A Clean Pair of Hands (20 page)

Late in 2012 Patrick Mastrolli, the ex-policeman friend of Michel Bodin, phoned Thérèse out of the blue. He had retired and was now living in Dakar, in Senegal. He had been on a liaison assignment there, liked the place and decided to stay there when he retired. He asked if Thérèse could get him some business information in England. Thérèse took a note of what he wanted, and then asked if he had had any recent contact with Michel Bodin.

“Not since I have been here. I have rather lost contact with my Paris friends.”

After a long update, Thérèse asked Mastrolli if he could do anything to elucidate the circumstances of Michel’s disappearance, as his parents and the family as a whole were increasingly worried.

“It would take time and money,” he explained. “The French police have no jurisdiction in Haiti and there is another problem in that there has been no settled government there since the earthquake. It is quite a dangerous place to be.”

After further discussion, the two agreed that they would communicate via Skype and emails. Mastrolli would get some facts together, and present Thérèse and George with
a proposal, either for further investigation, which he could set up, or alternatively advise them to drop it.

A week later, Mastrolli called Thérèse on Skype.

“I’ve looked into this and there are strange and unexplained elements to the story, but the French police are conscious of the cost and difficulty of pursuing this as a case. It really should come under Haitian police jurisdiction and they are unlikely to do any more than they have already. The earthquake in 2010 has left the whole country in disarray and although the UN is pouring in resources, the poor state of infrastructure and political instability before the earthquake means that it is still a mess. The French police had to put money on the table to fund the Haitians for the initial investigation. As you know, the relevant family witnesses are scattered from Australia to New York, Ireland and Paris, and the current breakdown of whatever administrative functions existed in Haiti before the earthquake make it difficult to obtain facts at that end.

“As to what might have happened: it is quite possible that Michel has done a disappearing trick. I heard that he was being threatened by some people in Paris, which is one reason why he went to Haiti. He was also concerned that the French tax authorities were closing in on his past business dealings and historical tax returns. They want to interview him. In addition, I believe he was tiring of his relationship with Sonia. People disappear with fewer reasons than those.”

Thérèse was not surprised to learn why Michel had left Paris, but still believed that one way or another, some harm must have come to her wayward nephew. Did he really buy the land in Haiti in Sonia’s name, as Charlotte feared? Could it have been a leaving present from him to her?

“Patrick, how much would it cost for you to carry out
a more thorough investigation and visit Haiti for long enough to draw your own conclusions based on evidence, even if there is no complete explanation?”

“Could you get the key witnesses together in say Paris or London, so I don’t have to travel all over?” asked Patrick.

Thérèse considered this. “It might be possible.”

“OK, Thérèse, I am interested enough to want to look into it, but it wouldn’t do any good if I went to Haiti myself. I know someone there who is much better placed to get to the truth than me. He knows the area and I know his methods.”

“What sort of person is that? Does he have your skills and contacts?”

“If I can get him involved, and that’s not certain, he has the same sort of assets as I do, but much more closely related to that part of the world. Just to give you a flavour of the guy, he’s an ex US Marine Corps sergeant who has seen plenty of action. He then did a stint in the LA Police before going private. He organised several projects for me while I was still in Paris.”

“Isn’t an American in Haiti just going to be a visible target for anyone with something to hide?”

“Your concerns would be entirely valid, Thérèse, but this person is black and spent two years in security at the US Embassy in Port au Prince. I can’t think of anybody better suited to finding his way around in that barrel of fun.”

Thérèse agreed to the proposition, subject to Mastrolli taking overall responsibility. They agreed a sum to cover the enquiry up to the point of a report.

The levels of concern in the family and friends were real enough to spur them into action. The incident had disrupted their new status quo. Just as they were coming
to terms with Michel’s separation from Charlotte, he had disappeared, so less than a month after their Skype conversation the Miltons met Mastrolli with the family, including Annick, Estelle, and Lydia, Michel’s parents, Charlotte Bodin and the Mendeses in the bar of a three star hotel near the Opera in Paris. Then, over a meal in an excellent nearby restaurant, they briefed Patrick Mastrolli on what they knew.

The circumstances had forced them to form a society of common interest and they were ready to share their frustrations. Patrick let the group talk among themselves, putting in the occasional question to steer the debate and to allow those who were too often interrupted to finish their inputs. This was not a meeting for reserved speakers and those with quiet voices tended to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume and continuity of others. As they warmed up after a glass or two of wine, it was apparent to Patrick that although the family shared mixed emotions about Michel, the strongest of those emotions was anger. Each of these people felt a strong sense of the loss of someone who had been a landmark in their lives, and anger, not because of his recent disappearance, but because of the way he had conducted his life and made his earlier choices. He had, to a greater or lesser extent, ended the life they shared before and then sought to re-impose himself with his mistress, forcing them to accept a new relationship. Patrick thought the one who took the new situation with most equanimity was Estelle, who seemed quite fatalistic about it and was probably trying to maintain a balance of relations with both her parents without judging them. The others were making their own way without Michel, but he was still husband, father, son or friend and he wouldn’t go away, and more irritatingly, Sonia wouldn’t go away. The two were constant companions and until his disappearance,
Michel would only meet other members of the family with Sonia in tow. Was that a case of Michel imposing his will, or was it Sonia, clinging close to fill any space left by Charlotte? They were still a family and there were still parties, anniversaries, weddings and grandchildren to bring them together, so it was hard to exclude him.

Feelings were overwhelming, but new facts were few, so by the end of his briefing, Patrick concluded that although everybody had their views on what had been taking place, they were light on relevant facts and detail that could be of immediate use to him or add to his background knowledge. They did not have much idea as to how Michel operated in recent years. Even his wife could only see what happened in the bank accounts she managed, though by now, Patrick felt sure, most of Michel’s money had been shifted to new, probably overseas accounts. Beyond that, Charlotte was in denial about Michel’s private life and intrigues. The Mendeses, who Patrick thought might know more than the others, were almost silent throughout, though they showed concern and sympathy.

Armed with this thin information, he prepared notes, added some thoughts of his own, and transmitted them to Eugène Kotor, his associate in Haiti, requesting a detailed investigation with extraction of the truth.

Besides the main streets in the Haitian capital, Port au Prince, there are only two paved highways in the country and they link the northern and the southern regions. National Highway One (Duarte Highway) extends north from Port-au-Prince to Cap Haitien via the coastal towns of Gonaives, Saint Louis and Port de Paix. It was paved in 1973 with funding from the Aid and International Development Forum, but despite further international funding, much of which would probably have been diverted elsewhere, and some improvement efforts by the National Road Maintenance Service, inadequate road maintenance persists and the roads are in very poor state. A journey of just a few kilometres on such roads, even in a well-adapted vehicle, can leave passengers and drivers feeling numb and welcoming an opportunity to stretch out and lie down.

When Eugene Kotor arrived at Michel Bodin’s house near the beach a few kilometres outside Port de Paix, he had travelled nearly 200 kilometres from Port au Prince in a Toyota Land Cruiser with two colleagues, stopping first to rest in the back room of a bar, which was infested with mosquitos, and later to make some enquiries at the local bus station in Port de Paix. He had felt every bump in the
road through his bones. He had avoided looking at the scenery, preferring to think about the case in his air-conditioned private cell before stepping out into the hot, uncomfortable real world outside. He was in no mood to sit patiently and listen to Sonia’s lies. He knew now that the version she had given to the police was untrue.

Before setting out, one of the questions in his mind was how she had returned to Port de Paix after parking Michel’s car at Cap Haitien airport, nearly forty kilometres to the east.

Assuming Sonia Alvarez was acting alone and in no hurry, the most likely methods of travel would be by Tap-Tap bus or taxi. If she had taken one of those options, it was likely that someone else from Port de Paix had travelled at the same time or seen her getting off. Kotor had followed that hunch at the bus and taxi station. There were so few whites living in the area that it was easy to get some useful input before turning to Sonia for corroboration.

The bus station was no more than a Y junction in the road with a concrete bund wall in the centre to protect the fuel pumps from carelessly driven vehicles. In the narrow streets on either side of the fuel bunkers, buses and taxis parked where they could between heaps of tyres, and vehicles under repair. A butcher’s shop doorway was piled with half-open cartons of meat, and huge, high-sided tipper lorries, which are also used for passenger transport, blocked the streets outside. Between the larger vehicles and other obstacles zoomed flocks of cheap Chinese motorcycles. Once a bus was fully loaded it was some time before it could lumber away to find its route out of town, but the slow progress of heavily laden, mostly overloaded vehicles along the streets served a useful purpose of crushing rubbish that was deposited there, to be thus reduced to mulch when the rains came.
A bus journey towards the edge of the city would be at no more than walking pace in order to avoid wheelbarrows and flat trailers loaded with sacks and powered by humans. Other obstacles to be negotiated included: errant animals, files of immaculately uniformed school girls in tartan kilts, and boys in perfectly pressed long khaki trousers. A bus driver spent several minutes following an attractive young woman in a short skirt, beeping his horn so she would look round. Most of the women to be seen on the street were either pregnant or had recently given birth and were accompanied by tiny, brightly dressed infants.

A Tap-Tap bus may get its name from the fact that you tap on the metal-work to stop it, or according to other opinions, because tap-tap means quick in Creole. One could argue that the low speed of the buses in town should exclude the latter source, though excessive speed and overloading are major causes of frequent bus accidents on country roads. Whatever the source of the name, a Tap-Tap is a work of art, an engineering miracle, and an essential part of public life in Haiti. They are mostly privately owned Mercedes, or of Japanese origin and whatever the dubious state of mechanical units that propel, control, and stop the buses, the bodywork is kept in supreme condition by one hundred per cent paint coverage in colourful graffiti. The themes are often religious or related to voodoo, but with a heteroclite blend of subjects and styles; for example, sex, crime, and especially shooting, or for example, a scene in which Brazilian football heroes peer over the shoulder of the Virgin Mary. Open ventilation windows on some buses are positioned so low that passers-by can see only the legs and lower bodies of passengers, a form of public entertainment for passing motorists. Some buses carry a steel tube bumper extension
supporting a full-width platform on the front of the vehicle, which serves the dual purpose of nudging people and animals out of the way while at the same time carrying a further five standing passengers between the outer fender and the engine compartment, thus partially blocking the driver’s view of the road ahead.

Kotor made himself comfortable in a bar out of the heat of the sun and sent his two colleagues to talk to drivers who plied the route between Port de Paix and Cap Haitien international airport, and told them to hand out a few packets of cigarettes in the event of a truly useful disclosure. After an hour or so, they came back with credible information that only a bus driver could deliver.

About a month or so ago, a slim dark-haired white woman wearing a white dress revealing her bosom had travelled from Cap Haitien airport to Port de Paix. She was remarkable because she carried only an expensive handbag and did not look like a tourist. She smoked cigarettes and used bright red lipstick. As always, the bus was crowded on departure, but as the passengers thinned out she moved to sit closer to the driver to be sure she would get off at the right place. The driver remembered talking to her and he showed Kotor’s associate how he had to adjust his internal rear view mirror so he could keep an eye on the woman as he drove the bus.

The driver couldn’t help laughing as he recalled the details. “Every time we go over bump she bounce.” He demonstrated the action with his huge hands. The two men laughed. “So I find more bumps.” The driver was now laughing uncontrollably, revealing his few remaining teeth and with tears running down his cheeks. So infectious was his laughter that all conversation stopped until the two were able to recover.

“One last question: where did she get off?”

That place was about five kilometres short of the outskirts of Port de Paix.

Now she was coming towards Kotor from a low, painted-timber house where a garden table and chairs were arranged under an awning. She was barely dressed, like so many shameless European and American women he had seen at holiday hotels, and she was smiling nervously as she approached the strangers. She shaded her eyes with her hand against the white glare of the sun and asked what he wanted.

Bantam-sized chickens and guinea fowl mingled with small dark pigs and a goat wandering the bare earth, while crickets provided continuous music interspersed with squawks from unidentified creatures in the jungle close by. Sonia took in the fact that there were three men, one of whom, dressed in black shirt and jeans, was leaning against the car scratching his groin. The other two wore expensive civilian clothes and stood side by side in front of her.

Sonia was puzzled by the appearance of these men. Not many people here drove recent model Land Cruisers, and certainly not the police.

“Are you from the police?” Sonia enquired, her throat tightening.

Kotor ignored the question, wasted no time on introductions, and got straight to the point. “What happened to Monsieur Bodin and where is he now?”

Sonia blanched and reached for a cigarette in the purse she carried. Her hands were trembling and her mouth was more rigid than when she greeted him. “I don’t know anything. He left here and said he would not be back for a while. The police came here and told me he was reported missing.”

Kotor knew all about the car parked at the airport and her journey back by bus, so he decided to confront Sonia with that, knock her off guard and save a lot of time. “Why did you fake the trip to the airport and lie to the local police about what you already knew?”

She looked down at her cigarette and didn’t answer, though she was breathing faster.

Kotor motioned to his two colleagues, who quickly moved behind Sonia and attached her elbows behind her back with a frayed red Terylene rope. The lighted cigarette fell to the ground as they bundled her into the Land Cruiser, so she was sitting between the two men on the back seat while Kotor got into the driving seat. The engine was off and the heat inside the car without air conditioning was like an oven.

Kotor reached down to the glove compartment and turned with a Colt M1911 pistol in his hand, pointing it at Sonia’s head. Beads of sweat rolled down from his forehead. The whole car smelt of sweat.

“You have one minute to tell me where he is or where his remains are.”

Sonia slumped and mumbled incoherently. One of the men pulled her hair to raise her head.

“Speak!”

“What’s going to happen to me if I talk to you?”

“Probably nothing, but we can’t guarantee what the authorities might do. You’ll have to take your chances with them. But you do have to tell us, now.”

“I can’t. I can’t. I don’t know,” pleaded Sonia.

Kotor holstered his pistol and got out of the car. His colleagues pulled Sonia out roughly and threw her to the ground. They dragged her to a water trough used for the animals, picked her up and threw her into the dirty water, face up and pushed her under. Her hands were
still tied behind her back and the men handled her with some satisfaction as they pushed her down. She thrashed her legs, but they caught and held them.

They were excited by what they saw, but Kotor remained coolly focused, “Lift,” he commanded. They pulled Sonia out. She was gasping for breath, her eyes were closed and her head was thrown back. For a moment, Kotor was not sure she would survive.

As soon as her fit of coughing subsided and she appeared to breathe normally again, Kotor repeated his questions. This time Sonia’s face remained puckered for some minutes. She wasn’t crying, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. She wore sandals, a red bikini and a partially transparent robe to shield her from the sun, now soaked and clinging. One of the men ripped off her clothes. Then they picked her up and dumped her in the trough again, holding her down while she thrashed about. This time Kotor counted up to thirty and when they lifted her out and held her upright there was no sign of breathing. Kotor punched her in the solar plexus and she doubled over, making a terrible retching, vomiting sound, then emitted a loud gasp as she inhaled and remained bent double.

Shortly after, the men carried her to a rough wooden bench by the house and stretched her out on her back, arms still attached and legs spread either side. Kotor pointed his pistol between her legs.

“This may not kill you immediately, but it will not give you much time to think. Speak now or I will pull the trigger.”

This time, Sonia started sobbing and coughing. Kotor gestured and they let her sit up. She could only speak quietly and with interruptions for more coughing. No one offered any help.

It wasn’t her fault. She and Michel were walking up to
the top of the mountain, which they usually did once a week to make some phone calls. On the way up Michel, who was overweight and unfit, started wheezing. He had been suffering from a dry cough for a few days and was complaining of breathlessness. Suddenly he fell over. Sonia thought at first that he had tripped on a boulder, but when she bent over him she could find no pulse. He appeared to be dead.

The mobile phone still did not work and she didn’t know where to turn for help. She sat with him for several hours, and then descended, leaving the body where it was. She did not contact anybody else, but instead came up with the idea of making it look as though Michel had left the island as they had planned to return to Paris that month anyway. She had indeed concocted the idea of parking Michel’s car at the international airport and returning by bus.

“Why did you do that, what did you have to gain? You could have had him declared dead. Instead you made it look like something suspicious.”

“Before leaving Paris he took out a life insurance policy. It wasn’t much, but it would have allowed me to live here, but that is impossible now.”

“Why? Surely if you had a life insurance policy you had no interest in concealing his death. You were going to benefit financially if his death was natural. Was he also going to leave something to you in a will?”

“No, he wasn’t. We had several arguments because he was unwilling to hand over any lump sum to me or discuss what he would do for me in the future. He was naturally secretive. It was his way of controlling me. I had to do what he wanted and some of that was pretty disgusting. He dribbled money in my direction to keep me dependent on him.”

“You chose to go with him and stay with him. You
knew what he was like. It must have been worthwhile,” pursued Kotor.

Sonia now straddled the bench with her hands tied behind her back, trying hard to breathe and keep herself under control. It was a very emotional woman who finally answered Kotor’s questions. “The way it turned out it was not worthwhile, but most of the time I had no choice. At first he was kind to me and I understood that the basis of our relationship was that he would look after me financially and I would help him deal with his devils, but as time went on and my dependency on him increased, he would abuse me more and more. He was impotent. He got his kicks from seeing me having sex with his friends, male and female. Then, when we moved here, he used me to entertain and pacify neighbours from the village who showed an interest in what we were doing here, and he started inviting them to do whatever they liked with me while he watched.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

“No, I didn’t kill him, he just died and to be honest, at first I felt a great burden had been lifted from me. I wanted a bit of freedom and enough money to enjoy it. But then I guess I just panicked. I realised that I couldn’t stay here, not after what happened. It won’t be long before those men from the village come back for more of their entertainment and I will be alone to deal with them. The locals resent us being here and buying ‘their land’. They don’t like foreigners and they think that an offer to abuse a white woman is an opportunity for vengeance. Michel stood by and watched while those men raped me. Sometimes it went on all night,” she cried again, deep bitter sobs. She took a deep breath and recovered enough to speak between sobs, “and do you know the cruellest irony in all this?” Kotor waited. “I found out after he died that
we don’t own this land at all. We are only entitled to rent it. The certificates of ownership turned out to be a kind of tenancy agreement.”