Merle: A French murder mystery (A Jacques Forêt Mystery Book 2)

by Angela Wren

  “On Friday, you met Madeleine Cloutier at an address in Le Puy. You were together for about an hour and a quarter. Can you tell me what that meeting was about and why it had to take place in Le Puy rather than here in the office?”

  Roger straightened his tie. “I was wondering when you were going to stumble onto that. What has Madeleine told you?”

  “I just want to hear what you have to say, Roger.”

  “Alright, Madeleine and I are seeing each other, and my wife doesn’t know about it.”

  “I see; and how long has this been going on?”

  “About a year.”

  Jacques nodded. “And do you always meet on a Friday?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was it you who suggested that Madeleine continue to claim her expenses for these visits?”

  Roger frowned. “I run the finances, Jacques, I would never suggest any such thing. If Madeleine is doing that, then she has done so without my sanction.”

  “You left Le Puy at about two on Friday. Where did you go?”

  “I first went into the city to get some flowers for my wife and then I went home.”

  “Did you remain there?”

  “Yes, and my wife came home at about six that evening.”

  Jacques flipped his notebook shut and placed a note in front of Roger. “That mobile number, do you recognise it?”

  “Not really, but then I can’t see the point of remembering numbers for mobiles because all the ones I need are in my contacts list.”

  Jacques pulled out his phone and began to dial. “So, if I ring this number…” They both heard the muffled ring tone of a mobile and Roger opened his desk drawer and took out his third mobile.

  “That number is mine,” he said as he placed it on the desk.

  Jacques then presented the sheet detailing calls that he had presented to Madeleine. “Can you check your call history on that number for me, please. I’d like to compare it with this list.”

  Roger did as he was asked and handed the phone to Jacques.

  “So, these are messages between you and Madeleine. That’s a lot messages between you two just to manage a regular meeting on a Friday.”

  Roger glared at him. “We sometimes talk about work.”

  Pelletier removed his glasses and began to clean them as he updated Jacques.

  “The second body is Aimée Moreau, Jacques. Initial findings from the pathologist at the scene are that she may have drowned, but there is a serious wound to her head. Estimated time of death… Predictably the pathologist didn’t want to commit himself. I would suggest death occurred sometime between Thursday, when you last saw Aimée, and yesterday.”

  “How was the body not spotted sooner?”

  “We think that she was hidden in weeds at the bank and the dog walker let his animal off the lead earlier than usual because there was no-one else around.” Pelletier replaced his spectacles.

  “A blow to the head and then pushed in the water, do you think?”

  “It’s possible. Her bag was in some undergrowth a little further downstream, but we still have not found the laptop and we do need her next of kin.”

  Jacques checked his phone to see if there had been a response to his call from the previous day. But there was nothing. “I’ll follow that up.”

  “And what about your discussion with Roger Baudin?”

  “He maintains that he and Madeleine Cloutier are having an affair. He has a mobile phone that he keeps just to contact her, he says. But I’ve checked the phone records, and there are a lot of messages that are passed between the two of them regularly. I think there’s something else here, and I think it is connected with my internal investigation at Vaux. Someone is determined to discredit the company but who it is I’m still not sure. I’m also fairly certain that they are not working alone. The cyber-attack came from within the company, and apart from Philippe and his team, all of whom he has vouched for, there is no-one else with the relevant skills to mount such an attack. So there has to be someone else outside of the company who is involved.”

  “So how do you want to proceed?”

  “I would like to see the CCTV footage for Aimée’s building if you’ve got it. And the CCTV footage for the streets around where the fire occurred last Thursday. I’m sure there’s a connection.”

  Pelletier nodded. “The Fire Investigator’s report states the fire was arson and we have a team looking into the incident. We have examined that footage and we have two persons of interest that we are trying to identify. I’ll give that team your number and get them to contact you. We’ve just received the footage for Aimée’s building and I’ve got someone looking at that now. You’re welcome to join them and let me know what you find.”

  The Vaux Investigations building was almost empty when Jacques returned to his desk late that evening. There was something he wanted to check against the surveillance camera footage that he had been looking at over the last couple of weeks. He pulled out the grainy grey pictures that had been printed out for him from the footage of the streets around the location of the fire and from the area around Aimée’s building. Then he logged in to his desktop and accessed the secret drive on the network and re-ran the footage from the beginning. He let it run and never took his eyes off the screen until the time stamp for Monday October 19th clicked over to 16.49.03. He paused it and looked at the screen closely. He compared what he saw with the two sheets he had collected from Pelletier’s team and smiled.

  tuesday, november 3rd

  “Beth, can you help me with something today?” Jacques poured her a cup of coffee and set it down on the breakfast bar.

  “Will it take long? I wanted to do some more work on Thierry’s book.”

  “I want you to go to the archives for me and check for some births, marriages and deaths. Mademoiselle Lapointe has some gaps in her history and I need to find out why. Her previous name was Nowak, and her date of birth is May 17th 1955. I also need to know if she had a child in 1971 or ’72, whether she married at all, and to confirm that her mother died in 1985.”

  Beth stared at him wide-eyed. “Jacques, I know because of your job you have an amazing memory for information, but I need you to run those details by me again and only after I’ve got a piece of paper and a pen!” She moved across the kitchen and began searching through a drawer full of papers and envelopes and found a small notebook. “Right, I’m ready.”

  The birth in 1955 was easy enough to find and Beth noted the details and the parents’ full names. The search for the birth in the seventies was proving tiresome. She’d begun in January 1971 and had worked steadily forward until lunch. She’d picked up the search an hour later and moved forward from November 1971 through to December 1972. There was no details that matched her search criteria.

  Then she looked at the death records for 1985 for Madame Nowak senior, but found nothing. Going back to the beginning of the year, she searched again for the name of Lapointe and again her work was fruitless. She phoned Jacques.

  “There’s nothing… I’ve already searched twice under both names and there’s nothing, Jacques… OK, I’ll hang on here.”

  In Pelletier’s office, later that afternoon, Jacques worked through some possible theories.

  “This man has been seen in the vicinity of the property that was burned, Aimée’s building, and we’ve now found him in the vicinity of some of the streets that lead down to the river close to where Aimée’s body was found.”

  “That doesn’t make him a murderer, Jacques.”

  “No, you’re right, but he was in the right place at the right time on Friday when Hélène was killed.”

  “Why do you think Hélène was killed?”

  “I don’t know. She was instrumental in carrying forward some of the strategies that have been employed at Vaux to undermine personnel on the team. As yet, I can find no link between the discrediting of the company and her death, unless she knew too much and had to be silenced. But that’s very tenuous.”


  “Why would anyone work to discredit the Vaux Group to such an extent that they may become bankrupt, Jacques? Why would anyone do that?”

  “I’ve had that thought circling my mind for weeks. I’ve seen the tensions within the workforce, even between the two brothers, but I can’t pinpoint who or what is behind it. I’ve even considered that one of the brothers is seeking to remove the other in order to gain absolute control, and that might be true, but why take action that means that the company loses business. It’s that point that I keep coming up against.”

  Pelletier stood and turned to look through the window to the street below. “Can you apply any pressure to Roger Baudin, for instance, or Madeleine?”

  “I can try, but I want to wait for the results of some searches that Beth is undertaking for me. There may be nothing useful but I’d still like to see the results.”

  “Alright, we’ll leave it at that as I need to go back to Messandrierre this afternoon to talk to Fermier Pamier about the de Silva case.”

  “Something new on that one?”

  “We’ve checked with the other members of the hunting party and none of them had a 12-bore shotgun that day. Or at least none of them are admitting it.”

  “So Pamier is in the frame, is he?”

  “It would seem so.”

  ***

  Ricky Delacroix emerged from his meeting with the Notaire in Mende only twenty minutes after he’d arrived. Business had been swift and, as he suspected, there was very little of value in the estate except the house and land, and that would be his from now on. He had remembered what his father had always said about his brother being a hoarder and a skin flint, and Ricky wondered if there was more to find.

  He walked to his hotel, packed his bags and paid his bill. An hour later, he was in Messandrierre and parked at his uncle’s property. He unlocked the farmhouse door and went in.

  The place was a mess. The wallpaper was old fashioned and peeling off the walls in places. The furniture in the main room was old and shabby, and there were papers and other bits of debris over every surface. He walked into the kitchen and recoiled at the smell. Back in the main room, he pulled open a couple of drawers on the large dresser that stood against the back wall. They oozed junk and detritus. He shook his head and slammed the drawers shut. Upstairs, he looked through the two bedrooms and found them in a similar condition. Finally, he went up into the roof space. The attic smelt of damp and when he moved to the gable end, he found an ineffective repair through which rain had leaked in. There were boxes filling every available inch of space.

  He decided to check the possibility of renting a chalet again. At least, he’d be close enough to be able to go through everything and then get it cleaned and habitable again, and then he’d decide what to do.

  ***

  Jacques joined Beth at the archives.

  “I’ve done the extra searches you wanted,” she said and passed a couple of documents across to him. “The only children I can find under the name Vaux are for Édouard and his wife. Twin boys.”

  “That confirms what Madame Vaux told me at least,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “Mmm. I think this might be what you’re looking for.”

  Jacques took the copy of the details of a birth and a death and studied them. “That puts a completely different perspective on everything.”

  He took out his phone and called Pelletier.

  “I’ve got a name for you to run a check on. And I’d like you to undertake some checks on a couple of bank accounts, too. Michelle sent me a text whilst I was on my way here to meet Beth. I’ve got Aimée’s next of kin details… It’s a brother who lives in Alès… Yes, that’s right about two, maybe two and half hours away by train. Possibly, it’s too far to commute on a daily basis but not long enough to prevent regular trips home at weekends for instance… Probably and we can check that when he is informed of the death… I’ll be with you in a few moments.” He ended the call.

  “Thanks, Beth, this is good work. Go home and lock the door. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but don’t wait up for me.”

  wednesday, november 4th

  The boardroom at Vaux Consulting was bathed in cool winter sunlight as Magistrate Pelletier and Jacques waited for all the attendees to arrive. Alain Vaux was seated on Jacques’ right and had been punctual as always. Madeleine Cloutier, Philippe Chauvin and Roger Baudin had drifted in independently of each other. Édouard made an entrance ten minutes later and Mademoiselle Lapointe followed immediately behind.

  “We’ve got a number of issues to deal with today arising from my internal investigation,” said Jacques, “and I will take up as little of your time as I possibly can. Magistrate Pelletier is here because there are now two deaths connected with this case, and he will comment and add to the discussion as required.” Jacques and Pelletier nodded to each other.

  Jacques turned his attention to Alain Vaux. “You asked me to conduct an internal investigation into the apparent losses of business from Vaux to C and C Consulting. In the course of that investigation, I’ve come across a number of other things and I’ll deal with those first.”

  He looked at Édouard. “Within your team, there is widespread abuse of the expenses accounts. You and Alain will need to decide how you want to proceed and whether you want to just seek repayment or pass the details to the police so that charges can be considered.”

  Jacques detailed the process and demonstrated how the credit card system had been used. He handed a file of papers over to Alain.

  “Shouldn’t those papers come to me so that we can take appropriate recovery action from salaries? Roger Baudin looked across at Alain.

  “All in good time,” said Alain. “I want to hear what else Jacques has to say.”

  “The project team are not the only ones who are guilty of misappropriating company funds, are they, Édouard?”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Édouard stood and was about to leave when Magistrate Pelletier spoke. “Monsieur Vaux, I would prefer it if you and everyone else remained in this room until Jacques has presented his case in full.”

  Édouard, jaw set, glowered at Pelletier but resumed his seat.

  “With the help of the Magistrate Pelletier’s team, I’ve had some bank accounts checked.” He placed a copy of an account in front of Édouard. “There are regular payments from your account to Mademoiselle Lapointe. €500 a month. Would you like to explain what that is for?”

  Édouard slapped his hand over the piece of paper and screwed it up. “How dare you?”

  “Monsieur Vaux, we can handle this here as requested by your brother or we can move to my domain a few streets away. I would prefer you to answer the question here and now,” said Pelletier.

  Édouard thought for a moment, looked at his younger brother and said, “It’s payment for a debt.”

  From Jacques’ vantage point at the head of the boardroom table, he could see the changing expressions on everyone’s faces as he had delivered that particular shot of information. Philippe Chauvin showed his disgust quite openly, Roger Baudin was as unreadable as ever, and Mademoiselle Lapointe remained composed and unfathomable.

  “At that level of repayment, it must have been a very substantial debt.”

  Édouard made no comment.

  Jacques then presented another sheet of paper to Édouard. “This is a copy of a record of a birth and—”

  “We’ve been through this already. I’ve told you that woman was a fantasist.”

  “I’m not talking about the letters from 1971, Édouard.” He turned his attention to Mademoiselle Lapointe. “When we spoke last week, you gave me some details about your own background. But there were gaps and I couldn’t understand why. When I checked your personnel file, I noticed that you had taken some leave in 1985. It stated in your file that your mother had died. But she was already dead by then, wasn’t she? In fact, she had died in 1980 when you were twenty-five, and it wasn’t her illness that forced you to c
ome back to France, was it? It was her death. I looked at your file again and realised that the period of absence was for six months – and that could mean a number of things. In your case, it meant the birth your son Luc Vaux Nowak who was born in 1985, and that copy of the birth details shows that Édouard is the named father.” A strained hush pervaded the room as Édouard paled and looked across at his PA.

  “Mademoiselle Lapointe, would you like to add anything?”

  A glimmer of a black look flitted across her face as everyone in the room focussed their attention on her.

  “Yes, that is my son,” she said. “And the money is for him, but I had no idea that it was coming from company funds.”

  “Would you like to tell us about your son?” Jacques waited for her response.

  Mademoiselle Lapointe looked down and shook her head.

  Magistrate Pelletier got up and moved over to the window. “I regret to tell you, Mademoiselle, that your son is in custody and has been since late last night.” He turned to face her. “When did you last see him?”

  “A few days ago. He wanted some money. He always needs money.”

  “And how do you keep in touch with him?” Pelletier moved further down the room until he was standing right behind her.

  “I don’t, he just turns up when he wants something and then he leaves again.”

  “He doesn’t keep in touch with you by mobile phone, perhaps?” Pelletier glanced at Jacques who, under the cover of the table, dialled the number that had been taken from Luc Nowak’s contacts’ list.

  “Is that your phone, Mademoiselle, that’s ringing?”

  Eloise Lapointe glared at Jacques and at everyone in the room. She then delved into her handbag and brought out the mobile and placed it on the table.

  Jacques ended the call.

  Pelletier moved back to the head of the table and stood beside Jacques. “Luc Vaux Nowak has a string of offences for arson and petty theft. I want to interview him about a fire in Montbel earlier this year as well as the incident here in Mende. Did you know he has a criminal record? And I would think very carefully before you answer that question, Mademoiselle. We have Luc’s phone and we have seen the messages you have exchanged with each other over the last couple of weeks.”