The Dying Minutes

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘Oh, there were so many. A sailors’ mission in Genoa. The Musée de la Mer in Sanary. An old cinema in Nice, scheduled for demolition. And to make matters more complicated, many of the recipients were overseas: a wonderful charity digging water wells in remote areas of India; farm collectives in Kenya and Malawi; a school for blind children in the Philippines. Apparently most of the children were blinded while suffering from measles. That’s what he told me. The strong sunlight, you understand. The parents didn’t realise …’ Down the line Jacquot heard Cluzot sigh. ‘The list, Chief Inspector, was extensive. But we did it all. As instructed by our client. Everything above board.’

  Jacquot remembered the holidays. Africa, India, the Far East, Madame Nallet had told him. It all made sense. A remarkable kind of sense. But where had all the money come from?

  Over by the oven, Claudine was unwrapping the bream. A cloud of steam billowed from the opened foil and the warm scent of aniseed filled the room. She caught Jacquot’s eye, tapped her watch.

  ‘Alors, Maître Cluzot, you have been most helpful.’

  ‘À votre service, Chief Inspector. If there is anything else I can help you with?’

  Jacquot assured him that he would be in touch if that turned out to be the case, and with further thanks he brought the call to a close.

  ‘That looks wonderful,’ said Jacquot, replacing the phone.

  ‘You don’t deserve it,’ Claudine replied, trying to dodge the kiss he was intent on placing on her neck. ‘On the phone all night. You’re on sick leave, remember?’

  ‘This is not police business, my darling,’ he replied, managing to place his kiss, then taking his seat at the kitchen table.

  ‘And my name is Jacques Chirac.’

  ‘Alors, if that’s how you want it, Monsieur le Président …’

  59

  JULES RANQUE WAS badly late. His wife would not be amused. They had agreed to meet at Mirador on the old port at eight-thirty, and it was already well past that as he spun down Quai Rive Neuve looking for somewhere to park. He had booked the table a week before. It was their anniversary, twenty years together, the only blight in their time together their inability to have children. Ranque wondered how much money they must have wasted on IVF treatment, and wondered, too, how much longer he could sidestep the increasingly broached subject of adoption.

  Jesus Christ, over his dead body, he thought. He knew the way the system worked. They’d fill in enough forms to clog up an entire government office, and their backgrounds, the lives they led, the friends they kept would be picked over with a fine-toothed comb. And he couldn’t even pull any strings. When it came to adoption the authorities were rigorously inaccessible. Not that he would have tried to twist any arms, though his wife had suggested it on more than one occasion.

  Because go the adoption route and what did you get? What was on offer? Nothing white, that was a sure-fire goddamn’ certainty. Black, or yellow, or Arab, or soft in the head, or in some other way disabled. Certainly disadvantaged. And the Lord alone knew what kind of genes – some low-life loser getting another low-life loser pregnant. Not that his wife seemed to mind. Anything would do so long as she could hold it and cuddle it and dote on it, and pretend it was hers.

  Nature not nurture. That was what Ranque had learned after twenty years in the prison service. It didn’t matter how damn much you cared for the little bastards and loved them, the money you spent on them, the schools you sent them to, the home life you provided. Ten, twelve years down the road, something clicks in and the kid goes wrong – after all you’ve done, all the money you’ve spent. The genes win out. No argument.

  Tucking the car into a space off place Sadi-Carnot, Ranque switched off the engine and reached for his wallet, slid out a small paper wrap and looked around, checked the wing mirrors, rear-view mirror. No one about, the pavements empty both sides of the street. A couple of lines left, he estimated, carefully opening the wrap. Might as well do a big one, he decided, and tapped the remaining white powder on to the back of his left hand. With his right hand he took a Biro from his inside pocket, flipped off the cap and with his teeth pulled out the ink tube. A perfect funnel.

  With a finger on one nostril, and one end of the tube in the other, he held the tip of the Biro over the coke and hoovered up the pile in a single take, just the one nostril. A lick of the hand to pick up the dust, a few stinging sniffs, and he waited a second or two for the first numbing lump of snot to slide down the back of his throat. Which it did, like a sweet, silvery snail. Swallowing and savouring the slippery wad, he pulled down the sun visor and checked himself in the mirror. Wetting the tip of his finger, he removed a few white crumbs from his moustache and licked them up, then wiped a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

  There, he thought. Much, much better. A drink, a good meal, a subtle steering of the conversation away from adoption, and the prospect of a table at Mirador, even with the wife, seemed to shine on the horizon like a golden light. He was home free.

  Opening the car door, he struggled out and stooped down to lock it, fumbling with the key, his hand shaking as the coke hit.

  Ranque didn’t hear the motorbike, or if he did he paid it no attention. Not even when it slowed, came to a gurgling halt beside him, as though the rider was about to park or ask for directions. As he straightened up, pocketing his keys, he turned to see the pillion rider dismount, pull something from his jacket, and saw the driver rev the engine.

  The next thing he knew, the pillion rider had wrapped an arm around his shoulder and was pressing something hard and cold into his ear …

  And then, nothing.

  Part Three

  60

  ‘ALORS, LOOK AT you,’ said the waitress, Josette, as Jacquot stepped out of the midday glare into the shadowy darkness of La Marine. ‘Much, much better. Put on some weight, hardened up, if you’ll excuse my French. Looks like you found yourself the right woman,’ she teased. ‘Last time you were here, you had the stick, that painful walk. It hurt me every step you took. Now look at you.’

  Jacquot thanked her, confirmed that, indeed, a good woman had been looking after him – Josette gave a playful moue of disappointment – and asked if his friend Salette, had arrived.

  ‘The usual table, chéri. Pastis, like the old man?’

  Jacquot gave her a nod and a smile and made his way into the back of the bar where he found Salette.

  ‘You’re late,’ the old harbour master grunted.

  ‘Good to see you, too,’ said Jacquot, pulling out a chair and sitting down. There was a basket of bread and a bowl of wrinkled black olives between them. Jacquot helped himself.

  ‘Feel free,’ said Salette, folding away the newspaper he’d been reading. ‘So how’s the boat?’

  ‘Intriguing,’ replied Jacquot.

  Salette frowned. ‘Something wrong with her?’

  ‘No, something wrong with the previous owner.’

  The frown deepened.

  Salette was about to say something when Josette arrived with their drinks, set them down and asked if they wanted some lunch, recommending La Marine’s plat du jour.

  ‘What is it?’ growled Salette.

  ‘S’il te plaît … the magic words.’ Josette tipped a wink at Jacquot.

  ‘What is it, s’il te plaît, Mademoiselle?’ Salette repeated through gritted teeth.

  ‘A bourride. Made by Raymond’s mother.’ Raymond was La Marine’s chef and propriétaire. He was a good cook but his old mother was better.

  ‘Bourride then,’ said Salette. ‘S’il te plaît.’

  ‘And the same, thanks,’ said Jacquot. He’d smelled the bourride coming in, had been keeping his fingers crossed there’d still be some left. A good bourride went fast.

  ‘So, Philo,’ began Salette, when Josette had gone. ‘Some problem?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ve been straight with me,’ began Jacquot.

  ‘Not again,’ groaned Salette. ‘I told you. It’s a done deal. Philo left me the boat wit
h clear instructions to pass it on to someone appropriate. You’re that appropriate person. You signed the papers. You’re the owner. Finis.’

  Jacquot nodded. ‘I know that, thank you. But did you know that Philo was married? Well, not exactly married. But closely involved with someone … lived with her for more than twenty years. A woman called Edina. Eddie.’

  ‘No, I did not. Because he was not. Married or … otherwise. To Edina or Eddie, or anyone else for that matter. And I should know,’ Salette said, tapping a finger on the table.

  Jacquot nodded, as though taking this in.

  ‘So what about the house on rue Savry in Roucas Blanc? And his collection of books at the Musée Bibliothèque in Aix? I suppose they’re not real either?’

  Salette gave him a look. ‘You’ve been drinking, boy. Or had too much sun.’

  Jacquot sighed. ‘J-P, believe me, it’s true. All of it. The girl, the house, the books. No mistake.’

  But Salette was adamant, just as Jacquot had known he would be.

  ‘I was his executor. I’m the one who knows. Twelve hundred francs in a current account. Three thousand in a savings account. At his bank. Credit Agricole on République. I closed it all up for him. Then there was Constance. A few personal belongings. C’est tout. I told you. He was a fisherman.’

  Jacquot was shaking his head. He reached for another olive, a square of bread and popped them into his mouth.

  ‘Maybe once, sure. But not for the last twenty odd years. I know. I’ve checked.’

  ‘You’re dreaming. All of it. There was no woman in his life that I know about, and he sure as hell didn’t have a house in Roucas Blanc, or some book collection in a museum. Just those old paperbacks. And I would have known if he was up to something,’ said Salette, taking a sip of pastis. ‘I knew the man more than fifty years, Daniel. Out there,’ he said, nodding to the harbour and the ocean beyond. ‘Fair weather and foul. You learn a lot about a man in that time. Believe me.’

  At that moment, Josette arrived with their bourrides. Cutlery was placed, a bottle of Bandol white opened and tasted – ‘with the compliments of Raymond’s mother,’ Josette told them – and napkins flourished and laid across laps.

  ‘Merci, Josette,’ said Salette, with a growl.

  ‘De rien, J-P,’ and wishing them, ‘Bon appétit,’ she tucked her tray under her arm, readjusted her superstructure and spun away.

  In silence now, the two men took their first spoonfuls, blowing across the soup to cool it. It was rust coloured and lumpy, thick as a bad cold, and the garlic hit like a peppery grenade.

  ‘So who told you all this?’ asked Salette, still not convinced, breaking off a hunk of bread to push into the soup. ‘Who did you check with?’

  ‘A rare book dealer here in Marseilles, Philo’s neighbours in Roucas Blanc, a museum director in Aix, and his lawyer in Avignon.’

  ‘A lawyer now? An Avignon lawyer?’

  ‘He acted for Philo in the sale of the house in Roucas Blanc, and with various bequests.’

  ‘And this lawyer, and the others, they confirmed his identity? You showed them a photograph?’

  Jacquot admitted that he had not, but that there was no doubt about it. Then he changed tack.

  ‘Dis-moi … What did Philo do after the fishing stopped? When he was too old to go out? You, you moved to the Capitainerie here in Marseilles, got to be harbour master. And Bruno, harbour master at L’Estaque; Laurent, repairing nets in Madrague and running that chandlery in Pointe Rouge. But what did Philo do?’

  Salette raised a hand, waved at Josette. She came over with the soup tureen and ladled more bourride into his bowl, the tureen pressing against her breast, swelling it, deepening her cleavage with every dip. The view settled him, and Jacquot could see he was thinking, giving consideration to the question.

  ‘For you, chéri?’ asked Josette.

  Jacquot pushed his bowl in her direction. ‘Delicious. Of course.’

  After she had gone, Jacquot pressed his point. ‘Well? He must have done something.’

  ‘He took a job with an outfit called Tours d’Azur, out of Cannes. Long gone now, of course. Private charters, that sort of thing. The calanques. The islands. Did it maybe ten, twelve years. On and off.’

  ‘On and off,’ repeated Jacquot. ‘So how often did you see each other? You and Philo. After the fishing. When he was skippering and you were harbour-mastering.’

  ‘La Fraternité mostly. That’s how we kept in touch. That’s why we started it.’ The Brotherhood was a group of old sea salts like Salette who met up every now and again for a good lunch. Sometimes it was once a week, other times, Jacquot knew, months would pass. ‘And then there was Constance. Sometimes we’d meet up there …’

  ‘And outside the Brotherhood? And Constance? How often?’

  ‘Now and again. Nothing regular. Alors, we all had our lives to live.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jacquot. ‘And in Philo’s case, a life none of you knew about. A double life. Like the man who marries two women, supports two different families, in two different towns. It happens all the time. Sometimes they get found out. And sometimes they don’t.’

  ‘So he’s a bigamist now …’

  ‘J-P, I’m not saying you didn’t know your friend, but there’s more here than a good run of cards and luck with the ladies. A great deal more. Your friend Philo was a wealthy man. Very wealthy. What I’m saying is that you knew only what he wanted you to know.’

  Salette spooned up some soup, pushed bread into his mouth, shook his head. Jacquot could see that he was getting tetchy. Salette was not a man who liked to be crossed, to be caught out. He reached for his wine, took a swallow.

  They ate in silence for a moment. Jacquot re-filled their glasses.

  Then he began again: ‘Dis-moi. Was Philo a kind man?’

  ‘You’ve got his boat. You tell me.’

  ‘I mean, generous. To his friends. Helping them out, maybe. Financially. Paying off debts, that kind of thing.’

  Salette gave it some thought. ‘He was always the first with his hand in his pocket, if that’s what you mean. Never one to miss his round.’

  ‘No. More than that. More than the price of a drink. Bigger money.’

  ‘Boufff … He was a fisherman. What money he had was just enough. For his place in Madrague. For the skiff. Food and supplies.’

  ‘And Constance.’

  ‘And Constance. Oui. Of course.’

  ‘So when did you first see Constance?’

  ‘You are asking a lot of questions. Why?’

  ‘I just need to square things, J-P. In my head. I’m a flic. I need to understand.’

  Salette finished his soup, reached for his glass to wash it down.

  ‘Well, I can’t help you. About Constance. I really can’t. I can’t remember exactly. He just had it. Twenty years, maybe more. It was his little escape.’

  ‘Who owned it before him?’

  ‘I told you. The coastguard, down in Toulon. Then Customs. I know it was auctioned off. That’s what he told me. Got it for a good price, he said. And knowing Philo, I don’t doubt it. He could drive a hard bargain.’

  ‘And then, presumably, he spent money doing it up. Like you said, it’s been kept in pristine condition.’

  ‘That’s passion, not money. There were only two things Philo loved and that was reading his books …’ Salette waved a hand to the door of La Marine, and out to the harbour, ‘… and the sea.’

  ‘And women.’

  ‘And women.’

  ‘So tell me about his women. Who were they?’

  Salette pushed away his plate, licked his finger and picked at the crumbs on the table cloth. ‘I can’t recall,’ he said at last.

  ‘Did you ever see him with a woman?’

  Salette shrugged. ‘Back in the day. They came and went …’

  ‘So tell me about the place in Madrague. Is it sold? Rented out?’

  ‘It’s not the kind of place you’d put in an immobilier
’s window. Word’ll get round the port. The landlord will find someone. That’s how it works.’

  ‘Do you have a key? Like Constance?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And his possessions? Do you have them too?’

  Salette gave Jacquot a sly smile, then pinched the soup from the corners of his mouth.

  ‘And I suppose you want to take a look?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘The keys, too?’

  ‘Also correct.’

  ‘Will it stop all this nonsense?’

  It was Jacquot’s turn to shrug. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Well, you can have the keys now,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and handing Jacquot a metal ring. ‘The address is on there. Rue Tibido. As for his possessions, your millionaire left a single shoebox,’ he continued, as though this illustrated better than anything the fact that Philo was not the man Jacquot imagined him to be.

  ‘If it’s just the one box, I’ll go through it at your place, and you can supply the refreshments.’

  ‘Boufff … there’s so little to see, there won’t be time for a drink,’ replied Salette, determined to have the last word. ‘I’ll drop it off, the next time I’m passing.’

  61

  OVER CAP FERRAT the sun was high and bright, almost white in a pale, milky sky, a warm, shifting sea-breeze ruffling the slim, green brush of the cypress trees that bordered Hauts des Pins. Shutters on every side of the house had been half-closed, their louvred slats angled to catch the breeze and keep the interior cool. On the terrace the awnings had been rolled out to their maximum reach but no more than half the terrace was shaded, the lawns below, dropping down to a distant rocky shore, crisp and brittle with heat, waiting for the cool, tapping spray of the evening arrosage.

  Jarrive, the butler, and Delon, the old man’s nurse, sat in the salon watching TV, occasionally casting an eye towards the terrace where Patric Polineaux sat sleeping in his wheelchair. An hour had passed since the old man had pushed away his omelette nature and salad, most of which he’d left, to continue leafing his way through the pile of photo albums that he had had Jarrive bring out to him, flicking through the stiff board pages, tilting the books to the light to see more clearly. Then he’d laid the last of them back on the table and drifted off, his head tipping back to the headrest, lips parted, mouth ajar. Neither the butler nor the nurse was keen to disturb him. So long as the breeze lasted, so long as the awning kept the sun off their boss, they would leave him as he was. He was always easier when he woke by himself.