by Angela Wren
As Mademoiselle Lapointe remained silent, Jacques picked up the thread again. “To return to the internal investigation about security breaches and leaks of detailed information to a rival company. I used the help and technical expertise of Philippe Chauvin to follow through on some of that work. I’ll let Philippe inform you all about what we found.”
“Thanks, Jacques. I’ll deal with the cyber-attack first. When we realised our protocols had been breached, our attention was to re-secure the network at all costs so that we could inform our clients that no further breaches would occur. We automatically assumed the attack was from outside the company and we missed some spurious code. When we examined that code in detail, we were able to trace its source. The code had been introduced onto one of the PCs in the reception area at Vaux Consulting. Both of these areas in each of the two Vaux buildings are covered by CCTV, but as the desks are constantly manned by Serge’s team during the time the offices are open there is no opportunity for anyone to introduce the code. But two days before the cyber-attack, Serge walked in to find that CCTV in reception at his office block had been turned off and then back on again a short time later. That’s when the we believe the code was introduced. In the, aftermath of the attack, no-one thought to check the CCTV.”
Philippe paused, poured himself a glass of water from a bottle in the centre of the table, then he continued. “Jacques provided me with a list of bids that he and Alain believed might have been tampered with after they were agreed and finalised. These were the bids that we had lost to C and C. We undertook a number of electronic audit trails on those documents, and we discovered that changes had been made to the documents before they were issued to the appropriate companies for consideration. Those changes were undertaken by you, Madeleine Cloutier, and by you, Roger Baudin.”
Alain stared at his Finance director. “Why? Why did you do that? I’ve spent my life building this company and I thought we had the same goals. So why?”
“To redress the balance, Alain.” Roger sneered as he looked across at his boss. “To redress the balance for my wife. She’s the child mentioned in those letters from 1971. The child that no-one would acknowledge, the child that was adopted and moved from foster parent to children’s home to foster parent for most of her young life.” He looked directly at Jacques. “Those meetings in Le Puy. They weren’t what you thought they were, Jacques. The admission of an affair was what Madeleine and I agreed to say should your snooping get to close to us. We were meeting a representative of C and C Consulting.”
“And where are those letters now, Monsieur?”
“I’ve got them,” said Mademoiselle Lapointe. “I needed them to use the detail to find Roger’s wife. And when an opportunity arose for Roger to be recruited to the company, I took it. A little suggestion here, a nudge there, is all that it took. You see, Édouard, you may have been paying for your son for these last two years, but you never offered anything until I forced you to acknowledge him. When Madeleine joined the company, I knew then that finally we could put everything in place to get you out. We were planning to table a vote of no confidence in you at next month’s meeting. But you ruined everything, Alain. You had to bring Jacques in to the company and you had to set him looking around, didn’t you?”
“That’s enough.” Pelletier was on his feet. “Two lives have also been lost. Madame Cloutier. We have CCTV footage of you and Hélène Hardi entering Aimée Moreau’s apartment block in Merle late on Friday afternoon. What happened?”
“They both had to go,” Madeleine said, her voice harsh. “Hélène wasn’t able to keep her mouth shut and was making too many mistakes. She was thinking for herself without consulting me too often, and she was putting everything we’d worked for in jeopardy. Aimée was a threat, too. She knew too much, and when Jacques arrived she was being influenced by him. Another month, and she would have left of her own free will. But you interfered, Jacques. You got in my way. She had to go.”
“How did Aimée’s body get from the apartment to the river?”
Madeleine scraped her hair back behind her ears. “I misjudged how much wine she’d drunk and whilst I was dealing with Hélène she left through one of the side doors. I had to leave through the front door so that it wouldn’t look suspicious, and as I came around the side of the building I saw her staggering towards the path down to the river. I followed her and then she tripped on some undergrowth and fell. She hit her head and rolled into the water. I just left her there.”
Madeleine turned to Jacques. “Satisfied now? Have you got all your answers, Jacques?”
The disdain in her look caused Jacques to shift his chair back a few inches from the edge of the table. He wondered how he could ever have thought that there may have been even a possibility of a future for them together.
“Just one. Where is Aimée’s laptop?”
“I’ve got it!” She spat out the words. “I had to know what she was up to with you.”
Pelletier placed his hand on her right shoulder and informed her of her rights before leading her away.
Jacques shook his head and followed a few moments later. Once alone on the stairs, he pulled out his phone and called Beth.
saturday, november 7th
The morning was bright and Beth positioned her tripod in front of the porch and set the time lapse function on her camera. She moved back inside and poured herself a coffee from the pot on the stove, opened the bag of croissants that Jacques had left on the breakfast bar, and settled down to eat and enjoy the newspaper. A couple of hours later, and Beth was still slumming in the kitchen in her pyjamas and dressing gown. She checked the clock on the wall. “Oops, better get showered and dressed.” She cleared away the pots, washed up and disappeared up to the bedroom.
A little later, she came back out onto the porch and checked her camera. The weak winter sun had moved round, the shadows had changed and she clicked the camera back to manual. As a matter of habit, she checked the focus and reset the picture, as she always did, even though she had no intention of taking any more shots. She disconnected the camera form the tripod and moved all her equipment inside and up to the loft area where she had been sorting through Old Thierry’s files and photographs.
She put the camera in its bag, returned the tripod to its usual place in the cupboard and went back to her task. She had no real idea of exactly what it was that she was looking for. But Jacques had suggested that if she could find some photographs of the village from November 2007, she might be able to help him solve a problem. She kept searching and eventually came across a series of negatives that Old Thierry had stored in the box file labelled ‘Hunting Scenes’. She used her desk light to view them and gradually worked her way through strip after strip until one particularly caught her attention. It wasn’t the photo itself that made her stop and look again. It wasn’t an especially interesting or scenic shot. It was something about the lines in the photograph that offended her eye’s sense of order. She stopped and looked again. Still unsure of what it was she thought she had just noticed, she picked up her phone.
“Jacques, it’s me. I know you’re with Magistrate Pelletier, but can you talk?”
“Just a minute.”
Regardless of his need for her to wait she continued anyway. “There’s something odd I’ve found in Thierry’s photos. I think you need to see it. When will you be back?”
She could hear Jacques speaking in muffled tones to Pelletier and then he came back on the line.
“OK, Beth, I’ll be with you in about an hour.”
She ended the call and arranged everything so that Jacques could look at the relevant negatives as soon as he returned.
“Beth!” Jacques burst in through the front door and sprinted up to the loft. “Let me see what you’ve found.”
“Why is it so important, Jacques? They are not even very good shots. I think Thierry was shooting anything that moved that day or else he’d set his camera on the tripod on his time lapse setting and then forgotten to stop it whe
n the light changed.”
“Beth, this picture, negative or whatever, might help Fermier Pamier from facing a manslaughter charge. Can I have a look at what you’ve got?”
Beth switched on her desk light and held the negatives up in front. “It’s the third one along. There’s something not quite right with the lines in the photo. Look here, this one is at odds with the others.”
Jacques peered at the tiny oblong of film. “Can you improve this or print it?”
“I can try running it through the scanner and then through my software to get it to look right. Just give me a few minutes.”
Beth worked carefully and swiftly and the picture appeared on her computer screen.
Jacques scrutinised the scene. “Can you zoom in on this section?”
She did as she was asked.
“That’s Pamier, That’s Gaston and there… Let’s look at the next shot and the one after that.” He pointed to the screen. “Zoom in again, please.”
Beth did so and Jacques looked at the revised shot. “And that’s de Silva. Zoom out…”
Jacques gasped. “Thierry, old man, you just don’t know what you’ve done!” He pulled Beth to her feet, and held her tight and kissed her. “Beth, you’ve just saved an innocent man from a serious charge.”
“But I don’t understand, Jacques.” She repositioned the picture on the screen and frowned.
“We know that figure there is de Silva,” he said, standing behind her and pointing to a cowering figure in centre towards the back. “These are the stands, and that is Gaston and on his left is Pamier. If you look at the angle of the guns, you’ll see that Pamier’s is pointing up and out of the picture to the left. In the next shot Gaston has turned round to face the camera, Pamier is reloading his gun but de Silva is now standing.”
Beth peered at her screen and nodded.
“Go to the last shot and you can see Pamier is holding his gun over his arm and breached. But in background de Silva looks as though he’s falling. Can we get these shots printed?”
“Of course, but I’ll have to take it to Mende, and it will take a few days.”
“A few days, a week, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
sunday, november 8th
Ricky Delacroix woke at his usual time at an address in Mende that he neither owned nor rented. The blonde beside him was still asleep, and, he decided, she hadn’t been worth the effort. Not caring whether he disturbed her or not, he got up, showered, dressed and walked out without a word, making sure he slammed the door as he left.
Back at the chalet in Messandrierre, he changed into jeans and a designer shirt, set out his breakfast and the newspaper he’d bought in Mende and opened his laptop, logged on and began checking his various investments and accounts. Everything in Ricky’s world was running smoothly and a wide grin crossed his face.
Some time later an alarm on his phone interrupted his third cup of coffee and reminded him that he had booked a table for lunch at the restaurant in the village. Carefully picking out a jacket, he put it on and smoothed back his hair in the mirror. He grabbed his hat and coat and set out on foot for the delights of lunch in a small place half-way up a mountain.
***
In the chalet, Beth was working on her photographs from the day before when Jacques appeared at her desk.
“Hey, do you have to work so much?”
“I thought you were working on your formal report for Alain.”
“I was, but I keep distracting myself, and there’s something I want to ask you.”
Beth saved her work and put the laptop lid down. “Alright, I’m listening.”
“I was wondering, if you’re staying until Christmas, perhaps we can go to Paris for the holidays. You can meet Papa and my sister and the boys, and maybe you’ll let me take you to a jeweller’s I know in Montmartre and—”
“Jacques, we can go shopping…” Beth gave him an odd look. She half laughed and then frowned. “Are you?” She looked away. “Did you just ask me…”
Jacques grinned at her. “A yes would be nice.”
THE END
Read the complete Jaques Forêt Mystery series:
Messandrierre (#1)
Merle (#2)
Montbel (#3)
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Read the complete Jaques Forêt Mystery series:
Messandrierre (#1)
Merle (#2)
Montbel (#3)
