Past Imperfect

mantra to hopefully drive the inevitable away, her eyes imploring him as she slowly collapsed to her knees and, her body finally giving way to convulsive sobbing, she let out a single wailing cry.

The cry, painful and desperate, pierced the still morning air, echoing from the walls of the small courtyard and rising up the gentle slope of the fields beyond. Jean-Luc Rosselot had been working in the west field out of sight of the courtyard for over an hour, digging to find the leak in an irrigation pipe. He didn't see or hear the Solex approaching; the cry was the first thing he heard. He dropped his spade and started running the fifty yards that would bring him in sight of the courtyard. Halfway, another wailing cry arose; a gap, then another.

And already he feared what was the cause before he'd thrashed his way through the last of the dried grass in the almond orchard and the courtyard came into view. It was like a frozen tableau: the gendarme trying to stand proud with his wife on her knees before him, one hand clutching out and almost touching his ankles. As another cry of anguish drifted up across the field, he saw the gendarme reach out towards her shoulder as if to re-assure, but the hand hovered just above without connecting.

Each of them stood alone, grief unshared; though Jean-Luc felt even more distanced and awkward, looking on. He tried not to accept what the tableau told him, force it from his mind in search of other explanations; but in the end the imagery was too strong, left nothing to interpretation. His son was dead.

His first instinct was to rush towards his wife, comfort her — but after a few paces he stopped. His legs felt weak and he was strangely dizzy, the field seeming to tilt slowly away from him, the light oddly dim in hues of dull grey. And suddenly it seemed ridiculous for him to bound down the hillside, waving, even if his legs still had the strength to carry him, and so he resigned himself and slowly sank down, gave way to the buckle in his knees until he was sitting.

They hadn't seen him; they were faced away and he was still too distant. And so he watched from a distance through the grey haze, through eyes stinging with tears, watched his life and all he loved, all that he had prayed these past days for God to save, slowly slip away with the tilt of the grey field into nothingness.

The death intensified the investigation and the mood in Taragnon and the surrounding villages. Questions and speculation peppered much of village conversation. Part nervous reaction, there were few other escape valves. New snippets of information about possible suspects and excitement at an impending apprehension replaced their normal daily routines and pleasures. In a village where local gossip and drama was a large part of the daily fare, this indeed was a lavish banquet. But in the lulls, moods were dark and sullen, silent. It was either feast or famine.

The first main change in the case came in a call from Pierre Bouteille notifying Poullain that he had passed over his file to Alexandre Perrimond, Aix Chief Prosecutor. 'The main reason is workload. With this now a murder investigation, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to devote the time it deserves. I've brought Perrimond up to date on everything. No doubt he'll make contact soon.'

The morning after, 'La Provencal' carried the news in a three column band at the bottom of its front page, carrying over onto page two. It was the most complete story they'd carried yet of the Rosselot case, going over the initial assault, its impact on the small village of Taragnon, and police progress. The police were quoted as having a few possible suspects and how they hoped to 'conclude the investigation and press charges within the week.' Poullain had spent almost twenty minutes on the phone the previous afternoon with the reporter. The end of the article went back over other notable child disappearances and murders in Provence over the past decade, mostly from the Marseille and Nice area, underlining the rareness of such incidents in inland villages.

Perrimond made his mark on the case early. Within an hour of being on morning duty, Poullain received a call from his office in Aix. 'I see from this item in the paper that you have a few possible suspects. That is news to me. From the information I was passed by my assistant, Pierre Bouteille, I understood there only to be one.'

'It is still only one. The other suspect mentioned to Prosecutor Bouteille, a certain Alain Duclos, was fully interviewed and later my assistant Fornier checked his details. He's a non-runner. We're still left only with the main suspect in the file, Machanaud.'

'Bouteille might handle things differently, but I like to be informed before having to read it in the newspapers.' The phone was put down abruptly.

'Headline chaser,' Poullain muttered after hanging up. The call put Poullain in a bad mood for the rest of the day. He pressed and niggled at Dominic about small details in their final report, making him re-type it twice before he was satisfied. Most of it went over Dominic's head. He typed mechanically, the words little more than a blur. He was still pre-occupied with how the Rosselots were coping.

Most of the news had come from Louis, whose girlfriend Valerie was friendly with the Rosselot's neighbours, the Fievets. They were the Rosselot's closest friends in Taragnon. Clarisse Rosselot had stayed with the Fievets during Monique's daily hospital vigils so that Jean-Luc's farm work wasn't too heavily disrupted.

Monique Rosselot had hardly left the farm since receiving the news, asking the Fievets to get whatever shopping and essentials were needed. Jean-Luc had meanwhile buried himself back in his farm work, was out in the fields much of the day. The one time she'd left the house was to use the Fievets' phone when she'd finally summoned up courage to call her mother in Beaune to break the tragic news. The mother was going to travel down to console her the next day, a day before the funeral. But, according to Valerie, at the same time Jean-Luc was talking about visiting his parents straight after the funeral; he'd had no contact whatsoever with them in twelve years, but just couldn't break news like this to them over the phone. He had to see them. Monique had complained to the Fievets that while she understood Jean-Luc's reasoning, the timing was bad; she felt as if she was being deserted when she needed him most.

Louis' message was clear: she was coping, but except for her mother and some neighbourly support from the Fievets, she was coping alone.

Dominic sipped thoughtfully at a beer Louis had poured for him. The first day back at the bar after having seen the Rosselots, Louis had teased and pressed him until he'd finally admitted, yes, she's very pretty. Now the bonhomie had gone, replaced by sullen camaraderie; trying to understand, through pieces of second hand information, the grief and pain of someone they hardly knew. Dominic wasn't even sure what drove his curiosity: pity for Monique Rosselot, or to assuage his guilt at having brought her the news?

Late that afternoon, Dominic had his worst argument yet with Poullain over Machanaud. The emotions of the day before, the relentless funnelling of evidence now aimed at Machanaud, the words he'd blindly typed that morning — as the mist of his pre-occupation with Monique Rosselot lifted — all converged; and it dawned on him that they were delivering little more than a death warrant for Machanaud. He once again raised doubts about Machanaud.

'But you were the one who drove out and actually gained corroboration of Duclos' movements that afternoon,' Poullain defended. 'We know he was in the restaurant when the boy was attacked, and he had little or no time spare after he left. It's all in the report — and half of the facts you gained yourself.'

'I know. But some of his alibis fall into place too conveniently, almost planned, and something about Duclos makes me uncomfortable. Also, I'm not convinced about Machanaud. Even if Machanaud was accused of raping a woman, I would be doubtful — but a young boy! We have nothing on him in the past more serious than some poaching and drunken and disorderly.'

'And you're saying that Duclos is the type?'

'Possibly. Let's face it, we know nothing about him. At least with Machanaud, we have something to go by on past form. And based on that, it just doesn't sit right with me.'

'Yes, I suppose you're right, we don't know much about him. When they telexed through from Limoges and told us he was an assistant in the Prosecutor's office, they forgot to mention that, oh, by the way our friendly local assistant prosecutor has a history with buggering young boys. Hope that is useful, but as you appreciate we like to keep that sort of thing quiet with public officials. Maybe that will follow in their next communication.' Poullain smiled cynically. 'You think that Duclos looks the type, don't you?'

Dominic ignored the barb for the second time. 'No, it's more than that, I mean why stop for oil when you're in a rush to see a particular girl and you're worried about being late. Why spend over an hour in a cafe when time is tight?'

'He probably only remembered the girl and hoped to see her on a whim when he left the restaurant, or perhaps not even until he was at the garage, which is why he asked about timing. There was no specific meeting