36
Two days. No call from Robert Charigot. Friday, Inspector Nouvelle beckoned Inspector Bernadette Milhau, gave her a new interpellation order and the address in circle René-Descartes. ‘Be nice,’ she cautioned. ‘Be careful with the mother if she’s there — but bring him. Please.’
An hour later she took Bernadette’s call: ‘There’s no answer.’
‘Any sign of life inside?’
‘None I can see. Every window has the blinds closed tight. Both floors. Back door, kitchen. Basement’s dark as a cave. Gate, garage, both locked. Like they’ve left town.’
‘Merde.’ And no just cause to batter down the door. ‘If he’s in there, we can’t make him open. Go to the clinic at Saint-Louis and serve her. And bring her. This is getting absurd.’
Twenty minutes later Bernadette called from Saint-Louis, ‘She is not expected on duty till Sunday evening.’
‘Quel bordel!…Go back to the house. I’m coming down.’
Aliette was feeling personally insulted. Which is, by definition, unprofessional. And dangerous. But it is an occupational hazard. The inspector hurried downstairs — a fast hobble, getting stronger every day — and grabbed a car. For better or worse, she knew she would enter that house in circle René-Descartes.
The previous evening’s snow had fallen till the wee hours, covering everything. A magical Alsatian scene for early risers, but a hazardous, slushy mess for morning commuters. Her progress was marred by a regional plow tooling stolidly along the National. She turned off at the first exit, headed for the river road. No better — all motorists were on their guard and crawling through the humid grey mist. The radio was saying the expected rain would likely freeze.
Her phone buzzed. Bernadette asked, ‘What kind of car was it?’
Aliette wracked her memory for Hubert’s description. ‘Old, nothing special…blue.’
‘Navy-blue Opal hatch-back?’
‘Oui!’
‘Totally white and worried?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Went past as I was pulling in. Car’s filled up with something.’
‘Follow her.’
Ten crawling minutes later, on the outskirts of Village-Neuf approaching circle René-Descartes, her phone buzzed again. ‘She’s going to the river.’
‘Can you tell me where? Is there a sign?’
‘A big factory…road going down opposite the gate. It’s not plowed.’
‘It goes down to the beach… our crime scene. Stay with her. I’m almost there.’
Two minutes later. ‘She’s unloading paintings from her car and tossing them in the river.’
‘Paintings?’
‘I’m standing fifty paces away. I think she even knows I’m here — but she doesn’t care.’
‘See what you can do. I’ll be there in five. And leave your phone open. Please.’
‘I will.’
She did. Trapped in crawling traffic, Aliette Nouvelle could hear Bernadette Milhau trying to engage Christine Charigot. ‘Madame?… Madame?…Madame! Police!…’ and a perplexed, frustrated, ‘sacré!… Madame, look at me!’ More quiet cursing…steps, ‘Madame, I am ordering you to — AGH!’ It was the sound of one solid object striking another. And pain.
‘Bernadette!’ The inspector slammed the blaring siren onto the car roof, stepped on the accelerator, swerved around the creeping cars. A minute later, she finally left the road. Her wheels spun in the mushy tracks. She stopped, got out and ran. Her shoes and feet were soaked in an instant. She felt her healing thigh complain. The rain that had started falling stung her face with icy pricks. She passed Bernadette’s car. No sign of Inspector Milhau.
The blue car was parked on the verge, the woman, in her housecoat it appeared, was methodically pulling flat rectangular objects from the back of it and flinging them into the waters below. Aliette made an emergency call to the Municipal Police. ‘The beach?…Yes. Please hurry.’ Then approached. ‘Madame Charigot, I am commanding you to cease and surrender in the name of the law!’ She may as well have been screaming at the rain. The woman took not the least notice. Soaked and wretched, she was obsessed with her bizarre task.
Aliette circled carefully wide. Bernadette Milhau was on the ground on the driver side of the woman’s car, there was blood in the snow. ‘Bernadette…can you respond?’ Ten steps away, Christine Charigot was all business. She pulled another smallish, elaborately framed painting from the boot of her car and flung it. It spun briefly like a stunned bird before dropping into the swirling current. Then bobbed up and floated. At a glance, the inspector thought there were a least two dozen, floating away in a line.
But it was only a glance — because Inspector Milhau was on her knees now, struggling to her feet. Blood was pouring from a gash above her eye. Aliette hurried to help her colleague.
It was another one of those moments when an inspector might have made productive use of her hand gun. But it was in her underwear drawer, in the forsaken house in the north end.
Bernadette had hers. She muttered, ‘In the glove box.’
Aliette did her best to support her much larger colleague as they moved around the fixated Christine Charigot — who continued unloading paintings and doggedly flinging them into the flow. It was pointless shouting at the woman. The gun was in the glove box. She fired it into the air. ‘Madame Charigot!’ To no effect.
There was also a rudimentary first-aid box. Easing Bernadette into the passenger seat, the inspector did what she could to stanch the blood. Then, apart from shooting her down in cold blood, two cops could only watch helplessly from fifty steps as the woman tossed the paintings.
Two pairs of local uniforms arrived almost simultaneously a long five minutes later. Several more in short order after that, sirens screaming. Christine Charigot was surrounded.
But she carried on, oblivious, as if unloading long forgotten basement crap at the village dump… until one brave officer lowered his stance, charged and tackled her to the ground.
Christine Charigot struggled silently, pounding at the man’s thick shoulders.
Then stopped. Completely silent. The two of them lay in a wet heap in slushy snow.
A wailing firetruck finally bounced down the path.Two pompiers came running with medical aid. Aliette left Bernadette in their care and went to the water’s edge to have a look. There were easily forty or fifty paintings — a flotilla of fine art drifting out past the mouth of the canal and into the open river.