Tales of Dirty Old Man Ch. 19

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Is she or isn't she dead?
15.5k words
4.77
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Part 19 of the 20 part series

Updated 06/07/2023
Created 03/01/2014
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Andyhm
Andyhm
2,038 Followers

All characters engaging in sexual relationships or activities are 18 years old or older.

©Andyhm 2015

This is the 19th and penultimate chapter in this series - I strongly recommend you to read the previous chapters in order, before this one, it's not going to make a lot of sense otherwise.

There's been a lot going on in my life that has seriously cut into the free time I have to write. I'm committed to finish the last chapter by the end of the year.

I can't thank Romantic1 enough for the time he spent reviewing and editing this and the previous chapters. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

***************************

Through the trees, I could see the shrouded outline of a boat, and as we got closer, I could see it was Rosie. We hurried across the field. At a first glance, Rosie looked fine. Then as we drew nearer, I saw the blackened paint and the scorch marks around the portholes of the rear cabin. There were two police officers and Philippe standing on the bank. As we hurried over, Philippe came over and stopped us.

His face was white, and he had to swallow several times before he spoke. "You can't go on board! They ... they have found a body in the burnt out cabin."

Simone screamed and staggered against me. I held her tight, and my world collapsed around me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They wouldn't let us go anywhere near Rosie, and it wasn't long before there was a crowd milling around in the field next to the boat. The police must have unlocked the gate because several police cars, a fire engine and an ambulance drove up to the canal bank. Simone sat down on the rear step of the ambulance and the paramedic wrapped a blanket around her. I stood by her, and Philippe hovered protectively. There was an acrid smell of burnt insulation and something else in the air. It took me a while but then I suddenly realised it was the smell of charred flesh.

"Do they know if it's her?" She kept asking us, and neither Philippe nor I had an answer for her.

It was a good hour or so before a police officer I recognised, approached us. It was Capitaine Mioni. He'd been involved in the investigation of shooting at the restaurant all those weeks ago.

"Madam La Contessa, Monsieur Morton," he said. "I'm sorry no one's come to talk to you earlier, but as you can guess it's a bit confusing in there at the moment. I understand that this is your boat, Monsieur Morton?"

"Yes, do you know who the victim is?"

"All we know is that it's the body of a woman. Her features are too badly burnt to be able to identify her; we won't know until we can do a post-mortem."

Simone sobbed and clutched at me. I hugged her to me. "We don't know if it's her," I tried to reassure her.

He nodded, "Can I ask you a couple of questions?" I said yes, and he drew me several metres to one side.

He spoke quietly, "I remember Mademoiselle Thierry from that time in the restaurant. The woman on the boat is a similar height and stature, but I sense she was a bit older than Mademoiselle Thierry. The police surgeon is asking if you know if she had anything on her or any identifying marks that could help us with the identification?"

Shit they weren't sure who it was. I thought for a moment; then I pointed at the anklet on Simone's leg. "There are a couple of things. She should be wearing a necklace almost identical to that. And she had the three interlinked hearts tattooed on her mons."

"I'll be right back," he said, and walked back to the boat and climbed on board. He was back a few minutes later. He gave me a brief relieved smile.

"The surgeon can't find a tattoo, so we don't think the body is Mademoiselle Thierry! I can't confirm that of course, but I've just sent out a message that we are still looking for her."

"Your best guess," I said urgently looking back at Simone sitting in the doorway of the ambulance with her shoulders slumped.

"It's not her, but," and he showed me a clear evidence bag, keeping it concealed from Simone. In it was Lisette's necklace. "Is this the necklace you mentioned?"

I nodded.

"Then she was here at some time. We found this in the bathroom hidden in the shower."

"So do you have any idea who the woman is?"

"No, except one of the local officers mentioned that a woman had been reported missing by her sister last night. She was known to walk her dog nearby. It could be her but that's pure speculation; we won't know until all the tests are done."

"Can I tell Simone that you don't think its Lisette?"

"I think it's best that you tell her that it's beginning to look like it may not be her. But we have to wait for the autopsy to confirm that. Madame Laurent-Duval is free to go but could you wait here. I'd like you to check out your boat after we remove the body. You know the boat, and it could save us a lot of time if you can identify anything that shouldn't be there or is out of place. I want you to see if there's anything here that could give us a clue as to Bernard's whereabouts."

I agreed and walked over to Simone.

"Is it her?" she whispered.

I knelt down beside her, "No love, they don't think it's Lisette. Whoever it is, doesn't have a tattoo."

It took a few moments for my words to register with her, the sheer panic in her face retreated. "It's not her? It isn't her," she said trying to convince herself.

"I wasn't happy when she got the tattoo, but God I'm so pleased now," I said. "I have to stay here to help the police, but I want you to go back to the house. I'll get Philippe to take you back."

She didn't want to go but between Philippe, Capitaine Mioni and myself, we finally managed to persuade her. I was glad that she'd left because the sight of the body being removed an hour later, even if I knew that it wasn't Lisette was extremely disturbing.

Capitaine Mioni said, "I have to ask, so please don't get upset. Do you think that there a possibility that Lisette could be part of this?"

"No," I said sharply. "Not a possibility."

He put his hands up to appease me. "I'm sorry, but it's just one of those things we have to ask."

"I understand but I don't think she'd even met him properly until that evening in the restaurant. I think she said she'd served him a couple of times at her uncle's cafe. Her interaction with Bernard could only have been minor. I doubt she would have even recognised him with a beard in Paris."

The investigation team had taken another hour before I was asked to join them. I had to put on a coverall and gloves before I could enter the boat. The stench of burnt and charred flesh was much stronger. I gagged and had to swallow hard. I was breathing through my mouth, but that didn't seem to work.

From the wheelhouse, I could see down into the rear cabin. One side of the bed was badly damaged. A broken clasp and padlock hung from the door, and I pointed that out.

"The lock and the clasp are new, and there was nothing like that on the boat, so he had to have bought it locally."

"Good, it's that type of information we are looking for," the investigating officer said.

A quick look at the instrument panel answered my first question. Bernard had forced open the panel and hot-wired the ignition.

"Can I check something in the master cabin?" I asked.

I was given approval, and I made my way past the galley and into the main cabin. I found the false panel hiding the safe had been wrenched off. The safe showed signs of damage but looked intact.

With the officer's approval, I opened the safe. The contents were intact. All the documents, the pile of money, the spare credit cards and the second set of keys were still there.

"Well that proves Lisette was held against her wishes," I said. "She knows the combination, and there's over twenty-five thousand euros in there."

The police officers acknowledged my comment. The problem was, of course, we were no closer to finding her, and it looked like Bernard was getting more and more desperate.

I spent the next half-hour checking over Rosie. There were several items I spotted that didn't belong, and I pointed them out. Each was carefully bagged and labelled before being whisked away.

The last place was the rear cabin. Fortunately, the fire damage was restricted to the rear cabin and centred on the bed. It looked like Bernard had used what was left of a bottle of BBQ lighter fluid to start it. Fortunately I thought, the bottle had been almost empty. Also, because fire is such a risk on board, all the bedding and soft furnishing are heavily fire retardant. I guessed that was why the damage was centred on the bed where the body had been lying.

From what I could see of the rest of the cabin it looked like Lisette had been held in here for as long as he'd had the boat.

"Who broke the lock?" I asked.

"It was like that when we arrived." I was told.

"Odd," I mused, "Why would Bernard need to break the lock? He would have had the key."

Capitaine Mioni said, "We thought the same, we are beginning to believe that the victim came across the boat while she was out walking her dog. We found the body of the dog a few minutes ago a little way downstream."

He continued, "We can only speculate, but it looks like he may have been absent. Possibly Lisette managed to attract her attention when the woman came past. We know she didn't have a phone on her, as it was found at her house. She probably broke the lock, but Bernard must have returned and disturbed her. First indications are that she died from a blow to the back of the head."

"Jesus, the poor woman, all she was trying to do was help Lisette, and he killed her," I said.

"He may have tried to burn both the body and boat to hide the fact that he's still got Lisette. If we thought he was on his own, we wouldn't look as closely at a couple. The fire didn't take, so that's spoilt his plan. We think he's only got a couple of hour's head start, and we never stopped looking for the pair of them."

"So they're still close by?" I asked hopefully.

"We think so, I'm afraid you need to go now. You've been most helpful. We'll get in contact as soon as we have any news."

"What about Rosie...the boat?" I asked.

"We will keep it under guard, it's still an active crime scene. You will be told when we can release it." Capitaine Mioni shook my hand, and one of his officers escorted me off my boat.

The security guard was waiting for me, and we walk back across the field towards the car. We were silent on the drive back to the chateau. I had the window open trying to suck in lungfuls of untainted air. But I could still smell the burnt flesh that seemed to have permeated my very soul. I guessed it was my clothes.

At the house, I stood on the patio and stripped off and used the shower by the swimming pool to scrub my skin clean. When I turned the water off, Philippe was there holding out a white towelling robe. I shrugged it on gratefully.

"Christ, that smell," I said, "It gets under your skin, I didn't want to go into the house smelling like that."

"That's what I told the Contessa, she waiting for you on the terrace. She would have been here, but I told her you'd probably need a few minutes alone."

I smiled at him gratefully, "Since when did you start calling Simone the Contessa?" I asked.

"Since I found out from Capitaine Mioni, she was one. My men like the idea we are protecting nobility."

I gave a quick laugh and walked up to the terrace past the Koi pond and sat down beside her.

"Was it that bad?"

"I don't think I'm ever going to forget the smell in the cabin. I think you should throw away my clothes."

"Already done love," and she pointed at the contents of my pockets lying on the table. Then indicated the full glass of wine in front of me and I took it gratefully.

"Do they know who it is?" She asked.

"They think so," I said, and I told her what I knew.

"So they still think that he's in hiding somewhere close by with Lisette?"

"That's what they believe."

"God, I miss her," Simone cried softly.

I hugged her; I knew exactly what she was feeling. My love for Simone had intensified after Lise had committed herself to us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was early morning, two days later that we were roused by a hammering on our bedroom door.

Philippe was calling out, "You both need to come with me now, they've got him; you're needed!"

We were throwing clothes on before he'd finished speaking, and less than a minute later we were hurrying out of the front door. Philippe was waiting by the car, it's engine running, the back doors open. We raced down the drive while we were still fumbling with the seat belts.

Philippe was on his phone, talking softly but urgently so we couldn't ask any questions. He gave brief instructions to the driver and we headed west towards Aimes.

Simone was clutching at my hand as we sped along the country roads. I realised why we were heading in this direction and said," I thought that the police had checked out his relatives?"

"They had and found no indication that he'd been at their farmhouse."

"So what's changed?"

"That padlock and clasp. Bernard didn't buy it, his cousin did. One of the local hardware stores remembered selling it to him when the staff were shown photos by the police. Then they found the cousins fingerprints on the boat so he couldn't deny being there."

He paused to give instructions to the driver before turning back to us. "They pulled him in for further questioning, and he ended up talking. Some deal I understand. The police found them at an old workers' cottage in the woods about five kilometres from the farmhouse."

"So where are they now, can we see her? Simone asked.

"Merde, I thought I'd explain the situation. I sorry he's still held up in the cottage with Lisette as a hostage. He won't negotiate until he can talk to you, Contessa. That's why the police want you there now."

Simone and I looked at each other with fear plastered across our faces. Fuck I thought, what was his game?

"He'll let her go if I talk to him?" Simone asked.

Philippe shrugged apologetically, "I don't know. He just keeps saying he wants to talk to you. He fired a shotgun at the police, and they don't want to rush him in case he hurts Lisette."

"Have they spoken to her?" I asked.

"Very briefly, just to confirm she's still ok."

"It might have been best to have led with that," I commented dryly.

Philippe looked a bit embarrassed, "Sorry, I know you've both been anxious about her."

The last part of the drive was down a rutted woodland track. There were a couple of police officers preventing the press and general public from proceeding. One spoke to Philippe and then waved us on. There was a flurry of activity from the press, but, fortunately, the rear window was heavily tinted. We pulled up behind a row of police cars and vans about five hundred metres up the track.

An officer in full riot gear led us forward to a command post. We were met by the officer in charge, a Capitaine Guardo. By his side stood Capitaine Mioni and it was he who drew us to one side and gave us a brief description of the situation.

"He's holed up in an old workers' cottage that's a hundred metres up the track. From what we gather it's just two rooms, but built of stone with only one entrance. That's making it tough for us. We know he's got a shotgun, he fired at the first officers to arrive. His cousin can't remember how much ammunition they stored with the gun. Madame, he wants to talk to you. We gave him a mobile phone and offered to let him call you, but he insisted that he wanted to be able to see you while you spoke."

Simone looked nervous, so I asked, "Will she be safe?"

"He'd like it to be close and personal, but that is not going to be happening. We'll let him see you, but there's no way you are going to be close enough for him to be able to hurt you."

"Have you any idea why he wants to speak to me?"

He shook his head, "Regretfully, Contessa none at all, he just keeps demanding to talk to you. It's the only demand he's made other than for us to keep our distance."

Simone looked scared but then she straightened her shoulders. "Tell him I'll talk to him but he needs to let Lisette go first," she said.

"We will ask, but don't be surprised if he says no. We'll try to get a commitment that he'll release her after you talk. You need to ask him again when you see him."

She didn't look happy at his statement, and she hugged me. "Am I doing the right thing?" she asked me quietly.

"I'm not sure we have any choice, to be honest," I said. "We need him to release her, and if the only way is for you to talk to him, then that's what you should do. Just be very careful, if he gets you as well, God knows what will happen."

"I'm only going to talk and from a distance," she replied.

I could see the police officers were waiting for her, so I whispered, "Take care and don't promise him anything."

We kissed, and she turned to the officers.

"Let's get on with this," she said to them.

They fitted her with a bulletproof vest, which worried me. They'd assured us that she wouldn't be in any danger, but then why the vest? Simone was obviously as worried as I was, and Capitaine Mioni was quick to reassure us.

"Sorry, we should have explained. It's standard practice for any civilian to wear protective gear in these circumstances. We won't be putting the Contessa at any risk."

They led us forward to a point where we could just see the cottage through the trees. We stood behind a police car that was parked across the track. Then Simone was escorted to a pair of officers crouched behind a large woodpile. The woodpile was off to one side and sat under a crude open sided shelter. It was about fifty metres from the side of the cottage.

"He'll have to stand in the doorway to see her, so we'll be able to keep an eye on him." He nodded in the direction of an officer with a rifle set up a few yards away from us. I was passed a pair of binoculars, and I focused them of Simone. Her face was white and her lips compressed in anxiety.

I was told, "When we agreed to his demand, we told him if we see a gun we will fire."

Slightly reassuring, but it didn't do a lot to lower my pulse rate.

Everyone tensed as she stood up and called out to Bernard.

"Bernard, can you hear me?"

Nothing happened for a minute. Simone called out again, "Bernard, I'm here, what do you want?"

The door to the cottage eased open and a shadow appeared in the depths. Bernard's face was drawn and his beard unkempt. He had a haunted look in his eyes.

His eyes darted about, and he made sure that we could see that his hands were empty.

"Come out where I can see you," he called.

The police officer crouched beside her reached out an arm to stop her but Simone was already moving. She took five or six steps to the side and stood in a beam of dappled sunlight. The police sniper to the side of me tensed and I heard him asking for instructions.

Bernard moved a further step forward and looked at Simone intently. He raised a hand and moved his thumb and forefinger about a centimetre apart.

"You know I was this close," he said bitterly, "To having it all. Your father was handing me the business on a plate. I only needed another month and it would have all been transferred into my name. I'd have left you with nothing."

"But why?" Simone asked, "What did we do to you. We took you into our family. You were charming and kind in those early days and you swept me off my feet. What changed?"

He laughed, "Nothing changed you silly bitch, it was all an act from the beginning. My father was a second-rate wine merchant who had dealings with yours. All he left me when he died was debts. You were young, lovely and rich. You and your stupid father were so easy to charm and my ticket to better things."

Andyhm
Andyhm
2,038 Followers