Death in Saint-Chartier

by Ivo Fornesa

‘We don’t even know if she did anything to her husband, and you’re already blaming her for what happened to Tum – and we still don’t know if anything bad has even happened to her!’

  ‘You’re pathetic. Clearly you’re still gaga over the widow and can’t stand me questioning her. But I think she did it,’ Cathy fired back. ‘Look, call me when you’ve figured it out and decided what to do.’ And without waiting for a reply, she hung up the phone.

  Laurent sat in front of his computer, silent and upset. He went through the videos over and over, until he had an idea and called Cathy back.

  ‘Don’t get mad, although it’s very comforting to see you jealous.’

  ‘What do you want now?’ Her tone didn’t invite joking.

  ‘I was thinking that if you have so much footage, maybe there’s a bit somewhere that shows Carlos going into the passageway, or even shows the killer.’

  ‘We’ve already looked at all of it, and sadly there’s nothing,’ replied Cathy coldly. ‘In any case we only put cameras in the rooms on the first two floors, not in the bedrooms or in the upstairs bathrooms out of privacy concerns. Nor in the guest room with the secret passage.’

  ‘But you did have some in the entryway and by the service door, and that’s where you caught the Monattis, right? My question is: couldn’t there be footage that shows Shennan’s wife inside the château before what the coroner determined was the time of her husband’s death?’

  Laurent noticed that Cathy found it hard to reply.

  Finally she spoke. ‘No, there’s nothing. But as I said, we only put cameras and mics on the first two floors and the service entrance in the south tower. We didn’t put surveillance in the guest room or the second tower.’

  ‘Which tower do you mean?’

  ‘The one that goes from the first to the second floor. There’s a small entryway there that goes to a service staircase. There’s even a dumbwaiter in the wall for taking breakfast to the third floor. Anyway, our second mistake was not putting any cameras in that entryway.’

  Laurent tried to visualise the floor plan Cathy was describing. ‘All right, I understand. But you say that’s your second mistake, which means there was a first one.’

  ‘I shouldn’t do this. What I’m about to tell you, you have to swear to keep to yourself.’

  Laurent understood she was risking her job for him. ‘Of course, Cathy. I really appreciate for what you’re doing for me, and sorry if I was a bit rude earlier.’

  ‘A bit?’ she teased, but Laurent relaxed because he noticed in her tone of voice that she was softening up. ‘All right, here goes: no one knew about the cameras and mics, and just in case, one of our agents took them all down before the police arrived. Anyway, we placed a small camera in the entryway where we thought we’d see anyone who came in. The problem was that it’s a room with an uneven ceiling, and we had to make do with a single camera, so we didn’t have a complete view of the entire space, which was rectangular and contained several visual obstacles, like those two large figureheads from ship’s prows that were hanging on the walls. In other words, we could see everyone who came into the entry hall and everyone who went up to the second floor, but not anyone who went up through the second tower, since we didn’t have any cameras left.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem like a big deal. At least you recorded everyone who went into the entry hall.’

  ‘That footage is worthless. The entry hall opens up to the terrace, which was full of guests. That door was open because that’s how you got to the guest bathrooms, and on the other side, to the dining room, where they brought out the drinks and food. If anyone wanted to get to the upper floors without being seen, they would have had to go through the second tower, which isn’t something that the guests, or anyone other than the hosts, would have known.’

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Cathy broke the silence. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m going to watch the videos a few more times. Maybe there’s something we’re missing,’ said Laurent. ‘I really appreciate your letting me see these, but really, the only thing they show is that Shennan was even more promiscuous than we thought, that the faithful Tum let her lust get the better of her, and that Madame Mayumi knew everything.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’ Cathy insisted.

  ‘Just what I said. I want to watch the videos a few more times, take notes and compare a few things to confirm a hunch I have about something you said earlier. I promise I’ll call you later.’

  Cathy could tell that something was percolating in his mind.

  ‘Please don’t do anything stupid, Laurent. If you have one of your brilliant ideas, call me first, and if necessary I’ll go wherever you tell me.’

  ‘I promise, anything you say.’ He hung up.

  THE COUP DE GRCE

  Laurent sat at his kitchen table reviewing the footage over and over, but he couldn’t find anything new. The fact was, the files Cathy had sent him were a bombshell, and if he forwarded them to the police, he was almost certain they’d reopen the case. Yet he didn’t plan to do so. He couldn’t put Madame Mayumi in jeopardy: she was his friend’s widow, not to mention his own friend and the mother of three adorable girls. Besides, he couldn’t be certain she had murdered her husband, even though Shennan had committed more than enough crimes to warrant a shove down the stairs from his wife, especially after what had happened with Tum.

  He set aside his computer, took out his notebook from his back pocket and placed it on the table. If the hunch he’d told Cathy about was right, the whole case would fall over the edge of the volcano and be spat out again as magma and rocky debris, and the town of Saint-Chartier itself would suffer the consequences. Nothing would ever be the same for many of those involved. Unfortunately, Laurent believed the truth was at least worth knowing. He opened the notebook.

  Laurent was orderly in many things, but not in his papers or his writings. His notebook was mishmash of scribbled thoughts, crossed-out words and ripped-out pages. He looked through the notebook three times before finding the page he needed.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said aloud to himself. ‘Now let’s find information on the train schedule that day, because I just remembered something I didn’t pay attention to at the time.’ He went to the French railway website and spent a long while looking for the date he’d underlined in his planner. A few minutes later, he gave a roar of satisfaction. Beaming with pride, he picked up his phone to call Cathy.

  ‘Hello, I imagine you’re still in front of the computer. Look at what I’m sending you.’

  A few minutes later Cathy called back.

  ‘According to this, train service on 18th March was suspended for a partial strike, and the line wasn’t up and running again until the next day. I don’t understand. All this shows is that there were no trains that day. What’s so important about that?’ asked Cathy.

  ‘What do you mean? That’s why I had a funny feeling. I knew something you told me struck me as odd, but with the videos I forgot about it. Just like I told you, even though it was only a hunch, it turns out I was right. Now you’ve got to admit my suspicions were correct, because, listen up, the day the girls came to say goodbye, when Shennan’s secretary told me how Tum had suddenly left and Madame Mayumi herself drove her to the station in Châteauroux to get the first train to the Burmese embassy in Paris – that was the day of the strike.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘You just read it yourself! That day there was no train service, so Tum couldn’t have gone to Paris – probably not even to the station. Add to that the fact that I found her broken key ring under a sofa, and you’ve got to admit there’s something strange going on here,’ cried Laurent, upset.

  Cathy suddenly reacted. ‘Merde! It’s true, I hadn’t thought of that. But then where’s the nanny? You’re not suggesting …?’

  ‘Yes, I’m suggesting that Tum may have been killed, and by the same person who killed Shennan.’

  ‘Laurent, you h
ave to go straight to the police and report it.’

  ‘No, first I’ll think it all over again, and when I figure out what I should do I’ll talk to Madame Mayumi before I take the next step.’

  ‘Laurent, you’re insane. What are you going to say to her? “Madame Mayumi, you’re simply astonishing. Please tell me how you knocked off your husband and made your nanny disappear, and while you’re at it, give me some lessons in Japanese heraldry.” Don’t be an idiot. I’m going to call Lafonnier myself.’

  ‘Not on your life. This is my case and I’ll decide how it’s handled. Trust me, please. Imagine the mess I’ll be in if I’m wrong.’

  Cathy knew that it would be a waste of time to try to persuade him.

  ‘Do whatever you want. Call me later,’ she said, and hung up the phone.

  Laurent realised he hadn’t been very nice to Cathy, but now was not the time to apologise. Night had fallen, and what he needed was to sit on a bench in the church plaza looking up at the stars and smoking a cigar as he meditated on the case.

  UNDER THE SHADOW OF ORION

  At nightfall, the amber street lamps of Saint-Chartier switch on, and from the plaza, a set of spotlights illuminates the château walls. That night the sacristan had left the church light on, and the stained glass on the façade shone brightly with the four evangelists and Jesus.

  Laurent struck a match, lit his cigar, idly played with the band and inhaled deeply, expelling the smoke toward the sky. He tried to blow rings that encircled stars, without much luck. He thought he had the keys to the case, and while on the one hand the possible solution saddened him, on the other he couldn’t help congratulating himself, hoping his theory was right.

  Sitting on a bench in the plaza, head tilted back, he smoked and silently conversed with a heavenly vault that patiently listened to his disquisitions and theories on the death of Carlos Shennan.

  The victim: his first conclusion was that, contra the police report, his friend and neighbour had not died in an accident but was the victim of an exceptionally well-camouflaged murder.

  Suspects, witnesses and screens: his second conclusion was that the murderer had very cleverly used Shennan’s personality and lifestyle to leave an array of possible suspects in the event that the police weren’t convinced his death had been a mere accident. These suspects would allow the murderer to get a head start if the plan ran into any hitches. Laurent couldn’t even discern to what extent he himself had been manipulated.

  The date: the day chosen to carry out the homicide was excessively bold, with the château full of guests and the premises under surveillance by a well-trained security team, but the fact that there were so many people present offered a large number of alibis and at the same time made the police work more difficult.

  The location: the passageway was a daring choice because of the difficulties posed by its narrowness and low ceiling, but as only very few people knew about it, it delayed the discovery of the body – indeed, had it not been Laurent searching the house, Shennan’s body might have gone undiscovered for much longer.

  The motives: on this point Shennan himself had dropped many rosary beads on the trail, and the murderer had cleverly strung those beads together, revealing countless motives among a host of people: clients or suppliers upset with him for one reason or another; women scorned; family members of people he’d hurt, like Thierry and Yael; a radical Islamist slapped in public; farmers who stood to gain with him out of the picture; and even a spurned, humiliated wife.

  Laurent carefully analysed all these points, but in the end, no matter how he looked at them, all the clues led to the same person: Madame Mayumi. He decided to put himself in her place and try to understand her.

  Shennan’s wife had abundant motives for killing her husband: she herself had said on several occasions that she’d do anything to secure her daughters’ future. And as Laurent had heard from Carlos himself, the business had taken a downturn, and the château was a giant leech draining his funds very quickly.

  If that weren’t enough, Shennan’s behaviour had on numerous occasions overstepped the bounds of his wife’s patience. His increasingly scandalous entanglements gave the locals plenty to gossip about: an insatiable hunter, he was always ready for flesh, fish or fowl; he’d been fooling around with the architect, and he’d shared a bed with the landscape designer. His notorious affairs had culminated in a liaison with his daughters’ nanny, a girl his wife adored. This dalliance hadn’t escaped her notice, and she’d become an unwilling witness to a double betrayal that practically had a whiff of incest, given Tum’s status as a semi-adopted daughter.

  And if Madame Mayumi had still had any doubts about her husband’s untamed sexual appetite, the slap that Yael delivered provided further evidence against him. Laurent had spotted her watching the scene from the window, just as in the video he’d seen her go from despair to the most ruthless spite.

  With all this, it seemed clear that Madame Mayumi had been the author of her own widowhood. But how? he asked. He began to retrace all the details to try to find a clue.

  Even when he’d first met her, during the incident with the dogs, she’d let fly a few barbs at her husband.

  Then she’d showed him the threats and insults against them, which was a way of revealing to him that her husband had enemies.

  Shennan’s business certainly hadn’t seemed to be going well, but in fact Laurent had no proof save the statements of Shennan himself or his wife. In any event, the fact was that his business, even the most complex deals, now fell to Madame Mayumi, who apparently had taken the reins firmly in hand with a remarkable degree of success. Ever since she’d assumed control, the fear of bankruptcy and the threat to her family’s well-being had vanished.

  Another detail was Madame Mayumi’s open loathing of the château. Now she’d leased it out, generating a modest profit for her family and even for Laurent, turning a former problem into a source of income.

  Finally came the issue of Carlos Shennan’s possible illness, of which only Father Gérard and Blareau were aware. To be sure, Laurent still had no idea what kind of illness this was, though he did know he’d taken out a hefty insurance policy, an added benefit for Madame Mayumi, who would be the beneficiary and manager of the generous pay-out.

  Laurent got up and began pacing from one end of the plaza to the other. Everything he had deduced was tremendously convoluted, not to mention unconvincing, without irrefutable proof, which he lacked.

  He decided to ponder it further.

  No doubt Madame Mayumi had every motive to murder her husband, as well as the intelligence and inventiveness to carry it out. He suddenly recalled her vigorously shaking his hand: her elegant, feminine forearm possessed a remarkable strength, and he wondered whether she was strong enough to finish off her husband.

  The footage Cathy had provided showed that the day of Shennan’s death, Madame Mayumi had witnessed his furtive embraces with the nanny from the next room. After reviewing all the videos, Laurent determined that she wasn’t seen entering from any of them, so he could easily conclude she’d come up to the second floor from the staircase in the second tower, which had no cameras, and reached the room from the service hall.

  As Sergeant Lafonnier had pointed out, Shennan’s body indicated that he’d died while descending the narrow staircase in the secret passage, but as the sergeant also noted, it didn’t make sense for him to be going down to the guest room with the three little gifts for his daughters if his original plan was to place them in their room. Laurent concluded he wouldn’t find an answer to that mystery, but inspired by the night-time calm and the starry light, he deduced that perhaps Madame Shennan had suggested he go up to the girls’ room through the secret passageway to leave them their gifts as if by magic, since after all they thought their passageway was a well-kept secret. Perhaps Shennan had gone up there with his wife, and she’d craftily claimed she’d forgotten something. When he’d turned back to look, she could have given him a hard shove, causing him t
o hit his head on the rock that jutted out, where the investigative team found remains of Shennan’s blood and scalp.

  After her husband fell, she just had to break his neck with her hands, arrange his splayed body, then leave again through the guest room and replace the wooden panel, leaving the three leather pouches with the golden bracelets inside her husband’s jacket pocket as a way to make his presence in the passageway plausible, given his playful, mischievous streak. Then, retracing her steps, Madame Mayumi would have returned to her guests, chatting with them animatedly until, at the appropriate time, she would have called Xiao Li to express her alarm at her husband’s absence.

  All that would explain why, in her impromptu meeting in the library with him and the security agents, she’d showed a nerve and sangfroid that had impressed even Cathy’s seasoned colleagues. That attitude could be explained only if she already knew what they would discover moments later. Laurent then remembered the call to Madame’s mobile and the curt response she gave in Japanese, and it occurred to him that it might not be a bad idea to ask Cathy if they had a microphone planted in the library, and if so, whether they could translate what she’d said. He called her right away, but since she didn’t pick up, he left his request on her voicemail. Then he remembered how, in the moments that followed the discovery of her husband’s body, Madame Mayumi had the strength of mind to console Xiao Li. Laurent hated to admit it, but the fact was she hadn’t acted like an especially distraught wife. She hadn’t even seemed surprised or shaken by her encounter with death. Later on she’d cooperated with unflagging energy and never failed in her duties as a mother. What’s more, with her noblesse oblige, she’d stood up for Laurent, speaking out on his behalf and ardently defending his innocence.

  At that moment, a macabre memory came to mind: how neat Shennan’s clothes were even in death. Despite the blood and his awkward position, he looked surprisingly tidy, and now he could imagine Mayumi, with her obsession with order and aesthetics, grooming her dead husband because she couldn’t bear to have him look like a slob in front of the coroner.