Peter May - Freeze Frames

“Oh, no, monsieur. She refused to ever see Kerjean again. And when it came to his trial she gave some pretty damning evidence against him.”

Enzo turned his gaze toward the sun shimmering across the strait. Scraps of white sail caught the light, flashing against the petrol blue of the ocean, late-season sailors out catching the breeze. “So what was the consensus of opinion at the time? Was Killian really responsible for letting the cat out of the bag?”

“No one knows for sure. By the time it became an issue, Killian was dead. But to be perfectly honest, monsieur, it would have seemed very out of character to me. Adam Killian was not exactly integrated into the island community. Incomers rarely are. Particularly the English. I’m sure he knew or had met Montin at some point, but I can’t imagine for one moment that he went knocking on the man’s door to tell him that his wife was having a relationship with the cantonnier.”

“So why would Kerjean think he had?”

“You’d have to ask him that. Not that I’d recommend it.” The gendarme scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Although I imagine it was probably the timing of it all. Kerjean and Arzhela must have been pretty sure no one else knew about them. Then Killian chances upon them here at the fort, and in a matter of days it’s all out in the open.”

They walked along the grassy bank in silence then, to where it rose up above the line of chimneys sunk in the earth. From here they had a panoramic view across the island, and Enzo felt the comforting warmth of the sun on his face. He tried to imagine the encounter here that day. How had Kerjean reacted? He was known for his violence and his foul mouth. Had he said or done something that had prompted the reclusive Killian to seek revenge in some way? “What was it that first pointed investigators in Kerjean’s direction?” he asked.

“Well, it was a strange situation,” the adjudant gendarme said. “Killian was found by his cleaning lady the morning after the murder. She called the gendarmerie, quite hysterical. A radio call went out to a couple of officers who were down at the harbour in the van. By the time they got out to Killian’s house, Kerjean was already there.”

Enzo turned to look at him, surprised. “What was he doing there?”

“I told you that he was a stringer for the newspaper Ouest-France. He said that as a matter of habit he was always tuned into police frequencies and heard the radio call going out to our officers. Told us he’d driven straight out there. Murder on Groix! He could sell the story all over France.”

“So he got to Killian’s place before the police?”

“Yes.” Gueguen pulled a face. “Which provided a very convenient explanation for his fingerprints being found on the gate and a muddy footprint in the garden. And, as I told you, island officers in those days had no idea how to treat or secure a murder scene. So all sorts of people had tramped all over it before senior investigators arrived from the mainland.” He shook his head. “There was hell to pay, I can tell you. And, in the end, it probably cost us the conviction.”

“What other evidence was there against Kerjean?”

“You mean other than his lack of alibi, his murder threats against Killian, and the item of personal property we recovered from the scene?” Air exploded from between his lips in remembered frustration. “Dammit, Monsieur Macleod, if our people hadn’t been so inept there’s no way Kerjean would have got away with it.”

“Tell me.”

The gendarme removed his kepi and scratched his head. “About two days after the murder a pen was discovered in the grass near the annex. A very expensive, hand-crafted pen called a Montblanc. Turned out to have Kerjean’s prints all over it. He confessed that it was his, a gift, he said, and claimed that he must have dropped it when he was there to report on the murder. The boys from the mainland were already suspicious, and they really turned the spotlight on him then. Which is when they discovered that he couldn’t account for his whereabouts the night of the murder.”

“Where did he say he was?”

“At home in bed.”

“Aren’t they all?” Enzo grinned. “So there was no one to vouch for that?”

Gueguen raised a wry eyebrow. “For once it seems, he didn’t have a woman in his bed.” He raised a finger. “But here’s the thing, monsieur. His car is always parked outside his house in Locmaria. Always. But a neighbour, coming home late that night, noticed that the car wasn’t there. Even although the house was all shuttered up and in darkness.”

“So how did he account for that?”

“Said his car had broken down on the road on the drive back from Le Bourg, and he’d been forced to abandon it.”

“How did he manage to get out to Killian’s place, then, the next morning?”

Gueguen smiled. “Good question, monsieur. Of course he had an answer for it. Said he’d gone out at first light and got his car going again. Then came home and had his breakfast. Which is when he heard the police call on the radio.”

Enzo nodded. “And no one saw him?”

The gendarme smiled. “Not a soul.”

“You said Kerjean had threatened to murder Killian. How did that come about?”

“In a pub in Le Bourg, Monsieur Macleod. Le Triskell.”

“Oh, yes, I know it.” Enzo recalled the bar with its small deserted terrace opposite the doctor’s house in the Place du Leurhe.

“One of Kerjean’s favourite haunts. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d got drunk there. The regulars knew him well and usually gave him a wide berth. But that night, about a week before the murder, he was in drowning his sorrows over his fractured relationship with Arzhela. He was very vocally, very loudly, telling anyone who’d listen, what a bastard that Englishman, Killian, was. How you could never trust an incomer, and a foreigner to boot. Killian had ratted on him, he said. Ruined his life. And if their paths ever crossed again he’d strike the old bastard down and dispatch him to the cemetery, where he belonged.”

They climbed down mossy and overgrown steps to the old parade ground and headed back toward the gate at the far side.

“The thing is,” the gendarme said. “Kerjean had motive and opportunity. He had threatened to kill the victim, was first at the scene, and had left traces everywhere. The evidence was circumstantial, sure, but the juge d’instruction at Vannes decided there was enough of it to proceed with a prosecution.”

“Which failed.”

“Yes.” Gueguen’s mouth set in a hard line. It clearly still rankled. “Largely because of our inept handling of the crime scene. Kerjean hired a good lawyer, who blew gaping holes through our case by exposing failures in procedure.”

They passed through the shadow of the entrance tunnel and Gueguen pulled the gates shut behind them, locking and securing them with a chain and padlock. Then they crossed the outer moat and followed the muddy track between high walls that led to the outside gates. Enzo found himself breathing more easily out here. There was something almost oppressive about the fort, open though it was. Something to do, perhaps, with its dark history. German occupation, a chance encounter leading to the destruction of lives, and perhaps even the death of Adam Killian.

Enzo had a sense of Killian almost everywhere he went on the island, as if the man was following him, haunting him. Knuckles tapping his forehead, urging him to focus, begging him to think. As if somehow it should be obvious. And there was a tiny voice nagging somewhere at the back of his head, telling him he was looking in the wrong place. Come back, it said. The answer’s in my study. That’s where I left my message. Not here. But Enzo was nothing if not methodical. “What other evidence was found at the scene?” he said, and walked with Gueguen toward the cars.