TWELVE

Castang had taken one sandwich – cress and parmesan, nice – and no cake, and stood in no need of exercise. This country road was pleasant, though, on a late afternoon of still autumn sunshine, now westering. There would be a fine red fireball over there above the low hills crowned with woods. He wanted to shake off the stuffy feeling, a flavour of cigar and Barde’s faintly ignoble personality. He understood Sabine saying she had no real friends left. He strolled a way up the road with his hands in his pockets: not even a policeman would be insensitive to the smell of burning leaves and moist earth.

     Hm. A quarter out here for the folk who’d got it made. Villas, mostly newish along this side. Double garages and immature trees. Hedges still thin, and a glimpse here and there of a swimming-pool. The other side older and bigger houses of a former era, not without attractions either. Paddocks, tennis courts. English gardens. Burglars or an antiques gang would have been busy along here, surely. Barde had said not, and he would know.

     Countrified road with no pavements; a lane. Called rather grandly the Route des Crêtes – what summits? Those little hills? Or these villas, prosperous with their tall hedges and high gates and names like ‘Green Gables’. Successful undertakers as the notary said, big Mercedes cars. Grand piano belt, this. Somebody had made a lot of money carving up that terrain opposite: living out here had ‘standing’.

     There was a soft noise of hoofs. He turned his head idly: a horse was being walked, a girl in the saddle wearing jeans and a sweater. Prettyish girl with fair hair down to the shoulders. He felt a fool, because she had to turn in at Green Gables, which he was staring in at open-mouthed, and he caught a haughty glance, cavalry to infantry, as she reached over to release the gate-latch. Daughter of the rich. She did not glance back, but he shuffled off shamefaced as though he had been caught peeping.

     He had work to do anyway. His work on directories had given him the local house agents: he sat in the car and studied his notebook.

     That was why it had seemed familiar! Pierre-Paul Thonon. Number Four, Place d’Armes. Private address, ‘Green Gables, Chemin des Cretes’… Trust a house agent to have made good money. He would twist Monsieur Thonon’s tail a bit, just to be spiteful!

     He left the car on the faubourg outside the Hotel Central, where Lucciani would see it. He walked the few hundred metres to the old city gate. The Place d’Armes was the centre of the ‘old town’, a formal square in the severe manner of Vauban’s time, with an arched arcade spoilt by the self-advertising vulgarity of a row of shops. The Agence Thonon was one of them, inoffensive with the usual window full of typed cards and photographs of desirable residences, with agency shorthand about their insides. Within was a small office, with a secretary at a desk, architects’ plans and elevations on the walls, and two dinky dollshouse maquettes of what the new block of luxury flats, In This Exclusive Neighbourhood, would be like once it stopped being a hole in the ground.

     None of this was very interesting: what he was staring at had caught his eye through the window: a heap of cars parked on the square. Vauban wouldn’t have cared for that, no, but more to the point was that one was a dark blue Peugeot with sheepskins on the seats. This cheered him up. It existed, and its owner would be back to pick it up if he hung about till six. Come to that…

     The girl put down her phone and asked could she help him? He’d like to talk to Monsieur Thonon? Well, he was with a customer but wouldn’t be long. He didn’t mind waiting five minutes?

     Castang, feeling lucky, didn’t mind five minutes.

     ‘Thought I’d catch him – isn’t that his car, the blue one?’

     ‘That’s right.’

     A real little stroke of fortune, making up for all that time wasted tea-drinking with the bourgeois. He was to windward of a chap he wished to question. Ho ho, Thonon, dear old Popaul. He had too much experience to think everything was going to be this easy, but it was a breeze to sail under.

     A fitful breeze. The man had parked there openly. And Sabine herself had told him about the energetic house agent. But at least the fellow had been there that evening. He’d be able to throw a little light on what Castang wanted to know. What had been Sabine’s activities that evening? Maybe movements? Maybe thoughts?

     The five minutes dragged but he didn’t mind. He had five or six agents on his list and this might have been the last call, if he hadn’t taken that little stroll down the road. And it might so easily have been somebody else come to hustle Sabine: an architect, or a builder, or someone from town planning. Or a man about a dog.

     A loud busybee noise on the pavement made him look. A Japanese motor scooter with gay paint; agreeable toy. A girl in a scarlet trouser suit added to the colour scheme and the notion of agreeable toys: she came in on a high wind.

     ‘Dad there, Marianne?’

     Popaul’s daughter. Hell, he’d been slow! The girl on the horse… Castang remained turned towards the window, vastly interested in Japanese motorbikes. He’d been caught once that day.

     ‘He’s got someone. Oh, only old Sallebert worrying about his sewer pipes, but there’s…’ Meaning cough, meant for him, so he paid no attention. Even if she did recognise him – what importance had that?

     ‘Oh, it’s nothing much. To pick up my eiderdown from the cleaners – such an awkward big parcel, and it’s on his way home. You won’t let him forget, Marianne, will you? He’ll grumble, but I don’t care – here’s the ticket. I’ll fly, then.’ And whizzed out, still with the high wind.

     Accelerating like a mad thing, apparently intent on kicking the clutch to ribbons: teenage girls! Imagining it was a Harley Davidson. Bourgeois Miss of about nineteen. Nice, though. He felt indulgent. Small coincidence number two: they generally came in threes, like aeroplane accidents. Still a bit fat, spotty and awkward, but would be really pretty one of these days, mm. The detective daydreamed of lecheries, and woke to find Popaul on deck.

     ‘Ciao then, and I’ll give you a buzz as soon as I hear… sorry to have kept you – would you like to come in?’

     ‘Oh, Monsieur Thonon, Martine dropped in and I wasn’t to forget to ask could you pick her eiderdown up from the cleaners?’

     ‘Oh, blow her old eiderdown; why can’t she do it herself?’

     ‘Too big, she said, to go on the back of the bike.’

     ‘Oh nonsense, she’d only to ask for a bit of string. Too big and also too lazy. Sorry,’ with a quick easy smile to Castang, ‘these domestic hitches… Do sit down,’ picking up a pipe and beginning to fill it. ‘Advice on bringing up daughters is free, or haven’t you any?’

     ‘Not officially,’ pushing his card across the desk, getting a laugh round the corner of the mouth which was getting the pipe to draw. He glanced at the card, didn’t look fussed.

     ‘Well,’ leaning comfortably back and wedging the pipe between firm white teeth with two gold crowns, ‘what’s your problem then, or is the card to get the price reduced?’

     Castang embarked on a vague tale, about burglaries and bourgeois houses with exterior signs of wealth like tennis courts; along the Chemin des Crêtes, for example. Thonon listened with no sign of haste or impatience. The description was right as well as the car: ‘prosperous’, youngish but formal in a middle-aged way. Dark suit, gold cuff-links, subfusc tie, and the Homburg hat hung upon a hook.

     ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘An outbreak of break-ins – sorry, not trying to be funny – a few years ago. Two or three houses suffered loss and damage. An enterprising locksmith did good business afterwards with deadlocks and pressure pads and stuff. What took you out there?’

     ‘I was talking to a Monsieur Barde.’

     ‘Oh, I see. Bit of an old woman. Supposed to have an erotic picture worth a lot, Boucher or Fragonard or something. Probably a fake; he’s a bit of a fake himself. His house bristles with electronic alarms and whatnot. Don’t know that I’d put much faith in them. Might discourage an amateur, and at least you avoid the damage and the vandalism. Not that I’ve anything much worth pinching. If I had, I think I’d have more faith in a couple of lights left burning, maybe a radio on low.’ He smoked the pipe with small even puffs, and didn’t seem to be getting tense, despite the transparent silliness of Castang’s story.

     ‘Did you by any chance know Madame Lipschitz?’

     ‘Who got slammed by an intruder? Certainly I did. And of course I knew that this was the real subject of your interest, Inspector.’

     ‘News gets around.’

     ‘What d’you expect? – Place this size. Just surprised to hear that the PJ were dragged in on it. Something fishy?’

     ‘Not as far as I know. Judge making a slight fuss. We mostly do get called, you know, when there’s a homicide. It’s more than just another burglary.’

     ‘Oh, of course. And the judge got a black eye over the mayor’s parking lot. But you’re trying to draw me out – I’m not vexed, don’t worry. Am curious, though.’

     ‘I’m trying to find out what I can about her movements that night.’

     ‘Ah…now I get it. Somebody saw me, is that it?’

     ‘Oh, it was you, then?’

     ‘Stop being crafty; you were waiting to see if I denied it. Those villagers! They notice everything.’ He sounded amused, like a man with a clear conscience. He took the pipe out to stop the tobacco with his finger. ‘Well all right, I admit it, I suppose I should have come forward like a good citizen. Nothing to hide. But nothing to contribute either, and frankly, around here you learn that discretion isn’t just better than valour: it’s better than pretty well anything.’ Rattling on though rather; overacting somewhat. ‘Good,’ holding his arms up and making a comic face, ‘you’ve tracked me down. I’m at your service, naturally.’

     ‘I’d like to know your business, and why you were doing it that late. You might have been the last person to see her.’

     ‘But I left her in rude health.’

     ‘Nobody’s denying it.’ The two pairs of gentle brown eyes looked at one another with the utmost sincerity. ‘Of course you should have come forward,’ said Castang mildly. ‘I’ll make no reproaches about that if you’ll now be perfectly open about your concerns.’

     ‘Fair enough. Nothing difficult about that. I’ve been dickering with her one way or the other for a year. Tiresome old lady, as they tend to be. You know; blowing hot and cold – now she would, now she wouldn’t. But it’s a good bit of property there. Worth my time and trouble – worth anybody’s, and I mean anybody, and I hope you understand why I prefer to keep this dark. And why I didn’t come forward: she got herself killed. For which naturally I’m personally very sorry, but for business my pitch is queered.’

     ‘I’d like you to go into lots of detail,’ said Castang. ‘Who, what, since when?’

     ‘All right. As I say then, I had a shot a long way back and she was very unforthcoming, but I did manage to get a first refusal out of her. Then she got the house classified: not historic monument but typical traditional dwelling-house. So it can’t be knocked down, and the price goes up too: crafty move. Her husband was something in Cultural Affairs – she must have had a line to them. But I’m a tenacious bugger, and there’s still plenty to be done with that huge garden where she never sets – sorry, set – foot. I murmured at her about that, but no soap. Then a week ago, you could have knocked me down, she comes sailing in here. Was I still interested? You bet, and exclusive, so no commissions to split. As for sneaking about like Dracula at dead of night, she suggested it herself.’

     ‘Interesting.’

     ‘Is it?’ asked Popaul innocently. ‘You may be right. Didn’t strike me particularly, but maybe you’re not as used as I am to the oddities and suspicions of old women who sell houses. Under the civilised exterior, you know, she was a very peasant sort of woman; intensely roundabout and full of chicanes. Didn’t want anybody to know about my visit. And of course I was seen; just shows you.’

     ‘Anybody in particular, or everybody in general?’

     ‘Blowed if I know. Gave it no thought. Well yes, I did actually, but from another viewpoint. Meant to me that I might be getting somewhere. And why publicise that? A business like this, one has lots of friends who love you dearly, and the thing they love dearest is poking a stick into your bicycle wheel, strictly by accident.’

     ‘Was she ready to sell, that night?’

     ‘Heavens, man, we didn’t get that far. A great deal of what about this and what about that. I felt optimistic though, that it was a matter of patience. And then she has to go and die,’ said Popaul tragically.

     There was a moment when Castang thought his enquiry was already over. The fellow’s patter was so smooth, and sounded so well rehearsed.

     ‘What about what this, and what that?’

     There is a deal of talk in the Code of Criminal Procedure about interrogations, principally concerned with protecting the individual’s rights. Lawyers, worrying about this, put in so many safeguards about not hearing, as witnesses, people against whom grave presumptions might be said to rest, that the cops could not do any work at all. There is, luckily, a safety valve. A witness in the office of an examining magistrate can be put on oath and threatened with a lot of penal sanctions. But a PJ cop conducting a ‘prelim’ knows anyway that everyone is telling lies. He expects it: would be astonished if they didn’t.

     He had to go easy. The fellow having simply ‘been there’ that evening was not a proof of anything. It was perhaps a ‘material indication’. But that is not a rope you can trust your weight to.

     Thonon fidgeted, and peered into the bowl of his pipe for inspiration.

     ‘Do I have to tell you?’

     ‘Tell me nothing if you prefer,’ said Castang, bored.

     ‘If it had any point – but it’s all irrelevant.’

     ‘Tell a lot of lies, if you think that would be cleverer.’

     ‘I’d like to know what you’re aiming at.’

     ‘My reports go to the judge. He convenes you as a witness and questions you himself, if he sees fit. You’ve a lawyer to look after you.’

     ‘Good God. You mean you suspect me of…?’

     ‘Then stop being evasive.’

     ‘Just that the judge, saving your presence, is an old nosy parker. Gossip with the notary, with Barde, all that gang. Look, if I’m straightforward with you, will you give me some assurance that it stays between us?’

     ‘I’m as discreet a man as you are.’

     ‘Not you I’m worried about, but this bloody small town.’

     ‘See this impersonally,’ said Castang patiently. ‘X is dead. We enquire. So-and-so saw X at such a time. The subject of the conversation may as you claim be irrelevant. It is though germane to the enquiry. Obstruct me; I tell the judge you’re a recalcitrant witness and ask him to treat you as such.’

     ‘All right, all right,’ irritably. ‘I was hoping to make a deal, and still to make it with the old lady’s heirs, but if this all gets into the press what chance have I?’

     ‘I haven’t spoken to the press: haven’t even seen any yet. When I do I’ll tell them what I see fit, which can be precious little. The judge is bound by professional secrecy, like a doctor. And I’m stretching this for you a long way, you know.’

     ‘I was hoping for two separate deals,’ sulky, ‘one for the garden to develop as building land, and one for the house.’

     ‘She sign any agreement?’

     ‘You’ll be claiming I had an interest in her death, next. Look, we were talking about getting an architect to design a wall – protect the amenities.’

     ‘You’ve had contact with the heirs, on this subject?’

     ‘I scarcely know who they are. The son next door, if that’s all there is. Got to be tactful; can’t just storm in while they’re still arranging the funeral.’

     ‘So you’ve nothing signed, no bit of paper?’

     ‘It may sound strange, but she was an old-fashioned person, the sort who gives her word and keeps it. I relied on a verbal agreement. A written order to sell is of course legally necessary to the agent. I don’t know whether that would be legally binding on the heirs. I’ve nothing, now.’

     ‘Better. This has a more convincing ring about it.’

     ‘I hope you now understand that I had certainly no interest whatever in her death.’

     ‘Tell people they sound truthful,’ said Castang, ‘and they rarely lose an opportunity to embroider, to sound more truthful still.’

     ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Thonon crossly. ‘Cops!’

     ‘Cops are used to lies. Even when it’s the truth, it’s rare when there’s nothing added, or nothing left out.’

     ‘You’re not seriously thinking I killed her, are you?’ shaking his head disbelievingly. ‘Or had something to do with it?’

     ‘I don’t have any preconceived ideas, Monsieur Thonon.’

     ‘Was the press report all nonsense? I understood that this was a straightforward thing. Somebody broke in, and was caught by the old lady, and bumped her with a bottle or something, probably sheer stupid gratuitous violence.’

     ‘That’s correct, and that’s the probability.’

     ‘The sort of thing,’ said Thonon seriously, ‘which might have looked improbable a few years back, but now is only too believable because only too frequent.’

     ‘As you say. Frequent. Believable. Likely.’

     ‘You’re doing your job. Exhausting all the possibilities. All right. I’ve given you all the explanations I have. Satisfied?’

     ‘Sure,’ placidly. ‘I understand your wish for discretion, I understand your getting irritable. I’ll hope to worry you no further.’

     ‘I can take it that the police, or the law, or whoever, have no objection to my pursuing my business activities?’ People are always sarcastic with cops, when they have felt frightened. ‘You’ll see nothing suspect in my trying to salvage this deal?’

     ‘As long as you realise that while a homicide enquiry continues the material assets are frozen. A formal rule: it’s not aimed at anyone. Means you can’t yet put the deal through, but there’s nothing to stop you setting it up. I won’t gossip about your affairs.’

     ‘Thanks.’

     ‘Just out of interest, can you do business with the son?’

     ‘I can try.’

     ‘Know him at all?’

     ‘Very slightly. Works for the municipality – I’ve seen him there.’

     ‘What’s his job, do you know?’

     ‘Equipment – planning permissions and building permits,’ with a faint grin. ‘But in a junior capacity – don’t get any wrong ideas.’

     ‘No business of mine,’ said Castang.

     ‘I’d like to close up now,’ a bit wearily. ‘You’ll not take it amiss if I say I’ve had enough.’

     ‘Not to forget the eiderdown.’

     ‘Damn the eiderdown… All right, Marianne, closing time. You’ll not forget? – I count on your discretion.’

     ‘Don’t worry.’ It was the truth. There would be a bustling local press man nattering at him, but that could be fixed with patter. As for the judge…well, one would see.