“You’re threatening me?”
“Advising you, madame le juge. And my advice to you is to be very careful as you cross the road. There are a lot of bad drivers in Guadeloupe.”
75
Bois sec
She climbed the stairs. Sweat ran down her back; even on the top floor of the Cité Mortenol there was no breeze. The white walls reflected the harsh sunlight.
Anne Marie unlocked the front door and let herself into the apartment. She picked up the telephone before she kicked off her moccasins and slumped down onto the divan. She had to dial three times—a flurry of electronic pips—before she got through.
“Gendarmerie, Terre de Haut.”
“Le Bras?”
“Speaking.”
“Le juge Laveaud here.”
“Madame le juge, I rang about half an hour ago.”
“I have just got home.” She paused. “Well?”
Le Bras did not reply.
“My husband—where is he now?”
“Your husband’s still taking lunch at the Hôtel Fontainebleau. I have a man there who is in direct radio contact.”
“And my son?”
“The little boy’s with his father.”
“I don’t want Fabrice—I don’t want my son scared. Things are going to be hard enough for him as it is.”
“Nothing to be scared about, madame le juge. It’s best the boy stay with his father. There’s nowhere that Monsieur Laveaud can go, and tomorrow I’ll bring your son back to Pointe-à-Pitre.”
“It’s very good of you.”
“Merely doing my duty.”
“I worry about my son.”
“I’ll accompany him personally to the Palais de Justice. I am quite sure he’ll enjoy the flight in our helicopter.”
“You’re very considerate.”
“Part of the job, madame le juge. Au revoir.”
“Kenavo.” Anne Marie hung up and waited a few minutes before getting to her feet. She went to the kitchen, drank a glass of chilled water and took two more antihistamine pills.
They had a soporific effect.
She went upstairs. The wooden stairs creaked in the empty apartment. Anne Marie took a shower, and then, still damp and with just a towel across her body, she lay down on the big bed. Within a few minutes, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
Outside, Pointe-à-Pitre returned to work after the midday hiatus.
The streets filled with fast, angry traffic. Cars honked and the Brazilian buses gave off fumes. The sun moved across the blue sky. The shadow of the flame trees, of the breadfruit trees, of the coconut palms, and the flamboyants inched slowly across the sidewalk.
Anne Marie was woken by the telephone.
“Ah.”
She picked up the bedroom extension.
“Madame Laveaud? I’ve been trying to get through to you for the last half-hour.”
“I was sleeping. Who’s that speaking?”
“It’s nearly half past five.”
“Who’s that?”
“Lafitte here. Glad I’ve got hold of you.”
Outside the sky had begun to darken. A distant cloud was tinged with red.
“Madame le juge, I shouldn’t really be phoning like this. I’m calling from the bar opposite the Palais de Justice. I could be getting myself into trouble. Serious trouble.”
With one hand, she rubbed her eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“Azaïs. He’s got a search warrant, and he wants me to come round.”
“A search warrant?”
“For your apartment, madame le juge. Cité Mortenol, 903. He wanted me to come round this evening with him—but I told him you wouldn’t be at home and I managed to persuade him to put it off until tomorrow. Azaïs—I don’t know, this is only my opinion—I get the impression he wants to incriminate you in the airport killing.”
Anne Marie stared at her naked thighs.
“Are you still there, madame le juge?”
Her voice was weary. “Yes.”
“I thought I’d better warn you.”
“Thank you, Monsieur Lafitte.” She rubbed her eyes again. “That’s very good of you. I appreciate your help—and your consideration. Very much indeed.”
“The least I could do.” Perhaps he shrugged. Or perhaps the symmetrical features broke into a boyish smile. “You’ve always been very kind to me—better than a friend.”
“Thank you,” Anne Marie said softly and lowered the receiver onto the cradle.
She was tempted to go back to bed. She still felt sleepy, but instead she got up and showered, letting the cold water wash away the sweat and the sleep from her eyes. For a long moment she stared at her belly and she held her hand against the damp skin. Then she put on a cotton gown and went downstairs.
She found the phone number in her address book and she dialed. No answer.
Anne Marie sat on the divan and stared through the window as evening came to the city of Pointe-à-Pitre. The apartment was silent. From time to time, she looked at the photograph of Fabrice.
She dialed every five minutes and did not get through until nearly seven o’clock. By then the sky was quite dark.
“Hello?”
“Le procureur de la République?”
“Ah.” A gentle laugh. “Do I recognize the charming voice of our young juge d’instruction?”
“Yesterday afternoon—at the supermarket—you suggested that you may be able to help my husband.”
“He’s in trouble?”
“You know perfectly well he’s in trouble.”
A long pause.
“You realize, don’t you, madame le juge, you’ve not made life easy for me?”
“It was you, monsieur le procureur, who placed me in charge of the Calais dossier. You’ve only yourself to blame. You were hoping with a woman in charge you’d be able to control events more satisfactorily. Perhaps I’ve been unnecessarily stubborn, but I’ve tried to do my duty, and I’m now in a position to show Hégésippe Bray was innocent. Monsieur le procureur, Madame Calais has confessed to me. She admits to having shot her husband.”
“Ah.”
“She was jealous,” Anne Marie said simply. “You see, it really was not necessary to kill Hégésippe Bray.”
He laughed and over the line, his voice was harsh. “You still believe the old man was murdered in his cell?”
“I don’t believe Bray hanged himself.”
Another pause.
“Madame le juge, I can help you and … I think I can help your husband. The Cour de Sûreté de l’Etat—and particularly this man Azaïs—are kicking up a bit of a fuss. But don’t worry. I still wield a certain amount of clout in the département of Guadeloupe.” He stopped.
“Monsieur le procureur, could I take you up on your invitation?”
“Invitation? What invitation?”
“I could come round, and we could discuss these things. On the veranda, over a planter’s punch, enjoying the evening breeze as we watch the cargo ships sail out into the night.”
“Sounds like a very good idea. Of course I can help you. You have my address?”
“I’ll be around in forty minutes, monsieur le procureur—just the time to get ready.”
“Excellent.” He laughed contentedly and hung up.
Anne Marie put the telephone down.
The photograph of Fabrice stared at her.
“Eight years, two months and ten days. If you had to walk to the moon. You remember, don’t you?”
It took her ten minutes to get dressed, to put on her makeup and brush her hair. More wrinkles—it was the sun that was drying out her skin. And a few more white hairs.
A drop of Van Cleef and Arpels to each wrist. She put on the new shoes; she also transferred her purse, her identity card and her keys to the new handbag. It was nearly eight o’clock by the time she was ready to leave. Just as she was about to go, she remembered the cigar tin.
She ran up the stairs—the new leather soles were slip
pery—and opened the drawer of the dressing table. She took out the tin.
Now that her finger was no longer swollen, the wedding ring slid comfortably back into its natural place.
Continue reading for a sneak preview of the next Judge Anne Marie Laveaud novel
The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe
1
Madame Dugain
Wednesday, May 16, 1990
“YOU’RE LOOKING for me?” The woman was attractive, but her face appeared tired, the eyelids dark. There were wrinkles about the soft brown eyes. She placed a pile of exercise books on the table, beside her handbag.
“Madame Dugain?”
“Yes, I am Madame Dugain. Your child is in which class?”
Anne Marie moved toward the table. “It’s about your husband.”
For a moment the expression went blank while the eyes searched Anne Marie’s face. “I have already made a statement to the police judiciaire.” Madame Dugain drew a chair—a school chair with a steel frame and a plyboard seat—towards her. “Several statements.” She leaned against the backrest.
Anne Marie sat down on the other side of the table. On the Formica top there were a couple of tin lids that had been used as ashtrays.
The far wall was covered with pinned-up notices concerning the different teaching unions. Beneath the drawing pins, the paper rustled relentlessly; the doors to the staff room were wide open and a mid-morning breeze kept the air cool. Through the open shutters, Anne Marie could see a flame tree that had started to blossom.
“My husband is dead—isn’t that enough?”
Anne Marie nodded sympathetically. “He died under strange circumstances.”
“He was hounded to death.”
“I don’t think anyone hounded your husband.”
Madame Dugain shook her head. “I’d rather not talk about these things.”
“I understand.”
The eyes flared with brief anger. “You understand?”
The two women were alone in the staff room of the Collège Carnot. There was silence.
(Somewhere children were singing. In another building a class burst into muffled laughter.)
“I know how painful it is to lose someone you love.” Anne Marie held out her hand, “I’m Madame Laveaud. I’m the juge d’instruction.”
Madame Dugain took the proffered hand coolly. “I really have nothing to say to an investigative magistrate or to anybody else.”
“I asked the head mistress for permission to speak to you.”
Madame Dugain folded her arms against her chest. She was wearing a dress that went well with the brown, liquid eyes. A necklace, matching gold earrings. Black hair that had been pulled back into a tight bun. Her lipstick was a matte red.
“On Saturday, April twenty-first, three officers of the police judiciaire visited your husband in his offices in the Sécid Tower. They had a search warrant and they were seeking information concerning accusations made against your husband.”
“Everybody accused Rodolphe.”
“Accusations that as director of the Environment Institute, he had been misappropriating funds.”
“My husband’s not a criminal.”
“Your husband received money from the government—from the Ministry of Employment—to recruit and train young people under the Youth Training Scheme. Six young people were working for him at the institute, and their salaries, funded entirely with government money, were paid into the Institute’s account.”
“I know nothing about my husband’s financial affairs.”
“Your husband’s accused of employing two of the young people in his small business in Abymes and paying them with the government allowances.”
Madame Dugain bit her lip. “My husband would never have taken money that wasn’t his.”
Anne Marie touched the woman’s arm. “Now your husband’s dead. I don’t think any good can be achieved by continuing with the enquiry.”
“Leave me in peace.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “My husband and I were happy. We’d been married for nearly twenty years. My children and I have suffered enough.”
Somewhere an electric buzzer sounded, followed almost immediately by the sound of scraping chairs and the scuffling of feet as the pupils left their desks at the end of the lesson.
“Just supposing that your husband was guilty of these accusations …” Anne Marie shrugged. “A fine—twenty thousand, thirty thousand francs. Not a lot of money for your husband.”
Madame Dugain flinched. “Rodolphe was innocent.”
“It’s not for thirty thousand francs that an influential and well-respected member of the community decides to do away with himself.”
2
Fait divers
France Antilles, April 23, 1990
Mr. Rodolphe Dugain, better known to most television viewers as Monsieur Environnement, died on Saturday, April 21, following multiple injuries and internal concussion after throwing himself from the fourteenth story of Sécid Tower block in central Pointe à Pitre.
If the rumour had been circulating for some time that the judicial authorities were making enquiries into the Centre Environnement, the sudden and untimely death of Monsieur Dugain, one of the major and most respected figures in the cultural Who’s Who of our département, seems to have taken Guadeloupe by surprise. The ripples of shock can be still felt at the university where Monsieur Dugain held a lectureship in natural sciences as well as along the corridors of the RFO television station where he regularly broadcast his popular nature programmes.
On Saturday morning, three officers of the Service Régional de la Police Judiciaire presented themselves at the offices of the Centre Environnement. According to eyewitnesses, Monsieur Dugain appeared his normal, jovial self, not allowing his good humour to be affected in any way by the presentation of a search warrant. He is believed to have offered a drink to the three men then while the officers were looking for documents and other information—the nature of which as yet has not been revealed by the parquet—Mr. Dugain managed to slip from the room. Once on the far side of the steel door, he locked the police officers inside and, taking to the stairs, Mr. Dugain climbed from the third to the fourteenth floor of the tower block. On the top floor, he went to the observation window and from there jumped to his death, landing on a car parked on the sidewalk of the Boulevard Chanzy. Mr. Dugain died immediately from the impact. The vehicle was badly damaged and several people were taken to the nearby centre hospitalier universaire, suffering from shock.
A crowd of onlookers gathered around the macabre spectacle. Yet again in Guadeloupe, the lamentable behaviour of rubbernecks and passers-by hindered the fire and ambulance services in the execution of their duty.
Monsieur Dugain, who was a Freemason and an ex-secretary of the Rotary Club, was born in Martinique fifty-seven years ago. He leaves a wife and two children, as well as two other children from an earlier marriage.
A memorial service at St. Pierre and St. Paul will be held on Tuesday at ten o’clock. The inhumation will take place at the municipal cemetery at midday.
3
Public trial
“I need to know why he died.”
Madame Dugain raised her eyes. “Is that important?”
“You said he was hounded to death by the police.”
“It doesn’t matter any more.”
“It matters.”
A moment of hesitation. “You don’t believe my husband was innocent?”
“Innocent or guilty, suicide is not a normal reaction.”
“The SRPJ threw him from the fourteenth floor.”
“Unlikely.”
“I must be going.” Madame Dugain took up her bag and stood up. She was in her late thirties, a trim girlish silhouette and attractive brown legs. She ran a hand along her hair. “It’s been nice meeting you.”
“When somebody’s pushed through a window, the victim hits the ground close to the building. Somebody committing suicide jumps—and the car on which your
husband landed was nearly four meters from the entrance to the Tour Sécid.”
Madame Dugain stared in silence at the clasp of her handbag.
“Nothing else you can tell me?”
“Else in what way, madame le juge?”
“Was anything worrying your husband?”
“What more do you want, for heaven’s sake?” A hard laugh. “His name in the papers? The accusation of cooking the books? The police coming to search his offices? His probity and his reputation were being called into question. My husband was being put on public trial—no, not a trial but a public lynching. The telephone never stopped ringing.”
“With a good lawyer, he could have …”
“My husband needed to be left alone. He didn’t need a lawyer just as he didn’t need being dragged through the mud. The mud his enemies wanted. That the police wanted. That’s what you’ve now got and I hope you’re satisfied.”
“Satisfied?”
“Rodolphe’s dead.”
Anne Marie caught her breath. “Who were his enemies that you talk about?”
“I’ve nothing further to say.”
“You really don’t want to help me set your husband’s record straight?”
“You couldn’t care less about my husband’s reputation.”
“I care about the truth.”
“Your truth.” Madame Dugain picked up the pile of books, turned and walked out into the sunshine. As she passed beneath the flame trees her heels clicked on the stone pavings.
4
Headmistress
“Liliane Dugain’s my cousin.”
It used to be the lycée. Then in the mid-sixties, a new school complex was built at Baimbridge on the edge of the city to accommodate the increase in the number of pupils. Consequently the old colonial Lycée Carnot, with its courtyard, its mango and flame trees, its airy, wooden classrooms, stranded in the heart of Pointe à Pitre, was transformed into a collège, a junior high school.
The two women walked out of the staff room and across the yard, between the trees. A breeze rustled through the leaves, and the pendulous, mangoes swayed gently at the end of their long stalks. Other mangoes had fallen to the ground and split their bruised skin.
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