Downfall

by Sally Spedding

  “I am twenty,” she reminded him “And anyway, you gave me a time limit to solve the case, remember? So that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  He had no answer. Instead, padded away from her towards the kitchen from where the potent mix of fish and woodburner made her catch her breath. The back of his once full head of hair was almost bare. His proud shoulders stooped like some prisoner returning to his cell. Not a physical one. No, thought Delphine. That was too easy.

  Their small TV flickered in the corner and, for a moment, she stood watching news of a gypsy camp in Picardie being summarily dispersed, followed by a skiing tragedy in Mérivel.

  Skiing…

  That word fizzled in her mind. Later, she told herself, positioning her shoulder bag over the back of her chair, before sitting down. But then later might never happen…

  “I’ve also found out more about our best, most loyal friend,” she began, then thanked her mother for the bouillabaisse set in front of her. Bubbling and mysterious in a bowl she’d used since childhood. Green, with ‘Bon appétit’ slip-trailed along its side.

  “Who would that be?” said the woman harmed by her years.

  “Julie, of course.” And when she’d finished her brief account of her afternoon visit, without mentioning names or specific places, her father said in between mouthfuls, “so you kept a piece of this twine?”

  “Both pieces. It means that with her bloodstains still on my yellow coat, I’ve two items of possible evidence.”

  “I’ll pay for that coat to be cleaned,” he said, scraping out his bowl with a piece of bread.

  “No thanks. I want to keep it that way because,’ she pulled out a prawn tail from her own bowl and laid it on her plate. “I have to find the devil who did it. He drives a green Nissan X-Trail off-roader. The same that my boss and I saw leaving the hotel car park yesterday morning. Not only that, but being driven by a man whom I’m sure had earlier come out of room 45. Also,” her tone hardened, “because this is too much of a coincidence. I suspect he has something on us.”

  Delphine set down her spoon and pushed her chair back from the table, aware of her parents sitting there like a pair of ancient volcanoes poised to erupt. “And either I ask Labradelle to investigate, like they did with Antoine Gauffroi. Remember that? Or you trust me enough to damn well come clean about those threats you’ve been getting, and why.”

  She’d rarely sworn in front of them before. Her blood which had seemed to reach boiling point, suddenly left her face as her father slapped down his beer, got up and half-crouched to reach her more quickly.

  “Non, François!” shrieked her mother, also getting up. “It’s too late.”

  It was, too.

  His fist connected with Delphine’s right cheek. A sudden, unseen blow, bringing a red haze behind her eyes, with nothing to grip on to. Not even her mother, and when she was down, with her nose against the floor’s stone flags, he kicked her not once, but twice till she crawled between the table’s splayed, wooden feet.

  “That’s enough! Stupid old brute!” Screamed her mother.

  “Never enough, wife. Never…”

  His slippered foot then hit Delphine’s left wrist, but she gripped his heel until he too, fell with a huge din, bringing the waxed tablecloth and its bowls of fishy stink to the floor.

  “You’d better go now,” her mother said to her, as calm as an ocean before a tsunami. “Because if you think you can destroy your own parents, think again. We want to end our days in peace, not have you poisoning our lives, prodding us like pigs to the slaughter…”

  “Your lives were poisoned before I was born,” Delphine countered as a slick of orange-brown sauce reached her feet. “And you’ll never stop me finding out why.”

  She wriggled free of the table’s legs, while her mother propped the attacker up against the nearest chair.

  “You sound just like that neo-Nazi idiot Nicolas Confrère,” he growled. “And we know what happened to him. And poor Antoine Gauffroi.”

  “He wouldn’t have been out of place at Oradour,” Irène Rougier chipped in. “Another bully after glory.”

  “So, what did happen to that teenager, Lucius Seghers?”

  Delphine’s last two words hung like black motes in the thick, fishy air as she managed to scramble towards the door, slamming it behind her. Knowing in her hurting head that a serious, maybe irreparable breach had opened between them. She couldn’t stay there. He might press a pillow over her head during the night. They both might…

  She buttoned up the borrowed black coat she’d hung from the newel post at the end of the banister. The piece of twine still in its left pocket, the photo in her bag and. If she was quick, could grab a bigger one and pack a few things. But too late. However, she had her car and two hundred euros in the bank. Enough for the time being and, just as the kitchen door began to open behind her, she was outside under a freezing sky alive with stars.

  Ice had already forming beneath her feet. But where to go?

  She’d not thought of that one, and while steering the 2CV out of the tractor-clogged yard and up the lane, saw both parents silhouetted against the hallway’s light. Motionless, shoulder to shoulder like two guards. But guarding what exactly?

  She shuddered to think, and tenderly touched the painful swelling on her cheek.

  *

  The day had already been too long, yet her watch showed just 20.00 hours. If only she could sleep and not wake up till spring when at least there’d be birdsong and the morning sun rising above the sycamore tree and into her bedroom…

  Her bedroom? Really? How on earth could she go back there now?

  A trickle of panic passed through her body as she met the unlit junction where the lane met the D338. Even Lise Confrère had backed off and, if she was honest with herself, that hurt more than François Rougier’s vicious attack.

  She also thought about Pauline. She’d call her tomorrow from wherever she was, but meanwhile, what? The roads would soon be treacherous. Ice already adding its feathered skin to her windscreen. Everywhere would be shut. Even the hotel where normally she might have been able to get a room with the worst view at half price…

  With the car engine still running, she pulled her phone from her bag. Ten euros left in the account. But her call would be short and to the point.

  *

  “Yes?”

  Martin Dobbs sounded breathless, which seemed odd. The line wasn’t brilliant either.

  “It’s me. Delphine. I’m in a jam. A big jam…”

  “Are you at home?” He asked, above the sound of a banging door.

  “I was. It’s been grim if you must know. Is the hotel open?”

  His laugh caught her unawares.

  “There’s more bad news. I meant to tell you, but…”

  “What?”

  “Miko’s still in custody. Seems he can’t explain why he ran off on Monday morning and Josette was off on the Sunday afternoon.” He paused. “They definitely are an item. Did you know?”

  No reply. Instead, she thought of the glammed-up receptionist in her pink, fluffy dressing gown. Her immaculately varnished toenails. Her accusation against Martin, which just then, seemed even more crazy.

  “Come on over,” he said eventually. “But take us as you find us. 6, Rue des Bergers, Cousteaux. Jean-Marie might like to meet you.”

  Us?

  “Jean-Marie?”

  “A part-time reporter on Le Maine Express.”

  She hesitated, aware of more than a twinge of jealousy, but she had no choice. She revved up her car’s engine. You never knew, she told herself. Jean-Marie might just be that friend he’d already mentioned. Someone with useful information. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s really kind. I can treat you to a…”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve a chicken casserole on the go. You’ll be just in time. Turn left by the Hôtel de Ville and left again at the lights. There’s plenty of parking.”

  There’d also be time to tell him about Basma and eve
rything else, and this prospect made her drive northwards faster than she should along the ‘Road to the South,’ causing a slight slurring of her tyres on new ice. But within a few moments she’d settled down, at the same time keeping a keen eye on the deserted road in front, and more importantly, through her rear-view mirror.

  20.

  20.20 hrs.

  Still hurting from her father’s rage, Delphine drove towards Cousteaux’s imposing Hôtel de Ville, but had to slow down by the Rue des Peupliers where a police cordon lay stretched across its width, also the alleyway beyond. There’d been nothing mentioned so far on her car radio, except reports on an ever-growing immigration problem, cash machine robberies in Paris and thefts from farms and houses in France’s more northern departments.

  ‘I’ve been looking into your family,’ rewound in her mind while she moved on, wondering yet again what her dead boss might have discovered. And. God forbid, could that have had a bearing on her possibly ending her life?

  Despite the car’s heater on max, Delphine grew suddenly cold, and number 6, Rue des Bergers couldn’t come soon enough.

  *

  Hardly anyone was out of doors, save for the odd dog walker, or a few teens hanging around a bar whose lit-up sledge-pulling reindeer galloped back and fore across the top of its sign. Yes, Christmas was only three weeks away but never had she been less in the mood to celebrate it. Even Pauline’s villa was undecorated, which in retrospect seemed unusual. Perhaps the hassle surrounding her new, artificial leg had taken over. However, having duly turned left at the traffic lights and into the Rue des Bergers, a plain-fronted house set in a line of similar properties, caught her eye.

  So, this was number 6, with Martin himself waiting in the front window. As she parked in a gap between what she assumed was his covered-over motorbike and a brand-new looking silver Audi, a flutter of anticipation made her pull out her ignition key too quickly, and it fell to the floor. She then caught her sore wrist against the jutting door handle. The jolt connecting with the pain in her right cheek which by now, was probably the size of a Spanish tomato.

  Her vanity mirror didn’t lie. That bruise had also turned blue and by morning would probably be black. Should she protect her father? Pretend instead that she’d walked into a lamp post or something similar?

  “Don’t hang about!” Martin called to her from the half-open doorway. “It’s too cold.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, keeping the embarrassing blemish out of the light. “It’s really kind of you and Jean-Marie to ask me over.”

  “Come on, you,” he grinned. “Whatever else, I’m not kind.”

  He wore a pristine, white open-necked shirt and tight-fitting Levi’s. She quickly switched her wayward glance upwards.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  She waited for the traditional cheek kiss, but nothing came. Instead, Martin lifted her coat from her shoulders and the brush of his warm hand against her neck made her want to hold it there.

  “Cool coat,” he remarked.

  “Thanks. It’s my mother’s, but I do feel a bit weird wearing it. Dead man’s shoes. Know what I mean?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Damn…

  He hung it up alongside others – all men’s, she noticed – and an array of long scarves. She briefly wondered who else lived in the place, given so many.

  “She’s not dead.”

  Had she really said that?

  “She may as well be.”

  He didn’t pursue her strange, bitter remark, instead led the way to the end of the passageway – all wood panelling and parquet flooring. ‘Tinderbox’ came to mind, but it was his neat rear and the sway when he walked that kept her following, keeping disturbing thoughts at bay. Him and Jean-Marie in bed together…

  Stop it.

  Martin opened the end door leading into a generous sized open-plan room which belied the narrowness of the house. Part-kitchen, part-séjour, and so on-trend with a central island, plus sink and storage drawers in the form of square, canvas-lined baskets.

  Not cheap. And the aroma of that promised dinner, made her suddenly hungry.

  “This is lovely,” she said, trying to avoid the spotlights’ glare on her cheek. “But I thought you’d bought a Maison de Mȃitre in Ballon. Do you own two houses?”

  “No,” he smiled. “This is Jean-Marie’s place.” He pointed upwards. “He’s on the phone upstairs. Maybe more news has just come in.” Then he noticed her cheek. “Good God, what’s happened to you?”

  “Papa.” Came out before she could stop it.

  “You’re not serious?”

  She nodded.

  “Bastard.”

  “I wound him up,” she said simply, planning to leave it at that, but pity then anger in the Englishman’s blue-green eyes, unlocked the past and present in a dark flow like the river Sarthe after a storm. And when she’d finished, he was holding her tight against him. His lips by her ear then brushing over her swollen bruise.

  “So, you see, it was my fault. It’s complicated,” she added, wanting them both to stay like that for ever, but just then, came thudding footsteps on the stairs before that same door opened.

  Martin immediately stepped back, looking sheepish.

  “Sorry to disturb,” said a guy not unlike Patrick Gauffroi, denim-clad from head to toe, with a half-hearted Mohican spine of red hair, who promptly went over to the sink, poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down.

  “I’m sorry,” Delphine murmured to Martin. “This isn’t only about me and my family.”

  “What d’you mean?” Still keeping an eye on the reporter whom she’d noticed had several earrings and a nose stud.

  “After I left you earlier, in the square, we found…” Her voice gave out.

  “Go on. It’s OK.”

  “Basma Arouar dead. Hanged, in her own home.”

  Silence.

  Two sets of eyes were on her.

  “We?”

  “Lieutenant Lise Confrère from Labradelle, and me. Not only that, but mine and Adriana Facchietti’s files had gone. Basma’s rings and watch, too, with no sign of any mobile.”

  *

  Her hosts’ initial shock soon led to surmising on the Algerian’s personal life. Delphine listened while observing their interactions. Martin had clearly stepped out of line by inviting her over, yet Jean-Marie was either clever at suppressing what he’d really wanted to say or had other stuff on his mind.

  “Heard quite a bit about you,” he eventually put her in the spotlight. “And that hotel you both endow with your skills…”

  She knew then she didn’t like him, but he might prove useful.

  “Have either of you had any more news?” she ventured, soon breaking her vow of silence while he helped himself to a beer from the fridge, without fetching anything for her or Martin. “Or is it all confidential?”

  Jean-Marie set his can down on the central island surrounded by six steel bar stools and pulled out a mobile phone like Confrère’s but which he tapped and tickled with his forefinger not a stylus. Martin, meanwhile, wearing a pair of red oven gloves, was checking the casserole. She knew he was listening.

  The red-head looked up.

  “It seems the stiff on the tracks at St. Jacques station once co-owned a Paris brothel with a Basma Arouar.”

  Delphine looked from one to the other. So, Martin had been right. Best to pretend this was hot news, she told herself. “Co-owned? Are you sure?”

  “Yep, and I’m trying to get correct dates, but everyone in the capital’s so fucking defensive. I mean, other reporters. Our band of so-called brothers. I was lucky to get the poor ‘spic’ bastard’s name.”

  “My God,” Martin closed the oven door louder than he intended. Despite the warmth from it, his face had paled. “What is it?”

  “Carlos Serovia. Apparently, in 1993 their place shut down, then re-opened. I’m trying to find out why, but like I said, my contacts are possessive, a
nd as for the law here, if I so much as swat a fucking fly, they’d bang me up.”

  “The Judge will want to know.”

  “That old crow, Pertus? He wouldn’t notice if a piece of hard evidence slapped him on the arse.”

  “Basma told me her baby daughter had died when only five days old,” Delphine persevered. Her hunger had become queasiness. Her bruise burning with a vengeance. “She never mentioned any hospital. It’s awful to say this, but I find that hard to believe.”

  Too many dots weren’t joining up. The dead baby in the pedal bin, and Julie killed in the lane, now Basma…

  “Perhaps that’s why she’d wanted to find that baby boy’s killer.” She caught Martin’s eye. “It’s unreal.”

  “Certainly is. Just goes to show that anyone can magic a plausible CV these days. It’s an art form now.” He eyed his red-haired companion who’d sat down at the far end of the island, draining his can. “I expect I’ll have to rustle up a new one soon, the way things are going.”

  Delphine noticed a momentary despair flicker in his eyes. If the hotel did close, what about his mortgage? His home? His dreams?

  “But why keep her name? Surely that was risky?”

  “Plenty of Arouars around,” opined the journo. “Too many, if you ask me.”

  Delphine ignored it. The poor woman was dead.

  “So, this Carlos had to be the guy I saw near her house.” She said instead, pulling out another trendy bar stool for herself and perched on it, recollecting that well-dressed man’s urgency. The tension in his face which she realised had been fear. “Perhaps he had to shut her up. Perhaps there was unfinished business. Even money owing? Who knows?” She looked from one to the other. “Was anything of interest found on him?”

  “No.”

  Martin then re-checked the casserole and, with those same blood-coloured oven gloves, delivered three black bowls and the bubbling Le Creuset pot to the centre of the island. When Jean-Marie, already with a napkin tucked inside his denim collar, lifted the lid, that wine-tinged sauce which had pervaded the hallway, filled the room.