Murder is a Long Time Coming

by Anthony Masters

  ‘Having another bloody Framboise.’

  ‘I really must warn you –’

  ‘And I’m taking it up to bed with me. Goodnight.’

  Marie watched her sister leave the room in silence. She felt suddenly exhausted, but beneath the exhaustion she was afraid. How much did Mireille know? Could she have seen them together?

  *

  The two old people were talking over cognac in their little sitting-room. It was a nightly ritual which they still maintained, despite Solange’s meanderings and misunderstandings of time, place and people. Estelle would be forced to hover until Solange allowed herself to be helped up to bed. Just behind the room there was the kitchen with an ill-fitting serving hatch in between, and it was here that Estelle set up her listening post. Gradually over the months she had grown fascinated by the incongruity of the old people’s conversation, mainly at cross-purposes but illuminated by sudden bursts of clarity. Most of the time Solange mumbled nonsense to which Henri would never respond. Instead he lay slumped in his chair, like an old lizard, she thought, his hooded eyes staring into the empty fireplace. Is he seeing ghosts, she wondered. Young men before a firing squad? Or wasn’t he there after all?

  Estelle would relay much of their conversations, such as they were, to Mariola Claude and they spent hours speculating over Henri’s guilt. Their marathon gossip sessions, usually held in Mariola’s aromatic kitchen, had chewed the subject to bits, but still they talked, happy in their assumptions, titillated by Estelle’s access to Henri. Estelle lived alone, deserted by a mother she now never saw, and Mariola had stepped naturally into the emptiness. She saw Estelle as the daughter she had never had.

  This evening, as Estelle made the coffee they would hardly drink, she listened to Solange’s ramblings with half an ear, not surprised that Marius had settled for an early night.

  ‘I’ll go to St Denis tomorrow and see Jacques and Madeleine.’

  ‘They’re dead.’ Henri’s voice was flat and far away.

  ‘I want to see that herb garden of theirs.’

  ‘The house is sold.’

  ‘She said she’d give me a recipe.’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘And I want to see if Jacques knows where Didier is.’

  ‘You know where Didier is. He’s safe. Out of harm’s way.’

  Estelle moved nearer the hatch. She had a sixth sense for Solange’s more aware periods – and now she could feel one coming.

  ‘I’d like to see Didier.’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘It’ll come out in the end, Henri.’ Her voice was suddenly calm and sure.

  ‘What will?’ he asked impatiently.

  ‘Didier knows it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Didier is very confused.’

  ‘He could testify.’

  Henri laughed, almost cackled. ‘A madman?’

  ‘Didier’s with his mother.’

  ‘He tried to kill her.’

  ‘It was the Maquis that drove him. Every day, every hour – the constant fear.’

  Her bursts of clarity were so sudden that they were alarming and Henri looked up at her curiously. ‘You’re right, of course.’

  Behind the hatch Estelle moistened her lips. She would have something to tell her surrogate mother tomorrow.

  2

  Marius slept fitfully, one erotic dream following another in quick succession. The location was always the same. It was harvest time and he was out working with Jean-Pierre. The sun burnt down on the golden fields with a fierce and consistent heat that heightened at midday until it was almost unbearable. At midday they would stop the tractors and eat the simple meal that Madame Claude, Jean-Pierre’s mother, had prepared for them. Salami. Bread. Wine. Fruit.

  This was always how the dreams began, throbbing in the dusty searing heat of the fields. He saw Jean-Pierre, stripped to the waist, the sweat like oil on his body, the laughter in his eyes, his tongue licking the wine off his lips. Jean-Pierre lay back in the corn, his legs splayed out, his hands behind his head. And Marius was dragging himself towards him, his arms reaching out for him. Except that he was making no progress at all because a dead weight seemed to be pressing down on his legs, and the more he pulled towards Jean-Pierre, the heavier the weight seemed to be.

  Sometimes he woke sweating. Then a light sleep would plunge him back into the struggle again. Towards dawn, he awoke again and put on the light. He got out a sheet of paper and began to write to Monique.

  My dearest,

  Here I am still making enquiries – even on holiday. The usual problem – made worse by the newspaper in Aix – my father’s integrity. They are both much older in their different ways than when you met them in the winter. My mother is far gone, meandering about in her own world, quite impervious to anything outside. She is no longer in touch with reality and has no knowledge of our impending marriage, or of anything else come to that. Father is beside himself with a curious mixture of rage and fear. Meanwhile the gossip about him is getting worse and I can’t substantiate anything. I’ve never been able to get close to him, and it’s difficult to do so now. It was bad enough after the Kummel trial, but this revival of interest is killing him. But the added complication is that I’m only playing at clearing his name – and I think he knows it. I suppose I don’t want to find out the truth in case he is guilty. But I don’t know how long I can go on with this farce, particularly as I feel his suffering so deeply.

  It was good of you to offer to come down but I would prefer you not to; the house is a gloomy place and I am counting the days until I can be back with you in Lyon. There is an atmosphere here of such tension that you would be utterly miserable.

  I used to love this house and would have wished to preserve it always. But now it’s rotting around me all I want to do is to clean up, clear out and sell it to the first available buyer, having settled the elderly parents in some kind of sheltered housing. But will they move? They won’t even think about it.

  Anyway I’ve got a fortnight – a deadline I intend to keep. And during this time I really must try to resolve the situation about my father. Somehow I feel very unprofessional – an amateur sleuth rather than a member of Interpol. I just don’t know how to handle it; although I have a local police contact, there is no path I could take that would be ‘official’. So here I am, playing the ageing boy detective. It’s so strange here – I’m finding I’m in the middle of a sort of role reversal. I was always close to Mother, but now she’s as far away from me as she could be. And I hardly knew my father – yet now he’s pathetically dependent on me waving some kind of magic wand and making it ‘all right’ again. We shall talk on the telephone soon.

  All my love,

  Marius

  When he had finished, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But the painful scenes in the cornfield returned, sharper than ever before. Marius rose, took a whisky bottle out of the cupboard and poured an enormous draught into a tumbler. He drank it in two long spluttering gulps and then lay back. At last dreamless sleep enveloped him.

  ‘What do you want with me at this time of night?’

  ‘Come with me. We can’t talk here.’

  ‘Who let you in?’ The old man sat on the edge of his bed, his shrunken figure in over-sized pyjamas. The bedroom, like every other room in the Château Letoric, had a very high ceiling. There were more pictures on the walls – mainly landscapes of the most traditional nature – and the wardrobes and chests of drawers were built on a massive scale, making the room claustrophobic despite its size. His unexpected visitor stood beside the bed.

  ‘Your son.’

  ‘He is awake?’

  ‘I threw stones at his window – in the manner of the movies.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘He went back to bed.’

  ‘Does he know why you’re here?’

  ‘Oh yes. He is very pleased that the matter is to be cleared up at last.’

  ‘Well, he can’t have been that pleased or he’d hav
e come along with you,’ the old man grumbled. ‘And now you’re asking me to get up and leave the house at this time of night. I’m too old for such capers.

  ‘It’s very important.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Everything’s out now. You’ll be exonerated.’

  He looked incredulous, staring down at his watch. ‘It’s barely dawn.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the early hour. I’m sure you’ll agree it couldn’t wait.’

  ‘And I’m to be exonerated?’ The old man looked up, a suspicious child.

  ‘Yes, that’s a promise.’

  Henri gave a sudden chuckle and his mood changed. ‘Lead on,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this.’

  *

  ‘Where are we going?’ Henri peered around him, hobbling a little. The house and overgrown grounds were grey in the shadowy dawn. A single bird sang from the walled garden.

  ‘Not far – the conservatory.’

  ‘Why did you make me creep out of my own house?’ asked Henri indignantly, tripping over the uneven ground and almost falling. His visitor steadied him gently.

  ‘We’ve got to keep it quiet for the moment – you’ll see.’

  ‘What am I to see? To hear?’ A light breeze blew in their faces, soft, gentle, faintly scented. Above them a pale moon still hung in a lightening sky of scudding cloud.

  ‘All in good time. Here we are.’

  The breezes blew again, this time a little stronger. Henri shivered. ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘You’ll think it’s worth being cold when you hear what I’ve been able to do.’

  Henri shuffled after his visitor into the cobwebs and overgrown vegetation of the conservatory.

  ‘Well, tell me then,’ he said rather querulously. ‘I’m tired.’

  His visitor sighed. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t got any more time,’ he said.

  ‘It’s another glorious morning.’

  ‘Isn’t there a wind?’

  ‘A bit of a one.’

  ‘Not the Mistral?’

  ‘Not the Mistral.’

  ‘Ah well, I can face anything as long as it’s not that. It makes me so bad-tempered.’

  Isobelle Rodiet stretched and turned over in bed. She was a large, beautiful, languorous woman in her early sixties. At the dressing table her husband, Gabriel Rodiet, was straightening his tie. His well-cut light summer suit fitted his barrel-shaped body like a glove. Gabriel was a very well-fleshed man; not exactly fat, certainly not thin. His face was broad, blue-jowled after even the most recent shave, and his compact thatch of black hair was luxuriantly thick.

  ‘I must go.’

  ‘No breakfast?’

  ‘I’ll get some at the office.’

  ‘Why so busy?’

  ‘Just a lot on.’ He came round and kissed her.

  ‘Mm. What are you wearing?’

  ‘My second summer suit, a shirt from La Florette, the tie I believe your mother gave me …’

  ‘Idiot! I meant your aftershave.’

  ‘The filth our daughter gave me.’

  ‘She meant it for the best.’

  ‘She bought it in a flea market.’

  ‘Why wear it?’

  ‘She’d find me out.’

  ‘By the way, I meant to ask you. What did Marius Larche want yesterday?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘His father’s name, I suppose. Oh God – and he’s such a nice boy.’

  ‘Boy? The man’s in his forties.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s boyish all the same. Fancy having to be a son to that horrible old man. I s’pose he thinks he didn’t do it?’

  ‘He has to,’ said Gabriel shortly.

  ‘You told him he did?’ she asked.

  ‘I told him I had no evidence to support an accusation.’

  ‘Have you never thought of finding some? I would think it should be easy to get.’

  ‘I doubt it. The town is full of rumour, that’s all – like it always is.’ The bedroom was bathed in sunlight, picking out the amber quilt, the pale sheen of the walnut dressing table, the pastel walls – all the beautiful shades and objects Isobelle had collected over the years of Gabriel’s rising seniority.

  ‘But you believe he did it?’ she asked insistently.

  ‘I keep an open mind.’

  ‘Why? He as good as killed your mother.’

  ‘She tried to intervene. That’s all.’

  ‘She tried to save those boys and the Germans shot her as a result of her intervention.’

  ‘Don’t let’s have this conversation again, Isobelle,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s bad enough with that wretched journalist stirring – ’

  ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘You do all the caring for me. It’s you who believes Henri guilty. Not me.’

  ‘Gabriel …’

  ‘Well?’ said Gabriel bleakly.

  ‘Why don’t you want to nail the bastard?’

  ‘I’ve known him a long time.’

  ‘Is that the reason?’

  ‘I’ve told you so many times before.’ His voice was dull, emotionless. ‘I have no evidence.’

  She turned over again. ‘You’re not a man of hot blood.’

  ‘Depends on the circumstances,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘See you tonight.’

  ‘Get up!’

  Jean-Pierre looked blearily at his mother.

  ‘Get out of bed. You were drunk last night.’

  ‘I’m drunk every night.’

  ‘You’ll lose your job.’

  ‘Who cares?’

  She bent over him, her dark, rather bewhiskered face only a few centimetres above his. He could smell the garlic on her breath. ‘I care. We’ll have no money. Look at you – your face is swollen. You haven’t shaved. You used to be good-looking. Now you’re drink-sodden.’

  ‘Compliments won’t get you anywhere, Maman.’

  ‘He won’t pay, you know.’

  ‘He will. In time.’

  ‘You know it’s a criminal offence – what you’re doing?’

  ‘What are you on about now, Maman?’ said Jean-Pierre impatiently.

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten he’s a policeman? A high-up policeman.’

  ‘All to the good. He won’t want to admit what happened.’

  ‘It was only a few times. Nothing. Not in this day and age. And what about you? What do you get up to when you go to Lyon? Leaving me here –’

  ‘Don’t start, Maman.’ Jean-Pierre turned his face to the wall, closing his eyes against his mother’s tirade. But he couldn’t close his ears and he could still smell her breath.

  ‘Don’t spoil yourself,’ she berated him. ‘What would the Curé say?’

  ‘He probably fancies boys himself.’

  ‘You’ll be struck down,’ she said furiously. ‘How can you blaspheme like this?’ Then she continued more hesitantly, ‘It was an adolescent business with Larche. It happens.’

  ‘Adolescent? He’s had me again and again.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate.’

  ‘I tell you I’ve helped him out – and not long ago,’ he insisted.

  ‘He won’t pay, I tell you. At best it’ll be in dribs and drabs.’

  ‘He’ll pay up eventually. It’ll get us out of this hovel.’ He looked round at the simple furniture of his bedroom.

  ‘Hovel? This is our home – has always been our home.’

  ‘And we could do better.’

  ‘How can I help it? Your father left us nothing.’

  ‘Yes, Maman,’ said Jean-Pierre wearily.

  She was silent now, staring down at him. ‘If you’re set on this business,’ she said at last, ‘you want to put the screws on him.’

  Jean-Pierre rolled over, his mouth dry and his head pounding. ‘I’m going to have a future,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not always going to be like this.’

  ‘Then put the pressure on,’ she insisted.

  Jean-Pierre looked up at her with a sudden perception he ha
d not experienced in years. Behind the façade of his mother’s persistent nagging, her impatient contempt for him, was someone else: a strong woman, far stronger than himself. Of course he knew this – had always known it – but he didn’t think about her very often.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said with a new respect. ‘I’ll not let Larche off the hook though. He used me.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to do it,’ she replied brusquely, ‘squeeze him harder.’

  She continued to urge him and Jean-Pierre closed his eyes as the words rattled over him like a shower of hail stones. Farm labourer and aged peasant mother, he thought miserably. Shackled to each other for all time. Or were they more like prisoner and jailer? But what would happen if Marius did pay up? Would that alter their relationship? Somehow Jean-Pierre had his doubts.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he groaned, turning over again.

  ‘Estelle.’

  ‘That slut.’

  ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘You mean your chief source of scandal.’ He grinned up at her but she wouldn’t smile back.

  ‘You don’t understand women’s talk,’ she admonished and turned away from him, hurrying to answer the door.

  As Jean-Pierre dozed and dreamily calculated, his mother and Estelle sat hunched over coffee cups in the old-fashioned kitchen. Nothing seemed to have been replaced in years; Mariola did most of her good country cooking on the open range and, despite their poverty, produced classic and magnificent dishes. Her only concession to modernity was an old-fashioned and violently humming fridge, which was wedged against the dark wall a little to the left of a huge and ornate dresser which housed Mariola’s mother’s china. A scrubbed kitchen table and battered store cupboards filled the remainder of the room. In the air hung the scent of past culinary successes and the good coffee they were now drinking. Estelle had finished relating the conversation she had listened to so intently between Henri and Solange and Mariola commented reflectively, ‘Didier can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a tragedy,’ said Mariola obscurely. ‘Now he’s locked up in an asylum near Aix. He nearly killed his mother.’

  ‘Does anyone ever visit him?’

  Mariola paused. ‘I’ve been. Once I took Jean-Pierre. But Didier lives in his own world.’