The envelope had been signed, sealed and left with the notary for six years now. He had been the lawyer witnessing on behalf of his client, Tomas Jaumard, and it had also fallen to him to carry out Jaumard's instructions regarding the envelope in the event of his death. Tomas's brother Marc was to be notified and he, Marcelle Gauthereau, would then accompany Marc to the notary's office where, upon due presentation of identification and signing of a receipt, Marc would be handed the envelope left by his brother. Simple.
Except that when he originally sent out the notification, Marc Jaumard had moved. His letter was returned with no forwarding address. Gauthereau sent a clerk by the building a week later to discover that Marc had gone back to sea, but not with his old company. After phoning his old company and another number they recommended, the trail petered out with a past work colleague and an old flat mate. The only faint light that could be thrown on his whereabouts was that he might have joined up with a merchant company sailing out of Genoa. 'Perhaps he maintains a place there when he's back on shore.'
There were still some funds from the retainer Tomas Jaumard had left him to execute his will. The will simply couldn't be executed without Marc Jaumard; no other relatives were named. Gauthereau started placing the adverts. One every six months in Marseille, one a year in a Genoa paper in Italian. There was enough cash to cover a total of twelve insertions. Gauthereau was intrigued what might be in the envelope. Names, dates and vital contacts? Drug routes and stashes, details of Chapeau's account in Switzerland perhaps? Could he have earned that much as a milieu button man?
La Provençal had peppered the account of his death with his nickname. They seemed to all have nicknames: Tomi 'The Wall' Boisset, Jaques 'Tomcat' Imbert, Pierre 'The Priest' Cattaneo. Somehow added to the mystique and fear. Chapeau? The newspapers hadn't explained, nor had he ever asked. Getting through their few brief business meetings had been torturous enough; he'd always found himself clock-watching towards the end, uneasy under Jaumard's slow fish eye, without adding superfluous questions.
Two more insertions to go in Marseille, one in Genoa, before the retainer was finished. After that the envelope would stay gathering dust in the notary's office, with little chance of anyone knowing its contents.
Session 7.
Marinella Calvan listened to Lambourne's voice in the background as he induced Eyran Capel into hypnosis. The three questions Dominic Fornier wanted asked were on a piece of paper before her.
As before, Lambourne would spend the first ten minutes or so getting Eyran comfortable and asking general, everyday questions - then would slowly regress Eyran back and draw out Gigio.
Then Philippe would take over in French and Marinella would tap out her first question on the screen. Though Fornier's English was good, the questions had originally been in French and Philippe had translated. She would start with her own questions first, get Christian Rosselot settled more naturally into the mood and period, then lead into Fornier's questions.
Though Fornier was sat at the back of the room just as a casual observer, his presence created an added tension. Was it because of what he represented: someone who had been close to, had feelings for Christian Rosselot. What was before just a detached voice was suddenly tangible, real. A young boy who people once cared about, loved, just as her with Sebastian. Fornier's presence and the background he'd explained with his wife, the boy's mother, brought it all suddenly home to her.
Or was her concern that the voice and the details wouldn't stand up as real, and in a few questions time she would know. Nothing left but to pack her bags and fly back to Virginia that evening. Another disappointment. Perhaps it was just the number of them cramped in the small room, hanging on each word of a young boy long since dead, each laboured syllable, not speaking themselves, subduing even the faintest cough or sigh. And all them, except Philippe, with different hopes and ambitions of what might be gained from the session.
The differing aims of her and Lambourne had been underlined acutely at their meeting over dinner the night before. A discussion previously delayed; it seemed pointless to air their respective views on the link between Eyran and Christian until they knew whether the regression was real. Fornier had called the previous morning and told them that the details on the tape seemed accurate both to him and his wife, but there were a few extra questions to be totally sure: 'These are more personal, things which only Christian would know.'
David Lambourne was particularly anxious after his recent conversation with Stuart Capel. 'Eyran is still having his dreams, though not as intensely or frequently as before - at most maybe one every other week. But Stuart Capel is asking some pretty pointed questions about how we think putting an explanation to this regression will help Eyran.'
'Does Gigio still feature as prominently in them? Marinella asked.
'Maybe not quite as much - he's only in half of the dreams. But Eyran claims to be equally as distressed and frightened with Gigio not there. He doesn't have a friend to keep him company, face the dangers and pitfalls alongside him.'
'Or lead him astray, lead him into danger.'
Lambourne shrugged. 'The point is, Stuart Capel is starting to question our exploration of the link between the two boys. Suggesting that it might not be helping.'
'I see.' Amateur armchair analysis; all they needed to add to the already contrasted principles between herself and Lambourne. The chasm between standard psychiatry and parapsychology - with Lambourne's brief dabbling with PLT as a rickety rope bridge between the two. And in addition Fornier was now asking oddly-angled questions.
Fornier had seemed particularly curious if more accurate descriptions around the time of the murder might be gained beyond the sketchy and fractured details on the tape. Marinella explained that - as Fornier had no doubt gauged from the reaction on the tape - it was an area which obviously disturbed Christian the most and had therefore been almost totally blotted out. 'As a result it would probably be one of the hardest areas in which to gain more information. Why?'
Fornier brushed it aside with an offhand, 'Nothing in particular.' But his tone and the way he'd been hanging on her answer made Marinella wonder. They discussed briefly some of the general circumstances surrounding the murder: sexual assault before the final attack; blunt instrument, probably a rock; wheat field by a river; coma for five days.
Wheat field?
Lambourne held the view that the coma and even the brief fifty-four second period of death had fired the connection between the two boys. Why Eyran had no previous recall of Gigio-Christian until after then. 'It was a major physical event that linked both lives. Object loss opened the door, was a shared emotional experience, but the coma was the shared physical experience to swing it wide.'
Marinella agreed, but felt that subliminally the link had been there long before. 'Eyran had a sense of dejà vu with the wheat field when they first moved to the house in England. He didn't dream of those fields purely due to fond memories of England or that he truly feels he might find his parents there - but because of Christian. Eyran knows deep down he's lost his parents on a Californian highway - whether he accepts it or not - but the wheat field is clearly Christian Rosselot territory. It's Christian who can't accept separation from his parents. Eyran's merely aboard for the ride.'
Lambourne shook his head. He disagreed. Their respective views started to head in different directions. Lambourne threw at her the obvious that Christian's parents hadn't featured in any of the dreams, Eyran's had, and that both boys focused only on finding Eyran's parents. Wheareas she felt this theory supported that of the two boys battling with non-acceptance of loss, Christian's was the strongest. In his case, it had been pushed further away. Eyran's had been tackled head-on in practically every dream.
But with Lambourne's reluctance to accept her view, at one point she'd blurted out: 'What's wrong? Are you afraid that by accepting the theory, it pushes it further away from what you know best - conventional analysis.' And immediately regretted it, saw clearly that she'
d hit a raw nerve. It threw too stark a spotlight on what they both knew: as soon as Gigio had been identified as Christian Rosselot, a tangible past existence rather than a protective figment of Eyran's psyche - most of Lambourne's conventional theories went out of the window. This was her territory. Past Life Regression versus Freud. The irreconcilable divide between psychiatrists and parapsychologists. Psychiatrists branding them hardly better than tribal witchdoctors, and para-psychologists retaliating by labelling psychiatrists as 'too conventional and myopic'. Far too many of hers and Donaldsons critics through the years had been 'conventionalists' - but it was unfair to start taking it out now purely on Lambourne. She softened quickly with: 'Are you afraid that if I'm right, I might be camping out in your office a bit longer?'
Lambourne raised his glass and smiled. 'Now that, as you know, I would never complain about.'
Perhaps it was her. She was drawing the lines of divide too simplistically: she dealt with the past, Lambourne with the present. Each of them sought the explanation where their knowledge was strongest. But Lambourne's smile and comment brought uncomfortably close what she'd feared at the outset: that their views were poles apart and Lambourne had only picked up the phone because he was suddenly out of his depth and it was a good excuse to see her again. He liked her company. But as soon as that novelty wore off, the differences would start to show again. It hadn't taken long, she thought: eight days.
But she was glad nevertheless that he'd called. She could be only three questions away from compiling one of the strongest case studies and papers of her career. For that, David Lambourne could smile and ingratiate her as much as he pleased.
She brought her attention back to the session as David Lambourne's voice trailed off and he nodded towards her. Philippe leaned forward and she tapped out the first question on the PC screen.
Dominic wasn't sure of the precise moment when the thought first struck him of being able to use information from the tapes to re-examine the details surrounding Christian Rosselot's murder. The first initial thoughts - shortly after the first call from Marinella Calvan - had been so fleeting and indistinct, he'd hardly paid it attention. Possibly a hoax; obscure or unsubstantiated information - discarded after the second hurdle, with still the hurdles of insufficient detail to support a renewed investigation and legal complexities in the far distance and only paid scant consideration. That consideration only arrived full force after seeing Monique's reaction to the tape.
But after his last conversation with Marinella Calvan, those hurdles appeared suddenly to have been raised and were now almost insurmountable: 'Due to it being an area which has obviously disturbed Christian the most, the murder has been largely blotted out.' Details would be difficult to gain.
He'd replayed those segments of tape the most: '... And then there was a bright light... so bright... I couldn't see anything. And the field... I recognized it...' What could have caused a sudden, blinding light? It was a bright, sunny day. Perhaps Christian had been heavily concealed in bushes down the river bank, then had suddenly emerged into the brightness of the lane and the wheat field? Or perhaps he'd been blindfolded as well as tied up and it had suddenly been taken off.
There had also been an earlier reference to the light 'hurting his eyes' not long before he was face down on the ground. '... the sheaves were against the side of my face... my own breathing against it. All I could hear... nothing else... nothing...' The voice trailed off as breathing became heavier, more sporadic. '...I struggled to look back, but couldn't... couldn't... I... I.' After that the voice became increasingly catatonic and garbled. Philippe's voice broke him quickly away. It wasn't even clear if Christian had fallen in the wheat or been pushed over, whether he'd already been struck or the blows were still to come.
Calvan was right. Recall of the murder had been heavily erased. Dominic couldn't see how pressing on subsequent sessions would reveal anything more than the same garbled, disjointed account. Someone with passing knowledge of the case, primed by a handful of newspaper articles, could have constructed a more detailed account. Even the few details that were fresh - such as the sudden light - were vague and could be interpreted any number of ways. A re-examination of the case based on fresh information wasn't even a remote possibility. And from a boy dead these past thirty years, his voice speaking from the grave through another boy who had entered therapy because he was psychologically disturbed? The first prosecutor he took it to would laugh him clean out of the room.
But the intense curiosity to know still nagged at him, so in the end he removed that final hurdle: blotted out consideration of a renewed official investigation. Convinced himself that he was eager to know for his own sake; for the curiosity of an old police officer who wants to know the truth before he retires. A final closing of the book. And for Machanaud, or at least for-
Philippe's voice broke abruptly into his thoughts. ‘C’est l’été. C’est le mois de mai. The year is nineteen sixty-one. You are eight years old. You worked with your father Jean-Luc towards the end of that month. What did you help him with?'
Monique's first question. Dominic looked on expectantly, felt his mouth dry with anticipation, the atmosphere tense in the small room.
A frown, a creasing of the boy's brow, as if he was scanning frantically back through images and memories long past. The boy looked very different to how he remembered Christian: wavy light brown hair, a few freckles across the bridge of his nose, his eyes pale brown. Christian's hair had been darker and curlier, his skin tone olive, his eyes a piercing green. It was difficult to relate the two.
The thought lines in his forehead slowly eased. 'We were clearing some long grass from the grapevines my father had planted at the beginning of the year.'
Marinella picked up on the frown, wondered if Eyran was thrown by the questions being suddenly more specific, rather than the very generalized questions of the last session.
'And what happened while you were helping your father in the field?'
Faint lines returned; uncertainty with the question. After a moment: 'It was very hot. I er... I became worried at one point that I wasn't being of much help. My father was working very fast, I wasn't keeping up with him very well.'
'But something happened that day to make you finally stop working,' Philippe prompted. 'What was it?'
Gradual realization, the lines easing again. 'I was stung by a bee.' A pause. Marinella tapping at the keyboard. Philippe was about to prompt when Eyran continued. 'But my mother didn't have a plaster or any antiseptic. She applied some vinegar, then some baking powder on cotton wool. It took out a lot of the sting. She said that it was something she'd learnt from her mother.'
Dominic felt the back of his neck tingle. When he'd gone through the questions with Monique, she'd mentioned Christian helping Jean-Luc and getting stung by a bee. Her applying vinegar and baking soda because they had no antiseptic. Dominic shivered involuntarily as the tingle spread down through his body. It was Christian's voice. There remained little doubt.
Listening first hand was dramatically different to just the detached voice on the tape, he thought. Seeing the small face struggling with the thoughts and images, the brow knitted, tongue gently moistening his lips as the words were finally found. The words of another boy from another era. The description of Christian and Jean-Luc working side by side in the fields, father and son, both dead now these past thirty years, cut a powerful and poignant image. Dominic's hand clenched, emotions of sadness and nostalgia gripping him hard.
He'd arranged to fax the transcript to Monique and wait in London for her to answer; if her response was positive, he wanted to stay to talk with Marinella Calvan in more depth. But if little additional information surrounding the murder could be gained, what would be the point?
The second question was about a game of boules in the village square one Sunday. Christian was nine, it was only a couple of months after his birthday. Philippe pinpointed the day: Christian had gone with Jean-Luc to watch the village boules games on s
everal occasions. But this particular Sunday something had occurred.
'...There was an accident.' Eyran's eyes flickered, the right image finally falling into place. 'Nothing serious. But two cars going around the square, one went into the other. The two drivers, both men, were very angry, shouting loudly at each other. Most of the men playing were distracted, it looked like any minute a fight might break out.'
'And what happened then?'
Eyran had settled into the rhythm of the more specific, narrowly targeted questions. Pauses were now less marked. 'One of the players, Alguine - when he thought that everyone was looking towards the road, moved to stand by his own boule, then nudged it closer to the cochonnet with one foot.'
'What did you do?'
'Looking around, I realized that nobody had noticed but me. Alguine had moved quickly away from his boule, so I moved gradually towards it and, as the other players' attention drifted back, I looked down suddenly and apologized: "Sorry. I must have kicked this boule while I was looking at the accident. I'll put it back where it was." I could see Alguine glaring at me, but he said nothing. Later, when I told my father, he couldn't stop laughing.'
Jean-Luc had told Monique, Dominic reflected, then in turn Monique had told him just the other day when she'd prepared the questions. Batons passed down through the years. A few faint brush strokes depicting an era of Monique's life previously strange to him.
Thirty years? Machanaud had died over ten years ago. Fourteen years in prison. Only six years of freedom in between. A handful of twilight years to swill back some eau de vies and spin out his long forgotten glory days in the resistance, poach a last few rivers. Rough justice.
If four years ago he hadn't bumped into Molet, Machanaud's lawyer, in the recess halls at the Lyon Palais de Justice, he might never have known. Molet was there on a hearing for a Nice-based client. They both recognized each other straightaway - but it took some prompting from Dominic for Molet to finally recall from where and when. After some initial pleasantries, they turned to the subject of Machanaud. Molet did most of the talking while Dominic registered in turn surprise, guilt, and finally, outrage.
Past Imperfect Page 35
