Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘All very well for you to be funny, but I’ll have you know there’s a fine flap going on and it’s your work and not mine and I’ve quite enough with these brothers.’

  ‘What fine flap?’

  ‘Some fellow that’s wanted on an affray charge in Longueville and took to the woods.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. And you want him arrested, yes, is that right? Okay then, send me up a cop with a pair of handcuffs and I’ll look into the matter.’

  ‘No, no, no, no,’ crossly. ‘The gendarmerie were waiting at a crossroads and stopped his car.’

  Castang was childishly determined to keep out of this.

  ‘Oh fine, that’s lovely then, deafening applause.’

  ‘And I’ve got him right here for you.’

  ‘No you haven’t. You may have thought you did, for a few minutes, but that was just a small administrative error.’

  ‘Now what the hell? You coming here to interrogate this man? The gendarmerie have just brought him in.’

  ‘What should I want to interrogate him about? I don’t know him from Martin Bormann.’

  ‘But he’s your case, damn it.’

  ‘He most emphatically is not my case, and the gendarmerie can stick him straight back in their car if they’ve nowhere better. Take him back to Longueville where he belongs and not to be so goddam zealous another time. Everybody sees fugitives from justice and tries to stick me with them.’

  ‘Now stop being silly, Castang,’ in a most irritatingly patient and jolly way. ‘Longueville is legally in the administrative sector here. He’s got to be held for the Proc, but I gather there’s a suspicion of homicide. Anyway this is your pigeon: Richard made that perfectly clear.’

  Castang said things about Commissaire Richard.

  ‘Yes yes, I know,’ said Peyrefitte, ‘but you’re here and that means on the spot.’

  ‘Where’s the dossier anyhow?’

  ‘They’re sending it over by messenger. There’s no need to make so much fuss. It’s open and shut; the fellow admits everything, or did anyhow, in the car coming over. What’s left but formalities?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ grumbled Castang unreasonably. ‘Oh, all right then, I’ll try and get over this evening.’

  He rang Richard, who was unanswerable as usual.

  ‘There’s nothing to it. Some dispute about fish, there on the river bank. The gendarmerie has done all the work. You’ve only to take the man’s statement, and fill in a few forms, and you have it all wrapped up for your judge there, and it’s something for the press. Make everybody happy; show them how efficient you are.’ Quite as usual, no way of telling from his voice whether he was being sarcastic. ‘How’s your old lady coming along?’

  ‘Everyone’s got something to hide. I don’t much believe in the vagabond. It’ll serve to gain time, and it might even be of use.’

  ‘Or I wouldn’t waste Lucciani’s time on it.’

  ‘I’m not without hope of turning something up here.’

  ‘Nor am I,’ said Richard, and put his phone down. Castang didn’t know whether this was supposed to be encouraging.

  The fisherman’s papers wouldn’t be there anyhow before this evening. A session with Popaul was more urgent.

  And after all that, Thonon wasn’t even back from lunch.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The secretary looked at the clock. Monsieur Thonon was showing a house to an important client whom he’d been lunching with. But he’d be back any moment. She wondered whether to show a little languorous coyness with the police, decided against it, frowned in concentration over her typing. They both sat and collected their thoughts, such as these were. The blue Peugeot came sailing along the Place d’Armes, found its habitual place occupied, tucked itself crossly in fifty metres further along. Steps came back, with a bit of crisp heel-tapping, a concentrated frown six feet higher. The door opened and closed rather hard. The girl looked up from her typing.

  ‘He take it?’

  ‘He’s not sure he can afford it, meaning ten percent less but he’ll try for twenty. Any calls?’

  ‘Monsieur Castang is here.’

  ‘Oh,’ turning stiffly, restraining himself. ‘Good day to you. I thought we’d finished with all that.’

  ‘Some points to tidy up.’

  ‘Have I anyone booked, Marianne?’

  ‘Not till five.’

  ‘Come on in then. But this is a bore, you know. I don’t mind, I suppose. But it all seems very tortuous.’

  ‘Not really. We looked at things in general. I made no notes, and I didn’t press you. I could ask you to come to the commissariat to make a statement with a stenographer present.’ Thonon shoved his pipe between his teeth and bit on it. ‘You seem a little irritable.’

  Thonon fiddled with his tobacco pouch before making his mind up.

  ‘This death puts a spoke in my wheel. That’s normal. Then you put another. It’s difficult to do business in a normal way with the police knocking about. Your bread and butter, but you realise that people don’t exactly find it an everyday occurrence. People – families concerned – feel under strain. You come blowing in, worrying at me. I suppose that’s just scrutiny of these circumstances, uh, the coincidental connection, but you can’t blame me if I feel you’re leaning on me.’

  ‘Mmhm,’ said Castang. You’re sensitive, you feel some strain, that’s inhibiting – is that it?’

  ‘In outline, I suppose that’s more or less it.’

  ‘Fill it in then. Anything I can do to help, I will.’

  ‘Oh,’ fiddling with his pipe and choosing words, ‘I’m… I gather that the mother-in-law has appeared from Paris. Didn’t come just for the funeral, I suspect. I hear in fact that she’s an interfering old biddy, not likely to make things easier for me. Been ringing up all and sundry.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Castang amiably, ‘I’ve met her. Businesslike, in fact pushing. Yes, I can see she’ll make it tough for you. Especially since I’ve heard it suggested that you were exceptionally eager to do this stroke of business: is that right?’

  Thonon’s pale face, a natural pallor going with dark hair, flushed.

  ‘What d’you mean, exceptionally? As I explained with some care, I put a lot of work and trouble into this, and I don’t want to see it go to waste.’

  ‘That it was urgent to you – that the urgency might make you particularly anxious – would there be some truth in that?’

  The flush got deeper, with an angry look.

  ‘I’d like to know who makes that sort of insinuation, and on what grounds?’

  ‘No need to be angry; this is in confidence, just between us. On the grounds that you are short of ready money. Nothing in that to be ashamed of. I can see readily enough that you have an expensive establishment, and that means a lot of outgoings.’

  ‘Who made the suggestion?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you, you know. I’ve interviewed a lot of people. The suggestion might be slightly malicious, which is why I put it to you.’ Polite, deprecating, like a bank manager.

  ‘Someone you’ve interviewed,’ with sarcastic emphasis. ‘Like I hear you had a nice tea-cosy chat with Barde.’ Of course; from Martine.

  ‘So I did: why fix on him?’

  ‘It’s just the sort of poisonous remark he tosses out lightly, with a laugh pretending it’s not to be taken seriously. Barde, yes, I can see it. Quite typical. Now let me tell you I’ll defend myself against this sort of insinuation. I can tell you why Monsieur Barde makes suggestions of that sort. Maybe it’ll help open your eyes.’

  ‘I ask nothing better,’ blandly.

  ‘Barde would like to get into the act, that’s why. He has no professional standing or competence whatever, but he thinks it quite ethical to try real-estate deals, and extort a commission, without taking any pains, or giving the slightest guarantee. Because he’s Monsieur Barde, and we’re nobodies. And if anyone complained about unfair competition he couldn’t care less, and
if one made a legal complaint, say about false pretences, that’s all right,’ bitterly. ‘When you’ve been to school with the proc you’re okay, see.’

  ‘Just to amuse himself?’ sounding incredulous, feeling pleased, learning more.

  ‘Heaven, man, you’re being obtuse. You fall for Barde, the way he takes everyone in. Display of affluence, a drawling I-don’t-need-to-work manner, and phoney talk about art. Owes money everywhere, including the bank. Strapped. Hasn’t a penny, stoops to turn one.’

  ‘I see. You suggest he’d like to swing a deal like this himself. And that by defaming you he diminishes your chances? To increase his own? Is that what you suggest?’

  ‘Why d’you think,’ teeth clenched on pipe, ‘I wanted and tried to keep this quiet.’

  ‘Did you know that Barde was an old friend of Madame Lipschitz? Before her death?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bit over-vehement, aren’t you? Suppose Barde heard, which he won’t from me, what you said, that would be defamation too, no? Small town gossip: he’s strapped, you’re strapped, we can go on conjugating a verb and it doesn’t mean much.’

  ‘He’d say that, would he? And you know what I’d do? I’d plead fair comment. I could find you three different agents in this town whose legitimate business was injured by Barde’s meddling. And I could tell you to look at information available to anybody who takes the trouble, like land-registry records, and see what Barde owned, and what he has sold. That he’s daisied through his inheritance. Bad debts are common knowledge. Complaints have been made. And headed off.’

  ‘By the proc?’

  ‘Saying that’s asking for trouble,’ with some humour, ‘like accusing a cop of corruption.’

  ‘But the complaints came to nothing.’

  ‘Right. But spread gossip about me, that I was trying to put pressure on a client to get a deal through because I’m supposed to be living beyond my means, and I’ve the cops on my neck at all hours. Oh, nothing personal.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d now be surprised to hear that Barde never mentioned your name.’

  Thonon was deflated.

  ‘It wouldn’t have been the first time, that’s all,’ in an obstinate mutter. ‘Who was it anyhow?’

  ‘Never mind. I don’t believe everything I hear. Don’t reach any conclusions, either.’

  ‘I don’t care a damn what conclusions you reach.’

  ‘Your mouth is robbing your ears. Listen to me now. You’re anxious for this deal. You thought you could still do it with the inheritors. Mum is a tougher proposition. All right so far? And you need this deal, to dig you out of a hole. Still all right? Any comment?’ There wasn’t any comment.

  ‘I’m learning about small towns,’ said Castang equably. ‘Suppose now that I ask you to think about something. The press, the local paper-hawk; there probably isn’t more than one in a place this size. Correspondent for a bigger paper, maybe.

  ‘Haven’t seen him yet myself. He’s been briefed, I dare say, by the Palais, about discreet enquiries and such. He knows I’d give him some flannel about an incomplete enquiry, stuff not worth listening to, let alone print. He may not be following me around, but nothing stops him noticing, to take an example, that I’ve come to see you twice in the thirty-six hours I’ve been here. I don’t know what he might get in his head.

  ‘Then, the judge. I trot about, collecting laborious scraps of information and fitting them together like a broken pot. But it’s the judge who draws inferences, makes conclusions, decides what is or isn’t relevant. Some judges will let a cop work, give him some rope. Some are fussy, like to hold you up very tight on a rein.

  ‘This judge is fussy. And he’s in a hurry. Nor is he entirely satisfied with the stuff about the vandal who broke in and got surprised and killed the old lady in a panic. It remains the basic theory. Perhaps it’s not quite that straight-up-and-down.

  ‘I have to give him an account of my doings. He might want to hear for himself about your dealings with Madame Lipschitz. That’s just as a witness to this business of the house deal. No suspicions, no accusations.

  ‘All the same, the press might make something of that. They get no news, they start fabricating it. Only innuendo, and pretty meaningless, but just when you want to make a deal it could be embarrassing, even damaging.’

  Thonon sat still, elbows on the table, hands gripping his pipe, watching and listening.

  ‘What’s all the long speech for then?’

  ‘To give you time to think.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I’ve a suggestion. You can think I’m trying to trick you into something; I don’t care, I’m used to that. Or you can think I’m just being sensible, which would make me happier.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I give you a bit of time. Think things over a bit more. Talk to your family maybe. And I might come up to see you, quietly, in your house perhaps, say this evening. You could give me a ring if you liked, about supper time, at the Hotel Central.’

  ‘What’s to be gained from that, for either of us?’

  ‘You haven’t perhaps been altogether open with me, so far. Suppose there was something you didn’t want known, which showed you in a poor light – why, it might help you if you went yourself down to the Palais and talked it over with the judge, privately.’

  Thonon was saying nothing still, smoking his pipe calmly enough, looking at Castang with a controlled expression, as though keeping himself from a loud burst of laughter, or a sudden gush of words.

  ‘That wouldn’t compromise you, you know,’ went on Castang, with his air of being a sympathetic chap once you got to know him. ‘You’d be safeguarding your liberties, instead of letting the judge, perhaps, draw the wrong conclusion. Decide, of course, as you think fit.’

  Thonon laid the pipe in the ashtray.

  ‘All this, of course, is simply your technique for putting leverage on me. Right?’

  ‘It is and it isn’t.’

  ‘Threats and inducements. Make a clean breast and it’ll save you trouble later. I suppose the cops are always like this. Same as asking when you’re going to stop beating your wife. I’m either admitting guilt, according to this argument, or trying to conceal it.’

  Castang spread his hands and laughed.

  ‘Of course we’re forbidden to make threats and inducements, and equally we often do: get no work done otherwise, half the time.’

  Thonon gave a sour little laugh.

  ‘So go to the judge, you say. So that he can be zealous. I can be innocent of anything at all, but he allows a cloud of suspicion to rest on me in order, if I’m to believe you, to please the proc, the press, and the public. Just to gain time he can charge me with homicide.’

  ‘As to that,’ said Castang calmly, ‘it’s not a bad thing. The system’s quite good. If any presumption of guilt exists nobody can question you, because you can’t be forced to incriminate yourself. Even the judge can’t say boo to you without a lawyer present to protect and advise you, telling the judge politely please to rephrase that, because it sounds tendentious.’

  ‘You’re being cynical.’

  ‘Not in the least.’

  ‘And are you seriously telling me that I’m in this situation?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Castang, ‘and that’s why I suggested a meeting this evening, to talk things over quietly.’

  ‘You think me guilty of this crime,’ said Thonon abruptly.

  ‘I don’t think anything at all, except that you might be in a position where the judge decided he had sufficient grounds for letting suspicion rest against you.’

  ‘On the basis of hearsay gossip,’ bitterly.

  ‘I’ll tell you about that tonight. With, if I may, your family present.’

  ‘Being enigmatic again. This is simply outrageous.’

  ‘Why? You aren’t arrested or anything: I’ve no grounds. You may or may not be withholding information which the judge might think germane to a homicide investigation; that’s
the formal jargon. Oh, if you were to try running off to Tahiti I could have you pinched, sure. I can hold you in a cell for twenty-four hours. That’s the limit. Then I must present you to the judge, who decides whether he can hold you. No habeas corpus, but comes to the same thing.’

  ‘That rule gets bent.’

  ‘And so does habeas corpus. You think the English are saints or something? Go before a magistrate there, within twenty-four hours, exactly the same, and when he asks why you shouldn’t be set at liberty the cops say blandly they need a remand to complete their enquiries and yes, your worship, we do have an objection to bail.’

  ‘And all this,’ incredulous, ‘because I was trying to talk that old girl into selling me her house and happened to drop in that evening.’

  Castang said nothing.

  ‘Very well. Half past seven. At my house.’

  ‘Good,’ said Castang, feeling for the doorhandle, ‘and by the way – have a word with Martine.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Place de la République was the seat of the municipal administration of a smallish French town; the ‘mairie’ or town hall; where you go to get born, married, or buried. During your life, many other things can happen to you, and to have permission for these, in a highly centralised state like the Republic, you must go to the regional apparatus of government. To pay taxes, say, or get a doctor’s bill reimbursed by Social Security.

  It was only five minutes’ walk from the Place d’Armes, but a different world. A different century for a start: nineteenth instead of eighteenth. Instead of being light and simple in proportions, it was sombre and top-heavy: leaden architecture, which strove for dignity and succeeded in being ponderous. However big the windows they would always repel light, instead of admitting it. It was not a theatre for bugle calls and the click of accoutrements, but a setting for public executions, conducted with the utmost parsimony in the middle of a grudging and petty existence.

  All these bureaux with ridiculous names are collectively termed the intendance, a contemptuous word. They are full of functionaries – another bad word. And these people are sometimes alive and intelligent. They can be courteous and charming. Even the police can be all four.