Past Imperfect (7 page)

Louis had travelled up from Marseille thirteen years ago to be the chef at the Café du Verdon, and when the owner had died four years later and the relatives were keen to sell on, he'd mortgaged his neck between the banks and private bills of exchange to take over. Only in the last few years, having cleared the bills of exchange, had Louis enjoyed the fruits of his labour. Dominic could imagine that the locals had not been too keen on a Corsican owning such a prominent local establishment, especially all those years ago. Marseille was teaming with migrant workers and cosmopolitan mixes, and the tide of invasion by outsiders and foreigners was accepted on the coast fifty kilometres away, but not in Bauriac.

Louis was shaking his head. 'It's hardly believable, something like this. Her and Jean-Luc have been through such a tough time already. They've had to work so hard to make a go of that farm, they were sold a real pig in the poke. Previous owner saw them coming a mile off, as locals often do with people like us from outside. Bastard. Drainage was bad, top soil and yield was poor, it's been a real struggle for them. And she dotes on that boy. I don't know how she'll get over this.'

Dominic nodded thoughtfully. He was still trying to get a picture of Monique Rosselot. She sounded quite exotic, a rare beauty according to Louis; surely he'd have seen her in the past year. He realized then how closeted and predictable his life had become the past seven months, his time spent between the gendarmerie, home with his sick mother, and the occasional drink at Louis. Even on his dates with Odette, they always went to the same places: the cinema, the Café du Verdon, or on the rare occasions they felt more adventurous, on his bike to a favourite club in St Maximin.

Valerié was up at the bar, ordering drinks for herself and her friend. A Marie Brizard and soda and a glass of red wine. 'You having another dance soon, Louis?'

'Maybe later. I'm not as young as I used to be.' He smiled as he watched her walk back to the table with the drinks. 'How's Odette these days?'

'Okay. A bit too demanding. Wants to go out every night. I just don't have the time, even if I did have the energy and the inclination.?'

'What first attracted you to her?' Louis leant forward slightly. He lowered his voice conspirationally. 'Come on, you must remember that. That first flush of romance.'

Dominic thought for a moment. 'I think it was when we first went on a picnic. The way she wrapped her mouth around a bread stick sandwich. I knew then she was the girl for me.'

Louis smiled broadly. 'Is that the only qualification your girls need?'

'No. I quite like it if they're good at yoga and can put their ankles behind their ears.'

Louis guffawed so loudly that Valerié and her friend looked over briefly. Still chuckling, Louis poured another Pernod. 'You're a card, Dominic. An absolute fucking card. Excuse me.' He swept out from behind the bar and, half kneeling with a bar towel draped across one arm, asked Valerié to dance. Ray Charles 'Take these chains' was playing on the juke box.

Dominic took a quick slug of brandy and smiled to himself. Normally, he was quite considerate and romantic with women. But that wasn't the image Louis wanted to hear. Louis would probably have been happier to hear he'd split with Odette, back to how he was the first five months in Bauriac: different dates every other week, screwing his way endlessly through the local girls in search of nirvana. That at least was the idyllic, swashbuckling image in Louis' mind. In reality, half of the dates had been a disaster; Dominic didn't know it was possible to go out with so many girls and still feel so lonely. The only consolation had been, editing the dates down to just the highlights, that he'd kept up his stock of bar stool stories for Louis.

Dominic watched Louis and Valerié dancing, smiling as one of Louis' rogue hands drifted down towards her bottom in the clinches. After Ray Charles came the Crystals 'Da Doo Ron Ron.' Louis' attempt at the jive looked more like a flamenco dancer in the grips of epilepsy, and Dominic fought to keep a straight face. Louis thought of himself as a good dancer and Dominic didn't want to spoil a good friendship by shattering that illusion. After a moment his thoughts took over and the dancing and music faded into the background.

Tomorrow would be a big day. They would have the first forensics report, plus the findings of the medical examiner. They should know the timing of the attack, the exact weapon used, any other blood groups found and any other irregularities. They would hopefully get the first responses to appeals for witnesses in the area, and he would meet Monique Rosselot for the first main interview to learn the boy's last movements before the attack.

They should also know if her son was going to live.

Dominic wasn't sure if it was the events of the day or the two brandies at Louis, but it took him a long while to get to sleep. He'd checked on his mother on coming in; she was already fast asleep. Often, if she was awake, he would bring her a hot chocolate and they would talk for ten minutes. Her weight loss in the past four months had been more dramatic, but her mind was still lucid, so Dominic grabbed whatever conversations he could. He knew that at any day her mind could slip.

If the day hadn't been too eventful, they would reminisce: the days from his childhood in Louviers near Paris were the most memorable. Some of the memories jumbled with the events of the day as he tried to get some sleep. Images of the young boy, the dark blood against the bleached white wheat, preparing himself for the interview with Monique Rosselot, flashes from his own chidhood and thinking of his own mother as she was then, how she could have possibly coped with anything so horrific. It was the closest he could come to trying to understand how Monique Rosselot felt.

His bedroom’s French windows led onto a small first floor patio overlooking the garden. Left partly open with the summer heat, the sound of the wind through the trees outside wafted gently in. After a while, he finally drifted off to sleep.

The dream came three hours later. He was a boy again in Louviers, and the wheat fields stretched out endlessly before him. The sheaves seemed so tall, he could hide among them and nobody would find him. He walked ten paces into the field and crouched down, holding his breath as he hid; the sheaves were at least a foot above his head.

Then suddenly he was looking down at the field. He could see the gendarmes tapping across the field with their sticks to find him. He felt suddenly that he'd done something wrong, but didn't know what, and he wasn't sure whether to leap up and let them find him. But in the end he stayed crouched and hidden. He could hear them tapping closer, closer, and his heart pounded with the sound of their nearby movement. Though looking down from above, he could see that they'd already passed him.

A gentle breeze wafting across the field suddenly became more violent, bending the sheaves almost at a right angle. Their gentle threshing with the sticks was drowned out by the sound. He stood up after a moment and was clearly exposed. But the gendarmes were looking away, holding onto their caps and shielding their faces from the harsh wind stinging their eyes. He called to them, but his voice was lost among the wind and the wild rustling of the sheaves...

Dominic woke up with a start. He was sweating profusely. Outside, the wind had risen and the branches of the trees close by his window whipped back and forth. He got up and walked onto the small balcony, looking down onto the garden. There was a tall jacarandah tree close by, and its branches and leaves moved like surf rising and falling with the wind. It could be the first stages of a mistral, Dominic thought, or hopefully a small summer storm that would blow over by the morning.

Dominic's heart was pounding. He wasn't sure if it was the dream or something else that he suddenly remembered would happen the next day. A reporter from
La Provençal
, the area's main newspaper, had called the station that evening. Two hours later Poullain had released a statement that would no doubt appear in the paper the next morning.

The attacker would know then that the boy he had left for dead was still alive. He would feel threatened; the boy could possibly later talk and indentify him.

FIVE

When the phone call came about the accident, at first Stuart thought it was his alarm call, but it was Helena. Stuart’s clock showed 6.08am.

She was babbling and incoherent, and
'Is terrible.. so sorry,'
were repeated among the jumble, along with a number he should ring for the Oceanside police who had called her just ten minutes before. Emerging from his drowsiness, Stuart tried to clarify some points, but Helena was not very forthcoming, as if she either didn't know much or didn't want to be the messenger of bad tidings. The tears and the trembling in her voice betrayed the worst.

When Stuart got through to the Oceanside police, he was asked to call back in ten minutes. 'Lieutenant Carlson has all the details for that. He should be finished with his interview then.'

After confirming his relationship as Jeremy's elder brother and Eyran's uncle and godparent, Stuart felt himself go numb as Carlson went through the catalogue of horror, as if it was a routine shopping list: 'We have one female, Caucasian, pronounced DOA at Oceanside County General. The other two occupants of the jeep, a Caucasian male and a young boy are both still in emergency. The boy was critical at one point, but he's more stable now. We're waiting on more updates. Can I ask, sir, do you know of any other relatives the victims might have here in California who we can contact?'

'No, I can't think of anyone. We're all here... here in England. We've got an uncle in Toronto, but we haven't seen him in years.' Stuart felt lame and helpless due to the distance, an image of Jeremy and Eyran cut off and alone. He knew he should be there with them.

'Can I rely on you then to make contact with your sister-in-law, Allison Capel's relatives in England.'

'Yes, yes... of course.' Stuart was still numb, trying desperately to work out how he could get out to California quickly. He'd never actually met Allison's parents, only a sister over six years ago at one of Jeremy's parties. To his side Amanda was stirring, squinting over at him quizzically.

'From identification found in the car, we have your brother's age, thirty-eight years old, but not that of your sister-in-law or the boy.''

'Allison was thirty-five, I think. Eyran was just ten years old last April.'

'What number can we reach you on to inform you of any developments?'

Stuart gave Carlson his home number then, as an afterthought. 'I'll give you my work number as well, just in case you don't hear anything from the hospital before tonight.'

But as he said the words, it suddenly hit Stuart that he couldn't possibly just sit there through those hours waiting for the phone to ring, knowing that Eyran and Jeremy were laying in hospital beds ten thousand miles away. He made the decision. 'I'm coming out there. I've been thinking about it as we've spoken. I've got to be there with them.'

'That's your prerogative, sir, but with all due respect, we might know something within the next hour or so from the hospital. They're both in emergency right now.'

'That's okay, I'll book the ticket and phone you before I leave for the airport, then again just before the flight leaves. But I've got to start making my way out there.' Amanda was sitting up now, following every word of the conversation.

'I fully understand, sir. I'll wait to hear from you.'

It took Stuart only half an hour to make all his travel arrangements, part of which was explaining the situation to an incredulous Amanda and leaving her a few vital numbers to contact. All San Diego flights routed through L.A, though there was an average four hours delay between connecting flights. The first direct flight to L.A was an American Airlines flight leaving at 10.55am from Heathrow, and from there a bus or train could take him down to Oceanside, 55 miles south of LA.

On the flight out, Stuart tried to read a magazine or a book, anything to distract him. But he just couldn't concentrate, he found himself scanning the words blindly, his thoughts still with Eyran and Jeremy, trying to read something into Carlson's bland status report on the call he'd put through just before the flight announcement. The news from the hospital was that Eyran was out of emergency and had been transferred to intensive care, and that Jeremy was still in emergency.

Stuart put down the magazine and closed his eyes briefly, knowing that sleep was hopeless, but trying to force some calm into his nerve-racked body. He let the images wash over him slowly: the night they celebrated Jeremy passing his bar exams, Jeremy helping him unload some antique timbers for the cottage, Eyran asking for a ride in the sports car he'd bought to celebrate the first major account of his new agency, the surprise on Jeremy's face when he turned up in the hospital with a half bottle of scotch in his coat pocket the night Eyran was born. 'What, no cigars?'

Eyran. So much of their lives had revolved around Eyran. He remembered now that it had been almost eight months since he'd seen Jeremy when Eyran was born; yet another futile argument that had forged a divide. As the first born of the two families, Eyran had created a bond that just wasn't there before. A simple focus of love and affection which crossed over any boundaries and past differences between himself and Jeremy. The petty arguments continued, but suddenly Eyran was an overriding force pushing them into the background.

Probably even Jeremy sensed he had become more than just an uncle, he'd stepped into the role of a second father to Eyran. The fact that he'd been unable to have children with Amanda, despite numerous tests and clinics, had intensified that bond. Eyran became like the son he could never have.

After another year of trying vainly with Amanda to have a child, they'd applied for adoption, taking Tessa as a two year old eight months later. Amanda had suggested a boy, admitting in the end that she thought Stuart had wanted a boy because of Eyran. He said that he wanted a girl because he didn't want their child seen as some sort of replacement for Eyran. They'd both told only half the truth. Stuart didn't want a child that might eclipse Eyran, perhaps dilute or distract his affection for the boy. A girl could be seen as a separate entity. Amanda had wanted
any
child that would return Stuart's focus to his own family, breaking what she felt had become an unnaturally close tie between himself and Eyran. He remembered Amanda's anger brimming over one day, as not for the first time he brought home two toys, suggesting that they drive over later to give Eyran his. 'Is this your idea of the perfect family, Stuart? A girl in our family and a boy in your brother's.'