One Green Bottle

by Curtis Bausse

  He gave it a moment’s thought before dismissing it. ‘That’s just about everything anybody does.’ Out of the question, I’m afraid, to extend your overdraft.

  ‘My point is Roncet was something of a loner. If he knew the killer personally, then there can’t be that many people to consider. Enzo, on the other hand, had a wide circle of acquaintances. If I’m going to sift through 800 people, I need a few criteria.’

  Roudy nodded. ‘Well, Roncet was a loner all right, but he wasn’t unknown. You’re looking at a village where everyone knows everyone.’

  ‘Yes, like in Mannezon. But down there the police were quite thorough, I think, in interviewing everyone. That wasn’t the case up here.’

  ‘You can say that again. But what’s your plan? Go around Wallenheim questioning everyone who knew him?’ Roudy found it hard to suppress a snort. ‘Good luck with that. Plus, have you thought that it could be someone from his past? He was seventy-two. That’s a lot of people.’

  ‘No, I don’t have time. And I’m looking for Enzo’s killer, not Roncet’s.’ Magali took out her purse. ‘My interviews more or less start and end with you, so unless you can point me in the right direction, I’ll be heading back down south.’

  Roudy pushed the money away. ‘You’ve come all this way, it’s the least I can do. But as for your psychological profile, I can’t really help you there. My angle of attack is to expose police deficiencies, the weakness of the evidence, the underlying racism. To be honest, I don’t hold out much hope. I’ve been up to Wallenheim several times and got short shrift.’ He took out a pen and paper. ‘But if you have time to play with, you could start with Elsa Soulier. Roncet’s sister. She’d be the one who knows the most about who he was acquainted with. And you might even get a sympathetic hearing.’

  ‘You mean what? She’s on your side?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ He gave her the phone number. ‘She doesn’t give a damn about another Arab in jail. But she knew her brother well enough, even if they weren’t that close. And she doesn’t think Benamrouche killed him.’

  ***

  She was dining in a restaurant close to her hotel when her phone rang. ‘Am I disturbing you?’ said Darlier, but barely waited for a reply. ‘Something to celebrate.’

  She thought at first he meant her birthday – a soon to occur non-event. But he couldn’t know that. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Bussert. We’ve blown her alibi.’

  She could tell by his voice he’d had too much to drink. ‘You mean… she did it?’

  ‘We’re not there yet. But she lied. She always maintained she left her coat there the previous day but she was there that evening.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I spoke to Alice Perrin again. She spilled it all. Couldn’t keep it to herself any more. Bussert begged her to say she arrived at her place earlier than she did. An hour earlier. During which she was at Perle’s house.’ He made a sound that was almost a moan of pleasure. ‘We’ve got her!’

  Magali didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead, seeing nothing.

  ‘Magali?’

  She dragged herself back. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I haven’t told his mother yet. I thought you might like to do that.’ For the first time he used the familiar tu form rather than vous.

  ‘Right… Yes, I will, it’s kind of you.’

  ‘Not straightaway. I’ll let you know when there’s something solid to tell her.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How did you get on with Balland, by the way?’

  ‘Fine, yes, thank you, it… I got plenty of material for my assignment.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can hear people. You’re at a dinner party?’

  ‘Uh… yes. A few friends, that’s all.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long in that case. I just wanted to let you know.’

  ‘Thank you, Vincent. That’s very kind.’

  ‘Magali?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call for a while. I’d like to… There are some beautiful places round here. If you like walking. Or maybe just go for a drive. Whatever takes your fancy.’

  ‘Well… Can I call you back? I really ought to be getting back to the table.’

  ‘I’m sorry, yes, of course. I just wanted to say…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for everything. We’ll speak again soon.’

  She put the phone back in her bag and returned to her meal. But after a couple of mouthfuls she pushed the plate away and called for the bill. She walked back through the cold night to her hotel. She lay on the bed, trying to understand what was happening. Not to the investigation but to her. The answer didn’t take long to find.

  She’d once driven Xavier’s Alfa Romeo fifty miles after a warning light appeared on the dashboard. She had to stop when smoke began to pour from beneath the bonnet. ‘You know what that is?’ he said, before coming out with a new diagnosis that would later become familiar to her. ‘That’s borderline fucking psychotic.’

  Since her arrival in Sentabour, Magali’s mental state had improved no end, to the point where it occurred to her that whatever she’d suffered from before was entirely induced by Dickhead’s ludicrous pronouncements. They weren’t official and she didn’t believe them but he was a doctor after all, and little by little they’d made their way into her psyche. The cunning bit was the borderline. She wasn’t actually anything specific but she hovered on the edge of everything, so she finished up thinking there was very little holding her sanity together.

  In Sentabour, though, she had the freedom to do and think what she wanted without being told she was crossing over the border into doolally land. And gradually she understood the meaning of self-fulfilment.

  But now it was all coming back. Denial of reality. She could make a list: persistent erroneous beliefs in the face of conflicting evidence. The Alfa was trivial – she actually laughed about it later, though that, of course, had Dickhead practically calling the men in white coats. Others lasted for longer, ended up causing more damage. The art gallery she opened, though everyone pointed out to her the premises were damp. After which she channelled her fantasies through Luc, who was going to be a violinist in a world-renowned orchestra. She clung to that one for a long time, though he moaned about his lessons and never practised. And the marriage itself – the most glaring example of all. The dashboard lights had been flashing for years but she just drove on, put a brave face on it till it came to a shuddering halt. She was good at brave faces, plodding on whatever. To the point of believing that her sex life was normal when she didn’t even have one.

  In cloud cuckoo land you walk on air, riding your beliefs till the headwind of evidence overcomes you. When she crashed down to earth, she generally found herself clutching a bottle of rosé. ‘Alcoholic too,’ Xavier had said, adding another delicacy to the smorgasbord of disorders. Spoken, as always, in jest.

  Now to the list of fantasies she could add her latest: she was a private detective because she knew better than Captain Darlier how to investigate a murder. She didn’t want Brigittte Bussert to be guilty, didn’t want to accept that such a beautiful homage to Enzo as her final email was an exercise in deception. But reality isn’t what you want, it’s a fact. Alice Perrin had come forward and spoken. Brigitte was there the night Enzo died and the fact of that reality could no longer be ignored.

  With a sigh, Magali rose from her bed and headed for the hotel bar.

  Chapter 11

  With the possible exception of Toupie, Magali was not at all in the mood for company, but having made the appointment, she dragged herself – and her hangover – on to the bus to visit Roncet’s sister. She arrived late because she got off at the wrong stop. She could have taken a taxi but she’d wasted enough of Charlotte’s money already.

  Elsa Soulier was a bulky woman with wispy blonde hair, a smooth, shiny face and a slight stoop, as if the burden
of life were pressing her down. She was eight years younger than her brother, which explained perhaps why they’d never been that close. But after his wife died she had taken to paying him regular visits, concerned that his solitude would get to him.

  ‘You have to look after your own, don’t you?’ she said to Magali, placing a plate of biscuits on the table.

  ‘From what I gather, he coped with the solitude well.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I needn’t have bothered myself on that account. But still…’ She grinned a little sheepishly, as if visiting her brother could be seen as something strange.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point, Madame Soulier.’ And on to the next train home. ‘Philippe Roudy told me you think Nassim Benamrouche is innocent. Why’s that?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. He’s a journalist, isn’t he?

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘They twist things. Who am I to say if he’s innocent or not? At the trial they found him guilty.’

  ‘That’s precisely why Roudy’s campaigning.’

  ‘Fat chance he’s got, I’d say. No one’s got the appetite for that. Not in Wallenheim anyway.’

  ‘They’re happy to see Benamrouche behind bars?’

  Elsa Soulier made no answer, but a grim, haughty expression said it all.

  ‘And you?’ said Magali. ‘If he really is innocent…’

  Again no answer, apart from a shrug and a throwaway, ‘Oh…’, as if to say, what does it matter? But then, feeling the need to justify herself, she said, ‘It’s not going to bring him back, is it? Whoever did it, he’s dead. Roudy can write his stuff till he’s blue in the face, it won’t bring Albert back.’

  Magali changed tack. ‘Did he have any enemies that you knew of?’

  Elsa Soulier gave her a glance of exasperation. ‘The police have been through all that. You won’t come up with anything new, you know.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But even if Roudy’s exaggerating them, you have your doubts, am I right?’

  ‘Whatever doubts I might have, I’m keeping them to myself. There’s been enough written about me already.’

  ‘By Roudy?’

  ‘He tried to put words in my mouth. They were just his own opinions.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Albert would never have let Benamrouche in – that sort of thing.’

  ‘You don’t actually believe that?’

  Soulier made a hiss of irritation. ‘I had a gang throwing bricks through my window because of what Roudy wrote. I told him to back off. If he wants to go sticking his neck out, that’s his affair. I’m not getting dragged into it.’

  ‘I’m not a journalist, Elsa – may I call you that? I’m a private detective investigating a completely different affair.’ Except I’m not because it’s over. ‘I just want to know if your brother received many visits. His social life. Whatever you tell me will be in the strictest confidence.’

  ‘He kept himself to himself,’ said Elsa with a sigh. ‘I told them that. What enemies could he have?’

  ‘Someone from his past, perhaps, his work? He was a warehouse manager, I believe.’

  ‘I never heard of any problems. Besides, he retired eight years ago.’

  ‘Yet someone came to see him that night. And we both know it wasn’t Benamrouche.’

  She looked up sharply but didn’t contradict her. ‘I don’t know who he could possibly have argued with,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘His book was the only thing he was passionate about.’

  ‘Book?’

  ‘Napoleon.’ She nodded vaguely to a bookshelf above the radiator. ‘He was writing a book about him.’

  Magali turned, quickly locating a big, glossy book with Napoleon, Master of War in large white letters along the spine.

  ‘You mean it was published? May I?’ She took it down from the shelf. It was brand new, still in a plastic cover. But the author was someone called Thomas Legros. ‘He wrote under a pseudonym?’

  ‘Oh, no, not that one,’ said Elsa with a laugh. ‘He never got that far. All I’ve got is a pile of notebooks in a box.’

  Magali replaced the book on the shelf. ‘Well, that might help.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The notebooks. Did the police go through them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They didn’t?’ Magali said. ‘Why not?’

  Elsa flapped her hands, as if she was being accused herself. ‘It’s just about Napoleon. I don’t see what they could find.’

  Magali hesitated. How would Xavier classify this? ‘All the same. I’d like to look at them if I may.’ Stage four lunacy. The sort where people believe in the Holy Grail.

  ‘You’ll be doing me a favour if you keep them.’

  ‘Well, I… Don’t you want to hold on to them?’

  ‘They just clutter up the place.’ Elsa went through a door and came back a moment later with a cardboard box which she deposited on the table. ‘I was going to burn them but it didn’t seem right. I’ll get you a bag to put them in.’

  Magali took out a thick spiral notebook and opened it at random. The handwriting, though small, was neat enough to be legible despite all the arrows and crossings out. There were half a dozen similar notebooks, equating to several hundred pages of typescript.

  Elsa came back with a bag. ‘He wrote it all up on the computer so I’ve got the finished thing, as it were. Though he only got as far as Austerlitz so finished is hardly the word.’

  Lunacy indeed to think that in this old man’s obsession could lie the clue to his murder. But Elsa Soulier was happy to see them go, one less burden to deal with. ‘Albert started to look for a publisher but he didn’t get very far. I said to myself I’d find one, for his sake, but I don’t know how to set about it. You know better than me, I’m sure, maybe you can help.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Magali let it show that she had no trouble curbing her enthusiasm for that particular idea. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ***

  On the Sunday after she got back, as the first chill of autumn stung the air, Magali walked to the Roquefavour aqueduct with Antoine. She’d chosen the aqueduct because it was where they had discovered their affinity, which apart from a single kiss that never happened, was, she now accepted, entirely platonic.

  Antoine had never witnessed one of her moods. She’d intended to hide it for longer but they hadn’t gone far before the face she put on was no longer brave enough. ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really.’ But then she added, ‘I don’t think I ought to be doing this.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘This whole detective thing. It’s getting too weird.’

  ‘Weird?’ He said the word as if it applied to nothing less than creatures from outer space.

  ‘It’s become an obsession but at the same time it’s like a game.’ She told him about the Terrals’ house and Balland. ‘I was actually standing next to where they’d been killed and of course it was horrible and yet I was buzzing with excitement. Don’t you think that’s sick?’

  ‘Magali, my dear.’ He bestowed an affectionate, but somewhat pitying, smile. ‘I don’t know whether I may presume to offer some advice.’

  ‘Of course.’ She tilted her head. ‘That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sick is no doubt excessive, but I don’t think this venture is right for you. At your stage in life, do you really want to be getting into such complications? I thought you wanted to paint.’

  ‘I do. I am.’ Stage? Which one was he thinking of? She glanced at him. ‘I’ve been painting everything I saw at Enzo’s house.’

  ‘Really?’ Well, that is definitely sick. ‘Whatever for?’

  She threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know. My morbid obsession again. And the worst thing is they’re better than anything I’ve done before.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to sound old hat but I’m sure there are other sources of inspiration than murder.’

  ‘Of course, I just… I thought it might give me a clue.’
She spoke slowly, recalling her original reasoning. ‘That looking at everything from different angles and perspectives would somehow lead me to an insight. It didn’t, of course. And it’s solved now anyway, so you’re right, I need to find another subject.’

  ‘Solved?’

  ‘Mmm. It was Brigitte Bussert. Darlier busted her alibi. So now he’s got his culprit and Charlotte will be relieved and my services are no longer needed.’

  ‘So that makes it easier, doesn’t it? The decision’s been taken for you.’