Whenever I read about people being interrogated by the police they seem to be able to recall what was said to them and what they replied, virtually word for word. I can only admire their powers of recall. Most of what went on during the hours I spent in that stuffy little room has passed into a blur and only a few clear details stand out, such as when I realised that whatever it was they were suspicious about, it had nothing to do with a certain conversation I’d had about stealing pictures with Janey. I also recall my sceptical listeners asking me for the third time to describe exactly what I’d done between leaving Janey looking for Lily and sitting down next to Oscar on the sofa, and glancing out of the window to see with a sinking heart just how close the cell block was.
At first, it wasn’t too bad. The questions were simple, easy to answer - in retrospect I can see that they were softening me up. Then the tempo began to hot up and the questions started to range all over the place, probably deliberately so to keep me off balance, from my apparent interest in buying pictures, to why I’d chosen to have my holiday in Château du Pré’s gîte, to if I’d brought the picture carriers out with me from England, to how I knew the others in the cottage, to had I ever worked for a dealer or one of the auction houses (thank God Sotheby’s had turned my application down), back to my interest in pictures and what I’d personally thought of the Willard Sydney. I tried to answer as truthfully as possible; it was quite easy since I didn’t have anything to hide. Even so I got the distinct feeling that the two detectives were none too impressed by some of my answers, particularly when I denied, yet again, that my object in coming to the cottage at Château du Pré was to renew my relationship with Venetia.
‘But you shared an appartement with her,’ the Lieutenant exclaimed. ‘You say you forgot all about her. How is this?’
‘Of course I didn’t forget her entirely,’ I said, floundering.
‘So you change your mind - you did not forget her?’ he said triumphantly.
‘Yes, I did. Well, not completely.’ I saw them look at each other significantly. Well done, Nella! How to destroy your own credibility in thirty seconds, I thought, wondering when I was going to be escorted to that cell block. I then attempted the near-impossible task of explaining convincingly how it is that you can almost forget someone entirely but remember everything about them the moment you see them again.
By the time I was told we were breaking for lunch I was completely exhausted by trying not to incriminate myself. I’d probably already done it, I thought gloomily. I’d been expecting that I’d have prison fodder brought to me on a metal tray and would be eating it under the watchful eye of a frowning gendarme, but much to my surprise I was told that I was allowed to go out and eat where I wished though I was to present myself back at the gendarmerie no later than two o’clock. I was reminded politely that I’d surrendered my passport this morning, so presumably making a dash for it was pretty pointless. I’d hoped to go to a little cafe just down the road but the two detectives and the translator were already in there tucking into large portions of the plat du jour, so I bought a can of Coke and an egg and salad baguette and went to sit on a bench and eat it in the sun.
Unfortunately my lack of foresight in not bringing my book with me meant I had nothing to occupy myself with, though in the circumstances I probably wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on even the raciest thriller, so it was inevitable I fell back to worrying. Despite the random nature of their questions a clear pattern had emerged of the way my interrogators’ thoughts were leading them. I had once shared a flat with Venetia, yet I hadn’t mentioned this when I was being questioned yesterday. Most suspiciously of all, although I denied recalling anything specific Venetia might have told me about the Willard Sydney, I had recognised it the moment I saw it at Château du Pré. Who had told them that, incidentally? Had I deliberately manoeuvred myself into being included in the group renting the gîte? They were keeping an open mind on that, it seemed. I had reacquainted myself with Venetia the moment I saw her, thus making sure I was invited up to the château on several occasions and giving me the perfect opportunity to case the joint. I was intensely thankful that no one had cottoned onto the fact that I’d done History of Art at A-level, but even without that little nugget, which would have proved I had a certain amount of knowledge, as well as the opportunity, the case against me was building up in a seemingly logical manner.
There was only one thing wrong with the hypothesis. I hadn’t done it. But I couldn’t prove it. And, as everyone kept telling me, to get off a charge in this country I had to prove my innocence. Oh God. As the last bit of baguette turned to stone in my throat I tried to think of something cheerful, but deep dark thoughts in the sunshine are even more insidious than the ones you have somewhere gloomy. By the time I presented myself back at the gendarmerie at precisely two minutes to two I had worked myself up into such a state that I was convinced I was about to be charged with grand larceny, and was wondering how many months, years even, it would be before I saw my own homeland.
‘I do not think we have many more questions to ask you,’ Capitaine Dubesset said with a pleasant smile as she sat down. ‘You have been very helpful, Miss Bowden, but we would like to check a few details with you before we take you back to your gîte.’
I stared at her incredulously, hardly daring to believe my good fortune. She nodded graciously in confirmation and looked at a sheet of paper in front of her, making a couple of notes while her colleague smiled at me too and asked how I’d travelled to France. I said in Oscar’s car and I was going back, if allowed to, by train tomorrow. Surely even the most suspicious detective couldn’t think I’d be transporting stolen property by train, I thought, as I explained, yet again, that my early departure was for a family celebration. Another twenty minutes of dotting i’s and crossing t’s in this way and the Capitaine gathered her notes into a neat pile, looked up and said in the same pleasant tone she’d just used to confirm my profession, ‘Did you have an accomplice in this plan to steal Monsieur Morrison’s picture, or did you do it on your own?’
For a moment I couldn’t believe that I’d heard right and nearly had to ask her to repeat the question. ‘Plan? What plan?’ I said, jerked straight back into heart-hammering fear. ‘What do you mean?’
She looked at me as if I was very stupid. No doubt compared to her I was. She’d already demonstrated that she could run rings around me as far as lulling someone into a sense of false security was concerned. ‘Do not pretend with me, Miss Bowden,’ she said in a voice so frigid it seemed to have icicles in it. ‘We have had the information already. You were heard saying you were going to steal the picture.’
‘You’ve had the information?’ I echoed. ‘As in denouncing someone? Like they used to do when they were sending someone to the guillotine during the Revolution?’
‘We have not had the guillotine in France for many years.’ The Lieutenant sounded as if he regretted this intensely. ‘Answer the question. Do you deny saying you were going to steal the picture?’
I stared at the two implacable faces in front of me, feeling sicker by the moment. I’d always heard that when you’re being interviewed like this there’s a Mr Nice and a Ms Nasty or whatever. It seemed that I’d landed up with both Monsieur and Madame Nasty. My mouth was so dry it seemed as if my tongue had cleaved to its roof, and my heart was racing so fast I began to have a panicky feeling that shortly I wasn’t going to be able to breathe.
I used to fantasise when I was a child about being a brave, derring-do sort of spy stoically bearing all sorts of horrid things and refusing to give up my secrets no matter what was done to me. Now I know I’d be completely useless; the first sight of an implement of torture and I’d be spilling the beans all over the place. It only took the Capitaine to say she was entitled to hold me for forty-eight hours without charge and I caved in. She tapped her pen pointedly on the table top, waiting for my answer. I looked over her shoulder through the window. The cell block seemed even more prominent. Sorr
y, Janey, I thought miserably as I shook my head. ‘Out loud, s'il vous plait,' she snapped.
‘Yes, I said I’d been working out how to steal it,’ I whispered. ‘But it was only a joke.’
‘A joke?’ she repeated. ‘You think it is a joke to take the picture that belongs to your friend?’
‘But I didn't steal it! I was just larking about with Janey.’
Whatever she was expecting me to say it wasn’t that. Her face froze into disbelief. ‘Janey? You mean Madame Morrison?’ Her pen scribbled furiously over her pad as she made notes. She leaned forward, eyes glittering. ‘Madame Morrison is planning to take the picture of her own husband?’ she asked, grammatical English deserting her in the excitement of such a spectacular coup. “Why is this? What reason has she?’
‘No, no,’ I cried, seeing this getting worse and worse. God, they’d be arresting Janey next. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what happened...’ Well, I did, sort of. I just didn’t get around to telling them that Janey had told me that the burglar alarm was off. After all, it wasn’t really relevant. I hadn’t made use of the information, had I? But I did include most of the rest.
The two detectives listened to me in impassive silence, only breaking in once or twice to clarify parts of my narrative, heads nodding occasionally, glancing at each other a couple of times. I didn’t have a clue whether they believed me or not, and I could feel my heartbeat accelerating again as I came to the part where I’d sat down next to Oscar, and presumably whoever had split on me had heard me announce I was thinking of stealing the picture.
There was a long silence then the Lieutenant said, ‘Yesterday when I asked you how long you had looked at the picture with Madame Morrison you said only a few seconds. Why did you not tell me you spent several minutes talking about it with her?’
I swallowed uncomfortably, wondering what the penalties were in this country for deliberately misleading a police officer. Judging from the icy way he was looking at me, he was in the mood to exact every single one of them. ‘Because I promised her I wouldn’t,’ I said eventually. ‘She doesn’t want her husband to know she even joked about hoping his picture might be stolen.’
The Capitaine’s iron facade cracked a little as she nodded slightly, looking as if she understood that sort of feeling all too well. It made me wonder what Monsieur Dubesset was like.
After that, though it was like swimming uphill through treacle, I began to get the sense as I went over my movements that evening again and again that my version of events was winning through and they were starting to believe me. The Lieutenant fetched a pile of statements which had been taken yesterday, and the two detectives leafed through them, asking me a question from time to time, ticking off something in the margin, then asking another. They seemed particularly interested in my relations with everyone in the cottage and wanted to know if there had been any rows, so I shamefacedly admitted to my grapple with Phil and the little incident in the kitchen with Charlie. Lieutenant Fournier looked at me with interest and a certain degree of puzzlement, as if trying to work out how this frazzled creature in front of him who hadn’t been allowed any time for putting on makeup this morning could possibly have created so much havoc. He shook his head slightly as if this confirmed everything he’d heard about the English male. They got up and retired discreetly to one comer of the room to have a whispered conversation, glancing frequently over at me and from time to time making portentous nods.
It was getting late; presumably they were going to pack up for the day soon. I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t going to be the first person in my family to find out what the inside of a French cell, any cell, was like when they left their comer and came back to their seats. My heart was in my mouth, my cautious optimism evaporating as the moment for hearing what they were planning to do with me approached. ‘I think we have finished with you, Miss Bowden,’ Capitaine Dubesset said as she sat down.
It took a moment or two for this to sink in. ‘You mean you’re letting me go?’ I asked incredulously. “You don’t believe I did it?’
‘We always keep the open mind in the French police,’ she said serenely, ‘but it does not look likely. We could tell you were not telling us all the truth,’ she looked at me very severely and I gathered I was lucky to escape a lecture about the folly of misleading an officer of the law, but perhaps she thought I had already been punished enough, ‘and the information here was worth the investigation.’ She tapped a statement in front of her. I did my best to read who had made it, but reading things upside down has never been a particular forte of mine, especially not when they are in French. ‘But I think maybe you have had the trouble made for you. It is not unknown,’ she added reflectively.
‘You remember that I was supposed to be leaving tomorrow for my grandparents’ party? Am I going to be able to go?’
She frowned. ‘There are procedures to be followed. We must speak to Madame Morrison tomorrow.’ As my face fell, she showed that really she was quite a decent sort after all for she said, ‘I think it will be possible. Make sure you leave us your address in England.’
I was so grateful that I would have given her the contents of the whole of my address book if she’d wanted it, but she seemed to be happy with the flat and my grandparents’ in Cumbria for good measure. We shook hands and I turned down the offer to sit in a waiting room while she arranged for a car and driver to take me back to the cottage. I said I’d rather wait in the blessed, free, open air, and be on my own for a while. Outside, I let it slowly sink in that a key wasn’t about to turn on me, and revelled in the absence of that rather acrid smell of the gendarmerie - disinfectant mixed with something else. I sat on a wall flanking the car park, leaning back against a conveniently placed tree trunk and closed my eyes, just letting myself be and not wanting to think about what had happened today.
‘Nella! Have they let you go?’
I opened my eyes to see Robert, wearing a tatty pair of cut-off shorts and an elderly T-shirt, standing over me, beaming from ear to ear and looking so pleased to see me that I felt my heart skip for a moment.
I nodded. ‘Completely and utterly, and they don’t want to see me again, fingers crossed.’
‘Thank God!’ he said as he sat down beside me. ‘We were beginning to worry that they might be going to keep you in overnight.’
‘You can’t have worried about it half as much as I did,’ I retorted, smiling back at him, then felt my face freeze. I’m not quite sure why the reaction chose to hit me at that particular moment; maybe because it was the first time since I’d left the cottage this morning that anyone had looked at me without suspicion.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, frowning. ‘You’re very pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ I whispered through the lump in my throat and began to tremble violently.
‘Are you feeling faint?’
‘No, and don’t you dare try to put my head between my knees, it makes me feel sick,’ I warned through gritted teeth as I buried my face in my hands so that he couldn’t see the way my mouth was wobbling.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said hastily, putting an arm around me instead, which was much more to my taste. He smelt nice too, I thought as he began to murmur in my ear, ‘Hey, it’s all right, it’s all over, you’re safe now. Don’t worry...’ I rested my head against his shoulder, revelling in friendly contact, while he muttered soothing platitudes and ran his hand up and down my back until the urge to burst into weak tears over my near escape from a French prison left me. ‘Are you OK now?’ he asked as I stopped sniffing quite so frequently, and to my regret gently released me. There are times when even the most liberated woman wants to feel protected, and right after you’ve finished being questioned by the French police definitely counts as one of them.
I was tempted to say I wasn’t so I could have that arm back. ‘Yes, thanks,’ I said instead, with what was probably a very watery smile. ‘Sorry about that. It was just... I was so scared.’
‘Gets to
you, doesn’t it?’ he said flatly.
I looked at him quickly, but he was staring straight ahead so I couldn’t see his expression.
‘Yes, you know all about it too, don’t you?’ I said quietly.
There was a slight pause then he said, ‘I doubt being interrogated by the police is ever a pleasant experience, but at least in my case it was in my own country, and I might have done as little work as possible for my degree but I did know something about the law. I knew they didn’t have the grounds or the right to detain me for long. Compared to what you’ve just been through, it was a doddle.’
I sighed heavily. ‘You’re being very generous.’
He squeezed my shoulder again in a friendly, impersonal manner. ‘It’s true,’ he said and smiled, his eyes lighting up. ‘Besides, whoever tipped off that bloke from the newspaper inadvertently did me a real favour; sadly for you, I doubt your encounter with the police is going to have the same career benefits that mine did.’
‘It might do.’ I felt immeasurably heartened by his friendliness. Maybe I’d been forgiven at last. ‘If I point out to my bosses that I’ve managed to talk my way out of being investigated for art theft by the French police, they might think I’ve enough of a talent for flannelling to allow me to work on one of the big accounts - like soap powder, for instance. There’s a lot of money to be made if you can be interesting about enzymes.’
‘If you can make enzymes fascinating, you deserve every penny - but I thought it was all about personal stains these days.’
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