“We didn’t touch the note,” Sandrine said.
“We found it lying on the coffee table,” Barbier explained as they walked in the house. “It was Sandrine’s idea not to touch it.”
“That was very smart,” Paulik said.
Sophie Goulin took a set of tweezers from her kit, picked up the handwritten note, and held it before Paulik. “‘We have Erwan,’” he read aloud. “‘If you want him alive, please follow further instructions.’”
“The spelling is atrocious,” Valère said.
“What happened last night?” Paulik asked. “Try not to leave anything out, even if it seems unimportant.”
“M Barbier had a bad dream around three thirty,” Sandrine said.
“But before that,” Paulik said. “When did Erwan arrive?”
“Ten thirty or so,” Valère said, looking at Sandrine for confirmation. “In a taxi from the Aix TGV station.”
“Seventy euro fare,” Sandrine added, crossing her arms.
“We went immediately to bed,” Valère continued. “Sandrine had made up one of the guest rooms.”
“And none of you heard anything?”
“Just M Barbier yelling in his sleep, like I said,” Sandrine said. “I ran into his room and woke him up.”
“I was worried that I had also woken up Erwan, so Sandrine went to check on him and found he was gone.”
“Did you check the house then?” Verlaque asked.
“Of course,” Valère answered. “We checked all the rooms, upstairs and down. And neither of us saw the note on the table. I’m sure it wasn’t there.”
“Yes,” Sandrine said. “I would have seen it. I had just cleaned the living room.”
“I turned on the outdoor lights,” Valère continued. “And nothing seemed unusual outside, so I went back to bed. I figured that Erwan must have walked into the village and hitchhiked into Aix, or called a taxi. I checked my desk drawer, where I keep cash, and money was missing.”
“Whoever left this note must have come back, in the early morning, to deliver it,” Paulik said. “Was the door locked?”
Valère and Sandrine exchanged looks. “That’s the problem,” Sandrine said. “We both thought the other had locked it.” She looked out the window and could see Sophie Goulin now outside, walking slowly around the grounds, her head down.
Paulik said, “Whoever has Erwan will call you. Make sure your cell phone is on and charged. In the meantime, Judge Verlaque and I will take your statements, separately, in the kitchen and your office, if that’s a good place.”
Valère shrugged. “Yes, that’s fine. This kid . . . nothing but problems.”
“Is there a chance it’s a hoax?” Verlaque asked.
Valère shook his head. “He does get angry quickly, which is why I assumed he had left. I wasn’t very welcoming. But he’s never done anything this extreme.”
“He did say last night that he was out of money,” Sandrine said.
“Really?” Verlaque asked.
Valère looked at him. “To arrange a fake kidnapping would take ingenuity and energy, neither of which Erwan has.”
“Maybe he has some Parisian friends who helped him?” Sandrine suggested.
“Mlle Matton may be right,” Paulik said.
Valère shook his head. “I still don’t see it . . . but I may be wrong.”
Verlaque took the visibly tired and shaken Valère into the office, while Paulik and Sandrine (who was still complaining about the taxi fare) went into the kitchen.
“You have a beautiful office,” Verlaque said sincerely, looking around at the mix of French and Italian furniture and the ancient built-in bookcases. Two large windows gave onto the pebbled terrace and its row of plane trees, which in turn framed the rolling hills covered in vineyards and olive trees.
“Yeah, the office every great writer has,” Valère said with noticeable sarcasm. “On the desk a Gae Aulenti Pipistrello lamp purchased at a Drouot auction; first editions of Proust and Philip Roth on the bookshelf; and in the corner an Eames chair that once belonged to Le Corbusier.”
Verlaque looked at Valère, reading his moroseness as guilt over Erwan’s disappearance. “I was in Paris yesterday,” Verlaque began, “and met Ursule Genoux and, later, Monica Pelloquin.”
“Lucky you,” Valère replied. He now seemed bored, and looked out the window.
Verlaque crossed his legs and also looked out at the vast view, the vines a sea of bright green. Barbier now seemed like the famous writer he had expected to meet—spoiled and indifferent—not the charming and talkative one he had taken to the cigar club.
Valère turned to Verlaque and asked, his voice now almost menacing, “Why in the world were you talking to them?”
Relieved that Valère had finally asked the question he should have a few moments before, Verlaque replied, “The inquiry into the death of your late wife has been reopened.”
“Well, it was never really closed, since they never found her body—did they?” Valère asked, as if the police were at fault and Verlaque was somehow involved in their incompetence.
“That’s correct,” Verlaque said.
“So what’s going on?”
“New evidence has come to light,” Verlaque lied.
“Like what?” Valère demanded, leaning forward to lessen the space between him and the judge.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Verlaque said. “It’s too early to tell.”
“And what did Ursule and Monica have to say?”
“What they told me yesterday matches what they reported to the Cannes police back in 1988.”
Valère grunted. “Of course it would.”
“After I met with them, I ran into Charles-Henri Lagarde, on the terrace of Le Hibou.”
“He practically lives at Le Hibou,” Valère replied. “He sits there all afternoon hoping to meet writers and actors more important than himself.”
Verlaque smiled. This was the kind of talk he had expected from a famous man: petty and gossipy. “I met Charles-Henri once, at a party, years ago,” he continued, noting that Valère hadn’t asked how he knew Lagarde. “And yesterday he told me that Alphonse Pelloquin also frequented Le Hibou.”
“See, what did I tell you? Lagarde is a poof too. That’s why his wife left him.”
Verlaque ignored the homophobic comment. He was now not amused by, but disappointed in, Barbier. Besides, the way Lagarde was checking out the women at the café made Verlaque even surer of the stupidity and inaccuracy of such slander.
Valère again looked out the window. He asked, almost into the air, “And what do I care that Alphonse used to go to Le Hibou?”
Verlaque replied, “I’m not sure. This may not be news to you, but Lagarde told me he frequently saw your publisher at Le Hibou in the company of your late wife, Agathe.”
* * *
Marine waited while her mother spoke with the university’s head librarian. Léopold Crépillon adored Florence Bonnet, with whom he, too, sang in the choir. Marine smiled as she listened to them; she was too far away to hear the conversation but close enough to get a sense of the excitement they shared when in each other’s company. Marine could hear Léopold clicking on the computer, the printer starting up, and then more excited chatter. When Marine finished writing a long e-mail to her editor in Paris, she realized that thirty minutes had gone by.
“You needn’t have hid,” Florence said when she found Marine.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Marine lied. Léopold was in his late forties or early fifties and still lived with his mother; the presence of any handsome woman under the age of sixty made him very nervous, and so Marine found an empty desk at the far end of the history stacks and read her e-mails on her cell phone. “I was just keeping my distance. I think I make Léopold break out into a sweat.” Some of Marine’s female colleagues refe
rred to Léopold Crépillon as Le Creep, but Marine thought he was harmless. He just needed to bathe more often, another reason she kept her distance.
“Well, well,” Florence replied, huffing. She held up a few slips of white paper marked with call numbers. “Léopold has given us some great places to start. He’s always so useful.” They divided up Léopold’s suggestions between them and went looking for the books in the stacks. Marine could hear her mother making excited sounds a few rows down. “Ciel!” Florence loudly whispered after about ten minutes. “This is a real find!”
Marine took the two books that she thought might be useful back to the desk and pulled up a second chair. Florence joined her, her face flushed with excitement. “Poverty and Charity in Aix-en-Provence, 1640–1789,” she quickly said, holding up a slim green-bound volume for Marine to see. “Let’s start with this one.”
Marine read the table of contents. “This looks great,” she said.
“Good old Léopold,” Florence said. “He also gave me this, which I’ve been saving for you.” She beamed as she passed Marine a few photocopied pages, some of which Léopold had marked in red.
“Wow,” Marine said as she began reading. “It’s part of a late medieval census, listing the owners of the bigger properties in and around Aix, including La Bastide Blanche.”
“Léopold marked La Bastide with a red X,” Florence said.
“Was Léopold at the choir practice when Philomène told you about the bastide’s . . . legends?”
Florence nodded. “But he already knew all about it,” she said. “His great-aunts used to tell him ghost stories when he was a boy. The stories about La Bastide Blanche were his favorites.”
“Charming.”
“Yes, well, when you were small your father and I agreed that stories that frighten children aren’t necessarily the best bedtime reading.”
“Merci, Maman.”
“Léopold even told me who to begin with,” Florence said as she took a selection of colored pens and lined them up on the wooden desk. “Count Hugues de Besse,” she said, whispering. She took the cap off the green pen and marked two Xs beside his name, which appeared on the first page of the photocopied list. “Born 1688, died 1760,” she said. “He’s our man.”
“But what did he do?” Marine whispered.
Florence looked around and waited until a young undergraduate who was walking by, his arms full of books, passed out of earshot. “Léopold told me the Count had a huge appetite . . .”
Marine rolled her eyes. “I assume you’re not saying he was a gourmet?”
Florence hissed. “Sexual appetite.”
“What does that have to do with ghosts?”
“The ghosts of murdered babies,” Florence whispered.
“Are you serious?”
Florence nodded. “Hugues de Besse fathered dozens of illegitimate children,” she replied. “The babies were killed and buried beneath the house. That’s the story, anyway.”
“Let me guess,” Marine said. “And the mothers were young, unmarried servants?”
“Exactly. The ghosts are the babies and their weeping mothers . . .”
Marine closed her eyes, trying to imagine the names and faces of those girls, if even for a moment. “It’s just a story,” she said. “Perhaps with bits of truth behind it.”
“Without proof, that’s all it is,” Florence said. “Let’s get to work.”
They worked silently for over an hour, both taking notes and marking pages with tiny colored Post-its, which Marine always carried in her purse. Florence saw the Post-its and beamed with pride. “Once an academic . . . ,” she said. She held out her hand and put it on top of Marine’s. “This is so much fun.”
Marine smiled and was about to reply when she saw that her mother already had her head buried in another book. Marine continued reading, pausing after a few minutes to read aloud, “‘Eighty percent of Aix’s population in the seventeenth century worked to support the remaining twenty percent of wealthy clergy, civil servants, and nobility.’”
“Yes, they would have been farmers, artisans, food sellers, servants,” Florence replied.
“Et les porteurs de chaise.”
“Ah, yes, the men who carried the sedan chairs. Many noble Aixois couldn’t afford a carriage and horses, but they could afford to pay two unlucky souls to carry them around the muddy streets.” Marine smiled and nodded. She knew what the porteurs did. Her mother was in professor mode. There was no chance for her to add to the conversation.
Marine read on, saying, “Listen to this, Maman. In the medieval neighborhood, some families lived with anywhere from eight to forty people under the same roof.”
Florence nodded. “The wages were so low that even if both parents worked they still couldn’t afford to feed their children. Especially if there were an emergency.”
“Like the plague,” Marine replied. “Or famine.”
“Or even another child,” Florence added. “So they relied on charity houses, in Aix’s case not run by religious institutions but privately funded.”
“Their way to salvation,” Marine said.
“Look,” Florence said, showing Marine a page from the green book she had found in the stacks. “The hospital called Saint-Eutrope was founded by a merchant, Michel Jualme, in 1600. Later, in 1629, a foundation was set up for repentant prostitutes, although the text proudly states that Aix had many fewer prostitutes than Marseille.” Marine sniggered and Florence continued, “And La Charité, a hospital for orphans, opened soon after.”
“Then these charities would have been in existence during Hugues de Besse’s time,” Marine said.
“But neither the babies nor their mothers were sent there,” Florence said. “The problems at the bastide were kept a secret.”
Marine said, “I just read that most of the children weren’t in fact orphans but enfants trouvés—abandoned by their families because there were already too many children and not enough money to feed them. What a terrible choice to have to make.”
Florence put her pen down and stretched, something Marine had seen her do hundreds of times. “Why don’t you come for dinner tonight?” Florence asked.
Marine wasn’t sure whether the invitation extended to Antoine, who at any rate had just sent her a text saying that he would be home late. “I’d love to,” she answered.
“Of course Antoine can come . . . ,” Florence quickly added but without much enthusiasm.
“He’s working late,” Marine said.
“So it will just be the three of us. Your father can cook, and I’ll tan both your hides at Scrabble.”
Chapter Nineteen
New York City,
September 22, 2010
What was so odd about Sandrine’s appearance that night?” Justin asked.
Valère waved a hand in the air. “In a bit.”
“Okay. I can wait. So, what were Agathe and Alphonse doing hanging out at Le Hibou? Alphonse sounds like such a jerk! What in the world were they meeting about? There must be an explanation.”
Valère leaned back, enjoying the young editor’s enthusiasm and the fact that he had believed every word so far. If anything, Valère congratulated himself, he was a master storyteller.
Valère continued, “You can imagine my shock at being told that Agathe and Alphonse had little tête-à-têtes at Le Hibou. And why was I being so cranky with Judge Verlaque?”
Justin grinned.
“Yes, I saw the face you were making when I told you the story. Well, Justin, that’s how I used to behave when I was famous. I know I’m still famous, but I’m talking about back in the day—in the eighties and nineties—when I’d hang out with rock stars and actors. It still sneaks up on me sometimes, that horrible behavior, mostly when I’m overstressed or overtired. I have no idea what Antoine Verlaque thought; I’m sure my shitty behavior affect
ed our newly forming friendship, and for that I was sorry. But at the moment all I could think of was Agathe and Alphonse Pelloquin.”
“But that Verlaque guy was trying to pin you into a corner,” Justin said, pouring some wine into Valère’s glass. “What did you say?”
* * *
I told the judge that I had no idea why Agathe would meet with Alphonse; they had nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. Agathe was an artist, and Alphonse was a shark. That’s one of the reasons why I chose him as my publisher, early on in my career. To be honest, I really didn’t care about literary integrity. I just wanted to sell books.
I asked the judge, “Why are you worried who Agathe drank martinis with, anyway?”
Verlaque replied, “I told you: I’m reexamining her death.”
“No good will come of it,” I said. “She’s dead. She fell off a sailboat during a storm. That’s all.” Verlaque was about to say something when the house phone rang. I almost jumped out of my skin. Sandrine came running into my office wringing her hands. The commissioner was right behind her, and he said to me, nodding toward the phone, “This might be it.”
I gulped, picked up the receiver, and quickly put it on speaker phone. “llo,” I said. I tried to stop my voice from cracking.
A male voice said, “M Barbier, please listen carefully. We have your son.”
“Stepson,” I cut in.
“Shut up. To ensure his safety, please bring fifty thousand euros, in a duffel bag, to the chapel in Puyloubier.”
“But that will take time—” I tried to say more, but he immediately cut me off.
“We will give you two days to get the cash together. Be at the chapel on Sunday at midnight. Alone. Please walk. No cars. Do you understand?”
“And then what?” I asked. “Will Erwan be there? How do I know he’s all right?”
We heard a muffling sound, and Erwan came on the phone. “Valère,” he said. “Please do what they say. I’m sorry . . . I just went outside to look at the stars and have a ciggie . . .”
The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche Page 17