Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  Lucciani put his coffee cup down with a clank and a noisy puff of breath.

  ‘Okay, skipper; what’s the tactics?’

  He loathed being called skipper, and tactics indeed. Use your bloody head is all the tactics you need.

  But they never did have any head. It wasn’t all their fault. Their great terror was that of all functionaries, exceeding instructions and getting a bad mark, so that one spelt everything out for them, in monosyllables, and then they were ‘covered’.

  ‘It’s the slavish worship of the lowest common denominator,’ said Vera. ‘Seek to please everybody, end with a third-rate everything. Art. Police forces.’

  He had to make an effort.

  ‘I was up till three, wasting my time with these Spanish gangsters. Peyrefitte’s delighted, so’s the judge. I’m not. Now you ask about tactics. Oh, well, I’ll go ring Richard.’ He did so.

  ‘To simplify,’ coming back and drinking a half-cup of stone-cold coffee, ‘the judge won’t be pleased at my poking about in the local folklore. To distract him from my doing so, a cloud of smoke must be released. Your function. All the forced-entry jobs in the region over six months, minus whatever gets pinned on the brothers. And a report drawn up. So you go home and play with the computer.’

  Pride of the ministry’s heart, recently supplied to Regional Services of Police Judiciaire, the machine produced huge meaningless quantities of statistics, of crushing banality. Eigthy-five per cent of the prison population is below average intelligence. Well, who’d have thought it? If it wasn’t for that, as Richard remarked, they’d certainly never have been caught. Since eighty-five per cent of cops…

  But to tell the truth for once and avoid cant, and state simply that eighty-five per cent of the entire population of anywhere is subnormal in intelligence – who decides what’s normal, anyway? – would be heresy. Quite beyond the machine’s capacities.

  Who wants statistics anyhow? They provide employment. They get evaluated by other machines, and studied by other functionaries, and this creates a cheerful bustle, and calls for a large budget.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Lucciani. ‘Be glad really to get out of this creepy dump. Still wondering what they do in the evenings.’

  ‘Go to the military brothel.’ The boy would never know how literally he meant it.

  SEVENTEEN

  Yes, the brothers had put the judge in cheerful spirits.

  ‘Ah, yes. Good morning, Castang; sit down. Good.’ Sit down!

  ‘Nothing much as yet, sir: to subtract that is from the enquiry made, or to add to the conclusions drawn. So we’re left with the hypothesis of a break-in, and a homicide by accident, so to say.’

  The judge said nothing at all.

  ‘Pity about these Basques; that looked most promising.’

  ‘I’m not finished with those gentry. But I agree that we haven’t sufficient evidence to inculpate them for this.’

  ‘It’s something to give the press. And we may link them to some other unsolved cases. Monsieur Richard has asked me for a complete report along those lines.’

  ‘At my suggestion.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I propose to detach my associate and put him to the task of synthesising.’

  The judge had no criticism of that.

  ‘I think perhaps, with respect, that there are one or two points apart from this, which bear looking at.’

  ‘Yes?’ mildly. ‘Suppose you tell me about them?’

  ‘Maître le Tarentais was kind enough to give me his time.

  ‘So he told me.’

  ‘At his suggestion I had a chat too with Monsieur Barde.’

  A nod: whether of approval or foreknowledge one couldn’t tell. It was prudent to assume both. Thonon had been right there; all these small town personages were fearful gossips.

  ‘Since he knew the family well in former times. I thought,’ picking his steps, ‘that we ought to know more about family relationships and the financial situation. I had a word with the heirs. They were co-operative enough – a bit restive. I had to explain for instance that even if no formal order were made they couldn’t dispose of the property without your permission.’

  The willingness to listen was getting a bit ominous. One preferred judges who only listened to themselves talking.

  ‘I identified a man who was seen to call on Madame Lipschitz that evening as a local house agent, a Monsieur Thonon. He seems to have been hoping to get her to sell some property, but he tells me nothing definite was concluded. He asked my permission quite correctly to negotiate with the heirs: I told him your assent would be needed.’

  ‘Good. I’ve spoken to Richard on the telephone. I want this report on forcible entries pursued diligently; I’m approving this suggestion regarding your young man.

  ‘Now,’ thoughtful, stabbing himself gently in the stomach with his paper-knife, ‘Richard assures me that you are a prudent and experienced officer, to be trusted in a delicate matter. You will have understood that my remarks of yesterday about playing the bull in the china-shop were a reminder of the need for restraint. Now this report will take time. And we’d do best not to rely solely upon it. The investigation must be pursued if only to avoid an impression that this has been a superficial or incomplete enquiry.’

  This was a great deal better than yesterday. Castang understood, or thought he did, that the brothers might not have anything to do with Sabine, but were highly important. A spectacular and successful operation, which greatly strengthened the judge’s position.

  ‘I don’t wish to hamper you, Castang, nor to stifle your scope for enquiry. But to impress upon you how important it may be that nothing should lead you into a situation where – you follow me – anyone wants to see you stifled.

  ‘I think you do right to clear up any ambiguity on this point of the property; whether it was or wasn’t on the verge of being sold. Plainly you had to interview these heirs: I have no criticism of your doing so. They’re being touchy and righteous, I may tell you: I had the young woman on the telephone making a fuss. I anaesthetised her, but they’re likely to be troublesome. I’m told,’ searching for a note on his pad, ‘that the young woman’s mother is expected today, from Paris. A certain Madame Wilhems. The widow it would seem of some industrial magnate in the north. Hints were dropped that she possesses the ear of unidentified persons in political office.’

  ‘They all say that, even if it’s for a parking offence.’

  ‘Quite so. I don’t imagine we need take it too seriously. The point is – why should she think such remarks necessary?’

  Castang was quite warming towards his judge. The obstructionist fusspot was showing signs of becoming an ally!

  ‘Material interest, I should imagine,’ disdainfully. ‘The moment that is called in question these people make a great to-do about their powers of influence. I’m inclined to put it down to the young woman being officious. If this worthy lady proves obstreperous there’s no harm in our showing that we aren’t getting rapped on the knuckles by some manufacturer, even if she has a Deputy in her pocket. Tradesmen…!’

  Castang was learning rapidly a lot about small towns. This, he guessed, was the Proc speaking; the local personage of ‘good family’. Who might have been willing enough to have Sabine’s dossier ‘classified’ – put on the shelf. The judge would have rung him for an opinion. He would have got hoity-toity though, at the bare idea of being bullied by some manufacturer’s widow from Roubaix. Tradesmen!

  He wasn’t interrupting – the judge had lots of time this morning, and was by no means finished. In the mood for a dissertation, to which Castang would listen humbly, if he knew what was good for him.

  ‘Certain sections of the magistracy hold the theory that judicial decisions are inseparable from politics. Some elements go as far as to say that the neutrality of the judge is a myth, that his decision will always be based upon a personal and individual set of interior mechanisms. I find this argument unconvincing. A theologian, perhaps, would speak of excessive
scruple.

  ‘I need hardly tell you, Castang, that the great principle of the law is the independence of the magistrate. He speaks without fear or favour, for he is not to be removed from his post, and need heed no pressure from political personages, who are in any case here today and gone tomorrow.

  ‘However, the Police Judiciaire, however elite a body, contains infected sheep within the flock.’

  Aha, muttered Castang towards the back of his head, another reader of newspapers.

  ‘It has, moreover, no security of tenure. Yet this is the executive instrument upon which a magistrate relies.’

  This is perhaps not the Proc speaking, nor, possibly, the judge. Maybe it’s the prefect. The local sub-prefect? This idea gathered strength, for the judge began to perorate.

  ‘You will recall, accordingly, that in giving you liberty to follow the threads of this enquiry I must impress upon you the necessity of remaining aware of political sensitivities.’ Richard, or a carpenter, or anybody not a politician, would say ‘Don’t hit your own fingers with the hammer.’

  ‘In other words, my friend,’ going all lenient and humorous, ‘tread warily. Do not fall foul of the raving lion that is Demos, who lurks as the Gospels tell us seeking whom he may devour.’

  Castang, who had a vague notion it was Psalms, kept his mouth shut. The phrase had been insufficiently polished, but the chap could still nod his head in time to the music. And yet there were moments now and again when he could almost believe the man human.

  ‘I don’t want to be a source of complaint in any quarter,’ he said humbly. ‘Monsieur Richard wouldn’t like that at all.’

  ‘I cannot fail to give weight to your assurance,’ with pomp. ‘An emollient spirit, and no china gets broken. Splendid. Continue then with the verbal reports; put yourself in touch with me at once at any new turn. Emollient, Castang, rather than ebullient.’ It was a joke.

  What was all this bloop in aid of? Someone, presumably this tradesman’s widow with the deputy-in-the-pocket, has been phoning somebody. A prefect to judge from the prose style. Who phoned the judge, telling him not to let the cops get out of hand, this being a marginal electoral district. The magistrature, being upper-class, is a bit hoity-toity, and refuses to tell the cops simply to go study breaking-and-entering statistics. That – roughly – was about it.

  As Richard pointed out now and again, police work could be any colour you liked, from pastel pink to cumulonimbus violet, just depending on how close you were to an electoral year.

  And Castang had twelve, nearly fifteen years as a cop. And this was the first independent enquiry, into anything serious like a homicide, he had ever been given. Richard would say too, Walk Carefully. Because the Public, known as Demos if you’re a judge and have had a classical education, is base, craven and hypocritical, and needs a large array of scapegoats upon which to discharge vindictive terrors.

  As goats go, policemen will do nicely.

  EIGHTEEN

  A soft autumn day. Castang found himself disliking it, wishing for harsh drying airs from the east, for thin acid sunshine of early springtime. Too soft, too moist.

  Bustling little town, and bloody prosperous. A thousand shysters like Thonon running about selling illusions and doing well out of it. Everyone making money and parading it with a new bow-window, a bigger garage, a grander deep-freeze. Everywhere blatant, boisterous self-advertisement. And don’t suggest there’s anything wrong with that, or we’ll lynch you and enjoy it. Every buzzing bluebottle loud, proud and gorged.

  Castang regretted the Rue d’Aboukir. He had a hell of a nostalgia for it. There you were a professional. You knew where you stood. You were a cop, there was a man with a gun. Pick him up and take him away. That was clear; the gun on your own belt was supposed to mean something. You didn’t just sit in bars being witty and picking your teeth with the foresight.

  Whereas here you were hemmed in by a gang whose one idea was to suffocate you, because you were a nuisance, a piece of grit who for one second might interrupt the music, the thick golden tinkle of money pouring into the till.

  At least he’d had one clear instruction. Anaesthetise Granny, this naughty old biddy who’s come ramping down from Paris possessed of political influence.

  He got rid of young Lucciani first, and felt better, more able to cope with Democracy. He was a functionary of the Ministry of the Interior, comforting himself with the phrase Vera was fond of from Stendhal. ‘Really one would rather kiss the Minister of the Interior’s arse than one’s shoemaker’s.’ It came from Lucien Leuwen, that young man who set out to tackle Democracy after some years of ‘making intensive warfare upon new boots and cigars’.

  He hadn’t yet been inside the ‘little house’ next door to Sabine’s. For a cottage it was surprisingly big, and pleasant with a little paved yard and nasturtiums growing. These people were damned lucky not to be stuck in a miserable tiny flat, but they hankered after what was after all a fine and beautiful house, and he couldn’t blame them.

  A pleasant living-room with colour-washed walls, untidy, but with a peculiar discipline imposed upon it by the presence of Mum.

  Now what had got into Mum, that she came racing down here from her good bourgeois royal town? It wasn’t Paris. It was Versailles. Worse, if anything. Madame was very much ‘La Versaillaise’.

  She had her Sunday suit on. Neat, ungaudy, nothing out of place. A pale-grey suit, with a white batiste blouse, and a ruffle. The ruffle had a narrow black edge, and little black spots. One couldn’t accuse her of wearing mourning, but neither of not wearing mourning; it was a nice touch. Mourning for somebody pretty distant, like one’s daughter’s mother-in-law. One is not incorrect, but one does not care to show ostentation. Versaillaise bourgeoisie!

  She was sitting in a large armchair: it was the only armchair, which was why she was sitting in it. He got a place on a low sofa, tatty and a bit greasy, and decidedly uncomfortable until he felt about and found a plastic toy animal under the cushion.

  Janet went through her doorpost-sidling act until dismissed by a wave of Mum’s hand: I’ll look after this, dear. Podgy and well-kept, this hand; polished nails and a lot of large diamonds. She sat upright, knees together, contained and concentrated. A strong calm face of a pale even shade owing nothing to make-up; the colour and texture of a petit-beurre biscuit.

  ‘Well, young man?’

  Castang took his time: coughing, blowing his nose, getting rid of paper hanky in hygienic fashion, fussing with cushion, laughing at emergence of giraffe. Madame Wilhems was worth study: she looked pretty formidable.

  He didn’t like her face much. It was built up of self-sufficiency and contempt, and a solid certainty that nothing would happen to interfere with Mum’s well-entrenched comforts. Protruding boiled grey eye. The same long straight nose as the daughter, but larger and a lot fleshier. No chin, but she managed very well without.

  ‘Well, young man?’ In no hurry.

  ‘I’m sorry. Bit of a sad occasion.’

  ‘It will be distinctly sad, unless this rather silly matter is brought back into proportion. It is sad, for example, that one should not be safe from murderous vandals. I prefer to avoid pious clichés, because I dislike hypocrisies. Sabine Arthur was an old woman, and in shaky health. When such people die, it is sensible to temper natural sorrow with relief that things got no worse. Better a regret for a quick and painless death than the much greater regret for a drawn-out, aimless, miserable age. It is clear that very shortly she would have needed expert care. Specialised care. I trust I make myself plain.’

  ‘She seemed pretty robust to me, reading the medical report.’

  The eyebrows drew together.

  ‘I do not care to be fenced with. Mental illness is a fact like another.’

  ‘Yes. A person being elderly or tiresome or whatever does not alter the fact, in law, of a death by violence.’

  ‘Let’s understand each other, Inspector. You deal in facts; so do I. I have precious little time for sup
positions. She was killed, and that is a fact I do not dispute or try to hide from myself. It is another fact that her mind was much decayed. Such persons do not behave in a rational manner. You will not dispute this: it is notorious that she was given to fantasies and babbled tales of fears and visions. I am even given to understand that she approached you with her hysterical imaginings which you were obliged to dismiss as groundless.’

  Castang said nothing: if she were surprised at that she said nothing to show it.

  ‘She sought the company of deranged persons, of the silly and weak-minded. Old women, with a belief in visions, apparitions of a religious nature. Some such may be kind-hearted and well-intentioned: others may be seekers after sensation, who stir up trouble. Some, even, abuse the credulity of the generous for financial gain.’

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ said Castang, sounding surprised, ‘that some deranged person broke in and killed her?’

  Mum dismissed this with a wave of the hand. She leaned forward a little.

  ‘I do not know what gossip you may have listened to in the village. The opinion seems widespread that Sabine Arthur was a sort of saint. The local priest seems an innocent old man. But I have spoken to His Lordship the Bishop,’ impressively. ‘These superstitious cults are foolish and may be harmful.’

  Castang, quite genuinely, was wondering what all this was about. A counter-attack upon anybody saying nasty things about her daughter; that much was evident. And perhaps Sabine had been charitable towards some faintly dotty pious cult. And the fraud squad had trouble frequently enough with fortune-tellers and phoney religious sects. That somebody of that sort might turn up with a claim wouldn’t surprise him, but it was the first he’d heard of it.

  ‘She bore the reputation of a charitable person: I’m aware,’ he said. ‘I’m only enquiring into a homicide.’