Past Imperfect

SIX

Dominic drove the DS19 so that Poullain could absorb the teleprinter message which had just arrived headed Palais de Justice, Aix, from the nominated Prosecutor, Pierre Bouteille — declaring that Poullain's jurisdiction had been granted prime investigative control over the case, but he should liaise with Marseille on items such as forensics. Bouteille had already notified an Examining Magistrate, Frederic Naugier, and a commission rogatoire generale had been signed off to empower Poullain's initial investigative stages. A meeting had been arranged for Thursday at 11.30am, two day's time, to establish the full procedural process. The brief teleprinter message gave no options on time: Poullain was being summoned.

Dominic parked at the far end of the courtyard. The air cushioned suspension settled back as they got out of the car. The Rosselot's farmhouse formed an L-shape around the courtyard, with the garage and some farm store rooms coming out at an angle from the main house. Dominic could see a child's bike resting against the wall of the garage. Pink bougainvillaea grew profusely on the same wall, and positioned equidistant between there and the front door was a small wrought iron table and four chairs. Two palm trees at the end of the courtyard separated the house from the broad expanse of the fields beyond, and a mixture of elm and pine bordered the main road and the short approach to the house. The sound of cicadas was heavy in the air. It was 10.30 am and the temperature was already over 80?F.

Variegated ivy grew up and around the front door frame. As they rang the bell, they could hear a faint clanking sound coming from the garage, competing with the rhythm of the cicadas. They waited only a moment before Monique Rosselot opened he door.

At first she was in half shadow as she greeted them and asked them in. Dominic only got a quick impression of dark wavy ringlets, large eyes and a simple beige floral pattern dress — but it was enough to catch his breath slightly. Her eyes looked particularly large and striking in the half light of the porch. They followed her into the kitchen. There was hot coffee on the stove which she offered to them.

'It's freshly made just ten minutes ago. I've already had mine.'

Poullain thanked her and said that he would have black coffee, and Dominic followed suit and said yes, but au lait. The kitchen was large, with a small fireplace in the far corner. A large rough wooden table with chairs was close to the fireplace, making up a breakfast area. Monique waved one hand towards the table, 'Please.' Poullain and Dominic took seats on its far side. Dominic observed her closer as she prepared the coffees.

Louis had been right about Monique Rosselot. A rare beauty. Despite the fact that he should have been prepared by Louis’ description, he'd still found himself taken aback, his mouth suddenly dry. Her wavy dark hair hung half way down her back, her eyes were an intriguing blend of green and hazel, and her mouth was full and generous. It was an open, expressive face with an almost childlike innocence tempering its sensuality, making her look younger than the twenty six years mentioned by Louis. Dominic would have guessed her age at no more than nineteen or twenty, despite the faint dark circles no doubt brought on by the past night of worry. He'd heard that she'd stayed at the hospital till past 4 am. Her skin tone was smooth mocha, the outline of her full breasts pushing against the cotton print dress with her movements. She glanced over at them as she poured the coffees, and Dominic looked hastily away. He felt a momentary flush of embarrassment, as if he'd been an unwelcome voyeur.

Monique brought their cups over and set them down, then looked towards the garage and the continuing clanking sound. ‘I'd better ask Jean-Luc in now. He probably doesn't realize you're here.' She went out and crossed the courtyard.

It struck Dominic that he'd only half believed Louis, whose ratings of women's beauty had become increasingly suspect through the years. That was why he'd been caught by surprise. But he felt immediately uncomfortable with those thoughts. He was here to take notes about her son who was barely clinging to life, the last thing she wanted was some gendarme ogling at her.

Jean-Luc came back in the room ahead of Monique while she made the introductions. By the way she faltered, it was obvious she hadn't remembered their names, and Poullain filled the gaps. Jean Luc took a chair at the far end of the table while Monique poured a coffee for him. His light brown curly hair was deeply receding on both sides, and he was perspiring from his work outside. Some freckles showed on his forehead and arms from the summer sun, his shoulders and forearms were broad from the years of farm work, and there were calluses on his rough hands. But there the farm labourer ended: his eyes were soft and inquisitive and he had a vaguely intellectual air, as if he was an accountant or lecturer who farmed just at the weekends. According to Louis he was in his mid-thirties, but the receding hairline made him look closer to forty, thought Dominic. The contrast in age between him and Monique looked more marked than it was; they could be father and daughter.

Poullain looked up expectantly at Monique and waited for her to set down her cup and join them. Dominic flipped over to a fresh page in his notebook and Poullain started speaking.

'First of all, my condolences. On my own part and on behalf of the Gendarmerie. I understand, Madame Rosselot, that you stayed with your son until the early hours of the morning.' Poullain looked pointedly towards Monique. 'To bring you up to date, I managed to check with the hospital just before leaving, and your boy has rallied well after the operation of last night. Though the doctors won't know the full extent of just how successful the operation had been until this afternoon. We can only pray for some improvement.'

Monique nodded appreciatively. She had gone with Jean-Luc to the nearby phone kiosk only half an hour before their arrival to call the hospital, but it was hardly worth mentioning. Poullain realized she was some distance from a phone and therefore checking was difficult. No point in dampening the good intent of his gesture.

Poullain placed one hand firmly on the table top, as if he might reach out to Monique's hand for comfort, but stopped halfway short. 'Now, as painful as this might be for both of you, we need to go through the times you last saw your son before the attack. When you first realized there might be a problem, and the timing of you finding the bike.' Poullain looked at Jean-Luc. 'We will also need you to show us afterwards exactly where you found the bike. But for now we are trying to establish the timing of events.'

Monique and Jean-Luc glanced at each other briefly, as if deciding who should be main spokesperson. Jean-Luc shrugged and held out one hand. 'You first. I was in the fields for much of the time.'

Monique drew a breath and glanced for a moment out of the window towards the courtyard and Christian's bike. 'I let Christian out to play at about 11.15. He took his bike because he was visiting his friend Stephan who lives five kilometres away on the other side of Taragnon.'

'What route does he normally take to Stephan's house?' Poullain asked.

'About six hundred metres down the road, a track cuts between our neighbour and the next farm. It goes between two more farms for half a kilometre, then comes out on the main Taragnon-Bauriac road. He goes along the main road through Taragnon village, and the farm is just over a kilometre past.'

‘Which side of the road?'

'On the left as you come out of Taragnon. It's set back a few hundred metres from the road. From the roadside you can see mainly vines, though they also have some fields for grazing.'

'What is the family name?'

'Maillots.'

'And your son never arrived there.'

Monique looked down and bit her lip. Dominic noticed that she looked at them directly only at intervals, the rest of the time she looked down at the table or at the notepad as he recorded the interview in shorthand. 'We didn't know straightaway. We're not on the phone, nor are they. I finally called Jean-Luc in from the fields at just past 4 pm. We had expected Christian back by 3 pm, and normally he's very good with coming back on time. Jean-Luc went over to Stephan's house and checked. They hadn't seen Christian. That was when Jean-Luc checked back along the route Christian normally took and found the bike. At first we thought that with the bike broken down he'd decided to walk the rest, which would have taken him far longer — then perhaps he'd got distracted and stopped off in the village.'

'How far away was the bike?'

Monique looked at Jean-Luc. Jean Luc answered. 'Almost towards the end of the track down the road. Not far from where it joins the Taragnon road — a few hundred metres at most.'

'So it looked to you as if Christian had walked the rest of the distance to the main road, then the two kilometres to Taragnon village.'

Jean-Luc nodded. Poullain paused for a moment, looking over at Dominic's notes and taking stock of the information so far. Christian was found on a farm track little more than half a kilometre from the Maillots' farm, but on the other side of the road bordering the river. But somehow the boy had made it through the village. Poullain voiced the thought. 'The first thing to find out is who in the village might have seen your boy between midday and three pm. Because we will then at least know if he walked through the village or was transported through by someone he met at the roadside.'

Monique and Jean-Luc looked at each other for a second. Something troubled them about this comment. Jean-Luc was the first to speak. 'If he was on foot, the problem is he could have cut through the fields behind the village. On his bike it's not possible, but on foot there's only a few stone walls and small fences to negotiate.'

'Is it likely he cut across?' asked Poullain.

Jean-Luc shrugged. 'It's a possibility. It's something he's done before. In any case, he would probably cut down and walk the last hundred metres of the village heading for Stephan's house. There's another track there.'

A hundred metres at the end of the village, Poullain considered. It was quiet, the main village establishments petering out. If the one or two shopkeepers there hadn't seen the boy, it proved nothing. Yet if the boy had walked through the entire village, past boulangeries, patisseries, the main square and cafes, without being seen — it would have been a different matter. He'd already assigned three men to call on village shops from early that morning, and had been hopeful of their findings. Now he wasn't so sure. Poullain couldn't even remember what shops there were in those last hundred metres. The disappointment showed on his face.

On a fresh page Dominic had been making a small diagram of Taragnon: the path from the Rosselots to the main road, the Maillots’ farm, and the track by the river. It was a simple triangular drawing, with distances in metres between Xs marking where the bike was left and the boy was found. While his pen hovered for Poullain to speak again, he took a quick scan of the kitchen: dried flowers, ornaments, flour and spice jars, a plate wall clock with Portofino in scrawly black loops below a background harbour scene, no photos. Little in the kitchen said anything about the Rosselot's lives. Though the kitchen was where the coffee was, Dominic couldn't help wondering if they hadn't been asked into the sitting room for another reason. The Rosselots didn't want too deep an intrusion into their lives.

'So finally you made the call to the police station just before 5pm, when it was clear that your son had not turned up the Maillots' farm and you had found the bike abandoned.' Monique muttered yes, and Jean-Luc merely nodded. Poullain glanced briefly at Dominic's crude diagram, as if for inspiration. He voiced his thoughts in staccato fashion as they came to him, as if he was at the same time refreshing his own memory. 'Your son was originally discovered at about three-fifteen by a neighbouring farmer, just half a kilometre from the Maillots farm. We arrived on the crime scene within forty minutes and received your call almost an hour later. We subsequently made some confirmations of identity, to be sure the boy was yours — and two officers were sent to you an hour and quarter after you called. We suspect — although we cannot be totally sure until all the medic reports are in — that your son was attacked within an hour of being discovered.' Poullain looked keenly between Monique and Jean-Luc as he related the sequence of events. This was the first time they were hearing this information, and he wanted to see their reactions.

Jean-Luc stared back blandly, and Monique looked mildly expectant, as if she sensed Poullain wanted to add something vital. Dominic noticed Poullain unclench one hand and wave it to one side. The difficult part was coming, and he was struggling for emphasis before the words were even formed. 'I want you to think about this for a moment before you answer. But are there any relatives, any cousins or uncles, or any friends or neighbours, that have shown a special interest in Christian? In a way that perhaps might be described as a bit over friendly or unusual.'

Poullain was doing this by the book, though Dominic. Most child molesters were found close to home with a relative or friend. Often the dividing line between a natural fondness for children and an 'unnatural' interest was impossible to determine.

Monique appeared nonplussed at first. Then finally it dawned on her what Poullain was aiming at and her face clouded. But as she spoke, her voice faltered, as if she was still struggling to comprehend. 'I don't think there's anyone we know like that.' She looked hastily towards Jean-Luc for support. '…But I don't understand. Why do you ask this?'

Poullain smoothed back his crown. Faint beads of perspiration had broken out on his forehead and

he looked uncomfortable. 'Believe me, I'm sorry to have to ask you this. But when I checked this morning with the medical examiner, we suspected already that unfortunately your son was sexually assaulted before he was beaten, and this was confirmed. We know only a little about the timing of the attack or the sexual assault, the full details will come out later from forensics and blood sampling. But we do know at this stage that a sexual assault took place.' Poullain exhaled slightly; a part sigh, part release of tension. 'I'm sorry to have to bring you this news.'

Monique's lip trembled as she stared at Poullain. It took a moment for what he'd said to sink in. Then she turned sharply away, got up and walked over to the window, her back to them. Her shoulders slumped and she cradled her head in one hand, shaking it slowly. Her jaw line tensed as she fought back the tears.

Jean-Luc stared at his wife's back for a moment, unsure whether to get up and comfort her. There was some awkwardness, some tension between them. In the end he stayed where he was and looked down at the table, smoothing it with one hand. His face was slightly flushed; a mixture of anger at Poullain's news and frustration. He wasn't there to save his son, and now he even felt too impotent to comfort his own wife.

Dominic noticed the muscle's tensing in Jean-Luc's neck and thick forearms as he struggled for fresh resolve. There was silence for a moment. The sound of cicadas from outside was broken only by the crackling of Poullain's radio.

Finally, Jean-Luc commented, 'As my wife said, I'm sure we don't know anyone like that. Christian is a very loving, trusting child — but we know nobody who has taken advantage of that trust, or would do so.'

Poullain grimaced understandingly. 'I'm sorry I had to ask. But as you appreciate, we have to explore every possibility.' As the radio crackled again, Poullain asked Dominic to answer it.

Dominic left the main door open as he crossed the courtyard to the car. It was Harrault from the gendarmerie. He brought Dominic up to date on progress. Three gendarmes had been out calling on shops in Taragnon from 8.30am, and the item appearing in the morning's La Provencal had also attracted some calls. Harrault felt that Poullain should know about one lead in particular. 'Madame Veillan from the charcuterie was driving out towards Ponteves yesterday and saw Gaston Machanaud on his moped, coming out of the lane where we found the boy. It looks like we might have struck gold quickly.'

Dominic knew Machanaud. He was a casual farm labourer who filled in with some local poaching. 'What time was this?

'Just after three. Madame Veillan aimed to be in Ponteves for three-fifteen, so she was quite sure of the time. About fifteen or twenty minutes before the boy was found.'

Dominic confirmed that they would be returning to the station before heading out to see the medical examiner, so they should have time to go through the call notes. Hanging up, he noticed Monique Rosselot still by the window. She had stopped crying and was staring at him resolutely. Large, soulful eyes which seemed to look right through him.

Alain Duclos left the Vallon estate early to buy a morning paper, deciding to head to Brignoles for his morning coffee. He wanted to look through the paper in private, not with Claude or his father looking over his shoulder.

He picked up a copy of La Provencal at a news kiosk close to the cafe, took a seat at one of five outside tables, and folded out the paper. He scanned the front page: Kruschev and the nuclear test ban treaty in Moscow; four dead in floods in Tournin; Marseille warehouse fire, two dead; French Navy aids 6,000 stranded cruise passengers. Nothing there. He felt a twinge of anxiety. A murder should have taken precedence over the warehouse fire — it should have been there. He flicked over the page, and was rapidly scanning page two, when the item caught his eye on page three: BOY SAVAGELY ATTACKED IN TARAGNON.

It was a sixth of a page entry describing the discovery of the boy by a local farm worker and the police questioning of people in the village. Two thirds of the way down, Duclos froze; he had to read the paragraph over again before it sunk in: The boy suffered severe head injuries and is now in hospital. The police and the family are awaiting news from doctors as to the extent of the injuries. The name of the hospital wasn't mentioned. Duclos felt numb and stared blankly at the same paragraph, the text fading out of focus. He felt suddenly faint, an icy chill gripping him. The boy wasn't dead!

He'd found the lane only three minutes from the restaurant, his resolve re-building on the way. Everything had gone well, except in the final moments he'd been disturbed by the tinkling bells of a shepherd's goat flock being moved into the adjacent field. But he was sure he'd felt the skull crush, the blood spilling out. Another few seconds and he'd have been able to check the pulse in the neck or wrist. Check that…

'Monsieur. What can I get you?'

It took a moment for Duclos to detach himself from the paper and register the waiter's presence. His voice broke slightly as he answered. 'An orange juice, coffee with milk and a croissant.'

The waiter nodded and moved away. Duclos' hands shook as he closed the paper and folded it on the table. How could he have made such a mistake? The boy could have already identified his car; in no time the police could trace it back to Limoges. A few more phone calls and they would know he was on holiday and where he was staying. The police could be at the Vallon estate that same day, they might even be there on his return. He shivered involuntarily, his stomach churning with fear. Suddenly he felt very alone and vulnerable. He couldn't go back to the estate, and he would also have to change his car. Perhaps he would head for Monte Carlo and the Italian border, or the other direction, to Spain. Then what?

He wiped the sweat from his brow. He realized he wasn't thinking rationally. Closing his eyes, he fought to calm his nerves and think clearly. His own breathing seemed louder in the self imposed darkness, his heartbeat pounding a solid tattoo through his head along with the sounds of passing traffic; he had to concentrate to filter any clear thoughts through. A few minutes passed before the faint background shuffle and rattle of the tray of the waiter returning made him look up again. Some ideas had started forming.

As the waiter set down his breakfast, Duclos asked if he had a telephone.

'Yes, at the back of the cafe.' The waiter pointed.

The bar was narrow and busy, and Duclos had to edge and push past the workmen and truck drivers having early morning coffees with brandy and pernod chasers. The large directory on the shelf beneath the phone was the first thing Duclos reached for. He leafed through it rapidly. There were only two hospitals he could think of in Aix en Provence where it was likely the boy could have been taken, and one in Aubagne. The name of the second large hospital in Aix had momentarily escaped him, he had to call out to the barman to be reminded. Duclos took a pen from his shirt pocket and grabbed a serviette from the counter to write on as the barman mouthed the word above the noise of the bar: Montperrin.

Duclos noted the numbers from the directory of the three hospitals on the same serviette, then made his way back to the tables out front. He didn't want to call from the bar — too many people close by who could listen in. He took a quick sip of orange juice and coffee, put down enough money to cover the bill, and left. Turning the corner, he found a phone kiosk. He dialled the Montperrin first.

'I wondered if you could help me. I understand you have a young boy at your hospital by the name of Christian Rosselot. He would have been brought in just yesterday.'

'One moment.' Duclos could hear the flicking of paper. It went on a long time, as if the receptionist was checking twice. Finally, 'I'm sorry, I don't see anyone registered by that name.'

'Thank you,' Duclos called the second Aix-en-Provence hospitals.

'Centre Hospitalier.'

'I'm sorry to trouble you. I understand you have a young boy registered at the hospital, brought in yesterday. Christian Rosselot.'

'And who may I ask is enquiring?'

'He's a friend of my son Michel from school, Michel Bourdin. I wondered what room he might be staying in — we would like to send some flowers and perhaps visit.'

'Ne quittez pas. One moment.'

Duclos was nervous during the wait. He had no idea if she was suspicious or what instructions she was receiving the other end. It was a full minute before she returned.

'The boy is still in intensive care. But when he can be moved, he will be in one of the five private annexe rooms of Benat ward.'

'When will that be?'

'It could be tonight, tomorrow, or even two days or a week from now. He's still in a coma now and can't be moved. Until he's conscious, there are strict instructions in any case for no visitors but family. But if you still want to send some flowers, they'll be put in his room.'

'Yes. Thank you. That's a good idea.'

Duclos felt a twinge of relief as he hung up. But he knew it could be short lived. At any time the boy could regain consciousness and talk. He just couldn't sit back and let that happen.