by John Brooke
A promise of help was another scar she would have to live with.
And 1 UNHEARD MESSAGE. Aliette listened to Avi Roig:
Stephanie… Please. I’m sorry, I didn’t do this right. Obviously. I tried. I did… I put almost everything I ever learned into protecting you from these people. All of them. But there are too many…But I will try one more time. Please. Even if he makes it through, just try to keep some distance. For me. One last try for both of us, OK… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk like this, I know you hate it, but… God loves you…even if he doesn’t love me. A plus tard, ma belle. Stay low.
She noted the time of Avi’s message. After her own, but well before the tragic action on the ridge.
·
His van was parked in front, the door was open, but the bistro was Closed. No explanation added. Perhaps she expected that. ‘Avi?’ No one responded to her muted calls. She heard a phone ring, three rings, then a message on the speaker. She recognized the accented French of Roos welcoming the caller and asking them to leave a message, then an even more non-French female voice awkwardly reserving a table for two on the terrace for tomorrow night, a name, a number to confirm, a merci from someone who clearly didn’t follow the local news…
Aliette would not risk walking in unauthorized and uninvited. She went around back. His bike was propped against the storage shed built onto the kitchen. She climbed the wooden stairs and peered inside. His bed, the centrepiece of a simple, spacious room, was neatly made and trim. It did not fit with the dishevelled, disoriented man carrying flowers like they were his last possessions encountered at the hospital. She remembered he was ex-army. Perhaps some automatic sense of duty kicked in each morning regardless of the catastrophes waiting in the world outside. She tapped on another wide-open door. ‘Avi?’ No response. She had a brief flash — Avi Roig slumped on his bar beside a last glass of chilled red wine, blood from a self-inflicted bullet through his forehead in a sticky pool beside it.
…No, she would not risk entering without the proper warrant.
The wind had subsided. The stillness of the early afternoon was palpable.
Descending the stairs, life restarted, sparked by the glittering of the olive leaves in the small grove a hundred or so paces from Avi Roig’s back door. She estimated about thirty trees clumped together on scrubby meadowland just below the place where the primordial rock pushed through the gentle slope and rose sharply to the ridge, the landmark tower, the place where, an hour before, she had been wasting time searching for an ejected, unmarked 9mm shell.
Aliette proceeded slowly. The unkempt grass was soft, almost slippery underfoot. There were subtle blue wildflowers congregating, brilliant scarlet corn poppies here and there preferring to exist alone, the repetitive but not unpleasant song of an unknown bird somewhere along the forest’s edge a stone’s throw away. She stepped into the shade of the olive grove feeling vaguely reluctant, intrusive, nudged by an unsure sense of entering uninvited through the back door of Avi Roig’s tormented life. She walked through patches of sunlight strewn across a latticework of shadow, approaching the man slumped in the large lap of a tree that had split in two a lifetime ago and continued growing. Avi was staring skyward, a bottle cupped in two hands against the curve of his belly. The hiss of the breeze through the tiny leaves was resonating in a seductive summer register. He seemed unaware of her presence.
‘Are you all right?’
His head lolled sideways, his teary eyes met hers. ‘I failed her.’
‘But you gave it one last try.’
Behind the tears, his gaze turned quizzical.
‘We found her phone, Avi.’
He absorbed this, wiping tears with his cuff. ‘You said I could help. I tried. On the bike. In the woods. I looked everywhere. Everywhere we used to go. I used to be good at that kind of thing. But I failed.’
The impulse was to say, So did I. She quashed it.
There was no polite way to put the question. ‘You never made love in the tower?’
He ignored it. ‘It’s a waste of a life. For nothing. Ideals get dirty, they become delusions. It’s a sickness, an epidemic. Like Spanish flu. Stephanie was caught in this wave of illness. Her mother. Guatto and his glorious past. That bastard boy. As if planting bombs will change anything. I tried to do what I could, but what can one man do?’
‘Stephanie went looking for that boy.’ Aliette could hear the impatient edge in her voice. She did not want to hear about Avi Roig’s guilt, much less another political rant. ‘She made her own decisions, Avi… Stephanie McLeod was an informed, intelligent being, a free agent. Not a child.’
‘Of course.’ Tears falling freely, he lifted the bottle and swallowed her rebuke with a little more wine. ‘Take this,’ proferring the bottle. She did. He used the tree as a crutch to help him stand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled ‘…a bit drunk. My emotions, they get the better of me. You want something to eat?’ Gesturing down the hill toward the bistro, a very down-to-earth kind of place. ‘Have whatever you can find…Me, I need to go to bed.’ He stumbled away.
‘Merci.’ She would return when his emotions settled.
· 48 ·
PROGRESS
Sergio came out for the evening. They ate merguez and fresh tomatoes.
They discussed the morning’s test results, now confirmed by the new modelling received from Alain Gleizes late that afternoon. She played the recording found in the phone. She pushed her notion. He pushed back — it was his role to guide her toward unassailable clarity.
She conceded, ‘Yes, possible. Stephanie McLeod was smart enough to do a lot of things. Communications mainly. Finding. Contacting. Arranging for the bombing of trucks and buildings, even Roland Bousquet. All very possible in the abstract. Yes, she was angry enough to do it. But I cannot believe it. Sorry, I just can’t. Listen to her scream at him…’ He listened again, and agreed. She cursed, ‘Queen Bitch Margot took her laptop. Of course she won’t share it.’
‘But that was after Joël Guatto. Everything Margot sees comes after that. You have to focus on before. I agree, Guatto knew something. He would not have been down there otherwise. And so did someone else. Stephanie McLeod? Maybe. Probably. But who benefits from the murder of Joël Guatto? Who benefits from killing Roland Bousquet? Who is happy to see Prince framed for everything?’
She listened, forcing herself to get in step with his reasonable rhythm.
‘So maybe now you know who? You have to show why. To show Margot.’
‘To show everyone!’
‘Margot first. She has to want to share whatever’s on that laptop. She has to want to share everything she has. You’re almost ready to go back to Margot.’
That brought a cloud. ‘I’ll never be ready to go back to the likes of her.’
Her judge disagreed. He talked her through it.
And later, he could feel the tense resentment in her back, trace the unhappy failure lines along the corners of her mouth. But he could detect definite signs of her spirit returning. Sergio Regarri, humble but attentive student of female codes and signalling, noted the forthright manner in which the chief inspector undid his trousers, the buttons on his shirt, how she practically bounced and stifled a cry when he touched her. How she reached back and grasped her pillow, silently commanding him to continue. Which he did till she reached up and pulled him down and climbed on him and settled there — it was the focus he detected in her eyes. He could feel part of her exquisite motion was shaped by anger. He did not resent it; he knew he was a cipher — it was a role he was willing to play. He knew the better part of her needy groans were centred in the spirit that attracted, a spirit finding its way back to its proper source.
Magistrate Regarri held on to her hips, he pushed back, they built on that momentum as she rode him toward oblivion. Then fitful sleep. Which gradually eased into languorous snoring.
He watched her, knowin
g Margot Tessier would remain a challenge, but equally sure that Aliette Nouvelle would rise to it. She was special. And on the mend.
· 49 ·
7TH FLOOR
‘I never wanted to kill anyone,’ Noëlli Guatto pleaded meekly. ‘He told me infrastructure… He promised.’ She was propped on a bank of pillows, alert but fragile, seriously lost inside an acute moral crisis as described by Dr. Xavier Crevier — a sister unable to square her sense of obligation to her slain brother with the pain that came crashing in after watching her papa’s old friend Roland disappear in a messy spray of flesh and bone.
Yes, that would be a tricky one.
Noëlli’s whispery responses were directed at Inspector Dardé (Officer Henri), standing tall at the foot of the bed, gazing benignly down at the psychologically battered woman. It seemed to help. Aliette was seated by the window. Dr. Crevier sat on the right side of his patient’s bed, a comforting hand laid over hers. His disembodied phone voice was misleading; he was a gnomish man, huddled into himself, completely bald, deeply tanned. He had the flattest grey eyes. They were closed at the moment. He might have been sleeping. Fine, as long as he stayed out of it.
Noëlli was convinced the man called Prince had arranged for a bomb in the pocket of Roland Bousquet. Not that she could offer anything substantive by way of proof. But she believed it. And she was the one who’d sheltered him and made it possible. ‘Just a scummy con artist…my life is over.’ Noëlli felt nothing but shame for allowing herself to be seduced into his world.
She admitted to placing the bomb on the truck transporting wine from Spain.
‘He called — on Joël’s portable. I had it …It was during the reception. I had it right there on the piano. I recognized his voice. He told me what he wanted.’
‘He called to recruit you? Just like that?’ In the midst of the funeral, no less. It instantly raised a cop’s primordial doubt. Could Noëlli still be lying?
A nod, eyes widening to a fey look. ‘He’s a smart man,’ murmured Noëlli, unaware of her body’s signals. ‘Insinuating… He expressed his condolences but soon got to my anger. I have a lot of anger. It’s something we’ve been working on…’ A glance toward her dozing doctor. ‘He made me aware that perhaps there was a way I could do something to honour Joël. He gave me a number. I saw him the next day. Him and his two friends. They were at an ugly hotel near the station. They needed my car. But I could do more if I really believed in the cause.’
‘And you did.’
‘Because Joël did.’
The inspector contemplated the devastated woman. She’d seen many; Noëlli Guatto was not too original. Had she pushed her weak brother? She decided that if Noëlli needed to hide this central thing, that was her problem. She had her doctor; it would be Noëlli’s problem to live with, like her father lived with his tragedy. No, it didn’t matter if Prince had recruited Noëlli last week, or back in April. She asked, ‘Was Stephanie at the hotel?’
‘No.’
Good. ‘And she wasn’t there that day — the day of the attacks?’
‘I didn’t see her.’
‘Then you took him home and hid him.’
‘He said he had unfinished business. I took him back, kept him dry and fed.’
‘Did he talk to you about Stephanie McLeod?’
‘He told me he needed to get Stephanie McLeod away from the area.’
‘Why?’
‘Said it was too risky leaving her here — with all she knew.’
‘That’s all — a strategic necessity?’
Noëlli was vague. ‘I gathered they had ended their relationship. I gathered that was why she was not involved in the operation.’
Despite herself, Aliette was touched. ‘The operation. Did it feel like an operation, Noëlli?’
‘It did. I played a pivotal role.’ Noëlli Guatto’s dulled eyes brightened. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve done in years.’ There were the tentative beginnings of a dreamy smile.
‘Did you see a gun or hear talk of guns in the time you were with them?’
‘He talked about bombs, not guns. But I gave him a gun. Just an old one. There are lots around the house and Papa never uses them. It seemed like he should have it just in case.’
‘And he took it with him.’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You parted badly then.’
‘Friday, after…after Roland, I was in shock. I could not understand why they had to do that. It was not what I signed up for…Papa’s friend! I confronted him. I screamed at him. He denied it, but I was too pent-up. I probably hit him… He ran… God, I am so completely stupid!’
Noëlli’s snuffling filled the soporific ambience of the muted space.
Xavier Crevier’s lizard eyes flickered briefly.
Aliette waited for Noëlli to regroup. Noëlli’s secure room on the seventh floor had a view of the new stadium, spectacularly large and modern under its elegant seashell-shaped canopy. Roland Bousquet had controlled the contracts and earned far more than a little extra on the side, according to Stephanie McLeod. From her chair, the inspector caught glimpses of a blue and red team on a green carpet, rushing around en groupe, preparing for a match.
Noëlli sucked water through a straw. She was ready to continue.
It went slowly but the inspector got the story. Or most of it. It meant going back to the bistro, the donated election office in back so Stephanie McLeod could do two jobs at once. Joël Guatto had fallen hard for his bright aide-de-camp. ‘Joël said she was his inspiration.’ Noëlli sniffed. ‘I hated her for that.’ But Stephanie McLeod stopped loving Joël because what was the point of a politician who lacked the guts to be the leader he imagined himself to be? ‘She insisted he take on Roland and he just couldn’t do it. She was right to push him in that direction, but Joël couldn’t bear to do anything that might hurt Papa. She knew it was a lost cause.’ When Prince began appearing in the bistro, Joël could not ignore her infatuation with the Brit. Noëlli had spent many hours at the bistro that spring and seen it — with a woman’s eyes. ‘Joël could not fathom why she would go anywhere near this ugly foreigner. Same old story: stupid man could not see past the sex.’ When Noëlli guided her defeated brother out of the bistro on election night she thought she would never see Prince again. Or Stephanie McLeod. But Joël continued to go back to Vieussan. ‘There was no more election, no more office. Joël went for no reason at all — to network with these growers who could pass as friends of common cause. Said he was building his network for next time. At first, I figured he was still in love with her.’
‘And then Joël followed her down to the beach.’
‘No. He didn’t follow her. He…he was invited.’
The inspector’s breath caught slightly. She had to ask. ‘By Stephanie?’
‘No…’ voice rising in a raspy whine. ‘By him. Prince,’ said Noëlli.
Aliette breathed… All right, she would believe that. If it was the truth, she had guessed wrong about the man walking on the beach. But she was still at the same place. She waited as Noëlli, conflicted gaze fixed on the unambiguous white ceiling, appeared to arrive at a decision.
Speaking to the ceiling, Noëlli said, ‘Somewhere between election night and the day he died, my brother became a part of it.’
‘Why was Joël Guatto on the beach that day?’
‘He was thinking of helping to blow up some wine infrastructure.’
‘Joël told you this?’
‘No. But it was obvious.’ Noëlli Guatto moved her head slightly on her pillow and found Aliette’s eyes. ‘Joël went back up there because of Prince, not her. It took me a while to understand. He started coming home with these comments about Prince’s ideas…and hints. Joël started dropping hints to me: The ugly foreigner was an interesting guy. One night Joël told me Prince might be a man who could help right the balance. I di
dn’t know quite what he was telling me. It did not sound like Joël. I… I was afraid to make him spell it out.’
‘You’re saying Joël knew what Prince was up to?’
‘How he got it across, I’ve no idea. But he must have.’
This was easy to say, with both of them dead. It was Noëlli’s moral crisis — maybe it was the truth. ‘The other day you suggested Joël’s only real cause was your father,’ Aliette said.
‘I was not very good that day,’ Noëlli murmured.
Aliette could not disagree. It seemed there were many days when Noëlli was not very good.
‘My father’s cause. Maybe that’s what I meant. Papa’s cause was more or less the same as Prince’s. I mean essentially, you see? That’s how I was seeing it when he called me. When I joined them. I was in a void. I needed to connect with Joël.’ Noëlli Guatto lay there, wiping away another trickle of wounded tears. Aliette passed her the tissue box and gave her another minute.
They resumed. ‘And so: the Monday Joël was shot? The beach.’
‘Joël must have gone down there to see Prince.’
‘Did he tell you he was going to?’
‘I didn’t know where Prince was staying and I had no idea Joël was going there. I only knew he was on the verge of something — with them. The night before, Joël said, so calm, This could give Papa a lift.’
‘And you understood what he meant.’
‘Not in so many words. But more or less. Twins understand each other. I knew he could not resist a chance to perpetuate the family legend.’ Noëlli emitted a long, fateful sigh — very quiet, like an old woman’s very last breath. And whispered her sad refrain. ‘My life is over.’
