Past Imperfect

FORTY-FOUR

As the grey skyline turned to black, Brossard moved in closer. Fifty metres from the short stone wall, he could see the farmhouse clearly.

One light on downstairs. He trained the binoculars, and after a moment saw a woman come into their frame, brief profile: late-forties, first wisps of salt in black hair, attractive. She moved out of sight again for a second, going deeper into the drawing room.

Brossard's anticipation surged, but only a trace of what he felt when going up against experienced guns. A woman alone in a remote farmhouse. A cakewalk. He'd put on the infra-red goggles, switch off or cut the mains electricity from the garage, and break in through a downstairs window. The woman would still be fumbling for candles and night-lights when the bullet hit. One head shot, maybe two, and out. It would all be over in seconds.

Brossard kept low as he moved through the last fifty metres of grass towards the stone wall. Then he stopped again, studying the farmhouse closer and trying to work out the likely position of rooms. He quickly checked his gun and silencer, then took out the night-time goggles and put them on.

Waiting a moment for his eyes to adjust to their grey-green light, he slid over the wall and started the last distance towards the farmhouse.

'What time would you hope to get here?' Monique was speaking to Yves, her eldest son. He'd phoned to tell her he would be coming up from Marseille for the weekend. She hadn't heard from him for almost two months, so they'd spent a few minutes catching up on news before returning to when he would be arriving.

'I'm on a late shift at the station tomorrow night, finishing at ten. I'll leave straight after that. So probably close to eleven. But I've got Saturday and Sunday free.'

'That's good. Gerome will be here, he's not going anywhere this weekend as far as I know. It'll be nice to have a house full.' Already she was thinking of food and preparation: steamed C'ap Roig with cous-cous, pate en croute to start. A few bottles of wine on the terrace. It was going to be a good weekend. 'Gerome should be back soon. You might get a chance to speak to him.'

'It's okay. I've got to go now. But I'll see him tomorrow anyway.'

'I'll try and make sure your father relaxes a bit as well. At least one full day without calls. See you tomorrow.' Monique looked thoughtfully at the phone as she put it down. Family. New family… Old family.

With the tapes she'd played repeatedly, she'd found herself thinking more about Christian and Jean-Luc. Memories that had plagued her the first few years, sapped her strength before she'd pushed them harshly away: self-preservation for the sake of both her sanity and her new marriage. She couldn't give all to her new family while burdened by ghosts from the past.

The only vestige Dominic had complained about, at times pointedly, had been her obsessive protectiveness with Yves and Gerome. The ghosts of the past might have been buried, but a shadow had remained. She could never face losing another child, going through what she'd suffered with Christian again.

But the tapes and transcripts had brought it all back. With each playing, images of Christian and Jean-Luc had grown stronger. She'd resisted going out to the wheat field the day Dominic had met Eyran and Stuart Capel. She'd always vowed she'd never go there. The memories were too harsh. But knowing the three of them had stood in the empty filed, searching for long lost answers, had raised her curiosity about Taragnon. Perhaps the farm would be different: the memories there happy as well as sad. Alone at Vidauban that afternoon, looking out across the farm fields at the back, she'd finally made the decision. She'd taken the old Simca left permanently at the farm for transporting garden pots and plants, and driven out to Taragnon.

Though it was only thirty-five kilometres away, she hadn't been back to the area for over twenty-five years, after they'd finally sold the old farm.

She parked in the road outside the old farm and looked up. Apart from some modernization with new windows and doors, it had changed little. The outside stonework was much the same.

As she looked, a small boy of no more than four or five came out of the back door and started peddling a toy car around the courtyard. And in that moment, as she closed her eyes, she pictured Christian in the courtyard at little more than that age, laughing and playing, his gentle high-pitched voice echoing slightly from the walls. And Jean-Luc coming in from the fields, picking Christian up on his shoulders and swinging him around playfully, smiling. The proud father.

Tears streamed unashamedly down her face as she drove back to Vidauban. She'd cried bitter tears for both of them for so many years, but not recently.

And then not long after returning, at six o'clock the news item had come on about Duclos. She'd found herself honing in on the face flashed up on the screen as if drawn by a magnet. A face suddenly put to this new suspect Dominic had talked about almost incessantly the past weeks — Christian's real murderer! A rounded, slightly bloated face with thinning black hair and dark green, almost black eyes. Thirty years? She tried to imagine in that moment what he looked like then, when he'd murdered Christian. But it was the one leap back through the years her mind wasn't able to make.

As it grew dark, she took out a night-light and lit it in the small alcove by the telephone at the back of the drawing room. In the first glow of its light, she'd seen Christian's face clearly, the memories of those last nights of hospital vigil flooding back. She could almost feel his presence; as if he was partly with her now, guiding her actions, willing her to light the night-light.

She hadn't prayed for Christian and Jean-Luc for years, but she would that night. She felt that by purposely casting them from her thoughts, she'd also in a way abandoned them. It was time to make some amends.

Now, putting down the phone from Yves, she looked thoughtfully towards the light. She remembered the night that Yves was born, the joy she'd felt. The doctors had told her later she'd been lucky to live. At least she'd been given a second chance at happiness. Some people didn't get even that.

With a last slow sigh, she knelt down before the light, gently closed her eyes and started to pray: for Christian's and Jean-Luc's souls, for the many memories, for the happiness that once was… for the final justice that might now be so close…

Suddenly the lights went out.

The quietly murmured prayers caught at the back of her throat. Her eyes flickered open. A sound outside the house, faint rustling, or was she imagining it? She listened harder, but could hear nothing more. Only stillness, silence. Pitch darkness beyond the weak glow of the night-light.

She wondered what had happened with the electricity. Sometimes there were power cuts when there was a storm, but the weather had been fine. She straightened up, deciding to take the night-light with her to investigate.

But barely two paces away, the phone rang, startling her. She turned to pick it up.

Dull grey-green light. It took a second for each shape to become clear.

Brossard moved stealthily away from the garage after switching off the mains. He'd already worked out the geography of the house. Drawing room with an office leading off, centre hallway, then a kitchen and dining room the far end. Bedrooms upstairs.

The woman was in the drawing room, but he didn't want to enter from that side, possibly alarm her while he fumbled to break in. He would go in at the far end. The kitchen window was too small, so he chose the dining room.

Looking through, he could see that the connecting door to the hallway was closed; sound wouldn't travel easily. He took the glass cutter and sucker from his knapsack, cut a neat hole, reached in and turned the window latch. He was in within twenty seconds.

Eyes adjusting, orientating. Objects became clear quickly, but it took a second longer to judge distance. Long table. Six chairs. Cabinet. Side table. Archway through to the kitchen. He focused on the door ahead. The door to the hallway and the drawing room beyond. Only the sound of his own breathing as he moved.

Sudden noise, alarming. Deafeningly loud among the silence and darkness: phone ringing! Beyond the hall — in the drawing room where the woman was, Brossard judged.

It stopped. It had been picked up. Good. She would be talking, he could move into the hallway without worry — and he made the last distance swiftly, turned the handle and went through. And waited again, crouching, listening.

But as he fought to pick out her voice and movements beyond the door, another sound came without warning, drowning it out. A car swinging into the courtyard, its lights flashing briefly across a small window by the front door.

Brossard's nerves tensed. An anticipatory thrill rose up from his spine and bunched the muscles at the back of his neck. His jaw set tight, every nerve end suddenly alive, tingling. This was more like it: two targets and only seconds to decide which to drop first!

The woman's voice beyond the door was staccato, alarmed. '… You mean now?… this minute….'

Car door shutting, footsteps approaching, key in the door…

'… But that's probably Gerome now, I could go straight off with…'

As the door swung open and the figure took a step forward, Brossard took his first clear shot towards the centre of its chest, and saw the figure fall.

Brossard jumped up quickly from his crouch — no time to lose, the woman would have been alerted by the noise — and burst into the drawing room. Quick flash image: the woman, the phone receiver held out slightly in defence, her panicked expression, a night-light beyond searing his eyes slightly…

Five seconds more and he would be finished and away.

'Monique. You're in grave danger. Get out of the house now!' Dominic flashed furiously as a car stayed obstinately in the fast lane. He'd phoned at two minute intervals, and on the third try had finally got through. The pent-up frustration and fear came through in his voice.

'What's happening, Dominic… what's going on?'

'No questions, Monique. Just go!'

'You mean now… this minute?'

'Yes, now!' Dominic screamed. 'Get out quickly and run to the nearest neighbour's house.'

Sound in the background. Car engine, wheels turning. '…But that's probably Gerome now. I could go straight off with him.'

'Whatever, Monique. But just go, get away from there as soon as…'

Another sound then: a dull thud and something dropping, as if Gerome had dropped a heavy kit bag in the hallway.

A sharp intake of breath from Monique, then a shriek as Dominic heard movement in the background, the door bursting open.

'Monique, get out of there… get out!' Dominic's voice was shrill, his throat almost bursting as he screamed into his mobile.

The sound of scuffling and light banging, as if the receiver had been dropped for a second at the other end. Then a man's voice, deeper. Not Gerome's. 'It's too late.'

And in that moment — with searing pain and lights bursting through his head in rhythm with his now almost constant flashing of the road ahead — the hollow, nauseating reality hit Dominic that the voice was right. He was too late to save Monique's life. He knew it even before he heard the gunshot and the sickening thud of the body hitting the floor. Then the line went dead.

Duclos was in a panic. He'd gone down to Vidauban with half an hour of daylight to spare, and had spent the time since scouting vainly for Brossard.

He'd looked first half a mile in each direction along the road leading to the farmhouse. Nothing suspicious, out of place. Then he'd decided to park a few hundred metres along the road leading to the motorway junction — the most likely direction that Brossard would approach.

After a few minutes, he realized that a bend in the road obscured the entrance to the farmhouse, and became concerned just in case Brossard approached from the other direction. He moved closer, to within a hundred metres of the entrance — the closest he dare park. And waited.

The hit had seemed a good idea originally: without Monique Fornier, there was no case! She was the only one who could vouch that the boy had left that day with the coin in his pocket, or that the tapes and transcripts bore any relevance to the life of her son. Without the coin or the tapes and transcripts, the case collapsed.

But now he just felt foolish, standing on a remote Provence lane hoping to stop the hit he'd ordered in the first place. He didn't even know which car Brossard would be driving. Though of the three cars which had so far passed, he'd been able to catch a fleeting glimpse of their drivers. No Brossard yet.

With the last dusk light fading, he realized that even that would be difficult. Another car approached, and he was hardly able to discern anything beyond the glare of its headlamps until it was almost past him.

He shuffled anxiously. Was this how he wanted to spend his last hour in France? He knew that all of this was only because one day he might want to return. He might be happy sitting in South America for a while, but forever? Times changed: the trial would slip from prominence, Corbeix would retire, a new prosecutor might not be so keen, might see through the evidence for the tenuous nonsense that it was.

Faced with no more than a weak, exploratory case against him, he might be tempted to return. But if Monique Fornier was killed, he would never be able to come back.

Another set of headlamps. Glimpse of a young man in profile as the car passed. The car slowed — it was turning into the farmhouse! Probably Fornier's son or a family friend, Duclos thought. With him there, would Brossard still make the hit? Perhaps Brossard would delay till the next night, and he could then reach Brossard tomorrow from Portugal, tell him not to go ahead.

Listening to his own wheedling, pathetically hopeful inner voice, it suddenly hit him: apart from his own neck, what did it matter? What did he care if Brossard dynamited the whole farmhouse with them all inside? Damn Fornier! Damn the lot of them! They'd brought him to this: standing on a lonely backwater lane in the dead of night, tired and afraid, his nerves frazzled, his career and life in ruins, running for his life from half the nation's police to catch a flight in just over an hour.

And now he was almost as worried about saving their necks as his own! His anger brought back his earlier pounding tension. His hands were shaking, and he rested back against the Peugeot bonnet to try and brace, steady them. But after a few more minutes with no cars passing, standing alone in the darkness with only some crickets breaking the silence, he couldn't bare it any longer. He slammed one hand on his bonnet. No! No more! He'd waited long enough. As far as he was concerned, Brossard could…

A set of headlamps appeared suddenly, startling him with the speed of their approach — and for a second he was caught in their glare. Quick flash glimpse as the car sped past, but enough: it was Fornier!

Duclos jumped in the Peugeot and started her up. His heart was pounding hard. Fornier had probably seen him! A moment for the realization to hit Fornier, and then the car would do a U-turn and head out after him.

Duclos bit hard at his lip. What a fool he'd been to come down here. He swung the Peugeot out quickly and put his foot down hard. He kept his eyes glued to the rear-view mirror as he sped away, fearful that at any second Fornier's headlamps would reappear at the farmhouse entrance and turn out.

Six minutes. All that it had taken from the phone going dead for Dominic to reach the farmhouse.

He screeched to a halt, leapt out almost before he'd stopped, taking his gun out in the few quick paces to the front door. It was slightly ajar.

He pushed it, but there was a weight the other side keeping it from opening. His nerves jumped, thinking for a moment that the hit man was still there, pushing from the other side — before his eyes adjusted to the dark and made out the ghostly white face on the floor. Gerome! He recoiled back in horror.

He couldn't risk forcing the door, moving the body, in case Gerome was still alive. He ran around the house, saw the dining room window open, and scrambled in.

Dominic realized he was probably following in the path the hit man had taken. Alive? He'd accepted in the last few minutes of frantic driving — fragments of hope and desperation fighting against hollow bewilderment — that Monique was probably already dead. But Gerome as well? He felt as if his stomach had been scooped out by a cold claw. Salt tears stung his eyes, his vision suddenly blurred.

But fear overrode, his hands trembling as he held his gun out, double beat pulse skittering across his cold dark sea of bewilderment.

Six minutes? A lifetime for a professional hit man. But still he might be lurking in the shadows, waiting. Dominic part of the contract along with Monique. Dominic moved stealthily, cautiously, alert to the slightest movement. Across the dining room, through the half open door, into the hallway…

Eyes adjusting, taking in the crumpled figure of Gerome at its end. He bit hard at his lip… please God, don't let him be dead! But he knew it was little more than a wishful, desperate prayer. Most professionals finished off with head shots.

To the side, the door to the dining room was open. Dominic kept very still, consciously holding his breath, listening for sounds from the room. Nothing. He eased up, turned into the room quickly, gun held straight out.

His eyes fell on Monique's sprawled figure immediately: to the right, by the telephone.

Then with sudden panic, as shapes became clearer in the darkness, he realized that it was two figures… and one of them was rising!

The hit man was still alive — he'd used Monique's body as a shield…

Dominic aimed square at the figure, started to squeeze off the shot.

'Dominic…'

The voice and the shape hit him at the same time. Monique! He lowered the gun, rushed towards her.

He hugged her tight, kissing her cheek repeatedly. 'You're all right… you're all right.' Breathless, tone disbelieving, the tension washing away from him. He felt dampness, stickiness on her cheek as he kissed her, and touched with one hand. 'You're bleeding. You've been hit!'

'No, no… I don't think so.' She reached up to her face, still partly dazed. 'I think it's his blood. It happened so… so quickly. While you were on the phone… He grabbed me… said something into the phone.' Monique fought for breath, words gasped on staccato exhalations as the thoughts hit her. 'Then the shot… us both falling back. Then I don't remember anything until I heard you moving in the hallway.' She shook her head, looked back at the body behind her.

Dominic would have checked the man's pulse, but he could see bone fragments among the dark patch spreading out from the head. Half the skull had been blown away. 'Did you see anyone else come in the room?'

'No… no I didn't… I…' Monique touched her head thoughtfully. She could feel a bruise, a dull ache to one side. 'I must have… have hit my head or fainted. I thought I heard Gerome's car. But it was all confusing… everything happening so… I…' Then the dam of her emotions finally broke. She burst into tears. Heavy racking sobs as she clutched back tight against Dominic. 'It's so good to see you… so good.'

Dominic felt her body quaking against him. Who had fired the bullet to save her, where had it come from? Though no time to find out now. No time! Gerome! But it felt wrong to just push her brusquely away, or was it more that he was dreading breaking the news, destroying her while she was still in shock from her own ordeal. Telling her the one thing he knew she'd feared most through all the years.

It felt like a lifetime, but in the end was only seconds before he muttered, 'It's Gerome.' He felt her pull back. Her eyes were darting, searching, and even in the darkness he could see that she had read the panic and apprehension in his own eyes. He gripped Monique's shoulders briefly, a gesture that said 'please be strong' — and darted into the hallway with Monique following.

Tomi straightened up from crouching in the field, detached the telescopic sights and slid the rifle back into its long case.

Everything had come through late, at the last minute: the location, his instructions. It had been a mad rush up from Marseille, with very little daylight left in which to scout the area. He'd almost missed what he believed was Brossard's Dianne parked deep in a woodland track — realizing with a shock that Brossard might have been there for some time, it might already be over!

It was fully dark as Tomi ran across the farm field and positioned himself by the short stone wall. Light on downstairs. Tomi attached the sights: clear view of the drawing room, a woman kneeling down by a small alcove at the back.

Seconds later the light went out. Tomi panned the sights sharply to each side and up to see if any other lights had come on — but there were none. The electricity had been cut.

He had no night sights — he would have to move in! And Brossard was no doubt already there and would have prepared with…

It was then that he picked up the faint glow at the back of the drawing room in his sights: a small night-light.

He could just pick out the silhouette of the woman. She was standing, talking on the phone. Then only seconds later, another shape came swiftly into frame — gripping the woman around the neck with one arm, taking the telephone.

Tomi focused his sights, saw the man say something into the receiver, and then the gun in his hand levelled at the woman's temple. Tomi trained the cross-hairs at the centre of the man's head and squeezed off the shot — saw it connect cleanly, both figures falling back.

He packed up the rifle and ran back across the field to his car. Girouves would be pleased. Harmony kept with the police, and quite a favour they owed Girouves if ever he had need to call it in.

Contarge looked at the photo developing in the trough of liquid. 30cm x 22cm print, the car number plate looked quite clear. Bit more… bit more…

The darkroom assistant yanked it out, pinned it on a wire next to two smaller prints. Contarge put his eyeglass close up to the damp, dripping paper. Even in the faint orange light of the darkroom, he thought he could make out the first five numbers. 'It's probably the best we'll get.' He'd picked it out from three possible negatives of Duclos' car heading towards the gate, then they'd worked through a succession of frame croppings and enlargements.

The assistant nodded. 'I think so. Any more and the resolution will start to break up.'

Contarge gave it a quick pass through under the blow dryer, then headed out the darkroom and back to his desk.

In daylight, it was even better than he thought. All but the last two numbers could be easily read. He picked up the phone and dialled Lepoille.