Downfall

by Sally Spedding

  She gestured to Valon to come closer, and whispered all this, and how Basma had wanted to come with her to see Adriana at the Moulin d’Espoir.

  “My God.”

  He immediately sprang to his feet, and in his haste to reach the ward’s door, almost tipped over his chair.

  42.

  12.05 hrs.

  “Is there any news of Martin Dobbs?” Delphine struggled to ask once Captain Valon had returned, looking even more dishevelled. Although still pre-occupied, he nevertheless checked Roza wasn’t eavesdropping.

  “There is, and I’m not sure if you should…”

  “I need to know,” she interrupted.

  Valon took a deep breath. “Some of his hair, bone fragments and several fingernails were found in dog faeces near the main building. A match with what’s been found in Jean-Marie Longeau’s Cousteaux house.”

  Jésu…

  She felt more than sick, and just about managed to relay Martin’s first desperate call saying he was at ‘Les Cigales’ then later, while there herself, how she’d heard his even more frantic, pleading voice.

  Silence.

  “Next, I heard a gunshot.”

  “If sadly, that was him being killed, no more of his remains have so far come to light. And being realistic, probably never will. As for his motorbike, nothing.”

  “Devils.”

  “Too right. We also think we’ve informed his former children’s home in Derby and a representative will be flying here tomorrow. They’re also understandably shocked that he ever became involved.” His eyes met hers. “I’m sorry, Delphine. I know you liked him, but he was clearly operating under the radar. Maybe reeled in against his will. Who knows? Perhaps being paid to spy by Seghers. We’ll have to see what his bank account reveals. After all, he’d organized importing the man’s Nissan.”

  “And stood by while Roza was hurt.”

  “That’s right.” The youngster had heard her name. “But he seemed scared.”

  “Well, his partner’s threatening to blow the case sky high even while it’s sub judice, so I’d better book my retirement cruise now.” Then his tone changed. “He could well be on your tail as Confrère kindly told him how Dobbs had contacted you, not him, with his whereabouts in the Causses. Why we’re trying to get him tagged.”

  Delphine sunk her damaged face into the pillow, suddenly fearful of everything around her. A normal hospital scene with staff going about their normal business of prolonging life. Roza asked what the matter was, while Valon’s hand distractedly stroked her head, until a tall, dark-haired nurse on the next shift arrived to check the morphine drip and see if her patient needed a bedpan.

  “My, my, you’re looking good,” she purred, making her way to the bed where Delphine half-turned and immediately noticed something familiar about her movements. That left-tilt of her hips. Her laser-like eyes. “But then you are a Rougier…”

  Non!

  Delphine tried warning Valon this was no nurse, but he’d already apologised for being in her way, and stepped aside, while her morphine drip was swiftly removed and another, full of a yellowish liquid, poised to take its place. She managed to tear it away, kicking out with her bandaged legs. That terrible nightmare night in the middle of nowhere, all over again.

  “Get away from me!” She screamed. “You’re from ‘Les Cigales.’ The one who…” Before she could finish, Valon had thrown himself at the startled freak, pinning her arms behind her, while Roza screamed out, “Gun! Gun!”

  “Where?” Valon then swore, as a new Glock 17 pistol fell from within the intruder’s right sleeve to the floor, and a familiar female nurse and someone else she barely recognised, appeared. A sturdy, young man, with a gash across his nose and a swollen top lip. Patrick Gauffroi scooped up the loaded weapon and helped Valon force the intruder to lie face down on the tiles, while her eyes rolled accusingly from one to the other and spittle leaked from her open mouth. Her real, mouse-grey hair exposed beneath her fallen black wig and nurse’s cap.

  “Name?” barked Valon as he waited for back-up.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Try Estelle Seghers,” mumbled Delphine. “Earth Mother, no less.”

  The death stare made it all worthwhile.

  “Clever little bitch, aren’t you?” The woman snarled, attempting to move, without success. “But not as much as you think. Just you wait.”

  She did. With one remaining question to ask.

  “What are all those white babies really sold on for in Africa and here in France? Or are you banking on your trial to tell more lies?”

  “There’ll be no trial.”

  “Dream on,” snapped Gauffroi. “After being dismembered, their body parts are sold at high prices as cures for the wealthy. Mainly in Tanzania, but Delphine’s right. Here too. It’s witchcraft. Pure evil.”

  *

  He then helped two heavily-armed gendarmes from Le Mans accompanied by Captain Valon to bundle that fake nurse away. Seconds later, Patrick Gauffroi stumbled back into the ward and, having glanced at Roza, made for the nearest chair by Delphine’s bed.

  “Jesus. That was some frisking!” He panted. “Security did the bloody lot, and I won’t go into details. Talk about paranoid.”

  “You can’t blame them, after Estelle Seghers just tried again to kill me.”

  “Estelle Seghers? Here?” He looked around, on alert. “Shit. You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was. All over now, but it was close.”

  He re-focussed on her.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Just about.”

  “This is like being on some damned weird film set,” he said, withdrawing a battered box of shell-shaped chocolates from inside his coat. “Unreal’s the word.” Then, having offered one to Delphine, calling her a ‘crazy, crazy girl’ and Roza, a ‘hero’ for spotting that Glock, explained what had happened once he’d driven off with Lucius Seghers aboard.

  In close-up, his eyes looked drained, and his stubbled cheeks, like his hands, bore scratches, but all in all, she had to admit, he looked OK. Well, more than OK in a rugged, almost mediaeval sort of way…

  “He was petrified,” her visitor went on. “Hadn’t been outside ‘Les Cigales’ for thirty-five years, desperate for me save his skin, which I did. For a price.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Knowledge.”

  Patrick’s light brown eyes met hers as he cupped his hands around his mouth so Roza couldn’t hear. “That dead baby at the hotel was to punish and destroy your family. Fact.”

  She’d known all along…

  Those first thoughts on Monday morning came winging back. How her mother and Basma had been ferreting around. Maybe the Algerian had been pressured to reveal what she’d discovered, especially about the Rosheims. But who else could have known what Irène Rougier knew? Lise Confrère, perhaps, grown too close to the versatile, dangerous doctor?

  Patrick reached out to hold Delphine’s left hand.

  “But why go to those terrible lengths?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  When really, she simply couldn’t reveal how her father had left that teenager concussed by a flooded river. Why Antoine Gauffroi had borne the brunt of the investigation, and if he’d known the truth, might not have become violent towards his family, possibly killing his first son and ending his own life.

  “We wait till the delightful Seghers trio starts singing.” Patrick released her hand. “But what the venerable Doctor did finally spill to the flics was how he’d taken Lucius Segher’s ID for his own driving licence. In fact, everything, pretending he was him. As if he didn’t exist. Callous old con.”

  “Why?”

  “Lucius had to appear to be dead. Past tense. That way, his Papa could play the devoted, grieving parent. Especially as his son was no more than a stallion at stud. Except, he’d never been allowed out to graze or run around. The Cahors team are trying to find who he’d replaced and where those poor brood mares came from. Also, where any
barren ones or those who tried to escape might be buried. And,” he paused. “the one who’d given birth to the sacrifice.”

  Sacrifice?

  That word sent a tremor beneath her warm bedding.

  “Apparently, Filipo Facchietti doesn’t know who she is. All ‘receptacles’ as they were known, had their heads covered while being impregnated, then moved to different beds.”

  “It’s grotesque.” Delphine’s throat felt as dry as chalk, and just then, a glass of ice-cold Sancerre would have been Heaven, to also blur the horror of what she’d heard and experienced.

  “But how did Lucius Seghers end up there? The Auberge de l’Aube is ages away from the Causses.”

  “His disappearance was in the news next day, wasn’t it? They love a good story, especially where sex is involved. Except there was no disappearance.” He paused while an Indian doctor spoke briefly to the nurse at the door. “The teen was spirited away next morning by his aunt with Papa following. Oh yes, he’d played at being the bereft father while continuing to practise as a doctor in Paris until decamping to ‘Les Cigales’ for an even more lucrative income.”

  The old girl at the Auberge had heard another car, and Éric Longeau had ‘never believed Lucius had died…’

  “Just goes to show what devious monsters some people can be. And he probably knows that any crime investigated more than ten years ago, can’t be resurrected.”

  “That’s archaic.”

  “Agreed. So, it begs the question, what did Henri Seghers really have to hide?”

  43.

  12.20 hrs.

  Just as Patrick Gauffroi left the ward, this time to visit the wc, the nurse suddenly wheeled in the telephone, saying Captain Valon urgently needed to speak to her again before leaving for Cahors.

  “I’m worried about you being overwhelmed, especially with visitors, and not wanting any lunch.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” said Delphine, reaching up for the receiver. Valon, in a hurry, wasted no time referring to Gauffroi’s shocking revelations about white infant sacrifices, then promised he’d immediately follow them up, find any transport links and any further Henri Seghers/Bonn connections. Also, check up on the helpful Pauline Fillol in Bonlieu.

  “Thank you.”

  Next, he shared the results of that dead baby boy’s post-mortem, re-scheduled to earlier that morning.

  “It’s grim, I’m afraid,” he cautioned. “I’ll stop any time you say.”

  “No, please.” Yet did she really want to know? She mentally prepared herself, relieved to see Roza finally dozing off.

  “His had been a natural birth, with no complications. His umbilical cord had been professionally cut very early on Monday morning, followed by manual strangulation at approximately 06.00 hours. Henri Seghers has just confessed to his murder and of another infant, in October 1993. A girl. You can probably guess whose.”

  “Basma’s?”

  “And his.”

  What?

  “She told me it had been kidney failure, and the rest…”

  A loaded pause, in which Delphine knew that any less than truly white baby would have had an even shorter life.

  Gauffroi was speaking again.

  “He’d been a regular visitor to St-Denis since September 1968 when the brothel opened. I’ll tell you more about it later, but as for the Hôtel les Palmiers’ case, he’d used Filipo Facchietti to bring his own son from ‘Les Cigales’ to the hotel. What does this tell us about both men?”

  “Whoever the mother is, she must never know,” said Delphine still thinking of how Basma Arouar had lied. What she had lost, and no wonder there’d been no records.

  “Facchietti’s not saying,” Valon went on. “But the good news is, fifty areas of DNA tested from the root of that single hair, show a perfect match with that of the victim. Enough to make our man his father. Forensics have done a great job which normally takes a week at least. His black van’s being examined now.”

  Delphine felt more than ill, as the Captain continued, his voice quickening, under pressure. “Henri Seghers has also admitted it was his sister who in November 1968 had driven her nephew away from the Auberge de l’Aube. All planned in advance, except for his lewd encounter with your… your…”

  “Father will do,” she said flatly.

  “She’d also booked those two rooms in the Hôtel les Palmiers at 10.00 hours on Saturday evening, using an untraceable phone.”

  Delphine could imagine it. Meanwhile, Valon was speaking again, also warding off someone else in the background wanting his attention. “Regarding Basma Arouar’s murder, because that’s what it was, forensic evidence shows how on Tuesday morning at approximately 11.30 hours, both Lise Confrère and Noah Baudart, acting under her orders, so he claims, overpowered their victim who’d opened her back door to them, before dragging her upstairs and strangling her. They then stripped off her clothes and shoes then strung her up, using that one chair in her bedroom.”

  Knowing that gave her no pleasure.

  “She’d told me it was suicide, the liar.”

  “She would. Other evidence shows his and her fingerprints and fingernail cuts had badly bruised their victim’s neck and arms, suggesting a struggle before she lost consciousness and died. Also, both sets of fingerprints match those in his car. His and Confrere’s, which was careless. He’d already stolen the Mercedes’ Satnav and later, when back in Labradelle, began hacking phones, including those of Michel Salerne and Josette Lecroix.”

  “Where had they said they were going?”

  “Checking out a burglary near Sillé-le-Guillaume which proved a hoax on both sides.” Valon’s sigh was noticeable. “I’ve since been grilled about it but trusted them. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing.”

  “And Carlos Serovia?”

  “Probably had a key to Basma’s house, but no trace of it so far. Found her dead and panicked in case he’d be fingered. We may ever know.”

  Valon paused. “As for Baudart, I’ve been a bloody fool all along. Until you and your mother’s ordeal on Wednesday afternoon, he’d seemed decent enough, with a sound CV. But neither I nor Commander Bonnet knew of his family’s connection to Lise Confrère. As for his records, nothing to arouse suspicion.”

  He sounded genuinely pissed off. Delphine had to believe him.

  “How did they get into Basma’s house?”

  “Easy if you know how, and they’d also taken both those files which have just turned up at ‘Les Cigales.’ No sign yet of her mobile.” He then paused. “What sickens me is Confrère’s affectionate note to Henri Seghers himself.”

  “Bitch. She could also have threatened Miko and Josette.”

  “Indeed, and that’s being looked into. It also seems these two cousins and probably Martin Dobbs, updated the ex-doctor on your comings and goings, and, whoever let them grease their palm to take that chopper, will pay a price.”

  Delphine lay there, torturing herself about what she’d naïvely revealed to him and her former ‘heroine.’ Including his two addresses.

  Trackers, all…

  “Those two files must have been very important.”

  “Correct.”

  Delphine closed her eyes, against the bright lights above her and snow falling nonchalantly outside, as his voice again filled her ear.

  “Basma Arouar had discovered that the divorced Maria Facchietti, originally from Milan and using her maiden name Benedetto, moved first to Buenos Aires before settling as a nurse in Midwest City…” His pause was too long, but Delphine had to hear the rest.

  “And?”

  “She’s been on Oklahoma’s State Penitentiary’s Death Row for three years. Guilty of killing her crack dealer and his male lover, and due for lethal injection next February. No wonder it’s been off the radar here, and her ex-husband has kept a low profile. He may even be a player. Be interesting to meet him and to see where the snow’s been hidden.”

  Delphine kept her eyes shut. Confrère really had wanted her dead.

/>   “And my file?”

  Another hesitation.

  “Please…”

  “Things have moved on. The Ministry of Defence Archive has just checked out that possible Henri Seghers connection with the city of Bonn, and although, as you know I’m not one for coincidences, there is a match.”

  “How?”

  “Ages and time-frame.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “According to stored SS records, a Franz Fleischer was born on 12th February 1926 in Bonn’s Heerstrasse. He joined the Hitler Youth then the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division in April 1944 as a Private, aged eighteen, only to abscond just before the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.”

  “And?” Delphine squeezed her eyes even more tightly together. Wondering if that had been the same name Pauline would have given her.

  “Records at the Mairie in Paris’ second arrondissement, show a name change in 1949 from Franz Otto Fleischer to Henri Seghers. Also, his marriage certificate to an Adèle née Doulmen in August 1950. And her death in 1965.”

  “What about Estelle Seghers?”

  “She changed from Irmgard Fleischer in 1948. The Mairie in Brive have just confirmed it. But privately, Delphine, away from the public domain, there is something else…”

  “What d’you mean, ‘privately?’”

  “I’ve just been to Bellevue. Your mother suggested it in case anything should happen to you and your father.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to pass me three letters written by a Charles Rosheim to her for when she was old enough to read. She’d hidden them behind a loose stone in the wall by the woodpile. When your dog was killed, her first thought was they’d been stolen.”

  Jésu…

  Delphine opened her eyes, realising why Julie had, like her predecessor, been banished there to guard not only the wood.