Past Imperfect

FIFTEEN

'We've got a problem.'

Poullain was in Perrimond's office. The arrest warrant for Machanaud had been duly signed, notarized and stamped. Perrimond passed it across. 'Tell me.'

Poullain started by explaining that he'd already reached the decision not to make Machanaud's statement official for the reasons they'd discussed the other day, when the problem arose: his assistant Fornier had been told about the car sighting by Machanaud while off duty, and was now of a different mind. So much so that if it wasn't entered officially, he was threatening to file a complaint with the commanding area gendarmerie Colonel. 'Though it might be a complete waste of time pursuing the statement, perhaps under the circumstances it will be less awkward if it is made.'

'Perhaps. Where did this Fornier meet up with Machanaud.'

'In a bar in Taragnon.'

'I see.' Perrimond's nostrils flared and pinched back as if an odious smell had just hit him. Though it was unclear whether his disdain was directed at Fornier or Poullain's lack of control over his staff. 'Leaving aside the implications for a moment, before this happened with Fornier you personally had made the decision not to make the statement official.'

'No point. It's very obviously fabricated and interviewing Duclos again would serve absolutely no purpose. At least two people saw him at the time of the boy's attack. His alibi is solid.'

So now it was down to varying degrees of awkwardness, thought Perrimond: another call from the Mayor or questions from the area gendarmerie Colonel. 'Tell me about this Fornier. What's his background?'

'Young, twenty-six years old. Was with the Foreign Legion in Algeria for four years, then joined the gendarmerie in Marseille.'

'Did he see any combat action in Algeria?'

'None that I know of. His work was mainly with radio and communications, back room logistics stuff. He took a similar position with the Marseille gendarmerie.'

'What made him move to Bauriac from Marseille?'

'His mother's ill, dying from cancer. He wanted to be close to her, and he put in a request for transfer through Marseille. We had no communications or logistics department, just purely street pounding work, but he took it. He was pretty desperate, feared she might have only six months left, and so was willing to take whatever was offered.'

'So he has sacrificed career advancement in order to take care of his dying mother. Very noble.' Though from Perrimond's half smile it was difficult to tell if he thought it was noble or just foolish. Then he became more thoughtful. 'Why did you specifically use him to assist on this investigation?'

'My main assistant, Harrault, was in the middle of another investigation. Plus I thought Fornier's past experience with Marseille might come in useful. A fair degree of liaison with Marseille was necessary, particularly with forensics.'

'The complaint, if it's made, will probably end up with Colonel Houillon here in Aix, is that correct?'

'Yes. I get one copy, it's noted and filed, and another goes to Colonel Houillon.'

'I have quite good contact with Houillon.' Perrimond glanced down, brooded for a second, as if his ink blotter might inspire him. He was slow in looking up. 'Look. Say nothing to Fornier for the time being. Tell him the issue is still being decided and you'll know something tomorrow. But I think I have an idea.'

'Anything reported for your area?' Chapeau's voice was husky and muted, as if people unseen might be listening in.

'No. Nothing yet.'

'When did you check last?'

'Just before seven when I finished duty.'

It was over twenty-four hours since the attack, thought Chapeau. It was unlikely the report had been made. His police contact, Jaquin, was a Detective Inspector stationed in the Panier. Revenge for a client who had beaten a club girl was the story Chapeau invented; Jaquin would have little sympathy for such a client. The club wanted to be forewarned of being named in any police statement, or perhaps the incident might be reported simply as a mugging. He'd asked Jaquin to check the station nearest the attack. Nothing filed yet. Not even for a mugging.

'I'll phone again at the same time tomorrow, just in case. Thanks.' But Chapeau knew that most reports were made within hours and had certainly filtered down within twenty-four hours, even if made from another station. The ploy had confirmed what he'd suspected: Duclos had something to hide, didn't want to report the mugging and risk contact with the police.

Giving Duclos a beating had put him on a high for several hours. But it was nothing to what he experienced now, as he thought over the information gathered during the day. Duclos wallet had been a veritable treasure chest of information: identity card, credit card for Banque Nationale, business cards — mostly lawyers from the Limoges area — and a recent pay-slip. It was for a Provincial Government office in Limoges, Department E4. Four phone calls later he'd ascertained what Department E4 dealt with and, from scale pay rates, Duclos' position.

He'd dropped the credit card in a Panier back street a block away. Hopefully someone deserving would pick it up, go on a spending spree. Perhaps the supposedly blind lottery ticket seller: next time by, he'd be wearing crocodile skin shoes and sporting a Rolex. Duclos would have to report the card lost or stolen to the bank, and if it was used fraudulently he would be duty bound to make a police report or be liable for the expense. Hassle with the bank and the police. Perhaps Duclos would just eat the expenditure. Oh, this was fun.

And he felt sure that the best was to come: Department E4. 15,400 Francs per annum. Duclos was an assistant public prosecutor!

Chapeau had only been to jail once. For twenty-seven months at the age of eighteen. He'd been a club bouncer since sixteen, and one night threw out three students who were getting out of hand with the bar girls. One of them landed badly as he was thrown out and broke his collar bone. The boy's father was a leading businessman, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the golfing partner of a local prosecutor. Charges for Grievous Bodily Harm were pressed and a three year sentence called for. The trial was a farce, a one-track railroad. Chapeau served all but nine months due to good behaviour.

But one vision had stayed with him strongly through the years: the prosecutor and his assistant huddled in conspiracy through the Instruction process and the final trial, then smug and elated as the sentence was pronounced. The boy's father had come over and congratulated the prosecutor. Another triumph plotted on the golf course.

It had been Chapeau's first taste of the system at work. He'd vowed then that if he was to continue making his living from physical enforcement, it would be done in the shadows and with the buffer of an organization that knew how to work the system. Fifteen months out of jail he became a milieu enforcer. At first it was just low key strong arm work: intimidation and threats, the occasional limb broken. The work ranged from small time gambling, protection and loan debts, to non payment on street level drug packets. But within three years he'd progressed to the big league and made his first hit: an area dealer had pocketed heroin with a street value of almost 300,000 Francs, claiming it had been seized in a police raid. Through an inside police contact the milieu discovered that wasn't true. It couldn't go unpunished.

He thought again now of the two smug prosecutors, smiling, congratulating themselves. Slowly he twirled Duclos' identity card between his fingers, and smiled himself. A gay paedophile Assistant Prosecutor, his entire life and future now resting in his hands. The circle of revenge could hardly be more poetic. This was going to be much more fun than he first thought.

The memorial service for Christian Rosselot was held at the Church of St Nicholas, fifty yards back from the main Bauriac square. The inside of the church was a microcosm of village life and social stratas.

The first row nearest the altar was taken up with the Rosselots and immediate neighbours and friends. A dark complexioned woman in her sixties to Monique Rosselot's left, Dominic assumed to be her mother. She was dressed fashionably and well: dark Pierre Cardin blouse and matching pleated skirt, though perhaps a little too much jewellery. Dominic was surprised; when Louis had mentioned Monique's mother visiting, he'd imagined her shrouded in a black djellabah, like the drab old widows he remembered from the streets of Algeria.

Jean-Luc had made it back in time, and had also brought his brother and his mother. His father had been too ill to travel. The latest updates from Louis through Valerie as they'd filed into the church. They stood to the right of Jean-Luc with the Fievets immediately alongside.

The next few rows were taken up with village people who had an acquaintance or vague connection with the Rosselots: various shopkeepers Monique visited regularly, Jean-Luc's farm equipment and seed suppliers, the family doctor, Louis and Valerie.

The gendarmerie was represented five rows back, with an assortment of mostly unconnected villagers who wished to pay their respects filling another four rows behind. The murder had touched Taragnon deeply: sorrow and gentle weeping alongside those who were just curious or open-mouthed, trying to catch a glimpse of the Rosselots in the front row.

Four days ago, Curate Pierre Bergoin had held a small funeral service for Christian Rosselot at the burial ground chapel between Bauriac and St Maximin. Only Jean-Luc, Monique, her mother and the Fievets were present. The family had wanted a private affair, and the brunt of their grief had already been spent away from onlookers.

The memorial service started with the Requiem?ternam. Dominic looked up as Curate Bergoin's voice echoed around the church: '…Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion; et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: hear my prayer; all flesh shall come to thee. Eternal rest. Oh, God, creator and redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of all thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of their sins; that through pious supplications…'

There were six of them from the gendarmerie: Harrault, Poullain, Servan, Briant, Levacher and himself. Dominic wondered if the division in their ranks was obvious; Poullain and he were at opposite ends of the group. Since the call late in the day before, they'd hardly spoken.

It had come from Colonel Gastine, his old commanding officer in Marseille. After the preamble of how Dominic was settling in Bauriac, Gastine quickly came onto the subject of the call he'd had from Colonel Houillon in Aix. 'He might call me once in four months, if I'm lucky. So although he tried to make light of it, the fact that he should trouble to call at all over such a matter made me realize there was something much more serious in the background. Apparently, there's some sort of disagreement between you and your commanding officer over an investigation now in progress. Is that correct?'

So, Pouillain had got to Houillon before him. 'Yes. It's a murder investigation. I don't think my Captain heading the investigation here is looking fully at all the possibilities.'

'You might have very good cause, Dominic, it's not my position to question. And that's not the problem. Though it hasn't been said directly, only intimated, if anything lands on Houillon's desk, Captain Pouillon is going to request your transfer. He'll argue that he only took you in as a departmental favour to accommodate the fact that your mother was sick and you needed to be close to her. He saw your main usefulness as liaison where Marseille might be involved, such as the investigation in progress; but that if he can't use you effectively, if your working styles clash, there is really nowhere else in the gendarmerie he can deploy you effectively. You'll be surplus to requirement.'

'Where would they transfer me?' Dominic asked meekly. Perhaps if it wasn't too far away, he could commute.

'Rouen is one suggestion, Brest another, or possibly Nancy.'

Dominic felt as if a trap-door had opened. All were at least three hundred miles away. The message was clear: if he didn't tow the line, he'd be sent into exile. His mother would die alone.

'I'm sorry to bring you this news, Dominic. The way Houillon put it, it was almost as if they were doing you a favour by using me as honest broker, warning you. Giving you the option. If you'd filed the complaint, they'd have just shipped you out.'

'They?'

'Houillon was slightly apologetic, as if he felt a bit uncomfortable with all of this as well. So I read into it that someone with far stronger influence than Pouillan was involved. Pouillain couldn't risk directly asking Houillon to get involved like this.'

Perrimond. So in the end they'd all ganged up together to get their way over Machanaud. Put the lowly gendarme in his place, make sure he didn't cause any waves. It had probably all been done with a few quick phone calls, and now he was powerless. A bloodless coup.

'Fratres, ece mysterium vobis dico…' Curate Bergoin's voice cut through some stifled sobbing from the front rows. '…In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this, corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Now the sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin…'

Death? His mother's pale yellow face before him, smiling softly: 'Don't worry, I understand if you have to go. You're young and you have your work and your career.' And him protesting: 'No! I can't leave you at a time like this. I promised!'

Machanaud screaming at him as he was being dragged from the interview room by Servan and Harrault: 'You betrayed me! I was meant to be here for a statement about the car. I trusted you!' Probably Pouillain had planned it, left him alone for over an hour with Machanaud before he'd returned with the warrant, knowing fully that Machanaud would get edgy without some reassurance. Busily basting their sacrificial lamb while Poullain and Perrimond cemented the final stages of their coup.

With the arrest warrant served and Machanaud's rights read out as he was dragged off to the cells, for the first time it struck Dominic what Machanaud faced. If convicted, he would probably get the death penalty or would be exiled to a living death in the penal colonies. With the harshness of colony regimes and disease rife, average life expectancy was little more than six years. From his cell window, Machanaud had probably even heard the church bells announcing the memorial service, rallying the emotions of the village against him.

It was a daunting, impossible choice: leave his mother alone to die, or stay silent and allow a man whose guilt he questioned be condemned.

'…Teste David cum Sibylla.' Muted weeping now also from an unknown woman towards the back of the church. '…Quantus tremor est futurus. The last loud trumpet's spreading tone, shall thro' the place of tombs be blown — to summon all before the Throne. Nature and death with fixed eyes, shall see the trembling creature rise — to plead before the last assize. The written book shall be outspread, and all that it contains be read. To try the living and the dead.'

Curate Bergoin offered little guidance.