The South was grubby and cold and far. Rosière, her derrière wedged into the luxury leather seat of the Lexus, admired the lack of Provençal charm parading past her rain-spattered window as Lebreton drove them down the Pontet road. Their eagerness to get going seemed perfectly idiotic now that they had travelled pretty much through the night. Duped by a bogus mental image of meridional France, Rosière had expected to be met by sun-washed terracotta tiles bathing in turquoise skies, with a chorus of cicadas working their thoraxes off in the heat. Fat chance.
Provence in winter provided a masterclass in dreariness. The houses’ whitewashed façades were not designed with drizzle in mind. Like dusty bits of blotting paper, they absorbed the rainwater, producing hazy grey blobs that gave an overbearing sense of rubble. In summer, it was the enchanting hillside villages that drew people’s attention; December, however, was there to emphasise the hellish succession of retail parks, fields covered in flapping tarpaulins, forlorn warehouses and outlying mega-discount stores that joined the dots between the tourist landmarks. All along the dual carriageway, the bare trees drooped under the weight of carrier bags impaled on the branches by the furious mistral. The ghostlike white plastic, covered in holes, appeared to have been stuck there for an eternity, wretched tokens of widespread indifference. Rosière was deeply pissed off.
“Just say if you’re nodding off, O.K.?” she said to Lebreton. “It’s not like the beautiful views are going to keep us awake.”
“Don’t worry, I never sleep anyway. We’ll be there soon.”
“Yup. Let’s hope the hotel is at least bearable, otherwise I’m straight back to investigating in Paris. Jeez, I’m telling you, the next murder better involve a trip to Venice or Acapulco, if not I’m staying put. Fed up of this crap.”
Lebreton, somewhat taken aback, glanced at his colleague for a moment.
“What exactly were you expecting? It is December, after all – can’t be picture-perfect all year round.”
“Well, no danger of that.”
The commandant, despite his amusement, had to voice his disagreement:
“We’re in the most beautiful region in the world. It’s both wild and gently quaint; as pretty as it is impressive. It’s ugly for two months of the year, albeit an ugliness that plenty of people would yearn for. We’re on a bypass – if you were to judge Paris by the Périphérique then it would hardly fare any better. Leave Provence alone, Eva,” he said with a smile. “I love it with all my heart.”
“That’s enough, don’t you start, too!”
Provence, Tahiti . . . What was it with these sun-seekers and their two-bit paradises?
“Yep!” Pilou yapped, ever quick to defend the interests of his beloved mistress.
“Yes, absolutely! I’ll even prove it to you,” Lebreton said. “When we get there we’ll go for a coffee, somewhere quiet in a pretty part of town. And a biscuit,” he added for Pilote’s sake, who sat down immediately on his blanket, content with that bargain.
“Well it’s not like there’ll be anything else to do,” Rosière moaned, aware that she might have gone over the top. “It’ll be on me, my good chauffeur. What time’s the funeral?”
“Eleven o’clock. Orsini came down on the train last night. Évrard and Merlot took one this morning.”
“Yes, Orsini sent me a text. Said he had popped into the funeral parlour to get all the info. Not hard with that mug of his . . . All it would take is a tie and hey presto, he’s a fully paid-up undercover undertaker! I bet they chucked him the keys to the hearse before he could say ‘good morning’. Prize-winning misery guts, that one.”
This time, Lebreton did not rise to Rosière’s one-woman slanging match. Did Sir Pure-of-Heart just turn a deaf ear? she wondered, at once slightly hurt and delighted to be able to shoot her mouth off without fear of one-upmanship or consequence. Lebreton was an escape valve with no risk involved and no limits. Very relaxing. The perfect colleague. The perfect friend, if she dared go that far. On the subject of colleagues and slanging, she was yet to bring up D’Artagnan.
“What do you reckon – the new guy, he’s pretty nuts, right?”
This time Lebreton obliged with a raise of the eyebrow. It was hard to deny.
“Surely old man Buron can’t go sending us every head-case from the greater Paris area? We’re a scrapheap, fine, but we’ve still got standards. I’m a bloody author, for Christ’s sake! Capestan used to be the golden girl; you were a top dog at R.A.I.D.; Orsini’s a pain in the arse, but he’s a bright spark; Évrard, sure she’s got a bit of a gambling problem, but she’s still pretty normal. Almost too normal. Even Merlot . . . he’s a bullshitting booze-hound, but he knows what he’s doing. Dax and Lewitz are loveable idiots, but they can still surprise us. But this guy, he thinks he was born in 1593! He seems a dead cert for a gold medal in the Wackolympics!”
“Aside from that, he seems perfectly rational.”
“Yes, aside from that, like you say . . . If you overlook the fact that he talks about Richelieu as if he bumped into him yesterday, or that he chucks his glove at you the second you tease him, aside from that he seems perfectly rational . . .”
This time Lebreton could not hold back his laughter. The day before, Dax, with his customary tact, had pointed out to Saint-Lô that he was unusually short for an ex-musketeer. Saint-Lô took great offence, telling the “lieutenant” that he could hardly have visited many medieval villages, and that if he wanted to base his views on the proportions of men from centuries past against Disney movies, then he had only himself to blame. Not to mention the fact that many illustrious characters throughout history have proved, if proof were needed, that there is no link between size and vigour. Thereafter, he had thrown his glove into the face of a quite baffled Dax, demanding a duel. The lieutenant picked up the glove and declared in all seriousness:
“I don’t think this needs any jewels, it’s perfectly nice as it is. If you insist, though, I’m sure we can find something in Les Halles?”
Dax’s innocence had completely disarmed Saint-Lô, who was unable to come up with a fitting response. He took back his glove, murmuring something about it being fine as it was, and two hours later Rosière was still chuckling about it on the terrace.
After a roundabout and what looked like a breeze-block wholesaler, a sign welcomed them to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
*
Having dropped their bags at their genuinely charming hotel, Rosière and Lebreton enjoyed their coffee at a table overlooking the river with their coats unbuttoned. The rain had stopped and the sun was reasserting itself. Bit by bit, the mellow colours were waking up: the yellows of the façades, the orange rooftops, and the reddish terracotta tiles began to unfurl in the new-found brightness. At their feet, the limpid Sorgue flowed past, rustling the green water-parsnip as it went. Rosière’s groans began to subside, and she had to admit that the criss-crossing canals, the languid water wheels, the succession of little bridges and pergolas, shady courtyards and white stone, did in fact merit some attention. Although she could not resist a sneer when Lebreton had read out from the hotel brochure that the town was nicknamed “the Venice of Provence”.
A text message flashed up on the capitaine’s iPhone. Orsini: Ceremony starts in 30 minutes. Meet in front of church, town centre.
“Right, fun’s over. Drink up your coffee, it’s funeral time,” Rosière said, finishing hers off in one gulp. “Let’s see if our local hero really was as popular as all that.”
Beneath a blue sky that was finally doing this magnificent part of the world justice, a respectful bustle reigned in the place de l’Église. The occasional outburst of jolliness was quickly suppressed, the culprits resuming their reverential hush straight away. A few people had dressed up, but sombre clothes were not well suited to the southern climate, so they had clearly had to scratch around the back of the wardrobe. The men tugged at their cuffs as their jacket buttons struggled to contain them. Most of the women had opted for a black stole over an everyday dress. The boys, who had relented to wearing black trousers and wedged into brand-new shoes, looked like waiters. One of them, who was chunkier than his friends and half-throttled by his tie, looked completely inconsolable. He could not have been more than twenty years old and, red-eyed and nose running, was doing everything in his power to contain his sorrow.
“He’s the apprentice at the furniture shop,” Orsini said, sidling up to his colleagues.
“Seems to have hit him hard,” Rosière said.
“Yes, Maire was his first boss, a real role model too. The guy helped make the coffin. He and the other craftsmen chose the best bits of the finest oak. Three days it took them. They’ll carry it up to the altar as well.”
Orsini paused as a faint squeak of tyres indicated that a car was drawing to a halt.
“Look, here comes the hearse.”
The widow, who was in a real fluster, appealed to the two people standing alongside her.
“Where on earth is Jacques? He must be dawdling at home.”
Her dismayed friends had run out of ways to remind this woman, whose brain was gradually being eroded by the implacable effects of Alzheimer’s, that her husband was right there, in the coffin emerging from the long black hatchback.
“I’m saying it for his sake! All his friends are here . . . What a shame for him to miss a party like this.”
The children and their partners were keeping their distance, unable to bear having to tell their mother, yet again, every minute, that her husband was dead. They left the disease to its own devices and hid themselves away behind their own grief.
Carried by the employees from the furniture workshop, the coffin passed through the high doors to the sound of the bells tolling. Behind the dry-eyed widow still busily upbraiding her husband, oblivious to the fact he was gone for ever, the embarrassed funeral procession made its way into the church. “A very fine example of the Provençal baroque style, famed for its cherubs,” if Lebreton’s research in another leaflet from the hotel was anything to go by. The church was indeed lavish, bright and strangely joyful given the occasion, even if the congregation did remain thoroughly despondent. The three police officers scanned the crowd, looking for any striking details or out-of-place attendees. Orsini was with his pal from the local newspaper, a svelte old fellow sporting a pocketed vest that made him look like a war correspondent and a toothy grin worthy of Fernandel. He was bombarding the capitaine with information that he was passing on to his colleagues in a murmur:
“All those present in the church are from the region. No strangers.”
“That’s odd, bearing in mind Jacques Maire only lived here for twenty years. Didn’t he have any friends from before? No other family?” Lebreton said.
“None who are here, anyway.”
“That’s not normal,” Rosière said. “You don’t suddenly start afresh at the age of fifty. His previous life can’t have had any overlap with his life here. Smacks of a change of identity. Even the widow doesn’t have any family, does she?”
“She has an older brother and two nieces, but they live in Arizona. That’s a big trip at his age.”
As she sat up straight, Rosière bashed her knees against the chair in front of her. They had packed the rows in tight. Lucky thing Pilou had stayed at the hotel. She was thinking. Two nieces . . . A plan was forming in her mind.
*
The ceremony was about to finish. From his spot in the middle of the row, Lebreton could see the widow asking inappropriate questions amid the sobbing of the children and various employees. The apprentice, with his companions in the front row, was fidgeting as he gazed with pride at the coffin he had polished with such skill and toil. When the sermon was over, the priest dipped the aspergillum in the holy water and held it aloft before sprinkling the gleaming oak casket in the shape of a cross. As the first droplets fell, the apprentice, driven by a professional fastidiousness that he could not control, leaped towards the coffin, quickly wiping the wood with his handkerchief to avoid it staining. Once the last bit of water had been rubbed away, he sat back down, only to behold the priest’s horrified expression as he stood there frozen, sprinkler in mid-air. The apprentice, as red as a beetroot, muttered something and looked aside to avoid seeing any more. The whole congregation, shrouded in such a serious atmosphere, did their best not to burst out laughing.
While Rosière was chewing the inside of her cheeks, Orsini and Lebreton continued scrutinising the faces around them. In the second to last row at the back left of the church, a thin man in a grey suit seemed to have missed the kerfuffle. He was scoping out the room too, his eyes darting back and forth. Without thinking, he pulled at the ends of a shiny green wrapper to release a Quality Street. He wolfed down the chocolate before his line of sight crossed Lebreton’s, causing him to look away hurriedly.
There was a big surge as the coffin and funeral-goers, heads bowed, made their way outside, momentarily preventing Lebreton from seeing the man, despite his height. When he eventually extracted himself from the row to peer through the assembly, the man had disappeared.
Outside the church, the children received condolences in a trancelike state. A few metres away, their mother seemed rather surprised by all the handshakes and outpourings, her good manners compelling her to accept them despite their being so misplaced.
“Wait, stay put, I’m going to try something,” Rosière said to an alarmed Lebreton.
Slaloming through the crowd, Rosière reached the widow and clutched her in a consoling embrace.
“Oh, Auntie!”
After complying with this impromptu cuddle, the lady smiled at her with that glimmer of anxiety you often detect in Alzheimer’s patients, unable as they are sometimes to recognise even their closest family. But the name “Auntie” did not seem to register at all. The capitaine had been wide of the mark. Not remotely proud but determined nonetheless, she withdrew into the throng.
Rosière’s much-loved grandmother had suffered from Alzheimer’s. She stopped recognising people when they spoke to her, starting with her children’s husbands and wives, then her grandchildren, and eventually her own children. Her memory fell apart, but for the most part her intelligence remained intact, and she was determined to conceal her condition. During pauses in conversation, her grandmother would watch out for a sign, a detail that might shed light on the other person’s identity, something to help her tell whether she was talking to her son-in-law or the postman. So that she did not have to swim around in doubt, Rosière would kick off every conversation with the word “Granny”, then wait for her grandma to break into a broad smile and say “Sweetheart!”, as she did with all of her six granddaughters. Perhaps she was not sure which one exactly, but that was not the point – it worked for any of them. Rosière had often wondered what would have happened had a Jehovah’s Witness rung her bell and said “Granny” for some reason or other. She might well have answered “Sweetheart” before handing over all her dosh.
“What are you doing, Eva?” Lebreton asked when she was back by his side.
“Don’t panic. Unfortunately she won’t be affected and will have already forgotten about it. We’ve only got two days to fish for information, there’s no point beating about the bush.”
Before Lebreton could restrain her, Rosière had slipped into the crowd and was back in the widow’s arms.
“Oh, Poppet!”
“Darling!”
Poppet. Bullseye.
“How are you, Poppet? It’s been an age since we last saw Uncle Jacques. I was thinking about him the other day. What was he called again when we were little?”
“Yes, an age, you’re right. It feels like yesterday, though,” the lady said, suddenly all misty-eyed. “He was Jacques Melonne back when you were tiny. I preferred him then too. So handsome back in those days, with those broad shoulders . . .”
“Was that when you knew Serge Rufus? Or he did?” she said, flashing her the e-fit, now shorn of its green fur.
It was the oldest memories that stuck, so it had to be worth a try.
“Hmm, no, never heard of him, my darling . . .”
Rosière put the image away and carried on her questioning. Behind her, other well-wishers were growing restless.
“Tell me again why you changed your name?”
“Aha, darling, you’re really trying to worm something out of me, aren’t you! Tut tut! The thing is, I never actually knew. One day he came home and said: ‘Pack your bags, the kids’ too, we’re leaving. It’ll be tricky to adjust at the start, but we’ll be fine, you’ll see. I promise.’ And he was right – we’re very happy . . .”
“Right, but – ”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself! You’re talking about him like he’s dead. Jacques! Jacques!”
The widow was off again, pursued by an endless wave of commiserations and blurry faces. Rosière was pushed aside so she gave up, her heart heavy.
She was sure that one day she was likely to end up surrounded by strangers who knew more of her life story than she did, and that it would drive her mad with vulnerability. She had a fresh pang as she saw the mass of people swallow up the widow she had just conned, even if she would remember nothing of it. All that to find the killer of a husband she thought was still alive and whose presence she still felt.
Lebreton watched his colleague come back, sashaying along as she plumped up her fiery barnet. As outraged as he was, he had to admit that the discovery of the victim’s true identity marked a giant leap forward.