“Thank goodness you turned up,” said Martha with a sigh of relief. “She was either about to grill me worse than that investigator of yours, or organise a lynch mob to hound me out of town, but most likely both.”
Philippe laughed. “Take no notice,” he advised. “They know you can’t be guilty as otherwise you’d be in police custody. And trust me, you don’t look like someone who does old men in.”
“All the same…” Martha shifted uncomfortably in her seat and glanced around. “I know everyone’s talking about me. And let’s face it, the same person stumbling across two and a bit corpses in a week? Even I’m starting to think that’s suspicious.”
She pulled a face, and was startled to feel the prickle of tears in her eyes. Where had they come from? She put it down to being in serious need of glucose and caffeine. Philippe caught the defeated look, brief as it was, and laid a paper bag in front of her.
“Tuck in,” he said, quickly squeezing her hand as it came up to open the bag.
She nodded, and peered inside. Her face lit up. Yes, it was a croissant, but more than that it was an almond croissant, something she rarely treated herself to on account of that stubborn tummy bulge.
“Yum,” she grinned. “I love these.”
“I know.” Philippe looked smug.
“How come?” she frowned.
“You mentioned it at one of those delicious Sunday evening, pre-chess dinners,” he reminded her.
Good grief. The man had an impressive memory, she had to give him that.
“Thank you for remembering,” she said gratefully.
Philippe shrugged.
The coffee arrived, delivered by a taciturn waiter. Madame must still have been blushing with embarrassment from earlier. The young man couldn’t stop staring at Martha. He’d presumably never been this close to a putative serial killer before. Philippe cleared his throat meaningfully. The waiter got the hint and scuttled away.
“Since we’ve brought the subject of recent grisly events up,” she said, tearing off a large chunk of croissant coated with toasted almonds and stuffed with marzipan, “what’s the latest?”
She fixed Philippe with a hard look that Paddington Bear would have been proud of. Any hope he might have had of keeping off that particular topic wilted.
“Remy is still unconscious, but he’s stable. The doctors are quietly optimistic he’ll survive, but what state he’ll be in when he does come round is another matter. He’s had a stroke, as we all suspected, and only time will tell how much damage it’s done.”
Martha nodded sadly. Her father had suffered a stroke that had left him unable to speak or swallow, a state he’d coped with bravely for a couple of weeks before he passed away. It had been a harrowing time.
“And Bruno?” she probed, lowering her voice as she clearly detected the people at the table closest to theirs leaning slightly in their direction
“He’s still dead,” shrugged Philippe, with a smirk.
Martha did a mental eye-roll.
“Did that blow to his head kill him?” she demanded.
Philippe frowned. “How did you know about that?”
“It was fairly easy to spot that his head wasn’t quite the right shape, even in that gloom. I just hope he was dead before whoever it was strung him up. That wouldn’t be a nice way to go…”
She trailed off. Being stabbed through the heart with a tractor spike and hacked into pieces weren’t nice ways either. This murderer had a truly sadistic streak.
Philippe was giving her an assessing stare. “I hadn’t realised you’d sussed that out. Yes, according to the autopsy the head injury killed him. And quickly.”
“That’s something, I suppose.” Martha stared gloomily at the remaining half croissant, suddenly without an appetite. “Same guy behind all the deaths?”
“Without a doubt. Our psychological profiler is on the case.”
“Wow, I’d never have guessed Bousseix has its own criminal profiler.” Martha was truly impressed that the gendarmerie, which was only open a couple of half days a week, had such experts on its books.
“It doesn’t. The juge d’investigation has brought him down from Paris. She reckons we’re looking for some maniac who hates farmers.”
“I could have told you that and saved you a massive fee,” observed Martha mildly. That much was obvious, surely.
“Ah, but why does he hate farmers?” Philippe leaned forward. “That’s what we need to know.”
Martha considered this. “Maybe he was told off by one for trespassing?” That seemed weak, even to her. Unlikely to tip someone over the edge, surely. “Or maybe, when he was a youngster, he was terrified by a rampaging cow and he held the farmer responsible. Big animals can be very scary when you’re little,” she added with feeling. She’d been terrified of horses for many years. Her much older sister, Helen, used to drag her along to the local riding stables with her. Martha used to be almost paralysed with fear. Their mother considered the outdoors much healthier for the children, although she herself scorned it, and used to send them out of the house every day in the holidays. Given Helen’s love of horses, they generally wound up round the snorting, stamping, intimidating animals. It was fortunate that phobia had faded, given the animal-rich environment Martha now found herself in.
She reflected some more. “Or perhaps he thinks farmers aren’t being very responsible towards the environment. I’m inclined to agree with that. The amount of hedges that get grubbed up each year just to fit in a few more rows of barley, or make it easier to get from one field to another, it’s disgraceful. Poor old wildlife.”
“But how does Daniel Frobart fit into that?” asked Philippe. “He’s not a farmer.”
“True, but he sells them foodstuffs and chemicals and equipment…” A thought occurred to her. “I’d imagined he was stabbed with the spike because that was the closest thing to hand, but perhaps it was symbolic. And Martial Lecerf being sliced up and stuffed into hay bales – maybe that’s to reflect the way the farmers are carving up and destroying the countryside, cutting its throat so to speak, all for the sake of a few extra kilos of produce, a few extra bales of hay.”
She had warmed to her theme and, without realising, had leaned forward too so that her head was nearly touching Philippe’s. She was suddenly acutely aware that their knees actually were. What to do? If she shrank back and dragged her leg away, it would be obvious and hurtful to Philippe. He wasn’t moving, after all. And truth be told, it was rather nice to be in such close proximity to this undeniably attractive man.
“You know, I think we could have saved ourselves that fee after all,” smiled Philippe.
Martha basked in his praise, even though it was tongue in cheek.
“But, there may be a fly in that ointment,” Martha felt it fair to point out.
“A… what?” frowned Philippe.
Clearly that wasn’t an English saying that translated well into French.
“A flaw. Possibly.”
She told him about the bank statement.
“So you think Bruno’s murderer might have been after the money?” he summarised.
“I did, then I didn’t,” she confessed. “If they were then they’d have finished off both brothers. Although, possibly they tried, and that’s why Remy’s in the state he’s in.”
“There are no traces of external injury on Remy apart from minor bruising caused when he collapsed to the ground,” Philippe said.
“Perhaps the murderer thought he was dead and so left him alone,” suggested Martha.
Philippe shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like our man. He’s been very thorough up to now.”
That was true enough. He’d been more than sure to finish off his other victims properly. And he’d planned carefully: there was the pre-prepared plaited rope in Bruno’s case, and baling up and distributing Martial Lecerf’s body parts had hardly been a spur-of-the-moment thing.
“True.”
She flopped back in her chair bu
t didn’t move her leg. Philippe didn’t either.
Philippe quickly washed a last mouthful of croissant down with a swig of coffee. “Besides which, the nephew’s in the clear,” announced Philippe. “He lives and works in the USA. Watertight alibi, we’ve already checked. And that’s on top of the fact that he’s a very wealthy man and wouldn’t need to murder anyone for their money. But, enough about gruesome matters for the time being,” said Philippe firmly. “How are the kids?”
“Neglected,” confessed Martha, pulling a face. “Lily’s been getting just a couple of vague sentences from me these last few days. I told her about Daniel Frobart, but I haven’t mentioned the other murders to her. They were a bit too close to home and much too grisly. I don’t want her worrying. I hadn’t intended telling Jared either, but his spy ring of local friends is keeping him up to date. I’ve ordered him not to tell his sister anything, so I hope he won’t. He wanted to come over to be my bodyguard but I’ve told him not to dare. I want the pair of them staying well away from here.”
“They’re good kids,” smiled Philippe. He was fond of the junior Bigglesthwaites.
“Yes, they are,” agreed Martha, with a mixture of pride and wistfulness. They were so far away, but they were doing what they wanted to do with their lives and that’s all any parent could wish for their children.
She idly stirred some more sugar into her bitter coffee.
“I always hoped to have kids,” said Philippe suddenly.
Martha looked up in slightly alarmed surprise. He’d never brought the subject up before in all their long years of acquaintance. She recovered quickly.
“There’s still time,” she said. Not with her, obviously. That boat had sailed two years ago in a storm of hot flushes, panic attacks, unexpected tearfulness in supermarkets and a variety of other indignities brought on by her hormones in their death throes. It had been a tough time to get through alone.
“No.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t cope with babies and toddlers now.” Or a young partner who wasn’t Martha, he didn’t add. “Too grumpy and set in my ways.” He forced a smile.
“Never say never,” advised Martha. “You’d make a great dad.”
“I like to think I would have.” He picked a few crumbs off the squashed, empty paper bag that he’d been using as a plate for his almond croissant. “We both wanted kids, me and Nicole.” That was his ex, whom he rarely mentioned. “We were going to work for a few years first to save up, then she’d give up her job for a while to be a full-time mum. That was her decision. But we both got a bit too drawn into our careers. Nicole was ambitious, and good at what she did. She got promoted to a sales position, and was away three weeks out of four. And of course the week she was home was a week of constant overtime or temporary postings away for me. We were hardly ever in the same place at the same time. That was frustrating enough, but on top of that, Nicole kept putting having kids off. She wanted to just get this next promotion, or that sales account. We began to drift apart. Things got more and more strained and stressful. We each realised that the person we’d married wasn’t who we thought they were. And by then, Nicole had met someone she preferred, a work colleague, and everything ended. Not very nicely.”
Philippe stared at the table, brooding.
“I’m so sorry,” said Martha gently, putting her hand on his.
He looked up, shamefaced. “And I was trying to get us off depressing subjects.”
You’ve succeeded, thought Martha. She was fascinated by what she was hearing. She and Mark had come up with all sorts of theories over the years as to why Philippe had split from his wife and remained single since then.
“We’ve bumped into each other a few times in recent years and can just about be civil to each other again.” He smiled wryly. “But it takes a lot of effort on my part.”
“Is she still selling things?” asked Martha.
“Heavens, no.” Philippe gave a bitter smile. “She’s CEO of some cosmetics firm or other.”
Martha was glad she used so few cosmetics. She thus hadn’t inadvertently been supporting Philippe’s ex over the years. Lottie might be helping to keep her in a life of luxury, though.
Martha was musing on this when Philippe’s phone rang. She was also trying to find a tactful way of getting the conversation back onto the subject of the murders. She’d remembered the plaited rope of blue string around Bruno’s neck and wondered if the profiler had had anything to say about that decidedly weird component of the murder scene.
Philippe picked up the phone from the table and frowned at it as he registered the caller’s number.
“Got to take this, I’m afraid. Excuse me.” He got up and walked to the edge of the café’s outdoor seating area.
Martha was slightly miffed. It’s not like she was going to eavesdrop. Not really. She found it hard to keep up with rapid-fire French, which the natives of her adopted country kept specially for phone calls. They talked at an understandable pace face-to-face, and there were visual clues to be had as well, and that made conversations intelligible. But all that was thrown to the wind over the phone. It became garbled goobledegook. However, she’d hoped she might pick out the odd word from Philippe’s chat. Purely to see if she could learn some new vocabulary, of course.
Philippe didn’t look happy. He was pacing energetically backwards and forwards, rubbing his hand over his short brown hair and doing a lot of frowning. But there was an air of defeat about him. Martha finished her croissant, waiting for him to return.
He sat down heavily beside her a minute or so later looking serious.
“Not bad news I hope?” she probed gently.
“Yes and no,” he sighed. “The good bit is that we think we’ve found our mysterious red car.”
“You have? Well, that really is good, surely,” enthused Martha.
“It’s not definite, since we don’t know exactly which red car you saw as you weren’t able to get the number plate details.” Even tactfully put like that, it still made Martha feel a total loser for not noticing such a helpful detail. The last couple of days, when driving around with Lottie, she’d been training herself to better note the registration of passing vehicles but it wasn’t proving very successful. “But we’ve been tracking down all 1999 red Citroën Saxos still in use and contacting the owners for alibis. One guy we’d been in touch with had been in the UK until yesterday, and so we’d discounted his vehicle as he had an alibi that we could confirm, but when he got back to the train station car park at Limoges last night he found his car gone. He contacted us immediately. Turns out a flic pulled the car over a few hours ago for speeding, and when he checked the registration he found out we were after this vehicle. The driver’s under arrest. He’s adding at least one more crime to his already pretty substantial criminal record.”
“Is he our guy then? He must be!” Martha decided to answer her own question. A known felon nicking a car not impossibly far away from the scenes of crime and now found fleeing? It seemed to fit the bill.
“Well, I don’t like to burst your bubble, but he’s never done anything violent before. He has problems distinguishing what’s his from what isn’t, it’s true, but that’s as far as it goes. However, he’s refusing to talk. He’s neither confessing nor denying involvement in the murders. The juge – that was her on the phone – has arranged to go and interview him tonight. I’m to go with her. She reckons she can crack him.”
Martha shared that belief.
“So I’ll have to postpone our picnic,” he explained. “That’s the bad news bit.”
“But you don’t have to question this guy till tonight,” Martha pointed out.
“He’s in Calais,” revealed Philippe.
“Ah.”
“Madame la juge will be picking me up from home in two hours’ time. That’s as late as I could push her. She was all for collecting me from here, now, in this,” he gestured at his outfit, “and hitting the road at once.”
Martha could see why. If this person
was responsible, then the sooner that was confirmed, the sooner she and other possible victims could relax again. Until then they’d have to remain on edge and hypervigilant. But from what Philippe had said, it didn’t seem likely that they’d got the right guy yet.
“No problem. I quite understand,” she said. “We can reschedule our picnic for when you get back from Calais, can’t we? I can put the food in the freezer to keep it fresh,” she offered.
“It’s OK, you eat it today. Most of it’s not freezable. We’ll just have to try again next weekend.” He looked glum. “I was looking forward to our afternoon.”
“And so was I. But duty calls,” she said weakly.
Philippe muttered something along the lines of “Duty always calls” with a good dose of swearwords to pad it out.
“Well, I guess we’d better set off. Don’t want to keep the Vampire Juge waiting.” Martha also didn’t want to sit for too long as she didn’t want her muscles to start stiffening up. Plus it wasn’t good practice for tomorrow to have a big long break. She wouldn’t get that luxury during the race.
Philippe set a brisk pace home, fuelled by adrenaline. Disappointed rather than annoyed at the cancellation of their plans for the afternoon, Martha’s adrenal glands weren’t functioning at the same level of intensity and she struggled to keep up. Her legs felt heavier with every turn of the pedals and her head was starting to throb. How come she hadn’t noticed quite how steep these hills were before? She was beginning to wonder if this race tomorrow was such a good idea. No, not wonder, she knew it wasn’t. But she’d parted with money and been to the doctor’s over it, and someone had gone to the general trouble of organising the whole thing and to the particular trouble of registering her for the event, so she felt obliged to meet her commitment. She didn’t like being unreliable.
Just before they reached home, Philippe evidently remembered about Martha. She rounded a bend to find him waiting for her, shamefaced, under the shade of a tree that had somehow survived the latest pointless hedgerow massacre. Martha was sure that half the time farmers went on these devastating jaunts it was just because they were bored, and the other half was because they felt the need to get their money’s worth out of this expensive and destructive machinery they’d been persuaded to invest in. Either explanation made her blood boil. But she was too exhausted to feel more than vague fury about it today.
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