The proposal was greeted with enthusiasm. There was an artist’s supplies shop in the town that Claudine had heard about, and Midou wanted to buy some jeans. After a week spent holed up at home, mother and daughter were keen to get out of the house.
So, early Saturday morning, the three of them set off, agreeing to meet up later for lunch.
After dropping them in the market place, Jacquot followed the road that he and Brunet had taken earlier that week, out of town to Lurs and from there to Cruis. This time the gates of the château were open and Jacquot turned in and drove up between the peeling plane trees. He could have phoned Davide Chabran who, according to Ballarde, had returned home the previous day, to ask his questions but he wanted to meet the eighty-six year old man who had travelled to Metz for the funeral of his nephew’s girlfriend. Of course, since the pair of them had been murdered together, it would have been a simple courtesy to attend both funerals. But Jacquot was equally certain that Marie-Ange must have made an impression on the old man, and he wanted to know more.
Coming out of the trees into a gravelled forecourt, the honeyed limestone walls of the château finally revealed themselves – three floors up to its overhanging pantiled roof, eight windows per floor, with a high round tower at one end. The stone of this tower was patched and flaky with age, its windows smaller and narrower, rustling green ivy reaching up to the tower’s waist as though to support it, tracing itself around the first two of the four ascending windows.
Jacquot parked in the shade and climbed the steps to the front door, but before ringing the bell he turned to take in the view of the Lure hills to one side and a sweep of silvery-green olive groves to the other. It would be a wonderful place to wake up in the morning, thought Jacquot, to stand at a bedroom window and take in such a grand prospect.
‘Oui, Monsieur?’ The voice took him by surprise and he started. He hadn’t yet rung the bell but someone had seen his arrival, presumably the little old lady who stood before him – a wide pleated apron, small waistcoat-like jerkin, chubby arms and what sounded like wood sabots as she led him into the hall, cool, almost chill, after the summer sunshine.
‘If you would wait a moment, I shall see if Monsieur le Comte is available.’
As she waddled away – clack-clunk, clack-clunk over the stone floor – Jacquot caught another sound, soft, familiar, in some distant part of the house, a piano, long plaintive notes, played at a haunting tempo. He recognised it instantly. ‘Summertime’. Porgy and Bess. George Gershwin.
And then, just as quickly, he heard a door open and the volume increase, then die away. It hadn’t been a radio or a record as Jacquot had at first assumed, but someone actually playing. A moment later the old lady was back.
‘If you go on down there, you’ll find him in the music room,’ she told Jacquot briskly, and with that she marched off – clack-clunk, clack-clunk – to some other part of the house.
He did as he was told and as he crossed the hall the piano started up again, somewhere ahead, at the end of a vaulted stone corridor. More Gershwin. Just two or three tuning notes before the Comte, who was surely the one playing, settled into that trilling unmistakable two-finger intro to Rhapsody in Blue, piano substituting for clarinet. The accelerating lightness of Rhapsody after the longeurs of ‘Summertime’ had a celebratory ring, as though the player were in some way pleased by the interruption. The other way round, he would clearly not have been.
‘The devil to play, Chief Inspector, but jolly good exercise for aged fingers like mine,’ said Davide Chabran, turning on his piano stool as Jacquot entered the room. A trim, straight-backed figure, the Comte de Chabran pushed himself up and stumped over to greet his guest. He was brown as a nut, taut and wiry as salted rope, with a wave of white hair rising off his scalp, his eyebrows magnificently curled and his eyes a sharp, seafaring blue. He was wearing slippers so there was no sound on the stone floor, but his voice was given a certain resonance by the vaulted ceiling. ‘When I can’t do that intro, I’ll know I’m on the way out.’
They shook hands, a surprisingly firm grip from an old man, and Jacquot apologised for turning up unannounced. Chabran shrugged the apology away; it wasn’t needed. And in that single movement, hands raised as high as his head, the Comte reminded Jacquot of his old friend and protector, Jean-Pierre Salette, the retired harbour master in Marseilles. The pair of them would have hit it off in an instant – from different social circles, certainly, but two of a kind.
‘Do you like Gershwin?’ asked Chabran, taking Jacquot’s elbow and showing him to a chair on the other side of the piano. Before he could answer, Chabran continued. ‘Died aged thirty-eight, did you know that? Gershwin. Same as Léo. I heard him play once, at a party in Paris. I’d just left the Conservatoire. Not good enough to make a career of it, I’m afraid, so I was on my way to La Rochelle . . . naval college, you know. Like the rest of the family. Very good looking young man was Gershwin. Like me, he had no children. Never married either, though I did.’ Chabran settled himself on the piano stool, crossed his legs, laid his hands in his lap, the thumb of his left stroking the fingernails of his right. ‘His brother Ira was there too, at the party,’ continued the old man, as though describing an event he had attended just the night before. ‘Not as handsome, mind, but very smart.’ Chabran tapped his temple. ‘To write lyrics like his, he had to be, I suppose.’
Then, suddenly, he was back on track, finally answering Jacquot’s question with a sparkle of amusement in his pale eyes.
‘But no, please don’t worry. At my age, any interruption is a good thing. There aren’t enough people around these days. There ought to be more visiting, don’t you think?’ Then he stopped abruptly. ‘But there you are. That’s the world we live in. So what can I do for you? How can I help, Chief Inspector? It is Chief Inspector, isn’t it? Audrette’s a little deaf, I’m afraid. It’s about Léo, isn’t it? And that lovely Marie-Ange. Nearly three weeks now and I simply cannot come to terms with it.’
‘I am very sorry for your loss, Monsieur. I didn’t know your nephew well, but he was a remarkable fellow.’
‘He was that, he was that indeed,’ agreed Chabran, working his lips, tightening his jaw to keep back tears that Jacquot could see were very close. ‘So, where did you meet? How? When? Tell me. I must admit I was not familiar with your name when I saw it in Léo’s address book.’
Jacquot did as he was asked, and ran the old man through the action in the Golfe du Lion the previous November. He made much of Léo’s role in the endeavour: the way he’d skippered his cutter and commanded his crew; the way he’d led from the front; his professionalism and good manners, then his calm under fire, explaining how he had been shot, and how he had stoically endured the pain of the wounds until he could be properly treated.
These recollections brought a beam of pleasure to the old man’s face and he nodded along, clapping his hands with delight when Jacquot told him about the dash of Calva in the wheelhouse coffee, and Léo leaping aboard the ship they’d been stalking.
‘Yes, that’s Léo. Following in the family footsteps. La vie de l’océan. La vie des vagues. I had always hoped for a flag commission, a ship of the line, but there you are. And you’ve got him in one. En effet, you speak of him as though you had known him much longer?’
Jacquot shook his head.
‘Just that one night – a few hours – and only a few minutes the following day, in the hospital. We promised to stay in touch . . . and I’m sure we would have . . . but we never did.’
Chabran waved away the note of regret in Jacquot’s voice.
‘Mais, bien sûr, of course you would. It’s just that when we’re young, time has a nasty habit of tripping us up. There seems so much of it, and then . . . but I’m babbling. And you have questions to ask, I’m sure. So please, do ask them.’ Chabran spread his hands in a go-ahead way, eyes fixed firmly on Jacquot. ‘I am at your disposal, Chief Inspector.’
‘I understand that Léo was a frequent visitor here?’
‘Mais, oui. It was his home. It would have been strange if he had not been.’
‘But given his work commitments, he still came back regularly?’
‘Whenever he could make it. At least once a month. And always for the olive harvest.’
‘And when he visited, he always went for a run?’
‘That’s right. Always in the morning, before it got too hot.’
Jacquot remembered his own climb earlier in the week, how the sun beat down through the trees and blasted off the rock.
‘Did he have a favourite route?’
‘Always the same. Down the drive, towards the village and up through the woods, along the ridge and back down to the road. About twenty kilometres all in. Pretty tough. Last time I tried it, I was in my fifties. Never again. Marie-Ange ran with him a few times, but she told him it was far too tough for her and she’d stick with her yoga.’
Yoga? Jacquot was taken by surprise. He hadn’t known that Marie-Ange practised yoga. He felt a wince of regret; he hadn’t really known her at all. Yet this old man . . .
Through the open door of the music room came the rising and unmistakeable clack-clunk step of Audrette heading in their direction. Chabran consulted his watch.
‘Midday. Exacte. Et voilà,’ said Chabran, looking to the door.
With a stern face Audrette made her entrance carrying a small silver tray with two glasses of milky pastis and a jug of iced water.
‘Messieurs,’ she said, placing the tray on the open lid of the piano. She poured the water for them, handed them their glasses and then withdrew with more clack-clunking.
‘Our father, Léo’s grandfather, used to drink Martinis. Imagine, a Frenchman! And he was very strict about them. The preparation, the measures . . . had to be just right. He would pour in the gin, then take up a bottle of vermouth, just loosen the cap above the cocktail shaker, et voilà . . .’
‘He sounds quite a man.’
‘Oh, he was. And, you know, as Léo grew older, so many times I could see my father in him.’
Jacquot smiled. Lifted his glass.
‘To Léo,’ he said.
‘And Marie-Ange,’ added Chabran with a tight little smile.
The two men sipped their drinks. The pastis was ice cold and the aniseed taste was strong, puckering the insides of Jacquot’s cheeks.
‘You went to her funeral, I believe. In Metz.’
‘That’s correct. In fact, I called you and some other friends of Léo’s from my hotel room, though I didn’t know you were a Chief Inspector back then. I had just come back from her funeral, and it seemed a good time. Something for me to do. A duty. And being a Sunday, as I said . . . somehow appropriate. Also it was two weeks or more since their murders. I was more able to break the news to his friends without breaking down myself.’
‘It was good of you to let me know. And kind also to attend the funeral.’
‘But it was Marie-Ange. How could I not have done?’
Jacquot smiled. He remembered the galvanising effect she’d had on men – all those old codgers in St Bédard almost beside themselves when she took over the Chaberts’ flower shop for the duration of their son’s trial. And even as level-headed and practised a womaniser as Salette, the old Marseilles harbour master who’d worked the trawlers with his father and always kept an eye open for Jacquot . . . even he had been undone by her.
‘She was a remarkable young lady,’ he said, setting his drink on his knee, feeling the iced glass through his jeans.
‘She was indeed. Quite remarkable,’ Chabran replied, holding Jacquot’s eye a moment longer than he needed to. ‘So you knew Mademoiselle Buhl as well?’
Jacquot admitted that he did, that they had met the previous summer.
‘Tell me, Monsieur, did Marie-Ange spend a lot of time here, with Léo?’
‘The first time she came, Léo had just been discharged from hospital. They stayed a couple of days, and then returned to the city.’ Chabran said it as if he couldn’t remember the city’s name, or which city even. ‘But it was plain to see that there were . . . feelings between them. Strong feelings. After that they came up whenever they could, as her job allowed, and after Christmas they were here almost every weekend. Which was extra work for poor Audrette. But a delight for me.’
‘How so?’ asked Jacquot, already knowing the answer, but wanting to hear it from him. To fill in any gaps.
Chabran smiled a far-away smile.
‘I may be an old man, Chief Inspector, but my eyes are still sharp and my memory still fresh.’ He took another sip of his pastis, smacked his lips. ‘By then, you see, I had begun to realise that this was a serious liaison, une vraie affaire de coeur. That Léo had met someone . . . significant. In his time, my nephew brought a number of girlfriends here. I actively encouraged it. There is nothing like a pretty woman in a house like this to bring it to life. But, as I say, Marie-Ange was different. And so was Léo. En effet, Chief Inspector, they were going to marry. He told me just the day before he died. He hadn’t asked her, just wanted to know what I thought.’
Jacquot felt a ripple of regret and sadness. Had Marie-Ange known that? Had Léo actually got round to asking her? Before his run?
‘And what was that, if you don’t mind my asking? What did you think?’ asked Jacquot.
‘As I said, I couldn’t have been more delighted. Marie-Ange, ah, she was . . .’ Chabran cast around for the right word.
‘Formidable?’
‘Oui, that’s it. C’est ça, exacte. Une fille formidable.’
For a moment there was silence as both men remembered the woman who had come so unexpectedly into their lives, and so captivated them.
Chabran broke the silence.
‘What I can’t understand is why? Why could this have happened? To Léo . . . to Marie-Ange. And so far, nothing to explain it. The last time I spoke to the police in Forcalquier, after getting home from Metz, they still had nothing to report. No new developments.’
Jacquot spread his hands, unwilling to tell the old man what he believed. Instead, he asked, ‘Would it be too difficult for you to tell me what happened on the morning of their murders?’
‘Difficult, yes. But not impossible,’ the old man replied, straightening his back. ‘Not if it helps bring to justice whoever did this dreadful thing.’ He took a breath, looked out of the window. ‘It was breakfast-time, maybe eight-thirty. I’d been down to the olives and come back to the house. Marie-Ange had made me coffee, brought it through to the morning room, just along the passageway there, and we were sitting in the sunshine. I was telling her about the olives, how it looked like it was going to be a good harvest and that she should come up for it – with or without Léo. And then, alors, the strangest thing. The colour just . . . drained from her face. Suddenly, just like that. At first I thought, Bon Dieu, she’s having a heart attack. I mean, she was grey. And when I asked if she was okay, it was as if she didn’t hear me. Or even see me.’
Jacquot nodded, knowing now that what he had guessed in the woods had been right, that she had ‘sensed’ something, had ‘felt’ the danger that her lover was in, and gone looking for him. If she hadn’t, she’d still be alive.
Chabran caught the look.
‘She knew things, didn’t she? There was something . . . She knew something had happened.’
‘That’s what it sounds like. You see, Marie-Ange had this . . . she had this . . . gift. Like a kind of psychic thing. She seemed able to tap into things. The past, the present. It’s how we came to know each other, how our paths crossed in the first place.’ Jacquot took a sip of his drink. ‘But do carry on. What happened next?’
Chabran took a breath, turned his head to gaze out of the window.
‘She stood up, almost shaking, said she had to go, something like that, and was gone. I heard her hurry down the passageway, across the hall, and the front door slam. That was it. I never saw her again.’ He fell silent a moment, looked down at his drink. ‘I still hear those footste
ps, you know?’
Somewhere in the house a clock chimed the hour. Jacquot looked at his watch, finished the last of his drink, got to his feet.
‘Eh bien, Monsieur. It was kind of you to see me. And thank you for your time. And, once again, I am so sorry . . .’ He turned, put his empty glass on the tray.
‘Stay for lunch, why don’t you?’ said the old man, getting to his feet, finishing off his own drink. ‘Audrette always has enough . . .’
‘I regret, I cannot. I am meeting a friend in Forcalquier.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Twenty minutes ago. She will not be happy.’
Chabran covered his disappointment with a brave smile that wavered at the edges, either at having had to revisit something so ghastly or at the prospect of another lonely meal.
‘Then you had better hurry, cher Monsieur, and hope the waiters are good-looking enough to keep her entertained, but not too good-looking, eh? Which restaurant, might I ask?’
Jacquot told him.
‘An excellent choice,’ said Chabran, nodding his head. ‘The best in town, if you ask me. Have the trout if it’s on the menu. Madame knows not to mess it around. And please, remember, whenever you are close, do call in. It would be good to see you again.’
‘I shall do that, Monsieur. Thank you.’
37
‘TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG.’
Claudine laid down her paintbrush, one of a set she’d bought in the Forcalquier supplies shop, and took the mug of coffee that Jacquot had brought through from the kitchen. It was Sunday morning and she had started early in her studio – working on one of the largest canvases she’d attempted, a giant watermelon hacked open, spilling juice and seeds, with a peacock stepping past it, all deep reds and greens.
She pulled out a stool and settled herself on it, legs crossed, one heel clipped over the runner, holding the mug between her hands and sipping carefully.
‘You were in such a low mood at lunch yesterday, and you drank far too much. Even Midou noticed.’
‘Was I? Yes, I suppose I was,’ he began, thinking of his talk with Davide Chabran, remembering the sadness he’d felt as he drove back to Forcalquier for lunch – for the old man, so lost now and lonely in that empty house; and for Marie-Ange and Léo too. Such a loss, such a waste.
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