Death at the Clos du Lac

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The man was standing on the bottom of the therapy pool in the Clos du Lac sanitarium, his white cotton shirt billowing out like gossamer in the clear, blue water. Staring up through the glass-panelled roof at a pale, three-quarter moon bathing the world in an eerie light, his expression was one of deep melancholy. But that may have been because his face was some way beneath the surface, and breathing was a thing of the past.

Garde Champêtre Claude Lamotte’s rubber-soled boots crunched with grit as he moved along the side of the pool for a closer look. Behind him a woman in a nurse’s uniform was sobbing quietly, reluctant to come closer. Somewhere in the distance a door creaked open and shut repeatedly, a lonely drumbeat in the night.

The combination of sounds and atmosphere, more than the sight of the body, caused the hairs on the back of Claude’s neck to stir uncomfortably. Responsible for policing the area around Poissons-les-Marais in rural Picardie, he was accustomed to moving around the lakes and rivers and marshes in the small hours, inured to the sometimes sinister mists and dark waters and sudden unexplained rushes of hidden movement in the night. But a death in this place, a supposedly secure haven of luxury and quiet, was something else entirely.

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