Présentation de l'éditeur
The long-awaited return of Timothy Williams, CWA award-winning grand master of crime fiction, whom The Observer named one of the “10 Best Modern European Crime Writers” The sun-drenched Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is technically part of France, subject to French law and loyal to the French Republic. But in 1980, the scars of colonialism are still fresh, and ethnic tensions and political unrest seethe just below the surface of everyday life. French-Algerian judge Anne Marie Laveaud relocated to this beautiful Caribbean island confident that she could make it her new home. But her day-to-day life is rife with frustration. Now she is assigned a murder case in which she is sure the chief suspect, an elderly ex-con named Hégésippe Bray, is a political scapegoat. Her superiors are dismissive of her efforts to prove Bray innocent, and to add insult to injury, Bray himself won’t even speak to her because she’s a woman. But she won’t give up, and Anne Marie’s investigations lead her into a complex tangle of injustice, domestic terrorists, broken hearts, and maybe even voodoo.
Extrait
1: Tim tim
It was past six o’clock and night had begun to fall.
The group of men moved aside as the Land Rover came down the track. The whip aerial swayed against the red sky. The yellow beams were like two eyes.
The Land Rover halted and the engine was turned off. The toads resumed their loud monotonous croaking in the grass.
Two white men jumped down. They wore kepis, neat khaki uniforms and black shoes. They walked towards the group of waiting men.
The driver remained sitting behind the wheel.
“What is it?” one of the gendarmes asked, turning to an old man.
The old man was holding a bicycle. He had one hand on the cracked leather saddle and with the other, he pointed to the middle of the pond. The black water reflected the lingering light of day.
A dark, humped shape was caught among the reeds.
“A man?”
The old man shrugged.
The others stood in silence. Some wore rubber boots, several had narrow machetes that hung loosely in their hands. Their eyes followed the two white gendarmes.
“I’ve never seen this pond before.”
“It comes with the rain.” The old man spoke in Creole.
The fronds swayed and creaked. The pond lay in the hollow of the sloping valley. Grass-covered hills ran down to the edge of the white dirt track and its two parallel lines of coconut trees. To the east, against the darkening hill top, rose the gaunt silhouette of the derelict sugar refinery. A couple of hangars and a tall, crumbling chimney that pointed to the sky and the rising half moon.
The gendarme turned to his companion. “You’d better pull whatever it is out of the water.”
“The water is infected—there’s bilharzia.” Anxiety in the eyes beneath the brim of the kepi.
“The cows drink the water.” The captain pointed to the dark forms of an indistinct herd of cattle grazing on the far side of the pond.
As if in acquiescence, a cow emitted a single, mournful low. Elsewhere in the valley, another cow gave an answering call.
The third gendarme slipped from behind the driver’s seat and began to undress. “I’ll go.”
The captain returned to the vehicle and leaned inside the Land Rover. He then clambered onto the rigid bonnet. A searchlight on the roof came alight, and he aimed the beam toward the dark water. A mist had started to form, dancing wisps along the surface.
The gendarme had stripped to his underclothes; he walked across the grass and stepped into the pond.
“A damn fool wanting to fish.” Behind the searchlight, the captain lit a cigarette.
The old man said, almost under his breath. “No fish in that water.”
The black gendarme stepped further into the pond. A circle of light followed his movements. He gave a curse, stumbled and began to swim, only his head above the water. A couple of strokes brought him alongside the floating obj
