‘I hear it was you who found the body today,’ Philippe said conversationally.
‘No,’ Lochet said with his eyes half closed. ‘It was Miel.’
‘But I was told…’ Philippe started but was cut off.
‘The best mountain dog in the whole of France,’ Lochet said, bending down and reaching under the table.
Philippe looked under the table and saw a big yellow Labrador asleep with his head between his paws, lying across his master’s feet. Lochet was gently fondling his ears.
‘This dog,’ Lochet said proudly, sitting up again, ‘earned me ten thousand Euros today. You tell me Monsieur, have you ever heard of a dog like that before… eh?’
Philippe had to admit that he hadn’t. ‘He is a very fine dog,’ Philippe said. ‘Tell me, where did he find the body?’
Lochet recognized in Philippe someone who hadn’t heard his story, so launched into it with relish. ‘We were at about three thousand meters altitude, above the Charpoua hut on the glacier when Miel started to dig like this.’ He gave an impression of a dog digging by scratching on the table with his fingers. ‘There had been an avalanche and he was digging in the snow that had come down from higher up. Well, I got my pole and soon found there was something under there, so I dug with my hands and voilà, there she was.’
‘What was she wearing?’ Philippe asked.
Lochet frowned then said slowly, ‘A white short sleeved shirt, tight turquoise leggings that came just below her knees and small, lightweight turquoise climbing boots. We wrapped her up in a blanket as soon as we found her.’
Philippe closed his eyes as he remembered Louisa wearing exactly those things the last time he’d seen her. After a moment he asked, ‘And what color hair did she have?’
‘Brown, light brown, just like in the photograph we were given,’ Lochet replied.
‘What about her face?’ Philippe asked. ‘Did her face look like the woman in the photograph?’
Lochet’s eyes were rolling around but he eventually managed to focus and looked directly at Philippe. ‘Look Monsieur, if you really want to know, half her face was smashed in. She could have been my own mother and I wouldn’t have recognized her.’
Philippe felt a wave of nausea pass over him and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Lochet was asleep on the table with his head resting on his arms. Philippe looked down at him and started to think. Batard knew that Alice had been described as wearing shorts and walking boots, so he obviously hadn’t seen the lower half of the body when it was brought off the mountain. After that, it had been stripped and cleaned up at the hospital, therefore he probably hadn’t seen the leggings and climbing boots at all! That must be it! If he could just get Lochet to describe exactly what she’d been wearing to Batard, then surely Batard must question the identification. It was his only chance.
Philippe decided he needed to get Lochet sobered up, so he reached down under the table, stroked the dog, then swiveled his collar around until he could read the address off the identity tag. Once he had it memorized, he shook Lochet awake, dragged him to his feet, and supporting him under one arm said, ‘Come on, I’m taking you home.’
Chapter 8
By eight o’clock on Thursday morning, Ross had checked out of the Jardin du Mont Blanc Hotel, taking his own luggage with him, but leaving instructions with the manager to have Madame’s things packed and held until they were sent for. He couldn’t be bothered to struggle with the extra luggage as he had a busy day ahead of him.
By eight-fifteen, he was at the hospital arranging the release and transportation of his ‘dear wife’s’ body. The hospital administrator was very sympathetic and obliging, and in no time, his staff had her packed into a sealed body bag, placed on a stretcher and loaded into a private Blue Cross ambulance ready for the trip to Geneva airport. Ross signed the release papers, collected the death certificate and settled the hospital bill before leaving with her personal effects in a black plastic bag.
By nine, the ambulance, which was in fact a converted estate car with the rear windows blacked out and a blue light on the roof, pulled out of the hospital’s basement car park. Ross was waiting at the top of the ramp in his hire car and they set off in convoy down the Autoroute Blanche in the pouring rain towards Geneva airport. He reckoned they would be airborne by eleven at the latest.
Philippe slept soundly on Christian Lochet’s sofa until being woken up just after nine by Miel the Labrador, who obviously decided that he needed a wash, so was licking his face. At first, Philippe didn’t know where he was or what was happening, but then, looking around, he remembered. He pushed the dog away and sat up, rubbing the slobber off his face.
The previous evening had been a nightmare. He’d managed to get Lochet out of the bar without much trouble, but as soon as the fresh air had hit him, he’d passed out and Philippe had ended up having to carry him back to his apartment over his shoulder. As soon as they had got through the front door though, Lochet had miraculously come to, and had insisted on playing the genial host, plying Philippe with cheap red wine, refusing to take no for an answer. He’d finally passed out again at around midnight and Philippe had managed to get him onto his bed before collapsing exhausted onto the sofa.
Now there were deep, rasping snores coming from the direction of Lochet’s bedroom. Philippe looked into the room and found him just as he’d left him, fully clothed, lying on his back, arms and legs spread out as though he’d just fallen through the ceiling. Shaking his head, Philippe went through to the kitchen, made two cup of strong coffee, then went back to wake his host up.
‘Lochet… LOCHET,’ Philippe shouted, kicking the leg of the bed. ‘Come on, it’s time to get up.’
Lochet stirred and brought a hand up to rub his face. After a moment, he opened one eye, stared at Philippe and asked, ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Philippe Dulac, don’t you remember? We met last night at the bar.’
‘No I don’t remember,’ he said irritably. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You passed out, I brought you home,’ Philippe explained.
‘Then you decided to stay the night, eh?’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Lochet swung his legs off the bed and sat up. ‘Is that coffee you’ve got there?’ he asked.
Philippe handed him a cup, then shifting some clothes to one side, sat down on an old horsehair armchair, which Lochet obviously used as a wardrobe. ‘Don’t you remember anything we spoke about last night?’ Philippe asked.
‘No, can’t say I do,’ Lochet said, rubbing the stubble on his chin then sipping his coffee. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘To cut a long story short, I believe the woman you found up on the glacier yesterday was my wife, who went missing in the summer, not the American woman who was lost on Monday. I want you to come to the Platoon headquarters and help me prove it.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Lochet said disparagingly, ‘It was the American woman.’
‘How can you be so certain?’ Philippe challenged.
‘Because I’ve got ten thousand Euros in my bank account that say it was the American woman,’ Lochet said aggressively, ‘and I’m not about to do or say anything to change that.’
‘But surely you must have been suspicious when you found her. You were all told she was wearing shorts and heavy walking boots, yet the woman you found was wearing leggings and lightweight climbing boots.’
‘Who told you that?’ Lochet asked aggressively.