by John Brooke
There was a very elderly sun-browned gentleman with a hammer smashing oyster shells on a stump and scattering the bits amongst his chickens.
She hailed him. ‘Thierry?’
He pointed his hammer at a big old house, once stately in the bourgeois sense, now flaky and decrepit. Bénédicte walked up the drive. The down-at-heel drowsiness enveloping the place was offset by four immaculately restored British sports cars parked in a row at the entrance to a large garage behind. One a gleaming cherry red. Bénédicte paused, amused by the right-side steering.
She heard the ring of metallic banging. A male voice cursing. More banging…
She ventured inside. ‘Hello?’
‘Minute!’Thierry Belanger was in a pit, working under a car. The low-slung body had been taken cleanly down to its essential steel shell, except for pink patching along the seams where the wide running boards were attached. Bénédicte read Morgan on the winged crest on the hood. It would be another beauty. But it was what she smelled that attracted her attention: an orangey-lemony scent, candy sweet, utterly chemical but not unpleasant.
She squatted, watched him bang at an axle joint, then spray it thoroughly with whatever was in the aerosol can, affix a wrench to a bolt in the joint and pull mightily. No luck. He swore and gave the stubborn thing another generous dousing of spray — the stuff briefly filled her nose. Up close, it was cloying. She deduced a lubricant. He refitted the wrench, tugged again…and again. The bolt moved. ‘Merci! Putain!’ He extricated it with one long, slow turn and gave the insides of the joint a last shot of spray.
‘Oui?’ He emerged, oily, flashing a distracted smile as he removed goggles and filter mask.
‘Monsieur Belanger.’
Thierry Belanger focused. The smile disappeared. Of course he remembered her.
Bénédicte had been minding Rachelle Tabler the night of the shooting. Before Francine had arrived, the girl had vented much emotional energy, ranting on about Luc Malarmé’s awful treatment of women. A colourful, if unoriginal recitation of entry-level feminist precepts. She had implied, but never once declared outright, that Luc might be her father. Then Francine had arrived, panicky and accusing, with Thierry Belanger holding her hand, chin raised, protective.
Bénédicte had welcomed them into her office, but gave up on any meaningful interaction with Rachelle as family dynamics took over. It had been fascinating and revealing observing Thierry Belanger battle mother and daughter for what you might call ‘father status.’ Together, Francine and Rachelle had resisted Thierry’s grim male presence, his coolly willful care. Bénédicte could not define it exactly, but Thierry wanted a place in that emotional nexus. But Francine and Rachelle wouldn’t let him in. In Thierry Belanger, Bénédicte could see a man desperate to assert a claim not naturally his to make.
The recollection of Thierry’s need constellated in Bénédicte’s nose — around the tangy sweet reek of whatever it was. But she did not ask. Not yet. She gestured at the car. ‘What colour?’
Hauling himself out of the pit, he pulled a rag from a pocket and wiped under his eyes. ‘What colour would you like?’ He was wary and did not for a moment buy her interest in his car.
‘Tournesol.’ A blazing yellow.
‘That could work. But I’m guessing it’s not why you’ve come.’
‘I’d like to see your guns.’
‘What guns?’
‘Please.’ Holding out her warrant card. Being nice, as advised.
Thierry Belanger knew there was no point arguing it. ‘In the house.’
But Bénédicte dithered, circling the car, pretending to assess it. She read a name — LubeIt — on the spray can waiting by his tools. Perhaps it was English stuff. Like the car. ‘How much?’
‘Out of your range. Trust me on that.’ He led her inside.
The kitchen was a mess, the shuttered dining room shrouded in a layer of dust. Apparently Francine did not clean for Thierry. Apparently she was not here much at all — an observation that hearkened directly back to the strained family dynamics of Saturday night.
Entering the equally dismal salon, he threw on a light and opened an antique case containing six rifles lined in fitted grooves. Bénédicte noted two empty grooves at the end. Amongst those still in their place, she did not see anything matching the Remington at Simon Dafy’s.
She asked, ‘Boar or deer?’
He tapped the stock of one. ‘That might do it…in a pinch.’ He shrugged. ‘I prefer birds.’
‘Where are the other two?’
‘One’s buried with my father. Big hunter. My brother took the other. Keepsake?’
‘Where’s he?’
‘Canada.’
‘You have papers for all this?’
‘Sure… Well, papa’s… You know funerals — everything’s emotional. And you might have to ask Canada about my brother’s.’ He met her eyes, daring her to verify.
‘Was Francine at your papa’s funeral?’
‘Actually, she was. But that was long before Francine and me.’
‘All right, good. Thank you.’ Implying that she would certainly follow up.
He showed her out in silence. Thierry talked to his cars but not to the police.
She tried to be friendly. ‘Been here long?’
‘Six generations.’
‘How about the red one?’ A Triumph TR4.
‘It’s spoken for.’
Bénédicte stayed friendly but dropped the pretense. ‘Someone obviously has it in for your neighbour,’ gesturing over her shoulder. Luc Malarmé’s home and property could not be seen, but Thierry Belanger of course knew who she meant. ‘We know Francine has an interest.’
With aggressive slash of his hand through the air, Thierry indicated no! ‘Not now. That’s the thing no one seems to believe.’
‘You heard her kid. You saw what he provoked.’
‘She’ll get past it too,’ Thierry assured her.
Bénédicte thought that was probably true. ‘And you?’
‘I’m the present, he’s the past.’
‘I mean, did you spend time there? Before.’
‘Me? No.’ Obliged to explain, he offered, ‘I was in the army. Then away.’
‘Away?’ For a cop, it was always a loaded word.
Feeling her eyes — police eyes, Thierry smiled thinly. Offered only, ‘My parents died. I came back.’ Then a bleak shrug. ‘My father used to go over there.’
‘One of the party crowd then?’ With the mayor. Claude Dafy. Jérome Giffard’s papa.
It drew a dark laugh. ‘Hardly. More like he went to clean up the mess. Bad drugs…or good drugs, I guess you could say. But bad trips. People out of their minds. Sometimes broken bones and worse — people thinking they could fly. And occasionally someone got kicked by a donkey.’
‘Your father was the doctor.’ The formerly elegant house took on a more distinct shape.
‘He was closest. He would get the call, he’d go. Said he couldn’t believe how people could wreck themselves like that. His own brother died, you know.’
She knew. ‘And Francine got kicked by a donkey?’
‘That was the least of it.’ Thierry Belanger held steady, another man who knew, instinctively, more likely from experience, if Bénédicte was reading him right, how to throw a leading question straight back into the hands of the police, how to dare them to judge right from wrong.
It was the hardest part of the job. She supposed he knew that too.
Bénédicte pulled a sheet of paper from her case. Glossy coated, but empty of images, no cut-glass bottle of scent, no classically elegant woman or a man they’d made to shine. Just a white page, a sticky square in the middle. Of course she had it with her — Bénédicte Barnay was a very organized police officer. She hoped the boss would note it. She was not Isabelle Escande, but a result w
as a result. ‘I have to show you something.’
Ignoring his anxious ‘What now?’ disguised as impatience, she walked back into the garage.
Would he follow, or run? Or shoot her in the back?
He followed, not so much curious as knowing. Which was sad. Not a bad man, just a lonely one. Who did brilliant work restoring beautiful cars. She asked, ‘What is that?’ Pointing to the aerosol can.
‘Oil… penetrating oil. Some of these parts haven’t been touched in years.’
‘I noticed. It smells like cheap candy.’
‘A lot of them do. Still burns your eyes.’
Yes, and what else? She held the sheet flush on her case, scratched the sticky part and lifted the sheet, proffering it. ‘Same?’
He sniffed and conceded, ‘It’s a very generic fragrance.’
She informed him, not unkindly, ‘Monsieur Belanger, I’d like you to come with me.’
His eyes stayed flat. He shook his head, turned on his heel and walked away.
‘Don’t make it more difficult than it has to be, monsieur.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it…’ Au contraire. ‘…was just thinking I should wash my face.’
And he did. And wiped a soapy sponge under his arms, combed his hair. Even dabbed some cologne. And put on a clean shirt. Then, while Bénédicte Barnay waited outside pondering the image of herself and the right man hitting the road in a bright red TR4, Thierry Belanger hanged himself in the stairwell with a rope from the attic, expertly tied round the banister post.
Which is what Thierry’s father had done. Doctors suffer from depression too. Francine Tabler remembered him well. ‘He was a good man. A good doctor. I was always embarrassed when he had to come out to Luc’s. Yes, I went to his funeral. No, Thierry wasn’t there. Army. Or maybe jail by then. Not sure.’ She thought about it and decided yes, the doctor really was buried with his beloved gun.
After her rage, and tears glowing with guilt, Francine had told them that Thierry Belanger had been inside ‘for some things,’ and couldn’t bear the thought of going back. ‘It would have killed him this time, he knew it would. He had what his father had, it gets worse as you get older, the medication can’t stop that, and the people who run the jails don’t care.’
And Francine made a confession. ‘I was trying to get past that but…but life’s hard enough as it is and who needs damaged goods?’ No one. Romantic love can’t be built on charity. ‘I liked the weekends, but I was not going to go the next step. I’m old and selfish, I need what I need. But he really cared about us. He did. I didn’t realize —’
‘Francine,’ Aliette cut her off as gently as she knew how. ‘I saw you that evening. I did not see Thierry. I saw you watching the sky — the sky over Luc’s place. You never took your eyes off of it. Your child was parading around the place with her friends waving obscene placards. Your people were wanting to chat with the mayor. You were preoccupied with the sky. The moment you saw the smoke you sounded the alarm.’
‘It’s my job,’ she whispered.
‘And maybe that saved a few parcels of vines.’
‘I couldn’t stop him. Thierry was sure it would make the bastard leave and never come back. It was not so much for me as for Rachelle.’
‘He wanted to be her dad.’
‘Well, she’s never had one, has she?’
But the fire had not chased Luc Malarmé from the valley. They had to address the possibility that Thierry Belanger had taken the next desperate step toward solving the problem.
Ever defiant, Francine put her hands on her hips and invited the police to search her home. ‘Search my entire life!’ As a pacifist donkey girl who’d even been kicked for her trouble, she had raised her child to detest hunting and hunters. Francine swore she had never owned a gun.
But Thierry Belanger owned guns. Or, given his criminal background, he could probably have secured an unregistered gun. And Thierry had motive: a need to rid the space he’d tried to share with Francine Tabler of the poisonous Luc Malarmé. He had admitted to hunting birds, therefore to knowing how to shoot. It came back to their original line of enquiry regarding the possible theft of a packet of ammunition from Simon Dafy’s gun locker while Francine was cleaning the Dafy house: ‘Yes, I open the windows and doors if it’s not too hot. Yes, the place was open wide on Friday. But no one came by, at least not that I was aware. If Thierry had come, I’d have known. Obviously.’
Aliette wanted to believe Francine.
But her life would be much simpler if they could prove Thierry had been their shooter too.
And Francine had offered no strong alibi as to their whereabouts on the Night of Music.
‘We stayed home. Listened to our own music.’
• 37 •
BAD COP
‘Can we please focus here, Inspector?’ Aliette was having trouble with patience, waiting for Bénédicte to relate more about her interaction with Thierry Belanger that morning. ‘Every single detail, every word!’ To help her better understand.
Bénédicte tried, but in death, Thierry Belanger resisted. ‘Sorry, boss.’ Junior Inspector Barnay hung her head, fighting tears again. She was suffering, convinced she’d let the man who killed Jérome Giffard escape to paradise and now the thing would never be resolved. Bénédicte’s round face was pinched tight in an anguished scowl. ‘I’m a bad cop.’
The boss was more irritated than sympathetic. ‘Stop apologizing! No one’s blaming anyone. This self-torture is just not useful, Inspector.’ Aliette pressed Bénédicte Barnay to move past her guilt for a tragic professional lapse, which, she suspected, was a direct result of the emotional funk the young cop had allowed to invade her soul on the Night of Music. She sent Bénédicte back to Le Mauraury. ‘Bring two of Nic’s gendarmes. Don’t ask, command. Search every inch.’
They did, but found no hidden rifle. Four long-time neighbours who described themselves as friends confirmed that the doctor Ernest Belanger had been buried with his boar-hunting rifle. Bénédicte collected the six remaining rifles from the dim salon and sent them to Montpellier. None of them had any relationship to the bullet that felled Jérome Giffard. Bénédicte went to the computer and did a search on the eighth rifle, but she was blocked by some politics in Canada. Bénédicte slumped, ready to give up. ‘Not yet, ma belle.’ Aliette made her get on the phone and fight through those strange accents. It took another day. The eighth rifle was indeed registered in Quebec. Aliette decided to trust Francine Tabler. Her report on Thierry Belanger stopped short of suspected attempted murder and accidental death.
Next item: Would madame the mayor of Prades be charged as an accessory to arson?
The victim had not yet been apprised of what they now knew. Aliette wanted Luc Malarmé’s feelings on the matter. Ordered to take this to him, a moping Junior Inspector looked like she would throw up. The boss refused to notice. ‘The sooner the better?’
On an impulse, the boss watched from her office window. More disturbing than a moping cop was the makeup Bénédicte had applied, glimpsed clearly as she got into her car and left.
Aliette felt an undefined panic creeping. She wanted more than anything to accompany her officer. The deeper part of her knew it was an assignment Bénédicte had to face alone.
At the heart of it, Luc was a one-on-one sort of guy.
Bénédicte returned to say that Luc Malarmé did not know Thierry Belanger but remembered his father. When the situation was laid in front of him and the subject of charges raised, he had said: ‘Francine doesn’t need that. The vines will come back. It’s cool.’
‘So he forgives her?’
‘It’s more like he can’t be bothered to worry about it.’
Inspector Barnay’s notes were signed by the victim. He regretted the fire but expressed no wish to sue anyone. He wanted to put it behind him. He expressed regret for the death of Thierry Belanger
, but insisted this was another man he did not know and had no sense of any link from the Jérome Giffard tragedy to the fire. He said his relationship with Chloé Dafy was ‘mainly musical’ — which was interesting, but extraneous.
Bénédicte’s approach was worrisome. She was making mistakes. ‘Unless we plan as such, and very carefully with the judge’s OK, you mustn’t lead a victim of one crime into the context of another. But you know that. No?’
Bénédicte Barnay pouted. ‘It’s depressing. It’s like he has no heart.’ Which was no reply.
‘It’s not your problem, Inspector. Stick to the mandate you are given.’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Bénédicte slouched out, sulking.
Aliette had given up wondering about Luc Malarmé’s unknowable heart. She was wondering whether this was the true face of Bénédicte Barnay.
Aliette’s report on the crime of arson suggested the mayor of Prades was not involved. She still sent Francine to talk it out with Magistrate Martine Rogge. Francine’s relationship with the perpetrator meant she must.
…It was depressing, but the police are not allowed to be depressed.
• 38 •
FACETIME
The poisoned dog to Jérome Giffard. The beating in the street to Paul Dafy. The fire in the vines to Thierry Belanger.
It was as if they kept winning enough to buy another ticket as the jackpot grew increasingly murky. Magistrate Martine Rogge joined them in the chief inspector’s office via the miracle of FaceTime technology. ‘Something has to give here,’ observed Martine by way of opening the meeting. She was doing her best to remain optimistic in a losing cause.