And what else? he grumbled. Her supermarket shopping lists maybe?
After three days, she wrote again. After all, he wouldn’t have made the promise about the purse just to get rid of her. Or would he? His sighs and mutterings over dinner had given the impression he was dealing with a particularly irksome mosquito. All she got this time was the brusque reply: Nothing on her computer. Y.B.
She pondered the meaning of this. Lucie’s whole computer had been wiped clean? Her emails had been deleted? Or there was simply no mention of the purse? Whatever it meant, Balland was clearly too busy running after Roma to bother with her ridiculous theory.
She tricked herself back to security mode: Balland was surely right. Unlike Enzo and Roncet, the Terrals had been burgled. And the killer, if there was one, didn’t go after couples anyway, he targeted lone individuals.
Then, escaping through some unsealed vent in her mind, her anxiety bubbled up again and she phoned him.
‘I thought the message was obvious,’ he said. ‘She didn’t delete her emails. But there’s nothing about a purse.’
‘Well… No, it wasn’t that obvious. You mean she didn’t delete any? She kept them all?’
‘There’s stuff going back a couple of years. Train tickets, party invitations, all sorts.’
‘And there’s nothing about an account with top-vente-achat? Or another site like that?’
‘No.’
‘OK. But if the order was through the website itself, it wouldn’t actually appear in her emails. Which is why I need the list of her online activity.’
‘That’s computer forensics. I don’t have the resources here and I need a good reason to ask.’
‘Isn’t solving a murder good enough?’
She heard him muttering to himself. ‘I’ll see what I can do. They won’t be too happy when it turns out she got it in a shop.’
‘A damaged purse? Who’d go into a shop for a purse like that?’
‘There were two purses, weren’t there? So she bought the one, got the other thrown in. Maybe thought she’d repair it. Then she put it in a drawer and forgot about it.’
Was stubbornness, she wondered, the quality most required in order to be a gendarme? Did they take a special exam? You believe the world is flat. Provide an instant answer to every objection put to you.
She’d stopped keeping track of the score. She just knew she was stuck on nil. ‘And your own theory?’ she asked. ‘Any progress?’
‘Plenty. Got a lad the right size, in the area at the time. Admitting nothing of course, but I wouldn’t expect him to at this stage.’
‘The area? You mean the village itself? Rondas?’
‘Spotted not far away. Of course he’s got a dozen mates who swear blind he was with them all evening. In three or four places at once, to go by them.’
***
Another day in security mode. The Terrals were killed by a burglar, of course they were. She imagined him in the bedroom, rummaging through the drawers. The sound of the car, the front door opening. Voices. He freezes. Tiptoes to the door. Listens. Water running in the kitchen, a saucepan on the hotplate. He looks around, sees the knife in the baby’s room. He doesn’t intend to use it but he picks it up anyway – it reassures him. Walks downstairs, making no sound, hoping to escape unnoticed. At the bottom he peers to the left, sees the woman peeling carrots. To his right, the man is sitting at the table, reading. Both have their backs towards him but there’s no way he can get past the man without being seen. He takes a couple of steps, the man lets out a cry, rises from his chair. They stare at each other in bewilderment. The man moves towards him – he sidesteps, grabs the man from behind, sticks the knife in his neck. The woman has heard, she’s coming out – he flattens himself against the wall by the kitchen. The woman sees her husband, screams – he has to stop her. It’s over in a matter of seconds.
But why, before he went back to his car with the loot, did he switch off the oven and the hotplate? And why, if the Terrals had just got back, was Lucie’s purse on the dining-room table empty?
***
‘What on earth has that got to do with it?’
Not hostility but a wail of incomprehension: why would a woman she’d never heard of call her out of the blue to ask where her daughter got her purse?
For a moment, Magali was about to apologise and ring off. What right did she have to go stoking the flames of a mother’s grief because of a saucepan of carrots? Gently, though, she persisted, and when she later called Balland, it wasn’t with a sense of triumph but foreboding that she was able to inform him: Lucie didn’t buy the purse, Michel got it for her birthday, five months previously, off the Internet. And when it arrived, they’d been astounded to see that a corner was missing.
Balland listened with his usual blend: nine parts scepticism, one part detached curiosity. She pictured him the other end, playing with his cigarette, vaguely wondering why he’d ever allowed her to get involved in the first place. At the end he left a long pause, punctuated by a few soft grunts, like someone slowly drifting off to sleep. Then all of a sudden he snapped awake: ‘Right. Thank you. We’ll look into it.’ And with that, she supposed, he lit the Gauloise, took a long drag and returned to more urgent matters.
Chapter 24
On behalf of my client, Mme Carole Borde, née Pessini, I hereby inform you that she has instructed me to lodge a complaint against you with the appropriate authorities for the usurpation of the title of psychotherapist.
‘Does it mean I’ll go to jail?’
‘I’ll visit you. Bring you oranges.’
‘No, seriously. Does it?’
‘I doubt it. I don’t know that particular legislation. But it does sound as if you might be well advised to get a lawyer.’
The letter had arrived that morning. The way Antoine’s sister had looked at her at the funeral, it wasn’t a huge surprise but it shook her all the same. A few months hence, she’d be standing in court, failing miserably to convince the judge that really she wasn’t deceitful, it was just a bit of fun. Fun, Madame Rousseau? I find you extraordinarily flippant. As a result of your bit of fun, the plaintiff’s brother is dead.
‘I don’t think I’ll bother. I don’t know any lawyers. Xavier knows lawyers, not me.’
‘So ask him to recommend one. A good one.’ Vincent put the letter down and rolled towards her. ‘It could make all the difference.’
She didn’t answer. She stared at the ceiling as he kissed her neck and her breasts. She almost laughed out loud, picturing Xavier’s expression. A lawyer? You think you can be as daft as you like and then ask me to find a lawyer?
No, the endless lectures would be too wearisome to bear. And why, in any case, have someone defend her when she was guilty as charged? A serial usurper. The sister was right. A spell in jail would be utterly deserved. Penance for Antoine’s death.
She continued to stare at the ceiling as Vincent worked his way towards her tummy.
***
He’d phoned after lunch to say he was on his way and now here he was, at half past five, in her bed. Six days had passed since they’d said goodbye in Montpellier. Not very long in her opinion but an age, apparently, in his. Initially she was relieved. If he hadn’t called, she’d still be wondering how long to leave it and what to say when she did. Now, though, she realised that leaving it up to him solved nothing.
Proactively, she swung herself out of bed. ‘A walk,’ she said to her startled lover. ‘Coming?’ For want of anything better, she took him round the landmarks of her life: the running track, Antoine’s house, Daveney’s house, the Spar. They popped inside to buy some coriander and she introduced him to Monsieur Retsky, who pumped his hand energetically. A fine woman, he said of Magali, a lucky man you are.
Not to Luc and Sophie’s though. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
What was missing? She hadn’t expected to be sighing and swooning as she had, once upon a time, with Xavier. But shouldn’t there at least be a lightness, a little balloon of
joy, lifting her spirits? Was Vincent in love? She glanced across to observe his gait, spot the spring in his step. But it wasn’t immediately obvious, he certainly wasn’t bouncing along the pavement. A gendarme, presumably, refrains from skipping even when he’s in love. On the other hand, he did appear to be walking a little taller than when she first saw him in Padignac.
She took him into the studio. She didn’t particularly want to – showing him her body was one thing, her paintings were quite another. But he asked, so she did. She only showed him the Cézanne imitations, not the ones of Enzo’s house, but even so, it was more of her life revealed than she was comfortable with.
She hadn’t been in since Antoine died. Vincent said she painted remarkably well but she knew very well what she did and he wasn’t telling the truth. In the neon light, the colours were garish and sinister.
Then they had pumpkin soup. Antoine’s birthday gift to her, defrosted, blended, seasoned. She hadn’t intended to eat the pumpkin at all, thinking she couldn’t bring herself to, she’d have to throw it away. But when Vincent called, she said, ‘Fine, I’ll make some pumpkin soup,’ so now here she was, sharing the puréed orange flesh with her lover. A cannibalistic ritual.
It was over cheese that Vincent said, ‘I’ve got news.’ His lips upturned in a little smirk of satisfaction. ‘You know we were waiting for the DNA results on Brigitte’s bag and pullover? They came through this morning. An exact fit with Enzo’s.’
‘Oh.’ Her spoon stopped midway to her mouth. ‘So that means –’
‘We’ve got her. Enough to indict her anyway.’ He was having trouble containing his delight. ‘All over bar the shouting.’
‘Well… that’s good.’ It was like in Mulhouse when he’d called to say he’d blown Brigitte’s alibi: the room was suddenly devoid of colour, the shapes of things became blurred.
‘You don’t look happy.’
‘I’m very happy,’ she said automatically. ‘It means there’s nothing… I can relax. There’s no one going after Luc after all. Nor me.’
‘Well, exactly. Magali.’ He rose and came to stand behind her, hands on her shoulders. ‘You don’t look happy. You’re all tensed up.’
‘I know, I’m just…’ What? Crazy? In a world of her own, with special rules that suited her: where she could go chasing psychopaths but the psychopaths didn’t kill for real because that would be too scary. It was just a film inside her head and now Vincent was turning up the lights and saying the projection was over.
‘You can’t get this out of your mind, can you?’ He massaged her shoulders. ‘It’s as if you’ve invented this character and convinced yourself he exists.’
She turned her head to the side. ‘That’s him over there.’
‘What?’
‘On the piano.’
‘I thought it was your son.’ He went over and studied it. ‘How did you… You just made this up?’
‘No. Charlotte told me. She described him.’
‘Charlotte?’
‘She met him. He came to the house pretending he wanted to buy it. But it doesn’t matter.’ She removed the portrait from his hands and put it in the fire. ‘There. He doesn’t exist.’
Vincent watched her, shaking his head in wonderment. A bit too much revealed for his liking, a glimpse of something disturbing. ‘Well, I brought what you asked for, anyway,’ he said with a sigh. He took out a folder from his briefcase and put it on the table. ‘Roncet’s emails and a printout of Enzo Perle’s Internet activity.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’ She started clearing the table. ‘Have you read them?’
‘Glanced through them. Nothing much there that I can see. But maybe you’ll find plenty.’ He tried to make it a joke but it came across as sarcastic.
‘I’ll see,’ she said with a hint of petulance. ‘Balland’s getting me Michel Terral’s as well.’
‘Indeed?’ He considered it for a moment. ‘You get on well with him, do you?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. He’s a bit prickly, I find.’ She couldn’t help adding, ‘But he does listen to me, up to a point.’
The message wasn’t lost on Vincent, who chuckled a little scornfully. ‘Hedging his bets, I’d say.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He needs a result, hasn’t got one. Says to himself, maybe there’s a one per cent chance you’re right. The least he can do is listen. As long as he hasn’t nailed anyone himself, it makes sense.’
From which she inferred that as far as Enzo was concerned, the chance she was right was nil. ‘I suppose so. He’s got a theory about theories. How we can’t help clinging to our own.’ She managed a smile. ‘Which is right, of course. You must think I’m incredibly stubborn.’
He laughed, more joyfully this time. ‘Thorough, shall we say. Definitely a quality.’
‘You’re too kind,’ she said with mock emphasis. ‘So you won’t mind if I continue looking, then?’
‘Not at all. I have to tell you, though...’ His lips were twisted in a show of displeasure.
‘What?’
‘If you do find anything about Perle, it won’t incriminate anyone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The computer was tampered with. I had it put under wraps straightaway but then Alexis – one of my men – thought he’d be clever and see what was in it. Which means that nothing we get from it now is usable in court. But still,’ he added with a weary shrug, ‘I don’t think that’s where the answer lies anyway, as you know. I only brought the data along because you asked.’
Complicity. That was the bit that was missing. She should be on his side, they should be uncorking champagne. Instead she was pursuing her own perverse line of reasoning. We’ve even got DNA evidence and you still won’t accept it? What more do you want?
That’s what a wife would do, share in the triumphs and disasters. Did Rebecca do that? Maybe that’s why it took him a whole twelve months to recover.
But she wasn’t Rebecca, so instead of lightness and bubbles, they went back to bed and had sex, and from the volume of his grunt of release, he definitely found it pleasurable. And that, all things considered, satisfied her too. Somewhat.
At 5.30 next morning he was up, getting dressed, kissing her goodbye. Softly closing the bedroom door so as not to disturb her sleep. Then he’d be in the car, headlights swallowing the motorway, humming gently to himself before turning off to climb up to Padignac and be in his office by nine.
She didn’t go back to sleep. She fetched a pen and paper and went back to bed and wrote to him. Five different letters, five explanations of why it couldn’t continue. Each one wrong or badly expressed. Each ending up in the bin.
Later in the morning, Bernard Marty appeared at her door. Accepting a cup of coffee, he came across for the first time as vaguely sympathetic to her plight. Having been indicted, he explained, Daveney was now being examined in a psychiatric ward. The purpose was twofold: to ascertain his state of mind at the time of the murder and to advise whether he could be released back into the community.
‘Released?’ Compared to the phantom killer of her imagination, Paul was positively cuddly, but still the prospect was alarming. ‘Isn’t that risky? If he killed once, what’s to stop him doing it again?’
‘Not necessarily,’ he said in answer to the first question. ‘He’s back on his medication now, very subdued, apparently. Besides, it might just be something to do with you.’ He cast a curious glance in her direction. ‘With the specific circumstances of your relationship.’
‘Oh, well, that’s reassuring.’ She gave a light, incredulous laugh. ‘I’m the only one he wants to kill so you can let him out.’
If he detected humour, he didn’t acknowledge it. ‘Mental cases are always difficult to deal with. It’s not much help remanding them in custody for months.’
‘Shouldn’t he be sectioned, though? If he’s going to go round killing people.’
Marty eyed her coolly. ‘I thought you thought he was innocent.’
‘He’s been indicted. Who am I to argue?’ Magali was shocked to hear herself say it. She’d set out to help Paul, now she was pushing to have him put in a straitjacket.
Marty let out a puff of annoyance, any sympathy he had on arriving dispelled by her inconstancy. ‘If he’s a danger to himself or to others, appropriate measures will be taken,’ he said in his best bureaucratic voice. ‘I gather he’s very contrite. Deeply upset to be in your bad books, as it were. I’m sure the doctors will take everything into account before reaching a decision. And it will be a while before they do.’ He was silent for a moment, looking up at a point on the ceiling. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Madame Rousseau, are you in the habit of, uh, sleeping with your clients?’
She didn’t understand. Had he seen Vincent slip out before dawn? A mental case with a gendarme fetish. Takes all sorts, I suppose.
‘My clients?’ she said warily.
‘When they searched the house, the forensic team found a couple of hairs on your pillow.’ His expression was a blend of reprimand and pity. ‘They belong to Paul Daveney.’
Chapter 25
As requested. Y.B. The message, with its customary terseness, had a file attached containing Michel Terral’s Internet activity stretching back eight months prior to his death. Now she had all three. Roncet, Terral and Perle. But she didn’t look at any of them.
What was the point? Vincent was swooping in on his culprit, and Balland was circling ever closer to his. As for Benamrouche, he was already locked away. They were wrong, all of them, of course. The whole world was wrong, but it wasn’t her business, was it? Her business was lies and madness.
She was neither worried nor depressed. She thought she might set fire to the post office, just for the hell of it, before running through the streets of Sentabour naked. At least she’d be behaving the way they thought she should. After that, they could burn her at the stake and everyone would be happy.
One Green Bottle (Magali Rousseau mystery series Book 1) Page 18
