The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge Page 3

  ‘Will you be OK?’

  The girl smiled. ‘I’m not afraid of dead people and I don’t believe in ghosts.’

  The Judge grinned back, a warm merry smile, which the young forensic technician had never seen before; the Judge never looked young, or mischievous, and they were all terrified of her famous Medusa glare.

  ‘Quite right,’ said the Judge, ‘neither am I. Hot coffee when you come back down. André!’ She called back into the arctic chalet. ‘If you’ve finished in the boiler room and this place is not wired to blow up, let’s turn the central heating back on.’

  2

  THE FIRST DEPARTURE

  André Schweigen had a wife and son. His boy had been born six years earlier, shortly after the Swiss departure on Midsummer’s Night 1994. On that night sixty-nine men and women, some of them barely teenagers, had either killed themselves, or been assisted on their passage into eternity, in a mass suicide, the finale to a huge gathering at a remote mountain resort in Switzerland. They had swallowed the poison as a toast at the end of their festivities, and even the Judge, looking carefully at the macabre photographs depicting a Roman feast of death, commented on the radiance inscribed on every countenance, a luminous, transfixed, untrammelled joy. They had died in ecstasy. The rigid glory of their faces reflected that of men and women long at sea, perceiving at last the distant blue outline of their native land. Their clenched, joined hands bore witness to the tenacious ferocity of their Faith. And that single designation was all that the Judge could glean about the nature of their beliefs, even after years of research, numerous dead-end interrogations, secret trails followed and abandoned. She knew who they were, what they did, how much they earned, but precious little else. Nothing could prise open the mysterious credo by which they lived. They were members of the Faith.

  The young dead faces, for there had been many in that first departure, or so it seemed to Schweigen, then in flower with proud paternity, were those of a primary school, an école primaire let loose on a treasure hunt, anxious to pounce upon the first clue. Curiosity, expectation and excitement blossomed in their dead eyes. They had stepped, jubilant, hopeful, accompanied, across the threshold. This struck Schweigen, whose baby son demanded love and food every four hours with fervent regularity, as particularly obscene. He tramped in a diminishing circle around the Judge’s office, explaining his position. That office, a huge high-ceilinged room bulging with dossiers, store cupboards and filing cabinets, and invaded by monstrous plants, crouched in the backside of the Palais de Justice. Mid-May in the Midi, almost a year after that first collective departure, and already explosively hot outside; the shadows sliced the pavements in half as the light crested the tiles, three floors above. Schweigen warmed to his theme: their deliberate exclusion from every aspect of the case.

  ‘The Swiss never let us in. We weren’t ever part of the investigation. Thirty-eight of the dead were French citizens. Most of the children were French. Some of them came from Strasbourg. They involved me because I speak German too. And the local dialect. I can just about understand Schweizer Deutsch. But we weren’t given access to all the necessary evidence. The Swiss were anxious to wrap the whole thing up as quickly as they could. All that bilge in the newspapers – a tragic destiny, unforeseeable, unstoppable, a suicide sect, which, thank God, has eliminated itself for good and all. But it was murder, Madame le Juge. And the Swiss investigators wouldn’t pursue the fact of the missing gun. It was their guru, the Grand Master, whatever he called himself, who got shot. Or shot himself. An ordinary revolver, .22, double-action weapon, all the traces present on his right hand. Where’s the bloody gun gone? If a man’s shot himself and the gun’s gone, then someone walked out of that room alive. Who? Nobody wants to know except me. Can they find the gun? No. Do they worry when they can’t find it? Do they just! All they can think about is calming the press and informing the relatives. Stifle all the nasty questions. Ignore the evidence which doesn’t fit.

  ‘And the money? What about the money?’ Schweigen found himself in full roar, several decibels higher than was necessary, and discovered that the office possessed an operatic echo. ‘I had the Brigade Financière investigating the accounts of every French citizen who died. They were all as rich as Croesus, and the month before they take off on their summer holidays and top themselves they’d all made vast donations to the association that fronted the whole thing – Les Amis des Étoiles – meditation, bloody yoga, lectures to rapt audiences of middle-aged women, that kind of nonsense. And when we seize the accounts where has all the money gone? Anton Laval withdrew ten million francs from the bank before the departure. A bank draft made out to him personally. But what for? And where has he put it? All that cash has vanished. It’s a crucial part of their empire. And he must have passed it on to someone. He can’t spend it where he is.

  ‘Who took the money?’ André bellowed at the grotesque fronds of a phoenix palm bursting out from a blue pot shaped like a Greek amphora.

  The Judge’s Greffière, a very young woman in her first proper job, dressed as a goth in ripped black with a green jewelled nose ring and a death’s head hollowed out by a glowing prism eye on her right forefinger, ceased tapping her machine and glared at Schweigen.

  ‘Should I go on recording all this? It’s lunchtime.’

  Dominique Carpentier shook her head and lifted her chin. Schweigen stood still, mid-stride, in his decreasing spiral, confronted with her dark eyes enlarged by the thick, black frames.

  ‘No, Gaëlle, I think Monsieur le Commissaire needs to let off a good deal of best unrecorded steam.’

  Schweigen immediately began to apologise. He had raved, uninterrupted, for nearly an hour, hardly noticing the silent women seated before him. The Judge suggested a private lunch, over which they could continue to share information.

  ‘Can I go?’ Gaëlle adored the Judge, which was not uncommon, but remained completely unafraid of her, which was. They exchanged the briefest of glances as Gaëlle bolted for the door, revealing an extraordinarily unsuitable black leather miniskirt, just covering her arse, long bare thighs and lace-up black suede boots. Schweigen blinked, incredulous.

  ‘That’s your Greffière?’

  The Judge smiled. ‘She’s very efficient. Never creates muddles or misses anything. And she speaks fluent English, which is very necessary in my line of work. They all have to do a language test. She got 20/20.’

  ‘How did she get to be so good?’ Schweigen’s English had never advanced much beyond ‘My tailor is rich’, and a healthy spattering of gangsta rap.

  The Judge selected a small blue notebook for her briefcase and a yellow dossier with the tapes tied tight.

  ‘She studied comparative European law at the LSE in London and paid for herself by becoming a dog-walker. You know, you must have seen them if you are ever in London. They patrol the parks, matin et soir, with a pack of other people’s dogs.’

  ‘But the point of having a dog, if it isn’t a chihuahua or a Rottweiler, is to get the exercise.’

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Schweigen, there you touch upon one of the deeply irrational aspects of modern life. Anyway, some people have dogs to go with their coats and handbags.’

  The Judge stood up and Schweigen realised that he towered far above her. He suddenly felt misshapen and bizarre, Polyphemus facing Odysseus. How old was she? Her smart white blouse and beige trousers made her look like a convent girl. Schweigen struggled to open doors, to stand back, to become small. The irony in her tone brought him to heel. She drew forth a huge set of old keys.

  ‘I’d better lead the way, Monsieur Schweigen. Vous ne connaissez pas le chemin.’

  Schweigen gave up playing the gentleman, ceased shrinking into his jacket and trailed along behind her crisp, clinking wake.

  * * *

  Dominique Carpentier was a famous woman long before that day in midst of the Midi spring, 1995, the year following the massacre in Switzerland, when she first encountered André Schweigen. She was known as ‘la chasseuse
de sectes’ – the sect hunter. That title headed up the late-night documentary about her life and work on Antenne 2, where, when interviewed by Christine Ockrent, she offended almost everyone involved in alternative therapies and bogus paths to salvation, both in this world and the next. That name and her strange, elegant face gleamed on the cover of Le Nouvel Observateur, which ran a two-part series on the madder categories of pseudo-religious sects. Dominique Carpentier came from a large, wealthy family of vignerons in the Languedoc; studied philosophy and psychoanalysis at the Centre Michel Foucault in Paris, before completing her degree in law, and then returning to work in the Midi where she was born. At first, when she was still living in her father’s house, her mother never missed an opportunity to plead the cause of marriage, children, and the pressing necessity of a proper home. The matriarch sometimes spent whole mealtimes in full persuasive flow, even when the dear local curé, our adored Father, always placed at the head of the feast, sat stuffing charcuterie into his cheeks. Dominique’s method of dealing with her mother, a mixture of humour and ruthlessness, demonstrated, to her colleagues at least, an impressive and pitiless efficiency. Her career as an advocate had proved to be solid, but not spectacular, until she encountered her first sect. The case was assigned to her because a distraught mother had initiated the proceedings. Carpentier’s good at dealing with mothers. Push that one her way. But this apparently insignificant affair signalled the beginning.

  Madame Cordelier, Isabelle, née Varrière, à Florensac, 43 ans, was the mother of three children, but the youngest, her only daughter, had fallen into the claws of a pernicious older companion during her last year at school. At first the friendship seemed harmless enough – weekends away at the beach, meetings mid-week at which they sat quietly, listening to charismatic visiting lecturers telling them how to achieve a perfect work/life balance by bringing the mind and body into eternal harmony. The first alarm signal exploded over breakfast one morning with sudden demands from the daughter for a substantial loan – eight thousand francs – to attend a weekend course. Madame Cordelier read the publicity carefully and then threw the mother-of-all enraged fits.

  Le Corps Harmonieux presented itself like a church. Everything necessary was on offer: a gospel, a prophet and a promise. Our moment in history has brought us to a point where we can no longer see the way ahead. Our bodies are alienated from our souls; we are in a dangerous, unbalanced state. But this was not always the case, for we are not really born from this earth. We originally descended from a distant planet where we once achieved an evolutionary level far above human. We stood taller, we were more beautiful, our brains fully enlarged, working at maximum capacity; we possessed the power of foreseeing the future. And in that long-forgotten time, that golden age buried in oblivion, but still dimly perceived and remembered by the chosen, we walked with gods. We enjoyed perfect health and never aged. Through the apparently miraculous process of cloning, a gift we were once able to perform by the simple laying on of hands, a procedure that the laboratories of our holy movement are even now bringing back to perfection (and for which we need to gather in large sums), we shall live for ever, advancing and improving the body and mind, locked in an ever more perfect balance, as the physical structure is re-created flawless, to greet the newly housed soul. And we may yet return to this extraordinary state, which is in fact our natural plane of existence, when we reclaim our power to heal ourselves. Our divine duty shines before us: to achieve our full potential by bringing our minds and bodies back into that harmonious and peaceful balance which unleashes and reveals our supernatural powers. Jesus himself is one of our great guardian leaders, who showed us the Way, the Truth and the Life before returning in his spaceship to that far-distant planet where he continues to evolve towards perfection.

  Le Corps Harmonieux promised eternal health, eternal happiness and the chance to become one of the chosen few for a mere eight thousand francs. The guru of this sect proved to be a fascinating character. Now in his forties, he had already made some impact on the world as a failed rock star, advertising agent and Florida time-share holiday-home salesman. He spoke well, in an intense, persuasive manner, looming down upon his clients with a hawk-like nose and terrible blue eyes. More seriously, he revealed a deep need to have his cock sucked by adoring adolescent girls. Madame Cordelier’s daughter became one of his small chosen circle, destined, with the aid of his laboratories, to remain perfect gorgeous nymphs, for ever lovely and for ever young.

  Madame Cordelier cut off the funds and ordered an end to all association with the guru and his disciples. Her daughter promptly moved out, after stealing her mother’s credit card and emptying her account. She moved in with the guru, whose constant supply of sixteen-year-old girls, but preferably even younger ones, proved a daily necessity to reassure himself that his own body and soul were in perfect balance and good working order. The daughter willingly complied. Madame Cordelier stormed off to the police.

  It is in the nature of the law to chew over desperate situations very slowly indeed. By the time the case reached the courts it was three years on from the day of Madame Cordelier’s daughter’s departure, intent on embracing the bliss of balanced body and soul, united in love and faith upon that higher plane. The guru had discarded her in favour of a thirteen-year-old and she had returned home, weeping and broken, persuaded that she had failed him in some awful way and therefore been deselected.

  Dominique Carpentier took up the case. She eventually discovered, while meticulously dissecting his accounts, that the fiery preacher’s eyes owed their commanding authority to tinted-blue contact lenses; even in court, however, she never gave away that little secret. The guru claimed that he was in fact an extraterrestrial, and therefore exempt from French income tax laws. Dominique Carpentier never suggested that he had not actually seen the inside of a spaceship. Instead she attacked on three fronts: corrupting the morals of minors, fiscal irregularities of immense proportions and publicité mensongère – fraudulent advertising. If he conducted his business on earth he was subject to local laws controlling that particular corner of the planet.

  When Gaëlle came to read this dossier, years later, as she set about acquainting herself with the Judge’s methods of working and the nature of her chosen enemy, she emerged from the dusty paperwork astounded by the dozens of dépositions, official statements from loyal members of Le Corps Harmonieux, all persuaded to a woman and man that an evil injustice had been perpetrated upon their noble saviour and upon themselves. They were certain that he was inspired by voices from another world and that he had been sent to warn them of this evil society that offered only alienation, repression and death. His words brought them direction and comfort. He pointed out the Way. He would lead them onwards into a libertarian utopia of freedom, beauty and light. The dissenters who turned against their master could be counted on one hand.

  ‘How could they believe all this shit?’ she demanded, waving one of the little brochures which the Judge had proved to be a raft of undeliverable claims. The presence of the soul, its precise nature and the practicalities of its transference from one human body into another, could not be verified. The soul, in any case, has no legal existence. The laboratories did not exist and human cloning, although manifestly possible, was still illegal and of uncertain efficacy. The Judge studied her assistant’s spiked hair, held in place by a gel whose consistency resembled transparent cement, and then made one of her speeches. Gaëlle always treasured these moments when the Judge addressed her as if she were Madame la Présidente, with the whole court in closed session before her.

  ‘We shouldn’t judge them too hastily, Gaëlle. We must understand these people, their motives and their faiths. They are not all deluded fools, frauds and charlatans. Their leaders often sincerely believe that they are preaching a precious truth or imparting a crucial revelation. But we must stop them exploiting the fears of the more vulnerable members of society – whether they do so unwittingly or otherwise. We have created a world where many men and
women live alone; they no longer feel that they belong to a tribe or a community. They see this world as a desolate place. They long to live supported and secure within a discipline or creed, anything that offers the illusion of certainty, a way to comprehend this world and hope for the future. Their faith is often unconditional. We need to understand rather than condemn their beliefs. We must grasp the urgency of this spiritual need. For into that empty space, left without form and void when the great religions roll back, the sects sweep in. Read on, Gaëlle. You’ll see how they resemble and differ from each other. My only weapon is the law. And I will use the law to defend our citizens.’

  Gaëlle rose to her feet and clapped. The Judge grinned.

  ‘Don’t be too cheeky, ma belle. Look at the dates on those dossiers. Le Corps Harmonieux is a classic 1970s sect, because it relies on extra-terrestrials and flying saucers. The logical finale is Spielberg’s E.T. There are some far more sinister ones in the cabinet on the right, with militaristic Fascist connections. One group was responsible for desecrating a Jewish cemetery. You won’t jeer at them so easily.’

  ‘But what happened to the guru and Le Corps Harmonieux?’

  ‘He paid the massive fine, got three years’ suspended sentence and went back to Florida. Most of the faithful went with him. They’re all there still, on a sort of ashram in beach huts. The laboratory now exists and their cloning claims are on the rise. They get a lot of media attention in the States. They make a lot of money. I keep in touch.’

  Gaëlle imagined the Judge’s eyes, travelling like searchlights, picking out the sects across the globe, and surveying their very thoughts from her office in Montpellier. But the Judge was not omniscient; and until that day in May 1995, when she kept her first appointment with André Schweigen, sent to her by a frustrated Procureur de la République, who had got as little joy out of Switzerland as the bilingual Commissaire, she had never encountered the Faith.