Merle: A French murder mystery (A Jacques Forêt Mystery Book 2) Read online

  As they emerged from the stairwell into the foyer Serge fell silent and, without acknowledging his two staff on the front desk, he went straight to his office door, unlocked it and took his place behind his desk.

  “Make sure the door is properly shut,” he said as Jacques followed him through. “The access key will enable you to dial into the office network from any computer, but I would recommend that you use one of ours from the IT department. All the directors have them, along with most of the senior staff. Considering the nature of your work I’m surprised you weren’t automatically given one on joining the company.”

  “I prefer the personal approach and, whilst I understand the power of the net and can handle computers, I decided when I joined that I would try not to take the work home. So yes, I was offered a laptop, but I refused.”

  “Well, now you will need it.” He turned his own laptop round so that Jacques could see the screen. “When you log in remotely this is the screen you will see, use your access code here…” Serge keyed in his. “And then you will see the usual screen and you just log in as normal. The files from the new camera will be downloaded to a discreet drive on the network. Only you will have access to that.”

  “What about the IT department? Won’t they also be able to access it?”

  “Only you and I and the senior network administrator will know that the new drive is there and it will be set up for password access only. So, the first thing that you will need to do is to create a new and secure password. Anyone else looking at the network will not be able to see the hidden drive created for you as they can only access the parts of the network that are open to everyone or for which they have been given specific access. Ok?”

  “Got it. How long will it take to do this?”

  “A couple of days to install the camera, probably. Certainly, by Monday of next week everything should be in place.”

  It was getting dark when Jacques pulled up outside the gendarmerie in Messandrierre. Through the glass and metal door, the light spilled out as Gendarme Clergue tapped at the keyboard on his desk behind the short public counter.

  “Good to see you, Jacques.” The slow tapping stopped as Clergue got up.

  “Thibault, you left a letter with Beth yesterday. We need to talk.”

  Clergue lifted the counter so that his visitor could slip through. Jacques perched on the edge of what had been his desk only a few months previously.

  “As I’m sure you realise, the letter was from Juan de Silva’s family and they want to—”

  “They want to know if we have made any progress in his disappearance, I suppose,” Clergue interrupted.

  Jacques fished the letter out of his pocket. “You need to keep this and add it to the relevant file and, as ex-colleagues, can we discuss the case?”

  “Of course, Jacques, but there’s not much to say.” Clergue resumed his place at his desk, chair pushed back into the wall behind. “Madame Pamier is still maintaining that she last saw Juan de Silva in September 2006, that he did not come with them to Messandrierre in February 2007 when they moved here permanently to look after the farm following the death of her husband’s uncle. And there are no new leads.” Thibault crossed his thickset arms across his chest almost in defeat.

  “Frustrating. When did we last question Madame Pamier?”

  Clergue pulled a file from the untidy pile in the tray on his desk and flicked through the papers. “You last questioned her at the end of June. I went back in July to question her again and nothing since.”

  “Pelletier hasn’t been to question her?” He frowned as Clergue shook his head in response. “That surprises me, but someone will have to take some action now that the family have made contact.”

  “Yes! We know, Jacques.”

  “Someone in this village knows something, Thibault, and it’s up to you and Pelletier to find out what that is and fast.”

  The glower on his ex-colleague’s face gave Jacques his answer. “I’ll leave it with you to deal with, then.”

  Jacques turned and let the door slap shut behind him. By the time he had covered the few metres along the D6 to Beth’s chalet, he had already developed his own plan of action.

  Someone knows something, and I will find out what it is.

  “Watching people when they don’t know about it seems very underhand, Jacques.” Beth sipped her wine.

  “Yes, and I have thought about that. I’ve also realised that the Vaux companies may not be as well organised and managed as I’ve been led to believe.” Jacques offered the last piece of Camembert to Beth.

  “No, thanks. Why do you think that?”

  “There are tensions between some of the personnel and I need to dig behind that. But I’ve come across something today that seems unbelievable and yet…I know what has happened is true. I have the actual evidence in my bag.” He got up from the table and returned with the two letters addressed to Nicolas Durand and gave them to her. “What do you make of these?”

  Beth read one after the other, and her eyes widened in disbelief. “This is either a monumental mistake made by a very inexperienced person in HR whose training needs should be addressed urgently or…” She frowned. “Or someone within your new organisation is determined to upset others. Who’s done this? And why?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out.”

  Beth frowned and scanned the letters again. “Jacques, there’s information here that tells you something. Look at the references.” She held the letters up and pointed to the sequences of letters and numbers at the head of each one.

  Jacques took the papers from her and compared them. “Yes, I did look at that, but I couldn’t make much sense of it and I’m still getting to know everyone in Édouard’s half of the business.”

  “And is that your justification for spying on people? Do you really think that’s the right way to handle this?”

  Jacques shrugged. “Sometimes, no matter how distasteful, you have to take whatever opportunities are available. I don’t think the evidence I can gather through the new surveillance camera will tell me everything I need to know, but it will help me to see a more rounded picture, I think. My job is to investigate the possibility of leaks of information to competitors. My experience as a policeman tells me to gather evidence, to talk to people, to observe them. I’m just doing my job, Beth.”

  “I know.” She let out a long sigh. “So, let’s leave your work at the office, shall we?”

  He grinned and, taking her hand, he led her into the snug. All the papers relating to the apartment and from the estate agent were already spread out on the coffee table where Jacques had left them before dinner. “So, what do you really think?”

  Beth put her glass down and picked up the plan. “It’s a big place just for one, Jacques, but on paper it looks great.”

  “I wasn’t really planning on being there all by myself all of the time.”

  “Yes… I think I do know that, but I was hoping…thinking…that we could keep things as they are at the moment. I’m still not sure that I can make a life out here for myself. We talked about me moving here permanently a couple of weeks ago, and I said I would think about it. And I have. But, there’s a lot to consider. I’ve still got the remains of Dan’s businesses at home, and I need to make some difficult decisions in relation to those. I still want to grow my new photography venture, not just at home but here as well, and my idea was to turn the upstairs bedroom into a studio and to use this as my base, but…Merle is the other side of Mende – that’s 30 kilometres away… Unless I look at a commercial property there instead. I need to think about that and consider the implications.” She looked away.

  “But when we talked a couple of weeks ago, you seemed unsure about whether you would keep this place.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “That’s true. And I’m still unsure about what I will do with this place in the long term. There is also the house in Leeds. I need to decide about that, too. I don’t want to be pushed into somethin
g that I might regret later.”

  “What are you saying, Beth? That you’ve changed your mind about us? What?”

  She pulled her hands through her shoulder-length hair. “No, I’m not saying that… Not exactly, but I…I need more time. More time to…to be sure.”

  “Of what?” He stood and strode across the room to the window. The valley was dark, the only light came from inside the chalet. He looked at the reflected room in the glass, the dancing flames from the logs in the fireplace and Beth, staring at the opposite wall, hunched forward, her face held in her hands.

  “It’s me, isn’t it? It’s me you’re not sure of.” Returning to her side, he squatted down beside her and took her hands in his. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “And myself, and moving to another county. It’s a very big decision.” she whispered.

  He gently stroked away a stray strand of hair. “I’m not going anywhere, Beth. Whatever you decide, I will accept and I will make it work for us both. I just want you to know that and to remember it.”

  thursday, october 15th

  “According to your personnel file, Madeleine, you’ve been working here since the end of 2004. Did you move from your previous job directly to this one?”

  “Yes. I knew I was coming here before I left Paris, Jacques. I was head-hunted, and it wasn’t the first time I’d been offered a post here, either.” Madeleine’s mouth creased into the beginnings of a smirk. “I know what you’re thinking, Jacques.”

  “No, you don’t, and I would like you to just answer my questions.”

  “You’re thinking that I must have known about this job weeks, possibly months, before we stopped seeing each other, aren’t you?”

  Jacques tapped his pen against his notebook, but remained silent.

  “But we can talk about that later, can’t we?”

  “No. Whilst you’ve been here, I presume that you’ve been instrumental in putting together the tenders for work throughout your tenure?”

  “Yes, I’ve provided plans, human resource flow, some costings, in fact, the basis for most of the tenders over that time.”

  “Take a look at this list and let me know if you were involved in all or only some of these bids?”

  She took the sheet from him and gradually read through each project name in turn.

  “Yes, I was involved in all of these. But so were other senior colleagues in other parts of the company.”

  Jacques noticed that the hard edge was back in her voice. He retrieved the list, made a note in one corner and added his initials and the date.

  “Your current project, Madeleine – what are your specific responsibilities?”

  “I head up the planning and communications team. I have a total of twenty-five staff that work for me, all Vaux employees, but I also manage some client employees with relevant skills. I manage the work set out on the plan, and at the regular Stakeholder Forum I represent the team and provide input and feedback on progress. I also attend all senior internal project forums.”

  “That’s a lot of power. Would you say that Édouard listens to you and takes on board your recommendations for tenders?”

  “Of course, but he knows his own mind, Jacques. I can only inform and advise. The final decision on the content of a tender, what we tender for, is Édouard’s in conjunction with his management board.”

  “So, it has never occurred to you, perhaps, to inflate your costings or change a plan so that a Vaux bid would be disregarded in favour of another bid from a rival firm?”

  “No.”

  “Do you keep in touch with ex-colleagues from other companies?”

  A grin crossed her face. “Yes, I do. You already know that I do, because in this business it’s important to maintain a network of contacts and to stay in touch. I’m sure you’ve remembered that from our time together in Paris.”

  She can’t stop herself, can she? Jacques made another note.

  “Your people, Madeleine. Would you say they were a happy team?”

  Her eyes bored into him. “Yes, I would, Jacques. I make a point of ensuring that my team are well looked after.”

  “I see. Can you tell me why your particular work area has had the most changes in personnel over the last five years in comparison with other teams?”

  “I dispute that and I don’t like what you’re implying—”

  “I’m not implying anything, Madeleine,” he said, his voice raised above hers. “I’ve been looking at who has worked for whom, and your work area has had the most changes of staff. It’s a fact.” He slid another sheet of paper across the table to her. “I’m just interested in your explanation for this?”

  Madeleine stared at the spreadsheet. Every work area was detailed and for each of the five years listed her team showed the most leavers, most joiners and a staff turn-over ratio of between five and seven percent above the next nearest work area of Finance.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen these figures, so forgive me for questioning their validity. Who has prepared this and why haven’t I been informed?”

  And there’s that hard, grating edge in your voice again, Madeleine. Jacques was still, his attention focused on her face, pen poised to note her reaction when it came.

  “Mademoiselle Lapointe put the information together at my request and I am informing you now.”

  “I see.” She repeatedly scraped her short fine hair back behind her left ear as she stared at the sheet. “Not that she knows a great deal about how my team work but, I do employ a lot of people on short-term contracts. The admin team come within my remit and it is difficult to get decent staff, and when you do, they don’t stay long because they are always looking for the next promotion.”

  “And the more senior staff on longer contracts? Take another look at the spreadsheet, Madeleine.” Jacques waited as she scanned the columns again.

  “I sometimes have to change staff around depending on their development needs and the changing remit of the work. I don’t see anything unusual in that. In fact, I think that’s of benefit to the work, the team as a whole and the company.”

  “Interesting point of view. To me, and I know I’m only an ex-policeman, Madeleine, but looking at those statistics, your results stand out from every other work area in the company. If you ignore the line that relates to your part of the organisation, the results for all the rest look on a par with each other. A slight peak here for Finance and a small dip here for IT, but overall the figures show that the company workforce is stable. Add your results in and suddenly you have a work area that is completely different. A work area with what appears to be constantly changing staff is what I would call a problem work area.”

  Madeleine, her face fixed, sat in stony silence.

  “You have no view on that?”

  Jacques watched and waited as she maintained her froideur. “All right. Going back to the contracts that Vaux has lost over recent months. You’ve supplied information on the bids for that work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you taken any of the documentation out of the office or shown it to anyone outside of this company?”

  “That question is insulting, Jacques!”

  “You’ve admitted that you maintain, and keep in contact with, a network of people who work for rival companies. I have to ask the question. Now, please answer it?”

  “No!”

  “Is that no you won’t answer the question or is that no you are not guilty of a breach of confidence?”

  “No, I am not guilty of a breach of confidence.”

  “What about C and C Consulting? Do you know anyone there?” Jacques kept a close eye on her.

  “I know the company and I have come across a few of their employees, but I wouldn’t say that I know anyone there.” She stared him straight in the eye.

  “And what about corporate events? You say it is important in your position to maintain a network of colleagues, is that how you keep in touch?”

  “Yes, mostly through
events. But I also meet and catch up with people in my network at training seminars and in the course of general business on a daily basis.”

  “So, you will have everyone’s phone number in your contacts list, for example?”

  Madeleine scowled. “Where are you leading with this, Jacques?”

  “I’m just establishing how closely in touch you are with your network, that’s all.”

  She narrowed her eyes and stared at him. “Regularly. I am in contact with them regularly as my business needs dictate.”

  Jacques recognised the ice-cold look. She’d used it on him before. He wondered whether to risk more questions or to let her stew. Taking a different tack, he flipped his notebook shut and sat back in his chair.

  “How is Xavier? I presume he left Paris with you to move here for your new job?”

  “That’s personal! You have no right—”

  “Don’t I? It was him you left me for, as I remember.” His muscles bristled with tension as he watched the colour of rage creep up her neck and flood her cheeks.

  She scraped her hair back and, after a moment she took a deep breath as a smile of triumph began to creep across her face. “I thought we were only talking about work and your case today, Jacques.”

  “We have, and now I’m finished.” He stood, collected his papers and notebook and marched out of the room without a single glance back, and his pace did not slow until he had reached the entrance to his own building.

  The village of Messandrierre was eerily quiet that evening. The bar had only two customers from the hunting party with Marianne to tend to their drinks. No light escaped from around or through the slats of the shuttered windows of the houses, except for the Mancelle property where Marie was at home with her son, Pierre, who was suffering from a nasty chest infection. By contrast, the windows of the meeting room on the first floor of the Mairie were alive with a fogged yellow light as Monsieur le Maire – Monsieur Mancelle senior – conducted one of his regular municipality meetings.