Past Imperfect (47 page)

Dominic felt the back of his neck tingle. When he'd gone through the questions with Monique, she'd mentioned Christian helping Jean-Luc and getting stung by a bee. Her applying vinegar and baking soda because they had no antiseptic. Dominic shivered involuntarily as the tingle spread down through his body. It was Christian's voice. There remained little doubt.

Listening first hand was dramatically different to just the detached voice on the tape, he thought. Seeing the small face struggling with the thoughts and images, the brow knitted, tongue gently moistening his lips as the words were finally found. The words of another boy from another era. The description of Christian and Jean-Luc working side by side in the fields, father and son, both dead now these past thirty years, cut a powerful and poignant image. Dominic's hand clenched, emotions of sadness and nostalgia gripping him hard.

He'd arranged to fax the transcript to Monique and wait in London for her to answer; if her response was positive, he wanted to stay to talk with Marinella Calvan in more depth. But if little additional information surrounding the murder could be gained, what would be the point?

The second question was about a game of boules in the village square one Sunday. Christian was nine, it was only a couple of months after his birthday. Philippe pinpointed the day: Christian had gone with Jean-Luc to watch the village boules games on several occasions. But this particular Sunday something had occurred.

'...There was an accident.' Eyran's eyes flickered, the right image finally falling into place. 'Nothing serious. But two cars going around the square, one went into the other. The two drivers, both men, were very angry, shouting loudly at each other. Most of the men playing were distracted, it looked like any minute a fight might break out.'

'And what happened then?'

Eyran had settled into the rhythm of the more specific, narrowly targeted questions. Pauses were now less marked. 'One of the players, Alguine - when he thought that everyone was looking towards the road, moved to stand by his own boule, then nudged it closer to the
cochonnet
with one foot.'

'What did you do?'

'Looking around, I realized that nobody had noticed but me. Alguine had moved quickly away from his boule, so I moved gradually towards it and, as the other players' attention drifted back, I looked down suddenly and apologized: "Sorry. I must have kicked this boule while I was looking at the accident. I'll put it back where it was." I could see Alguine glaring at me, but he said nothing. Later, when I told my father, he couldn't stop laughing.'

Jean-Luc had told Monique, Dominic reflected, then in turn Monique had told him just the other day when she'd prepared the questions. Batons passed down through the years. A few faint brush strokes depicting an era of Monique's life previously strange to him
.

Thirty years? Machanaud had died over ten years ago. Fourteen years in prison. Only six years of freedom in between. A handful of twilight years to swill back some
eau de vies
and spin out his long forgotten glory days in the
resistance
, poach a last few rivers. Rough justice.

If four years ago he hadn't bumped into Molet, Machanaud's lawyer, in the recess halls at the Lyon
Palais de Justice
, he might never have known. Molet was there on a hearing for a Nice-based client. They both recognized each other straightaway - but it took some prompting from Dominic for Molet to finally recall from where and when. After some initial pleasantries, they turned to the subject of Machanaud. Molet did most of the talking while Dominic registered in turn surprise, guilt, and finally, outrage.

Molet obviously read the guilt, because he commented that he himself had not realized Machanaud was still being held under psychiatric care until year eleven. 'I thought he would have been released ages ago. But it still took three years to press for his release. There was a review only once a year.'

Molet went on to describe Perrimond's undue influence with hospital governors and state psychiatrists to ensure Machanaud was not released. Provence establishment favour swapping - at the golf club or masonic lodge - at its very worst. 'Each time a negative psychiatric report came through. Machanaud wasn't finally released until a year after Perrimond's death.'

'... I got a boule close to the white, only a few centimetres away. My father was quite surprised. Only one of the other players got so close - and in the end they had to measure to see who had won.'

Dominic looked down. It wasn't part of the prepared question sheet. Marinella Calvan had obviously let him ramble; perhaps happy of a diversion allowing Christian to relax, establish a more natural rhythm. It was obviously also an incident he remembered with fondness.

The boy's faint smile. Dominic found it vaguely disturbing. A reminder of lost happiness, lost years.

Molet had looked sharply at Dominic, as if perhaps expecting a reciprocal disclosure of guilt. But Dominic said nothing. What could he say? That year seven had been the first time it had occurred to him to check on Machanaud, and when he couldn't trace Molet's number he had finally called Perrimond's office. Three calls later with no reply, his workload had quickly swamped his concern. And on the few occasions since that the thought had arose, he'd convinced himself that Machanaud had probably been released years back. He had never troubled to pick up the phone and check. Too busy.

And even if he had explained all that, Molet would have questioned why he was concerned. And he would have felt inclined to explain the rest: his past doubts about Machanaud's guilt, the police cover-up over the car description, how he had been pushed into going along with everything because of the veiled threat of being shipped off to a gendarmerie in northern France. That his mother would have been left to die alone. He could explain none of that - so in the end he said nothing.

But Dominic was sure that in that moment Molet had seen it all in his face, seen the quickly rising burden of guilt and shock as it struck him just how long Machanaud had spent locked away.

'... it was on a trip to Alassio. We went there for a weekend.'

'And that was where you bought it?'

'Yes. I had some pocket money, but it wasn't enough. So I talked my parents into letting me have the rest of the money to buy it.'

The third question, Dominic noted. A trip to Alassio in Northern Italy.
Alassio
.
Portofino
. He remembered seeing a wall plaque for Portofino on his first trip to the Rosselots, sitting in their kitchen asking questions about the last hours they saw their son.

'How did you talk them into it?'

'I told them I'd read more. That if I had a bedside lamp like that, so nice, I'd promise to read more. Every night.'

'What did the lamp look like?'

'It was made of shell, in the shape of an old galleon. The light inside made the shell almost luminescent and direct light would also shine through the portholes. It was beautiful.'

'So in the end that promise convinced your parents to give you the extra money for it?'

'Yes it did.'

'And did you keep your promise and read more?'

'Yes. Practically every night in bed I did some reading before going to sleep.'

Dominic looked down and bit his lip. He could hardly bear it. He didn't realize that sitting in on the session would have such a profound affect on him. Christian's voice, all these years later, telling them what a good boy he'd been. As if it was still somehow important to him.

THIRTY

Dominic was staying at the Meridien Waldorf, half a mile from David Lambourne's office in Holborn. He'd stayed over the previous night, but hoped to leave without spending a second night. He was therefore in hotel limbo: bags packed and in a store room, though still using their facilities. Particularly their fax.

It had taken Philippe almost two hours to put the transcript back in its original French from the on-screen English, and another fifty minutes for it to arrive by messenger at his hotel. He scanned it through for any obvious errors and faxed it straight to Monique in Lyon. He'd already phoned her to expect its arrival, could imagine her standing by the fax machine in his office at home, practically ripping the pages out as they hummed through.

Beep
. Dominic waited a few minutes by the machine for a reply. Then, telling the clerk where he would be if one came through, he went to the bar downstairs and ordered an armagnac.

As the drink hit his stomach, warming it, soothing his nerves, he started thinking about the transcript he'd just read through. The depth of detail came through even more than in the session itself. The contrast to the fractured, garbled descriptions around the murder itself was absolute. He took another quick slug, feeling it cut a warm path. Just his luck: marvellous detail about games of boules, pan chocolat and trips to Alassio - but little or nothing of use about the murder itself.

Almost twenty minutes had passed when the office clerk came down with a fax. Dominic was on his second armagnac. Hand-written, it read simply:

I'm convinced it's Christian's voice. Nobody else could possibly know those personal details. I don't know how or why - but it's his voice.

Twenty minutes? Reading through the transcript would have taken only five minutes. Had Monique cried, caught up in a wave of emotions that stopped her putting pen to paper immediately? Or had she sat and laboured over the brief message she was going to send back, eager not to show sentimentality or the mixture of suspicion and outrage she'd voiced immediately after playing the tape. That had now been boiled down to simply,
'I don't know how or why'
. When she'd initially prepared the questions, she'd commented in a subdued, almost acid tone. 'I don't profess to understand the tape that has been sent. But if these questions are answered correctly, Dominic, for God's sake don't expect me to believe that this strange English boy is Christian reborn. Some vague, unexplained psychic link perhaps. But that's as far as I'll go.'

Dominic checked his watch, timing: phone through to Marinella Calvan and give her the news, arrange a meeting, forty minutes or so for the meeting itself, then back to the hotel to collect his luggage and out to Heathrow airport for 6.35 pm. It was going to be tight, particularly if traffic was bad.

Dominic wondered whether to forget the meeting with Calvan. Just fax through Monique's message, a brief follow up phone call, and head out to the airport. When he'd originally thought of a meeting, it had been inspired by the foolhardy idea that he might be able to use the information to re-open the case. Now it was just his own curiosity. But Calvan would probably still insist that details surrounding the murder were too scant. Even that last vestige he'd clung to - salving whether all those years of doubt and guilt had been misplaced - wouldn't be satisfied. The meeting would have no purpose.

The decision made, in a way Dominic felt relieved. He knocked back the last of his armagnac. Fine. No meeting. Perhaps as well. Even if Marinella Calvan had complied, he'd have had to face Monique and explain. Explain everything he'd kept hidden the past thirty years. He'd been dreading that part, and at least that would now also remain buried.

'I don't understand. A suspect was found, charged and sentenced - at least that's what came out of the few newspaper articles Philippe translated for me. I thought the case was closed all those years back.'

'You're right. It was. But there were discrepancies with the case that I was never happy with.' Marinella was staring sharply at him, still getting to grips with his suggestion of using information from the session to re-open the murder investigation.
Discrepancies?
What could he say to this woman he hardly knew? That he'd been press-ganged into joining a cover-up so that he could stay with his dying mother, the resultant years of guilt, re-doubling when he'd learned how long a possibly innocent man had spent imprisoned. Yet proving Machanaud's innocence would only heighten that guilt, and then his wife would know his part in the cover-up and that her last husband's suicide had been in vain. Marinella Calvan's eyebrow would merely arch more acutely. What
did
he want out of it all? Perhaps proving Machanaud's guilt: closing the door once and for all on that chink of doubt. In the end, the only other useful thing he could find to say was: 'I was very young then, merely assisting in the investigation. I had very little influence on the way it was conducted. To me, this is like a second chance. How many of us really get a second chance?'

Second chance?
The poignancy of the phrase stung Marinella for a second. 'I can appreciate how much you would like to get to the truth, even after all these years. If I can, I would love to help. But you've listened to the tape of that first session when we stumbled on those final moments of the murder. Eyran's almost catatonic. Apart from the obvious risk of dragging him back through recall of the murder - I just don't think we'll gain anything of any help. Most of it has been pushed away. He doesn't want to think about it.'

Clatter of cutlery from two tables away, a waitress with an Australian accent talking to one of her colleagues. Dominic was distracted briefly. When he'd phoned at four o’clock and spoken to Marinella, David Lambourne had just started a fresh session. He'd mentioned how tight he was for time with his flight out, and they arranged to meet twenty minutes later at Café Opera in Covent Garden.

Detail?
The contrast between the depth of detail in the transcript and the vague garbled accounts surrounding the murder was what first gave Dominic the clue. What made him suddenly phone Marinella Calvan and arrange the meeting: Christian expanded, detail was stronger relating stories where he felt more relaxed, at ease. This in turn explained why the murder account was so vague and fractured. But forty minutes to an hour earlier, when Christian first met his murderer, before either of the sexual attacks, before Christian even realized he might be in danger - he would have been more relaxed, at ease. Now, explaining these thoughts to Marinella Calvan, words he had already spun over in his mind on the way to the café - he watched her expression closely. 'If nothing else, he would hopefully be able to give a clear, accurate account of those moments. The moments when he first met his murderer.' A chink of acceptance halfway through, then something else: doubt or intrigue, Dominic wasn't sure.