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‘What will you say?’ Ten days after leaving Venturi, Luc was packing again, this time for a fortnight’s camping trip. Just the four of them, hopefully nowhere near any painters, nurseries, or fans of Agatha Christie. ‘Have you decided?’
Sophie hadn’t. He meant about Cyril. To be honest, she hadn’t given it a lot of thought. At first, yes, turning it over this way and that, pondering his behaviour, but as the days passed and she got no word from Pico, she thought he must have forgotten all about it. Cyril himself had called briefly to apologise for his behaviour. A temporary aberration, he said, brought on by stress, heat and a germ in his liver pâté sandwich.
‘Not really. I’ll give it some thought in the car.’
The message from Pico had arrived the day before. Their ‘little chat’ was fixed for ten o’ clock, and the matter of Cyril’s future now loomed larger than ever. She told herself her opinion didn’t count. Pico had his own ideas, he wouldn’t lend any weight to hers.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Luc, wagging a finger. ‘He listens to everyone. If he asked you to come, it’s to hear what you have to say. So what’s it to be – liver pâté or basket case? It’s time you told him the truth, Sophie.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Me? It’s not my business. Besides, I don’t want you breaking my balls over this.’
‘Luc! That’s mean! Since when have I ever –’
‘OK. Sorry. Out of line.’ He stretched his lips in a grimace: self-reproach, or the search for words less hurtful. ‘Just that you seem... it seems important to you. Like you’d be upset if he got the push. Heaven knows why.’
‘I don’t think he could be fired just for having a good luck charm. And even if he was, it wouldn’t bother me. It’s none of my business either.’
‘So what is it then? Why so keen to see him promoted?’
‘I’m not. It’s just that he is. He does all he can to be worthy of it and in most ways he is. I’d be disappointed if he turned out to be as unsuitable as you think he is. But hey, it’s up to Pico. I’m sure he’ll do what’s right.’
‘Depends how much information he’s got.’
‘I think Cyril has to figure out for himself who he is, what he really wants. If there are situations he can’t handle, he’s got to be honest with himself.’
When she got to the gendarmerie headquarters in Marseille, twenty minutes ahead of time, Sophie’s mind was still flitting between basket case and pâté. She sat in the antechamber to Pico’s office flicking through the Mayor’s propaganda rag, taking nothing in, before tossing it aside and scrolling through her news feed instead. As she was doing so, a message arrived from Lyle.
There’d already been a couple of exchanges between them, brief and unremarkable. He was back in Tulsa staying with his sister Ashley, and missing France already. She’d replied in a similar vein: the children were fine, her aunt was in Helsinki, the heatwave thankfully had passed.
This message, sent at three in the morning, was different. It came with a long attachment, and when she’d finished reading, she stared straight ahead, jaw drooping in amazement. At that moment the secretary announced that General Pico was ready to receive her.
He greeted her affably, though wasted no time on small talk. To judge by the paperwork on his desk, the Seibel case had been replaced ten times over. She waited for him to bring up the topic of Cyril, but he began by stating baldly, ‘Valentin Bondy won’t be going on trial. He committed suicide in his cell last night.’
‘My god, that’s... How?’
‘Cut his wrists with a razor blade. It’s not known yet how he got hold of it.’ He sighed. ‘The only remarkable fact – apart from the act itself – is what he wrote on the wall. “One for all, all for one.” With his own blood.’
‘A musketeer to the end.’
‘And Escarola rides again. Not on everything, but without Bondy’s testimony, the case against him loses much of its force. Unless it’s proved the razor blade came from him, but I’m not holding my breath.’
‘And Gareth? Has he confessed?’
‘No. But his DNA came back on the glove. Only to be expected given that he shared it with the gardener, but even more damning, it was on the fork as well. He’s admitted grabbing the fork to threaten Seibel, so...’ He spread his hands. ‘He’s been charged with murder. Released on bail but it’s not looking good for him.’
‘But he denies it.’
‘Vigorously. And there are a couple of points unexplained. If his DNA was on the fork, it means he wasn’t wearing the gloves, so what was he doing with them? Forster claims he didn’t have them with him but as we’ve said, Seibel could have fought back and grabbed one, which fell. And if he was innocent, why would he shred the second glove? Panic, he says. When he phoned Thibault to give his condolences, he was told we’d soon get the culprit thanks to a glove we’d found by the body. Forster saw one of his was missing so he shredded the other. That’s his story but the way it’s looking, he’ll have a hard time convincing a jury of that.’
‘Well, I don’t know if this will make any difference,’ she said, handing him her phone. ‘But I imagine it ought to be taken into account.’
Sophie. You thought me a pedant and a bore. Everyone did. They were right. Anyone doing a PhD believes they have the right – and certainly has the potential – to bore any company into a coma. Most of the time they’ve gone so deep into their chosen topic that at least they know what they’re talking about. I can’t even claim that. A bore minus the expertise. Unbearable.
I never told you how I started it, did I? When I was three, the body of an elderly woman, Doreen Wickley, was found on South Irvington Avenue, Tulsa. The culprit was arrested the same day. Joseph Carmichael. My father. They like their executions in Oklahoma, but by the time they got round to his injection, I was a moody, cynical loner on the cusp of adulthood.
So I guess I can claim expertise in some things. Growing up with a father on death row. Shame and anger and confusion. Determination to be different. Fear that I might not.
How did I get from resentful kid in Tulsa to pedantic bore in Provence? Books. Oh, not straightaway. After the execution, I left home and drifted, one town to the next, one lousy job to another, shacking up with a different girl each time, different but all the same, all like me, lost and empty and useless. My wasted years, twelve of them, before I discovered books. Or rather, my mother reminded me they existed. We’d once been middle class, we had books at home, at least till everything fell apart. For my thirtieth birthday I got a case full of the books she used to read to me and Ashley. The best present I ever had. I got my shit together, cleaned up my act. I’ve been cleaning it up ever since.
I did a stint in construction, then in the showroom of a builders’ salesroom. Signed up at a local library in Chicago and one day came across the book that brought me to France. The Outsider. The title alone was enough. A portrait of myself. The story was anything but, of course, yet it felt like Camus had written it just for me.
So there you have it. A wastrel saved by books. The magic of stories, the power of words. So here, to finish off, are a few more.
Bumble smiles. She already has her plan. In the afternoon, she goes next door and puts the idea into Henri Seibel’s head. The Forsters are staking a lot on this course, she says. If you send the smoke again, it could ruin everything. Frankly, she wouldn’t mind herself – they treat her like shit. She does all the cooking and never gets any thanks.
It’s true. Gareth, anyway. Dilly’s a different matter. It isn’t thanks she wants from Dilly. It’s her body.
When the smoke comes over next morning, she doesn’t know that Gareth will go and speak to Henri, but it’s likely – he’s said to Dilly he’ll kill the bastard if he burns leaves again. When she sees him march up the path, she’s ready. She sneaks up after him, taking three gloves from the garden shed on the way. She puts on a pair herself, sticks the fork into the old man’s neck, and leaves the other glove there. She returns the pair she wore to the shed.
It doesn’t quite work out the way she planned. Instead of going after Gareth, the gendarmes fix their sights on Martin Best. But there’s a Crow operating – she can make use of that. Zen And The Art of Mosquito Murder. Bumble knows how to write.
It’s maddening though – they still think it’s Best! Has she done all that for nothing? But no – just when she’s thinking her plan has failed, along comes Sophie. Bravo! Gareth is led away and Bumble rejoices. She has Dilly all to herself.
I leave you and the esteemed General to make of this what you will.
Wishing you all the best,
Lyle Carmichael, The Crow
For a couple of seconds, Pico’s lower jaw jiggled left and right, causing his lips to take on curious shapes. He took a while before speaking, as he read through passages again. Finally he clasped his hands together, shaking his head sadly. ‘Writers. A curious bunch.’
‘You think it’s nonsense?’
‘No idea. People have all sorts of twisted motivations. He’s not presenting it as fact.’
‘What happens now?’
He slid the phone back across to her. ‘You send it to me, it goes into the file. He gets called as a witness.’
‘All the way from the States?’
‘By video if need be. We have to know if there’s anything to it or it’s just his idea of fun.’ For several seconds he gazed at the ceiling with a faintly amused expression. Then abruptly: ‘The African mask thing. What’s that about?’
‘Uh...’ It took a moment for Sophie to switch to the reason she was there. ‘A superstition. A sort of good luck charm. I don’t believe it myself but Cyril takes it quite seriously.’
‘I see. And he gave you one because...’
‘He said it would protect me. There’s nothing at all going on between us except... well, he says we have a sort of spiritual bond and when we work on a case together, we’re more effective.’
‘And are you?’
‘More effective? The first two times, you could say we did all right. But this time – well, you saw for yourself.’
‘I’ve spoken to him about this of course. He pointed out that neither of you was officially on the case.’ He stroked his chin, frowning. ‘How did he take it when I put Captain Praud in charge?’
‘He was very upset. He thought it meant you had no confidence in him.’
Pico nodded. Sophie got the impression that everything she’d said merely confirmed what he knew already: Cyril was wacky as they come. The question was whether an unshakable belief in claptrap was a reason not to promote him. ‘Captain Praud came to see me one day – a year or so ago now – said he’d seen Eveno sitting at his desk in a sort of trance. Absent to the world, he said. Does that mean anything to you?’
She hesitated. ‘I’ve never seen him like that myself. But I think he sometimes... communicates with spirits. Something like that. It’s part of the African thing. Animism.’
‘Hmm.’ He pulled a face, discontent, as if Cyril’s beliefs were a pile of litter that hadn’t been cleared up. ‘Shortly after, Praud requested to be transferred to Aix en Provence. I suspect that may be because I said I’d look into it and it slipped my mind.’
Sophie was amazed that anything could venture into Pico’s mind without being hooked and reeled in. But then, this whole affair occupied just one nook of a mind that ranged over continents, so perhaps he could be excused.
‘He’s an odd fellow. One spots that straight away. But he’s always been an excellent gendarme. A little aloof, perhaps.’
Not surprising. He could hardly say, ‘Hi, I’m Cyril. And here – if you could see him – is Auguste, my great-grandfather who died in 1965.’
‘Respected rather than liked, not exactly popular with his colleagues. Seen as a little too ambitious, I think, the eager beaver type. But...’ He put out a hand, eyebrows raised: oddness, his expression implied, didn’t constitute a crime. ‘Are you familiar with Spinoza?’
‘Not really. He was an atheist, wasn’t he?’
‘Accused of being one anyway. But it wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God. He just thought the way it was done in church obscured it with superstition. In that respect you could say there’s not much difference between an African mask and Holy Communion. Anyway’ – he placed his hands on the desk, a brief nod conveying that the conversation was over. ‘Thank you for your input, Madame Kiesser. It will be taken into consideration.’ He stood up and accompanied her to the door where he shook her hand. ‘I’ve mentioned before, I believe, that if the circumstances require it, I might call upon you again. Is that still all right?’
‘Absolutely. I’d be honoured.’
‘Good.’ Another brief nod and he walked back to his desk.
Sophie was halfway through the door when she turned. ‘Will he get his promotion? If you don’t mind my asking.’
‘No decision has been reached yet.’
‘Did you ever think Cyril had killed Captain Praud?’
‘Did you?’
Sophie wondered if she should say how strong her doubts were but the fact was that Cyril hadn’t killed Praud, and suspecting that he might have weighed on her. She didn’t answer. He smiled and returned to his computer. He clicked the mouse a couple of times before looking up, and saying deadpan but with a twinkle in his eye, ‘His promotion? You could say that the other candidate being a corpse, he’s marginally the better choice.’
