CHAPTER 14

“Graudin speaking…”

“Wasn’t sure you’d be home, Sunday morning.”

“M’sieur Inspecteur! You’re back in Paris?”

“I’m still in Courville.” He heard small children screaming in the background as Graudin talked. “I was calling to ask…”

“How’s the hip, M’sieur? Feeling better?”

“Seems to be healing. I’ve been giving it plenty of exercise. I’m staying at the Auberge Courville.”

“Auberge Courville… I’m writing that down.”

“It’s a new place. Some people have taken over the building where my parents had their restaurant. The house where I was born! There’s a phone, if anyone wants me. Don’t know the number. I’m calling to find out if anything’s developed with those two cases I was working on before I went to that damn hospital…”

“Everybody at the Prefecture is talking about you!”

“What?”

“The Chief announced at some meeting yesterday that you’re investigating two murders there.”

“Merde! How the devil could he…”

“He told them that when they take vacations they do nothing but eat and sleep. Always come back to work overweight. But not Chief Inspector Damiot. He gets involved with two murder cases and…”

“I am not investigating any murders! You can tell that to anybody who asks. Including the Chief! Tell them I’m going to stay here—eating and sleeping—for another two weeks!” He slammed the phone down and, still furious, turned away from the public phone in the lobby of the Hôtel Courville.

As he stalked toward the desk, he realized that he had learned nothing from Graudin about the two Paris investigations!

A man was typing behind the registration desk.

“Inspector Bardou’s room?”

“Room seventeen. Second floor, rear…”

The upstairs corridor smelled of bad plumbing and ancient dust.

Climbing the stairs hadn’t bothered his hip. So he must be improving! In fact, this morning he was feeling much better in every way. Perhaps it was because of what had happened, last night, with Aurore…

He found number seventeen and knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” Bardou’s voice was muffled.

“Damiot!”

There was a shuffling sound from inside before the door opened.

“M’sieur Inspecteur! I was in bed.”

“Good.” He saw that Bardou was wearing wrinkled cotton pajamas, his feet bare. “How’s your cold?”

“Much worse…” He headed back toward his rumpled bed.

Damiot closed the door. “Didn’t that toddy help any?”

“Nothing has helped.” He collapsed onto the side of the bed. “Don’t get close to me, you’ll catch my cold. Sit over there.” Motioning to the only chair that wasn’t piled with clothing.

“I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.” Damiot realized that he was still seething with rage over his call to Paris. Mustn’t get angry with Bardou. The man looked miserable. “I must warn you again, I’ve no intention of getting involved with the local police. In any way!”

“I understand that, M’sieur Inspecteur.” He lighted a Gauloise as he talked. “I’ve told everybody you’re here on vacation…”

So he had reported his presence to whoever was in charge at the gendarmerie! Damiot restrained his fury.

“They already knew you were in Courville.”

“Did they?”

“Seems they checked with Paris when they realized you were the famous Chief Inspector Damiot.”

“Merde!”

“They thought you’d been sent to solve the two murders, but Paris informed them you’re here for a rest.”

“Exactly what I told you yesterday!” Damiot moved about in the cramped space, avoiding furniture. “But I do have one or two ideas about those girls who were murdered, and I’ve come across several bits of information. I’m going to look into them because of my professional curiosity about all crimes, but whatever I learn I shall turn over to you.”

“To me?”

“You must get all the credit. Understand?”

“That’s very generous, M’sieur Inspecteur!”

“Generosity has nothing to do with it! I have no desire to get involved. Now then… Did you ever hear of a young farmer named Achille Savord?”

“No. Who’s he?”

“One of several locals who apparently enjoyed the favors of that Jarlaud girl.”

“Nobody’s mentioned him to me.”

“Savord must have cared for the girl, because he’s the only one who placed flowers on her grave.”

“I thought her family put them there.”

“Madame Sibilat, at the florist shop, tells me she sold them to Savord. You should have a talk with him.”

“I’ll certainly do that, M’sieur Inspecteur…”

“What’s the name of that man you said would be on duty this weekend at the gendarmerie?”

“Porel.”

“Phone him after I leave here. Explain who I am and…”

“He already knows! Everybody on the staff would like to meet the Chief Inspector from Paris.”

Damiot gritted his teeth. “Tell Porel I want to have a look at that girl in the morgue. I’ll stop by this afternoon. Now! For your private information… The unidentified girl in the morgue was from Toulon.”

“Was she!” Bardou found a pad and pencil on the bedside table and scribbled notes as Damiot explained.

“Her name is Annie Deffous.”

“Annie… I know several of the Toulon gendarmes. They came to Arles last year, to break up a ring of kidnappers.”

“Call them this afternoon. The Deffous girl worked there, as a bookkeeper in some shop. She arrived here the day she was murdered, driving a gray Dauphine. Your friends in Toulon can get the license number for you. You should send it, with a description of her car, to every gendarmerie in Provence. It has very likely been abandoned in the hills. You’ll be able to find out where Annie Deffous was staying, now that you have her name. Maybe it was this hotel! Ask why they didn’t report her missing when they found her luggage in the room where she must have spent part of the evening, waiting for someone. Check what phone calls she made. She apparently came to Courville looking for somebody who owed her money…”

“Man or woman?”

“Had to be a man. Could be someone in the village or living nearby. That’s all I can tell you at this moment.”

“More than anybody else has learned in two months!”

“Don’t let anyone suspect you got this from me.”

“No, M’sieur Inspecteur.”

Damiot went toward the door. “Handle this right and you’ll get a promotion.”

“I spoke to the manager on the phone this morning. Had him check who was staying here when those two girls were murdered, but there was nobody here both nights.”

“Of course he could’ve used different names each time!”

“And the manager doesn’t remember any guest driving a black Ferrari. Too fancy for this hotel…”

“Make those calls.”

“Right away!” Bardou stubbed out his cigarette and reached for the telephone.

Damiot was smiling as he closed the door, escaping the cigarette-fouled room, and started down the corridor toward the stairs.

He was no longer angry about his call to Paris.

* * * *

The ham sandwich was excellent and the beer, as before, not too cold. The proprietor, his squat body wrapped in a long apron, was busy sluicing down the sidewalk with soapy water.

Damiot watched three ancients, their heads protected from the sun by faded berets, playing a game of boules in the far corner of the square, beyond the pissoir. They had probably been here every Sunday, weather permitting, for years!

As he finished the sandwich, washing it down with the last of his beer, Damiot wondered again why that old woman had slammed the door in his face when he asked for Blanche Carmet.

In the old days, when he was growing up, everybody in Courville knew where everyone else lived! And everybody was friendly. At least to other villagers. But, of course, he was an outsider now…

Perhaps the Carmet family had moved to some nearby village…

The proprietor returned from the street with his empty water bucket. “Another beer, M’sieur Damiot?”

“You know who I am, do you?”

“The whole village must know by now! That you were born here and they’ve sent you from Paris, to find out who killed those two girls…”

He felt his anger rising again. “That’s a local matter. No concern of mine.”

“Of course! Whatever you say, M’sieur Inspecteur.”

“One beer’s enough today.” Dropping a ten-franc note on the table.

“The radio says we may get more rain tonight.” He set his bucket on the floor and counted out change.

“Have yourself a beer.” Damiot pushed most of the change across the table. “Do you know a local girl named Carmet? Blanche Carmet?”

“M’sieur knows Blanche Carmet?”

“Met her last time I was here. She seems to have moved since then.”

“Not far! One of those old houses at the far end of rue Woodrow Wilson. Around the corner, third from the end. You can’t miss it!”

Damiot glanced at the solitary billiard player and rose from the table. “I suppose Monsieur Giroud plays billiards here?”

“Michel? Several nights every week. When he doesn’t play here he goes to the other cafe across the square. Gives his business to both of us.” Walking with Damiot toward the street. “Always buys a bottle of my best wine. He knows every good year. As well as the bad!”

“I’m not surprised. He’s a fine chef.”

“Wouldn’t know ’bout that.” He hesitated, arms akimbo, in the open doorway. “Can’t afford the prices they charge at the Auberge. A demain, M’sieur Inspecteur!”

“A demain…” He started toward the corner. The air was even warmer with the sun directly overhead, and the old men playing boules were moving slowly in a haze of heat.

There were small shops on both sides of the street. All were closed for Sunday. No sidewalks here, and the line of shops ended in a row of houses, close together, edging the cracked pavement. He approached the door of the third house from the end.

Reaching out to grasp the rusty handle, he heard a bell respond inside when he gave it a pull. The door was opened, barely a crack, by a thin-faced woman with glossy black hair, wearing a black silk kimono.

“Pardon, Madame. I’m looking for Blanche Carmet…”

“Blanche?”

“I was told she lives here.”

The door opened a little more. “You’re a friend of Blanche?”

“I knew her several years ago.” He saw that the black kimono was embroidered with scarlet flowers and trimmed with fringes of the same color. “The last time I was in Courville.”

“Then you’re an old friend!” She laughed. “Come in, M’sieur.” Moving ahead, through a narrow hall. “You can wait in our salon.”

He closed the door and followed, aware of her overpowering perfume, into a dimly lighted room furnished with divans and ottomans upholstered in crimson velvet. The place looked like…a whorehouse!

Madame motioned toward a divan. “Would you care for something to drink, M’sieur?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll find out if Blanche is awake…”

“Merci, Madame.” He sank onto a divan as she left the room and was immediately engulfed by waves of scent. They seemed to rise from the velvet upholstery, which must have been saturated for years with perfumes from many female bodies.

Blanche Carmet in a whorehouse?

That’s why the old woman had slammed her door. She had thought he was looking for a prostitute and, apparently, he was…

Eleven years ago Blanche had said that she was twenty-three. Now she must be thirty-four. He tried to remember what she had looked like. Brown hair and blue eyes. Big-boned girl, solidly fleshed but attractive. He had enjoyed being with her several times while he was here. She had been extremely satisfying in bed. Could she even then have been working in the local bordello? He had driven her home, late at night, but never met any members of the family. She said it was her home, and he had asked no questions…

“Thought it must be you.”

Damiot looked up to see a plump woman with short blond curls, standing in the doorway. Breasts barely covered by a pale pink kimono, pink satin slippers on her bare feet.

“Blanche?” He got to his feet, clumsily.

“I heard you were back.” She moved toward him, smiling tentatively. “Wondered if you’d come see me…”

“You’ve put on a little weight.”

The kimono billowed as she walked. “Some men like a big girl. Others like thin or crippled girls or…”

He shrugged. “Chacun à son goût!” They sat down on the divan. “How long have you been working here?”

“Six years now. There was nothing else for me in the village.” She rested her small hands in her lap. “I got your letter.”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“You wrote that you were getting married.”

“So I did…”

Someone overhead was running a bath, and there was a smell of fresh coffee. The place was coming alive. Girl’s voice, clear and sweet, singing a popular song he remembered hearing in Pigalle. “I went to that house where you used to live…”

“Oh?” She giggled nervously. “What happened?”

“When I asked for you the woman banged the door in my face.”

“She would.” Throwing her head back and laughing. “Been some time since anyone looked for me there.”

“I’m staying at the Auberge.”

“I know.” Her laughter subsided. “Madame saw you yesterday, when she was shopping. You were in the patisserie with that English girl. M’sieur Giroud had already told us you were staying at the Auberge. He’s the chef there.”

“You know Giroud?”

“Michel? He was here last night. Always asks for me.” She smiled. “Says he only likes girls who look as though they enjoy eating. And I do! Not like that woman at the Auberge who’s always after him.”

“Woman at the…”

“She owns the place. Madame Bouchard! Michel says she needs more flesh on her bones.”

“Does he?”

“Michel’s a pleasant fellow! All the other girls like him but he asks only for me. He phones at least twice a week when he knows what time he’ll be finished at the Auberge. Phones from the kitchen, during the dinner hour, so Madame Bouchard never suspects anything.” She giggled again. “That English girl’s after him also, but Michel says she’s skinny as a boy! That’s what he says, but I think he makes love to all of ’em! Not that I care…” She shrugged. “He still comes back to me!”

“Do you know a young farmer named Savord?”

“Achille? He comes here Saturday nights. Always asks for Clara. Achille’s a nice boy. Très gentil!”

“Not a rough type?”

“Certainly not! He sometimes brings little gifts for Clara’s new baby…”

“What about the Jarlaud girl? The one who was murdered. Did you know her?”

“I’ve seen her in the shops, but we never spoke. Most of the men in the village knew her. Even though they deny it! Madame didn’t like her, of course, because she took business away…”

“Eh bien! I must be going.” Damiot got to his feet. “Wanted to see you again. Find out how things were with you.”

“Not bad. As you can see.” She pushed herself up from the divan. “Madame looks out for us. Only at the moment, things are slow. Everyone’s afraid to go out, nights, because of those murders. Even the men!” She walked ahead of him toward the entrance, her hips swaying under the kimono. “Maybe you’ll catch the killer while you’re here…”

“I’m on vacation. Not looking for any murderer.” As he followed her through the hall, he took two hundred-franc notes from his wallet and folded them in the palm of his hand. “I came here to rest after I left the hospital.”

“You’ve been ill?”

“Last month, in Paris, I had to have surgery on my hip.”

“Mon Dieu!”

“But I’m much better now.”

“How’s your wife?”

“She’s left me.”

“For good?” She turned to face him as she opened the door.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a fine man. If you want her, she’ll come back.”

“Au ’voir…” He held out his hand.

The unexpected gesture surprised her. “Will I see you again?” She shook his hand.

“Perhaps…”

“You are also a kind man.” She pulled her hand away.

Damiot realized that the hundred-franc notes were gone.

“Take care of yourself, M’sieur Inspecteur!”

* * * *

Local gendarmeries were always housed in the town hall. There would be a small courtroom, an interrogation room, and a jail. He wondered what poor bastards were behind bars here today. Some farmer who had stolen a neighbor’s sheep. The village drunk…

This empty corridor stank, like all municipal corridors. It was a combination of many things, dominated by disinfectant and the unmistakable scent of poverty and fear, left behind by the unfortunates who had passed through here.

Damiot walked into a room where Gendarmerie was painted on the gray wall in crude black letters, and looked inside.

The room was small, with a row of files against one wall, and several wooden benches. Facing the door, between two windows, a low platform supported a long table that served as a desk. Low arched doorway in the wall opposite the files.

A man slumped in a chair at the desk was snoring.

The gendarme appeared to be in his twenties. Black hair, one clump hanging down over his forehead. Thin face and long nose.

Damiot cleared his throat.

The eyes opened. “M’sieur?”

“I’m…”

“Chief Inspector Damiot!” He struggled to his feet. “Forgive me, M’sieur! I must’ve dozed off…”

“You are Porel?”

“That’s right, M’sieur Inspecteur. I knew you’d be coming in this afternoon. Inspector Bardou phoned half an hour ago. Did you know he’s identified the first victim?”

“Has he?”

“Told me on the phone. Her name’s Annie Deffous and she came from Toulon. Inspector Bardou talked with the gendarmes there. They have no record of her name, but he’s asked them to check on her and get back to him.”

“Looks as though he’s making progress.”

“Inspector Bardou’s a terrific guy!”

“Did you know this Deffous girl?” Damiot asked, glancing toward the nearest windows as though his question wasn’t important.

“No, M’sieur Inspecteur. I’ve never been to Toulon.”

Damiot faced him. “But you did know the other girl! Lisette Jarlaud.” He saw Porel’s face crimson. “Someone mentioned that you knew her.”

“I guess everybody knew Lisette.”

“You slept with her, didn’t you?”

“Once or twice…”

“Only once or twice?”

“Four or five times, maybe. Half the men in the village slept with Lisette.”

“I’d like to have a look at that unidentified girl who, it seems, has now been identified. What did you say her name was?”

“Annie Deffous.”

Damiot followed as Porel swung a heavy door open into a cool corridor where one small bulb glowed in the ceiling. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor.

“We usually don’t keep a dead body here more than a few days. In fact, this is the first since I came on staff.” He opened another door and snapped a switch that lighted several ceiling bulbs.

Damiot blinked as he entered a narrow, white-tiled room. The windows at the far end had been plastered over but never painted. There was an old-fashioned autopsy table in the center, and the smell of disinfectant was overpowering.

“Didn’t like to look at her at first, but I’ve gotten used to it now.” Porel walked to a tier of three large drawers and yanked the center one out with a harsh clatter of metal.

As Damiot moved closer he felt cold air strike his face.

Annie Deffous, even in death, was a pretty girl. Delicate nose, thick eyelashes, and a pleasant mouth that seemed about to speak.

Damiot frowned. It was still a shock, after all these years, to see the dead body of a young person or a child. He recalled, as he circled the open drawer, that Tendrell had said the murderer’s skill with a knife showed knowledge of anatomy. The cut across the throat, neat and precise, had almost severed her neck.

A slit from the médecin-légiste’s scalpel extended from the breastbone down to the mound of Venus. The long red hair, tucked like a pillow under her head, looked dull and lifeless. It had continued to grow for a time after death, and the dark roots matched the pubic hair. The Englishman had been right—her hair was dyed.

“Who performed the autopsy?” he asked.

“Doctor Mondor, from Salon. He does all our police work. There’s no doctor here in the village.”

Damiot peered at the hands. “See this callus? Middle finger, right hand. Took years of pressure to cause that. Pen or pencil. She must’ve done some sort of clerical work.”

“I never noticed that!” Porel leaned down for a closer look. “You’re right about her work. Bardou’s found out she was a bookkeeper. But you knew that from looking at her hand!”

Damiot straightened. “I’ve finished.”

Porel closed the drawer and turned toward the door again.

“One thing more, while I’m here.”

“Certainly, M’sieur Inspecteur!” He opened the door.

“I’d like to see where the other girl’s body was found.” He went ahead, into the corridor. “Behind here, wasn’t it? In the alley?”

“I can show you the exact spot.” Porel switched off the light in the morgue and closed the door. They continued on through the corridor. “This takes us to the alley.”

Damiot followed, between stone columns, toward a distant door. “What hour of the day was the Jarlaud girl’s body discovered?”

“Early morning. Two children stumbled over it as they took a shortcut to school…” He turned a key in the lock and opened the door.

The sunlight was dazzling, the air warm, after the cold interior.

He walked with Porel toward a mass of bushes that formed a green oasis sheltered by tall poplars. “This was the spot?”

“The body was found in here.” Porel thrust the bushes apart with both hands and moved between them into an open space where daylight barely reached. “We made marks on the ground to show the exact spot, but of course the rains have washed all that away.” He turned to Damiot. “There are photographs, if you’d like to see them.”

“Another time… This alley must’ve been convenient for all concerned. Too narrow for cars to pass through, and no people around after dark. Lisette Jarlaud was able to come here unnoticed, after her day’s work at the Hôtel Courville. Anyone could meet her without being seen! The alley runs behind all the shops on this side of the square. Any one of a dozen men could’ve slipped out and met her here…”

“That’s right, M’sieur Inspecteur. We’ve questioned all the shopkeepers.”

“And anybody could come out for a rendezvous—as we did, just now, from that rear door of the town hall!”

“That’s possible…”

“I suppose you met Lisette here?”

“Well, I…” His voice choked in his throat. “You won’t report me?”

“I’ve already told you. This is Bardou’s investigation—not mine. I won’t report you to anybody.”

“In that case, M’sieur Inspecteur, I will tell you—in strict confidence—I did meet Lisette here. But only twice! The other times we always drove into the hills in my car.”

For a moment, as they walked toward rue Voltaire, visible at the end of the alley, neither spoke. Damiot remembered days when he had run through this alley, avoiding the square, on an errand for his parents or up to some mischief of his own. But never at night…

As they reached the street, he glanced at Porel again. “I think I’ll drive up and have a look at the spot where that other girl died.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I will tell M’sieur le Commissaire that you were here.”

“If you must.” He turned down rue Voltaire toward the square.

* * * *

As Damiot drove into the hills, he missed having Fric-Frac at his side, looking out the window. Perhaps when he returned to Paris he would buy himself a dog. Exactly like Fric-Frac!

Sophie had never wanted any kind of animal in their apartment. Afraid it would soil the rugs or damage the furniture.

Olympe always had a cat. Curled up on fancy lace cushions in her boudoir. Fat and jealous, with long white hair that stuck to his trousers. He wondered if she’d taken that damn cat to Mexico.

As before, the gates of the Château were closed and padlocked. Through the grille he could see the distant castle beyond the dark tunnel of trees, like a mirage in the dazzling sunlight. A commercial truck roared past, in the opposite direction.

Damiot swerved the Peugeot across the highway, between the trees and toward the field where the girl’s body had been found, parking at the edge of the wood. He got out and walked through the cropped grass into the field.

The presence of several cows, grazing at the far end, explained why the grass wasn’t higher. Their heads turned in unison to inspect the intruder, but their jaws continued to chew.

This open field, surrounded by a dense forest, was the size of several Paris blocks. Impossible to guess where Annie Deffous had been murdered. There would be nothing left, after two months, to indicate the spot.

He walked along the edge of the wood, parallel to the road, and saw that the moist earth was deeply pitted by hoofs.

This was a perfect place for the murderer to rendezvous with his victim. They could park their cars and nobody would see them from the road or hear the victim’s screams.

After Annie Deffous died, the murderer would somehow have had to get rid of her car. He wouldn’t be able to drive it anywhere, because he might be noticed walking back to pick up his own car.

The dead girl’s car must be somewhere nearby. There were several openings between the trees through which a small car could pass…

There would be deep ravines in there. The murderer must have looked the place over, checked the terrain, before he arranged to meet the Deffous girl here. Probably that same afternoon, before the murder. Which meant she had been able to contact him and he had instructed her where they could meet that night, probably at a cafe in some nearby village. After a few drinks she would have followed his car up here in her gray Dauphine.

The murderer had to be one of the villagers. Only a local would know it was safe to come here for what he planned to do. Would know that everyone avoided this field after dark, because of its unpleasant history.

He realized that the grass was whirring with sound in the hot sunlight. Cigales! Must be hundreds of them…

In the old days there had been a gibbet here. Criminals were tried in the great courtyard of the Château by a judge who traveled from village to village. People came from all over the surrounding countryside to attend the trials. It was because of those trials that people had called the Château by another name. Castle Death…

He peered around, visualizing how it must have been.

Crude wooden gallows in the center, with several bodies dangling. Hundreds of people enjoying the free spectacle, eating and drinking. Their horses tied to trees around the edge of the field, among rows of coaches, carriages, and carts. Booths selling food, wine, and cider. Fortune-tellers, mountebanks, pickpockets, thieves… Certainly there would have been children underfoot. And dogs…

Everyone dropping coins. Losing them through holes in their pockets… The same coins he had found here hundreds of years later. And lost again.

There would have been musicians and singers. The noise must have been tremendous…

He gazed across the field at the peaceful herd of cows. They had accepted or forgotten his presence.

Suddenly a cloud of color rose from the grass. Orange, yellow, and black.

Butterflies! His eyes followed them as they rose higher and higher. He had never seen so many! They floated in a mass, their colors brilliant against the dark forest.

Damiot realized that the sky was filling with black clouds. Pushing down from the Alpilles.

No matter. He was coming back to the Château tonight.

Even if it rained.