, these two men had been sitting in the very spot where, the next day, the killer would stake out his victim. Who was this Philippe D? I absolutely had to know more, but it was already 2.30 a.m. I could see that Didier M was getting tired of this question-and-answer session. I decided to suspend the interview. It wouldn’t yield anything further.
While Didier M was being led to his cell, I couldn’t resist making some inquiries. I sat down in front of the computer terminal. Confirmation of civil status, army record, convictions and prison sentences … My high-priority requests were relayed to the central database. In a few hours, I would have my answers. Now it was time to get some rest.
9 a.m. An auxiliary gendarme handed me an envelope. Not very thick. It contained all the information that the central database had come up with on Philippe D, as well as a photograph. An old conviction for pick-pocketing was of little interest, but the photo of this man was so striking that I called Jean-Claude.
He had light brown hair cascading onto his shoulders, a long face with fine but well-defined features, and quite a large, bulbous nose. His eyes were light blue under shaggy eyebrows, and his lips were surrounded by a bushy, droopy moustache which gave him the distinct look of a warrior…an ancient Gaul. I would bet my bottom dollar that Philippe D was Francis Heaulme’s ‘Gaul’!
Didier M’s custody was extended. At 10 a.m. the interview resumed. He recognised Philippe D at once. There was no doubt about it, he was our man.
I picked up the thread from where we had left off. The day of 14 May, and, above all, what he was doing at the time of the murder. Didier M was visibly ill at ease. His answers were hesitant, awkward. Very quickly, he clammed up. He declared that he couldn’t remember.
‘All that was too long ago! Do you know what you were doing a year ago to the day, between 5 and 7 p.m.? How do you expect me to remember?’ he concluded.
He had clearly been thinking during the few hours’ rest he’d been granted. Once again, his behaviour intrigued me. What was he afraid of ? Of no fixed abode, no wife, no friends, a knife in his bag … and no alibi … He had the profile of the ideal culprit. And yet, I couldn’t see him as a murderer. Perhaps he was an accomplice? Or merely a witness?
That was the reasoning Didier M must have followed during the night. He was probably afraid of being accused. Better not say another word then. I decided to play a new card.
‘I have in front of me the testimony of the director of the Emmaüs community who you spoke to a year ago,’ I told him, showing him the name on the interview statement. ‘He told us that on Monday 15, in other words the day after the murder, you talked to him at some length about the Moulin Blanc murder. You seemed perturbed. He even told us that you’d described a possible crime scenario. Is that true?’
Didier M was disconcerted. During the investigations I’ve carried out, I have often come across men like him. Rugged loners, often rejecting established social rules, but with their own particular code of honour to which they cling. His silence was proof of his solidarity with his travelling companions and fellow sufferers. Whatever they were. In his world, you never say anything compromising to the authorities … but this time, the risk was too enormous, the affair too serious. Didier M eventually told us everything.
‘On the Sunday, around 4.30 p.m., I went to meet Daniel, a mate of mine. He lives not far from the beach. He has a small apartment which he can afford with his benefits. We went for a drink together at the Longchamp. It’s our regular café. We stayed there for a good hour or so. And then, suddenly, a fellow arrives saying there’s a body on the beach. We ask him where. It’s just by the spot where I like to hang out. That gives me the creeps. I don’t want to go and have a look. There were too many people and the gendarmes were already there …’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’
‘I didn’t want to be fingered for the killing … and anyway, it’s none of my business.’
‘But you did go back to the scene the next day, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, it’s true, but simply out of curiosity, I swear I had the Monday off. After breakfast I went down to the Longchamp. There, I read about the murder in the paper. It was on my patch, I wanted to go and have a look. I wanted to understand how this thing could have happened. On the way, I was stopped by one of your colleagues. I remember, he had stripes …’
Probably that cocksure lieutenant who had described his version of events a year earlier on the beach … Didier M went on, ‘He asked me for my ID, but unfortunately I didn’t have my papers on me. I told him I was the cook at the Emmaüs community of Le Relecq-Kerhuon. He told me to beat it. I took a little detour and then I went to the beach
. There were blood-stains. It was upsetting. Looking at them, I said to myself that the murderer must have been spattered. I also thought that the murderer must have watched the woman from the spot where I sit and have a drink. Just above. That woman … the killer “wanted” her. I don’t know why, but I’m sure he did.’
‘When you arrived at the beach, didn’t you see the Keep Out signs?’
‘I didn’t see the red and yellow tapes straight away, because I took a little path that leads directly to the scene. It’s on your left when you’re facing the sea. Then it was too late …’
‘What did you do next?’
‘I went back to the community for lunch. I met the director and told him everything I’ve just told you. He lectured me and told me not to hang around the murder scene again.’
The interview was over. I had no intention of raising the Heaulme question again. I didn’t want Didier M to know that I was interested in ‘big Francis’, as I had come to call him. There was a chance that they might meet again. Vagrants often bump into each other in the course of their travels.
Before releasing Didier M from custody, I telephoned Bertrand in Brest and asked him if he wouldn’t mind running a quick check on the cook’s statement. Two hours later, he called me back. He had just interviewed Daniel, Didier M’s mate, as well as the owner of the Longchamp bar. The two men corroborated our witness’s claims. Cleared of any suspicion, the witness was released. His interview was useful. I was now certain that ‘The Gaul’ was not a fabrication. Furthermore, he had been in the vicinity of the beach on the eve of the murder.
To follow up this lead, I needed another spell at Rosny-sous-Bois, where I would surely find out more about this man with a particularly apt nickname.
Inside The Mind Of A Killer Page 5
