Freeze Frames

Chapter Six

Ile de Groix, Brittany, France, October 28, 2009

Enzo gazed from the window of the gare maritime across a grey expanse of water toward a dock where container ships were lined up in serried rows, tall cranes breaking low cloud. The rain was so fine it was almost a mist. In Scotland Enzo would have called it a smirr. The wet, the cold, the brooding and bruised skies, all were reminiscent of his native country. He should have felt at home. Instead, he felt miserable. And a little guilty. If only by association.

Lorient was a dull town, characterised by the unimaginative postwar architecture of the 1950s. It had once been a thriving port on the Breton coast, a destination for the fleet of the French East India Company bringing goods from the Orient. But the Germans had commandeered it as a base for U-boats employed to attack allied convoys in the Atlantic. Over four hellish weeks in the winter of ’43, allied bombers had completely destroyed the town. Enzo had read somewhere that thousands of French civilians had been killed during the raids.

The irony was that the heavily fortified submarine base had survived intact. It was now a tourist attraction.

As he walked with the other passengers down the ramp to the jetty and the ferry beyond, the wind tugged at his jacket, blowing stinging rain into his face, and he hurried up studded metal stairs to the warmth of the passenger deck to find a seat. Rain smeared the view across to the distant Larmor-Plage, where the German commander, Karl Donitz, had installed his headquarters. From there he had no doubt watched in awe as sixty thousand incendiary bombs fell on the city, his own private fireworks display.

The water in the bay was choppy, the colour of pewter, topped by occasional flashes of white. Demented seagulls wheeled and screeched overhead, like scraps of paper blowing in the wind. As the ferry sounded its horn and chugged slowly toward the defensive outer walls of the harbour, Enzo could see the formidable concrete construction at Keroman that had housed the U-boats, dark and sinister still on this most inhospitable of days.

He glanced around him, at the faces of his fellow passengers. Pale Celtic faces, buried in books, or glowering under skipped hats and anorak hoods. Island faces, shaped by race and climate, indistinguishable from the inhabitants of the Scottish west coast, sharing a common heritage, and a kinship that transcended language and national borders.

It was about halfway across the strait when he realised that each time he turned his head, other heads dipped into magazines, and faces swivelled to look from windows. And he was struck by the strange and uncomfortable sensation that people were looking at him. He was not unused to the curious stares of the French. A tall man, big built, with his dark hair and silver streak pulled back in a ponytail, he cut an unusual figure among the slighter-built, Mediterranean races of the south. But here, among fellow Celts, he had not expected to feel so conspicuous. And yet, no doubt about it, surreptitious eyes were upon him.

When the first dark smudge that was the Ile de Groix emerged from the gathering gloom, Enzo stood up and moved forward to the arc of large windows that looked out across the bow of the boat. Driving rain distorted his view of Port Tudy between the twin lighthouses that marked the opening to the harbour. Beyond a forest of masts, he could just make out the white, pink, and blue-painted cottages built along the low cliffs that ran up the hill toward Le Bourg.

He turned around to find almost every face on the passenger deck looking at him. Almost expectantly. As if they anticipated that he might say something, utter some words of wisdom. They looked almost ready to applaud. He wanted to shout: what are you looking at! But an announcement over the loudspeakers welcoming them to the Ile de Groix, saved him from the humiliation, and the moment passed. Passengers suddenly forgot about him in their haste to disembark, rising from their seats, gathering belongings, and hurrying for the stairs.

But the feeling of being watched returned once more as he stepped up on to the jetty. Fishermen on the rusted green fishing boat, the Banco, turned curious eyes upon him as they docked at the wharf, and he was aware of yet more heads turning in his direction as he hurried along the pier. He could see the lifeboat station away to his right, a white building with blue shutters. The Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer. Ahead, beyond a small circle at the end of the jetty, stood a couple of hotels, bars with covered terraces looking out across the harbour. He was tempted by the prospect of a chance to escape the cold and rain, and a couple of whiskies to warm him. But he spotted the garish yellow frontage of Coconut’s car rental and supposed he really ought to pick up his rental car and drive out to the house before it got dark.

He was about to cross the street, when he felt a firm tugging on his arm. He turned to find himself looking into the face of a man almost as tall as himself, but perhaps ten years younger. A broad-built man with dark hair rain-smeared across his forehead and straggling over his upturned collar. His jacket was soaked through, and his blue eyes fixed Enzo with a disconcertingly unblinking gaze. Enzo smelled the rancid stink of stale alcohol on his breath.

“You think you’re so smart, monsieur.”

“What?”

“You think you’ll come after me and prove what no one else could. Well, you’re wrong.”

And it dawned on Enzo who he was. “You’re Thibaud Kerjean.”

“They still think I did it.”

“Who?

“Everyone. Twenty years on. Even after the court acquitted me. Well, fuck them, monsieur. And fuck you. I wasn’t guilty then, and I’m not guilty now. So if you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll stay well away from me. And if you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

Enzo was aware for the first time that Kerjean was still holding his arm. He pulled it free, and stared back directly into the islander’s hostility. “How the hell do you know who I am?”

Kerjean’s lip curled into something halfway between a sneer and a smile, and he turned away, walking briskly toward the bar at the Cafe de la Jetee. Enzo stood watching him go, angry, confused, before becoming aware once more of faces turned in his direction: passengers from the ferry, customers in the bars standing in doorways and at windows. A car, newly disembarked from the ferry, turned through a puddle on the circle, and Enzo felt the splash of it soak the legs of his trousers with muddy rainwater. He cursed and stooped to wipe at his trousers legs with the back of his hand, then turned to glare after the driver. Which is when saw the newspaper billboard wired to an Ile de Groix welcome sign. It promo-ed a headline in that day’s edition of Ouest-France. SCOTS EXPERT TO SOLVE GROIX MURDER. Beneath was a black and white photograph of Enzo. Taken a few years previously, but unmistakable, with the dark ponytail and white stripe that had earned him his nickname of Magpie.

“Your reputation goes before you, Monsieur Macleod.”

Enzo looked up to see a tall, solemn-faced gendarme regarding him with speculative interest. He wore a peaked kepi and a waterproof cape over his uniform, which looked a great deal dryer than Enzo felt. His arms were folded across his chest.

“And I see you have already met Monsieur Kerjean. I think he’s afraid that someone is finally going to prove that he did it.”

Enzo cocked an eyebrow. “And did he?” There seemed no point now in hurrying for cover.

“That’s for him to know, and you to find out.” The gendarme extended a warm, dry hand to shake Enzo’s cold, wet one. “I’m Adjudant Richard Gueguen. Top cop around here. Big fish in a very small pool. And I’d like a word, if you can spare me a few minutes.” But it sounded more like an order than a request.

Enzo glanced anxiously toward Coconut’s. He had no idea what time they closed. “I’ve got to pick up my rental car.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. It won’t be going anywhere without you. Besides, they’ve been told to expect you’ll be a little late.” The hint of a smile flitted across full lips.

The gendarmerie stood in a commanding position on the hill above the customs offices overlooking the port, a yellow-painted three-story villa with a steeply pitched slate roof. Gueguen took Enzo in through a side entrance. He called into to a small general office, where three gendarmes sat idling behind desks. He didn’t want to be disturbed, he said, and led Enzo through to his own office at the rear of the house. Enzo felt eyes on his back as he followed the adjudant down the hall.

Gueguen indicated a chair facing his desk. “Coffee?”

“I’d love one.”

“Two coffees in here please.” The adjudant called his order back down the hall and pointedly left the door open, apparently so that they could be overheard. He hung up his cape and cap and sat down behind his desk, then leaned forward, his forearms flat in front of him, interlocking his fingers as if in prayer. “You’re an interesting character, Monsieur Macleod.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“But I have to confess I’d never heard of you before I was instructed by brigade headquarters to lend you absolutely no assistance whatsoever.”

“And why would they instruct you to do that?”

“You mean apart from the fact that cops never like outsiders showing them how to do their job?”

Enzo grinned. “Yes, apart from that.”

“Well, Monsieur Macleod, you have to realise that the economy of this little island of ours is almost entirely dependent upon tourism these days. The era of the tuna fleets and the fish processing are long gone. And to be perfectly frank, murder is not a great tourist attraction.”

“Even one that’s twenty years old?”

“It’s the only one in living memory, Monsieur Macleod. However, the fact that it was never solved makes it a little like a wound that has never healed. And we really don’t want folk coming picking at the scabs.”

“Even if a resolution of the case would finally heal the scar?”

Gueguen sat back in his chair and chuckled, turning a pencil over and over again between his fingers. “And what makes you think you can succeed where no one else has?”

“I’ve got a pretty good track record.”

“That you have, Monsieur Macleod. I was amazed at just how much there was about you on the Internet when I looked. This would be the… fourth in Raffin’s catalogue of cold cases, yes?” He opened a folder in front of him. “And I see that before you came to France you specialised in crime scene analysis. No doubt Madame Killian will have high expectations.”

“I never make any promises.”

“Very wise. You know, a succession of people have come to study this case over the years, and none of them has exactly enhanced his reputation.”

“And I’m not here to enhance mine, Adjudant Gueguen. The publicity these cases attracts helps us raise funds for the Forensic Science Department at my university. So it’s only the French police scientifique that’ll be enhanced.”

Gueguen inclined his head and smiled in acquiescence. “True, but nonetheless, I have to tell you that should you feel inclined to bend the law in any way during the course of your investigation, you can expect no quarter from me or any of my officers. And you will have no access to official records, or evidence.”

Enzo nodded. “I take it you don’t keep any of that kind of stuff here in any case.”

“No. All documentation and evidence is held at Vannes, a few kilometers along the coast from Lorient.”

“Which is where the trial was held, right?”

“Right.”

A young gendarme coughed and entered, a polystyrene cup of coffee in each hand. He placed them on the desk, along with sachets of sugar and plastic stirrers, and left. Enzo stirred in his sugar and cradled the cup in his hands to warm them, sipping on the strong, hot, black liquid. “Thank you,” he said. “I needed this.” He looked up and saw what looked like amusement in the younger man’s eyes. Gueguen, he reckoned could only be in his early forties. Dark hair cut short, with some brushed steel showing now around the temples. He had dark eyebrows, and friendly liquid brown eyes. A good-looking man who seemed not at all to fit the stereotype of the humourless, intimidating gendarme. “And thank you, too, for warning me off so gently.”

The adjudant grinned. “All part of the service, Monsieur Macleod.” He lifted the phone. “I’ll give Coconut’s a call and ask them to drop your car off here. Save you walking back down the hill in the rain.”

When he finished the call Enzo said, “Thank you. Again.” He glanced back along the hall. “How many of you are there here?”

“Six. Myself, a chef, two gendarmes, and two trainees. During the summer months when the population of the island literally explodes, the brigade sends us another six.”

“And I guess any serious crimes, like murder, would be handled by investigators from the mainland?”

Gueguen laughed heartily. “Monsieur Macleod, if you want to know how the investigation into Killian’s murder was conducted, you only have to ask.”

“I thought you’d been instructed not to cooperate.”

“Not to give you access to official police records or evidence,” Gueguen corrected him. “No one said we couldn’t discuss things that were a matter of public record.” And there was a hint of wickedness in the smile that creased his eyes.

“So what happened?”

“Well, in theory, we were supposed to secure the crime scene until senior investigators arrived from Lorient. In fact, we made a complete mess of it. No one had the least idea what securing a crime scene entailed, so I’m afraid we trampled all over it, touched things we shouldn’t, and failed to protect things we should.”

“You were here then?” Enzo was incredulous. “Twenty years ago?”

Gueguen grinned. “I was one of the trainees at that time. I have spent most of my career since serving with other brigades in various parts of Brittany. I returned just last year for the first time in nearly seventeen.”

“As the boss.”

“Yes. As the boss.” Gueguen’s eyes crinkled again in amusement. “A lot older and much wiser. If there were any serious crime committed on the island today, Monsieur Macleod, every one of my officers is trained in the treatment of a crime scene. There is a rota of island doctors who would be called out to determine whether or not a death was suspicious, although of course any autopsy would be carried out by the pathologist at the hospital in Lorient. We’ve had a few suicides and serious accidents to practise on.”

“So it was a local doctor who determined that Killian’s death was suspicious?”

This time Gueguen roared with laughter. “I would hardly describe three bullet holes in the chest as suspicious, Mr. Macleod. But, yes. It was.”

Voices in the corridor interrupted their conversation. A young man from the car rental company knocked on the door and brought in paperwork for Enzo to sign. He seemed self-conscious, almost deferential in the presence of the senior gendarme, and was anxious to be away again as soon as possible.

“The car’s round the back,” he said. “The Suzuki Jeep.” He handed Enzo the keys and was gone.

Gueguen rose from his desk and reached for his cape and hat. “I’ll walk you round.”

Enzo gulped down the last of his coffee and lifted his overnight bag, and the two men left by the same side entrance and walked around to the back of the gendarmerie. On the far side of a muddy parking area stood a concrete block with two heavy steel doors. Gueguen followed Enzo’s eyes.

“The cells.” He walked toward the nearest door and pushed it open. “Take a look. This is where we brought Kerjean when it was decided to charge him.”

Enzo walked into a dark cubicle. A hole in the floor at the back of the cell served as a toilet. High up in the wall above it was a window, allowing minimal light to penetrate thick cubes of unbreakable glass. A stone plinth was covered with a thin, unsanitary looking mattress. It was cold and damp, the walls scarred with the graffiti of drunks and petty crooks. Not a place you would want to spend any time.

“Myself and one of the more senior gendarmes were dispatched to bring him in.” Gueguen seemed lost for a moment in his memory of the event. “We were pretty nervous about it. Kerjean was… still is… a big man. And he had something of a reputation for violence. He wasn’t any stranger to these cells. He’d spent a few nights here after getting into drunken brawls in town. And he never came quietly.”

“You thought he might resist arrest?”

“Who knows what a desperate man accused of murder might do? As it turned out, he came like a lamb.”

“Do you think he did it?” Enzo watched carefully for his reaction, but the big gendarme just smiled.

“Of course he didn’t. He was acquitted, wasn’t he?” He reached into an inside pocket and produced a dog-eared business card. He found a pen and scribbled some figures on the back of it, before handing it to Enzo. “Here.”

Enzo turned it over. It was a telephone number

“That’s my private cellphone. Officially, I can do nothing for you, Monsieur Macleod. Unofficially…” he glanced across the sodden car park toward the house, “… I’ll help you in any way I can. And I don’t just think Kerjean did it, I’m sure he did. Even if he can’t be tried again, I’d love to see him nailed.”