REPORTS
"What sort of a day have you had?" A pleasure to see Maryvonne; bright, serious, sitting bolt upright. Quite nice looking, too. The gingery fair hair was scraped back too abruptly for the narrow face: too many pins and then a ribbon too. Effect sort of scraggly. But she wasn’t there to be glamorous.
"I don’t think I’ve got anywhere very far," worriedly flipping back pages of her notebook.
"Neither have I. I didn’t in fact expect either of us to, much. It would be too good. You see the elder brother – the Didier?"
"Certainly. Very polite and co-operative – smarmy even. Not a very nice person, or am I being too subjective?"
"No, it’s what you’re there for."
"Tall, handsome, I mean well-shaped features, good figure. Sallow though, a nasty colour, hair going thin. Horrible eyes like wet stones. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Bright, cold, crafty: puts on a warm charming act, with a lot of jokes and little laughs, but it does look perfunctory. Was the father like that?"
"Less perfunctory. Went to a great deal of trouble. Looked and sounded interested, always."
"It’s the same politician’s performance. He did give me a lot of time and trouble. Can’t help it, I found him dislikable and dishonest. Very earnest about the terrorists: urges us to use the utmost diligence and he’ll be of service all the ways you can think of: squirmy person but I mustn’t sound prejudiced; he gave no trouble."
"Funny he should be so anxious for there to be terrorists – nobody else believes in them or pretends to."
"Didier states he was on excellent terms with his father but kept a certain distance between them. Values his independence is how he puts it. Father wanted to put his finger in all the pies – interfering in a helpful friendly way, giving unwanted advice."
"Quite believable too. And the pub?"
"The brother’s the complete figurehead, wood all the way through. Madame Noelle’s the key to all that."
"That’s what I thought. Okay, let’s go see Richard."
Commissaire Richard was smoking a cigar, with several piles of paper arranged neatly over his desk, studying them with the same affable calm as though it were nine in the morning and the day just begun, instead of six in the evening. Shirt fresh, face fresh, hair impeccable, suit unrumpled.
"Ah," he said when he saw them. "The character students."
Castang sat down and turned a cigarette around between the finger and thumb of the two hands, intent on getting it round and even.
"Bearing in mind I know nothing about Etienne Marcel’s public life, I’m not likely to find out much. He kept his private existence separate. It’s oddly impressive. A generous person. Family provider, who took his responsibilities as head of the clan seriously. Went to a lot of pains to see that his elderly parents were secure, comfortable, happy, occupied. Recognised his wife’s skills, respected them. Treated her in fact as an equal, which I wasn’t expecting. She had to act the bourgeois hostess a bit, he insisted on that, but nothing forced. Used his sister as unpaid slavey housekeeper – or so I had thought. In fact he gave her a generous personal allowance and allowed her to have a sort of domain of authority. Cranky cow, but she was devoted to him.
"Relationship with his own wife – impressive in its sense and balance. There was a mutual respect there which made for a good partnership. His daughter, who is a sensible and intelligent young woman, got on well with both, speaks well of both. A bit strained and tense, but I don’t see any reason to give much importance to that. The younger son is a kind of layabout, his auntie’s tame canary and she’s full of little indulgences. The mother likewise has a soft corner for him. He milks all this shamelessly. The father saw almost certainly that he was useless – I’ll have to check this a little further – and accepted it as just another fact of life. No cutting him off with a penny, and no sign of friction. Closely united, warm, affectionate family unit. First impression, but they’re rarely wrong."
"Very well," said Richard. "Maryvonne?"
"Mr Castang and I arranged to split the family between us. I haven’t been to the house yet. I’ve been in this brasserie thing which is the family business, where they started. The wife used to run it: these last ten years it’s the brother who runs it for them. I can confirm what Castang says, that he looked after his family. The brother’s an indolent self-satisfied lunkhead, and I should think they had to put up with a lot of incompetence there. It didn’t – doesn’t – matter much because the wife keeps a sharp eye on all the details, goes there every day, and so on. Oh yes, and she also has a restaurant in her own name, which isn’t generally known about. Open secret – they buy in potatoes, say, for the two places together. Etienne never missed an evening there – an hour at least – when he could help it. Shake hands and say a word to everyone. Shrewd – a popularity base: anybody with a grievance could buttonhole him there."
"That’s confirmed," interjected Castang, "by his not encouraging people in his own home much. He could use the pub both as office and for entertainment, except for important People."
"Between nine and ten at night you could count on an audience," she went on. "The staff say he could lose his temper and yell – an act to my mind to keep them in line – but was generous, especially if they were ill or in trouble, then he’d look after them. Like Boussac staff, swearing by ‘Monsieur Marcel.’ He knew how to mix familiarity with authority. It’s difficult in this world to see anyone with a grudge, let alone a motive for ambushing him."
"The second brother, the furniture business – well, he’s a competent craftsman, but workshy as all hell. I wouldn’t say Etienne kept him afloat – he wasn’t the type to throw good money down the drain – but he sure as hell threw him a lot of goodwill and patronage. If you came there with the right word you’d get a good job done. Otherwise you’d wait six months and your chair would still be sitting there untouched. Then the other son, that’s the eldest, in a lot of little estate-agent deals. He almost certainly got a start in that through pa’s helping hand, but I’d say he’s worked it up since on his own: he doesn’t lack talent or ambition. Probably he relied still on inside info about municipal projects and contracts. One can’t conceive of him not finding the relationship rewarding and valuable. I thought he might bear looking at a little closer in his personal life: he seems to be divorced and lives on his own there. Mr Castang suggested we might reverse the operation next day: get two levels of observation, which might shed a bit more light."
"All right," said Richard, waving smoke away from his face. He thought for a moment.
"I don’t want any superficial or premature conclusions. Do as you suggest. We don’t want anything in the nature of a neighbourhood enquiry along ordinary lines: that would only arouse gossip and speculation. Try to broaden it into – old friends, habitual guests – mm, love affairs, he sounds the model husband, and knew how to be discreet, but you never know. I leave it to you. Put your heads together tomorrow; give me a brief precis then. I’m meeting the same pattern. An onion; we go on peeling off layers, and each looks much like the one before. We have to go right on down, to make sure there is, or was, no flaw or crack where something could have gone rotten. Very well, the two of you can go home. Our love to Lydia," he said to Castang. How did the artful bugger know her name?
Monsieur Castang – Henri only to intimates and there were not very many – Divisional Inspector of Police Judiciaire and newly a father, a fact which procured strong and disconcerting sensations, got home rather late but in high fettle. His wife and his daughter were in fine shape; the daughter in fact a great deal more attractive than she had appeared that morning. He himself had been a good boy; had tidied the flat most conscientiously. He’d had a good dinner; most important.
As for being a cop, why, even this – generally unpleasant – fact of life was less of a drag than usual. Vera would be home in four or five days: she’d slept well, was resting comfortably; everything was normal. She had a few stitches, and the gynaecologist would be deciding when to take these out, but it wouldn’t hold matters up unduly. An amiable conspiracy involving Fausta would stop any of Commissaire Lasserre’s nonsense about time off. He would get his days off when he wanted them, when he needed them, when Vera came home and he would have to look after her awhile. This was all cut and dried.
To be sure, he was on a job, which might, in fact did, get more and more complicated. But he felt quite sure it amounted to nothing. Look, go digging into anybody’s private life and you’ll find complications. People, under the most banal exteriors, can and do construct weird and elaborate areas of privacy. All the more somebody cunning, secretive, discreet like Etienne Marcel, who had kept his life in carefully watertight compartments. A day or so, and it would all be classified.
Well no, it wouldn’t be classified. The inquiry would go underground, and might prolong itself a long long time. But that was a worry for the Procureur and the Prefect, for the Mayor, for Madame the Judge of Instruction, for Commissaire Richard… Not for him; he was an understrapper. All these people might think up persecutions and torments for unhappy police officials but he would be saying Kiss My Ass. Birth was more important than death. Meantime, he’d been an extra good boy. Feeling free, feeling fresh, feeling energetic after a good meal, he’d done some quite useful extra work. He’d acquired merit. He had something to spring on any clown, be it Lasserre or Richard or even Madame Delavigne, who might take it into their heads to accuse him of primrose dallying on this job, of not being very zealous.
He felt in fact – what had that ass Thierry called it? – that’s it; the little friend of all the world. He put his key in the street door, lock going tralala, tralala, but silently because it was after eleven and this was a Respectable House, was borne up in the lift to the fourth floor, stepped across to his own front door, virtuously conscious that the apartment was tidy, and the bed made. He would sleep well. Damn, that stupid phone was ringing.
Nothing had happened to Vera surely? He shut the door quietly, hideous nightmares jumping about and shrieking at him in the dozen steps across to the obstinately yacking phonebell.
"Yes; Castang."
"Maryvonne."
"What? Look, do you realise it’s after eleven?"
"I’m sorry; I’ve been trying to raise you for some time. I’m afraid I’m in the shit." Her voice was weary, strained. He took hold of himself.
"I was out, and what’s more I was at work. Very well, let’s have it."
"It’s Didier: I’m afraid he’s dead."
"WHAT!?"
"Marcel’s eldest son, the one I interviewed today. Been found dead; it’s a long story. I haven’t been quite sure what to do. I tried to – I mean I felt I ought to ask you, and your phone didn’t reply. So I got Richard, and he said yes, you’d have to – and to get Lasserre if I couldn’t raise you, but I thought you’d want– " She was a bit incoherent – he realised that she hadn’t much experience and was plainly out of her depth. He realised too that he did want to know. He was a cop. There was no discharge in the war. Whatever this was it was no business of Lasserre’s. Or Richard’s. This was his investigation.
"Tell me. First of all, where are you?"
"I’m in the flat. I mean his flat. You see, they – I mean the firemen – found the card I’d left, saying PJ, and they thought this is funny, so they thought they’d better get in touch, and whoever’s on guard put them through to me and – "
"Maryvonne. You’re forgetting your training. I realise you’re distraught. But put this in the shape of a verbal report."
"Water was dripping through. The man downstairs noticed. He couldn’t get in to the flat above. He had to call the firemen. They forced the door. They found him dead. In the bath. Electrocuted. You know, like the singer – who changed a bulb while in the bath. People do such stupid things. It’s more complicated than that actually. I’m trying to simplify…" It was quite natural that there was not only weariness and strain in her voice, and anxiety about a cock-up, but relief. She’d got the responsibility on to him. He was, after all, the senior officer concerned. Her superior.
"Right, girl, I’ve understood. Be right around. Meanwhile, your standard procedure, okay? Stand fast, hold fast. You know what we used to say in the army? – if it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move paint it." It pulled her together: she gave a laugh, a bit off-key. Still, a laugh.
The body was gone, in the fire-brigade’s ambulance. The doctor had been and gone. The press – he was sorry to hear – had been and gone. Alerted of course by the neighbours and the hullabaloo. He’d better cut that off straight away, or the Lord alone knew what they’d be printing. Pull rank, boy. Richard’s rank. He got the paper’s night desk on the phone.
"Yes, I know this links to Etienne Marcel’s death and you want to make it a splash. Get one thing straight and make sure you have it. This matter comes under judicial control. Outside the one fact, this wouldn’t rank above five lines ordinarily; this is a coincidental accident. You will confine yourselves to that, right? Any speculation about suicide or any reference whatever to the homicide under instruction and you’ve got the instructing judge and the Proc with the chopper on your neck. You can’t print a damn thing without authorisation, got it?"
Maryvonne, of course, had only arrived after it was all over and gossip already running rife. Never mind. He had one rock to cling to. An unimpeachable professional witness, a genuine expert. The lieutenant of the fire-brigade was still there. Maryvonne had asked him to hang on. He would have hung on anyhow: he knew his job.
"When I realised who it was…and then hunting in his pockets, wondering who to notify since he was alone here, I found your card. So it had her name written in, your girl here, so I thought I’d better ring your people and the duty guard put me through."
"You were quite right. Routine of course on the family, but this will blow the lid off: we’re in the shit now whatever happens. Never mind; it’s not irreparable. Can you give me your breakdown, the way you’ll be writing it up in the report."
"It’s easy enough to reconstruct, I think," leading the way back into the bathroom. "Look, he was running the bath, probably going to dress and go out again – around eight. There’s no sign of his having eaten. The autopsy will tell us whether he’d been drinking; there’s a glass in the kitchen. Okay, the water’s still running; he undresses, steps in. Stepped in awkwardly, or slips, and, the way one would, he grabs at something. In the event, this bracket. You reel a bit, you grab – as you see, it’s just the right height. He falls, and he brings down the shower curtain. It’s possible he grabs at that too. He has both feet in the bath; that’s the way we found him. Half in, half out.
"Now observe this building. This is all old, this plasterwork is old. Enamel paint over, above the level of the tiling, but shaky old stuff and softened by the steam. Look, it’s like cheese. The curtain rail, and this bracket, might have looked firmly fixed but weren’t: quite a slight pull sufficed to fetch them out. He may have grabbed the curtain while falling forward, and bumped into the bracket, but I say he grabbed the bracket too: which came first and helped the other down is of small importance. Now look at the silly idiot – he has this little electric fan plugged in on the bracket. Had never put in an extractor, the window’s shut for warmth, heavy condensation collects here. Habitually, he puts on the fan and leaves the door open to dispel the steam. Right, the fan stands on that shaky bracket… Floop into the water, it shorts of course, blew the fuses out but too late, he gets it in the worst possible way, standing ankledeep or more in the water. End of a very unfortunate tale which should, but won’t, discourage people who will frig about with flimsy electric appliances in bathrooms. Little heaters – hairdryers – curling-tong things, toothbrushes and crap, seven-tenths of the plugs in these old houses aren’t even earthed. If that wasn’t enough they plug in extension leads, three-way adaptors, radios, record-players – anything you like that will leave lengths of flex around to trip over. A classic way of killing yourself, the files are full of them. I’ll send you a copy of my report, Castang, since it’s tangential to a thing of yours. I’ll buzz now, okay? I was kept hanging about but I phoned in to explain."
"Is there anything one can still do?" asked Maryvonne. "I’m sorry, Henri. When I got here they’d already got the body out, there was no chance for photos or anything in situ, they were charging about mopping up – the water came down into the flat below of course after overflowing; that’s what alerted them. There was nobody here; they had to break the door open. I couldn’t see any point in calling technicians – prints everywhere of his own, of course, and firemen, and the doctor. I spoke to the doctor. Classic electrocution death, a bruise on the skull where he tumbled and caught his head on the side of the bath. This shelf here where he had shampoo – awkwardly placed. He might have got shampoo in his eye or something – the shower was on too, they told me. It’s just a bloody stupid coincidence, surely. I mean there’s no homicide picture; there was nobody here, and it couldn’t have been rigged up. And no suicide either. I mean, nobody commits suicide in such an awkward way as that, least of all a person like this. What do you think?"
"I don’t have any thoughts."
"I mean, is there anything you want me to do?" asked Maryvonne carefully.
"I don’t feel at all like a detective in the middle of the frigging night."
"So when there’s an official report from the firemen that this is accidental death…"
"So they know a great deal more about it than I do."
"So I report to Richard in that sense."
"You report to Richard in one line. That we fell out of the frying pan. Or got tipped."