While the Music Lasts
While the Music Lasts
AN ALIETTE NOUVELLE MYSTERY
JOHN BROOKE
© 2016, John Brooke
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Terry Gallagher/Doowah Design.
Photograph of John Brooke by Anne Laudouar.
Author’s Note: Many of the locations in this novel are fictional, although those familiar with the area may notice more than a passing resemblance to actual places.
We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council for our publishing program.
Ann Lamott quote (part 1) from “Ann Lamott shares everything she knows,” Salon.com, April 10, 2015; John Berger quote (part 2) from “Some notes on song: The rhythms of listening,” Harper’s, February, 2015.
Cover art based on Johann Carl Loth’s painting Music Lesson.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Brooke, John, 1951-
While the music lasts / John Brooke.
(An Aliette Nouvelle mystery)
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-927426-70-8 (paperback).
--ISBN 978-1-927426-71-5 (epub)
I. Title. II. Series: Brooke, John, 1951 August 27- Aliette
Nouvelle mystery.
PS8553.R6542W45 2016 C813’.54 C2015-905906-2
C2015-906000-1
Signature Editions, P.O. Box 206, RPO Corydon
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3M 3S7
www.signature-editions.com
Always for Annie
Contents
PROLOGUE
PART 1
THE MIRI THREAD
• 1 •
A DOG CALLED LENNON
• 2 •
A FLIGHT OF SWALLOWS
• 3 •
PARIS GREEN AND PETTY PEOPLE
• 4 •
A BATTERED BUSKER
• 5 •
LES DEUX FILLES
• 6 •
TWO SEVEN-YEAR-OLDS AND A SMASHED GUITAR
• 7 •
MIRI’S ACOLYTES
• 8 •
DISCRETION
• 9 •
JUST US?
• 10 •
THE LINE WAS NOT SO FINE
• 11 •
POSTER WAR
• 12 •
FIRE IN THE VINES
PART 2
TOWARD THE NIGHT OF MUSIC
• 13 •
CONFLICTED CHORUS
• 14 •
FORENSICS FIRST PASS
• 15 •
A DIRTY LITTLE BUSINESS TRICK
• 16 •
A SENSE OF GUILT
• 17 •
INSTRUCTIVE FINGER
• 18 •
THIN WOMEN
• 19 •
ENTER MARTINE ROGGE
• 20 •
ASSIGNMENTS
• 21 •
FORGET THE FEAR IN YOUR HEART
• 22 •
ANOTHER FAN
• 23 •
SMACKED IN THE SOUL
• 24 •
COMMUNICATING
• 25 •
FALLOUT
• 26 •
ACOUSTICS
• 27 •
INTERROGATING LEINA
• 28 •
TWO VIEWS OF THE HUNTING PARTY
• 29 •
THE NIGHT OF MUSIC
PART 3
AT THE HEART OF THE CURSE OF MISFORTUNE
• 30 •
SUNDAY AT JÉROME’S
• 31 •
COP AT THE WINDOW
• 32 •
ONGOING MANOEUVRES IN THE FIELD
• 33 •
BORDEL
• 34 •
WHEN THE WORLD IS EXACTLY FINE
• 35 •
WHAT RACHELLE KNEW
• 36 •
FAMILY DYNAMICS
• 37 •
BAD COP
• 38 •
FACETIME
• 39 •
DOWNWARD TRENDING
• 40 •
ISABELLE’S LIE
• 41 •
JÉROME’S GUN
• 42 •
ISABELLE’S BIG DAY
• 43 •
AN AWFUL TRUTH
• 44 •
SECOND EYES
• 45 •
TWO JOLIE COPS ON BIKES
• 46 •
THE KILLING GUN
• 47 •
EXPANDING THE WINDOW
• 48 •
PERSONAL REASONS
• 49 •
MOVING THE PAWN
• 50 •
SATURDAY TIMELINES
• 51 •
YOU ASKED FOR A MAN?
• 52 •
THE MOON IN HER FACE
EPILOGUE
NOTES
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
You are the music while the music lasts.
T. S. Eliot
The Dry Salvages
PROLOGUE
Ten years had passed since the tragedy — a blow to the head that killed his lover, the actress Miriam Monette. He had been released the previous spring. It was on the evening broadcast; they’d caught a preview of that dull, fixed-forward stare. Legally, Luc Malarmé, former frontman and driving creative force behind Ma Malheureuse Pelouse, had paid his debt to society and was just another man faced with the long, slow task of rebuilding his life. But Luc was not just another man, and moral outrage is like an insidious weed. When a friend tried to help Luc get a leg up, the weed grew rampant. The friend was a theatre director in Montreal who was mounting a play and had created a role for Luc — as an on-stage balladeer narrating the thread in song. The shrill reaction to this gesture made it more than a little ironic that it was a play about forgiveness.
Chief Inspector Aliette Nouvelle thought so. ‘Let the man get on with his life!’ she blustered.
Luc Malarmé was only a singer, after all. Perhaps he would sing a redemption song.
Magistrate Sergio Regarri thought Luc surely would, suggesting, ‘Who among us is above forgiving?’
In the world of French celebrity Miriam Monette had been the equivalent of royalty. Both her parents had enjoyed long and much-praised careers on stage and sceen. Miri was a princess. When news of Luc’s planned Canadian gig surfaced, her father led the righteous parade, declaring it a travesty that Luc Malarmé should sing again in public. How could he sing with Miri confined to the grave? It confirmed the man’s utter lack of remorse. Miri’s papa appeared on evening télé and said it plainly, ‘I detest him. I cannot forgive him.’ A legion of commentators fell loudly in behind. They said that for Luc Malarmé to sing again on stage would render his sin null and void. A politician in Canada who stood for family values intervened. Decreeing that all right-thinking Canadians agreed, the minister in charge of culture made sure Luc’s work visa was revoked.
Paris buzzed and snarked and roiled…
Watching from the south of France one warm evening in early autumn, a disgusted Aliette remarked, ‘How lucky for Canada to have such morally decisive leadership. Poor sheep.’
‘And couldn’t we use some here?’ Sergio replied, laconic, ironic, but not cynical.
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