Put on by Cunning (24 page)

Her distress seemed real. Her features were contorted into a frown of dismay, her tall curved forehead all wrinkles. ‘I am so sorry, this is so very bad.’

‘Mademoiselle Lerèmy . . .’

‘When I am a little girl I see him many many times, monsieur. I stay with them in Sussex. Natalie is, was, nice, I think, always laughing, always very gay, have much sense of
humeur
. The world has become a very bad place, monsieur, when such things as this happen.’ She paused, bit her lip. ‘Excuse me, I must not say “sir” so much, is it not so? This I am learning to understand . . .’ She hesitated and hazarded, ‘Lately? Recently?’

Her words brought him the thrill of knowing he was right – and sickened him too. Must he ask her? Burden was looking at him.

The telephone rang.

‘Please excuse me,’ she said.

The phone was in the room where they were, upbeside the windows. She picked up the receiver rather too fast and the effect on her of the voice of her caller was pitiful to see. She flushed deeply and it was somehow apparent that this was a flush of intense fearful pleasure as well as embarrassment.

She said softly, ‘Ah, Jean . . . We see each other again tonight? Of course it is all right, it is fine, very good.’ She made an effort, for their benefit or her caller’s, to establish formality. ‘It will be a great pleasure to see you again.’

He was here all right then, he was talking to her. But where was he? She had her back to them now. ‘When you have finished your work, yes.
Entends
, Jean, I will fetch – pick up – pick you up. Ten o’clock?’ Suddenly she changed into rapid French. Wexford could not understand a word but he understood
her
. She had been speaking English to a French speaker so that her English hearers would know she had a boy friend, a lover. For all her scarred face, her plainness, her age, her obscure job in this backwater, she had a lover to tell the world about.

She put the phone down after a murmured word or two, a ripple of excited laughter. Wexford was on his feet, signalling with a nod to Burden.

‘You do not wish to ask me questions concerning my uncle and my
cousine
Natalie, monsieur?’

‘It is no longer necessary, mademoiselle.’

The taxi driver had gone to sleep. Wexford woke him with a prod in his chest.

‘La Rose Blanche,
s’il vous plaît
.’

The sun was going down. There were long violet shadows and the air was sweet and soft.

‘He’s a fast worker if ever there was one,’ said Burden.

‘The material he is working on could hardly be more receptive and malleable.’

‘Pardon? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. Poor girl. It’s a terrible handicap having all that pitting on herface, did you notice? D’you think he knew about that? Before he came here, I mean? The real Natalie might have known – you usually get that sort of acne in your teens – but Tessa Lanchester wouldn’t have. Unless she picked it up when she was gathering all the rest of her info in Santa Xavierita.’

‘Mrs Woodhouse might have known,’ said Wexford. ‘At any rate, he knew she was unmarried and an heiress and no doubt that she worked in the museum here. It was easy enough for him to scrape up an acquaintance.’

‘Bit more than an acquaintance,’ said Burden grimly.

‘Let’s hope it hasn’t progressed far yet. Certainly his intention is to marry her.’

‘Presumably his intention was to marry thatother woman, but at the last she wouldn’t have him and for that he killed her.’ Burden seemed gratified to get from Wexford a nod of approval. ‘Once he’d done that he’d realize who the next heir was and come here as fast as he could. But there’s something here doesn’t make sense. In putting her body in that chest he seems to have meant to keep it concealed for months, possibly even years, but the paradox there is that until the body was found death wouldn’t be presumed and Thérèse Lerèmy wouldn’t get anything.’

Wexford looked slyly at him. ‘Suppose he intended by some means or other to prove, as only he could, that it was Natalie Arno and not Tessa Lanchester who drowned at Santa Xavierita in 1976? If that were proved Thérèse would become the heir at once and in fact
would have been
the rightful possessor of Sterries and Camargue’s money for the past six months.’

‘You really think that was it?’

‘No, I don’t. It would have been too bold and too risky and fraught with problems. I think this was what was in his mind. He didn’t want the body found at once because if he then started courting Thérèse even someone as desperate as she mightsuspect he was after her money. But he wanted it found at some time in the not too distant future or his conquest of Thérèse would bring him no profit at all. What better than that the presence of a corpse in that warehouse should make itself apparent after, say, six months? And if it didn’t he could always send the police an anonymous letter.’

‘That’s true,’ said Burden. ‘And there was verylittle to connect him with it, after all. If you hadn’tbeen to California we shouldn’t have known of his existence.’

Wexford laughed shortly. ‘Yes, there was some profit in it.’ They walked into the hotel. Outside Burden’s room where they would have separated prior to dressing, or at least sprucing up, for dinner, Burden said, ‘Come in here a minute. I want to ask you something.’ Wexford sat on the bed. From the window you could see, not the square and the fountain but a mazy mosaic of little roofs against the backdrop of the city walls. ‘I’d like to know what we’re going to charge those others with. I mean, Williams and Zoffany and Mary Woodhouse. Conspiracy, I suppose – but not conspiracy to murder?’

Wexford pondered. He smiled a little ruefully. ‘We’re not going to charge them with anything.’

‘You mean their evidence will be more valuable as prosecution witnesses?’

‘Not really. I shouldn’t think any of them would be a scrap of use as witnesses of any kind. They didn’t witness anything and they haven’t done anything. They all seem to me to be perfectly blameless, apart from a spot – and I’d guess a very small spot – of adultery on the part of Zoffany.’ Wexford paused. ‘That reconstruction of the case you gave me while we were at the amphitheatre, didn’t it strike you there was something unreal about it?’

‘Sort of illogical, d’you mean? Maybe, bits of it. Surely that’s because they were so devious that there are aspects which aren’t clear and never will be?’

Wexford shook his head. ‘Unreal. One can’t equate it with what one knows of human nature. Take, for instance, their foresight and their patience. They kill Natalie in the summer of 1976 and Tessa impersonates her. Fair enough. Why not go straight to England, make sure Natalie is the beneficiaryunder Camargue’s will and then kill Camargue?’

‘I know there’s a stumbling block. I said so.’

‘It’s more than a stumbling block, Mike, it’s a bloody great barrier across the path. Think what you – and I – believed they did. Went back to Los Angeles, ran the risk of being suspected by the neighbours, exposed by Ilbert – returned to and settled in what of all cities in the world was the most dangerous to them. And for what?’

‘Surely she stayed there to sell the house?’

‘Yet she never succeeded in selling it, did she? No, a delay of three-and-a-half years between the killing of Natalie and the killing of Camargue was too much for me to swallow. I can come up with just one feeble reason for it – that they were waiting for Camargue to die a natural death. But, as I say, that’s a feeble reason. He might easily have lived another ten years.’ Wexford looked at his watch. ‘I’ll leave you to your shaving and showering or whatever. A wash and brush-up will do me. Laquin won’t be here before seven.’

They met again in the bar where they each had a Stella Artois. Wexford said:

‘Your suggestion is that Tessa came to Englandfinally because, through Zoffany’s sister-in-law, she heard that Camargue intended to marry again. Doesn’t it seem a bit thin that Jane Zoffany’s sister should come to know this merely because she lives in a village near the Kathleen Camargue School?’

‘Not if she was set by the others to watch Camargue.’

Wexford shrugged. ‘The others, yes. There would be five of them, our protagonist and her boy friend, the Zoffanys and Jane Zoffany’s sister. Five conspirators working for the acquisition of Camargue’s money. Right?’

‘Yes, for a start,’ said Burden. ‘There were finally more like eight or nine.’

‘Mary Woodhouse to give Tessa some advanced coaching, Mavis Rolland to identify her as an old school chum, and Williams the dentist.’ Wexford gave a little shake of the head. ‘I’ve said I was amazed at their foresight and their patience, Mike, but that was nothing to the trouble they took. That staggered me. All these subsidiary conspirators were persuaded to lie, to cheat or to sell their professional integrity. Tessa studied old samples of Natalie’s handwriting, had casts made of her jaw, took lessons to perfect her college French and Spanish – though she neglected to polish up her Italian – while one of the others made a survey of the lie of the land round Sterries and of Camargue’s habits. Prior to this Zoffany’s sister-in-law was sending a secret agent’s regular dispatches out to Los Angeles. Oh, and let’s not forget – Jane Zoffany was suborning her neighbours into providing a fake alibi. And all this machinery was set in motion and relentlessly kept in motion for the sake of acquiring a not very large house in an acre of ground and an
unknown sum of money
that, when the time came, would have to be split between eight people.

‘I’ve kept thinking of that and I couldn’t believe in it. I couldn’t understand why those two had chosen Camargue as their prey. Why not pick on some tycoon? Why not some American oil millionaire? Why an old musician who wasn’t and never had been in the tycoon class?’

Burden supplied a hesitant answer. ‘Because his daughter fell into their hands, one supposes. Anyway, there’s no alternative. We know there was a conspiracy, we know there was an elaborate plan, and one surely simply comments that it’s impossible fully to understand people’s motivations.’

‘But isn’t there an alternative? You said I was obsessed, Mike. I think more than anything I became obsessed by the complexity of this case, by the deviousness of the protagonist, by the subtlety of the web she had woven. It was only when I saw how wrong I’d been in these respects that things began to clear for me.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

Wexford drank his beer. He said rather slowly, ‘It was only then that I began to see that this case wasn’t complicated, there was no deviousness, there was no plotting, no planning ahead, no conspiracy whatsoever, and that even the two murders happened so spontaneously as really to be unpremeditated.’ He rose suddenly, pushing back his chair. Commissaire Mario Laquin of the Compagnies Republicaines de Securité of Grasse had come in and was scanning the room. Wexford raised a hand. He said absently to Burden as the commissaire came towards their table, ‘The complexity was in our own minds, Mike. The case itself was simple and straightforward, and almost everything that took place was the result of accident or of chance.’

It was a piece of luck for Wexford that Laquin had been transferred to Grasse from Marseilles some six months before, for they had once or twice worked on cases together and since then the two policemen and their wives had met when M. and Mme Laquin were in London on holiday. It nevertheless came as something of a shock to be clasped in the commissaire’s arms and kissed on both cheeks. Burden stood by, trying to give his dry smile but succeeding only in looking astonished.

Laquin spoke English that was almost flawless. ‘You pick some charming places to come for your investigations, my dear Reg. A little bird tells me you have already had two weeks in California. I should be so lucky. Last year when I was in pursuit of Honorat L’Eponge, where does he lead me to but Dusseldorf, I ask you!’

‘Have a drink,’ said Wexford. ‘It’s good to see you. I haven’t a clue where this chap of ours is. Nor do I know what name he’s going under while here.’

‘Or even what he looks like,’ said Burden for good measure. He seemed cheered by the presence of Laquin whom he had perhaps expected to speak with a Peter Sellers accent.

‘I know what he looks like,’ said Wexford. ‘I’ve seen him.’

Burden glanced at him in surprise. Wexford took no notice of him and ordered their drinks.

‘You’ll dine with us, of course?’ he said to Laquin.

‘It will be a pleasure. The food here is excellent.’

Wexford grinned wryly. ‘Yes, it doesn’t look as though we’ll be here to enjoy it tomorrow. I reckon we’re going to have to take him at the Maison du Cirque, in that wretched girl’s house.’

‘Reg, she has known him no time at all, a mere week at most.’

‘Even so quickly can one catch the plague . . . You’re right, of course.’

‘A blessing for her we’re going to rid her of him, if you ask me,’ said Burden. ‘A couple of years and he’d have put her out of the way as well.’

‘She implied he was working here . . .’

‘Since Britain came in the European Economic Community, Reg, there is no longer need for your countrymen to have work permits or to register. Therefore to trace his whereabouts would be a long and laborious business. And since we know that later on tonight he will be at the Maison du Cirque . . .’

‘Sure, yes, I know. I’m being sentimental, Mario, I’m a fool.’ Wexford gave a grim little laugh. ‘But not such a fool as to warn her and have him hopoff on the next plane into Switzerland.’

After
bouillabaisse
and a fine
cassoulet
with brie to follow and a small armagnac each, it was still only nine. Ten-thirty was the time fixed on by Wexford and Laquin for their visit to the house by the amphitheatre. Laquin suggested they go to a place he knew on the other side of the Place aux Eaux Vives where there was sometimes flamenco dancing.

In the evening there was some modest floodlighting in the square. Apparently these were truly living waters and the fountain was fed by a natural spring. While they dined tiers of seating had been put up for the music festival of Saint Jean-de-l’Éclaircie, due to begin on the following day. A little warm breeze rustled through the plane and chestnut leaves above their heads.