Walls of a Mind

by John Brooke

  Aliette pushed past it. ‘But Prince didn’t kill your brother.’

  Noëlli looked inward. Finding nothing, she whimpered, ‘I don’t know. But why would he?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ said Aliette. And why would he kill Roland Bousquet? But she did not ask Noëlli to consider that. ‘How did they connect? Stephanie? Did she play matchmaker?’

  ‘No. She ignored Joël. I saw that, plain as day. Serious girl, once she left him, she didn’t lead him on. Other fish to fry. Prince would’ve done that by himself. One little word, then the next, till my poor dumb brother finally got it.’

  ‘Do you hate her now, Noëlli?’

  ‘No. She’s not a bad person. She’s just a girl. It’s me. I hate everyone.’ She looked to her therapist for approval on this admission. Pathetically so.

  Xavier Crevier patted her hand.

  Aliette took a minute to peruse her notes. The thread. It was the phone calls. ‘Did Joël call the café looking for Stephanie that day?’

  ‘I have no idea. I know I did.’

  ‘But it’s not on the report from the — ’ Then she saw it. ‘You called from his phone?’

  ‘I went next door. Before lunch. But he’d gone. I was nervous. I knew was he close to committing to Prince. Scared? It seemed like I was the one who’d… Oh, merde, it doesn’t matter. It all comes back to Papa, his big life, his big mistake. It wears a person out.’ A soft imploring look toward the inspector. ‘Doctor Crevier says there’s no way to resolve that.’

  Aliette responded with a nod, neither yes nor no.

  Noëlli said, ‘I knew Joël was going to do it — whatever it was — and I was suddenly very scared. I had three numbers. I called them all, looking for him… I was too late.’

  ‘Did you speak with Avi Roig?’

  ‘No. Just left a message for Joël if he happened to turn up. Same at her place.’

  ‘Do you remember what you told him?’

  There was a pause. Then Noëlli let it out. ‘Of course I remember. I said, Jo, I’m thinking it’s not a good day to visit with Prince. Please call me. But he never did.’

  And that message was erased. The inspector stared at her notes, drifting, too aware of the vertiginous change occurring in that muffled room, drifting away from the stress of being at odds with a professional rival to this feeling of calm complicity with the sad woman in the bed. Aliette could have climbed into bed beside Noëlli Guatto. It was the soft feeling of being done.

  Almost. She began to collect her things. ‘‘Thank you, Noëlli… Feel better?’

  ‘Perhaps a little.’

  ‘You’ll get there.’ If she could admit her power over her weak brother. It would take time.

  Officer Henri promised to return. Dr. Crevier signalled, bonne idée.

  · 50 ·

  2ND FLOOR

  After leaving Noëlli’s room on the seventh floor, the inspector sent Henri Dardé to carry on with his other cases and proceeded to the ICU on the second floor. Although the head nurse was pleased to report that things were looking markedly better on the inside of the patient’s skull, there was no noticeable change in Stephanie McLeod where she lay motionless amid machines, the intravenous bag, totemic in its central presence, connected to her arm. At least there were flowers now, lots of them, so precious when your walls are industrial green, and a good collection of cards aligned along the window sill and arranged on the bedside table. Most were politely serious, from a rack in the hospital lobby, the better ones were homemade with crayons by the village kids. The inspector made a professional show of browsing, noting names, their wishes for a speedy return to health. But it was purely personal. It did a cop’s heart good to know Stephanie had people looking out for her.

  The nurse was coolly rueful. ‘That sad man who’s her boss was in again this morning. This one neighbour arrives a few minutes later. Nasty old thing. Insisted he had no right to be visiting her, started yelling at him when he left.’

  ‘She’s a special one.’

  ‘It’s horrible how some people make a claim and no one else is allowed. Absurd, n’est-ce pas?’

  The inspector did not disagree. Nor would she elaborate. She moved the chair close to the bed.

  Realizing she would not be privy to the village politics surrounding her (briefly) famous patient, the nurse quietly advised, ‘Just a few minutes,’ and moved on.

  Left alone, Aliette sat and had a silent chat with Stephanie. It had to do with apologizing for her mistakes. In the silence, she imagined Stephanie McLeod insisting it was her fault too. And who could argue?

  Being in a room with a ruined Stephanie was not the same as sitting with an empty Noëlli. The comfy warmth of confession was displaced. There was moral force in the helpless presence of a naïve and angry younger woman laid so low. One latched on to it. One had to. The job could leave you cold. Because it had to, or you’d die. Or turn into Margot Tessier? Big paradox — it was always a thin line.

  Aliette contemplated another devastated child lingering in the cool care of machines, chemicals, her broken body’s mute sense of survival. She knew that in trying to protect the likes of Stephanie McLeod she’d been trying to protect something in herself. It was a professional grey area perpetually in need of fogging out. The compassion factor? The word got lost in the balance between immutable rules of law and the abiding power of human interaction, the instinct for fairness, the anger that pricked and often swelled close to explosion, swelled instinctually, so hard to control when the rage for fairness was yet again exposed as a childish belief.

  Aliette found herself comparing victims. The dead (Joël Guatto) left people like herself talking at each other more than with each other. In many ways, the dead helped the living define the lines and rules. While a victim like Stephanie McLeod made those same people (some) feel like fools. Stephanie was their victim: A victim of best intentions. Of professional guile. And pride. Thus the most difficult sort of victim. You couldn’t (shouldn’t!) really say a word in the presence of a Stephanie because every word would be self-damning.

  Thus these silent chats in service of understanding, reconciling, atoning. Aliette imagined Avi Roig sitting in this same chair. She suspected Avi was feeling the same, but worse.

  ·

  Making sure the door was closed, the nurses elsewhere, she dared to touch the patient’s arm. So deathly cool and still. Aliette promised Stephanie the thing was almost done. And that all would be well? She had to stop making promises. ‘À plus tard, ma belle. Be strong.’

  She allowed herself to imagine Stephanie McLeod promising she would.

  · 51 ·

  SHARING WITH MARGOT

  Chief Inspector Nouvelle inched her way back through frustrating midday traffic to the unmarked building in Rue Bonsi. Agent Tessier was alone at her desk. She seemed slightly amused to welcome her, as if perfectly aware of the score. Aliette’s reserve of pride was dangerously depleted. Margot could easily and thoughtlessly drain it empty.

  ‘What can we do for you today, Inspector?’ She did not offer her guest a seat.

  ‘Looking for some honesty, madame. Transparency? The tiniest bit of professional respect.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. I take it you are here because of the girl. You don’t care about that boy.’

  True. Prince was a body yet to be identified, a caricature known only by his unattractive voice. But Aliette did not want to acknowledge Margot’s point. Any point to Margot felt like another loss. She asked, ‘When did you start on this? I mean when exactly?’

  Margot pondered it. ‘We’ve been chasing traces of these Friends for almost three years. As for the exact date? I suppose there’s a directive with a date somewhere, but — ’

  ‘Yes, Margot, you’re right!’ A theatrical breath, a point to Margot, ‘…we are talking about Stephanie McLeod.’ Satisfied, madame?

  The spook just
shrugged morosely. ‘Sunday. The day we met — at the market? I’m sure you recall. That was my first and only day with Stephanie McLeod…Well, night.’

  ‘But you had been into her house before.’

  ‘No… We picked up the credit card scam Saturday morning, we grabbed two of them at the beach. We looked at their phones. That gave us his — or the one he had going then. His calls on that account gave us her number…We went that evening, watched her working, waited for him to show up. He didn’t. We brought her in next day. Voilà.’ Margot’s eyes darted round the empty office. Another shrug. ‘Yes, OK, the evening before, my people did a tour of the premises.’

  Aliette stood in front of Margot Tessier. ‘Why does nothing ever quite add up with you?’

  She crinkled her nose. ‘Ever? We’ve known each other…two weeks?

  ‘Stephanie McLeod was on your radar well before that.’

  The DST agent considered this with due reserve before conceding, ‘We knew they were communicating with someone in this region. We knew Prince was coming. We did not know where or to whom. These kids are very smart — at least on some levels.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Margot sighed — bored? ‘It’s the nature of the beast, Inspector. No one believes me.’

  ‘You have to speak to me!’ Hands pressed on the table. But she did resist smacking it.

  ‘Inspector… Our monitoring picked up the communication betweens these Friends people and that poor girl. We started to look at it. Obviously. We were made aware of her links to your murder case. I let you know the day we went to talk to her. Transparency?’

  ‘You had been into her house long before that. At least a week.’

  ‘Where do you get these strange ideas?’

  ‘Oh, Margot…’ Aliette took the evidence bag from her case and laid it on the desk. ‘I went in there two days after Joël Guatto was killed and found this. When did you install it? And why!’

  ‘This?’ Removing the old listening device. ‘I thought it was yours. I didn’t understand why you would use such an outmoded thing. To fit that phone? But I assumed it was yours, in support of your murder investigation. Which, at your insistence, was not my problem.’ Bemused, she examined the long-gone technology. ‘We didn’t bother with that phone. Those kids don’t. Strictly cell phones now. And this is not French. We would never…’ Shrugging away the landline listening post, she offered it back to Aliette. ‘There’s no need for such a relic.’ Then, suddenly spinning in her chair... ‘Speaking of things that don’t add up,’ she opened a file cabinet drawer. ‘I suppose you may as well have this back.’ A book. ‘Found with his things. Belongs to you, apparently.’ She flipped the cover open to reveal Aliette’s signature. ‘Any ideas? What, a book club?’ She slid the Brazilian detective novel across the desk.

  ‘I could kill you,’ muttered a well-shamed cop as she threw it into her case.

  ‘I doubt that. But I could kill you. We’re way ahead of you people on that sort of thing.’

  The inspector struggled to control her rage. ‘Who else is part of this, Margot?’

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘There was a fifth shooter, the only one who could have possibly hit the man called Prince.’

  She indicated negative. ‘I sent all my information to Sergio. I know nothing about — ’

  ‘Bullshit, Margot! Bullshit. You know about everything.’

  ‘Inspector…Aliette?’ Margot Tessier remained perfectly in control. ‘Some of these matters do not concern you. They just don’t. Neither of us can change that. Beyond that fact, I made my decisions in front of everyone involved. There is no fifth shooter. And I do not appreciate this sort of hysterical accusa — ’

  ‘Avi Roig! Who is he?’

  ‘The cook at the bistro?’

  A result for Joël Guatto, a resolution for the wasted life of Stephanie McLeod — these were more important than one cop’s blasted pride. Aliette felt compelled to share. Margot Tessier had the means to answer that question. She needed to know, urgently. Swallowing her humiliation, she placed Stephanie McLeod’s found cell phone on the desk. She sat without being asked.

  Margot listened. ‘Interesting.’ On her word of honour, she promised to make a call and have something for Aliette before the end of the day.

  · 52 ·

  NEW INFORMATION

  Aliette spent the afternoon downtown in a spare office at Hôtel de Police. She worked on her report. She had tea, stared at the phone. As four she called the DST office. Agent Tessier was in meetings. She worked till five, tried again. Agent Tessier had left for the day, gone for the weekend.

  Sorry, they were not authorized to provide a private number.

  Merde!... Word of honour? DST? Again Margot Tessier fell short.

  The building was emptying fast on a Friday evening. She sprinted down the hall to the corner office. Nabil Zidane was just packing up. He did not question her request for Margot’s home address. He even drew a map — complicated, especially at this time of day. He gave her his home number in case she got herself lost and wished her, ‘Bon courage.’

  Merci, Nabi…have a nice weekend with your family.

  The address was on the northwest side of the hellishly confusing city. Braving Friday rush hour, Aliette headed off into stop-and-go insanity, a world filled with fumes and noise and very rude people. She had never been good at directions, and there were three stops to check Nabi’s map. It was past six when the frazzled inspector extracted herself from behind the wheel, stretched, breathed, adjusted clingy clothes and got her bearings. The neighbourhood was on the lowland that formed the banks of the final stretch of the Orb. She looked up at the cathedral, imperiously huge on the promontory, bathed in evening sun.

  The rusty iron filigree gate opened to an unkempt courtyard. Two cars were parked in front of a stucco villa. A husband? Boyfriend? The climbing vines were getting thick, needing wire. An untended bed of irises was collapsing under its own weight. Unknown white flowers were drowning in rampant weeds. Fallen laurel rose leaves were rotting in a clump where the wind had blown them into a nook along the garden wall. The paint on the shutters, the same military green as the gate, wanted refreshing. A mess of scratch marks in the bottom corner of the front door indicated the presence of a dog. The dulcet tones of a Claude Nougaro ballad flowed from the window directly above. Aliette rapped firmly three times with the dirty brass knocker — a chintzy Jeanne D’Arc figurehead. No dog barked. Perhaps one dog had been enough for Margot.

  A minute passed, Nougaro was still crooning. She grasped Jeanne D’Arc and tried again.

  The music was reduced. Margot’s irritated voice boomed, ‘What?’

  Five steps in reverse revealed Agent Tessier standing in the French window, a silky kimono wrapped against her body. It was an electric green, with silvery figures. ‘I need that information you promised me.’

  ‘Inspector, I have a guest.’ On cue, a man appeared beside Margot, glass of wine in one hand, a bath towel cinched rather carelessly around his trim gut with the other.

  Aliette held her ground. ‘I need it, Margot. I need it now.’

  ‘Oh mon dieu!’ Margot Tessier fled the window. The man smiled amiably, raised his glass. The front door was flung open. Her kimono fell loose for an instant. Margot’s fiftyish breasts were still proud, maybe too proud; had she had work done? ‘What the hell is so important?’

  ‘That’s a lovely robe,’ Aliette said. Cranes. The silver things were cranes.

  ‘How did you get this address?’

  A cop could not reveal her source. She felt no remorse or sympathy.

  ‘Very unprofessional.’ Margot sniffed. ‘Totally unprofessional.’

  ‘If you dealt with the rest of the world in a more professional manner, I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Problems?’ Margot’s man had come down to join the fu
n. He had to be ten years her junior.

  ‘Police business, monsieur. Urgent business…’ offering her hand. ‘Aliette Nouvelle.’

  In taking it, he almost lost his towel, having to manage both his modesty and his glass of red with the other. Sorting himself out, he bowed ‘Enchanté. Charles Fournier, Captain. Customs — at Sète. We were just having a drink to the success of our joint operation.’

  ‘Margot was mentioning that.’

  ‘…In the works for six months. Tomorrow we go live.’

  ‘That’ll do, Charles.’

  He laughed. ‘She really doesn’t look like the enemy, Margot… Come, join us for a glass.’

  Aliette declined as she stepped inside. ‘If you could spare Agent Tessier for five minutes, I’ll be gone. I have no wish to intrude on your celebration.’

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘Enough!’ Margot threw the door shut behind her. She gestured toward the rear area, as she might to the still unaccounted-for dog. ‘If you could do the oysters?’

  ‘Of course…Nice to meet you.’ With a bow, Captain Fournier spun and marched away.

  Vexed, Margot Tessier turned her attention to the matter at hand. ‘I honestly don’t know where they ever find people like you.’

  Aliette refused to react. ‘I need that information sheet. I know you can get it and quicker than anyone else. I need you to and I expect you to. And not tomorrow. You promised, Margot.’

  She pointed. ‘In there!’ Holding her geisha gown clapsed tight, she trotted up the stairs.

  The salon was nothing special — dark leather furniture on a bare tile floor around a glass-topped coffee table in front of an old télé and a bookcase packed with pocket books. Aliette perused. Detectives. Hundreds of them, mostly Americans. Not a sign of dour neurotics from Sweden, much less a philosophizing, compulsive walker down in Rio de Janeiro. What did that say about Margot?