Playing the Martyr

by Ian G Moore

  ‘We can’t say that for sure yet.’

  ‘I think we can.’ Lombard said testily, snapping out of his fog. ‘Why else would he be here? This was meant to be symbolic, either to the victim himself or as a message to others. He may even have been alive when the sisters were using him as selfie fodder. Imagine that.’ His voice dropped. ‘How very cruel. And leaving behind a “relieved” widow…’

  ‘I didn’t say any of that!’

  Lombard knew he was getting ahead of himself, but out of practice or not, a lifetime spent in law and crime had given him an insight into, and a low opinion of, human nature. Aubret had had the same experiences, and probably had the same feeling too, but he was speculating nothing without the evidence or before an autopsy report. Which was how Lombard should have been playing it, but he couldn’t get away from the slight whiff of pure malevolence in the air. A nastiness, not just the murder itself, but the staging of it. No, Singleterry was definitely alive while he was here, he was sure of it. Otherwise there was no point in taking the risk with the ridiculous scarecrow. ‘I know you didn’t say any of that, and I’m not putting words into your mouth, but if, in the end, the killer was just going to smash his skull in for some personal grievance, then just smash his skull in. Why drag the poor man out here? Why take that risk? Why put him on a cross? Was it going to be burnt, Joan-of-Arc style?’ Was that going to be the end of fête firework display, he could have added.

  ‘There were some twigs and kindling around the base. Not much. Not enough to get a fire actually started.’

  ‘Just enough to look like it could have been. It’s all a bit heavy, don’t you think? A cross, a view, Joan of Arc. It’s all laid on a bit thick.’

  ‘And his hair had been cut.’ It was an almost sheepish admission.

  ‘Really? That wasn’t in the report.’ Lombard could have smirked, could have made the by-the-book Commissaire squirm, but this wasn’t a game anymore. Their fencing duel was over, for now at least.

  ‘No.’ Aubret, considering their history of trust, felt embarrassed at not doing things exactly by the book, ‘I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things, so I wanted confirmation before I add it to the dossier. But anyway. Singleterry was very proud of his hair – quite a vain man, his wife said – shoulder length, not a grey hair on his head. I asked her, without specifying what I meant.’ Involuntarily he rubbed the top of his own thinning pate. ‘But there were cuts around the ears. I think his hair had been hacked at, it certainly wasn’t shoulder length, but I want confirmation.’

  ‘Hacked at? Like a frenzy you mean?’ It was a small, sickening little detail that perhaps meant nothing, but which added to the victim’s humiliation.

  ‘It left a kind of rough bowl cut, like a monk or…’

  They both stood silently for a few seconds.

  ‘Or Joan of Arc?’ Lombard finished Aubret’s sentence, who nodded his head slowly in reluctant acknowledgement. ‘What are you thinking, Guy? What’s worrying you about this case? Because I don’t like it.’

  Aubret paused, weighing up his reply, retrieving a Gaviscon box from his jacket pocket and flicking open the lid as he did so. ‘What worries me, specifically? You Monsieur le Juge. You worry me.’

  Lombard knew exactly what he meant.

  Chapter 8

  Everything was theatrical about Émile Lagasse. Partly it was his slicked-back hair and pencil-thin moustache that he hoped gave him classic, black and white film star looks. Mainly it was his large wiry frame, especially his incongruously long arms and legs, which led to mime-like, rubbery movements. So, as he made a big, physical event about winding down his brasserie awning, he made sure all of his customers were aware of the effort he was putting in on their behalf.

  The tourists gave their awkward, heartfelt thanks for the added shade but the regulars had already known where to sit, and at what time, so as to avoid the heat and light of the lunchtime sun in Émile’s terrasse sun-trap. As such they paid him little attention. Le Lion d’Or was ideally placed, opposite the church but also in view of the main square with its cinema, gendarmerie and small co-op. It also stood just a few yards from the town-centre hospital, within neck-craning view of the last chimney on the chateau and smack bang in the middle of the few remaining small town shops, the rest having succumbed to harsh economic reality. The one-way system made sure that the terrasse was also quiet and from mid-morning until mid-afternoon the sun beat down, making people thirsty after a heavy, and judiciously salted, lunch.

  Émile had done well. Le Lion d’Or was, apart from Goudrian’s Presse with its early morning Cognac and beer on tap, the only serious place in town. A very decent restaurant, the best for miles in fact, and a regular clientele to fuel it; he was proud of how he’d built it up, with a friend’s money initially, but with his own talent and hard work thereafter. At least, that was his view.

  He simply resented working on Mondays – that was all – and so while his exaggerated mannerisms became more comic, more pronounced, they also told a story. And the story was resentment. It was an amusing watch for the tourists but less so for the more knowledgeable locals, who at this time of day on a Monday were mostly English anyway. The ‘true’ locals still weren’t used to, or possibly even aware, that businesses could operate on a Monday. Few of this lot even have jobs, thought Émile bitterly, few even had families to go back to. Plus he was practically on his own. His wife, Sandrine, had gone back home to their boys and Aline, one of this summer’s waitresses, had cried off early for some reason known only to Sandrine, so he was now ‘front of house’ again.

  Émile finished unwinding the awning with a flourish, receiving a round of applause from a grateful group of elderly pink-faced Americans on Table 15, the most exposed table at this time and who were relieved by the shade. Everything else in town was shut. Monday used to be sacrosanct in France, especially around here, thought Émile, as he did every Monday in the summer months. The church was open obviously, but even Farid’s shop was shut on a Monday, and Sunday too, thought Émile jealously. Isabelle’s boulangerie, the three opticians, even both pharmacies were closed. It was Monday, there was a pharmacie open in Saint-Sulpice seven kilometres away, but anything else could wait.

  The cinema, Old Man Marquand’s place, was shut too. He had specific hours, obviously, granted Émile, giving a town elder a bit of leeway, but he wouldn’t be open tonight either. Old Man Marquand had been pushed into opening more often but he had his limits. It used to be that when Émile was growing up the cinema rarely opened at all in the summer months. Old Man Marquand didn’t like people, especially young people, so the idea of actually promoting children’s films in the summer holidays filled him with dread. Too many sticky childish fingers on his immaculate cinema seats; the noise, the spilled drinks. He preferred to shut down for the summer, arguing that any profits to be made from a potentially bored captive audience would go on cleaning bills and the inevitable re-upholstering.

  Émile’s old school friend and brother-in-law Nicolas Marquand had made a few changes when he went into the family business. One of the first was insisting that if he was to be persuaded to take over eventually then it had to be run like a business, which meant opening at family-friendly hours and showing family-friendly films. He also built a stage in front of the screen, for live spectacles, concerts and the like. Something Old Man Marquand couldn’t stand, despite their popularity.

  They’d all had to adapt to a new way of thinking; and the bottom line for French towns like Saint-Genèse was survival. Over the past twenty years French village life had been decimated, most were just like ghost ships, people had died and nobody had come to replace them. So many villages didn’t even have basics now like a boulangerie; and Émile knew it would be the towns next. It had already started: nearby Villecoeur was in serious trouble. What was it that that busybody Singleterry had said, ‘You can tell it’s in trouble, Émile, it’s down to its last optician! We can’t let that happen here.’

  Poor Singleterry, though
t Émile crossing himself, like most foreigners apparently obsessed with the number of opticians in small French towns but really, what had it got to do with him?

  He was always sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. It had been his idea that Émile open Le Lion d’Or on a Monday and Émile had laughed at him. The very idea! But Singleterry had gone straight to Sandrine, the ‘boss’ as he’d called her, not knowing just how accurate that was, and convinced her that it was ‘good business sense’. The cheap flight from London arrives on a Monday at Tours, he argued, people with gîtes and chambres d’hôtes had guests arriving who had nowhere to eat… it would be your busiest day of the week in the high season… and so on and so forth. They opened the following Monday and had to take on more kitchen staff. Now ‘the boss’ was checking airport timetables every week, and not just for Tours but for Poitiers also, even Limoges which was a good couple of hours away. It was galling that a foreigner had been proved right; even his death might bring extra customers today.

  ‘Excuse me, garçon?’ Dear God, thought Émile, what am I, a child? The English tourist was holding a battered, ancient phrasebook and was clearly about to launch into some destruction of the French language.

  ‘Monsieur,’ began Émile, grateful at least that the customer wasn’t Parisian. ‘I’ll fetch a waitress for you.’ He turned to go back into the quieter sanctuary of the bar indoors.

  ‘Come on, Émile,’ said a brusque voice behind him, ‘try doing a bit of work yourself and get the man a drink if he wants one.’

  Émile turned to face Clotilde Battiston, the town doctor and perennially re-elected Mayoress. His shoulders slumped like a lovelorn silent movie actor and he turned back to the tourist.

  ‘Of course Monsieur,’ and then, in perfect and, he hoped, patronising English, ‘What would you like?’

  Dr Clotilde Battiston, a broad-shouldered, strongly built woman, though attractive and elegant with it, took a seat at the one remaining shaded table in a slightly old-fashioned, shoulder padded sage green suit. She beckoned her companion, a younger and more nervous man in an open-necked shirt and chinos, to do the same.

  ‘So, as I was saying, Madame le Docteur…’ Battiston’s nervy companion began, even before he was seated.

  ‘It’s just Docteur, or Madame le Maire.’ Clotilde was a stickler for these kind of things.

  ‘Er, Docteur…’

  ‘Let’s order first, Monsieur, I’m famished. Are you not? It must have been a long drive up from Bordeaux.’ Clotilde opened her packet of Omé cigarettes and lit one of the super-slim sticks. She was making it clear that she was in no hurry at all, thought the impatiently watching Émile.

  ‘Madame le Maire.’ Émile was back, ‘I have only sandwiches left, I’m afraid. Sandrine has gone home and so the kitchen is now closed Madame.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Clotilde said sharply without looking up from her placemat menu.

  ‘No, really. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Émile, are you seriously telling me that you don’t even have any tins of confit de canard left in the kitchen?’ She paused for effect and then continued in a louder voice, ‘You know? The ones you pass off as fait maison?’

  ‘And for you, Monsieur?’ said Émile, turning his entire body in the direction of the young salesman. ‘Same? Good. And to drink?’

  Émile took their order and disappeared back inside.

  ‘Oh dear, I don’t think he’s too pleased with us, Monsieur Jacquet!’ Clotilde turned her considerable, flirty charm on for the younger man, ‘but he’s a good sort really. And the food here is actually very decent.’

  ‘I don’t really like duck,’ said the young man mournfully, before slipping on a practised smile and trying to take advantage of having a slice of the conversation. ‘Anyway, the new improved Croaxidil…’

  ‘Please Stefan,’ Clotilde chided, ‘Not over lunch.’

  Émile returned with a tray of drinks, ‘A pineau for Madame. A demi pichet of rosé, a carafe d’eau and an orange juice for Monsieur.’ He shook the bottle which left Stefan Jacquet in no doubt what Émile thought about adults who ordered orange juice as an apéritif.

  ‘Can you tell me where the toilets are, please?’ Stefan said, rising as he did so.

  ‘Through the bar Monsieur, to the right. Please turn the light off when you’re finished!’

  ‘You didn’t tell him to wash his hands too!’ Clotilde laughed. ‘Émile, this Monday act of yours gets more surreal every week.’

  Émile leaned down and pretended to brush the table. ‘We need to talk, Clotilde.’

  ‘About what?’ she replied coldly.

  ‘The police. They’ve been here twice already and…’

  ‘Of course they have! What did you expect? Poor Monsieur Singleterry was last seen here. Where else would they go? You should be selling them ice-creams.’

  ‘But there’s talk of a magistrate visiting too! They’re taking this very seriously.’ Émile hissed, clearly nervous.

  ‘It’s a murder inquiry, you idiot!’ snarled Clotilde. ‘They’re not going to treat it as a joke, are they?’ She stubbed her cigarette out in the blue Orangina ashtray. ‘Now Émile, calm down and act as normally as you can, which I appreciate isn’t very normal. Look around you! Monsieur Singleterry’s death is a tragedy, a horrible tragedy. But,’ she swept her arm out wide, ‘it’s hardly bad for business is it?’

  Chapter 9

  Juge Matthieu Lombard, investigating magistrate for Tours and the Touraine, and Commissaire Guy Aubret, head of the Tours Serious Crime Squad, stood looking over the white mechanised gate at their new enemy. The gate reached about chest high on the taller Lombard and shoulder height on the stockier Aubret and they both stood either side of a red and white sign which said ‘Attention! Chien Méchant!’ A fierce hound was pictured on the sign, and it meant business.

  The reality was a small brown and white French bulldog and it was staring at them, and had been doing so for the last five minutes. It looked bored rather than menacing but the deep and apparently permanent growl was still meant as a warning.

  ‘Try phoning again,’ a frustrated Lombard said, tapping his index finger on the gate as if he were trying to orchestrate the dog.

  ‘I don’t get much of a signal here. That’s the trouble with these places.’

  Lombard had eventually found his own mobile phone, but too late to charge the thing up. He’d found it under a Napoleon III ladies’ writing desk of dubious provenance, in a box of condolence cards and dead flowers that had never been displayed. The lack of signal made him feel vindicated about his phone. He also liked to think that people moved to these quiet backwaters of rural France specifically to avoid things like adequate phone signals .

  ‘Maybe that’s not the “Chien Méchant” in question.’ Aubret was almost growling himself, his masculinity insulted by the size of his defiant opponent. ‘Of course, it’s a French bulldog. We could wait half an hour and it would probably keel over and die anyway. Those things don’t last five minutes. Too inbred. They’re more like ornaments than animals.’

  Vanity and cruelty. There seems to be a lot of it about, Lombard thought as Aubret began making throaty noises at the small animal. The Commissaire, a proud and regular hunter, was like all men of the soil and chasseurs; they assume that because they spend their lives outdoors they are somehow closer to the psychology of nature. That a few hours every autumnal Sunday spent blasting away at young pheasants gave them an inside knowledge of all fauna. Lombard, always happier in a town, found the idea not only ludicrous but alarming too. Heavily armed middle-aged men, fuelled by arrogance and a lunchtime Cognac, was a recipe for disaster. Vanity and cruelty.

  The bulldog sneezed as if on cue, almost fell over and looked about itself, apparently embarrassed. Then, as if deciding that no-one of any significance had seen him, continued his verbal warnings.

  ‘Do you still hunt?’ Lombard felt he needed a distraction from the scene in front of him, which was essentially two French bulldo
gs in a battle of will. Fortunately the distraction arrived.

  ‘Max! Max dear, let the gentlemen in.’ The female voice, speaking in a clear-cut English accent, came from somewhere beyond the geometrically trimmed and deep green Leylandii as the gates slowly, with an almost nervous judder, began to part. The right first, followed by the left. Max sneezed again and waddled haughtily off in the direction of his mistress. The two visitors followed at a cautious distance as behind them the gates stopped and began their ponderous return journey.

  Helen Singleterry appeared at the top of the rising, smartly-paved driveway. She was wearing a large straw sunhat tied with a pink ribbon under her chin. Over one arm hung a beige painted gardening trug, complete with a gleaming set of gardening tools. None of the tools looked like they had seen much actual gardening. Her outfit, consisting of an elegant cream flared trouser suit and brogue court shoes, made her look like she was posing for a photo-shoot in an upmarket magazine. She put the trug down and picked Max up.

  ‘Afternoon, gentlemen,’ she said in French and with a heavy sigh. Lombard noticed the red around the eyes which presumably the hat was an attempt to hide. She offered her hand delicately. ‘I’m sorry if you were kept waiting, I was trying to keep myself busy in the back garden. Have you been waiting long?’

  ‘You have company too, Madame, sorry if we are interrupting anything.’ Lombard nodded behind their hostess to where a well-dressed man of medium height was standing in the doorway drinking from a bottle of water. His sharp business suit jarred with the surroundings of small town Loire Valley life. Also, it spoke of confidence and strength whereas its wearer looked furtive, and a little shy. Balding, he had gone straight for the all over close shave. A decision-maker, thought Lombard, and it suited him. Some men’s heads are just meant to be bald. Everything was perfect in his outfit except that his elegantly striped shirt was buttoned up to the collar, but there was no tie. The tie was in the man’s hand instead. Lombard watched him closely, deliberately trying to add to the man’s discomfort. He let go of Madame Singleterry’s hand, and turned his eyes to her for slightly longer than was necessary. She met them defiantly.