Black Water Lilies

by Michel Bussi

  Sérénac pours boiling water into the cafetière as he replies.

  “We suspected as much. The murderer wasn’t going to give himself away. Conversely we could say that it makes a hundred and seventy-one Givernois innocent…”

  “If you say so…”

  “And that Jacques Dupain is not among those hundred and seventy-one… We’ll leave him to sit there awhile longer. With regard to the rest, where have we got to?”

  Inspector Bénavides unfolds his famous three-column sheet.

  “You really are a maniac, Sylvio…”

  “I know. I’m building this inquiry the way I built my terrace or my veranda. With patience and precision.”

  “And I’m sure that at home, Béatrice is as fed up with the sight of you as I am in the office…”

  “Exactly… But my terrace is still a masterpiece.”

  Sérénac sighs. “So, go on with those stupid columns of yours…”

  “They’re filling up, gradually… mistresses, Water Lilies, children…”

  “And we’ll have solved the investigation when we’re able to draw a big horizontal line linking the three columns. Except that, at the moment, we’re paddling about so much that even a hundred and seventy-one pairs of boots may not be enough…”

  Bénavides yawns. The lilac armchair seems to be gradually swallowing him up.

  “So, go on, Sylvio, I’m listening. This evening’s news.”

  “Column one, the ophthalmologist and his lovers. We’re starting to collect statements, but we still don’t have anything that would justify a crime of passion. Nothing new, either, on the meaning of those wretched numbers on the back of each photograph. But I’ll keep trying. To cap it all, we have no news from Aline Malétras in Boston, and we’ve reached a dead end as to the identity of the stranger in the fifth photograph…”

  “The maid on her knees in front of Morval in the sitting room?”

  “You have an excellent memory, Chief. As for the others, I’ve tried to order the husbands who have been cheated on by their capacity for jealousy. Jacques Dupain is without contest at the top of the list, except that we have no tangible proof of adultery on his wife’s part. Have you anything new on your side, Inspector? Did you meet with Stéphanie Dupain yesterday?”

  “Joker!”

  Sylvio Bénavides looks at him, perplexed. He interrupts the digestion of the armchair as he struggles to sit up.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Joker. Full stop. I’m not going to tell about those lilac eyes sending out SOS messages, or you’ll report me to the magistrate. So I’m playing my joker. Wait and see. I’ll take care of that section of the investigation personally, if you prefer. But I agree with your analysis. We have no proof of adultery involving Jérôme Morval and Stéphanie Dupain, but Jacques Dupain still fits the profile of our number-one suspect. So, let’s move on, your column number two: the Water Lilies?”

  “Nothing new since our meeting with Amadou Kandy yesterday. You were supposed to contact your colleagues in the art division.”

  “OK. OK. I’ll do it. I’ll talk to them again tomorrow. I’m also going to have a look around Claude Monet’s gardens…”

  “With Stéphanie Dupain’s class?”

  The steam from the cafetière curls up above Sérénac’s untidy hair. The inspector stares at his deputy with concern.

  “It’s incredible; you seem to know everything about everything, Sylvio. Have you been recording our conversations and spending your nights listening to the tapes?”

  Bénavides yawns noisily.

  “Why? Is the school visit a secret? For my part, I’m having a meeting tomorrow with the curator of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, in Rouen.”

  “And for what reason might that be?”

  “Initiative and autonomy, that’s what you recommended, isn’t it? Let’s just say that I want to get a better grasp of the story behind Monet’s paintings and his Water Lilies.”

  “You know, Sylvio, if I were suspicious by nature, then I could take that as a lack of confidence in your immediate superior.”

  Sylvio Bénavides’s eyes, though weary, gleam with mischief.

  “Joker!”

  Inspector Sérénac carefully pours some coffee into a cracked cup. He puts a tea bag and hot water in another, which he holds out to his deputy.

  “I’m really having trouble understanding the Norman psychology, Sylvio. You should be by your wife’s bedside instead of working overtime…”

  “Don’t worry. I’m just a tad obsessive, that’s all. I know I look like a lapdog, but I can be stubborn enough. I don’t know anything about art, so I just need to do some catching up. Listen, this last column, number three. The child.”

  Sérénac pulls a face as he sips his coffee.

  “I’ve been through the list of children supplied by Stéphanie Dupain. Ideally I tried to find a girl or a boy who is around ten years old and whose mother worked as a cleaner, possibly at the Morval house, about ten years ago…”

  “And who wore a blue smock and a little short skirt… So how did you get on?”

  “Nothing. There isn’t a single child on the list who matches that profile. There are nine children in Giverny who are more or less the same age, roughly between nine and eleven. Among those parents, there are two single mothers. The first works at the bakery in Gasny, the village on the other side of the plain, and the other one drives the local buses.”

  “That’s not uninteresting…”

  “No, not uninteresting, as you say. I’ve also found a divorced mother who teaches at a secondary school in Évreux. All the other parents are in couples, and none of the mothers is a cleaner, either now or ten years ago.”

  Sérénac leans against the Formica table. He looks disappointed.

  “If you want my advice, Sylvio, there are only two possible explanations for your failure. The first is that your hypothesis about an illegitimate child is completely wrong. That’s the most likely scenario. The second is that this child that Morval is wishing a happy birthday on the postcard found in his pocket isn’t from Giverny, nor is his mistress, the girl in the blue smock giving him a treat. She may not even be the child’s mother. So…”

  Bénavides hasn’t touched his tea. He looks up shyly.

  “If I may be so bold, boss… There could be a third explanation.”

  “Ah?”

  Sylvio hesitates for a moment.

  “Well… quite simply… the list supplied by Stéphanie Dupain could be wrong.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Sérénac has spilled half of his coffee. Sylvio sinks back into the lilac armchair but goes on talking:

  “Well, there is nothing to prove that this list of children is accurate. And Stéphanie Dupain is another suspect in this case…”

  “I don’t see the connection between her hypothetical flirtation with Morval and the children in her class.”

  “Nor do I. But then there are so many other factors in this case where we can’t see a connection. If we had enough time, we’d compare this list of children with a list of all the families in Giverny, first names, occupations past and present, the mothers’ maiden names. Everything. You can say what you like, but that phrase of Aragon’s written on the card in Morval’s pocket, The crime of dreaming, I agree to its creation, has a direct connection with the school in Giverny; it’s a poem that the village children learn by heart. You told me that yourself, Chief, and you heard it from Stéphanie Dupain.”

  Sérénac drains the rest of his cup in one go.

  “OK, I hear what you are saying. So imagine if you are right; what would we do next?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel as if the Givernois are hiding something from us. Like the kind of omertà you’d find in a Corsican village.”

  “What makes you think that? They’re not normally your kind of thing, impressions?”

  A worrying light passes behind Sylvio’s eyes.

  “It’s just that… there’s something else ab
out my third column, Chief. The kids. I warn you, it’s strange… More than strange, in fact. Startling might be the word.”

  31

  This morning, in Giverny, the weather is wonderful. For once I have opened the sitting-room window and have decided to do some tidying up. The sun slips into my room with suspicious timidity, as if it were entering this place for the first time. Because there’s no dust in my house for the sunlight to set dancing, it simply settles on the sideboard, the table, the chairs, making the wood seem brighter.

  My black Water Lilies lurks in the shadows. I defy anyone, even looking up through my open window on the fourth floor, to notice the painting from outside.

  I take a little tour. In the sitting room everything is in its place, which is why I’m reluctant to go rummaging about, above the wardrobe, at the bottom of the drawers, or to go down to the garage and empty moldy cardboard boxes, lift trash bags split in two, or exhume cases that haven’t been opened in years. In decades, even. I know what I’m looking for, though. I know exactly what I want to find. I just have no idea where I’ve put it, after all this time.

  I know what you’re going to say, you’re saying to yourself that the old woman is losing her memory. You can think that if you like… But don’t tell me you’ve never turned the whole house upside down just to find something, an object you knew only one thing about: that you’d never thrown it away.

  There’s nothing more annoying than that, is there?

  I’ll tell you the truth: the thing I’m so keen to find is a cardboard box—plain, the size of a shoe box, full of old photographs. It’s hardly original. I read somewhere that you can now put a whole lifetime of photographs on a memory stick the size of a cigarette lighter. That’s progress, I suppose.

  Without much hope, I go through the chest of drawers, slide a hand under the Normandy wardrobe, behind the rows of books.

  There is nothing, of course.

  I have to resign myself to the fact that what I’m looking for isn’t within easy reach. My box must be somewhere in the garage, under the layers of sediment that have accumulated over the years.

  I’m still hesitating. Is it worth it? Do I have to go to the trouble of moving all that bric-a-brac just to get my hands on a photograph, one photograph? A photograph that I’ve never thrown away, I’m sure of that. It is the only one that holds the memory of a face I would so love to see one last time.

  Albert Rosalba.

  Without reaching a decision, I take another look at my tidy sitting room. There are just those two boots drying by the chimney breast. Well, drying… Two boots that I left there, I should say. Obviously the fire is not lit.

  It isn’t Christmas yet.

  32

  Even though Sylvio Bénavides put as much emphasis as he could on those last words, his boss still doesn’t seem to be taking him seriously. He gets up and pours himself another cup of coffee with a distracted air, as if he were still counting the boots in his head. His deputy brings his cup of tea to his lips and grimaces. No sugar.

  Sérénac turns back toward him.

  “OK, I’m listening, Sylvio. Startle me…”

  “You know me, Chief,” Bénavides explains. “I’ve gone through everything that might provide a link between Giverny and the story of an illegitimate child. In the end I found this in the local police archives…”

  He places his cup of tea on the floor and rifles through the bundle of papers at his feet, then hands his superior a report from the police station at Pacy-sur-Eure: a yellowing piece of paper with a dozen lines on it.

  Sérénac swallows hard. The cracked cup trembles in his hand.

  “I’ll sum it up for you, boss. I don’t think you’ll like it much. It’s a small news story. A child was found drowned in the brook leading off the Epte, in Giverny. In the very place where Jérôme Morval was murdered. Killed in exactly the same way—the same ritual, as you put it—apart from the stabbing: the child’s skull was crushed with a rock, and then the head was submerged in the stream.”

  “Good God… What age was the child?”

  “Just a few months from turning eleven.”

  Cold sweat runs down the inspector’s forehead.

  “Bloody hell…”

  Bénavides clutches the arms of his chair.

  “There’s just one hitch, Inspector. This story happened a very long time ago.” He pauses, dreading Sérénac’s reaction. “Nineteen thirty-seven, to be precise…”

  Sérénac collapses onto the sofa, his eyes fixed on the yellowing report.

  “Nineteen thirty-seven? What on earth is going on here? A kid of eleven died in exactly the same place as Morval, in exactly the same way, but in 1937? What kind of madness is this?”

  “I don’t know, Chief, but take a look, it’s all in the police report. If you think about it, it could have nothing to do with our case… Back then, the child could have slipped on a stone, cracked his skull and then drowned. A horrible accident. Full stop.”

  “What was this child’s name?”

  “Albert Rosalba. His family left Giverny shortly after the tragedy. There’s been no news of them since…”

  Laurenç Sérénac reaches out for his coffee and takes another sip.

  “Christ, Sylvio, your story’s still worrying. I don’t like this kind of coincidence, I really don’t. As if the mystery weren’t confusing enough already, and now we have this as well…”

  Sylvio gathers the papers scattered at his feet.

  “Can I ask you something, Chief?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What worries me most is that since the very start of this case, our instincts have been contradictory. I’ve thought about it all night. You’ve always been sure that it’s all about Stéphanie Dupain, that she’s in danger. I, and I don’t know why, am convinced that the key lies in my third column, that there’s a murderer walking around, preparing to strike again, but it’s the life of a child that’s in danger, an eleven-year-old child…”

  Laurenç gets up and gives his deputy a friendly clap on the shoulder.

  “Perhaps that’s because you’re going to be a dad any minute. As for me, being a bachelor, I’m less interested in children than in their mothers, even if they are married. It’s just a matter of who you identify with. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps. Each to his own column, then,” Sylvio says softly. “Let’s just hope that we’re not both right.”

  Sérénac is amazed by this last remark. He looks carefully at his deputy but can only see a face that is drawn and two eyes that are weary of staying open. Bénavides still hasn’t finished going through all his pieces of paper. Sérénac knows that before he leaves this evening, his deputy, even though he’s exhausted, will take the time to photocopy everything and put it all in the red file box. Then he will put that box in the right place on the shelf in the room in the basement. M for Morval. That’s what his deputy is like…

  “There will be an explanation for everything, Sylvio,” Sérénac says. “There will be a way of fitting all the pieces of the puzzle together. There has to be.”

  “And Jacques Dupain?” Bénavides sighs. “Don’t you think we’ve left him stewing for long enough?”

  “Bugger! I’d forgotten all about him.”

  To sit on the desk in Room 101, Laurenç Sérénac has had to move about ten blue boots and stack them in an unstable pile. Jacques Dupain is still furious. His right hand is constantly rubbing his brown mustache and his unshaven cheeks, revealing his mounting annoyance.

  “I still don’t understand what you want from me, Inspector. You’ve kept me here for almost an hour. Are you going to tell me why?”

  “A conversation. We just want to have a conversation with you.”

  Sérénac spreads his arms in a broad gesture that takes in the exhibition of boots.

  “We’re casting our net very wide, Monsieur Dupain, as you can see. Almost all the inhabitants of the village have given us a pair of boots. They are cooperating. We
are checking that their boots don’t correspond to the print taken at the crime scene, and then we leave them alone. It’s as simple as that. But…”

  Jacques Dupain’s right hand clutches at his mustache while his left hand nervously grips the arm of his chair.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I can’t find my damned boots! I thought I’d left them in the shed beside the school, but they’re not there. Yesterday I had to borrow a friend’s…”

  Sérénac tries an ironic smile.

  “Strange, isn’t it, Monsieur Dupain? Why would someone go to the trouble of stealing a pair of muddy boots? Size ten, your size. Exactly the same size as the print measured at the crime scene.”

  Sylvio Bénavides is standing at the end of the room with his back to a shelf—the section of new and nearly new boots ranging from size six to nine. He watches the conversation with weary amusement. At least it’s keeping him awake. He has an answer in his head to Sérénac’s question, but he isn’t about to prompt the suspect with it.

  “I don’t know,” Dupain says, getting annoyed. “Perhaps because that person is a murderer and came up with the idea of stealing the first pair of boots he could find, so he could frame some other poor guy?”

  That’s the answer Bénavides expected. This guy Dupain is no idiot, he thinks.

  “And he picked you,” Sérénac presses. “As if by chance.”

  “Well, he had to pick somebody, so he picked me. What do you mean, ‘as if by chance’? I don’t like what you’re implying, Inspector.”

  “Then just be quiet and listen. What were you doing on the morning of the murder of Jérôme Morval?”

  Dupain’s feet draw large circles in the space from which all the rubber boots have been expelled, like an angry little boy clearing toys from his garden.

  “So you suspect me, then? At six in the morning I was still in bed with my wife, as I am every morning…”

  “That’s another strange thing, Monsieur Dupain. On Tuesday mornings, according to our witnesses, you usually get up at dawn to go hunting rabbits on the land belonging to your friend Patrick Delaunay. Sometimes with a group. More often alone… Why break with that habit on the morning of the crime, particularly that Tuesday?”