by John Brooke
Approaching the corner at the Departmental, the side of the road was lined with vehicles. The hunting party’s rendezvous point, deduced Isabelle. Rolling to a halt, she stayed in the saddle, propped against a cream-toned German coupe and glugged juice. For a mindless moment, she stared through the passenger-side window at a tri-colour ribbon lying twisted on the tan leather seat beside a silver pocket flask. This was the mayor’s car. He travelled with his ceremonial sash. Perhaps he’d blessed the opening of the hunt… Replenished, Isabelle moved off slowly, barely pedalling, gazing into vehicles, bemused by a set of keys with a Virgin on the fob chain, a pair of 200-euro sunglasses, a vial of prescription pills, another flask of something — how could anyone drink at five in the morning? Did it really make the hunt more fun? A hunting catalogue open at pictures of golden bullets. A CD from an English band she liked. Isabelle noted the car and repeated the plate number — she would call up the particulars, just to know. In the cab of a van with BatiMat on the panel, a picnic basket filled with twenty-round packs of ammunition. Poor Leina’s hubby was captain of rugby and boss of the hunt, according to Bénédicte Barnay.
Rolling onto the smooth tarmac of the Departmental, rather than heading right and completing her usual circle, that morning Isabelle Escande turned left. Fifteen minutes later, entering Saint-Brin, she passed a team of Spandex-uniformed guys heading out for a morning tour. One waved at the serious blonde in gym shorts and a cotton T. Isabelle did not so much as blink in passing. She detested skin-tight Spandex as much as she loathed baggy camouflage. She stopped at the bakery for brioche and coffee and carried it up to the office. Bénédicte was on Saturday duty and hadn’t yet arrived, but it was hardly past six-thirty.
Isabelle changed into the clean top she always carried in her saddle bag and settled in with her breakfast. She spent a productive hour searching information related to her case.
She checked her messages: Henri Dardé was holding true to his promise of no work today.
One from her mother.
On the Miri thread, it was all about everyone’s plans for that night.
Saint-Brin was just getting going when Isabelle went back down and continued on her way.
• 29 •
THE NIGHT OF MUSIC
The summer solstice brings La nuit de la musique, when musicians of all stripes, amateur and professional, perform in the streets of France, free, a midsummer celebration of community and the binding charm of the musical arts. Chief Inspector Aliette Nouvelle would always regret not being more tuned in. Yet what could she have realistically done? Advised Luc Malarmé not to go into Saint-Brin with Chloé Dafy and sing? She refused to bow to the likes of Jérome Giffard and his 109 parents. Or a vengeful rugby club. Especially not the self-righteous ladies on the Miri thread. Luc Malarmé was a stubborn pain, maybe a fool when it came to the security risk. But music was not a danger to children. And if Chloé Dafy liked Luc more than Jérome, that was sad (though who could blame her?), but it was not the chief inspector’s problem. She was bound to investigate the crimes against Luc Malarmé’s property. And to protect his rights as a citizen.
Like a petulant adolescent, Jérome Giffard had rolled his eyes and complained about morally vacuous police with a pathological bias against his dear and loyal rugby friends. He had sniffed away Chloé Dafy — a woman who had no idea what she wanted.
The chief inspector had warned Jérome Giffard to cool his jets.
She had alerted Sergeant Nicolas Legault.
Aliette was in no big rush to get into town that evening. It was a balmy summer night and the music would be going strong till all hours. Sergio had arrived bearing bread, cheese and a bag of fresh mussels, a simple meal they always enjoyed. She told him about Bénédicte Barnay’s clever skill in unjumbling and reconstituting a name. He said, ‘It’s a visual thing. Sometimes you just see it. Or you might never.’ Which was probably true. She hadn’t… It was almost ten when the night was finally descending. He took her arm, the last of the second bottle and they walked in the gloaming. They were watching the ducks at the embankment when she felt the buzz in her hip pocket.
Nic Legault had to shout over the din in the background. ‘Please come! You and everyone you have at hand! Chaos here. Hurry!’ He gave coordinates. The corner of rues des Jardins and Canal de l’Abbé.
Aliette raced back up to the house and grabbed her sidearm. Sergio drove the seven klicks to town while she made calls. Bénédicte Barnay lived within a minute of the location. She picked up on the fourth ring, mumbled, ‘Oui, boss.’ Aliette heard music in the background. Henri Dardé was in Murviel with Armelle. Aliette heard music in their background too. Henri would leave immediately. Magui Barthès lived closer, at Creissan, but her phone went unanswered. Isabelle Escande picked up, slightly out of breath. She’d been out on her bike and had just got home. ‘On my way,’ promised Isabelle as the sound of yet more music came through the phone from Berlou.
There was a crowd and lights swirling on the tops of official vehicles, but apart from a chorus of weeping girls, the din heard on the phone had ceased. Aliette and Sergio entered a space filled with stunned silence. Nic Legault and four gendarmes had formed a circle around two Urgences medics, ensuring them adequate space to work. There was a body stretched out on the pavement, a guitar beside its feet. Aliette automatically thought the worst.
But Luc Malarmé was huddled on the curb with Chloé Dafy. They were holding hands. She was weeping, hair and face a mess — ugly scratch marks, a puffy lip, shirt ripped, blood on her elbows, like she’d been in a brawl. He was in a baffled state of shock.
The body was Jérome Giffard’s. There was a bloody blotch on his temple. The two medics kneeling over him were only looking — a veteran cop could tell they knew it was past the point of bothering. She drew near, showing her card, and one of the medics carefully placed a plastic-gloved hand under the victim’s head and lifted slightly. The exit wound was big as a fist.
At that moment, Inspector Magui Barthès returned her call. She was in the streets of Béziers with her boyfriend and her two boys. The chief inspector ordered her to come.
‘Boss!’ Junior Inspector Bénédicte Barnay was twenty paces removed from the crowd. She had a constraining grip on the arm of a young woman who struggled, whining, aggrieved. Aliette recognized Rachelle Tabler, hair in shambles, blouse ripped at the collar, kohled eyes streaked beyond any fashion statement. She had been crying.
Yes, deduced the chief inspector, there had been a fight. ‘What happened?’
Bénédicte only shook her head, woeful. It appeared she’d been crying too.
There was no time for hugs and sympathy. To the contrary, Aliette felt a flash of frustration, wishing Bénédicte Barnay would put her emotions away and do her job. She snapped at Rachelle, ‘Stop your noise or we’ll cuff you!’ and walked back to the scene.
As she moved though the crowd, studying faces, still a bit off-kilter from the evening’s wine, Aliette became aware of Sergio’s hand firmly on her arm. She turned.
‘You don’t need to show your gun,’ he assured her. ‘It’s under control.’
She released her grip on the deadly thing riding in her pocket. ‘Merci,’ realizing she’d been completely unaware.
Some faces she recognized, from the market, the supermarket, a contingent of adolescents, Rachelle Tabler’s crowd no doubt…yes, a couple of girls who had been picketing the aborted concert the night of the fire. Each face was fixed in wonder at the reality of the thing that had happened in their street. None could acknowledge the sweet sounds of a children’s choir rising over the rooftops from somewhere on the other side of town.
Isabelle Escande rolled up on her bicycle, sweating in a fluorescent shirt for night riding, but insouciant as ever as she began to lend a hand. Name? What exactly did you see? Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aliette hoped Bénédicte Barnay took note. Henri Dardé joined them a few m
inutes later. Then Magui Barthès. When the forensics van arrived, the crowd’s view was blocked by a canvas blind they put up around the scene. Légiste Annelise Duflot arrived in a German two-seater with the top rolled down and pronounced the victim dead.
At a certain point, Aliette remembered Sergio and insisted he go home. He obeyed. He knew the night was barely started. In due course, Jérome Giffard was bagged, loaded and removed. Aliette noted a broken wine glass on the pavement, taped off by the forensics team, waiting to be processed. It was past midnight by the time the principal actors, as sorted by Nic Legault, were placed under guard in various offices on the second floor at the mairie.
Rachelle Tabler had been taunting Luc Malarmé, quite rudely. He had ignored it. Chloé Dafy had tried, but failed and, mid-number, she had sprung at Rachelle with some shocking words of her own. Rather than try to calm the fighters, witnesses said Luc Malarmé had stood there watching — ‘looking a bit helpless,’ more than one witness ventured to say. Jérome Giffard had arrived at the scene, glass of wine in hand. The two women were rolling on the ground by then. Witnesses said Jérome had stood gawking at the fight, like everyone else. Then he’d started shouting — at Chloé, it appeared. ‘Some very harsh words,’ witnesses said. They said he was quite drunk.
They said Luc did not seem to notice Jérome screaming obscenities at Chloé Dafy as she grappled with Rachelle Tabler. They said it was when Jérome suddenly turned away from the brawl, and stepped close to Luc, ‘right in his face,’ that he was hit and dropped to the ground.
They said Luc Malarmé still did not react. ‘He stood there.’ Then again, most bystanders interviewed admitted they did not react to the deadly moment either. It seemed no one heard the shot behind the boisterous epithets aimed at the fight. And it was dark by then.
Indeed, according to both Chloé Dafy and Rachelle Tabler, they had continued to fight till the screams of a few who finally realized what had happened distracted them from each other.
A few bystanders ventured that the shooter had fired from the next corner, or near it. There was a stone wall running the length of the street. A few remembered the fleeting appearance of someone on the wall near the corner. ‘In camouflage clothes?’ One, then a few, recalled ‘a flash of orange. Maybe on the shoes? …but his face was hidden under a hat of some sort.’
They surmised that perhaps he’d been on the wall and shot from there, then fled to the river.
Consensus: someone had been aiming for Luc Malarmé but hit Jérome Giffard instead.
PART 3
AT THE HEART OF THE CURSE OF MISFORTUNE
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
D.H. Lawrence
Song of a Man Who Has Come Through
• 30 •
SUNDAY AT JÉROME’S
Aliette slept late. Sergio had prepared breakfast. She shared the preliminary information, then sent him home to the city. She would be working the rest of the day. She made it to town before the market dispersed. Come what may, the market had to be open, but the usual din was tamped to a murmur, the fruit vendor’s eyes were flat. Some media had arrived. They were congregating in the front of the mairie, getting their bearings, setting up equipment, wary, looking confused to find the mairie door locked tight. You would think the mayor and other town notables would be on hand for something like this. Aliette lugged her groceries past them, went around to the back and up via the annex and across the passerelle.
Junior Inspector Escande was on duty, bleary. ‘Everyone’s called. You want them in? And Drouin from IJ. Please call.’
There was no need for rest of the team. ‘Just tell them to leave their phones on.’
Aliette called Inspector Daniel Drouin at Identité Judiciaire. He had taken the lead on the Malarmé arson and his boss had ordered him to continue with this. ‘Hopefully, there’ll be links in the bigger picture.’ He had not been to the scene yet; he would wait till the gathered information was collated. But if she was wanting to start knocking on doors, he could tell her this:
The killing round that went through Jérome Giffard’s head had been pried from the wall of the house at the corner and was in the lab. They had indications as to where the shooter had climbed onto the wall that ran the length of rue des Jardins — just at the corner where it continued along rue de la Digue. Rue de la Digue had no houses (or yards) till near the corner of rue Cours de la Reine. Cours de la Reine was filled with homes across to where it met rue Canal de l’Abbé — also filled with homes all the way along to where it met rue des Jardins. Central to the four streets was a patch of land that was once an orchard, but —
‘Ah,’ Aliette interjected. She immediately apologized. ‘Sorry. I’ve walked it hundreds of times and never known. Go on, please…’
But now the old orchard was separated into residential gardens behind Cours de la Reine and Canal de l’Abbé, which extended the usual length of a deeded plot of land. Because there were no houses — only the wall along des Jardins and most of de la Digue — that left a large quadrant of unowned orchard containing fallow fruit trees abutting the residential gardens: ‘An easy place to move and hide in at night.’ Drouin promised to send a diagram, but advised she could surely find the mapping in the local survey records and deeds. The shooter had mounted the wall,almost exactly at the orchard’s farthest corner to gain better vantage for his shot. Determining where the shooter entered the larger unused orchard space was problematic. He could have climbed the wall along rue de la Digue or gone in through a garden behind one of the homes in the two other streets. Further investigation would require gaining access to those homes and gardens.
For the time being, they had the bullet, the shooter’s probable position, and several possible entry points for the shooter en route to his position. ‘Some things to start with at least.’
Aliette thanked Inspector Drouin.
Before knocking on doors, she would visit the home of the victim. The chief inspector knocked and requested that Junior Inspector Escande accompany her to Jérome Giffard’s. Of all of them, Isabelle had spent the most time with Jérome. He’d been attracted to her. The address in chemin de la Roquette was two corners from the previous evening’s tragedy. Isabelle reached for her car keys. ‘We’ll walk,’ the boss decreed.
They went incognito, leaving by the back. A few heads turned as they passed the growing media camp, but no one came rushing, wielding mic and camera. Aliette was pleased with the deception, her mère-poule instinct kicking in. She glimpsed their paired reflection in the window of the Maison des Vins. Like two women who might not be from here — both a bit too naturally blonde? Something slightly elsewhere in their choice of shoes? Those two blonde women could be mother and daughter. Or sisters from the far ends of a large family. It was how they looked, how they moved. Aliette wanted to say, ‘Look at us there in the window, and talk about being cops.’ But again, she found herself stuck for words.
Stuck with the fear it would sound wrong, and worse, absurd.
Isabelle strolled languidly beside her, blasé.
The chief inspector finally ventured, ‘He liked you.’
‘Sorry, boss. Hard to control things like that.’ A large French shrug from the petite frame, not a little defensive. She knew the boss had been observing from a place that was out of bounds.
‘No one’s blaming you, Inspector. Did he call?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I told him it was inappropriate and hoped he got the message.’
‘Did he?’
‘He called again — pretext of work? I told him I was off the case.’
‘Did he make a big speech about the community?’
‘Oh yes…so tedious. I told him I was off the case.’
‘Jérome never mentioned Chloé Dafy?’
‘No.’
‘Do you see him lighting a fire to get
revenge?’
‘No. The dog, maybe. About his speed,’ Isabelle offered, sardonic, no fan of Jérome Giffard.
‘No,’ Aliette instinctively agreed. ‘His friends, then. He has all these friends who believe Luc Malarmé has been the reason for his heartbreak twice now.’
‘I don’t know his friends. That’s Bénédicte.’
‘Bénédicte was in tears at the scene last night.’
‘Perhaps she thinks it’s her mistake. Perhaps she thinks she talked to the one who took a shot at Luc and let him slip by.’
‘Perhaps.’ Aliette was watching Isabelle’s intently forward stare as they turned up chemin de la Roquette. The road was on the edge of town and bordered by forest as it climbed toward the escarpment.
One of Nic Legault’s gendarmes lifted the ribbon at the courtyard gate. He had a key to the front door and showed them in. Two cops gazed at photos of a mother and her son — Jérome Giffard père had been excised from this home’s history. And images of a young man who had devoted his career to the youngest children. Teaching them. Coaching them. Leading them in song. And the rugby club: fifteen years’ worth of team portraits, Jérome, ever thin, increasingly balding, smiling from a row of hairy, hulking men wearing the town green with flashes of blue. Aliette supposed Jérome Giffard had inherited the family home; the images couldn’t hide the emptiness, a home far too large for a single man. To his credit, the place was tidy, though the areas its sole dweller used were evident. She tried to see Jérome at home in his solitude as she contemplated a well-used leather fauteuil in the corner of the salon, newish electronics, a stack of magazines, a half-finished glass of Pernod. Jérome Giffard’s rifle was standing in the corner, in a ray of sun. It still smelled of yesterday’s hunt.
