LAW OF SIMULTANEITY
"I’m in the dark," said Castang. "There’s a link between this woman of Didier’s and Magali, and I’ve no idea what it may mean."
Richard said nothing.
"The ex-wife too. She and Magali by all accounts were friendly but not especially close. She knew the secretary of course. We may suppose they didn’t have much to say to one another. The marriage broke up, we are told, because he would frig about with other women including the office help. What is one to make of these confidences in pubs?"
Richard was gazing dreamily at the ceiling.
"What does the good Doctor Jung say about a law of simultaneity?"
"I’ve no idea." A lot of help that was! "Who d’you think I am then – Doctor Kildare?"
Richard didn’t have his mind on things this morning, he thought. Been out late last night. They’d had a bit of a drama. A fellow had shot up his wife (estranged) and snatched his child (small), and had then gone raging off after the wife’s lover, with a twenty-two rifle. There’d been a chase. The fellow had gone mataglap, barricaded himself in the neighbours’ flat with the neighbours at gunpoint, and dared the cops to Come and Get him. Richard had dealt with the matter: it was all in the paper this morning. But it had taken half the night. He looked as usual but was going off into trances.
Liliane came in, in something of a bustle; heavy Polish feet.
"I wanted to catch you. Castang, look. I had the duty guard, who had nothing else to do, check all those car registrations. That bridge circle after all is a pretty exclusive affair. High bourgeoisie. The house belongs to them and they pay a high subscription, and not just anybody gets in. Well, who do we turn up? – none other than this chap you were asking about," looking at a piece of paper. "Monsieur Jacques Maresq." He seemed to be sharing Richard’s apathy. Not that he’d been late last night. The baby had howled a good deal though. He didn’t feel bright.
"I suppose bridge is a commonplace sort of pastime. In those circles. What d’you want to make of it?"
"Oh, wake up, do. Bertrand Jouve – it wasn’t his night for playing bridge."
"Maybe there was a special match or something. I can’t see that it establishes any connection."
"Look, you find a link, last night, unexpected. Here, dating from the same moment, here is another. Equally unexpected."
"Law of simultaneity," said Richard. Castang looked from the one to the other, mouth open.
What got him off the hook was Fausta – not for the first time – making an opportune entrance.
"Telex," she said sunnily. "For the attention of Mr Castang, here present, partly at least."
"What telex?"
"Everybody was going on at me like anything yesterday about the Military District." Castang snatched at the flimsy.
‘Furtherance your demand details service Roger Lallemand…’ A tangle of figures and dates and military jargon in telegraphese. ‘Bad conduct discharge annulled. Discharge medical grounds recommended…confirmed order Officer Commanding Military District no…’ Oh. A snotty ending. ‘Written records deemed confidential…personal dossier…only communicated on receipt of written order made by competent tribunal.’ Ha. Madame Colette Delavigne would have to explain something about the powers of an examining magistrate to the Officer Commanding.
"Sorry, Liliane. Yes, of course: there must be more to this. Look, girl, I’ve an urgent thing here; I’ll be back to you in an hour." He went to his office. Roger Lallemand, Marine Parachute Regiment number – discharge recommended on psychiatric grounds; get me a girl quick in the communications office.
"The military district, I want the staff headquarters of this particular regiment, reference their telex of last night, I want the chief medical officer, person to person and I’m here at my desk."
A long-distance telephone call to South-Western France, down there in the country of Gascons, rugby-players and parachute regiments (all thick on the ground in that part of the world) is no problem now that France is Modern. A voice in no time as clear as that of Ma Bell herself. But military bureaucracy, obstructions, evasions. The gentleman recalled the personage vaguely. It was a year ago and more.
"Police Judiciaire. I repeat, you’ve a telegraphed mandate for interrogation from Judge Delavigne, possible bearing I repeat on a murder investigation. That’s right; you’re talking to the investigating officer. Pull the file and ring me back, priority message, PJ regional service.
Obstruction lessened: the voice reappeared, became warmer, shed some light. Roger Lallemand had not been a very good soldier, in fact rather bad. ‘Oh, physically fit, and apt, hm, for service. But this is a demanding service, Inspector. Unstable. Violence, yes, well, nothing in the sense you mean it to mean, um, but a grudge against authority, affectivity problems yes.’
Castang hastily dragged his man back from the yawning chasm of shrink jargon. ‘Unstable, yes, hyper-excitable yes, disciplinary troubles yes. On expiration of original engagement recommended by his commander for nonrenewal. Not a BCD, no, because well, paratroops can be turbulent and still be good, but a fellow who threatens fellows with weapons, one can’t have that. No. Brief, unsuitable for military operations at combat level, what? Fellow had appealed against this. Wanted to be a paratrooper, a real man, you see the significance, Inspector? So it had gone to the arbitration board, on which sits of course a military psychiatrist, and they’d decided against, and that was that. The findings of that board – ah, that’s a confidential document, Inspector. No no, I can give no details, in any case, if you hadn’t realised, I’m not a psychiatrist, man, I’m a psychologist.’
Damn all shrinks.
Rushing out of his office, Castang fell, according to the law of simultaneity, over another shrink, this one a police shrink who had been called to give an opinion about the homicidal husband of last night, who despite having been cooled ever since in the PJ detention unit was still in a deplorably excitable state.
"I want you," said Castang. "Give me five minutes."
"Now look, Castang, I truly can’t say anything about that suicide of yours. She’s under care, and I haven’t seen her. I haven’t been called into consultation, and even if I’d the right to challenge the opinion of a colleague–"
"It isn’t anything to do with that at all."
"Oh! Oh, well then," made meek by a sense of anticlimax, "what is it?" getting inveigled into the office.
"I put to you a hypothetical case…" Better said a rambling kind of description, of a party who might, Castang rather thought.
"Really Castang you do ask the damnedest questions" testily. "By your own admission your observations of this person are of the slightest: you have the cheek to come to me with this jumble sale of hearsay…"
"Look, I’m only asking whether it would be feasible, a person like that, to incite, to stimulate, to excite into…"
"Castang, what’s the difference between an impressionist painter and an expressionist?"
"Huh? How should I know?"
"Then stop using jargon you don’t know the meaning of."
"If you tease a dog into biting somebody are you inciting or exciting it? Does it matter? Shit, I’m asking whose fault it is."
"Reduce your hypothesis to the simplest elements, eliminate all personal elements, I’ll try and give you a very simplistic answer."
"Take somebody with anarchist tendencies: warm in the heart, weak in the head. Ambivalent attitude to authority, I mean a need for firm orders in a strong rigid framework, and a rebelliousness, a need to flout. Physically strong and well co-ordinated, trained in handling weapons. But nervous, dreamy, excitable. Influenceable. A need I think to be liked, to be popular. I’d say surely idealistic, romantic. Affective problems I’ve no doubt. Immature."
"You don’t need me for that. There are innumerable case histories described in the literature. The majority, probably, of political assassinations…"
"That’s right."
"What I cannot do is attempt any attribution of responsibilities."
"Oh, quite. He’s none too bright," as an afterthought.
"Sounds simple to me, my dear boy. If you’ve got any material evidence sufficient to justify, arrest him. I can then, possibly, give an opinion upon his state of mind at that moment. What it was at the moment when he was alleged to have committed a criminal act is another plate of stew altogether."
"Well thanks just the same."
Hunting about, he found a horrible Dutch cigar, pale grey in colour and of a dusty complexion as though constructed out of fluff from underneath an army bed. It tasted the way it looked: not an aid to thought. He picked his phone up.
"Get me Madame Delavigne at the Palais."
"What Palais?" The switchboard girl wasn’t too bright this morning either.
"The Palace of Justice – please," patiently. He made a little list of palaces while waiting. The Elysée, the Palais-Bourbon, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, Chaillot, the Luxembourg… "Hello."
"Yes, Inspector?"
"I’d like to see you on a matter of urgency."
"In an hour’s time, Inspector," fairly frigidly. Ring up your dentist and cry eagerly that you’ve a tooth that’s giving you hell, and he’ll ask in the same chilly tone why you didn’t come months ago.
The Bridge Circle was a town house of the period when it was fashionable to have residences imitating country houses, of manorial aspect, in gardens with laurel bushes and a cedar tree. Of earlier date, and much more prepossessing, than the house in the Rue des Carmélites; kept nicely painted, with a chaste brass plate. Much furniture of the time, plush and mahogany, carved and gilded candelabra and mirror-frames carefully dusted and polished: two Spanish maids doubling as waitresses, a concierge and his wife (who can cook) and in a flat above, a steward, or secretary, or whatever he calls himself. Not at all enthusiastic about the Police Judiciaire.
"You’re aware that the Procureur de la République is one of our members?" bleakly, as a warning to behave.
"I’m aware. Equally, you’re aware that a PJ officer has powers of interrogation, and also of coercion? That the public is obliged to reply, in aid or furtherance of an enquiry? Discretion, where not covered by a legally defined professional secret, cannot I’m afraid be invoked."
"I’m aware," bowing very slightly and not asking the police to sit down.
"Monsieur Jouve is a member. Monsieur Jacques Maresq is also a member? Or a guest?"
"A country member. Occasional."
"You can confirm that both were present last night?"
"I believe I can recall seeing them both."
"A special occasion of any sort? Perhaps a competition, or a committee meeting?"
"An ordinary evening."
"I ask since Monsieur Jouve as I believe has a regular evening, and as you tell me Monsieur Maresq is an occasional visitor."
"There is nothing untoward. Members come at their pleasure."
"People habitually play with the same partners?"
"Did these two gentlemen in fact play together?"
"I believe I can say they did not."
"Are they friendly?"
"All members are friendly. I’m afraid I have no information about the stage of warmth of any personal acquaintanceship. We have a rule of informality."
"My question is this. Were these two gentlemen at any time last night seen in conversation together?" The man did his act, pursing lips, putting fingertips together.
"You are doubtless unaware, Inspector, of our arrangements, but apart from the card rooms there is a library, a small bar and buffet, smallish rooms for various purposes, the cloakrooms. I circulate, to be sure. You may say that my duties imply having, as it were, an eye and an ear everywhere. It would be a mistake to imply that I allowed either to be intrusive."
"I’d like to see the premises if I may, and I’d like to put a few questions to the staff."
All very correct, and decidedly ‘routine’, and, very often, pretty inconclusive. In the event he got what he was looking for. The establishment catered well for the creature comforts. There was a very pleasant little cellar. Certain of these wines had been supplied by Monsieur Maresq; what could be more natural? A motherly Spanish lady had had her attention called to the condition of one of these bottles, by Monsieur. She had in consequence noticed him. Monsieur Jouve did not drink when playing. It was easy to recall, thus, serving two glasses of sherry in the little room next to the committee-room, at around ten in the evening. The two gentlemen were sitting thus quietly together. No raised voice, no sign of trouble or nervousness. The talk had dropped, as was normal, when she brought her tray. Monsieur Jouve signed the chit: here was the chit. She did not in any case listen to the talk of members, Monsieur.
"That is very clear and I’ll trouble you no further. It is possible, simply, that you may be called on to confirm this."
"But there is the chit."
"Yes, and the other gentleman was Monsieur Maresq: there is no possibility of an error."
"There is no possibility. The gentleman had spoken sharply, that the label was dirty, and torn. Monsieur the Secretary knows well, that my service is not slovenly."
"There is no criticism of your work, Madame."
It was not, of course, evidence of anything. Two members of a bridge club having a glass of sherry, discussing the present price of Michelins, on the stock exchange.