John Matthews - Past Imperfect

Provence, June, 1995

The three figures walked along the rough track alongside the wheat field. Two men and a boy of eleven.

The older of the men, Dominic Fornier, was in his late fifties. A stocky figure just short of six foot with dark brown hair cropped short and almost totally grey at the sides. Another twenty metres ahead would be the best vantage point, he thought, his eyes scanning the broad expanse of the wheat field. Soft brown eyes with a faint slant at the corner. A slant that somehow made them sharper: knowing eyes, perceptive eyes. Eyes that had seen too much.

The younger man, Stuart Capel, was an inch shorter and slim with light brown almost blonde hair. Mid-thirties, the first faint worry lines showed more prominently as he squinted against the sun and the glare of the bleached white field. Dominic could see the slight resemblance between Stuart and the young boy; though the boy's hair was a shade lighter and a few freckles showed across his nose and cheeks. Fresh faced, happy, but Dominic could still sense the slight barrier, a distance and detachment in the boy's eyes that betrayed the pain and scars of the past months.

As they shuffled to a stop, Stuart asked: 'So is this where it happened?'

'Yes, more or less.' Dominic pointed. 'About five metres ahead on the left.'

Stuart looked at the area of wheat, and it told him nothing. Barely a foot high after being cut down to stubble in the early summer, it was silent, eerie. No hint of the events which now brought them to this spot. What had he expected? He looked across, at young eyes and a distant look that now he knew so well; but there was no glimmer of recognition. As usual, little or nothing while the boy was awake. Probably now even the ghostly shadows finally faded from the edges of his dreams. Acceptance. Stuart wondered.

Six months? It seemed far longer as Stuart's mind flicked through the nightmare odyssey which had finally led them here today. And now the with the trial, so much would hinge on the events of the next days and weeks. Is that what he'd hoped for by asking Dominic Fornier to bring them out here: a final closing of the book, a laying to rest of the ghosts in both their minds?

To the right of the lane were pine trees and thick bushes clinging to an embankment which dipped down towards the small river tributary thirty yards away. Stuart could hear its faint babbling above the gentle wind that played across the field.

He reminded himself that whatever pain and anguish he'd felt, for Dominic Fornier it must have been much worse. The case had plagued Fornier for over thirty years. From a young gendarme to a Chief Inspector, from a provincial case to now one of the largest and most intriguing in French legal history. 'The trial of the decade,'Le Monde had apparently headlined it. And equally it had ripped apart Fornier's own family life.

Dominic lifted his eyes from the field and into the distance, towards the village of Taragnon. Blood patches dried brown against the bleached sheaves. The small face swollen and disfigured . Dominic shuddered. The images were still stark and horrific all these years later.

The field and the view had remained constant, thought Dominic, but everything else had changed. Everything. How many times had he stood in this same field the past thirty years? Searching for clues and the missing pieces of his own life. One and the same. The last time he'd visited in the Spring just past, he'd cried: cried for the lost years, cried for the family and loved ones long departed, cried for his own and Taragnon's lost innocence. One and the same. Cried and cried until there was nothing left inside.

For a moment he thought he could hear the goat's bells again. But as he strained his hearing above the soft sway of the wind across the field, he realized that it was the distant church bells of Bauriac, calling morning prayers … the many services through the years: christenings, marriages… funerals…

Dominic bit his lip. He could feel the tears welling again with the memories, and turned slightly from Stuart and the boy as he scanned the silent panorama of fields and the rich green Provence hills beyond. And as the pain of the images became too much, he closed his eyes and muttered silently under his breath, 'Oh God, please forgive me.'

California, December, 1994

Fields of gold. Burnished wheat under the hot sun.

Eyran could feel the warm rush of air against his body as he ran through the sheaves, thrilling to the feeling of speed as they passed in a blur, springing back and lashing lightly at his legs and thighs. It was England. He knew instinctively, even though there were no guideposts in the dream from which he could be sure. The field where he used to play back in England was on a hill, a slow incline which led down to a small copse of trees with some of his favourite hiding places. Another wheat field rose beyond, linking in turn to fields of cabbages, maize and barley. A colourful and lazy patchwork of green and gold stretching towards the horizon.

But the field in the dream was flat, and Eyran found himself running through frantically looking for those all so familiar landmarks. The hollowed tree in the copse where he had built a camp, the small brook that ran into the copse from Broadhurst Farm — where Sarah was on some days with her labrador. The field stretching out before him remained obstinately flat, no matter how fast he ran and how many sheaves he pushed past. The line of the blue horizon above the gold stayed the same. Though he knew somehow that if he kept running, the scene would change, he would see that all so familiar incline towards the copse, and he picked up the pace, a tireless energy driving him on. The contours changed suddenly, he could see what looked like the brow of a hill just ahead. But the position of the sun was also different, shining straight into his eyes and moving closer, closer — blotting out the hill ahead, then the horizon. Fading the golden wheat to stark white and searing his eyes as it became one blinding blanket of brightness.

Eyran awoke abruptly as the light hurt his eyes. Looking from the car window, he could see the car lights shining at them from one side start to swing away, taking a left at the four way junction. He didn't recognize any landmarks, though he knew they must have driven some way since leaving their friends in Ventura. He heard his father Jeremy mutter something about the junction they should take for joining highway 5 for Oceanside and San Diego, then the crinkling of paper as his mother in the front passenger seat tried vainly to unfold a large map to the right place. They slowed slightly as his father looked over intermittently at the map.

'Is it junction 3 for Anaheim and Santa Ana, can you see?' Jeremy asked. 'Maybe I should stop'.

'Maybe you should. I'm no good with these things.' Allison half turned towards the back seat. 'I think Eyran is awake in any case. He's got school tomorrow, it would be good if he slept some more.' Allison turned and gently stroked Eyran's brow.

Eyran slowly closed his eyes again under the soothing touch. But as his mother's hand moved away and he realized she was looking ahead again, his eyes instinctively opened to stare at the back of her head, focusing on her golden blonde hair until it became almost a blur. Willing himself back into the warmth of the wheat field and the dream.

Allison noticed Jeremy gripping the steering wheel hard as he talked about a problem case at work. His eyes blinked as they adjusted to the fast dying dusk light. Signs now for Carlsbad and Escondido.

She stole a glance back at Eyran. He was asleep again, but she saw now that his brow was sweating, the neck of his shirt damp. She pulled the blanket covering him lower down to his waist. Early December and the weather was still mild, temperatures in the late sixties, early seventies. Two weeks to school breaking up, with the trip to England to see Stuart and Amanda only days after. Part of her mind was already planning: how many days she should arrange for Helena to visit during their three weeks away, fresh food left in the fridge, clothes, packing, what woollens and coats to take.