3:13 P.M.
Aja is sitting behind the desk, facing Martial Bellion. Christos prefers to remain on his feet, a little further back. The Saint-Gilles-les-Bains police station, on Boulevard Roland-Garros, is composed of several concrete cubes of varying size, painted off-white and all connected to another cube—this one made of steel—that functions as the reception building. An ordinary, run-down station, like thousands of others in France, except that in this case the hideous cubes are located only about fifty meters from the beach. Standing in the main room, if the doors of the nearest boxes are open, you have a direct view of the beach and the port. Christos never tires of this. The yachts leaving the port, the surfers, the IMAX sunset when he leaves the office after 6 P.M. Which doesn’t happen very often, admittedly. Aja, on the other hand, shrivelled up in her chair, could be teleported to Dunkirk without even noticing.
Martial Bellion is not interested in the tropical landscape. He has other things on his mind.
He was summoned to the police station for an interview at 3 P.M. He arrived twenty minutes early. He still looks like a beaten dog. Or a lost dog, searching for his mistress. A cuckolded dog, perhaps . . .
“Do you have any news about my wife, Captain? Have you found out anything? I’m going crazy. And as for Sopha, our daughter . . .”
Christos senses that Aja is about to explode.
And the bloodstains on the wall, my sweet? And the missing knife?
The captain is not the kind of police officer to treat her suspects with kid gloves. She won’t put up with Martial Bellion’s little game much longer.
“I do have some news for you, Monsieur Bellion.”
Aja stands up. Christos admires the impeccable creases in her blue uniform, the buttoned-up blouse, the starched stripes. Christos stopped wearing his official clothes a long time ago, although Aja continues to try to make him wear a more suitable outfit when he’s on duty. At least he could iron his shirt, and tuck it into his trousers, even if he can’t manage to wear a tie, cap and epaulettes . . . Captain Purvi can be a stubborn pain in the arse, as Martial Bellion is probably about to discover.
Aja abruptly turns around.
“Monsieur Bellion, I’ve been patient. I’ve listened carefully while you’ve given me your whole ‘traumatized husband’ act. But now it’s time for the next part of the drama, don’t you think? Let’s put our cards on the table. Eve-Marie Nativel, the cleaning lady at the Hotel Athena, told us all about your various trips to the second floor, about you borrowing her laundry cart and taking it down in the lift to the ground floor on the north-east side, where the car park is located . . .”
Bellion looks surprised. Not bad, thinks Christos. This guy could be a professional actor.
But Aja does not give up that easily: “Her testimony seems very different to yours, no?”
Bellion takes a breath, then says: “That woman is mistaken. Or she’s lying.”
Christos leans back against the windowsill, ready to enjoy the match, though he wouldn’t bet a single euro on Bellion. First return into the net. Why would Eve-Marie lie? How could she possibly be mistaken? It’s ridiculous.
Aja serves again.
“Eve-Marie Nativel is lying . . . Of course, Monsieur Bellion. Let us continue, then. In addition to Eve-Marie Nativel, Monsieur Tanguy Dijoux, the Hotel Athena’s gardener, saw you in the car park at 3:25 P.M., pushing the infamous laundry cart. Not the kind of scene anyone is likely to misremember, is it, a Zoreille helping out a Creole cleaning lady? After that, three kids playing football behind the hotel saw you heading towards your rental car, a grey Clio, which you had left in the car park.”
Aja moves forward and stares into the tourist’s eyes.
“Now, Monsieur Bellion, do you still claim not to have left the pool before four o’clock?”
Another deep breath, longer this time, then Bellion spits out his response: “They’re mistaken. Or they’re lying . . .”
Aja rolls her eyes. Christos smiles. Martial is either very stubborn or very stupid. He’s in a hole and he won’t stop digging.
“I . . . I don’t remember exactly, Captain. I was playing with my daughter in the pool. I’m teaching her to swim. I also slept for a while on a deckchair too . . . I . . . I didn’t notice what time it was, but . . .”
Christos almost feels sorry for Martial, so pathetic is his defence. Swimming against the tide. He could throw him a lifebelt, but he feels sure his boss wouldn’t appreciate that. Aja paces the room. Deliberately, Christos imagines; she is letting Bellion stew in his own juices, like a Caribbean-style chicken, until the bird’s flesh comes away from the bones. Bellion stares fixedly at the red, white and blue posters on the walls that declare the glory of the overseas forces: to the right, the maritime police with their jet skis, speed-boats and diving suits; to the left, the air force—helicopters, rope ladders and abseiling. The thrill of life on the “intense island.” Join the Police Force now!
Suddenly, Aja explodes. A button goes flying from her blue blouse.
“Monsieur Bellion, we’re not going to spend all day doing this. Every member of the hotel’s staff is testifying against you! And their testimonies all concur. Your version is full of holes. Eve-Marie Nativel is absolutely certain; she guards her corridor better than Cerberus guards the gates of Hell. Your wife went into her room at 3:04 P.M. and never came out again. The only person who entered, and came out, then entered again one hour later, is you. So, for the last time, Bellion, do you still deny going up to your room a quarter of an hour after your wife did?”
Martial hesitates. On the wall, a helicopter flies over the Trou de Fer. He seems to have decided to jump into that chasm, feet tied together.
Barely a whisper: “No . . .”
Christos winks at his captain. Good, Martial, now we’re getting somewhere. Aja strikes while the iron is hot.
“Thank you, Monsieur Bellion. So, do you deny having borrowed Eve-Marie Nativel’s laundry cart?”
Five seconds that seem eternal. Bellion stares at the policewoman in her wetsuit, sitting on a Zodiac inflatable boat.
“No.”
Another wink. Just one word, almost a confession. Go on, Martial, don’t stop there.
Aja’s voice lowers by an octave, becomes almost soft.
“Why did you borrow that cart, Monsieur Bellion?”
Martial is staring into space now, his eyes roaming the posters, the walls, disappearing into the Bélouve Forest, the advertisement for the Roches Noires beach . . .
“I have to ask you this, Monsieur Bellion. Was your wife still in the room when you left? Was she still . . . alive?”
Christos nods his head. No reaction from Martial; he’s no longer with them. He’s no longer sinking, no longer trying to swim against the tide. He is floating at the mercy of the waves, waiting for the tide to turn. He could be in for a long wait, given the amount of evidence that is piling up against him.
At last, his eyes move.
“The room was empty, Captain Purvi, when I went up. We . . . things had not been going well between us since we arrived on the island. I simply thought she wanted to put some distance between us.”
“That is not what you told me yesterday, Monsieur Bellion. When you summoned me to the Athena, you swore that your wife had not run away, that she would never have left without her daughter.”
“That was yesterday . . . I told you that because I wanted you to investigate her disappearance.”
Aja purses her lips, unconvinced.
“And the laundry cart?”
“A stupid reaction when I discovered that the room was empty. I threw all of Liane’s clothes into it. She’d left most of them in the room. The suitcase she took with her was almost empty.”
Christos smiles at his boss. Clearly, Bellion has not given up yet.
“We’ll check that,” Aja replies coldly. “No one, absolutely no one, saw your wife come out of her room.”
Bellion has turned pale again.
“That’s all I know, Captain. Maybe they weren’t at their post and they don’t want to admit it? I called you last night because I wanted you to find my wife. Why would I have done that if it wasn’t the only thing that mattered to me?”
Aja just shrugs. A heavy silence falls. The captain goes back to the questions on her form, noting down each of Bellion’s desperate replies. He doesn’t understand the disappearance of the knife from the barbecue kit. Maybe his wife took it? Or one of the hotel’s employees? He threw away his wife’s clothes, stuffed in bin liners, at the Ermitage rubbish tip, on Avenue de Bourbon, a few hundred meters from the Hotel Athena. There were no bloodstains in room 38 before Liane went up, alone. He is certain of that. Maybe she injured herself before she left?
The captain has understood that she is not going to get anything more out of Martial Bellion. Christos intervenes then.
“Monsieur Bellion, we are going to ask you to go into the next room, the infirmary. There, our colleague Morez will take a few drops of your blood in order to compare it with the blood found in your room. To be honest, I’ve spent all morning working on those bloodstains, and I am extremely curious to discover who they belong to.”
3:55 P.M.
Christos watches Saint-Gilles through the window. About thirty kids are crossing the beach, dressed in flowery shorts and Day-Glo baseball caps, walking in a row behind their teacher. Do they have any idea how lucky they are? A school lesson taught by the sea, in a sandpit six miles long. Aja pays them no attention, her gaze fixed on the police recruitment posters.
“What do you think, Christos?”
The second lieutenant turns around.
“I think it’s a total con. We should warn any kids on the island who are thinking of joining that helicopters and jet skis are pretty damn rare in local forces. And they are hardly ever piloted by Creoles . . .”
“Oh, give me a break, Christos! I was talking about the Bellion case. What do you think about that?”
Christos switches off the fan and opens the window. A warm wind blows into the interrogation room, carrying with it the children’s shouts.
“After you, Aja.”
Aja sits on the desk.
“All right, so we have proof that Martial Bellion is lying to us the whole way down the line. We have five testimonies against his. It’s hard to imagine that all of the hotel’s employees could be in league against the same man. Why the hell would they do that? Five against one.”
“Six against none,” Christos corrects her. “In the end, Bellion admitted he’d gone up there.”
“Exactly, Christos. His wife might have escaped the notice of one hotel employee, but not all of them. And she obviously didn’t leave the apartment on Sitarane’s18 back . . . If it’s his wife’s blood that’s covering the hotel room, then that’s it, we arrest him.”
“And hold him in custody, Aja? Put the handsome Martial in the slammer?”
“We don’t have a corpse, Christos. No murder weapon, no motive, no witness. Nothing. And let’s not forget that he eats breakfast, lunch and dinner with a lawyer at the Athena. The prosecutor will laugh us out of court . . . Let’s keep an eye on Bellion for a few hours while we wait for the test results. This is an island, after all. He can’t easily escape.”
Christos takes his time to reflect.
“It is strange, though, isn’t it? He called the police station yesterday even though he knew all the witnesses would testify against him. He didn’t even try to hide his damn laundry cart. He may as well have written a sign on it telling people he was using it to transport his wife’s body. If he’s guilty, if his wife hasn’t just absconded, then his defence strategy is suicidal.”
“Maybe he had no other choice, Christos.”
The second lieutenant takes a seat.
“Explain that to me, boss.”
“Imagine the scene. The girl goes upstairs. Her husband joins her discreetly in the room. They argue. It turns nasty. He kills her, let’s say by accident. What options does he have then? Leave her body in the room? If anyone finds the corpse, he’s screwed. No, there’s no other solution. In the end, he gets rid of the body. And the murder weapon too.”
“In front of five witnesses? Leaving blood all over the room? Then he goes back to the crime scene shortly afterwards? That’s suicide.”
Aja shoots an irritated glance at her deputy’s open shirt.
“No, it isn’t, Christos—quite the contrary. Because there’s no body. There’s no weapon. No motive. And no confession. Even if all the evidence suggests Martial Bellion is guilty, he still has a good chance of being acquitted if it ever goes to trial. There are legal precedents. The Viguier case, remember that? Everyone felt absolutely certain that Jacques Viguier was guilty of murdering his wife, even though there was no body, no murder weapon, no confession. They pointed to the disappearance of Suzanne Viguier, her adultery as a motive, the signs of a struggle, the sheets washed by the husband. He even took the mattress to a recycling center. But he wasn’t guilty. He was acquitted in 2010.”
Christos’s expression shows his scepticism.
“Hmm. Well, if you’re right—if we don’t find Liane Bellion in bed with some local boug19—then fame awaits us, Aja. Media briefings, appearances on the evening news. You can forget about arresting clubbers for disturbing the peace, or picking up drunks from the beach, or warning kids not to race each other on their scooters. This is the chance you’ve been waiting for, my girl. Your springboard to a great future!”
“Enough of your prophecies, Christos.”
He sticks his head out of the window, savors the breeze on his face.
“How long does it take to get the results of a DNA test, Aja?”
“I’ll make them fast-track it. You know me. We should have a response this afternoon, tomorrow morning at the latest. And by that time, we might have found Liane Bellion’s underwear at the Ermitage tip.”
“O.K. Then I bet you a hundred euros that we will win the case. I bet you that the blood in the room is his wife’s.”
“Two hundred,” says a voice behind them.
Morez, a first-class officer, enters the room. He’s young, a nice guy. Generally, when he’s on duty at night with Christos, he handles his Dodo beer better than his poker game.
“In fact, I’d go all in,” Morez says. “When Bellion took off his T-shirt so that I could take his blood, guess what? He was wounded. A cut under the armpit, superficial but very clean. The kind of cut you get from a very sharp knife.”
“How old was the wound?” Christos asks.
“No more than a day, I’d say.”
“Christ,” says Aja. “We really are getting there.”
18 A Réunion witch who is the object of a Satanic cult.
19 Man.