by John Brooke
To a visitor’s eye, Mathilde Lahi was the mother hen — to all of them. Mathilde ran the office. She was a gold mine of local knowledge, being a born-and-raised local woman married to a busy plumber and the mother of three grown girls who had left for lives in larger places. She was a savvy researcher, having spent ten years dividing her time between the Police Judiciaire and Deeds and Records at the far end of the hall, before being assigned exclusively to Aliette. She’d become proficient at coordinating communications as the PJ team was sometimes far-flung for days on end, attending to separate cases. She was a natural at serving tea, providing aspirin and comforting with homespun expertise. Mathilde filled the mother role in countless ways. But she was not a police officer. Her sense of responsibility stopped far short of life and death. Aliette’s could not.
And the inspector was fascinated by this next generation of her own kind.
Like Mathilde’s tea and a plate of biscuits, it was becoming a regular habit: cup in hand, munching idly, Aliette stood at her office window gazing down at the public garden below. Les deux filles were taking their break on a bench in a sunny space just beyond the shady reach of the magnificent magnolia. Observing surreptiously as the two junior cops suddenly laughed at something, the boss found herself wishing she could hear. Were they talking about love? Work? Talking about her?
She told herself, No, you don’t really want to hear them, you only feel you do. She watched them, wondering, imagining. My girls? Aliette Nouvelle was no one’s mother; it was not maternal. It was vocational. Well… vocational with something enticing added in.
Aliette was supposed to be their mentor and their guide.
She knew she was their follower. As cops, they were closer to the future than she.
Accomplished. Bénédicte was a martial arts expert with an array of advanced belts. Isabelle had won prizes for her shooting at the academy. Both were light years ahead of Magui Barthès on the computer — who was light years ahead of Aliette and Henri Dardé. They made no big deal about it. Magui happily admitted to learning tons as they had tracked the movements of stolen objects all the way to Avignon in compiling evidence against the Roma break-and-enter ring. True, while Henri Dardé had loudly enjoyed the thought that Bénédicte could kill him with her bare hands, he’d gone through a difficult phase accepting Isabelle’s better aim — until the day she possibly saved his life, taking down a distraught, wife-beating vigneron who had outmanoeuvred Henri as they stalked him through his vines. Nor had Isabelle killed the wretched man, something that was occurring too frequently in the police universe these days; a perfect shot to the knee had ended it, leaving Inspector Dardé in awe. And grateful… Henri still complained about being outflanked on all sides by girl cops, but only because he was loving it.
Alors, two very skilled young police officers.
And two very different women.
Bénédicte Barnay was what we call costaud; not an ounce of fat, but solid, stocky. And pale, with a face that was strangely round like a doll’s, indeed some moments — the light, how she happened to be leaning — like an infant’s; other moments, Aliette saw a character from a naif portrait sitting across the table. A halo of unruly black curls and a tight little mouth reinforced the poupée impression. Perhaps to counter it, Bénédicte often wore clunky work boots with her jeans. And Aliette often wished she wouldn’t. But Bénédicte was from a small place, not unlike Saint-Brin, but north, where they did. Perhaps it was why Bénédicte Barnay seemed more eager at meetings, on operations, and with her opinions, than the reserved, sylph-like Isabelle Escande.
Maybe it was why Bénédicte had rented a top floor in rue Constantine, literally around the corner from the office. And why she was so carefully thorough in her every move. So pleasantly welcoming when you knocked on her office door. Bénédicte wanted to fit. Even when observing from fifty metres, it was obvious Bénédicte tried harder than her colleague. She was the more forthcoming, restarting the conversation when it lulled, expending far more words than Isabelle, needing to engage. To be friends? This was one of the mysteries Aliette was mulling yet again, contemplating the two girls.
Isabelle was friendly but not personal. People wanted to know her. She would not allow it.
Counter to her intuition, Aliette hoped her two junior inspectors might be turning into friends. Somehow. Cycling together? They were both avid. Though for Bénédicte it was the classic road bike, an expensive Italian model, according to Henri Dardé, who was even more avid, while Isabelle, the city girl, preferred a mountain bike, roughing it through the fields and woods.
Isabelle Escande was Parisienne. She motored around in a silver SmartCar, dressed in designer tops carefully chosen to add presence to her wiry frame and those grey eyes peering out below a thick pre-Raphaelite blonde mane which she tied up for work, but never entirely. Isabelle made quick decisions, explained them sparingly. An attitude? It had been a worrisome first impression at the office, and worse at Nic Legault’s gendarmerie. Thank the plummy accent.
Junior Inspector Escande had walked past all comments with that quizzical silvery stare.
She had taken a lease on a cottage in Berlou, fifteen kilometres up the road. Aliette admired the choice — a spectacular view across the valley to the sea. She recognized the inclination: the junior cop from Paris had a built-in reticence and kept herself apart.
Aliette and Magui and Mathilde had shared some tea breaks, wondering (the way ladies will) if Bénédicte liked boys or girls. Not fair to wonder, but styles point in certain directions. It was the fuss-free coif, never a hint of coquette. And the boots. At Christmas, Bénédicte let slip that it was boys. Alexandre, the sales guy at the Maison des Vins at the far end of the town square. She was taking him to her parents’ for Saint-Sylvestre. The ladies were happy for the two of them.
They were still wondering if Isabelle was receiving any special visitors to share the view.
Isabelle went nowhere near the topic, deftly fending off the slightest inference.
Aliette recognized that instinct too. Private. Especially in matters of the heart.
Those glimpses of instinct were the enticing thing. A mère-poule chief inspector watching her two juniors on the bench knew that while she trusted Bénédicte Barnay to do the job with all her heart in a full-out effort for approval, she was instinctively more interested in Isabelle Escande.
But with Isabelle, trust was more an image than a feeling, a physical thing — though Isabelle’s hair was thicker, and the silver in her eyes was a flat pewter, where Aliette’s was an icy blue. And Isabelle moved her slight frame in a way more languid than Aliette had ever pictured herself moving. It was like trusting the ghost of yourself but in the time after yours. Each time their eyes met and Aliette saw this forward echo of herself, she ached to know how and where to position it. It wasn’t motherly, and it certainly wasn’t pride. Rather, a certain trepidation.
It had to do with where their two hearts met. Or didn’t meet.
She knew she had to be patient with Isabelle. Like she’d had to be patient with herself.
Aliette saw Isabelle glance at her watch and the interlude on the bench was ended. Les deux filles rose and, without a word, went separate ways. Bénédicte headed back into the mairie. Isabelle was leaving, case in hand, headed for her assignment at the school.
Find the two children who had witnessed the beating of Luc Malarmé.
A mère-poule chief inspector pictured Junior Inspector Isabelle Escande presenting herself to Jérome Giffard. She wished she could be there to observe. The thought occurred: If not for the flip of a coin, Saturday you, Sunday me, it might have been Bénédicte Barnay to whom she had given the stricken Luc Malarmé. Aliette knew it mattered. She felt so. Somewhere in her heart.
She got back to work. On the phone with instructing judge, Magistrate Sebastien Charest: Magui Barthès was almost ready to move against the Roma thieving ring. Then o
n the phone with her Béziers counterpart, Chief Inspector Nabil Zidane: Henri Dardé was working with a city team, investigating the rural side of a wide and growing cocaine-distribution network. Then a call to Montpellier, where a third group was also on the case…
• 6 •
TWO SEVEN-YEAR-OLDS AND A SMASHED GUITAR
Junior Inspector Escande came in later that afternoon. Putting her notes on the table, she said, ‘That man’s a pompous ass,’ reporting how, starting with the ten-year-olds, Jérome Giffard had personally escorted each child to his office and conducted the interviews himself. Isabelle had observed discreetly from the next room. ‘For their sense of safety, or some such tripe.’ She was insulted. She felt sorry for the children. Browbeating and shamelessly coercing his way down through the age groups, the principal had eventually extracted confessions. Marguerite and Marie-Josée were both seven years old. They recounted what they had seen. In a seven-year-old way: ‘They said a big man in a cap. One said green, one said blue. With a beard, at least according to one.’
‘Just one? Malarmé seemed to think two.’
‘Quite a bang on his head. Maybe he saw two.’
‘They didn’t know him?’ The attacker.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What sort of green cap?’
‘They did not specify the cap. A normal one?’
A hunting cap. A tennis cap. A tractor operator’s cap…
‘They knew him,’ Isabelle volunteered. ‘Monsieur Luc. They said he comes to sing for them at lunchtime. They said they gave him some coins and he was singing them a song.’
‘Do they always give him coins?’
‘Sometimes. Ten sous. If they like the song…Then the man with the beard came down the stairs while Luc was singing and hit him with a stick and he fell and hit his head on the passage wall. Then the man kicked Luc, then he kicked the guitar to pieces. He had stared at the girls, then he ran back up the stairs.’
‘A stick?’
Isabelle shrugged.
‘A man in a cap with a beard and a stick. That’s it?’
‘Pretty much…They said they liked his song.’
‘How was Monsieur Giffard handling it?’
‘Like he didn’t believe them. He asked them four times if they were sure. About the hat. The stick. Were they sure it was just one man?’
‘Were they?’
Isabelle Escande flashed a rare smile. ‘I think they’d worked on their story — like they knew the drill? I think he’s dragged them in before. But yes, very sure.’ The smile disappeared. ‘It was clear they weren’t frightened in the least. I mean of Luc. But they could not really explain that to this stupid adult who runs their lives because he wouldn’t let them. He did not want to hear that. He has no idea how to listen to them.’
Aliette did not question her statement. She had sensed it too. ‘Kids see straight through.’
‘I hope so.’ Isabelle waited to be directed.
Aliette said, ‘Two seven-year-olds and a smashed guitar…’ Isabelle had collected the pieces. They were waiting in evidence bags in a blue plastic box beside Aliette’s desk. She lifted it and placed it on the desk — a catalyst to some productive lateral thinking? Forensic examinations cost money and they would need a mandate before they could request Identité Judiciaire to even look for the attacker’s prints. ‘I’m still not sure if this is ours or Nic’s. So far, it’s just a mugging. I have some discretion, but…’ Aliette traced a pensive finger over the plastic covering the frets on the severed neck; her own prints might be there too. She asked, ‘Are you a fan?’
‘Not really. A bit old for me? I was fifteen when he —’
‘Fan of Miri, then?’
A pause as Isabelle reacted. Her silver eyes flashed suspiciously, accentuating the grey. Was this relevant? She allowed, ‘Sure. Who isn’t?’
The boss agreed. Who wasn’t? She informed Isabelle, ‘Nic Legault’s had this for three weeks and hasn’t done a thing.’
‘Had what?’
‘They killed Luc Malarmé’s dog. Lennon. As in John Lennon? Poison. Poor thing was just a puppy.’
‘John Lennon’s as old as my grandfather.’
‘And Nic’s not that interested. I mean, if actions speak. And now this.’
‘The nurse said he was lucky, it could have been worse.’
‘This man deserves our time as much as anyone. I’ll visit him this evening.’ If Luc Malarmé could offer something more, she could start a brief requesting a preliminary investigation. ‘But it’s not sure we’ll get it.’ Isabelle nodded, attentive. Aliette asked, ‘What did he say to you?’
Isabelle frowned, unsure. ‘Boss?’
‘I saw him. Sunday. As you were taking charge. And you responded. What was that about?’
Isabelle recoiled a fraction of a millimetre — perhaps weighing the fairness of this question? ‘He said, What’s your name?’
‘Your name?’
She shrugged. ‘He asked me my name. And I told him.’
‘That’s it?’
Isabelle looked askance — a look that asked, What’s your problem? ‘Oui.’
Aliette had faced that look so often. Junior Inspector Escande did want not to engage in lateral thinking, or anything that might open the door to her soul. Not even a crack.
Signalling the end of the meeting, Aliette said, ‘Good work. I’ll see what I can do.’
Isabelle went back to work on the impending Roma bust. Aliette picked up the phone.
‘Bonjour, Nicolas.’ She did not accuse him of shirking, nor did she wait for excuses. She told him directly that she’d sent an officer to the school to see if there might be more to learn concerning Sunday’s incident.
‘Jérome was just saying.’
Already! ‘You get along?’
‘Sure. The parents love him. My wife is very involved.’
‘What about you?’
‘I let her do that part. Have to keep a little distance here.’
‘Indeed.’ She resisted coming back with Isabelle’s read on the principal, much less her sense of how the children saw him. She mentioned a beard and a green cap.
‘Half the guys in town,’ said Nic. ‘But it’s noted, merci.’ For his part, ‘We questioned fifty or so yesterday…a lot of parents. Nothing, I’m afraid.’
‘What are they saying?’
‘They’re not overly sympathetic, Inspector. I’d say most were…uh, disturbed? Whatever they think about him — and about Miri, I should add — no one supports violence in the streets.’
‘I wanted to alert you that I might keep going on this.’
Sergeant Nicolas Legault gave her his full blessing.
‘Bon.’ As casually as she could, she asked, ‘And your wife?’
There was a pause. Aliette thought she heard what might have been a soft sigh in response to the question. They both knew she was uncomfortably close to a certain line. It was almost like asking Sergeant Legault to account for his movements Sunday morning. ‘Hard to say,’ he finally ventured. ‘I mean beyond the fact of pure evil.’
They both knew it wasn’t a joke.
Nic’s voice dropped a tone, to the confidential. ‘She actually shut up for once. And went straight to her computer. They’re really into it on that thread thing.’
‘What thread?’
‘You know — the town website? The message board they added in January? They talk about everything on that. Wife loves it. Addicted. Forgets my supper. Kids’ too.’ He allowed himself a grim chuckle. Strictly a husband thing.
‘Merci, Nicolas.’
‘It wasn’t her, Inspector.’
‘I would never suggest —’
‘We were at mass.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Nic… I’ll be in touch.’
• 7 •
MIRI’S ACOLYTES
Every town and village had a website now. Most were strictly in support of tourism, framed in colourful photos of surrounding paysage, historical sites, happy people, and of course the local wines. LaBelleStBrin.fr offered much more, providing community news about the wine business, church and school happenings, the library, volunteer firefighters, sporting events and seasonal fêtes. There was a page for Sergeant Nicolas Legault and his gendarmes. They wore the uniforms — to most citizens they were the police. Nic, or someone at the gendarmerie, contributed safety tips for drivers, homeowners, parents of young children, photos of his team in action — a spot check on the highway, a visit to the school. Whether this was in response to a directive from the Ministry under the heading of public relations or a hometown need to get in on the fun, Aliette had no idea. She had received no such directive and was not expecting one. The Police Judiciaire operates in the background — not the sort of cops the public identifies with. On television maybe, but not on the street. To the contrary, the PJ best fulfills its role when performed from a remove. Apart from the occasional satisfaction of finally putting names to oft-seen faces, Chief Inspector Nouvelle mainly used the town website to search, reserve and renew library books.
She opened LaBelleSteBrin.fr, found a button for The Thread (Le fil) — but was immediately blocked by the Sign In command. She stared at it, wary. She was, after all, going in as a cop.
She buzzed and requested Mathilde’s presence. Tout de suite. Please.