Black as midnight on a moonless night (by Omar Kamal)...Part.2

Valerie walked into her office the next morning around seven as per her usual schedule. She was full of energy and ready to work on cracking this mysterious case. As she walked towards her office room, she passed in front of Inspector Leveuf’s office and noticed the lights were on. She walked slowly towards the office, preparing her gun in case there was an intruder as she knew that Inspector Leveuf never came before nine by any means! She opened the door and aimed her gun as she walked in. “Inspector Leveuf! You scared me! What are you doing here so early?”

Inspector Leveuf looked at Valerie and with a smile that she had never seen before said: “Oh why good morning Valerie! I trust you had a good night sleep? I have been here since 6AM trying to get some additional information on our victim.”

“Any success?” wondered Valerie.
“Of course, sit down I will make you a coffee and tell you what I found out about him.” said the inspector.

“Here you go” said the inspector as he handed the coffee to Valerie and went on explaining: “our victim, Jeremy Deschamps, comes from a well off family. His father was a judge, and he himself studied law and graduated nine years ago, at which point with the help of his family, he opened his private practice with two of his university friends. The practice seems to be going quite well as they each specialise in a different area of cases; Jeremy himself specialises in divorce cases. He is single and never married. He does seem to be a bad boy though, or at least use to be; at age 19 he was arrested for illegal possession and use of marijuana, but thanks to the intervention of his father, he ended up only paying a fine. I have already asked for his colleagues from the practice to come over to the office so we can get some additional information.”

“This is quite impressive inspector. I didn’t think this case would interest you that much.” said Valerie in a surprised tone.

Inspector Leveuf smiled and told her; “I am just doing my job my dear.”

About an hour later, a man presented himself at Inspector Leveuf’s office. He was introduced as the partner of Jeremy, Ismail Diouf; a young French man of Senegalese origins. Inspector Leveuf welcomed him in and offered him a seat and a refreshment to calm the man’s nerves down. It was obvious from the young man’s face that the issue was too much for him to handle, but the inspector needed him as calm as possible so that he can manage to get the information he needs out of him.

“So tell me Mister Diouf, how was your colleague Jeremy at work, both on the professional and personal level?” asked the inspector in a stable and determined tone.

Ismail sipped on his drink and tried to gather his thoughts as he answered the question:

“Well, on the personal level, Jeremy was always a light spirit. He would always make us laugh and lighten up the atmosphere, even when the situation in the practice became quite tense due to complicated cases and daily work stress. But despite this light spirit, he still took his work very seriously and devoted himself to the furthest extent when working on a case.”

“Did he get very many cases?” asked the inspector.

“He did yes; he actually had the most cases of us all. Divorce is quite a common thing nowadays.”

“Were his clients mostly men or women, or both equally?”

“He did have some male clients, but the overwhelming majority of his clients were women filing for a divorce.”

“Very well. What age range were these women?”

“There were some middle aged women, but the majority were young women under their thirties. Quite beautiful ladies too.”

“Ah, that is interesting” exclaimed the inspector; “What was Jeremy like with women? Was he somewhat of a playboy?”

“Very much so sir. He was always very popular among the women since we were in university. He never had any trouble to get the girl he wanted. He almost didn't even need to try.”

“Did he have a girlfriend that we could possibly contact and get more information?”

“No sir. Jeremy was single. He did not believe in commitment or even marriage for that matter. Ever since we started with the practice, he lost faith in commitment and has not had a single stable relationship in the past years. He just spends his time jumping from one adventure to the next.”

“What about his clients? Has he had any affairs with any of them?”

“I believe he may have had a few, sir, but I am not sure. He had so many stories and adventures in the past years, it was difficult to follow.”

“What about your other colleague, where is he?”

“François, he is out of the country sir, on vacation. He will be back in two weeks.”

“One last question Mister Diouf, do you know of any enemies Jeremy may have? Anybody who would wanted to see him dead?”

“No sir, Jeremy never had any enemies. He is very careful in his relations with people and has always been very respectful.”

“Very well Mister Diouf, that will be all for now” said the inspector with a smile; “if we would need anything further, I will let you know. And I am very sorry for your loss; we will do our best to solve this case catch the perpetrator.”

As Inspector Leveuf walked towards his office room after seeing the young Ismail out, Valerie dashed towards him with her usual energy.

“Sir, we have another dead body, this time in Saint Michel.”

The inspector’s eyes opened wide; “let’s go Valerie. There is no time to waste!”

*****