by Ian G Moore
Jane soon became very agitated indeed. As the interview wore on and the journey was recapped, being told to ‘slow down’ was apparently all that Lucy could remember of the drive from Dieppe. There was the picnic, the brief sense of freedom, then seeing the scarecrow up in the next field; Jane became more emotional, she sat up, wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye, started playing with her long auburn hair like a schoolgirl being told off.
‘I wanted to send a picture to my ex. Tell him, show him that I’d moved on.’ She was holding back the tears and, Lombard noticed, not getting a great deal of support from her sibling. ‘Lucy came up with the idea of hugging the scarecrow, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t see it at the time, but I suppose it didn’t look much like a scarecrow. Too… too solid. I don’t know. You just assume it is what it is, that things are what they’re supposed to be.’ She paused to wipe her nose with a damp tissue, but Lombard didn’t say anything. ‘I was going to put the necklace on it, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. I hung the necklace on the arm and Lucy took a picture and we got distracted. It was a necklace my-ex, Giles, had bought me for Christmas.’
‘But you left it there?’
‘Yes, I did, and then later, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes, I realised I’d forgotten to put it back on. At first I thought just leave it, but Lucy said it was expensive and we should go back.’ She looked up at Lombard as if to say ‘isn’t that enough?’ He indicated softly for her to continue. ‘Well, we went back up the hill. I was in front of Lucy, maybe the silly necklace did matter to me. The crows were all over the scarecrow so I couldn’t see it properly, and then when they flew off, that’s when… it was horrible.’ She could no longer hold the sobbing back.
‘Thank you.’ Lombard leant forward, his voice gentle and soothing, ‘You’ve really been most helpful. And the necklace?’
She just shook her head. He turned to Lucy who belatedly had put an arm around her sister’s shoulder. ’Your sister will need your support Madame, it’s fortunate that you are clearly very close. Are you twins?’
‘No!’ Lucy almost snapped the answer back. ‘No. Half sisters. Same dad, different mums, two weeks apart.’ She machine-gunned out the bare facts, like Lombard had done with his own background; clearly it was a barrier coming down, a defence mechanism.
‘That must have caused quite a stir.’ He wasn’t going to let it go as easily as she’d have liked.
‘You bet it did. I loved my dad, Mister… judge…’
‘Just Lombard.’
‘We both loved him. But there’s no point denying it, he was a proper old-fashioned shit. He didn’t like Graham Singleterry either.’
‘Oh Lucy!’
‘What? I don’t think I’m dropping Dad in it seeing as he keeled over a few weeks ago. That’s a pretty solid alibi! Singleterry taught us French for a few weeks one summer, must be ten years ago now, maybe more. Then Dad decided to stop the lessons, dunno why, and I remember Mr Singleterry being very upset.’ Jane cried harder, almost as if this was new to her and a further setback. She grabbed at a cross on a gold necklace around her neck.
‘You have been very brave. Thank you again. And you have your faith as support I see.’ Lombard bent down to where Jane was sitting, ‘The cross of Lorraine, if I’m not mistaken,’ he looked up at Aubret, who was doing his best to keep up. ‘The two-barred cross.’
‘My mother gave it to me when I was little.’ Jane stammered. ‘“You’ll need protection.” She used to say. It was a prop in a play when she was an actress. It’s where she met my…’ she looked quickly at Lucy, ‘…our father.’
‘Really, which play?’ Lombard was affecting an air of small talk.
‘It was one of Shaw’s.’ Was the suspicious reply.
‘George Bernard Shaw.’ Lombard filled in the blanks unnecessarily.
‘Yes. Saint Joan.’ She said, ‘Saint Jean.’ She repeated in French for the Commissaire, needlessly trying to be helpful.
***
Aubret was sitting in the driver’s seat and the engine was already turning over. ‘Of course it’s just a bloody coincidence! Another one. And it proves nothing. But it is something.’
Lombard, looking tired and leaning heavily on the inside of the car door, ran his hands through his slightly greying temples. He simply wasn’t used to this level of exertion anymore. And looking outwards too, rather than running the same things through his mind about himself, Madeleine. Death. This was even more exhausting.
Aubret continued, ‘I don’t understand you at all. How you do your job is up to you. You’re in charge, you call the shots. But between us we have to compile evidence that points to a guilty party and the truth. Isn’t that what you juge d’instruction types are all about? Seeking the truth? Well the more evidence, pointers, coincidences, whatever, that we get, the further you run from the bloody obvious!’ Lombard shifted uncomfortably; he suspected that Aubret might be right. Maybe he was just being bloody minded. ‘A murder of an Englishman in France. The death, burning, however many number of times and the hair, and the cross, points to Joan of Arc as a motive. I don’t get what your problem is.’
‘It’s all too contrived.’ Lombard, almost whispering, was staring out of the windscreen. ‘This has gone beyond racking up Joan evidence or even coincidences.’ He turned to Aubret, ‘It feels like we’re in a fucking theme park!’ he shouted, then gathered himself. ‘Everywhere you turn, another relic, another connection… this is coincidence bordering on suffocating predictability. I’m not saying that’s not the motive, it’s just too thickly laid on for me, that’s all. And I don’t know why I think that either, before you ask. I just do. It might be that we’re being directed that way.’
‘I’m not saying that’s not possible.’ Aubret was again trying to stay calm. ‘Of course not, we keep all options open. But in hindsight even Singleterry’s cross was suggestive. The cross that kept him standing as a scarecrow. Think about it, it wasn’t your ordinary scarecrow cross, or crucifix…’ Lombard rolled his eyes. ‘A wooden stake for the back, a crossbar for the arms…’
‘And a shorter crossbar to keep the head up. The Cross of Lorraine you’re saying now, rather than just the best way to keep a semiconscious man’s head facing forward on a wooden stake?’
‘That was in Joan of Arc’s coat of arms, though? She was born in the Lorraine département?’
‘It’s also a symbol of De Gaulle’s Free France. Gilbert Sersiron used it to show his fight against tuberculosis… the American 79th Infantry Division, and German and British regiments, use it too.’ He paused, almost admonishing himself for not keeping quiet.
There was a pause. ‘Where does all that come from?’ Aubret had seen it before, but it was still impressive.
‘I don’t know. I just retain useless shit!’ Lombard replied sullenly. ‘Jane Allardyce wears it around her neck, Christ even the name Jane is an upmarket version of Jehanne – or Joan!’
Aubret nodded, ‘Right, so your problem is too many coincidences for it to be a coincidence?’
‘Something like that.’ Lombard snorted. ‘What I would like is some evidence, some pointer, some suspect or witness even that isn’t dripping in Joan. Check the sisters’ ferry crossing. Were they on the one they said? Get a description of the necklace. Is it expensive? How did Allardyce die?’ Aubret opened his mouth to interrupt, but Lombard cut him off, ‘And I know I’m asking you to do things you’ve already thought of doing. I know that, but if it turns up one non-Joan-based piece of information, I’ll be happier.’
‘You’d then start taking what we do have more seriously, would you? That’s just bloody ridiculous.’ Aubret put the car in gear and started off, while Lombard settled deep into the seat, his chin in his collar, knowing the Commissaire had a very good point.
Chapter 14
Dark clouds hung ominously in the evening sky as Lombard emerged from a small bar in a side street near the Palais de Justice. Aubret had dropped him off with a terse ‘À demain’ as Lombard had shut the
car door. There’d been no time for drawn out pleasantries, even if any were at hand, as other drivers, equally eager to get home, were quick to show their impatience at the inconvenient drop-off point on Place Jean Jaurès.
Lombard had skipped through the traffic to the roadside and taken a moment to compose himself. He was exhausted. It was to be expected, he supposed, it wasn’t just that it was the first time in twelve months his intuitive powers had been called on, and which now, felt like rusted bicycle gears resisting a change of pace, but also the sheer number of people who had to be considered and dealt with; met, acknowledged, listened to. For a year now, he realised, he’d been meandering and daydreaming. A solitary, episodic presence, dipping into society when it suited him, which wasn’t often. It was as he had been half-concentrating while cycling down an isolated country road and now, suddenly, he’d hit rush-hour périphérique traffic, and it was disorientating. He’d had enough of people for the day, he knew that much, and though he also knew he should show his face back in the office, he didn’t have the energy. His gears needed oiling.
He hid in the crowds that passed in front of the magistrature, ensuring that he wouldn’t be seen if anyone happened to be looking out of the office window. He knew it was childish, but he’d managed to stamp on any of Aubret’s prepared platitudes of condolence, and he didn’t want a deluge of them from other colleagues either. And anyway, he missed the calm mustiness of the shop, and the cat needed feeding.
How different his route home would be to Aubret’s, he thought, narrowly avoiding treading on a tiny, almost hairless dog being paraded by a tiny, almost hairless old woman. He knew Aubret’s exact movements from the moment he’d been dropped off. There’d be a brief smile in his rear view mirror at irate drivers, then an exaggerated, painfully slow, manoeuvre back into the traffic. It didn’t bother him one iota that he drove so slowly, he liked ruffling feathers. It would take him about fifteen minutes to get home, straight down the A10 and crossing the River Cher before turning off to head east and the small town of Veretz. The River Cher was what made Tours great, Aubret always said, to Lombard’s mind ignoring history, reason and the unavoidable River Loire that also ran through the centre of Tours. When the city was finally connected to the Cher, via a canal firstly and then the A10 it had, in Aubret’s opinion, allowed the people of the Berry to come in and organise the Tourangeaux daydreamers; good country stock giving the big town dilettantes some much-needed backbone.
Aubret had been alternatively frosty and nervous around him all day, but that wouldn’t last, but then nor would he be fretting about it now either. Lombard had never met anyone who could completely separate work and home life so successfully and so quickly. It was almost like he drove through the Cher itself and that it washed the day off him. He would arrive home, park in front of his immaculate garage doors, turn to survey the great river from his vantage point and go in, if not whistling exactly, then at least unencumbered by a day at the ‘office’. The ability to detach himself was partly what made Aubret such a good policeman, thought Lombard, there was little baggage. That and a well-drilled team who knew better than to disturb him at home unless absolutely necessary. It’s certainly what made him such a good husband and father. His wife, Fabienne would greet him lovingly, Aubret would pour the apéritif, always a pousse d’epine, made by his brother on the family farm, and the evening would go from there. A nice meal, helping the kids with their homework, Sophie who would now be 18 and his twin boys, Sylvain and Michel, in their early teens.... no discussion of the day gone by, no bringing work home, no staring into the distance wondering about autopsies and poisons. There would be no cloud of death hanging over the Aubret house. He wouldn’t allow it.
‘Lucky man,’ said Lombard out loud, and realised that for the first time since they’d known each other, he was jealous. Lombard had got used, very quickly, to being alone but now that he’d been sprung from that world, there was a gaping hole. Who did he have? A cat and his mother. His mother! Suddenly, he realised, guilt sharpened by fatigue, that he hadn’t called her. He began rushing home and then suddenly, on the corner of Rue Buffon, he stopped, and instead of continuing home, went straight on, a nervous, measured stride replacing the rush to beat the rain. It took him completely by surprise, but he had an urgent impulse for company and he knew whose.
The woman was straining to kiss the dead infant. The outstretched child lay across its father’s lap, the man’s arms were around both but the right arm hung limply, as if either too nervous to touch the head of the dead boy, or knowing the futility of it.
‘Les Mystères Douloureux.’ Lombard whispered aloud, for the millionth time in his life, ‘L’Enfant et Demain by Camille Alaphilippe.’ He sat down slowly, and leaned dolefully against the foot of the marble statue. The theme, Madeleine and he had always assumed, was that life carries on. There is always ‘demain’. Had they found it somehow comforting? A childless couple, relieved perhaps to have avoided that level of supreme pain? They’d never really discussed their childlessness, avoiding the potential allocation of responsibility or blame. Now, to Lombard’s grieving mind, the statue seemed mocking of his own pain. Is there a tomorrow? Why?
He and Madeleine had come often to the Parc Mirabeau, either to sit and talk, or read the papers, or just be. Hidden in the back streets and appearing suddenly like an oasis, it was always one of Tour’s quieter green spaces. It was quiet now because of the approaching storm, but there was always a sombre air to the place anyway. Not many would know its history as a cemetery destroyed by flooding, but perhaps it gave off a vibe. A Rococo bandstand, with gothically twisted sinews like a petrified tree, and looking as if it was writhing in pain, didn’t help. Madeleine had loved the impressive array of international flora, the Ginkgo, magnolia, honey locust, celtis and Judas Trees between avenues of horse chestnut, and that they were planted by a designer named, ironically, Madelin. It was their refuge, not that they needed one. It was Lombard’s retreat now.
The small park reminded him of so many things that he’d either lost or never had, and yet he came here anyway, though not often. Here was the one place he remembered Madeleine as she was before the illness, before the doubt and the fear and the loss. It was the one place he allowed her now to live.
‘You never used to be jealous of Guy, chou.’ He heard Madeleine’s voice here often, particularly when he was tired. Sometimes it was welcome, sometimes it wasn’t; this time it was, not that he could stop it either way.
‘I’m not jealous of what he has, just a little envious of how his mind works at times,’ he answered, knowing he was alone in the park but totally unfazed at talking aloud to himself.
‘You never could let a case go in the evenings. Why does this one bother you so much?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lombard stood up and began to circle the statue. ‘The motive is what? Just pure anger? Some historical revenge? A five-hundred-year-old grievance… that level of hatred, carried over the centuries to such a nasty, vicious killing.’ He absentmindedly picked some buds off a nearby laurel bush. ‘Maybe I don’t want to believe that’s the motive. Maybe its sheer fury is more than I can cope with now. I need a drink.’ He added in a whisper, as if trying not to be overheard.
‘You’re drinking too much, my love.’
Guiltily he looked down, like a scolded child. ‘I know.’ He said quietly, and sat down again.
‘What about the death? What’s bothering you?’
He began to throw the buds, trying to land them in a nearby bin, missing every time. ‘That Singleterry was the victim. Maybe there’s something we don’t know, but he seems so… innocent, unobtrusive. How could he provoke so viciously?’ He was suddenly very angry. ‘This wasn’t the murder of someone in the way for whatever reason, or the result of an argument. No. This was designed to make a point. Almost like a crucifix on a mount, a message for others to read. What message? Go home? It seems so banal. So… old-fashioned.’
‘Those poor girls who discovered the body.
..’
He threw his last bud and stood up. ‘They’ll be fine.’ His features had hardened.
‘That’s not like you.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I don’t think they’ll live in Saint-Genèse for long though.’ Lombard began walking quickly towards the north-west exit, he felt an interrogation coming on and wanted to leave the only place, the park, where he would allow it to happen. ‘They’ll sell up, I think. Soon.’
‘Then your “message”, if that’s what it was, has worked, has it not?’
Lombard continued striding. The thought had been lurking for some time, was ‘the message’ meant for the Allardyce sisters directly? Surely not? That would raise ‘coincidence’ levels to absurd heights.
‘And what of Monsieur Singleterry?’
He stood now at the gate, ready to say a relieved goodbye. He paused at the rear door of the signposted ‘Music and Philosophy Department’ of the university. From an open window he heard the mournful sound of a Baroque cello, was it Bach? He thought, striving, almost panic stricken, for a mental diversion. He didn’t want to say goodbye yet, but also felt desperate to do so. What was it Beethoven had said about music and philosophy? ‘Music is a higher revelation than all philosophy and wisdom.’ Beethoven. Ludwig Von. 1770-1827. His mind was racing.
‘I repeat chou, what of poor Monsieur Singleterry?’
He felt the first drops of rain, large, heavy globules that would herald either nothing or a violent storm, but nothing in between the two. He said quietly, his voice almost breaking, ‘It’s starting to rain. I must go.’ He hurried out of the park, a decision made not to look back, his eyes stinging.
‘Why him?’
‘Please don’t follow me.’ He was pleading with her.