He had not forgotten that the Michelettis had invited him over for dinner. Bernard. Bring anything but wine. In the old days he had left it to Geneviève to decide what to take when they were invited somewhere. It was time he got used to his new way of life. The first house on the right when you came into Sainte-Françoise-la-Vallée from Gadet, behind a thick hedge that separated it from a field of olive trees, was a little garden store. He had driven past it on several occasions. This time he had stopped and bought a large hibiscus plant and, remembering Paulette Aybalen’s words, a little thyme plant in a bright red terra-cotta pot. He realized to his own surprise that he was rather excited. He dressed a bit more presentably and climbed into the car.
The approach to Domaine de Bernard was on the road to Saint-César, but it was a long and winding route to reach the winery, which in fact was hidden away behind oaks and pine trees but actually only a few hundred yards away from his old olive oil mill. Amidst the trees a few brave cicadas were still clicking away against the rushing mistral. The few other drivers he encountered on the route départementale were driving like lunatics. Blanc was beginning to feel nostalgic for the gray days of Paris in the fall, when at least there was no wind. He turned off the road onto a gravel and brownish red sand track. It was quieter amidst the oak trees. When he trundled down into the depression where the vines were planted it was all of a sudden hot and warm. He immediately relaxed.
Bruno Micheletti was sitting on an ancient blue tractor with tall, thin wheels on which he was carefully navigating his way among the rows of vines. Behind him an apparatus attached to a plastic tank was spraying a brightly colored liquid in a fine rain over the leaves. That won’t be water, Blanc thought to himself, and tried not to breathe in too deeply.
“Just drive on up to the house,” Micheletti called out over the stuttering noise of the tractor’s diesel engine. “It’s at the end of the track.”
Blanc drove on, along a winding track that dipped and rose again, peacocks wandering amid the vines, or perching on low stone walls that had conserved the sun’s warmth, or even half hidden amidst the lower branches of the pine trees. The estate was much larger than he had imagined. Blanc was no expert at guessing these things but it had to be dozens of acres at the very least. On his walk in the wood he had only come across one tiny corner of it. Eventually the gravel and old asphalt track led him up a hill that could have been the seat of a little castle overlooking a sea of vines. There was a little dovecote that sat some fifteen feet above a barn with a closed wooden door that reeked of wine and wood and vinegar. Next to it was a little garden with a freshly watered lawn in front of a nineteenth-century house made of brownstone. On a terrace sheltered from the wind by the house itself, beneath a yellow umbrella, was a long wooden table where glasses and cutlery shone in the oblique rays of the sun.
Blanc parked carefully behind a peacock that was strutting along the gravel and didn’t seem to be remotely stirred by a huge car coming threateningly close. One of its long tail feathers suddenly rose up and was taken by a gust of wind that whipped it out and sent it dancing, a flash of silver and violet against the sky.
“It’s that time of year,” said Sylvie Micheletti with a laugh. She had been standing on the stone steps of the terrace, and now came toward him. “In summer the males lose their tail feathers. We tie them into little bundles and give them to our customers. At least to those who don’t already have enough three-foot-long bird feathers.” She kissed him on each cheek. Blanc felt truly honored at such a friendly greeting. He opened the tailgate of his car and took out the presents he had brought. Sylvie looked so slight that the mistral might blow her away. He hesitated to put the two pots in her little hands. But she just laughed and took the plants from him. “These are a boon for both body and soul,” she exclaimed.
Bruno drove up the track, leapt down from the tractor, and disappeared into the house through a side door. Blanc followed Sylvie onto the terrace. There were four place settings. But before he could say anything Paulette Aybalen came out of the patio door carrying a huge bowl of salad. Now there’s a coincidence, Blanc thought to himself, amused rather than alarmed.
Quite clearly the Michelettis, out of the friendliest of motives, had determined to use a good meal to turn their near neighbors into a couple. Blanc smiled, agreed with Paulette on the familiar “tu” rather than the more formal “vous,” but was equally determined to behave impeccably. After twenty years of marriage without cheating, he believed that it was wise to be cautious when shopping again on the love and lust market.
They ate melon from Carpentras with raw ham and drank glasses of glittering white wine. Then Bruno brought out a ceramic platter with dark meat straight from the oven. “Wild boar. Shot it myself,” he declared proudly. “We have a herd of them around here who spend every night plowing up half the forest.”
“Marinated in red wine?” Blanc asked, vaguely remembering a recipe he had once read.
“Red wine is for drinking, not for making sauce!” his host exclaimed. “A little olive oil, some thyme, and a hot oven, and … voilà!”
Sylvie served couscous and cold ratatouille. They were now on the rosé. The sun had long disappeared behind the treetops by the time they tore apart a baguette and passed around a wooden board with ten different types of cheese, accompanied by a red wine. Blanc began to wonder if it would be wise to drive back home later. He noticed that Sylvie was the only one of them who had not drunk any wine, and had not been offered any by her husband. Before the cheese course she had popped into the kitchen and unobtrusively brought out a wooden box from which she took four or five pills of varying colors. Bruno and Paulette had paid no attention, so he had made a point of lifting his glass so as to conceal the fact he had noticed.
By midnight, when he finally got up from the table, full of food and just a little under the influence of the wine, he realized he was happier than he had been for ages. I’ve arrived, he told himself, finally arrived. He had also realized that Paulette Aybalen had come on foot, and said that of course he would give her a lift home. A good move, he thought. They spent the few minutes in his car in silence but without embarrassment. He parked outside his own house and accompanied her the few dozen yards to her door on foot. He leant down toward her, her long hair smelling of pine, hesitated the tiniest of seconds, his face close to hers, then kissed her on both cheeks.
It was so dark he couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or pleased that he hadn’t tried to take things any further. “Good night, neighbor, and thank you,” she whispered. At least she didn’t sound upset.
Blanc strolled back home, feeling as if he were floating. I have arrived, he thought again. The wind rushing through the plane trees outside the house was so loud he almost didn’t hear the ringtone on his phone. The number on the display meant nothing to him, though he noticed that whoever it was had been trying to call him all evening. He never turned his phone off, but it appeared that out in the woods there was no signal. He took the call.
“Have you been spelunking? It’s as if you’ve been underground for hours.”
Blanc took a few seconds to recognize the voice. “Madame le juge!” he exclaimed.
“I’ve been unable to rest easy since we last spoke,” she said, ignoring his apparent surprise. “I dug up a few documents.”
“Me too,” he replied. “Lafont is a hard nut to crack.”
“This is not about Lafont,” Aveline Vialaron-Allègre replied impatiently. “It’s Moréas. He’s the guy all this fuss is about, right?”
Blanc stood there, scarcely daring to breathe. “You’ve found something?”
“A copy of a document in the town hall files. One Marcel neglected to mention to you when you first went to talk to him in Caillouteaux. One you were unable to find the second time you were there, possibly because someone had cleverly hidden it. I came across it in my husband’s poison cabinet, a fact that he is definitely not to be made aware of.”
“His poison cabinet?”
“Where he keeps documents that might be useful. That’s how you make a career in politics, mon Capitaine. My husband collects copies of documents relating to his party colleagues. All of them, young and old, big beasts and little. All public documents, perfectly legal to file away. But who does things like that? Eh bien: In the documents relating to his fellow party member Marcel Lafont, I found the planning permission for the médiathèque.”
“The eight-million-euro job.”
“Forget the eight million. That was building money. But first you need somewhere to build. The médiathèque is supposed to be built on the edge of the plateau, because in this ancient town there is no room anywhere else. Nearly all the common areas belong to the commune. But there is one important strip of land in private ownership.”
Blanc leant back against the trunk of a plane and suddenly felt the world closing in on him. “What an idiot I am,” he whispered.
“I’ll make a note of that admission,” the juge d’instruction responded coolly.
“Moréas inherited five parcels of land from his parents,” Blanc said wearily. “Land he did nothing with. Four of them in the woods, where he would chase off hikers, and one…”
“… in the town, on the edge of the plateau. An excellent site on which to build, for example, a médiathèque.”
“But an antisocial character like Moréas would never sell. Fuligni can whistle for his eight million and Monsieur Lafont can watch his pet project melt away, along with his chances of reelection and a seat in the senate. And there’s nobody who can force the guy to sell.”
“Marcel was under so much pressure that he revealed plans for his médiathèque to the press before he had even solved the problem of acquiring the land. Maybe he hoped that putting public pressure on Moréas would have persuaded him to sell. Or maybe he just underestimated the stubborn recluse because he came into town so rarely and Lafont didn’t really know him.”
“Or Monsieur Lafont knew that Moréas would conveniently die just when it mattered?”
“Get to the gendarmerie early in the morning. We are going to have to take two or three others into our confidence. I’ll leave it to you to do that. I have a meeting in court tomorrow morning that I don’t want to miss because it would only cause attention. Come and see me at midday at our house in Caillouteaux. Then we can go over the steps we should take next.”
“That will be a pleasure.”
“Don’t come in the patrol car. I don’t want anyone to know you’ve come to see me.”
“I picked up a few things like that in Paris.”
“Mon Capitaine? Next time do me a favor and check your cell phone more regularly.”
An Inappropriate Affair
Tuesday marked the fifth day of the mistral. But it wasn’t just because of the wind that Blanc couldn’t sleep. He was fixated by the call of the hunt. Fabienne was at the gendarmerie early and for once, luckily, they didn’t have to wait too long for Marius. Blanc closed the door to the office and told both his colleagues about the strip of land that was needed for the médiathèque.
“Where did you get that from?” Tonon asked.
Blanc hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to compromise Aveline Vialaron-Allègre unnecessarily. “From a reliable source.”
“Clearly a good-looking woman,” Fabienne teased him, not knowing how close she was to the truth.
“We’re going to tread on Monsieur Lafont’s toes,” Blanc said.
“You’d better tell the boss first,” Tonon warned him.
“You really think Lafont shot Moréas and set fire to his corpse, just to get his hands on a strip of building land?” Fabienne asked skeptically.
“In order to save his own career. Either he did it himself or he got some of his friends from Corsica or Marseille to do the dirty work for him. But, yes, I actually do think it was him. And he didn’t want anyone else making inconvenient allegations.”
“But there was someone else: Fuligni.”
“He might not have known for sure, but almost certainly would have had suspicions.”
“But why would he send Lafont that text about blood in the harbor?”
Blanc raised his hands. “Pass. Maybe he was intending to blackmail him.”
“After his pal Lafont had handed him an eight-million-euro contract?” Blanc’s young colleague was still looking skeptical.
“Sometimes even eight million isn’t enough. Maybe Fuligni’s building business was in trouble. Maybe his affairs with women were costing him a lot of money.”
“Romanians are cheap,” Marius muttered indignantly.
“Nonetheless I believe Lafont decided to silence his friend down at the harbor. Lafont knew Fuligni liked sleeping on board his yacht on his own, he admitted as much. On the night of Fuligni’s death he was out on the Étang de Berre on his own in his fishing boat. He decides to pay a visit to Fuligni on board his yacht, they have a drink, and then he hits him on the skull. A blunt instrument needn’t make a noise. Nobody would have heard anything. Lafont unties Fuligni’s yacht, takes it out of the harbor, throws his unconscious body into the water, and lets him drown. Then he gets back into his own boat, disappears into a bay, and only comes back the next morning, posing as the deceased’s shocked best friend. Voilà.”
“It’s all too dangerous. Lafont is too powerful,” Tonon insisted. “The mayor has already complained to Paris. He’s put pressure on the commandant. He thinks he’ll be left in peace now. When he finds out we’re coming after him again, he’ll go ballistic. It’s better we tell Nkoulou. He’ll have to know sooner or later anyhow.”
“And what if he forbids us from investigating further?”
“Then you go to your friend, the juge d’instruction. If she says no, then we go for lunch and sort out the troubles of the world on our own. I’ll pay.” It sounded as if Marius was already counting on them being happily dismissed and sitting in the shade of the plane trees in just a few hours’ time.
“Madame Vialaron-Allègre has already given us her blessing.”
Fabienne gave him an oblique look: “Eh bien, in that case we may as well knock on the chief’s door.”
Nkoulou looked up, shocked to see three of his subordinates come into his room at the same time. “Close the door,” he ordered them, even before any of them had said a word.
Blanc took a deep breath. The next few minutes would decide whether or not his career was down the drain. As concisely as possible he told his boss where the investigation had gone over the past few days.
Nkoulou listened to him in silence—starched, ironed, immaculate as ever, save for the little ring of sweat that sat on his forehead like a diadem. “Do you know what you’re about to do?” he asked when the captain had finished. His voice was calm, considered.
“Monsieur Lafont is a powerful man.”
“He is not just one man. Lafont has been cultivating friendships for decades, doing favors, handing out presents of all sorts. Dozens, hundreds of respectable people have profited from his friendship: farmers, shopkeepers, doctors, teachers…”
“Building contractors,” Tonon added.
“They will all be shocked if we bring Lafont in, especially if it’s in connection with a murder case,” Nkoulou continued determinedly. “Your neighbors, mon Capitaine, mes Lieutenants, the bakers you buy your baguettes from, the doctors who prescribe your painkillers, your children’s teachers, the electricians who repair your worn-out fuses.” He gave a small sarcastic smile. “I just hope that is clear to you. As clear as glass.”
Blanc thought of Paulette Aybalen’s advice that it was wise to speak softly about Lafont, and better still not to speak of him at all. “Perhaps one or two of them might not be all that unhappy,” he said.
The commandant gave him a long, searching look. “Over the past few days Monsieur Lafont has been on the phone to me a lot more often than I told you. He has been very polite, very respectful. But also, how should I put it, very firm. It would make my life easier if
I threw you all out of my office here and now and forgot all about this business of yours.” He was silent for what seemed like an eternity, the expression on his face rigid, the beads of sweat glistening. Blanc had an absurd urge to take out his handkerchief and wipe them away, before they ran down the side of his face. “But I hate it when amateurs get involved in my business,” Nkoulou said at last. “Society has rules, regulations, laws. They can be tedious but they contain the wisdom of generations. I took an oath to enforce those laws, not to dismiss them because the phone keeps ringing. So get on with it.”
They got to their feet and hurried to the door.
“Madame, Messieurs,” Nkoulou called after them. “Not a word of this to any of your other colleagues. I don’t want news of a potentially incendiary investigation like this to get out. Least of all to Monsieur Lafont.”
“I don’t want that either, mon Commandant,” Blanc replied.
* * *
“Sometimes, it can be an advantage that Nkoulou insists on everything being done by the book,” Tonon whispered, clearly relieved and somewhat amazed when they found themselves back in the hallway, having first made sure that they’d closed the chief’s door behind them.
“It would appear that the first time we went to see Lafont to ask about Moréas, he concealed the existence of the documentation on the land issue from us,” Blanc said, back in their own office. “But the planning permission documents for the médiathèque can’t have completely vanished. Not when it’s such a grand and pressing project.”
“But you searched the archive,” Marius reminded him, unnecessarily.
“Yes, but I was only looking for documents in which Moréas was mentioned. Lafont could easily have removed those. He had more than enough time. But if we searched under ‘médiathèque’ then we’d be bound to find documents—not even the mayor can hide everything relating to an important public project on that scale. Then at least we’ll have tangible documentation of our own, rather than secondhand material, which is what we’ve had to deal with up to now.”
Murderous Mistral Page 20