Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

Sauville glanced at Ingrid and Mel. He coughed. ‘Er... We need some samples.’

‘What kind of samples?’ I said, my suspicions aroused by his hesitation.

Sauville glanced at the girls again. ‘You will find out at the station.’

He left the three of us alone at the table. Mel remained sullen and withdrawn. But Ingrid looked as if she was trying to control a giggle.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I think I know what they’re after,’ said Ingrid.

‘What?’

‘They want your sperm,’ she said.

I grimaced. ‘Oh, God.’

Sauville returned to hurry me along with my meal.

‘Have fun,’ said Ingrid as I left the room with him.

A policeman drove me down the switchbacks to the prosperous little town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer. We passed through streets lined with bright awnings, under which parfumeries, boutiques, galeries and salons de beauté enticed wealthy tourists in off the pavements. There were flowering trees everywhere. Above and behind the town stretched a curtain of high grey cliffs. Les Sarrasins and its watchtower were clearly distinguishable up there, silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky.

The Gendarmerie Nationale was a scruffy building near the railway station. It was scruffy inside too: linoleum floors, dog-eared posters, functional metal and chipboard furniture. Thankfully, Ingrid was wrong about the precise nature of the samples they wanted, but I was sure she was right about their purpose. A doctor took a swab of saliva from my cheek, a syringe full of blood from my arm and hairs both from my head and, humiliatingly, from my pubic region. Afterwards I hung around in a waiting room until the policeman who had brought me down the hill came by to drive me back.

We were just leaving the building when a police car pulled up outside. Sauville stepped out, followed by another detective and two other figures, Tony and Patrick Hoyle. Tony looked tired and grim. He caught my eye as he entered the station. The hostility of that brief glare made me flinch.

It looked as if he was going to have some difficult questions to answer.

As soon as I arrived back at Les Sarrasins I headed for my room and opened up War and Peace again. This time I couldn’t lose myself in its pages. I just kept thinking about Tony.

Had he murdered his wife? He must have. He had the motive: I had provided that. He had discovered the body in the middle of the night. And I had seen him being led into the police station for questioning. Did he look to me like a murderer? I had no idea what a murderer looked like. He was certainly charming. Just as certainly I would never trust him. But I couldn’t envisage him actually killing Dominique.

Despite my last bruising meeting with Guy, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. I knew how much he admired his father, and now he had to face the possibility that he was a murderer. It would be tough on him.

Tough on Owen too, but I didn’t care about that.

There was a gentle knock on the bedroom door. Ingrid put her head round. ‘How was your trip to the police station?’

‘Horrible.’

‘Look. I’m sorry I teased you about it earlier. That was hardly fair. Mel and I are having a drink. Would you like to join us?’

I dropped my book with a thud on to the floor by my bed. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I would.’

I followed Ingrid out on to the terrace, where Mel was sitting alone at a table under the shade of a pine tree. Two glasses half-full of bubbly clear liquid and ice were standing in front of her. I went to fetch a beer for myself. I couldn’t face a vodka and tonic: vodka reminded me of things I would rather forget.

‘I saw Tony at the police station,’ I said, taking the first sip.

‘Yeah. They said they wanted to ask him some more questions,’ Ingrid said. ‘He didn’t seem anxious to go.’

‘What did Guy say?’

‘Nothing. But he looked worried.’

‘I bet he did.’

Despite all that had happened, the sun was shining brightly. Too brightly. Mel was cowering behind dark glasses. I couldn’t blame her. She was drinking determinedly.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked her gently. I knew it was a stupid question, but I wanted to show her I cared about how she felt.

She sniffed and rubbed her nose. She had been crying. ‘Not really. And you?’

‘Not really.’

Mel looked at me awkwardly. ‘Was it your first time?’

I nodded. ‘And you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pretty bad way to start, isn’t it?’ I said.

Mel laughed. ‘Yes. After all those years of saying no, all that saving myself for the right man, and I go and do it with a fifty-year-old pervert.’

‘Quite a good-looking fifty-year-old pervert, isn’t he?’

‘That’s not the point. He’s old enough to be my father. And that’s what really scares me. Maybe I’m going to be one of those sad girls who chase after men twice their age because they’re trying to get their fathers back.’

‘Are your parents divorced?’

Mel nodded. ‘My dad ran off with his secretary two years ago.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And yours?’

‘No. They seem quite happy. But then, Dominique is nothing like my mother.’

‘Or anyone’s mother.’

‘It’s strange,’ I said. ‘She didn’t seem like a real person at the time, and she seems even less like one now that she’s dead.’

‘Yes,’ said Mel. ‘It’s easy to forget that someone has died.’ She shook her head. ‘What if Tony did kill her? I was with him just twenty-four hours before.’ Her face filled with disgust, for herself as much as for Tony, I imagined.

‘Don’t beat yourselves up,’ said Ingrid. ‘You were both taken advantage of by two very manipulative people. Tony was trying to prove to himself he can pull girls better than his son. Dominique was having her piece of petty revenge. It wasn’t either of your faults.’

‘Of course it was my fault,’ said Mel. ‘I let him do it. In fact, I was a willing accomplice. It seemed so glamorous, so grown-up. I thought I was in control.’ A tear ran down her cheek. ‘You know the worst thing, David?’

‘What?’

‘I really like Guy. I had just about decided that he was the one that, you know... What’s happened has just made me realize how much I like him. And of course now he won’t talk to me. He won’t ever talk to me again.’ She fought back a sob.

Once again I marvelled at the effect Guy could have on girls. And on this one it was clearly deeper than superficial physical attraction. Did he know? Did he care?

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve lost him as a friend,’ I said. ‘If he ever was my friend. He was furious with all of us when I saw him this morning: you, me, his father.’

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Ingrid. ‘You’ve both had a bad time. But we’re all young. We can learn from it. You can’t feel guilty about it for ever. Those two, Tony and Dominique, were fucked up. You can’t let them fuck you up too.’

She was right, of course, but Mel and I had plenty of guilt to wallow in.

The police came to see us once more that day. They wanted to check the shoes we had been wearing the previous evening. They had found a footprint, I supposed. Not much good that would do them, we had all been tramping around everywhere from what I remembered. But I gave them mine, again.

There was no sign of Tony. Presumably he was still at the police station, answering questions. Guy managed to avoid us that afternoon and evening and Owen was tucked away in his room playing with his portable computer. But we did see Hoyle. He spent most of the time ensconced with Guy somewhere upstairs, but he dropped in on Ingrid, Mel and me in the living room before he left.