Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘Oh, of course. And the judge got a black eye over the mayor’s parking lot. But you’re trying to draw me out – I’m not vexed, don’t worry. Am curious, though.’

  ‘I’m trying to find out what I can about her movements that night.’

  ‘Ah…now I get it. Somebody saw me, is that it?’

  ‘Oh, it was you, then?’

  ‘Stop being crafty; you were waiting to see if I denied it. Those villagers! They notice everything.’ He sounded amused, like a man with a clear conscience. He took the pipe out to stop the tobacco with his finger. ‘Well all right, I admit it, I suppose I should have come forward like a good citizen. Nothing to hide. But nothing to contribute either, and frankly, around here you learn that discretion isn’t just better than valour: it’s better than pretty well anything.’ Rattling on though rather; overacting somewhat. ‘Good,’ holding his arms up and making a comic face, ‘you’ve tracked me down. I’m at your service, naturally.’

  ‘I’d like to know your business, and why you were doing it that late. You might have been the last person to see her.’

  ‘But I left her in rude health.’

  ‘Nobody’s denying it.’ The two pairs of gentle brown eyes looked at one another with the utmost sincerity. ‘Of course you should have come forward,’ said Castang mildly. ‘I’ll make no reproaches about that if you’ll now be perfectly open about your concerns.’

  ‘Fair enough. Nothing difficult about that. I’ve been dickering with her one way or the other for a year. Tiresome old lady, as they tend to be. You know; blowing hot and cold – now she would, now she wouldn’t. But it’s a good bit of property there. Worth my time and trouble – worth anybody’s, and I mean anybody, and I hope you understand why I prefer to keep this dark. And why I didn’t come forward: she got herself killed. For which naturally I’m personally very sorry, but for business my pitch is queered.’

  ‘I’d like you to go into lots of detail,’ said Castang. ‘Who, what, since when?’

  ‘All right. As I say then, I had a shot a long way back and she was very unforthcoming, but I did manage to get a first refusal out of her. Then she got the house classified: not historic monument but typical traditional dwelling-house. So it can’t be knocked down, and the price goes up too: crafty move. Her husband was something in Cultural Affairs – she must have had a line to them. But I’m a tenacious bugger, and there’s still plenty to be done with that huge garden where she never sets – sorry, set – foot. I murmured at her about that, but no soap. Then a week ago, you could have knocked me down, she comes sailing in here. Was I still interested? You bet, and exclusive, so no commissions to split. As for sneaking about like Dracula at dead of night, she suggested it herself.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Popaul innocently. ‘You may be right. Didn’t strike me particularly, but maybe you’re not as used as I am to the oddities and suspicions of old women who sell houses. Under the civilised exterior, you know, she was a very peasant sort of woman; intensely roundabout and full of chicanes. Didn’t want anybody to know about my visit. And of course I was seen; just shows you.’

  ‘Anybody in particular, or everybody in general?’

  ‘Blowed if I know. Gave it no thought. Well yes, I did actually, but from another viewpoint. Meant to me that I might be getting somewhere. And why publicise that? A business like this, one has lots of friends who love you dearly, and the thing they love dearest is poking a stick into your bicycle wheel, strictly by accident.’

  ‘Was she ready to sell, that night?’

  ‘Heavens, man, we didn’t get that far. A great deal of what about this and what about that. I felt optimistic though, that it was a matter of patience. And then she has to go and die,’ said Popaul tragically.

  There was a moment when Castang thought his enquiry was already over. The fellow’s patter was so smooth, and sounded so well rehearsed.

  ‘What about what this, and what that?’

  There is a deal of talk in the Code of Criminal Procedure about interrogations, principally concerned with protecting the individual’s rights. Lawyers, worrying about this, put in so many safeguards about not hearing, as witnesses, people against whom grave presumptions might be said to rest, that the cops could not do any work at all. There is, luckily, a safety valve. A witness in the office of an examining magistrate can be put on oath and threatened with a lot of penal sanctions. But a PJ cop conducting a ‘prelim’ knows anyway that everyone is telling lies. He expects it: would be astonished if they didn’t.

  He had to go easy. The fellow having simply ‘been there’ that evening was not a proof of anything. It was perhaps a ‘material indication’. But that is not a rope you can trust your weight to.

  Thonon fidgeted, and peered into the bowl of his pipe for inspiration.

  ‘Do I have to tell you?’

  ‘Tell me nothing if you prefer,’ said Castang, bored.

  ‘If it had any point – but it’s all irrelevant.’

  ‘Tell a lot of lies, if you think that would be cleverer.’

  ‘I’d like to know what you’re aiming at.’

  ‘My reports go to the judge. He convenes you as a witness and questions you himself, if he sees fit. You’ve a lawyer to look after you.’

  ‘Good God. You mean you suspect me of…?’

  ‘Then stop being evasive.’

  ‘Just that the judge, saving your presence, is an old nosy parker. Gossip with the notary, with Barde, all that gang. Look, if I’m straightforward with you, will you give me some assurance that it stays between us?’

  ‘I’m as discreet a man as you are.’

  ‘Not you I’m worried about, but this bloody small town.’

  ‘See this impersonally,’ said Castang patiently. ‘X is dead. We enquire. So-and-so saw X at such a time. The subject of the conversation may as you claim be irrelevant. It is though germane to the enquiry. Obstruct me; I tell the judge you’re a recalcitrant witness and ask him to treat you as such.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ irritably. ‘I was hoping to make a deal, and still to make it with the old lady’s heirs, but if this all gets into the press what chance have I?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to the press: haven’t even seen any yet. When I do I’ll tell them what I see fit, which can be precious little. The judge is bound by professional secrecy, like a doctor. And I’m stretching this for you a long way, you know.’

  ‘I was hoping for two separate deals,’ sulky, ‘one for the garden to develop as building land, and one for the house.’

  ‘She sign any agreement?’

  ‘You’ll be claiming I had an interest in her death, next. Look, we were talking about getting an architect to design a wall – protect the amenities.’

  ‘You’ve had contact with the heirs, on this subject?’

  ‘I scarcely know who they are. The son next door, if that’s all there is. Got to be tactful; can’t just storm in while they’re still arranging the funeral.’

  ‘So you’ve nothing signed, no bit of paper?’

  ‘It may sound strange, but she was an old-fashioned person, the sort who gives her word and keeps it. I relied on a verbal agreement. A written order to sell is of course legally necessary to the agent. I don’t know whether that would be legally binding on the heirs. I’ve nothing, now.’

  ‘Better. This has a more convincing ring about it.’

  ‘I hope you now understand that I had certainly no interest whatever in her death.’

  ‘Tell people they sound truthful,’ said Castang, ‘and they rarely lose an opportunity to embroider, to sound more truthful still.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Thonon crossly. ‘Cops!’

  ‘Cops are used to lies. Even when it’s the truth, it’s rare when there’s nothing added, or nothing left out.’

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking I killed her, are you?’ shaking his head disbelievingly. ‘Or had something to do with it?’

  ‘I do
n’t have any preconceived ideas, Monsieur Thonon.’

  ‘Was the press report all nonsense? I understood that this was a straightforward thing. Somebody broke in, and was caught by the old lady, and bumped her with a bottle or something, probably sheer stupid gratuitous violence.’

  ‘That’s correct, and that’s the probability.’

  ‘The sort of thing,’ said Thonon seriously, ‘which might have looked improbable a few years back, but now is only too believable because only too frequent.’

  ‘As you say. Frequent. Believable. Likely.’

  ‘You’re doing your job. Exhausting all the possibilities. All right. I’ve given you all the explanations I have. Satisfied?’

  ‘Sure,’ placidly. ‘I understand your wish for discretion, I understand your getting irritable. I’ll hope to worry you no further.’

  ‘I can take it that the police, or the law, or whoever, have no objection to my pursuing my business activities?’ People are always sarcastic with cops, when they have felt frightened. ‘You’ll see nothing suspect in my trying to salvage this deal?’

  ‘As long as you realise that while a homicide enquiry continues the material assets are frozen. A formal rule: it’s not aimed at anyone. Means you can’t yet put the deal through, but there’s nothing to stop you setting it up. I won’t gossip about your affairs.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Just out of interest, can you do business with the son?’

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘Know him at all?’

  ‘Very slightly. Works for the municipality – I’ve seen him there.’

  ‘What’s his job, do you know?’

  ‘Equipment – planning permissions and building permits,’ with a faint grin. ‘But in a junior capacity – don’t get any wrong ideas.’

  ‘No business of mine,’ said Castang.

  ‘I’d like to close up now,’ a bit wearily. ‘You’ll not take it amiss if I say I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Not to forget the eiderdown.’

  ‘Damn the eiderdown… All right, Marianne, closing time. You’ll not forget? – I count on your discretion.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ It was the truth. There would be a bustling local press man nattering at him, but that could be fixed with patter. As for the judge…well, one would see.

  THIRTEEN

  Young Lucciani’d had a nice quiet day, breaking off in plenty of time, under the pretext that the bus was only every half-hour, and he’d had no car. Primed now with a lot of stuff to show how hard he’d been working.

  ‘Feel like a beer?’ he suggested generously. ‘And Peyrefitte’s been asking for you.’ Castang gave a grunt, to both, and went to ring. The Commissaire had been showing zeal.

  ‘I’ve been looking up everyone with a record for violence as well as for larceny. The judge wanted a real purge, so we’ve looked at everyone round here. All verified and no soap.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Castang. What’s he telling me for?

  ‘That’s that then,’ he said aloud with a lack of warmth.

  ‘Yes, but the computer turned up something interesting. Somebody’d asked for a print-out of the file at headquarters.’

  ‘Lucciani was looking after it.’ It had been a long day and there was something dulling about that computer. Or perhaps numbing.

  ‘I had a telex half an hour back and I thought it worth seeing the judge about it. Some people, sort of gipsy characters, a bit out in the country. We’ve a file for a dozen misdemeanours, affrays and stuff, but no felonies. But the computer turned up a larceny with violence at Douai.’ Interest quickened but very slightly. That was typical of the computer. It was always turning up peculiar things that had happened at Douai.

  ‘The judge is pretty excited and is thinking of pulling them in on a mandate.’

  ‘Too late now, surely.’ The police can only use search and seizure warrants in daylight hours.

  ‘Arrest them and be done with it, he thinks. He hasn’t decided yet, but I’ll keep you in touch.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Castang was beginning to see light. Monsieur Peyrefitte would be pleased, and feel refreshed, if he managed to arrest all these frightful criminals while the PJ was stumbling about holding up its trousers with both hands.

  ‘Peyrefitte’s arresting a crowd of names he got off the computer,’ drinking beer. ‘He must have something else he isn’t telling yet. He’s preparing a triumph. What about you?’

  ‘I phoned through. Richard says the dodo man is identified. Bona fide junk dealer. You know, selling stuff to Parisians who’ll buy anything as long as it’s wired for electricity. So that’s out. Then this computer thing – some people to be verified by the gendarmerie. And they’ll look up any other complaints made concerning vagabonds and hitch-hikers, all that stuff. And I said we’d be here, so he just said continue that way he has.’

  ‘The village buttoned up?’

  ‘I think so. But whatever they saw, thought, or imagined…’

  ‘Or invent in order to sound interesting.’

  ‘Anyway nothing fresh. By the way,’ elaborately casual, ‘the dark blue Peugeot – it’s a local estate agent. I did some work on it.’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to him,’ without admitting he’d done no work on it.

  ‘Oh,’ said poor Lucciani, who’d done more than he admitted. ‘Well, in case you hadn’t known.’

  ‘On the contrary, good. Anything known about him?’

  ‘They say he’s honest and you can rely on him. Clean reputation.’

  ‘You have anything to conclude, about all this?’

  ‘I think,’ not sure whether he’d be jumped on, ‘that the vague talk about vagabonds and hippies is just wishful thinking. What would they be doing in this neck of the woods anyway? They stick to main roads. Pass unnoticed there, but here surely – in the village – they’d draw attention. Nobody’d seen any: it was always someone else who had.’

  Castang nodded.

  ‘I’d agree. Write it all up anyway in précis form, so that I’ve something to show the judge for his trouble. Can’t write it off. You’ll have to go through all the gendarmerie reports tomorrow.’

  ‘If I’d killed anyone, I’d get out of the district quick.’

  ‘They don’t always reason. Think they’re invisible. Disdain for stupid cops. An incredible vanity even when they aren’t on drugs.’

  ‘If nothing got pinched but money there’s no way of tying it up.’

  ‘Can never be sure. This year one walked into a shop and bought a transistor radio: he hadn’t had a penny the day before. Anything that turns up – breaking into an empty house is likeliest.’

  ‘Except that it isn’t noticed, often, till the owner comes next weekend.’

  ‘I agree it’s a bore. There’s nothing for you to do here, though, and little enough for me.’ The boy was in his first year of PJ work, and still made faces at the idea of an ‘enquiry’ petering out into days at the office, searching through piles of typed flimsies, straining the eyes and crooking the back. A computer could turn up a ‘coordinate’ in statistics of, say, condemnations, but could not handle the innumerable petty-larceny complaints. Young Lucciani still had visions of himself on the Violence Brigade, flat on the pavement outside a bank while bullets whistled, and wore his gun while behind a typewriter to show he was a cop.

  FOURTEEN

  Castang went to have a shower. Getting downstairs again he drank a mouthful of Lucciani’s beer and went out to buy a paperback thriller before the tobacconist closed. Evenings in a town this size…

  There was thinking to be done, but so little. One stayed still, let the day’s work sink in. Maybe a breeze would blow and give a direction to next day’s footsteps. What did the local people do in the evenings? Watched the television, heaven help them. The cinema. A beer at a café. Playing cards or studying racing form. The odd one might read a book. And many went away into little private worlds, rubbing an already well-cleaned shotgun, mending fishing tackle, watching
a pigeon-loft or just ‘with the collection’. Or with simple fantasy, which cost least. A few would go out and defeat boredom with petty crime. Not much of that hereabouts, bar breaking the speed limit. And Castang would go to bed with a gangster thriller.

  Seven in the evening, when this already means nightfall, is the best time for looking at provincial towns in Europe. The animation is highest: the women who have worked all day are shopping: the street lamps hide the ugliness and the dreariness. Best of all when it rained, and each shop offered a glowing haven from the raw air, and faces were seen through the glass of these brightly lit aquariums, laughing. Tonight it was chill, as it is in October after sunset; a dusty draught blew along the ugly little faubourg. But one did not see the mean ramshackle façades, and the leaves on the chestnut trees were turning, not yet fallen, and he felt content.

  The Hotel Central was full by now of folk in for a quick one, as well as serious, heavy-footed billiards players, a smell of pork chops, and Lucciani reading that morning’s Paris paper, the local one an exhausted wreck beside him. There had been a little paragraph about ‘Judge calls in PJ’, but no hawk had been around yet for any hot news. The local hawk would be too experienced, and too lazy, and knew there wasn’t any hot news. Perhaps Peyrefitte was preparing some, but meanwhile the big story was the cracks that had appeared in the new swimming bath. ‘Enquiry ordered.’

  Castang pulled a chair out, asked for an Alsace beer and looked at it languidly.

  ‘We’d better eat here. Peyrefitte won’t arrest anybody this time of night. What you going to do?’

  ‘Oh, go to a movie. Sex films again – never anything else in a place this size. What you got there? Pass it me when you’ve read it.’

  ‘Phone for you, Monsieur Castang,’ called the patronne from the bar, poking at her over-elaborate provincial hairdo, being slightly coquettish with the cops. ‘Well,’ passing him the phone, ‘I’ll have to get you to enquire into what the laundry does with my towels.’

  ‘Man or woman?’ half-hearted. Peyrefitte fussing again, or Vera, having a housewifely check-up?