Hate Bale

by Stephanie Dagg

  “So, I hear you’ve taken to bumping off old men with farming implements,” said Philippe sternly, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

  Martha shook her head. “Don’t you start,” she sighed, trying but failing to manage a weak smile in return. “Is that for me?” Her eyes locked onto the mug of coffee.

  “It is.” He handed it over and Martha drained it, despite the fact it was black and laden with sugar. She liked her coffee white and unsweetened. “Better?”

  “Not really, but at least I’m not thirsty any more,” she replied. “Oh.” It was only now she wondered where the china mug had come from. She stared at it, perplexed.

  “The Maire’s secretary is dishing out coffee,” Philippe explained.

  Martha nodded. “That’s nice,” she mumbled, absently. But then reality slapped her in the face again. “Do your colleagues really think I killed Philippe to avoid paying for nine sacks of animal feed?” she asked, dry-mouthed once more in panic.

  “Not any more,” smiled Philippe. “I explained how we do things here in the countryside. Those two,” he jerked his head dismissively in the direction of the yard, “are in from the city, getting experience of rural policing. Plus, the medical examiner tells us it would taken considerable force to stick a tractor spike right through a human body and out the other side.”

  “And the official conclusion is that I’m too puny to do that?” Martha wanted confirmation.

  “It is. I didn’t tell them that you’re stronger than you look, like lots of farming folk. Finely developed animal-wrestling muscles. I’ve seen you with a sheep under each arm, remember?”

  He’d come round early for his Sunday food-and-chess session with Mark once and found Martha returning two very young ovine escapees to their frantic mother.

  “Those sheep were lambs. Very little lambs. Even then I was struggling a bit though,” Martha told him. “But thank you for withholding that incriminating fact. So, can I go home?”

  “Yes,” Philippe announced. “But don’t do a runner, will you?” Another smile.

  “There’ll be more questioning then?” asked Martha with a sigh.

  “Of course.” That came with a ‘c’est la vie’ shrug. “Actually, I have a couple of quick things to ask you now. And are there any witnesses to confirm what time you got here?”

  “Oh crikey.” Martha sank back onto the uncomfortable plastic chair. “No. There was nobody here. Oh, well, there was a body,” she pulled a face at her tasteless remark, “only I didn’t know that. And I didn’t see anyone as I passed through the village either.”

  “Can anyone confirm what time you left home?” prompted Philippe.

  “Yes!” cried Martha, standing up in triumph. Yes, she had a witness. “The ghastly woman in the holiday cottage. She saw me leave.” It occurred to Martha that if she’d stopped to find out what Carol had wanted, since she’d clearly wanted something, and if it had been something that took a while to sort out then she wouldn’t have got to the farm supplies until the afternoon. Someone else would have found Daniel then. Damn, she shouldn’t have ignored the annoying old trout.

  “Oh, and there was the car and the bike too,” she blurted, her brain slowly cranking back into action, thanks to that caffeine and sugar. Then it cranked a bit faster and farther. “Ohmigod! The car! The moron driver! That might have been who killed Daniel.”

  “What? What car?” frowned Philippe.

  “I didn’t tell the others about it. I remembered it earlier but then I forgot it again. I couldn’t think properly because they kept on and on asking the same stupid questions about why I might want to kill Daniel. And if it’s that car driver, then he’ll be miles away by now. Mind you, the way he was driving he’d have been miles away even if I’d told the other cops about him and the cyclist, and—”

  “Slow down. Take a deep breath and start again.” Philippe steered her firmly back into the chair. “Tell me about the car.”

  Martha recounted the incident in as much detail as she could, which wasn’t really very much. She’d got only a quick glimpse of the car and driver as she’d been too busy making evasive manoeuvres. She told Philippe about the cyclist too. She was a little disappointed to see the interest evaporate from Philippe’s face.

  “That’s no help then?” she demanded, weakly.

  “Certainly not as a witness, and I doubt it’s connected to our crime. Just a boy racer.”

  “Not a murderer fleeing the scene?” probed Martha. She was rather proud of her theory.

  “If there’d been any signs of a burglary gone wrong here, he might be more tempting as a suspect. But there’s a till full of money that hasn’t been touched.” He glanced at the counter in the portacabin. “However, I’ll discuss it with my colleagues.” They didn’t sound like colleagues he thought much of, not by the way he said the word.

  “And does poor Murielle know yet?” Martha needed to know. “She’ll be devastated.”

  “She’ll know very soon, and yes, she will,” Philippe agreed. “We’ve found out that she’s at her daughter’s in Limoges. The young woman’s gone into hospital for a minor op today so Murielle went down early this morning to help out with the grandkids. Two sets of twins, apparently.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen the photos,” nodded Martha. “Oh good heavens, what an awful day for the family.”

  Philippe just shook his head. Then he patted Martha’s shoulder. “I’ll go and update the others,” he told her.

  “OK. I dare say they’ll be back with the handcuffs for me for withholding information,” groaned Martha. “I just forgot about the car before. It wasn’t on purpose!”

  She sank her head into her hands again. Suddenly she was aware of Philippe crouching down in front of her.

  “Hey,” he said, gently lifting her face. “Everything’s fine, I promise.” And he took her hands.

  Martha squeezed his in return and managed a feeble smile. Then she watched dumbly as he turned and strode out of the door. Very soon afterwards in strode the original two cops. She went over the red car incident with them. When she described it as being a small car and probably old, since the paintwork had appeared somewhat faded, one of them pulled up pictures of different makes of cars on his phone. Martha could hardly see any difference between them, but, eventually, she saw one that seemed to match the rather hazy image of the car in her head. It turned out to be a 1999 Citroen Saxo. They seemed satisfied with that, and dissatisfied with her for not telling them sooner. However, the timing wasn’t right for him to be the killer, although he was the only possible lead Martha could give them. She’d seen him less than ten minutes before she arrived at the farm supplies shop, but according to what that scene of crime woman had said about time of death, Daniel had been dead half an hour already. Unless the guy hung around for twenty minutes before tearing off in his car, then that ruled him out. And besides, there were roads leading in all directions from La Bellette. Roads much tinier and less frequented than the road Martha had travelled along. Those would surely be the first choice of someone fleeing a murder scene.

  The police asked about the cyclist too, as a possible back-up witness to verify Martha’s movements in the absence of anything better. However, beyond him being male, of typical lean cyclist build and snarky, plus definitely overdressed for the season with his long-sleeved top and tacky face/neck mask thing, she couldn’t tell them much. She mentioned the strangely shiny tyres but they didn’t even bother noting that down.

  Philippe came in at that point with more coffee. Presumably he reckoned Martha needed rescuing from his colleagues. She shot him a very grateful look.

  “I’m sure we can let Madame Martha go home now, can’t we?” he said pointedly. Martha smiled to herself. Philippe had never been able to master her surname, Bigglesthwaite.

  Martha couldn’t tell from their uniforms who outranked who. She suspected one of these newbies was Philippe’s hierarchical equivalent, but Philippe had age and experience on his side too.

 
“I thought I’d drive her home,” Philippe went on, “as she’s undoubtedly still in shock. Perhaps you,” he addressed the thinner of the two men, “can follow me in the squad car and then run me to the Chateleix gendarmerie, and I can make a start on pulling things together there.”

  The thin cop glanced at his companion, who nodded, and then he in turn nodded at Philippe. Philippe gave a nod to Martha. She had no one to nod to, and couldn’t help feeling a little left out. She said a thin-lipped “Au revoir” to her tormentors and hurried out of the portacabin with Philippe towards her car.

  “Thank you,” she said, “but I could have driven myself home. I don’t want to make extra work for you.”

  “You’re not. I can hopefully clear up the business of your departure time from home when we get you back. And anyway, you don’t look fit to drive.”

  Well, thanks for that, thought Martha grumpily. For the second time that morning, she rummaged in her bag for her powder compact to check her appearance. She probably looked a little pale, that was all. However, her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t get the wretched thing open. She popped it back into the bag and felt for the keys. As she handed them to Philippe they dropped from her trembling fingers to the ground.

  Philippe picked them up and raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Ok, ok, you’re right, I’m wrong,” she admitted ungraciously.

  She watched without comment as Philippe made to climb into the passenger seat first, forgetting hers was a right-hand drive. He rolled his eyes and then strode round to the driver’s seat. Martha was about to get in, when her glance fell on the sacks of animal feed in the back.

  “Wait! We’ll have to put those back. I haven’t paid for them,” she exclaimed.

  “Pfft,” replied Philippe dismissively. “You know what you’ve got. Apparently one of the sons will be arriving this afternoon to run the shop for the next few days.”

  “Oh, the one who’s a farmer in Indre?” That was the next département up from Creuse. Murielle often mentioned Antoine, who had a small farm there somewhere, evidently not too far away.

  “Not sure, but I expect so. You can call by and settle up with him. Anything else?”

  That prompt came because Martha was dithering at the open door of the car, now looking towards the cordoned-off murder scene.

  “I dropped my big clunky bolt in there,” she explained. “When I saw Daniel.” Her throat constricted at the vivid memory.

  “Ah, so that’s how it got where it did. I think it’s been bagged up as evidence.”

  “Oh hell.” Martha’s legs felt weak again and she sank onto the seat. She didn’t know which was worse: not being able to keep Carol from unplugging the pig fence again, or having her fingerprints all over something the police had taken away.

  “I’ll explain why it’s there,” Philippe soothed her, looking for where to stick the car’s keycard in.

  Martha silently indicated the spot. Philippe started the car and flailed around for the handbrake before realising there wasn’t one. He drove them a little jerkily out of the yard. In the wing mirror Martha saw the police car glide after them. They drove out of the village and turned onto the main road. It was a main road in relative terms only. Martha peered ahead silently, squinting against the strong sunlight. Bother, her sunglasses were in the door pocket on Philippe’s side. And her head was starting to throb. This was going to be an unpleasant drive home.

  “So where did you encounter the car and this cyclist of yours?” Philippe piped up.

  Martha started. Thank goodness he’d reminded her as they were nearly at the spot where she’d seen the bike and its owner emerging from the ditch.

  “A bit further… I’d say about fifty metres, twenty… about here.”

  Philippe braked smartly but didn’t pull in. He didn’t need to since their police escort immediately turned on the flashy lights on the roof to warn any approaching motorists of a hazard. However, it was around one, so smack bang in the middle of the sacred French two-hour lunch break. Only a few deranged souls were likely to be on the move.

  Together Philippe and Martha surveyed the person-sized indentation in the nettles and brambles in the ditch.

  “That had to be painful,” observed Philippe.

  “Yeah, he reckoned he was alright, but he was certainly crabby,” nodded Martha. So would she be, she knew, with a thousand nettle stings and as many bramble scratches. “And I met the car up there.”

  She pointed towards the bend.

  “We’d best walk,” said Philippe.

  Walking made her head throb even more but at least they were in the shade of some tall trees growing along the verge. They were a rare sight, thought Martha ruefully. Local farmers seemed to delight in cutting trees down and reducing their hedgerows to spindly ruins with overzealous and pulverising machinery.

  “See? There are my tyre tracks.” The loose gravel at the side of the road showed traces of her sudden veer to the right, confirmed by the flattened grass on the verge. “I’m still not sure how I managed to avoid him.” She shuddered.

  “Quick thinking and skilled driving,” smiled Philippe. “Thank goodness for women drivers.”

  Martha gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Absolutely not,” he assured her sincerely. “Year in and year out, men are responsible for three quarters of all road traffic accidents.”

  “Gosh.” Martha was suitably impressed. Then she couldn’t resist adding, “So maybe I’d better drive us the rest of the way.”

  Philippe chuckled. “Someone’s feeling a bit better I think.”

  Martha shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure how I feel, to be honest. Still kind of numb, I guess.”

  “It’s a terrible thing, to find a dead body. I still hate it,” Philippe confided in her, “and heaven knows I’ve seen enough by now.”

  “That’s only my second, and that’s two too many,” said Martha firmly. She looked up to find Philippe’s concerned eyes studying her. She couldn’t quite read his expression.

  “Come on, let’s get you home,” he said briskly. “I’ve seen what I needed to.”

  He took a couple of photos on his phone, and then they returned to the car and resumed the drive to Les Quatres Vents, Martha’s farm.

  Martha couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted the Cuthbertsons to be there or not. It would be very useful to have confirmation for her alibi that she was still at home when poor Daniel was being impaled. However, what Carol would make of Martha being driven home by a gendarme, and followed by a police car, she couldn’t begin to imagine. No, actually, she could. Carol would come up with all the wrong explanations for it and manage to be personally offended by it all on top.

  She groaned as they rounded the bend in the drive and there, having a late lunch at the picnic table under the big tree, were all the Cuthbertsons. All eyes glued themselves to the two vehicles dawdling past.

  “You go straight in and make yourself a nice cup of tea,” commanded Philippe, displaying the deep understanding of the English psyche that had come through his friendship with Mark. “I’ll go and talk to that lot.”

  Martha was torn. If she scuttled into the house, head down, it would make her look guilty of whatever Carol’s worst imaginings could come up. But she didn’t have the energy to deal with that nasty piece of work right now.

  Philippe strode over to the Cuthbertsons. He saw the sour-faced woman open her mouth, but he spoke first.

  “Good afternoon. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I just need to ask you something. Can any of you confirm what time Madame Martha left her house this morning for me, please?”

  An unpleasant smile appeared on the woman’s face. Philippe had seen that look so many times during questionings. It meant someone was about to drop someone else firmly in le merde.

  “Carol Cuthbertson,” said Carol, extending a hand which Philippe duly shook. “My husband, Roy, and my grandchildren.” Introductions over, she could stick the boot
into her host. “We have absolutely no idea what time Martha went out today,” she simpered.

  Philippe knew she was lying.

  There was a slightly nervous throat clearing. “Actually, we do,” her husband said. Philippe suspected that it wasn’t he who was making the man anxious. “I’d just finished a crossword in here.” He picked up the puzzle book that was lying on the table next to him. “It’s one you’re meant to challenge yourself to complete within half an hour. I managed it in thirteen minutes,” he went on proudly.

  “Congratulations,” nodded Philippe. He knew all about building up empathy with people you wanted to extract information from.

  “Really—” Carol butted in, but Roy, with the encouragement of the forces of law and order of the Fifth Republic as represented by Philippe looming over him, ignored his wife and plunged on.

  “I began it at three minutes past eleven and finished it at sixteen minutes past. And at precisely that time I saw Martha leaving in her car.”

  Philippe drew out a notepad and wrote the time down with a flourish.

  “Thank you. I’ll let you get back to your lunch,” he said, and turned to go in a manner which didn’t invite questions.

  But Carol was impervious to that. “I’d like to know what’s going on,” she demanded.

  “Just routine queries, madame. Have a nice day,” and with that he strode away.

  He could hear Carol’s angry tones behind him. Whether she was complaining about his refusal to divulge details, or berating her husband for not refusing to do so, was anyone’s guess. Most likely it was both.