Death Set to Music

by Mark Hebden

  ‘That was a long time ago, Signore.’

  ‘Four years. That’s not long.’

  ‘I am provoked, Signore. They call me a dirty Italian.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘These men.’

  Pel glanced at Darcy who nodded. ‘That’s what the file says, Patron. A bar in Dijon.’

  ‘And the attempt at blackmail?’

  The Italian frowned. ‘A man I work for. He does not pay me enough and when I see him with a girl, I try to get more money out of him. I say I will tell his wife.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He beats me up. Then he report me to the police.’

  Darcy grinned. ‘Well, if you will pick somebody tougher than yourself.’

  Pel tried another approach. ‘You knew Madame Chenandier was dead, didn’t you? The night she died.’

  The Italian’s eyes fell. ‘No, Signore.’

  ‘Then why did you hide?’

  ‘I am working late at my allotment and bring my fork back. I have a few drinks at a bar–’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘10.30. About that. There is a man in the lane and I hear shouting, so I do not go near the place.’

  ‘Where did you go? You didn’t go home?’

  ‘I stay with my sister. She marries a man from Boux.’

  ‘Why did you go there?’

  The Italian shrugged. ‘It is raining and Boux is nearer than Bazay, also I want someone to talk to. Someone who speaks my language. I do not have many friends. When I arrive here next morning I see the police and know something has happened, so I leave again. I know it is bad because there are cars and a lot of uniforms.’

  ‘The night before when you heard the shouting: Did you investigate? Go a bit closer? Have a look?’

  ‘No, Signore.’ The Italian’s eyes rolled. ‘I go to Boux.’

  Pel knew Boux. He had an aunt there whom he’d been obliged for years to visit on Sunday. He’d spent many hours bored in Boux. It lay on high ground with, behind, a confused mass of valleys formed by the slopes of rounded hills that fell away to the river. The only time he liked Boux was in October when the heat gave body to the odour of new wine that floated over the whole countryside. The wine was the only part of Boux that Pel had ever enjoyed.

  ‘That’s a long way,’ he said.

  ‘Si, Signore.’

  ‘It was late. There’d be no buses. How did you get there? Car?’

  ‘The motobicyclette. It gets me to and from work. I get it second-hand. It’s red.’

  ‘And the next morning when you saw the police? What did you think?’

  ‘I think Monsieur kills her.’

  ‘Why did you think that?’

  ‘Because she has men. He must have known. He is not a fool, Signore.’ The Italian gestured with his right hand and left forearm. ‘Once he asked me if I ever see visitors in the house when he is away.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It isn’t my business.’

  ‘When you brought your fork back here the night of the murder – did you see Madame Chenandier with a man that night?’

  ‘No, Signore. But there is a car in the lane that evening. Drawn up in the shadows under the trees.’

  ‘Whose car?’

  ‘Monsieur Laye’s. From next door.’

  ‘Was he the man you saw in the lane?’

  The Italian gestured. ‘Well, it is dark and he is in the shadows. But as I pass him I see him against the lights of the house. I think he might be a footpad and get my fork ready. Then I decide it is Monsieur Chenandier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Same shape, Signore. Same build. It looks like him.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘I think he tries not to be seen.’

  Pel paused. ‘What do you know of the murdered woman?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, Signore. She just pay me my wages.’

  ‘Not Monsieur Chenandier?’

  ‘He is never here when I am.’

  ‘Was anybody?’

  The Italian’s face twisted. ‘Non lo capisco, Signore. I don’t understand.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Pel said.

  The gardener’s eyes became wily. ‘Once I see a man,’ he said. ‘Twice. But–’ he shrugged ‘ – it may perhaps have been the doctor on a visit. It may have been anybody. Non lo so. I do not know. It is not my business. I do not look. I spend my time in the garden and eat my food at midday here in the shed. Sometimes the housekeeper gives me a cup of coffee. She treat me like a human being.’

  ‘Didn’t Madame Chenandier?’

  ‘No, Signore. And the daughter, she–’

  The Italian paused and Pel saw a shifty look in his eyes. ‘What did the daughter do?’ he asked.

  The Italian fidgeted then he gave an angry gesture. ‘She try once to get me in the shed one day when everybody is out.’

  ‘Why?’

  Albertini shrugged. ‘I think she just want to be near me.’

  ‘Why should you think that?’

  ‘We have talked sometimes. She seem lonely, so I smile a bit. To make her feel better. She is a girl and she is young. That is all. But this day she push up to me. I am doing something on the bench and I keep feeling her against me. Then she offer me money.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What would she be offering me money for, Signore?’

  ‘Well, tell me. What?’

  ‘She want me to make love to her. Here. In the shed.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I push her out. So she burst into tears and threatened to tell her father I try to rape her.’

  ‘Because you’d refused to have anything to do with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘Madame Quermel tell me later that she did. He laughs at her.’

  Pel thought of the lonely, unloved girl looking for affection and in her clumsy thick-headed way even making a mess of that.

  ‘Did she never have any boyfriends?’

  ‘I never see any.’

  ‘But you knew Madame did?’

  ‘It wasn’t my business, Signore.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Signore?’

  ‘What did you think? Did you think this man you saw was the doctor?’

  ‘No, Signore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He and Madame are too close to each other. They are holding each other.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How do men and women hold each other, Signore?’

  ‘Well, how do they?’

  ‘Monsieur Chenandier–’

  ‘What about Monsieur Chenandier?’

  ‘Well, he and Madame Quermel–’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They hold each other.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘Si, Signore. One morning early. I think Madame Chenandier has been drinking the night before because she does not appear until later in the day, and they are in the kitchen. Madame Quermel is wearing a housecoat and he has just come in from taking exercise and is in a blue tracksuit. He has been jog-trotting.’

  Darcy smiled. ‘You can see ’em every morning before eight,’ he said. ‘On Sunday they come out in hordes. They run down the Cours de Gaulle from the Place Wilson, round the Parc de la Colombière and along the bank of the Ouche. If they’ve got any energy and breath left, they then run back. Usually they walk.’

  Pel listened with interest. He never took any exercise himself beyond a strenuous game of boules.

  ‘And this man who was holding Madame Chenandier,’ he went on to the gardener. ‘Big man? Small? Fat? Thin?’

  ‘Tall, Signore. Well-built.’

  ‘Monsieur Chenandier’s tall and well-built. Couldn’t it have been him?’

  The Italian frowned. ‘I do not think Monsieur ever holds her like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The Italian shrugged. ‘I think perhaps they do not get on well.’
/>
  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Italians know such things.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way, I suppose,’ Darcy observed.

  Pel gestured and the Italian continued. ‘Also he never talks to her as he talk to Madame Quermel,’ he said.

  Pel leaned forward. ‘How did he talk to Madame Quermel?’

  ‘Very quietly, Signore. In corners. When he thinks I am not looking.’

  Pel was silent for a while and the Italian rose slowly.

  ‘May I go now, Signore?’ He indicated the garden. ‘I suppose I must carry on working. I have not been told to leave.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  The Italian gestured at the garden. ‘Everything. I dig, plant, trim, weed. The hedges, the lawns, the drive, small repairs.’

  ‘What sort of repairs?’

  ‘To the lawnmower. Occasionally I put screws back in door handles if they fall out. That sort of thing. I also clean the cars.’

  Pel indicated the scrawled notes and telephone numbers on the whitewashed wall. ‘That your diary?’

  The Italian managed a twisted smile. ‘I do not read and write well, Signore. I do not know France well. I use it to remind me. I think they are badly spelt. I also put down telephone numbers I am likely to need. Then if I want seed delivering, or fertiliser, if I need a mechanic to do something I cannot do, or if I want tools sharpening, I use the kitchen telephone.’

  Pel nodded and gestured and, as the Italian moved off in his slow gardener’s trudge to the kitchen, he lit a cigarette. It was in the nature of a celebration, because he had a feeling that things had started to move at last, and it made it worth risking cancer. He saw Darcy smiling at him, and his good humour vanished at once.

  ‘What are you grinning at?’

  ‘You, Patron. I know you. Things are beginning to click a bit, aren’t they?’

  Pel nodded grudgingly and Darcy went on. ‘This chap he saw,’ he said. ‘Could it have been Chenandier?’

  ‘Chenandier was in Paris. Perhaps it was someone who looked like Chenandier. Laye, for instance. Perhaps Laye was this man other people have seen and never identified.’

  ‘Where’s Chenandier now?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Right,’ Pel said. ‘I think we’ll go and have a chat with that housekeeper then.’

  ‘Estelle? Right, Patron. I’ll find her.’

  Pel looked up coldly. ‘What did you call her?’

  ‘Estelle, Patron. Estelle Quermel. I always believe in getting to first name terms.’

  ‘Especially with women.’

  ‘They talk better that way, Chief.’

  ‘They’re also easier pushovers.’

  When Madame Quermel appeared in Chenandier’s study, she was wearing a summery dress and had done her hair high on her head because of the heat. She looked a good deal younger than her thirty-six years. Pel gestured at a chair and she sat down, her face grave, her manner nervous.

  ‘The night of the murder,’ Pel said. ‘Was there a car in the lane?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She frowned, trying to concentrate. ‘There might have been, but I can’t tell. My rooms overlook the garden.’ She moved her shoulders uncertainly. ‘But I wouldn’t have seen anything even on that side. I’m in the roof and I look out on the chimney pots and beyond them across the fields. I can’t see the garden itself.’

  ‘What about when you returned from your outing?’

  ‘I didn’t see anything. No, wait a minute! Monsieur Laye’s car was in the lane.’

  Pel nodded. ‘How did you and Madame Chenandier get on?’ he asked.

  She gestured with her hand, see-sawing it from side to side. ‘So-so.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We got on.’

  ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she like you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Pel paused, thinking. ‘I understand you were the one who checked Monsieur Chenandier’s clothes,’ he went on.

  She looked defiant. ‘Somebody had to. She never did.’

  Pel’s eyebrows rose but he said nothing and she hurried on as if it seemed to need an explanation. ‘Monsieur Chenandier’s a meticulous person.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Careful with money. Everything has to be just so.’

  ‘Are you in love with Monsieur Chenandier?’

  She shook her head, but she kept her eyes down. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I felt sorry for him, that’s all.’

  ‘What do you know of Monsieur and Madame Chenandier?’ Pel asked.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Did they get on?’

  ‘He hated her.’

  She spoke sharply, vituperatively, and Pel sat quietly for a moment.

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked eventually. ‘Did he tell you?’

  Madame Quermel’s composure slipped. ‘Yes – that is – well, yes, he did.’

  ‘Why should he tell you?’

  ‘Perhaps he felt he had to tell someone. There wasn’t much between him and his daughter.’

  ‘Didn’t he have any women friends he might have told?’

  She blushed. ‘I think there were some.’

  ‘You, for instance?’

  She didn’t meet Pel’s eyes.

  ‘Were you lovers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Monsieur Chenandier seems to have a reputation with women.’

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Everybody else does. Did he never make advances to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why was he seen holding you – whispering to you?’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘There’s a witness. Did he ever come to your room?’

  She hesitated, intimidated by his manner. ‘Once. He came home early and his wife was out. He came to ask where she was.’

  ‘Did he stay?’

  She paused, her eyes downcast.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two hours or so.’

  ‘What did you do? Just talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do I have to say?’

  ‘Not really. I can guess. How many times did he come? Regularly?’

  She struggled to speak. ‘Not at first. Later, yes.’

  ‘Did he ask you to marry him?’

  ‘He was married already.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that married men usually manage to get over that little problem. They start by offering to get a divorce. Did he?’

  She still refused to meet Pel’s eyes. ‘He did mention it. He said he’d like to get a divorce but that she wouldn’t give him one.’ She looked up angrily. ‘He’d have seen her all right for money. And she had plenty of men friends.’

  ‘Oh? Who were they?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was careful. But I heard their voices sometimes and found cigarettes. That sort of thing.’

  Pel sat still for a moment. ‘He won’t need a divorce now,’ he said gently. ‘Will you marry him when things have quietened down?’

  She looked at him miserably. ‘He hasn’t asked me.’

  ‘Do you still feel the same about him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And does he feel the same about you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pel nodded and changed the direction of his questioning abruptly. ‘The night of the murder: when you say you were attacked on your way to see your relatives at St Antoine. You didn’t go to St Antoine, did you?’

  She stared back at him, her eyes hot. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were never in the habit of visiting your relatives at St Antoine. They’ve told us so. Where were you, in fact?’

  She paused unhappily. ‘In the city.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down the Cours de Gaulle.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Thinking. I
was worried.’

  ‘What about?’

  She gave him an anguished look. ‘Monsieur Chenandier. The way he and his wife behaved. I thought I was becoming involved and I didn’t want to be.’

  The heat seemed to be increasing, and the house in the Chemin de Champs-Loups felt stuffy. There was no breeze and, with the shutters closed against the sun, it had the atmosphere of a funeral parlour. Though the salon was sealed off now, it was hard to forget what had happened in there and, though they could hear Madame Quermel moving about in the kitchen, she was quiet, as if she were brooding on what she’d been forced to disclose.

  ‘I think we need a drink,’ Pel said. ‘Let’s go along to the bar.’

  ‘Well, we’re not likely to get a coffee from Quermel this morning,’ Darcy smiled. ‘That’s for sure.’

  They elected to sit outside the restaurant on the plastic chairs. Ordering beers, Darcy put up the sunshade advertising Martini, and they sat silently, smoking and drinking, Darcy’s eyes on the girl who served them. She was busy behind the zinc counter inside now, daubing another layer of black make-up on her lashes. There was so much on them by this time, she was having to blink to separate them, and she’d been to the hairdresser since they’d last seen her so that her hair was frizzed until it looked as if it had been fried.

  ‘Women always think they can get away with it,’ Pel said suddenly.

  Darcy’s eyes were still on the girl. ‘They get too embroiled in gadgetry,’ he agreed. ‘All that stuff they put on only gets in a man’s way when he goes into a clinch. Yet, take it away, and he wouldn’t even look at half of them.’

  Pel turned and stared at the girl. ‘I was thinking of Quermel,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Oh!’ Darcy grinned. ‘Think she was lying, Chief?’

  ‘Yes. But how much I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s a funny story the gardener told about Odile: trying to get him to make love to her.’

  Pel nodded, brooding. The atmosphere in the Chenandier house had worried him, but he felt better now. For a sick and ailing old man, in fact, he felt not too bad. Not fit, of course, but better.

  ‘If I’d been the gardener,’ Darcy said, ‘it wouldn’t have been Odile I’d have had my eye on. It would have been Quermel. She’s got something, that one.’

  Pel lit a cigarette, wondering, as he broke his vow yet again, why God didn’t strike him down with a flash of lightning. ‘You should keep your eye on the ball,’ he said.