Downfall

by Sally Spedding

  Stop it…

  The brave child held out her right hand, to which was attached a saline drip. Her shy smile almost broke Delphine’s already battered heart, and she was tempted to give her a comforting cuddle but had been warned by the nurse not to make any physical contact.

  “Why isn’t she under guard with such a dangerous man on the loose?” Delphine asked that same nurse as she passed by.

  “Captain Valon at Labradelle did request one, but until it can be proved her attacker was the one being searched for, it couldn’t be authorized.”

  “You mean, because she’s a Roma,” Delphine lowered her voice. “If she was a French child, even yours, that would be quite different.”

  At this, the nurse suddenly found something more important to do, leaving her challenger telling Roza how brave she’d been. How her contribution to the case had so far, been crucial. Also, how sorry she was not to have brought her a card or a toy, but she would next time. “And when you’re out of here, you and Maman can come out in my car.”

  At this, the ten-year-old’s smile widened. Her half-closed eyes opened a little more. “Promise?”

  “Yes. And when the weather’s better, we can peel the top right back, just like opening a sardine can.”

  That smile stayed in place, which made it hard for Delphine to say what must be said. “But there’s something else. You and Maman must be extra alert from now on. Comprends?”

  A tiny frown, then a nod, but Delphine didn’t want to quiz her for details on the actual attack and identity of who was responsible, because it might be better coming unprompted from her. When she was ready. This was what Lise Confrère had said early on about Josette and Adriana. Except that Adriana had clammed up and since disappeared.

  “Do you have a bell to ring, just in case?” Delphine asked instead, not having seen one.

  “She’s got me.”

  *

  Delphine spun round to see Patrick Gauffroi standing by the small ward’s door, carrying a new-looking white teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck. He wore a smart, short mac over neatly-pressed jeans. Not a trace of mud anywhere, and on closer inspection, he’d had a recent shave. She was aware of her cheeks colouring, especially around the remains of her bruise.

  “Good to see you,” he said, having switched the bear to his left hand so he could shake hers. His palm felt cool and firm. He’d obviously just used the hospital’s compulsory disinfectant handwash whose lingering smell mingled with a hint of either that same musky perfume or body spray or both. “I tried to get a bell organised for her,” he added, “but no joy. There’s a nurse in constant attendance, apparently, so that was that.”

  “She has been here, and I’ve enquired about a guard,” Delphine whispered. His hazel eyes immediately met hers, in surprise, and could she detect admiration, too?

  “I’d not thought of that. Good idea.”

  “And I’m not giving up. Just because she’s Roma, it’s not fair.”

  “Tell me about it.” He then presented the toy to the young girl whose smile immediately widened.

  “Pepe,” she said. “That’s what I’ll call him.”

  “When will she be going home?” whispered Delphine, giving the bear a wave.

  “Monday, all being well, Karolina said. But what then? There’s been more aggro near the camp, and I can’t afford to erect a new stockade.”

  Karolina? Get a grip…

  “If things were normal,” Delphine felt ashamed of herself, “I’d say they could both come to Bellevue.”

  “I saw the shrine there all broken.”

  “That’s the least of it. Our place just isn’t safe.” She then spelt out the latest developments. How the farmhouse could become even more a target for the man known as Lucius Seghers.

  “I could put you all up in the farmhouse,” he said, indicating the chair by Roza’s bed for Delphine. “And if that bastard shows up again,” he raised his voice. “He’ll have a hole in the head.”

  Delphine blinked at the sudden vitriol. Noticed the wall clock behind him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay any longer,” she explained. “Much as I’d like to. An important contact’s in trouble.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  Just the way he looked at her made everything spill out. Things her mother hadn’t heard about Martin Dobbs, nor would she. When she’d finished, he said, “I still wouldn’t trust him. Maybe I’m too much of a cynic, and you can’t blame me, after what happened to my father.”

  He then looked down at Roza. “Before Mademoiselle Delphine leaves, you must tell her what you tried to say yesterday. About that man with the strange eyes, who’d arrived in that same green car.”

  “I’d not liked to ask,” said Delphine, seeing how the child clutched her teddy tight. Fixed a fully wideawake gaze on her.

  “He wasn’t on his own,” Roza murmured in broken French…

  “What?”

  “There was another man. Young, like you,” she pointed to Gauffroi. “With a nice face but more thin. His hair stuck out a bit. Black it was.”

  Stop!

  “He just stood by the car, while I was hit, but I know how to look out for things and remember.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No, but not happy.”

  “Under duress, maybe,” she whispered to Gauffroi, recalling Ursula Villedin’s account of her menacing male visitors. This had to be the same pair.

  “And the number plate?”

  As if she’d been learning its letters and numbers all her life, Roza obliged. Delphine and Gauffroi exchanged a look of awe.

  “I also saw the name X-Trail at the back. Is that how you say it?”

  “You’re amazing.” Yet while smiling, Delphine felt a sudden loss of balance, not only from hunger. “And we’re sure the police will soon be out searching for them both.”

  “As long as you bloody don’t,” Gauffroi said, acknowledging the curious nurse who’d returned and was hovering nearby. “Promise?”

  “OK,” said Delphine, wondering what to do about her mother, still in the café downstairs.

  “You’re not convincing me.” He handed her a business card featuring an image of his farm in better days. “This may be useful.”

  But why should he care? She asked herself. And yet something told her he did.

  Roza peeked out from behind her new, furry friend. “I’d like you and Mademoiselle to be together for ever.”

  His sudden blush was noticeable as Delphine hastily said goodbye. “We’ll keep in touch,” she added, aware of him, Roza and the nurse staring after her.

  30.

  15.00 hrs.

  The hospital’s café had meanwhile become more crowded and the coffee machine was playing up, but Irène Rougier had been too worried about her husband to persist with it or unwrap her snack. Even more so when Delphine tentatively shared her latest, most ambitious plan, watching her expression change to alarm. Her mother was like a cattle grid, she thought, as she continued. To be negotiated bar by bar.

  The tuna baguette was pushed towards her, accompanied by a look of defeat on her mother’s face. “Well, you’d better eat something before you go.”

  “And you?”

  Irène Rougier shook her head. Her wispy hair and papery skin just then belonged more to an eighty-year-old. “I’ll wait at home for your father. You never know.”

  “Can’t you stay with Suzette?” An old school friend of hers who lived in Laval.

  “No. In any case, the bus will drop me off by our lane. I’ll be alright.” She tapped her coat pocket, meaning the Luger, and for a split second, Delphine was tempted to ask to borrow it. But she had her pride. She’d manage. She was fit. Could still run and climb trees. Besides, having a gun could escalate violence.

  “Is it licensed?” She asked instead.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s my right.”

  *

  It took fifteen minutes to reluctantly drop her mother plus umbr
ella off at the city’s main bus station, and to check nothing had again been added to her car. With the untouched, fishy snack alongside her, she phoned Lieutenant Confrère, partly to update her on Roza, and to glean what she could.

  The Lieutenant picked up promptly.

  “Roza’s doing fine,” began Delphine, raising her voice. “Patrick Gauffroi was with her, and her mother’s seeing her again this afternoon.”

  A noticeable pause.

  “Good. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Delphine then relayed her news of Lucius Seghers’ passive, mystery companion, and the X-Trail’s number plate.

  “I’m just adding this to my notes,” Confrère said crisply. “Could be crucial. I wonder what was going on there.”

  “And your news?” Delphine reminded her. “If you’ve time.”

  “I have, and you’re entitled to know it.”

  Entitled?

  This sudden flattery sounded strange, given her behaviour at Labradelle and noticeable detachment yesterday at Bellevue. Delphine let her continue, as a passing bus almost clipped her wing mirror.

  “It’s incredible that neither of us noticed.”

  “What exactly?”

  “Basma Arouar’s post-mortem revealed she’d been overpowered and strangled manually for good measure before being strung up. This isn’t being made public just yet, so please not a word to…”

  “Of course,” interrupted her listener, realising with a sick feeling that neither of them had gone around to the back of the hanged woman. She could only imagine how much the unsuspecting Basma must have suffered.

  “As for lifting her closer to that beam, surely Carlos Serovia wouldn’t have been strong enough on his own?”

  “Apparently, he was, and would be an obvious suspect except there were two distinct sets of fingernail imprints found on her neck and each of her arms. His own had been bitten to the quick.”

  Delphine clearly recalled those odd marks on her arms but not her neck.

  “He could have nibbled them down afterwards,” she said.

  “The autopsy on his remains, didn’t suggest that. Besides, poor Basma Arouar could have been already dead if and when he’d found her earlier. What a dreadful sight.”

  “No wonder he looked so terrified.”

  “Quite. And better for him to jump in front of a train than be accused.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “No gloves used, then?” Delphine ventured.

  “That is strange. Maybe the killers were in too much of a hurry. Who knows? However, tests are still ongoing, so we’ll have to wait, and the Post-Mortem’s postponed until Monday. The Judge has been informed.”

  That earlier, creeping fear returned. But Delphine’s big question had to be asked.

  “Could I be fingered for going to Basma’s house first? Are the Cousteaux team getting their ‘cuffs ready for me?”

  Confrère’s pause gave her seconds to imagine the worst. Also, to notice her mother’s bus move away from its berth with Irène Rougier’s worried face turned her way. A quick wave, then she was gone.

  “Trust me,” said the Lieutenant. “I made it plain to them you’d merely been waiting for me outside. It would be a slur on my credibility if they ignored that.”

  “And Judge Georges Pertus? He’ll surely want to question me?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about him right now.”

  But why didn’t Delphine feel reassured?

  “We’ve one more item of news which, because we trust you, we can share,” the other continued. “That safe house for both those hotel staff has had to be moved, and yet again given new mobile phones.”

  “Why?”

  “They’d received another threat, this time a text message. Identical to the one in the letter which your parents had. Whoever managed to send it, must be an accomplished hacker.”

  “Michel Salerne’s paedo brother in Fresnes, maybe? Because it’s not only drugs going on in prisons.” Delphine then mentioned the single hair.

  “Worth following up. Thanks.” Confrère then stalled again. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. Captain Valon’s been OK about it, but sometimes a little thing triggers it off.”

  “Your late father’s hardly a ‘little thing.’ And that’s another reason why I’m…”

  “What?”

  Should she? Shouldn’t she? What the Hell…

  “Going to find this Lucius Seghers. Cold case or not.”

  His strange photo still in her bag, was almost goading her. Then came a pause.

  “I told you, it’s over, and as I’ve also already said. we don’t want a dead Delphine, do we? I saw your Maman’s expression when you reacted about the tracker on your car. It would be the end of her if anything happened to you. Think of it. Your father’s gone off God knows where. There’s been no sighting of him at all, by the way, which is another big worry.”

  Delphine only half-listened while eyeing her petrol gauge. She had enough fuel in the tank to get her to Limoges by several routes nationales. After that, a Péage where she could fill up at a Service Station.

  “Nothing bad will happen,” she said finally. “And if either you or your colleagues in Cahors locate Martin Dobbs, can you please let me know?” She also added the Nissan’s number plate which Roza had memorised before being attacked, but not what else she’d noticed. Him standing by. “It’s identical to what I’ve seen on that green X-Trail.”

  “Excellent.”

  “By the way, Captain Valon said those written threats might have been analysed in Le Mans today. Is there any news?”

  There came another silence in which Delphine noticed the bus station was almost empty. “Lieutenant Confrère? Are you there?”

  No reply.

  Those buses hadn’t been the only leavers, and rarely had Delphine felt so alone. Worse, was that she’d not had the chance to ask if the duplicitous Noah Baudart had yet come up with any answers.

  31.

  Friday 5th December. 07.00 hrs.

  With a fleeting sense of guilt, Delphine binned her mother’s decaying baguette and treated herself to an evening meal and bed at an Ibis hotel to the north of Poitiers. It had felt strange walking through its revolving glass entrance door, so like the Hôtel les Palmiers, as was the welcoming reception desk decked out with postcards and tourist information. Her sudden loss of identity was only partly banished by the fresh, appetising evening buffet, during which she’d kept herself to herself, but monitoring everyone around her.

  She’d also slept soundly, only waking to the noise of a delivery van’s door slamming beneath her window. At least there’s been no baby-sized poubelle in the bathroom, nor any fawning note from whoever had cleaned her room. But the longer she was away from her own workplace, the more she realised that when it re-opened, she might not go back. It had proved to be a dangerous trap, not only for herself. Although her latest pay would be in her account on Monday, she was still awaiting confirmation they’d continue until the New Year and beyond. If not, her parents, assuming there’d be two of them, would go short. Another anxiety she didn’t need.

  But for now, the only way was south.

  *

  Although the interminable bad weather had become a civilised drizzle, it nevertheless stuck to her car’s rear window, making it tricky to see what was behind her. Even both wing mirrors stayed opaque. This didn’t stop her making good time along the road towards the centre of France and Limoges, where near Bellac, she topped up her tank at a one-horse garage resembling Bertrand du Feu’s place at St Eustache.

  As she waited for her payment to be processed, the day’s papers were delivered to the so-called ‘Shop.’ While the guy in a hurry signed off his batch, she’d already spotted the headline. HOTEL’S RESTAURANT MANAGER MISSING, plus a recent photo of Martin Dobbs ascribed to a Jean-Marie Longeau, who’d also penned an urgent appeal for information. Obviously, his agenda taking precedence over the police need for secrecy. And yet it had been her whom Martin ha
d contacted.

  There was no time to read the rest as several other customers wanted to pay, so she bought a copy and asked them all before leaving, “has anyone by any chance noticed a green Nissan X-Trail with a new bull bar and a Lot number plate?”

  “You in trouble?” said the biker behind her, wiping moisture from his face.

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “I owned one of those, so I tend to notice them,” added a middle-aged woman wearing a district nurse’s uniform. “And there was one outside the Café Celeste in Chaptelat, just before the new A20 turn-off. I didn’t notice any driver…”

  “When was this?”

  “Yesterday, late afternoon.”

  “Thank you, that’s really helpful.”

  The guy behind the counter gestured to the biker to come forward, so that was that. Except for the nurse adding, “Good luck, and I hope you weren’t referring to that car being hunted by the police.”

  “No.” And then Delphine, aware that her lies were becoming easier, slipped outside. However, just as she was unlocking her car, heard footsteps behind her.

  She twisted round.

  “Only me,” said the same nurse. “And sorry to alarm you, but to be honest, I wasn’t convinced by your answer back there.” Her smile was knowing yet curious. “I’ve been following this ghastly case since Monday afternoon.” She peered at her more closely. “Are you Delphine Rougier? If so, your name and photo’s in there as well.” She pointed to the Press-Océan paper that stuck out of Delphine’s bag. “How you found that dead baby.”

  Delphine gulped at what this query could represent and thought immediately of Martin who almost certainly wasn’t who she’d thought. So why trust this stranger with a kindly face and a short, but better haircut than hers?