Adrian Magson - Death on the Marais

‘You said earlier about newcomers bringing trouble with them.’

Claude looked abashed. ‘Sure. It was just a crack. I didn’t mean anything personal.’

‘I know that. But who were you thinking of, apart from me?’

Claude puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, now you mention it, I suppose

… Didier. Mostly.’

‘He’s been here — what, three years, you said?’

‘About that.’

‘Who else?’

‘Let me see… there’s Alain Dutronc down at the far end of the village, near my place… he arrived here about six months ago. He’s a quiet drunk, about eighty-five years old and doesn’t get out much. Then Mme Denis — she’s been here a few years. A bit of a gossip, but she’s OK.’

‘She’s not local?’ He remembered her saying something about having lived in Poissons long enough to know there were always surprises. At the time, he’d taken it as a statement about a lifetime’s knowledge of the village, or at least many years. With hindsight, it now took on a slightly different meaning.

‘She turned up several years ago,’ Claude confirmed, ‘with her husband. Not sure where from. He died and she stayed on. Someone said she lost her family in the war. I don’t know much about her, to be honest.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t push people to tell me their life histories.’

Rocco mulled it over, remembering how he’d felt sure someone had been inside the house and moved the photograph of Didier Marthe and the Resistance group. There was also the curtain caught in the window, which he was sure hadn’t been like that when he’d left. Was Mme Denis more than a friendly neighbour? Had she used a spare key to see what he was doing here and how far he’d got with his investigation? But if so, she wouldn’t have needed to open the window to get in, even if she were able to.

‘And Francine, of course. But you know about her.’

Claude’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Francine Thorin. Young, pretty, interesting. A widow. Friendly.

‘Tell me again.’

‘She arrived about two years ago.’ Claude shrugged. ‘That’s all I know. She doesn’t talk much but she’s sociable enough, fits into the community. I mean… she’s not exactly a good-time girl, you know what I mean?’

‘No secret life, then.’

‘If there is, that’s what she’s kept it — secret. But I don’t believe that.’

‘You didn’t know she was a widow,’ Rocco pointed out.

‘No.’ Claude frowned. ‘I didn’t.’ His frown deepened. ‘Look, where is this going? She’s had a rough time, with the kidnapping thing.’

Rocco ignored him. Two years ago. He felt something about that time frame tugging at his memory. Was it significant?

‘What else happened in Poissons two years ago?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Apart from Francine arriving.’

‘Ah. Let me see… there was Jean-Po Boutin dying. Nasty business, but it was an accident. I told you.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘That was it. Nothing else major, as far as I can recall.’

Rocco nodded, watching a flurry of activity under the lights by the entrance to the hospital as a crowd of press people gathered around a man in a white coat. They fell back as the man shook his head and waved what looked like a stack of papers, the laugh on them.

Rocco was having difficulty trying to marshal the facts of the various comings and goings around Poissons, and deciding whether they were relevant to his case and why the time frame had lodged in his mind the way it had. Mme Denis arrives several years ago with husband; husband dies. Didier Marthe arrives three years ago. Francine Thorin turns up a year later. Jean-Paul Boutin dies at about the same time.

Didier takes over Boutin’s telephone shortly after.

Nathalie Berbier dies in the marais.

Ishmael Poudric dies near Rouen.

And years before that, at a time of huge upheaval and horror, a group of men and a woman vanish off the face of the earth.

Except that two of them came back.

Discount Mme Denis, he decided. He wasn’t sure why, but instinct told him that anyone with her sense of humour couldn’t be bad.

‘That’s a weird thing, now I come to think of it.’ Claude had his hands thrust into his pockets and was staring up at the night sky with his face screwed up as if delving into the secrets of the universe.

‘What?’

‘Well, coincidence, that’s all. For the first month or so after coming here, Francine lived in the house where you’re staying.’

Rocco stood just inside the cool side room and watched the slim figure lying in the bed. It occurred to him with a sense of irony that Francine was in the very room vacated not long ago by Didier Marthe. Maybe, he thought vaguely, wondering if he wasn’t still feeling the effects of being shot, the hospital liked to save rooms for patients from the same postal area to give them a feeling of community.

There were no machines here: none of the tubes and wires associated with the wounded, injured or about-to-pass-on; none of the atmosphere normally pervading the space where the seriously ill seem to hover on the doorstep to the next world. It was merely a room where a woman was sleeping.

Bed rest, he’d heard it called.

The doctor he’d spoken to said she was in a fragile mental and physical state, nursing vivid memories and trying to come to grips with being safe after her imprisonment. It would take time, he’d added, a less than subtle warning for Rocco to go easy on her. Mental trauma, he’d added pointedly, was not like gunshot wounds, where the scars were mostly physical.

As Rocco moved towards the window he became aware of the patient’s eyes tracking him across the room.

He stopped. ‘How are you feeling?’ He wondered how many times she had been in his house, either using the key from her own time living there or entering through the French window. It wouldn’t have been difficult to do. She would have seen the photo and it would have triggered… what?

‘OK.’ Her voice was a rasp, echoing sleep and probably drugs. She looked around as if acquainting herself with her surroundings, eyes flickering as they settled on each new item in the room. Then she looked away from him, face turned to the wall. He thought she might have fallen asleep, but when he leant over, her eyes were open.

‘You OK to talk?’ he asked, and sat down before she could say no. His side ached and he felt the bandage tight across his ribs, but it was bearable.

‘What about?’ Her voice was clearer but lacked strength and vitality.

‘What happened?’ When Francine said nothing, he explained, ‘That was a question, not a reply.’

Her face turned towards his, but she didn’t look him in the eye. This close, he could see that the cuts on her skin were vivid red, but already starting to close and fade. The bruising he’d seen on her cheeks in the ruined lodge had diminished as if by magic, and he guessed that a kindly nurse had applied some discreet make-up.

‘Are you interrogating me?’ Her eyes were big, serious.

‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ he said carefully. ‘But I do need your help.’

She sighed and nodded. ‘I went to make the delivery.’ The words came out stronger this time. ‘To leave the crate outside the main lodge as I’d been instructed.’

‘Was it by phone?’ He knew the answer but needed her to confirm it.

‘What? Yes. Yes, by phone.’ Francine looked confused for a moment, eyes almost closing. ‘A man. Several days ago. He said to leave the stuff at the back door and he’d arrange for it to be taken inside. So I did.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’d just got there, and was putting the crate down, looking for a safe spot to leave it where the birds wouldn’t get at it. Then the door opened and he came out.’