The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche

by M. L. Longworth

  “Léa!” Hélène yelled. Bruno ripped off the oxygen mask and slowly got to his feet, stumbling. “Easy there, Bruno,” Verlaque said, running to help him stand up.

  “Oh, thank God,” Marine said, hugging Valère. They looked at the Pauliks, who were locked in a three-way embrace.

  Sandrine ran up to them, and Valère hugged her. “You’re a genius!” he said. “Where was she? The chapel?”

  “Yep,” Sandrine said. Marine looked down, noticing that she was barefoot. Sandrine continued, “I figured that Léa may have run there, out the back door, to get away. It was a lucky guess.”

  “Why didn’t she just go home?” Marine asked.

  “She told me in the car that she was worried that the woman chasing her might guess that’s where she would go,” Sandrine said, “and catch up to her there.”

  “Smart kid,” Valère said.

  “And there was no sign of anyone else at the chapel?” Marine asked.

  “Nope, but we didn’t stick around long,” Sandrine said. “That place gives me the willies. In fact, this whole countryside does. I can’t wait to get back to downtown Aix.”

  Valère looked at his sidekick and smiled. For Sandrine to say that meant she was healed of her pain. No more running.

  Marine realized that her husband was no longer standing beside her. She looked around and saw him by the swimming pool, talking on his phone. She walked down, partly to get farther away from the smoke, and partly to nudge him that it was time they headed home. “Merci, Charles-Henri,” Verlaque said as he hung up the phone.

  “Everything all right?” Marine asked. “It’s late for a phone call.”

  “Charles-Henri stays up late. I asked him to do me a favor.” He looked up at the bastide, now a smoking shell. “There’s a woman in there—I’m certain of it.”

  Marine took him by the shoulders. “I think you’re right,” she said. “We’ll know more tomorrow. Come on. Let’s get home.”

  * * *

  A mistral blew through Aix-en-Provence the next day, causing the temperature to drop almost ten degrees, much to everyone’s relief, but also canceling the Bastille Day fireworks for most of the region. The fire at La Bastide Blanche was contained by early morning, but because of the wind the firefighters stood watch.

  Bruno Paulik called Verlaque’s cell phone just after ten, telling him that everyone was all right. Shaken, but all right. Léa and Hélène were still sleeping, cuddled together in the master bed. Paulik suggested that Verlaque and Marine come out to the house after lunch, as both the fire captain and the chief of the local gendarmes needed to question all who had been present. Valère and Sandrine had booked rooms in a roadside chain hotel near the highway, and would come at two o’clock as well. “They need clothes and toiletries,” Bruno added, giving Verlaque their sizes and the name of their hotel.

  “Right,” Verlaque said, hanging up and taking a cappuccino to Marine. “Here you go,” he said, handing Marine the coffee as she sat up in bed, fluffing the pillows behind her.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the coffee and blowing on it. “You’re an angel.”

  “Drink up. We need to hit Monoprix to buy clothes for Valère and Sandrine before lunch, then go out to Bruno’s.”

  “Just give me a few seconds,” Marine said sleepily.

  “What a night,” Verlaque said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Everything happened so quickly.”

  “I know.” Marine took a sip and said, “When you were paying the restaurant tab, Nathalie called. She’s my old friend who works at Les Loges. She said it took her a few days to work up the courage to call me, as she’s recently divorced and is terrified of losing her job. After my visit, Mme Parent, the director, ran up to the archives in a rage, screaming about their lack of care and gross ineptitude. The archivist was on holiday but had obviously done a shoddy job of checking the ID of this apparent scholar.”

  “Michèle Baudouin—”

  “Yes,” Marine said. “The archivist didn’t recognize her, obviously. Mme Parent grabbed Agathe Barbier’s file from some poor underling and opened it in a fury, throwing papers all over the room. Nathalie said it was obvious that something was missing.”

  “Agathe’s prize-winning story.”

  “‘A Chance Meeting on the rue du Faubourg,’” Marine said. “Ursule’s proof that Agathe had more than just helped Valère. Mme Parent told me it had nothing in common with the book, but I think she was lying.”

  “Good thing we chose to eat in Puyloubier last night,” Verlaque said. “Although I don’t feel that we—I—helped that much.”

  “We were there,” Marine answered. “That’s help enough.”

  “So Michèle must have this story with her,” Verlaque said. “Wherever she is in the Luberon.”

  “Or it could have been left in the house—”

  “In which case it’s gone forever.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Marine suggested. “Now it’s up to Valère to tell the truth.”

  “No more deception,” Verlaque said. He thought of Valère deceiving Agathe, Ursule Genoux and Alphonse Pelloquin deceiving Daniel de Rudder, Michèle Baudouin deceiving Célestine Parent and the poor archivist, and he himself almost deceiving his beloved wife. It was only for a second, but it had scared him all the same.

  Marine asked, “What did you ask Charles-Henri Lagarde to do for you last night?”

  “It’s just a hunch, but there’s someone we forgot—someone who could gain from driving Valère Barbier insane. I asked Charles-Henri to do some asking around, since he knows everyone in the newspaper and publishing world.”

  “You can fill me in when we’re at Monoprix,” Marine said. She flung off the sheets then stopped. “Oh—my. Yes.”

  “You just thought of her too, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. It makes so much sense.” She got out of the bed, opened a drawer, and began choosing clothes. “Let’s go. It’s cooler today, thankfully.” She then began to laugh.

  “What’s up?” Verlaque asked. “Why are you laughing?”

  “What on earth are we going to buy Sandrine to wear?”

  * * *

  Verlaque and Bonnet had just finished shopping and were walking to the parking garage when Verlaque’s phone rang. It was Bruno Paulik. The cigales were making a racket, and the streets were busy with shoppers leaving the market, battling the wind, their bags full of tall leeks and even taller sunflowers. Marine put the Monoprix bags down beside a fountain and sat on its edge while Verlaque took the call.

  “How are you all?” Verlaque asked.

  “The girls went back to bed and are sleeping again,” Paulik answered. “But the firefighters have been working all morning at the bastide. This mistral is badly timed. The fire chief and gendarme captain came by and had coffee with us, when Léa was still up. They found a body in the attic.”

  Verlaque sat beside Marine and held the phone between them so she could hear. “A woman?”

  “Yes,” Paulik replied. “Léa explained what happened last night. She went into the kitchen and grabbed the photograph, but on her way out she heard noises at the top of the stairs, and followed them all the way up to the attic. A woman was up there, dressed in some kind of long white gauzy dress, designed to frighten Valère, no doubt. Her face was exposed, and Léa recognized her as the blind woman from the village. Léa screamed, and the woman chased her. Léa ran out the back door, running all the way to the chapel without stopping. What she couldn’t have known was that the woman tripped over the gown and hit her head on the stairs’ wrought-iron banister. The fire chief said she was probably unconscious when the fire started.”

  “Are the gendarmes searching her rented house in Puyloubier?”

  “Done. They uncovered her purse and ID, still sitting on the kitchen table.”

  “Who was it?”

&n
bsp; “Monica Pelloquin,” Paulik answered. “The publisher’s wife.”

  Verlaque looked at Marine, and she nodded. “How did she sneak off to the bastide?” Verlaque asked. “I thought her house was being watched.”

  “It was supposed to be,” Paulik answered. “But we were understaffed—there was a friendly match in Marseille last night, since Spain just won the World Cup.”

  “The soccer game,” Verlaque cut in, sighing. “France against the UK.”

  “We had to send as many officers to Marseille as we could. The hooligans . . .”

  “On both sides,” Verlaque said.

  Paulik asked, “Did you know about Mme Pelloquin? You don’t sound surprised.”

  “I figured it out late last night,” Verlaque said. “I kept thinking of her luminous pale skin, so someone who would wear a sun hat. Daniel de Rudder had me barking up the wrong tree, thinking it was Ursule Genoux or her sister. Plus it seemed to me that Mme Pelloquin had a lot to gain by exposing Valère as a literary fraud.”

  “I wouldn’t say he’s a fraud—”

  Verlaque smiled. He, too, such a lover of Barbier’s early books, wanted to defend him. They’d soon know how much Valère wrote and how much his late wife did. “A Parisian acquaintance did some calling around late last night and early this morning,” he said. “It seems that press and literary folks are either nighthawks or early risers. Anyway, Mme Pelloquin had indeed approached a few newspaper and magazine editors with what she called ‘the Valère Barbier scoop of the century.’ She even talked to a film producer. She could have made a lot of money and found fame.”

  “Alphonse Pelloquin must have told her about Agathe’s involvement.”

  “Yes, and Monica probably thought they were having an affair too. Agathe’s dead; she couldn’t get back at her. But she could attack Valère in her place.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Aix-en-Provence,

  Wednesday, July 21, 2010

  Marine held up her champagne. “Santé,” she said, tipping her glass toward her husband’s.

  “Cheers,” Verlaque replied, as he always did when toasting, in English.

  “It was very kind of Jacob and his wife to let us stay here for a few days while they’re in London,” Marine said, looking at the low rows of purple lavender that led to the swimming pool.

  “It only makes sense,” Verlaque said, “to stay in a place before you buy it. It’s crazy that we have to make such rushed decisions when buying property, never being able to try it out beforehand, like a test drive.”

  Marine nodded. “When I bought my apartment in the Mazarin, two other prospective buyers were breathing down my neck. I had to decide and make an offer in about ten minutes. I’ve deliberated longer buying shoes.”

  Verlaque looked back at the long, low farmhouse that had been added onto throughout the centuries. “It’s not as majestic as the Bastide Blanche,” he said, turning back around.

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  “It’s probably not haunted, either.”

  “Do you really think?” Marine asked. “The bastide—”

  “Yes,” Verlaque answered. “But don’t tell anyone.”

  “I do too,” Marine said. “Even without Monica Pelloquin’s tricks, there were too many mysterious things going on.”

  “And the objects disappearing and reappearing.”

  “Like you always misplacing your reading glasses.”

  “Very funny,” Verlaque said.

  “I’m sorry about Judge Rudder.”

  Verlaque looked up at the clear blue sky and smiled. “He lived a good long life. I’m glad I was able to fill him in before he died. He seemed relieved.”

  “Three dead,” Marine said.

  “Sadly, Ursule Genoux believed the only way to overcome her guilt was to take an overdose of sleeping pills.”

  “And with both Ursule and Alphonse Pelloquin dead, we’ll never know for sure what happened on that boat.”

  “We know well enough,” Verlaque said, “Célestine Parent knew quite a bit. Her visit to Aix yesterday turned out to be quite fruitful.” He took a sip of champagne, loving the way the light bubbles slid from the back of his mouth down his throat. “Mme Parent said that Ursule told her she went out into the storm and called for help, hoping that Alphonse would come out. She hated him for keeping Agathe’s literary talents hidden for so long. In the fog she wouldn’t have been able to see that the tall person walking toward her, disguised by rain gear, was Agathe. Ursule pushed her overboard and only would have realized who it was when Agathe screamed. Agathe and Pelloquin had been arguing, probably about her ghostwriting. With Agathe dead, Pelloquin’s problem was solved. Ursule told her sister that he came out onto the bow and, seeing Ursule’s distress, realized right away what had happened. He lorded it over her, threatening to expose her to the police, so they both stayed quiet. Mme Parent was enraged that Agathe’s essay was burned in the fire.”

  “It was her proof. And now Valère’s cleverly left France. Where is he exactly?”

  “Pantelleria,” Verlaque answered, pulling the dripping bottle out of the ice bucket. He refilled their glasses and sat back. “He told me before he left that Michèle Baudouin had recommended the island. He’s going to write his memoir from there, after he finds a new publisher.”

  “Sounds egotistical.”

  “He did make right with some things,” Verlaque said, shrugging. “He’s talking about buying that old-fashioned shoe store on the rue Thiers for Sandrine to run.”

  “Are you kidding?” Marine asked. “I was just in there yesterday, buying sandals. I was so sad to hear they were closing. I bought a pair for Charlotte, too, who should be on a plane right now to Berlin.” She took a sip of champagne and then looked over at her husband, who sat on a chaise longue, legs extended and eyes half-closed, slowly moving his right foot back and forth, a slight smile at the corners of his mouth. Usually, only Italy made him this relaxed. Jacob’s house would be perfect for them. “You liked Valère—didn’t you?”

  “He was just the kind of person I always hoped the great writer would be,” Verlaque said. “Smart, funny, kind, absentminded. A bit silly, even.”

  The noise of tires crunching on gravel caused Marine and Verlaque to turn around.

  Verlaque slapped his forehead. “I invited the Pauliks,” he said. “I forgot to tell you. Bruno mentioned that they would be in Aix this evening, running errands—”

  Marine quickly got up and wrapped a sarong around her bathing suit.

  “Hello!” Bruno Paulik called out as he came around the corner of the house, carrying a cooler. Hélène and Léa followed, each carrying a tote bag. “Not a bad place,” he continued, grinning, as he looked up at the golden stone house, with its taupe-colored shutters, and the manicured gardens that led down to the pool.

  “I think it will do for us,” Verlaque said, shaking Paulik’s hand and giving Hélène and Léa the bise.

  “We brought food from Aix,” Hélène said, gesturing to the cooler. “Two roasted chickens, a big potato salad, some fruit, and a few bottles of my new vermentino.”

  “And cheese and bread!” Léa exclaimed, holding up a bag.

  “Wow, this place is straight out of Architectural Digest,” Hélène said.

  “Is it too posh?” Marine asked, wincing. She knew what her parents, especially her mother, would say when they saw it.

  Hélène shook her head. “Not at all. It’s chic and stylish.”

  “Léa and I would like to test the chic and stylish swimming pool,” Bruno Paulik said, putting his arm around Léa.

  “Go right ahead,” Verlaque said. “There’s an insanely big pool house down there, where you can change. I’ll take you.”

  “Come into the house with me,” Marine said to Hélène. “I’ll show you around a bit.”

  H
élène whistled as they walked into the vast kitchen, redone by Jacob in stainless steel, Carrara marble, and pale ash cabinetry, with the farmhouse’s original deep-red terra-cotta tiles on the floor. “Terre cuite,” Hélène said, tapping her foot. “Super belle.”

  “My mother will tell me how hard terra-cotta is to keep up,” Marine said, laughing.

  “My mother would do the same,” Hélène said, setting the cooler on the floor.

  “How has Léa been?” Marine asked, opening the cupboards and looking for more wineglasses.

  Hélène leaned against a counter, looking out a large bow window with views of the garden. “She’s better now,” she answered. “But at first she was really sad.”

  “Yes, that’s understandable. That night . . . being chased . . .”

  Hélène nodded. She smiled as she watched her daughter jump into the pool, followed by her husband who was pushed in by Antoine Verlaque. “But she was more sad than upset.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Hélène turned to Marine. “We’re worried about her,” she said. “Léa told us she would miss her friends at the bastide.”

  “Valère and Sandrine,” Marine began.

  “No,” Hélène said. “I mean, she said she’d miss them too, but she’d miss her secret friends. Léa’s never been a child who had imaginary friends.”

  Marine got goose bumps on her arms, and shivered. “My bathing suit is damp,” she explained when Hélène looked at her, concerned.

  “We’re thinking of taking Léa to a therapist,” Hélène continued, “to help her deal with the trauma of that night. Gosh, even I need it. Bruno told me your mother has been researching the history of the bastide. Has she found anything interesting?”

  “Nothing much,” Marine replied.

  “Well, whatever was going on in that house is now gone forever.”

  “Ashes to ashes,” Marine said, setting down four large wineglasses.

  Chapter Thirty-two