One Green Bottle

by Curtis Bausse

  ONE GREEN BOTTLE

  Curtis Bausse

  One Green Bottle

  Copyright © Curtis Bausse 2015

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. No part of the contents relate to any real person or persons, living or dead.

  Cover illustration by Malcolm Prince

  First published by Meizius Publishing 2015

  ISBN: 1546575367

  ISBN-13: 978-1546575368

  Connect with Curtis Bausse at curtisbaussebooks.com and writersco-op.com

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  Where did Magali come from? How does a writer create a serial killer? Find out in Making a Murder.

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  Making a Murder

  Table of contents

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Magali

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part two

  David

  Chapter 32

  Part three

  There’d Be No Green Bottles

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  By The Light Of Day

  Perfume Island

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Albert

  ‘Oh, the customer’s always right,’ said the young man. ‘I’d hardly do much business if I thought otherwise.’

  ‘Even so… To come here in person.’ Albert Roncet nodded his appreciation. ‘Have you come far?’

  ‘I live in the south. But I was up here anyway, so it wasn’t a lot of bother. But it took me longer than I thought. The SatNav sent me miles off course. Or perhaps I entered the name of the village wrongly. Technology. You either get it or you don’t.’

  ‘And you’re young. What about me? I wouldn’t know where to begin with one of those. It’s all I can do to switch on a computer.’

  ‘Well, you managed to send me those messages all right. Unless you got someone to help you.’

  ‘Oh, no, all my own work.’ Albert struck a note of pride. His sister, Elsa, had shown him how to browse, but that was a while ago now, and if truth be told, blasting off emails was child’s play. ‘I hope they didn’t upset you too much.’

  ‘Not at all. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’ The young man smiled pleasantly. ‘It’s all my own fault. I should have checked. But these things happen, I’m afraid. One of the hazards of the game.’

  ‘Well, the messages had the desired effect, anyway. A personal visit, no less.’

  ‘No problem. As I said, I was in the area.’ He opened his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I hope I didn’t scare you just now. I wanted to arrive before nightfall.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Albert truthfully. He almost added, ‘Glad of the company,’ but that would be going too far. He’d found that since becoming a widower almost five years ago, there was very little company he was glad of. This young man was personable enough, but he was, after all, a complete stranger. And making polite conversation, even with someone who’d come all this way on a mission of good will, was something Albert could very easily forgo.

  But the man seemed in no hurry to leave, and Albert hesitated. Perhaps it would be the decent thing to invite him to sit and offer him a drink after all. It was almost nine-thirty, and he might have been driving round in circles for hours trying to find the place. Supper was out of the question, but he wouldn’t be putting himself out too much by suggesting a glass of beer.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Would you…’ No. It wasn’t in his nature to be hypocritical. Why pretend he enjoyed being with other people when in fact they ended up annoying him? As a rule, he found, the only topic anyone ever wanted to talk about was themselves. That would be fine if the world was full of fascinating people, but it wasn’t. Boring or boorish or both – those were the sort of people the world was full of.

  ‘Well, I ought to say thank you and let you be getting on your way.’ Albert smiled awkwardly, the extent of his own politeness striking him as ridiculous. He’d already said thank you twice, and it wasn’t as if he’d been chattering away, preventing the man from leaving. Did he have to spell it out? They’d been standing here in the corridor for almost ten minutes, so surely it should be clear that his hospitality wouldn’t be extending any further than that.

  Albert was about to open the door to usher the visitor out when he said, ‘Look, I’m awfully sorry to bother you, but I need to make a phone call and my battery’s flat. I think I left my address book in the hotel. It’s got all my contacts in it.’ And, seeing Albert’s hesitation, he added, ‘I’ll pay for the call.’

  But that wasn’t why he’d hesitated. He had a contract that gave him an hour of calls per month, which he never used up. No, it was just that having decided their talk was over, this was unwelcome. Furthermore, it would mean inviting the man into his sitting room, and that felt like an invasion of his privacy. It was where he was writing his book, and that was for his eyes only. Not to mention the untidiness, the scattered notes and exercise books and tea mugs he used in a special order, only washing them up when there weren’t any clean ones left.

  But still, he could hardly refuse. ‘All right,’ he mumbled, and led the way. ‘Where was it then you were staying?’

  ‘Mulhouse. I must have left it on the bedside table. I dare say the chambermaid’s found it but I’d like to check.’

  ‘There you are, then.’ Albert pointed to the phone. He stood without moving till the man turned to look at him, intimating he’d rather be on his own. Albert found that strange. It wasn’t as if a call to a hotel was an intimate affair.

  He moved away and picked up a couple of mugs, glancing at his latest writing as he did so. He’d reached one of those awkward points, between battles. Austerlitz was last December, Jena next October, and he had to find something for his hero to do in the meantime. At first he got it over with in a couple of sentences: Louis Ragolin would go into town with some mates, get drunk and visit a brothel. Then the order would come to march elsewhere, and another battle would begin.

  Living and Dying for Bonaparte. A simple title, straight to the point. But writing the book itself was not so easy. Albert’s ambition was to describe each clash of the Napoleonic wars through the eyes of Ragolin, his humble hero, plunging the reader into the thick of the action whilst neglecting no detail – the weaponry, the uniforms, the terrain, the ebb and flow of the fighting. It was, without a doubt, a monumental project.

  But those interludes between battles were annoying. What to do? Invent some romantic interest? Scrap them altogether? Nor had he quite decided if Ragolin, in the
end, would survive. Probably not. Probably he’d be the very last victim of the war, a weary, battle-scarred veteran cut down by an English bayonet at Waterloo. That would be a challenge, of course. He could just about imagine the tumult of battle, but what was it like to be pierced by a bayonet?

  Perhaps it would be better to let Ragolin survive, aloof and bitter, a prey to too many memories.

  He was thinking about this as he put the mugs in the sink, and he realised then that he hadn’t been listening to what was being said on the phone. He didn’t even know the man’s name. He must have said it, but Albert had been too absorbed with his hero’s fate.

  It struck him suddenly that he’d been foolish. An old man, living on his own, letting a total stranger into his house? Perhaps he had a mate outside in a van, and this was the call to say, yes, come in, he’s alone and defenceless, we can take whatever we want.

  There was something else that was odd as well, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Probably nothing, but all the same, one can never be too careful. He grabbed a kitchen knife and tiptoed back to the living room.

  ‘302, yes… It’s blue… On the bedside table, I think… What, nothing? But I’ve searched in the car – are you sure?’

  Albert looked at the knife in his hand and shook his head with a wry expression, rebuking himself for being so suspicious. He put the knife back in its drawer.

  He stood in the doorway. ‘No luck?’

  The man was standing with his back towards him, apparently hunched in thought. ‘Afraid not.’ He turned round and stood with his hands behind his back, legs slightly apart. ‘You don’t mind, then?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Living out here on your own. At your age. Not that I’m saying you’re foolish, mind. Don’t get me wrong.’

  That was definitely odd. Switching the topic of conversation like that. And what’s more, hitting upon the very thing that Albert had been thinking himself. Did he know how to get into people’s minds, or what?

  ‘Oh, you can call me old’, said Albert. ‘I am. I’m seventy-two. But I’m fit and I’m big and I’m not afraid of anyone. So no, I don’t mind.’ He took a step forward. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Curiosity.’ The man’s voice was mild. ‘There can’t be many that would live on their own like this.’

  It came to him then what else was odd. That whole business with the SatNav. How could it send him off course? It wasn’t as if Wallenheim was that hard to find. It was barely thirty kilometres from Mulhouse and yet this man, armed with a SatNav, had got lost?

  ‘Shame about the address book,’ said Albert. That was odd too. Didn’t they use their phones for addresses these days? Even Elsa did that. ‘But still, you’d better be getting on your way. Maybe if you went back to the hotel, they’d have another look.’

  ‘You weren’t happy, then?’

  ‘With what?’ Albert made his voice stern. ‘Look, I said you’d better be going.’

  ‘With what I sent you. What was it you said? I’m a bastard. A cunt. Oh, yes, you used some very naughty words, remember? And not just words, either. If ever you meet me, you’re going to give me a hiding. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’ The man spread out his arms, inviting. ‘Well, here I am. You’re big, you’re strong, like you said. Come on then, here’s your chance!’

  Albert was angry not just with the man but with himself. He should have gone with his instinct, not even let him inside. But he wasn’t about to be intimidated by this raving, half-baked nutter – if he wanted a fight, by God, he was going to get one!

  He thought of returning to the kitchen to get the knife, but he didn’t want to let the man out of his sight. So instead he snatched a marble bookend from the dresser and strode towards the intruder.

  A couple of yards away, he stopped, his attention drawn to something unexpected. The man was wearing skin-coloured rubber gloves.

  It took him a second or two to understand. So that’s why he’d been so kind and apologetic – the little scum was out to empty the house of all he could lay his hands on. A professional burglar, no less! The effrontery of it had Albert seething with rage, yet at the very moment when he could have lunged forward and struck the bastard with the bookend, he became calm, almost uncaring. What did he have worth stealing, after all? The only thing of value was Living and Dying for Bonaparte – and that was worthless to a burglar.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Take whatever you want. If you’ve come all this way to get rich, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.’

  For a moment the man seemed disconcerted, as if Albert was departing from the script. Then he pulled himself together. ‘Rich? You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, old man. I don’t want your money. I don’t even want an apology. It’s too late for that. A hiding, you say? I’ll show you what a hiding is!’

  Albert barely had time to take a step back. There was a flurry of movement and something appeared in the young man’s hand and only when Albert felt a pain in his stomach did he realise he’d been stabbed.

  He dropped the marble bookend and looked down. His shirt was soaked with blood. He didn’t understand. He wanted to ask the man why he was doing this, but all he could manage was a grunt.

  He sank to one knee and fumbled for the bookend. Just as his hand closed upon it, another pain stung the side of his neck. He fell on to his back. He saw the man’s jeans and the pale blur of his face.

  The light began to dim, as if someone was turning a knob. He opened his eyes wide, trying to let more light in, but everything kept getting dimmer.

  So this is what it was like, he thought, as the battle’s roaring tumult faded to nothing.

  Part 1

  Magali

  Chapter 1

  When Magali’s husband walked out, the only response, she decided, was to have a nervous breakdown. She didn’t go into work, took up smoking again and carried a crate of wine into her bedroom. She cried non-stop, with the shutters closed, for the next five days.

  Xavier Borelly, to whom she’d been married for twenty-six years, had taken a straightforward approach to the announcement. Never one to beat about the bush, he came down to breakfast one day and said into his cup of coffee, ‘I’m leaving you.’

  It took a full ten seconds to register. ‘How long have you been cheating on me?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not going to discuss this,’ he said. ‘And emotionally loaded vocabulary is not going to do you any good. Go and find treatment. There’s a number of colleagues I can recommend.’

  On the sixth day, she took stock. It wasn’t a breakdown at all. It was an attempted breakdown, a self-indulgent diet of drink and depression. And it wasn’t working.

  She opened the shutters and threw away the remaining cigarettes. She allowed herself one glass of wine before she phoned her son.

  ‘Your father’s left me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Last weekend. Sunday morning after breakfast. He already had his bags packed. There wasn’t a big discussion. He just said, “I’m leaving” and he left.’

  A brutal way, certainly, to announce it to her only child, whose phone now transmitted noises of suffocation. But he’d have to know sometime, and it wasn’t as if, at his age, it was going to stunt his development.

  ‘I’m coming over,’ he said when he was finally able to speak.

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘To… You need to talk things over. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Listen, Luc, stay where you are. Enjoy your weekend. When I need you, I’ll call you, OK?’

  She did need him eventually for various practical arrangements. There’d be a divorce, which meant the house would have to be sold, so he helped her with that, and when it had all gone through, he hired a van and drove her out to the charming village of Sentabour, where he’d convinced her to rent a house a few minutes’ drive from his own. She liked the house straightaway. Though somewhat shabby, it was large enough to accommodate plenty of furniture, including her piano. It a
lso came complete with the welcome assets of a garden, a garage and a cat. But she hesitated: would Sophie, she asked, take kindly to a lonely mother-in-law battling with depression just a few miles down the road? Luc said not to worry, Sophie was the understanding sort and it wasn’t as if they’d be seeing each other daily. Even as she let herself be persuaded, Magali determined to keep well out of their way – if there was one thing they didn’t need, it was her coming round at regular intervals to unload a pile of problems.