Ile De Re: Means, Motive and Opportunity. (Wednesday 21/06/2017).

There was no point in denying it any longer.

Dominic was gone; and so was the €15 carousel outlay.

The only question was whether this mystery would take me to the gaming tables of Monte Carlo or deep into the silt of the La Rochelle channel.

Donning my shabby raincoat, sporting a half smoked cigar and engaging my best impression of Columbo, I began to investigate.

Just one more thing....

All the greats crack the big cases with an remorseless eye for the three M’s of detection; Means, Motive and Mopportunity. All I had to do was channel the spirit of Sam Spade and this crime caper would fold like a deck of cheap cards.

Personally, I have long been a fan of the Perry Mason school of cross-examination which consists of pursuing a flaccid line of interrogation, and when this gets nowhere, throwing a tennis ball at the accused in the certain knowledge that he will catch in the wrong hand, realise he has been rumbled, and then spill the beans to the disbelieving jury.

However, on this occasion a frontal assault was doomed to fail so I opted for Miss Marple's routine gambit. This broadly consists of having a cup of tea and a nice piece of cake in the hope of accidentally overhearing something incriminating, uttered by a jobbing actor who was quite famous in the 60s.

It turned out to be a surprisingly successful strategy.

Our host Thierry was no stranger to celebrity, having certainly run for political office on the island (at least according to the poster in his toilet) and quite possibly enjoyed an earlier career as a respectably successful French pop star (at least according to my deliberately undiscriminating Google search).

A Beach For All.

His number 12 hit ‘Sur des Musiques Noires’ in 1985 was the fourth of a successful run of eight singles between 1981 and 1989, culminating with the eponymous and perhaps self-deprecating ‘Mister T’ (either that or he was a big fan of the A-Team).

As any self-respecting 80s popstar does, we fell into conversation with him while he was cleaning his guttering on a ladder. Perhaps his guard was down; perhaps he was distracted by the contents of his bucket; or perhaps we had insinuated ourselves into his confidence, having returned to his beautiful home for a second year running.

Whatever the explanation, Thierry was soon singing like a canary (which might have been the secret to his past success) and I didn’t even have to put him in a mine shaft.

The piano is full size. Thierry is 58 feet tall.

With the strains of his catchy electro-pop debut 1981 single ‘Le Coup de Folie’ (a moment of madness) still ringing in my ears, I couldn’t help feeling that I needed to be a little less Miss Marple and a little more Magnum PI. That was, unless I was about have my own moment of madness as I launched myself unprepared and entirely unmoustached, onto the mean streets of Loix.

Any private eye worth his salt doesn't leave the office unless he is packing heat but being new to the game and not actually having any heat to pack, I set off with a sense of relief as I was already melting in my raincoat.

Thierry’s information led me first to the butcher who remained tight lipped as his cleaver flashed menacingly in the afternoon sunlight. Airily waving my Cost Co discount card in lieu of any proper credentials, whilst muttering something about an unscheduled visit from the meat hygiene inspector, he paused, jabbed the air with a splintered vertebra and sent me to the patisserie.

The baker eyed me suspiciously while he pounded the dough with spade-like hands. The smoke curled upwards from the cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. I took it from his mouth and stubbed it into his petits fours. He wept; he growled; but in the end he caved. “Dominic?” he whined. “You want  Maria at the candlestick makers. She knows everything”.

It turns out that Maria hadn’t been seen since Dominic’s sudden departure. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to work out that he was the gangster, she was his doll and that they were in this together, up to their necks.

Dominic and Maria. Up to their necks.

This case was solving itself. Hello means; let me introduce you to motive and opportunity.

The means were 120 years in the making; a five generations in the family, antique carousel that had probably graced the square of Loix since long before Thierry's great grand parents had their own coup de folie.

The motive was clear; €15 was enough to turn a good man bad.

Opportunity clearly came knocking at an open door; Dominic’s kiosk door in fact; in the form of a tourist sucker bearing a thick roll of low denomination, non-sequential used greenbacks (and some miscellaneous coins, but that rather spoils the film noir atmosphere that I am carefully trying to cultivate here).

No top-class private dicking was needed to wrap this one up.

And of course, I was right.

Dominic reappeared.

The children got their carousel ride and I realised it was time to turn in my spats, hang up the rain coat and stick to writing what my brother euphemistically calls 'my whimsies'.