TWENTY-FOUR

The secretary looked at the clock. Monsieur Thonon was showing a house to an important client whom he’d been lunching with. But he’d be back any moment. She wondered whether to show a little languorous coyness with the police, decided against it, frowned in concentration over her typing. They both sat and collected their thoughts, such as these were. The blue Peugeot came sailing along the Place d’Armes, found its habitual place occupied, tucked itself crossly in fifty metres further along. Steps came back, with a bit of crisp heel-tapping, a concentrated frown six feet higher. The door opened and closed rather hard. The girl looked up from her typing.

     ‘He take it?’

     ‘He’s not sure he can afford it, meaning ten percent less but he’ll try for twenty. Any calls?’

     ‘Monsieur Castang is here.’

     ‘Oh,’ turning stiffly, restraining himself. ‘Good day to you. I thought we’d finished with all that.’

     ‘Some points to tidy up.’

     ‘Have I anyone booked, Marianne?’

     ‘Not till five.’

     ‘Come on in then. But this is a bore, you know. I don’t mind, I suppose. But it all seems very tortuous.’

     ‘Not really. We looked at things in general. I made no notes, and I didn’t press you. I could ask you to come to the commissariat to make a statement with a stenographer present.’ Thonon shoved his pipe between his teeth and bit on it. ‘You seem a little irritable.’

     Thonon fiddled with his tobacco pouch before making his mind up.

     ‘This death puts a spoke in my wheel. That’s normal. Then you put another. It’s difficult to do business in a normal way with the police knocking about. Your bread and butter, but you realise that people don’t exactly find it an everyday occurrence. People – families concerned – feel under strain. You come blowing in, worrying at me. I suppose that’s just scrutiny of these circumstances, uh, the coincidental connection, but you can’t blame me if I feel you’re leaning on me.’

     ‘Mmhm,’ said Castang. You’re sensitive, you feel some strain, that’s inhibiting – is that it?’

     ‘In outline, I suppose that’s more or less it.’

     ‘Fill it in then. Anything I can do to help, I will.’

     ‘Oh,’ fiddling with his pipe and choosing words, ‘I’m… I gather that the mother-in-law has appeared from Paris. Didn’t come just for the funeral, I suspect. I hear in fact that she’s an interfering old biddy, not likely to make things easier for me. Been ringing up all and sundry.’

     ‘Oh yes,’ said Castang amiably, ‘I’ve met her. Businesslike, in fact pushing. Yes, I can see she’ll make it tough for you. Especially since I’ve heard it suggested that you were exceptionally eager to do this stroke of business: is that right?’

     Thonon’s pale face, a natural pallor going with dark hair, flushed.

     ‘What d’you mean, exceptionally? As I explained with some care, I put a lot of work and trouble into this, and I don’t want to see it go to waste.’

     ‘That it was urgent to you – that the urgency might make you particularly anxious – would there be some truth in that?’

     The flush got deeper, with an angry look.

     ‘I’d like to know who makes that sort of insinuation, and on what grounds?’

     ‘No need to be angry; this is in confidence, just between us. On the grounds that you are short of ready money. Nothing in that to be ashamed of. I can see readily enough that you have an expensive establishment, and that means a lot of outgoings.’

     ‘Who made the suggestion?’

     ‘I don’t have to tell you, you know. I’ve interviewed a lot of people. The suggestion might be slightly malicious, which is why I put it to you.’ Polite, deprecating, like a bank manager.

     ‘Someone you’ve interviewed,’ with sarcastic emphasis. ‘Like I hear you had a nice tea-cosy chat with Barde.’ Of course; from Martine.

     ‘So I did: why fix on him?’

     ‘It’s just the sort of poisonous remark he tosses out lightly, with a laugh pretending it’s not to be taken seriously. Barde, yes, I can see it. Quite typical. Now let me tell you I’ll defend myself against this sort of insinuation. I can tell you why Monsieur Barde makes suggestions of that sort. Maybe it’ll help open your eyes.’

     ‘I ask nothing better,’ blandly.

     ‘Barde would like to get into the act, that’s why. He has no professional standing or competence whatever, but he thinks it quite ethical to try real-estate deals, and extort a commission, without taking any pains, or giving the slightest guarantee. Because he’s Monsieur Barde, and we’re nobodies. And if anyone complained about unfair competition he couldn’t care less, and if one made a legal complaint, say about false pretences, that’s all right,’ bitterly. ‘When you’ve been to school with the proc you’re okay, see.’

     ‘Just to amuse himself?’ sounding incredulous, feeling pleased, learning more.

     ‘Heaven, man, you’re being obtuse. You fall for Barde, the way he takes everyone in. Display of affluence, a drawling I-don’t-need-to-work manner, and phoney talk about art. Owes money everywhere, including the bank. Strapped. Hasn’t a penny, stoops to turn one.’

     ‘I see. You suggest he’d like to swing a deal like this himself. And that by defaming you he diminishes your chances? To increase his own? Is that what you suggest?’

     ‘Why d’you think,’ teeth clenched on pipe, ‘I wanted and tried to keep this quiet.’

     ‘Did you know that Barde was an old friend of Madame Lipschitz? Before her death?’

     ‘No.’

     ‘Bit over-vehement, aren’t you? Suppose Barde heard, which he won’t from me, what you said, that would be defamation too, no? Small town gossip: he’s strapped, you’re strapped, we can go on conjugating a verb and it doesn’t mean much.’

     ‘He’d say that, would he? And you know what I’d do? I’d plead fair comment. I could find you three different agents in this town whose legitimate business was injured by Barde’s meddling. And I could tell you to look at information available to anybody who takes the trouble, like land-registry records, and see what Barde owned, and what he has sold. That he’s daisied through his inheritance. Bad debts are common knowledge. Complaints have been made. And headed off.’

     ‘By the proc?’

     ‘Saying that’s asking for trouble,’ with some humour, ‘like accusing a cop of corruption.’

     ‘But the complaints came to nothing.’

     ‘Right. But spread gossip about me, that I was trying to put pressure on a client to get a deal through because I’m supposed to be living beyond my means, and I’ve the cops on my neck at all hours. Oh, nothing personal.’

     ‘Perhaps you’d now be surprised to hear that Barde never mentioned your name.’

     Thonon was deflated.

     ‘It wouldn’t have been the first time, that’s all,’ in an obstinate mutter. ‘Who was it anyhow?’

     ‘Never mind. I don’t believe everything I hear. Don’t reach any conclusions, either.’

     ‘I don’t care a damn what conclusions you reach.’

     ‘Your mouth is robbing your ears. Listen to me now. You’re anxious for this deal. You thought you could still do it with the inheritors. Mum is a tougher proposition. All right so far? And you need this deal, to dig you out of a hole. Still all right? Any comment?’ There wasn’t any comment.

     ‘I’m learning about small towns,’ said Castang equably. ‘Suppose now that I ask you to think about something. The press, the local paper-hawk; there probably isn’t more than one in a place this size. Correspondent for a bigger paper, maybe.

     ‘Haven’t seen him yet myself. He’s been briefed, I dare say, by the Palais, about discreet enquiries and such. He knows I’d give him some flannel about an incomplete enquiry, stuff not worth listening to, let alone print. He may not be following me around, but nothing stops him noticing, to take an example, that I’ve come to see you twice in the thirty-six hours I’ve been here. I don’t know what he might get in his head.

     ‘Then, the judge. I trot about, collecting laborious scraps of information and fitting them together like a broken pot. But it’s the judge who draws inferences, makes conclusions, decides what is or isn’t relevant. Some judges will let a cop work, give him some rope. Some are fussy, like to hold you up very tight on a rein.

     ‘This judge is fussy. And he’s in a hurry. Nor is he entirely satisfied with the stuff about the vandal who broke in and got surprised and killed the old lady in a panic. It remains the basic theory. Perhaps it’s not quite that straight-up-and-down.

     ‘I have to give him an account of my doings. He might want to hear for himself about your dealings with Madame Lipschitz. That’s just as a witness to this business of the house deal. No suspicions, no accusations.

     ‘All the same, the press might make something of that. They get no news, they start fabricating it. Only innuendo, and pretty meaningless, but just when you want to make a deal it could be embarrassing, even damaging.’

     Thonon sat still, elbows on the table, hands gripping his pipe, watching and listening.

     ‘What’s all the long speech for then?’

     ‘To give you time to think.’

     ‘And then?’

     ‘I’ve a suggestion. You can think I’m trying to trick you into something; I don’t care, I’m used to that. Or you can think I’m just being sensible, which would make me happier.’

     ‘What is it?’

     ‘I give you a bit of time. Think things over a bit more. Talk to your family maybe. And I might come up to see you, quietly, in your house perhaps, say this evening. You could give me a ring if you liked, about supper time, at the Hotel Central.’

     ‘What’s to be gained from that, for either of us?’

     ‘You haven’t perhaps been altogether open with me, so far. Suppose there was something you didn’t want known, which showed you in a poor light – why, it might help you if you went yourself down to the Palais and talked it over with the judge, privately.’

     Thonon was saying nothing still, smoking his pipe calmly enough, looking at Castang with a controlled expression, as though keeping himself from a loud burst of laughter, or a sudden gush of words.

     ‘That wouldn’t compromise you, you know,’ went on Castang, with his air of being a sympathetic chap once you got to know him. ‘You’d be safeguarding your liberties, instead of letting the judge, perhaps, draw the wrong conclusion. Decide, of course, as you think fit.’

     Thonon laid the pipe in the ashtray.

     ‘All this, of course, is simply your technique for putting leverage on me. Right?’

     ‘It is and it isn’t.’

     ‘Threats and inducements. Make a clean breast and it’ll save you trouble later. I suppose the cops are always like this. Same as asking when you’re going to stop beating your wife. I’m either admitting guilt, according to this argument, or trying to conceal it.’

     Castang spread his hands and laughed.

     ‘Of course we’re forbidden to make threats and inducements, and equally we often do: get no work done otherwise, half the time.’

     Thonon gave a sour little laugh.

     ‘So go to the judge, you say. So that he can be zealous. I can be innocent of anything at all, but he allows a cloud of suspicion to rest on me in order, if I’m to believe you, to please the proc, the press, and the public. Just to gain time he can charge me with homicide.’

     ‘As to that,’ said Castang calmly, ‘it’s not a bad thing. The system’s quite good. If any presumption of guilt exists nobody can question you, because you can’t be forced to incriminate yourself. Even the judge can’t say boo to you without a lawyer present to protect and advise you, telling the judge politely please to rephrase that, because it sounds tendentious.’

     ‘You’re being cynical.’

     ‘Not in the least.’

     ‘And are you seriously telling me that I’m in this situation?’

     ‘I don’t know,’ said Castang, ‘and that’s why I suggested a meeting this evening, to talk things over quietly.’

     ‘You think me guilty of this crime,’ said Thonon abruptly.

     ‘I don’t think anything at all, except that you might be in a position where the judge decided he had sufficient grounds for letting suspicion rest against you.’

     ‘On the basis of hearsay gossip,’ bitterly.

     ‘I’ll tell you about that tonight. With, if I may, your family present.’

     ‘Being enigmatic again. This is simply outrageous.’

     ‘Why? You aren’t arrested or anything: I’ve no grounds. You may or may not be withholding information which the judge might think germane to a homicide investigation; that’s the formal jargon. Oh, if you were to try running off to Tahiti I could have you pinched, sure. I can hold you in a cell for twenty-four hours. That’s the limit. Then I must present you to the judge, who decides whether he can hold you. No habeas corpus, but comes to the same thing.’

     ‘That rule gets bent.’

     ‘And so does habeas corpus. You think the English are saints or something? Go before a magistrate there, within twenty-four hours, exactly the same, and when he asks why you shouldn’t be set at liberty the cops say blandly they need a remand to complete their enquiries and yes, your worship, we do have an objection to bail.’

     ‘And all this,’ incredulous, ‘because I was trying to talk that old girl into selling me her house and happened to drop in that evening.’

     Castang said nothing.

     ‘Very well. Half past seven. At my house.’

     ‘Good,’ said Castang, feeling for the doorhandle, ‘and by the way – have a word with Martine.’