Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘I’ve got to do better. I’ve little time. Start now.’ Where, he wondered?

  ‘Do better?’ The girls stared at one another.

  ‘But we’ve told you absolutely everything,’ began Martine.

  ‘I suppose you have. All you knew or thought, anyhow. Have to find something now that hasn’t been thought of. Known of, maybe, but was thought unimportant.’

  ‘There’s not a single thing concealed, not a single thing. Like Papa told you last night, and I know he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘Look, Martine. I didn’t know I’d find you here, but it’s perhaps a good thing I did. I can say a few things to you in confidence – such as every time you open your mouth you put your foot in it. Have you learned that by now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stop yapping and behave normally. That way you can help. You want to help? Well, when you can I’ll let you know, okay?’

  ‘You’re a foul fucker.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll explain something. As a man, and understand, I don’t myself think your father has committed crimes. It’s surely obvious: if I thought it I’d have pulled him in. I had grounds enough. As a cop I have areas of doubt. If the doubt persists it will weigh against him. So buzz off now: I want to talk to Sophie. I want you to go to the office, quite normally and not all red-eyed, and tell your father to come and join me here for lunch. I don’t want to go to the Place d’Armes: press is hanging about there. And go home then and read a book. I’m doing what I can.’

  ‘Very well,’ icily, being adult. Left all dignified: the two others had to grin.

  ‘And what in God’s name do you want from me?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘Lunch for me and Popaul all discreet in the corner there.’

  ‘Very well. What else?’

  ‘Gossip. Pillow talk.’

  ‘So?’ guarded.

  ‘I’ll be very frank.’

  ‘I ask nothing better.’

  ‘I’m in a hell of a difficult position. I heard a scrap of gossip, let’s call it, at the Palais this morning. Can’t verify it with the judge, or his pals: or the local cops much: compromising. Nor Thonon, though he said something that matches it. Tampering with a witness. His version of events is unreliable: I needn’t explain.’

  ‘He’d seize on anything to take pressure off him?’

  ‘Right, my girl.’

  ‘So you come to me. For pillow talk.’

  ‘Right, my girl.’

  ‘And you trust me not to give you away. If it could compromise others it could compromise you too.’

  ‘Right, girl.’

  ‘How much trouble is Thonon in? Really in?’

  ‘You’re asking something you know a cop won’t tell you.’

  ‘All right. You’re discreet. I am too; I bloody well have to be. You mean pillow talk from the judge or the commissaire. No. I don’t know them. Have they…? – no, they haven’t. Peyrefitte is straight enough with me. He leaves me alone. In return, as you guess without too much bother, I inform, on occasion. But anything shady about him? – no, I don’t know. Fair enough?’

  ‘The judge?’

  ‘No. Nor his friends. They don’t… frequent me.’

  ‘All right,’ said Castang. ‘Thonon’s in trouble as long as his affair’s not cleared up. Not big legal trouble – there’s no proof against him, and small chance of getting any. More like golf club trouble. Everybody will believe him guilty. And the typical mentality: you do a few shady tricks, and nobody minds. But get caught, and the whole club starts saying they knew all along that there was something fishy about that fellow.’

  ‘So as long as it’s unproved it’s him.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘A suggestion got made that a local notable did something outside the law, and that the judge, to oblige a pal, kind of took no notice.’

  ‘But that’s an old story – you mean the mayor’s parking lot.’

  ‘No no. That was public like you say. Even in the Paris papers. This would be something private. A favour done. Not generally known. Known to you, maybe, but thought part of the usual small-town act, and shrugged at; half-forgotten.’

  ‘This notable of yours got a name?’

  ‘No – a guess. The judge is quoting Dickens, but hasn’t ever read him. Our pal Barde, maybe.’

  ‘You asked about him before.’

  ‘Just that I’d met him and was interested in a separate opinion. Now I want to look closer.’

  ‘I told you my opinion. Not high. I haven’t anything to add to it. I think he’s a stinker, but that’s not evidence.’

  ‘You got any ideas about where I could learn more?’

  ‘A cop wanting information goes to another cop.’

  ‘I told you – that’s liable to embarrass two cops.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think Peyrefitte’s straight enough. I think maybe if he’d been mixed up in some dirty deal like that – well, I think I’d have heard about it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Castang.

  Monsieur Peyrefitte, not one of these damn zealous cops who run about the shop, was sitting placid in his office. Seemed happy.

  ‘Oho,’ just jovially enough, ‘what pigeons have you been fluttering?’

  ‘Well, I lost a lot of feathers.’

  ‘He was on the phone. Wants the technical dossier reopened and checked. Don’t know what you’ve been up to but I hope,’ a little too casually, ‘that we’ll get let in on it.’

  ‘What I came for,’ said Castang innocently. ‘Nothing to worry about for a start; that’s just a show of zeal.’

  ‘He’s worried though. Too many presumptions and none of them any good.’

  ‘He’s not a bit pleased with me,’ making a face, ‘but he’s given me a bit more time. What I’m to do with it is something else again. Fancy a drink? I’ve got a bit of gossip.’

  Whetted, Monsieur Peyrefitte led the way to the pub.

  ‘Morning Ernest. Two pastis then; make them good and firm… Well, what’s your gossip?’

  ‘You know a man called Barde? Like officially, I was thinking of, more than socially.’

  ‘You’re interested?’

  ‘Tangentially. There was a thing which puzzled me, and I wondered whether we owed him any favours – for instance. After all, I don’t live here.’

  ‘No… on the whole, no… Personally, that is. If you were thinking, might he be a friend of mine and might that be a bother to you, no need to worry.’

  ‘You know how it sometimes happens. Like Ernest might be making his own pastis, but one wouldn’t really want to drop on him, because his is better than most.’

  ‘I wish I did,’ said the barman. ‘A bit more ice?’

  ‘I’ve enough to skate on.’ Monsieur Peyrefitte rattled his blocks and Ernest withdrew, tactfully.

  ‘He has enough to skate on,’ said Peyrefitte. ‘We had him once on a morals charge.’

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. He beat a girl up. Just a bar-girl, you understand. Poor moral character. Not a local. We moved her on – she didn’t really feel at home here. It didn’t amount to much. But the girl complained.

  ‘I asked Monsieur Barde to come and see me, you know? Give him a chance to explain, so to speak? Walked into the office like I was the poste restante. A gentleman, you see. Shakes hands with the tips of his fingers. I wasn’t all that happy, because the girl needed a bit of treatment in the hospital, and the doctor put a report in. But Monsieur Barde didn’t think it very important. He’s been to the right school, you see. And sure enough, the Proc didn’t think it worth a fuss. Said the girl was asking for trouble, and was lucky not to have charges laid against her. So he thought he wouldn’t press it either way. But he’d be happier not to hear of her any further.’

  ‘That’s more or less what I expected,’ said Castang slowly.

  ‘One scrap of gossip deserves another.’

  ‘Thonon, these two Lipschitz kids, what h
ave we on any of them? The whole central problem’s not touched. We’re bouncing off it all the time.

  ‘My gossip – oh, just a thing Thonon said. About Barde dabbling in estate deals. Turn himself a penny, under the commission a professional would charge. “I’m just an honest broker”. A kickback on the price, and nobody knows anything about it.’

  ‘It’s pretty difficult to prove.’

  ‘Yes. Thonon felt a bit bitter about that. And no estate agent would make a complaint. Even if he did, it would be liable not to stick. Unless one had irrefutable evidence.’

  ‘Are you thinking…? Man – that’s pretty tenuous.’

  ‘Yes, but it would fit. Thonon had his little personal scheme, and kept quiet about it. Slipping over to see old lady Lipschitz late at night, and so on. Possibly in collusion with the children. Now we get this scrap of information that Barde liked to get into that sort of act. It’s admitted that he knew the house, knew Sabine in the old days. It isn’t impossible that he should have cooked up a scheme of his own.’

  ‘No,’ said Peyrefitte, ‘but do you see yourself going to the judge with a rambling supposition like that?’

  ‘He’d quote Dickens at me.’

  ‘And as for finding any evidence…’

  ‘I’m quite interested in this morals charge of yours,’ said Castang. ‘Ernest… Two more of the same.’

  THIRTY

  Martine had run her errand; Thonon came to lunch. Little help, though. The man was limp and apathetic, and what juice there was soon squeezed. Oh, all right, he might have suborned the Lipschitz boy a little bit. To make sure there was no trouble with the building permit office. Nothing illegal: just keeping the dossier at the top of the heap and ensuring that all old Delalande’s scruples were respected. His plan had been quite straightforward and plain-sailing. Get a road run in at the back of that big garden. Water, electricity, drains, were at the corner. You could get four nice houses there. He would pay the boy a commission, and in return he would get the exclusive agency on the house after Sabine’s death. But there was nothing on paper. Granny’s gang could deny everything.

  Well, yes, he had been trying to get Sabine to agree to sell the house earlier. He supposed it did look bad. Maybe there was a motive there for suppressing her. But he hadn’t killed anyone. Not that it made any odds; he could see that he was cast for the part.

  What was that? Barde? He wouldn’t make a deal with Barde not if he were down to his last penny. Hadn’t known anyhow that Barde was in any degree friendly with old Sabine. They could charge him now with anything they liked. He just didn’t give a damn any more.

  To satisfy Martine’s appetite for intrigue was not difficult. She made him a cup of coffee at ‘Green Gables’ and kept an obedient lookout by the stables. When she reported that Monsieur Barde – thank heaven for a man of habit – had sallied out upon his afternoon digestive promenade, it was not too difficult to slip across. None of this was all that difficult. Important that the press know nothing about it. Important to get some official cover, and Commissaire Peyrefitte hadn’t been very keen, but… As for Sophie, she was safe enough.

  It was dubious whether Commissaire Richard would have allowed such goings on. A sophisticated person, he would have asked what Castang thought this was – a Mozart opera?

  Castang had a notion that the maid was the key to the intrigue. All right. He knew nothing about Mozart operas. If anybody had enlightened him he would have said horrified that witty, intelligent girls like Susanna or Despina wouldn’t do at all. What he wanted was a thoroughly silly and tiresome girl, whose own liking for intrigue creates trouble for everyone. Zerlina, at a pinch. Richard just might have been sufficiently entertained to let him try. Monsieur Peyrefitte had not been so much shocked as sceptical.

  ‘And if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘Then nobody will ever hear anything about it,’ with a confidence Castang wasn’t feeling. ‘She’ll keep quiet, that’s for sure.’

  He didn’t have trouble with his own role. Winked at the pretty parlour-maid: coarse fellow.

  ‘His nibs in?’

  ‘Touring the domain – be back in an hour.’

  ‘Not that important – just a gossip. Just as soon chat to you. Where’s your old biddy?’

  ‘Having her siesta,’ giggling. ‘Is that all you do – gossip?’

  ‘Gets a bit dull sometimes – you know: all work, no play. You’re much in the same boat, no? Get bored sometimes?’

  ‘Oh, I play too, from time to time.’

  ‘Get out in the evenings?’

  ‘What d’you think – that I’m a slave or something? Whenever I want.’

  ‘It’s a dull town, this. What about a drink, after hours? Bite to eat, maybe?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Town full of peekers and gabby mouths. People gossip!’

  ‘No sweat. I know a little place, on the ramparts. Nobody there, and the woman there knows how to keep quiet. I have to be careful too!’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘Well… I’ve a transport problem.’

  ‘Pick you up. Not here, of course. Bit along the road. Eight be all right? – when does his nibs have supper?’

  ‘He ought to be fixed with his coffee by then,’ giggling.

  ‘Give him my love – or no, on second thoughts, not.’

  There you are! And the fuss Peyrefitte had made! He sloped off, mighty jaunty. There’d been a time when policemen only approached bourgeois houses by the tradesmen’s entrance… And they still should!

  Peyrefitte had wanted to bring her down to the commissariat on some stupid pretext, but that, he had said, would only make her obstinate. She’d tell Barde! This was worth trying, surely.

  And Peyrefitte had started to laugh. He was a reasonable man. A bit staggered by the obscene ideas the PJ got in its head. Castang had been airy, as though he did such things all the time. The parallel police, you know. Come with a tale to the concierge that the electric wiring needs fixing, and slap microphones behind the skirting board.

  Sophie had been rehearsed. She wasn’t worried. Not with two policemen to cover her. And as Monsieur Peyrefitte said soothingly, in small towns there were things too, to which one learned to turn a blind eye. Lord Nelson. ‘I can’t see any signals.’

  Castang didn’t feel like Lord Nelson. He was a little smelly copper, doing a smelly little job. But he did want to make a success of his first independent enquiry.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Parked along the road at night, very much the suburban adulterer, he had time to feel frightened, despondent and ashamed of himself. But at only twenty past eight she popped along, smelling very strongly of Balmain. A scent for bourgeois young girls, that, like Martine. Not inappropriate; it had been Martine’s youthful romanticism that gave him this idea in the first place.

  ‘Told his nibs I was going to the movie.’

  ‘That what you generally do?’

  ‘What I generally tell him!’ For a moment, Castang felt sorry for Barde. He was genuinely attached to this girl.

  ‘Is he jealous?’

  ‘He pretends to be, sometimes.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Clotilde.’

  ‘No, the real name.’

  ‘Odile.’

  Really the chief worry was the expense account. Police comptrollers always thought you should do this kind of thing fuelled by Coca-Cola. Whereas plainly only champagne would do the job. Damn the girl though; she’d hollow bones!

  She wasn’t, whatever Vera might have thought, unsympathetic. Neither as stupid nor as cold-blooded as one might imagine, superficially. Castang thought her rather nice.

  Perhaps she’d learned a lot from Barde. Why not? He wasn’t a stupid person. In fact the more he heard the more he liked Barde!

  It was as though she knew perfectly that this was just another role given her to play. She could play it well. When they gave her more like it she wouldn’t objec
t to being typecast. It was a good living. She had a comfortable life, but she’d grown a bit tired of it. Here she was being given variety, champagne, a good laugh, and a pleasant sense of slightly illegal adventure.

  She’d heard the cops were crooked bastards. Didn’t care! But beneath a hardish surface she was not a horrid little girl. She had an honest loyalty to Barde that he liked. She would be capable of kindness, spontaneity, generosity. She stayed with Barde, perhaps, because the man gave her lavish presents. But she stuck up for him. Castang felt sorry for her, and not only because she was an instrument of treachery.

  ‘Must be boring.’

  ‘What work isn’t? He’s not mean, you know. And he’s not dull. We play lots of games – not what you think! But chess, and “Go” – I’ve got quite good. And we’ve got a film projector, and lots of old films, and we turn the sound down, and he does Bogart and I do Bacall. We act bits of plays, too. It’s just that it’s nice to have a change.’

  He had to stop himself finding it pathetic.

  ‘How long d’you think you can keep it up?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of a job in the city, but I’m not a prostitute, you know.’

  ‘I’m not pushing you.’

  ‘Got that gleam in your eye. I’m not a complete fool. His nibs at the start didn’t understand – started telling crackly stories and showing me photos. I’m wise to people who tell one they can get you a spot on the television.’

  Get her another drink you fool.

  ‘It’s all right here,’ with approval at Sophie whisking around in her quick impersonal shuffle. ‘She’s all right too. Doesn’t come all smarmy over you trying to push her old oysters or whatever… You aren’t mean either,’ as he filled her glass from the second bottle. So much for Coca-Cola seductions!

  ‘You get the geezer yet?’ suddenly, ‘ – the old dear who got broke in on? That stuff in the paper is all balls, isn’t it? I knew you were a cop d’rectly I laid eyes on you… His nibs has burglar alarms up to here. He’s got nice things. A Modigliani – don’t see anything in it myself. Worth a lot though.’

  ‘It’s all a bit of a tangle.’

  ‘I know – some fiddle over the property! Fishy deal fried by that agent – he lives along the road from us. Thinks himself grand. Got a toffee-nosed daughter on a horse. Thinks she doesn’t have to earn a living. Students! They all think they’re wonderful.’