Thibault was on his feet. 'But this is preposterous! We have heard from both Dr Lambourne and even from Doctor Calvan's own mouth — that this in fact was not the case.'
'If anything is indeed preposterous, then it will be for me to suggest,' Barielle admonished. He asked Thibault to sit down and refrain from further interruptions. Then he couched the same question to Capel less confrontationally: 'Can you explain these apparent discrepancies in testimony?'
'Doctor Lambourne I'm afraid might be my fault. Perhaps I did neglect to mention it. But if Doctor Calvan claims not to have said anything, then she's selling herself short. Perhaps she truly forgot that she'd mentioned it to me. A lot of other issues at the time were far more pressing — not least of all finding a cure for Eyran. It's easy for something like that to get buried.'
Corbeix observed Thibault's silent fury, and gloated. Due deserts for his tactics. Initial disbelief from Barielle, then finally acceptance. As a functionary of the law, his first duty was to record testimony, not interpret it. Regardless of any doubts Barielle still harboured, the file would show that Marinella Calvan had pre-advised of the final sessions being used in a murder investigation. No mistrial!
Corbeix was almost sure that Stuart Capel had lied, but why? Perhaps best in the end if he didn't know; no possible later self-recriminations that he'd nailed Duclos partly through unfair advantage. All he knew was that the cramps in his legs were suddenly gone. He was steering his boat towards port, and all he could see ahead was clear flat water.
FORTY-TWO
‘Un Coca-Cola et une biere.’
The waiter put down their drinks. Stuart Capel nodded and he walked away. Eyran sipped at his coke and looked towards the beach.
‘Are you okay now?’ Stuart asked.
‘Yes, fine.’
Stuart had promised Eyran a visit to the beach after the ordeal of testifying, and Le Lavandou was one of the first they came to on their way back from Aix.
Eyran had been fine at first. Swimming, floating on his back, feeling all the tension drift from his body. But as he’d come to sit next to Stuart on the beach, the outline of the harbour and headland somehow seemed familiar. A sense of deja vu.
‘Have we been here before?’ he’d asked.
‘No. Only to the beach at Cannes. But you came with your mum and dad to the South of France a couple of years before you went to America. You’d have been, what, five or six.’
‘Maybe that’s it.’ But Eyran knew in that instant it wasn’t. He remembered other things from that holiday, but not this beach. The voices around, people talking and calling out, the excitable screeches of children playing and splashing in the shallows, echoed and rattled inside his head. And then the other familiar images suddenly flashed through: the wheat field, the nearby village square, some men playing boules they’d passed. It was almost as if his nervousness with the trial had blocked everything; then as soon as he relaxed, the gap in his mind opened.
Stuart had asked if he was okay, and he’d fluffed that it was probably just the trial and having to speak in front of the judge. But seeing his eyes dart anxiously at the people around, Stuart seemed keen to get him away. He suggested they get a drink. Now, again, he was checking.
One thing at least with which he’d been fortunate. He’d always liked his uncle Stuart, and he could tell that his uncle really cared; his fostering wasn’t just an obligation felt to his father.
‘It was something about the beach. Something I…’ Then Eyran stopped himself. Even his recall now of the wheat field was pleasant. Perhaps that was why he’d had a block before: the emphasis had been on him remembering anything bad. Yet all he felt was warmth; it reminded him of the fields by Broadhurst Farm where he played when he was younger.
Stuart was looking at him curiously, one eyebrow raised. ‘Are you sure everything’s fine?’
Eyran nodded hastily and sipped at his coke. He got on well now with Tessa, he’d settled in at his new school and made some new friends, the nightmares had stopped, and only a few sessions remained. Everything was fine.
Yet he knew that if he mentioned some fresh recall, Stuart might start to worry and think about extending the sessions. And probably that would bother Stuart more than himself. Whatever images still replayed after the sessions remaining, he’d just have to sort out himself; they’d remain his own private domain, like the copse at Broadhust Farm.
‘Yes. I feel better now,’ Eyran said. And quickly turned away from Stuart searching into his eyes for the truth, looked again towards the beach he recalled from another time.
Dominic was on the A7 heading south towards the fourth instruction at Aix en Provence.
Clear water. Corbeix' view from the two meetings Dominic had with him in the twelve days leading up to the next hearing. Thibault had fired his main ammunition and failed. There would obviously still be some obstacles ahead, but Corbeix saw them as more clearly flagged. He knew what to expect. It should be more or less plain sailing now through the remaining instruction hearings towards full trial.
In particular, the next hearing should be an easy run: Vincent Aurillet and Bennacer on Duclos' background with young boys, then later Barielle with a summary of evidence to date from Dominic and Corbeix. The main feast would be Aurillet. 'Thibault would be wise to keep his head down,' Corbeix commented. 'Aurillet's evidence is unshakeable. Duclos' voice is on tape, and Aurillet will spill forth chapter and verse about Duclos sordid history with young boys. I doubt we'll see a 'confront' notice.'
But at the last minute, just three days before the hearing, one was posted.
The only thing Corbeix could think of was Thibault possibly attacking Aurillet's seedy background. 'Trying to discredit him through that. I can't imagine he'll get much else worthwhile.'
But Dominic wondered. All the other 'confronts' had been posted at least ten days in advance. This time it was almost as if they'd only discovered something new at the last moment, or purposely wanted to post late so as not to allow time for the shoring up of defences. The thought preyed on Dominic's mind.
Dominic glanced at his car clock: 1.56 pm. He wanted to give himself at least twenty minutes before the 3 pm hearing with Bennacer and Corbeix. Bennacer was escorting Aurillet up from Marseille. After losing Eynard, they'd taken no chances and had kept him under police guard in a hotel room.
Press coverage had gained momentum the past two weeks. A copy of Le Monde was on the seat beside Dominic, Duclos' haunted face staring out on the front page, snapped through a car side window. One of the few occasions Duclos had ventured out during house arrest.
One of the more considered articles, though still along similar lines: comparisons to the Tapie case and to Medecin, the ex-Mayor of Nice self-exiled in Uruguay due to corruption charges. New France against the old. North against the south.
New France. Thirty years ago in Provence, it could take up to a year to have a new phone installed. Now a new Minitel system could be installed in 24 hours. A train then took ten hours to Paris, now a TGV sped through in less than half the time. But France was proud also of its political evolution in that period: past bureaucracy had been streamlined, the past 'old boy' networks of favouritism and protectionism torn down, corruption combatted — particularly in the provinces. With the south always considered as one of the worst offenders.
The fact that Duclos was from Limoges was conveniently overlooked: the crime had taken place in Provence, and the original trial and now the retrial were also there. Crime and corruption in the south slotted into a popular and familiar image. Good copy.
Only this time it had been given a slightly different spin: the old trial and its failure to prosecute Duclos, that instead a poor vagrant and poacher had been convicted, was seen as typical of the protectionist attitude to officialdom endemic then. Symbol of past corruption. And the new trial was seen as the fresh broom, part of the new tide that had swept away past corruption increasingly the past decade. Figurehead of just what had been torn down in re-building the new France.