The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe (34 page)

She took the number. “A West Indian?”

“I don’t know where he’s from—I’ve only spoken to him on the phone. He doesn’t speak with a local accent.” Lafitte propped his elbow on the edge of the desk. “I’ve got some very good news.”

“That’ll make a change.” From behind the typewriter, she heard Trousseau’s soft laughter but she chose not to look at him. He was still sulking.

Lafitte held up two fingers. “Two bits of news.”

She made a gesture for him to continue.

“Lecurieux phoned.”

“From Basse-Terre?”

“Geneviève Lecurieux’s been in Mauritius for the last few days and that’s why she didn’t contact us any earlier. She’s only just got back to Saint-Denis in Réunion. Eight hours between here and there—she contacted the SRPJ at four o’clock this morning.”

“What did she say?”

“Say?” A slight movement of the shoulders. “Nothing that I’m aware of. Baptiste was on phone duty—he took her number. She can be contacted at the Novotel until tomorrow—tonight in Guadeloupe time—when she flies to Paris.”

“No mention of the Vaton girl?”

Lafitte grinned with satisfaction. “They’ve found her.”

“Who?”

“Evelyne Vaton,
madame le juge
.”

“Who’s found Evelyne Vaton, Monsieur Lafitte?”

“Carte Bleue have found the girl. The credit card people’ve found Evelyne Vaton.”

Anne Marie took a deep breath. “How on earth did Carte Bleue find her?”

“Evelyne Vaton phoned in yesterday to say her Visa card’d been stolen.”

“Evelyne Vaton?”

Lafitte nodded. “She’s in Paris and she phoned to report her credit card was missing.”

Anne Marie looked at her watch, then looked at the Air France calendar that sat on her desk. She laughed with incredulity, raising her glance to Lafitte. “I find that very hard to believe, Monsieur Lafitte. You’re telling me Evelyne Vaton’s Visa card was stolen, she’s alive in Paris and it’s only now she discovers she’s lost it?”

Lafitte ran his fingers though the short hair. “That’s why I’m late,
madame le juge
. I was phoning through to their twenty-four-hour service. It’s not far from the airport at Roissy. Evelyne Vaton’s indeed alive and well and living in Paris. Visa card and driving license and most probably her identity card were stolen—were being used here in Guadeloupe.”

“It’s only now she realizes it?” Again the snort of incredulity. “What did Carte Bleue say?”

“It might be wiser if you phoned yourself,
madame le juge
.”

“Wiser in what way, Monsieur Lafitte? I’ll have the damn woman arrested, you mean.”

“What for?”

“Answer my question, Monsieur Lafitte. You’ve done useful work—now kindly tell me what Carte Bleue said.”

“Evelyne Vaton lives in Paris in the twentieth
arrondissement
.”

“Twentieth?”

“She changed apartments fairly recently.”

Anne Marie sat back in her chair. There was an awkward silence. Trousseau pretended not to be following the conversation, but his two-fingered typing had ceased. He did not look up from the keyboard.

When Anne Marie spoke, she was repressing anger. “You mean to say the police in Paris didn’t check? They didn’t go to Vaton’s home? Despite the search request you sent out?”

Lafitte took a Bastos from his shirt pocket.

“Don’t smoke in this office and please explain to me why your SRPJ colleagues in Paris didn’t go looking for this Vaton woman at her home address. Isn’t that precisely what I asked them to do?”

Lafitte took an embarrassed, deep breath. “When the mother came out, we thought it was Evelyne Vaton who’d been murdered.”

“And since then, Monsieur Lafitte?”

He was looking at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“You must know.” Anne Marie could hear the hectoring tone in her voice, the same tone her father used when she came home from school with poor marks in mathematics. “You must know, Monsieur Lafitte. I put you in charge of the
police judiciaire
enquiry at this end.”

A long, difficult silence in the small office. The trade winds played at the curtain and from beyond came the sounds of Monday morning on the Place de la Victoire.

“You really must know, Monsieur Lafitte, because if you don’t know, who does?”

Lafitte spoke with his head to one side. “Evelyne Vaton told the people at the Carte Bleue one of her handbags’d been stolen—and that she hadn’t noticed it.”

“Evelyne Vaton, living in Paris, hadn’t noticed her credit card had been stolen? You don’t find that difficult to swallow, Monsieur Lafitte?”

He did not speak.

“Evelyne Vaton was booked on the Air France flight for the fifth of May—and the ticket must’ve been bought several days earlier.” Anne Marie tapped the calendar. “Today’s the twenty-second. Nearly a month—and she doesn’t miss her credit card?”

“A lot of people have credit cards but don’t use them,
madame le juge
.”

“And her driving license?”

“When did you last look at yours?” Wounded pride in his voice. He had started to stammer. “You know how women can change handbags.”

“Still the misogynist, I see.” Anne Marie clicked her tongue in irritation—just like Létitia. “You know what this means, Monsieur Lafitte?”

Their eyes met.

“It means lots of things—and I don’t think I like all the implications.” She caught her breath. “I’ll have to make a report.”

“Because of Madame Vaton—”

Anne Marie cut him short. “Madame Vaton knew her daughter was alive. She came out to the Caribbean on false pretenses and on a free ticket. We needed somebody—a relative—to identify the corpse.” She looked at the police officer. “Madame Vaton knew her daughter was alive.”

“Do excuse me,
madame le juge
, if I interrupt.” It was Trousseau who spoke. “Madame Vaton is supposed to be returning on this evening’s flight,
madame le juge
.”

Anne Marie turned to look at him. There was a sense of cold anger in the pit of her belly. “Well?”

“Madame Vaton’s asked for permission to stay on in Guadeloupe. She’s moved out of the hotel and has gone into a guest house in Gosier.”

“A free holiday in the Caribbean at the expense of the Ministry of the Interior? Weren’t you telling me she was a good woman, Trousseau?”

“Even a humble
greffier
is entitled to his opinion.” There was no humility in his voice.

“A good, Christian woman?”

“My opinion,
madame le juge
. If I’m wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“A selfish, frigid monster and I couldn’t understand why she appeared so unaffected by her daughter’s death. The cow, the scheming cow—she knew her Evelyne was alive.”

Trousseau chose to remain quiet.

“I’ll have her arrested,” Anne Marie said while her fingers ran through the Air France calendar.

“Madame Vaton?” Lafitte shook his head. “You’ve got no proof she was aware of her daughter’s whereabouts,
madame le juge
.”

“I don’t give a damn about Madame Vaton. She can rot, Monsieur Lafitte. She can rot.” An icy smile came to her lips. “With her religion and her hypocrisy and her Savior, she can rot.”

Trousseau straightened his worn tie.

“I want Evelyne Vaton to be brought in on the first plane—and I need to know whether the Lecurieux woman is involved as well.”

“You’re going to arrest Evelyne Vaton,
madame le juge
?”

Anne Marie grinned tightly. “Why not?”

“Evelyne Vaton wasn’t in Guadeloupe. Evelyne Vaton never came out here and so she can’t be guilty of Loisel’s death.”

Anne Marie said, “I never mentioned murder.”

“Then on what grounds,
madame le juge
?”

“Fraud and attempted fraud,” Anne Marie replied. Seeing the puzzled look on both men, she burst out laughing. “And, Monsieur Lafitte …”

“
Madame le juge
?”

“I want Desterres—now. With or without his lawyer, with or without handcuffs.”

He wore a bow tie and had an infectious laugh.

Olivier Rullé stood up and pushed the sunglasses up on to his forehead. He shook hands with Anne Marie and Trousseau, then invited them to sit down on the anthracite settee.

“Something to drink, perhaps?” Before they could answer, he gestured toward the computer. “Sorry to ask you to come here but we’re very busy. I’m the only person in the house who knows the intricacies of the program.”

“You are an accountant?”

“For my sins.”

“You know why we’re here?”

“Something to drink?” There was a small refrigerator recessed into the wall, beneath an old engraving of Pointe-à-Pitre. He opened the door and took out a bottle of Contrexéville. The outside of the plastic bottle was misted.

“My
greffier
and I have just had coffee.”

Olivier Rullé nodded and poured himself a glass of water that he drank thirstily before returning to his desk. He typed something onto the keyboard and the computer went blank.

“You know Agnès Loisel’s dead, Monsieur Rullé?”

“I do now.” He smiled but there was whiteness at the corner of his lips.

“When did you find out?”

“I thought Agnès was in France. She came to see me a couple of months ago and asked me to lend her the money for the air fare.”

“One way?”

“I didn’t ask.” He shrugged. “Like everybody else in this island, I get to see
France Antilles
and I watch the RFO news in the evening—the job demands it of me. Like everybody else, I read about the killing at the Pointe des Châteaux, but I never for a moment associated it with Agnès. As far as I was concerned she was in France.”

“Then how did you find out?”

“From Marie Pierre.”

“A friend of yours?”

“A friend of Agnès’s.” He caught his breath. “
Mêm bitin, mêm bagaï
.”

“You speak Creole, Monsieur Rullé?”

He smiled. “My grandmother’s brother was President of Haiti—many, many years ago. My mother’s from Lyon, but I grew up here.”

“
Mêm bitin, mêm bagaï
,” Anne Marie repeated. “Marie Pierre and Agnès Loisel are the same sort of people? ‘The same booty, the same baggage?’ ”

There was a long silence while Rullé looked at her. Anne Marie was sitting on the low settee, her bag at her feet, her notepad open on her lap. Trousseau was also taking notes.

“Off the record,
madame le juge
.”

“What?”

“I’d rather what I said was off the record.” His glance went from Anne Marie to Trousseau and back to Anne Marie. “Later, if you wish, I can make a statement.” He grinned. “Unless, of course, you’re intending to arrest me.”

“Did you murder Agnès Loisel?”

“It’d be difficult to pin her murder on me, since I was in Martinique until last Tuesday—working on the head office computer.”

“Any idea of who murdered her?”

There was sadness in his smile. “There was a time when I was fond of Agnès. A year ago, I’d have married her with my eyes shut. I proposed marriage, you know.”

“And?” Anne Marie slipped the pen into her bag.

“Agnès’s a hard person. Hard on other people, but above all, hard on herself.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I went out with her for over six months. The kind of girl I find attractive, and although I know quite a lot of women, Agnès was different. Probably all in my head, I know. I’d have married her and if she’d’ve accepted, I’d have thought myself lucky. Wife, children, family—the full catastrophe and I’d’ve been overjoyed.”

“Why did she turn you down?”

“She’ll never live with anyone—not with me nor with anybody else—because Agnès Loisel’s trying to run away from herself.”

“You knew she was a lesbian?”

An awkward silence descended onto the room. On the other side of the rue Gambetta, through the curtains, Anne Marie could see the ugly cement wall of the Commissariat.

“I’m not sure she’s a lesbian.”

“She lived with Marie Pierre.”

“Agnès liked men, she liked the company of men. It’s just that she didn’t like sex.”

“Why not?”

Olivier Rullé shrugged and the jovial, round face was now reflective.

“You never had sex with her, Monsieur Rullé?” It was Trousseau who asked the question.

Olivier Rullé looked at Anne Marie.

“Answer the
greffier
’s question,” Anne Marie said softly. “Did you and Agnès ever make love?”

He took a deep breath. “At first.”

“What happened?”

“Stupidly I thought I could reach out and touch her heart even though those first times we made love, she clearly didn’t enjoy it. That much was obvious.” He ran a hand across his forehead. “So I tried other things. The women here, they often say West Indian men are only interested in their own physical satisfaction, so I tried kindness and I tried to be gentle, body and soul.”

“To no avail?”

“After a while, she wouldn’t let me touch her any more. She’d moved in with me, into my flat in Gosier and I tried everything, but the strange thing was, when I was allowed to caress her—intimate caresses—Agnès’d start scratching herself. She scratched her thigh, she scratched her shoulder, her arm, as if she was trying to trigger
off another sensation in her brain—an alternative sensation to the pleasurable one I wanted to give her. It was as if …” He stopped short.

“What?”

“She was unemployed. She had no money—and she had absolutely no qualms about taking mine. We went to the cinema, we went to the restaurant. She had expensive tastes but in return, there was nothing. I paid for everything—and in return, I had a block of ice lying beside me in my bed.”

Trousseau ran his finger along his upper lip.

“Friends said she was a whore but that’s not true and even if it were true, I wouldn’t have believed them. When you’re in love, you hear what you want to hear, you believe what you want to believe. Agnès wasn’t a whore.” He snorted with false amusement. “A whore’s better than that. You get a service from a whore. You pay her money and in return she does her business.”

“I imagine so,” Anne Marie said.

“Agnès took everything without ever giving anything back. She was using me but I had my pride and I thought the problem came from me.”