by John Brooke
No.
‘Not Charles Stuart?’ The awful woman smiled a condescending smile.
No.
‘Feel stupid?’
Yes.
‘God save us from stupid idealists. Eh, Stephanie?’
‘Why are you such a bitch? Are you really allowed to do this to people?’
‘Yes, I am — because I don’t want anything else to be blown up by angry children.’ The woman’s eyes softened. ‘Why was Joël Guatto going to see Prince?’
‘I…I don’t know. Jealous? … Joël was jealous of Prince and me.’
‘Come on, Stephanie, don’t stop now.’
‘But I don’t. I did not say anything I was not supposed to. Especially not to Joël. I had lost all regard for Joël Guatto. Somehow he made his own link to Prince. I mean, Prince’s business… I thought Prince was probably using him. Joël was…stupid. But they did not kill Joël.’
‘Stephanie, you don’t understand.’ This came with a tired sigh. ‘I don’t care who killed Joël Guatto. That is someone else’s problem. My problem is Prince. How Guatto fits with him.’
‘No, I don’t understand. And I just don’t know!’
It took another hour to re-explain what she did know about Joël’s hopes and dreams…
And to insist, ‘But he had no plans. That’s what you have to understand! Joël was too afraid to have a plan…’ She honestly could not see Joël being much use to the Friends. She held firm to this (if firm is the right word for a girl whose heart and mind were feeling like so much jelly).
Until two men appeared at the office door and the woman said, ‘That will be all, Stephanie.’
Stephanie glanced at the two men and felt the end of everything looming. ‘So now you’re going to stuff me in a sleeping bag and put me in a helicopter and drop me into the sea.’
The woman met it head on. ‘At Valras beach. At lunch. We’ll see if anyone notices.’
‘I hate you.’
‘And I hate you. You are the enemy of France and I hate you. That’s my job, my dear.’
‘Where’s my laptop?’
‘In the shop.’
‘May I have the magazines back?’
‘No. We may need them.’
· 15 ·
MORNING AFTER THE FIRST TIME
‘Bonjour! ...I was just thinking about you.’
Indeed. ‘Any word on Stephanie McLeod?’ One way to get past morning-after-the-first-time insecurity is to get straight to business.
‘They released her — around eight this morning.’
‘One good thing.’
‘You’d have to think so.’
‘And was your friend Margot kind enough to add anything to that?’
A bit snide, that? Luckily, he was a gracious man and let it flow by. ‘We didn’t speak. Up all night, gone home to bed was the best I could get from them.’
‘You will call her later?’
He promised. Though they both knew Margot Tessier was not obliged to tell the likes of Sergio Regarri anything about her investigation into the presence of anarchist bombers and how, or even if, it was related to the murder of Joël Guatto.
‘I will talk to Stephanie today.’
‘Good. And thank you. For yesterday. It was — ’
‘It was wonderful. We’ll talk about it later. I have to work. Ciao.’
She paused a beat to let him protest. He didn’t. He understood. She rang off.
Chief Inspector Nouvelle sat in the office of her three-room commissariat, munching brioche, staring out at a man trimming the hedge around the war memorial. We’ll talk about it later. About Aliette and Sergio? Over a delayed but enjoyable Sunday meal they had discussed the DST agent’s supposed offer of partnership. As they shared a second bottle of wine, Aliette shared her fear of being used. DST was never averse to playing all sides against each other for its own purposes. Sergio had helped her reason it out: They had to take Tessier’s offer at face value. As it stood, Stephanie McLeod was a pivotal link to two problems: a murdered politician and a gang of Euro anarchists at large in the south of France. They had to consider that two problems might well turn out to be one. If Margot Tessier was being straight, she had far more resources than any PJ chief inspector could hope to access. If Margot’s ‘sharing’ was a sham, they would soon know it, if not her ulterior motive. In a word (his word), they had to be realistic.
Aliette was encouraged by Sergio’s reasoning. While she still did not mention the listening post discovered in the McLeod telephone, she had opened a third bottle of wine. They’d pursued it from several angles and positions, each more interesting and enjoyable than the one before. He proved tireless in his attention to details and gestures of good faith, if not allegiance.
It was almost dawn when he left.
She had broken the bottom-line rule she’d set herself: no more love affairs with colleagues (no matter how attractive). Allegiance went deeper than one night. There was still time to pull back.
But why? He wore nice clothes. He was fun. He was on her side.
Stop it! Can we just think straight here, please? Get to work!
She picked up the phone. Again, she left the same message at three different numbers:
‘Stephanie…Inspector Nouvelle at Saint-Brin. When you get home, please stay there.’
She called Henri Dardé to her office and instructed him to arrange another visit to Domaine Guatto to speak with the victim’s troubled twin. Henri was uncomfortable with the order. ‘Are you sure this is right?’ So Henri was not so oblivious after all: He knew Noëlli Guatto had been looking at him in a certain way.
‘It’s business and they’re expecting us, Inspector. Noëlli will be delighted to see you. She wants to talk about it and I’m counting on you to get past the barriers. Push her on Joël’s reasons for going to the beach. She supported her brother’s campaign till the bitter end. If he was in contact with these anarchists, she had to know about it… And give this to her mother.’
She slid a book across her desktop. A novel? ‘…What is this?’
‘A Brazilian detective… Remember, Henri, no weepy bullshit allowed. Keep her focused.’
Junior Inspector Dardé was trailing a large sigh as he left the room.
She summoned Magui Barthès. She would interview the accountant who did the books for the regional co-operatives association. ‘We’re interested in the smallest of the small growers, the ones most vulnerable to this Spanish wine invasion. We want temperament and politics, not just numbers — the angry ones who might not want to wait for cooler heads to fix the problem. He’ll know. Make him tell you… Make a list and we’ll start calling them in. I’m going up to Vieussan.’
· 16 ·
TRAPPED BY BLOOD?
Aliette worried about how to approach Stephanie McLeod. Margot Tessier would know far more than she did by now. Aliette needed to know what she knew. But after a session with the likes of Margot, the girl’s confidence would be in shreds, her trust level non-existent. The idea of ‘sharing’ with the DST effectively debased the word. No matter how she dealt with Stephanie, it would amount to that.
Arriving at the village, this worry was transmuted to frustration. ‘Stephanie?’
The dusty old Renault was parked on la place, the door in Rue Bel Air was not locked. But Stephanie was not home. Again… She had been there at some point. Despite the mess the DST search had left, this was easily deduced from a pile of soiled clothes on the bedroom floor, that day’s birth control pill no longer in its plastic slot, toothbrush freshly used, half a fresh baguette on the kitchen counter. And confirmed by the neighbour’s eternally suspicious nod.
Aliette drove back down the hill. Stephanie was not at the bistro either. A sullen Avi Roig validated Madame Fortuno’s confirmation. Stephanie must have come in while he was in town doing his Mon
day shopping — her cell phone, left in its usual place in the drawer behind the bar when she’d gone up the hill to bathe and change before being arrested, was gone.
‘…unless it was another bastard cop took it. I’ve tried calling it, but she’s not answering.’
‘You expecting her?’
‘Not till Wednesday morning at eleven. Till then her life is not my problem. To hell with her.’ Scratching numbers in the ledger in front of him, he muttered, ‘Yesterday was pure hell.’
‘You seem to have survived.’
‘Barely, no thanks to the likes of you.’
‘That wasn’t me.’
‘Your friends, then.’
‘Nothing to do with me.’
A twisted sneer. ‘Police are police.’
‘Not them. DST.’ She needed him to separate the thing from her. She needed trust.
‘The secret service?’ The way he stared into the mid-distance of the empty room, blinking through his anger and disgust, it seemed Avi Roig’s festering emotions were about to spill over. ‘I can explain, monsieur. But first I need to talk to — ’
‘This is a restaurant. No one’s a gangster. No one’s a terrorist!’ He swore in a language she could not identify. Hebrew? Dutch? The sentiment was clear.
Avi Roig suggested she try the river. She left him to stew.
·
Aliette Nouvelle was no big fan of rivers. The last time she’d been for a swim in a river she almost died. The dirty, freezing Rhine, by the docks at Basel, bullets flying. But that was in another life. She paused by the massive stone piling in the shadow of the bridge and watched the Orb swirl calmly past. She removed her sandals and dipped a toe. It was colder than the sea.
There were sandy nooks in both directions, a path through the shrubs along the bank. She came upon a mother and three kids enjoying a small beach fifty metres downstream. ‘Seen Stephanie?’ No. About a kilometre farther along she scrambled up a large rock and stood there like a solitary bird. The wind in the leaves, the eddying waters, it was peaceful, very private.
But no sign of Stephanie McLeod.
It was more difficult finding the way north along the bank, and with the same result.
The inspector returned to the bistro, weary, legs scratched — something had bitten her ankle and left a nasty red mark that was starting to itch — hungry, annoyed. Avi Roig was still working at his bookkeeping in the meagre light. He had a glass of red on the go.
‘No luck...’ she announced, climbing onto a bar stool, hoping for some sympathy, maybe a bite to eat. He barely nodded. Aliette observed him, hunched and recalcitrant. Was civility really so difficult? She tried to be pleasant. ‘Will you tell me what happened yesterday?’
Roig abruptly closed his ledger. Producing a chilled bottle from beneath the bar, he poured himself more wine. Gulped it. Aliette would have accepted a glass, but it was not offered. ‘She was staying here — since Thursday. Trying to get quit of that smarmy boyfriend.’
Her Prince. ‘Was he harassing her?’
‘He was calling. She felt better here. She got herself set up for our Sunday service — which is my main bit of business for the week, I might add — then went up to change her clothes. I’m doing my final prep in the kitchen, suddenly there’s this bastard screaming at me, demanding Stephanie McLeod, making it sound like the country’s on the verge of chaos. He left, I called up to warn her and got her machine. So I ran up… There was another one, dragging her away like a dog. I try to intervene, he pulls a gun on me. The whole street’s watching…’ Avi Roig threw up his arms, disgusted. ‘Whatever it was, it was unnecessary and totally uncivilized.’
Aliette could not disagree.
‘Obviously it has to do with that poor fool Guatto. But what is the big emergency?’
She replied, ‘What do you know about this Prince person?’
‘Nothing. Only that he’s an arrogant, insinuating little twerp.’ Frustration boiling over, Roig pounded his bar. ‘She is not a criminal! No threat to anyone… DST! This is just wrong.’
She noted a frustration far deeper than her own. ‘How do you fit in Stephanie’s life, Avi?’
It sent him back inside himself. ‘I’m her boss…her friend when she’s in the mood.’
‘I think it’s more than that. She’s staying here, yes?’
‘Only if she feels the need.’
‘But you feel a responsibility.’
‘She’s alone. She’s smart but she’s impulsive — has these beliefs. Look what it gets her.’
‘So she needs you.’
He cast her an ugly look. There was hurt there too. He reopened his ledger. Made an entry. Then another. Sipped some wine. He could ignore the police.
When she gently asked if she might have something to eat, Avi Roig glared — then pulled himself up and went to his kitchen. He returned with a sandwich: Rare beef, shavings of a tangy farmer’s cheese, a touch of hot mustard, fresh baguette. Excellent. It came with a glass of beer and a plate of olives. ‘From my grove…cure them myself. A bit of a side business.’
She sipped Stella Artois from a glass. The ex-soldier’s face was permanently long. But despite himself, he needed to talk. ‘So, what did you do in the Israeli army?’
His eyes widened a tad, a reaction immediately buffered by a brusque shake of his head. ‘Nothing to be proud of — just things that needed to be done.’
‘No war stories?’
‘It’s all classified.’
Aliette gave up on friendly small talk. ‘What’s wrong, Avi?’
‘What’s wrong? I’m trying to run a business. The police are terrifying my waitress. I need her. Yesterday I was run ragged. I’m not made for that…heart almost popped out of my mouth.’
‘Stephanie McLeod has got herself in the middle of something very serious.’
Avi Roig repeated the facts as he saw it. ‘She is a child, a clever child who thinks she can change the world. This Guatto thing has scared some sense into her. If you people could leave her alone long enough for her to get back to a normal life…’ He sipped wine, rueful for her prospects.
‘Maybe it’s in her blood. Both her parents were — ’
Avi put his glass down hard. ‘You cannot be trapped by your blood!’
‘Sounds like you know all about it.’
He shook his head, attempting to withdraw from the blunt force of his own reactions. ‘Her father would come down for a drink. He’d talk. Nice sort of guy, sort of sad, more like bored if you ask me, but he never seemed to let it go — the war against the greedy system. He’d sit up there in his dark little room writing his screeds against the evils of abstract money. Never sold a word of it, at least according to Stephanie.’ Avi stole one of her olives and popped it into his mouth. Aliette moved the plate toward him. He took another… ‘But I heard all about it. And her mother: what a messed-up piece of work. Couldn’t let go of her failed revolution in Canada. Not even when she was dying. Stephanie carried it around, her mother’s wasted, angry life, her father’s futile crusade. This twisted sense of responsibility to carry it on. I tried to help her see it.’
‘She’s an idealist.’ Aliette had sensed this when she’d talked with Stephanie on Thursday. ‘Will she ever choose normal?’ If not a Joël Guatto, then what — an anarchist bomber?
Avi Roig responded, and with a touch of menace, ‘I know what idealism can do.’
It was little wonder Stephanie McLeod took pains to distance herself from this man, boss and former lover notwithstanding. He had his own anger. Alors, traces of a second picture forming. What had Avi failed at? Or more to the point — who or what had failed him? She asked, ‘Why are you here, Avi?’ Before he could reply, she warned, ‘Please don’t tell me about excellent business opportunities. What I mean is, Why are you here and not there?’
‘In the land of milk an
d honey?’ He sniffed once. ‘Because I’m a self-hating Jew.’
She was caught short for any reply — except, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
He sniffed again, equal parts contempt and misery. ‘It means I don’t think the way you’re meant to think — therefore, I hate myself.’
‘Sorry, Avi, not sure what you’re talking about, but it doesn’t sound very logical.’
‘It’s not meant to be logical. It’s political spin. Emotional spin. Emotional poison!’
She smiled, offering sympathy. ‘Love gone bad, monsieur?’
‘Definitely — but nothing to do with kisses.’
‘And so?’
‘I’m talking about politicians and rabbis and other great guardians of our chosen race.’
‘Telling you how to think?’
Avi Roig gulped wine. His pained eyes were shining as he enlightened the French cop, ‘If you’re not Jewish and you criticize Israel, you are anti-Semitic. If you are Jewish and you criticize, you’re a traitor to your blood and you’re a self-hating Jew. That was me.’
‘But that’s pretty absurd, no?’
‘God’s politics, Inspector. Totally absurd. Unlivable — in the grips of some of the most idealistic, stubborn, blinkered…idiots!...you could ever meet. The Zionist project is beautiful on paper, but the mechanics are getting uglier by the minute. No God with any self-respect would ever preside over such a mess as these people insist on creating. I was saying the wrong things, right to their faces. They told me I was self-hating. That got to me. I walked away from the Promised Land.’ He drained his glass and slammed it down again. ‘Voilà.’
Aliette took another olive before they disappeared. ‘It’s a new one on me, monsieur.’ The last Jew she’d had regular contact with was Inspector Richard Roig, one of the hard boys on the PJ detachment in the city up north where she had formerly served. Ricky rarely made reference to the fact, much less to Israel. ‘He didn’t really give a damn about Israel.’
‘He would be a self-hating Jew.’ Quite evident to distant cousin Avi.
