Local history books tell that crimes went unpunished for a long time in the mid-mountain villages of the Sault region, between Aude and Ariège, where excessive snow once cut the villagers off from the world and justice.
Today, the Col de la Croix des Morts, which leads to Espezel, is barely white.
And the gendarmes from the Montpellier research section are investigating an attempted homicide which almost cost the life of a village figure: Josiane, the former teacher, a local child aged 85, and who appears to be fifteen less.
“You would transport her to a street in Paris that would not look out of place!”
She is always elegant, flirtatious, in the latest fashion,” admires a neighbor who sees her long silhouette pass under his windows, when she goes down towards the square where the hardware store, a restaurant, a grocery store still remain.
“She’s a golden woman,” one praises near the cash drawer.
The Pyrenees range emerges behind Espezel and its 200 inhabitants, beyond the forests of fir trees that are being felled with all their might to make paper.
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