Past Imperfect (41 page)

It had been one of those mornings. He'd seen the message to phone Marinella Calvan as soon as he came out of an early morning meeting. A number in England, he wondered whether it was something to do with his previous Interpol work, though the name didn't strike a chord. But there were other, more pressing emergencies: there had been a bank robbery in the La Guillotière area of Lyon, and after a sighting a chase had ensued with three police cars on the A43 heading east.

But already events had gone tragically wrong. Bullets fired from the robber’s car had struck one of the pursuing cars, shattering its windscreen and causing it to careen into the central barrier; two of the three officers inside had been seriously injured. The only way to avoid more mayhem was to set up a road block, preferably at a turn-off
peage
.

‘Looks like they're heading for Grenoble!' one of the radio operators, Morand, called out.

Dominic looked up from the map. 'We need a quiet junction, next three turn offs. Somewhere where the peage won't be too busy. Suggestions.'

'Eleven or twelve could be good,' said Morand.

Dominic checked the distances: Sixteen kilometres and thirty-four. 'It will have to be twelve. We'll need time to put everything into place.'

It took another nine minutes: three police cars ahead took up all three lanes, gradually slowing so that a visible jam built up just ahead of junction 12. At the junction 12
peage
, three slots would be blocked by queues of at least two vehicles, a mixture of unmarked police cars and an old green van with CRS guards in the back. The fourth
peage
slot would be left empty.

All other traffic turning off meanwhile would be waved rapidly through the vacant
peage
slot without paying. As the robbers car approached the empty slot, at the last second the barrier would come down to slow them; and as they burst through, two teams of CRS guards with rifles would put out the tyres.

Dominic looked across sharply as the phone rang on his desk. It could be news on the injured officers; he'd asked for anything urgent to be put through on his private line. He picked it up. The girl on desk duty informed him that it was Marinella Calvan phoning again from England, and that she said it was urgent..

'Okay, put her through.' He’d probably have a spare two minutes.

As Marinella introduced herself apologetically and started explaining the reason for her call - for Dominic, it was as if the rest of the room and the activities in it had suddenly receded, become little more than incidental background.

Only the imperatives broke through. At one point, Morand raising a thumb's up and shouting: 'They've gone for it! They've taken the bait and turned off. They're coming up to the peage.'

On the far side of the
peage
, four CRS guards with flak jackets aimed their rifles at the empty slot, ready for the car as it burst through.

When Morand leapt into the air and a quick cheer went up from the radio desk, Dominic knew that everything had gone well.

He said 'One moment' apologetically to Marinella Calvan as he hit the secrecy button and looked towards Morand. 'So?'

'One injured. The others came out arms up, no resistance. No injuries our side.'

Dominic nodded and smiled, but Morand could tell that his attention was fractured. Dominic wasn't sure if he was more distracted through struggling to make sense of what Marinella was saying - a young boy in England, hypnotic sessions and a possible link with Christian Rosselot - or through his suspended belief, the painful nostalgia as the years were stripped away. Dark and hazy memories which he thought had been long buried.

Dominic unclicked the secrecy button. 'Sorry. Yes, I think I'll be able to help. I do know someone who could verify Christian Rosselot's background.'

But having made the arrangements, though intrigued as he put down the phone, he was uncertain what ghosts might be unlocked by helping. Re-awakening memories he'd spent so much of his life struggling to forget. He shook his head. Thirty years? Perhaps they had never been truly free of the events of 1963.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Provence. July, 1965

In the two months after Jean-Luc Rosselot died, once again Monique stayed on the farm, hid away from the world. The Fiévets helped out with her shopping and Dominic didn't see her in the village.

The investigation into his death was short, the post-mortem over in ten days: verdict of suicide. Jean-Luc had started the tractor and then purposely shut the garage door, had stayed inside until overcome by fumes. The first thing to alert Monique in the kitchen at the time was the throbbing sound of the motor through the walls. As it continued without the tractor emerging from the garage, she went into the courtyard and saw that the doors were closed. Clarisse had run out behind, had seen her father slumped dead over the tractor steering wheel as the doors were swung open.

Monique tried in vain for a few minutes to revive him, then ran to the Fiévets to use their phone and call an ambulance. Running back, seeing Clarisse standing thoughtfully over the prone figure of her father, hugging tight to a small doll as tears ran down her cheek, had been the image to linger most with Monique. The doll. Practically all she had left.

Dominic hadn't been involved directly in the investigation. Harrault went with Servan assisting. Dominic was thankful, he didn't want to be remembered as the friendly face from the gendarmerie always associated with death in her family. Calling at the door to tell her that her son was dead, then twenty months later taking notes on her husband's suicide. He'd have hardly been able to face her.

When a few months later she did finally start venturing into the village, Dominic had his own crisis to cope with. His mother had been in hospital the past two weeks, her condition had deteriorated so much that the doctors felt sure that she wouldn't last more than another week. She knew that she was dying too, had begged Dominic to take her home again, said that she didn't want to die surrounded by 'old and ill people.' She'd even managed a taut smile at the irony. She wanted to be surrounded by some life and that which she held fondest: the garden, the sounds of the birds in the trees, and her son close by her side. The doctors argued that she might last longer where they could care for her better, but Dominic was insistent. A few extra days to be surrounded by bed pans and the smell of disinfectant? She was going home.

She lasted almost three weeks more. It was almost as if she didn't want to leave the beauty and tranquillity of the garden. September temperatures were still in the eighties, bright sunshine practically every day, and Dominic watered the plants early each morning and sat her on the back covered porch with her favourite coffee: Javanese with a hint of chicory and cinnamon. It reminded her of her childhood. Surrounded by the symbols that had marked the stages of her life - the coffee, the tangerine tree that her husband had planted the year before he died, her son - before she could truly feel at ease in leaving it all behind. Everything was in place. It felt right.

It was a small ceremony. Dominic's sister had travelled down just a few days before his mother's death and stayed for the funeral preparations. Her husband and children joined her for the funeral and Dominic's uncle on his mother's side was also there. He lived in Bordeaux and Dominic had only seen him a handful of times in the past decade.

Not long after, he saw Monique in a Bauriac café. She looked across and acknowledged him with a small nod, eyes downcast. Perhaps she didn't want to greet him with anything nearing a smile, thought it might seem inappropriate. But he had the feeling in that fleeting second that she knew. That her look said: 'I've heard and I'm sorry. Nobody knows better than me how you feel. We've both lost someone we love.'

Dominic wouldn't have been too surprised if she knew. He'd heard so much about her own plight through Louis, via Madeleine and the Fiévets. One point he'd picked up on had been problems with a local bank, though details were sketchy from Louis at first. All the Fiévets knew was that Jean-Luc had taken a bank loan for farm improvements and to buy equipment and had fallen behind with the payments. They didn't know how far behind, only that Monique had become increasingly concerned about it. It was also mooted as another possible reason behind Jean-Luc's suicide.

Marc Fiévet helped out on Monique's land when he could and they shared the profits at market, but with him only being able to manage working it at less than thirty percent capacity, only half the monthly bank repayments were covered with no possibility of making a dent on the back payments. With each update from Louis, the situation seemed to get more desperate. She'd put the farm up for sale as soon as she was aware of problems at the bank, but three months had passed with still no takers.

Listening to Louis explain Monique's dilemma one day, Dominic was struck with an idea. He remembered a farmer he'd reprimanded a month or so back for parking badly on a narrow Taragnon lane. It transpired that he was a tenant farmer and the cottage he'd rented was separated from the land. Because there were no tracks or pull-ins for his car along one side of the land, the farmer had complained he was forced to stay on the road.

Dominic tracked him down over the next week to find out if the proposition of renting a farm with residence adjoining would appeal. A few details exchanged and the answer was 'yes'. Dominic checked with Louis and some others in the gendarmerie for character reference: it appeared the farmer, Croignon, was diligent, worked the land efficiently and always paid his rent on time.

A few days later, Dominic missed the opportunity of broaching the subject with Monique. She was just inside the doorway of the local boulangerie as he was passing, and he wasn't sure if it was because there were other people within earshot, or because the subject was delicate and she might be embarrassed that he knew about her personal problems. Or that, as before, he found her beauty intimidating. He felt awkward and shy in her presence. By the time he'd thought about it, the moment had gone.

Afterwards, he even questioned his motives: was he really trying to help, or was he just using it as an opportunity to speak to her? After a few too many drinks at Louis' one night, with Louis teasing and goading him, he finally admitted with a sly smile that perhaps it was a bit of both. Louis offered to break the ice by getting a message through Valerié and the Fiévets. 'She's so desperate, she's probably past caring where help comes from,' Louis ribbed. Dominic smiled and spun a beer mat across the bar counter.

Despite the ground-laying through the Fiévets, Dominic was still nervous when they met. He needn't have worried. After some initial stumbling and condolences exchanged, it went well. Dominic felt at ease, it was almost as if he was talking to a long lost sister. They traded some background and details in between him explaining the proposition, and it suddenly struck him how lonely she was. Not just now with the loss of her son and husband, but that she had always been lonely in the village. In particular from the way she asked about his mother, whether she'd found it difficult at times in the village? It wasn't easy for outsiders to be accepted, he agreed. Shortly after she asked how he had found settling down in the area? He explained that his mother was only half Indonesian, and by the time it reached him it was barely perceptible. But yes, it had been difficult the first year or so, purely because he was from outside. Others in the gendarmerie also resented him because of his past Foreign Legion and Marseille experience. That he wasn't and never could be completely 'one of them.'

Monique nodded in understanding, her eyes warm and compassionate. She looked down after a second as she met the steadiness of his gaze, toying nervously with her coffee spoon. Perhaps that was how she viewed him, he thought. Another outsider battling against the hostilities of the close-knit village community, the two of them now also bonded by grief. They'd both lost someone they loved.

She went back over some of the details of the proposition. 'If this Croignon rents my farm in its entirety, are you sure about my staying at your mother's house?'

Dominic assured her that it was too big for him and, besides, he'd prefer not to stay with the memories it held. 'You probably feel the same way about your place.' They'd already discussed most of the main details. She would move into his mother's house and he would stay in a small apartment above Louis. The only initial stumbling block had been that Louis' current tennant didn't vacate for another four months. In the end the Croignons offered that Dominic could stay temporarily in the fourth bedroom above the garage. Repayment for broking the deal. Dominic wouldn't charge Monique anything the first year; then they'd discuss a peppercorn rent to cover his basic costs at Louis’.

Monique reached out and clasped his hand with a smile. 'Thank you.' She was deeply appreciative of the help, but had put up a bit of a fight that she should pay him something straightaway before seeing how strongly he was resolved. He wouldn't hear of accepting anything the first year. Dominic flinched a little at the electricity of her touch, felt his face flush slightly.

She was excited by the proposition: not only was the farmer paying a good rent, for the first two years he would share thirty percent of the profits on the fields already fully planted and cultivated. She could cover the bank payments and start getting her life back in order; a new house would also remove some of the memories and emotional burden. But she wanted to sleep on it overnight and speak briefly with the Fiévets. Could they meet again the next day at the same time and place?

It took another two meetings to arrange everything: the loan details were complex and although the rent would easily cover the fresh payments, the back payments would need re-scheduling. Dominic showed her a couple of rescheduling options, but still Monique looked slightly lost and awkward. 'Jean-Luc always dealt with the accounts.' She asked Dominic if he would mind coming to the bank with her to help explain everything to the manager. So much of it had been his plan anyway, and he would be better equipped to propose the rescheduling options. She might fumble or leave out something vital.