They spread the newspapers out on the table and poured over them. There were a couple of local papers, plus one that covered the region. The nationals – Le Figaro and Le Monde – both had extensive spreads on the story, while the girls were excited to discover their traumatic holiday had been turned into a large article on page three of The Telegraph, flown out from London just that morning and on sale for several times its usual price as a result. As well as some lurid copy, there were many photos, including the one of Jimmy wielding the leaf skimmer.
‘How did they get hold of this so quickly?’ asked Lizzie.
‘Is this the version we get in England too?’ asked Suzy. ‘Wicked.’
‘They’ve just lifted this from the French papers yesterday,’ said Nick. ‘I can’t believe it cost me four quid for this rubbish. I thought the British broadsheets had more decency.’
Although they’d read all the papers from cover to cover the previous morning, they still pored over the latest versions, exclaiming again at the photos and asking Marcus to translate comments. Hannah was pleased to realise that practice was making her French a little less imperfect, and she could painstakingly work out some of what had been written.
There was one new revelation – that Madame Gerard had been released without charge.
‘Why didn’t Moreau tell us that when he was here yesterday?’ wondered Marcus.
‘He probably thought it was none of our business,’ said Nick.
‘It also wouldn’t have made him look very good,’ pointed out Alice. ‘He hasn’t found out anything yet and she was his only suspect.’
‘He’s a pretty crap policeman really, when you think about it,’ said Suzy.
‘That’s not fair, Suzy,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’m sure he’s doing his best. This is obviously a difficult case, and the police can’t be expected to solve it overnight.’
‘Why are you defending them?’ asked Hannah, in exasperation. ‘I think the girls are right, the police haven’t handled this at all well. They’re inept.’
‘Mum would have loved it all, wouldn’t she?’ said Lizzie suddenly. ‘All those hours she spent watching murder mysteries on the TV. She would have been in her element here, with a real one going on right under her nose!’
Hannah smiled. ‘Not sure she would have thought much of Moreau though. He isn’t the sort of sexy detective she went for.’
‘What’s a sexy tector?’ asked Jimmy.
‘Sexy detective, you moron,’ said Alice.
‘She wouldn’t have stood any nonsense from him,’ said Nick. ‘She’d have scoured the pool area herself and had it all figured out by Sunday morning!’
They laughed, but Hannah saw a shadow pass across Lizzie’s face. The pain of bereavement was still there, etched into the tanned skin of her sister’s cheeks, running out through the faint wrinkles at the edge of her eyes. Grief was a strange thing; just as you were starting to believe you’d left it behind – dealt with it, come to terms with it, learnt to live with it – suddenly it would spring up unannounced. A sound, a smell or a turn of phrase was all it took to spark off a memory that hurt like a physical kick in the gut.
Hannah had found herself thinking about Jean more than usual, and suspected the others had too. But it wasn’t surprising really, considering they were here together on the holiday she had gifted to them. Even the children seemed aware of the shadow cast over the holiday by her absence.
‘Do you think Granny would have liked the goats?’ Jimmy had asked, the previous afternoon.
‘I’m sure she would have loved them,’ Hannah had replied. ‘What made you think of that?’
‘I just wondered,’ he’d said. ‘I can’t ever ask her now, can I?’
That was the hardest part. There were so many things that they would never be able to ask Jean. Hannah wished Jimmy, in particular, had known her for longer; she had been an indulgent grandmother, listening to his stories with interest, sticking his colourful drawings up on the kitchen wall, insisting on going to watch his stilted, awkward performances in the school nativity play – even last December, when cancer was eating away at her body and the shortest trip out left her aching and exhausted.
‘I have never seen such a brilliant sheep!’ she’d exclaimed, when Jimmy came back to the school hall afterwards. ‘You were the best of the flock!’
Jimmy, in a fluffy white onesie, had grinned and thrown his arms around her neck. ‘I was, wasn’t I?’ he’d said proudly.
Hannah could hardly believe so much had happened in the last eight months. Now, wearing just his red trunks, the little boy wandered out through the French doors, bored with the discussion about police procedures.
Nick closed the paper in front of him and tossed it into the middle of the table. ‘What I want to know,’ he said, ‘is why they can’t identify the body? You would have thought that in this day and age, with so much technology available, they could work out who he was or where he’d come from. DNA, fibres, residues and that sort of thing.’
‘You’ve been watching too much Silent Witness.’ Hannah smiled.
Marcus sniggered. ‘That blonde forensic woman could take a look in my pool any day.’
Lizzie sighed.
‘But still,’ said Nick. ‘I don’t think DNA washes away, does it? Or at least there would be DNA inside the body they could test.’
‘Wouldn’t the chlorine destroy it?’ wondered Hannah. ‘That’s what it’s there for, to kill germs and bacteria, so presumably it would destroy everything else as well if a body was in it for hours?’
‘Depends if the forensic team can get to what’s in the gut,’ said Marcus. ‘It had been there for such a long time, so water would have worked its way through the whole body, getting into the lungs and stomach and everything else.’
‘Maybe not if it had filled up with gas, like he said,’ pointed out Nick.
‘This is gross,’ said Alice. ‘Can we stop talking about bodily functions?’
‘Hey!’ shouted Jimmy, from outside. ‘Mr Hugo with the hairy ears is back!’
Sure enough, the old man was walking slowly up the lawn towards the house, his legs bowed, his shoulders slumped. He seemed to have come from the field.
‘Oh no, he’ll have seen the broken fence,’ said Hannah. ‘Marcus, say something! Tell him what happened.’
‘Monsieur!’ greeted Marcus, grabbing the old man’s hand and pumping it up and down. ‘Lovely to see you – nous sommes heureux de vous voir!’
Hugo didn’t look happy. His jacket was filthy and he was unshaven, a spattering of grey stubble running across his chin and up the sides of his wrinkled cheeks.
‘Ah, mes amis,’ he said. ‘C’est terrible!’
‘Yes, we know. We’re so sorry,’ said Hannah.
‘Vraiment terrible!’
‘It wasn’t our fault though. It was the journalists – erm, les journalistes? They were trying to take photos.’
‘Ma vie est finie…’
‘Surely it’s not that bad?’ asked Marcus. ‘He says his life is over. Listen here, old chap, it’s only a fence!’
‘Finie!’ the old man pounded his chest with his clenched fist.
‘He needs to get a bit of perspective on this,’ said Nick.
Tears were welling up in Hugo’s eyes again, and his lower lip was wobbling.
‘Golly, he’s really upset about it!’ said Lizzie. ‘He’s certainly taking his responsibilities seriously as a holiday property owner.’
A deep sob exploded from Hugo’s mouth, then a high-pitched wail.
‘Shit, here we go again,’ said Hannah. ‘Sit him down somewhere.’ She put her hands on the man’s shoulders, moving him towards a chair on the patio. ‘Maybe we can repair it ourselves, or find someone to do it before we go? It’s only a few planks of wood.’
‘Tissues!’ commanded Lizzie, and Alice rushed back into the kitchen.
‘Haven’t we spent enough time dealing with Mr Hugo’s emotions on this holiday?’ observed Nick. ‘Marcus, tell him that we’ll pay for any damage – even though it wasn’t our fault.’
‘Monsieur, nous allons payer pour le travail sur la cloture,’ said Marcus.
The old man wailed even more loudly, and they stood around helplessly, not quite sure what to do. Alice returned with a packet of tissues, which she put in front of Hugo on the table, before leaping back out of the way again, as if he might bite. He sat staring down at the blue and white plastic pack, letting tears dribble unimpeded down his cheeks.
‘Ma vie est finie,’ he repeated, more quietly this time.
‘Oh dear,’ said Lizzie. ‘This is awful. I’m going to make him a cup of coffee.’
‘Ask why,’ hissed Hannah. ‘Why is his life over? This can’t just be about a broken fence.’
Marcus obliged and the old man finally looked up at them all, his pale blue eyes glassy with tears. As he began to speak, he ripped open the packet of tissues and blew his nose repeatedly, making it hard to hear exactly what he was saying.
‘It’s to do with Madame Gerard,’ said Marcus at last. ‘Guess what, her name isn’t Clothilde, it’s Celeste!’
Hugo continued to speak, swiftly and accompanied by energetic hand gestures. When he finished, he looked up at Marcus expectantly.
‘Looks like she’s dumped him,’ he explained.
‘What, he took all that time just to say that?’ said Nick. ‘There must be more to it.’
‘She was arrested for obstructing the police enquiry or something; it wasn’t to do with the murder itself. He always knew she was innocent of that, but now she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with him – even though he stood by her when she was locked in a police cell.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lizzie, coming back in with a mug of coffee and placing it down on the table. ‘That’s so sad. Poor Mr Hugo.’
The old man cupped his hands around the mug, shaking his head and muttering to himself. ‘Misérable femme!’ he announced suddenly, sounding angry. He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a bottle – red wine this time – tugged the cork off with his teeth and poured a long slug into the mug of coffee.
‘God that’s disgusting,’ said Hannah.
‘That was a perfectly good cup of coffee,’ said Lizzie, offended.
‘Let’s not get into this again,’ said Hannah. ‘Marcus ask him if there’s anything we can do for him, otherwise let’s try to get him out of here.’
‘Good idea,’ said Nick. ‘My liver can’t take another afternoon with Mr Hugo.’
There was a sudden banging at the front door. They looked at each other warily.
‘I’ll go,’ volunteered Nick, and they watched him go into the dining room and heard the handle creaking as he opened the door.
A man’s voice started speaking, but Nick interrupted. ‘No, absolutely not. Go away. We do not wish to speak to you or your colleagues. No interviews!’
The door slammed and he came marching back into the kitchen. ‘Bloody vultures are out there again,’ he said grimly. ‘Only a couple of them this time, but it’s getting ridiculous. Do you think it’s worth ringing the inspector? He’s the one who wants to stop us having any contact with the press, but how can we do that if they can come and go as they please?’
‘Good idea,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ll call him now.’
Meanwhile Monsieur Hugo was noisily finishing off the remains of his wine and coffee cocktail. ‘Les femmes sont tous les menteurs!’ he announced, glaring at Hannah.
‘What is he saying?’ asked Nick.
‘No idea, but it seems to be my fault,’ she said.
Marcus was no help with translation. ‘Je voudrais parler avec Inspecteur Moreau, s’il vous plait!’ he was yelling into his phone.
‘Tous!’ repeated Hugo. ‘Elles sont des tricheurs!’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ said Hannah, smiling as the old man glared at her.
As he drained the last mouthful from his mug, Lizzie whisked it away. ‘Right, let’s get him out of here,’ she said. ‘Send him back wherever he came from.’
Hannah put her hands on his arms and pulled him to his feet. ‘Lovely to see you, monsieur,’ she said. ‘Now, au revoir!’
She helped him out onto the lawn, not sure which way he needed to go. They stood watching as he staggered down towards the field, stepped carefully over the broken fence and stood swaying gently for a few seconds, before wandering past the goats.
‘Where’s he going?’ asked Nick. ‘There isn’t another house for miles in that direction.’
‘No idea, but that’s his problem, not ours.’
‘He didn’t mention the fence. I don’t think he even noticed it!’
‘A broken fence pales into insignificance beside a broken heart,’ said Lizzie.