Past Imperfect

SEVEN

The light of a single candle reflected against the glass. Monique Rosselot's concerned profile was caught in its glow, looking through the large glass partition towards her son in intensive care. The partition separated the small preparation and observation room, no more than eight foot square, from the main intensive care room. Monique Rosselot sat in one of three chairs close to the glass. She'd been allowed to bring in a candle, only one, and light it as part of her daily bedside vigil, two to three hours each visit.

The attending nurse had been gone for a full minute. Monique decided to go inside the intensive care room. There was no chair, so she knelt at Christian's side.

After a second of studying his features thoughtfully, she reached out and started tracing one finger gently down his face. Memories flooded back of the many times she had stroked his face, of him smiling back at her at bedtime, asking her to read him a story.

His skin had been warmer then, and it felt strange and somehow remote stroking his skin with no response. No smile. No bright eyes turning towards her. She had to be careful as she ran her finger down not to disturb any of the tubes feeding and monitoring. The story read, she would reach out and ruffle his hair. Only now, his head had been shaved clean, his skull marked out for the tests they'd made. Stitches marked a grotesque gash to one side.

Monique closed her eyes and gripped Christian's hand. But it felt even cooler than his face, and suddenly a pang of fear gripped her inside. Oh God, please… please don't let him die! Her eyes scrunched tight at the unthinkable, Christian's prone figure blurred through tears as they slowly opened again.

She tried to push from her mind what had been done to him, the cold hard details from the two visting gendarmes: the sexual assault… the repeated blows which had left him for dead. Her tears had mostly been in private — but then that had reflected how she'd felt almost throughout her vigil. Alone. Jean-Luc had merely absorbed himself more in his farmwork to cope. He'd only visited the hospital once with her.

Now, gripping Christian's small hand in hers, she wouldn't have wanted it any other way. She probably wouldn't have grabbed this moment of intimacy if Jean-Luc had been with her. She'd only done this once before — and then too had felt like a thief sneaking in and stealing something she shouldn't. Stealing a few minutes of intimacy with her son. Perhaps their last…

She shook her head. No! That wasn't going to happen! She would see Christian smile again… feel the warmth of his embrace. She gripped the small hand tighter, willing the message home. Willing Christian to awake.

The candle burning reminded her of birthdays, and she remembered then that it would be Christian's birthday soon — her mind flashing back to past birthdays with him smiling in the glow of the candles. Unwrapping presents expectantly. The Topo Gigio doll. A model car racetrack. His bicycle only last birthday. The house filled with joy and laughter. And suddenly she felt more assured: his coming birthday! Something close and real on which she could focus, could actually picture Christian's presence. 'It's your birthday soon, Christian,' she muttered. 'There'll be some great presents for you. I'll bake a cake. Bigger and better than you've ever seen before.' In her mind's eye, she could imagine Christian looking on with wide eyes and smiling at the oversized cake. And in that brief moment, she felt sure that Christian would awaken, was able to ignore the coldness of the small hand in her grasp. 'We'll all be there…'

'Now let us see what we have here.' Dr Besnard, the Chief Medical Examiner, had a manila folder already opened in front of him, as if he'd been studying it before they entered. A duty nurse ushered Dominic and Poullain to upright seats opposite his large mahogany desk. Poullain knew Besnard from four previous cases, mostly car accidents.

'…Young boy, Christian Yves Rosselot. Ten years old. Eleven on the 4^th September — just over two weeks from now. Admitted on 18^th August at 4.38 pm.' Besnard flicked forward a page and then back again. In his early fifties, he was bald except for some long wisps of greying brown hair. He cradled his head for a moment, smoothing the wisps across as he looked up again. 'So. The medics recorded arriving on the scene at 4.03 pm. The boy was wearing shorts but no shirt, and he was laying face down, his back exposed. There was blood visible on his head and shoulder, quite thick, obviously from a wound to the head. Some smaller blood spots were noted on the boy's back — from the same wound — and also a blood trail, mostly coagulated, on the boy's inside thigh. This was obviously from a separate wound. The shorts were therefore cut with surgical scissors, and the blood flow was discovered to have come from the rectal passage. The wound was not active, there was no fresh blood, so their efforts were concentrated on the head wound.' Besnard looked up at Poullain periodically, marking off his position in the file with one finger as he glanced at Dominic, as if waiting for his notes to keep pace.

X-rays, complex fractures, haemotomas, somatosensory cortex. The pages of Dominic's notepad were already filled with notes from the surgeon who'd operated on Christian the night before. Medical notes in shorthand were a nightmare. Effectively only the conjoining words could be shortened. Poullain had arranged that Dominic take the notes, then wait on Poullain for the meeting with Besnard. But there had been a spare thirty minutes for Dominic in between.

Pale green tiling and cream emulsion walls. The clatter of heels and voices along bare and stark corridors. Dominic found the atmosphere unsettling. He'd spent far too much of the past year in hospitals. Images of the doctor approaching, footsteps echoing ominously, telling him the results of his mother's biopsy. A year, two years if she was lucky. No, unfortunately there wasn't much they could do except administer morphine in the closing stages to ease the pain. Check ups every three months, but let us know if the pain becomes too much in between…

'…Clearing the airway of any residual blood was a priority, so a tracheal tube was inserted.' Besnard's finger ran quickly down the page. 'Fortunately, the boy was face down, otherwise he would have probably choked on his own blood before they arrived. The wound was cleaned and the source of the blood flow as a ruptured blood vessel was discovered, as was a likely skull fracture — though not immediately the extent of the fracture. That showed up later on X-ray. Badly bruised and broken skin also on the right cheekbone, blood by then coagulated, possible fracture beneath. The patient was therefore bandaged both to stem the blood flow and support the skull, oxygen was administered once the airway was cleared, then he was transported here to the hospital — from which point on Verthuy in emergency attended. Conclusions from the medics report and Dr Verthuy? First of all, time of the attack.' Besnard looked up pointedly. 'From the extent of blood coagulation around the main wound and rate of new blood seepage, their estimate was that the attack took place any time between an hour and an hour and a half before they arrived. As for the other injury — to the boy's rectal passage — this was more or less the same time, possibly only minutes beforehand. But probably the most interesting factor was from Verthuy's note on the boy's sexual assault. He discovered varying degrees of rectal inflammation and damage — suggesting that in fact two attacks had taken place at entirely separate intervals.'

Besnard's pause for emphasis had the desired effect on Poullain. Poullain sat forward keenly. 'Two attacks? How far apart?'

'Thirty minutes, forty minutes — one hour at most. But definitely two separate assaults. One area at the neck of the rectal canal which had been bleeding had almost completely coagulated by the time the second attack was made.'

Dominic could sense that Poullain was still grappling with the timing of the attack when he was hit with this new information. Dominic had already written on his pad: Attack, 1–1? hours before medics arrive: 2.33 — 3.03 pm. Anything from 12–42 minutes before discovery. Sexual assault minutes beforehand. Now Dominic wrote: Separate sexual attack, 30–60 minutes prior to final assault. That meant that at the outside estimate the attacker had stayed close to the path up to an hour and half, resting a full hour in between; and at the least, he had stayed there almost forty-five minutes, resting for half an hour. Surely someone else would have come along the path in the time. Where had he hidden?

'Any semen detected on either attack?' asked Poullain.

'No, none. Verthuy found nothing in the rectal passage apart from blood and inflamed tissue. All the blood is also of one type, B positive, the boy's blood group. Our attacker obviously was careful and pulled out to ejaculate. Did forensics find anything?'

Poullain pictured the succession of polythene bagged samples taken from the wheat field by the Marseille team. Their report was due the next day. But they didn't know till now that the attacker had probably ejaculated on the ground. Would they have looked for that as a matter or course? A few droplets of semen among the wheat, probably by then hopelessly dried and crystallised by the heat of the sun. If not, by now it had probably been washed away with last night's rain. 'I'm not sure yet,' Poullain commented. 'I'll know tomorrow.'

'Other points of interest in Verthuy's report…' Besnard's finger skipped a few paragraphs. 'Instrument of attack, a rock or large stone, determined from rock particles found in the boy's hair and embedded in skull tissue. Four blows in total, one breaking the skull and rupturing a blood vessel. Another blow tore heavily through the skin and shattered the right cheekbone. Bone fragments were removed, though constructive surgery will later be required for the cheekbone. Eleven sutures were required for the skull wound, eighteen for the cheek. Suspecting internal cranial haematomas, Verthuy ordered a series of X-rays at 5.32 pm — 54 minutes after the boy's entry into emergency. The boy was comatose throughout — and still remains so — with the only break from intensive care for surgery last night, at the hands of Dr Trichot… notes of which you already have.' Besnard nodded towards Dominic. 'Trichot's full report is expected sometime tomorrow. But I can let you have a copy of Verthuy's report now. You might find something small that I haven't covered in summary.' He passed across a carbon copy.

While Poullain flicked through, Dominic asked, 'Any estimates for how long for each sexual assault?'

Besnard looked forward, then back a page. 'No longer than a few minutes for each one, though Verthuy suggests the second was perhaps shorter purely because it was less forceful.'

They were silent for a second as Poullain continued looking through the folder. Finally he looked up. 'Possibly there'll be some questions when I read it in more detail back at the gendarmerie, but that's fine for now. Thank you. You've been most helpful.'

Besnard came out from behind his desk to show them out, making small talk about the continuing August heat and how it slowed work. Doctors and gendarmes were probably the only city officials not to disappear for the month en masse to the coast. 'Call of duty or foolhardiness, you tell me?'

The corridor was quiet as they made their way along and down the stairway. Activity increased as they approached the first floor.

'What arrangements for Machanaud's interview tomorrow?' Dominic enquired. Poullain had decided earlier they would interview Machanaud the next day, but the time and place hadn't been fixed.

'I think we should go out to visit him initially, try not to make it look too official and serious. If a second interview is necessary, we'll ask him in. Apparently he's working at Raulin's farm most of tomorrow, but we should try and get to him by eleven-thirty, before he has a chance to hit the bars.'

'And the other leads that came in today?'

Poullain looked at Dominic pointedly. 'Let's not lose sight of the fact that at present Machanaud is our main suspect.'

A curt reminder that earlier that afternoon they'd had words for the first time on the investigation. Machanaud was a drunkard, a part-time poacher and vagabond, and with his wild stories and bar room antics when drunk, was viewed as odd by at least half of Taragnon… but a murderer? It was ridiculous, and Dominic had made the mistake of voicing that thought. But what was the alternative? The enquiries had centred on anything out of place. In Taragnon, imbued strongly with the belief that nobody local could do anything so atrocious, this had translated into people out of place. The only other leads were a van with Lyon markings and a traveller passing through.

As if appeasing for his previous sharp tone, Poullain commented, 'You'll probably be pleased to hear that another lead came up late this afternoon. Cafe Font-du-Roux, just over a kilometre from where the boy was found. Barman saw a green Alfa Romeo coupe he hadn't seen before, its driver had lunch there.'

But Dominic wasn't particularly pleased. It was too simplistic: misfits. Machanaud because of his oddball nature at times, and now three others purely because they were strangers. Village thinking was one track, and Poullain and his merry men lacked the imagination to push it that one stage further.

Ahead a crowd at the reception caused a small bottle jam for people entering and exiting the hospital. Doctors and nurses criss-crossed the passage from the main admittance hall and emergency. A face among the crowd stared at them briefly, startled and concerned. But among the milling confusion of people it hardly registered, and the figure turned and was lost again in the crowd as it made its way swiftly out of the hospital.

Alain Duclos headed for the coast. At first, he had decided on Cannes and Juan-les-Pins, but then he realized he just couldn't face the people and frenetic activity. He headed instead for St Tropez. The village was quiet and the beach wasn't too crowded; because of its expanse, there were wide open areas where Duclos could walk and think or sit in solitude away from the groups of sunbathers.

He wondered if the gendarmes had noticed him at the hospital. He kicked himself now for taking such a risk. But he'd found it difficult to think clearly or function since reading the newspaper and phoning the hospital. Leaving the bar that morning, he'd headed out of Brignoles towards Castellane and the mountains. He stopped close to the Point Sublime and looked out over the Canyon du Verdon. The view was breathtaking, the wind sweeping up sharply from the valley floor, ruffling his hair. He closed his eyes and let the refreshing coolness play over his skin. But it did little to clear his thoughts: the wind playing through the treetops in his final moment of pleasure, the rustle of wheat sheaves as he brought the rock down repeatedly on the boy's skull. Shifting wheat, rising and falling on the wind… white noise merging with the sound of waves gently breaking.

He opened his eyes. Slowly he scanned the horizon of St Tropez bay: two distant yachts and a fisherman's boat showed as white flecks against a deep blue canvass. Children played in the shallows. The view was different now, but the images in his mind remained the same. Perhaps he hoped the grandeur of the vistas would override the images in his mind, or was he simply seeking solitude? Space to think clearly. In the end, none of it touched his soul. He still felt desperately empty inside and confused.

After the mountains he'd headed back to the Vallon estate for lunch. Claude and his father had hardly seen him in the past twenty-four hours. He'd picked at his food through lunch, struggling even to make small talk, and he was sure they'd noticed his pre-occupation. The obsession haunted every spare moment when his thoughts were free; respites through outside distractions were brief.

The sun was weak now above the bay. It was almost seven thirty. He hoped to make a better show of it that night for dinner at the estate, and headed back.

Dinner was impressive: caviar d'aubergines, daurade cuite sur litiere and gelee d'amande aux fruits frais, served by the estate chef. There was vintage '55 red wine from the Vallon cellars, and cheeses, coffee and cognac to finish. The conversation was animated, Claude talking about arranging a day on one of the Carmargue ranches, and Duclos even managed his own anecdote about one of his first disastrous experiences riding a Brittany seaside donkey. Though later his conversation petered out, the images resurging to plague him, and he excused himself early and went to bed.

It was difficult getting to sleep. He kept replaying in his mind entering the hospital, pushing past the crowd by the reception — then seeing the two gendarmes and turning quickly away. He could have milled with the crowd for a moment, kept his back turned until they'd gone, then continued along the corridor. If only he'd kept his head.

The night was hot, humidity high, and he turned incessantly to get comfortable. Sleep finally came after almost two hours. The dream was confusing. The boy's eyes were looking back at him from the darkness of the boot, haunting, pleading. Then the boy was playing in the shallows at St Tropez, and Duclos was hovering above him with the rock, silently willing the boy to move away from the crowds. But when the boy looked up at him directly, he was smiling, his eyes suddenly mischievous and defiant. The boy was mouthing some words softly, and Duclos had to move closer to hear what he was saying. The words were a tease, whispers almost lost among the wash of the surf. Thin red strands appeared like spider webbing, slowly thickening, seeping across the clear blue shallows, blood that at any minute others on the beach would see. '… As soon as I open my mouth, they will know… they will know!'

Duclos awoke with a jolt, almost knocking the clock off his small side table as he grappled to look at the time: 5.10am. His hands were shaking. He knew it would be impossible to get back to sleep, so he went down to the kitchen to make coffee. He decided to sit on the chateau's back terrace overlooking the pool and watch the sunrise. He was on his second cup of coffee just over an hour later when Claude joined him.

After a few attempts at small talk, Claude sensed his consternation and asked what was wrong. Knowing that he might get the same questions over the following days, he answered that it was a girl he'd met two days ago at Juan les Pins. He'd arranged to meet her on the same stretch of beach the afternoon before, but she hadn't showed.

Claude half smiled. 'She must have got to you badly. You look quite ill.'

Quite ill? In different circumstances, Duclos would have burst out laughing. Claude could be such a prat at times. In the end all he managed was a weak smile in return. But at least the past torturous hours had strengthened his resolve. The obsession was destroying him, the constant fight to keep hiding it fraying his nerves, and he just couldn't cope any longer. There was only one way to end it. He would have to return to the hospital.

Dominic opened the door slowly. The first thing he saw was Monique Rosselot's profile reflected in candlight against the glass screen. Shapes beyond the glass were more indistinct with the reflections.

Monique didn't notice him immediately, and Dominic gave a small nod of acknowledgement as she finally looked up. Then he looked towards the prone figure of Christian beyond the partition. The wires and intravenous feed tubes looked somehow obscene on such a small body. Desecration. Apart from the tubes, the harsh reminder that doctors were fighting for his life, the boy looked like one of Botticelli's gently sleeping angels. Though his burnished curls had gone, shaved off for the operation the night before.

The pain of the ordeal, the daily waiting without knowing, was etched on Monique's face. Her anguish was almost tangible, pervading the small room — though he knew that the full depth of her pain was beyond him. He could understand it and feel desperately sorry for her, without really feeling it himself. Would it make him deal with the investigation more effectively if he had? Make the battle he feared was brewing with Poullain over charges against Machanaud any easier?

Dominic eased the door shut. Monique looked up again fleetingly, a faint pained grimace of thanks or good-bye through the closing gap. He didn't want to disturb her. He'd had to call back to the hospital to pick up the final surgical report, so decided to look in for a moment. Some visual reference to match with the medical descriptions. In answer to his concern about the boy's safety, they'd only been able to allocate a gendarme two hours each day, though when Monique Rosselot wasn't visiting, Besnard had assured that a nurse would always be in attendance.

Dominic shook his head as he made his way down the corridor. Poullain. Machanaud. The interview with Machanaud hadn't gone well. Still, it had only been a casual visit to the farm where Machanaud had been working that morning, the true test would come tomorrow with the official interview in the gendarmerie. But why would Machanaud lie about his whereabouts? Dominic had no ready answers to that when Poullain posed the question, and Poullain's keenness had been sickeningly transparent: 'Other than to shield his own guilt.' Suddenly the question was rhetorical; Dominic's opinion was superfluous. Dominic could imagine Poullain already preparing the charge statement in his mind, one hand playing distractedly with his handcuffs. The glory of the case solved early.

Dominic made his way out of the hospital and started up his bike. Evening traffic in Aix was light, and within minutes he was on the N7 heading for Bauriac. Officially, his duty shift had ended half an hour ago, the hospital had been his last call after picking up the forensics report from Marseille. But Poullain wanted summary notes on both reports by 7am, so he would have to do them later that night.

The day had been busy: the meeting with Pierre Bouteille had taken over an hour and a half in the morning. While a prominent case for Bauriac, filed under grievous assault it was probably just one of many such regional cases on Bouteille's desk. Court clerks with files and the telephone interrupted at intervals throughout. Bouteille would now determine the best point of crossover: general to official enquiry and handing over to the examining magistrate, Frederic Naugier.

Dominic panned back again through the meeting and the events of the day, trying to pick up on small details that might be significant; but his thoughts were dulled by overload. He found it impossible to focus.

He pulled back on the throttle. The wind rush was fresh, exhilarating.

Alain Duclos circled the hospital for the third time. Each time he took a different street a block further away, until he felt sure he'd covered all the streets within reasonable walking distance of the hospital. He didn't want to make the same mistake as the day before, almost walk into two gendarmes.

The black Citroen 2CVs and DS19s were practically standard police issue. He saw only one black 2CV two blocks away; stopping briefly and looking inside, it had no police radio. He turned the corner and went another two hundred yards before parking. The hospital was now four blocks away; he was conscious too of his conspicuous car, of it not being seen too close to the hospital.

Duclos kept close to the buildings as he walked along, turning his head from the road as cars approached. It was relatively quiet that time of night: 8.16pm. Only three cars passed in the first two streets. Turning the corner, he passed a busy restaurant with a large picture window looking out onto the street: a babble of voices, some muted laughter and merriment, a lone face catching his eye as he scurried past. It brought home stronger the solitude of his mission now. He should be with Claude and some friends at a restaurant on the coast; instead, he was sneaking through the back streets like a thief, his nerves at fever pitch. His eyes had probably looked wild and startled to the people he'd passed in the restaurant.

At least this time he'd planned more thoroughly. With a story that his son went to the same school and he wanted to ensure that flowers arrived while Madame Rosselot was there, the receptionist informed him that she normally visited every day, arriving anything between four and five and staying two or three hours. 'Though on two occasions, she also visited in the morning for an hour or so.'

He timed to arrive just after the evening visit. Rounding the next corner, the hospital entrance was fifty yards ahead. He paused for a second, taking a deep breath, then continued at a steady pace; he didn't want to look hesitant, be stopped at reception and asked what he wanted.

There was a small crowd at the reception, and the two nurses behind hardly paid attention. One had her head down, studying something in the register, the other was deep in conversation. Duclos only gave them a brief sideways glance, not wanting to attract undue attention as he made his way quickly through the main hallway to the stairway and elevator.

He waited only a second before deciding on the stairs. Too many prying eyes close by in the elevator, people who might talk to him, ask him which way for so and so ward, notice on which floor he got off. On the stairs he would be far more anonymous. Second floor, far end of corridor, room 4A. His heartbeat seemed to pulse through to his head, its rhythm almost matching the stark echo of his footsteps as he made his way along the second floor corridor. At its end was a T where it split in two directions, with markings and arrows indicating the different departments. It looked like 4A was close to the end. Duclos shortened his step as he got close to the door. Almost unconsciously he held his breath the last few steps, reaching one hand out for the door handle.

His hand hovered by the handle for a second — then he retracted it, wiping the sweat that had built up on his palm on his trouser leg. The plan was straight in his mind: if anyone was there or he was confronted, he would say that he'd arranged to meet Mrs Rosselot. 'Had he missed her?'

Another deep breath, forcing the air deep into his lungs to calm his nerves — he reached for the handle, turning it…

The room opened out before him: A woman's profile, dark hair, a candle glowing… a bed and instruments through a glass partition. A split-second impression. The woman started to look up — Duclos closed the door again equally as swiftly. A sudden exhalation, release of tension, he headed quickly away — afraid that the woman might come to the door and open it, look out to see who had been there. Not daring to look back, Duclos listened intently for sounds behind him. None came. He turned the corner of the T. Safety again.

He was sure the woman hadn't seen him. It was probably the boy's mother, Madame Rosselot. He cursed his bad luck — she should have left at least fifteen minutes ago. Suddenly a door to his side opened, startling him; he almost jumped out of his skin as a nurse and hospital porter came out. Duclos covered hastily with a sheepish grin, but they hardly paid him any attention as they headed towards the stairs.

Duclos thought about giving up, heading back out of the hospital, coming back another day. His nerves were shot, a trembling deep in his stomach, his body weak from lack of sleep and nervous anticipation. But he knew that if he left now, he would never come back, he wouldn't be able to face the same ordeal again. He went across to a bench a few paces to one side with a clear view of the stairway and, when he leant across, the full length of the corridor and room 4A at its end. Perhaps he could wait it out. She was already fifteen minutes late, how much longer could she stay?

He fought to relax again, breathing deeply and steadily. But with each passing minute he became increasingly agitated. Two fresh sets of heels he'd heard, only to lean over and see people coming out of other rooms. False alarms. Only a few minutes had passed, but it seemed like a lifetime.

Another set of heels, faint at first, started their echoing clipping. He leant across half expecting another false alarm — then pulled back quickly, catching his breath. At last! His pulse raced, counting each beat of the slowly receding footsteps.

He waited a full twenty seconds after they had faded down the stairway, then concentrated on the sounds around for a moment. No fresh footsteps on the stairway or the corridor.

He got up and made his way along, covering the distance steadily, half of his senses attuned to the sounds around, the rest focused on what lay ahead: the door… approaching closer the last few footsteps, reaching out for the handle, listening for a brief second for any sounds beyond. Nothing. The corridor was empty, no fresh footsteps approaching. Slowly he turned the handle, the door opened, the view steadily expanding… nobodyinside! A quick release of breath. Then he looked through the glass screen to the larger room beyond, stepping fully into the small ante-room, closing the door quickly behind him.

The boy lay beyond the glass partition, his skin pallid like yellow porcelain, wires and tubes connected and monitoring. It was certainly the boy from the day before, and there was nobody else in the room. Duclos' mouth was dry with anticipation. The boy's breathing was probably so shallow that all he would have to do was reach out and cover his nose and mouth for a minute to finish him. But he would have to be quick — at any moment somebody could come back in the room.

His nerves were racing, his palm suddenly clammy on the handle of the door to the main room. His whole body trembled and he felt cold, even though the night air was close to 80?F. With a final deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside.

'When this old world starts getting me down, and people are just too much for me to face… I climb right up to the top of the stairs and all my cares just drift right into space. On the roof, the only place I know… where you just have to wish to make it so…'

Dominic lay on his back on his bedroom terrace, staring up at the star lit sky above Bauriac, the Drifters on his record player, soothing his thoughts. It was one of the best songs of the year, his favourite. The record had been in his collection and on Louis' juke box since early January, just as it was climbing up the American billboard charts. Files and notes lay scattered over his bedroom floor. He'd finished his summary report for Poullain — all but the last paragraph. He'd searched for the right tone, that key phrase which neatly encapsulated everything, before finally giving up after half an hour and deciding on a break to clear his thoughts.

His mother had gone to bed over an hour before with some hot chocolate and biscuits, just after ten. The day's basic household activities seemed to tire her earlier by the day. He'd positioned his record player close to the double terrace doors so that it didn't disturb her asleep downstairs.

His mind drifted back to Algeria. The Foreign Legion. Where he'd first found the habit of laying on his back staring up at the stars. The desert sky had been even more spectacular, crystal clear skies of deep blue velvet sprinkled with a snowstorm of stars. After a few months, the idea had caught on with half the platoon. Somebody would light a camp fire, he'd spend a while rigging up his record player to a car battery and would put on some Ray Charles or Sam Cooke, and on occasions some hashish would appear that somebody had picked up at a souq. It was easier to get hashish in Algeria than alcohol. The sessions made him popular with comrades. The thought that they were laying in the middle of the desert, cut off from civilization and all they knew, yet listening to the very latest sounds courtesy of Dominic's uncle almost two months before the rest of France had the privilege. It somehow made them feel in touch, in tune. Compensated for the isolation.

The legion had left its scars. Not so much on him personally — he'd been a back room radio and communications sergeant and had hardly seen any fighting — but with his present career. The gendarmerie treated ex-Foreign Legion recruits with an air of suspicion, as if they were all unarmed combat experts or reformed cut-throat murderers. At the end of the last century with uprisings in Morocco and Algeria, many recruits had come from the French prison system, an alternative to the Bastille or Devil's Island — but not in the last few decades.

Dominic didn't trouble to put them right, tell them he'd hardly seen any action during the Algerian war. Sometimes the tough guy image had its advantages; colleagues were careful not to tread on his toes. Local prejudices could be used to advantage — but he feared that they might work against Machanaud if the interview didn't go well tomorrow.

The forensics report revealed little. The blood tested was the boy's group, no semen deposits were found, and there were no startling fibre discoveries. Rock particles found in the blood confirmed the medical examiner's suspicion about murder weapon. Though no blood stained rock had been found by the search team, nor the boy's shirt, and the few items of paper from the field and a man's torn jacket and shoe by the river bank looked too weathered to be connected. Still they'd been passed to forensics for checking.

With little or no forensics findings, they became more reliant on the timing of the attack and eye witnesses — which pointed back to Machanaud. But with his protest to Poullain the day before that it was ridiculous to suspect Machanaud, he was just a troublesome drunkard and poacher — if Poullain's look of thunderous reproach was any gauge of local opinion — Dominic feared it could rise swiftly against Machanaud. Like himself and Louis, Machanaud was from outside, originally from the foothills of the Pyrannees, and had been in Bauriac less than three years. More than a few times, Dominic or others from the gendarmerie had been called to a local bar because of Machanaud's drunken antics. Machanaud would usually either want to sing or fight, or both. Having warmed up for the evening's renditions with stories of his wartime exploits, how as a young lad of eighteen in the resistance he tried to blow up a Nazi truck with vital supplies; but the truck spun off the road and hit him and he'd ended up with a metal plate in his head. Most villagers thought he was half mad and treated him with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.

Perhaps the other leads would prove fruitful and divert attention away from Machanaud. When he'd phoned the gendarmerie earlier, Servan brought him up to date on progress: a green Alpha Romeo had been seen in Pourrieres, the number taken, and they were now putting through a trace request with vehicle registration in Paris. The Lyon van was seen sixty kilometeres away about the time of the attack, and no news yet on the passing traveller.

Dominic sat up. Filtering down through his thoughts, his summary notes finally gelled. He went back to the folder before the thought flow went, and wrote: Distinct lack of forensic evidence. No other blood groups other than the boy’s, no semen, no fibres. The weapon cannot be found, nor the boy's shirt. Whoever committed this crime was extremely careful. If we are to suspect Machanaud, then we also have to ask ourselves — is he really the type to be this careful and meticulous?

Dominic scanned quickly back over the report. The time gap between the two attacks had introduced a new, puzzling perspective, but with no specific relevance to suspicion of Machanaud. Whoever had made the attack, the question was the same: Where had they been in that time? No other area of flattened wheat had been discovered, and from the strength of body imprints where the attack was finally made, the Marseille teams' view was that it had been occupied for no more than ten minutes. The supposition was therefore that beforehand the boy and his assailant had been by the riverbank, mostly obscured by trees and bushes from the bordering farm lane, or somewhere else?

The record had finished without Dominic noticing, the needle clicking repeatedly on the inner circle. Dominic took it off and put on Sam Cooke's 'Another Saturday Night', then came back onto the terrace. He closed his eyes for a moment as he laid back, then opened them again, letting the broad blanket of the sky and the mass of stars sink slowly through his consciousness, suffuse through his body until it touched every nerve end. Touched his soul. Solitude.

A single candle flickered at the back of his mind. Monique Rosselot's profile, partly in shadow against the dancing light, a raw essence of beauty and motherhood hoping and praying that her only son lived. He remembered in Algeria a woman at the souq in El Asnam. He never normally paid much attention to the local women, generally a non-descript rabble covered from nose to toe in black sheets. This woman had been dressed the same, except that her eyes above her face mask had been large and captivating — and she'd met his stare for a second longer than was probably considered discreet. Her eyes laughed at him provocatively, hazel with green flecks, soulful, bright. Then she was gone, disappearing quickly among the market stalls and back street warrens of the souq. Many times since he had wondered what her face looked like, images forming in the flames of the campfire or from the starry depths of the velvet sky during those long and lonely desert nights. But the image that superimposed now, as the face veil was gently removed, was of Monique Rosselot. He shook the image away.

Sam Cooke was singing '…It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around. If I don't find a honey to help me spend my money, I'm gonna have to blow this town…' It reminded Dominic of one of his last dates with Odette; the song had been playing at a fairground they'd visited in Draguignan. Another Saturday night. Bright lights, candy floss, a fluffy baby blue toy cat he'd won for her at the rifle range. But the single candle burned through, the sullen but proud profile half in shadow reflected against the glass. He found it hard to get the image of Monique Rosselot out of his mind.