1

1999

IT WAS A SPRING WEDDING. A country wedding. A twenty minute drive from Cavaillon, on the northern slopes of the Grand Luberon, in a meadow as green as Eden, under a milky sapphire sky. And most of the guests, Jacquot could tell at a glance, were country people. The suits the men wore gave the game away, either too tight – not yet old or worn enough to justify a fresh purchase – or a size too large, as though room had been left for growth, or its owner had shrunk with age. Collar tips were turned up, shirt cuffs buttoned and frayed, ties loud and wide, faces nut brown, stiff hair brushed flat. Their smiles and gusts of laughter were as broad and as big as the land, and their voices rang out in a jolly patois.

As for the women, Jacquot decided, their outfits were gay and colourful and festive but had about them a sense of ‘best’. They looked like the kinds of dresses that had served as long and as well as their men’s suits, bought from a catalogue, or a market somewhere, or years earlier from fashionable boutiques in Cavaillon or Apt, or cut from patterns on kitchen tables. Taken from creaking armoires, hung up in the shade to air out any mustiness, maybe dry-cleaned for the occasion, they were worn with an easy, comfortable familiarity.

The only items of dress that appeared to cause any real discomfort, however, were shoes, men and women’s both. Brightly polished and sensibly heeled they may have been, but Jacquot could sense their pinching grip, their stiff ungiving edges, the way their owners swayed between the tables set beneath the trees, the way they stood chatting in groups, lifting a foot like a horse lifts a hoof, just to ease the weight off biting leather. And when they started to dance on the large squares of ply pegged out on a stretch of level ground, not a few of the women kicked off the offending items. Harder for the men – stooping to untie all those laces.

It was late afternoon now and the rain that had threatened had failed to show, the sun still bright and warm as it slipped down through the branches, dappling the cloth on Jacquot’s table – thick white damask, crumpled now, ringed and stained with spilled wine, spotted with grease from the hog-roast sandwiches they’d all fetched themselves from the firepit. It was, he decided, tipping back the last of his coffee and glancing at his watch, just about time to call it quits and head home. It had been a long day.

They had arrived at the church in St-Florent at eleven that morning – Jacquot in linen suit and loafers, Claudine in a matching light blue jacket and sleeveless dress that he hadn’t seen before. She looked long and lean in the outfit, the jacket high off the waist, the dress’s satin sheen sharpening slim hips, firm breasts and flat stomach; tanned legs in blue court shoes, long neck sliced with a single string of pearls, dark hair caught up and combed into a tight little chignon. They’d sat at the back of the church, by the stone font, because they weren’t really family enough to claim anywhere nearer to the altar. The invitation from famille Blanchard had been sent to Claudine in recognition of the help she’d given the bride’s younger sister preparing her art-work portfolio for admission to Aix’s École des Beaux Arts. When their daughter was subsequently awarded a place, Blanchard Père et Mère were convinced that Claudine, who sometimes lectured at the school, must have pulled some strings with the admissions board, rather than believe in their daughter’s talent. And so, the invitation.

As for Jacquot, he recognised some of the faces from town, men and women both, knew one or two of the names, had once sorted out a quarrel between two of them over a boundary wall, for which both parties – now reconciled – gave him bone-crushing handshakes and mighty slaps on the back. And though he didn’t realise it at first, when bride and groom came down the aisle arm in arm at the end of the service, he knew the groom too. Or rather, it turned out, the groom knew him, or knew of him.

Standing in line at the firepit, the young man had come over to Jacquot and introduced himself.

‘Noël Gilbert, Chief Inspector. Police Nationale, Marseilles. I saw you at Roucas Blanc last year. The Cabrille place.’

‘Daniel. The name’s Daniel,’ he replied, shaking the offered hand, taking in the sharply cut black hair, spiky on the neck and above the ears, the red cheeks, the tiny shaving nick on the point of the chin. He didn’t recognise the lad, but he remembered the Cabrille place in Roucas Blanc, the shoot-out he’d missed by a matter of minutes, the blood on the garage walls, on the floor, the sharp scent of cordite and the tell-tale faecal stink of a stomach wound.

‘You were there? With Peluze?’

The younger man nodded, letting go of Jacquot’s hand.

‘If it weren’t for Chief Inspector Peluze I wouldn’t be here now. Pulled me down behind an old Porsche when the bullets started flying. What a noise in that garage. First time under fire and, well, I suppose I was frightened. I didn’t know what to do.’ He shrugged, spread his hands in a there-you-are gesture.

‘You’d be lying if you’d said any different. We all would. And it doesn’t change. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. A gun’s always a gun. And a bullet may be small . . .’

‘She’s clear, you know? Off the hook.’

Jacquot frowned, took another step closer to the firepit, the smell of roasting pork thick and succulent, carried on a smoky breeze.

‘The Cabrille woman?’

‘Mademoiselle Virginie Cabrille. All charges dropped.’

‘You’re kidding?’

Gilbert shook his head.

‘Nothing. Free to walk.’

Jacquot was stunned by the news. Kidnap, attempted murder, murder . . . It couldn’t be.

‘But we found the Lafour girl on her boat . . . And Chief Inspector Gastal dead in her basement. And the two gorilles . . .’

‘She had a lawyer down from Paris. Slippery as a peeled grape, he was. He wouldn’t let us pin a thing on her. No charges filed.’

Jacquot noted that ‘us’ – the police as family, the team. He had a feeling this young man might go far.

‘So you’re not in Marseilles these days?’ the groom asked.

‘Cavaillon,’ replied Jacquot. ‘They put me out to graze.’

Gilbert took this in, nodded, cast around for his new wife. They both spotted her at the same time, a dozen tables away, surrounded by a gaggle of great-aunts and grandmothers, a tall, big-boned country girl in an off-the-shoulder gown that showed a generous swell and plunge of cleavage. In church the shoulders, and cleavage, had been concealed, her hair piled high beneath the veil; now the veil was gone and the hair was loose, a bundle of black curls tumbling over bare white shoulders. She had a lovely smile, thought Jacquot, and twinkling mischievous eyes. Gilbert had chosen well.

‘You’d better go and rescue your wife,’ said Jacquot, stepping up to the serving tables now, first in line at last, and holding out his two plates. Fat wedges of pork were carved off the haunch and dropped onto them, along with blistered belts of crackling, thick slices of buttered bread and a healthy sprinkle of rock salt on the side. ‘Never a good idea to let the old ones give the young ones too much advice.’

‘I think you might be right. So . . . if you’ll excuse me, Chief Insp—’

‘Daniel. At weddings I’m Daniel, remember?’

‘Okay, okay. Thanks . . . Daniel.’ He held out a hand, forgetting Jacquot’s loaded plates. For a moment Gilbert wasn’t sure what to do, a pat on the arm or back just a little too familiar with a senior officer, even at a wedding, even if said senior officer had told him, twice now, to use his christian name. Instead, he’d raised his hand – somewhere between a wave and a salute – and hurried off.

‘You’re dreaming.’ It was Claudine, her shadow falling across the table, her hand sliding over Jacquot’s shoulder. ‘Whoosh,’ she continued, pulling out a chair. ‘That old farmer sure knows how to rock and roll. Had me in quite a spin.’ She guided a stray wisp of hair back into the loosening chignon with long, delicate fingers, slipped off her shoes and laid her legs over Jacquot’s knees. ‘And you sitting here, a million miles away.’

‘I was thinking . . .’

‘Don’t tell me if it’s work . . . It’s been too nice a day,’ she replied, reaching across for the disposable camera left on each table. She wound on the film, pointed it at Jacquot and pressed the button.

‘En effet, I was thinking,’ he said, ‘that maybe it’s time I took you home . . .’ He dropped a hand to her leg and let his fingers trail up her bare brown shin, rubbing her knee with his thumb when he reached that far, knuckles idling at the hem of her dress.

She gave him a long, cool look.

‘I can tell when you’re lying, Daniel Jacquot. And it won’t work, you hear?’

‘What? It’s the truth.’

‘And you want to leave? Just as things are hotting up?’ She glanced back at the dance floor. The DJ’s amplified but strangely muffled voice spread between the tables and out across the pasture. The sun had slipped behind the hills now but already there were lit candles on tables and lanterns in the branches. They darkened the sky, brought the night closer.

‘You were the one who said she was tired.’

And it was true. At breakfast Claudine had complained of a poor night’s sleep, the second or third in a row, and had sighed deeply at the thought of a long country wedding.

‘That was earlier. Now I’m not.’

Jacquot shook his head and chuckled.

Claudine straightened her back.

‘So? I’ve changed my mind. I’m a woman, I’m allowed. That’s what we do, didn’t you know? Just to keep you men on your toes. Talking of which . . .’

‘Three dances – two fast, one slow,’ he told her. ‘The slow one to get you in the mood.’

‘Three fast, two slow. I need priming.’ She leant foward and ran her fingertips across his cheek.

‘It’s not fair. You’re younger than me.’

‘You want it the other way round, you should have settled on someone else, someone older, someone closer to your own age, hein? In their sixties, or maybe even their seventies; with one of those frames to help them get around.’

‘You drive a hard bargain, Madame.’

His fingers flicked at the hem of Claudine’s dress.

She brushed them away as she might a settling fly and raised her chin in that way she had – as though trying to see over his head. Haughty as hell. God, how he loved her when she did that.

Through the trees the first bluesy, bursting rhythms of a Jackie Wilson number blasted from the speakers. Both of them knew the song. A favourite. ‘Higher and Higher’.

‘Okay,’ he said, shifting her legs from his lap and pulling her to her feet. ‘You win.’

‘That’s right,’ she replied, gripping his arm as she bent to pull on her shoes. ‘And don’t you ever forget it, Daniel Jacquot. Allons-y. We dance.’