The Coldest Case, Martin Walker [famous ebook reader txt] 📗

Yveline walked past J-J and stood beside Sabine, putting an arm around her shoulder. Bruno heard Sabine tell Yveline that she ought to be accustomed by now to her father’s condition but each time it depressed her anew.

‘He didn’t even recognize his own daughter,’ J-J said, his voice solemn. He stood by the back of the car while Bruno opened it so he could put the photo albums beside Sabine’s luggage. ‘The poor devil is in a different world altogether. He couldn’t stop reciting something like a shopping list or an inventory of groceries, over and over. Sabine said he used to be deputy manager of a supermarket. That’s where he met her mother who worked on the checkout. I don’t think the poor old guy ever knew we were there, not me, not his daughter.’

J-J let out a long breath. ‘Putain, this job. Sometimes it gets to you. It’s never the obvious things, the decomposed bodies, not even the women and kids beaten up, those little bloodied faces that break your heart. It’s something you just don’t expect, like trying to make contact with this old . . . this human vegetable.’

He lit another cigarette, breathed in deeply, coughed hard and spat. ‘Right, on to Tante-Do at the beauty parlour.’

Her place was larger than Bruno had expected, filling both sides of a double-fronted modern building on a busy street. The beauty parlour and a hairdresser shared the same entrance and seemed to be two parts of a single business. The hairdresser’s premises went back about twenty metres and looked two-thirds full. The beauty parlour smelled of scent and was smaller than the hairdresser’s place, little more than a receptionist’s desk and a counter where two women were having their nails done. They turned to stare as the receptionist gave a professional smile of greeting that stayed fixed on her face even as the police uniforms piled in behind J-J. Behind her were two doors, one marked Salon and the other Spa.

‘Madame Dominique?’ asked Sabine. The receptionist stared briefly at the uniforms and then pointed them to the stairs between the two businesses, saying they’d find her in the office on the next floor.

‘Sabine, what a pleasure!’ exclaimed the elegant, carefully coiffed woman. She was extremely thin with a complexion that looked as white and smooth as porcelain. She rose from behind a modern desk covered with sheaves of papers. She was wearing a pleated white blouse with a high collar and a neck scarf. She must have kicked off her shoes beneath the desk because she shuffled her feet a little and suddenly seemed five or six centimetres taller when she stood. Bruno had worked out that she must be in her early fifties but to his eye she looked no more than forty, until he looked at her hands. Beside her desk was an old-fashioned wooden hat stand on which hung a medical-style white coat.

‘And are these your colleagues?’ she went on, as she came from behind the desk to embrace Sabine. She spoke brightly, although she could not have missed the uniforms that meant this was no friendly visit. ‘Please, all of you, come into my room at the back. I assume you’re here on business.’

Sabine returned her embrace before introducing J-J, who showed his police ID, allowed Bruno’s and Yveline’s uniforms to speak for themselves and followed Dominique into a comfortable sitting room. A half-open door revealed a kitchen, and some carpeted stairs led presumably to bedrooms. Bruno assumed that she lived here, above the shop.

‘Madame, we are investigating a murder that we believe took place during the St Denis félibrée that you and Sabine’s mother attended some thirty years ago on the eve of her wedding,’ J-J began, and went on to explain Oscar’s discovery at St Denis and the new DNA evidence. ‘It seems very likely to us that you were with Sabine’s mother when she had her liaison with the man who was then murdered. We are hoping you can help us discover who exactly he was.’

Tante-Do sat back looking stunned as she stared at J-J, then at Bruno and Yveline before her gaze came to rest on Sabine. Slowly her features relaxed into a sad smile.

‘So the family secret finally comes out,’ she said, addressing Sabine as if the others weren’t present. ‘I’m sorry it had to come out like this, Sabine. Your mum never wanted you or your dad or poor little Louis to find out. Not that she ever regretted her brief adventure, and believe me, nor did I.’

Tante-Do gave a grin which made her look much younger and then chuckled with what Bruno assumed was a happy memory. ‘I only knew him as Max and he came from somewhere in Alsace,’ she said, lighting a cigarette. After her initial shock she appeared unfazed by the police visit and the questions.

‘Max was a good-looking guy, a bit of a blond beast, and I might have been interested but I had my own mec, his friend Henri. In fact it was Henri who picked me up first and then your mum and Max really took to each other. He was a great dancer. We had a very happy weekend together, the four of us, and then on the Sunday morning they vanished, just disappeared.’ She paused, as if suddenly recalling the social niceties. ‘Can I offer you some coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ said J-J, putting his phone on the coffee table between them. ‘I’ll take a formal statement later but for the moment I’m recording, if you have no objection. It has no legal status but it will help to jog my memory – and perhaps yours – when you give the formal statement that I’m afraid we are legally obliged to take.’

Tante-Do shrugged and J-J said, ‘The witness has signalled her agreement to the recording.’

‘I was against the marriage from the start,’ she began and then glanced up at Sabine. ‘Sorry, Sabine, but your dad was too old and too boring for