Murder on the Ile Sordou (31 page)

•   •   •

Marine ran down the hotel's steps when she saw Antoine Verlaque and Bill Hobbs walking toward the gardens. Antoine carried something in his arms. She walked quickly, as if in a dream, surrounded by the reds and pinks and purples of the flowering plants so carefully chosen by the Le Bons. Palm fronds brushed up against her bare legs, almost scratching them, but she ignored it. The brilliant afternoon sun made the colors pale, as if filmed in the early 1960s. The closer she got, she saw that Antoine held a bundle of clothes, and a black book. Her heart sank. “Eric,” she said when she got up to the men. Verlaque nodded and stepped aside so that Shirley Hobbs, who had been behind Marine, could hug her husband.

“What happened, Bill?” Mrs. Hobbs asked.

Bill Hobbs looked at Verlaque, who answered, “Eric Monnier shot Alain Denis and today committed suicide by drowning.”

Shirley Hobbs held her hand to her mouth. “How did you know, Bill?”

“Shirl,” he slowly began. “Let's go up to the hotel. There's a lot I need to tell you.”

“Did you know Eric?” Shirley asked. “From your Marseille days?”

Marine shot Verlaque a look.

“How did you know?” Bill Hobbs asked his wife, wide-eyed.

Shirley laid her hand on Bill's shoulder. “It was getting harder and harder for you to pretend you didn't understand French,” she said. “But I've known for years; I found your mother's birth certificate once. It was when we bought our first house, in the sixties, and you still needed all that kind of information to get a bank loan . . . remember?”

Bill nodded. “I tried to hide it from you.”

“You were so nervous and excited about the house,” Shirley said. “You accidently left it out.”

“And you didn't say anything?”

“No, what for?” Shirley said. “I knew that it must have something to do with your mother's tragic death—which I then realized must have been here, in France—and the memories were too painful. I respected you and your father too much to pry.” Shirley's expression then turned sad, and she looked at Verlaque and asked, “Will Bill get charged for withholding evidence?”

“Yes,” he answered. As much as he wanted to protect Bill Hobbs, his work as a judge came first. “But the charge will be much more benign than had Bill assisted in the murder,” he added.

•   •   •

Two hours later Bill and Shirley Hobbs were packed, and standing on the dock about to get into a police boat with Bruno Paulik. “When does your elder son arrive at the Marseille airport?” Verlaque asked. “Jason, right?”

“Tomorrow at noon,” Shirley said. She looked at her husband, who had turned silent, and was standing at the edge of the dock, staring down at the water.

“I'll arrange to have an officer pick up your son,” Verlaque said.

“That's very kind.”

“I've also talked to Bill about a lawyer I once worked with in Paris, who may agree to work on Bill's defense,” Verlaque said. “If that's okay by you; your husband told me that money wasn't a problem. Oddly enough, Niki Darcette knew the lawyer when she was young.”

A young police officer gave Shirley Hobbs his elbow, helping her onto the boat. Bill Hobbs followed, holding his trembling hand up to Verlaque in a wave.

“Will you stay on the rest of the week?” Paulik asked his boss.

“Yes,” Verlaque replied. “Mme Denis and Brice are leaving in a few minutes. . . . Hugo's taking them to the Marseille train station to catch the Paris TGV, along with the Viales. But we're staying, and so is Sylvie.”

“Have fun, then,” Paulik said over the sound of the boat's motor.

“Just look straight ahead at the horizon, Bruno,” Verlaque said, rubbing his stomach.

•   •   •

The rest of the staff and clientele were waiting in the Jacky Bar, and Verlaque took a deep breath before going in. A police officer had accompanied the Hobbses back to their room so that they could pack; Verlaque had made sure that they passed through the main doors, avoiding the bar. He knew that the minute he walked into the bar he would be bombarded with questions. He opened the door and walked in, and to his surprise, the bar was quiet. He could see by the look on everyone's face that they already knew of Bill Hobbs's involvement.

“I saw them,” Max Le Bon began, walking toward the judge. “I was in the office, and I saw the policeman accompany them to their room. What on earth is going on?”

Verlaque gathered the group together, around the bar, and told them the long story of the amphoras, and the connection between Eric Monnier, Bill Hobbs, and Alain Denis. When he had finished, Marie-Thérèse said quietly, “That's the saddest story I've ever heard,” and she slowly sat down. Serge Canzano began wiping down the bar, and Émile Villey sighed and went into the kitchen.

Emmanuelle Denis was the first to approach Verlaque, and she said, “I want to thank you for everything you've done. I think that Brice and I will go back to Paris early.”

“I understand,” Verlaque replied.

“If you're ever in Paris . . . Neuilly, actually . . .”

“I don't get up there often,” Verlaque replied, lying.

“Oh well,” she said, sighing. “Brice,” she called to her son.

Brice walked over to Verlaque and shook his hand. “Thanks,” he said.

Verlaque reached into his jacket pocket and gave Brice Eric Monnier's copy of Frank O'Hara's
Lunch Poems
. “Try some poetry for a change,” Verlaque said. “There's a beautiful poem about Billie Holiday in there.”

“Sweet, thanks,” Brice replied, taking the book. “I like her singing.”

“So do I,” Verlaque said. “Goodbye then, Brice. Goodbye, Mme Denis.”

He turned around and was about to find Marine when Clément Viale tapped him on the shoulder. “Goodbye, old Dough Boy,” he said.

“Leaving early?” Verlaque asked. He hoped the Viales wouldn't be on the TGV back to Paris with Emmanuelle and Brice.

“'Fraid so,” he replied. “Delphine misses the children, and frankly, so do I.”

Verlaque smiled and shook his old friend's hand, hoping that the Viales would make a go of their marriage. “Good luck, Clément,” he said.

Marie-Thérèse sat in Eric Monnier's usual spot, with Niki's arm around her. Émile waved from one of the
hublots
; a chef's work was never done, and he was busy preparing their dinner.

“Thank you for your help, Judge Verlaque,” Max Le Bon said. “By the way, Mme Denis's emerald ring turned up; I don't know if you noticed that she was wearing it. Serge found it in a bowl of lemons that he keeps on the bar.”

“Yes, I saw that she had it on. I'd almost forgotten about the ring until this morning,” Verlaque said. “Bill Hobbs told me that he took it; Mme Poux had left the door of the Denis's room open when she ran back to the laundry room to get more towels. Bill said he could practically see it from the hallway, so he walked in, grabbed it, and immediately threw it in with the lemons.”

“What on earth for?”

“To buy Eric some time,” Verlaque answered. “To create a diversion. Bill hoped that we'd make more of a fuss about the ring than we did, and Eric could slip off the island.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Le Bon said, taking a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to the judge. “We took this message for you earlier,” he said. “The officer said you'd understand.”

Verlaque read the note and smiled. It read: “I just spoke with Mme Navarre; her husband has been filming on location in Thailand the past fifteen days. Officer Flamant.”

“Can I get you a stiff drink?” Le Bon asked.

Verlaque paused before answering. “Perhaps later,” he said. “What I'd really like now is a swim, since we still don't have water. A sea swim.”

“So would I,” Max Le Bon said. “I've only been in the sea once since we came to Sordou. Should we invite the others?”

“Good idea.”

“Dear guests and staff,” Max called out. “There will be an informal swim, followed by champagne on the terrace, in about”—Max looked at his watch—“thirty minutes.”

“May I come?!” Marie-Thérèse called out, then quickly covered her mouth.

“May she?” Verlaque asked.

“Of course,” Cat-Cat Le Bon said. “Who else wants to go for a swim?”

“I do,” Niki replied.

“I'll stay here and keep Émile company,” Serge Canzano said, drying off a wineglass. He found his boss's newly found enthusiasm a bit childish, embarrassing even. Besides, he hadn't swum in thirty years.

“Mme Poux!” Marie-Thérèse said. “You should come!”

Mme Poux, who had been sitting with Cat-Cat, unconsciously touched her carefully coiffed head. “Just to watch, my dear. And perhaps to sun a bit.”

“Then it's decided,” Max said. “We'll all meet at the ladder by the dock in thirty minutes.”

Verlaque gave Marine more detail into Hobbs's story while they changed into their swimsuits. Once changed, Marine sat on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees. She hunched over and began to cry, and Verlaque sat beside her and held her. “We didn't have dinner with Eric Monnier,” she finally said, after blowing her nose. “I wanted to, that night we had the wine from Calabria and the puttanesca, but he declined. He didn't want to get to close to anyone.”

“Yes. But you took the time to play cards with Eric.”

“I asked Eric to play cribbage so that I could observe him,” she said. “But by the end of the game I had forgotten that he was a murder suspect. We had such a good time. I was comfortable with Eric. I even thought of giving him my mother's phone number, so that he could go to one of her book clubs; I think she belongs to three. But when my father told me that Eric had cancer, I knew that he was the murderer.”

“I was convinced it was Bill Hobbs,” Verlaque said. “I hope not to work on another murder for a long time.”

“You liked Eric too.”

Verlaque nodded.

“Perhaps the next murderer will be a horrible person,” Marine said, trying to smile.

“Yes, let's hope,” Verlaque answered. “Someone we both detest.”

“You know, there were one or two times when Bill Hobbs understood the French,” Marine said. “I just thought he was picking it up . . . that same night, when we had the puttanseca, remember?”

“Yes, he knew how to translate
supions
into squid,” Verlaque said. “Up to that point I still had no idea he played a part in this. But there was something that early on in the week Sylvie said to Bruno, about
le général
and Shirley Hobbs not being able to recognize each other—if they had crossed paths in Vietnam—after all these years. I kept thinking what a good plan that would be; a man as self-obsessed as Denis wouldn't recognize someone from his past, and we had all these people on the island who were born around the same time, and who lived at one time or another in Marseille. We change, I daresay, from eighteen to sixty years. Because of that I thought that Mme Poux had killed Denis. She didn't have an alibi, either. And when we looked at Bill Hobbs's passport last night, we both thought he shot Denis.”

“Wait,” Marine said. “What about their alibi? People saw Eric and Bill together, down at the dock.”

“Yes and no,” Verlaque said, getting up and taking their beach towels. “Think about it; there were all kinds of people who saw the two men together, at the dock, pretending that they didn't understand each other. Bill and Eric were each other's alibi, which should have rung alarm bells for me, since up until then they hadn't spent much time together. But no one was really sure of the time; only that Eric and Bill were down there at
some time
. And when Hugo saw them from his cabin, he admitted that he could only see Bill Hobbs, not Eric.”

•   •   •

Marine sat on the flat rocks, letting the seawater wash up over the rocks and onto her lap. She could see Antoine and Sylvie, not far from the sea; they had been swimming lengths, along Sordou's south coast, and were now treading water and chatting. It was Friday, their last full day on the island.
Le Sunrise
would be back for them tomorrow after breakfast, but minus a few guests. She closed her eyes, not wanting to think of the Hobbses, now in a Marseille hotel, having interviews with their lawyer, and certainly not of Eric Monnier. A coast guard boat had pulled up to Sordou's dock the previous evening, and the captain had got off the boat and asked to speak with Judge Verlaque, holding his cap in his hand. Marine had been sitting on a bench with Sylvie and Hugo Sammut, and Hugo had said, “Looks like they found Eric's body. The coast guard never comes around here.”

Marine waved to her friends and leaned back, knowing she should have put more sunblock on, but reveling in the warm water against her skin. It was so refreshing she could hardly feel the July sun beating down on her. In Aix during the two summer months she avoided the sun, walking on the shady side of the street. Here, the sun felt good.

“Hello there.”

Marine looked up and saw Émile Villey standing beside her. “
Salut, Émile
,” she said. “
Ça va?
”

“Just out foraging for our last dinner,” he said, kneeling down on the rock and tilting his basket toward her. “And the generator's been fixed, by the way.”

Marine lifted out a bunch of dark-green leaves and held them in her hands. “It looks like a cross between spinach and Swiss chard.”

“
Betterave maritime
,” Émile said.

“Maritime beetroot?”

“Yep. It grows all over here, by seaside rocky or sandy coasts. I first discovered it when I worked in Arcachon.”

“It's how our ancestors ate,” Marine said.

“Certainly Sordou's first inhabitants,” Émile said. “I'm going to fry it in lemon and garlic and olive oil.”