“Very wise. You know, a succession of people have come to study this case over the years, and none of them has exactly enhanced his reputation.”
“And I’m not here to enhance mine, Adjudant Gueguen. The publicity these cases attracts helps us raise funds for the Forensic Science Department at my university. So it’s only the French police scientifique that’ll be enhanced.”
Gueguen inclined his head and smiled in acquiescence. “True, but nonetheless, I have to tell you that should you feel inclined to bend the law in any way during the course of your investigation, you can expect no quarter from me or any of my officers. And you will have no access to official records, or evidence.”
Enzo nodded. “I take it you don’t keep any of that kind of stuff here in any case.”
“No. All documentation and evidence is held at Vannes, a few kilometers along the coast from Lorient.”
“Which is where the trial was held, right?”
“Right.”
A young gendarme coughed and entered, a polystyrene cup of coffee in each hand. He placed them on the desk, along with sachets of sugar and plastic stirrers, and left. Enzo stirred in his sugar and cradled the cup in his hands to warm them, sipping on the strong, hot, black liquid. “Thank you,” he said. “I needed this.” He looked up and saw what looked like amusement in the younger man’s eyes. Gueguen, he reckoned could only be in his early forties. Dark hair cut short, with some brushed steel showing now around the temples. He had dark eyebrows, and friendly liquid brown eyes. A good-looking man who seemed not at all to fit the stereotype of the humourless, intimidating gendarme. “And thank you, too, for warning me off so gently.”
The adjudant grinned. “All part of the service, Monsieur Macleod.” He lifted the phone. “I’ll give Coconut’s a call and ask them to drop your car off here. Save you walking back down the hill in the rain.”
When he finished the call Enzo said, “Thank you. Again.” He glanced back along the hall. “How many of you are there here?”
“Six. Myself, a chef, two gendarmes, and two trainees. During the summer months when the population of the island literally explodes, the brigade sends us another six.”
“And I guess any serious crimes, like murder, would be handled by investigators from the mainland?”
Gueguen laughed heartily. “Monsieur Macleod, if you want to know how the investigation into Killian’s murder was conducted, you only have to ask.”
“I thought you’d been instructed not to cooperate.”
“Not to give you access to official police records or evidence,” Gueguen corrected him. “No one said we couldn’t discuss things that were a matter of public record.” And there was a hint of wickedness in the smile that creased his eyes.
“So what happened?”
“Well, in theory, we were supposed to secure the crime scene until senior investigators arrived from Lorient. In fact, we made a complete mess of it. No one had the least idea what securing a crime scene entailed, so I’m afraid we trampled all over it, touched things we shouldn’t, and failed to protect things we should.”
“You were here then?” Enzo was incredulous. “Twenty years ago?”
Gueguen grinned. “I was one of the trainees at that time. I have spent most of my career since serving with other brigades in various parts of Brittany. I returned just last year for the first time in nearly seventeen.”
“As the boss.”
“Yes. As the boss.” Gueguen’s eyes crinkled again in amusement. “A lot older and much wiser. If there were any serious crime committed on the island today, Monsieur Macleod, every one of my officers is trained in the treatment of a crime scene. There is a rota of island doctors who would be called out to determine whether or not a death was suspicious, although of course any autopsy would be carried out by the pathologist at the hospital in Lorient. We’ve had a few suicides and serious accidents to practise on.”
“So it was a local doctor who determined that Killian’s death was suspicious?”
This time Gueguen roared with laughter. “I would hardly describe three bullet holes in the chest as suspicious, Mr. Macleod. But, yes. It was.”
Voices in the corridor interrupted their conversation. A young man from the car rental company knocked on the door and brought in paperwork for Enzo to sign. He seemed self-conscious, almost deferential in the presence of the senior gendarme, and was anxious to be away again as soon as possible.
“The car’s round the back,” he said. “The Suzuki Jeep.” He handed Enzo the keys and was gone.
Gueguen rose from his desk and reached for his cape and hat. “I’ll walk you round.”
Enzo gulped down the last of his coffee and lifted his overnight bag, and the two men left by the same side entrance and walked around to the back of the gendarmerie. On the far side of a muddy parking area stood a concrete block with two heavy steel doors. Gueguen followed Enzo’s eyes.
“The cells.” He walked toward the nearest door and pushed it open. “Take a look. This is where we brought Kerjean when it was decided to charge him.”
Enzo walked into a dark cubicle. A hole in the floor at the back of the cell served as a toilet. High up in the wall above it was a window, allowing minimal light to penetrate thick cubes of unbreakable glass. A stone plinth was covered with a thin, unsanitary looking mattress. It was cold and damp, the walls scarred with the graffiti of drunks and petty crooks. Not a place you would want to spend any time.
“Myself and one of the more senior gendarmes were dispatched to bring him in.” Gueguen seemed lost for a moment in his memory of the event. “We were pretty nervous about it. Kerjean was… still is… a big man. And he had something of a reputation for violence. He wasn’t any stranger to these cells. He’d spent a few nights here after getting into drunken brawls in town. And he never came quietly.”
“You thought he might resist arrest?”
“Who knows what a desperate man accused of murder might do? As it turned out, he came like a lamb.”
“Do you think he did it?” Enzo watched carefully for his reaction, but the big gendarme just smiled.
“Of course he didn’t. He was acquitted, wasn’t he?” He reached into an inside pocket and produced a dog- eared business card. He found a pen and scribbled some figures on the back of it, before handing it to Enzo. “Here.”
Enzo turned it over. It was a telephone number
“That’s my private cellphone. Officially, I can do nothing for you, Monsieur Macleod. Unofficially…” he glanced across the sodden car park toward the house, “… I’ll help you in any way I can. And I don’t just think Kerjean did it, I’m sure he did. Even if he can’t be tried again, I’d love to see him nailed.”
Chapter Seven
The brief rush of traffic following the arrival of the ferry had long since subsided. The sky had darkened, the last of its light squeezed out by the rainclouds. Le Bourg, the small town at the top of the hill above Port Tudy, was deserted. Lights shone in a few shop windows: Le Relais des Mousquetaires, the Bleu The, the I le et Elles hairdresser on the square opposite the war monument and the church.
Enzo lost his way several times in the narrow streets, terraces of gabled houses with steeply pitched roofs and dormer windows, painted pink and white, and brick-red, and blue. Finally he saw a roadsign for Port Melite.
After he left the town, and the Ecomarche supermarket on its outskirts, place names and arrows painted on crumbling road surfaces replaced conventional roadsigns. His Jeep, with its canvas roof and brutal suspension, proved draughty and damp and noisy as he steered it east through the gathering gloom along the island’s north coast. This was flat, dull countryside, punctuated by the odd stand of trees and occasional clusters of isolated cottages. Finally the road turned into a long descent to the tiny village of Port Melite, a small group of houses huddled around a short sweep of sandy beach. Through the rain and the gloom, Enzo could just see the lights of the mainland in the far distance across the strait.
He parked next to a white car beside two concrete benches overlooking the beach. The name of the village was painted on a stone set into the grass. An arrow pointed east. Les Grands Sables 400m. He found the house about twenty meters along the dirt track leading to the big sands. It stood behind a wall and blue-painted fence,
