Walls of a Mind

by John Brooke

  Five minutes later, she smelled the lady behind her, silent on the tile flooring, but still heavily redolent from her pre-supper romp. Proffering an envelope.

  ‘Here. Now, please…’ moving toward the door, ‘I am off duty.’

  A plain white standard envelope with a name scribbled on it. ‘Who is…?’

  ‘Antonin. My smart tech boy?’

  Ah, yes. Aliette opened the envelope. A single page with a single paragraph.

  ‘The man at the door is Roger. Show him that. Antonin will give you the file.’

  ‘Merci.’ She headed for the door.

  Margot followed. ‘Do me a favour and be careful. These people know their stuff.’

  Aliette was wondering what stuff Margot was referring to when there was a cry of pain and a curse from the kitchen. ‘Putain! These things are impossible.’ The sound of an oyster knife clattering against a wall. Captain Fournier appeared, waving a bloodied thumb. ‘First aid?’

  ‘Above the fridge,’ advised Margot. ‘Imbécile!’ she muttered, seeing the inspector out. ‘Oysters. You’d think of all the men I would meet, he would know how to do it.’

  The Captain from the port at Sète. Yes, you’d think he would.

  At the end of another thirty minutes of impossible Friday night traffic, Margot’s note did the job. Before leaving a polite but hovering Antonin, she pulled the folder and briefly scanned it.

  She was stunned.

  ·

  Leaving her car in Rue Bonsi, Aliette followed a klatsch of tourists past the courthouse to Place Albigeois, the small park on the promontory in front of the cathedral. While the tourists lined the railing, enjoying the spectacular view across the valley, she sat down on a park bench and studied the new information. She rehearsed her logic. It had to be irrefutable.

  Then she called her judge. He was home. He’d love to see her. She would be there soon.

  In fact Sergio Regarri’s home was a hundred steps away, on the corner of the park.

  ‘How did you ever get this?’ Beautiful! It was her first visit to her new lover’s lair. He hadn’t lied about it being handy to work. Not much of anything from the street — just a door and a number, inside it was a renovated marvel, the master stroke being a skylight and mezzanine opening the upper area to share light with the space below. And from the kitchen, the same magnificent view to the mountains that enchanted tourists in the park. Aliette gazed through the twilight at the Femme Allongée, magical and resplendent under a sky shining mauve and orange.

  ‘My mother. Been in the family for years. I bought it from her and had it pulled apart.’ Like Agent Tessier, Judge Regarri wore a bathrobe, though less exotic. Terrycloth. He’d had a shower after a Friday evening bike sprint along the canal to Agde and back.

  He perused the file. She sipped the offered beer and re-immersed herself in the endless view.

  Her judge agreed that the information explained a lot.

  He warned that without a search — a successful search — the proprietor of Bistro Les Oliviers would remain a merely circumstantial person of interest. ‘In France, at any rate.’

  ‘Will the Proc get nervous?’ Referring to her source. Legal shortcuts on the part of the judicial police could have unwanted political effects. ‘Could blow up. In Paris, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t think it will be a worry,’ Sergio assured her. ‘He’s ambitious. He’ll see himself as a leverage point between Paris and Tel Aviv. Knowing him, the only thing he’ll be worried about will be a future quid pro quo from them.’ Meaning Israel. ‘He’ll angle to keep that for himself — in the bank, as it were. But that’ll be his problem, not yours.’

  ‘Still,’ Aliette mulled it. ‘I don’t understand how she could get all this so fast.’

  ‘And you’ll never know, so no point fretting, mon amie. Just be glad she’s sharing,’ he advised, opening a beer for himself, pulling cheese and some sausage from his fridge, a baguette from the basket, finding a bottle of wine. ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘Less. Much less. And a date, maybe?’ There was no sign of dates or correspondence on any of the items in the package handed over by Agent Tessier’s smart techie.

  ‘B’eh, a phone call, if you know the right number. She would.’

  ‘Even so. Things go through machines that put dates and the time of sending.’

  Again, another disconcerting gap between Margot and the facts.

  ‘It’s another world. You know that… Come, no more work till tomorrow. The view is even better from my bed.’ They would go to le Palais together to get a warrant after breakfast.

  The view was definitely better without any clothes on.

  And the inspector was more relaxed, more subtle than the night before. But no less a wonder to the arms and eyes of Sergio Regarri. She knew this, of course. Men are most transparent. It was her way of expressing gratitude for his forebearance, his allegiance above all.

  · 53 ·

  AVI... OR AVI?

  A cloud cover stretched across the valley like an old sweater that’s lost its shape. They looked out at grey matted clumps veined with glimpses of milky sky behind. Distinctly cool, close to rain. The beach would be deserted. She would stop at home for warmer clothes.

  He loaned her a jacket for the walk to the courthouse.

  The young substitute procureur doing weekend duty was intrigued by the double-edged information presented by Magistrate Regarri on behalf of Chief Inspector Nouvelle. Intrigued enough to risk a Saturday morning call to her boss for advice on the language best suited for the warrant.

  They waited together in the well-appointed anteroom, not saying much. The Proc and his Sub spoke for quite a while. Although she heard it mentioned twice from behind the partially closed door, Aliette would never know how the name Margot Tessier figured in the conversation.

  Finally Sergio was called back in. Then they went down the hall to his own bright office.

  By ten, Aliette had the paperwork required to enter and search the domicile and place of business of Avigdor Roig. She called Henri Dardé’s portable — sorry to cut his usual Saturday bike ride short. Please get home and into work clothes. He would call Magui. She wanted a full team, a precaution based on the supplied information. Meet at Saint-Brin at 11:30, no excuses, don’t be late.

  Sergio walked her to the car. ‘I want to hear all about it tonight.’

  She kissed her judge. ‘Bring me a wine I haven’t tried,’ she commanded, and sped away in her silver-blue cabriolet.

  ·

  It was closing in on noon when the three cops pulled up at Bistro Les Oliviers.

  ‘Bonjour,’ proffering the warrant, ‘I trust your emotions are back in balance.’

  He stared, sullen, dishevelled, smelling of wine. He moved to shut the door.

  Henri leaned against it. Avi ignored him, gaze fixed on Aliette. He took a full five minutes picking through the legalese before thrusting the paper back at her. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Whatever we can find.’

  ‘How can this possibly help anything now?’

  ‘Please.’

  He stood aside, mouth twisting in frustration. Henri went up to the apartment. When Avi tried to follow, she touched his arm. ‘Sorry, you stay down here with me.’ She sent Magui to search the kitchen and storage area. For firearms, ordnance, materials with which to build explosives, whatever they could find. A high-end sniper’s rifle would be perfect.

  Aliette sat at what was becoming her regular place by the end of the bar. Her reluctant host resumed his habitual place behind it. He made a brief show of ignoring the police in favour of his bookkeeping, but the pressure of her silence was too much. Slamming his ledger closed, he hissed, ‘There is nothing to find!’

  Aliette smiled the sad, official smile. ‘I’ve reason to believe there might well be.’

  ‘Y
ou disappoint me, Inspector.’ He certainly looked it, slumped and scowling. ‘I guess I got you wrong. My fault. Just police, after all. Just more of the same useless police.’

  ‘My job is mostly about disappointment, monsieur. Even when we succeed, it’s never like placing a lovely dish of crème brûlée in front of our client’s happy nose.’

  He sneered at the analogy.

  She added, ‘But I was never here to please you.’

  ‘You were here to protect my friend. And you failed!’ He pounded the bar.

  ‘So did you… Lieutenant Louk. So did you. You failed tragically, I fear.’

  That set him back. He stared through the dim light. Sputtered, ‘You’ll find nothing.’

  Inspector Magui Barthès had heard his outburst and glanced in. ‘Ça va?’

  ‘Fine, fine… Anything?’

  Magui indicated there was nothing in the kitchen on first pass. ‘I’ll try the back.’

  Aliette produced the folder from her case, pulled out a passport-sized photo and placed it on the bar. ‘I found this.’ The photo showed the same lean face but deeply sun-browned, and the same wavy hair, well-trimmed. The hair made the difference between then and now. ‘Lieutenant Avrum Louk. I don’t know where you went and what you did, but I know you were highly trained in the art of eliminating enemies. Israel was very proud of you and you have medals to prove it. But then you went and killed one of your own — some settler on a hill.’

  The hard stare held. ‘Just another sweaty YY kippot sruggot fool.’

  ‘YY kippot...what?’

  ‘Fanatics. Ultra-right, ultra-crazy, ultra-mean. They think the rest of us are fakes. They want to take away my citizenship because I don’t think right. Delirious. To see the way they play the politicians is to weep.’ He gazed at the ceiling, intoning, ‘The earth is a gift of God to the Jewish people. We received it to accomplish Torah…The beautiful Zionist dream is being co-opted, Inspector.’ His tired, watery eyes brightened with conviction. ‘I hate them. I do.’

  She could not resist noting, ‘Sounding slightly bigoted there, Lieutenant?’

  He resented the notion. ‘It’s my people, my homeland, I’ll bloody well be as nasty as I feel!’

  Aliette replaced the telling photograph in the file. ‘So you did it for Israel.’

  Avi smiled bleakly. ‘I did it because I love olive trees.’

  Avrum Louk? Avigdor Roig? A man’s identity hangs from his name. Aliette Nouvelle was having a problem relabelling this particular man. Whoever he was, his was a smile of confession — she knew one when she saw it. She reflected it back, encouraging him, waiting for the story.

  He seemed stuck, darkly lost between his dim bar and the regretted promised land.

  She nudged him forward. ‘Are you one of these special forces people? What do they call it?’

  ‘Shin Bet. Sometimes. When they needed someone like me, I’d be seconded… But no, I’m a soldier. We’d gone in to Nablus to silence an especially loud and uncouth minor politico. Their fanatics are just as destructive as ours. But you don’t just drive in and knock on the guy’s door. You go overland, walking, bring a donkey, a veiled woman. It was during the harvest. You know how many people depend on the olive harvest, Inspector? We passed a place where the settlers had just shot a man in the leg because he was picking olives too close to their shacks, one of these ridiculous shantytowns promised by God. I had to watch a gang of them out cutting down olive trees. We kept moving, because we had a job to do. And we did it. We eliminated the politico, and got out quickly and quietly. On the way back, I was in a mood. Our target was dangerous, the job necessary, but he had four kids — that’ll put you in a mood. We passed another hillside settlement where another absurd, arrogant man was going through another beautiful olive grove with his front-end loader, methodically and righteously ripping up row upon row of another man’s life. I had watched men like him for too long. That one got to me.’ He paused to take his bottle of red from the cooler under the bar and pour himself a glass. He tasted it. ‘I had a real land-clearing tool strapped under the donkey’s blanket. I used it to send him to God, no qualms at all. I truly believe that God thinks a man like him is a retrogressive ass.’ He drank again. ‘But I had to leave my home.’

  She said, ‘I would guess the same tool you used to clear away Joël Guatto?’

  He shook his head, quietly defiant. ‘Can you prove that?’

  ‘Monsieur…Avi,’ hovering in the strange gap between Roig and Louk, and vexed at how people will resist the inevitable, ‘even if I never find the weapon or the stuff you used to blow up Roland Bousquet, I have this.’ Patting the envelope containing proof of his identity, if not his soul. ‘There’s a price for the damage you caused. I mean here in France. But maybe it will be paid in Israel. They want you too. I may not prove murder here, but I will do my bit to see you’re extradited.’ She returned to the sad smile. ‘With fair and due process, of course.’

  He shook his head. ‘I won’t go back there.’

  Suddenly there was a handgun pointing at her.

  She stayed calm. It was not the first time she had stared down the barrel of a gun. ‘And that would be the gun you used to shoot the boy.’ It looked like a late model Jericho 491 semi-automatic. ‘You didn’t kill him, by the way — not strictly speaking.’

  Trembling, he brought the weapon closer to her face. ‘You think I don’t know what I’ve done?’ He breathed hard, fighting tears. ‘No, this is not the gun. This is a good gun. That was not. The right gun, the boy, as you call him, would be dead, you wouldn’t be here because no one would care. And she would be safe. Stephanie.’ He was trembling with grief.

  Aliette held steady. ‘You had the right gun for Joël Guatto — that was a perfect shot.’

  ‘Joël Guatto is better off dead. Like that holy-minded prick plowing up olive trees. Those kinds of people are not good at living in the world as it is, Inspector. Everything they do is a cry to be removed from the agony of reality.’

  ‘Are you admitting you killed Joël Guatto?’

  ‘I am commenting on a feeble dreamer who was bent on causing a lot of trouble. And it would have dragged my friend straight into the middle of it.’

  ‘It happened anyway, most tragically. Didn’t it?’

  He was growing exasperated with the discussion. Wiping a sleeve across a teary cheek, he almost smiled in an apologetic sort of way. ‘Hands clasped in front. Please.’

  ‘It’s all right, I have no gun, Avi… Avi? ...Sorry, it’s like I’m seeing double.’

  ‘Avi was a friend of mine. Killed protecting the good people who plow up olive trees.’

  He kept the gun trained, she raised her hands. ‘I assume you had her codes and tapped into her cell and her laptop whenever you pleased. I gather that’s another one of your skills.’

  A sniff, a shrug. ‘She needed monitoring. Stephanie grew up with idealist fools. When she got angry at the corrupt world, she turned to an idealist fool to solve the problem. Then the next idealist fool after him. Bad influences, Inspector. Bad decisions follow — yes?’

  ‘I heard you’d been keeping an eye out for a while.’

  ‘From that despicable anti-Semitic hag? Our two-faced mayor? Lord, the next place I live will be the hugest, greyest city I can find…’ He gulped wine.

  ‘But the bug you put in the phone at the house — who were you trying to kid?’

  ·

  There was a moment when his frustration with her relentless poking peaked. His eyes levelled, cold behind the damp emotion, intimating in no uncertain terms that he could kill her without a second thought. In that moment the inspector experienced real fear. She felt her heart freeze, preparing. Perhaps it was all he wanted. A reaction, a result. It’s the same with a perfect crème brûlée — you don’t need to say a word. It’s there in the eyes. Avi saw her fear and was somehow satisfied
that she knew him. In a blink, he deflated. She knew he wouldn’t kill her.

  ·

  ‘It fit the phone,’ he allowed. ‘Guatto used that phone a lot.’

  ‘But you just left it for anyone to find. Why? Why leave it — after the beach?’

  Gun steady on her face, he poured himself a next glass of red and drank. ‘A strategic choice,’ he allowed. ‘I thought about removing it. I knew Stephanie would be an obvious person of interest. I knew you would find it. I realized it could lead exactly where I wanted you to be looking. To Bousquet. Or to people he was working for. I was thinking Guatto would spark action against Bousquet. Political enemies. The police would see it and drag Bousquet through the dirt trying to prove his involvement. The scandal would be enough to ruin him.’

  ‘Two birds with one stone?’

  ‘It was a thought. Definitely a goal...a scummy man like that.’ He coldly shrugged the late politician away. And then another bitter sniff. ‘But a mistake. Sadly.’

  Ironic. Three mistakes centred on a retro listening post. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘The Internet. German. Leftover Stasi stuff. It’s an old thing, but it works well enough. It could have been anyone’s — yours. Or Bousquet’s.’

  ‘Or DST. I actually thought it was theirs.’ Aliette needed to keep talking, hoping Henri or Magui might show up. ‘And Agent Tessier thought it was mine.’

  There was a thump directly above, the scrape of moving furniture upstairs. Avi winced but kept his focus. A deep, long look at his captive. ‘No, she never thought it was yours.’

  ‘Yes, she told me — ’ But Aliette Nouvelle stopped herself right there.

  Bitch, bitch, bitch. Another lie. And she understaood: Margot Tessier did not make mistakes. She had known Avi Roig was Avi Louk. And known exactly what he could do.

  Avi added, rather needlessly, ‘Your friend Margot says whatever she needs to say.’

  ‘She is not my friend.’

  ‘Nor mine.’ He tugged at his lip, dubious and fateful. ‘The best stories always have a certain amount of truth. Obviously mine had too much.’ Pulling a drawer open, he showed her a cell phone. ‘I’ll leave this. You can set the record straight. For Stephanie, if not that bitch.’ He placed it on the bar. He finished his wine. Finding a tea towel under the bar, Avi requested, ‘Please don’t call out to your people. We have to avoid more tragedy.’ He moved around the end of the bar, pistol trained.