Noel

by A J Griffiths-Jones

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – DIGGING UP THE PAST

  Annalise Van Beek checked herself in the large bathroom mirror, the unsightly dark circles from lack of sleep hidden by expensive concealer, a slick of pale pink lipstick across her thin lips. The woman’s long white locks had been rolled and pinned into a neat bun at the nape of her slender neck and a string of creamy white pearls sat proudly across her slender collarbone. She’d picked out a simple long-sleeved navy dress for her outing and pinned a gold, rose-shaped brooch onto her matching cashmere shawl. Annalise looked as elegant as any woman half her years, yet butterflies fluttered in her stomach, which caused the breakfast tray to remain untouched apart from half a cup of Earl Grey tea. For most of the morning, the grieving grandmother had paced the rooms in her hotel suite, knowing that there was no point in arriving at her planned destination until mid-day. She wasn’t even sure what would happen when she got there, the various possibilities being both profound and unpredictable.

  The Dutchwoman took a deep breath and switched off the vanity mirror light. What she was about to do might change the future forever, but the thought of not knowing the identity of the man lying in the hospital bed at Saint André’s would eat away at her heart. There simply was no alternative but to go and find out for herself. She had taken the liberty of carrying two old photographs in her purse, just in case. In the first picture, which was black and white, she was young, carefree and laughing, her hair loose and flying out behind her as she ran through the sandy red dust of a barren landscape. The other was a colour image of a baby boy with pale white hair the texture of fine feathers. Annalise stroked her thumb absent-mindedly across the latter, checking that it was still there for the umpteenth time that morning. It was far too precious to lose.

  Taking the lift to the ground floor, she politely requested that the concierge call a taxi and tipped him a euro for his trouble. The ageing woman was naturally empathetic towards others and believed in karma, a conviction that had proven itself time and time again in reciprocated kindness.

  Annalise stood stoically waiting on the front steps, fingers clutching her leather handbag, expression void of all emotion as she stared at the passing traffic.

  “Madame,” a deep voice called to alert her as a minicab arrived.

  “Yes,” she muttered quietly to herself in Dutch, “I am ready.”

  Jack Hobbs was the last member of the team to arrive that Saturday morning and a round of applause greeted him as he entered the office space.

  “Ah, Jacques, here you are,” Inspector Mallery joked. “We thought you had forgotten the route to the police station and got lost on the way.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Hobbs grinned, a flush of pink creeping up from beneath his shirt collar. “I was that tired, I could have slept on the back of a galloping hedgehog.”

  The sound of raucous laughter filled the room as puzzled faces imagined the scene of Jack dozing on the prickly-spined creature.

  Max waved a hand and strode over to the whiteboard. “You seriously get worse, Monsieur ‘Obbs,” he chuckled, omitting to prounounce the ‘H’ in his subordinate’s surname. “Now, let’s get down to some serious business.”

  All four detectives stopped what they were doing and focussed on Mallery.

  “So, today we need to confront Brother Ernest with the evidence from last night. I think it might be best if we speak with one of the senior monks first and then bring him in to the station. What do you think?”

  Thierry scratched his fuzzy black hair. “What if one of the four elder monks was in the van with him last night? None of us got a look at him.”

  Max nodded in agreement. “That’s a fair point and a possibility. So let’s just bring him in for questioning, although there must be some sort of protocol about the monks checking out of the monastery, so we’d better speak to Brother Cécil as he seems to be in charge in the abbot’s absence.”

  “Do you want me to go and fetch him?” Luc piped up. “I’ve met him already.”

  Mallery hesitated slightly, taking a deep breath before answering.

  “I think it’s better you continue your background search on our four suspects, Luc, to be honest. If there’s any connection or past history of criminal activity, you’re likely to find it much quicker than any of us.”

  “And you don’t want me to go because I’m the wrong gender.” Gabriella sighed heavily before Max could give his excuses for excluding her.

  “I’ll go with Jacques,” he decided, “and Thierry, perhaps you can hang around at the hospital for a while, just in case Abbot Arnaud has any visitors today. As you haven’t been there yet, it’s unlikely that anyone will recognise you.”

  Having convinced the receptionist, and then subsequently the nursing staff, that she was an old friend of the elderly abbot, Annalise Van Beek was directed to a side room where the shape of a prostrate man lay facing the wall.

  “Don’t be too long,” the matron told her, “Abbot Arnaud needs to rest.”

  The Dutchwoman rolled the two words around on her tongue silently. Abbot Arnaud. It wasn’t a name with which she was familiar, but almost fifty years had passed and things changed, unless her hunch was wrong. Pushing the door open just a fraction, Annalise peered in, her movement causing the patient to turn his head towards the noise. She gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

  “Anna?” the elderly man croaked through dry lips, “is it… is it really you?”

  She was at his bedside within seconds, tears streaming down her face, causing dark streaks from her mascara to ruin the carefully applied foundation.

  “Yes, Benoît, it is I.”

  A liver-spotted hand reached shakily for hers, desperate to feel the warm flesh of Annalise’s skin. Disbelief was written on Abbot Arnaud’s face, his wet cheeks burning hot as he sobbed relentlessly.

  “Do you fancy doing a bit of research for me while we’re out?” Mallery asked, stooping down over Gabriella’s desk. “As Luc’s running those four monks through the system, find out what you can about Annalise Van Beek.”

  “Surely you don’t suspect her?” the blonde detective gasped. “She’s so lovely!”

  “No, I don’t. Besides, she was definitely in Amsterdam when her grandson died. It’s just… well, you felt it, too. There’s something that she’s not telling us.”

  Gabriella tapped her fingers lightly over the computer keyboard and logged on. ”Don’t worry, sir, if she’s hiding something, I’ll find it.”

  “Great, catch you both in an hour or so. Keep the coffee pot filled.”

  Max strode out of the incident room, his step a touch lighter than it had been the previous day, and raced downstairs. He pulled out a filtered cigarette and was just about to light it when he spotted Hobbs waiting in the car, frowning at him.

  “Frère Cédric,” a voice called, the man tapping at the door before entering, “l’inspecteur de police est ici.”

  The ageing monk gathered up the leather-bound account’s ledgers on the abbot’s desk and hurriedly pushed them into a drawer. “Un moment.”

  Just as he was smoothing down his crumpled robes, Mallery and Hobbs were shown into the office by a very pale tonsured monk in his early thirties.

  “Merci, Frère Anthony,” Brother Cédric called as the door closed, before turning his attention to the detectives. “Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  “I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time, Brother Cédric,” Max said, nodding towards the few scattered papers that had fallen to the floor.

  The monk rolled his shoulders and stood up. “Actually, I am on my way out, to the abbot’s bedside. Perhaps your questions could wait until later?”

  Jack stepped forward, eyebrows raised. “Checking the monastery finances?” he asked, picking up a loose-leafed page dotted with figures from under the desk.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” came the dry response. “It is customary for us to do a weekly calculation of funds. Of course, in Abbot Arnaud’s absence…”

  Jack nod
ded, his face placid but mind racing at a hundred miles an hour, trying to work out whether a lack of cash might be the reasoning behind the recent spate of grave excavations and how it could possibly connect to Van Beek.

  Mallery interrupted his train of thought with a low cough. “Brother Cécil, I’m afraid we need to speak with a novice monk, Brother Ernest. It appears he was seen driving around in the vicinity of Salbec last night, in a vehicle registered to the monastery.”

  The monk’s mouth fell open, flashing pink gums and several missing teeth.

  “Ernest? No, that’s impossible. He’s a most studious young man and wouldn’t go out at night unless there was some kind of emergency!”

  “I’m afraid one of our officers identified him, Monsieur,” Max assured him.

  “But how? What was your officer doing out here? Are you watching us?”

  Hobbs looked at his shoes as the inspector explained, “Saint Augustin’s is currently under surveillance, and will remain so until the murderer of Noel Van Beek is brought to justice. Now, if you’ll allow us to speak with Brother Ernest in private, we’ll keep you no longer. Thank you for your time, Monsieur.”

  Gabriella placed a hand over her mouth as she read the information on the computer screen and noticed a strange coincidence that was far too significant to ignore.

  Tracing back through Annalise Van Beek’s history, the young detective had discovered the woman had never married, yet had given birth to a son on Christmas Day, at the tender age of twenty. Records showed the child’s name as Noel, also sharing his mother’s surname and in turn he had married and had his own son. Needless to say, the elder Noel and his wife had named their child after his father, Noel Van Beek. Quickly typing into an ancestry search engine, Gabriella discovered the birth certificate for Annalise’s child and surprisingly, no father’s name was present.

  She then, very astutely, searched forward from Annalise’s own birth, finding her living with her parents in Amsterdam on and off until the age of sixteen. Mr Van Beek had been a pastoral minister, travelling to the African continent as a missionary throughout his career, and had taken both his wife and daughter on these expeditions with him. The last record of Annalise Van Beek’s past showed that she had joined a convent in rural Netherlands, and had followed in her father’s footsteps by administering medical assistance and preaching to the needy in various remote Gambian villages.

  After an hour and a half of intense searching, Gabriella finally pushed back her chair and strolled victoriously across the room to show the information to Luc.

  “Fantastique!” her colleague grinned, although neither of them understood the full consequences of the data until they looked at some passenger records a few minutes later, which showed the young Miss Van Beek returning to her homeland on a European vessel. She travelled alone and had paid for a single cabin.

  “Ici,” Luc pointed excitedly, showing Gabriella the date on a second sheet.

  Exactly six months after the young nun had returned to her homeland, she had given birth. Annalise must have become pregnant whilst in Africa.

  Gabriella felt both excited and disheartened. They might have uncovered a secret from Annalise Van Beek’s past, but it proved nothing, certainly no connection to Abbot Arnaud or to a reason for her grandson’s death.

  Luc told her to keep looking, something would turn up, but the blonde woman shrugged her shoulders and put on a padded waterproof jacket.

  “Let’s eat,” she told him, in her sultry French voice. “Work can wait.”

  Brother Cédric led the detectives down a narrow corridor, his flat leather sandals squeaking on the polished stone floor as he sashayed in front of them.

  “These are the novices’ quarters,” he explained, gesturing to closed doors on either side of the walkway. “Brother Ernest has a bunk in the end room.”

  Having ascertained a few minutes earlier that Brother Ernest had failed to report for duty in the monastery kitchen that morning and there being no sign of him in the infirmary, the three men were now anxiously tracking down the young monk. As they walked, Hobbs noticed the flush of redness on the back of Brother Cédric’s neck, pulsating brightly as though he were either nervous or irate, an affliction that Jack himself was often prone to.

  “Is it usual for a novice to miss his work duties, Brother Cédric?” Max asked, raising his voice in case the plump, elderly monk was hard of hearing.

  “There is no need to shout, Inspector,” Cédric sniffed, turning his head slightly, “and no, it is most unusual. We keep to a very strict rota here.”

  The rotund figure stopped abruptly outside the last oak-panelled door and rapped sharply with his pudgy bare knuckles. No response.

  “Frère Ernest!” he called out, turning the heavy ringed handle. “Bonjour?”

  Inside the small dormitory, a lone figure was curled up on its side, blankets pulled up to his chin, a faint snoring emanating from the young man’s nostrils.

  “Reveilles-tu!” Brother Cédric shouted, clapping his hands together loudly.

  Ernest stirred, gradually opening one eye and then the other.

  “Pardon, je suis tellement fatigué,” he groaned weakly, rolling onto his back.

  “Good afternoon, Brother Ernest,” Jack Hobbs said with a wink, peering over the bed. “I do hope we’re not disturbing your hour of rest.”

  The young novice sat bolt upright, blinking at the two detectives as though he’d stirred from a particularly realistic dream. He then looked up at a very irate Brother Cédric, who was tugging at the blankets and urging him to get up.

  In a swift couple of sentences, naturally in French, Inspector Mallery explained the reason for their visit and concluded by requesting that Brother Ernest put on his brown woollen cassock and accompany them to the police station.

  The novice said very little in return, just the odd mumble, but his wide eyes intimated that the detective’s summons hadn’t come as a complete surprise.

  Annalise Van Beek closed the door as she reluctantly left the abbot’s side. It had been a difficult reunion, emotionally draining, and she now needed to return to her hotel suite to gather her thoughts. She also felt it imperative to make a hasty retreat before one of Saint Augustin’s vigilant monks came calling on their Holy Father. She wasn’t ready for questions quite yet and Abbot Arnaud was in no fit state to give explanations, either.

  The tall Dutchwoman headed to the ladies’ washroom to compose herself. It had been a long couple of hours, but in some ways not long enough. Years had separated the two, herself and the man she knew as Benoît, and there was much to discuss, but eventually, being the kind, sensitive and sensible man that the abbot was, he had kept a close eye on the time and persuaded her to leave before two o’clock, the hour that Brother Cédric was due to arrive.

  Annalise stood leaning against the sink in the deserted bathroom, looking down at the fingers of her left hand, the ones that Benoît had pressed to his lips only moments ago. Time and age had changed them both, but not beyond recognition and they’d shared a secret intimacy that one might have missed unless you looked closely into the couple’s eyes. Seeing him had caused a rush of emotion.

  Unravelling a tissue from her palm, the Dutchwoman dabbed her eyes before turning to check herself in the mirror. It was easy to see how the elderly man had immediately recognised her, the long silken hair now white as snow yet with a couple of errant tendrils escaping their clips, just as they always did in her youth. For her part, it was Benoît’s eyes that had certified his identity, a deep, watery blue, the colour of ink when mixed with water, or tears.

  Abbot Arnaud rubbed his cold arms, purposely pinching his own skin to ensure that he was indeed awake and hadn’t just experienced an apparition. He’d known that someone would come, perhaps a man, but not Annalise. Every hope of ever seeing her again had died long ago, but his memories of their last meeting were as crisp as if it were yesterday. The young woman running barefoot in the sandy dirt of a West African bush trail was
little changed, her feistiness still there behind deep, longing eyes. He’d rubbed the woman’s fingers, checking for the indentation of a recently removed wedding ring and, to Arnaud’s great satisfaction, had felt not so much as a slight groove.

  Brother Ernest sat with his arms folded in the back of Jack’s Ford Mondeo, his lips pressed together in a firm line of defiance. Of course Brother Cédric had demanded to know where the young monk had been the night before, but Max had swiftly halted the questioning and insisted they return to Bordeaux immediately, leaving Cédric, as Hobbs would have said, looking as though he had a great deal of egg on his face, or perhaps had swallowed a wasp.

  As soon as the detectives had departed, the elder monk had immediately called together Brothers Bénédict and Alberon and now all three sat huddled together in the abbot’s office, their faces stern and riddled with concern.

  Brother Cédric rattled off the accusation made by Inspector Mallery and then sat back exhausted. His agitation was caused by a direct act of disobedience by Brother Ernest, and also the very obvious fact that he was now bereft of the most capable driver at Saint Augustin’s, leaving a trip to the hospital that day quite out of the question. It was a most distasteful situation, in his opinion.

  Brother Alberon was extremely agitated, imagining the young novice to have been up to mischief in the dark hours, whilst Brother Bénédict sat with his fingers clenched, musing over the events and what it meant for the rest of them.

  “Ou était-il hier soir?” he asked, demanding more details of Brother Cédric as his blood pressure rose. Where was he last night?

  But the response was a shake of the head and splayed fingers. Cédric had no answers and the detectives had been very limited in their dialogue concerning Ernest’s whereabouts, except that it was in the vicinity of Salbec. Although one factor was pricking him like a darning needle.