John Matthews: Past Imperfect

An electrical spark caught on the fumes from Dominic's carburettor, a small fire starting… but in his inner darkness all he could see was the single candle flame burning, flickering across Monique's gentle profile. And as the flames became more intense, starting to catch the dripping petrol all around him, he was back in the wheat field searching for Duclos. The gendarmes were tapping forward with their canes, but Poullain had ordered them to torch the wheat field ahead. He was sure that Christian's murderer was still hiding in the field, and the flames and smoke would help flush him out. But Dominic was also concealed among the long sheaves, on his knees searching for the coin as the flames came close, starting to lick all around him… growing panic as he felt the searing heat and realized the fire had surrounded him, there was no way out.

As the plane touched 2,000 ft, they saw the car's explosion in the distance below, as if someone had lit a runway bonfire to mark a landing point. A slow smile crossed Duclos' face.

As the explosion came, a jolt went through Monique's body. A feeling of dread as if something terrible had happened to Gerome in the emergency room at that second.

She looked up anxiously towards the emergency room doors, expecting a doctor to come out with a drawn face at any moment.

But with the passing seconds and nobody appearing, she went back to her silent prayers of the past hour, thinking: please… please. Not this second time. Surely God couldn't be so cruel as to let another of her sons die . It never occurred to her in that moment that her prayers should have been for Dominic.

Praia do Forte, Brazil. January, 1996

Duclos sipped at the caipirissima as he swung on a hammock on the covered terrace. From the beach in front of the villa came the gentle swish of surf. Darkness had fallen almost three hours ago and it showed only as a white frothing line in the moonlight.

They'd finally landed over three hundred kilometres further north than planned, close to Oporto, due to loss of fuel. A nightmarish, skidding landing with a damaged wheel — but they made it. Two days in Portugal with Hector to arrange a new identity and passport, and then he was on a scheduled flight to Salvador, Bahia. He was met there by a local, Jorge Cergara, who drove him the eighty kilometres north to Praia do Forte and the beach villa. His new identity was Gerard Belmeau, a Swiss-French businessman taking early retirement. His hair had been dyed a red sandy blonde, and he had started cultivating a moustache which was tinged every few days to match.

The papers for the house were already prepared in the name of Belmeau, and Praia do Forte was increasingly popular with foreign tourists. No eyebrows would be raised, Cergara assured. And if at any time they were, both the Mayor and Police Chief were in their pockets from pay-offs on their hotel and resort investments in the area.

Gerard Belmeau? His new life. Duclos had rolled it around his tongue for days, tried to force it into his mind so that if anyone called out his new name he might actually respond. Except nobody did. Nobody knew him. He was just a shadowy quiet figure who shuffled into town occasionally to eat and buy groceries and visited the beach some weekdays. At the weekends it was too crowded and invariably he'd stay on his terrace and nurse a caiparissima , catch up on the latest news from France in the newspapers.

There was only one place in town he'd found where he could get them, and normally he'd buy Le Figaro and Le Monde — the only two available — at the same time. He'd filled the French press the first two months of escape. Front page at first, then later further back with background and new angle items: rise and fall in politics or thrown in with a soup of other political scandals — Tapie, Medecin, now Duclos.

Duclos had smiled at the articles attacking the general bungling surrounding his escape: Barielle for allowing house arrest, Corbeix for not protesting stronger against it, the entire examination process for not uncovering the fact that he very obviously had funds outside of those frozen, and finally the keystone collection of Provence cops who let him slip through their grasp.

A circus of finger pointing and mud slinging. Sitting eight thousand miles away on a palm fringed beach, Duclos found it all laughable, pathetic. A lot of ranting and political rhetoric, his name used primarily for Ministers to score points off each other as they grasped at air with empty hands, screaming for justice. Duclos sneered. Justice? What did they know.

They had no idea what he'd suffered through the years for those few dark moments three decades ago? Plagued for years by blackmail from Chapeau, then in turn his brother, his secret life with Betina and Joel. Sometimes it had felt like a hell on earth in repayment for what he'd done, one incident linking to another through the long years. That was why he'd felt so outraged when the case had re-surfaced — he felt as if he'd already paid his penance, served his term!

Except one part of the link in the chain of fateful circumstances through the years had finally led to his salvation. If it hadn't been for the blackmail, he probably wouldn't have taken political bribes — the slush fund and contacts which had finally allowed him to escape. He raised his glass to an imaginary France and smiled crookedly. At least he'd had the last laugh there. 'Salut! '

The first few months had been particularly idyllic, almost like an extended holiday. Any sense of isolation didn't set in till later, perhaps coinciding with him slipping from prominence in the French press. He decided he was sick of Brazilian TV with its endless lambada and game shows with scantily clad hostesses, and invested in a large satellite dish to get French TV. It helped, but also in part felt like nostalgic voyeurism: he was able to look at all that he loved and was familiar — food, fashion, lifestyle — from a distance, but couldn't touch it, feel it. Not long after he discovered the caipirissimas — white rum with lime, sugar and crushed ice. When Brazilian TV became too painful or French TV too nostalgic, he would retire to the terrace and his cocktail shaker.

His name had come back into prominence with the news that Corbeix was continuing with the case in absentia . Watching the proceedings from a distance, it suddenly hit him why he felt such satisfaction when his name was in the news: not only a reminder of what he'd got away with, but a sense that at least he was still in France in spirit, if not in body.

He'd also been into Salvador a few times and recently made a contact for young boys, and Cergara had phoned and invited him to the Rio Carnival next month. His next annual bio-tech payment was due soon, and some new banking arrangements had been made. Their lawyer thought it was best to meet him in person to explain the new arrangements, and he could take in the Carnival at the same time. All expenses on them. Things were looking up.

The effect of the four caipirissimas that night began to bite, he could feel their warmth coursing through him. A distant glow on the beach slowly pierced his blurred vision. Focusing, the four candles became clearer — a woman and small child silhouetted kneeling before them. Probably a Candomble ceremony. He'd seen one before: candles and a collection of seashells on a white cloth, flowers and rice thrown into the sea to appease their Gods Exu and Iemanja. But in the distant flickering flames, he suddenly saw Monique Rosselot's face, her reflection in the glass as she prayed for her dying son… the receding flames of Fornier's burning wreckage as they'd climbed up high above the lights of the Cote D'Azur.