One Green Bottle (Magali Rousseau mystery series Book 1)

by Curtis Bausse

  ‘Not premeditated, you say.’ Marty’s lips protruded in disdain.

  ‘I meant Antoine. He just happened to be there.’

  ‘But someone is definitely after your son, it seems.’

  ‘Or me. Using him indirectly to hurt me.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He nodded thoughtfully, his jaws working as if they were chewing on her words. Then he leant forward, his eyes bright with anticipation. ‘I take it you have an idea who it might be.’

  It was several seconds before Magali, her voice hoarse and strangled as if wrenching it from her guts, said, ‘I have a client who’s very upset.’

  When he had heard the complete account of her therapy sessions with Paul, Marty spoke on the phone for a couple of minutes. Then he said, ‘I’ll drive you back. They’re still going over the house but you can go in. The press are there too, though. I suggest at this stage you avoid them.’

  In the lobby of the police station, Luc and Sophie were waiting. As soon as they saw her emerge, they got up to hug her. Magali felt the tears well up again but managed to keep them back. Then Sophie broke the silence. ‘If you want to come to our house, you can stay as long as you want.’

  ‘Your son?’ said Marty, studying Luc. Then seeing that more was expected, he simply added, ‘Fine. I’ll let you get on.’ He raised a hand briefly. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  They got into Luc’s car and drove off. Sentabour glided past the window; normality trod its streets. But for Magali now the world was fractured into different layers, and she couldn’t get them to fit together or make sense. Sophie making tea, and the occasional trivial remarks that passed between them brought her back to an everyday level which had no meaning any more; what really mattered was shifting below the surface, out of sight.

  Whereas with Marty she had been, for the most part, articulate, she found it now impossible to talk, having nothing meaningful to say. A single thought kept hammering in her mind, crowding out all others: she alone was to blame. If she hadn’t misjudged the situation so badly, none of this would have happened. Nothing she’d said to Marty was untrue but she’d kept the most important fact to herself: she wasn’t a qualified therapist. Before long, though, it was bound to emerge that her clumsy attempts to delve into Paul’s unconscious had unleashed a monster.

  Eventually, not wanting to burden them with her presence, she said, ‘Thanks for the tea. It’s been good to talk.’ Then addressing Luc: ‘I’ll be getting back.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay?’ The deep compassion in Sophie’s eyes showed she was suffering too.

  ‘No, I think… I need to be on my own for a while.’

  In the car she said, ‘There’s something you need to know. I didn’t want to mention it in front of Sophie.’

  Luc listened intently as she told him about the photograph and the graffiti.

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said. ‘Scare tactics, that’s all. But Marty’s agreed to have your house put under surveillance and anything suspicious should be reported. And of course, keep an eye out everywhere you go.’

  ‘Scare tactics? Mum, he murdered Antoine!’

  She pressed her lips together and stared at the roadside. ‘I know.’

  ‘And it isn’t really me he’s after, is it? It’s you.’

  ‘He’s using you to get at me. It’s both of us.’

  ‘Sophie’s right. You should stay with us.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow I will. Right now…’ She left it unfinished, adding reassuringly, ‘He won’t be back straightaway, don’t worry.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘In all probability it was Paul Daveney. On the basis of my statement, he’ll be arrested. And he won’t be a danger any more.’ Even as she said the words, she felt there was something wrong. As if the most obvious answer, which Marty had been only too eager to adopt, contained a flaw that ought to be brought to light. And when it was, the danger would be back, more calculating and vicious than Paul was even capable of imagining.

  Luc drove along in silence for a while, lips twisted in uncertainty. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it one bit.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think anyone does, dear.’

  ‘No, I mean leaving you on your own.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly. By now they’ll be questioning Paul already.’

  ‘And if it isn’t him?’ It was almost as if he was reading her thoughts. And when she didn’t answer, he said, ‘I’m phoning every two hours, OK?’

  ‘Not at three in the morning, please.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ he said.

  A yellow cordon blocked the entrance to her drive. Behind it, by the studio, the forensic team were at work. From the road a gaggle of onlookers were craning their necks to see, patiently waiting for further gruesome details to emerge. They stared as Magali got out of the car and spoke to the officer on sentinel duty. He raised the cordon and escorted Magali to her door.

  For a while she stood in the kitchen and watched the police as they painstakingly combed through the sodden grass and pored over every yard of the drive. Then she went into the sitting room and collapsed into her armchair, trembling. She was trying to achieve some sort of calm, breathing deeply, eyes closed, releasing the tension and exhaustion, when a rap on the window caused her to leap in fright. A young man was beckoning, asking to be let in. Assuming it was a policeman, she opened the door.

  ‘Thierry Krief, La Provence. Just a few questions, Madame Rousseau.’

  ‘It’s hardly the time.’

  ‘My condolences.’ He took out a Dictaphone. ‘What is your take on this case?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a private detective. Do you have a theory, a hunch?’

  Magali was too taken aback to be angry. ‘I am not a private detective.’ She pointed to the door. ‘Please leave.’

  ‘It’s commonly thought that you are. You had a plaque up by your gate.’

  ‘Well, it’s not there any more.’

  ‘But you take a professional interest in this affair?’

  ‘A friend of mine was murdered in my garden. My interest, as you put it, is anything but professional.’

  ‘But you’re training, aren’t you? To be a detective?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  He waved her question away. ‘Surely you have an opinion? Are you helping the police? Or working on this on your own?’

  ‘I asked you to leave.’

  ‘Didn’t you go to the Cévennes to look for a murderer there? With Antoine Pessini, I believe.’

  She narrowed her eyes. Where had he got all this? ‘A friend of mine lost her son – murdered, as you say. She was distressed at the lack of progress in the investigation so we did indeed go there to see what was happening. We were able to assure her that the police were doing all they could. And the case is now closed.’

  ‘Hmm.’ His scepticism was apparent, but rather than make it explicit, he switched to another tactic. ‘If your theory does turn out to be true – about the killer, I mean – then this story could be explosive.’

  Magali smiled. ‘Oh, yes, you’d have some good copy then. But I’m afraid it won’t happen because I don’t have a theory.’

  ‘Who killed Enzo Perle? If not Brigitte Bussert, then who?’

  It was all she could do not to spit in his face. She strode to the door and held it open. ‘If you’re not out of here in ten seconds, I’m calling these policemen to have you ejected.’

  Thierry Krief let out a sigh of resignation and put the Dictaphone away. ‘I’m sorry once again about your friend, Madame Rousseau. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have anything you want to tell me. I’ll be on your side, I can assure you.’ And with that he thanked her for her time and took his leave, bowing his head politely as he passed.

  Chapter 19

  Luc refrained from ringing at three in the morning. But he did call twice before she said she was going to bed. He told her to make sure all the windows and doors
were securely shut and she said it was already done. They wished each other good night.

  And apart from a brief period of wakefulness, she did indeed sleep remarkably well. She heard the usual noises of the night – prowling animals, creaking cupboards – but the knowledge that a policeman was outside reassured her, even if there was a good chance he was fast asleep himself.

  Over breakfast, she reviewed her situation. A night of sleep changed nothing, of course. The fact of Antoine’s death still towered over the present, cast its shadow as far as she could see, trapped her in its perimeter. But now she was, to a certain extent, able to think clearly, and that was a big difference. Never before had she woken to such unrelenting bleakness, yet within it she recognised the familiar lure of abandon, of sinking away entirely into the dark. And she knew that if she didn’t react swiftly, she would soon be unable to react at all.

  The dumb, unquestioning muscles of her body responded better than her mind. When she told it to run, it did, and when she told it to keep on running, further than ever before, it obeyed. Not without complaining – after the hour mark it began to beg for mercy – but she whipped it on, refusing to let it stop, and by the time she completed the thirtieth lap, she hadn’t just tortured herself, she had cleansed her mind of all its useless baggage. Except for one image, which came to her precisely on lap twenty-eight: Paul Daveney’s trousers, soaked to the knee.

  ***

  Magali stood close to the middle of the road, camera raised. Not the professional job she’d been given by Charlotte, but her little pocket Canon. She took a dozen pictures from various positions, trying to recreate the setting of the death threat. But when she had the neighbours’ pillar in sight, the telegraph pole disappeared, and vice versa. To get them both, she had to move back several paces, but if she did that, the gate to Luc’s house was too far away, too small.

  Paul Daveney’s camera was an Olympus, with technical specifications practically identical to the Canon. And a lens that wasn’t wide enough to take the picture she’d found in her letterbox.

  Putting the camera in her pocket, Magali walked to the house and rang the bell. Nobody answered. She went round the side and found Sophie in her workshop, welder’s mask cutting her off from the world. She waited till Sophie paused, then moved into view, startling her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Magali raised a hand in apology, then speaking too urgently, ‘Where’s Luc?’

  ‘Gone to Aix to see a client. Anything I can do?’

  Magali relaxed, apologised again more fully, and asked if she could borrow Sophie’s phone. ‘Not to call, I just want to take some pictures. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  Leaving Sophie staring in bafflement after her, she returned to the same spot in the road. There wasn’t a lot of difference, but this time she was able to get both the telegraph pole and the pillar into the frame at the same time. She was standing in the exact spot from which the killer had aimed his camera – a telephone – at her son. From this position, though, no overhanging vegetation could possibly have created the blur in the top right-hand corner of the frame. She tried to recreate it with her finger: not only was the shape wrong and the outline too fuzzy, but it involved a contortion so deliberate that not even the clumsiest photographer could make a mistake like that. It wasn’t until she parked her car where she’d been standing and sat in the driver’s seat that she achieved the exact copy, minus the main target, of the photograph taken by the killer, complete with the blur caused by the rear-view mirror.

  ***

  ‘What was all that about?’ Sophie was out of her welder’s kit, pouring water into the teapot.

  ‘Messing around, that’s all.’ She couldn’t give the real reason, not yet. It wasn’t Paul, there’s someone else out there, stalking. She’d have to be very sure of herself before telling Sophie a serial killer was going after her husband. ‘If I don’t keep myself busy, I’ll go out of my mind.’ She handed back the phone. ‘Could you email the pictures to me? Just something I want to check on.’

  ‘Of course.’ Sophie raised her cup and held it in front of her lips. ‘It’s all too horrible. And I really… It’s far too late, I know, and it can’t excuse anything, but I really do apologise.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The whole thing. Getting you into this in the first place.’ She put down her cup and suddenly her face screwed up and she burst into tears. ‘I keep on thinking if I hadn’t made those stupid fucking signs, Antoine would still be alive.’

  ‘Sophie.’ Magali rose and stood behind her and put her arms around her. ‘You’re not to beat yourself up, OK? I went along with it, took it the whole way. You’re not to blame for any of this, understand?’

  ***

  When she got back, Commander Marty was by the studio, talking to a colleague. The site was still cordoned off but the forensic team had gone and now he was examining it for himself. He wore the relaxed air of someone who has nothing left to do but tie up a few loose ends. ‘Does this mean anything?’ He produced a small plastic evidence bag containing a halogen bulb. ‘It was found in the victim’s pocket.’

  ‘It’s like what I have in the kitchen.’ The explanation for Antoine’s presence suddenly became apparent. ‘One of them hasn’t been working for a while and I couldn’t get it out. I remember mentioning it to Antoine. He must have come round to remove it to make sure he got the right replacement.’ They went into the kitchen, where a missing bulb confirmed her deduction. That was Antoine. Thinking of her, helping her out unobtrusively. And he saw the graffiti and went outside to look closer. The wrong place. The wrong time. Dead.

  ‘Can I paint it over?’ she asked. The reminder of what had happened was sickeningly oppressive.

  Marty nodded. ‘They’ve taken samples. With a bit of luck we’ll find the cans it came from. Unless he’s thrown them away.’

  Magali felt her knuckles clench. ‘Has he confessed?’

  ‘Not yet. A lot of silence. A lot of mumbling.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Fair bit of time left.’

  ‘He was walking on the hill. Went up along the Mataroc.’

  Marty’s eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead.

  ‘I met him outside his house. That’s what he told me.’ She puckered her lips. ‘His alibi, I suppose.’

  ‘When was this?’ Marty glanced at her sideways as if he suspected a trick.

  ‘About 11.30. I went to complain about the photograph. I intended to speak to his mother, in fact, but I bumped into him instead. His trousers were wet, both legs, up to his knees.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘You wouldn’t get that from a hosepipe. You’d have to actually walk in water to get them wet like that.’

  Marty’s frown was brief, gone almost before it was formed. ‘However he did it they’ll be dry now,’ he said. ‘The sort of evidence that doesn’t stay around for long.’

  ‘If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to show you something.’ Magali fetched her computer, opened her emailbox and downloaded the pictures Sophie had sent. She invited Marty to compare them with those on her camera. ‘This,’ she said, her finger tapping the photocopy, ‘was taken with a phone. Paul’s is ancient. It doesn’t take pictures at all. And this’ – her finger moved to the blur – ‘is the corner of a rear-view mirror. Whoever took it was sitting in a car. Neither Paul nor his mother has one.’

  Marty said nothing for a moment as his gaze passed over the pictures again. Then his head went back as he gave her a sideways look. ‘Yesterday you accuse him, today you go to all this trouble for the opposite. Why?’

  ‘I didn’t accuse him. You asked if I had any enemies. I felt it my duty to answer that Paul was angry with me.’

  ‘You came to the station to complain. You tore him off a strip at his house. What’s happened to make you change your mind?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. But if he goes to trial, it’s only fair that all the available evidence should be known.’

  ‘Indeed. So you go out and play the detective,’ he said, caus
ing her to catch her breath almost audibly. But Bernard Marty appeared not to know how truly he’d spoken. ‘Very good of you. We’ll check it out.’ He got up and went to the window and for a while he said nothing. Then he turned to face her, leaning back against the sink. ‘He admits he lost his temper with you. Even felt like killing you, he said. But he says it only lasted a couple of minutes because you weren’t to blame. And he generally seems to hold you in high esteem. So this momentary lapse, presumably, is due to coming off the anti-depressants.’

  ‘I think we can safely say that.’

  ‘And then he calms down and instead of wanting to kill you, he hatches a plan to send death threats targeting your son. At that point it’s very calculating and cold. But when he’s caught in the act, the violence erupts again and this time he can’t control it. Does that sound a plausible scenario? From a medical point of view?’

  Magali took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you’re his therapist,’ said Marty disapprovingly.

  ‘Precisely. I don’t prescribe drugs and I’m not aware of the effects withdrawal can have. Unpleasant, I’m sure, but you’d have to consult a doctor about that. Paul’s mother told me he actually came off them a while ago but I didn’t notice any significant change in his behaviour, certainly nothing violent until yesterday. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there beneath the surface, just needing something to trigger it.’

  Marty nodded thoughtfully. She couldn’t tell if he was listening to her seriously or if he knew everything already and was testing her capacity to lie. ‘Speaking of evidence,’ he said, ‘this was found just out there, close to the body.’ He conjured up another plastic bag and dangled it in front of her.

  Magali understood that her fiddling about with cameras had been pointless. It might indeed be difficult to explain how Paul had come to be sitting in a car with a smartphone, but explaining why someone other than Paul should drop a piece of string by the body would be more difficult still.