James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

Autumn had descended over Valdecèze like a heavy cloak falling on a pair of shoulders. It had smothered the small French département under a cover of gray clouds through which the sunlight barely filtered, rendering the houses of the town of Sacqueroy drab and lifeless. All week it had rained and the summer’s heat was gone for good.

André Despérine was just out of the police academy and for a start his superiors had sent him to buy coffee and croissants at the bistro on the corner of rue Lesoule. He strode along the sidewalk with a certain awkwardness, three coffee cups squeezed between his fingers and a paper bag filled with pastries clenched between his teeth. He zigzagged between the puddles, walking with hurried little steps so that the coffee wouldn’t get cold while at the same time making sure not to spill a single drop. He arrived very quickly at number 21 only to discover, after having traversed the small garden, that he was incapable of knocking on the door or ringing the bell.

‘Bloody hell,’ he murmured.

He hesitated a moment, staring at the threshold of the doorway with a perplexed expression, then kicked three times, leaving traces of mud on the red-­painted wood. Inspector Hébiart opened the door instantly.

‘You took your time, Despérine.’

Hébiart didn’t help relieve him of the coffee cups or the bag of croissants. He returned directly to the living room, where he settled in, after a slight hesitation, in a mauve velvet armchair, beside Inspector Mélion and the chief inspector, M. Gontan, who were sitting on a spinach green sofa. They were all three questioning the woman who owned the house: a little old lady with curly hair who, hunched up on a wobbly stool, appeared ill at ease.

Cadet Inspector Despérine entered the room still taking small steps, placed the three cups and the croissants on the low table and went back to close the front door under the oppressive looks of his silent colleagues, who were waiting for him to stop bustling around so they could resume the course of their interrogation.

‘All right, Mme Morille, where were we? You had indicated to us that you weren’t in the vicinity of the Saint-Ange School last Thursday at the time class was dismissed,’ Gontan said. ‘You claim to have an alibi for the kidnapping of young Théo Juvignan, seven years old.’

The old woman hiccuped. With her left hand brought up to her neck, she fiddled with a heavy-­knit red wool scarf. Her other hand was rumpling her dress at knee-­level, the fabric riding up as she clutched at it, allowing a glimpse of her bare ankles above small slippers.

‘I was at the park.’

‘Montcalm Park?’

‘The one downtown, yes. With those truly lovely tall trees.’

‘What do they matter?’ Gontan interrupted.

He jotted some lines in his notebook before shaking his thick moustache with an adroit movement of his nose, as he was in the habit of doing whenever he wasn’t convinced.

‘And what were you doing at Montcalm?’

‘I was picking some herbs: among the trees I find plants to use in my infusions.’

Gontan took a deep breath. To his right, Mélion was staring at Mme Morille without moving a muscle. Hébiart was lost in contemplation of a stuffed owl sitting proudly atop a pedestal table.

‘Does that have to do with your . . . professional activities?’ Gontan went on.

‘As a healer, I often advise my clients to drink infusions of medicinal plants . . .’

‘Which you pick under the plane trees in Montcalm Park.’

The chief inspector made an imperceptible movement of his eyelids: he didn’t believe in this charlatanry. He tucked his notebook into the inner pocket of his raincoat and stood up abruptly.

‘Well! I think we’re finished with you for the moment.’

‘And the coffee?’ said Mélion, astonished all of a sudden.

‘Shit, yes: the coffee.’

Gontan sat down again, pulled a cup towards him, took a croissant from the sack and dipped the end twice in the hot beverage. He cast a quick glance at his cadet inspector, standing ramrod straight in a corner of the living room.

‘Hey, Despérine, don’t just stand there. Sit down!’

André Despérine looked all around him; there were no more chairs available and it would have been rude in his view to squeeze in on the sofa between his two superiors. With a timid smile, old Mme Morille pointed to a little stuffed cushion pushed against the wall. He sat down and found himself with his chin in his knees, but kept his arms crossed as he watched the others eat their breakfast. While they were stuffing down their first mouthfuls, the healer of Sacqueroy stood up, suddenly looking down at them from above, her eyes half ­closed and her face solemn.

‘Eat well, for you too shall be eaten! All of you here, it is your destiny.’

She prophesied these words with an otherworldly voice that was not her own. Gontan, nonplussed, stopped chewing mid-­bite; Hébiart, almost choking, swallowed his coffee with difficulty, and Mme Morille, once more taking on a lucid expression, resumed the submissive and hunched posture she had displayed a few seconds earlier. Mélion put down his cup with a calculated slowness, then addressed a nod to the chief inspector. The latter hesitated.

‘Well, well, well . . . We have to question some other suspects. Meanwhile, I would ask you to please stay here in your lovely home.’

The officers got up and made their way back to the threshold. Mme Morille remained alone at the low living-­room table, apparently overwhelmed by events. André Despérine was preparing to cross the doorstep when Gontan pushed him back inside. The chief inspector addressed him in the patronizing tone he used with all new recruits while he looked disdainfully at the enormous beige raincoat Despérine was floating in.

‘No, not you. You stay here. I have serious doubts about that loony there’ – Gontan twitched his moustache – ‘so you stay. You’re not coming.’

André Despérine leaned forward slightly and ended by catching his superior’s glance in his. Gontan then summarized the gist of his instructions.

‘You stay here to watch her, but if you have a moment this afternoon – yes, it’s already past noon – you’ll take the coffee cups back to the corner bistro.’

Believing the chief inspector was finished with him, Despérine went to close the door, but Gontan stopped him again.

‘Oh! And one question, Cadet Despérine: do you know what the advantage of living in Sacqueroy is?’

The young inspector, still wet between the ears, didn’t know what to answer.

‘Valdecèze is the smallest département in France; so small that it contains only one town, three hamlets, and some cows. This isn’t Paris: here, everything gets found out quickly. The incompetent are fired very quickly, just as the best are very quickly rewarded. So I say this to you frankly: don’t get smart with us, and do your share of the work. Can you manage that?’

André Despérine nodded three times in agreement. Gontan’s moustache twitched excitedly under his swollen nostrils, then the old fellow went off to join his subordinates on the other side of the street, where they awaited him in a police car. After the door had closed, Despérine was startled at feeling Mme Morille’s hand slip into his. She had gotten up from her little stool without his noticing it and was now huddled close to him, pressing her chest firmly, but with a certain gentleness, against the cadet inspector’s back.

‘You’re staying?’

Despérine moved away brusquely, nearly knocking a picture frame off the wall.

‘I’m staying, on the chief inspector’s orders.’ Good God, what is she doing?