The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (mobi reader android txt) 📕

your mum. I think he represented stability, reliability if you like, and that was what she craved. You may not know this but your grandfather, your mother’s dad, walked out on his family when your mum was little. He just disappeared and she never heard from him again. That would have been in 1972, maybe ’73. Your grandmother had a hard time raising your mum alone.’

Dominique went on to explain that she understood her friend’s need for stability but could never understand her choice of husband. She had tried talking her out of the marriage and it had been her idea to have a last fling before the wedding. Dominique had originally thought of a rock festival but chose the félibrée as a suitably wholesome event. She found and booked the campsite, bought the bus tickets and announced it as a surprise pre-wedding gift.

‘Which days were you there, exactly?’ J-J asked.

Dominique looked irritated and almost snapped out the words, ‘Give me a break. It was a long time ago.’

‘Please, Tante-Do,’ said Sabine, gently.

Dominique nodded, closing her eyes in an effort to remember. ‘We got there on the Thursday and spent that evening, the Friday and Saturday and a bit of Sunday at the félibrée. Then we caught the bus back to Bordeaux after a late lunch on the Sunday.’

‘Thank you,’ said J-J. ‘Please proceed.’

‘My real motive was to give your mum some fun,’ she said, looking directly at Sabine. ‘That maybe she’d meet another guy, or realize she was too young for this wedding crap. At least I could help her have a really good time for a day or two. And she did. She and Max really hit it off, very passionate, could hardly keep their hands off each other, kept slipping away into the woods for another quickie. Mind you, I wasn’t much different with Henri. I really thought it was working. On that last night in our tent she was thinking of cancelling the wedding, but then the next morning the guys had gone. That was the Sunday. Just disappeared, leaving no trace. Your mum had been abandoned all over again so I wasn’t surprised when she squared her jaw and went ahead with the wedding. But she regretted it ever after.’

Dominique paused, looking abashed as Sabine gave something like a sob that she tried to cover by clearing her throat.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ Dominique said to her. ‘But I suppose it all has to come out now.’

‘What were the surnames of these two young men?’ J-J asked.

‘No idea. I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew them. A family name was hardly important to us.’ She stubbed out her cigarette fiercely, as if erasing a memory. ‘A lot of guys have flowed under the bridge since then.’

‘Can you tell us anything else about them?’

‘They were both tall, fair-haired, well-muscled and very fit, bronzed from the sun. Real golden boys. They’d been working in the strawberry fields around Vergt to make some money and were planning to go down to the vineyards to pick grapes before heading back to university in Strasbourg. We were in a proper campsite but they wanted to save their money so they were camping sauvage up in the woods. They had a small tent, a sleeping bag each, an army surplus water canteen each and lots of wine they drank from the bottle. They’d sneak into our campsite for a shower.’

‘And that was where you – er, connected? Up in their tent?’

‘What, in their shared tent? We weren’t into orgies.’ She laughed. ‘Weren’t you ever twenty? We did it in the woods, up against trees, in the river, on the bank, in their tent, in ours, everywhere.’ She glanced up at Sabine. ‘Your mum looked dazed with happiness, Sabine. It might have been the happiest time of her life, at least until she had you and Louis. Just a couple of glorious days, but some people don’t even have that to remember.’

‘Do you think that was when she became pregnant?’ Sabine asked, speaking over J-J who had been about to ask something else.

‘We both thought that, but by the time she knew, she was married. And she took that seriously. She was determined to make that marriage work, and she did – after a fashion. She was devoted to you and your brother. But he never looked a bit like your dad, and when he was growing up I kept seeing bits of Max in him, in his eyes and his build. She tried to deny it to herself but we both knew who his father was.’

‘So, to sum up: all you know of him is the name Max,’ said J-J. ‘That he was from Alsace, a student at Strasbourg university and a good dancer. He was with another young guy called Henri from Alsace and they’d been making money in the strawberry fields in Vergt. Did you ever learn what subject they were studying, or their hometowns? You never exchanged addresses or phone numbers?’

Dominique shook her head, but slowly, as if careful of her hairstyle. ‘Henri, the guy I hooked up with, was studying something to do with wine. He told me he’d spent some time in the Alsace vineyards as part of his studies.’

‘Had they done their military service yet?’ Bruno asked.

‘I don’t know. It never came up.’ She shrugged.

J-J jumped in with another question. ‘How did you learn they’d gone?’

‘We were going to meet at a café in the square for croissants and coffee and they didn’t show up. We waited and then went back to the campsite and thought they’d have left a message in our tent but there was nothing. We went up to where they’d been camping and they were gone. Not a sign they’d even been there. Your mum was distraught, looked all around the festival, sure they’d be there. I just thought it was time to move on and put it down to experience. Your mum wasn’t like that, Sabine. She took it to heart.’

‘Do you have