by ML Longworth
Verlaque’s words, “You played up here, didn’t you, as kids?” had stayed with her all morning. Jean-Marc said there were no signs of a break-in, and anyone who lived in Aix knew that the Bremont family had no money left. One only had to look at the weathered stone facade of the château, the missing roof tiles, the broken shutters on the upper floors. In some cases this was deliberate, a ruse for burglars, and the family still had hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden away in cash and bonds. But this couldn’t be true of the Bremonts, and she thought of the broken baby buggy that Isabelle de Bremont pushed through Aix. Her eyes filled with tears.
Taking a breath and wiping her eyes, Marine parked her car behind a blue police cruiser. As she got out of the car, the sharp, cold wind took her by surprise, and she dropped her keys and cell phone on the pebbled drive. She bent down and picked them up, throwing them into the bright green Furla purse that Verlaque had bought her in Venice. As she stood up, she was stopped by a young, freckle-faced policeman.
“Who are you, and what you are doing here?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m here to meet with Judge Verlaque. I’m Marine Bonnet,” she answered, shaking the officer’s hand. She then smiled and added, “I teach law at the university.”
“Oh, yes,” answered the wide-eyed policeman apologetically. “Judge Verlaque told me to expect a law professor, but . . .” He stammered, not finishing his sentence. Marine took that as a compliment, one she could tell the girls this evening over a drink. But then she saw why the policeman hadn’t finished his sentence—Verlaque was marching across the château’s manicured lawn, coming toward them. The young policeman quickly strode off in the opposite direction.
“Hi,” said Verlaque, in English, as he leaned forward to exchange bises with Marine. He smelled of cigar smoke and Hermès cologne, a combination of scents that she would always associate with him and, despite herself, she still found intoxicating. Stop it, Marine slowly admonished herself. I’m here for Étienne.
Verlaque led her away from the police car. “It’s nice to see you,” he said, without smiling. Marine supposed that his professionalism reflected the situation and the seriousness that she knew shrouded such places. She hoped that he was happy to see her, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t help but break into her famous wide grin. She took his upper arm, squeezed it, and then let go. “I’m happy to see you,” she replied honestly. “Even here.” Suddenly her voice was full of tears.
Verlaque reached out and swept back some of the curly bangs that had fallen into her face, his hand grazing her cheek. They looked at each other in silence for a moment; then a door slammed—it was the young policeman going back into the château—and they stopped smiling, reminded of what had brought them there.
“Is anybody around?” Marine asked, referring to the Bremonts. She realized that her voice had an edge to it that was too direct, but she wanted to get down to the business at hand.
“No. We had a team of police here yesterday, and the body is at the morgue until the funeral. He died of a broken neck,” Verlaque replied, ignoring the way Marine’s body sensually curved under her turtleneck.
“Who told Isabelle de Bremont?” Marine asked.
Verlaque stared at her, and then looked over her head toward the mountain. “A female officer told her, yesterday afternoon,” he answered. “I waited an hour and then visited her.”
“How was she doing?”
“Poorly,” Verlaque said, looking now at Marine. “The kids weren’t there, thank God. Her parents had them for the weekend.”
“Étienne has a brother, I think in Cannes,” Marine offered.
“Yes, François. He’s on his way,” Verlaque replied. “Do you know him?” Verlaque studied her in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to do earlier. Something about her had changed.
“I haven’t seen him in over fifteen years. I only know what people say about him, which may or may not be true: playboy, gambler, very good polo player.” Marine let her distaste cut through her words. She had never been comfortable around François. It was as if he was always trying too hard.
“That’s what I’ve heard too. One of the officers in Cannes plays polo with the Cannes team. He says that François is a good player but dirty.”
Marine laughed at this. “Yeah? He was like that as a kid. He was always cheating Étienne and me. Étienne was fast, but François was stronger. And me, well you know . . .” Marine felt immediately embarrassed—Verlaque used to chide her because she was so unathletic. She had to force herself to go to a local gym, but she actually enjoyed the aerobics classes once she was there—she liked loud music and dancing. Skiing frightened her, as did swimming in the sea.
“La belle professeur!” Jean-Claude Auvieux bellowed as he walked quickly out of his cottage toward Marine and Verlaque. He was smiling from ear to ear and took Marine’s shoulders and shook her with delight. Marine embraced the caretaker and let out a happy yelp. “Jean-Claude! It’s been years! You look fantastic! The fresh air up here certainly suits you!” Verlaque marveled at the genuine, natural pleasure these two took in seeing each other after such a long absence. Their happy reunion was such a contrast to the awkward, stunted one that he and Marine had just had.
“Ah oui! Aix is so polluted now!” he answered, still smiling. Marine and Verlaque nodded in agreement—some days Aix’s pollution hovered over the small city like a blanket.
“I haven’t seen you since François broke the living room window!” Marine said, laughing and having to yell over the wind. “Do you remember that? He was grounded for a month!”
Auvieux laughed and slapped his forehead. “Ah oui! But it wasn’t even François who broke the window! It was Étienne!”
Marine shot Auvieux a puzzled look and was about to protest when Verlaque interrupted—cold, and bored by the trip down memory lane. “Let’s get out of this wind. Though I don’t know if it’s any warmer in the château. We’ll drop by your cottage on our way out, M. Auvieux,” he said, leading Marine into the château’s tiled entryway.
The thick stone walls made for perfect architecture in August, but in April central heating was still needed. The walls leaked a damp smell—the same smell she associated with the château when she was a girl, only now, amplified by neglect, it was worse. The heating probably hadn’t been put on since the death of Étienne’s parents, some years ago. She already associated this damp smell with death, and she realized that from now on it would remind her of someone dying. Someone dying too soon.
A massive stairway faced the front door; the walls heading up the staircase were ornamented with hunting trophies—mostly deer and wild boar heads. Marine squinted and searched the trophies, to see if it was still there. And then she saw it, halfway up—an owl, about to fly, that had frightened her as a girl, and she shivered. It still did. Verlaque saw her looking at the owl, but if he sensed her fear, he said nothing.
On the first-floor landing, next to the bedrooms, hung large oil paintings of family members—rigid children in blue silk suits, unhappy-looking women staring at the viewer or the painter or both. The pictures Marine had always liked when she was young covered the walls on the next flight up, which led to the attics and servants’ quarters. They were caricatures done in watercolor, dozens of them arranged haphazardly, of Étienne and François’s grandparents in the 1930s in Cannes, appearing much less stiff than the sad women in the portraits on the landing below. The handsome couple, Philippe and Clothilde de Bremont, posed with persons of great importance—a young maharaja, for example, or the Prince of Denmark, or second-rate stage stars and singers of that decade.
Verlaque said nothing as they passed the cartoons, but Marine thought she detected a slight snort coming from his direction. They arrived at a small stone staircase that Marine remembered well—it led to the attic, and it smelled of dust and wood and boxes. Verlaque reached for a large key
that was in his suit coat and began to open a heavy wooden door. The fact that the door was kept locked was a bit of a joke, since it was ready to fall off its hinges. A strong tug would have been enough to pull it from the wall. Just before he opened the door, Verlaque turned to Marine and said, “They fingerprinted and dusted up here yesterday, especially near the window where he fell. But still, try not to touch anything.”
“Antoine,” Marine replied. “Do you want me to look for anything in particular?” She still wasn’t sure why he had asked her to come. She couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he was using Étienne’s death as an excuse to see her again. But, if that’s what he wanted, all he had to do was walk past Le Mazarin on any given morning or evening, and he knew he would find her there.
“Yes and no,” he answered. “Just look around and tell me if it’s the way you remember it.”
With that, Verlaque pushed the door open with his left shoulder. The attic was flooded with light that entered the room from the sole window whose shutters were open. Dust particles floated happily in and out of the shafts of light, as if unaware of the tragedy that had recently taken place. Sort of like King René and the terrible Christmas shacks, she thought. Marine wanted to hold on to the doorframe, as she was feeling lightheaded. She rubbed her eyes as a flood of childhood memories and voices filled the room, and as she saw what she knew must be the window, the thought of Étienne falling out of it brought her back into the present.
There appeared to be two people standing at the far end of the room, but Marine quickly realized that it was a reflection in a three-meter-high gilded mirror that stood leaning against the stone wall. She grabbed the sleeve of Verlaque’s suit. “Oh God!” she cried, and buried her head in his arm.
“Do you have the spooks?” Verlaque asked, not meaning to tease.
“I just saw us reflected in that mirror,” Marine answered, at once regretting her honesty and her reference to them as a couple.
Verlaque smiled. “Ah, the beauty and the beast. Come on, let’s have a look around.”
The attic looked as it had twenty years ago, as far as Marine could tell. Some of the larger pieces of furniture were missing—she imagined them decorating the apartments of the younger Bremonts. The great gilded mirrors she remembered well. Their sheer size and weight relegated them to staying in the attic indefinitely. In one corner of the room stood an old iron bed that had a wooden rosary hanging on the end of it. She bent down to look at the rosary and resisted the temptation to finger its smooth beads. It had been years since she had thought of Étienne or her childhood. She closed her eyes and remembered the hospital game she and Étienne had played—Étienne a World War II résistance soldier and Marine the nun who was nursing him. “I keep hearing loud booms,” he would say, shaking his body back and forth, and she would answer, “There, there—think of something else, young man,” and she would mop his brow, and he would pretend to fall asleep. They were nine, and Étienne wanted to grow up to be a soldier, and Marine a nun, or a nurse—she couldn’t decide. She realized now that their games were based on that monument, for it was inscribed that the résistance fighters had been assassinated by “Hitlarian Hoards” while hiding in the woods. Etienne and François’s father had told them that; although he had been a young boy, he had remembered each of the thirteen men.
Marine stood up and looked over toward the window. She finally spoke, choking a bit on her words. “Why do you think Étienne was looking, or leaning, out that window?”
“My guess is that he was reading—his reading glasses were found beside his body—and the attic’s sole lightbulb was burnt out, so he would have opened the shutter on the biggest window to benefit from the moonlight. How he fell . . . I just don’t know,” replied Verlaque, who was now looking carefully at Marine. “Come and look out of it with me,” he said, his voice full of tenderness.
Marine approached the window, which was wide and taller than she was, perhaps two meters high. It had no glass; it was more like an open doorway. A heavy wooden shutter, now fastened open to the outside wall, was the only way to close it. She was careful not to get too close to Verlaque as she leaned out the window. He’s irresistible, she thought. And there’s nothing I can do. In her effort not to touch Verlaque or touch the window frame, and driven back inside by the mistral, she took a step back and bumped into a suitcase, and it slid a few inches across the wood floor. “Careful!” Verlaque said, half scolding her, but she ignored him and knelt down.
“My God, it’s the old Louis Vuitton suitcase—it’s still here!” She stood up and continued, “Étienne obviously wasn’t looking at the view, unless he wanted to see the hill and hundreds of pine trees. The great view from the château is of mont Sainte-Victoire, which can only be seen from the north-facing windows. My favorite view was always from Étienne’s parents’ room.”
“So the attic is the same to you, as you remember it?”
“Yes, the mirrors are still here, the old bed, the flour sacks full of goodness knows what, the old radios, the broken chairs. Even this suitcase.”
Someone coughed, and the pair turned around to see the freckle-faced policeman standing in the doorway. “Come in,” Verlaque demanded.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I found this . . . near the bushes . . . near where they found the count’s body.” The young man held out a small, yellowed piece of paper in his gloved hand. Verlaque took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and took the paper. “Thank you,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Terrier, sir. Nicholas Terrier.”
“Good work, Terrier. Why don’t you continue looking around the grounds? The first team obviously didn’t do a thorough job.”
“Yes, sir!” said the youth, turning quickly on his heels and walking out of the attic.
“The wind probably blew the paper into a place where it was more visible,” Marine suggested. Verlaque held out the piece of paper for both of them to see. Marine leaned over and gasped. “Wow. A receipt from Pâtisserie Michaud. It’s old.”
Verlaque put on his reading glasses and looked closely at the receipt. “Nineteen fifty-four. It obviously hasn’t been lying in the shrubs for forty-plus years; it must have fallen out this window . . . probably Saturday night, when Étienne was up here. What were they doing saving receipts for—” Verlaque paused and looked again at the receipt—“deux brioches?”
“Oh,” Marine replied. “My parents and grandparents keep all those old receipts. C’est normal.”
Verlaque looked at her, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “You’ve got to be kidding? Even for two bloody brioches?”
“Oh yes.”
“Have you seen any of Étienne’s films?” Verlaque asked, seemingly out of nowhere. Marine once again felt like a dunce, as if she didn’t understand what Verlaque was trying to get her to see. It also reminded her of his annoying habit of abruptly changing the subject: it irritated her and threw her off guard at the same time. It was, she thought, perhaps a technique he used in the courtroom.
Marine felt herself blushing. “I saw the one where he interviewed you, on crime in Provence. I showed it in my third-year criminal law class. And I saw the film on Marseille rap music that he did. I liked it so much that Sylvie and I went out and bought CDs by some of the groups.”
Verlaque laughed. “You’re a little too old for rap, no? Did you see his documentary on traditional building techniques?”
“No, I didn’t see that one,” Marine answered, ignoring his rap-music joke and beginning to lose her patience. They had been together over half an hour, and Verlaque hadn’t asked a thing about her, and yet he had been gentle with her, and had touched her cheek, sending electricity, as his touch always did, down her body.
“It was something I would have normally considered pretty boring,” Verlaque continued, “but Bremont managed to make it exciting, especially the roof scenes
. They were laying different kinds of roofs—you know, thatched ones, in Normandy and Brittany, slate ones in the middle of France, and so on. What I remember clearly is Etienne: while interviewing the builders, he was running along the rooftops. The roof guys, they were far more used to such heights, but there he was, like a mountain goat.”
Marine saw what Verlaque was getting at. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “He was a mountain goat, even when we were kids. Both of the boys were natural athletes, but Étienne was always the better of the two, something that made François writhe with jealousy. I had forgotten that.” Étienne climbing olive trees; Étienne running down the château stairs three at a time; Étienne skiing like a god in Chamonix—Marine stared at Antoine’s dark brown eyes and, composing herself, grabbed his arm and said, “And so it seems unlikely that he would lose his balance and fall out of an open window.”
“Unlikely, indeed.”
Chapter Four
Lunch was pleasant, Verlaque thought as he drove back into Aix. They had arrived at Chez Thomé in Le Tholonet at 1:45 p.m., just in time to place their lunch order before the kitchen closed. The young waiter recognized them at once and gave Marine the bises and shook Verlaque’s hand. A year ago Marine and Verlaque had rescued the waiter when he was stranded by the side of the road beside his broken-down car. From then on, a bowl of olives and two pastis were always set on the table as soon as they took their seats. Today was no different, yet they sipped their pastis in silence. Verlaque smiled as he watched Marine—she was one of the few women he knew who actually enjoyed pastis. He missed that about her.
Marine moved an olive around in her mouth and finally spoke, “So,” she said, taking the pit and placing it in the ashtray, “when will you talk to Isabelle de Bremont again?”
“After lunch,” Verlaque replied, pricking an olive with a toothpick and putting it into his mouth. He was having a hard time not staring at Marine. She was wearing a pale blue turtleneck—it looked like cashmere. In fact, he seemed to remember buying it for her. Over that she wore a tight-fitting black sleeveless dress made out of a thick, synthetic material that looked like it would make a great parachute. The effect of the man-made fabric over such a natural one was striking—an imaginative combination of the sort that Marine was so good at and part of why she often turned heads while walking down Aix’s streets. No twinsets for this girl, Verlaque thought.