Red Light in the Pyrenees

Chapter 1The body of Madame Henriette is lying through the broken window of the kitchen door, with the lower part of the frame supporting her lifeless corpse. Her head, shoulder and one arm hang outside, while the rest of her remains inside, as if she has endeavoured to fly, Superman style, through the window and become stuck. She is slumped, slightly bent at the knees, but with both feet still touching the floor. Her body is surrounded by jagged shards of broken glass. From the kitchen, this is all one sees. It isn't until you open the window to the side of the door and look through it, that you see the blood. Indeed, quite a large area of the tiny courtyard has been spattered with gore as Madame Henriette's life pumped out of her. One shard sliced through her throat and by the amount of blood around the body, it seems to have severed her jugular. She must have been rendered unconscious almost immediately as she made no effort to lift herself off the dagger-like pieces of glass sticking out from the frame. There is blood on the pot plants and on the flowering creeper which grows up the wall, dividing this house from the neighbour's. It's also sprayed the small, hand crafted, wrought iron table and chairs. The blood is beginning to turn black in the morning sun and there's a sizeable puddle congealing on the ground beneath the body. This will need to be spread with sawdust when the clean up begins, I think to myself. There is rather a lot of blood on Madame Henriette's head, as it has run down her face from the gaping wound at her throat, but it's still noticeable that her hair is well-styled and her face is fully made up. Her clothes are tight and rather too sexy for a woman of her age and her push-up bra and fish-net stockings seem inappropriate for this time of the morning. If you didn't know any better, you might assume that Madame Henriette is simply a lady of advancing years trying desperately to hold on to her youth, but to her neighbours and those of us who have had dealings with her, the truth is much less forgiving. Madame Henriette is, indeed, a Madame. She is a lady of the night, a peddler of prostitutes, and this building, which she owns, is a brothel. The house of Madame Henriette is situated in the old part of town, where the cobbled streets are so narrow that only one car may pass at a time. All the buildings are tall and slim and made of stone. Each is distinguished from the next by diversely coloured shutters and different degrees of weathering to the facade. When entering this house one passes through a small door, which is cut in a much larger, heavier one. The magnificent carved entrance looks overdressed in this street and harks back to a time when the area was much grander. Nowadays, everyone wants modern and the town has spread out with alarming speed from this central point. The wealthy live in the suburbs. They have gardens, swimming pools and pizza ovens. From once being uptown and chic, these streets have become dreary and now they contain a lower class of citizen. They are a melting pot of students, foreigners and people who survive on state benefits. Sometimes holidaymakers rent here, thinking the area is quaint and having a desire to experience a 'typical' French house in a 'typical' French street. After entering through the door which is set immediately beside the road, you find yourself in a narrow hallway with a magnificent ornate tiled floor. A curved stone stairway with an iron banister rail takes you to the upper floors. On the first floor, if you turned to the right, you find yourself in the sitting room where Madame Henriette offered her guests some wine as they waited for one of her 'nieces' to fetch them. Then they would be taken to one of the bedrooms which are situated on the upper floors. To the left is the kitchen, but few meals were cooked there. Food was usually very quickly thrown together from a selection of cold meats, cheese and bread, then hastily eaten by the girls as they grabbed a few spare moments between clients. All was washed down with glasses of the heavy, red, cheap, local wine, of course. The wine made both the food and the clients more palatable. The body of Madame Henriette was discovered by her maid Eva, who is a rather scrawny girl aged about twenty. She has mousy brown hair and grubby looking skin, peppered with acne scars. Every day Eva came to work for Madame, her duties being to wash the sheets, clean the house and bring in food from the market. She was also responsible for buying condoms and checking that each bedroom had a plentiful supply. Madame Henriette was fastidious about health and safety and would never allow s****l contact without condoms. On discovering the body of her mistress, the shocked young woman fled the house and ran screaming into the street. One of the neighbours heard the screams and chose, on this occasion, not to ignore the noises coming from the vicinity of the house but instead telephoned for the emergency services – and this is where my story begins.