SISTERS, SONS, DAUGHTERS
Get it all over and done with. He didn’t go home; the bed wasn’t even made and it would be depressing. He’d do the housekeeping tonight. He had lunch, both bad and expensive, in a horrible beer-palace near the town hall, which emphatically did not belong to Noelle. He thought he might explore her restaurant this evening, see what the grub was like. It was a place he knew without knowing, never having had occasion to go there. Neither Vera nor he – nor both together – went much to eat out – on a ‘divisional inspector’ pay-scale… He turned the card over in his fingers. ‘Cave Saint Symphorien’ – the sort of place that was indeed a cave, where you went downstairs knocking your head on a beam, found yourself in a vault, rather cramped, with bare refectory tables, bottles with candles stuck in them, and a huge illegible menu in olde-gothicke full of ‘specialities’ served in brass warming-pans. So what? – he’d get a free meal out of it. Noelle’s life seemed pretty free from twisty bits. A few business fiddles no doubt – she was certainly a tough and competent woman – but even if she had a lover it wouldn’t be any cook or head waiter – and it was most unlikely to be someone with hostile feelings towards Monsieur the Adjunct Mayor. Commonsense told one that Noelle would not be an underhand person – that led to complications of a kind she would dislike and have no time for. Business was business, and good business depends largely on personal relations. And she hadn’t looked very frustrated to him.
He got all the frustrations he wanted from Thérèse. The horrible meal of tough steak and dried-out chips, and a beer half of which was foam, and serve him right for setting foot in this dump, made him aware that good police work depends on a peaceful digestion for a start.
Thérèse’s domain, the converted basement kitchen, was comfortable, sunless, but full of warm red tiles, polished brass, blue and white china, baskets, red cushions, and pictures of saints and the Pope. There were two dogs that took a dislike to him, and with Thérèse that made three. Given to pious works she was, but not any police charities, thanks. A good smell of food hung about, making him cross: she was plainly an excellent cook. She was extremely sharp. One kept falling through the strewn brush-wood into tiger traps full of pointed bamboo stakes. One got little out of her save maybe the dog’s plate to lick. He was treated as though he’d come selling encyclopaedias at the door and dismissed classically with a flea in his ear. ‘You won’t find any murderers in my kitchen, young man, nor by hanging round here.’
Thérèse seemed as uncomplicated as Noelle. Her brother had been to her simply her pride, the centre of her loyalty, the object of her devotion. Apart from pestering the local parish priest about the Tridentine Mass, and seeing to it that she was the scourge of the vegetable market, what else did she have in her life? What else indeed did she want? Now that he was dead she would stay on, because there was nowhere else to go. But don’t bother me with your detective rubbish – go out and catch terrorists; that’s what we pay you for.
While he was feeding off these assaults the old lady came pottering in, upon some errand connected with lifting the lid of a jampot and putting it back again; glanced inquisitively across.
"What is it, Thérèse?"
"Nothing Mémé. A young man about the gas." He decided that he was not going to risk appearing ridiculous. In every country house there is, or ought to be, a granny of this sort. They are always busily on the go, picking a bunch of parsley and setting it in a jamjar: mettre le persil au frais is a way of ensuring that things are as they should be.
"You’ve been most helpful," said Castang, ignoring the small smile of pure malice. "I’d like to see Thierry by the way."
"Monsieur Thierry," making sure the police stayed in the social class in which God had been pleased to place it, "won’t be back before this evening."
"What do you call this evening?"
"Most people," patiently explaining to an imbecile, "get back from work between five and six. Unless of course they work in shops."
He had better not ask what work Thierry did, though he was a little curious about it. What had Maryvonne said – ‘no visible means of support’ – not quite the same as doing nothing and getting well paid for it, which is a commonplace phenomenon.
To pester Thérèse he went out through the back, into the garden. Big garden, surrounded by a high wall. And virtually in the centre of the town! Well, what use was it to be – to have been, he corrected himself punctiliously – a municipal councillor and the Adjunct Mayor if you didn’t see to it that you were pretty damn privileged? Not necessarily a proof of corruption! Castang was as urban a person as you could get, but there is no soul, male or female, of French blood that looks at a garden without the heart beating faster. He loitered for a good ten minutes, enjoying it, stopping to pick off a caterpillar that was eating the leaves of a blackcurrant bush. Vieuxpapa, accompanied by a small wheelbarrow and extremely well-cared-for tools, was lifting out old rooftiles forming the border to a bed, one by one, weeding very deliberately round them and putting them back. He paid no attention whatever to Castang, who hadn’t the heart to disturb him. That his son was dead, and moreover assassinated, had or quite possibly hadn’t sunk in. He would have heard the news. Yes, so they tell me. I’m worried about that frost last week having got at the melons. The old man did not deserve a cop saying useless, senseless things.
Etienne Marcel had been no doubt several different sorts of crook, and aroused acute loathing in all sorts of quarters, and no doubt deserved it, but he had done well by his family. Even for him this house must have been a troublesome burden. But he’d seen to it that his old parents, and his unmarried sister, as well as his wife and children, were well looked after. Castang couldn’t help thinking that it was much to his credit. There wasn’t anyone here with reason to put a bullet in the boss. The whole place breathed harmony and comfort and settled, secure patterns. Rough winds there might be in the public sector where Richard was a-prowl, but nothing shook the darling buds of May within this wall: nicely maintained, observed Castang, a solid seven foot tall. And topped with broken glass against marauders.
"Is this house burglar-alarmed?" he’d asked Noelle.
"Certainly," she said briskly. "Not that there’s anything of outstanding value. But I don’t take unnecessary risks." Marcel, from what one heard, had had no aversion to taking risks. But in the right place.
This was surely a nonsense. If there was anything to discover it wasn’t here. Still, such were his orders. Made for a nice tranquil day. He shut the gate carefully after him and wondered whether Magali would be at home. It did no harm to go and look…
In the car he glanced at Maryvonne’s notes. Rather vulgar good looks…expensive bungalow res. with trappings…he’d see what he made of this.
The district was outlying, of no great interest, flattish being on the valley side: villages long swallowed by suburb. Along the riverbank were clumps of woodland, where the rich had seen to it they stayed undisturbed. The President-Director-general class, the captains of industry had houses along here with river frontages, nice English-style lawns, moorings for their boats under the willows. Magali’s Bertrand, something in rubber making good money, wasn’t in this class. But there had also been manor houses of previous centuries, gentilhommières with nice enclosed parks but too big, chilly and draughty for today’s living. Two or three of these had been cannibalised by astute promoters. Knock the house down, but leave at least a few trees, carve the park into lots of a half acre, flog them to the rising young executive. Not quite the cream, but your standing is assured; these are exercises in elegant-and-relaxed living, and you can say you’re living quite close to the rich. Buildings, roughly the top end of levitt-style-American. Veneer of Ile-de-France style, meaning a row of French windows opening on the terrace. Three bathrooms and a two-car garage. No cellar, no attic, and a colossal profit.
When you have small children, you see, it’s much more comfortable having a house with a garden than it is in a flat in the city. Certainly, agrees the middle-grade police officer, mentally reviewing his salary scale and the potential for bribes…
The private road – Route Sans Issue: Uniquement pour Riverains – wound about and decanted him by a thuya hedge, a wrought-iron gate, grass, young trees, a clump of canna lilies and an immature rock garden. Magali was on the terrace in a red-and-white striped sailor top, white trousers tight over the behind and flaring below. Good figure, probably excellent legs. Face handsome and often would be pretty, a French jolie-laide with too wide a mouth, too sharp a nose, eyes too close together, tanned dark skin, hair tied with a ribbon, alert expression of vivacity and intelligence. Barbaric earrings too big to be square-cut emeralds, but only just. A perceptible and somehow touching resemblance to the little old lady who trotted round with parsley. She had looked like this once – in the clothes of 1914.
Magali listened lazily to his patter.
"Sit down," pointing to a swinging garden seat. "No school today, so I have to keep an eye on them." The children were playing by the pool. Water still a little cold, but they were dabbling, in shorts and no tops: their skin, dark like hers, would not scorch in the May sunshine.
"A drink? Perhaps a long drink?" He agreed happily. She went off into the house. He sat in the sun and swung himself. This was a better way for the police to spend an afternoon, definitely. Why aren’t there more inquiries into the rich, and fewer into Arabs-living-in-squalor? Don’t answer that question. He got a tall misty glass, with too many iceblocks, not quite enough whisky, and sodawater: Magali inspected his maize-paper cigarettes and said, "Yes, give me one of those, would you?"
He sat and said nothing: let’s see what she would make of this.
"Let’s see if I get it right then: you don’t seem very convinced by the terrorists."
"They’re a possibility."
"Or does it occur to you that somebody might pretend to be a terrorist – adopt might it be a terrorist technique?" She was intelligent enough that he only had to cue her. She talked willingly.
"Mm, might not be altogether as easy as it sounds. Have to have accomplices and steal cars and all that, and hire a mercenary with a big gun. One reads of such things; wouldn’t have much confidence in it myself. The accomplice would turn straight round and blackmail you, I’d have thought… Mm, profitless speculation. That drink all right? So you’re checking up on the family. Oh. I can speak with detachment, you see I was educated and everything. You’re intelligent enough I think to see that my speaking with detachment does not mean I loathe or despise my family: far from it. I rather like that absurd hugger-mugger of a house. I like them all, I’m much attached to them. Okay? I was attached to my father. An absurd person really, a great one for systems and different personae. You get like that in municipal politics. Terribly old-fashioned. Still, that was his life… I suppose it could happen that someone was keyed up enough to want to kill him: he’d certainly plenty of enemies. Bertrand – my husband – thinks that a very unconvincing theory. I suppose I do myself. I don’t know what I think. Not beyond the bounds of possibility? Mm, you’re not saying, of course. Let me talk, hope I’ll drop you a clue. I haven’t got any clues. I’ll talk away if that’s what you want."
"Give me a picture of your father’s character."
"Didn’t have any character. Or had too many, which is much the same thing. Like the house; ancient and modern, simple and sophisticate, naïve and elaborate. He had to be the big-shot, always bustling about. If I sound cold, perhaps it’s that I saw little of him as a child – he hardly noticed us – and really I’ve seen little of him since. Occasionally he would bellow at us, or slap us, or pick us up and kiss us – me, anyhow, I’m the youngest, and a girl. But he was hardly ever there. Like a sailor, he would come home on leave occasionally. These episodes were noisy, and initially glamorous, but it soon wore off. Really, you know, I know very little about him."
"And your mother?"
"I love my mother very much: don’t think I’m going to give you any backstairs gossip. She’s a good woman, loyal, honest; no lovers or anything like that. Extremely single-minded and determined. I’m much like her."
Castang sipped his drink and said nothing. The young woman sprawled in her chair, relaxed as a cat in the sun, apparently without a care in the world. The surroundings made for a loose informality, almost a familiarity. He wasn’t writing anything in little books. But she was talking too much. Still, she did resemble her mother; Noelle had met him with the same easy, uncramped openness.
Experience told a cop to be cautious of the ones who talk too much, who are so anxious to show they have nothing to hide.
"I can talk," said Magali suddenly, as though the same idea had crossed her mind, "because I’m detached about Noelle too, of course. She wasn’t a demonstrative mother: we were under her feet a good deal and she didn’t have the time to play with us or tell us stories. You have to understand that she married very young, and got her childbearing over early, and was pretty relieved to have it done with. She’s not greatly interested in children; she’s fond of mine but doesn’t really notice them. Having us was a nuisance – there, one didn’t have much choice in the matter in those days. I was brought up largely between Thérèse and my granny, in one way or the other. I’ll get you another drink, shall I?" uncurling gracefully.
She’d swigged her own pretty quick. His was still half full. So she wanted another.
While she was gone he felt this strong physical awareness of her. Certainly she was not acting sexy; nothing about her suggested anything but the honest woman. With her perfume as she jumped from her chair came a sharp attractive tang of sweat. There was a smudge of sweat on her lips. The May afternoon sunshine was warm, and enjoyable after the cold rainy days, but not hot. Movements graceful, well co-ordinated. She set his filled glass on the table, looked to see that the children were not bickering. Beautiful body; high waist, long fine thighs. Noelle was much broader and thicker.
"Your mother has a strong character," to be saying something.
Undoubtedly she was wound up. Made too slow and elaborate a business of sitting down, reached too deliberately and negligently for her glass, took too big a sip. All this slowing herself down had, as it often does, the opposite effect. Her voice was faster, more emphatic.
"Her mentality too is different from my father’s – how my father was. Etienne was terribly old-fashioned. She wasn’t interested in that political stuff. So antiquated. I mean ‘smoke-filled rooms’ and shifty-eyed ward-heeler types. He was a thorough provincial, you must understand. He would have liked to stand for a national election and gone to Paris as a Deputy. But he never felt at ease there. Realised I think that he’d never build any sort of solid base at that level. Concentrated all the more on the local scene, gladhanding everyone, being very thick with every sort of petty power. I suppose it wasn’t really contemptible; just that it seems so to our – my – age group." Do I look so old? thought Castang. She’s the same age as Vera. But I’m a cop. Part, and a shady part, of local power-structures.
‘Who do you think killed him?"
She stared as though taken by surprise. Her face went absent and then came back and concentrated upon him.
"I’ve no idea. How on earth could I? I don’t even know all the facts. I’m not stupid enough to imagine the paper prints them all. If it’s not terrorists then, then – a mafia of some sort. It’s all so professional – or so it sounds – or am I mistaken?" Fishing. He wasn’t going to say that he didn’t have the remotest idea.
"You get on well with your brothers?"
"I don’t really see a lot of them." Being evasive now. "Well, you know, my husband’s not that friendly with them. I mean they’re my brothers of course. We have a kind of family unity."
"Being detached, as you were before."
"Well…" She picked up her glass, twiddled it, drank off the watery remnants. "Thierry’s a bit of an ass; Didier’s a bit of a bore. What more is there to say? They’re both of them intelligent enough. Thierry’s too bone-idle to use his brains. Didier’s a sharper. He’s a rather bad copy of his father in some ways. I don’t really want to say much more. Put it like this: I’m not really very greatly in sympathy with the way they live. I’ve my own life," defensively, aware of being a scrap disloyal, "my own family. My husband lives in a different world, and I see things with different eyes."
"Does your husband get on well with your family?"
"Pretty well. He never asked my father for any favours," voice sharpening. "Has this lasted long enough now? I’ve really told you all I can."
"I’m sorry," said Castang, getting up at once. "I’ve no wish, and of course no right, to press you at all. All this was just background, and routine if you like. Character – mentalities as you called it yourself. In talking to members of your family I didn’t want my big feet getting obtrusive. You’ve been very patient. I got rather roughly handled by Thérèse," grinning. She broke into a laugh at once.
"Oh, she’s an old terror. She’s like that with everyone. Domestic tyrant."
"If I want to get in touch with your husband, can I give him a ring here?"
"Oh, yes. I’ll tell him. But he always kept himself a bit aloof, you see. He doesn’t know any of the family well – with this notable exception," smiling.
"Goodbye then, Madame, and thanks again."
"You’re welcome," she said formally.