by John Brooke
‘Yes, been going great guns since she put it up,’ Mathilde confirmed.
‘Who is she?’
‘B’eh, Christine Dafy.’
‘The librarian?’ Aliette knew her to say hello. ‘Do you go on? I mean this Miri thread.’
‘I went to look.’
‘Alors?’
‘Nothing I really need to know there…but that’s just me.’ A shrug. ‘I’m old.’
‘But you’re registered.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I borrow your name for a few minutes?’
‘Of course.’ Mathilde entered Mathilde and a password and left her to it.
There were several conversations on the go. Babysitter ratings and a debate about how much to pay. Strategies for monitoring adolescent sex lives. Complaining about and comparing the town’s two doctors. Commentary on television shows. Advice on recipes. Halfway down the menu, Miri. She clicked it. The page was full of messages.
Aliette scanned down…
IssaE: Of course you do. Oops, phone. See you later.
ChèreAmante: I don’t think I like the sound of that. Do I know you?
IssaE: And why would that be?
ChèreAmante: My child loves him. I mean loves him more than me.
SteThérèse: The police must have made him do it.
Leina: But it wasn’t the police. It was Monsieur Giffard.
TruthTeller: Because the police cannot be trusted.
IssaE: Then why can’t they talk to the police?
MarieSoleil: I resent that!
IssaE: Why don’t we trust our children’s words?
MarieSoleil: Any schools.
Guerrière: Primary schools!
MarieSoleil: Should the police be nosing around in our schools?
…until, realizing the thread started at the bottom, Aliette went down to the first posting dated earlier that afternoon and read her way up to the latest:
MarieSoleil: Should the police be nosing around in our schools?
Guerrière: Primary schools!
MarieSoleil: Any schools.
IssaE: Why don’t we trust our children’s words?
MarieSoleil: I resent that!
IssaE: Then why can’t they talk to the police?
TruthTeller: Because the police cannot be trusted.
Leina: But it wasn’t the police. It was Monsieur Giffard.
SteThérèse: The police made him do it.
ChèreAmante: My child loves him. I mean loves him more than me.
IssaE: And why would that be?
ChèreAmante: I don’t think I like the sound of that. Do I know you?
IssaE: Of course you do. Oops, phone. See you later.
Aliette was shocked. Then not. She supposed it was inevitable. When the police start leaning on your seven-year-old… She scrolled down to Sunday afternoon and started up again.
TruthTeller: You see what he brings to our lives?
Leina: Violence in the streets!
MarieSoliel: Ex-cons preying on children.
SainteThérèse: The children are not safe!
Guerrière: If the police won’t do anything, then I will!
That sounded scary. The chief inspector scrolled down further still. There had to be a few hundred messages, dating back to the winter.
Guerrière: He wanted to wipe her out if he could not own her every muscle.
Marie-Solie: It was possession, total complete possession!
Guerrière: The slightest show of affection for someone else drove him to punish Miri.
ChèreAmante: This is not love or passion, it’s hatred.
TruthTeller: A postmortem revealed at least 19 blows to her head.
ChèreAmante: And his lawyers ask the judge to reduce the charge from murder to ‘homicide by imprudence,’ claiming he did not mean to kill her. I mean talk about a misogynist society!
Leina: And they get him to stand up in court and bleat some pious lie.
ChèreAmante: I have it right here. ‘I am forever responsible for raising my hand against a woman who loved me. It should never have happened. I live with my despair.’
TruthTeller: What shit.
SainteThérèse: Why is this man being rehabilitated in this way?
Leina: A gig was cancelled in Canada after protests from women’s groups.
SainteThérèse: Why can’t we do that here in France?
Guerrière: She was so beautiful. But they turned her into an erotic object.
ChèreAmante: In France violence towards women is still tolerated, overlooked.
MarieSoleil: Remember the excuses made for Polanski raping that girl?
TruthTeller: The mother was offering up her daughter for sex in return for a job in a film.
Maelle: So was he obliged to take the offer? No moral controls in that creative mind?
Leina: Stupid mothers in California, cavemen here in France.
Maelle: Are we back in the 18th century?
Leina: Why is this man free with impunity?
…on and on, pages of resentment at the wrongness of Luc Malarmé presuming to go on with his life when Miri had been deprived of hers, bitter frustration with retrograde sexual attitudes, and much righteous anger at the fact this man was walking free. A core of names kept appearing. TruthTeller, SainteThérèse, ChèreAmante…fanciful sobriquets, dream names, obviously aliases.
Aliette wondered which was Nic Legault’s good wife. Was the awful fruit vendor there?
NEW! An alert appeared, pointing her to a new message. She went to it.
Guerrière: I do not want that man singing in my community!
The boss summoned Mathilde. She came running…‘Oui?’ Ever patient.
‘How do you make a comment?’
Mathilde instructed. She reminded the boss to choose a user name she could remember.
‘Don’t you have one?’
‘I never made a comment.’
‘Who are these people? Why are they hiding?’
‘Just people,’ murmured Mathilde, taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t call it hiding. More like privacy, freedom to say whatever. Being anonymous is what makes it work.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Mathilde left her alone to do her worst.
The chief inspector mulled it. She entered Piaf…But someone had already claimed it. She thought some more and tried again.
NEW!
AnneDAuray: But if he sings within the proper hours it’s not against the law.
Ten minutes later a reply. NEW!
Guerrière: It ought to be.
AnneD’Auray: Does this mean you support vigilante attacks on private citizens?
TruthTeller: It means he’s not one of us!
It popped up instantly, like an ambush. Uncertain how to react as AnneD’Auray, the chief inspector withdrew.
• 8 •
DISCRETION
Centre Hospitalier was on the eastern edge of Béziers, not far from the new rugby stadium. Aliette waited while the nurse at the station perused the chart. No, not as grave as it appeared. The scan showed only traces of concussion. Some internal bleeding. Fortunately, no bones had been broken. They would keep him a few days to be sure.
But Luc Malarmé did not look good. Head shaved and swaddled, eyes ringed in ugly purplish blue. His mid-section was wrapped, he was peeing blood, it pained him to move. And he did not have much to add to the meagre picture as he looked up at her from his pillow in a private room. ‘It was like they had nails in their boots,’ he murmured.
‘Nasty.’ Had she ever seen a leathered-up punk in the streets of Saint-Brin? Or anywhere in the generally rural vicinity comprising her territory? She could not recall. She advised, ‘Perhaps you might be a little
more discreet? Playing in the street like that at a time like this?’
He ignored the notion. ‘Isabelle promised she’d get them.’
‘We’ll do our best.’
‘I trust Isabelle.’
‘You’re sure it was two?’
‘It felt like two.’ Registering her skeptical gaze, Luc Malarmé raised a finger despite his pain and declared in a forced whisper, ‘I won’t go away. I am my sound. It lasts forever. It has to.’
She in turn ignored that and tried to explain in no uncertain terms what he was up against: an attitude attached to the tragic story of Luc and Miri.
He said he had no fear and all would be well. ‘They’ll get over it. A song will always trump a story. That’s what I do. I help them get past the tragic stories with my songs.’
She left him with a reassuring pat on the arm, which he did not seem to notice.
Sergio’s place was the perfect pied-à-terre. A beautifully renovated row house on the promontory across the park from the cathedral, a five-minute walk to the Palais de Justice, maybe ten to the police building on Square Génèral de Gaulle, and she had meetings at both the next morning. Aliette drove a wide circle on the périphérique, came back in along boulevard d’Angleterre — anything to avoid the insanity of the medieval downtown labyrinth — then climbed the steep city stairs to the cathedral lookout and stopped at Sergio’s for the night.
He was dismissive. ‘Not your problem, Inspector. Let the gendarmes handle muggings.’
She insisted it was more than that. ‘It’s like a hate crime. Far more serious than a mugging.’
‘The gendarmes, ma belle.’
‘I have some discretion in these things.’
‘You also have judgment. Use it.’
‘I can ask for a preliminary.’
‘You won’t get it.’
Sergio was probably right, but she was resenting his resistance to her notion.
But Magistrate Sergio Regarri would not be the one to tell her yes or no regarding a preliminary investigation. That decision would fall to his boss, Head Regional Prosecutor Serge Ferland — le Procureur, or more likely, one of his team — called Substitutes. And even if that Sub said yes, there was no chance Sergio would be assigned the instruction. At a certain point, which was never clear, the Proc had decided, unofficially but beyond all questioning, that if they (Chief Inspector Nouvelle and Magistrate Regarri) wanted to sleep together, that was fine — who was he to stand in the way of love? But they could no longer work together. They had accepted this. They had chosen love.
In the bigger picture, it was a terrible waste of an effective pair of investigative minds.
But in this instance, Aliette felt it was probably a good thing. Sergio did not really understand what was at stake in the matter of Luc Malarmé. Neither did she — not in so many words.
But Aliette knew she was going to pursue it.
They read together in bed and she kissed her judge goodnight.
• 9 •
JUST US?
The glassed-in elevated walkway connecting the upper floor of the old mairie with the new annex at the rear was the passerelle. Though installed to allow the Mairie and Deeds and Records staff quicker access to a larger archive on the upper floor of the shiny new cultural centre, the judicial police were welcome to use it too. Arriving back from the city, the inspector dropped her mail on her desk and went back down the hall and crossed the walkway.
Below was a sandblasted courtyard with a garden and fountain bordered by shady arcades supported by arched piers. Not Place des Vosges, but it did add a certain sophistication. Tourists could wander through and enjoy a peaceful moment as they explored the charms of the town.
The library had relocated to the upper floor of the new building. Aliette Nouvelle had always been a library person, ever since those now-dim days when she and her sister would follow their mother on a Saturday morning through the streets of Nantes, to end up cross-legged on the carpeted library floor in a group of same-aged strangers, listening, rapt, to a story read by a woman who knew exactly how to do it. Afterward, Aliette and Anne would be given a half-hour or so to browse the Children’s section and select a book to carry home. Babar. Madeleine. Curious George. Enid Blyton’s mushrooms. The Gang of Five out on another adventure, always with a marvellous picnic lunch. The love of losing herself in a book had never left her. It had become an occasional pleasure to pass a quiet lunch hour browsing for a next one. Or sit with a bottle of water and a sandwich in one of the comfy recliners arranged along a bank of new floor-to-ceiling sun-sensitive windows above the tranquil courtyard. Today, however, she had business to discuss.
The librarian, Christine Dafy, was a willowy woman, sun-browned and healthy thanks to her passion for la randonnée (walking), close to retirement but by no means losing her energy. The library enjoyed a steady influx of new books, there were book clubs, lectures and weekend story programs on offer, lots of music, films and computer games to entice adolescents through the door, and the place was now digitized. A good place to do your school science project, essay on Molière, or a search of your family roots. Madame Dafy had done a good job keeping her library meaningful for everyone.
Aliette knew Christine’s husband, Claude, as the prosperous owner of the BatiMat builders supply outlet across the place. He had personally advised on renovations to her bathroom. She knew her daughter Chloé as the dour but efficient financial advisor at the local branch of a national bank, who had guided the new chief inspector through the purchase of her house. Chloé Dafy had got the ‘dour’ from her mother; since arriving in Saint-Brin, Aliette had kept an instinctive distance from the head librarian, who was usually in her office. Today Aliette found Chistine Dafy alone at the checkout desk, like a captain at her helm. Photos on both sides suggested she had raised three children and was a proud grandmother.
‘Inspector.’ Christine Dafy nodded a wary welcome. Perhaps sensing a confrontation.
Responding with a nod in kind, Aliette asked if she was aware of the Miri page on the community thread.
‘Of course. We’re delighted with it. Opens a door for so many people who would otherwise never have the opportunity to have their voices heard.’
‘But have you noticed what they’re saying, madame?’
The woman’s tanned brow knit as she considered it. Pushing her bifocals higher on her nose, she clicked through to the page and began scrolling down, scanning, stopping briefly once or twice, finally shrugging. ‘No worse than what they were saying in the Paris press last summer. That’s the beauty of social media, Inspector — anyone can get in on the conversation.’ She allowed a wry smile, acknowledging, ‘Even if we’re a bit late to the party. I say it’s empowering. Good for democracy, quoi?’
‘Not when they start beating him in the street.’
‘Surely you are not accusing some chatters of inciting violence?’
Chatters? ‘May I?’ …gently commandeering the mouse from the librarian’s hand, she found her way to the most recent problematic exchange. ‘Supporting vigilantes because he’s not “one of us”? Is that good for democracy?’
Christine Dafy was skeptical. ‘These are housewives, Inspector…and women at work, some schoolgirls, I’d imagine. They are expressing themselves. They don’t —’
‘Do you know them?’
‘Probably. I don’t know these names, but I probably do.’
‘Why is it so secret?’
Christine Dafy huffed a large sigh, perplexed by this line of questioning. ‘Makes it special?’ she suggested. ‘Just us? …More special than Facebook.’
‘Whoever they are, they’re walking a fine line. If he gets a notion to complain.’
The librarian batted that away. ‘It’s all a bit a pathetic, no?’
‘Maybe it is, but that’s not the point. He was seriously injured. You feel no resp
onsibility for Monsieur Malarmé’s right to be part of the community without being harassed?’
Christine Dafy bridled. ‘B’eh, I have no control over what happens in the street. Obviously, I do not approve of people attacking each other. But these women are commenting on news in the public domain. Not world-shattering news, heaven knows, but an issue that means something to them. Alors,’ and a large shrug to say Why not? She reclaimed the mouse from Aliette’s grasp.
Aliette persisted. ‘I gather you have no sympathy for this man.’
‘I don’t know him, and can’t say that I’d want to. I will say that I have devoted my career to encouraging the people of this community to think and observe and explore beyond the bounds of our little world. So now they have the chance to do exactly that, and to comment on what they see.’ She smiled. ‘You know, Monsieur Malarmé could join the conversation. Wouldn’t that be interesting? I mean, if he wants to be part of the community. Mm?’
‘This word bothers me. Conversation. Chatting even more so.’
‘For that matter, so could you.’ The librarian stared the police officer down.
No contest. Aliette blinked. ‘Have you?
‘Not this one. Occasionally I join in. It is fascinating how ideas circulate.’
‘Indeed… Merci.’ Aliette backed off. There was clearly no way the librarian was going to support her quest to know these chatters’ actual names.
Christine Dafy eyed her. Then typed for a moment. ‘You’ve two books due Friday.’
‘Thank you.’ She was aware of it.
Aliette Nouvelle could not remember ever having had to pay a library fine. It was a small point of pride, and on a different kind of day she might have shared this with Christine Dafy.
Later, when she was back at her desk, Junior Inspector Isabelle Escande looked in.
‘Oui?’
‘Just to let you know, I’ve taken up a position on the Miri thread.’
