Jacquot and the Waterman (65 page)

Calliou shook his head. 'Not at first. But it never stops, see. So in the end I switch it off. But I get the wrong button and this name pops up. The one who's calling.'

'And?'

'So I tell the Inspector. He said he'd pass it on. Thought it might be useful.'

'Remind me.'

'Some guy called Raissac.'

'Right,' said Jacquot. 'Yeah. Could be.'

'You'll love him. Believe me,' said Delphie to her younger sister, as their cab turned off Canebière and started winding through the back end of Belsunce.

'A policeman, for God's sake? A cop?' Claudine exclaimed. That's all I need. Nasty habits, suspect friends, unsociable hours; probably has a drink or a drug problem, maybe likes beating up wives or girlfriends

'Shush,' said her sister. 'You've been reading too many books. This one's nothing like that. A real hunk. I mean, if Sydne likes him he's gotta be special, don't you agree? And I'll tell you something
else ...
If I wasn't so happily married I'd . . .'

Delphie paused. She realised the moment she said the words 'happily' and 'married' that she was moving into dangerous territory. Six months earlier Claudine had come home unexpectedly to find her husband in bed with her best friend. In just six months her sister had gone downhill fast. Furious with her husband and furious with herself. It was probably the anger that kept her sane. How she'd managed to complete the work for her exhibition, Delphie had no idea.

Beside her, Claudine continued in a softer voice: 'I just wish you hadn't. Right now, you
know ...
It just doesn't feel right.'

Delphie felt for her sister's hand in the darkness of the cab's back seat and squeezed it. Heartache and hard work, she decided, might have blunted Claudine's usual enthusiasm for life but they didn't seem to have hurt her looks. Typical, thought Delphie, who'd long ago accepted that her younger sister had gotten the lion's share of the Eddé family's best features: their father's high and haughty cheekbones, their mother's lustrous auburn curls and
calisson-
shaped eyes, and a smile - when she managed one - as warm and wonderful as it had always been, tempered now with a wan sadness. All she had to do, decided Delphie, was put on a little more weight. She'd lost too much in the past few months and it didn't suit her. She needed fattening up. Some good, wholesome home cooking. That, and a new man in her life.

Up ahead the Gallery Ton-Ton came into view, its picture window a square of white, welcoming light on an otherwise dull street. Their cab slowed and pulled into the kerb.

'Well, you never can tell,' said Delphie brightly, letting go her sister's hand, reaching for the door handle and bustling her out. 'He might even buy a picture.'

But he didn't buy a picture. Because he didn't show.

Which made Delphie, keeping an eye on the door of the gallery, just a little cross. Three days earlier, at Sydnes party, he'd promised her he'd make it for the first-night show. Had sounded really interested. And according to Sydne, whom Delphie called the very next morning to check him out, he was on his own. The ring on his finger, Sydne had told her, didn't mean a thing. Some girlfriend had given it to him and then, clearly not in her right mind, she'd walked out on him. And good riddance, Sydne had remarked tartly.

As for Claudine, her sister's no-show was just that. A relief, if she'd thought about it. Which Claudine hadn't, beyond considering the possible nuisance factor of this unknown man being steered in her direction on the first night of her first-ever exhibition. Right then, there was too much on her mind, too much at stake to waste her energies on some man her sister was trying to set her up with. That first night, it was the gallery, her work, and nothing else.

It began the moment Claudine stepped through the door: the way her paintings looked against the whitewashed brick walls, the order in which they'd been hung, the play of the down-lighting, the title cards, catalogues, the trays of canapes, the wine. So much to feel anxious about, so much to test her nerve. But too late to do anything about it.

And then, suddenly, the way the room started filling, the crush, the noise. All directed at her - friends to greet, a word with her agent, introductions, watching people break off from the hubbub to approach her work, take it in, Claudine straining for their unguarded comments amongst all the hellos, how-are-yous and friendly but clearly fraudulent congratulations. If she was as good as they said she was, she'd be living in St-Remy-de-Provence by now and not on the outskirts of Cavaillon.

But three hours later, when they closed the gallery and walked down to the Vieux Port for a late supper, Claudine felt reprieved. She'd done it. She'd come through. Her first night had been a success and so elated was she - some really genuinely flattering 'overheards' - that all she wanted to do was talk to her sister about the show, hear all the things she'd missed and badger her agent about the critic from
Côte Sud
who'd just turned up out of nowhere, asked her some questions, scribbled notes on his catalogue. What did he think? What would he say? When would it appear? Questions, questions.

Better still, she'd even sold some paintings. A half- dozen red dots on the title cards. A little over thirty thousand francs. Enough to cover her week's rental of the Ton-Ton, and pretty much her total framing costs.

That night, against all her expectations, Claudine was bursting with delight.

After the last six months, life was
just. . .
beginning.

Ever since the post that morning, the Widow Foraque had been waiting for him.

Now it was past ten and Jacquot still wasn't back. And a Saturday. A soul could work too hard, and that was the truth. Even if there was this Waterman stalking the streets. Disgusting, she called it. Her day, things were different. All this TV and stuff. Wasn't good for you.

Which hadn't stopped her switching on
Celebrity Lives of the Rich and Famous
after she'd had her supper, fed the canaries and poured herself a small
digestif.
Then, halfway through the show, she heard the outside door squeak open and close, the same squeak they'd had when the same front door opened onto her husband's shop.

Madame Foraque reached for the TV remote, turned down the volume and listened out. She heard the familiar footsteps cross the tiled hall, a pause at the old sideboard and the shuffle of mail. She'd put the postcard at the bottom of the pile. The one from Washington. An aerial shot of the White House.

Madame Foraque had spotted it right away, among the bills and circulars in the postman's hand. The vibrant colours beside the cream and the buff. The stiffness of it. The glossy, exotic shine to it. And the foreign stamp. She knew immediately who'd sent it, and was desperate to be rid of the talkative postman so that she could take a proper look. Finally he bid her
adieu
and, closing her front door, she flicked the card over and read the message.

Her first impulse had been to throw it away. It had never arrived; he'd never know. But just as quickly she changed her mind. He needed to know, had to know that it was over and she was gone. The words on the postcard were clear enough on that score. The man was paining for her and it wasn't right, shouldn't be, oughtta stop. Before it got a hold on him.

All week the Widow Foraque had seen it: the frown, the tight lips, the tired eyes and weary wave of his hand as he made his way upstairs. And an equally weary look, behind the put-on smile, when he went off to work each morning.

Outside her door, the footsteps moved off. Lighter this time, it seemed to Madame Foraque. No heavy tread, but a brisk, jogging ascent. And was that a whistle she heard, a few faint notes, or was it one of the canaries? Setding herself back in her chair, Madame Foraque turned her attention to the TV screen, satisfied with the way things had turned out.

But it didn't take long for the Widow Foraque's mood to change dramatically. Something was wrong. Something was badly wrong. She sat bolt upright in her chair. She knew at once what it was. The TV presenter. She couldn't hear a word he was saying. Not a single thing. She'd lost her hearing. She'd gone deaf. Just like that. In an instant.

Then, with a flood of relief, Madame Foraque found the TV remote in her lap and realised that she hadn't turned the volume back up.

Sunday

S
itting out in early-morning sunshine on the gravelled terrace of the family
bastide
a few kilometres west of Aix-en-Provence, Paul Basquet shuffled through the Sunday papers one last time, dropping them one by one onto the table. There was nothing else he'd been able to find on the deaths in Roucas Blanc that he hadn't already read - the front-page news reports, the inside editorials, the leader comments and, of course, the obituaries. Or seen on TV - all the breathless newscasts and updates that had followed the discoveries of the bodies.

It was all so . . . astonishing. So close. The man who on three separate occasions had turned down his proposals for development in the
calanques
and who, according to Raissac, would be passing said proposals at the next meeting of the planning committee. Dead by his own hand, and just a few hours after the murder of his wife. According to the papers and TV, Suzanne de Cotigny was the fifth victim of a serial killer the newspapers had dubbed the Waterman, all his victims murdered by drowning.