Murderous Mistral

by Cay Rademacher

  “Voilà!” he mumbled. “My weekend is saved.”

  Blanc parked outside the DIY store, grabbed a trolley, and pushed it down the aisles, piling stuff into it almost at random. An electric drill that looked as evil as a machine gun. A hammer you could kill a bull with. A saw the length of his arm. Wood varnish, or wood lacquer? He took a two-gallon can of each. Paint brushes of every size. Plastic sheeting. A dusty sack of mortar. Trowels. Blanc had never done up even a room in his entire life. The fat woman at the checkout, past her best years, chatting away knowledgeably to paint-covered workmen and wiry pensioner types as if she had built a dozen houses singlehandedly (which she probably had) looked at his overflowing trolley the way a winner of the Tour de France might look at the superlight bike of a weekend cyclist. “You’re sure you haven’t forgotten anything, Monsieur?”

  Just for the hell of it he lifted down a measuring rod from a shelf next to the cashier and put it on top. He paid with a check from his Paris bank. He would need to change branches. But he would have to do that during the week. Merde.

  When he got back to Sainte-Françoise-la-Vallée, he piled up all his booty in the kitchen. Should he deal with the floor first? Or clean and paint the walls? The ceiling? What did you do with a wooden ceiling? Or should he tackle the window frames? Take a look at the electricity wiring? He felt exhausted already, worn out, discouraged. He was going to end up facing an empty weekend all the same.

  Then he heard a car engine. He went out of the house and blinked. Bruno Micheletti’s old blue Peugeot 504 rolled up to the house. He rolled down the window and called out, “Hey, neighbor, do you fancy having dinner with us the day after tomorrow?”

  Blanc felt like it was his birthday. “What would you like me to bring?”

  “Anything but wine,” Micheletti said with a laugh, and roared off.

  * * *

  Later that evening Blanc lay in bed thinking. Mayor Lafont. Fuligni’s old friend. Not far away the morning he died. What could that text message have meant? Was it a warning? A threat? That reference to the harbor overflowing with blood. Was it just some unfortunate metaphor? Or had he really been talking about the harbor at Saint-César? But it wasn’t part of Lafont’s commune. And was any of that in any way helpful in the Moréas murder? No. And that was the more important investigation. Nkoulou had him in his sights. If he messed up the Michelettis wouldn’t have the chance to invite their new neighbor over again.

  The next morning he was woken out of a deep sleep by his cell phone. It was Sunday but he had forgotten to turn off the alarm app. He tapped around on the touch screen until he turned it off. But in so doing he noticed he’d received a text yesterday, while he was running around like a maniac in the DIY shop. It was from Fabienne: Sorry to disturb you. Was fidgety yesterday and went through the old files. Found the name of the tourist who was killed. We need to speak. Talk tomorrow?

  A Dead Tourist, and a Red Car

  The Espace wouldn’t start. Blanc lifted the hood and stared at the maze of metal, cables, and wires. He had bought enough tools to build a city the previous day, but nothing of any use in this morass, not that he had the slightest clue where to start. Then he heard a loud engine on the main road and thanked God for it. He ran out onto the route départementale swinging his grotesque hammer and gesticulating wildly at the old blue Alpine, which screeched to a halt just inches from his shins.

  “Have you gone over to the dark side?” Jean-François Riou spluttered. “From cop to hammer murderer? Or are you trying to kill yourself? In which case you’d do better throwing yourself under a train than this vintage motor.”

  Blanc smelled the hot oil and gas fumes coming from the old sports car. “I was just trying to imitate your miracle from the other day.”

  “You’re trying to fix a Renault Espace?” Riou laughed, as if it were the best joke he’d ever heard.

  While his neighbor fiddled around in the entrails of the minivan, Blanc found himself gazing enviously at the Alpine, with a certain embarrassment. “You have an extravagant hobby,” he said.

  Riou looked up, nodded, and smiled, also embarrassed. “Every Sunday morning I take the old girl out for a spin. At least that way I’m out of my wife’s hair while she’s cooking.”

  “An hour driving around, another hour tinkering.”

  “Not at all!” His neighbor was horrified at the idea. “These old motors are a lot more reliable than the modern computers on wheels. And cheap too. Or at least cheaper than most of what you see around here.”

  Blanc was about to respond with some meaningless pleasantry, when he thought of Le Bruchec’s Range Rover and Lafont’s Audi Q7. “You mean this Alpine is cheaper than all these giant SUVs?”

  “Bien sûr. Throw in a few extras and those four-by-fours cost easily a hundred thousand euros. And then you need a small car too. One of those monsters would never get into one of the multistory car parks in Marseille or Aix-en-Provence. You need to have a boss who pays you a packet to buy one of those. Or a hand in the Marseille cocaine business.”

  Blanc didn’t reply, just concentrated on staring over Riou’s shoulder to try to see which screws he was turning. “Right, done. Until the next time.” Riou wiped his hands and banged the hood down. Thirty seconds later he was gone, leaving just tracks on the gravel and a hint of gas in the air.

  “He frightens my poor horses every time he does that.” Paulette Aybalen was reining in her nervously snorting steed, before having it trot up to Blanc’s house. Behind her, by the edge of the road, her daughters sat on two other dancing animals. Like a troop of amazons come into the twenty-first century through some gate in time from antiquity, Blanc thought.

  “Going jogging in the woods again today?”

  “I’m going to work, actually.”

  “You’re not wearing a uniform.”

  “I have to put in a few unforeseen hours of overtime.” He was still thinking over Riou’s comments about expensive 4×4s. Paulette knew all the gossip in town; after all she had been the first to tell him about the relationship between Miette Fuligni and Lucien Le Bruchec. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Professional or personal?”

  “Professional.”

  For a second a shadow of disappointment flitted across her face, then she shook her head as if surprised at herself and turned to her daughters. “Ride on, I’ll catch you up.”

  The elder girl laughed, “You’re too slow for us, maman.”

  “Then wait for me at the top of the hill next to the burnt pine tree.” The girls galloped off.

  Paulette Aybalen jumped down from her saddle and gave Blanc a questioning look. “You’re a hunter,” she said. “A bloodhound. There’s something bugging you. That’s why you’re working even on a Sunday. Were you sent down here from Paris to deal with some particularly serious case?”

  “I was sent down here from Paris because I had already dealt with a particularly serious case there. They didn’t want it to happen again.”

  She said nothing for a minute, then smiled. “So what is your question, mon Capitaine?”

  “How does Monsieur Lafont earn his money?”

  Paulette Aybalen stared at him blankly for several seconds, maybe because she was taken aback or even shocked, he couldn’t say. “You’re not out to slaughter the biggest bull in the meadow, are you? No wonder they moved you away from the capital.”

  “I’m not out to slaughter anybody. I simply asked a question.”

  “People around here either talk quietly and respectfully about Marcel Lafont, or else not at all. Not at all is usually best.”

  “Sounds as if he’s some godfather figure.”

  “He’s been mayor as long as I can remember. He’s made something of Caillouteaux. The place could have gone to seed. Just look at Berre. That used to be a wonderful town on the lake. Nowadays nobody would have named the lake after a town like that. It would be too embarrassing. Berre today is dominated by oil tankers and the refinery, with flames leaping fr
om the chimney all through the night, and the air stinks of petroleum fumes so much it would make you sick. It could have been the same here. Lafont found a better solution.”

  “So everybody is pleased with him?”

  “He keeps getting reelected.”

  “Maybe not forever.”

  Paulette Aybalen took a step closer to him. He could smell her perfume. She lowered her voice. “Compared with Lafont, this FN cow is the conductor of a children’s choir. Our beloved mayor had a pretty wild youth, if you believe the rumors.”

  “In Corsica? Marseille?”

  “Nobody knows exactly. But they’re not mutually exclusive. He may still have old friends in both Corsica and Marseille.”

  “Friends who would not be at all happy if I started treading on Monsieur Lafont’s toes?”

  “I’ve got used to having you about. It would be a pity if you were to suddenly vanish one day,” Paulette Aybalen replied. She said it without a smile, and shook his hand in farewell, very coolly. Then she leapt back into the saddle of her Camargue horse. “Don’t put in too many overtime hours, mon Capitaine. That’s not how we do things down here in the Midi.” She dug her heels into the horse’s flanks, and rode off.

  Blanc watched her go, trying to concentrate on her words. But what he was really concentrating on was Paulette Aybalen’s agile body springing back up onto her horse. He wouldn’t have got to know a woman like that in Paris.

  * * *

  On the short journey into town, Blanc called Marius. Only to get the beep of his answering machine. He left a message, apologizing and asking his colleague to come into the office. He could only hope that at some stage over the course of the day Tonon would check his messages. When he got to the gendarmerie the officer on duty avoided looking him in the eye. There was a palpable silence in the building, almost a physical tension in the air—like a haunted crypt. All the office doors on the second floor were closed, except for that of the office Madame Vialaron-Allègre had taken over. He found himself pleased to see that the juge d’instruction had unexpectedly turned up at the office on a weekend, and stuck his head in her door.

  “You’re more curious than is good for you, mon Capitaine.” It was her husband, the minister.

  Blanc could have kicked himself.

  “I was expecting to see Madame le juge sitting here,” he replied lamely.

  “My wife is pruning the roses in our garden. She likes cutting the heads off pretty flowers.”

  Not quite certain how to interpret that, Blanc just looked at him silently.

  “Sit down, won’t you, now that you’re here.” Blanc sat down, feeling as if he were in an interrogation room, on the wrong side of the table. “You paid a visit to our friend Marcel the other night. He was not exactly overjoyed to see you.”

  “Mayor Lafont?” Blanc was alarmed. This was going in the wrong direction.

  “He’s more or less part of our family. And we’re in the same political party.” Vialaron-Allègre watched to see what effects his words had: He looked less than happy. “There are elections coming up soon. Marcel is a bit worried. For no good reason, if you ask me, but then Marcel is a cautious man, always fears the worst. I do my best to stop the worst happening. That’s the least one can do for a friend—in a situation like this.”

  “Monsieur Lafont should consider himself lucky to have such a good friend.”

  The minister blinked for a second then gave him a cool smile. “You must know that construction of a médiathèque would greatly help Marcel’s election chances.”

  “The mayor left me in no doubt.”

  “Bon. Now, through a tragic accident, the very man who was supposed to build this médiathèque is no longer available. Marcel is going to have to find somebody else as soon as possible. In the middle of the summer, and at the beginning of an election campaign. On top of all his other day-to-day duties.”

  “Monsieur le maire does not take any vacation time?”

  “In a situation like this? You’re not a politician, mon Capitaine.” The minister cleared his throat. “Whatever. In a delicate situation like this I just don’t want to see Marcel having to waste time and energy on unnecessary police investigations.”

  “Our investigations are never unnecessary.”

  “To be more precise, I don’t want Marcel troubled. Do we have an understanding, mon Capitaine?”

  “Absolutely, Monsieur Vialaron-Allègre.” Blanc was glad to be able to get up and go. He wondered if Madame le juge was aware that her own husband was hindering police investigations.

  He had only been at the desk in his own office for five minutes when the door opened and Tonon came in. He was wearing an Olympique de Marseille soccer shirt, its bright blue colors reduced to a sort of turquoise shade by too much sunshine and too many washes, khaki-colored three-quarter-length pants with baggy pockets, and a pair of fraying boating shoes. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in the outfit. “I hope you’ve got a good reason to call me in like this on a Sunday,” he grumbled. In his right hand he held a bag of freshly baked croissants, the paper dark with leaked butter. He didn’t offer Blanc one.

  “We’ll have to see if it was a good enough reason,” the captain admitted. He closed the office door, which Tonon had left open. “We’ve got a visitor, the minister.”

  “Putain. That’s a reason not to be here.”

  “Vialaron-Allègre would like us to leave Lafont in peace. I’d rather haul the mayor in.”

  “I should never have listened to the fucking answering machine.”

  “Lafont stinks of dirty money.”

  “That’s how all the politicians down here smell. You’re not leading a corruption investigation. It’s a murder case. Or maybe double murder, if somebody hit Fuligni over the head.”

  “That’s just the point. His last text message was to Lafont: ‘It’s all going to come out. There’ll be enough blood spilt to fill the harbor.’”

  Marius thought for a moment. “A message from a man who’s better with a trowel than words.”

  “The threat of a man under pressure. Or at the very least a drastic warning. Something had to make Fuligni nervous enough to send Lafont a text like that. What was going to come out? Was Fuligni threatening to expose something? Or was he afraid of something being exposed? A few hours after sending this message to the mayor he’s found dead in the lake. And our mayor’s out in his motorboat not far away.”

  “Okay, call Lafont in, if you want, best of all today, while the minister’s still here. That’ll be the biggest storm ever to hit Gadet, and at the end of it you and I will be clouds of ash drifting over the Touloubre.”

  “That’s why I disturbed your Sunday. The way we did it in Paris was, as soon as you’ve found a big spider lurking at the heart of the web, you have to immediately talk it over with your colleagues. You need to be careful.”

  “That’s how you became such a big success?”

  Blanc ignored the sarcasm. “We need to keep on Lafont’s tail,” he said conspiratorially. “But he mustn’t know. Nobody must know. At least not yet. We dig quietly in the dark until we come across the pot of gold.”

  “In Lafont’s case you’re more likely to come across a crock of shit.”

  “What is it that links Lafont and Fuligni? What’s their secret?”

  “The médiathèque. The pair have between them built half of Caillouteaux. The new project is the biggest contract Lafont could ever have handed to his friend.”

  “Agreed, but it’s a public contract. Anyone who’s interested can have access to all the details of the deal: an eight-million-euro deal for Fuligni. For Lafont a prestige project sure to get him reelected. Maybe the budget is a bit too high, maybe the timing a bit too convenient, but it’s all legal. Nothing to cause one of them to send a sinister text to the other.”

  “Eh bien?”

  “So there has to be something else going on between them. Maybe it really is something that concerns the harbor. After all, both of them had
boats down there. Or maybe it’s some other building project? Maybe it was the town hall renovation, when Lafont got his hands on all the antiques? Or maybe an affair? Fuligni wasn’t one to miss out on a good thing. And his wife isn’t exactly a prude. Maybe it wasn’t just a Romanian secretary and a widowed architect in this little love circle. Maybe the mayor too? Or the mayor’s wife?”

  Tonon gave him a sympathetic look. He bashed a few keys on his keyboard with his big paws and said, “Voilà. Carole Lafont.”

  Blanc looked at the screen and saw an old story from the Internet edition of La Provence. A photo of the mayor’s wife with some smiling children and two nervous-looking female teachers. Madame Lafont was a matronly woman in her midfifties with gray hair piled on top of her head, heavy jowls, and a huge bosom.

  “Not exactly Fuligni’s type, to put it mildly,” Tonon muttered.

  “Certainly not a lady you’d want to quarrel with,” Blanc replied, trying to keep his end of the story up. “Maybe Fuligni’s Romanian secretary was servicing the mayor as well. Fuligni wouldn’t have objected, for fear of losing his contracts. But eventually he decides he’s had enough. He threatens to tell Madame Lafont, at which point, in order to avoid a scandal, the mayor nips down to his yacht at the harbor and—”

  “Maybe you should start writing TV soaps. Fuligni was far too proud to share his young chicken with anybody else. And Lafont might have made a lot of mistakes, but not even his most bitter political rivals over the last thirty years have suggested he’s run around after other women.”

  But Blanc was still looking at the photo. There was something alarming about it, but he couldn’t work out what it was. Carole Lafont? An opulent lady in a gray suit with a light red scarf and a friendly smile. The children and the two intimidated teachers. He took a close look at each and every face. Never seen any of them before. What was there of note about the school building itself? The wall was plastered yellow with a bronze plaque on it, which he couldn’t make out in the photo. An open wrought-iron door, and in the background a parking lot with a battered Peugeot 106, a red Mini, and a white delivery van. The leafy branch of a tree, almost certainly a plane tree, protruding into the frame from the right. A patch of bright blue sky. Blanc zoomed in on the photo until nothing but pixels could be seen. He still couldn’t read the bronze plaque. He looked at all the faces, the hands, even their shoes. Harmless, normal, completely inconspicuous. He shook his shoulders resignedly and closed the photo.