2
IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER FOUR the following morning when the call came through. Claudine groaned as Jacquot reached out for the phone.
‘Oui?’
‘Boss, c’est moi.’ It was Jean Brunet, his assistant.
Recognising the voice, Jacquot eased himself up on an elbow and peered at the bedside clock radio.
‘Jean, what . . . ?’
‘I know it’s early, I know it’s Sunday, but you’d better come. Le Mas Bleu, on the Maubec road. There’s a body.’
Jacquot pressed his fingers into the corner of his eyes, rubbed his face, tried to wake himself up. A ‘body’ usually meant murder. Not an accident, not a suicide, but murder.
‘Where on the Maubec road?’
‘The new place. With the avenue of cypresses. Believe me, you can’t miss it.’
Despite his assistant’s confidence, Jacquot did miss it. Half-an-hour later, as the sky began to lighten over the Luberon heights, its wooded slopes looming ahead of him, Jacquot turned through Coustellet and started along the back lanes to Maubec. At the Maubec–Robion crossroads he looked left and right and took the former, giving it two kilometres before he decided he’d made the wrong choice and turned back for Robion. A kilometre or so past the crossroads he saw the first sign – Le Mas Bleu, à droite 100 mètres – and a minute later he did as requested, turning between spotlit stone gateposts into a gravelled drive leading between six pairs of tapering cypress trees. At the end of the drive was another pillared gateway, smaller but no less grand, and beyond it Le Mas Bleu. Even with the sky lightening fast, its stone façade was spotlit, six lights spilling upwards between blue shuttered windows and either side of a double front door studded with blackened nail heads.
As he pulled up in the forecourt, he spotted Brunet lounging against the side of his squad car, chatting with a couple of uniformed képis. His assistant was a little shorter than his companions, lithe and lean in leather blouson, jeans and trainers, with a sharp, angular face below a thin crop of dark hair. In his spare time Brunet cycled with a local club – road-racing, hill-climbing and time trials – and the exercise showed in his wiry, muscled frame. Even when he was relaxing – leaning against the squad car as he was doing now, or sitting in a chair, or standing at a bar – there was always something coiled and dynamic about him, as though he was waiting for a flag to drop, or a starter’s gun to fire. He was in his mid-thirties, single, and when work and training allowed as enthusiastic in his pursuit of women as he was in his cycling. His reputation in both areas of endeavour, Jacquot knew, was well-established and well-deserved.
Cutting short his conversation with the képis, Brunet hurried over.
‘Welcome to Le Mas Bleu, Monsieur,’ he said with a small bow, as though Jacquot were an arriving guest and he the manager.
Over Brunet’s shoulder, Jacquot took in the sculpted olive trees either side of the front door and the blue-glazed pots of shooting lavender on each step. He’d heard of the place but never been here. Open just a couple of months, he seemed to recall. An old farmhouse and attached barn transformed into a bijoux little hostelry, beds covered in Provençal quilts and old stone walls left bare, Jacquot suspected. He wondered what the food was like.
‘So. You say we have a body?’
‘Murder,’ said Brunet, as they crossed the forecourt together. ‘Woman, mid-twenties, a single gunshot wound. Husband swears he was asleep, didn’t hear a thing.’ Brunet looked doubtful. ‘He’s putting on a good show, mind you . . . the wide-eyed, stunned look. One of ours, too. Marseilles PD. Name of Gilbert. You want to have a word?’
Jacquot stopped in his tracks.
‘Gilbert? Noël Gilbert?’
Brunet gave him a look. ‘You know him?’
‘He was married yesterday. I was at the wedding,’ Jacquot explained, and they started forward again, a little faster this time, up the front steps and into the entrance hall. It was just as he’d expected: bare stone walls, terracotta pantiles for sconces, kelim rugs on polished wood floors, and a fine old fireplace exploding with stiff-stemmed, purple-tipped gladioli in more blue-glazed vases.
‘That’s what he told us,’ said Brunet. ‘That he’d just got married. But so far we don’t even know the wife’s name. Can’t get anything else out of him. According to the hotel owner, a Monsieur Valbois, the room was reserved by Gilbert for one night only, and paid for on his credit card.’
‘This Valbois, he knew it was a honeymoon booking?’
‘Apparently Gilbert told him. Said he wanted the best room, but only gave a Marseilles address when he made the reservation. Didn’t say anything about the bride . . . her name, where she lived, where the wedding was. Just said they’d be arriving late. I got in touch with Marseilles PD but so far they haven’t been able to give us much more than his personnel file details. Parents dead. Lives alone in the family home. A couple of commendations. Future looks bright.’
‘Where is he?’ asked Jacquot.
‘Valbois let us use one of his spare rooms. That’s him, now.’ Across the hall a man in sleeveless cardigan, check shirt, cotton trousers and tasselled loafers came down the stone stairs and headed in their direction.
‘He’s by himself? Gilbert?’ asked Jacquot, acknowledging Valbois with a brief nod, but keeping his attention on Brunet.
His assistant shook his head.
‘There’s a képi with him. In the room. And one outside.’
Jacquot nodded, then turned to the owner, gave him a short smile, shook his hand. A weak, damp handshake; long, tapered fingers and lacquered nails, Jacquot noted.
‘Monsieur Valbois, I believe?’
‘Clément Valbois. Oui, c’est moi.’ The man looked to be in his early forties, slim and delicate, his narrow face pale with shock. ‘But this is all so dreadful,’ he said, hands pressed to his cheeks.
‘Monsieur Valbois, I’m Chief Inspector Jacquot. From Cavaillon. Please . . .’ He took the man’s elbow and directed him to a pair of armchairs set either side of a painted longcase clock. A sunflower decorated the face of its circular pendulum and a low oily tick sounded from its chained mechanism. ‘So, what can you tell me, Monsieur?’ Jacquot asked, as they settled in their seats.
Perching on the edge of his chair, Valbois dropped his hands to his lap and leant forward.
‘They arrived late, just after eleven, and went straight to their room.’
‘You were here when they arrived?’
‘My partner, Gunnar, he was here to welcome them. A bottle of champagne had already been sent up to their suite.’
‘Gunnar . . . ?’
‘Larsson. Gunnar Larsson.’
‘And he is where, exactly?’
‘In Aix. He left at midnight, when I took over.’
‘Aix?’
‘A party he just didn’t want to miss.’
‘So he doesn’t know?’
Valbois shook his head.
‘I didn’t want to spoil his fun. He’s been working so hard . . . ’
‘And when will Monsieur Larsson return?’
‘Later this morning. For lunchtime. He’ll be horrified.’
Jacquot nodded.
‘Did he say anything to you about Monsieur and Madame Gilbert? Anything he might have noticed? Anything . . . strange?’
‘Nothing. It was late. They were tired. He showed them up to their room and he left them.’
‘So the first you knew about this was when Monsieur Gilbert called you? When he found the body?’
‘He didn’t call, Chief Inspector, he screamed. It was just after three. Everyone was woken. A terrible, terrible noise. Just this high-pitched screaming wail. I heard it down here.’
‘You are full, Monsieur?’
‘Just three other rooms, thank goodness.’
‘So . . . six other guests?’ Jacquot guessed.
‘That’s correct, Chief Inspector.’
‘And when you heard this scream, you went to his room?’
‘When I reached his floor he came running down the corridor towards me.’ Valbois drew a breath. ‘Completely naked. Screaming, “Ma femme, ma femme. Elle est morte. Elle est morte.”’
‘You went into their room?’
‘I had no choice. He caught me, by my arm. Pulled me there. Back to their room. Persille. All the rooms are named after herbs. Persille is the largest, has the best view, and fully en suite . . .’
‘So you have seen the body?’
Another deep breath. Valbois held it as though his life depended on it, and then let it out in whispered bursts.
‘Oui, Chief Inspector. I saw her. As though she were sleeping. And the pillow red. Just a deep, deep scarlet. Affreux, pauvre chérie . . .’
‘Was there any blood on Monsieur Gilbert?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘All over? Body? Hands? Face?’
Valbois gave it some thought.
‘Just down one side – where he had slept beside her? Where the blood . . . I suppose, where it . . . pooled.’
Jacquot took this in.
‘Monsieur, thank you. Now I would like to see the room, if you please.’