A Clean Pair of Hands Read Free Page A

Bodins in turn.
    Then to the parents, “We will also need you to come to the office to sign statements to the effect that we have registered all of your testimony correctly and that you swear to the completeness and truthfulness of your statements. We will let you know when they are ready.”
    That was it. The police shook hands all round and left, easing themselves into their tiny Peugeot car and drove away leaving Michel, Charlotte and Annick with their thoughts.
    In the car, the officers agreed that the couple were lying, or in the case of Annick, possibly concealing something to protect her parents.
    “You saw the tape on the bed, Francis?” said the woman. “It looked to me as though it had been used to attach someone to the bed posts.”
    “Yes, and you could see that they both had tape marks on their faces and their wrists.”
    “Why would they not want to discuss that?” she asked.
    “For the moment they are in denial, but we’ll see how it evolves. I think this was done to frighten or warn them. You can’t ignore the fact that it was so unproductive for the burglars.”
    “Do you think the daughters could be behind it?”
    “It’s unlikely but possible, but we don’t have enough to go on yet.”
    “Why would they do something like that?”
    “I don’t know, Paula. An alternative scenario is that Bodin could have organised it himself. It’s just that in all the similar cases that I know about, the motive was to profit from an insurance claim or have someone killed and make it look as though it was part of a robbery. There was no attempt here to do much more than enter and leave.”
    “They are not claiming sex as a possible reason; Madame Bodin is very attractive.”
    “No, they haven’t said so, but sometimes victims are too ashamed to admit it. But in any case, you don’t normally have four professional burglars entering a house to rape a woman. That is not the modus operandi of a sex maniac.”
    “So were they perhaps after something else, which theytook, and Bodin can’t say because it was something illegal? Or at least something he can’t admit in front of his wife,” suggested the woman.
    “That’s a possibility. When I said I would come with you today, it was because a number of unrelated reports have mentioned this address and I wanted to meet Monsieur Bodin. I’ll ask for some more background on him and have the earlier reports reviewed to find out if he’s treading in something murky. Some businessmen get drawn into crime financing because they have an honest front and clean cash to invest; once they start doing something dirty, however minor, they are in the hands of the criminals. I don’t think this is something we need to investigate as a crime because I believe it was more a disciplinary matter, but it gives us some information to add to what we have.” He slid his hand across to Paula’s knee and they drove back to the office in silence to file their reports.
     
    After the police interview Michel Bodin climbed slowly back upstairs, feeling increasingly stiff after his ordeal. He planned to take a hot bath and soak for a long time. When he opened a drawer of the chest in the bedroom to take a clean towel, he saw to his amazement a brown envelope he recognised. It had been crudely resealed with thick brown tape. He tore it open. Inside was a wad of twenty five-hundred-franc notes, with their images of Pierre and Marie Curie and smelling of fresh oil from the printing press. He quickly hid the envelope under his dressing gown, then on second thoughts put it on the top shelf of the wardrobe where he knew Charlotte could not reach it. He was sweating profusely and his head was banging. He really needed that bath.

Chapter Two
My Money is Me
    1950s – 1970s
    â€˜I was very young when it came to my mind that morality consisted of proving to men that after all else, to be happy, there was nothing better to do in this world than to be virtuous. Immediately I started to