The Provence Puzzle: An Inspector Damiot Mystery(46)
As Damiot drove into the hills, he missed having Fric-Frac at his side, looking out the window. Perhaps when he returned to Paris he would buy himself a dog. Exactly like Fric-Frac!
Sophie had never wanted any kind of animal in their apartment. Afraid it would soil the rugs or damage the furniture.
Olympe always had a cat. Curled up on fancy lace cushions in her boudoir. Fat and jealous, with long white hair that stuck to his trousers. He wondered if she’d taken that damn cat to Mexico.
As before, the gates of the Chateau were closed and padlocked. Through the grille he could see the distant castle beyond the dark tunnel of trees, like a mirage in the dazzling sunlight. A commercial truck roared past, in the opposite direction.
Damiot swerved the Peugeot across the highway, between the trees and toward the field where the girl’s body had been found, parking at the edge of the wood. He got out and walked through the cropped grass into the field.
The presence of several cows, grazing at the far end, explained why the grass wasn’t higher. Their heads turned in unison to inspect the intruder, but their jaws continued to chew.
This open field, surrounded by a dense forest, was the size of several Paris blocks. Impossible to guess where Annie Deffous had been murdered. There would be nothing left, after two months, to indicate the spot.
He walked along the edge of the wood, parallel to the road, and saw that the moist earth was deeply pitted by hoofs.
This was a perfect place for the murderer to rendezvous with his victim. They could park their cars and nobody would see them from the road or hear the victim’s screams.
After Annie Deffous died, the murderer would somehow have had to get rid of her car. He wouldn’t be able to drive it anywhere, because he might be noticed walking back to pick up his own car.
The dead girl’s car must be somewhere nearby. There were several openings between the trees through which a small car could pass…
There would be deep ravines in there. The murderer must have looked the place over, checked the terrain, before he arranged to meet the Deffous girl here. Probably that same afternoon, before the murder. Which meant she had been able to contact him and he had instructed her where they could meet that night, probably at a cafe in some nearby village. After a few drinks she would have followed his car up here in her gray Dauphine.
The murderer had to be one of the villagers. Only a local would know it was safe to come here for what he planned to do. Would know that everyone avoided this field after dark, because of its unpleasant history.
He realized that the grass was whirring with sound in the hot sunlight. Cigales! Must be hundreds of them…
In the old days there had been a gibbet here. Criminals were tried in the great courtyard of the Chateau by a judge who traveled from village to village. People came from all over the surrounding countryside to attend the trials. It was because of those trials that people had called the Chateau by another name. Castle Death…
He peered around, visualizing how it must have been.
Crude wooden gallows in the center, with several bodies dangling. Hundreds of people enjoying the free spectacle, eating and drinking. Their horses tied to trees around the edge of the field, among rows of coaches, carriages, and carts. Booths selling food, wine, and cider. Fortune-tellers, mountebanks, pickpockets, thieves… Certainly there would have been children underfoot. And dogs…
Everyone dropping coins. Losing them through holes in their pockets… The same coins he had found here hundreds of years later. And lost again.
There would have been musicians and singers. The noise must have been tremendous…
He gazed across the field at the peaceful herd of cows. They had accepted or forgotten his presence.
Suddenly a cloud of color rose from the grass. Orange, yellow, and black.
Butterflies! His eyes followed them as they rose higher and higher. He had never seen so many! They floated in a mass, their colors brilliant against the dark forest.
Damiot realized that the sky was filling with black clouds. Pushing down from the Alpilles.
No matter. He was coming back to the Chateau tonight.
Even if it rained.
CHAPTER 15
His father pounding a medallion of veal with a wooden mallet. Complaining, as usual, that the quality of meat wasn’t what it used to be. His mother smiling, seated near the kitchen windows, shelling fresh peas from the garden. It was the old kitchen, with only two small windows. As usual, she was singing as she worked…
Damiot opened his eyes and saw a glare of light in the tiled bath.
The pounding continued.
Someone knocking at his door!
“Who is it?” he called.
“Claude, M’sieur. You have a telephone call.”
“Be right there!” He pushed himself up from the bed and checked his wristwatch on the bedside table. “Almost six-thirty!” He had slept longer than he intended, after his hot bath. Securing the cord of his robe, he hurried toward the lobby, into a symphony of aromas flowing from the distant kitchen. The dominant scent was fresh rosemary…
He picked up the phone at the reception desk, glancing toward the dim restaurant where the two waiters were arranging their tables for dinner. “Damiot speaking.”
“M’sieur Inspecteur! It’s Bardou…”
“Thought it might be. How’re you feeling, mon ami?”
“Much better. I’ll be on the job tomorrow. If it’s not raining.”