4
French side
Village-Neuf was a typical mix of charming old core streets surrounded by developments displaying varying success at fitting with the original idea. She found her way to one such development in a cul-de-sac on a rise off the River Road. The unofficial park area along the channel where she had spent the afternoon was five minutes away by car — the hulking pump parts factory, thrumming through its evening shift, marked the place in no uncertain terms. And likely kept house prices within a certain range. The Hunspach residence was designed in the traditional chalet style, exposed upper beams, base covered by light grey stucco, a balcony on the master bedroom above the front door, a terra cotta tiled roof. And clean: lawn in perfect trim, not a dead petal in the earth beneath the clumps of dying primary-coloured annuals. How would you ever guess an ugly boy like Hubert lived here? It was Papa who answered her touch on the ding-dong bell. A trim man with an austere regard. She’d bet a mid-level bean counter, at the pump manufacturer here in town, or over at the vast Peugeot factory, or possibly at one of the big pharmo plants that employed thousands in the area. She flashed her warrant card. ‘I don’t mean to disturb your supper, monsieur. I just need a quick word with young Hubert.’
‘We eat early,’ he said, his tone as unassuming as his front yard.
She supposed he’d heard several versions of his son’s arrest.
Inside was equally neutral: pristine nordic wood, perfectly white materials covering divan and matching fauteuil, no carpet on the white tile floor, no photos or knick-knacks, nothing to read, just the requisite television and stereo system. Like an IKEA model, everything lighter than air. The inspector nodded bonsoir to Maman, Hubert and Sister, gathered in front of the regional news, about to enjoy their moment of fame.
It was just past seven-thirty. The regional report was already on. The job-killing realignment taking place at Peugeot was bigger news than a body in the river. But the body would certainly come next. Maman was pained when the cop demanded to speak to her son. ‘Now?’ she whined, displaying the same automatic wariness Aliette had observed during the interview in the park.
‘Désolé, madame…’ Sorry. Suggesting, ‘Surely you were on the local edition.’
‘But we eat during the local edition.’
‘I want to see how I did,’ Hubert complained. To Papa, not the cop.
But Papa pointed to the kitchen, and held the door for the inspector.
Sister, young but clever, quipped, ‘Have to catch it rerun.’
‘Fuck off,’ Hubert said, heading for the kitchen.
‘Ça suffit,’ Papa warned as he pulled the door shut.
Alone with Hubert Hunspach in the spotless eau-de-javel-scented kitchen, the inspector did not mince words. ‘Where’s the wallet?’
Pissed at having to miss himself on the news, he avoided her eyes, sullen. ‘What wallet?’
She flashed her warrant card again, to remind Hubert that this was no longer about being on TV. The gesture shook something loose. The boy grinned a dreamy grin, a quintessential adolescent move, the child taking over from the hulking almost-man, presuming the benefit of the doubt as to an innocence left over from childhood and the forgiveness that always came with that. Unspoken message: All kind of a joke — reporters, cops, dead people…
‘Don’t be too much of a twerpy brat, Hubert. It’s really not becoming on a big boy like you.’
Which merely replaced the grin with a shrug: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Ordering him to sit, she laid out it. ‘A man was murdered in cold blood. From the way it looks he’d have been in considerable pain, and a lot of fear. Then dead. Can you wrap your mind around that, Hubert? Dead. A fellow human being. It’s the worst crime, murder — not fun at all, I don’t care how much pot you smoked or how many shows you’ve seen, this is not a laughing matter. And more to the point, monsieur — ’
‘I’m still a juvenile.’
‘Juvenile? Really? So far, all you are is a very dumb child. But if you have any knowledge of the circumstances connected to this crime, then you are a witness and you will be dealt with accordingly. And a wallet containing a murdered person’s papers and other personal information is knowledge of the utmost essential kind, and if you are found to be withholding that knowledge you’ll be charged and your life will change forever. Are you getting the picture here, Hubert?’
‘He’s dead.’ This was so boring. ‘He doesn’t need his wallet. He doesn’t need —’
‘I need his wallet!’ Standing, directing him to do likewise. ‘Get your toothbrush, Hubert, we’re going downtown where we can do this in a more businesslike manner.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
Papa looked in. ‘Do I need to call a lawyer?’
‘You need to tell your son to grow up.’
Hubert Hunspach stomped out of the kitchen. His large feet in his thick boots made a lot of noise. Aliette followed. The father trailed the two of them up the stairs and into a poster-plastered bedroom in desperate need of fresh air. The boy yanked open a drawer and pulled out a wallet and threw it on the floor. ‘Putain de flic…’ Whore cop.
Before an inspector could stoop to retrieve it, an embarrassed father had stepped past her and smacked the boy — a good hard one he might actually remember for a day or so. Then Papa gestured at the wallet. Pick it up or you’ll get another. Resentful, so typically an oversized child in his outraged sense of having been wronged, Hubert picked it up and placed it in her hand.
‘Merci.’ A quick look inside. Then a flat smile for Hubert. ‘The money too.’
The boy looked about to do a reprise of his kitchen act, but his father did a reprise of his look. Message received; staring straight ahead at nothing, sighing deeply — some days life is just so wrong — Hubert Hunspach pulled his own wallet from his droopy pants and handed over 300 euros and 75 Swiss francs.
‘Bon.’ The inspector bowed in receipt of it. ‘Consider the fine paid and the matter closed. You’re an extremely lucky boy.’
Hubert shrugged. Papa followed her down the stairs and showed her out.
She offered her hand, ‘Sorry if that was a little rough.’
‘I could file a complaint. You’ve no mandate. This is a private dwelling.’ And, his eyes added, not everyone around here’s a fucking plouc. Which translates to rube.
She nodded, all true. Countered, ‘The quicker we can amass the proper information attached to these things, the better chance we have to solve it — I’m sure you’ve heard them say that?’ Cooperative citizens were society’s only hope. Aliette’s hand remained extended. Reluctantly he shook it. She reckoned he knew his son deserved it. ‘Bonsoir.’ She returned to the car.
The recovered wallet gave her Martin Bettelman, French citizen, address just across the way in Saint-Louis, employed in Basel — the ‘quick-through’ pass card for the Swiss border people indicated a security firm called VigiTec. So, not a gangster. But suspiciously nice clothes for a security guard. In management? In any event, she could now assume a very probable relation between Monsieur Bettelman’s employment in the Basel security industry and the painted shoemaker’s uncalled-for wounds. This case would certainly have to go to Switzerland.
Inspector Aliette Nouvelle rolled her neck, rotated her shoulders, visualized a glass of beer. It had been a long and vexing day, a day now reduced to a humid blue line wavering between indigo and black, but she had no wish to go home. Not yet. She called the night desk from the car and requested a double-check on the identity card. It was confirmed. She headed for the border.
***
Saint-Louis, last stop this side, is the site of the shared international airport. Thanks to the airport, thanks to industry, it’s one big city from Saint-Louis on in to the middle of Basel. But the five-kilometre ‘closed’ road from the Swiss side into the Basel-designated side of the terminal is Swiss territory. You have to pass through a customs checkpoint in the middle of the terminal hall if you wish to cross to the French-side terminal. It’s an efficient business arrangement, but the effects of this unnatural marriage spill over: The run-down street Martin Bettelman had called home seemed locked in permanent twilight thanks to the 24/7 glow of buildings and runways two kilometres away. It was past nine, too late for unwelcome police to come knocking when Aliette stopped in front of the dreary place on the wrong side of the ugly town.
Bettelman. Ground floor. Far end. Over-wrought odours and television sounds all along the hall. She knocked. ‘What!’ The door was yanked open to reveal a haggard face that fit perfectly with the frustrated voice, unwashed hair, noisy television, kid-evident mess, unattractive air.
‘Good evening, Madame Bettelman?’ Yes, yes, what the hell could you possibly want? ‘My name is Inspector Nouvelle,’ flashing her card and a sad smile. ‘I regret to inform you…’
In response, Madame Bettleman kicked the door, more angry than distraught. ‘Stupid ass!’
There was a sleepy ‘…Maman?’ from somewhere behind her.
‘Madame?’ The inspector reached to place a restraining hand against the door.
Because Madame Bettelman was already in the process of shutting it. ‘What?’
‘Can you help me here?’
‘Why?’ Peevish, sighing, no hint of bereavement. Death made some people strange.
But the police were allowed in, the télé muted, basic information supplied. Her name was Lise. Yes, Martin worked as a security guard in Basel. Not sure where at the moment. Mostly galleries and museums, both private and public, they rotated them around — they being the agency, VigiTec. He’d been with them going on ten years. Since the kids… ‘at least the bastard cared about them,’ Lise muttered. ‘Even if he didn’t come home, he’d always show up for work.’ Small consolation. ‘It’s a pittance, but it’s regular…or was…Fuck!’
‘…Maman?’
‘Dors, chérie…c’est rien. Dors!’ It’s nothing. Just your stupid father. Go back to sleep.
‘Do you know where he went when he didn’t come home?’
‘Off with his cunts… The clubs? Partying? I don’t know.’
Aliette waited.
‘So stupid. They think you can’t smell the way a stranger smells. Always said he had a night shift, a favour, someone sick, a special exhibition, it always fit but none of it was true. I know the security guard business too — it’s how we met. For my sins,’ she added in a bitter aside to herself. ‘And he knew that!… Really very stupid, my Martin. I could smell it all over him all the way round to the next night. Putes. Cheap as hell. Cheaper than all this…’ Her home, her street. Lise Bettelman massaged her eyes, deflating. ‘I didn’t get it.’
Didn’t get how he could be so stupid? Big mystery. Bigger disappointment. Not to rub salt, just to learn more, Aliette told Lise, ‘He was wearing pretty nice stuff when we found him.’
‘What kind of nice stuff?’
‘Designer suit, high-end loafers, the whole kit. Straight out of the boutiques.’
‘Shows you where his priorities lay. What a prick.’
‘Did you confront him?’
‘Sure, at the start.’ Lise Bettelman paused to reflect, her tired face now beginning to collapse. But she hadn’t booted him out, her beau Martin. She needed that cheque and he always managed it. But, ‘what a useless waste of time!’ Her anger surged back in. She pounded the door.
There was another fearful noise from a half-asleep child down the hall.
Aliette pushed gently. ‘Beyond his…his cunts, did you get any sense of anything not right, I mean with his nights away from home?’
‘Not right? What the hell else do you want?’
‘I mean like against the law.’
‘Ah. No…no drugs. He always went to work. They would’ve seen it, even if I didn’t. They won’t have druggies. Clients won’t have it. Very Swiss. Everything neat and tidy.’
‘I mean related to the clients. His work. Art. The things he was hired to watch over?’
Lise Bettelman snorted, bitter, ‘If he was, none of it made it here,’ gesturing at the cheap humidity-stained walls adorned with unframed, fraying posters.
‘You say you worked down there?’
‘Yeah. I should’ve stayed in school.’
‘Does it happen? Stealing?’
‘No one told me about it. But they wouldn’t have. I was just a stupid girl. Still am. Fuck!’
‘Did he ever mention anyone in Village-Neuf?’
‘No. Maybe it’s where one of his cunts lives…’ But no, Lise Bettelman did not know who Martin’s friends were. Didn’t want to know. She knew the name of some club downtown. ‘I mean in Basel — he lived there more than here. I found a card in his uniform.’ She fetched it.
Zup. Tanzen! (dancing, in German). An address. The inspector puzzled over the pen-and-ink image of a pair of lederhosen, the traditional suspender-held, elaborately finished alpine leather shorts.
There were now two small voices complaining down the hall. Lise closed her weary eyes and zapped the muted télé into oblivion. She bit down on her lower lip, trying like a million other mamas to keep it together. ‘J’arrive, mes petites.’ I’ll be right there. Exhausted, miserable, she scratched at the scab on her knee, bare and white below the frayed cuff on a pair of cheap pale blue Decathlon all-purpose training shorts.
A not-unsympathetic cop was obliged to enquire, ‘What happened to your knee?’
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘Please.’
‘Oh, Jesus… Smashed it in the park.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Being a goddamn mother!’ Adding, ‘On the bloody steps to the slide?’
Aliette stood to go. She promised a social worker would be there first thing in the morning, sooner if Lise needed. That was shrugged off. ‘My condolences, madame. We’ll work on this, so at least you’ll know.’ Aliette did not mention there would have to be a gendarme sent along with the social worker, to take a swab from her mouth and a cutting from her shorts. It would be a formality. For Lise Bettelman, being a mother was a full-time job. Not a heck of a lot of time unaccounted for in the course of a day — no time to trail a shitty husband from the clubs in Basel to a riverside park and kill him for his selfish ways. But there was a gash on her knee and that fit. Poor Lise would have to suffer the additional indignity of a test. To be sure.