Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  That’s a tiresome boy, thought Castang. Easy to see why Sabine found him a strain. Anybody would imagine she’d died just to spite him. And to be fair, he had found her a handful too.

  TEN

  The ‘Bons Amis’ could have been worse: an ordinary village pub, a bit offensively modernised in slaughterhouse red plastic. A few belated villagers in no hurry to get home to their wives were having a third quick one. A noisy group of builders’ workmen, whitened with plaster, were slurping soup among bread crusts and beer bottles. An old man with no wife to go to was standing at the bar drinking red wine and gazing at a far horizon. Young Lucciani was sitting at a table in the back writing up rough notes in a professionally important way to impress Castang, the eye a bit glittery already from gazing into the aperitif bottle. He’d got organised; the table was laid.

  Along with Castang appeared a basket of bread and a jug of white wine: he poured out a glass standing up, for a swig he felt he’d deserved.

  ‘Pastis?’ asked the fat woman, changing the ashtray.

  ‘This’ll do.’

  ‘Soup or rabbit paté?’

  ‘What comes after?’

  ‘Grilled andouillette, stew. Steak’s extra. The andouillettes are good.’

  ‘Bit piggy after paté.’

  ‘Stew, then.’

  ‘Me, soup and andouillette,’ said Lucciani.

  ‘And a jug of red. Need fortifying. Those two were a pest. What did you get?’

  ‘A lot of chat,’ filling his glass.

  ‘Go easy – you’re at least two ahead of me and the day is long. Sum it up briefly.’

  ‘Madame Lipschitz was much liked in the neighbourhood. General opinion was “a sort of saint”.’

  ‘What sort of saint?’

  The rabbit paté was good. Not over-seasoned, not too greasy. Nor dry. Fresh thyme in it. A pleasant surprise: the ‘Bons Amis’ was a find. It’s police aphorism number one: criminal investigations depend a lot on the local pub being good.

  ‘What sort of saint?’ again, tearing off bread. Lucciani’s mouth had been too full to answer.

  ‘Oh, you know, always kind, thoughtful to other people, nice to the children. A real Christian. You know, the others go to church, but she behaved as though she meant it. It spread over into daily life.’

  ‘Rare, that sort of saint.’

  ‘Too true. Some oddities, with all that. Pilgrimages and apparitions of the Virgin. I mean, sort of superstitious. Went in for stars and horoscopes.’

  ‘Nothing very eccentric about that. Whole damn country’s given over to fortune-tellers.’

  ‘Absent-minded,’ eating soup noisily. ‘Always forgotten her purse or her glasses or both.’ It was vegetable soup. Smelt good. As usual, Castang thought he’d given the wrong order. But the equation was difficult. Vera made soup every day, whereas young Lucciani lived alone and soup was a treat. Vera’s stew was good too, but it was Czech stew, and this would be different. The equation was too difficult and he gave it up.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘All right, well, picking witnesses at random: generous, tenderhearted. Naïve. One I thought you’d like; “childishly direct and innocent” – the butcher, that. Hey…’

  Castang was tasting the soup from the ladle, with a nod of approval.

  ‘"Nobody would have wished her harm". Now the children – the son and the daughter-in-law – they aren’t so well liked.’

  ‘No, and I can readily understand why.’

  ‘A few more adjectives,’ helping himself to more soup and gazing accusingly at Castang because the plate wasn’t full, ‘arrogant. Stuck-up, suspicious, quarrelsome. She’s from Paris, by the way. “Behave like tourists”, “think themselves too good for us”, “knows it all” – that’s the butcher again. And the woman right opposite – “Madame Lipschitz spoiled that boy out of the goodness of her heart.” ’

  ‘Nobody suggests, of course, that they knocked her on the head.’

  ‘No, and that’s reliable, isn’t it, since they aren’t too popular.’

  ‘Good; that’s what I wanted you to get at. Confirms what the local fuzz say too.’

  ‘There were a lot of noisy rows, but nobody thought much of them.’

  Castang, the fatigue and tedium of the morning thrown off by two glasses of mediocre white wine, was mentally composing his report for Monsieur Richard:

  ‘Possibilities: one, the organised gang of professional burglars. To my mind can be ruled out.

  Two: the amateur burglar, vagabond or layabout. Unsupported but remains a likelihood. Sole proof obtainable, a similar pattern in the countryside showing similar features.

  Three: a family affair: be it conspiracy, meaningless squabble, or sudden nervous breakdown. Remains a remote possibility, but on evidence and interrogations so far collected, both evidentially and psychologically highly improbable.

  Four: a solution not hitherto thought of. Nothing thus far come to light gives this any weight whatever.’

  Bugger number four, thought Castang. Bugger all the others too, while you’re at it.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s enough literature. A few facts now.’

  Facts were impeded by the arrival of andouillette, at which Castang gazed greedily, all juicy in its mask of crisp breadcrumbs, nestling on a sweet gentle bed of mashed potatoes. He was only cheered by Lucciani’s glaring hungrily at his stew: each sighed loudly and went with resignation back to his own plate.

  The stew was good. Generously, Castang suggested a swap, halfway through. The red wine was not as good as the white: a fact, that, for future reference.

  ‘Nothing to offer, about the time in question. The muffled shrieks and stealthy footsteps are right out. Everybody asleep, and there isn’t a fact anywhere mentioned by two witnesses independently. Tales in plenty – the vandals at the Saturday-night dance, the monument to the General, covered in red paint by persons unknown, and the Free Brittany people, who covered the Prefect in cowdung. Break-ins, burglaries, tickles in general, here in the district – zero. Lucky them. I can’t get outlying districts without a print-out from the computer.’

  ‘This evening. All right, no corroborated witnesses. Be too much to hope for anyhow. Let’s have the old biddies. Must be a legless ex-soldier somewhere in a wheelchair with nothing better to do than look out of the window – there always is. And sleepless, with any luck.’

  ‘Yes, there is. I quite like him – don’t know if you will. He said “Your boss has been here before, hasn’t he?” Well, I didn’t know. I just said “I don’t know; has he?” ’

  ‘He has,’ said Castang, ‘but why shouldn’t I like him?’

  Pleasure at Castang thus falling into the pit digged.

  ‘Well, he said “Who’s that little bugger like a groom? I’ve seen him before.” So I thought quite a good mark for observation.’

  ‘What other little buggers has this admirable observer reliably observed?’

  ‘A car parked, that night. Seen it before, he says, and a man going in to the old lady. I thought that worth pursuing. Dark blue Peugeot, the “Big model”. Injection engine, because that’s written on the back, and sheepskins on the front seats. Number not noticed, but registered in this department. Man described as prosperous businessman type. Sort of Homburg hat, dark colour. Silk scarf, dark suit, no overcoat. Same on both occasions. Evening of the crime, between ten and eleven p.m., that’s the nearest he’d go. Could be out half an hour either way. Car parked here in front of the church where it’s forbidden: nothing concealed or furtive.’

  ‘Good. Get anything else?’

  ‘Not much. A few weeks ago there was a junk dealer, said he was from the city, asked everyone for stuff out of the attic: furniture, the usual. Grey Citroën Safari station-wagon. Man described as fat-faced, dark or greyish hair, ingratiating manner, persuasive and obstinate. No evidence whether he got in to the old lady’s house, but he wormed into most houses.’

  ‘Sounds genuine. He leave cards?’

/>   ‘I thought of that. They’d all been thrown away, but the name began with “do”. Domicile. Domodossola.’

  ‘Do re mi. He actually buy stuff?’

  ‘Yes. Paid cash – no cheques.’

  ‘Country people don’t like cheques. What exactly is a few weeks?’

  ‘About two, in mid-week.’

  ‘Fresh stewed pears,’ said the fat woman, ‘and a nice Camembert.’

  ‘And coffee,’ said Castang. ‘Got to be checked; phone it through.’

  ‘Didn’t young Lipschitz have a story about a phoney dealer calling?’

  ‘Yes, and like the groom it turned out to be me. Go on with it this afternoon; I want it really thorough.’

  ‘You going to stay here? They’ve a couple of rooms.’

  ‘They’d be delighted, no doubt. Every sip of coffee scrutinised by every eye in the village; thanks. No, drive me into the town; I’ve got to be there anyhow. We’ll find some commercial place.’

  The Hotel Central was correctly commercial, dreary and even quite central, meaning a hundred metres from the railway station at the outskirts of the ‘new town’. Castang went into the tobacconist’s next door and found a guidebook, which he would not have bothered with had the author not been called Vincent Lipschitz. It was the usual flowery rhetoric about persons and objects of historic and cultural interest, and he’d given a good write-up to his friends!

  The Hotel Central supplied the local phone book, and the regional directory: both much annotated in every kind of ballpoint known to the human race. Castang added his quota and walked over to see the notary.

  This gentleman lived in the ‘old town’, in a fine dignified town house of the seventeenth century, with panelled rooms. In the waiting-room the usual buyers and sellers of house property were crowded dispiritedly, until Maître should find time to read them their conveyancing deeds and witness the signatures: as Castang expected, curiosity helped him to jump the queue.

  Maître was silver-haired, elderly but not yet gaga, with an air of belonging to the local gentry and not intending that it should escape notice. An art connoisseur too: lithographs by Daumier and Forain enlivened his panels.

  Maître, being curious, was very polite. Said of course Monsieur Uh was not a disturbance, and that his ear was attentive. No, he had not had the honour of knowing Madame Lipschitz personally, but there had been professional dealings. He could call his clerk for the dossier if Monsieur wished, but there was no real need. His memory was excellent, praise God. And subsequent to this tragic and deplorable accident he had refreshed it. At the request of Monsieur le Juge; quite so. He would be happy now to recapitulate.

  No no, no, not a shadow of query upon the title to the property. His own father, predecessor in this study, had drawn up the deeds. For Madame Lipschitz’s father, exactly. Unencumbered – mortgages, loans: perish the thought, dear man. And he had made a will. No real need, no, but the late Monsieur Lipschitz, with whom he had had the pleasure of being on terms of acquaintance, had been a man of business habit. During her lifetime, all property mobile and immobile to Madame Lipschitz, and in event of her death before such a date in trust – skip that bit. All firm as the rock. Which rock would that be, haha? The rock of Good Hope, perhaps; inheritances you know, haha.

  And the adoption of the child: oh, absolutely legal. Maître had seen to it himself. As a consequence all property, including that from Madame’s father and brought into settlement at her marriage, descended to the young man Gérard. Enjoyment and usufruct during Madame’s lifetime, quite so.

  Oh that was all splendid, said Castang (approximately). And by the way, since Maître was a local dignitary, a Pillar, and generally the repository of every secret – aha, haha, nothing there for the police of course, nono, hoho – and since also (spiderlike, Louis XI listening behind the arras) Maître was such a patron of the arts, perhaps he could suggest some people in the neighbourhood, who had known the family Lipschitz fairly well, say.

  The old boy fell into guide-book language straight off. Now let’s see: there had of course been dear old François-Xavier, Poet of Our Region. A great family friend, and the child’s godfather. Now alas deceased. And dear old Canon Rampon, archpriest of Our Cathedral – most delightfully Proustian figure, great expert on etymologies, but alas also deceased, dearohdear. Now really the only person actually, who could still be thought of – still alive, nominally anyhow – might be Monsieur Barde, the well-known local gentleman farmer. Who was still in robust health, he was glad to say. A most delightful person whose every pore, so to speak, breathed perfumes of true civilised living. A littérateur, too, my dear man, of note. Formerly a contributor to literary reviews. Ah, days gone by! Golden youth and sweet virility never more to be recaptured. Ah, and now that he thought, Mademoiselle Aubrienne the noted sculptress: he couldn’t quite say but he rather thought she might still be alive.

  Profuse thanks. Maître was too good.

  My dear man, think nothing of it, I beg you: had you no hat?

  No hat. But Maître did not by chance know someone owner of a Homburg hat and a dark blue Peugeot with sheepskins?

  Dear man, don’t ask me about cars; I know nothing about them. I have one, naturally: an English one, of course; a Rover, I believe it must be called. French cars are for the base populace, and German cars for successful butchers. And Italian cars, somehow associated with living upon immoral earnings.

  There remains to be sure the Ross-Royess, but apart from one or two elderly ladies of his acquaintance nobody bought them but pop singers. Homburg hats?… wear one myself. Delighted, dear Monsieur Uh, and my compliments to the Judge.

  Whom we’ll all be seeing, Castang told himself, at the Wednesday evening bridge table at Monsieur the Procureur’s. They live here as though it were still nineteen thirty-five, tut-tutting away about housemaids and the Stavisky scandals.

  Monsieur Barde farmed, in his gentlemanly way, about three kilometres off, in his country house upon his estate. Castang was tired of gentlemen already. He had kept the car though: do young Lucciani good to walk a bit.

  Mixed feelings. This affair was full of provincial celebrities, and Castang had learned early in existence that they are the biggest bores on earth. But it was his very first independent – truly independent – homicide, without Richard breathing down his neck while pretending not to be interested. That counted. Make something of this, and it will be some needed good marks.

  And however provincial this ancient but tiresome town may be, this is still a homicide. Sabine was killed. Sabine was murdered.

  ELEVEN

  Monsieur Barde’s house was a small country manor. Something like Sabine’s, in fact, but much grander, more bijou, gayer, and lots more paint on the window-frames. Money inside, too, no doubt. The wrought-iron grille was rococo openwork, and a formal French garden could be seen, with a geometric maze of box hedges going from square to circle through octagon. On either side, trees. None of those huge, wet dripping trees, whose roots tripped you up, thrusting awkward humid fingers through the bedroom window. Lush, but trimmed, bowers, with showers of flowers.

  The manor had a dinky pepperbox turret amongst other nineteenth-century follies. A stable, too, and part of this was a garage. And in the garage, a shiny dark blue car, with sheepskins on the seats. Not, though, a vulgar modern Peugeot. One might have guessed, at that. Gentleman’s car, 1937 or thereabouts, Delahaye. Regretfully, nobody would mistake it for a modern one: its lovely radiator was well back of the elegant front wheels.

  The front door was opened by a phenomenon, a young pretty girl in a black frock and white swiss-embroidery apron; a maid, no less, and whose nubile charms were set off by the harness. A soubrette. Castang gave her his card.

  ‘Like to see Monsieur Barde. You could say I’ve an introduction from Maître le Tarentais.’ The soubrette smiled winningly and tripped off: he couldn’t remember ever having seen anybody tripping off before. He stood in the hallway, where swords and things decorated the walls.
She came back and hooked on, and towed him along.

  A large, light room, the depth of the house, window in front and French window onto terrace behind. Pretty and pleasant; stucco ceiling, painted panels of Pompadour pink and apple-green, like Sèvres china. Furnished in English style with low sofas covered in chintz, and a marble chimneypiece with bright brass fire-irons, and a fire too of logs smelling of fruit-wood, even on this warm afternoon. He was taken aback by the warmth, both of the room and the welcome.

  ‘My dear Monsieur Castang. Come along in. Sit down, do; make yourself comfortable. And let’s be talking, as Mrs Kenwigs said. You don’t know Dickens? Pity, you’d like him. Now, what can I offer you this chilly weather? A whisky would be just the job? Or would you rather a glass of sherry?’

  Overwhelming. The wave, arriving while one wades gingerly out from the beach, water striking a bit chill round the gut, so one takes one’s time. The wave sends you spluttering and feeling for a footing. No harm done. Just you’d have liked to choose your own moment to get soused, less boisterously.

  ‘It all sounds very English,’ he said feebly: there was a big boom of laughter.

  ‘Terrible country, England. I like it, even the warm sherry, and a fuss about decanters. Now here you are.’ A cut-crystal glass shaped like a thistle-flower. Castang, who had seen this object embroidered upon the shirts of Scottish rugby players, drew the right conclusions and got another boom.

  ‘Splendid, and shows you’re a detective. Right, right, we should have water too from some beck, but since there isn’t any, we drink this as she comes. Not going to abuse this with frightful ice cubes. So fall on, as the English said to the French when they fixed bagginets. That’s Sam Weller. Tell me what you think about that.’