“And you are?”
“Her older brother. By ten minutes.”
“Look,” Delphine began, trying to keep focussed. “I’m only here to ask why she’s not been in work for a week. I’ve been worried about her, that’s all. I miss our break-time chats. She makes me laugh.” That last bit was a lie. Adriana could be morose and so deliberately slow, Basma had given her more than one warning.
He was unimpressed. Pulled out a phone from his top pocket. His dirty thumb soon busy. “If you must know, her manager’s been on her case big time. Phoning on the hour, every bloody hour, except since Saturday. Even threatened to get the top brass on to her. And as for that fat pied noir, she’s been just as bad.” He studied Delphine for a moment before adding, “something’s up, isn’t it? I mean my sister’s only a bloody toilet cleaner…”
“Who are you phoning?”
“Never you mind.”
She wanted to slap him, but he was just an ignorant pig and not worth it. Probably never had a job in his life, and that was when she decided to say nothing about what had happened at the hotel.
“Is Adriana around?” Her tone falsely bright, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ll call her. See if she wants to see you.”
With that, he strode off, his phone clamped to his ear, obviously trying to get a better signal away from the forest of bare trees that continued beyond the end of those wretched steps. Excluding her. Keeping her at a distance.
However, Delphine soon caught up with him, catching a snatch of conversation. His name ‘Filipo’ then the words ‘trouble’ and ‘hotel’ stood out. She also heard water licking the mill’s stonework, and the pop-pop-pop of a distant hunt in progress. It was after all, still the hunting season, during which Papa had forbidden trespassers on his land since 1970 when their magnificent Alsatian had been found shot in the head.
Instead of promising hope, this Moulin d’Espoir delivered an oppressive air of menace and a noticeable smell of standing water and sewage.
Then she spotted her, swathed in a capacious winter coat, cowering out of the wind in a wide recess smothered by some kind of dead creeper. Behind her, an arched, wooden door, reinforced by black, iron bands. More a door to a prison than a home, thought Delphine, giving Adriana a reassuring wave. But Filipo Facchietti got there first to whisper in her ear, before heading towards a grey, open truck half-filled with various logs and branches, parked beneath the trees. Behind it, almost invisible, stood a smaller black van with tinted windows.
So, there must be a way down here for vehicles, she thought, wondering too where Adriana’s little Fiat was parked. Just then, her brother who’d been getting into his truck, suddenly stopped to stare at her before dropping his right arm in a gesture she recognised. The Quenelle, resurrected by the French comedian Dieudonné, claiming he wasn’t anti-Semitic, just anti-establishment.
Not a good feeling.
“Hi,” Delphine called out to Adriana, but no sooner had she almost reached her dark-haired, nervous-looking work-mate than the girl turned and slammed that big, heavy door shut behind her.
LUCIUS
Saturday 1st December 1968. 8.15 a.m.
‘Disappeared… for good.’
Those strange words are soon forgotten in Aunt Estelle’s warm embrace, before she ruffles my still-damp hair and strokes my cheeks, saying how relieved she is that I’m still in one piece after my horrendous attack. I love her anyway, so it’s OK that she’s turned up to take me to her place for a bit, instead of to Les Angles, ‘till your Papa’s equilibrium returns.’ That’s what she’d said, tucking a warm rug around me in her passenger seat, before touching my groin area with the lightest of movements, and telling me that a short break in the Causses would do me no end of good.
So here we are, in her new, grey Citroën whose huge tyres ride like silk over every worn and weathered stretch of tarmac. “My silent monster,” she smiles, eyeing me down there again, then offering me a cigarette. Not my first, but coming from her, with her beautiful eyes and a body like a snake not quite uncoiled, how can I refuse?
However, when she stops at a smart, new garage which also boasts a shower block and café, and I ask if I can get myself cleaned up there, and have a snack, she locks me in, saying it’s for my own safety, given the events of last night when I’d been a very naughty, reckless young man.
11.
10.20 hrs.
Having switched off France Musique and a particularly doleful version of Berlioz’s’ L’Enfance du Christ on her way back from that abortive trip to the mill, Delphine took a short cut to Le Mondiale Enterprise Zone in the hope of seeing Basma Arouar at the hotel. Perhaps she’d been unable to make it to Adriana’s place after all. Perhaps something else had cropped up, but why not let her know? And why wasn’t her distinctive Mercedes in the staff car park?
The moment she’d pushed her way through that same hotel’s revolving doors, set between two giant-sized, synthetic palm trees, she was a stranger. For a start, there’d been two highly visible gendarmerie vans in the main car park, a yellow police cordon around the lift, and a young police officer waiting to take her details and ask the purpose of her visit,
Having satisfied him that she was neither a terrorist nor a pervy voyeur, Delphine went over to the Reception desk, shocked to see it stripped of its usual function. Empty and silent.
She found that same replacement receptionist she’d met yesterday morning, seated at a makeshift desk of two tables pushed together and covered with a jungle print cloth that matched the bedrooms’ curtains. A computer, several files and a box containing a pile of room key cards took up most of the space around her. Closer inspection showed noticeable bags under her kohl-rimmed eyes, and lipstick not quite in line with her lips.
Good, thought Delphine unkindly.
The older woman didn’t look up even when Delphine positioned herself directly opposite and gave her name for the second time. When she did, those contemptuous eyes showed no recognition, instead, like others before her, rested on the biggest of Julie’s bloodstains, covering most of her chest.
“What is it?” she snapped.
“You mean my dead dog’s blood, or what do I want?”
That did the trick.
“How can I help?”
That’s better.
“Has Madame Arouar called in here since yesterday morning? It is important.”
The woman checked her screen and one of her files, then shook her less than immaculate coiffure. “Doesn’t look like it. And I’ve not seen her.”
So that was that.
Delphine looked around. No Martin, no Miko or Didier either. In fact, no-one she recognised, and despite the cleverly-faked scenery and stuffed wildlife clambering up the area’s various pillars, the place seemed suddenly bereft of everything that had kept her turning up day in day out, to prevent her parents from sinking even deeper into their mire of despond.
*
It was still only 11.15 hours, but she was already exhausted from exposure to that battering wind and twice turning up unannounced. Unsure if she’d be welcome. So far – and here she seriously did imagine being a detective – she’d put Filipo Facchietti up there with Nadia Lecroix and Michel Salerne as possibly the dodgiest characters. Adriana a close fourth, because her fellow-cleaner could at least have communicated with her earlier on.
Before she could get home to grab something to eat and trek round the Commune to unearth Julie’s killer, she had to contact either Lieutenant Confrère, or Captain Valon. However, to her annoyance, a laminated card flapping against the security gates outside the gendarmerie in Labradelle, stated that due to unforeseen circumstances, it was closed until 4p.m. There was also a phone number in case of emergency.
The fact that Basma Arouar seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, was beginning to feel like one. But where was that bumptious sous-lieutenant she’d met yesterday morning? Was he being indispensable too?
Delphine sat in her rap
idly cooling car and lit up. This calmed her enough to dig out Basma Arouar’s card.
82, Rue des Peupliers, 72170 Cousteaux. The Ericsson showed that town was fifteen kilometres away, and a round trip of thirty-five back to St. Eustache. Petrol would be tight, never mind her almost empty purse and dwindling bank account. She opened the car window to exhale, but the wind blew her smoke back in her face. Serve you bloody right, she told herself. This bad habit was costing too much anyway. Perhaps on New Year’s Day, she’d stop altogether. Perhaps…
She stubbed out the last of her cigarette, and left Labradelle for the Rue du Mans. She’d take a chance with the petrol. If she kept her foot off the gas, she might be lucky. She had no choice.
*
Clear of Labradelle and its scattered farmsteads, she was cruising along the open road when a truck similar to Filipo Facchietti’s, and full of youngish guys wearing beanies and camouflage gear, recklessly overtook her on a single white line. Rifles bristling, hunting dogs yelping, showing their pink jowls and sharp, yellow teeth.
Poor boars, she thought, ignoring the hunters’ lecherous stares, keeping her eyes strictly ahead, thinking how easy it was to own a rifle if you were a ‘chasseur.’ To her, however, the real nobility was the landscape. Vast tracts of snow-patched land stretching away either side of the tarmac, reducing even the biggest juggernaut to a mere speck.
Suddenly the Ericsson’s ring ended these musings. But where to pull over? She couldn’t, so snatched at the phone, whereupon an unfamiliar number flashed up. Was this Adriana? Or her dark-eyed brother? No, they’d not known hers.
“Who’s calling?” she said, trying to steer with her left hand.
“Me. Martin.”
A tiny, warm flush hit her neck. Then Josette Lecroix sneaked in to spoil it.
“But you’re not Lieutenant Confrère…”
“Sorry about that. She’s lent me this as my phone’s crap.”
“I see.” He sounded puzzled. Then asked if she was at home.
She paused, unwilling to say, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Everything’s happened in the last forty minutes. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Where? The hotel?”
“Yes. Did you know it’s just been closed at least until the end of the week? It’s like a bloody shell,” he went on. “Not looking good, and everyone’s really pissed off. The mood here’s pretty toxic. Good job you’re out of it.”
She’d hardly enjoyed a friendly reception there but had never heard him so fed up. So strained. Bad news getting worse…
“Miko broke down in front of everyone, and Seligman looked like death warmed up. There are whispers this closure could prove fatal. That the place might not re-open.”
“That’s impossible!”
Images of being interred at Bellevue 24/7 swam into view, making her slow down. She was too young to be buried alive. Sick father or no sick father. Threats or no threats.
“The flics are convinced it was an inside job,” the restaurant manager went on. “Why all this shit has happened. Look,” he added suddenly. “Can we meet up?”
Why not? Perhaps they could both check on her boss. Perhaps she might also find out if what Josette had said about him was true or not.
“Have you seen Basma Arouar around?” Was the reply he wasn’t expecting.
“Why ask that?”
Delphine filled him in, omitting to mention her recent activities. Only that the Algerian hadn’t been in touch, and her phone’s voicemail and mailbox were full.
“That chimes with Miko trying to find her to notify her other cleaners. Look,” he added. “I’ve a mate in Cousteaux. I’m using his phone now. I know the place. How about we meet in the Place d’Automne? By the memorial?”
Just then, a motorist close behind her blasted his horn in warning. She’d drifted into the path of an oncoming Convoi Exceptionel.
Jésus…
She flung down the phone and returned her left hand to the wheel, grateful that someone at least was looking out for her.
“Are you OK?” Martin was almost shouting.
“I’m fine, really,” she lied. “Should be there in twenty minutes.”
*
As Delphine approached that sizeable town’s main square, the restaurant manager was busy locking his impressive-looking Honda motorbike to one of a set of iron loops set into the slushy cobblestones. His neat butt looked even neater in the black leather pants that encased them and she had to re-jig her mind to focus on why she was here. What she had to do.
“Hi,” she said. “I didn’t know you had a bike. Never mind one like this.”
He straightened to face her, and his nice mouth changed to a smile. “It’s new,” he said. “Got it Saturday before the shit hit the fan. Carpe diem’s my motto. Seize the day…”
“I’ve always loved motorbikes,” she said truthfully, yet also wondering about his growing debt. Perhaps he could deal with it, especially since all managers of their departments had been given a recent pay rise. “The speed, the freedom. Yes, especially the freedom.”
“Well, this beast can certainly shift,” he said, turning away to check the lock was secure. “You’ll have to try her sometime.”
Her…
Delphine blushed, then flicked to the embarrassing bloodstains on her coat that he’d not seemed to have noticed. “Sorry about the state of it,” she said. “You probably won’t want to be seen dead with me looking like this. I’ll explain later.” But knew she wouldn’t. Bellevue was her dirty secret.
She glanced up at the nearby War Memorial representing more pointless slaughter in the region nearly sixty years ago. A bronze group of French infantrymen decorated not only by their medals but copious amounts of bird droppings. She’d often wondered why such sculptures rarely showed the equally brave horses, dogs and pigeons who’d also perished in large numbers.
“They’re just food,” her father had stated, yet whatever her views on François and Irène Rougier, they’d never touched chevaline. Unlike the rest of their commune where several farmers bred the heavier varieties of horse solely for the plate. One day she’d see the poor creatures grazing the grass, the next, crammed cheek by jowl into massive transporters, and driven kicking and neighing all the way to their distant destinations.
“Ready?” she said to Martin re-positioning his gelled hair. His helmet hung from his arm while together, they crossed the square where Christmas decorations were already in place. Silvery, fragile in the wind.
“Did you know that Basma lost a baby daughter?” she ventured, hoping to draw him out about the woman who’d mysteriously let her down. “She said so herself.”
“That does surprise me,” Martin half-turned towards her. “I mean, it’s not as if you’re her best friend, is it? In fact, you once told me you were more like her slave.”
She couldn’t argue with that, but he’d obviously not seen that sudden sadness in the woman’s normally bold eyes. The quiver on those lips that so readily barked out orders. “She may have felt an affinity with this other dead baby. What a terrible waste, and how could anyone harm anything so beautiful.”
“I hate saying this,” he began, shifting his helmet to his other arm, “but when you think how many late abortions are going on, where life could still be viable, then…”
“Is that your thing?” she said, reining in her indignation. “Like the Church?”
“Not at all. I’m just making connections. Wondering if whoever’s baby it was, didn’t want an abortion, but maybe panicked once he’d arrived.”
Neither spoke as they passed the splendid-looking Mairie with its colourful flags tossed this way and that by the wind, and the many public notices crammed together behind glass, warning of compulsory re-burials after thirty years, fines for dog-fouling and illegal fishing. Alongside these, Delphine noticed the remains of last year’s election posters. Jean-Marie le Pen’s face torn more than the others. If Irène Rougier were to see them, she’d be pinning up replacements.
“How well do you know her? I mean, Basma,” she said. “does she live with anyone? Has anyone called on her at the hotel? Someone whose stayed in your mind?”
“Christ, you sound like one of those bloody flics.” Yet his tone wasn’t harsh, and as they neared the edge of the square, she became aware of his gloved hand slipping into hers. She was paralysed; could neither remove it nor make her grip more reciprocal.
“Sorry. I’m curious, that’s all.”
“OK. She sometimes has lunch with a guy who’s definitely not French.” Martin led her through the traffic towards a narrow, less busy street signed Rue des Peupliers with not a poplar in sight. However, it led straight towards a bleak-looking church whose spire seemed too tall, too pointed for the rest of it. A bell began tolling out midday that seemed to go on for ever. “Younger, definitely,” he continued over its mournful sound. “And whenever they’ve been there together, she always pays. In cash.”
“Could he have been her husband?”
He seemed surprised.
“Hard to tell, but there’s always one of those fancy rings on her wedding finger.”
You’re observant…
“Was he smart or shabby?” Delphine persisted, looking out for number 82 among the row of well-maintained, mostly three storeyed homes. All conjoined.
“Smart, as far as I can recall. We get so many types like that…”
“I know,” she interrupted. “But what nationality?”
“God knows.”
And yet his leather-gloved hand still in hers was a perfect fit. She couldn’t have it all, could she? And then Josette re-surfaced in her mind. Pink fluff and Camels. She had to ask.
“How well do you know Josette Lecroix?”
It was as if she’d asked if he’d seen tomorrow’s predictable weather forecast. No reaction at all.
“Hardly. I’ve seen her around, of course. Seems normal enough. Mind you, a job like hers would drive me mad. Fielding the cancellations, the complainers and those wanting a room overlooking the car park, or more pillows blah blah... No thanks.”
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