Past Imperfect (28 page)

'If I went back... perhaps I would remember clearer. Maybe I hope I'll find my parents at the same time... that's why I've returned. Why I want to help Eyran.'

'So you were unable to find your parents when you were there before?'

'No... I never found them.'

The first small admittance of defeat. If he could build on that, get Jojo to admit that he might fail again, then he would be halfway to breaking his hold. 'Do you fear that you might fail with Eyran as well. That you won't be able to find them?'

'Yes... sometimes. But I can't just leave him on his own - give up.'

Lambourne sensed a chink of uncertainty. 'But what if you can't help Eyran find them, in the same way that you have never been able to find your own parents. Eyran believes they're alive - but do you?'

Eyran shook his head, struggling with images he didn't want to accept. 'I don't know... he needs a friend. He's all alone when he's looking for them. I was alone before - I know how he feels. I must be there to help him.'

Lambourne retreated; a direct assault wasn't going to work. Eyran was still clinging, resisting. Jojo continuing to hide behind Eyran's desire to find his parents and take the passive role as just a helping friend. 'What was it that felt familiar about the wheat field? Eyran said that when he saw you in the field in the last dream, you looked sad. Can you remember why?'

'I'm not sure. I just felt alone - deserted.'

'Who had deserted you?'

'I don't remember... it was just a feeling. The wheat field, the water running in the nearby brook... it reminded me of something.'

'Did it remind you of losing your parents? Is that why you were sad?'

'Yes... but I wasn't sure. It was somehow different. I tried to get a clear picture... but it was too far back.'

Again the convenient shield. 'If you went back, do you think you'd remember, the images would become clearer?'

'Yes... I think so.'

The answer threw Lambourne; he'd expected more hesitance and resistance. Why bury the events conveniently in the past, then invite their exposure? Surely the last thing Eyran wanted was him delving back; yet Jojo seemed to be encouraging it. One area where they were in conflict. Lambourne wanted to stay with the present a bit longer, continue exploring the dreams - but he realized the opportunity to go back might not arise again easily. He decided to take the bait, call what he was certain was a bluff. 'So let's go back Jojo... back to where the memories might be clearer.'

Lambourne started by taking Jojo back just over three years, to when Eyran was almost eight: the last months at the old house in England. Nothing. No recall, no memories. The process was slow; Eyran left long gaps as he mentally jumped time frames and surfaced again. Lambourne prompted by mentioning their play areas by the old house: the copse and the woods at the back, the wheat field at Broadhurst Farm. But nothing triggered a memory. He decided to make the invitation more open. '... Take me back to when you first met Eyran. Was it when Eyran first moved into the house there? Were you friends together then?'

'No... it was from before.'

'Then go back further... back to when you first met.'

Only Eyran's breathing and the faint whirring of the tape reel punctuated the silence. Lambourne tapped his pen softly on his pad with the passing seconds. As Jojo panned frantically back in his mind through past events and images and almost two minutes had passed with only the sound of Eyran's breathing, now slightly more laboured - Lambourne became sure that nothing would surface. Or that Jojo's recollections would only be vague; the painful memory of losing his parents selectively erased. In the same way that Eyran didn't want to accept his parents were dead - Jojo would have no recall of his.

When Eyran finally surfaced and Jojo's voice returned, it startled Lambourne. He felt numbed, his mouth suddenly dry, and he had to consciously snap himself out, quickly adjust to the new situation and break the silence by asking the next question.

He knew that he sounded inept, hesitant - hadn't fully made the leap to what he now confronted. His palms were sticky and he was stumbling as he continued with a few rudimentary questions. For the first time he was eager to end the session, and minutes later he stopped the tape recorder and counted Eyran back awake. He needed time to himself, time to think. He didn't mention anything to Eyran or the Capels as they confirmed arrangements for the next session and said their goodbyes.

Lambourne sat back and closed his eyes, easing out a slow sigh. Now looking back, the signs had been there clearly:
'It seemed unfair that it should happen twice'.... 'It was long ago - from before.'... 'If I went back - perhaps I would remember clearer.'
As much as he suspected Eyran had buried events in the past and so wouldn't want them uncovered, Jojo had been enticing him to go back throughout. Intent on only one track, he'd missed the signals.

But as the implications sank home, he realized he was out of his depth; he'd need help. Even the few closing questions had made him feel awkward: fishing in areas of psycho-analysis he'd barely touched upon. He looked at his watch. Almost three hours before he could put through a call to the University of Virginia.

SEVENTEEN

The warrant holding Machanaud was an initial detention order signed off by Perrimond for four days, the maximum any suspect could be held without an official arraignment before an Examining Magistrate.

On the fourth day, Machanaud was transported from his cell in Bauriac for a ten o’clock hearing at the Palais de Justice in Aix. Frederic Naugier was presiding, though informally dressed in a dark grey suit; his red robes would appear at later hearings. Perrimond was to one side of the room, Briant as police escort behind Machanaud, and a
greffier
, court clerk, sat alongside Naugier.

A young duty lawyer was dragged from the floor below to brief Machanaud on what would await him in the proceedings. During a thirty-eight minute hearing, Machanaud provided his main details for the court file, Naugier read the charges against him, and decision on bail was held over to the next hearing in ten days, by which time a state lawyer would have been appointed through the Bar Council.

At the close of the proceedings, summarily Naugier signed off a four month detention order. In that time, he had to complete the
instruction
process and pass the case to full trial. On murder cases, it was not uncommon for him to sign off two or three such orders. Peuch had already made it clear to Machanaud that bail was unlikely given the combination of the charge and his transient background. Whether found guilty or not at the final trial, unless dramatic new evidence came up during the
instruction
, Machanaud was going to spend much of the next year in prison.

Dominic had bought a TV for his mother four months previous. They were expensive, a luxury item, but it was something to keep her company, especially during his long evening shifts.

He remembered the first time he saw 'Perry Mason'. French national programming was poor, and slicker American productions predominated. The popular courtroom drama however took time to catch on in France, mainly because the proceedings depicted were alien, bore no semblance to the justice system familiar to the French.

The quick changing drama of different witnesses, surprises, change of pleas and sudden admissions would in France be spread over several months of the
instruction
process. Witnesses were grouped and called in different sessions, and testimony from the victim's family, the police, forensics and expert witnesses such as psychiatrists were heard in continuing separate sessions. With usually no more than two
instruction
hearings in any one month, the process was long and arduous, and complex cases could drag on seven to ten months before presentation to full trial.

But by that time, evidence and testimony had been boiled down to just the essential facts necessary for a jury and three judges to deliberate. Witnesses could be recalled, but their answers were now no more than distillations of their previous testimony during
instruction
. No rambling, no surprises, no dramatics or sudden about turn admissions. Just the core evidence the prosecution and defence wished showcased for the jury. As a result even murder trials lasted only a day or two.

Dominic had followed the early stages of Machanaud's
instruction
hearings. After a second hearing at which bail was refused, two weeks later Naugier summoned the Rosselots. Apart from confirming vital details about the last time they saw Christian, what he was wearing and who he had headed out to see that afternoon, Naugier had to formally ask them if they wished to press charges against the suspect held. Almost redundant, since if they had answered 'no', the State would have continued with the prosecution regardless - but it had to be recorded. Jean-Luc responded 'Of course' while Monique just nodded.

The next hearing almost a month later was to clarify police and forensic findings at the initial crime scene. Dominic was concerned the subject of Machanaud's car sighting might be raised, but the hearings were strictly structured: Naugier conducted all questioning directly and any questions proposed by the defence and prosecution had to be presented to Naugier two weeks in advance, with a full schedule of topics to be raised then made available to both sides two days before the hearing. Perrimond had gone rigorously through the schedule with Poullain and Dominic. There was nothing about the car sighting.

Though in two or three hearings time, Dominic knew that they would start to cover Machanaud's later hearings and statements, and the subject could come up. He was dreading it: having to face Machanaud and his council and change his story for Naugier.

Four days after the call from Houillon in Marseille, he'd decided to throw in the towel and told Pouillain that he wouldn't be proceeding with a complaint. Poullain wasted no time in sequestering him and Briant into his back office, closing ranks tightly by ensuring their stories matched. Poullain suggested that they both admit the meetings, but modify the details discussed. 'From what I understand, Machanaud was drunk on both occasions. I'd be surprised if he remembers exactly what was said.'

Dominic agreed numbly along with Briant, but part of him remained uncertain. Hopefully the subject just wouldn't come up.

From what he heard about Machanaud's lawyer over the following weeks, that hope began to fade. Only twenty-six, Léonard Molet had been in full practice just over three years and divided his time between a private firm and state aid cases. Machanaud had shown alarm at their first meeting that this would be Molet's first murder trial, without fully appreciating how much worse his representation could have been: most state aid lawyers were inexperienced
stagiaires
still in pupilage, with invariably little or no courtroom experience. Over the weeks, Molet showed his paces and gained Machanaud's confidence, making Perrimond and Naugier at the same time sit up and take notice. Unlike the usual state aid fodder, he gained preliminary notes on time, saw his client regularly, and rebutted with sensible defence-angled questions for Naugier to pose at
instruction
. The case was going to be tightly contested.

While reading from his notes in testimony about the initial crime scene, Dominic felt Molet staring at him intently at one point, felt uncomfortable that Molet was perhaps measuring him for a later confrontation. Later, towards the end of Poullain's testimony, Naugier cut in, admitting his confusion at the various positions of Machanaud supposedly fishing, the lane and the wheat field, and where the boy was finally found. Naugier had already gone over the details twice without being fully satisfied, and suggested that everything be re-examined at the scene itself. Perrimond and Molet showed scant surprise. Examining Magistrates often visited crime scenes to question suspects and witnesses. The theory was that suspects found it harder to reconstruct an invented story at the scene itself. Discrepancies started to show.

Looking at his diary, Naugier saw that the next
instruction
in sixteen days was for witnesses who had sighted Machanaud on the day of the attack; at that hearing, he would notify both Perrimond and Molet of the date set for a reconstruction.

Facing Molet had unsettled Dominic. He felt somehow vulnerable, that his guilt about covering up showed. He thought seriously about going back on his agreement with Poullain. His mother's condition had worsened the week before and she'd gone in for more tests: if the prognosis was bad, she might only make it another few months. The
instruction
covering the police statements and later car references wouldn't be for at least six weeks. If he filed the complaint a few days before the hearing and only then warned Poullain of his upcoming change in testimony, it could take them almost two months to manipulate his transfer.
Longer if...
Dominic stopped himself sharply, shaking his head, could hardly believe that he was actually weighing the timing of his mother's death just so that he could come clean and salvage his own guilt.

In the days after giving in to Poullain, he was haunted by images of Machanaud. In one dream Machanaud was alone in the wheat field, calling out as Dominic turned his back and walked away.
'You're deserting me just like the others... Why?'
But as he turned and looked back at Machanaud, only then did he notice one of Machanaud's hands covered with blood, could see where it had run down his arm,
the bloodied rock discarded at his feet...
and he awoke in a cold sweat, catching at his breath. Even in his dreams he was trying to assuage his concern, convince himself that Machanaud was guilty, he was doing the right thing. But it was little consolation knowing that he was merely joining Poullain and the rabble, and Machanaud's plea about desertion lingered stronger than any other image.