Babazouk blues, p.15
Babazouk Blues, page 15
‘No, alas.’ She gave a sad little shake of the head. ‘Every so often Jeanne would play me something but I’ve always been rather tone deaf, I’m afraid.’
‘So what did you share as friends? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘I welcome it. Jeanne was a free spirit and I think she saw something similar in me. We didn’t always succeed in seizing the day but we tried.’
‘Apart from you and the gentleman now living in Paris, Monsieur Gaston Cartin, Madame Mesnel didn’t seem to have any friends.’
‘Have any friends left, you mean. Have you spoken to Gaston?’
‘One of my lieutenants has.’
‘Quite a character.’ She took another sip of cognac. ‘As, I dare say, am I.’
Darac smiled at her. ‘You knew Monsieur Mesnel – Alain?’
‘No, no. He’d died over fifteen years before I got to know Jeanne but she told me all about him. A charmer. Something of a rogue but a very lovable one.’
‘A rogue?’
‘Get-rich-quick schemes. Sudden crazes that were dropped and never taken up again. You know the sort. Exhausting but fun, Jeanne said.’
‘He died relatively young. That must have been difficult for her.’
‘Of course. But, as I hinted, Jeanne aspired to a Zen approach to life and it helped. Some misunderstood that in her, I think; people who couldn’t see that there was a very complex, sensitive woman underneath.’
‘She never remarried.’
‘There were lovers, of course, but none ever matched up to Alain.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘They were rather brief affairs, I think. Quite insignificant.’
‘And recently?’
‘I can’t think of anyone at all over the past ten years or so.’
‘I see. How did you meet Madame Mesnel?’
‘I lived in Beaulieu – I was a school teacher there – and one day took some skirts to her to alter. She was the finest seamstress in the area, you know. Supported herself solely by it after Alain died, just working at home. Anyway, I noticed she was reading James Baldwin’s Another Country and we got talking about it. She said she’d got it because the central character is a jazz musician. A drummer. Are you familiar with the novel?’
‘No, but I’d be interested to read it, though. I’m a jazz fan, myself.’
‘Then it is a pity you never knew Jeanne.’
‘You know, in a sense, I did know her. You recall the jazz club poster on her stairs? The one based on a photo taken in the early sixties? I’ve loved it most of my life.’
‘Alain took that photograph.’
Darac’s jaw dropped. ‘He did?’
‘Photography was one of his enduring passions. It endured for a few months, anyway. Then painting was the new thing.’
‘Those local scenes in the living room were done by him? I was under the impression Madame Mesnel had painted them.’
‘Oh no, they’re his. Rather accomplished, aren’t they? In their way.’
‘I didn’t really look at them closely. But are there any other examples of his photography anywhere? Not snaps, I mean, proper work?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. That image only exists because he managed to sell it to the woman who owned the club and she had it made into a poster.’
Darac shook his head. ‘I think it’s among the greatest jazz photos ever taken.’
‘That’s wonderful! But I can hear Jeanne laughing about it.’ She rose. ‘Whilst I remember.’ With some difficulty, she extracted a volume from one of the bookcases. ‘The Bs are rather crammed in, I’m afraid; mainly Monsieur Balzac’s fault.’ She handed him the Baldwin novel in an old hardback edition. ‘This is what started it all.’
He opened the fly leaf. The elegantly penned inscription read: To dearest Anne. Perhaps this will get you hooked at last!
‘I’ll lend it to you on the proviso that you discuss it with me sometime.’
‘It’s a date. Although I’m not sure when that will be.’
‘Just phone when you’re ready.’
Darac slipped the book into his bag. ‘I understand that Madame Mesnel’s daughter was a deeply unhappy person.’
‘When I think of Sarah, I always think of Ford’s The Good Soldier.’ She raised her eyebrows. He shook his head. ‘It begins: This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’
‘Ah.’
‘A troubled young woman, unpredictable, difficult. She was already married when I got to know her. Not that I ever saw the husband – Daviot. He was another charmer, by all accounts. Not so lovable as Alain. Not lovable at all, in fact. A charlatan. Do you know about Cristelle?’
‘Yes I do,’ Darac said, taking a long, slow sip of his cognac.
‘When Sarah fell pregnant, Jeanne urged her to have an abortion, as I would have if I had known her then. That shocks you?’
‘Not at all.’
Madame Corot nodded approvingly. ‘She didn’t want the child but Daviot somehow managed to put the fear of God into her about it. She went ahead. He left immediately the baby was born and Sarah went gradually downhill. Never to recover.’
‘Ultimately, she died of cancer, didn’t she?’
‘That’s what they called it, yes.’
‘Daviot?’
‘He was blown to pieces in an explosion shortly after he left her. Somewhere in Italy.’
‘One of the terrorist bombs?’
‘Terrorists or freedom fighters.’
Madame Corot’s caution for hurling grapes at Front National leaders suddenly came to Darac. Despite her frailty, he bet they had flown with some force.
‘Yes, Captain, he was just standing there when the thing went off. Unlucky, wasn’t it? I felt like cheering when Jeanne told me. That shocks you?’
‘I am a policeman, madame. I am frequently appalled but never shocked.’
She smiled and raised her glass to him. ‘Please have another, Captain. I will join you.’
He poured refills. ‘The hot tub. Did you try it?’
‘The day after it was installed. I enjoyed it so much, Jeanne…’ A catch in her voice swallowed her friend’s name. ‘Forgive me.’
‘Please take your time.’
‘Yes, I so enjoyed the experience that Jeanne said she would buy me one. Can you imagine? But I really had nowhere to put it.’
‘Generous of her.’
‘Jeanne was the most generous person in the world, Captain. Besides, she said, she hadn’t paid a sou for hers.’
‘Courtesy of Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg. An extraordinary gift, don’t you think? It must have cost what, a couple of thousand euros?’
Madame Corot’s eyebrows rose conspiratorially. ‘Nearer three.’
‘Uh-huh. Did Madame Mesnel discuss the house sale with you?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s a wonderful little place.’
‘The times we’ve had there.’
‘I imagine it wasn’t on the market long.’
‘The house was never on the market.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I can give you chapter and verse on that. One morning, sometime last August I suppose it would be, Jeanne was resting by her gate after returning home with a few bits of shopping – it had begun to take a lot out of her – when this athletic young woman appeared and jogged past. They smiled at one another. By the time she jogged back a minute or two later, Jeanne still hadn’t gone into the house. The girl stopped to ask if she was alright. They shared a joke about marathons, getting one’s breath back and so on and then Jeanne noticed that the bottle of water the girl was carrying was empty. She offered to refill it. Speaking of which…?’
Darac obliged with another shot of cognac.
‘They went into the house, got on famously, one thing led to another and before you could say spit, the girl had made the offer.’
‘I see.’ Darac nodded as if such a thing were an everyday occurrence. ‘How was the value arrived at?’
‘Jeanne had the house valued, naturally. Then a solicitor worked out the en viager side of it. The mademoiselle didn’t bargain. It was all done beautifully.’
‘Some of the contents were included, I notice.’
‘Just the carpets, I think. Oh, and the curtains.’
‘And the paintings and the carriage clock from the living room.’
‘The clock?’ Madame Corot looked put out, suddenly. Or at least surprised. ‘And the paintings? I didn’t realise.’
‘They weren’t part of the original valuation, then?’
‘No. Well, perhaps they were. I don’t know.’
The clock… First Walters-Halberg and now Madame Corot seemed anxious to deny any interest in it.
‘Selling the house en viager: had Madame Mesnel ever considered the idea before?’
‘Never. Cristelle was going to get everything. And but for the way she conducted herself when, quite out of the blue, she turned up at the villa one day, she would have.’
‘So you would corroborate what I’ve heard about that visit from another source?’
‘Which was?’
‘That after years of neglect, Cristelle showed up to check her inheritance was still earmarked for her and not the Jazz Musicians Benevolent Association or whatever.’
‘Quite so. But it wasn’t just a case of mentally rearranging the furniture, Captain. The girl was so mercenary and uncaring, it upset Jeanne deeply. It changed everything. And gave her, if not a problem, at least some organising to do and new decisions to make.’
‘You know that one of those was to include your name on the list of beneficiaries?’
‘No. Really?’
To the tune of just shy of €180,000. But Darac believed Madame Corot had had enough to deal with for one day. ‘I think there might be a little cheque for you.’
Twenty-five years of friendship shone through her eyes. ‘Jeanne, you sweetheart.’
‘But I interrupted you. Madame Mesnel had decisions to make?’
‘Yes indeed. But then almost immediately, in one of those happy accidents that misguided people tend to interpret as instances of divine intervention, up pops Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg and everything was solved.’
The interview concluded with questions about Battail and Brigitte’s dog, the marks on the patio, and so on. Madame Corot could shed no light on any of them.
As Darac took the A8 road back to Nice, he began to entertain doubts about Taylor’s purchase of the Mesnel villa. He didn’t need the example of his parents’ first encounter to recognise that serendipitous meetings happened in life. And so did oddly timed coincidences. On his first jazz trip to New York, he found he was staying in the same hotel as a man who had just landed the identical position in a Grasse perfumery that his father had once held. It was extraordinary but, as the saying goes, ‘Everybody’s got to be somewhere.’ The Taylor property-buying saga was different. Who had ever put in an offer on a house, one that its vendor-to-be hadn’t even put on the market, while out jogging? Taylor’s supposed reason for buying, that she might be homeless following Philippe de Lambert’s death, made good long-term sense but why the urgency? The man seemed sound enough. And then there was the issue of the jogging route. Taylor had told Darac she ‘always’ jogged down to the beach at Passable and back. But Jeanne Mesnel’s villa in Beaulieu was in precisely the opposite direction.
Ivo Selmek had insinuated that Taylor’s rise at Villa Rose had been due more to her puppy-like devotion to the Lamberts than to her talents as an art historian. He’d practically said she’d wormed her way into their affections for the purpose. Had she done the same with Madame Mesnel? If so, why?
Darac had doubts about the hot tub, also. Was it the post-facto ‘thank-you gift’ Taylor said or had it been offered prior to the sale as an inducement? A €3,000 gift was quite some thank-you. Darac intended putting these questions to Taylor directly but, in preparation, he resolved to start looking further into her life.
Losing himself in one of his favourite discs, Shelly Manne at the Blackhawk Volume 3, Darac didn’t surface again until he’d followed the A8 past Cannes and turned toward the Baie des Anges at Château de Vaugrenier. The ziggurat complex at Villeneuve-Loubet was directly ahead now, rising from the shoreline like a theme-park rollercoaster. The sight demanded a flamboyant fanfare from Shelly’s men. Instead, ‘Whisper Not’ floated from the speakers like a feather rising in a current of warm summer air.
‘Tay-lor… Wal-ters… Hal-berg…’ Darac sang absently, in time with the song’s two-beat theme. He swiped his mobile. ‘Bonbon? Know anything about carriage clocks?’
‘Enough not to miss a bargain. And I have books. Why?’
‘Get them, meet me at the Mesnel villa shortly, and I’ll show you.’
‘How shortly?’
‘I’m calling in at the commissariat en route… Say about an hour?’
‘Just a second.’ Darac heard Bonbon exchange a few words with someone. ‘An hour, it is, chief.’
The call ended, Darac’s thoughts soon returned to Taylor Walters-Halberg. What a name that was; one, he reflected, that seemed just made to precede the words ‘I arrest you on a charge of…’ Of course, he would need slightly more than that to proceed.
Once back at Joinel, he called Granot into his office. ‘Koffee with a k?’
The big man sat down like a walrus flopping on to a rock. ‘Why not?’
‘Ever go for a walk and wind up buying something on impulse, Granot?’
‘Once or twice, I suppose.’
‘Anything big and expensive?’
‘Does Odile count?’
Darac pressed on. ‘Ever put in an offer on a house while out jogging? Just imagine that you do jog, for a moment. And I’m talking about an on-the-spot offer for a place that isn’t even for sale.’
‘No, that’s… What are you getting at?’
Darac handed over the machine’s take on a double espresso. ‘Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg did just that. When she made that offer on Jeanne Mesnel’s villa.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Not from the mademoiselle herself, interestingly.’
Granot weighed the information. ‘Strange… But it probably doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Well, it means something, doesn’t it?’ Darac ran his hand into his hair. ‘The more I think about it, the more I don’t like it.’ He outlined his uneasiness about the clock. ‘And that’s just one thought.’
‘Or maybe she realises the house is sitting on a disused goldmine and the tripod marks are where she set up her theodolite to check.’
‘Yes, alright. But there’s something odd about this house purchase and that, my old friend, is where you come in.’
Granot’s grin faded. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do, of course.’
‘I know you have.’
‘And what happened to “shouldering the heavy lifting”?’
‘“As much as I can,” I said. I’ve just applied for a raft of stuff on Walters-Halberg, which I’ll go through. I want you to look at the vendor’s side. Find out all you can about Jeanne Mesnel, Alain her husband, and anything that relates to the property before the Mesnels had it. I’ll owe you one.’
‘What you can owe me is next Wednesday evening. We’ve got the Shits at home.’
‘Your sister’s family?’
‘Olympique Marseille.’
‘Done.’
24
A vehicle Darac didn’t recognise was parked outside the Mesnel villa. He blinked as its headlights flicked on, cutting a blue-white swathe through the murk toward him. Wiper blades made a single pass of the windscreen. The driver’s door opened.
‘Oh it’s you, sir.’
They faced away from the wind and the rain as they talked.
‘Martino, isn’t it? How’s it going?’
‘I had a look around ten minutes ago. No problems.’
‘Good. Better get out of the weather.’
Entering Jeanne’s living room gave Darac a feeling he had experienced many times before. By some sort of anthropomorphic extension, it was as if the room itself were dead. And he knew that with each day that passed, the effect would only increase. Music was needed. Early Armstrong. It was presumptuous, but he felt Jeanne would have approved.
Silvery and sassy, the sound of the master breathed life into the place at a stroke. Perhaps disturbed by the displacement of air, a moth fluttered into the open and landed on the frame of one of Alain Mesnel’s oil paintings. On his previous visit, Darac had paid more attention to the prints than the paintings but now that he looked at them he saw what Madame Corot had meant: in their way, they were quite impressive. Each was a study of a local landmark: the re-created ancient Greek palace, the Villa Kérylos; the lighthouse at Pointe Malalongue; the house and gardens of Villa Rose. Each successfully evoked its subject; and each, whether she had any use for them or not, would soon be the property of Taylor Walters-Halberg.
The kitchen door flew open. His shock of red hair plastered to his head, Bonbon blew in with all the composure of a shipwreck. ‘I’ve gone for wet and windswept.’
‘You nailed it.’
‘I’ll dry off in here and I’ll be right with you.’
When the moment came, Armstrong struck up a jaunty ‘Heebie Jeebies’ in welcome. Darac pointed to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘There it is, Bonbon. I’ve already looked for hallmarks. Couldn’t see any. There’s a maker’s name, though.’
‘It’s a start.’ Bonbon eyed the speakers. ‘Can we adjust the volume? Say, to nothing?’
‘Phili-fucking-stine. I’m turning it down; no more.’
‘That’s something.’ Bonbon took a couple of books out of his bag. ‘I’m going in.’
Another stormy blast from the kitchen and Yvonne Flaco appeared, her braided head looking barely damp. Greetings exchanged, she gave Darac an enquiring look.
‘Yes, Flak?’
‘I’ve got a couple of questions.’
He set his weight against the back of the sofa. ‘Go for it.’
Lowering her brow into her familiar scowl, she took a notebook out of her windcheater. ‘First, I’m not sure why you are so interested in the details of Walters-Halberg’s purchase of this place. You can’t suspect her of being Madame Mesnel’s killer?’
‘So what did you share as friends? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘I welcome it. Jeanne was a free spirit and I think she saw something similar in me. We didn’t always succeed in seizing the day but we tried.’
‘Apart from you and the gentleman now living in Paris, Monsieur Gaston Cartin, Madame Mesnel didn’t seem to have any friends.’
‘Have any friends left, you mean. Have you spoken to Gaston?’
‘One of my lieutenants has.’
‘Quite a character.’ She took another sip of cognac. ‘As, I dare say, am I.’
Darac smiled at her. ‘You knew Monsieur Mesnel – Alain?’
‘No, no. He’d died over fifteen years before I got to know Jeanne but she told me all about him. A charmer. Something of a rogue but a very lovable one.’
‘A rogue?’
‘Get-rich-quick schemes. Sudden crazes that were dropped and never taken up again. You know the sort. Exhausting but fun, Jeanne said.’
‘He died relatively young. That must have been difficult for her.’
‘Of course. But, as I hinted, Jeanne aspired to a Zen approach to life and it helped. Some misunderstood that in her, I think; people who couldn’t see that there was a very complex, sensitive woman underneath.’
‘She never remarried.’
‘There were lovers, of course, but none ever matched up to Alain.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘They were rather brief affairs, I think. Quite insignificant.’
‘And recently?’
‘I can’t think of anyone at all over the past ten years or so.’
‘I see. How did you meet Madame Mesnel?’
‘I lived in Beaulieu – I was a school teacher there – and one day took some skirts to her to alter. She was the finest seamstress in the area, you know. Supported herself solely by it after Alain died, just working at home. Anyway, I noticed she was reading James Baldwin’s Another Country and we got talking about it. She said she’d got it because the central character is a jazz musician. A drummer. Are you familiar with the novel?’
‘No, but I’d be interested to read it, though. I’m a jazz fan, myself.’
‘Then it is a pity you never knew Jeanne.’
‘You know, in a sense, I did know her. You recall the jazz club poster on her stairs? The one based on a photo taken in the early sixties? I’ve loved it most of my life.’
‘Alain took that photograph.’
Darac’s jaw dropped. ‘He did?’
‘Photography was one of his enduring passions. It endured for a few months, anyway. Then painting was the new thing.’
‘Those local scenes in the living room were done by him? I was under the impression Madame Mesnel had painted them.’
‘Oh no, they’re his. Rather accomplished, aren’t they? In their way.’
‘I didn’t really look at them closely. But are there any other examples of his photography anywhere? Not snaps, I mean, proper work?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. That image only exists because he managed to sell it to the woman who owned the club and she had it made into a poster.’
Darac shook his head. ‘I think it’s among the greatest jazz photos ever taken.’
‘That’s wonderful! But I can hear Jeanne laughing about it.’ She rose. ‘Whilst I remember.’ With some difficulty, she extracted a volume from one of the bookcases. ‘The Bs are rather crammed in, I’m afraid; mainly Monsieur Balzac’s fault.’ She handed him the Baldwin novel in an old hardback edition. ‘This is what started it all.’
He opened the fly leaf. The elegantly penned inscription read: To dearest Anne. Perhaps this will get you hooked at last!
‘I’ll lend it to you on the proviso that you discuss it with me sometime.’
‘It’s a date. Although I’m not sure when that will be.’
‘Just phone when you’re ready.’
Darac slipped the book into his bag. ‘I understand that Madame Mesnel’s daughter was a deeply unhappy person.’
‘When I think of Sarah, I always think of Ford’s The Good Soldier.’ She raised her eyebrows. He shook his head. ‘It begins: This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’
‘Ah.’
‘A troubled young woman, unpredictable, difficult. She was already married when I got to know her. Not that I ever saw the husband – Daviot. He was another charmer, by all accounts. Not so lovable as Alain. Not lovable at all, in fact. A charlatan. Do you know about Cristelle?’
‘Yes I do,’ Darac said, taking a long, slow sip of his cognac.
‘When Sarah fell pregnant, Jeanne urged her to have an abortion, as I would have if I had known her then. That shocks you?’
‘Not at all.’
Madame Corot nodded approvingly. ‘She didn’t want the child but Daviot somehow managed to put the fear of God into her about it. She went ahead. He left immediately the baby was born and Sarah went gradually downhill. Never to recover.’
‘Ultimately, she died of cancer, didn’t she?’
‘That’s what they called it, yes.’
‘Daviot?’
‘He was blown to pieces in an explosion shortly after he left her. Somewhere in Italy.’
‘One of the terrorist bombs?’
‘Terrorists or freedom fighters.’
Madame Corot’s caution for hurling grapes at Front National leaders suddenly came to Darac. Despite her frailty, he bet they had flown with some force.
‘Yes, Captain, he was just standing there when the thing went off. Unlucky, wasn’t it? I felt like cheering when Jeanne told me. That shocks you?’
‘I am a policeman, madame. I am frequently appalled but never shocked.’
She smiled and raised her glass to him. ‘Please have another, Captain. I will join you.’
He poured refills. ‘The hot tub. Did you try it?’
‘The day after it was installed. I enjoyed it so much, Jeanne…’ A catch in her voice swallowed her friend’s name. ‘Forgive me.’
‘Please take your time.’
‘Yes, I so enjoyed the experience that Jeanne said she would buy me one. Can you imagine? But I really had nowhere to put it.’
‘Generous of her.’
‘Jeanne was the most generous person in the world, Captain. Besides, she said, she hadn’t paid a sou for hers.’
‘Courtesy of Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg. An extraordinary gift, don’t you think? It must have cost what, a couple of thousand euros?’
Madame Corot’s eyebrows rose conspiratorially. ‘Nearer three.’
‘Uh-huh. Did Madame Mesnel discuss the house sale with you?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s a wonderful little place.’
‘The times we’ve had there.’
‘I imagine it wasn’t on the market long.’
‘The house was never on the market.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I can give you chapter and verse on that. One morning, sometime last August I suppose it would be, Jeanne was resting by her gate after returning home with a few bits of shopping – it had begun to take a lot out of her – when this athletic young woman appeared and jogged past. They smiled at one another. By the time she jogged back a minute or two later, Jeanne still hadn’t gone into the house. The girl stopped to ask if she was alright. They shared a joke about marathons, getting one’s breath back and so on and then Jeanne noticed that the bottle of water the girl was carrying was empty. She offered to refill it. Speaking of which…?’
Darac obliged with another shot of cognac.
‘They went into the house, got on famously, one thing led to another and before you could say spit, the girl had made the offer.’
‘I see.’ Darac nodded as if such a thing were an everyday occurrence. ‘How was the value arrived at?’
‘Jeanne had the house valued, naturally. Then a solicitor worked out the en viager side of it. The mademoiselle didn’t bargain. It was all done beautifully.’
‘Some of the contents were included, I notice.’
‘Just the carpets, I think. Oh, and the curtains.’
‘And the paintings and the carriage clock from the living room.’
‘The clock?’ Madame Corot looked put out, suddenly. Or at least surprised. ‘And the paintings? I didn’t realise.’
‘They weren’t part of the original valuation, then?’
‘No. Well, perhaps they were. I don’t know.’
The clock… First Walters-Halberg and now Madame Corot seemed anxious to deny any interest in it.
‘Selling the house en viager: had Madame Mesnel ever considered the idea before?’
‘Never. Cristelle was going to get everything. And but for the way she conducted herself when, quite out of the blue, she turned up at the villa one day, she would have.’
‘So you would corroborate what I’ve heard about that visit from another source?’
‘Which was?’
‘That after years of neglect, Cristelle showed up to check her inheritance was still earmarked for her and not the Jazz Musicians Benevolent Association or whatever.’
‘Quite so. But it wasn’t just a case of mentally rearranging the furniture, Captain. The girl was so mercenary and uncaring, it upset Jeanne deeply. It changed everything. And gave her, if not a problem, at least some organising to do and new decisions to make.’
‘You know that one of those was to include your name on the list of beneficiaries?’
‘No. Really?’
To the tune of just shy of €180,000. But Darac believed Madame Corot had had enough to deal with for one day. ‘I think there might be a little cheque for you.’
Twenty-five years of friendship shone through her eyes. ‘Jeanne, you sweetheart.’
‘But I interrupted you. Madame Mesnel had decisions to make?’
‘Yes indeed. But then almost immediately, in one of those happy accidents that misguided people tend to interpret as instances of divine intervention, up pops Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg and everything was solved.’
The interview concluded with questions about Battail and Brigitte’s dog, the marks on the patio, and so on. Madame Corot could shed no light on any of them.
As Darac took the A8 road back to Nice, he began to entertain doubts about Taylor’s purchase of the Mesnel villa. He didn’t need the example of his parents’ first encounter to recognise that serendipitous meetings happened in life. And so did oddly timed coincidences. On his first jazz trip to New York, he found he was staying in the same hotel as a man who had just landed the identical position in a Grasse perfumery that his father had once held. It was extraordinary but, as the saying goes, ‘Everybody’s got to be somewhere.’ The Taylor property-buying saga was different. Who had ever put in an offer on a house, one that its vendor-to-be hadn’t even put on the market, while out jogging? Taylor’s supposed reason for buying, that she might be homeless following Philippe de Lambert’s death, made good long-term sense but why the urgency? The man seemed sound enough. And then there was the issue of the jogging route. Taylor had told Darac she ‘always’ jogged down to the beach at Passable and back. But Jeanne Mesnel’s villa in Beaulieu was in precisely the opposite direction.
Ivo Selmek had insinuated that Taylor’s rise at Villa Rose had been due more to her puppy-like devotion to the Lamberts than to her talents as an art historian. He’d practically said she’d wormed her way into their affections for the purpose. Had she done the same with Madame Mesnel? If so, why?
Darac had doubts about the hot tub, also. Was it the post-facto ‘thank-you gift’ Taylor said or had it been offered prior to the sale as an inducement? A €3,000 gift was quite some thank-you. Darac intended putting these questions to Taylor directly but, in preparation, he resolved to start looking further into her life.
Losing himself in one of his favourite discs, Shelly Manne at the Blackhawk Volume 3, Darac didn’t surface again until he’d followed the A8 past Cannes and turned toward the Baie des Anges at Château de Vaugrenier. The ziggurat complex at Villeneuve-Loubet was directly ahead now, rising from the shoreline like a theme-park rollercoaster. The sight demanded a flamboyant fanfare from Shelly’s men. Instead, ‘Whisper Not’ floated from the speakers like a feather rising in a current of warm summer air.
‘Tay-lor… Wal-ters… Hal-berg…’ Darac sang absently, in time with the song’s two-beat theme. He swiped his mobile. ‘Bonbon? Know anything about carriage clocks?’
‘Enough not to miss a bargain. And I have books. Why?’
‘Get them, meet me at the Mesnel villa shortly, and I’ll show you.’
‘How shortly?’
‘I’m calling in at the commissariat en route… Say about an hour?’
‘Just a second.’ Darac heard Bonbon exchange a few words with someone. ‘An hour, it is, chief.’
The call ended, Darac’s thoughts soon returned to Taylor Walters-Halberg. What a name that was; one, he reflected, that seemed just made to precede the words ‘I arrest you on a charge of…’ Of course, he would need slightly more than that to proceed.
Once back at Joinel, he called Granot into his office. ‘Koffee with a k?’
The big man sat down like a walrus flopping on to a rock. ‘Why not?’
‘Ever go for a walk and wind up buying something on impulse, Granot?’
‘Once or twice, I suppose.’
‘Anything big and expensive?’
‘Does Odile count?’
Darac pressed on. ‘Ever put in an offer on a house while out jogging? Just imagine that you do jog, for a moment. And I’m talking about an on-the-spot offer for a place that isn’t even for sale.’
‘No, that’s… What are you getting at?’
Darac handed over the machine’s take on a double espresso. ‘Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg did just that. When she made that offer on Jeanne Mesnel’s villa.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Not from the mademoiselle herself, interestingly.’
Granot weighed the information. ‘Strange… But it probably doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Well, it means something, doesn’t it?’ Darac ran his hand into his hair. ‘The more I think about it, the more I don’t like it.’ He outlined his uneasiness about the clock. ‘And that’s just one thought.’
‘Or maybe she realises the house is sitting on a disused goldmine and the tripod marks are where she set up her theodolite to check.’
‘Yes, alright. But there’s something odd about this house purchase and that, my old friend, is where you come in.’
Granot’s grin faded. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do, of course.’
‘I know you have.’
‘And what happened to “shouldering the heavy lifting”?’
‘“As much as I can,” I said. I’ve just applied for a raft of stuff on Walters-Halberg, which I’ll go through. I want you to look at the vendor’s side. Find out all you can about Jeanne Mesnel, Alain her husband, and anything that relates to the property before the Mesnels had it. I’ll owe you one.’
‘What you can owe me is next Wednesday evening. We’ve got the Shits at home.’
‘Your sister’s family?’
‘Olympique Marseille.’
‘Done.’
24
A vehicle Darac didn’t recognise was parked outside the Mesnel villa. He blinked as its headlights flicked on, cutting a blue-white swathe through the murk toward him. Wiper blades made a single pass of the windscreen. The driver’s door opened.
‘Oh it’s you, sir.’
They faced away from the wind and the rain as they talked.
‘Martino, isn’t it? How’s it going?’
‘I had a look around ten minutes ago. No problems.’
‘Good. Better get out of the weather.’
Entering Jeanne’s living room gave Darac a feeling he had experienced many times before. By some sort of anthropomorphic extension, it was as if the room itself were dead. And he knew that with each day that passed, the effect would only increase. Music was needed. Early Armstrong. It was presumptuous, but he felt Jeanne would have approved.
Silvery and sassy, the sound of the master breathed life into the place at a stroke. Perhaps disturbed by the displacement of air, a moth fluttered into the open and landed on the frame of one of Alain Mesnel’s oil paintings. On his previous visit, Darac had paid more attention to the prints than the paintings but now that he looked at them he saw what Madame Corot had meant: in their way, they were quite impressive. Each was a study of a local landmark: the re-created ancient Greek palace, the Villa Kérylos; the lighthouse at Pointe Malalongue; the house and gardens of Villa Rose. Each successfully evoked its subject; and each, whether she had any use for them or not, would soon be the property of Taylor Walters-Halberg.
The kitchen door flew open. His shock of red hair plastered to his head, Bonbon blew in with all the composure of a shipwreck. ‘I’ve gone for wet and windswept.’
‘You nailed it.’
‘I’ll dry off in here and I’ll be right with you.’
When the moment came, Armstrong struck up a jaunty ‘Heebie Jeebies’ in welcome. Darac pointed to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘There it is, Bonbon. I’ve already looked for hallmarks. Couldn’t see any. There’s a maker’s name, though.’
‘It’s a start.’ Bonbon eyed the speakers. ‘Can we adjust the volume? Say, to nothing?’
‘Phili-fucking-stine. I’m turning it down; no more.’
‘That’s something.’ Bonbon took a couple of books out of his bag. ‘I’m going in.’
Another stormy blast from the kitchen and Yvonne Flaco appeared, her braided head looking barely damp. Greetings exchanged, she gave Darac an enquiring look.
‘Yes, Flak?’
‘I’ve got a couple of questions.’
He set his weight against the back of the sofa. ‘Go for it.’
Lowering her brow into her familiar scowl, she took a notebook out of her windcheater. ‘First, I’m not sure why you are so interested in the details of Walters-Halberg’s purchase of this place. You can’t suspect her of being Madame Mesnel’s killer?’
