“There was this one guy. He was fired or something. He turned up at the house one day, shouting and screaming, and demanding to see Theo. Monsieur Duval, Theo, he came running to see what was going on and the fellow tore off his shirt, beating on his chest sort of thing. I think Theo was frightened by that one. I checked the man out later. He had, I must say, a big chest and pretty big shoulders on him. He was strong, you know? But it was Madame Fontaine that sent him packing.”
This hadn’t been mentioned before, but the police were familiar with people telling them what they thought they ought to know, and little else. People kept a lot back that they thought was unconnected. As often as not it was unconnected. It was sheer instinct on their part.
“Really?”
Alexis grinned.
“Yes. She has her own ways.”
“What did she do?” Henri yawned and looked at the clock, not coincidentally mounted above the mirror.
Gilles let it go on.
“She walked straight up to him, put her hand in the middle of his chest, pushed him out, and, ah, she said a few things as well. Not a swear word among them, but it was effective enough.”
There was the sound of notes being scratched on paper with dry ball-point pens. They were running out of ink on this case and they had nothing to show for it so far.
“Any others spring to mind?” Levain was wonderfully stubborn when it came to questioning potential suspects.
“Ah, there was a bomb threat out at the plant, but that’s not my department. In my opinion, it was just some nutcase making a phone call. They never found anything on that one.”
“When was that?” Henri pounced like a cat.
“Maybe a couple of years ago.”
“What about at the house? Ever see any Moroccans around there?” Alexis just smiled at Levain’s question and shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. Ah, he had an anonymous letter once. I think we sort of concluded that he had been in the society pages quite a bit, and we thought a certain woman must have written it. Jealousy, the discarded lover thing.”
“Ah.” Henri never thought to ask her name, and Levain apparently thought it unimportant.
Gilles would have to put some thought into it, but cleverly-planned murder seemed extreme in such cases, and not with this modus operandi. It seemed unlikely. She would have made an entrance. She would have made a melodramatic, highly-operatic scene, and then shot him. Then she would have fallen across the body and wept for their tragic fates. People like that were famous for pre-trial jailhouse interviews and easy convictions.
“So tell us about the girl. Tell us about your apartment. This is all so new.” Henri was sticking to the basics of the program.
“Yes, well. It was clear that my employment is over soon. They really don’t need me, at least the company doesn’t. They have their own security arrangements out at the plant. It’s a contract job, uniformed stuff and not really my cup of tea. The apartment is cheap. You saw the place, right?”
They had seen the place, hot as hell up there, and this early in the season.
“I have other paintings. Don’t get the wrong idea. They’re stored in a shed at a friend’s house.”
“We wondered about that. Only one painting, Oh, yes, and a naked girl. Did you have some sort of a plan?”
“I know how it looks.”
“So. Theo hasn’t been dead that long.” Andre turned the screws a little tighter.
“She’s alone now. Her only means of support is singing. I offered a few francs, not much really, if she would pose for me. For all I know, she might have done it before, or even been a whore. I don’t care about any of that. By the way…if you harm one hair on her head…”
He didn’t finish. There was no need to. The rest remained unsaid, and no one took it too seriously.
“No, we just wondered why she killed Monsieur Duval.” Henri’s timing could have been a little better.
Alexis threw his head back and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
“You guys are just too precious.” Alexis sat with sparkling good humour in his eyes and a look of real affection on his face.
Except for some details, such as his landlord, who would vouch for when he rented the place, putting a small deposit on it until he moved in, there didn’t seem to be as much here as they had hoped. Gilles was about to tap on the window when Henri, in some blinding fit of inspiration, asked what clearly Levain thought was a dumb question, although there really are none.
“Do you have any suggestions for us?”
“Suivez les argent, mes amis. Suivez les argent.”
Follow the money, my friends. Follow the money.
It was good advice, if only they had something to go on. Maybe the man was right. Maybe it was time to wade a little deeper into the paper trail. Gilles wondered if Alexis really knew anything, or if he was being just intuitive.
On that note, the interview was over, and Maintenon’s rap on the panel was welcome enough to those inside. The wink Alexis gave to the mirrored panel was just an afterthought, yet there was an ironic message there as well.
Alexis was an extremely intelligent young man. It would be wise not to under-rate him.
Chapter Seventeen
Roger was a forensic accountant
“Charpentier’s daily running totals for the local plant all look pretty clean.” Roger Desjarlais was a forensic accountant, often consulted by police and other authorities on matters such as this. “The other plants are similar, with varying degrees of sloppiness, according to the individual manager’s personality, and I suppose the help available. The more overworked a person is, the more sloppy the book-keeping. He’s actually the best of the bunch.”
“He seems very competent as far as that goes.” Gilles nodded in agreement.
His knowledge of business was all related to police work, in which he had spent his entire life. It was another field of human endeavour where he would always be a stranger. Running totals involved things like people on hand on a given day, and their hours, and their rates of pay. These were kept and submitted on a daily basis by department heads and foremen.
“Things like consumables, shipments received, and orders shipped from their warehouse. Things like the electricity are entered in a monthly ledger. Parts from other suppliers have to be kept track of and paid for, or shipped for return. But the errors are of a small order, and in fact there is a small surplus of unaccounted-for cash. It’s nothing too outrageous, but it just goes to show you what can happen.”
“Ah.” Gilles listened intently as always. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Roger’s beady gaze transfixed him just slightly below the heart, and then he met Gilles’ look with a shrug. “More instinct than anything.”
Gilles’ heart leapt strangely.
“What?” His own instincts so far hadn’t done them much good.
But Roger had instincts too.
“That Babineaux—amazing.”
“What? What do you mean?” The needed a new angle, or that most dangerous and self-fulfilling of desires, fresh blood.
“The man is a psychopath.”
“What? What the hell are you getting at?” Gilles hung on his every nuance, almost afraid to breathe, as who knew what might set Roger off on a tangent. “Come on!”
This case was becoming personal to Gilles, which theoretically shouldn’t happen.
“I have, and I can say this unequivocally, never seen a set of books like that. They’re perfect, Gilles, I mean it. They balance perfectly, right down to the last centime. Oh, Gilles, but you haven’t heard the best part.”
Gilles jaw was hanging and he shut it. He’d never heard of this before himself, in fact his own household accounts were never perfect even in their simplicity. He didn’t know exactly what he had in cash in his own pocket, for that matter, nor how much he had at home, or in the bank. He didn’t really know what his next pay-cheque might be, not exactly, not down to the last hundredth of a franc.
&nbs
p; “Hah! Unbelievable! But maybe that’s why they hired him, eh? For all that high-powered expertise.” Gilles recalled from his notes that Babineaux had been with the firm for about two and half years, which wasn’t that long, really. “Hmn. Interesting.”
“No, seriously, Gilles. They were perfect. And this is the best part. He hadn’t made one single false entry. That’s when we put a big ‘X’ in there and go to the next line. That’s so the next person can read it. But he never missed one. No scribbles or deletions. I find that frightening.”
Roger considered his next words.
“It’s possible he keeps a rough copy, but even so—even so.”
“All right, Roger, we’ll bear it in mind. We have to talk to him again anyway, I don’t know, we’ll find something to ask him about. Security threats, disgruntled ex-employees, or something.”
“Really? I’d like to meet him.” Roger was only half joking.
In his eyes, Babineaux was quite a specimen, which was just what Gilles had him down as anyway. Still, it was food for thought.
***
His feet were wet, his socks were wet. His shoes were wet, his jacket steamed on the radiator and his shirt still felt damp on top of his shoulders and down his back. The really strange thing was that he actually felt good. It was hard to fathom sometimes. The grey of the day, the dim light coming in through the window, held at bay by the cheerful light of the desk lamp, wasn’t the source of this mood. It was something inside of him that did it. Some well of inner strength came up and made everything all right again. He wished it would happen more often. The knowledge that it could happen, was enough to keep him going sometimes, waiting for the blessed relief.
Attitude is the filter of perception, which forms the basis of subjective reality. While Gilles understood that he had been suffering for some time, what really surprised him were those odd moments of happiness. When someone told a joke and the laughter went on a little too long, it was a release. It was the contrast that made the effect of his misery more apparent.
He was reading the case notes for the twentieth time, or at least trying to when the phone rang. It was Roger, who he thought had only just left the office a half an hour ago. He glanced at the clock. Hours had gone by, a discovery he had been making a lot lately.
“Yes?” Gilles wondered if he had left an umbrella behind, as the day was pissing rain and everyone and everything was slightly damp.
“Gilles. In the last few days, the stock of Duval Industries has dropped a little over twelve percent.”
“Ah. That is interesting, but by no means pivotal.” Gilles had expected some ramifications to the firm once the primary shareholder was dead.
He wondered how the other shareholders felt about it. However, this was a motive against murder, rather than in favour of it.
“It’s interesting, Gilles. I’m going to keep an eye on it.” Roger was calling from somewhere public.
There were voices and clinking spoons or something very much like it in the background.
“On what? What are you saying?” Gilles was grateful for the distraction, for his eyes were very tired and all the notes were becoming hard to read.
He was becoming burned out by his emotions.
“Gilles, after Duval, there are a small number of shareholders. One or two have in fact put shares on the market, which is a common thing, and they’re selling blocks of them. There is nothing really unexpected there. That’s no reason to kill someone. It’s better to sell when they’re high, right?”
Gilles knew that much about commerce.
“Where are you? At the Exchange?” Gilles was a little confused, as Roger was an accountant, although he was also very sharp with his own investments.
Roger knew everybody, and handled his own transactions.
“Ah, no, I’m having lunch with a friend. Anyhow, what is interesting is that someone else is buying up those stocks. They’re buying them up in large quantities. It may be nothing, but it’s interesting. It’s a pretty sound investment, although there is some risk. The company wasn’t in any financial trouble, and the product line is good. But if you think about it, that’s not a bad premium—you buy low and you sell high. Right?”
“Of course.” Gilles thought it was awfully thin, but of course murders committed in the heat of the moment didn’t compare to the well thought out ones. Most killings were over a few heated words, or fifty centimes worth of cigarettes.
Most murders were domestic disputes, or back-alley stabbings over turf or pride, or vanity, or happened in a drunken brawl between friends. The average murder was senseless, yet this one, if indeed it was murder, must have made some sense to the killer.
“Talk me through it, if you will.” He listened intently as Roger did just that.
“Let’s see here. You kill the owner, and then wait for the stock to take a dive and for someone to sell off some of their assets in a panic. Maybe the person selling gets cold feet or they want to make another investment. The drop in prices spooks them. So then you buy up as much as you can at a reduced price. But think of this, Gilles. What if you already had some stock in Duval Industries, and thought the company had good prospects. You could consolidate a position.”
“And if you hated Theo Duval on top of that…interesting.” Gilles didn’t know what to make of it. “And who is buying up all these shares?”
“Yes, there’s the rub. They’re mostly smaller sales. One company in Switzerland is pretty active, but they seem to be a bit of a predator and opportunism is in their blood. Other than that, it’s possible that they know something we don’t.”
Switzerland.
Gilles began pawing through stacks of handwritten case notes to no avail.
“Such as? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Duval had a new product coming out, and they had some inside information. That’s just speculation. As I said, Gilles, it is a good investment. I think the stock will go up again, and fairly soon. If it wasn’t a conflict of interest right now, I’d seriously look at it myself. It’s probably nothing, but I just thought you ought to know. It’s something to think about in terms of motive. You mentioned that.”
“Yes, I see.” Gilles jotted a couple of quick lines. “All right, Roger, thank you. And keep in touch. You have no idea, really, but we’re just sort of floundering around on gut instinct here.”
The pair rang off. Gilles rose and checked his pockets for small change. Whistling a small and subconscious tune, he went looking for a good cup of coffee.
***
Andre and Le Bref didn’t know each other very well, but they got along just fine. For lack of any real inspiration, they had been assigned to find Alexis’ other paintings, and were about to get a belly full.
“What in the hell have we got here?” Le Bref’s disdain for the artistic temperament was understandable given the dim light, the moldy smell in the air and the clear evidence of moisture damage to the gritty concrete floor, breaking up under their feet as they stood.
“So it’s true, then.” Andre regarded row upon row on canvases, leaning back against the shed wall just under the hanging garden tools.
On the opposite side were dusty pots, brushes, palettes, all of it looking old and disused. There was a smell of turpentine and general mustiness. There were big paintings and small ones, some dark with age and smoke damage, some almost pristine until you saw the grey spider-webs draped over the corners and onto the next half-dozen pictures. Le Bref picked one that didn’t look too heavy and held it up, moving over into the spill of light from the low-set window. With no other source of illumination, they left the door standing wide open. The fresh air was cool and very welcome inside the small building, with its line of windows exposed to the hot sun at the back of a fine formal garden.
“God, I hope he didn’t paint in here.” Le Bref said little, studying the painting, which appeared to Andre’s eyes as a crude still life of flowers, a bottle, and a vase.
“Is that an onion?”
Andre’s joke fell on deaf ears. “Everybody wants to be an artist these days.”
Finally Le Bref spoke.
“Well, the man has some talent.” He looked up at an astonished Andre. “Actually, it’s a little out of date in terms of style. He clearly admired Cezanne, or imitated him a little too much. But it’s a common thing to show our influences in our early works.”
“Hmn. I read somewhere that writers talk mostly about themselves at first.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” Le Bref grunted as he studied it.
He put it down and rifled through the stacks of paintings leaning back on one another, and pulled another one out.
“Hah! It’s me!” Le Bref was delighted with it.
Andre took a closer look.
Sure enough, it was signed ‘Ferrauld’ and everything.
“This is a midget and you’re not…quite.”
Le Bref’s quick grin showed there were no hard feelings. This was actually a better painting in Andre’s opinion. At least some attention had been paid to what the subject actually looked like, rather than some raw and violently emotional impulse driving every brush-stroke and choice of pigment or hue.
“My crazy brother-in-law asked me to pose naked for him once.”
Andre’s jaw dropped.
“I hope you told him to go to hell.” He was firmly convinced.
“After seeing his style, I wasn’t too worried about anyone recognizing me.” Le Bref was cool on the subject. “It was an easy hundred francs, and you can’t complain about that.”
“Huh. Anyhow, Monsieur Ferrauld said he has paintings in a shed, and here they are. What it proves, I don’t know, but this much is true.”
“At least he has an outlet.” Le Bref’s crooked grin reminded Andre of Maintenon when he was on a roll.
“Yes, and that Yvonne is a beautiful woman.”
Le Bref gave him an odd look.
“Did he really impress you that way?”
“What? Oh, God, I don’t know. I was just saying.”
The Art of Murder Page 16