by John Brooke
‘Calm, so far. I went in to buy a hammer. Just nodded at me.’
‘Brave, you.’ Maybe foolish.
Magui just nodded at her.
‘Has Isabelle brought you anything on the rugby team?’
‘Says they’re interesting. This bond thing — says it’s definitely real and she admires it, says it’s good to have a guiding concept.’ Magui shrugged away Parisienne intello bullshit. ‘But no new suspects so far.’
‘Leaves you with Paul.’
‘Simon says they’re considering suing.’
‘Suing who?’
‘Us. The Judicial Police… You, I’d guess.’
‘Well, I’m here if they need me.’
Magui finally said, ‘Why are we wasting time like this?’
Aliette sometimes sensed Magui could read her like a book. But it worked both ways and she asked Magui, ‘Would you forgive a man like Luc Malarmé?’ Magui wouldn’t answer that. And Aliette did not try to tell her it wouldn’t be a waste of time. It would be a test of forbearance that someone was going to fail. Magui could stew and insinuate till she imploded. Aliette would wait.
She called Chloé Dafy at her office to confirm: At the end of the day, same drill.
Although the same drill was not working as the inevitable gaps between virtual strangers grew:
Thursday night at Aliette’s was almost fun. The chief inspector and Chloé Dafy had shared a beer, then drank wine from Le Mauraury while Aliette made a tuna salad. Of course Chloé knew the wine producer at the Le Mauraury. Of course she knew the Grassets, a hundred steps from Aliette’s door; they had gossiped about the imperious ways of Jocelyne. They’d traded mother stories, not-having-children stories, they got going on books. Aliette had loaned her the Brazilian detective — mail ordered, not available in Christine’s library. Chloé said, ‘Maybe I can actually tell her something she doesn’t know.’ She seemed comfortable. Aliette was relieved. Not many people around Saint-Brin had a good word for the Police Judiciaire these past weeks; perhaps Chloé Dafy just might.
She said, ‘Better not,’ when Aliette had gestured at the second bottle. ‘It’s my first day back tomorrow.’
The IKEA sofa-bed in the office was prepared. The window looked over the river.
‘Lovely in the morning.’ Aliette advised leaving the shutters open, then said good night.
Friday morning, Aliette had happened to glimpse Chloé Dafy in her underwear as they were getting up and getting going. She’d thought: slender but solidly made, not thin at all. But in fact — and Aliette knew it — Chloé Dafy was statuesque. Like her mother. Plus she played the flute, classical harp, piano, a bit of guitar and sang.
But that was only one second in another long day…
Which ended at Friday night.
Aliette found herself running out of things to say to Chloé. It was stressful. Sergio had agreed to a weekend in separate houses; now she was not so sure. Chloé felt it too. Looking resigned, she opened the Brazilian detective. Aliette went up to her room, where she sat on her bed with her laptop, fretting — till she had a brilliant idea. Sergio was not totally enthusiastic, but Chloé Dafy was presumed to be honest, sober-minded (like a judge), and he could never say no.
Saturday morning, Chloé was at the kitchen table, engrossed in the Brazilian detective, when Aliette came down. She made coffee and explained the plan. Though dubious, trying hard to stay patient, Chloé packed her bag and they drove into the city, parked in boulevard d’Angleterre and climbed the public stairs.
Chloé Dafy was surprised and delighted by the spectacularly spacious house waiting behind the nondescript door at 36 rue Boudard, across the park from Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire. Aliette could see Chloé’s doubts about the idea transformed to an aura of expectant pleasure as she took in the view across the valley to the mountains. Sergio dutifully showed her how things worked, gave directions to his recommended bakery and handed over the key. Aliette trusted Chloé to be sensible, but repeated, ‘You’ve got the car, you’re free to go wherever, just don’t go home.’ She advised wearing shades and a hat when she went out. You never knew who might be in town doing the boutiques on a Saturday. Or strolling along the beach.
As far as the world was concerned, Chloé was at Luc’s.
Chloé promised. Aliette and Sergio left her and headed for Les Halles to get some things for their supper and spend a normal Saturday together. They both wore windbreakers and jeans. A tramontane had blown in overnight and the temperature had dropped noticeably — too cold for shorts, let alone a swimsuit. Bad luck for the holiday camps at Valras, and doubtful Chloé Dafy would venture down to the beach.
On the upside, no one could wonder why there was no one out by the pool at Luc’s.
• 50 •
SATURDAY TIMELINES
The strong northwest wind in her face was an impediment to speed, not great for maximum performance on a bike. The 5K sprint from the Le Mauraury to the Departmental road was a battle and Isabelle Escande was working hard. But that morning Isabelle was too on edge to focus on her rhythm. Halfway across, she gave up, sat up in the saddle and glided… The wind quickly cooled her. She mopped her forehead with her T-shirt. A grippe, or worse, was the last thing she needed — she was always susceptible.
She did not glide far before the wind almost stopped her dead. She pushed to get warm. Then sat. Then stopped, dismounted and walked.
Staring at the house on the ridge. Guzzling water. Trying to figure it.
Of course Luc had a cellphone, an Internet connection. Not that he used them much — so few people to communicate with after nine years removed from the world. His life inside had left him inside a spiritual shell. Though Luc seemed comfortable there — Isabelle had sensed that. She was a police officer, not a musician, but she knew that kind of place. She had been enjoying the way she and Luc communicated. She was not afraid to embrace an idea in the shape of a man. It was the only way with a man like him. And he was almost as old as her father.
Isabelle imagined herself a fellow traveller, stopping by like a wandering cat and hunkering down opposite one just like herself, singular, exotic, just a name, an idea. Like him. They spent time together, she left, he never followed, but his door was always open. He’d never said a word about the banker. Then again, she had never asked. Isabelle had never sensed another presence when she and Luc were together, neither in his thoughts or in his heart.
Once the banker had been removed from the picture, it had seemed a perfect kind of thing.
Now suddenly the banker comes back and goes straight to him, usurping the place Isabelle had taken for her own. Isabelle had ridden down Thursday after work, looking forward to a swim and love in the evening sun, and there it was: the white car had returned. Then the banker had walked past in the mairie garden on Friday morning without seeing her. It was too studied, the way she passed, then passed by again with her mail, like she was making a statement, as if she knew. Isabelle had seen this before.
Chloé Dafy was in there with Luc. The shutters had been closed since she’d arrived, blocking even a glimpse. Blocked again last night, blocked this morning, the place like a fortress in lockdown, the white car at his door like a sentinel. Isabelle felt she had missed her moment.
She was not going to go up the drive and pound on the door.
There were more efficient ways of dealing with people. But you had to know the situation.
But her binoculars could not see through a wall. Nor could a telescopic sight.
Isabelle Escande shivered. She cursed herself for neglecting to wear a jacket. She had left in a rush, distracted, working against herself, the careful attention she prided herself in bringing to her every move. Which Luc had liked.
And to be caught standing there in the road in daylight gawking when the shutters opened…
Isabelle Escande remounted and pushed off into
the wind, puzzled as she pedalled past Luc’s on her Saturday morning ride. Wary. Luc never locked his door. He never closed the shutters or pulled the blinds.
Isabelle had trained herself to leave the sad thing behind. You didn’t need it, it only got in the way. Look at the mess the sad thing had made of Bénédicte Barnay. That morning Isabelle felt it, the sad thing, there in the wind, pushing against her, not her friend today.
It was stronger still when she came to the Departmental, turned right and climbed the hill.
Isabelle finished her circle, took a hot shower, then went back to bed, checking for fever.
Puzzling it. Worrying it. Looking out at the blustery sky.
Bénédicte Barnay went out for a ride before going in for her day of weekend office duty. She set off early, keeping an eye out for Alex and his friends. Bénédicte didn’t want to meet him. There was nothing more to say. But she had good half-hour on Alex and the boys, if they even ventured out. The wind had blown in and they were fussy. Indeed, Bénédicte shivered till she sweated, but it was at her back as she sped along the highway toward Cessenon, to the turn to Le Mauraury.
She stopped at the water tank just outside of the hamlet and sipped water as she waited. The cock crowed. Bénédicte took the small binoculars from her pouch. The old man was already out with his chickens. He was wearing a big grey sweater this morning, but the same dirty old blue shorts, sandals, no socks. It was not long before Isabelle came through the hamlet, turned at the bridge and took off along the bumpy flat toward Luc’s place. Bénédicte left her plenty of room before following. It was suddenly hard going, pedalling into the wind.
Bénédicte knew the chief inspector was guarding information. Isabelle was at the heart of it. Obviously. Who hated Jérome Giffard? A woman in love with Luc Malarmé. Bénédicte couldn’t shoot like Isabelle, and she wasn’t thin; but there was nothing wrong with her cop instincts. She believed the boss knew that. She believed the boss would give credit where it was due.
The wind was coming directly at her now, and strong. Bénédicte bent low, pushing at a slow but steady pace, taking care to stay close to the shoulder — she needed the vines and the curve of the long bend to give her cover, should Isabelle look back. It was pebbly, precarious on thin racing wheels, a balancing act; one false move, she would slide into the ditch. As the road straightened out, she dismounted, left her bike safely up a row of vines and walked. That morning her matching jersey and cap were green.
She cut an angle through the rows to the higher ground.
Bénédicte had been so disappointed — in herself, in the boss, in men, in life. It was not right that one girl should be so perfect. Not reality. There had to be a flaw in Isabelle.
Reaching a vantage point, taking the small binocs from her back pouch, focusing…
There: Isabelle was stopped at the end of his drive, gazing like a hungy dog. Poor thing.
Bénédicte took a picture with her phone. It might be needed. She instinctively touched her service arm, in its sheath in her pouch. It might be needed too. Hungry dogs act desperately.
But not this morning… Bénédicte waited, vigilant, till Isabelle moved slowly off toward the Departmental. Then returned to her bike and rode back to the highway the way she’d come. She kept the wind behind her on a sprint to Cessenon and up to Cazedarnes, then up again and across to Pierrerue. From there it was mainly downhill to Saint-Brin.
A shower. Breakfast. She felt good when she got to her desk at nine.
She had been so worried. Now it might turn out all right.
Magui Barthès knew the chief inspector was playing a game. In aid of what, Magui didn’t know, and she was not being apprised. Whatever it was, she was in no mood to go along. She was angry with Martine Rogge for giving in to pressure and releasing the Dafys. She was hating Paul Dafy for making her look incompetent — which translated to Magui feeling like a fool.
She suspected Martine was in on the boss’s game.
Magui was still stewing over the boss’s oblique comeback when accused of wasting valuable time. Could she ever forgive Luc Malarmé? Damn the boss for spinning it around back to that!
And damn Martine too. And that chicken-shit Sub-Proc Danielle — who continued to bargain with Dafy’s lawyer, trading the beating in the street against police bungling and embarrassment the family was suffering. Magui knew Paul Dafy had killed Jérome Giffard in a botched attempt to kill Luc Malarmé and she was going to prove it.
It was too bad Paul had missed. Monsieur Malarmé, their ‘client,’ was a drugged and lazy sod, not worthy of that fine house. Worse than the fact that he could not seem to lift a finger to clean the place, he clearly did not care, couldn’t even pick up the phone and hire someone to do it. He was a millionaire who lived in squalor, and in Magui’s book that was bad enough. But even worse, the man was smarmy. Mean. The way he had looked at her that day she went out to confirm some information — no, she hated him, wouldn’t be sad at all if he was dead.
Forgive Luc Malarmé? She wanted nothing to do with him, so why did that matter? It was her job to arrest a killer, not slimy creeps who never opened a window and could not see past your tits. Or the lack of them… It was Saturday morning and the weather had turned. Inspector Magui Barthès sat in the car and stewed. She was parked on the far side of the town place. She knew she looked like hell warmed over.
Pleading ‘work, might be late,’ Magui had left her boys with Jacques in Creissan and come into town equipped for a stakeout. The evening was cool; there was no one working late in the community gardens by the river, no one out strolling. Magui had climbed the old stone wall and spent the night in the deserted orchard watching Paul Dafy’s house in rue Cours de la Reine.
In fact, from that spot, she could watch both Dafy residences.
But Simon and Aline seemed to making peace, and Magui’s focus had always been on Paul.
She had watched Paul and his wife descend into screaming at the dining room table, his kids crying in their rooms, Marie eventually slamming their bedroom door in his face. She had watched Paul cleaning the kitchen…cleaning his guns…cleaning his rugby boots, obsessive, till he had collapsed on the divan in the salon. Magui had stayed all night, fuelling herself with coffee and sandwiches, dozing fitfully, working overtime. She knew Paul Dafy could not let it go and was going to do something. But he was still there when she’d slipped away just before dawn.
The BatiMat store was directly across the place. It opened early for professional builders and do-it-yourselfers six days a week, but Paul Dafy did not arrive till after nine. Magui watched him go in. She got out of her car and went to buy another hammer.
Just to let him know she was on the case.
Then, tired, frustrated, and in need of a bath, if not another hammer, but deciding her quarry would be safely busy in his store for the better part of Saturday, Magui pulled out and headed home.
She would come back tonight. She was not going to let Paul Dafy get away with murder.
Junior Inspector Barnay was working hard. She found three kindergarten teachers at home on a Saturday and quizzed them, politely but relentlessly. They admitted to knowing Jérome Giffard, professionally and personally, and that relations had ended badly. Two were still in the area, one was now in Perpignan. One said they had clashed in their approach to children and it ruined the relationship — ‘he worried too much, needed to control every little move. He was like these American parents you read about, what do they call them? Helicopters? When they gave him a school, he turned into this sort of meta hyper-parent, like he was running a jail. I couldn’t deal with it. You know?’ Bénédicte honestly didn’t. But she could hear resentment as clear as a bell. It was there in all three ladies. And there was an ex-gym teacher who had been expelled from the Montpellier system after being accused by then fellow staff colleague Jérome Giffard (who had a class of nine-year-olds) of swim class improprieties
. ‘Never proven, but fear wins the day. Bastard!’ Bénédicte recorded everything and after cursory interviews, each was instructed to report to her on Tuesday for a more in-depth discussion of their differences with Jérome. They resisted. They were ordered. She left a memo on Magui’s desk regarding the three maternelles, inviting her to attend. Bénédicte looked forward to Monday and telling the boss the strategy had indeed been good.
She also took calls regarding noise and drugs at a club in Roujan, and a credit card last used at the Total petrol station in Saint-Brin showing purchases in Béziers. Bénédicte made more calls, alerting and directing police and bank security resources accordingly. And there was a hanging at Villespassans — a suicide, to be sure, but the judicial police and the Medical Examiner were still required to attend. Bénédicte spent the afternoon there with Légiste Annelise Duflot, and missed the butcher. It was a busy day, and it was almost seven when she closed the office.
She got a pizza instead, ate in front of the television, thoughts drifting between Alex and how it might go that night.
When it grew dark, Bénédicte went out and got on her bike.
At Magui’s house, pizza was a Saturday night tradition. Still pumping adrenaline that was a mix of anger, anticipation and bloody-minded determination, she’d tried to sleep but failed till four in the afternoon, then she and Jacques and the boys piled into his truck, and they drove into Cruzy to buy it.
She did her best to enjoy the evening, but couldn’t really.
Finally: ‘Sorry. Work. Might be late.’ Inspector Barthès left her guys again and drove back to Saint-Brin. She went over the wall at the same place and crept to her spot under the apple tree.
It looked like Paul Dafy’s wife had taken her children and left him to his own resources.
Exhausted, Magui settled in and watched him.
