Death at the Château Bremont

by ML Longworth

  “Yes,” Cosette replied.

  Cosette drank some whiskey and continued, her voice cracking, “I loved François. I loved him ever since we were children. He was so strong, so fast, so witty. Étienne told me the other night that I was just a pathetic hairdresser and could never be anything else. Nice, hein?”

  Marine moved closer to Cosette and said, “That’s awful, Cosette. It isn’t true. That was a terrible thing for Étienne to say.” Marine wanted to keep Cosette talking. She wanted to help her. “You said that your maman never lied. Did she tell you about Philippe de Bremont?”

  “Maman told me everything on her deathbed, but I wasn’t to tell anyone. Besides, I didn’t have any proof.” She drank and continued, “My father left just after Jean-Claude’s birth, because he found Count Philippe de Bremont and my mother in the cabanon together.” Cosette waited for Marine’s reaction, which was what she had hoped for—the professor stared at Cosette, wide eyed, her mouth open. Marine wanted to speak but could not. More memories swam in her head, these of Jean-Claude following the elderly Count de Bremont around the gardens and olive grove, the two inseparable, the old man teaching the eager young boy all that he knew about Provençal gardens. Why hadn’t she remembered this before? While Marine and Étienne played, and François and Cosette did who knows what else, Jean-Claude had, unknowingly, been forming a rich attachment to his biological father. The count’s older son, the father of Étienne and François, cared nothing for plants. He was always reading, Marine remembered. And here was the count’s illegitimate son, not playing with the other children, but instead happily pruning olive trees and planting bulbs.

  Cosette spoke quickly now, as if she had waited years to tell another person this story. She had probably rehearsed it over and over, Marine thought, for Marine had done the same thing when breaking up with Verlaque. “My father had had suspicions that they loved each other,” Cosette continued, “and when he caught them together, he guessed who Jean-Claude’s real father was. My father just left. He had class, non? He didn’t raise a fuss. When my mother told me the story on her deathbed, I promised her that I would not repeat it. She told me that only after Étienne and François’s father died was I to go to a lawyer. She said that Jean-Claude and I would be taken care of. But I knew I would need proof. Maman didn’t think of that. She wasn’t practical.”

  “How did you find out about the papers?”

  “Jean-Claude found them, just last week. But François, bigmouthed idiot that he was, also told Étienne, who came in a hurry late Saturday night.”

  “None of you knew what was in that suitcase? Not even Étienne and François’s parents?” Marine asked.

  “No! That suitcase was out-of-bounds, surely, because it belonged to le comte. François’s parents were too busy with their books to bother about things in this attic. Look at all this stuff,” Cosette said, motioning around the room with her hand.

  “François didn’t tell Jean-Claude to take the papers and put them somewhere safe?” Marine asked.

  “No, he trusted Étienne. Ha!”

  Marine got up off the chair and walked toward Cosette, who was leaning on some boxes for support. “Let me help you,” Marine said. “You need to sit down.”

  “No! Don’t come near me!”

  “Cosette! Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Ridiculous? Ha! That’s my life! Ridiculous! I could be living in Aix, like the rest of you! But Étienne turned everyone against me, especially his parents! He told them about me and François in the cabanon, and I was immediately shipped off to Cotignac! I owe my ridiculous life to him!”

  Marine inched forward and said, “Cosette, I’m so sorry. It’s not too late, you know. We need to go together to the police. You didn’t intentionally kill Étienne, and you need to tell that to them, don’t you see?” Marine moved closer and Cosette raised her hands in the air and hissed, “I told you, no!”

  “Cosette, listen, please!”

  “Listen to you? The lot of you! Born with silver spoons in your noble mouths! My brother’s father was a count, and Étienne was going to take that away from me, and you’re trying too!”

  “Cosette, no!” A flash of red light burst in Marine’s head, and she fell on the oak floor. Cosette Auvieux looked at the broken bottle of whiskey, still in her hand, and saw the spilled alcohol on the floor and the professor’s bloodied head.

  She took some time to drag Marine’s limp body across the floor and heave it up onto the nineteenth-century wrought-iron bed—it wouldn’t be right to leave her on the cold wooden floor. Marine looked odd, Cosette thought, with that big wooden crucifix hanging above her head.

  She took a swig from a small emergency flask that she kept in the pocket of her sweater, careful not to put her head back on the bed. “Stay awake, stay awake,” she muttered, for she had said too much to Marine Bonnet, and she needed to keep watch.

  “François, you idiot,” she mumbled, sitting down on the floor. “How could you be so nice to Jean-Claude but ignore me?” She got up and walked over to the light switch, flipped it off, and turned on her pocket flashlight, the same one she had used to get from the parking lot to the cabanon, and then to the château. She walked back to the bed, having to work her way around piles of boxes and furniture, and sat back down on the floor. Cosette didn’t want to kill Marine Bonnet—Marine wasn’t a snob like that judge who came to Cotignac. I’ve told the professor that I killed Étienne, she thought. And they will think that I killed François too. “No one will believe a hairdresser from Cotignac. I have no other alternative,” she said aloud. No other alternative—it sounded quite posh. Taking another swig of whiskey, she then rested her head on the bed. Just a minute’s rest, she told herself.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  It took no time to get out of Aix-en-Provence. Verlaque retrieved his car from the place de l’Archevêché and took his badge out of the car window. From there he drove quickly but carefully down the empty streets and was soon on the route de Cézanne. Once in the country he picked up speed—it was a road he knew well, and at this time of night chances were slight that he would come across another motorist. In the darkness he could not see the mountain or the wealthy homes that were privileged to have this street address, but the olive trees—as if keeping him company—shimmered and waved in his headlights.

  Just as he was rounding one of the bends, at the preferred painting spot of the famous “father of cubism,” five or six small moving objects came into view, just to the right of his car. He slowed down and moved the car over to the left a bit. They were walking in single file, and the last one looked up at Verlaque, its eyes red from the car’s headlights. Verlaque slammed on the breaks. They were siblings—marcassins, or baby boars, and at the sound of the car’s screeching brakes they ran off into the bushes. Verlaque slowly drove on, conscious that he needed to take two or three deep breathes to calm down.

  Verlaque dipped through the hamlet of Le Tholonet, its sole café boarded up for the evening. He continued, speeding up on the straight stretches of road and slowing down on the curves, and crossed paths with no more baby pigs, nor motorists. As he approached Saint-Antonin he slowed his car down and finally came to a stop. He parked the car well before the Bremont estate—on the left-hand side, where there was a small clearing—locked the car, and started walking up the road. Up ahead, on the left, he saw Marine’s Twingo and ran toward it, hoping, wildly, to find her in it, talking on her cell phone or looking around for Brazilian jazz CDs. But the Twingo was dark and locked. He turned around as he heard a car approaching from Aix. The lights flashed once, and he realized that it was Flamant. He motioned for the policeman to park behind his Porsche, and Flamant was out of his car and by Verlaque’s side in seconds, a flashlight in hand.

  “Let’s go in quietly in—the gate’s open,” Verlaque whispered. “Cosette Auvieux drugged her brother on the night that Étienne de Bremon
t fell. She’s here, perhaps, with Professor Bonnet.”

  “Your . . . ?”

  “Yes.”

  Flamant nodded, listening with his head down, trying not to make noise as they walked up the pebbled drive. They tiptoed past the caretaker’s cottage and then walked on the grass until they were at the stone steps of the château. Verlaque lifted the château’s wrought-iron door latch as quietly as he could, opening the front door just wide enough to slip through sideways. He knew, by instinct, to go straight to the attic. He pointed up the stairs, and Flamant nodded. They walked up quickly, on the balls of their feet. At each landing, Verlaque pointed to the next flight of stairs.

  The door to the attic was, not surprisingly, closed, but no light shone underneath, which worried Verlaque. “On the count of three,” he whispered to Flamant, who placed his hand on his gun holster, stepping aside to be ready to leap into the room. Verlaque thought he could remember that the light switch was just to the left of the door. He placed his right hand on the small porcelain doorknob and quietly turned it to the right, quickly opening the door and turning on the lights with his left hand. Both men squinted at first, and then took in the shapes of the various objects in the room—the familiar mirrors, chairs, and boxes. The only thing that was missing was Marine.

  “Merde,” Verlaque hissed. Flamant slowly walked around the attic, checking behind the larger pieces of furniture. Verlaque leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “The caretaker’s cottage,” he said aloud. “Let’s go.” Was Cosette covering up for her brother? Cosette could have been the one who passed out—the way she drank marc it was entirely possible. Was Jean-Claude’s shyness, and awkwardness, all just an act? François was killed by someone he knew, someone strong. Verlaque didn’t tell Flamant that he now suspected the caretaker as well, but by the look on the policeman’s face he knew that Flamant was thinking the same thing.

  The two men skipped down the stairs, no longer worried about making noise. They ran out of the château and across the drive to Auvieux’s cottage, which was dark. Verlaque was about to break in through a window when he saw that Flamant had opened the front door. “It’s unlocked,” the officer said, every bit as surprised as the judge. They turned on a light and ran up the stairs and saw a closed bedroom door.

  “I have a gun in here,” Auvieux yelled out.

  “Jean-Claude, it’s me, Antoine Verlaque. Open up!”

  “Monsieur le Juge?”

  Verlaque heard someone coming toward to bedroom door, and he motioned for Flamant to be ready with his gun.

  The bedroom door opened to reveal the caretaker standing in his pyjamas, holding his hunting rifle against his chest. He squinted as he asked, “Why didn’t you knock? What time is it?”

  “Why isn’t your front door locked?” Verlaque demanded, out of breath. Flamant leaned against the wall and whispered, “Putain.”

  “I never lock it. There’s no point. This old place is so easy to break into. That’s why I keep this,” he said, lifting up his rifle a bit, “next to my bed.”

  Verlaque gently but firmly took Auvieux’s shoulder and said, “I think your sister is here on the estate somewhere, with Professor Bonnet. Do you think you might know where they are?”

  “Cosette?”

  “Yes,” whispered Verlaque. He went on quickly, “Jean-Claude, I think your sister may be in trouble. I’m afraid that she may be involved somehow with Étienne de Bremont’s death. Do you know where they could be?”

  Auvieux stood still, evidently stunned at the suggestion of his sister’s possible connection to a murder. To get him moving, Verlaque suggested, “Perhaps somewhere where you guys played as kids?”

  “I didn’t play too much with the others,” Auvieux answered. Seeing the frustration come over Verlaque’s face, he added, almost in a whisper, “Cosette and François were always in the cabanon.” At once Auvieux cringed, feeling that he was betraying his sister. He had always been frightened of Cosette.

  “Can you show us where it is?” Flamant asked, staying calm.

  “I’ll get another flashlight,” the caretaker answered as he turned and disappeared into his bedroom. He came back out almost immediately, dressed in his blue overalls. The three men ran down the stairs, and when Auvieux turned to shut the cottage door, Verlaque noticed that the caretaker still had his hunting rifle draped around his shoulder. “Do you need your rifle?” Verlaque asked. It was Flamant who answered, “It’s in case we come across wild boars.”

  “Oui, les sangliers,” Auvieux mumbled in agreement. The three men quickly walked around the cottage and through the olive grove, in single file, Auvieux leading with one of the flashlights, Verlaque behind him, and Flamant in the rear with the other. None of them spoke, and only when Verlaque tripped over a shallow hole and a mound of upturned earth did Auvieux turn around and whisper, “Sangliers.” The olive grove was a small one, with less than one hundred trees, and it took ten minutes to walk through it. They crossed a small field and came to the forested hill that lay on the north side of the château. Auvieux pointed up the hill with his flashlight and whispered, “The cabanon is on the other side of this hill. There’s a footpath through the forest. The boars will be out in the fields right now, looking for food and water—they won’t be in the forest. They sleep there during the day.”

  “Let’s hurry, then,” Verlaque said. He was worried for Marine, and his worry became fear when he looked at Auvieux’s pale, vacant stare. “We’ll stop as soon as the cabanon comes into view,” he added.

  Flamant pointed his light up the hill, and they headed off, climbing quickly and purposely. The path was well traveled, and miraculously there weren’t any branches in their way. Auvieux must clear this regularly, Verlaque thought. When they were almost at the top, Verlaque stumbled again, cursing as he balanced himself. He had tripped over a log and hadn’t hurt himself but had made a fair bit of noise in the silent forest. They arrived at the top of the summit in just over five minutes, and Auvieux stopped and pointed to the cabanon that sat in the middle of a lavender field about two hundred meters off. A very faint light shone in the old stone building.

  Verlaque whispered, “The policeman will go first. We won’t go straight through the field but around its edge, on the right, and sneak up on the north side of the cabanon, since that side doesn’t have a window. I’ll follow Officer Flamant, and, M. Auvieux, you stay here and keep watch.”

  “I have to go too,” Auvieux argued.

  “We aren’t even sure that they are in there,” Flamant answered. “You’ll help us more here, protecting us while we’re exposed in the middle of that field of lavender.” Flamant then nudged Verlaque and they were off, leaving the caretaker at the edge of the forest with his shotgun.

  Cosette Auvieux heard the noise in the forest and had peered out of the cabanon window just as the men reached the crest of the hill and came out of the woods. The judge was with another man, probably a cop. She’d have to act quickly. A knock on the head with a shovel, and she could say that the professor had fallen and hit her head. The professor was very weak, and the job would be fast and easy. The walk hadn’t been long, but it was excruciatingly painful for Marine, who had stumbled and fallen over what seemed to her to be hundreds of holes dug by sangliers. The walk, which would take Cosette alone less than twenty minutes, took Marine and Cosette over an hour.

  She ducked her head back and turned around and looked at Marine. Marine, with an aching head that felt worse than the morning after a party at Sylvie’s, looked up at Cosette and realized that she had been startled by something.

  Cosette grabbed the shovel, and Marine looked at her not with pleading eyes, which is what Cosette had expected. But her fear was mixed with something else—anger. Marine opened her mouth to talk but there was only dryness, and no words would come out. The light from the candle lit up the professor’s face in an eerie way, though
t Cosette. She wasn’t surprised to find candles in the cabanon—she and François had always made sure that there were a few. They would stick them in a wine bottle like the one that was still here. It wasn’t their bottle—it belonged to the former gardener, who used to stash wine in the cabanon. Its faded date reminded Cosette of the last night she had spent with François. She paused and looked down at the professor and said, “I don’t know why you insist on wearing that bloody rosary.” At that moment Marine reached up and felt the big wooden beads around her neck. She had grabbed the rosary just as they were leaving the attic, and Cosette had only noticed it when they were walking through the olive orchard. Marine didn’t know why she had taken it: perhaps it reminded her of Étienne, and now she was about to die, like him. Cosette walked toward Marine with the shovel in her hand and lifted it up to shoulder height. Marine closed her eyes and tried shrinking into the cold stone wall, when someone suddenly banged on the door.

  A voice shouted at them. The voice was deep, and Marine thought it asked after Cosette, telling her to unlock the cabanon. Cosette whirled around and faced the door, not moving. She still had the shovel in her hands, and Marine saw that this was her only chance. Cosette was distracted and, for a few seconds, had forgotten about her hostage. Marine kicked the back of Cosette’s shins, causing the woman to fall on her knees. Marine then struggled to her own knees and whisked the rosary off of her neck and flung it around Cosette’s. Marine pulled as hard as she could, amazed that she was almost able to stand, even more amazed that she was capable of hurting another human being. Cosette Auvieux shrieked, and struggled to breathe, trying to grab Marine’s arms, trying to unclench them. Marine closed her eyes and pulled harder, but she wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. She tried calling out and managed to mumble, “Help me,” and at that moment the small window crashed, and she saw the butt of a gun breaking glass. The gun changed direction and Marine saw the barrel pointing straight at her. She let go, and Cosette collapsed to the floor, the rosary still dangling around her neck. Marine slid down against the stone wall and started weeping. A voice hollered, “Marine, can you unlock the door?” and she realized that the gun belonged to someone she knew, probably a policeman. She crawled on all fours and unhooked the lock. Verlaque and another man came rushing in. “Help her, please,” Marine whispered hoarsely. Flamant and Verlaque leaned down over Cosette Auvieux, who had retched but was now bent on hands and knees, swearing fiercely. Verlaque went over to Marine and held her in his arms.