INSTRUCTIONS, FROM THE INSTRUCTING JUDGE
French women are rarely ‘pretty’ though when they are they can be breathtakingly beautiful. Striking-looking, handsome, attractive; this they frequently succeed in being. Good bones; faces full of drawing. Colette Delavigne was a good example. Fine forehead, fine eyes in beautifully modelled orbits, the usual sharp pointed nose, broad serene mouth: furiously kissable. Lower jaw too narrow, throat and ears magnificent. All in all a very French face: Castang had fancied it a good deal once upon a time: a bit too much. Nice speaking voice too, unshrill.
"Hallo, Henri. Haven’t seen you in ages."
Perfectly true. The junior Magistrate of Instruction, and a woman at that…does not have a great deal to do with the Police Judiciaire, which by definition has to do with grave, complex, sophisticated and showy crimes. In a big city there is a Sûreté Urbaine, a criminal brigade attached to, and part of, the municipal force. The Regional Service of the PJ is spread over a large district; two, perhaps three ‘departments’. Outside the towns there is the gendarmerie, French equivalent of the Sheriff’s Office.
On the tribunal side, a judge judges… ‘sits’ according to his qualifications and seniority. Madame Delavigne had had a spell in the Juvenile Court, where only one judge sits: had ‘filled in’ from time to time in the Police Court. It was rare that Castang found himself in these. In the higher courts she might have found herself acting as assessor, sitting next to the President, but French law, which provides for the elaborate and often lengthy system of ‘Instruction’ (in essence a thorough preliminary inquiry to determine whether in fact an accused person should be required to stand trial at all) forbids an instructing judge to take part in the same trial. She – many are women – or he sends the completed dossier to the Chamber of Accusations, and their rôle in the affair is complete. He’d lost sight of Colette for some time.
The Judges of Instruction, half a dozen at least in a city this size, have a row of offices called their ‘cabinets’ on the ground floor of the Palace of Justice. Outside in the wide corridor is a long row of benches, permanently occupied by the accused, some on bail, some from the local jail, with handcuffs on and attended by guardian cops; and by the endless procession of subpoenaed witnesses.
Colette was alone behind her desk. Her greffier or clerk, who is present at all the official business to make a record and legalise proceedings, hadn’t arrived yet.
A lawyer in robes, some defending counsel or other, popped his head in.
"When can you fit us in, Madame?"
"A quarter of an hour, Maître."
"I have to plead around ten, in the Correctional."
"Well, we’ll have to put it off then, won’t we? Let me know when you are ready." People have to sit on those benches, blowing their nose and staring at the floor, for hours sometimes. One’s counsellor must be present, at interrogations…
"How’s Vera?" asked Colette, smiling. They hadn’t many friends: a PJ cop isn’t all that popular a neighbourhood character. Colette had been a close friend of Vera’s. They’d drifted a bit apart, the way people did sometimes. Castang himself…well, Richard had thought it wasn’t very clever, one of his close collaborators being quite so thick with a female – young, pretty – Judge of Instruction. Colette had had her daughter kidnapped by an oaf. Castang had been on that job. Fact was, they’d come close to what nasty-minded people would call… Least said soonest… Vera’s friendship with Colette, and Colette’s friendship with Henri, got cooled off rather. Well, that was past history.
"Having a baby, more or less any moment." Grinning, proud pa.
"Oh, how lovely. Give her my love. And for goodness sake, keep me in touch. How was I to know? You want me to read these things in the paper? I must rush out and buy something extravagant."
"She’ll love that. Nice of you."
"Well look, Henri, all these people battering at the door. Must get this business settled, and then when you come back next we’ll have a drink, right? She’s not started yet? What a moment!" The big mouth stretching into a grin, a bit rueful.
"Yes, idiotic business this."
"And could steer us both full tip into the shit. Which is why your great friend Commissaire Richard, not really one of mine, entrusts you with this delicate huh, inquiry. And why the Procureur de la République, bless his warm heart, finds that Madame Delavigne, still always known as Little Madame D, is just the right magistrate to examine and instruct, hm, this humhum."
"At least you haven’t been posted to Béthune yet." It is the standard ‘judge’ joke; a sour one and not always a joke. Young, earnest and idealistic magistrates have quite frequently progressive liberal tendencies and left-wing sympathies. They have even – how dare they? – formed a splinter syndicate of judges who sometimes ask quite openly whether the separation of powers is all it might be, and whether the judicial branch doesn’t get leaned on a bit too heavily and obviously by the executive.
Judges are independent, yes, of course. But they get promoted on their ‘marks’ awarded by their seniors. They can’t be sacked. But they can be posted to a hell ship.
Junior judges, just out of school, get posted anyway to a hell ship unless they’re somebody’s cousin. The biggest and best-known punishment squad in France (the Bataillon d’Afrique, the army used to call it) is Béthune, that grim and forbidding mining city in the Pas de Calais near the Belgian border. Something like half the magistrates in Béthune, and it is one of the largest busiest tribunals, are in the ‘wrong’ syndicate. They do naughty things, like ordering the owners of industrial empires to prison for persistent infraction of labour laws. The owners don’t stay long in jug. The Court of Appeal in Douai lets them out within a week. Funnily, the C of A takes around three months to get to business as a rule.
The mention of Béthune is not always greeted with a grin by junior judges of instruction. Colette smiled, but without conviction.
"I wouldn’t much care for it, Henri. A woman, you know; they’ve got you coming as well as going. Suppose I said yes, and we’ll by God make Béthune the best judicial district in France, the example to all the others where people can by heaven see justice done – what would Bernard say?"
Bernard was her husband. Director in a small but dynamic concern making milk products, known as ‘the yoghourt factory.’ A nice man. And she was a loyal wife.
"It’s what I tell Vera all the time. Life is splitting ideals into compromises. Supping with the Devil, long spoon. All cliché, as she says. I’ve no particular wish myself to be Commissaire in a village of five thousand souls in the Massif Central. Where no human eye would ever again behold me. I like this town. Oddly, I like Richard. He’s some six or seven years to go till his pension. He’ll stay here – they don’t want him in Paris. Suppose he made a bad blot, it’d be Nantes for him or Rennes: imagine his face! So he’ll be mighty careful."
Colette was thinking: we’ve grown up all right; he and me both. What a long time ago it all seems.
"And how’s Rachel?" he was asking. Rachel… When a child has been stolen, even though not in any real sense ill-treated, is it ever going to be quite the same again? Confidence…
"She’s a big girl now… We’re of one mind, Henri. None of us would want to see this thing get out of bounds."
That’s right. There may be waves, the boat may rock a bit, but see that no water gets into it. Be sure you can count upon the members of the crew. She’s ambitious…and who blames her? For her a test. The Proc is wondering, now that she isn’t really little-Madame-D any longer, whether larger responsibilities could be entrusted…and her marks will depend on how well she handles this. Good – she’ll trouble me less.
"What exactly is it you want done?"
"Want done! Come on Henri, you’re the experienced man at the confidential enquiry. What is it that Richard ‘wants done’? You have the usual powers. If you want any more you must come and ask me, and account rather closely for whatever you propose. It’s obvious that under the cloak of this terrorist pretext you must make a discreet personal investigation, and keep it underground. Nothing to the press, that’s flat. That the whole affair is confidential goes without saying. I’ll phone Commissaire Richard. I imagine that the answer will be found in a vengeance drama, but the man was an adjunct to the Mayor and he’s precious touchy about the dignity of civic office, so you be mighty careful how you go about your witnesses. Any sort of a lead, you’ll communicate your findings to me without delay."
"Understood. You take that up with Richard, my girl."
"I’ll have to ask you to excuse me now, Henri."
Decidedly, he thought, he preferred the Colette of – what was it, six years ago? But that was when they were both young and foolish. Bernard will be putting on weight now; he was always rather thick around the neck. You’ve kept your figure pretty youthful.