THERE ARE SEVERAL POLICE forces in France. The two principal organizations are the Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie. Both were represented in the two men who got out of the two vehicles and stood with us, looking at the body of poor Emil Laplace.
The man from the Police Nationale was a strapping young fellow who surely had to be a rugby player. He introduced himself as Carl Nevernois and after he had ascertained all our names, he explained the setup, mainly, I supposed, for my benefit as a foreigner.
The Police Nationale handle all civil matters—domestic strife, land disputes, and, the most time-consuming, traffic offenses. The Gendarmes handle any criminal matters, but as the Saint Symphorien region was not large enough (or perhaps not unlawful enough) to justify a gendarmerie, it was customary for crimes to be reported to the Police Nationale who then call in gendarme assistance from a neighboring region.
However—and in France there are always a great many “howevers”—it just so happened that a Poste Provisoire de Gendarmerie had recently been established locally. I knew that this meant a temporary office but I wondered why it had been necessary to open one here. It wasn’t the time to ask so I politely shook the hand of the gendarme.
His name was Aristide Pertois and he didn’t inspire confidence in the least. He was about six feet tall, with a slim build, bristly black hair cropped close to his bullet-shaped head and a small black mustache. He had a look of perpetual surprise on his face, caused partly by his thick black eyebrows, which always seemed to be raised, and partly by the circular lenses in his wire-framed glasses. He might have nodded minute acknowledgment of meeting me, but more likely it was a reflex action caused by a fly buzzing across his face.
The two policemen soon had Jean-Jacques’s story. “There was no one outside,” Jean-Jacques concluded. “I shouted but no one came. I went in to the office and phoned for the ambulance.”
I told my story, keeping it very simple. Simone confirmed that she had found me standing over the body.
The two ambulance men were examining the body while we were talking. The Police Nationale man, Carl Nevernois, had told them sternly not to touch it but their professional curiosity got the better of them. Disdain for authority is an essential component of the French temperament and the greatest disdain is expressed by one branch of authority for another. One of the ambulance men explained that they weren’t touching, just looking.
The gendarme asked them what they thought had happened to Emil. The senior of the two answered promptly: “Sangliers.” There was a silence.
Sangliers are wild boars and are found scattered in various parts of Provence. They are hunted enthusiastically for their highly prized meat. They weigh up to a quarter of a ton, hunt in packs, and can be very dangerous.
“Do these wounds look like they were made by sangliers?” the gendarme wanted to know.
The ambulance man hesitated.
“Well?” pressed the gendarme.,
The wounds looked as if they had been made by the tusks of a sanglier, the ambulance man said, but admitted that he had never before seen a person so mutilated.
“We’ve never seen any sangliers near here,” Simone said sharply.
“But hunters go out after them,” Lewis pointed out. “They must expect to find some.”
“I’ve lived in these parts for thirty years,” Marcel contributed. He had identified himself to the police as Marcel Delorme, wine master. “I hunt all the time. I’ve never seen a sanglier, but there may be some.”
“If this was one sanglier,” said the senior ambulance man, “it was a monster.”
There was a chilly pause. Each of us was no doubt picturing a huge, slavering wild beast with tusks like an elephant and teeth like a crocodile.
“We will want statements from all of you,” the Police Nationale man said. “We can take them in the office here. Later, you may be asked to come to Police headquarters for further questioning.”
“Or to the Gendarmerie,” put in the gendarme.
“Then,” the other policeman went on, ignoring him and turning to Jean-Jacques, “you will take us to the place where you found the body.”
Jean-Jacques nodded, now beginning to feel grief at the loss of his colleague as the realization finally sank in.
The policeman pointed to the two ambulance men. “You can take the body to the hospital.”
“The hospital?” repeated one of them. “But he is dead.”
“That’s right,” said the other. “He should go to the morgue.”
“He cannot go to the morgue until he is pronounced dead by the police surgeon,” said the policeman firmly. He used the term médecin légiste, which neatly describes the profession as legal doctor.
“Then send for the police surgeon.”
“It is simpler for you to take the body to the hospital. The police surgeon can go there.”
“Living people have to be taken to the hospital, dead people to the morgue.” The ambulance man was digging in his heels. “I can show you in the manual where it says that—”
“Sometimes it is necessary to use one’s judgment,” said Nevernois, and there was a hushed silence at such an heretical pronouncement.
It was broken by the gendarme, Pertois.
“The body cannot be moved until the médecin légiste has examined it,” he said. His tone was flat and expressionless but it had an underlying ring of authority.
“I’ll have to phone in for instructions.” The ambulance man was falling back on his standard means of existing from a difficult situation—get someone else to take responsibility for the decision.
“Tell them that you are under orders.” The policeman was determined to have the last word. He turned to us. “If you will all go inside, we will take your statements as soon as the body has been taken to the hospital.”
The ambulance man gave him a glare and went to his vehicle. We all went inside.