The Nearest

A village square in Provence · the evening of the pétanque final · the nearest boule counts · Difficulty: Chief 9 · 16×16

A village square in Provence, the evening of the pétanque final. The last end was played under the plane trees as the lamps came on; then the crowd drifted to the café, the church steps and the stalls of the market hall. At dusk Valère, the reigning champion, was found dead on the boulodrome beside the scoreboard. The jack still lay in the gravel.

Rules

1. The murderer was the person nearest to the victim, and nobody else was as near (distance counted in king's moves). The victim's area does not matter.
2. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
3. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects cannot hold a person, except the seats (benches, chairs, bar stools): whoever is on a seat was sitting.
4. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of him was a man” = the person in the row directly above is a man, in any column.
5. “A bicycle was somewhere in his column” = a bicycle is on one of the squares of his column, in any area; “somewhere in her area” = on a square of the area she was in.
6. A king's move = one square in any direction, diagonals included: the distance of two squares is the larger of their row difference and their column difference. The victim may have had company in his area, and the murderer may have been in another area.
7. A bar stool and a bench are not chairs. “Beside a set of boules” = beside one of the squares with boules on the gravel.

Statements

• Ander (the captain of Les Platanes): He was not on the Boulodrome. Somebody else in his area was beside a plane tree.
• Brienne (a player of Les Platanes): She was in the last row. She was in the Market Hall.
• Cesar (a player of Les Platanes): He was right beside an area where nobody was. The cool box was somewhere in his column.
• Demi (the captain of La Fanny): She was the only woman beside a set of boules.
• Edison (a player of La Fanny): He was not beside a bench. Somebody else in his area was beside a lamp.
• Flavian (a player of La Fanny): Exactly one row north of him was a man. There was no other man in his area.
• Gal (the umpire): The fountain was somewhere in her area.
• Hailey (the scorer): She was right beside an area where nobody was. She was beside a bench that nobody was sitting on.
• Ivonne (the organiser): She was beside a bench. She was alone in her area.
• Justin (the patron of the Bar des Sports): He was in the Bar des Sports.
• Kelly (the waitress): She was the only woman sitting in a chair.
• Leon (the cook): He was beside a table. There were exactly two other people in his area.
• Marianne (the baker): The flower bed was somewhere in her area.
• Nicolas (the tobacconist): He was alone in his area. A bicycle was somewhere in his column.
• Odile (the florist): A crate was somewhere in her area. She and Ander were beside the same kind of thing.
• Valère (the reigning champion): The victim. He was found on the Boulodrome, beside the scoreboard.

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