The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe by Timothy Williams

have an alibi.”

23
Paraboot
    Trousseau had gone to fetch Madame Vaton at the hotel in Gosier and Anne Marie found herself alone with Lafitte. In the sunlight outside the
palais de justice
, his skin had an unhealthy tinge. There were dark rings beneath his eyes and although he kept his hands in the pockets of his light cotton trousers, he could not relax. “We’ve got another forty minutes. Why not go for a drink,
madame
?”
    “We’ve just had coffee.”
    “Perhaps something stronger. I don’t enjoy the morgue.”
    “Docteur Bouton will let you drink his firewater, no doubt.”
    The sky was cloudless. After an early shower, the morning air was still cool, the surface of the sidewalk still wet. Anne Marie had wanted to walk to the hospital. It would take time and save her having to wait for Trousseau and Madame Vaton in the morgue.
    “We’ve got to be at the hospital by nine.”
    “Then take a taxi,
madame
.”
    “Exercise will do me some good.” She was wearing Paraboot shoes today, inelegant but practical, with thick soles.
    “Exercise?”
    “Didn’t you use to cycle, Monsieur Lafitte?”
    Lafitte shrugged and fell reluctantly into step beside her. He carried a leather case. He was peeved and Anne Marie smiled to herself.
    “It’s the bikini that baffles me.” They went past the church, past the newly renovated flower market and onto the boulevard. The morningrush hour—parents taking their children to school—was over, but there were still a lot of cars.
    “Why,
madame le juge
?”
    “A bikini top—the one thing she’s not wearing in the photograph. And it’s the only piece of evidence we have.”
    A buxom woman, in the blue uniform of a traffic warden and with an umbrella under her arm, showed Anne Marie a golden-toothed smile.
    Lafitte chose to dawdle as they went past a dark bar giving off the heady emanations of rum, molasses and freshly ground coffee. He took a cigarette from the packet in his shirt and stopped to light it.
    Anne Marie, waiting for him, said, “On the other hand, I really can’t see much point in bringing Desterres in.”
    Lafitte inhaled, then quickened his pace. “Desterres’s not telling everything he knows.”
    “Unless he killed the girl, what else can he know?”
    “He came to see you, don’t forget. And he had the bikini top he’d carefully washed.”
    “Bouton’s evidence goes against it being a sex killing.”
    “Perhaps it wasn’t a sex murder.”
    “The only reason we’re interested in Desterres is precisely because he has a record of sexual aggression. If he didn’t rape her, what could possibly be Desterres’s motive?”
    “The fact she wasn’t raped doesn’t mean the murderer didn’t want to rape her,
madame le juge
.”
    “Trousseau thinks Desterres could have lost his head over a sexy girl?”
    “Desterres or any other West Indian male.” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth. “Though Vaton doesn’t appear particularly sexy.”
    “A nice body, Monsieur Lafitte.”
    “More important, she’s white.”
    “She wasn’t white.” Anne Marie resumed her walking.
    “Nobody’d notice the difference. Light-skinned enough to pass for white—and that’s all that matters. Let’s hang onto Desterres,
madame le juge
, until we’ve got other leads. Desterres’s alibi for Sunday evening is far from watertight—he claims he was at his restaurant, but it’d already closed and there’s nobody to corroborate his whereabouts. We don’t know where Richard is so let’s make do with the lead we’ve got. At least we can be seen to be doing something.”
    “Not the prime goal of my job,” Anne Marie remarked tartly.
    Lafitte snorted tobacco smoke. “You know what Trousseau’s like.”
    “Trousseau?”
    “He’s got a thing about white women.”
    “Everybody on this island has a thing about white women.”
    “Trousseau’s an Indian, and Indians don’t like blacks. There’s always been rivalry between the two races, ever since the