'Next Tuesday and then Thursday.'
'Tuesday's too tight. I'll lay it on for Thursday, phone you tomorrow with the details.' Corbeix made a quick note on a pad. 'But the main key to the case will rest with points two and three. If you manage to get some background on Duclos and young children, then we might have a chance of pressuring him in an interview situation, as you suggested earlier. It's unlikely he'll confess to murder faced purely with child molestation — but even if we get him on just that, he's facing up to five years. And even if he's finally cleared, with the surrounding publicity it will certainly mean the end of his political career.'
So they had a shot at destroying Duclos' career and possibly a few year's prison, if he could find something. Not the justice due, scant consolation, but a start. Minutes ago Corbeix had been a stone wall; now at least he was throwing down a lifeline, however thin.
'I'm sure you have your contacts to track down such things.' Corbeix opened his hands out. 'But our main hope rests with you finding some tangible clue in the remaining sessions. Something which can be corroborated. Then we might, just might be able to successfully prosecute for murder. Go the full course.'
'A tangible clue…' Dominic mimicked Corbeix blandly, as if saying it to himself would help. And then the ludicrousness hit him: thirty years? What earthly chance was there? Even if they were lucky enough to uncover something, half the people who could possibly corroborate were dead. But for the first time that afternoon Corbeix appeared hopeful, enthusiastic. So in the end — as they went through the final details and next contact times and concluded their meeting — Dominic rode aboard that wave. Pushed his doubts and sense of hopelessness to the back of his mind. Applied a singular focus and let it shine through all else — the daunting odds, the potential drawbacks and obstacles — until finally it was the only thing left in view: a tangible clue. And only two sessions left to find it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Limoges, June 1985
A boy. Betina had gone ahead with the scan.
Duclos focused his attention back as the windscreen wiper swung across. The rain had been heavy earlier, but now it was just light drizzle. The wipers were on intermittent. The lights had turned green, but the car ahead was slow in moving off.
Charity function, the fourth already this year. Annoying but necessary. Betina was beside him in a satin blue evening dress which hid her five month pregnancy well until she sat down. Baby blue.
It would be all right, he told himself. Any worries were years ahead. While the boy was a baby, he would be Betina's responsibility, something to keep her occupied. She would be busy with nappies and feeding, and he could use the excuse of the baby waking and crying to sleep in the second bedroom. Away from the occasional night time grabs that increasingly made his skin crawl. The pregnancy had been marvellous. She hadn't touched him in all of the five months. The first eighteen months would probably be just like an extended pregnancy.
Then when he was a toddler, she would be busy knitting mittens and running after him to make sure he didn't fall down the stairs or stick his fingers in the electricity sockets. Father would retire to his study with the excuse of a heavy evening workload and lock the door. Solitude. The whole sad saga might not be so bad, might actually provide some good opportunities for him to keep his distance from Betina.
Traffic was moving faster along Rue Montmailler. Duclos picked up speed, keeping up.
It wouldn't be until his son was older, at least six or seven, that he might be reminded of other boys and events he'd rather not think about, the secret life he'd been so careful to keep away from home. He never went with boys while in Limoges and tried as much as possible not to even think about them. It was only on his trips away, to Paris or Marseille, that he indulged himself. Everything kept away, in thought and in deed, from his own doorstep.
Under his own roof? A questioning or quizzical look… and he would wonder if his son somehow knew. He would flash back on the various times he'd seen the boy changing or dressing from the bath or shower, and wonder if on any of those occasions his gaze had lingered a second longer than it should, unconsciously sparked off the boy's suspicion. And if he had been guilty of that, he would torture himself whether it was because in that moment he'd been reminded of someone else or some past pleasurable instant. Because surely he would never look at his own son in that way, surely…
The brake lights loomed suddenly ahead, blurred through the raindrops on the windshield. A moment suspended — and then he braked. The wheels locked and the car started skidding…
He remembered most about the incident looking back at it. He wasn't hurt badly, just a bump on the head which had given him a few moments blackout. Betina's side of the car had received the brunt of the smash. And as he rode with her in the ambulance, in the moments she drifted back to consciousness, she gripped his hand, muttering, 'My baby… my baby. Please…' The bottom of her silk dress was soaked in blood and one of the medics had cut through it with scissors, swabbing away the excess blood and feeling her stomach concernedly.
The final moment of the accident replayed in his mind, and he kept wondering: why had he been so late in braking, and why at the last moment did he swing to one side — let Betina's side catch the main impact? Pre-occupation, the delay in detaching from his thoughts partly answered the first, and some dumb throwback reflex from being used to driving alone, the second.
But even in that moment, as his guilt was at its zenith and he clutched his wife's hand and she clung in turn to the life inside her, part of him — some small part nesting the rest of the dark secrets and shadows of his life — was already coming around to recognizing the real reason. He pushed the thought away and clutched tighter at his wife's hand.
Tired, so tired. The afternoons were usually worse than the mornings. Henri Corbeix was still in his office, the light on the past half hour as dusk approached. Sitting in the same position for so long making notes, his back felt stiff. He straightened up, paced to one side to ease it. But even with that effort his legs trembled uncertainly with the fresh weight.
He looked ruefully towards his office cabinet. He hadn't played racquetball for more than two years. He'd battled on a year after the diagnosis before it had finally become too much. At first, he'd felt it just on stretching for the low balls — the ones almost beyond reach he had always previously been able to get. But soon his legs started to twinge and spasm on even the easy shots, and he would be breathless and exhausted after the first fifteen minutes. He gave up before it became embarrassing for his opponents.
The only thing he'd managed to keep up were the weekend summer outings on their boat moored at les Leques. A day's fishing. Bread, Brie and pate. A bottle of wine and some soft drinks in the polystyrene cooler for the girls. Maybe head across the bay to Ile Verte.
But this summer, even that he feared might be out of the question. The last time out, he'd felt the twinges and muscle spasms come on increasingly, particularly if the sea was choppy. He'd hardly been able to brace his legs against the repetitive pounding, a staccato reminder of how the disease had ravished his body. Bit by bit attacking his muscle tissue and nerves until finally the simplest action tired him. Moving around a courtroom. A period of concentration and making notes.
MS. Multiple Sclerosis. The drugs to treat it were crammed in his bottom drawer: steroids, Baclofen, Oxybutin, Methylprenistolne. There was no cure, but they would 'help him cope. Ease the muscle spasms when they struck,' according to the doctor. Some days were better than others. He wondered why he still hid the drugs under papers in his bottom drawer. Habit from the first period of knowing he had the condition. But now half of his department knew and had done so for almost the past year. Soon after he'd announced his staged retirement: full time up until the coming August recess in order to clear his current caseload, then he would step down as Chief Prosecutor and work mornings only for a year in an advisory capacity to his successor, Herve Galimbert, at present his assistant. Then he would retire completely, unless his illness went into remission.