The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe (12 page)

“I’m trying to give my advice,
madame le juge
.”

“Everybody’s merely trying to give me advice.” She turned to face him. “I take my own counsel. I know where my duty lies.”

Lafitte stood up. “Not as an officer of the SRPJ but as a friend …”

“A friend?”

“Madame le juge …”

She could feel his warm alcohol breath and cigarette smoke on her skin. For a moment she thought he was going to touch her and she shivered.

Anne Marie was relieved to catch sight of her
greffier
coming up the hill in the Peugeot.

“Here comes Trousseau.” She tried to make her voice cheerful. “Perhaps, then, Monsieur Lafitte, we can at least get the formal recognition of the corpse out of the way.”

“Always was an inquisitive child, our Evelyne. Never could mind her own business.” A proud smile. “Curious and inquisitive—just like her father. Always asking questions, always getting into trouble.”

“Her father’s still alive?” Anne Marie asked as together the two women went down the stairs.

“Never knows how to keep her mouth shut. Just like her father.” She added, “He’s dead now.”

“West Indian?”

“What?”

“Your husband was West Indian, Madame Vaton?”

“His family was from Basse-Terre.” The woman nodded. “Gérard grew up in Marseilles.”

“When did you last see your daughter?”

She frowned. “How d’you say she got herself killed?”

“She was murdered.”

“Yes, I know that.” No attempt to hide her irritation. “But how was she murdered?”

“We think it was cardiac arrest. Perhaps suffocation.”

“Nothing ever wrong with her heart.” Madame Vaton was indignant. “Who’d want to murder my daughter? A lovely girl like Evelyne.”

“Precisely what we’re trying to find out. That’s why I am personally so very grateful to you.”

The older woman stopped walking, her head tilted to one side. She smiled. “Only too pleased to be of help. You’re a kind person.”

Despite the oppressive
eau de cologne
that Madame Vaton was wearing, Anne Marie took her by the arm. The two men followed Anne Marie and Madame Vaton into the building. They slowly went down the stairs to the hospital morgue. “When did you last see your daughter,
madame
?”

“Some time ago.”

“Can you remember when?”

“My little girl no longer lives with me. I still keep her room ready—just in case.”

“In Paris?”

“I live in the fourteenth
arrondissement
but Evelyne never stays. Not now that she has a place of her own near the hospital.”

“Your daughter visited you?”

“She used to.” A hesitation, a hint of regret. “She was always closer to her father than me. And since Gérard died … But she rings. At least once a week, she makes a point of phoning. She’s a good daughter at heart, our Evelyne.”

“At heart?”

“We all have our faults, don’t we?”

“You’ve seen your daughter recently?”

“At Christmas.” Madame Vaton nodded like a thoughtful bird. “And she came again in February. That’s right, it was in February, because she said she was going for a week to Chamonix.”

“Alone?”

“With a friend.” Madame Vaton hesitated an instant. “My daughter said she was going skiing with a friend.”

“A friend—or her boyfriend?”

“I’ve never met him.” Madame Vaton shook her head vigorously. “A lovely girl—but she keeps her secrets. I suppose she gets that from me. I like to talk and I like being with people—that’s why I became a hairdresser. I like the contact with people but I always feel some things are best kept to yourself. What do other people need to know about me? About my life? It’s not that important, after all. You understand that, don’t you?”

“You have the name of the boyfriend, Madame Vaton?”

Again she shook her head. “You know, I don’t like to interfere. She’s a big girl now—a grown woman.”

“What—if anything—did your daughter tell you about him?”

“Jean Philippe or Jean Marc or Jean Michel—she must’ve mentioned his name, but it wasn’t very serious between them. She said he was a nice boy. A young girl, she’d just qualified as a nurse, our Evelyne, she didn’t have time for men. Just like me—I didn’t get married until I was thirty-five.” The woman shrugged. “I probably never would have if I hadn’t met Vaton. We were working on the same ship, you know. He was near retirement, we met and then we went to live in Paris.”

“Evelyne was your only daughter?”

“I come from a big family and I spent most of my childhood looking after my brothers and sisters. Just the one daughter—that was enough.”

“Why did you become a hairdresser?”

“It’s important to look your best, isn’t it?”

“You never wanted to have other children?”

“Having children?” she said, as if it were the first time the idea entered her head. “There are so many other things in life that are just as important for a woman, I’m sure you’ll agree.” A pause as she reflected on her own past. “I was thirty-five when I had Evelyne.” A nod of the head. “I can’t complain. Evelyne’s a good child. Headstrong and inquisitive—but a good child who loves to help people. That’s why she became a nurse. I left home and went out to work because it was a way to escape. But Evelyne …” She shook her head. “Always wanting to help people. So unselfish.” A reflective pause. “My daughter’s dream was to become a doctor. But that costs a lot of money and we couldn’t keep her at school for ever, could we?”

“This man—Jean Pierre or Jean Marc—did he work at the hospital with her?”

“No idea.” Madame Vaton shrugged again. “My daughter doesn’t talk about that sort of thing.”

“Her private life?”

“Sex, sex, sex.”

Anne Marie smiled politely. “I beg your pardon.”

“There really are more important things in life than sex. Everybody seems to be obsessed with sex nowadays. You look at the television, you see the young people, you’d think sex’s all that mattered in life. There are other things.”

“Very true.” Trousseau smiled.

The woman beamed at him happily.

“What other things,
madame
?”

“Jesus.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Jesus,” she said. “Our Redeemer.”

Lafitte held open the door and they entered the morgue.

“Bless you.”

Anne Marie sneezed a second time.

“Bless you,” the woman repeated and tapped the back of Anne Marie’s hand affectionately. “I hope I don’t catch your cold. I always catch something when I travel. Last year I went to Venice and came back with a shocking flu. I didn’t like Italy. You know it? Not at all civilized and very dirty and there was orange peel in the canals.” Madame Vaton chirped, “I must say, it’s a lot nicer here. This is my first time in the West Indies and my husband would be terribly jealous if he were alive to see me in Guadeloupe. Always jealous of me, Gérard was—always jealous, and yet he liked to stay at home. Thirty years traveling the world and then he’d scarcely leave the house. Preferred to be with his little girl.” The eyes were bright like a bird’s. “Such lovely weather, isn’t it? You’re so lucky to live here. And so many lovely flowers. He’d have liked this, my Gérard. Always talking of coming back one day to his Guadeloupe.”

The smell of the morgue. Anne Marie could feel a tightening in her stomach. “Your husband grew up in Basse-Terre?”

“He grew up in Marseilles but he traveled the world, did Gérard. He was with CGM—French Line. But he came to his island only a couple of times. South America, yes, and Australia. But Guadeloupe only twice in more than thirty years. Perhaps better that way—he might’ve met a local beauty and settled down here. I must say, these dark girls are so very pretty.”

Trousseau said, smiling, “A lot of pretty women in France.”

Anne Marie found herself impressed by the courtesy of Trousseau. He was polite and thoughtful and he did everything to put Madame Vaton at ease. He now gave her a helping arm as they approached the viewing window.

“Such nice people and my husband always said so. He said that in Martinique the girls are even prettier. Black as ebony, of course, but pretty.”

“Your husband chose the prettiest of them all,
madame
,” Trousseau said.

Anne Marie held the inside of her wrist to her nose—First, van Cleef and Arpels. The smell of flowers, of life.

“Instead he chose me.” The gay laugh seemed out of place in the morgue. The woman looked earnestly at Anne Marie. “I was his second wife, you know. He was nearly sixty when we married. I don’t think he regretted it—I hope not, I tried to be a good wife. Gérard always dreamed of coming to the Caribbean—it had been his dream since childhood.” The woman laughed again. “How he’d love to be here.”

The sweat was drying on Anne Marie’s skin and she found herself wanting to sneeze again. She fumbled with a vitamin tablet in her bag.

“If he could see me now, he’d be green with envy.”

Behind the glass, there was the whine of a motor and the corpse, lying beneath the sheet, was hoisted slowly into sight.

“Of course, the death of his daughter would be a terrible blow. He loved our Evelyne. Gérard loved our daughter more than he loved life itself.”

“Bouton’s done a good job.” Lafitte, standing close behind Anne Marie, whispered in her ear, his breath bitter with smoke and rum. “Bit of an artist with the scalpel.”

Léopold, the assistant, loomed from behind the glass wall and pulled back the sheet covering the corpse. He glanced at Anne Marie. Beneath the flight deck haircut he winked conspiratorially.

“I was at work most of the day. I met my husband when I was at sea—but I got too seasick and so we went to Paris where I got a job in a hair salon. Had the little girl and then went back to work. Evelyne was just a little thing and Gérard’d stay at home and play with her. Nearly sixty-five years’ difference between them—and they were like brother
and sister.” The woman shook her head. “Now they’re gone.” A sigh. “There’s only me.”

The doctor had reshaped the face; the eyes were closed. Although the features were lopsided and the skin was waxen, it was as if the dead woman had just fallen asleep. Anne Marie wondered if Bouton had used makeup. There was a scarf around the top of the head, hiding the line of incision.

Anne Marie glanced unhappily at the socket in the wall. No sign of the electric saw. She shuddered and took a small step back, again breathing at the scent on her wrist.

Lafitte and Trousseau remained at Madame Vaton’s side, afraid perhaps she should fall. Instead she chatted continuously. From behind, Anne Marie watched the woman’s face. Madame Vaton pulled her cardigan tightly to her shoulders—it seemed to be growing colder by the minute in the basement—and frowned.

“I’m not looking forward to this,” Madame Vaton said. Then there was silence.

On the far side of the glass, Léopold stood beside the corpse. His hands were crossed in front of his white laboratory coat. In one hand, he held a comic book. Remembering it, Léopold put it down somewhere out of sight. He grinned sheepishly.

Madame Vaton turned her head round to face Anne Marie. “Where’s my daughter?”

Anne Marie stepped forward.

The woman’s face had suddenly turned very pale, as if at last she realized where she was. “You told me they’d murdered my daughter.”

Anne Marie gestured to the other side of the glass.

“My daughter.” Again the woman shook her head. “Where’s my daughter? Our Evelyne?”

Trousseau held her arm with both hands. His weathered face was drawn and pale.

“This is not our little girl.”

“Not Evelyne Vaton?”

“My child has soft, white skin.” Like a fluttered bird she shook her head. “I’ve never seen this unhappy creature before. Never.” Madame Vaton pulled anxiously on the cardigan and started to cry. Small, round tears.

Trousseau drove.

Madame Vaton had overcome her emotion and now sat in the back of the Peugeot, looking out at the passing countryside, the cardigan folded on her stockinged knees. In her left hand she held a small leather-bound volume.

They took the busy ring road, went past the university—now being repainted an improbable bright pastel—and headed along the riviera toward Gosier and the hotels.

Anne Marie did not speak. She had nothing to say and despite her cold, she could no longer stand the woman’s sweet perfume. Anne Marie held her wrist to her nose; the van Cleef and Arpels seemed to have lost much of its effect.

“The poor, poor thing,” Madame Vaton said. “Who could’ve done a thing like that to a young girl?” She had a handkerchief in her right hand, but was not crying. Since leaving the morgue she had found time to repair her makeup and renew the lipstick along the thin lips. “My Evelyne’s a naughty girl, not to keep in touch. Headstrong, just like her father.” She added, “The Lord loves Evelyne and He loves me so I knew He would not take her from me. He doesn’t need her—not yet.”

“You’ve no idea where your daughter is?” It was Trousseau who spoke. He half turned his head, taking his eyes for a moment from the road, from the black tarmac.

“She’s here somewhere.” A pause. “Evelyne must be in Guadeloupe.”

“What makes you so sure, Madame Vaton?” Even interrogating her, Trousseau was uncharacteristically gentle. “You say she never told you she was coming to the West Indies.”

“It was her dream—just like her father.” A thoughtful pause. “Madame Laveaud’s shown me the photograph.”

“You’re sure it’s your daughter? The photograph’s not very clear.”

“Not the sort of thing I approve of, that kind of nakedness on the beaches. Certainly not at her age. There’s a place for everything—and on the beach there are young children and it’s wrong to shock them. I belong to an older generation, that’s what Evelyne always says. There are things I don’t really understand about this modern world.”

Trousseau smiled without taking his eyes from the road.

“The photo certainly looks like our Evelyne.”

“Looks like her—but it could be the girl in the morgue,” Trousseau remarked, briefly glancing at her over his shoulder. “Do you have in your possession a photograph of your daughter that you could give us?”