Grass Grows in the Pyrenees

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Forgive me, but I seem to have started my story in the middle, so I'll begin again. My name is Danielle and I am the senior police officer in charge of this valley. My jurisdiction is a small town in the French Pyrenees, together with all the surrounding villages, hamlets and farms. I've recently been promoted to this post after many years of being passed over in favour of my male colleagues.

Coincidentally, my promotion has come as a direct result of a previous death by falling. I successfully completed the investigation into that incident, when senior detectives from Perpignan could not. I was praised for my excellent detective work and then offered the opportunity to apply for this higher post with the full backing of my superiors. I passed the examination with flying colours and immediately promoted to my current status. In a short space of time, I have gone from being not much more than a traffic cop, to being the senior policewoman in the area, with responsibility for junior and trainee officers.

The previous incident I mentioned was the demise of a man called Stephen Gold, who fell to his death from the top floor balcony of an apartment block in the centre of town. He was a nasty piece of work and he had no redeeming features. Indeed, most of the people who knew him were happy to see the back of him. Everyone hoped that his Albanian widow would soon also move on. They'd been married for less than a year when he'd died and she inherited a fortune.

Stephen Gold was a business man who managed to make money from everyone and everything. From my investigations, I discovered he was involved in the illegal trafficking of c******s that has been grown, and is still grown, in the mountains surrounding this town. For years, this type of farming has taken place and the d**g has been sold in small quantities throughout the valley. Everybody turned a blind eye to the trade, as it didn't seem to harm anyone and it was never smoked in public or sold to youngsters.

Unfortunately, Monsieur Gold's involvement changed things. He forced each grower to sell him their entire crop, and indeed, to increase their production, which he in turn, trafficked to Eastern European gangsters working in northern Spain. This action made us vulnerable to outside influences and forced the people of the valley into contact with gangs from over the border.

Often I would enter a restaurant only to find a table of strangers sitting with Monsieur Gold. They were always dressed in dark suits, no matter what the temperature. They flashed rolls of banknotes and would never order the plat de jour, favouring instead something exotic and expensive from the a la carte menu. The patron of the restaurant foisted leftover food on them and charged them a fortune for the privilege. And who could blame him, as they deserved no better. They stuck out like a sore thumb and, had they been tourists instead of gangsters, local people would have made jokes about them. But sensibly, everyone was guarded and wary of them and that was understandable.

They made me feel uncomfortable and I knew that their business was illegal, but I didn't challenge them as common sense told me they were too dangerous. I might be an officer of the law, but I'm not stupid and I don't have a death wish. Instead, I reasoned, that as long as they were plying their trade in Spain and not here, then they could do what they liked. Let the Spanish authorities tackle the problem as it affects their citizens and not mine.

When Stephen died, everyone thought the names of the growers and the locations of their farms died with him and, for a couple of months, everything returned to normal. We had, however, underestimated his widow, Magda.

At first, everybody assumed she would move away. We didn't really care where she moved to, as long as she was gone. However, Stephen had a daughter living in England who contested his will, and that put a hold on the sale of the marital home until a ruling could be made in court. So, much to everyone's disappointment, Magda remained.

During my investigation into Stephen's death, I discovered that prior to being married to him, Magda had been working as a p********e in northern Spain. I should have realised that she'd become involved in the d**g business with her contacts. She was smart enough to figure out the locations of the suppliers, from the information she'd gleaned from her husband before he'd been killed. The business was too lucrative for her to pass up.