Playing the Martyr

by Ian G Moore

  ‘It’s a little more complicated than that,’ he said coldly and looked at his phone again. ‘Do you have one of these?’ He waved his phone at Lombard as if to jog a distant memory. Although only about twelve years younger than Lombard he had always treated him like he was an old man, a dinosaur, possibly because of Lombard’s close relationship with his father, he bracketed them together in an age group no doubt.

  ‘Do I have a twenty-first-century communications device? You mean, in the past year we’ve moved on from carrier pigeons?’

  Llhermanault gave a wan smile and Lombard made a mental note to find his phone when he returned later. It wasn’t as if he had anything against them, just that he’d had no need of one for a while. His main objection to mobile phones, or more specifically smartphones, and it was a list he added to almost daily, was the amount of cheating they enabled in quizzes. He’d even invested in a mobile phone jammer for just such occasions, enjoying its frustrating effect enormously.

  They turned right into rue Emile Zola, walking more slowly this time, side by side. Llhermanault took the side closest to the buildings, leaving Lombard to occasionally step into the road to avoid lampposts, or bins, or very rarely, oncoming pedestrians.

  ‘How did you know about the Englishman?’ Llhermanault asked casually.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  This was a game being played and the outcome, that Lombard would be brought back into the fold, wasn’t in doubt. Llhermanault would have his way, but if Lombard could just knock him off balance a bit, let him know that he wouldn’t have it all his own way, it would be worth it. It may even pay dividends, though he couldn’t see how just yet.

  ‘Why me, though?’ he asked directly, stepping aside for a young woman with a pram.

  ‘It’s about time, don’t you think?’ Llhermanault responded, nodding at the young woman as she passed. No doubt he’d have raised his hat if he’d had one. ‘We all want you back at the Palais, we miss your experience, your…’ he paused, as if searching for the right words, though he knew exactly what he was going to say, ‘your unique abilities.’

  Lombard recalled the first time he had had to study Shakespeare. It was in his first and last year in an English comprehensive school, and he flatly refused to believe that anyone who had written thirty-seven plays and one hundred and fifty-four sonnets did so with the intention of giving each and every line at least a dozen potential different interpretations. It was just about the one thing he wouldn’t miss when he started in a French collège the following September. Then he was introduced to Molière, and the same thing happened. What it did teach him, though, was to look behind the words, look for nuance and duplicity, hidden meanings and deliberate muddying. A vital skill in his role as an investigating magistrate obviously; you couldn’t work in the law without it. And you couldn’t have a conversation with René Llhermanault without a good grounding in the art of obfuscation and multi-layered deception either. It was best to let him just finish a sentence and then hack away at it like a jungle explorer with a machete, looking for a clearer way through. ‘We miss your experience’ for example, could either be a genuine compliment, which he conceded was unlikely, or a dig at his age again. He was only in his late forties for God’s sakes. Llhermanault was plainly more age-sensitive since Macron’s election. He’d always considered himself the young buck, and it clearly rankled that the President of the République was the same age but already at the top of the greasy pole.

  ‘Unique abilities’ though? What on earth did that mean? Lombard had always worked differently from other Juges d’Instruction, and by doing so had trodden on a lot of toes. In fact, he couldn’t think of one person who would ‘miss’ his unique abilities; far from it.

  ‘So I’m not suspended then?’ he asked, again taking the direct route, which Llhermanault dodged.

  ‘The current situation is untenable. You were right, this is about the Englishman. It doesn’t matter how you knew about it, it gets us out of a hole. That you are best qualified to lead the investigation is not in doubt, you have a foot in both camps, French and English. It’s obvious that you must take the reins. So much so that if you didn’t, I would have to explain why, which would be awkward to say the least.’ He leant in closer, ‘Politicians, some politicians, don’t need much of an excuse to attack the judiciary as it is.’ Lombard knew very well that Llhermanault had political ambitions and if, or when, he achieved office the prevailing mood was still to attack the judiciary, Llhermanault would don the jackboots with the rest of them. He would take great pleasure in it too and nor would he be the first. One of Macron’s recent predecessors had tried it, taking a particular dislike to the independence and power of the juges d’instruction.

  They stopped as they went to cross the rue Nationale, allowing a late tram to pass, ‘If it became public knowledge that your recent absence was due only in part to the death – the tragic, tragic early death – of your wife but that we were also sitting on a file accusing you of tampering with evidence, we would all suffer. Well,’ he added, ‘you more than most really.’

  ‘Supposing I don’t want the job. Just suppose I’d come to a decision and resigned from the judiciary, maybe to open a bar somewhere.’

  They stopped on the corner of rue Marceau.

  ‘You’d be lucky to get a licence, I fear. I have a file accusing you of tampering with evidence, remember, and after a year of compassionate leave I would be forced to take action. Reluctantly of course, and with a heavy heart for a family friend. It’s very important these days that employees of the state are seen to be absolutely spotless.’ He emphasised the word ‘seen’ in a way that made Lombard feel queasy, especially as the younger man was almost winking at him as he did so. So these were his ‘unique abilities’, were they? That he was prepared, at least in Llhermanault’s eyes, to bend the rules. He was plainly seen now as something of a player, one that could be used.

  He wished he’d never asked now. He had had every intention of taking the investigation anyway, assuming that to do so would mean Commissaire Aubret’s complaint about him would be binned, not shelved, but binned. That obviously wasn’t the case however, quite the opposite, and the insinuation would not only hang over him but could in theory be used as a chain to yank him in whatever direction was required. He would have to find a way of working around that and eventually cutting the chain.

  ‘Who’s the chief investigating officer?’ He sighed deeply as he asked, outwardly at least signalling his defeat.

  ‘Splendid!’ His boss replied, as if Lombard had just agreed to go on holiday with him or enjoy a game of cards. ‘Commissaire Aubret is in charge of the police side of things. I believe he’s expecting you.’

  Chapter 4

  Commissaire Guy Aubret of the Brigade Criminelle shook the small plastic box of Gaviscon in his left hand. The plan had been to cut down to one packet of these a day, 16 tablets, but that was now looking ambitious. The box was empty. He turned away from the window and hurled it somewhere vaguely in the direction of the waste paper basket. The cleaner never put the basket back in the same place, so instead he just threw it where he thought the thing should be. The result was light plastic hitting carpet tile which, like many things right now, was unsatisfactory.

  He turned back to the window and to the mime show going on in the street below. Two men stood on the corner opposite the Commissariat, one was doing all the talking, the other, seemingly passive, had his hands in his pockets, alternately looking at his feet or at the sky, and rarely at the other man. Lombard was giving a good impression of a truculent schoolboy being told off by a teacher, thought Aubret; while Llhermanault looked like the earnest educator doing his best for a wayward pupil. He knew the reality was different. The Procureur would be selling his extortion as an opportunity, and the Juge would be thinking about pushing him into oncoming traffic. He sighed heavily like a parent who could see both sides. He had watched this scene so often in the past. He’d even once asked Lombard how he managed to r
estrain himself. ‘I think of a beach, Guy,’ he’d said wistfully. ‘I think of endless white sands and swaying palm trees. I hear the sound of gently rolling waves…’

  ‘And that does the trick?’ He hadn’t been able to hide his surprise that Lombard might have a zen hiding place.

  ‘…and quietly, silhouetted in the background,’ Lombard had continued, lost in his reverie, ‘I’m holding the bastard’s head under the water.’

  Aubret looked down at his own feet this time. It would not be an easy reunion.

  He heard a crunching sound behind him and turned to see Commandant Lydie Pouget bend down and pick up the shattered Gaviscon box from the floor, having obliterated it under her heavy, crime scene, work boots.

  ‘You alright, Chief?’ As ever, she was dressed for action; she wore army-like combat trousers with an aggressively thick belt and a tight polo shirt which didn’t mask the outline of a bra so heavy-duty it could be a kevlar vest. She was the best officer in his team, his nominated chef de groupe, and as thorough as any cop he’d ever known, but he’d rarely seen her smile and that always saddened him, like it was any of his business. For her part, she was aware of her nickname as Lara Croft and played up to it to a certain extent, while never putting up with any nonsense either. And by now, in her early thirties and single, she had had a lot of nonsense to put up with. Aubret, who had sisters and a daughter himself, was protective of her, which he knew was ridiculous. If there was anyone on the force who didn’t need protection it was Commandant Lydie Pouget.

  He started rummaging around in his desk drawers, slamming each of them shut as none of them yielded what he was looking for.

  ‘Check the back of your in-tray.’ Pouget approached the desk and pulled out a brand new box of Gaviscon from the overflowing desk tray. She lobbed it gently towards Aubret, like she was giving a treat to a dog.

  ‘Thanks. Is Chrétien back yet?’ He tore open the plastic covering.

  ‘No. I had a text from him and Leveque though.’

  ‘Of course. I’d forgotten about Leveque. How’s our rookie getting on?’

  She didn’t look up from her phone as she searched for the text. ‘OK. Better at dealing with the living than the dead. He struggled with the stiff a little.’

  ‘There’s more experienced officers than Leveque who’d have struggled with that.’

  Over many years Aubret had learnt to hide, if never completely control, his own revulsion at a dead body. And this one had been as unusual as any. A man, mid-sixties, apparently poisoned, but his head stoved in for good measure. Then left to rot on a hillside, crucified like some religious heretic. They had all arrived as a group at the crime scene, a few minutes before forensics. The victim was well known locally apparently and had been identified by the chief of the Pompiers at the scene, and then confirmed by a wallet still in the man’s pocket. The shaken local Police Municipale officer, glad to be relieved of any further responsibility, was detailed to show Chrétien and Leveque around Saint-Genèse; who to talk to, who was in charge and so on. Pouget, his nominated Procédurier, had immediately started work on the dossier, the detailed written report of the investigation that would form the basis of any subsequent prosecution. She had also taken pictures of the scene while forensics prepared the ground. Aubret stood aside while Officer Texeira scoured the immediate area for anything out of the ordinary. Then the Commissaire and his Commandant had gone to tell the wife that she was now a widow.

  So far, so routine. Everyone knew their role, and as a team, they were faultless. Though Aubret knew what was coming.

  ‘What did Chrétien say in his text?’

  Pouget looked at her phone, reading aloud. ‘Number of statements taken. All the same. Nobody saw victim after about 10 pm. Not much more can do here. Calling it a night. Sending Leveque back with notes.’

  Aubret tried a calming deep breath before gently placing a powdery tablet in his mouth. This waiting around for the official start of the investigation, the judicial declaration that it was indeed a murder hunt, was such a boring formality. The investigation had naturally begun immediately anyway, they were all just waiting for the Procureur to assign the case to a Juge d’instruction. It was a formality, but in this case it was complicated by the victim’s nationality. He looked briefly down at the street again where Lombard and Llhermanault were still in their one-sided conversation. He turned and walked to the inner window of his partitioned office, the one looking out at the wider office beyond. Only Helder Texeira and Juliette Lemery were there. Texeira stood at the transparent case board where, at the top, he had written ‘Victim: Graham Singleterry. English.’ and was now attaching a picture of the man next to his name. Texeira had a frenetic energy about him, the same as he always had at the start of an investigation, like a child the night before his birthday.

  Lemery was typing at her computer, her face as close as was feasibly possible to the screen, which was reflected in her glasses.

  ‘Anything, Lemery?’ the hyperactive Texeira asked loudly.

  Juliette Lemery raised her head and looked up at her colleague. She seemed on the verge of saying something but just shook her head instead.

  ‘Damn, that was close!’ Texeira beamed a grin at her which she registered without emotion before returning to her screen. Juliette Lemery hadn’t spoken in nearly two years. She had been a customer in a bank when someone had tried to raid it. She had seen the man discreetly pull a gun and demand money from the cashier, and instead of calling for backup she had made it quietly clear to the kid who and what she was. The gunman had grabbed the cashier and over the next two hours Lemery attempted to talk the desperate young man into giving himself up. It was a mistake. The man shot himself and Lemery hadn’t spoken since. After an internal investigation she had been cleared and offered early retirement because of her ‘disability’. She’d refused. She didn’t want to leave, she didn’t want to give up a job she loved, she just didn’t want to talk anymore, that’s all. Aubret had fought for her to stay with his team as an office researcher. And why not, he’d argued. So much was done online now, she was invaluable to them. Chrétien on the other hand…

  ‘Shall I call Chrétien, chief? Tell him to come in?’

  ‘No.’ He no longer registered surprise at Pouget’s intuition. ‘He’d only get Texiera’s back up if he came in now.’ He went back to the window overlooking the street. ‘We’ve got other things to think about.’

  ‘I’ll be at the autopsy at 8.15 tomorrow morning.’ She walked around the desk, stood next to him and followed his gaze into the street. ‘Ah.’ She paused, unsure of what to say next. ‘That complicates things.’

  Maybe it was one of the reasons why he liked Pouget so much, why they got on so well: neither of them worried much about tact and diplomacy. He had others in his team who could do that. Chrétien, for instance, despite his many faults, was a smooth operator, with an ability to treat each witness with the attention and flattery of a seducer. He was also the son of a revered ex-cop, which meant constant comparison to a legend he couldn’t live up to. And he knew it.

  ‘This could be awkward.’ It was an attempt at levity, but said while self-consciously tucking his tie into his belt, Pouget could see he was on edge.

  ‘So that’s why the future Président de la République was taking such an interest.’ She was no better at flippancy than her boss.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Commandant?’ Protective of her or not, Aubret liked respect, certainly where hierarchy was concerned. It was the essence of their work, know your place, do it well, pass it up.

  ‘Sorry. Is that why Procureur Lhermanault was here personally? Sir.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And because the victim was English, that means…’

  ‘And the girls who found the body too. Yes Pouget, it does.’

  Things had been pretty quiet for a while, the Touraine was a genteel place. Crime tended towards the economic or the domestic, rather than out of the blue brutal. Particularly in the British expa
t community. Most of them didn’t get involved, kept themselves to themselves, which Aubret liked. He knew some who resented the British ‘invasion’, as they put it, for that same reason. They should speak more French or they should be more like us, his neighbours often said. But he preferred it largely as it was. When people start mixing, the lines get blurred and Aubret liked clearly defined groups, straight lines.

  The lines were anything but straight with this one, they were all over the place in fact, crossing and re-crossing each other already, and the poor sod was barely cold yet. The victim was foreign which meant ‘politics’. That’s why Llhermanault was so involved. Politics. Had the victim been a French farmer, say, then he’d have been as invisible as usual, outside of his preferred media spotlight that is. Ready to show up when the work was done. And that’s how Aubret liked it; again hierarchy. Keep the big-wigs out of the way as long as possible. Having said that, he didn’t envy Llhermanault the task of trying to bring Lombard back into the fold. Maybe sometimes the world does need politicians.

  ‘What do you think they’re talking about?’ Pouget hadn’t been able to tear herself away from the scene below either.

  Aubret grunted. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He’ll have to take him off suspension though.’

  ‘He’s not officially on suspension. He’s not officially anything, other than a Juge d’instruction for the Tours prosecutor’s office on compassionate leave, due to the death of his wife.’

  ‘Which he kept secret.’

  ‘Which he kept secret.’

  ‘But the file you gave to the Procureur…’

  ‘Probably in a glass cabinet with a sign in front of it saying, ‘Break Glass in Case of Emergency.’ He went to sit back at his desk, and sighed heavily as he fell into his chair.

  ‘And this is…’