by Rhys Bowen
Between Evan’s rusty French and a young male clerk with a smattering of English they established that there were no Bouchards currently living in the town. Back records indicated that an elder Monsieur Bouchard had died eight years previously. His wife had followed him the next year.
“His occupation is listed as fisherman, monsieur,” the clerk said. “You could ask down at the harbor. Someone there might know what has become of their children.”
“There was a son,” Evan said. “His name was Jean. He was lost at sea five years ago. Have you no record of that?”
“Hélas, no, monsieur. If he was no longer living in the community, how should we know of this?” the man demanded with a sad shrug of the shoulders. “I show no Jean Bouchard registered here. I can only conclude he did not live here. I am sorry.”
“Oh well, down to the docks,” Watkins said. “How do you think your French will stand up to talking to fisherman?”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Evan said.
They left the car in the central Place de la République and walked down a narrow cobbled alleyway back to the seafront. The town might have looked like its English counterpart, but now that they were out of the car, their nostrils were assailed by distinctly non-British smells. Newly baking bread competed with roasting coffee. From an open kitchen window came the heady smell of garlic. And as they came out of the alley the salty, seaweedy tang of the Channel came to greet them, tinged with a slight fishiness.
A distinctly French voice was singing on somebody’s radio. The barrow at the waterfront was selling crêpes instead of candy floss.
At one end of the promenade, brightly painted fishing boats were bobbing behind a sturdy concrete harbor wall. Several old men were sitting up on the wall with faded blue fisherman’s caps on their heads. One was mending a net.
“I’ll leave you to do the talking,” Watkins muttered to Evan as they approached the old men.
“You’ll have to, won’t you?” Evan shot him a quick grin. “Unless you’re really good at hand signals.”
“Cheeky monkey,” Watkins muttered. “Go on, then. Dazzle me with your French.”
Evan took a deep breath. “Bonjour,” he said. Then he tried to explain that they were inquiring about the family Bouchard. Blank faces met him. The old men looked at each other and shrugged in the way that makes the speaker feel that what he said probably wasn’t worth saying.
The old men exchanged a few words with each other. Then one of them got up and shuffled off.
“Oh, you really seem to have got through to them,” Watkins muttered sarcastically. “Now they’re all bloody escaping. They must think we’re lunatics.”
Evan shrugged and started to walk away. One of the old men grabbed his arm.
“Attendez, monsieur,” he said, and gestured toward the promenade.
“He wants us to wait,” Evan said.
“What for?”
“I’m not sure.”
A few minutes passed. Gulls screamed overhead. A boat chugged out of the harbor.
At last the old man could be seen returning with a young girl at his side.
“Ma petite fille,” he announced.
The girl looked at them shyly. “My grandfazzer,” she said, pointing at him. “I learn English in zee school. Please tell me what ees you want?”
Evan told her. She listened solemnly, nodded, then let out an explosion of rapid French.
“Aah!” The old men looked at each other, nodding and smiling.
Evan heard the word Bouchard repeated many times. Then torrents of rapid French came flying back at the child.
“Monsieur Bouchard ees dead—many years now,” she said. “His wife, she ees also dead, five or six years ago. Zere was one son, but he is gone away.”
“Can they tell us about the son?” Evan asked.
Another quick exchange.
“He went away. He worked on the ferry boats from Calais. Nobody has seen him for many years now.”
“Do they remember his wife?” Evan asked.
The old men couldn’t seem to agree on this one. There was a lot of gesturing and shrugs.
“Zey sink he marry zee local girl but zey do not know her name. Zis man say he meet her once . . . she was very pretty, but zee ozzer men say at ees age he sink zat all young girls are very pretty, no?” She smiled shyly at Evan.
The old man who was mending the net said something else.
“He sinks zat she come from zee orpheline . . . orphanage in Abbeville, but maybe no.”
“Would they have heard if Jean Bouchard had died?” Watkins asked.
More shrugs greeted this question.
“They have not seen him for several years. Not since his mozzer die. He not come ’ere no more.”
“So he had no friends in the town who might know about him?”
“Zey do not know. Perhaps he ’ave zee friend. They can only say zat they do not see him ’ere no more.”
“Do they know if any members of the family are still alive in this area?” Evan asked.
They debated this with animation until Evan caught the word imbécile.
“What was that about an imbecile?” he asked.
She shrugged, a perfect imitation of the elders’ gesture. “Zere ees nobody alive now but possibly zee imbecile ees still living. Zee brozzer of Madame Bouchard. He went—how you say—crazy?”
“Was his name du Bois?”
No reaction from the old men. They had never met him personally. They could only repeat what they had heard. But if he was crazy, they said, he would surely be in the hospital in Abbeville because that was where all the crazy people went.
“At least we’ve established one thing.” Watkins looked pleased as they drove out of St. Valéry. “Philippe du Bois could have been his uncle. His mother might have had guardianship over him.”
“Which meant she would have opened his mail, signed his checks . . .” Evan continued the train of thought.
“Applied for a passport in his name?” Watkins finished.
The two men exchanged a grin. It felt good to be getting somewhere at last. It was a small fact, but it was the first sliver of proof of what had been all conjecture until now.
“And if Jean’s wife came from the orphanage in the same town, we can kill two birds with one stone and find out more about her background,” Watkins went on, sounding really animated now.
“He could have married more than once,” Evan pointed out. “Yvette could be his second wife.”
“Do we know her maiden name?” Watkins asked.
“She put something like Hétreau on the form she filled in for us.”
“Yvette Hétreau.” Watkins repeated the words. “We’ll see if that rings a bell with anyone at the orphanage, but let’s start with the hospital first. We know where to find that.”
The Hôpital St. Bernard was a square brick building at the edge of the town. It was surrounded by neat, leafless plane trees and wide sandy paths, newly raked. They went inside and were met by a nun in full habit, who understood a little English and listened politely.
“Philippe du Bois? We have had other inquiries about him.”
“Yes, that was us. North Wales Police. Somebody rented a car using Philippe du Bois’s name. We’re still trying to find out who might have done that.”
“You had better talk to Mozzer,” she said and swept down a wide corridor to an office at the far end. The elderly mother superior welcomed them graciously. Yes, she had received their inquiries but she regretted she could tell them nothing. “Poor Monsieur du Bois. He was in his own world. Such a shame. A clever man once—a mathematics teacher. But then the illness struck, and now he doesn’t know where he is or who he is.” She shrugged. “And to see him—he still looks healthy—handsome, big, lots of dark curls . . .”
“Does he ever get letters or visitors from the outside?” Watkins asked.
“Not anymore. What point would there be?” She smiled sadly. “And now his family is all g
one, I believe. His sister used to come, but she died years ago now.”
“So who would his guardian be?”
“The state is his guardian, monsieur.”
“And he never goes out, ever?” Evan asked. “Would he be able to get out if he wanted to?”
The mother superior looked surprised. “He does not wish to leave, monsieur . . . but to answer your question, it would be possible to get out, if he desired. Of course, we would soon notice he was missing and bring him back, but he has never wanted to wander. Some of our patients—we have to keep a very close eye on them, but not Philippe. He is happy in his room.”
“Would it be possible to visit him?” Evan asked suddenly.
Watkins looked surprised. So did the mother superior.
“I suppose, yes. But I do not think he will speak with you, monsieur.”
“All the same, I’d appreciate it,” Evan insisted.
“Very well.” She put her hands together, then rose from her seat. “Zis way, please. Follow me. And I must warn you that you may hear sounds zat are not very pleasant. Not all of our patients are docile.”
She swept ahead of them down the hallway and unlocked a door at the far end. The odor was the first thing that assailed them—a strong smell of disinfectant that didn’t entirely mask other, more unpleasant, smells. Someone screamed. There were distant moans. The nun kept walking until she came to a door at the far end of the hall. She took out a large key and put it in the lock.
“We may go in. He is of no danger.”
She opened the door and went into the room ahead of them. “Bonjour Monsieur Philippe. How are you today? I bring you some visitors.”
The man was sitting on a chair, staring out the window. He turned around briefly at the sound of her voice but his eyes registered no interest in the two men and he turned back to the window.
“He does that all day, messieurs,” the nun said. “He likes to watch the birds. It is the only thing that gives him pleasure now.”
Evan watched the man carefully. The nun was right. He did still look strong and healthy with his black curly hair and his dark complexion.
“Ask him if he remembers Jean Bouchard, his nephew,” Evan suggested.
She put the question but this time he didn’t even turn around. After a few minutes they left again.
“Just what were you getting at?” Watkins asked as they left the mother superior and made their way back to the front door. “And why did you want to see him so much?”
“It was just a thought,” Evan said. “There’s a young kid in Llanfair, young Terry. He’s a proper tearaway, always in trouble, out on his bike until all hours. He claims a foreigner asked for directions to the restaurant right before it burned down. He said the man had dark curly hair and looked sinister. I assumed he’d seen the same man I saw, the one we now think is the victim. But what if someone else had been on his trail, or trying to find Madame Yvette?”
“Philippe du Bois?” Watkins shook his head incredulously. “He’s lost all contact with the real world. She said so.”
“Crazy people can be very cunning when they want to.”
“You’ve seen him now. You want me to believe that he slipped out of this place, went over to England, then found his way to Wales, killed someone and got back again?”
Evan sighed. “I suppose it is a little far-fetched. If he’s checked as often as they say, someone would have noticed him missing. And he would have needed money and a passport—which he might have had, of course. I just wanted to see whether he could have possibly rented the car, not our victim. But you’re right. Now I’ve seen him I think it’s highly unlikely that it was him. We’ll have to put Terry’s sinister stranger down to too much television.”
“And he didn’t react at all to the mention of Jean Bouchard’s name,” Watkins said. “So where now? To the orphanage to check on Yvette?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a bite of something to eat,” Evan said. “It’s been hours since we had breakfast.”
“Sounds good,” Watkins said. “Let’s find out where this orphanage is first, shall we?”
They found the young nun at the reception desk and asked her the question. She looked puzzled. “Zere is no orphanage ’ere, monsieur.”
“But we were told it was in Abbeville.” Evan managed the words in French.
“Once I sink zere were zee orphans who live in our convent,” she said. “Wait ’ere. I bring one of zee sisters who perhaps remember zis.”
She bustled off and a few minutes later returned with a round-faced nun who smiled shyly at them.
“Zis is Sister Angélique,” the young nun said. “She once ’elped wiz zee orphalines.”
The nun nodded. “Les petites filles,” she said, holding out her hand to indicate the height of the children.
“Ask her if she remembers Yvette Hétreau.”
The older nun’s face became animated. She spoke rapidly to the younger woman, nodding and smiling as she talked.
“She remember ’er,” the young nun said at last. “She was very clever—no? She leave ’ere when she is maybe sixteen and she go as au pair to work in England and zen later Sister Angelique ’ear zat she become zee famous chef. Sister Angelique say she is very proud of ’er.”
“Does Sister Angélique know anything about her marriage or where she lived more recently?”
The older nun shook her head when asked the question.
“She ’eard no more from Yvette after she write to say she will study at zee Cordon Bleu school in Paris. She wish Yvette would write to her or come to visit.”
“We’ll tell her to write,” Evan said and the old nun’s face lit up again.
“All right, let’s go over what we know so far,” Watkins said. They were sitting in an outdoor café on an old square and working their way through a basket of croissants and brioches.
“We’ve established that Jean Bouchard could have got his hands on Philippe du Bois’s identity. We’ve learned that Yvette went to England as a young girl and then to the cooking school, but we’ve no proof of her marriage or what she did when she came out of cooking school. I’d like to know what the Bouchards did before they came to England. Did they own any previous restaurants that burned down, or did they get themselves mixed up in undesirable company.”
“And how do you think we’re going to find that out?” Watkins reached for another croissant and helped himself to another spoonful of apricot jam to go with it.
“I think it will be easy enough to come up with the marriage certificate,” Evan said, “but I think that maybe we should go to Paris and check on her time at the cooking school.”
Watkins grinned. “Any excuse to get to Gay Paree, eh?”
“Not me, Sarge,” Evan said. “I can’t say I like big cities, not even Paris. And I certainly don’t want to drive there. I don’t harbor a death wish at the moment. When we get to the outskirts I suggest that we find a place to park the car and then take the metro.”
Delicious smells wafted through the hallways of the Cordon Bleu school, reminding Evan it must be lunchtime, even though they had had a late breakfast at Abbeville. He felt exhausted and his nerves were frazzled from driving into Paris. They had left the car at a suburban metro station, but even getting that far had necessitated driving the wrong way around several roundabouts and negotiating some giant French lorries on narrow streets. Then they had had to navigate through a couple of changes of train to bring them to Rue Léon-Dehomme and the cooking school.
“I wonder if they have samples of their work for tasting?” Watkins echoed his thoughts. “A bifsteak and pommes frites would fill the spot nicely.”
“I don’t think people pay to go to a school like this to learn to cook steak and chips,” Evan retorted.
The young woman at the reception desk was probably Dutch but certainly multilingual. Her English had only the slightest trace of accent.
“Yes, we can check on a former student for you,” she said after she had exami
ned their police credentials. “What year was she here?”
“We don’t know that,” Watkins said. “It must have been at least seven or eight years ago.” He looked at Evan for confirmation of this.
“Do you know if she did le Grand Diplôme or did she just take one of our intensive courses?’
Watkins looked at Evan. “I’d imagine it was the whole thing,” Evan said. “She says she’s a qualified chef.”
“Then it would be le Grand Diplôme,” the girl said. “That will be easier to trace for you. Okay. What name was it?”
“Her name is Yvette Bouchard,” Evan said, “but we have no way of knowing if she was already married when she was here. Her maiden name was Hétreau.”
The girl frowned. “It would be easier to look up if you knew the year,” she said. Then her face lit up. “I know—we have class pictures on the walls of students graduating from our diploma program. Please look at them and see if you can find her. I’m awfully busy and that would save us all time.”
Watkins nodded. “Good idea. At least we know what she looks like. That’s one thing we do know.”
They followed the girl to the front corridor. Solemn groups of young people in chef’s hats stared at them from black frames, dating back to the turn of the century when the groups were mostly composed of males with droopy mustaches.
“How old would you say she is now?” Watkins asked. “Late thirties? That means the earliest she could have done this course was about sixteen, seventeen years ago. Okay, let’s start over here.”
They scanned photos from the early eighties, moving slowly down the hall. At last Evan pointed at a face. “Look, that’s her.”
“Finally!” Watkins nodded. “All right. We’ve got the class number. Let’s see what we can find out.”
The young woman looked up and tried to manage a friendly smile as they came back. “Have you found her? Brilliant. Okay, let’s go and see what we can turn up in the records.”
She led them down stone stairs into a gloomy basement. “I’m afraid our filing system was still terribly primitive ten years ago. Now of course we’ve got it all on the computer.” She pulled open a drawer in a big filing cabinet and took out a folder.