The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe (26 page)

“Desterres knew Agnès?”

“It’s through me he met her.”

“At her house in Sainte-Anne?”

“Of course. Where else?”

Anne Marie turned the copy of
France Antilles
back over, with the poorly reproduced photograph of Agnès Loisel. She tapped the photograph with her pen. “Monsieur Desterres swore to me that he’d never met this girl.”

Her problem, Anne Marie knew, was that she was obsessive. Once she had decided to do something, she could think about nothing else. Anne Marie’s obsession with work had blinded her to the demands of her children. High time she was obsessive about them, about Fabrice and Létitia. No child of hers was going to turn into a juvenile delinquent. Fabrice was going to get his baccalaureate and later he would go on to be a teacher, just as his grandfather had always wished.

She should have gone home but instead accepted Trousseau’s invitation and they went to a small, inexpensive restaurant on the boulevard. “At least I can be sure of getting something to eat,” Trousseau said in an aggrieved tone as they crossed the Boulevard Chanzy.

“Any news from the hospital?”

“You can see Richard at two thirty,
madame
. Lavigne says he’s been sleeping.”

She was, Anne Marie realized, very hungry. Hungry and determined to resolve the killing of Agnès Loisel as soon as possible. “And the news from Lucette Salondy?”

Trousseau said, “I didn’t see Bouton. Richard’s been sleeping ever since he got to the hospital.” He tapped the side of his head. “Something about his synapses, according to the doctor.”

“You told me it was blacks who were prone to schizophrenia.” She ran her finger along her upper lip. “Richard would appear to belong to your race, Monsieur Trousseau.”

The features hardened. “I fail to understand the implication,
madame le juge
.”

She glanced at her Kelton watch. “We’ve got an hour to eat.” She pulled the hard, wooden chair from under the table and sat down. “After seeing Richard, I can go home.”

“Schizophrenia’s more common among people of African origin than among other racial groups. You seem convinced I’m a racist but unlike many white people,
madame le juge
, I have no time for the theories of racial superiority.”

“Of course not, Monsieur Trousseau.”

“No race has the monopoly of any one disease. Just as no one race has the monopoly of intelligence. Or of the truth although there are people who believe they are the elect of God.”

“On Saturdays, my son goes windsurfing with his friends. Perhaps I’ll get time to drive down to the beach—Fabrice’d like that. Perhaps even, if you’re free this afternoon, you’d like to drive me.”

“The elect of God respect the Sabbath.”

“Could you drive me?”

“Down to the beach, Madame Laveaud?” Trousseau was about to say something. Instead he adjusted his tie. “It’d be a pleasure.”

“You’re very good to me.”

“The beach?” Trousseau raised his eyebrow. “The case is solved?”

“Desterres was lying. He knew the dead girl.”

“You now know who she is?”

“One of the girls employed in Abymes by Dugain. Through her boyfriend she took Dugain to the work inspectorate because he wasn’t paying national insurance.”

“There’s a connection between the two deaths?”

“Two deaths?”

“Dugain’s suicide and the murder at the Pointe des Châteaux?”

They were served by a plump girl in a yellow dress. She took a ballpoint pen from where it had been set, aerial-like, in her chignon, and wrote down their order on a note pad. She knew Trousseau and there was banter between them in Creole. She was young enough to be his daughter.

Anne Marie ordered a
planteur
. She felt she deserved something strong but then as she let the liquid linger in her mouth, the tang of rum reminded her of Lafitte and she was very glad that she was with
Trousseau. Lafitte with his nicotine-stained fingers and his cynicism. Lafitte, the European growing old in the tropics.

Dear, irascible Trousseau.

Perhaps he read her thoughts. Trousseau gave her a bright smile as he drank the soursop juice. They sat in a breeze at a table on the edge of the sidewalk, looking from time to time at the steady flow of shoppers, heading home, weighed down with plastic bags. Mainly women with little children in tow. Children from the countryside, the girls with beads in their plaits, the little boys overdressed for the hot streets of Pointe-à-Pitre.

On the other side of the boulevard rose the city hall, its concrete architecture now pleasantly weathered by age. It stood before an open plaza and beds of flowers in a concrete base. The mayor had conducted a couple of weddings during the course of the morning and the last lingering guests stood, laughed and had themselves photographed in their white dresses and their silk suits. Like petals, pink confetti was strewn everywhere, shifting with the trade breezes, crossing the busy boulevard and even entering the small restaurant.

For
hors d’oeuvre
they ate spiced blood pudding garnished with tomatoes and garlic salad that the serving girl placed on the table—madras tablecloth, which was protected beneath a sheet of plastic—with a disparaging but amused remark for Trousseau that Anne Marie failed to understand.

“The case is solved?”

“Which case, Monsieur Trousseau?”

“You know the murderer of the girl?”

“The
procureur
’s decided the Dominican was the rapist—because along with guns and drugs, the
gendarmerie
found women’s clothing in his shack in Boissard.” She shook her head. “He’d been sentenced for rape in Dominica—rape of American tourists.”

“Perhaps he did rape her.”

Again the click of the tongue—a West Indian habit she had picked up and could not put down. “Monsieur Trousseau, the bruising was after death and the girl wasn’t murdered on the beach. The body was brought down to the beach in the last stages of rigor mortis.”

“What makes you say that?”

“In three days the dogs would have started ripping the body to
pieces.” Anne Marie sliced the blood pudding. “The fishermen would have noticed something.”

“That doesn’t mean the girl wasn’t raped.”

“We now know who the dead girl is.”

“That’s why you sent me away?” He sounded hurt.

“The girl wanted to be alone with me. It wasn’t anything personal. The presence of a man would’ve made things more difficult.”

“Most women find my company reassuring.”

“There are certain things …”

“I should like to remind you my wife’s a white woman like yourself. I’m not one of these macho men who consider women as mere objects.”

“Monsieur Trousseau, in our years of collaboration, I’ve had ample time to appreciate your innumerable qualities.”

He did not repress a smile of satisfaction. “The dead girl had nothing to do with Evelyne Vaton?”

Anne Marie looked across the road, at the plaza between the town hall and the Centre des Arts. The last guests had disappeared. The photographer was packing his cameras into a satchel. He had parked his station wagon on the sidewalk.

It was some time before Trousseau finally asked, “Well? The connection between Evelyne Vaton and this girl.”

“Agnès Loisel.” Anne Marie felt strangely relaxed. Her cold had disappeared and she could sense she would soon be free of the Pointe des Châteaux murder. She could take time off, perhaps even leave Guadeloupe for a month. Travel with the children, visit her sister in Lannion, get away from the tropical heat. “I’ll need to talk to this Richard in the hospital.”

“There’s a connection?”

“Afterwards I’ll look in on Lucette.”

“The black girl was able to identify the dead woman,
madame le juge
?”

“Marie Pierre recognized her photo in the
France Antilles
. No doubt she already had her suspicions before she came to see me.” Anne Marie added, “They used to be very good friends at the time they were working for Monsieur Dugain.”

“She knows why Agnès Loisel was murdered?”

“No.”

“D’you have any idea?”

“Agnès Loisel enjoyed the company of women as much as she enjoyed the company of men.”

His open jaw revealed a tongue covered with blood pudding and sweet corn. “That pretty girl, that Marie Pierre—you’re telling me that she and this Agnès …”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

Trousseau ran a finger along his lip. “A lesbian?”

“Lesbians tend not to be murderers—or at least, it’s not the sort of thing I’ve experience of.”

“Hence the lack of signs of rape,
madame le juge
. Not so easy for one lesbian to rape another.”

Almost against her will, Anne Marie laughed. “That is not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

Anne Marie held up three fingers. “I now know Desterres’s been lying since he first came to see me. Contrary to what he claimed, he must’ve known Agnès because he’d met her when he went looking for Marie Pierre who was living with Agnès Loisel. Desterres was lying and that’s why I need to see Richard.”

“Doubt if you’ll get much out of Richard.”

“Richard was with the girl when she met up with Desterres. Perhaps Desterres and Loisel were working together at something. Perhaps they were putting on an act for Richard.”

“What on earth for?”

“Quite possibly Desterres and Agnès were pretending not to know each other.”

“Eat your food before it gets cold. More water?” Trousseau filled the glasses with sparkling Matouba water.

Anne Marie held up two fingers. “The second problem’s the camera.”

“What camera?”

“Desterres gave me the Polaroid. Why would a bona fide tourist carry a Polaroid?”

“To take photographs.” Trousseau said, “In my humble opinion.”

“A Polaroid’s not the sort of thing I’d take on holiday. Many years ago I had one—clumsy and expensive and the quality of the pictures could never do justice the vivid greens and turquoises of the
Caribbean. The only advantage is you get the photographs straight away.”

“Perhaps that’s what this Agnès wanted.”

“Most tourists don’t want to be lumbered with big cameras. Photos are something you look forward to, once you’ve returned to the grey skies of Paris. Tourists tend to have small Japanese compacts.”

“And the third thing?”

“The bikini.” Anne Marie held up her index finger.

“What about it,
madame le juge
?”

“You yourself said it might have been left to decoy us. Think for a minute, Monsieur Trousseau. You’re a man who understands women.”

“It is not I who says so.”

“What’s the major trait of West Indian women?”

“You mean their coquetry?”

“Precisely.” Anne Marie smiled. “In the last ten years, who’s the West Indian girl who wears a bikini?”

“They all do.”

“Not as close to the weaker sex as I believed.”

“All women wear bikinis.”

“Like Brigitte Bardot?”

“Precisely.”

“You should go to the beach more often, Monsieur Trousseau. West Indian women prefer one-piece suits.”

“I am more interested in a woman’s mind than in her body.” Trousseau added, after a brief silence, “Vaton was a
Négropolitaine
. She wanted an even tan, perhaps.”

“Suntan or otherwise, it is something we must look into—perhaps compare the number of bikinis with swimsuits in the postal catalogs. That should give us an idea.”

“You don’t go along with the
gendarmes
’ theory?”

“Either way, I’ll need to see the bikini—both parts. For the moment that’s all we’ve got on Agnès Loisel.” She set down knife and fork on the plate. “You know, the Americans have psychological profilers.”

Trousseau was not looking at her.

“They have professional psychologists and sociologists who move in on the crime scene and who try to work out the identity of the murderer by studying the methods he uses. Instead, in the French system, it’s the
juge d’instruction
who must leaf through the postal catalogs.”

“You don’t think it was the Dominican who murdered Agnès Loisel?”

“What do you think,
monsieur le greffier
?” Anne Marie asked and was about to raise her glass of mineral water when a shadow was cast across the table. She looked up.

“How’s my sister-in-law?”

“I used to be your wife’s sister-in-law. But that was before the divorce, Eric. My husband and I divorced many years ago.”

Eric André stepped through the open bay window and into the restaurant. As he bent over to kiss Anne Marie on either cheek, she could recognize his after-shave. In his hand, he held a plastic bag that advertised Lacoste sportswear. He was immaculate in an oxford shirt, black trousers and casual leather shoes. “You’ll always be my sister-in-law.”

“That’s what worries me, Eric. You know Monsieur Trousseau, my
greffier
?”

He appeared unaware of her sarcasm as he shook hands with Trousseau, who was eating lentils and salted cod. “André, director of the Tourism Office,” Eric presented himself.

“A pleasure,” Trousseau nodded, scarcely looking up from his plate.

“I’m sure we’ve met before.” Eric looked at the Indian. “Statistically, everybody has met everybody in this island. With the population at a third of a million and only two decent streets in which to shop, we must ultimately end up bumping into each other. What the guide books call Pointe-à-Pitre
intra muros
.” Without being invited, he pulled back a varnished chair and sat down at the wooden table beside Trousseau. He looked about with satisfaction at the wood paneling of the open dining room, the scraggly potted plants, the advertisements for beer and Capès Dolé mineral waters. “I hear this’s a good little
restaurant. I have friends at the Social Security who have lunch here regularly. Cheap and good. Was thinking of having it put onto one of the gastronomic lists.”

Anne Marie said, “Not the best food in the world.”

“Then I can put it on one of the tourist lists.” His boyish smile was strangely at odds with the deep voice. “My friends at the Social Security won’t be too pleased to have tourists trekking in here. People on this island want the tourists’ money—but not the tourists.”