Murder on the Ile Sordou

by M. L. Longworth

  “Apple juice,” Brice said. He looked at the half-empty bottle of Lagavulin and added, “In a clear glass it looks very much like your single malt.”

  “You know about single malts?”

  “Sure I do,” Brice said. “It’s the favored drink of the moment among spoiled rich kids from Neuilly.”

  “Times have changed,” Verlaque said. “I was a spoiled rich kid from the first arrondissement, but our fancy drinks were those awful sweet things like Frangelico and Drambuie.”

  Brice laughed, sticking a finger in his mouth. “Drinks aside,” Brice said. “I wanted to admit something to you. I don’t want to get M. Hobbs in trouble.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me what you spoke about when you were fishing,” Verlaque said.

  “I knew he wouldn’t,” Brice said. “He’s a good guy. That’s why I really opened up to him; it was as if here was this man, a stranger but a very kind one, who was listening to me. Who understood me and wouldn’t judge. Because he didn’t know me. Do you understand?”

  Verlaque nodded.

  “And so I told Bill that I hated Alain. I told him how awful Alain was, in graphic detail. The big fights mom and Alain would get into, usually about me. The nights he wouldn’t come home and mom would cry. Their financial worries. I was blubbering by the end of it, especially when I got to the part when Alain struck my mother.”

  Verlaque leaned forward and then stopped himself. But it was too late; the boy realized that he had possibly incriminated himself, and his mother, and stopped speaking. They sat in silence, listening to Clément Viale trying to get Delphine to dance; Prosper trying to help himself to another drink and getting whisked away by Serge; and Shirley Hobbs trying to get Bill to stop playing poker. Marine and le général danced by, arm in arm, to the sounds of a waltz.

  “Is that Strauss?” Verlaque asked.

  Brice smiled weakly and shrugged. “Not up on my Viennese music,” he said. “I’m going to hit the sack. Good night.”

  “Good night, Brice,” Verlaque said. He resisted adding “sleep tight” as Emmeline would have. Brice was far too old for that.

  Brice hadn’t been gone for more than thirty seconds when Sylvie sat down, carrying a mojito. “Mind?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” Verlaque said. “Marine is busy being Maria Von Trapp.”

  Sylvie laughed. “You can be funny sometimes, Antoine.”

  Verlaque looked at her and smoked a bit of his cigar. “We didn’t exactly get off on the right foot when we first met,” he began. “But I know you were looking out for Marine’s best interest.”

  “I thought you were a conceited prick.”

  “Thanks,” Verlaque said. “I probably was. You see, a conceited prick makes a good judge. A good detective.”

  “What’s the matter, then?” Sylvie asked. “Shit, I wish they’d change the music.”

  Verlaque leaned forward. “I’m getting all soft.” He shrugged and took a drink.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Verlaque looked at Sylvie, suddenly feeling his fatigue. “It’s not good for an examining magistrate.”

  “Right.” The music changed into a Caribbean song, le général cried out in protest, and Sylvie smiled.

  “The thing is, I don’t see any of these people as killers,” he said, looking around the room, his eyes resting on Clément Viale, who was now dancing the limbo with Marie-Thérèse, under a broom being held up by Niki and Max. “Clément should watch out for his back,” he muttered.

  “Well, I’m going to go down to Hugo’s cabin, despite the rain,” Sylvie said, finishing her mojito. “Niki told me that the Le Bons are going to offer him his job back, but because of the storm he doesn’t know that yet.”

  Verlaque said, “Is that why he isn’t here tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Sylvie answered. “His pride is hurt.”

  “You shouldn’t go down,” Verlaque said. “It’s too windy.”

  Sylvie got up. “Thanks for the party. I wouldn’t worry about going soft; maybe the murderer is a softie too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps even a nice person can kill someone,” she said. “If they want to bad enough.”

  And then, with a flicker and a loud thump, the lights went out and the music stopped.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Racing to Catch the Train

  Jules could see his train on the tracks, and a conductor standing beside voiture 1, the first of the first class cars. The red door slowly closed and the conductor put a whistle to his mouth. Jules ran, and for the second time that day, he pulled out his badge. “Police!” he cried.

  The conductor yelled something along the track and held up a hand to another conductor who was looking out of a door farther along the train. “What is it?” the conductor asked. “Do you want to pull someone off the train? It’s about to leave.”

  “No,” Jules said, panting and bending over putting his hands on his knees. “I need to get on it.”

  The conductor reached over and pressed the automatic release button and the doors slid open. “Why didn’t you just say so?” the conductor asked.

  “Thanks,” Jules said. He got on; the doors closed, the whistle blew, and the train lurched and slowly started down the tracks. Jules sat on the steps and pulled his ticket out of his pocket. His seat was upstairs, in voiture 3, but he could find his seat in a few minutes: what he needed to do now was make a phone call. He knew that cell phone conversations were frowned upon in the first class cars, but he also wanted this one to be as private as possible. He took out his black book, and his cell phone, and punched Bruno Paulik’s name.

  “Hello,” the commissioner answered.

  “Hello, Commissioner,” Jules said, trying to breath normally. “I’m on the train.”

  “Was it worthwhile?” Paulik asked. “Going up there?”

  “Yes,” Jules answered, pressing the phone to his ear with his right shoulder while he flipped through his book. “I would have called you earlier but it was a race to get to the Gare de Lyon, and I couldn’t get decent reception on the metro,” he continued. “Can you hear me all right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Okay. In 1957 there was a double drowning at Sordou,” Jules said. “A girl of seventeen years, and an older woman. The girl’s name was Élodie.”

  “Go on,” Paulik said.

  “The woman was thirty-seven years old, and her name was Cécile-Marie.”

  The train made a squealing sound, and Paulik asked Jules to repeat the woman’s surname. Jules did.

  “Are you kidding?” Paulik asked.

  “No.”

  “Spell it for me,” Paulik said.

  Jules slowly spelled out the name and wiped his brow with an old Kleenex he had in his pants pocket. He was so thirsty he could barely speak.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Jules,” Paulik said. “Now, stop panting and go and get yourself a cold beer in the bar car, and then a hot meal.”

  “But that’s too ex—”

  “It’s an order, Jules.”

  Bruno Paulik hung up the phone and ran out of his office. He saw Roger Caromb two-finger typing at his desk. Caromb was an officer not known for his investigative skills but more for his muscle. He was also a spectacularly fast driver.

  “Let’s go to Marseille, Roger,” Paulik said.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  An Old Story

  “That didn’t sound good,” Max Le Bon said in the dark.

  “Thank you for stating the obvious, my dear,” Cat-Cat answered.

  “I don’t like this!” Emmanuelle Denis cried. A banging noise sounded against the wall. “What was that?” Mme Denis asked.

  “A shutter,” Verlaque said. With the music off they could now hear the force of the wind and rain, beating agai
nst the hotel.

  Verlaque took his cigar lighter out of his pocket and lit it. “Everyone, please stay where you are,” he said. “Serge, do you have candles behind the bar?”

  “I’m trying to find them,” the barman answered, pulling open drawers. “Voilà!”

  Verlaque walked across the room and lit the three tea lights that Serge set on the bar. “Do you have a backup generator?” Verlaque asked.

  “That was the generator,” Max answered.

  “All Sordou’s energy comes from one generator?” Clément Viale asked. “I’ve never heard it running.”

  “It’s to the southeast of the hotel, down a small hill,” Cat-Cat said. “Out of the way, because of the noise. We bought the best one, or so we were told. It’s in a specially built stone hut.”

  “And the lighthouse has its own generator,” Max added.

  “There are two flashlights in the office,” Niki said. “I’ll take one of those tea candles and get them.”

  “I have more candles,” Mme Poux said. “If someone would help me get back to the laundry room.”

  “Allow me,” Eric Monnier said, flicking on his cigar lighter and taking her arm.

  “We’ll have no hot water, right?” Delphine Viale asked.

  “No water at all, I’m afraid,” Max answered. “The generator pumps the hotel’s water.”

  Delphine groaned.

  “I’ll be able to cook on my gas burners, though,” Émile Villey happily offered.

  “When Mme Poux and Eric come back with candles, I suggest you all go to your rooms,” Verlaque said. “It’s late anyway. I’ll go and look at the generator with Max.”

  Marie-Thérèse gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh!”

  “What is it, Marie-Thérèse?” Cat-Cat asked.

  “There was a phone call for Judge Verlaque,” she cried. “About halfway through the party! I forgot to tell you!”

  “That’s all right,” Verlaque said. “Who was it?”

  The girl cringed. “The commissioner,” she said in a small voice.

  “Well, it will have to wait,” Verlaque said.

  There was something else about the evening’s festivities nagging Verlaque, but he put the thought away in the corner of his mind. The generator was the more pressing issue.

  “That was a ripping party, judge.” Prosper Buffa spoke up. Verlaque had almost forgotten he was there. Verlaque held up his lighter to see Prosper, who was sitting at a table drinking champagne. Behind Prosper was Général Le Favre, lying across a sofa, fast asleep.

  “I’ll get a blanket for le général,” Cat-Cat said. “He may as well stay there. Prosper, I’ll show you to your room.”

  “The presidential suite?” Prosper asked, refilling his champagne glass on the way out.

  Mme Poux and Eric Monnier returned and distributed candles. The party dispersed, amid good-nights and thank-yous directed at Verlaque.

  “You know,” Shirley Hobbs said to Verlaque, taking his arm. “After tonight, you’d think that we were all good friends, and that nothing horrible had ever happened here on Sordou.”

  Verlaque smiled and nodded; he didn’t know how to reply. Perhaps his plan of a Babette’s Feast had backfired, and the murderer was now too comfortable, and the judge too soft.

  • • •

  The wind howled and blew so strongly that Verlaque and Max Le Bon had to hold on to each other. Cat-Cat had found them coats to wear, and they left the hotel via the laundry-room door and walked along a stone path toward the generator. “We thought we were being smart putting the generator so far away,” Max hollered as they walked.

  “You were,” Verlaque shouted back. “They make an awful noise.”

  “Almost there,” Max said, shining his flashlight ahead. “Just be careful walking down this path. It’s at the foot of this small hill.” The generator was stored in a rough-hewn stone building, and they lit up its walls as they got closer. Max shone his flashlight all over the building, then slowly tilted the light up to the top of the building.

  “There’s the problem,” Verlaque said. “The roof has caved in.”

  Max shone his flashlight up the steep hill that lay behind the building. “I bet a rock rolled down the hill in the storm,” he said. “I don’t know what the architects, or we, were thinking putting it here at the bottom of the hill. The door’s around the back,” Max yelled. “Follow me!”

  The wind was calmer behind the stone building, and the men froze as they approached the door; it was open, and a light shone inside. The beam of light shone on their faces. “Merde!” Hugo Sammut hollered. “You scared me!”

  “Likewise, Hugo,” Max Le Bon answered. “What happened?” he asked, entering the cabin.

  “My lights went off at home, and I saw that all the lights were off at the hotel,” Hugo replied. “So I grabbed my flashlight and came down.”

  “Thank you,” Le Bon said. “Was it a rock?”

  Hugo shone his light down into a corner of the room, lighting up a boulder about half a meter in diameter. “Yep, slid down the hill in the rain and came in through the roof.”

  “What’s the damage?” Verlaque asked.

  “We dodged a bullet,” Hugo answered. “If the rock had fallen any closer to the generator, it would have been out of commission for a while. But I think I’ll be able to fix it in the morning. I have some spare parts in the boathouse.”

  “Okay then,” Max Le Bon said. “Let’s hope you’re right. Will you be able to make it back to your cabin, Hugo?”

  “No problem,” Hugo said. “The wind sounds like it has calmed down, and I think I have the most powerful flashlight on the island. Good night, men.” They walked out, closing the door behind them, and shook hands before Le Bon and Verlaque made their way back up the hill to the hotel.

  • • •

  Verlaque walked slowly up the marble stairs toward their room. He opened the door with his room key and walked in, bumping his toe up against an armchair and cursing.

  Marine rolled over and whispered in the dark, “How did it go?”

  “A rock crashed through the roof of the generator room,” Verlaque whispered. “Hugo thinks he can fix it.”

  “There’s a candle in the bathroom,” Marine said. “On the counter.”

  “Thanks,” Verlaque said. “I’ll be right back.”

  When Verlaque came back he slid into bed and leaned his head against the padded linen headboard. “The two policemen who’ve been guarding the dock were in the bar when we got back,” Verlaque said.

  “You just missed them when you left to check the generator,” Marine said. “They saw the hotel lights go off and came right up. They were soaked, poor guys. They accompanied each of us to our rooms.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m not tired,” Marine said.

  “Me neither,” Verlaque said. “I got a second wind from that walk.”

  “There’s a bottle of water on your side of the bed,” Marine said. “Cat-Cat was handing them out.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Verlaque replied, reaching for the bottle. “After all that champagne, I’m parched.”

  “Is it possible that someone knocked the generator out?” Marine asked.

  “No,” Verlaque said. “That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go out there and look at it.”

  “This is a dumb question,” Marine said. “But will the hotel phone still work?”

  “Not a dumb question,” Verlaque said, reaching for her hand. “The phone line is separate; Max told me it’s run via an old underwater sea cable that they installed in the early sixties.”

  “Imagine,” Marine said. “A cable that lies under the water and extends from Sordou to Marseille. All those decades and years of conversations and stories, under the water.”

  Verlaque squ
eezed her hand again. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Antoine,” Marine replied. “Those cables under the water—that reminds me of a book that Charlotte has. It’s a story about an American village that was flooded in order to build a dam for Boston; the residents are moved, and new houses built for them miles away. But every now and then the family rows out in a boat onto the new reservoir, and they look down into the water to where their house once was, and the school, and the church. The girl has a hard time forgetting her village, and her old friends who were also dispersed. Her father tells her to let go. Sylvie always cries when she reads that bit. He says, ‘You have to let them go.’”

  “Say that again.”

  Marine moved closer to Verlaque and held him, rubbing his stomach. She whispered, “You have to let them go.”

  “It’s an old story we’re dealing with,” Verlaque said, throwing off the covers and jumping out of bed. “The one that Prosper hinted at.”

  “Mme Poux?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he answered, opening one of the desk drawers. He pulled out a manila envelope and got back into bed. “Let’s look at every one of these by candlelight,” he said, pouring out a stack of passports onto the blanket.

  “The murderer is a contemporary of Alain Denis. You wait until old age to carry out the murder,” Marine said, looking at Verlaque. “Because when you’re young, you have too much to live for. A family. A job. Life.”

  “But doesn’t that all increase—the desire to live—when you’re elderly? Or even middle-aged?” Verlaque asked. “Every day is precious, so why murder now, and risk going to prison the last ten or so years of your life?”

  “Because you’re sick,” she slowly replied. “Dying, perhaps.”

  Velaque nodded. “You may be right.”

  “Damn, I wish it wasn’t the middle of the night. I need to call Papa.”

  “Are you worried about your parents, because of the storm?”

  “No, no,” Marine replied, leaning back against the headboard. “It’s true, I usually call them every other day. But tonight I want to ask Papa about his patients. It’s just a hunch. It will have to wait until tomorrow morning.”