Blood Counts

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘And which of the little minxes is it this time? Don’t tell me . . . Justine. I’ve asked her mother a million times . . .’

  ‘It’s Izzy, Monsieur Blanchard, and I’m afraid I have some bad news. Is your wife up?’

  ‘Izzy? But she just got married. She’s on honeymoon.’ He glanced at the kitchen clock, its big hollow tick filling the room. A real Provençal farm clock, not the painted pretender put up in Le Mas Bleu. ‘Should be getting the train any time for Paris, the two of them. Back in a week . . .’

  This was how long it took for the phrase ‘bad news’ to filter through to Blanchard. Of all his daughters, Izzy was the one now removed from his care, no longer his responsibility, out in the world with her new husband. When it did finally get through to him – a visit from the police and the suggestion of bad news – a tight little frown played across his features, as though there had to be some kind of mistake.

  ‘Liiiii-se-ette,’ he called out for his wife, as though she was the one who should be there to take responsibility for her girls, and deal with whatever they might have got up to.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here, what’s all the fuss about?’ came a voice from the hallway, and into the kitchen came Madame Blanchard, wrapping the ties of a housecoat around her waist. She was as stout as her husband, but her hair was neat, brushed, pinned back, a pair of button-like black eyes flicking between the three men in her kitchen.

  Both Brunet and Jacquot got to their feet and stayed standing as Jacquot informed mother and father in a soft and sorrowful voice that their eldest daughter, Isabelle Blanchard, now Gilbert, had been found dead in her bed at Le Mas Bleu.

  Madame Blanchard dropped the ties from her fingers and stared across the kitchen table at Jacquot as though he was speaking in a foreign language and she hadn’t been able properly to understand what it was that he had said.

  ‘But she just got married,’ said Blanchard Père, as though that somehow made the announcement of her death invalid, unlikely. How could anyone die the day after their wedding?

  ‘What happened? Where is she?’ asked Madame Blanchard, reaching for a chair and letting herself down onto it. Of the two, she seemed the more alert.

  ‘Dead, you say?’ asked her husband, now shaking his head as though that simply wasn’t possible. She’d be back in a week. After her honeymoon in Paris. There was room for no other possibility.

  ‘She was found earlier this morning,’ continued Jacquot. ‘By her husband, Monsieur Noël Gilbert. She had been shot.’

  ‘Shot?’ gasped the old man. ‘Shot, you say? How? Why? Who?’

  ‘Please, please tell us this is all some horrible joke,’ said Madame Blanchard, clearly hoping it might be just that. Just a joke. Just some dreadful mistake.

  ‘I regret, Madame, this is no joke. She died in her sleep. We are still trying to establish . . .’

  ‘And Noël?’ asked Madame Blanchard. ‘Where is he? Why isn’t he here? Has he been shot too?’

  ‘Your son-in-law has been taken to the hospital in Cavaillon. He was in some considerable shock.’

  ‘But what was he doing?’ demanded Blanchard. ‘Is he to blame? Is he the one who did this?’

  Jacquot shook his head.

  ‘At this time, it seems highly unlikely that Monsieur Gilbert had anything to do with his wife’s death . . .’

  ‘But where was he? How did he let something like this happen?’ demanded Blanchard, slapping the top of the table with the palm of his hand. ‘He’s her husband, for the love of God!’ As a kind of defence mechanism, Jacquot knew, the old man was now focusing his attention on the poor performance of his son-in-law as husband and protector and provider, rather than facing directly the issue of his daughter’s death.

  There was no such artifice or deflection from Madame Blanchard.

  ‘Someone . . . killed Izzy? She’s been murdered?’

  There was a movement behind Madame Blanchard. Jacquot looked over her shoulder. There, standing at the kitchen door, in the shadows by the old farm dresser, listening to this exchange, were three young girls, Izzy’s sisters – twelve, sixteen and the nineteen-year-old whom Claudine had coached for the École des Beaux Arts. Jacquot wondered how long they had been there. Long enough, it seemed. A scream pealed out of the oldest girl as the church bell in St-Florent started calling the faithful to Mass.

  7

  ‘I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE IT,’ said Claudine, shuffling an omelette onto Jacquot’s plate.

  It was Sunday night, about the same time that he and Claudine had returned from the wedding the previous day. Jacquot had come back an hour earlier after a long day at headquarters, had showered, put on clean jeans, shirt and a pullover, and slipped his bare feet into a ragged pair of espadrilles. He was hungry and tired when he took his seat at the kitchen table, but pleased to be home.

  ‘Yesterday,’ Claudine continued, ‘we were at her wedding . . . today, pouf, she is gone. It’s another world. Just . . . incroyable.’

  Having emptied the skillet she took it back to the range and returned to the kitchen table with a small bowl of tomato salad that she placed beside Jacquot’s plate, found him a serving spoon from the table drawer, then pulled out a chair and dropped onto it. She hadn’t cooked anything for herself. Instead, she played with a glass of Apremont, her favourite Savoyard wine, swirling it round, staring into its sparkling depths as though she might find some answer there. She looked pale with shock, her eyes dulled with sadness.

  ‘You should eat something,’ said Jacquot, helping himself to some of the tomatoes.

  Claudine shook her head.

  ‘I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.’

  Jacquot glanced at her across the table. He had known she would be upset, but had been surprised to find her quite so unsettled, so saddened. Normally Jacquot’s work was a subject for limited conversation only, but this evening – probably because it was all so close – she had wanted to talk.

  Claudine had known about the killing long before he got home. By mid-morning word was out, and telephones were ringing from Cavaillon to Apt and beyond. When Jacquot called to say he wouldn’t be back for lunch there was no resigned sigh, just a catch of breath and, ‘How could they? How could someone do something like that? A young woman, on her wedding night.’

  He had calmed her, soothed her, told her that he loved her, and would be home for supper. He would call again. He would let her know what time . . .

  ‘So what have you heard?’ asked Jacquot, slicing into his omelette, its golden skin speckled with the green sorrel that grew in wild profusion on the side of the road leading to their millhouse. As he took his first bite, he reflected that it was always interesting comparing local gossip with the established facts of an investigation – the few that there were at this early stage. It also gave him an opportunity to listen, not talk, and to concentrate on his first real meal of the day. The warm, damp croque monsieur at lunchtime from the canteen at Cavaillon police headquarters really did not count.

  ‘I knew there had to be something pretty serious for you to be up and out so early,’ Claudine began. ‘After you’d gone I lay in bed and felt guilty about making you dance so much. You must have been exhausted?’

  Jacquot’s mouth was full. He waved his fork hand. Pas du tout. Not at all.

  Claudine put down her glass and slid her fingers along its stem.

  ‘It was Madame Tapis who called and told me the news. After that, the phone never really stopped.’

  Jacquot swallowed, reached for his wine.

  ‘And what did Madame Tapis have to say?’

  Madame Tapis ran the pharmacie in Coustellet just a few kilometres from Le Mas Bleu, and anyone who had their prescription passed over her counter was part of the groupe, to be brought up to speed on any or all newsworthy items that came her way. In her white sneakers and tight white pharmacist’s overall she was a whispering almanac of local information and gossip – from birth to death with marriage, adultery and divorce in between. If no presc
ription needed to be filled and the details couldn’t be personally passed on over the counter of her cramped premises on place Dubert, then Madame Tapis would pick up her phone and start dialling. Once the old dame had something to pass on, it was as good as taking an advertisement in the paper – only a great deal swifter and more effective.

  ‘Apparently, some time in the night, Izzy was murdered,’ said Claudine. ‘Shot. In her bed. And Noël asleep beside her.’

  Jacquot took another mouthful of his omelette and nodded.

  ‘That’s about right,’ he said, scooping up a forkful of the accompanying tomato salad.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’ he replied, dabbing away a dribble of vinaigrette from the side of his mouth.

  ‘Well, there must be more. I mean, how come Noël didn’t wake up? And how come he wasn’t murdered too? And anyway, who would want to kill poor Izzy?’

  ‘Madame Tapis didn’t have a theory?’

  ‘There is a feeling . . .’ Claudine paused, played with her glass.

  ‘A feeling?’

  ‘A sense that, maybe, Noël . . . got drunk. Was drunk. Lost his temper, maybe . . .’

  Once again she paused and looked embarrassed, as though it somehow wasn’t right that she should think such a thing, let alone pass it on, share it.

  Jacquot finished his omelette and pushed his plate away, wiping his mouth with his napkin, throwing it down and reaching for his wine.

  The movement seemed to snap Claudine back to the kitchen table. And somehow lighten the moment. She gave him a stern look.

  ‘The sink is behind you, Monsieur. There is a dish-washer, but it is not me.’

  With a slow grin Jacquot did as he was told. On his way back to the table he put his hands on Claudine’s shoulders and leant down to place a kiss on her neck.

  ‘Noël Gilbert did not lose his temper,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘And he was not drunk.’

  ‘Then how . . . ?’

  ‘That is what we will find out. In the meantime, I regret to say that Noël Gilbert has been transferred to Aix General Hospital after slitting his wrists in a bathroom at Cavaillon Hospital. But I didn’t tell you that . . .’

  Claudine might have been one of Madame Tapis’ bande at the pharmacie, but Jacquot had long ago learnt that she could be trusted with a secret. She may listen to the rumour mill, and often pass on what she had heard, but she would never contribute to it. Much to Madame Tapis’ irritation, Jacquot suspected, knowing as she did that Claudine lived with a flic.

  Claudine was aghast at this news, hands flying to her cheeks.

  ‘Bon Dieu! That is terrible . . . Is he okay?’

  Jacquot spread his hands. He didn’t know. He had only heard about the incident after getting back to headquarters from the Blanchard’s farm. All he could do was repeat the latest bulletin he’d received from Aix General just an hour or so before leaving headquarters: that Noël’s condition was now stable, despite an enormous loss of blood.

  ‘He was in a private room, with an officer outside the door. Somehow he’d got hold of a pair of scissors, asked to be taken to a bathroom and then locked himself in. By the time they broke down the door he’d slit both wrists. And when you do it down the length of the arm, as he had done, rather than across . . .’ Jacquot demonstrated what he meant ‘. . . well, it’s clear he really did intend to kill himself. Another few minutes . . .’ Jacquot shrugged. ‘What we need to establish is whether that action was the result of remorse and guilt or because he was devastated by what had happened to the woman he loved.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Claudine.

  ‘What? Innocent or guilty?’

  She nodded.

  ‘When I saw him this morning, I believed he was innocent. Immediately. He was shocked – I mean, really shocked; couldn’t have acted it. Just so raw, so . . . helpless. Searching for someone to explain to him what had happened, and what it all meant.’ Jacquot shook his head, remembering the lad’s desolation. ‘And I believe it still. Even more convinced. And he was drugged, of course. Did I mention that? Which is the other reason I believe he’s innocent. Jean thinks that all this could have been engineered, arranged, set up by Noël – for whatever reason – but I don’t think so.’ Jacquot reached for his cigarettes and lit up. He offered the pack to Claudine, but she shook her head.

  ‘What do you mean drugged? An injection? What?’

  ‘There was a strange smell on his pillow, and in his hair. Chemical. As though someone had come up behind him and put something over his nose and mouth . . . so he didn’t know what was going on. Which could, of course, give us a lead: what chemical? How easy is it to get hold of? Who would have access to it? It’s the way we start . . .’

  ‘Narrowing down the game,’ said Claudine, breaking in. ‘I know, you’ve told me.’ She gave him a sad smile. She didn’t want him to misunderstand, to feel she was putting him down. ‘But what I want to know is why anyone would want to kill poor Izzy?’

  Jacquot reached for an ashtray, put it beside him and tapped his cigarette against its edge.

  ‘Well, there you have me. I simply can’t explain it. No motive that I can see. Either emotional or financial. She wasn’t wealthy. There was no insurance policy we’ve been able to find. No jilted lovers, on either side. She was just a country girl, on her wedding night, with her new husband.’

  ‘Maybe the killer was after someone else. Maybe it’s a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘According to the owner of Le Mas Bleu, there were no last-minute room changes, which could have proved significant. The suite had been booked weeks ago by Noël – and what he booked he got. The best room in the house. As for the other guests – six of them, three couples – well, there’s no one you’d put down as a possible assassination target. A couple of ramblers in their sixties starting out on a Luberon hike, an English travel writer and his girlfriend, and a retired couple from Belgium who are hunting through Provence for a house in the sun. Brunet has interviewed each of them, taken statements, addresses and personal details. There was nothing they could tell him. And nothing that aroused his suspicions.’

  A silence settled between them and Jacquot watched through his cigarette smoke as Claudine considered all that she had learnt. A gentle frown had stitched itself across her forehead, her dark eyebrows were angled, her warm brown eyes staring into her glass. She wore no make up, her skin lightly tanned but not dark enough to hide the scatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose. That would come later, he knew, at the end of summer. As for her long black hair she had tied it in a knot, secured by a small paintbrush, and the black polo neck sweater she wore gave her a sad, sombre look. She reminded him a little of Juliette Greco, made him think of smoky Paris jazz clubs and Beat Poets.

  At times like this – sad, silent, contemplative – Claudine had the look of a woman who knew the world, knew how the world worked and was resigned to it. She had, too, the look of a woman who knew her men as well as she knew the world, a woman with a past – self-assured, bold, mysterious – a woman who had taken many lovers.

  But Jacquot knew better. She’d been married twice, with not much time between to play the field. Her first husband had died in a car crash and left her with a daughter, Midou, currently working in Guadeloupe for Sous-Marine-Ecologique. As for husband number two, he had been caught in the marital bed (now the guest room) with one of Claudine’s best friends, and promptly been let go. As Jacquot looked at her, he decided he had never been happier with a woman than he was with her, thanking all his lucky stars for the twists and turns of fate that had brought them together.

  They had first met at an art gallery in Marseilles. He had missed the opening night, Claudine’s first ever exhibition, and visiting a few days later, had mistaken her for a gallery assistant rather than the artist herself. It was almost a year before they met again, at Hôtel Le Grand Monastère in Luissac where she was helping to run a painting party and he was investigating the disappearance of one of t
he guests. One evening he had played piano for her, croaked a few lyrics, and been utterly unmanned – the look of her, the presence, that sharp, jibing little tongue, the haughty toss of her head, the jutting chin, that slow secret smile that slid across her mouth and crinkled her eyes. He had kissed her for the first time in the hotel reception area but it had been another two months before they became lovers. A year later he’d surrendered his small attic apartment in Cavaillon and for the last three years they had lived together in Claudine’s millhouse on the road to Apt. Taking a last drag on his cigarette, Jacquot folded it into the ashtray, then tipped back his head and blew out a column of smoke.

  Three years. Just a magical time.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder how you bear it,’ said Claudine at last, breaking the silence. ‘The horror you see, the dreadful things you have to do.’

  ‘I bear it as a doctor or a nurse bears it. Bad things happen.’ Jacquot waved his hand as though it was of no importance; just a fact of life. ‘But it helps to come home to a place like this, and to a woman like you.’

  She reached a hand across the table.

  Jacquot leant forward to take it.

  ‘Just promise me you’ll always come back?’

  ‘Just so long as you promise me you’ll always be here when I do?’

  Claudine held his eye. He knew she was thinking of a suitable retort. He was right.

  ‘So long as you continue to behave, and watch your manners, and do the washing up.’ Then she paused, thought of something else, and her face hardened. ‘And find whichever bastard it was who killed Izzy Blanchard.’

  8

  THE BLANCHARDS’ WEDDING PHOTOS ARRIVED on Jacquot’s desk first thing Wednesday morning. They came in six cellophane envelopes, along with the pathologist’s report and initial forensic findings.

  Since the pathology report provided little to go on beyond confirmation of death by gunshot, approximate time of death, height, weight, age, gender and colouring of victim, and since the initial forensic findings offered nothing more than a single 9x19mm Parabellum slug retrieved from the Gilberts’ mattress, a few strands of blue wool from the access hatch in Le Mas Bleu’s linen room, and more than seventy separate sets of fingerprints (hotels – and poor housekeeping – made such dreadful scenes-of-crime, reflected Jacquot), it was the arrival of these wedding photos that quickened his interest.