Red Light In The Pyrenees

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

The body of Madame Henriette is lying through the broken window of the kitchen door, with the lower part of the frame supporting her lifeless corpse.  Her head, shoulder and one arm hang outside, while the rest of her remains inside, as if she has endeavoured to fly, Superman style, through the window and become stuck.  She is slumped, slightly bent at the knees, but with both feet still touching the floor.  Her body is surrounded by jagged shards of broken glass. 

From the kitchen, this is all one sees.  It isn’t until you open the window to the side of the door and look through it, that you see the blood.  Indeed, quite a large area of the tiny courtyard has been spattered with gore as Madame Henriette’s life pumped out of her.  One shard sliced through her throat and by the amount of blood around the body, it seems to have severed her jugular.  She must have been rendered unconscious almost immediately as she made no effort to lift herself off the dagger-like pieces of glass sticking out from the frame. 

There is blood on the pot plants and on the flowering creeper which grows up the wall, dividing this house from the neighbour’s.  It’s also sprayed the small, hand crafted, wrought iron table and chairs.  The blood is beginning to turn black in the morning sun and there’s a sizeable puddle congealing on the ground beneath the body.  This will need to be spread with sawdust when the clean up begins, I think to myself.

There is rather a lot of blood on Madame Henriette’s head, as it has run down her face from the gaping wound at her throat, but it’s still noticeable that her hair is well-styled and her face is fully made up.  Her clothes are tight and rather too sexy for a woman of her age and her push-up bra and fish-net stockings seem inappropriate for this time of the morning.  If you didn’t know any better, you might assume that Madame Henriette is simply a lady of advancing years trying desperately to hold on to her youth, but to her neighbours and those of us who have had dealings with her, the truth is much less forgiving.  Madame Henriette is, indeed, a Madame.  She is a lady of the night, a peddler of prostitutes, and this building, which she owns, is a brothel.

The house of Madame Henriette is situated in the old part of town, where the cobbled streets are so narrow that only one car may pass at a time.  All the buildings are tall and slim and made of stone.  Each is distinguished from the next by diversely coloured shutters and different degrees of weathering to the facade.

When entering this house one passes through a small door, which is cut in a much larger, heavier one.  The magnificent carved entrance looks overdressed in this street and harks back to a time when the area was much grander.  Nowadays, everyone wants modern and the town has spread out with alarming speed from this central point.  The wealthy live in the suburbs.  They have gardens, swimming pools and pizza ovens.  From once being uptown and chic, these streets have become dreary and now they contain a lower class of citizen.  They are a melting pot of students, foreigners and people who survive on state benefits.  Sometimes holidaymakers rent here, thinking the area is quaint and having a desire to experience a ‘typical’ French house in a ‘typical’ French street.

After entering through the door which is set immediately beside the road, you find yourself in a narrow hallway with a magnificent ornate tiled floor.  A curved stone stairway with an iron banister rail takes you to the upper floors.  On the first floor, if you turned to the right, you find yourself in the sitting room where Madame Henriette offered her guests some wine as they waited for one of her ‘nieces’ to fetch them.  Then they would be taken to one of the bedrooms which are situated on the upper floors.  To the left is the kitchen, but few meals were cooked there.  Food was usually very quickly thrown together from a selection of cold meats, cheese and bread, then hastily eaten by the girls as they grabbed a few spare moments between clients.  All was washed down with glasses of the heavy, red, cheap, local wine, of course.  The wine made both the food and the clients more palatable. 

The body of Madame Henriette was discovered by her maid Eva, who is a rather scrawny girl aged about twenty.  She has mousy brown hair and grubby looking skin, peppered with acne scars.  Every day Eva came to work for Madame, her duties being to wash the sheets, clean the house and bring in food from the market.  She was also responsible for buying condoms and checking that each bedroom had a plentiful supply.  Madame Henriette was fastidious about health and safety and would never allow sexual contact without condoms. 

On discovering the body of her mistress, the shocked young woman fled the house and ran screaming into the street.  One of the neighbours heard the screams and chose, on this occasion, not to ignore the noises coming from the vicinity of the house but instead telephoned for the emergency services – and this is where my story begins.

Chapter Two

Some of you have met me before and you are aware that my name is Danielle and I am a police officer living and working in the Eastern Pyrenees in Southern France.  It has been over two years since we first encountered one another and I can tell you, with some pride, that I now have jurisdiction over a large area stretching from south of Perpignan to the Spanish border.  My recent success in handling serious crimes has ensured my quick promotion.  Consequently, I am now called in to be the lead officer in all the major crime cases which occur in my area.

My best friend Patricia and I are still living in our little house on the outskirts of the small town where I was born.  Although we will never meet with blanket approval, most people in the town now accept that two women can live together without the relationship being sexual, even if one of those women is a lesbian.  Please don’t misunderstand, Patricia and I love each other and sometimes we even sleep in the same bed, but that is as far as it goes.  We are friends, loving friends, nothing more and nothing less.

Patricia and I have experienced remarkable changes in our lives over the past two years.  I have advanced from being nothing more than a traffic cop to the esteemed position I now hold.  Patricia has progressed from being an assistant in a funeral parlour to having her own business making and selling pies, pickles and jams.  She has also established herself as an artist. 

I am very proud of our achievements, and rightly so, as it has been an uphill struggle.  The hardest thing to gain was the acceptance of local people.  The turning point for Patricia came when the wife of the Mayor befriended her and the Commune Committee commissioned a painting from her.  It is difficult being a lesbian in a small town, but easier if you have powerful friends.  For me, the turning point came with my handling of two major cases involving violent death and drugs.  This led to me being considered somewhat of a saviour in my town.  

I am eating breakfast in the kitchen when the call comes in about Madame Henriette.  Ollee, our dog, is making a nuisance of himself because he wants some of the cheese I’m eating.  How can I refuse this odd-looking bundle of mischief when he is trying so hard to impress me?  I cannot deny him, so most of my cheese ends up in his belly instead of mine.  Although it’s early on a Saturday morning, Patricia already has pans of apricots bubbling on the stove.  She’s trying to finish the task of making her jam before the day and the kitchen becomes too hot.  Every so often Patricia checks the pans then goes back to the painting she’s working on for a gallery in Perpignan.

“Must you go to work today?” she asks.  “I was hoping we could go to the market in Ceret because I want to get a ham from Monsieur Charles.  The one we have is almost finished and his are the best in the region.  I’ve arranged to exchange six pots of pickles and three fruit pies for one of the really big ones.”

“I’ve been called to Ceret for this job and I must go now,” I reply.  “I don’t have time to wait for you, but if you put the jars and pies in my car you can meet up with me later.  I’ll be parking in the car park behind the main square and I’ll give you my spare car key so you can get your stuff out of the boot when you need it.  That way, you and Ollee can travel in on the bus whenever you’re ready.”

“That’s great Danielle,” she replies. “Perhaps you won’t be too long and we’ll be able to have lunch in that stylish little place in the square.”

“Perhaps,” I reply. “We’ll see.”

The truth is, I’ve been told to expect lots of blood so I might not be feeling like eating any lunch, stylish, or otherwise.  When my colleague Raymond called from Ceret, he said it was like a scene from a slasher movie, but I think he’s probably exaggerating.  Raymond is quite new to the job. He’s never attended a violent death before, but he’s assured me that he’s up to the work.  He also told me, rather proudly, that he didn’t chuck up when he saw the corpse.  Just as well, because we can’t have him contaminating the crime scene.  I am to meet Raymond at the scene and a doctor has been summoned to examine the corpse before it can be moved.  I have requested that my old friend Doctor Poullet attend because we are used to working together, and besides, why not give my friend the work and the fee?  Being the senior officer does have certain advantages.

Last year, I would have been rushing out of the door and racing to attend the scene, but now I take my time, because now I have the experience to know that the corpse is going nowhere and everyone must wait for me.  So, I finish my coffee, kiss Patricia on the cheek and pat Ollee on the head, before heading out of the door.  I am excited to be attending another major incident because I’m making rather a good name for myself out of the death and destruction of others.  I have no qualms about this because it’s a reasonable assumption that for one person to succeed, another must fail.