Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘The girl and the granny could be Lady Macbeth, but I don’t think we’d get anywhere with them either, in our present state of knowledge.’

  ‘Now the man Thonon,’ said the judge. ‘I’m not far from supposing that an adequate case could be made out, there.’

  ‘Thought as much myself, for a time.’

  ‘But now?’ frowning.

  ‘He doesn’t give a brilliant account of himself. He was overanxious to conclude this housing deal, and he’s probably guilty of technical offences. But killing anybody – I can’t make it rhyme.’

  The judge took his glasses off and arranged them nicely, parallel with the blotter; put his elbows on either side. Preliminary to a discourse.

  ‘You know, Castang,’ unexpectedly mildly, ‘I’m aware that you’re a competent officer. I can see that for myself, even without Richard’s faith in you. You’ve done some homework, and you feel sure you’ve located a complicated affair, which you’d like to call a conspiracy. It may be so. But who killed this woman? We’re no nearer to that. The crux of the affair is not who was arranging a property deal nor seeking to defraud the fiscal authority. You know this, but you shy away from it. We feel reasonably certain that she was killed in a panic and without real intent. None of your findings contradict that supposition. They confirm it. Whether there was housebreaking, or whether a conspiracy went wrong in some way – no one is likely to have planned deliberately to kill. That, as you put it, contains fundamental improbabilities.

  ‘So we should be looking for a pattern of psychological collapse. This family group is greedy and selfish, as you suggest, but that is insufficient. There is ground, it appears to me, for hearing this Thonon, if only to get to the bottom of his manoeuvres.

  ‘No doubt I was myself at fault; a little too hasty and superficial in my view at the start. I must act with prudence.

  ‘Now you’re anxious, plainly, to conclude this enquiry, and make a show of your undoubted talents, but that would be a wrong attitude, wouldn’t it.

  ‘I think in consequence, my dear Castang, that your role in this affair may be finished. Do not misunderstand me. I shall give you due and proper credit in whatever summary I make of my conclusions. I am in no sense seeking to minimise the value of your work.’

  Castang said nothing: what was there to say? It was a polite enough way of being given the sack. He didn’t suppose that it was the function of a judge of instruction to minister to policemen’s self-esteem.

  It was his first independent enquiry. First time he’d been out of Richard’s shadow. He’d wanted to make a go of it. Alone.

  It had made him over-anxious, yes. And a bit cocksure also. Been too quick to believe he could show the sleepy hicks a thing or two. No experience of small towns.

  Not for the first time, he thought of the Rue d’Aboukir. Just a job, dirty and dangerous, but clear-cut. Castang quite an athletic boy, and fairly alert still in the reflexes, which were useful things when getting shot at. A mistake, though, to confuse them with grey matter.

  From that to the sly little sorceries of backwoods property dealing – that Sabine’s father had got rich at, and poor at – was a long way. Too long. Islands in lakes were expensive commodities, and sought-after. People would go a long way to get them.

  His vanity had got a bit swollen, no doubt. The ambitions a bit too bounding. Richard, perhaps, had quite deliberately set a trap for him. Puncture Castang a little. Quite gently. Say to the judge, a bit obliquely, that perhaps there was no urgent need to clonk him over the ear with a crowbar. Nobody’d really wanted to clonk Sabine either. Not that hard, at least.

  The judge wasn’t a fool. A great mistake, a basic mistake, to have thought him a pompous, swollen ass in a piddling sub-prefecture town. Himself had been the ass.

  Castang was wondering drearily how to acknowledge dismissal with grace when they were interrupted. The judge’s clerk, an elderly effaced person with fuzz growing out of his ears, came in with flat-footed but silent movements – it was more than he himself had been able to manage – and whispered something to the magistrate.

  ‘Very good.’ He looked at Castang, and seemed to make his mind up. ‘The good Madame Wilhems! She begins, I find, to exaggerate. Where are you going to, man?’ as Castang got on his feet.

  ‘I thought you’d finished with me, sir.’

  ‘By no means. Change chairs – that’s it. No, I want you present. We shall see. This is not an interrogation. We may get somewhere.’

  He sat himself on the hard chair, kept for escorting cops, in the corner. The judge stood, practised in the look of insincere pleasure kept for boring guests at formal parties, people invited to discharge some small social obligation.

  ‘Do come in, Madame. Be pleased to sit down.’

  Granny had a social air too. Sub-prefect attending the annual banquet of the golf club. This vanished on seeing Castang. Really!

  ‘I had thought that a conversation would be in confidence.’

  ‘Assuredly.’

  ‘In the presence of the police?’

  The judge was armoured in blandness.

  ‘Your visit, Madame, concerns the Lipschitz affair?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Inspector Castang is the investigating officer, duly appointed. His presence is proper. I need not add that he enjoys my confidence’

  Even a formal, meaningless expression of loyalty can raise the flagging heart.

  ‘I came to you last night with a private protest,’ said Granny, biting it off between the strong brownish teeth as a housewife bites off a thread she is sewing with. ‘I come this morning to ensure that my protest is officially registered.’

  ‘I acknowledge your protest. I fear I cannot register it in the terms of our informal conversation.’

  ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘That I am bound, naturally, to take note of any complaint you see fit to lodge with me. I am bound, equally, to maintain a certain caution.’

  ‘Monsieur le Juge! Are you telling me – seriously – that you entertain for a moment the ludicrous suspicions which this person has been good enough to voice?’

  ‘I entertain no suspicions, nor suppositions. My duty is to probe, to weigh, to analyse.’

  ‘This is not the tone,’ vexed, ‘of our last meeting.’

  ‘As a private person receiving a lady,’ glacial at the notion that he had not been properly brought up, ‘I hope I observe all courtesies. The magistrate in his office is invested with public responsibilities.’

  ‘Let us understand one another.’

  ‘I am in possession, Madame, of the summary statement made by your son-in-law, made before Monsieur Castang here and in the presence of the Commissaire, as is perfectly proper.’

  ‘Those insinuations are nothing short of an outrage and so I tell him to his face.’

  ‘Natural that you should be a little upset. It can never be pleasant to have a homicide in the family.’ Well-brought-up people didn’t. Castang’s jaw-muscles twitched a little.

  ‘Nobody,’ said Granny, ‘could deplore this death more than myself and my family. I have every right to ask why these interrogations should be thought necessary.’

  ‘That is simply answered. A house agent hoped to persuade Madame Lipschitz to part with a piece of ground. With the consent of the planning authorities this would prove a valuable speculation. It was necessary to him to establish whether obstacles to his plan existed, or whether an official voice might oppose the scheme. Your son-in-law worked in the bureau concerned. This young gentleman might be a stumbling-block, on personal grounds, to the man’s scheme. And on the official level he might prove a valuable ally. At the least, a useful source of information, well in advance of any official decisions.’

  It takes the high bourgeoisie, thought Castang still and small in his ringside seat, to sound so damned insulting in a polite voice.

  ‘Furthermore,’ in the magistrate’s best furthermore tone, ‘this agent by his admission did
not possess the capital for a venture of this importance. He was unwilling to take a promoter into his confidence, being unwilling to share the spoils. Greed has been the undoing of many a bold plan. He relied upon his bank, but bankers require guarantees.’

  Granny’s face was stone. Knew all about property deals, and a great deal about banks.

  ‘Alliances would be sought,’ as bland as ever. ‘Naturally, the parties tend to deny any agreement. The agent would be reticent, disclosing as little as possible of his profit in order to keep the price down. There is also the house itself. Being classified, it acquired added value, but by the same token it could not be demolished, altered, nor encroached upon. Technically, no doubt, it is all quite a ticklish piece of business. Involving tortuous schemes. Monsieur Castang properly restrains himself from suggesting that these have direct bearing upon the unhappy death of Madame Lipschitz. He is nonetheless right to find them relevant.’

  ‘All this,’ said Granny, flicking the podgy hard hand with its many rings, ‘is in no sense established to my satisfaction. The machinations of an agent do not concern me. That any member of my family is involved is an unjustifiable conclusion. This man’s tales may not be true. Let him be interrogated, as I strongly urged upon you last night. And let him be cross-examined. Then we shall see.’

  ‘The contrary holds good as well,’ said the judge curtly. ‘As and when I decide may be necessary, I shall myself examine the parties. Including your daughter, should I see fit.’

  Castang had heard of people going livid. He had never quite known what it meant. Now he thought he did. Nasty asphyxiated colour Granny had gone.

  ‘And by what reasoning, Monsieur le Juge, can you show that my daughter could be concerned by these airy suppositions?’

  ‘My dear lady, the wife is deemed in law to share her husband’s fortunes. Even in a marriage contract stipulating separate holdings. This young man possesses great expectations, as our friend Dickens aptly puts it.’

  ‘Piffle,’ said Granny.

  The judge was fond of the word himself, but not used to having it thrown at him. And Granny… a little too much in the habit of treating provincial notabilities with contempt.

  ‘If that is the attitude you take,’ she went on, ‘I will instruct my solicitor to remind you of other examples where magistrates exceeded their powers.’

  Castang feeling glee, but also alarm. A judge would now lose his temper.

  ‘Even in the privacy of my office I will tolerate no innuendo against the serenity of justice.’

  ‘I’ll seek civil redress against defamation and attempt to defraud.’

  ‘The Court will appraise, Madame, the Court will appraise.’

  Was it this familiar, banal phrase that caused Granny to go too far?

  ‘The Court would doubtless appraise also the spectacle of a judge of instruction using official powers to persecute tax-paying citizens while offering comfort and protection to his friends.’

  Turkeycocks of both sexes stood and glared, Castang remaining invisible.

  ‘Any further words you see fit to use,’ said the judge ominously, ‘will be taken down in writing. Insult towards a magistrate is sanctioned by the penal code.’

  ‘From now on, Monsieur, my solicitor will speak for me.’ And, with hauteur, stormed out.

  The judge had a mildish, baldish, tufted sort of face, now dark red.

  ‘You hear that, Castang, you hear that. In my own office. Is the daughter like this too?’

  ‘Soft and quiet. She can yell too, if she sees any advantage in it.’

  ‘They’ve a lot of money. One wonders what she saw in this obscure young man. Expectations even then, I dare say. We shall see. Damn it, I’ve never been spoken to like that.’

  ‘Well sir, it remains for me to type my official report to you.’

  ‘One moment, Castang, one moment… Suppose I were to leave you another twenty-four hours in which to conduct this matter as you see fit… Leaving you freedom of movement.’

  ‘To pursue Thonon?’

  ‘I’ll leave your Thonon quiet for that period. You’ll realise that I can’t make it longer than that.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Castang.

  ‘After all, Castang, to be frank with you… If Thonon persists in his attitude I’m not likely to get far. I confront him with this Lipschitz boy; naturally they deny association. I need something concrete, Castang. Now this man Delalande at the planning office… Got to be very careful there.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ stolidly.

  ‘Witnesses as recalcitrant as these… I’ll go this far to help you. Improper, naturally, to offer inducements. If this Thonon – I can say this much on behalf of the Procureur. If he’s innocent of a crime, then a liberal view would be taken of plots and peccadilloes. He might even avoid getting charged as an accessory – if he coughs up. The proof is that I’m prepared to leave him in peace for another day. He might even succeed in remaining at liberty… That’s not a small matter: make him realise that. Once he was in custody I would resist a legal application for bail, and the instruction would in likelihood be prolonged.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘I’m not having any nonsense from that horrible old woman… Very well, Castang.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Food for thought he’d got there, as the saying went. And a couple of things heard to make his ears prick.

  As the saying went.

  But he still wished he were back in the Rue d’Aboukir. There in that filthy back room, behind a courtyard full of rag-traders, for a few days, a petty gangster had had a lake isle. Peace had come dropping slow on to bales of rag snippets from the sweatshops, arranged in an oriental divan.

  It had smelt good to him, of bean-flowers and sun on rain-moistened earth. The cops outside were far away. He had trusted a rag man who had sold him, in exchange for being himself left quiet.

  Sabine refused to sell her house. She wanted to. She wanted to do that little bit more, to make the final sacrifice for that poor wretched boy who would always feel deprived, cheated, defrauded. And she just couldn’t. The house was her lake isle and always had been.

  And Thonon. He had his own house at last. He’d fought his way up from a nasty cramped little apartment to a bourgeois ‘villa’ that was grand. Everybody could see it was grand. Take a look; stables and everything. A horse for my daughter to ride. A hive for the honey-bee.

  To hang on to that, Thonon would go pretty far. As far, maybe, as losing his head over a tiresome cranky old woman and banging her over hers?

  It would be possible. Criminals had dreams, just like policemen. The small criminal like the small policeman dreamed of a country house, Vera’s dearest wish.

  The big criminal dreamed a rich man’s dreams. A seafront place with a mooring for the boat. Sardinia maybe. The Florida Keys. Mexico.

  Got it, too, as often as not.

  But the little criminal, in the Rue d’Aboukir or a small country town, had the same pathetic lake isle as a policeman’s retirement; humble, unambitious.

  Rare enough for either to get there. Never enough money, finally. The breaker had to keep breaking: the cop thought hopelessly of being offered a really big bribe. Not just a free suit or a go at the girls, or cheap car repairs.

  Something solid. What Thonon had, but which was so difficult to keep up: inflation, dear boy… What the Lipschitz boy saw under his hand, if only that tedious old Sabine would hurry up and die.

  What Vincent had actually realised, only to see it poisoned slowly.

  That little plot of land, to the man in a rented urban flat. But the owners were so greedy. Wanted cash, not promises. They had dreams too.

  Wasn’t that the whole trouble? Every little body in all Europe dreaming of the quiet, sleepy, bee-loud glade. Millions and millions of them. Some with a municipal caravan site. Some with a suburban quarter-acre and a barbecue set.

  In Portugal, say? Take a look, my boy. Golf courses for the English, club-house and gin-and-tonic. Ex-a
rmy officer despising the ex-petty functionary; ‘Bretherton the Sanitary Wallah,’ who worked in a municipal sewerage department. Like Delalande.

  Or a chateau in the Dordogne. All right, my boy, go try. You’ve saved up a few thousand there. You’ll get a hut with no roof, but the water’s not far away. You can install a bathroom. Just a question of bribing the local plumber. And the local building permits official.

  Quiet is not in the market place, said Vera when in moods of Czech melancholic romanticism: rare, but they happened.

  Quiet is in the heart. Ask Vera. Ask Sophie. Who, for a lake isle for her child, does a bit of quiet whoring on the side.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Nice big quiet sunny morning. Early still. The judge hadn’t kept him long, whatever it seemed. And to finish his enquiry, he had twenty-four great big huge hours, like those big clouds, fluffy and a bit off-white, sheep needing washing. Be grateful for the sun; it won’t last long. Windows and doors open everywhere, smells of eau-de-javel and furniture polish, housewives snapping dusters as though they had a cage of tigers back there.

  Smell of coffee. Sophie in a disreputable dressing-gown, and peculiar slippers with pink candyfloss pompoms. Coping with a dishevelled Martine, who had been crying and would start again when she’d finished the present tirade.

  Sophie’s greeting of Castang: a bit summary.

  ‘You’re not too popular in some quarters. But as I keep telling this girl, more to it than meets the eye. Politics, no doubt. We’d like now to hear a bit of news, before the midday television bulletin. Want some coffee?’

  ‘Yes. Hardened up.’

  She brought him a big cup, black with a slosh of calva added. He drank it straight off: it helped that sideways-drifting feeling.

  ‘Better. I got a bumpy ride this morning from the judge. That’s one calculated indiscretion. And all right, Mademoiselle Martine, nobody’s getting arrested just yet. That’s two.

  ‘And I’ve done a bit of horsetrading, that’s three. And that’s all: professional etiquette forbids further.’

  ‘And that leaves you where?’ asked Sophie sarcastically.