Deadly Slipper (10 page)

Mara’s chin shot up. “I’m positive it’s the twin to mine. I’d know it anywhere. Besides, her initials were on the case.”

“Alors
, the famous initials.” The cherub twinkled mirthfully. Another joke. “But we must look at the facts, eh? You found this camera where? A junk shop in Villeréal. How did it get there? Part of a lot purchase from another dealer. Where did this other dealer get the camera? Only
le bon dieu
knows because the person in question is now dead, and when she was alive, la Camelote showed up at every estate sale from Bordeaux to Toulouse. First the undertaker, then la Camelote. Where did she get it? She left no records of acquisition, that one! It could have been part of another lot purchase from another
brocanteur
, for all we know. I sympathize, but you must understand that the lads in Périgueux need more to go on than hearsay.”

“Hearsay!” Mara was indignant. “Loulou, I’m convinced Bedie took those photos. This is the first positive lead I’ve had, and if the police aren’t willing to do anything about it, I”—she glanced quickly at Julian—
“we’re
going to follow it up.”

Julian caught her shift of pronouns and fidgeted
uncomfortably in his chair.

“Très bien.”
Loulou threw up his hands. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that’s how it was. Then let’s review the course of events. Before her disappearance, your sister and the boyfriend, Monsieur Scott Barrow, were camping at Les Gabarres. According to him, they had already visited—let me see—the Caves of Lascaux, Sarlat, Domme, La Roque–Gageac, Castelnaud. To get around, they walked or hitchhiked. Then they have the falling out. He wants to move on, she wants to stay. He goes off on the eighth of May, she remains at Les Gabarres. He comes back two days later, on the tenth. Their tent and equipment are still there, but your sister is not. On the thirteenth, Monsieur Scott becomes worried and calls the police.

“Now, if Mademoiselle Beatrice took those photos”—Loulou held up a finger—“mind, I don’t say she did. But if she did, then she could only have done so
after
she and Monsieur Scott separated because in his
déclaration
he made no mention of having been to Beynac, which is on the first couple of frames of the film.”

Mara shrugged. “Why not? It’s a major tourist attraction. It was fairly near the campground. And, don’t you see, the fact that she and Scott
hadn’t
already visited Beynac is a kind of negative proof that Bedie took those pictures. Because if Bedie had already been there she would have had no reason to return.”

Julian found her reasoning unncessarily complicated.

Loulou merely looked unconvinced. “But how much better if the photographs actually tied in with places your sister was definitely known to have visited? Or, better still, if there were a shot of her in front of the castle keep?”

Julian spoke up, realizing as he did so that he was nailing down Mara’s earlier use of “we,” but something, he knew, was expected of him. “Look, in my opinion, what you’ve really got to deal with is the
discontinuity.”

“Comment?”
asked the
ex-flic.

“I mean, after Beynac the quality of the light changes from overcast and wet to sunny and dry. Okay, admittedly, the weather can shift pretty rapidly in May. But also, and what’s more important, the film goes from a castle in a built-up area to flowers that mainly grow in forests and undisturbed areas. Now, I know orchids pop up in the damnedest places—roadsides, airfields. Nevertheless, it really seems to me the critical piece is how Bedie got from Beynac to wherever she photographed this lot.”

“Bravo,” cried Loulou, clapping Julian on the shoulder. “You,
mon ami
, will make a detective yet.” He tipped a handful of pistachios into the red hole of his mouth and scooted forward in his seat. “So,” he said, munching loudly, “this suggests an interesting scenario. Mademoiselle Beatrice meets someone. They get to talking. She tells this person she’s interested in
orchids. He says, I know a place where the ground is covered with them. She goes with him. They drive to some isolated spot. Then—
tac!
”—both Julian and Mara jumped—“he does away with her.”

“But not right away,” objected Julian. “Don’t forget, she had the chance to take thirty more photographs. If this person intended to harm her, why wait?”

Loulou shoveled more nuts in his mouth and considered. “Maybe he didn’t mean to. Maybe something happened along the way. Our man makes a pass. Mademoiselle Beatrice resists. Or perhaps he simply needed to lure her to a sufficiently isolated spot …”

Mara shuddered. “All the same,” she persisted, “if this person knew where to find the orchids, then it means he must have been local, from the area. And if we can find where those orchids grew, it’s possible they could lead us to him.”

Loulou pulled a face. “What’s local? Do you remember the Dutch tourist we dug up in Quercy? Hanneke Tenhagen, student from Eindhoven, twenty-one years old.” He addressed himself to Julian. “Let me tell you something about Mademoiselle Tenhagen. Multiple fractures to the skull, as if the killer had been in a frenzy. Possibly raped. Her corpse was pretty badly decomposed when we got to it. A truffle hunter and his dog found her. Shallowly buried and then covered over with branches. Maybe the killer was disturbed in the middle of concealing the body. How did she get there? We interviewed an
elderly couple who remembered picking up someone fitting Hanneke Tenhagen’s description at the beginning of August outside of Millau. Drove her as far as Rodez. Three months later, her body turns up in the woods near Carennac, one hundred and twenty kilometers away,
mon dieu!
And between Carennac and Beynac, it’s another eighty kilometers. So you see”—Loulou pivoted back to Mara—“your idea of local doesn’t work. If he had a car, our killer could have come from anywhere, gone anywhere.”

“He has a point,” Julian conceded. Mara glared at him.

Loulou continued: “Even if you find out where those photos were taken, where do you start? Do you question everyone in the vicinity? Do you dig up the forests? You must comprehend, Mara, your sister’s case was difficult because there was no evidence of a crime. I was working in Missing Persons at the time. We had very little to go on. I’m afraid she simply remained for us
la canadienne disparue.”

Mara felt suddenly tired. The visit was taking a discouraging turn that she had not expected. Had Loulou invited them merely to justify the lack of interest on the part of the police? She glanced at Julian, who seemed disappointingly willing to capitulate. She was thinking of terminating their stay as politely as she could, when Loulou raised a hand.

“Of course, you haven’t yet asked me the most important question.”

Mara blinked. “What’s that?”

“So far we have Mademoiselle Beatrice and the Dutch woman. But
were they the only ones?”

Mara and Julian stared at him.

Mara found her voice. “There were others?”

Loulou savored his moment, rising to pour another round of wine and taking care to give the bottle a half-turn each time, to avoid drips. “Have more nuts,” he said maddeningly.

“You see, my friends”—he addressed his guests but spoke as if a much bigger audience filled the room—“after I talked with you yesterday, Mara, I got to thinking. I used to keep a journal, rough case notes, to help me on the job, so to speak. I thought, who knows, maybe one day I’ll write my memoirs. Well, anyway, I looked through them last night, just to refresh my mind.” He paused, bottle in hand.

“And?” they asked in unison.

“Eh bien
, there were
subsequent events
that might interest you.”

They both sat forward. “Subsequent events?”

He nodded, pleased with his effect. “Just that. At intervals, spaced out over the next fourteen years.”

“Bodies?” Julian asked.

“No,” Loulou admitted regretfully, “but vanished, like Mademoiselle Beatrice. One was a woman from Souillac, Julie Ménard, thirty-five, married. Summer of ‘89 it was. Another was a middle-aged spinster, Mariette Charlebois, from Le Buisson, July 1993. Then there was a teenager, Valérie Rules, from the hamlet of La Bique, set out after school one day,
never arrived home. That was in June 1998.”

“They’ve never been heard from since?”

“Missing to this day. Every one of them.” Loulou had the self-satisfied air of a magician making rabbits disappear. What he actually did, however, was to put the bottle down and go over to the piano bench. As he lifted the top, Julian and Mara could see that it was filled not with sheet music but with square copybooks with shiny red covers, such as schoolchildren used. “It’s all,” he said, proudly displaying his archive, “in here.” Despite the cheap melodrama of it, they were impressed.

“Naturally,” Loulou went on, “we did the usual routine questioning—family, friends, employers, teachers, parish priests. Even talked seriously with a couple of
types.”

“Well?” Mara pressed.

“Phut!”
He dropped the piano bench lid with a resounding thud.

“Wait a minute.” Mara turned suddenly to Julian. “La Bique. Isn’t that just down the road from you?”

Julian, about to help himself to pistachios, paused. “Well, yes. Yes, it is. Oh, I see. Valérie Rules. Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about her. I believe she went to school in Grissac. Everyone said she ran away from home.”

“Who knows?” Their host pulled up a chair opposite them and sat down on it. “Let me tell you something. I’m speaking as a cop now, with many years’ experience. With missing persons, psychology is very
important. Julie Ménard, the woman from Souillac, husband claimed she went off with another man. Personally, I always thought the husband did her in. But her clothes were gone, and she did have a certain reputation. Or la Charlebois. Nursed her invalid
maman
, vicious old trout, rich to the gills, but never let her daughter have a life of her own. So one day poor Mariette just walks out and doesn’t come back. Who can blame her? As for
la petite Valérie
, alcoholic father, neurotic mother, she could have run away. Kids do that. Is she dead? Or working the streets in Marseille?”

Loulou leaned forward. “Even Mademoiselle Beatrice. She and her boyfriend had a quarrel serious enough to cause Monsieur Scott to leave. Maybe your sister, out of spite or disgust, simply went off, too.”

“But we would have heard from her,” Mara cried out. “She would never have left us without word all these years—” She bit her lip, deeply troubled.

“But of course.” Loulou waved a hand. “Undoubtedly, something unpleasant occurred.” Mara found it a perverse kind of comfort. “The question is, what? You see, Hanneke Tenhagen aside, where the other women are concerned we have to consider the possibility that
no crimes were committed at all.
Valérie, Mariette, and Julie could have simply left for reasons of their own. Beatrice could have met with an accident—”

“No,” Mara objected. “The camera changes all that. Who-ever found the camera would have also found her body and reported it.”

“Not necessarily, if she dropped the camera first. Picture it. She slips, drops the camera, tumbles off a cliff into the river, her body is never recovered. My point is simply that some or all of these missing women may still be alive.”

“You don’t believe that!” Mara cried.

Loulou tugged meditatively at the fatty wattle beneath his chin. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t. And this leads me to the second possibility and my little theory. Because, you see, if we say that these women, including your sister, are all dead, then we must also consider the possibility that their deaths were not unrelated.”

Mara tensed. “Are you saying that we’re dealing with a serial killer?”

Loulou cocked his head to one side. “It’s something to think about,
n’est-ce pas?
And it leads us to an interesting speculation. Taken all together, the disappearances tell us a little about the person, if it is one person, whom we seek.
Primo,”
—he stuck up a big, flat thumb—“it was certainly a man, and one who chose his victims at random. Why? Because only Beatrice and Hanneke Tenhagen had anything in common. Both were tourists, similar age and build, both hitchhiking. Little Valérie Rules, on the other hand, was a schoolkid, fifteen, no breasts, skinny like a stick. La Charlebois, forty-two, fat, face like a cow pat. Julie Ménard, thirty-five, glamorous in a cheap way, liked the bright lights. So he took them as he found them.

“Secundo,”
—a forefinger shot out to join the thumb—“he probably was, how should we say,
comme il faut
, presentable. Maybe even”—he grinned at Julian—“an orchid amateur like yourself. Oho! You are discomfited. But it’s logical. Who better to attract someone like Mademoiselle Beatrice, who loved orchids and who would be easily approachable by anyone who shared her interest? Tell me, were you in the Dordogne nineteen years ago, monsieur?”

Julian looked aghast. “Was I—? Well, yes, I was.”

“And you undoubtedly heard about
la canadienne disparue?”

“Of course I did,” cried Julian irritably. “It was everywhere on the news. But there was absolutely no mention of orchids at the time.”

“True,” admitted Loulou. “That’s something that has only come to light just now. Always assuming, of course, that the photographs were taken by Mara’s sister.”

“They were,” said Mara doggedly.

“Regardless,” Julian persisted, “you can’t honestly believe—”

“Assez.
Enough,” Loulou chuckled. “Just my little joke. All I say is, whoever it was, his victims must have trusted him. Hanneke Tenhagen was hitching rides, very possibly Mademoiselle Beatrice and Valérie Rules as well. Would any of them have gone willingly with Quasimodo?”

Julian parried, “He could have forced them or taken them by surprise.”

“You mean followed them to a lonely spot and then—
couic!”
Loulou drew his forefinger sharply across his throat.

Mara winced.

The ex-cop shook his head. “It doesn’t fit. Take Mariette Charlebois, fat, asthmatic. Or the Ménard woman. Unlikely that either of them would have been wandering alone in the forest. More probably our predator met them in a more conventional way. Say la Charlebois is sitting disconsolately in a
salon de thé
, dipping a macaroon and thinking about her horrible mama. A stranger befriends her. He is
sympathique
, offers her a ride somewhere. Or Julie Ménard. Picks her up in a bar.