Another Sun by Timothy Williams

arrival of the helicopter nor the wind of the rotor blades that pulled at her shapeless dress.
    “Immediately, madame le juge.”

18
Maison d’Arrêt
    The chauffeur got out of the car and rang a bell.
    A wooden peephole opened and then closed again, as if activated by a spring. There was the rattle of a bolt being drawn back and the large door opened inward.
    The chauffeur stepped aside, and Anne Marie went past him into the cool air of the building. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. A red tiled floor, several posters, a memorial stone buried into the wall and a long, bare desk.
    “Your allergy, madame le juge—remember to rub it with green limes. Green limes and rum.” The driver gave a friendly wave, and his boots made a soft tattoo as he disappeared down the sunlit steps.
    “You must sign here.”
    The prison officer handed her a pen, and she placed a signature in the large book.
    “This way.”
    Trousseau and Anne Marie followed the officer along the stone corridor, down several steps to a door where another man was sitting on a stool. He stood up and removed the earplug of a radio from his ear. The smile was sheepish.
    He nodded to both visitors and tapped lightly on a door that opened immediately.
    A man beckoned them to enter. His nose had been broken; his hair was the color of sand and lay in thin streaks across a domed head. He wore dark trousers, a white shirt and a loosened tie. He was also wearing a gun in a shoulder holster.
    He closed the door behind them. “Identification.”
    Cold, professional eyes that moved unceasingly. They went from Anne Marie to Trousseau and then back again. They ran over her body, but without pleasure or male interest.
    “Le juge d’instruction, Anne Marie Laveaud.”
    “And him?” A nod toward Trousseau.
    “Monsieur Trousseau’s my greffier.”
    He took Trousseau’s card and compared the younger, less wrinkled face in the photograph with the blank face before him.
    “Monsieur Trousseau’s my greffier.”
    “Trousseau,” the man said.
    “Monsieur Trousseau. Jean Alphonse Ayassamy Trousseau. But educated people call me Monsieur.”
    There was no reaction in the eyes. The man with the gun pointed his finger at Anne Marie. “You can go in.” With his thumb he indicated Trousseau. “He stays.”
    “Monsieur Trousseau comes with me.”
    The man shook his domed, graceless head. “I’ve no orders to that effect.”
    “Change your orders.”
    “Let me see that case.”
    Trousseau lifted the typewriter.
    “Open it.”
    Silence.
    “Please open your case.”
    Trousseau unlocked the small clasp; the bible picture-book lay on top of the portable Remington. The man touched it gingerly. “And this?”
    “Dossier on Raymond Calais.”
    “Either of you carrying a fire arm?”
    Trousseau said, “I left my flame thrower in the helicopter.”
    “Jokes like that can get people killed, pal.” He turned and opened the steel door. The rivets were hidden by several layers of coarse paint.

19
Cell
    A smell of cigar smoke and human suffering.
    A blanket on the floor.
    Instinctively, Anne Marie put her hand to her throat.
    The procureur was sitting on the narrow bed, talking to another man. He stood up, getting onto his small feet with difficulty. He panted slightly from the exertion as he greeted Anne Marie. They shook hands. He nodded toward Trousseau.
    The procureur was holding a cigar between the fingers of his hand. His face had lost its childlike joviality. In the feeble light he appeared anaemic. “May I present Dr. Bouton?”
    Anne Marie and Dr. Bouton shook hands. The doctor’s grip was dry and firm.
    The procureur ran a hand through his hair. Despite the coolness of the cell—one wall of stone and two sidewalls of parallel iron bars—he had taken off his jacket and tie. He patted at his forehead with a red handkerchief. “You’d better take a look at that,” he said, gesturing with the cigar at the blanket.
    Anne Marie knelt down, and even as she did so, she