Noel

by A J Griffiths-Jones

Max called out to Thierry and Luc who were waiting outside the office, and asked them to follow the monk to the Infirmary in order to take statements. As he turned away, Luc grabbed Jack’s elbow and whispered something in his ear.

  “We will also need you to come to the police station,” Mallery told Cédric, “but it’s not urgent. I believe we passed the mortuary van on the highway as we drove here, so you must see to the abbot’s body first.”

  Brother Cédric put a trembling hand to his lips, as though he’d forgotten about the daunting task ahead of him.

  “Oui, merci, Inspecteur,” he managed.

  Mallery and Hobbs drove back to the city centre in Hobbs’ Mondeo with an irate Brother Bénédict sitting on the back seat. Gabriella was waiting for Luc and Thierry to finish taking Ernest’s statement before driving them back to the station in her Mini, while a handful of uniformed officers had been dispatched to guard the front door of the monastery from visitors.

  As Jack drove, he kept glancing in the rear-view mirror to guage Bénédict’s level of anger. By the hue of his red cheeks, he guessed it was livid.

  “Put him in Interview Room Two,” the duty sergeant told Hobbs as they arrived. “I’m guessing you’ll want to speak to him straight away.”

  Mallery let a weak smile pass across his lips and replied, “Non, Albert, we’re going to make him wait.”

  The officer nodded. “Okay, let me lock him up for you then,” he said, putting a hand on Bénédict’s back to steer him towards the rear of the building.

  The monk turned to let a final glare rest on Mallery’s face before being whisked away to consider his fate.

  “Coffee first?” Hobbs guessed, trying to keep step with his boss’s long legs as they raced upstairs.

  “Oui, Jacques. Better to let Brother Bénédict sit quietly for a while so that we can gather all the facts that we have. It’s good to be prepared.”

  The Englishman agreed and slid open his desk drawer to retrieve a packet of chocolate biscuits. “Do you want to wait for Luc to get back, sir?”

  “Luc? Why would I want to wait for Luc?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything in front of our rogue monk, but as we passed in the corridor just now, Luc said he’d found something connected to Brother Bénédict’s past. Might be worth hanging on to see what it is.”

  Max’s eyes lit up like a miner’s lamp. He knew that the computer wizard was the best he’d ever come across and if Luc had something on the monk, then Mallery would bet a year’s worth of cigarettes that it was something concrete.

  “Coffee first then?” Jack hinted, holding out the biscuits. “I reckon they’ll only be half an hour behind us.”

  Max smiled. “In my office,” he said, looking up at the clock on the wall. “I think we deserve a proper cup today.”

  Jack Hobbs followed his boss down the corridor to where Max’s pride and joy awaited them, the thought of fresh caffeine already tingling his taste buds.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – CONFRONTATION

  Luc walked into the incident room with the swagger of a cowboy entering a saloon. He then flopped into his chair and started running his fingers over the computer keyboard as though fine-tuning a grand piano. The rest of the team watched and waited, letting him have his moment in the spotlight, and when it finally came, nobody was disappointed.

  “So,” the wiry detective began, “last night, I went out to Saint Augustin’s.”

  “But you don’t drive,” Jack said matter-of-factly, sipping his warm coffee.

  “I persuaded my father to drive out to Saint Margaux. Okay, he wasn’t very happy about it but I told him it was important police business.”

  Mallery rolled his eyes at the last two words, wondering how many rules and regulations had been broken to accommodate his techie’s curiosity.

  There was a moment of hesitation as Luc paused to let the facts settle, before continuing with renewed enthusiasm.

  “While I was there, I went around the back to where Brother Ernest parks the van. I’m sorry, sir,” he said, glancing over at Mallery, “I know it’s not how we should do things, but I took fingerprints from the passenger door and window. Just on the chance that I might find something, as we know that Bénédict was most probably out with Ernest at the graveyards the other night.”

  The inspector nodded. At that moment, he was more interested in where his colleague’s story was leading than following protocol. “Go on,” he urged.

  “First thing this morning, I ran the prints through the national database.”

  “Get on with it,” Gabriella hissed, getting impatient and tapping her long, red, manicured nails on the tabletop. “What’s your point?”

  “Well, it seems that our Brother Bénédict started out his religious career under the name of Brother Claude in the Midi-Pyrenees, near Pau, at… wait for it… exactly the same monastery as Abbot Arnaud.”

  Max started to open his mouth, but Jack beat him to it. “No way! That can hardly be a coincidence. So why were his prints in the database? Previous criminal record?”

  “They were taken during an inquiry into a raid on a suspected – erm, how to say? – whorehouse, in the nearby town. He’d been seen leaving the building at the time, but it turned out to be a false accusation. Instead of using the women, he was actually trying to get them to repent their sins. Seems he was quite the religious… erm, nut. Still, lucky for us, the fingerprints stayed on file.”

  “I wonder why Abbot Arnaud didn’t mention that he knew Bénédict before? And why did he change his name?” Thierry asked.

  “I think he must be hiding something,” Luc replied, handing the background sheets to the inspector for perusal and cocking his head to one side.

  “Want to help me interview him, Luc?” Max suggested, with a grin. “We know that Bénédict has poor English, so it’ll be quicker having two Frenchmen. Besides, you’ve done some great investigation work here and you deserve a break.”

  “Merci.” Luc blushed, bowing his head so that his floppy brown fringe fell down over his eyes. “Oui, I’m ready. Shall we go, sir?”

  As the other three detectives waited for Max and Luc to finish interviewing the monk, they filled in the whiteboard with the new information and brought their paperwork up to date. There had been several press reports that morning pointing out that the Dutchman’s murderer was still at large, and they knew that it wouldn’t be long before Commissioner Ozanne came looking for answers.

  “Do you reckon Bénédict had a grudge against Arnaud?” Jack mused, pinning up a recently taken colour photograph of their suspect on the board.

  “Considering he chose to murder the abbot’s grandson, I should think so,” Thierry shrugged, “but the big question is, how did he know Noel Van Beek’s identity when he arrived at Saint Augustin’s? He could have been anybody.”

  “Unless he’d been waiting for somebody to show up all this time,” Gabriella chipped in, slowly twisting open a bottle of sparkling water.

  “Let’s hope he cracks sooner rather than later then,” Hobbs returned. “We need to get things tied up before the big boss finds his way downstairs.”

  “Too late,” a voice called from the doorway, “he’s already here.”

  Three heads turned and were faced with the smug countenance of Ozanne, hands clasped in front of him, lips pursed as though sucking a sour sweet.

  “What do we have?” the Commissioner asked bluntly, speaking in English for Jack’s sake and rocking forward onto his toes and back again. “News?”

  “We’ve arrested one of the senior monks, sir. Brother Bénédict,” Hobbs supplied. “Inspector Mallery is downstairs interviewing him now.”

  Ozanne’s eye’s shone like those of a magpie looking for treasure. “Excellent. Please tell him that I would like a full update by the end of the day. The newspapers are going crazy with this, we should have made progress much more quickly.”

  “We’ll tell him,” Gabriella promised in the girly voice she saved for patroni
sing her colleagues, as the small man moved to leave. “As soon as he gets back.”

  It was three hours before Max and Luc made their way back upstairs to join the team, both wearing blank expressions upon their faces as though they’d faced a tough ordeal and had come out of it none the wiser.

  “Don’t tell us, he denied everything,” Thierry huffed, putting both hands behind his head and rubbing at his dark, fuzzy hair in exasperation.

  Luc couldn’t hold his excitement and within seconds, his face broke out into a broad grin. “Quite the opposite actually, my dear friend.”

  Mallery moved to take up position in front of the board and clapped a hand on the computer whiz’s shoulder as he passed.

  “Luc, our technology genius, was brilliant,” the inspector acknowledged, leaning against the table with his arms folded across his broad chest. “We now have the full story and also a signed confession from Brother Bénédict.”

  “I wore him down with facts,” Luc chuckled, reaching for a chocolate bar to appease his rumbling stomach. “After an hour, he couldn’t take much more.”

  “Come on then,” Jack urged. “How does this all fit together?”

  Max raised his eyebrows. “Well, as it happens, Jacques, very easily.”

  Making himself comfortable in a chair, Inspector Mallery filled them in.

  “When Bénédict was a young novice, he joined a large monastery in the Midi-Pyrenees, which happened to be the same one as Arnaud was at. He went through the induction and was given the name Brother Claude. Arnaud was a good ten years his senior and fully apprenticed in the art of botany, therefore he was tasked with tutoring the novices on the topic.”

  “Wow, Arnaud was actually Bénédict’s teacher!” Thierry blurted, before mouthing an apology and rapidly gesturing for his boss to continue.

  “Yes. However, about six months into the training, Arnaud, who was at that time named Brother Benoît, was requested to join a mission in the Gambia. Now, as we know, it was on this trip that he met Annalise Van Beek, had a brief affair and got her with child.”

  Luc sniggered at the delicate language that his boss had chosen to use and put a hand over his mouth to stifle the laugh that threatened to escape his lips.

  “Anyway,” Max continued, “gossip in the monastery was worse than at a street café, apparently, and Brother Claude got to find out what had happened in Africa. Brother Benoît was shamed and requested to leave the brotherhood. He refused to renounce his religion, but instead agreed to find a position elsewhere, which finds him with a change of name, to Arnaud, and eventually, after a few other placements, coming to Saint Augustin’s.”

  “But if Brother Claude was just a novice, why did it affect him?” Gabriella pressed. “Surely, it wouldn’t matter to him if Benoît ruined his career at that monastery. Surely he wasn’t put out by the affair?”

  “Well, here’s the interesting part,” Mallery told them. “When Brother Claude was arrested in connection with the raid on the brothel, he was snubbed by the rest of the brotherhood. Despite him being proven innocent, rumours spread that he had been paying for sexual services and he was made a virtual outcast and given the most menial of chores to attend to. When Brother Benoît returned from the Gambia and his sins were uncovered, Claude took it as a personal slight that his teacher was allowed to change his name and find a position elsewhere, when he himself had been so harshly treated by the rest of the brotherhood.”

  “So, was that when Claude left and changed his name, too?” Jack interjected.

  “Yes, a short while afterwards, and he claims to actually have chosen the name Bénédict on purpose, because, without its French accents, it’s the English version of Benoît.”

  “Wow, that’s a bit creepy.”

  “Indeed. According to Brother Bénédict, he vowed to follow Benoît, which is how he came to be at Saint Augustin’s, and to ruin him, no matter how long it took to find him.”

  “So why did he wait so long?” Thierry mused. “It’s been fifty years since the abbot’s child was born. That’s one hell of a grudge to bear.”

  “He’s been waiting all this time for someone to show up at the monastery, hasn’t he?” Hobbs answered, looking from Mallery to Luc.

  “Correct. Firstly, he expected Annalise’s son to go in search of his father, but obviously that didn’t happen. So, when Noel arrived, Bénédict suspected that he might be related to the abbot. It was while the young man was taken ill in the infirmary that the monk found out the truth.”

  “How?” Gabriella frowned, looking slightly confused.

  “On the night after the storm, when he got soaking wet, Noel Van Beek had a very high temperature and was rambling in his sleep. Apparently, Brother Bénédict heard him asking for his grandfather over and over again.”

  “Wasn’t Brother Alberon in charge of the infirmary at that time?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, he was. But when he commented that he’d also heard the Dutchman calling out, Brother Bénédict told him to ignore it as the stranger wasn’t properly coherent and probably just wanted to see his family.”

  “Which is why Brother Cédric searched the man’s bag for some identity,” Luc added for clarification. “Also when he found the Bible.”

  “Jeez, that’s some grudge, to wait all that time,” Gabriella sighed, shaking her head gently.

  “You wouldn’t believe how much pent-up anger Bénédict has,” Max informed her. “He’s like a bomb ready to explode.”

  “But why murder Noel? Why not Abbot Arnaud?” she shot back.

  “He thought it would be the ultimate revenge,” Luc answered, swinging his chair around to face the female detective. “After all, it was Arnaud, or Benoît, who taught him all about the use of digitalis in medicine, so using the same drug to poison Noel Van Beek would give him the most satisfaction.”

  “Didn’t Arnaud recognise Bénédict?” Jack queried, thinking it odd that the two had seemed such good friends and would surely remember one another.

  “Apparently not,” Max told him. “According to Bénédict, the monastery near Pau was very large and Benoît only taught him for a few months before he took up the post at the mission in the Gambia. So, some years later, when Bénédict requested a transfer to Saint Augustin’s, Abbot Arnaud didn’t recognise his old pupil.”

  “Has he confessed to the murder?” Thierry queried, leaning forward intently.

  “Oh, yes!” Mallery grinned, holding up the monk’s statement. “We have everything signed and sealed. Plus a few other charges added to it, like the whipping of Brother Ernest and the illegal activity in the graveyards.”

  “And the map?” Jack piped up, thinking of the supposed buried treasure.

  The inspector winked. “That’s our next task. We need to find Bianca.”

  Seated around a table in a nearby pizza restaurant at five o’clock, the four detectives congratulated themselves on a job well done with bottles of ice-cold beer as they browsed the menu. Meanwhile, Inspector Mallery was updating Commissioner Ozanne on the recent progress and consequent arrest.

  “So, he’s definitely the man who poisoned Noel Van Beek?” the short man inquired in hurried French, leaning forward over his desk with both hands clasped. “You have a full confession? Everything tied up neatly?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Max nodded, going on to explain the background information and Bénédict’s plot for revenge, “he’ll be transferred tomorrow.”

  “Good, I’m impressed,” Ozanne muttered, lifting a stack of papers from his in-tray. “I will prepare a press release. You go and join your team, Mallery.”

  “Thank you, sir, much appreciated.”

  As he turned to edge back through the office doorway, Max was halted by a gruff, throaty cough as the commissioner continued to speak.

  “Oh, and the other, more delicate matter? I trust it has been dealt with?”

  The inspector felt himself getting hot under the collar of his pristine white shirt and stopped dead in his tracks. A t
rickle of sweat rolled down his neck.

  “Yes, sir. Completely.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Ozanne concluded. “You wouldn’t want a mark against your name now, would you, Inspector? Not after such a successful investigation.”

  Outside in the cold late afternoon breeze, Mallery took out a filtered cigarette and, as he bent to light it, realised that his hands were shaking.

  He quickly drew on the nicotine, filling his lungs before releasing a plume of grey smoke from his nose. He’d lied to Ozanne, Max conceded. The affair wasn’t yet over because he’d been far too busy with a murder investigation to speak to Vanessa. He knew that the longer he left it, the harder breaking up would be. Commissioner Chirac’s wife could be pretty demanding when she wanted to be. Max just prayed that there wouldn’t be any repercussions once he’d finally explained that they could no longer see one another.

  Slipping the cigarettes and lighter back into his inside jacket pocket, Max’s fingers fell upon an envelope that he’d hurriedly pushed in there two weeks ago. Inside was a voucher for a luxury weekend break for two, with a three-course dinner, four-poster bed and champagne in the room on arrival. Max sighed and leaned back against the hard concrete wall of the police station. He’d bought the treat for the next time Vanessa was able to get away, but now, after a harsh reminder of the situation from his boss and a renewed vigour to succeed in his relatively new position in Bordeaux, the inspector was drawn to make a bold decision. He would finally tell his lover that they were finished.

  Inside the pizzeria, loud voices rang out from the rear of the dining room as Mallery’s team clinked their bottles together in celebration and cheered Luc for his newly acquired interview skills. Max stood at the reception desk watching the faces of his young detectives as they flattered each other and took long, hearty swigs from their beer. This was what he wanted, the inspector acknowledged; a tight-knit team that had each other’s backs and were honest with one another. It was something he’d rarely experienced in Paris but it was a trait that he was eager to uphold.