Murder is a Long Time Coming

by Anthony Masters

  ‘Is he violent?’ asked Estelle with excited curiosity.

  ‘They keep him sedated.’

  ‘Does he know anything about Henri?’

  ‘Perhaps he did once. He’s very confused now.’

  ‘But why? What drove him crazy?’

  Mariola paused, savouring the moment. ‘He was a brave young man – very young – only in his late teens when he worked with Solange in the Maquis. Almost the same age as Commissaire Rodiet.’

  Estelle leant forward, a child, wondering at the power of the storyteller, engrossed in a heady narrative.

  ‘He had some terrible experiences. Before she went barmy, Solange told me he had been tortured by the Gestapo – just as she was. After the occupation ended he fell to pieces.’ Mariola drank more coffee. ‘Now he’s like a shell.’

  Estelle idly thought of an empty sea shell – the kind she might pick up on the beach. In her mind’s eye she put her ear to it, wondering if she would hear the sound of the ocean. Instead she heard unmistakable cries of pain.

  ‘Wake up.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Wake up. The Boche have got him.’

  Marius opened his eyes to find his mother standing over him. Her large breasts flopped out of her dressing gown.

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘He’s gone.’ She was very agitated.

  ‘Calm down. Cover yourself up.’ Her lack of dignity was unbearable. She had always been so composed, regal even. Now her reserve had disappeared completely and he could see the scars.

  ‘He’s gone.’ She tugged at his pyjama sleeve. ‘Henri. They’ve taken him. Come and see.’

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Time?’

  He searched on the floor and found his wrist-watch. ‘It’s after nine. He’s gone for a walk.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for him.’ Her voice took on a more normal tone and Marius looked up sharply.

  ‘Mother – if you’re really worried –’

  ‘Yes, I’m worried.’

  ‘OK. Let me get dressed.’

  She still stood in his bedroom, looking down at him.

  ‘Let me get dressed.’

  She sighed as she began to walk away.

  *

  Marius searched the house and then the grounds while she stood by the door, looking out helplessly. He left the conservatory until last because it had such bad associations for him. But finally he went there. It was just after ten and the Mistral had begun to blow. The heat was still intense, but the wind battered him relentlessly and the long unkempt grass rustled like a prairie.

  His father lay on the floor of the conservatory. Never had Marius seen so much blood.

  To see his father dead was so unbelievable that Marius simply stood and stared, unaware of time passing, looking fixedly into his father’s dead eyes. They returned his gaze rigidly. He was lying on his back, a kitchen knife in his hands. Marius recognised it by the unusual design on the bone handle. It had an elephant carved into it. His father had sliced ham with it. Now he had slit his throat. The long thin line out of which so much blood had flowed was so neatly sliced that it was almost impossible to see the cut until he looked hard. The blood had flowed from the incision all over his dressing gown and down his pyjama trousers. There was so much that he looked almost festive. One hand clutched the knife; the other lay neatly at his side. I won’t disturb anything, he thought. He’s not just my father. He’s my corpse.

  Mother? Damn. He’d forgotten all about her. He should have known she would have wandered down here eventually. She was standing in the doorway, quite calm now, looking at her husband dispassionately.

  ‘They’ve done it.’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Boche. Bloody Boche.’

  ‘Mother. He’s taken his own life.’

  ‘They cut his throat. The pigs. In reprisal for me. We’ll have to hide. Hide all the servants. They’ve been torturing me. I wouldn’t say anything. Now they’ve done this.’

  He took her arm and tried to lead her away, but she resisted. ‘Come away. Now.’ He was strict, authoritative. Despite this, she still didn’t budge. ‘Do I have to carry you?’ he insisted.

  Then she began to cry. No tears but just great hard dry sobs. ‘Henri – I want you back. I want you back.’ Her voice was muffled.

  Eventually he managed to lead her away. On the way back to the house he met the slatternly Estelle, showing her thighs, mounted on a bicycle with a basket of doubtful-looking vegetables in front of her. She suddenly made him feel physically sick.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘My father. An accident.’

  ‘Henri – he’s dead.’ Solange went up to Estelle like a child and laid her hands on her bicycle handlebars. ‘They’ve murdered Henri.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Estelle repeated the words with deep, gloomy relish.

  Too late, Marius remembered how much she loved death, funerals, illness – it gave her life meaning. He had privately nicknamed her the Chief Ghoul. Now she was in her element. Marius observed her closely, trying to keep the waves of shock at bay. But the horrendous image of his father’s blood was sharp and distinct and could not be erased.

  ‘Take her arm –’

  ‘Murdered,’ muttered Solange.

  ‘Take care of her.’

  ‘Me?’ Estelle dismounted, showing more grey flesh, and leant her bicycle against the crumbling brickwork of the terrace which fronted the overgrown lake. It was very hot in the morning sun and he could smell her sweat.

  ‘Yes. Take her into the house. Make her coffee. Give her brandy.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Phone the police.’

  ‘But you’re a policeman,’ said Estelle stupidly.

  ‘He’s my father – I can’t investigate this.’ He still felt sick and a trembling was beginning behind his knees.

  ‘Please!’ The old woman was standing there like a patient old horse.

  ‘Very well. Come on, dearie.’

  ‘They killed him.’

  ‘Come on, love. Let’s have a brandy.’

  Marius knew Estelle had automatically assumed that the offer of brandy definitely included her.

  *

  ‘Rodiet.’

  Marius stood by the telephone in the hallway of Letoric. Bright sunshine flooded the grubby mosaic in great golden beams. Dust swirled in one of them and he stared at the translucent specks without speaking for a few seconds.

  ‘It’s Marius.’

  ‘How are you?’ His voice was a little vague.

  ‘My father’s dead.’

  There was a short silence. Then: ‘How?’ Rodiet’s voice was crisp.

  ‘His throat’s been cut.’

  ‘I see.’ He sounded impatient and Marius felt a stab of anger. Doesn’t he understand what I’m saying – doesn’t he know it’s my father who’s dead? My own father. Tears filled Marius’ eyes for the first time since he had seen the slim pencil line cut in the withered throat.

  ‘My mother. She came in. I didn’t have much time to … Will you send someone?’ His voice broke.

  ‘I’ll come myself. I’m very sorry.’ Too late he was being conciliatory. ‘When did you –’

  ‘Just now. He’s in the old conservatory.’

  ‘I’ll be a few minutes, and, Marius …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sit down. Don’t go back in there.’

  ‘I haven’t touched anything.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t.’

  ‘Forensic are on their way,’ said Gabriel Rodiet gently.

  They stood staring down at the old man. He looked like a bloodied doll. It was curious – he hardly resembled his father at all.

  ‘Who will be in charge of the case?’ asked Marius humbly.

  ‘Lebatre. You know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s good.’ Rodiet paused. ‘I wouldn’t say he’s been dead very long. Doctor will tell us.’

  A bee lazil
y buzzed over Henri Larche’s dead white nose.

  ‘The old lady?’ asked Gabriel. ‘What about her?’

  ‘The domestic’s helping to take care of her.’

  ‘How’s she taken it?’

  ‘Confused. She knows he’s dead.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Do you want to leave it all to me?’

  ‘No. I want to get used to it.’

  Marius had never liked Gabriel. Not because he had disliked his father, not because he had been such a very young Resistance hero and had known his mother in her heyday – but because he had never come out on either side. He was too fair, too anxious to be even-handed. In addition, his bullish approach grated on Marius, as did his sympathy. Even now he was putting a hand – a hairy paw – on his own. God damn him.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be better inside?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well.’

  There was a short contemplative silence. Then Gabriel said, ‘What are your thoughts on this?’

  ‘I’m not on duty. This is my father,’ Marius spat out at him.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Gabriel was penitent, which infuriated him even more. ‘Of course it’s all so … They’ll be here soon.’

  3

  They came in a burst of wailing sirens and melodramatically screaming tyres on what was left of the gravelled drive. What a performance, thought Marius – and performance it certainly was. Even Gabriel seemed slightly ashamed of it.

  ‘So little happens here – they’re like children,’ he apologised.

  But when the police contingent arrived at the conservatory and stared into the dead eyes of Henri Larche, they were brisk and efficient, courteous and patient, and all the things they should be. Curiously there was more of a ‘hospital’ feel to them than anything else. With low voices and sympathetic glances, the four policemen, photographer and doctor went through their paces in the narrow space around Henri’s stiffening body.

  ‘You don’t have to watch all this,’ muttered Gabriel.

  ‘I’d rather.’

  It was boiling hot in the conservatory with the sun high in a cloudless sky. Lebatre stood silently amongst the fleshy-leaved camellias at the back. He was a very fat man with a huge paunch somehow squeezed into a light grey suit. His face was as pouchy as his body and the perspiration stood out in little crystals on his forehead. The waiting seemed endless, and without speaking to Marius, Lebatre stood there and watched the solemn ritual until the police doctor pronounced himself finished. The doctor then muttered something to Gabriel and they went outside with inaudible excuses.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘Yes?’ Marius was watching a butterfly hovering on the mossy panes.

  ‘Philippe Lebatre.’

  They shook hands. Lebatre’s palm was hot and dry.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  ‘Inside the house. It’s cool in there.’

  Lebatre smiled. It was a civilised, reflective smile and it gave an edge, a distinction to his pudgy appearance.

  ‘Will you have him taken away?’ Marius asked, looking down at his father.

  ‘To the mortuary. Immediately, unless – ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You want to spend time with him.’

  ‘No. You’d better take him away.’

  They walked out into the harsh sunlight; Marius leading the way into the house with Lebatre a few paces behind him. We’ll go to the study, he thought, wondering where Estelle had taken the old woman.

  ‘Is this your father’s room?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marius replied. Who else could it belong to? There could be no mistake. It was an old man’s room. Cluttered and stuffy. The walls were thick with photographs and every surface seemed to leak dusty books and papers. A tall, solid oak bookcase took up an entire wall, crammed with Henri’s law library. The books were jammed in higgledy-piggledy and there was dust on the glass. On a small table were dried flowers, bought from Marie and Mireille Leger’s little shop. Next to them was a bottle of aperitif – St Raphael – and beside it were half a dozen clean shiny glasses.

  ‘Can I offer you something?’ asked Marius, seeing Lebatre’s eyes on the label.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Ice? I can fetch it.’

  ‘Will that be a trouble?’

  ‘A matter of seconds.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Marius left him, his nugget eyes flitting round the room. Would Lebatre touch anything, he wondered, or was it just a visual inventory?

  When he came back, the ice clinking in the two glasses, the mid-morning sun was casting dusty beams on to the dark-stained uncarpeted wooden floor. Marius poured the St Raphael on to the ice. He still felt very numb and the alcohol flooded him with a sense of well-being.

  ‘A great tragedy.’ said Lebatre respectfully.

  Marius said nothing.

  ‘Did you see your father at all this morning?’

  ‘No. My mother woke me – to say he wasn’t in the house.’

  ‘Did she say where she thought he’d gone?’

  ‘She said the Germans had taken him. My mother is suffering from the effects of a stroke. She is also very old. She lives in the past – or even not quite that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It makes her happier than she would be otherwise.’

  ‘Does she know he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She thinks the Germans did it?’ Lebatre’s voice was gently understanding.

  ‘She thought that then. But now she may have changed her mind. She has flashes of rationality.’

  ‘So it was you who found him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lebatre paused, looking round at the dusty photographs. Then he said hesitantly: ‘I am aware of the – pressures – surrounding him.’

  ‘Who isn’t, in this town?’ snapped Marius.

  ‘In a small town everything is news.’

  ‘Yes. But St Esprit has only got one story.’

  ‘The past is of great emotional importance here.’ Lebatre paused. ‘You are on vacation?’

  ‘Officially. But I was spending the time trying to help my father clear his name.’

  There was another short silence. Marius took another sip of the aperitif. The illogical feeling of well-being was gone; a sense of despair filled him. ‘Do you think he could have killed himself?’ he asked Lebatre, knowing he was asking a nonsensical question.

  ‘No. It’s possible that someone tried to make it look as if your father killed himself – in a rather half-hearted way. I would imagine that time was their problem. The doctor thinks he died somewhere around dawn.’

  ‘Why should my father get up so early and go to the conservatory? In his pyjamas? If someone came to the house and lured him out there it would mean they opened the front door and went up to his room. That would seem ludicrously risky. And I hardly think they threw stones up at his window. Unless there had been some kind of prior appointment? And why shouldn’t he have told me in that case?’

  ‘There’s no sign of the door being forced,’ replied Lebatre. ‘Perhaps this person was well known to you. Someone who could come and go at will.’

  ‘There’s only Estelle, the girl who comes in from the village. She has a key. No one else could come and go like that – unless they found an unlatched window.’

  ‘No one else at all?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Visitors are pretty scarce at Letoric, particularly since the trial.’

  ‘Has any evidence against him come to light?’

  ‘None.’ Marius cleared his throat. Despite the cool of the interior of the house, his shirt was sticking to him clammily. He looked at Lebatre’s empty glass. ‘Another?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t join you. You won’t get any sense out of me if I do.’ Marius slopped more St Raphael into Lebatre’s glass.

  ‘I could come back and ask –’ />
  ‘Ask now.’

  ‘Kummel is serving a life sentence,’ stated Lebatre. ‘Can’t he clear your father’s name?’

  ‘We’ve already tried that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Through lawyers.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He won’t talk. He says he has nothing to say.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  Marius shrugged. ‘He must have known.’

  ‘Then why –?’

  ‘I can only suppose he’s either mischievous – or he’s too old to remember.’

  There was a long silence. Then Lebatre said, ‘Despite all that has happened, despite the fact that your father was surrounded by all kinds of possible enemies – is there anyone you know who might actually harm him?’ He smiled nervously, as if he was asking a stupid question.

  Marius shook his head. ‘My parents have lived as recluses – ever since the trial.’ Then he remembered. ‘There were some abusive letters, written by one of the Leger sisters. Marie Leger. She imagined, quite erroneously, that my father had colluded with her brother Alain in disinheriting her and her sister Mireille. It’s a very complicated business but I can assure you there was no truth in the accusations.’

  ‘Do you have these letters?’

  ‘He destroyed them.’

  Lebatre sighed. ‘Your father was a much accused man,’ he said eventually.

  ‘He suffered a good deal,’ Marius replied.

  ‘And his state of mind?’ asked Lebatre in the gentle way he asked loaded questions that Marius was beginning to recognise – and to be wary of.

  ‘He was worried – as you might well expect him to be.’

  Lebatre nodded sympathetically. ‘I gather your mother was in the Resistance – that she survived the Gestapo?’

  ‘Yes. I’m very proud of her – and conscious of the irony as well.’ He paused. ‘The irony of the rumours surrounding my father,’ he explained.

  ‘Did you ever – have you ever believed him guilty?’

  ‘No. It was not in my father to be as devious as that. To keep up the pretence of innocence, to show such bitterness about the accusations. And it would have been quite out of character for him to preside over some kangaroo court,’ he added dismissively. But the familiar nagging thought returned. Did he really know his father?