Another Sun (7 page)

Tomato puree in a battered tube, a few eggs, sterilized milk, an avocado pear sliced in half and the green flesh now turning black. There was also a quiche lorraine on a glass plate; the glass had misted over.

A short silence. “What?”

“The girl made a quiche.”

Jean Michel did not reply.

Anne Marie went to the kitchen door to look at him. “When did you get back from Basse-Terre?”

“About half past three.” Jean Michel glanced at his wife. “Perhaps a bit later.”

“Half past three?”

“When I realized the bastard had stood me up, I came straight back. Half past three—four.” A shrug. “Too late for the beach.”

Briefly they looked at each other—he was stretched out on the sofa and Anne Marie was leaning against the cold wood of the kitchen door.

“In four hours you didn’t think to look in the refrigerator, Jean Michel?”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

Anne Marie knew that her husband was lying.

“Would you like me to make you an omelet?” she asked softly.

“He’s a maniac.”

“Who?”

“The driver—the man they sent to fetch me.”

“Jean Gabriel? Been like that ever since he lost his wife—and she was only seventeen.” Trousseau shrugged. “Indians marry young.”

Anne Marie stretched out against the backseat.

“How’s your hand, madame le juge?”

Trousseau had been reading. There was a book on his thin knees. When Anne Marie did not answer, he picked up the book and continued his reading.

Way above her head, large fans—three of them—were revolving slowly. She could feel the gentle draft and the sweat on her body began to dry.

It was going to be another hot, humid day in Pointe-à-Pitre. Outside, cars traveling in front of the terminal entrance threw their reflections against the interior wall.

Shops were opening up. At the bookstore a girl was pulling a rack of postcards out into the main concourse. Elsewhere, there was the sound of iron shutters being cranked up.

This morning, most of the airline desks were still closed. An Air France hostess in uniform and blue shoes headed toward the departure lounge. She carried a small clipboard beneath her arm, and as she went past, she gave Anne Marie a sharp glance. The glance went from Anne Marie to Trousseau and back again.

It was too early for the 747 from Paris. The next flight would be the Miami plane, calling in at Pointe-à-Pitre on its way to Caracas. That would be in a couple of hours’ time.

In the departure lounge, there were few passengers waiting to be called—just a small group sitting on the row of armchairs or standing around, looking at their watches. Businessmen—probably from the English islands—wearing old-fashioned pastel-colored shirts and big shoes. A group of tourists, conspicuous with their pale faces and their canvas holdalls. And a couple of large women, flying home with their bags and cumbersome cardboard boxes. The women spoke pidgin English in a high lilt, and their matronly chests heaved. They were waiting for the short, interisland hop to Dominica.

“My hand itches less this morning, Monsieur Trousseau—and thank you for asking,” she said finally. “What’ve you found out about Raymond Calais?”

Trousseau tapped the case of his portable typewriter. “I brought the file.”

Anne Marie turned to look at him. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know how punctual these flights can be.”

“Where would I be without you?” Their eyes met and she tapped his arm. “You’re very thoughtful.”

The face seemed to grow darker; the eyebrows moved together. “Just because I’m not white.…” He put the book down and Anne Marie noticed that it was a comic. “You really mustn’t think I’m
like all the other people in this island. I’ve lived in France, you know. I’ve got a flat in Paris.”

“In the Seventeenth Arrondissement, I believe.”

Trousseau hesitated a fraction of a second before pulling at the skin of his arm. “I don’t behave like them. West Indians, mulattos, Indians—don’t expect me to be like them, madame le juge. To dance like them, to laugh like them, to talk like them, to have their women. I’ve lived in Paris, and I know what it means to have to get up at five o’clock to catch the métro.”

An old man in faded dungarees was pushing a cleaning machine across the concourse floor. The bristles of the revolving brushes turned rapidly, and the machine made a quiet hum. A cigarette hung from the corner of the man’s mouth; his eyes wrinkled against the rising smoke.

“My wife’s from France.”

“So you once told me.”

“You see me now, madame le juge, and I’m an old man. But once I was young. And women found me attractive. I had my choice of women, you know—but I chose a white woman.”

“Monsieur Trousseau, I’m very grateful to you for the way you always try to help me. You—more than anyone else—have taught me how to adapt to life in the département.”

Trousseau appeared mollified. He sat back and folded his arms.

Anne Marie scratched lightly at the back of her hand before asking, “You still think he’s guilty?”

“Who?”

“Hégésippe Bray.”

Carefully, Trousseau folded down the corner of the page and closed the comic book. It was only then that Anne Marie saw the pink and yellow cover. The New Testament in pictures. “I’m merely a greffier, madame le juge. It’s not for me to give my opinions.”

“But I do respect them.”

“No, you don’t.”

They looked at each other; then a voice—and Anne Marie, turning her head, saw the Air France girl talking into a microphone
behind the glass window of her office—announced the imminent departure of flight AF 627 to Fort-de-France. Trousseau listened, his finger raised from the backrest of the seat.

Anne Marie turned away and looked at the man behind the machine.

He walked slowly. Like someone carefully mowing the lawn, he moved along a stretch of fifteen meters at a time, leaving behind damp, clean parallels and clear prints of his own worn shoes. Apart from the curling wisp of blue smoke from the cigarette, the man could have been asleep on his feet.

A sleepwalker. A zombie.

“He was dying of cancer.”

“Who?”

“Hégésippe Bray was right.” Trousseau allowed himself a faint smile. “Calais was going to die anyway—according to the autopsy from the
Institut médico-légal
. Cancer of the stomach.”

The airport, with its clean, tiled floor, its banks, its shops, the anthuriums and orchids now on display—it was modern and reassuring. European, civilized—what Anne Marie was used to. Reassuring and tangible.

Anne Marie shuddered. A sudden cold fear of death.

“The autopsy report arrived yesterday afternoon.”

“How could Hégésippe Bray have known Calais was going to die?”

Trousseau laughed. “He didn’t need to know.”

“He’d put a curse on Raymond Calais? That’s what you’re saying, aren’t you?”

The old man had come to the end of the stretch of floor. He turned the machine round and the rotating brushes tipped sideways. Then he stood quietly smoking. For a moment the old man
looked at Anne Marie. There was a look of reproach in the brown, bloodshot eyes.

“Madame, you prefer not to believe in these things,” Trousseau scolded.

Raymond Calais was born on January 8, 1919 on the Sainte Marthe estate, the son of Gérard and Laure Calais. At the time of his sixtieth birthday, he was a large man, weighing eighty-four kilos, one meter seventy in height, stocky and completely bald. With a protruding jaw and a large forehead, he resembled Benito Mussolini. Raymond Calais felt flattered by the comparison
.

The first attempt on his life was made on Wednesday, March 5, 1980
.

He drove his car down to the main dock area of Pointe-à-Pitre. It was 6:45 in the morning, and the sidewalks were still wet after a brief rainfall. Normally at this time of day, Raymond Calais had breakfast—two boiled eggs, a couple of croissants and a pot of coffee—in a bar at the corner of the Quai Lardenoy and the rue Achille René Boisneuf where he would spend half an hour in the company of friends—two of whom were believed to be on his payroll. On the morning of March 5, several people were waiting for him inside the bar—La Sirène du Sud—and the serving girl had already started to prepare Monsieur Calais’ breakfast
.

Raymond Calais parked his car—a Renault R30 with a tax-free registration plate, issued in the département of Gironde—against the curb outside the ironmonger’s in the rue Achille René Boisneuf. He turned off the engine, got out of the car and opened the rear door in order to pick up his attaché case that lay on the back seat
.

According to two witnesses—a municipal employee and a Dutch sailor returning to his ship—gunfire was heard at 6:48
A.M
.

Raymond Calais lost consciousness and fell, with blood pouring from the left side of his head and trickling across his temple into the rainwater of the gutter
.

He regained consciousness at 7:53
A.M
.

Friends and associates had been able to pull him from the gutter where he had nearly drowned. The
Police Secours
was contacted, and Calais was taken by ambulance to the Clinique Venise in the Assainissement
.

The bullet fired from a .22 long rifle had penetrated the skin behind the ear, had been deflected by the bone of the skull and had exited through the temple. The scar on the left side of Mr. Calais’ head was eight centimeters long
.

The projectile was later found inside the Renault. After bouncing off Calais’ head, it had ricocheted off the roof and buried itself in the upholstery of the back seat
.

Analysis of the bullet’s trajectory was not sufficiently precise to indicate the place from where the shot had been fired
.

Three photographs:

A photograph of Calais’ head, with two white arrows indicating entry and exit point of the bullet.

A photograph of the back seat of the car, with a white circle drawn about a slight tear in the fabric.

A photograph of the flattened bullet.

Anne Marie looked at the photographs carefully. Apart from Calais’ dark eyebrows, none of his face was visible. His ear was small, like a child’s.

Anne Marie continued reading the report.

“They’re calling our flight.”

Anne Marie looked up. “Mmm?”

The old man was nearer now, still pushing the whispering machine across the airport.

“They’ve just announced the departure of our plane.” Trousseau clicked his tongue and carefully took the file from her. “Only forty minutes late.”

The airport, the city, and the encroaching mangrove swamps grew smaller as the Twin Otter banked. Skyscrapers and slowly moving traffic along the Pointe-à-Pitre bypass appeared like a picture from a geography book. The plane flew over the hospital and then evened its angle of flight, and there was a high-pitched ping as the safety belt and no smoking lights were extinguished.

Anne Marie relaxed slightly. Her palms were moist, and her left hand was itching again. “What municipal corruption?”

Trousseau was reading. “Look at the file, madame le juge.”

“I can’t understand it.”

“Pichon dealt with it.”

“Who’s Pichon?”

“With
Renseignements Généraux
.” Trousseau nodded. “Pretty thorough for a local. Not afraid of a bit of hard work. He looked into it and decided there was nothing political.”

“In what?”

“The attempted murder on Raymond Calais.”

“What were the allegations that Calais was making?”

“Something to do with a contract being handed out to a friend of the mayor’s.”

“And that’s a crime?”

“Raymond Calais wanted to think so.” Trousseau put down the
book and laughed. He ran a finger along his moustache. “Nothing came of it. Just another excuse for Calais to attack the mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre.”

“Why do that?”

Trousseau replied, his dark eyes now liquid with amusement. “Raymond Calais always wanted to be mayor himself.”

The plane banked again, and a bright row of sunbeams poured through the portholes. Anne Marie blinked and turned her head. Most of the seats were empty. A young man was sitting in the row behind. He was listening to a portable stereo headset. The thin strip of metal cut through his afro hair.

“What were his chances?”