Children of War (30 page)

And there, waiting for them with his camera at the ready, was Philippe Delaron, whom Bruno had been trying to avoid. Philippe had taken to his role as newsman with great energy and panache, and while Bruno sometimes found him to be a pain in the neck he rather admired Philippe’s enthusiasm.

‘What on earth brings you here?’ Bruno asked.

‘Who do you think took those photos and blew them up?’ Philippe retorted, dodging around Bruno to snap a shot of Maya, the Mayor and the Rolls-Royce. ‘I made Florence tell me what it was all about in return for doing the work.’

‘Madame Halévy,’ he called out before Bruno could stop him. ‘Are you going to support the schoolkids’ plans for the museum?’

‘Certainly,’ she replied, turning as she was about to step into the car. ‘I can’t think when I’ve been more impressed by a project. You have some wonderful young people in this town and they deserve everybody’s full support.’

*

Bruno wondered if it was because he was her passenger that Yveline drove so carefully, observing the speed limits of seventy as they approached a town or junction and fifty once they were inside any urban area, even a village. She kept at ninety even on long straight roads, but handled the bends well, accelerating out of them. She glanced at her rear mirror religiously and read the road ahead. It was as though she were going through the Gendarme road test. But she was relaxed as she drove, chatting easily, and he concluded that this was simply another feature of a remarkably composed and well-organized
young woman. Like so much else about her, he found it quietly impressive.

‘Did you explain to this professor why we’re coming to see her?’ he asked.

‘Not in so many words, but I said we were investigating some cases of sexual harassment, one of them involving Fabiola, and we knew Fabiola had told her about it and asked her advice. And if she asks, the
Procureur
’s office has opened a dossier into a suspected crime. Annette faxed me a copy along with a formal request to assist her inquiry.’

Bruno nodded, still not sure why Yveline had asked him to join her on the inquiry, rather than taking along one of her Gendarmes.

‘We’re doing this by the book,’ she said after a moment. ‘That’s why you’ve been invited along. Annette thought it would be a good idea since you’re Fabiola’s local policeman. Nancy said it was the way they ran inquiries into sexual offences at the FBI, always a man and a woman.’

Bruno hadn’t known that, but it made sense, precluding the suspect claiming he was being targeted by female cops after a woman’s complaint against him.

‘And Fabiola said she’d rather you were involved,’ Yveline added. ‘I thought I’d like to run the questioning, but if I rub the witness the wrong way, you’re experienced. You’ll know when to step in and change the mood.’

‘You won’t rub her the wrong way,’ Bruno said, although he knew it was easily done. He’d seen cooperative witnesses turn hostile often enough through clumsy questioning. ‘Sergeant Jules would have done, he’s got that grandfatherly touch.’

‘Yes, but I need someone I can count on back running the Gendarmerie, and that means Jules.’

‘Have you told him that?’

‘No, but I gave him top marks on his annual performance rating, a bit against my better judgement. He’s sometimes too inclined to live and let live.’

She could say that about him, Bruno thought. Knowing when to turn a blind eye was part of being a country policeman; part of being a policeman anywhere.

‘And whatever I might think, the other women wanted you on this inquiry and on reflection I agree with them, so here you are,’ she said, glancing briefly at him before returning her attention to the road ahead. ‘Do you mind? I think you ought to be flattered.’

‘It’s not a question of being flattered. If I have one big concern it’s that I don’t want Fabiola screwing herself up to take this step and then we find the evidence is too thin and the memories too vague to make a case stick against Deutz. And given his connections, it’s going to have to be foolproof.’

‘I know that. And you’ll make sure it is foolproof. The case already looks pretty good to me – a contemporaneous witness, a retired professor.’

‘What about that complaint against Deutz that went nowhere?’ he asked. ‘I thought Annette was contacting the magistrate who’d been involved.’

‘She did and the magistrate, another woman, was furious when the student dropped the charges. She thought the medical school had applied pressure and she was right. I found the student, Monique Jouard; she’s now a paediatrician in Cherbourg. One of her professors took Monique aside to say if
she dropped the charges they’d give her a good recommendation to another school. If she went ahead, she could forget about a career in medicine. Now they’ve lost that hold over her, Monique was only too happy to relaunch her accusation and the original magistrate is taking the case. I think that’s what finally persuaded Fabiola. There’s a copy of her statement in my briefcase on the back seat,’ she said. ‘It’s the file marked Fabiola. Take a look.’

Not many Gendarme officers would invite another Gendarme, let alone a municipal policeman, to poke around inside her briefcase. It was a gratifying sign of trust. Bruno reached over and thumbed through the briefcase to find it. There were two typed pages with Fabiola’s signature on each one.

She and Deutz had become lovers during the autumn term at the medical school, very happily at first, he read. But Fabiola had become aware that he was seeing other women and had decided to break off the relationship even before the mountaineering accident. When he had visited her during her recovery, she had told him their affair was over and he’d laughed it off. When the medical school reopened in the new year he had tried to resume their relations but she had repeatedly refused. On 4 February, he had come to her lodgings, somewhat drunk, demanding sex. When she refused and asked him to leave, he had punched her in the stomach, thrown her onto the bed, pulled down her pants and raped her. As he left she recalled him saying, ‘You don’t say no to me.’

Despite the cold, almost forensic prose, the image was clear in Bruno’s mind. He couldn’t imagine Fabiola’s feelings as she lay there, humiliated and violated. But he could almost see
the arrogance on Deutz’s face as he spoke the words. Grimly, Bruno looked forward to arresting him.

Yveline slowed the van outside a small villa with a large and well-tended garden on the outskirts of Villefranche and then drove on and parked in a side street around the corner. Bruno approved. The professor would already be nervous about their visit without the added pressure of a Gendarme van outside her house where the neighbours could see it and gossip.

Although plainly nervous at their arrival, the woman who answered the door looked like the kindly and comforting sort of woman who’d play the role of a midwife on TV. She was plump with round and rosy cheeks, no make-up and her white hair cut short. Automatically, Bruno noted the flat-heeled leather lace-ups on her feet, a floral-pattern dress and cardigan, no jewelry except for a pearl necklace. She asked them to call her Rosalie, offered coffee, and almost at once brought in a tray that she must have prepared earlier. Yveline led the questioning and to keep matters formal addressed her as Professor Waldeck.

Yes, Professor Waldeck remembered Fabiola very well, one of her favourite students and a doctor with a natural touch and a bedside manner that inspired trust. And yes, she remembered Fabiola coming to ask her advice after what the professor called ‘a painful and humiliating experience’ at the hands of another member of the teaching staff. She was going out of her way to sound pedantic, like a stage professor, Bruno thought.

‘I have thought over this matter carefully before you arrived, and I’m not proud of my failure to do more to help Fabiola at the time,’ she said, lifting a notebook from a side table and putting on her reading glasses. ‘I made these notes before
your arrival because I wanted to be clear in my mind what I should say.’

First, she began, she believed that Fabiola had been forced into having sex against her will. That was rape. But matters were complicated, since before her accident Fabiola and the young professor had been engaged in an affair for several months. When Fabiola had tried to end it, the young man refused to accept her decision. When she insisted, he had forced himself upon her.

Second, the young man was a member of the teaching staff. Since his promising career could be ended by Fabiola’s accusation, he could be expected to fight her charges against him. The other members of the teaching staff who would be sitting in judgement upon him were almost entirely male. Many of them saw him as one of the most gifted young men they had known, with a future likely to bring renown to the school. They tended to discount claims of rape between lovers, she said, thinking that once the woman had already been to bed with the man, what difference would another such bout make?

Bruno winced inwardly, remembering times he had heard sly jokes at the rugby club: ‘a slice off a cut cake is never missed’. He knew Professor Waldeck was being realistic about the attitudes of most men of his generation. It was a view that Bruno had grown up sharing. Only in recent years had his experience in Bosnia and the reality of life as a country policeman driven him to change his mind. It was not that the men he knew were brutes, but once married many of them seemed careless whether the woman was willing or not. The sexual codes were evolving only slowly in Bruno’s part of rural
France. Bruno had seen the eyes and hurt of women who had been forced repeatedly into sex against their will, and never wanted to see it again. That this had happened to Fabiola was intolerable.

Third, Professor Waldeck went on, Fabiola had no evidence. The incident had taken place some days earlier. She had repeatedly bathed since then and had made no complaint at the time. It would be harder to take her word for it now, with no witnesses. It would be a matter of the young man’s words against hers.

‘Who is this individual you call the young man?’ Yveline asked coolly.

Waldeck paused a long moment. ‘Pascal Deutz,’ she said.

‘Are you aware of any other similar incidents involving Monsieur Deutz?’

There was a long pause before Waldeck replied, ‘Yes, I am. Two in fact. One was with another student, the year before Fabiola came to me, in very similar circumstances. The two of them had been on a climbing holiday together and the young woman had left early and wanted to end the affair. Deutz had returned later and had his way with her again, saying it was one for the road. Again, she came to me, and I’m afraid I gave her the same advice. I very much regret it now. Had I taken the matter up then, Fabiola might have been spared the same fate.’

‘And the second incident?’ Yveline pressed.

‘After the end of his relationship with Fabiola he turned his attentions to another medical student, very forcefully, but without obtaining his goal. The young woman resisted, her clothes were torn, his face was scratched and her screams
attracted a neighbour. Deutz left in a hurry. The woman went straight to the school authorities, not to me. The matter was hushed up and the authorities arranged for the young woman to be transferred to another medical school. Deutz left shortly afterwards. I have made a note of the names of the two women involved. I’m afraid I don’t have the address of the first one, Iphigène Vaugaudry, but I believe she is now practising in Nancy. The second is Monique Jouard, graduated from the medical school in Rennes and now lives in Cherbourg.’

She handed across a sheet of paper with the two names and Bruno helped her draft a statement and sign it. The coffee that Professor Waldeck had offered them remained on the table, untouched.

As they took their leave, Waldeck remained in her chair, her head down, her hands clenched together so tightly in her lap that Bruno could see the skin white around her knuckles.

‘I wanted to say that I grew up in another time,’ she said quietly. ‘Things were different then. And at the medical school, it was a man’s world.’ Her pedantic manner had disappeared.

‘Women deserve to live in it peaceably, Madame,’ said Yveline.

‘I feel very ashamed of myself. I know what Fabiola went through.’

Yveline was grimly silent. Bruno, thinking of the way he might have made the same flawed judgement at the time, tried to offer her some comfort.

‘You’ve done the right thing, Madame,’ he said. ‘If we can get statements from these other two women, I think Deutz will at last have to answer for his crimes.’

Yveline gave him a cold look, shook her head and turned to
leave the room. At the door, she stopped, looked at Waldeck and said, ‘I just hope I can do a better job for any young women in my care than you did with yours. Don’t get up. We’ll let ourselves out.’

‘Put the siren on and go as fast as you can to the château,’ said Bruno, closing his phone. ‘That was the Brigadier. There’s trouble.’

Yveline complied and then, raising her voice above the electronic howl from the roof, asked, ‘Trouble at the château? Does Sergeant Jules know?’

Bruno explained, briefly. It was hard shouting over the siren. There had been another riot at the mosque, the Brigadier had said. Hundreds of young Muslims had gathered to protect the sprawling complex against a planned demonstration by some anti-immigrant groups. The head of the city’s social services was trying to deliver a warrant for an inquiry into the condition of the children in the orphanage, but the city police had been unable to force their way through. The Imam had been on the phone to the Elysée, saying he would calm the youths around the mosque but demanding that he be allowed to come to the château to speak to Sami and Momu. Somebody powerful on the President’s staff had told the Brigadier to take the Imam there by helicopter as soon as possible.

‘That story on the radio probably won’t make things any easier,’ said Yveline.

Almost as soon as they had started the journey back to St
Denis, she had turned on the radio to catch the local news bulletin. The second item had been announced as ‘Millions from Israel for St Denis’, quoting Philippe Delaron’s story on the
Sud Ouest
website. Philippe had had his tape recorder running when he shouted his question to Maya as she left the presentation at the
collège
.