While the Music Lasts

by John Brooke

  ‘Oui, madame.’ Very sensitive. Aliette took the report from Identité Judiciaire, slipped out past Mathilde, who was making tea, and returned alone to the house in chemin de la Roquette.

  She did not want Magui Barthès insisting. She did not need Bénédicte’s resentful stare.

  With the investigation ongoing, the police barrier was still in place, and a gendarme remained on site. He ushered her inside. It had been almost a month. Now the place badly needed air. Needed life! There was always this sad undercurrent in a home suddenly emptied on account of misadventure, legal or otherwise. The glass containing the half-finished Pernod and water had been removed for analysis, as had the latest issue of Scrum, found open at a profile of the former French fly-half who’d been offered a fortune to coach the Americans to the next level. Jérome’s prints on the glass, no question; Jérome’s prints were on the magazine page, of course. And Paul Dafy’s. Paul had admitted passing the article along to Jérome. Even in English, they shared a passion for the game.

  Jérome Giffard’s rifle was standing in its corner of the office, in a ray of sun.

  It occurred to the inspector that this was the only gun they hadn’t tested for barrel marks. Identité Judiciaire had taken prints, but found only Jérome’s. And he hadn’t shot himself.

  Aliette considered Paul Dafy: drunk, angry, impulsive, loyal, not the best shot by his own admission, his movements still not clearly accounted for every minute the Night of Music.

  The right pieces wouldn’t fit together.

  When she left an hour later, she left Jérome’s rifle where it was.

  She carried an armload of rugby fan mags for Martine Rogge.

  But we sometimes help each other even when wrong instincts and stubborn zeal are at play. Aliette thought Martine Rogge and Magui Barthès had turned willfully stupid in their blinkered focus on Paul Dafy. Fortunately, her own instincts were battered, wide open, and something had filtered through. Jérome Giffard’s gun was saying something to her, the chief inspector knew.

  • 42 •

  ISABELLE’S BIG DAY

  Chief Inspector Nouvelle received a call from Magistrate Julien Roberge. They were ready to move in Murviel. He trusted she would be there. Of course she would be there — a good excuse to get away from the tedious Jérome Giffard interviews for a day. She drove over to Murviel to observe the arrest of the cocaine-distributing baguette baker and two accomplices.

  Aliette sat with her Béziers counterpart, Chief Inspector Nabi Zidane, an Inspector Patrice DesRosiers from the Montpellier drugs squad, and Magistrate Roberge, sharing coffee, shop talk, viewing the operation on a surveillance monitor from a rented garage across the street from the bakery in rue Norbert-Chiffre. Inspector Henri Dardé, clad in dusty blue coveralls and wielding a plasterer’s hawk and trowel, was up on rudimentary scaffolding sealing a newly installed lintel while discreetly directing a team of six plainclothes officers into positions. He sent one through the archway and around back to secure the bakery yard.

  Isabelle Escande was at the corner, in Henri’s car, studying a road map, available, if needed. Isabelle’s face, a memorable one, was now too well-known across the area and it was better to be safe.

  From the tight streets of Béziers to the far reaches of the valley, it had been a major operation. Nabi Zidane’s city team had spent a year laboriously tracing links to a raw, high-quality product likely processed in Toulouse. Closing down that end was someone else’s problem. For their part, they knew fully loaded trailer trucks bringing grain from various silos in the Garonne delivered processed cocaine to an industrial flour mill on the outskirts of Montpellier; never the same silo, never the same truck, but they had marked a rotating team of the same seven drivers. Apparently the network spread in many directions. Once at Montpellier, the product then moved on with a truckload of processed flour to the bakery in Murviel. They estimated three sacks at most per run, among dozens from which the baker produced his bread, which he in turn delivered across Aliette’s territory and supplied to places in Béziers. His baguettes were basic, and his clientele exclusively the café-bar-resto trade. They established that the delivery guy from Montpellier had been doing the same route for years. He often stopped to share a glass with the baker.

  The baker in Murviel did not go into the city with his product, the city came to him, in a van operating under the familiar logo of a baguette jobber who brought bread to several downtown bars known to the police. Nabi’s team had actually started the investigation when, on a tip, they followed the jobber to Murviel. Observing the baker’s rural distribution van heading out, usually driven by the baker, they had followed it a few times and then asked the magistrate to extend the operation, bringing in the Saint-Brin brigade. DesRosiers’s team was looking at three more flour delivery routes in the Montpellier area. They’d been tracking the flour mill shipper’s calls to an uncle near Toulouse who drove a grain truck. A team in Toulouse was still somewhat frustrated in their efforts to crack the source, the big picture was far from complete, the baker in Murviel represented a single branch on a much larger tree — but a significant one and ready for cutting.

  The baker, his delivery man from Montpellier, and the baguette jobber from Béziers were in the bakery at the moment, their respective trucks in the yard… And now here was a nice pearl-tone Mercedes pulling into a space near the corner, three cars behind Isabelle Escande. On the monitor, they watched a casually dressed man carrying a briefcase knock on the baker’s front door and enter.

  Which made it potentially more interesting.

  Thirty minutes later, all was quiet in rue Norbert-Chiffre as Henri Dardé murmured into his cell, then went in accompanied by lead inspectors Rafaele ‘Bobby’ Robert from Nabi’s squad and Laurence Jougla from Montpellier. The scene remained tranquil as the three bosses and the magistrate waited in front of the monitor for Henri to step back out and summon them to witness the formal arrests. Thanks to a listening device planted months before by a female officer posing as a muddled traveller trying to buy a baguette from a cranky baker rudely insisting it was not a retail bakery, they could hear Inspector Dardé announce, ‘Bonjour, messieurs! Judicial Police. It’s about your bread delivery system.’ The baker’s angry response was of a piece. The ensuing conversation sounded normal. The observers listened, staring at the monitor, camera fixed on the bakery door.

  But there was no camera set up in the bakery yard and they could not see the man from the nice Mercedes step out from behind the baker’s van brandishing a pistol aimed in the direction of Henri’s officer — who, fortunately, went in the back door at Henri’s timely prompting, unaware of the lethal danger across the yard. Nor did they notice this same man emerging from the yard into the street. He passed directly in front of the baker’s door and the camera’s eye, unhurried, in step with a mother pushing a child in a pram. (Re-played later, it seemed that he was exchanging greetings with the lady, admiring her child, till he left her at his car.) Aliette, Nabi and their two colleagues remained oblivious to this man’s subtle escape till one of the support cops burst out of the baker’s door and another came sprinting around from the yard. Both screamed at the man to halt, and ran for the Mercedes — which was pulling away, still in no hurry, politely following a small van toward the junction at the high street.

  They did see Isabelle Escande emerge from Henri’s parked car, gun trained on the Mercedes.

  It went past her, picking up speed, now sending an impatient blast from its horn at the car in front. Isabelle fired — the round bounced off the rear window.

  Luckily, the car in front of the Mercedes was driven by a bloody-minded older local man who refused to be hurried by impatient tourists in expensive foreign cars. And the street, lined with parked vehicles, was too tight to pass. In one unhesitating move, Isabelle Escande popped the trunk of Henri’s car, exchanged her service arm for the rifle they kept there (much like some boar hunters), racked
the slide as she went down on a knee, sighted and shot. The front tire on the Mercedes burst. The car swerved with the jolt, then appeared to accelerate. Isabelle fired a second shot. The rear tire burst, sending the Mercedes angling into the row of parked vehicles. The quiet street was lit by sprays of sparks from steel wheels grinding on the pavement, and the screech of metal body parts scraping and ripping as the Mercedes plowed along the row of parked vehicles till it literally ground to a halt, squeezed tight against an old Renault.

  The driver scrambled to leave by the passenger side, leading with his gun —

  Isabelle was there to meet him, down on her knee, rifle levelled. She blasted the gun from his hand. He was shocked into surrender.

  This man turned out to be one Maxime LaHaye, well known to the police, a mid-level thug from a dangerous group in Toulouse. Subsequent interrogation revealed he had come down to discuss expanding the baker’s product line. He had stepped out to the back to give the baker a moment to reflect with his associates and spotted Henri’s guy before being noticed, ducked behind the vans and waited for a chance to quietly leave.

  Maxime was a bonus. Isabelle was a hero. Three perfect shots, the second from fifty metres.

  • 43 •

  AN AWFUL TRUTH

  That evening the chief inspector took them all across the high street to Hugo’s for drinks and supper. Was this a new tradition? She would not commit to confirming. But she had done it to celebrate Magui’s work on the Roma B&E ring; at the very least she could (must) do the same for Henri.

  And Isabelle. A kid in a room along rue Norbert-Chiffre had had the presence of mind to grab a picture with his phone of the blonde cop down on one knee taking out the bad guy’s car from fifty metres. Midi-Libre ran the image on the front page of the evening edition.

  Now that was good PR.

  But it was Henri’s case, and it was Henri who made the speech thanking the boss for her support. Isabelle clapped, laughed and toasted with the rest of them.

  And Aliette wondered what it was like to be Isabelle Escande.

  …Mathilde Lahi left first, quite at home running the office, slightly out of place when five cops got into their cups and started talking serious shop. ‘Merci. Have fun, mes braves enfants!’

  Isabelle followed shortly after, pleading a long day.

  Then Henri — he’d like to stay and do it up, but he had to drive back to Murviel, and Armelle was wanting to celebrate too. And tomorrow was a work day, so… ‘À demain.’

  Magui liked fun as much as anyone, but she should get home to her two boys.

  Which left the boss and Bénédicte Barnay, who’d been drinking fast and trying to laugh with the rest of them — but the wine could not prevent that lost-looking stare from creeping back into her eyes. Aliette had also downed her share of wine and allowed herself some sympathy for Bénédicte. She had seen it before too often: cops who’d let a killer walk away because they had not asked the right question; cops who’d killed in the line of duty; cops who’d learned belatedly that evidence they swore by was false, leaving someone unjustly convicted, a life ruined. Their line of work was fraught with soul-emptying, confidence-shattering moments. Still, the boss was disappointed with Junior Inspector Barnay’s inability to leave behind the Night of Music and her gaffe in the handling of Thierry Belanger. She had thought this young cop was made of tougher stuff. All those martial arts? Suck it up! Is that not what the Americans said?

  She tried a smile instead. ‘Come, I’ll walk you home.’ She went to settle up with Hugo.

  Hugo’s was quiet on a Tuesday. A chair banged loudly when knocked over. Hugo and Aliette saw Bénédicte go weaving out into the warm night, apparently not wanting to walk with anyone.

  She found her on the bench in the public garden, weeping. Aliette sat where Isabelle usually did. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s a therapist in the city who specializes in people like us.’

  A woeful shrug. ‘But I’m not like you.’

  ‘You’re a cop, Bénédicte. And —’

  ‘I don’t really fit here.’

  ‘— and we all make mistakes. We have to live with them. I can arrange some counselling. There’s no shame in it. Mm?’ Gabrielle Gravel would instruct Bénédicte in how to suck it up.

  Bénédicte’s miserable eyes found Aliette’s. ‘I’ll never be as good as Isabelle.’

  Aliette felt her stomach tighten, even as she automatically placed a comforting hand on Bénédicte’s. ‘But you mustn’t compare yourself with Isabelle.’

  Bénédicte pushed away the comforting hand, whimpering crossly, ‘But you do!’

  Aliette responded, ‘It’s my job.’ Too quickly. She tried to recover. ‘Isabelle’s not so perfect.’

  Bénédicte shook her head, eyes burning, agreeing, No, Isabelle wasn’t.

  There was silence. Aliette finally ventured, ‘Can you tell me?’

  As if the world might be listening, Bénédicte whispered, ‘She’s mean.’

  The word resonated. The chief inspector was in no way prepared to share her own conflicted feelings toward Isabelle Escande. But she had to ask, ‘How is Isabelle mean to you, Bénédicte?’

  ‘Not to me. That poor Chloé Dafy.’ She looked away, guilty.

  ‘Poor Chloé? You said she was a stupid fool.’

  Then Aliette waited, feeling an awful truth was about to come.

  Bénédicte took a large breath and let it spill. ‘Isabelle takes whatever she wants. She doesn’t care. And…’ She gulped drastically as if swallowing poison; ‘now she’s a hero! Like she gets rewarded for taking what she wants whenever she wants.’ Junior Inspector Bénédicte Barnay looked up at the night sky, aggrieved, ashamed, angry, and so jealous.

  Jealousy makes anyone ugly and Aliette recoiled from it — and came face-to-face with her own deluded self. There was only one thing Isabelle Escande could take from Chloé Dafy. Her man. With the source of Isabelle’s quiet smile now revealed came absolute confirmation that the mère-poule boss was nowhere near knowing the real Isabelle Escande. Aliette’s heart was spinning.

  But what to say to Bénédicte Barnay?

  Who was now sobbing, face deep in her hands, pleading, ‘…I’m sorry. She makes me feel so second-rate, like another dumb plouc without a clue.’

  ‘You can’t blame her for being who she is.’ Fine words. ‘Or him. It’s not our job, Bénédicte.’

  ‘I know, I know, I know.’ She only cried harder. Till she was able to spit it out. ‘It… it gets me all twisted. I can’t work with her. Please…you should send me somewhere else.’

  ‘I won’t send you somewhere else. I need you here.’ Aliette gazed at the quaking shoulders. ‘This will end, Bénédicte. Things will get back to normal. You have to ride it out. You cannot let your career be damaged by one bad case. I can tell you that from experience. Mm? It’s the truth, Inspector.’ She waited.

  Bénédicte Barnay abruptly stopped her crying. It felt peremptory, like a tap being closed.

  ‘Thanks, boss.’ She got to her feet, abashed and wobbly. ‘And thanks for the meal.’

  My pleasure? Aliette stayed on the bench till Bénédicte turned out of sight at the post office. Rising, she gazed up at her office window, shuttered for the night. Bénédicte’s dilemma made Isabelle’s lie feel bigger.

  She took a long, circuitous way home, past Le Mauraury and along the unpaved road to the Departmental. The silver SmartCar was parked in front of Luc Malarmé’s front door. What was there to think? Stealing another woman’s man was mean. But it was not against the law.

  There was the image of Isabelle Escande hovering above Luc Malarmé, riding a victory lap, enjoying her reward. A hero’s reward. Aliette could see it.

  Later, Aliette dreamed she was Isabelle:

  Braver, not afraid to meet a man lik
e Luc Malarmé where he lived.

  Colder, no qualms when it came to shooting a man if he needed to be shot.

  A more efficient kind of cop, who knew what to do and never missed the mark. The image of Isabelle Escande, down on one knee, firing a perfect shot, kept entering her dreaming mind.

  • 44 •

  SECOND EYES

  Mathilde Lahi called out, ‘Bonjour?’ as if to someone lost.

  And not far wrong. Aliette’s thoughts were in disarray, jumbled by apprehension. By a dream? She wanted to go straight to Isabelle Escande and have it out, yesterday’s belle heroine be damned. Why did you lie? Where were you the Night of Music when I called? Pride screamed that she should clear the air directly. Instinct advised her to proceed with caution.

  ‘Yes, yes. Hello. Good morning…’

  She got coffee and brioche from the pantry behind Mathilde, and went quietly along the hall.

  Isabelle’s room was empty. Aliette realized she would be in the city with Henri Dardé, stuck in Nabi Zidane’s spare office on the third floor of the police building at Place Charles de Gaulle, breathing bus fumes and working on their final reports.

  Magui was organizing her files, setting up her recorder, preparing to receive the last of the eighty-seven members of the Saint-Brin Boar Hunters’ Association.

  Bénédicte’s door was shut.

  The chief inspector shut hers, sat with her breakfast and tried to let her heart settle.

  The tablet Bénédicte had confiscated from Aline Dafy that disastrous Monday was still sitting on the corner of Aliette’s desk. She had ignored it, then forgotten it as the investigation exploded into an unruly mess. Aline Dafy had returned home from a night in hospital, but intrusive follow-up IJ searches and Magui’s aggressive interviews had left her a nervous, guilty wreck. They had heard, via Simon Dafy, via Martine Rogge, that poor Aline had decamped with her children and the dog to her mother’s in Narbonne. For whatever reason — fear? embarrassment? — she had not stopped by to reclaim her tablet. Now Aliette opened it and entered ALINE as the pass code. No luck. She tried LEINA. It worked and she went through to LaBelleSteBrin.fr.