‘The holidays will cause delays. If you wish to return to London, I can arrange for everything …’
‘I’ll find a hotel.’
Was there someone, a relative, offspring, who could be contacted to keep Jane company? To each question, she shook her head. ‘Where’s Luc’s car?’
‘Garaged, awaiting police and insurance inspections, then the breaker’s yard. It’s a write-off.’
‘And the dog? Where is our dog?’
The DI furrowed his brow. No dog had been found. ‘Breed?’
‘A small black-and-white Springer Spaniel. Luc had christened him Walnut – he was always at Luc’s side.’
Roussel frowned, checked his notes. ‘No dog.’
He must have left Walnut with Clarisse, Jane thought, which was surprising because the dog was so attached to him.
‘The accident occurred east of central Paris, near the Vincennes district on a secondary road. The car skidded in heavy rain, veered off the road to the right where there was a slight cant. The bonnet collided full on with the trunk of a tree and concertinaed. The engine burst into flames. He was wearing his safety belt, but …’
Jane was still puzzled about where the dog had disappeared to. Luc would not have left the south without Walnut. Surely, then, this was a clear sign, this was proof, that Luc had not been the driver of the vehicle. She was clinging to straws, shredded straws. Her logic was disjointed. She had just identified his body. Her mind was befuddled, short-fusing.
The man across the desk from her was still talking. ‘Had Monsieur Cambon been taking any prescription drugs?’
Not that she was aware of.
‘When did you last speak to your husband?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Had he been drinking?’
She shook her head.
‘And when did you last see him?’
‘Nearly seven weeks ago.’
Roussel expressed surprise.
‘Most of the required archive material for his new film was here in France, the interviewees …’
Roussel instinctively ran his palm across the newspaper cutting, then frowned and scribbled a couple of words on one of the sheets of paper in front of him. He had a red pencil in one hand. It was looped between two fingers, one of which sported a gold wedding ring. Was his wife at home, engaged in frantic preparations for the traditional Christmas Eve family meal this evening? Jane watched his mouth moving, unable to register anything he was saying. He might as well have been blowing bubbles.
She had a throbbing headache. When had that begun? A child was bawling somewhere beyond the walls of the room. A mother visiting a patient with her youngster? The inspector had a trim brown moustache and a light coating of dandruff on the shoulders of his grey jacket. She felt a certain revulsion towards him. Her judgement was irrational and unkind, but it was so. This man was alive, and still talking. Luc was not. He had been silenced.
Luc, her Luc, was dead.
She had been cheated of the rest of her life with Luc.
What lay ahead?
Jane heard the approach of a trolley in the corridor beyond the door, which had been left marginally ajar, the rubber wheels rumbling along the linoleum-tiled floor, empty cups rattling, a woman humming. The tea lady. Was she in an upbeat frame of mind, looking forward to spending Christmas with her husband, her loved ones? Jane lifted a hand to her head and pressed two fingers against her temple where slow, forceful beats were drumming against her skull. The police officer must have forgotten that he had offered her coffee. Might he also have an aspirin? A wave of sickness was rising up from her stomach, like a slick of oil.
Fighting the urge to vomit, to drop her tired head into her arms on the table and give way to weeping, Jane concentrated hard on the activity of the man seated opposite her. He was opening a notebook marked up with small squares. Such paper had been used for arithmetic when she was at school. She would have to break the news to her father in Kent. Her father in Kent. Was it today they were supposed to be taking him out for lunch? He would be waiting for her, looking forward to seeing Luc again. He would have put on his suit, brushed his hair. Their Christmas outing.
DI Roussel was still talking. Had he been talking all this time? He was sketching a plan. A simple infant’s image of a thick-trunked tree, a car approaching it, curving arrows, impact. Car hits tree.
Luc’s last trajectory.
9
Jane requested a visit to the site of the accident. A Christmas Day pilgrimage. Although she had insisted that she could accomplish this alone in a hire car, if furnished with a detailed map, Roussel had accompanied her. She felt a compulsion to stand on the spot where Luc had last breathed life and she was convinced that Walnut would be lying low somewhere nearby, hungry, traumatized, awaiting the return of his master, and that her presence would bring their beloved pet out of hiding. But she was mistaken. Her calls and hollering on that foggy, frosty, holy morning brought no response. No young spaniel cantered towards her, tail wagging, buoyant at the sight of her.
Few vehicles passed. The cordoned-off section, marking the accident, was an isolated spot, beyond a dangerous bend, which must have been what threw Luc off course, driving too late for too many hours in low visibility. The lower trunk of the plane tree that had interrupted the car’s forward thrust was blackened and scored.
Jane could picture the scene, on the winding lane with a hairpin bend. Luc at the wheel, the dog at his side, skidding as he’d taken the corner, spinning out of control. Rotating in the rain, a dance towards death, the collision, combustion. Luc trapped, struggling with his seatbelt, as the engine exploded and the flames rose and roared. She let out a cry. Had he suffered? Please not.
Roussel was standing a pace or two ahead of her with his hands across his chest deep in thought. He swung round to face her. ‘You said?’
She shook her head. ‘I was … was wondering what caused the skid. Was he driving too fast?’
Roussel made a big deal of scanning the ground, the uneven pebbled surface surrounding the scarred old plane tree, before offering his opinion.
‘Tiredness, speeding, alcohol, loss of control, but we are looking for a dog, non? I think we will have to assume that a passing vehicle found the distressed creature walking in the road and gathered it up, rescuing what they took to be an abandoned pet. Shall we go?’
‘But Walnut had been chipped. He was clearly not abandoned. If he had been found and reported, then we would have received a telephone call by now.’ She made a mental note to call the canine refuge centre for the South of France, based in Lyon.
Roussel shrugged.
It was spitting rain now, gaining strength, velocity; a sheeting downpour.
‘Are you ready?’
She nodded.
‘Let’s go.’
During the drive back to Paris, the heater was suffocating, blasting hot air, and the slap and drag of the wipers made her want to open the door and jump out to make a run for it.
‘I was a fan of your husband’s films,’ Roussel said eventually. ‘My wife enjoyed them too. The photography, the nature, startlingly beautiful. I remember especially the film about the butterflies.’
‘The Swallowtail butterflies? That was his first film.’
‘Very impressive.’
Jane smiled to herself. Luc was vaguely impatient that many spectators seemed to prefer his first film above the others.
‘What would persuade a man whose passion is the environment to turn his hand to a film that is politically, historically so controversial?’
‘He wanted to know more about his background. The French colonials in Algeria. He spoke about it in the article on your desk.’
They drove in silence for a kilometre or two.
‘Tragic to lose a man so talented.’
‘Thank you,’ Jane murmured, although she knew she had played no role in Luc’s productions, other than occasionally translating the dialogue and narration texts from French or Spanis
h into English. She smiled silently, a bittersweet memory of how rigorous he had been with her, his attention to detail, but how satisfied when the modest lines she delivered had pleased him. Her ‘succinct use of language’ had been one of his compliments. ‘Essential in film-making.’
‘It’s Christmas Day.’ Roussel sighed, glancing at his watch, rubbing his chin with his hand. He needed a shave.
‘And I have taken you from your family. I apologize. Thank you for your time.’
‘It’s the nature of my work.’ He shrugged.
And that was the first time it crossed her dazed and grieving mind that she was in the company of a senior police inspector who had given up his family holiday to escort her to the site of a car accident. She puzzled for a few miles without saying anything, trying to make sense of all that had happened, the moving force that had crushed her life in so few hours.
‘What time did the accident occur?’
‘Estimation, around nine thirty p.m. A couple in a saloon car en route to Rheims for the holiday called emergency at ten to ten. The fire service was on the scene at four minutes after ten p.m. The ambulance arrived two minutes later. Your husband was still alive when they found him. He died fifty-seven minutes after reaching the hospital.’
Jane closed her eyes, thinking of Luc here alone, dying. There were no words to describe the depth of her pain. But what of Luc’s?
He had telephoned her from somewhere north of Beaune around three in the afternoon. She remembered it clearly because she had confirmed it on her watch. Beaune was probably a little less than three hours south of where the accident had taken place, which meant there were three hours unaccounted for. Had Luc been delayed somewhere? He had mentioned delivering papers en route. Would that have taken three hours or had he visited someone? Where had he spent those missing hours?
‘Is there something you haven’t told me?’ she asked suddenly.
Roussel momentarily took his eyes off the road. ‘About the day, the dog, your husband?’
‘The accident.’ In spite of her tiredness and vulnerability, her hackles rose.
‘There are always questions to be answered in a case such as this one. It is fair to assume that your husband was speeding, yes, but as far as we can ascertain there was no alcohol in his system, no drugs. Obviously a full autopsy has yet to be carried out, which will include a toxicology report.’
‘Luc didn’t drink when he was driving. And he never took drugs.’
‘The most probable scenario is an accident, that your husband fell asleep at the wheel. However, the damage to the mechanics of the engine, the car’s digital system, its EDR –’
‘EDR?’
‘Event Data Recorder. The generic term is “mechanical forensics”. Fire damage to the EDR is making it impossible for us to access the information relating to the last hour or two of the car’s driving history. So, no, Madame Cambon, I am not hiding anything from you. I don’t have the answers myself.’
They fell silent.
She took a breath, glanced out at the waterlogged landscape.
‘He had confirmed that he was on his way back to London to spend the holidays with you, not elsewhere?’
The question took her by surprise. ‘Yes. Where else would he have been going?’
‘Did he suffer from depression?’
‘Not at all.’ Jane almost laughed. ‘He was under a great deal of stress but he was vibrant and upbeat by nature.’ Surely Roussel wasn’t suggesting the possibility of suicide. Ridiculous.
‘Do you have a profession?’
‘I gained a master’s in languages and started up a small translation business some years ago. French, Spanish, English. Working on the internet.’
‘It could be operated out of France?’
‘Yes, but I prefer to live in London.’
‘Really?’
‘Inspector, our marriage was a good one. Our separations were due to Luc’s professional commitments, nothing else.’
‘Also your preference for living in England, non?’
‘Not every woman follows a man to his homeland. Our marriage, our relationship, bridged two countries. That is not unusual, these days.’
Roussel made no answer, allowing Jane’s voice to hang in the air.
‘Luc had everything to live for.’
But did he? His behaviour shifts, his absences, threw up doubts. As well, that five-word sentence, We do need to talk.
A conversation they would never have.
When they pulled up outside the Hôtel Lutetia, and Jane was stepping out, shielded from the heavy rain by the doorman holding an umbrella for her, Roussel warned her that they would be releasing the news to the press. ‘We will offer as little information as possible and won’t mention that you are in the city.’ He wished her a bonne soirée and shot off into the soggy Christmas night before she could thank him again. She had hoped he might suggest a drink before he returned to his family, an hour, even half, of distraction to alleviate the sense of overwhelming grief that was taking hold. Their conversation in the car was swimming round and round in her head, kicking up questions. Roussel had surely not been suggesting suicide.
She walked through to the bar and ordered a large cognac. The place was dingily lit and deserted. She sat on a banquette by the window, looking out at passing people, hunched in raincoats, hurrying through the grey, miry evening. Christmas Day. She telephoned her father. Frances, at Reception, was on duty. Jane explained where she was and why, but requested that she, Jane, impart the news of Luc’s death to Peter when she returned. Frances offered condolences and agreed to remain silent on the subject.
It was time to speak to Clarisse. At Jane’s request, the police had already been in touch with her to break the news, but she could not postpone her own call any longer. And when she did ring, the woman’s reaction was mordant rage.
‘I thought you weren’t going to bother,’ she snapped. She was adamant that Luc had driven off with Walnut perched on the seat at his side.
Clarisse’s words were slurred. She had been drinking. Who could blame her? Jane doubted there was sufficient alcohol in all Paris to achieve the oblivion she craved.
‘He’ll be buried here, of course, at Les Cigales. You might be his wife, but …’
Jane had not given the location of Luc’s final resting place any thought. She hadn’t got that far. Luc had never expressed any desire to be buried in his family’s plot as far as she knew. His father and grandparents had stayed behind in Algeria. There was only dear Aunt Isabelle in the south, in the village of Malaz. If Jane had reflected on the matter at all, she would have taken it for granted that they would have chosen their final resting place alongside one another somewhere in London.
‘I think Luc would have wanted to be with me, Clarisse. We hadn’t chosen any particular cemetery but –’
‘Precisely. So he’ll be buried here.’
Jane silently counted to five. ‘Clarisse, the last thing I want is for us to wrangle over ownership of Luc’s body, but I am his wife and –’
‘And I’m his mother. And if you had one ounce of compassion in your stone-cold heart you’d be here now caring for me and helping with the funeral arrangements. He and I discussed the subject at length. There’s a Cambon plot waiting for him.’
‘And what about me?’
‘You’re a Cambon too, aren’t you, much to my chagrin? Luc will remain with his family. We fought for our stake here. It’s my last word on the subject. You join in or you don’t. Please yourself.’
Jane lacked the cogency, the resilience, to argue the matter further. She put the phone down without another word and howled herself to sleep beneath the hotel pillows.
10
Jane remained in Paris over the Christmas and New Year holidays. She didn’t know what else to do or where to go. Shock had rendered her anchorless. All she clung to was that Luc was in Paris. His corpse was there, frozen in the morgue, yes, but his spirit was everywhere, around every street corn
er. She saw him in cafés, engrossed in the comment pages of Le Monde; deep within musty secondhand-book shops, rooting for out-of-print illustrated nature tomes, beckoning her to come on in; queuing outside cinemas, his gloved hand holding hers, his breath rising in the chilly winter air, laughing, opinionated, inquisitive, elegant, always elegant; surrounded by stacks of books in the library at the Cinémathèque. Paris was the city she thought of as theirs. More so than London, it occurred to her now. It was the city they had spent time in together before they were married, where they had first become lovers and where they had made love for the very last time after their dinner at Les Éditeurs.
Dutifully, she rang Clarisse every day, and every day Clarisse demanded that she fly to the domain and help with the funeral arrangements, but Jane stalled, temporized. She preferred to stick it out in anonymity at the Lutetia, although it was now drab and down-at-heel, much in need of its advertised refurbishment. Still, this time alone was essential – this proximity to what remained of her husband – to grapple with the trauma and loss.
She telephoned Dan, unsure whether he even knew about the accident. On each occasion she was connected to an answer-machine. ‘Je suis absent. Laissez-moi un message …’
‘Dan, it’s Jane. Please call me. It’s urgent.’
On the fourth or fifth attempt, a woman answered. She spoke perfect French with an accent that Jane couldn’t pinpoint. Dan was not available, she said. Jane insisted that it was urgent, that she needed to speak to him. The woman explained that Dan was out of the country on a location shoot. He was expected back mid-January. Jane requested his contact number, but could she call him abroad? To impart such bleak news to him at a distance and over the telephone? No, she needed to see him.
‘Please tell him Jane Cambon called and ask him to get in touch with me. It’s urgent,’ she said. ‘Tell him to call me when he gets this message.’
‘You are Luc’s wife?’
She hesitated. ‘Yes, I’m Luc’s wife.’ Not his widow, she thought. No, not yet his widow. ‘And you are?’
The Forgotten Summer Page 8