Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  They were all so damned dense! (Castang, after his fish orgy, would have agreed there, too.) None of them understood or ever would. His relationship with Sabine, for instance. He had loved her, in a special way. But one had to be objective, and avoid hypocrisies. It didn’t stop him loving her to understand that she was a tedious old loony. And so cunning, and so tortuous. So typical of her to get hit on the head in a complicated fashion. I mean, face it. Not very nice, or pleasant, that she was hit on the head, or to think about that. But one mustn’t get involved with her being hit on the head.

  So like her; so exactly what one would expect – if that were possible, I mean… I mean creating a drama, causing trouble and delay. Trailing a long scarf with a fringe, that way of hers, getting it caught in the motor.

  So that now the fuzz (just another pest exactly like the Sewerage) had to convince itself it was earning a living. Dragging him down here. As for the extreme urgency, he knew that line: meant you’d been riding a bicycle with a defective rear light.

  One thing: he’d answered the bell, taken the message. Janet knew nothing about it: he’d handle this without interference from her. She had sometimes, especially when Ma was around, that blasted managerial manner inherited from Mumsiewums that really did send him flaming frenzied.

  Just as he’d thought, there were the two clowns, heads together over some jackanapes paper, making faces at it. Just like that old clown Delalande. Wads of stuff in triplicate about a proposed chimney on top of a proposed garage next door to some peasant’s piddling cottage.

  ‘Sit down then,’ said Castang, all friendly and cheery. ‘Want to get this sorted out, since we’ve got to a stage where all this business can be explained and understood. There’re one or two little things before I pass the dossier to the judge for his signature, that I’d like to have filled in.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Since you haven’t a hope of finding whoever broke in; so a lot more paperwork to explain why not.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ amiably, ‘and I see that you’re a connoisseur of procedure. Good, then: to begin at the beginning, you recall that Madame Lipschitz came to see us some weeks ago. Felt uneasy: fears of funny noises or whatnot. She came to Monsieur Peyrefitte, who gave her some sound advice, and she came to us, and I paid her a call, just to see if there was anything I could add to that advice. You happened to drop in, as you remember.’

  ‘A fine piece of hypocrisy,’ said Gérard, ‘and misleading. You posed as a dealer, and that gave me a notion this break-in was the work of a gang.’

  ‘Very true. However, shortly afterwards Madame Lipschitz was indeed attacked, so there might have been something in her fears after all, however irrational we all thought them.’

  ‘We’ve been over all this,’ shrugging, impatient. ‘Nothing in it, not even coincidence. She saw bogies everywhere. Does that mean she knew of a break-in, or suspected it? That’s nonsensical.’

  ‘Just setting it down in order. There’s one point though which really is a coincidence. I recall your saying, when I met you on that occasion, that you’d dropped in because you couldn’t find the key to the woodshed. I suppose you did find it? Where did it turn up finally?’

  ‘Somewhere or other – I don’t remember where. Sabine hid it and forgot the place: she was always doing things like that. What earthly importance has it?’

  ‘Very little, I dare say. Now this is a photograph of a mark upon the wood of the door, showing that the shutter was forced with something like a crowbar; sort of thing one opens crates with. Now such an implement was actually in the woodshed. Which was locked. The point was thought unimportant. Housebreakers carry these things sometimes, and householders often possess them, and so what all round. However, it’s now an open question, since I observed that the key was sometimes in your mother’s possession, sometimes in yours. The door might even have been open?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ sulkily enough. ‘Nothing much in the shed to pinch. Sabine had a mania for going about locking things.’

  ‘On this occasion,’ writing, ‘the shed was found locked. We now know that it was sometimes open, and that the key was left lying about. You agree?’

  ‘What importance could it have?’

  ‘A point inadequately cleared up; no more. Now your wife’s statement – here it is. “I was actually on my way to the shed when I saw the broken shutter.” She found the shed door locked – do you recall?’

  ‘I never asked her,’ blankly. ‘She’d have said “Oh, Sabine again” and gone back for the key. And so what? – I don’t get it.’

  ‘A bar of this sort – mostly used to break up crates for kindling. Might it have been left outside?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound likely’

  ‘But possible, you’d agree. It now seems likely that this bar was used to force entry.’

  The boy just went on looking blank. Castang veered away from it.

  ‘We turn to another aspect.’

  An expression now of patience, maintained with difficulty.

  ‘It doesn’t take long,’ said Castang. ‘You’re aware that I’ve made a few brief enquiries around the town. Led me naturally enough to an agent who was negotiating with Madame Lipschitz over the sale of some ground. This Monsieur Thonon was in fact there earlier in the evening. He tells me perfectly openly that he hoped to make a deal. You knew about this?’

  ‘Vaguely. Sabine was always threatening to sell, or dickering with the idea.’

  ‘Monsieur Thonon’s version is that since your mother was elderly, albeit in good health, he had some verbal assurance from you as the heir that if you decided to sell the property you would employ him as agent – could you confirm that?’

  ‘I don’t know about confirm. Like I say, she had fantasies. I didn’t take it seriously and wasn’t interested.’

  ‘No? It seems to me that you had a legitimate interest.’

  ‘You don’t understand. She changed her mind from one minute to the next, and used the idea as a sort of leverage on me when she wanted to pick a quarrel. He did approach me once with a sort of mutter about would I sell if it were up to me. I didn’t give him any assurance – oh well, I might have said vaguely I’d consider it. It was all remote. Sabine wasn’t ill or anything. She’d hinted at selling so often I was bored with the subject. Anyway, why should I commit myself?’

  ‘That’s reasonable,’ said Castang, writing. ‘To be quite fair to Monsieur Thonon, it would be a good thing to establish that he had no financial interest in your mother’s death. So no promise or commitment from yourself?’

  ‘Certainly not. Does he claim he has?’

  ‘One wouldn’t expect him to,’ smiling.

  ‘I don’t know what Sabine may have told him,’ said Gérard tartly. ‘I’m not a lawyer, but I imagine that any agreement she might have come to would be cancelled by her death.’

  ‘Doubtless,’ bland. ‘Well, that seems to dispose of the question of interest – you’d agree, Monsieur Peyrefitte? No point in pursuing that further.

  ‘Good. One thing still. Remote, but an investigation could not neglect the possibility altogether. That of a quarrel or argument which might have turned to violence, on the night in question. The point was made formally, of course, at the beginning of the enquiry. Let’s see,’ shuffling through typed reports. ‘Here we are. Had you perhaps had a quarrel? Negative. Or known of such? Negative. Had any reason to suppose such would be possible? Equally negative. And you’ll confirm that now, of course, to myself, won’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely. I know of no quarrel. Sabine knew a lot of dotty people. I don’t know whether any of them were dotty enough to break into the house,’ sarcastically.

  ‘Ah, wait now a sec. I thought we’d established that the house might never have been broken into at all.’

  ‘What?’ sounding astonished.

  ‘The woodshed, while found locked, might have been open. One door open, so might another. Eh, Commissaire?’

  ‘Puts a new complexion on things,’ sa
id that gentleman.

  ‘But the marks… the broken shutter.’ The boy didn’t believe his ears.

  ‘Oh, that’s the easiest thing in the world to fake,’ as though Castang had done it himself. ‘Lock the door and pretend to reopen it by breaking. Woman is already dead. Object,’ primly, ‘is to mislead.’

  ‘But my mother never left doors open, and always hooked the shutters at night.’

  No longer ‘Sabine’.

  ‘Makes no difference. If we accept the possibility of one stratagem, another follows. Suppose somebody knocked, or made any noise that might awake her or induce her to open a door. Someone she knew, of course. She’d open without thinking. Now that brings up a few interesting hypotheses, am I wrong, Commissaire?’

  ‘Absolutely right,’ portentously.

  ‘The first persons she’d open to, of course, would be the members of her own family.’

  ‘You gone off your bloody rocker?’ asked Gérard incredulously.

  ‘Have I, Commissaire?’

  ‘The prudent officer,’ such as himself, say, ‘could not neglect these possibilities.’

  ‘But we… I – I could walk in at any time. You yourself saw that. I wouldn’t go sneaking around in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I did observe that your mother was troubled by what she described as a habit of lurking.’

  ‘Oh,’ contemptuous, ‘that again. She saw eavesdroppers everywhere. She was one herself; that’s why.’

  ‘The point remains open, Monsieur Lipschitz. It is not hard to think of reasons, even innocent reasons, why you should walk around at night.’

  ‘Look, I was in bed, asleep.’

  ‘It may well be so. Just consider this. We suppose, say, that your mother decided, finally, to sell her property, a hypothesis born out by Monsieur Thonon’s activities. He states, by the way, that she asked him to call upon her at night, and the implication is that she wished to talk with him unobserved. Let us assume that in fact you noticed this slightly surreptitious meeting. You could have thought this contrary to your interests. At that stage, a quarrel could break out. Terminating in violence. Such things have been known.’

  The boy’s lips had gone pale, throwing into relief the red-rimmed eyes and hanging limp hair.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what you hypothesise, or whatever name you give it. I just deny it. A lot of crap about where the woodshed key was or wasn’t. It’s no evidence of anything. You’re just trying to intimidate me.’

  ‘That will be for Monsieur le Commissaire to decide.’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense, my boy,’ said Peyrefitte. ‘It’s being explained to you that you’d do well to think carefully whether there’s anything to add to your previous statements. Concealment of relevant information from a judicial enquiry is a grave breach of the code. So’s conspiracy.’

  ‘A further point to keep in mind,’ remarked Castang, ‘is that even passive acquiescence in a criminal act disbars from inheritance. By the way, Commissaire, point of law there, what do you say? Even if it be deemed that insufficient proof exists to proceed against a person in the criminal court – now how does that go?’

  ‘Redress may be sought in the civil court, or by constituting oneself as a civil party before the tribunal in case of criminal proceedings taken against a third party.’ Loving it.

  ‘What stands out a mile,’ said Castang, ‘is that the judge won’t be satisfied. Not satisfied at all. He’ll ask for further information. This is going to take months.’

  And the two wiseacres nodded at one another.

  ‘You’d better go home, Monsieur Lipschitz,’ said Peyrefitte, ‘and take counsel with yourself. I must request you to hold yourself at the judge’s disposal, should he find questions to put to you. And let’s see, you’re an employee in public service: you’d better consider yourself suspended for the moment. No stigma on you: that can be called sick leave. I’ll notify your superior.’

  The boy sat like a bit of wet string. Castang shuffled his papers.

  ‘Would you step into the next room, where your statement can be typed for your signature?’

  ‘What’s your opinion of all that?’ asked Castang.

  ‘Do no harm,’ said Monsieur Peyrefitte. ‘Make a fine hullabaloo at home around now. Puts a stop on the granny too: she was a thought too overbearing in her manner.’

  ‘She’ll be ringing up lawyers,’ said Castang frivolously.

  ‘Do you think there’s anything in it at all?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. He was so utterly taken aback. But he’s a pipsqueak. And the girl’s a sly little bitch. And they bedevilled the old lady. Petty meannesses. I’ll give you an example. She told me this one herself, not angrily, but infinitely saddened, and certainly embittered. Child needed a winter coat. The girl came sidling and whining to Sabine about being poor. Sabine took her to the town, sweet as peaches the whole way, and bought an expensive coat. Next week was the child’s birthday, and Sabine wasn’t invited for as much as a cup of coffee.

  ‘That’s typical. There’s no doubt but that the old lady was seriously beginning to think of selling it all up. Maybe go off and live in a flat somewhere.’

  ‘Wouldn’t alter the inheritance.’

  ‘No, but deprive them of a big profit, perhaps. There could well have been a row.’

  ‘We can’t establish that.’

  ‘No. On present knowledge, can’t establish a damn thing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe much in any conspiracy to do away with Sabine just to stop her selling the house,’ said Peyrefitte sensibly.

  ‘No more would I. I might believe though in some knowledge or suspicion, which they’re afraid would compromise them. A conspiracy to keep quiet, to steer clear of trouble. And the old lady was a bit dotty. She might have promised money to someone, and they got to know. What the hell am I to tell the judge? Might not have too much trouble – old Mother Wilhems put his back up proper, telling him how much better things got arranged in Versailles. I wish I had something definite.’

  ‘What about this Thonon?’ asked Peyrefitte. ‘He’s not out in the sunshine either, seems to me. He might have been a party to some conspiracy.’

  ‘It’s what I’ve been thinking. He’s a sympathetic fellow, but a weakish character. He’s short of money. He could have been tempted into a fraud of some sort. Tried to enlist, maybe, the boy, into a fiddle over building permits.’

  ‘The boy worked there, you mean. Some conspiracy which, maybe, Sabine got wind of?’

  ‘I haven’t a notion. But I’m seeing Thonon this evening. I gave him a shaking up. Told him I’d allow him a chance to tell me informally whatever he knows. Adopt the heavy menace if need be.’

  ‘What was all that about the woodshed key?’ a bit foggily.

  ‘Nothing at all, very likely. When I was there last month, the boy was disagreeable to Sabine about it. Drew my attention. Oh well, at least we’ve got the affray-making fisherman. Something for the judge.’

  ‘And for the press.’

  ‘If only they were all that simple.’

  Tired, not very happy, not contented about anything much, Castang had a shower, phoned his wife to say he still didn’t know how long he would be away: she was not best pleased. He had supper in the Hotel Central. Soup, some fish, salad, fruit, all as tired and faded as he felt himself. The dank dining-room was silent, with a dozen commercial gentlemen assuaging appetite with sweaty cheese. A clatter of revelry from the café in front, souring him. Everybody having fun. Even the salesmen chalking up successes. Just him, mucking up everything, sitting there all clueless. Commissaire Peyrefitte might not be too worried, but Commissaire Richard would not be pleased at all. He had just succeeded in making everybody hostile, and hadn’t done any useful work at all. No positive results.

  Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Green Gables’ was to his mind a horrible house; a big shapeless suburban villa pretending to be a Norman manor house, with phoney pige
on-cotes all over the shop. But it was much pleasanter within. Thonon in a smoking-jacket thing, Martine looking joyless, Mamma, met for the first time, with blonde hair looking a bit tinted, who had been pretty when young, now faded and lined with anxiety. But putting on face, which he liked. Making this ‘a social occasion’.

  ‘Do come in. Let me take your coat. The nights are beginning to turn chilly now, aren’t they? Do please make yourself comfortable. Pierrot, see to drinks, dear, won’t you.’

  A bourgeois interior: one or two signs of affluence, a few of simplicity. A piano for Martine to practise at as a child: some photographs. Children as sweet baby, chubby toddler, gawky adolescent. Some shelves of books which had been read, some records listened to, some pictures looked at. A nice interior, comfortable, a feeling of home, of loyalty and trust and a family square, proof against adversity. He was glad he’d come.

  Was it a lake isle? Well, perhaps it was. Thonon and the wife both gave a feeling of coming from bourgeois backgrounds and not liking it much. Money was nice, but there were other things too. One ran after money, and got it too. Perhaps a bit of corner-cutting along the way. A bit dishonest. In face of an avaricious society, and a voracious government, who wasn’t? Was he himself? They’d wanted, at least, to give the children something better than a set of bourgeois attitudes. Succeeded, too. Martine might be a silly girl, but she was poles away from that ghastly Janet.

  No need to feel ashamed. He was a cop doing a job. Even very nice people committed crimes. Not necessarily homicide.

  They sat waiting for him. Thonon pretending to be very casual and relaxed with his pipe. Mamma stiff and tense on the edge of a cushion. Martine fat and stodgy with the spot still threatening at the corner of her nose. Hair lustreless. Sadly less pretty than last night. He had to make a speech, damn it.

  ‘When all this happened,’ lamely, ‘everybody thought it one of those sordid crimes. They often aren’t solved at all. A trail of violence and destruction, which sometimes links up. A purse disappeared but there wasn’t much in it. Not a real housebreaker. We look for other petty hold-ups and the like. Someone, on drugs maybe, looking for easy finance. We still are doing just this, in fact, but I’m not confident it’ll yield much.