Rocco and the Price of Lies

by Adrian Magson

  ‘You’ll have to postpone the meeting,’ he muttered without preamble. ‘Something’s come up – I’ll be in later. Can’t be helped.’ He felt idiotic at making such a lame statement and picked at his lips, which had gone unaccountably dry.

  ‘Is anything wrong, sir?’ Cecile queried.

  ‘Nothing. I feel a little unwell, that’s all. A small ulcer, I think.’

  He dropped the handset back on its cradle and wondered what the reaction would be at the office. No doubt rumours about his health would erupt the moment Cécile made it known, followed by the inevitable game of musical chairs that always began when a position threatened to be vacated. It was standard among civil servants, but it would in no way compare with the fallout if the contents of the letter in his pocket ever became known.

  He shook himself. It was far easier to justify and excuse his actions, than contemplate the details going public. The revelation would be catastrophic. He would be scorned in some quarters, humiliated in others, and it would bring pure contempt from the public. Worst of all would be the response of the prime minister, who had the moral tone of a Catholic convert allied to a powerful sense of self-protection. With the contents of this letter, he could say goodbye to his political career and to elevation to the Council of Ministers. Once out, always out, was the firm credo in government circles. He’d be cast aside and into the wilderness, with whatever meagre pension he might manage to keep hold of and with the cold rush of derisive laughter following him every step of the way.

  And that didn’t compare, he thought, taking out the letter to read again, with what else he would be saying goodbye to if it ever became known that government funds were involved, as was pointed out – correctly – in this note. He swore profusely at the wretched decision to use a little-known caisse noire or departmental slush fund to indulge himself in a moment of weakness. What on earth had taken hold of him? He should have known it would become known sooner or later. Was it some kind of bitter attempt at rewarding himself when those around him – especially the prime minister – seemed to treat him with disdain?

  Still, he told himself, grasping for a straw – any straw – it was serious, but at least he wasn’t guilty of any unusual sexual misdemeanours, unlike a couple of colleagues he could mention, one of whom was close to the very top of government, a political as well as a personal favour appointee, who was rumoured to have a liking for very young teenage girls. In that comparison, perhaps, lay his one hope of salvation. Mea culpa, he thought wryly, but not as much as others.

  He checked the letter again, hoping for some indication of its origins. But it was unsigned, with a line advising him that payment instructions would follow. He retreated to his study at the rear of the house. It overlooked an expanse of garden, complete with a small lake and dotted with trees and borders. Here he made his most important decisions, whether on matters of state or, more recently, personal matters: granting his wife a divorce because of the growing toxicity of their marriage. At least letting his wife go had been less costly than he’d anticipated, largely because an investigator he’d hired had discovered that she had already replaced him with a younger, sleeker and more athletic model. Young enough to be her son, for God’s sake, he thought. Still, it could have been worse. Now he could at least consider his options regarding this bombshell free of the restraints of an unsympathetic and, at worst, unhelpful wife.

  He looked up and found himself standing beneath the very reason for his discomfort. The irony didn’t escape him, but he gave it only a passing glance, as if not acknowledging its presence might allow him to deny its existence for just a little longer.

  The painting was large, dominating the wall as much by its size as the presence of the subject. She was a beautiful young brunette with an enigmatic smile and an inviting look about her, dressed in the classical style. He’d loved it the moment he’d set eyes on it, and although it had cost a small fortune, he’d deemed it worth every centime. Coming in here every day and being alone with Madame Récamier, as she was known, invariably soothed him after a hard day’s work.

  He stared instead at the wall opposite. But reality soon came rushing in. He could deny the contents of the letter, of course, until the proverbial cows came home. He could even take the painting down and hide it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to help. He’d been hoisted by his own brand of hubris, because there were people who knew of the painting’s place in his home, just as they did his not-so-guarded hints as to its considerable cost. The pleasure for him had been seeing the awestruck expressions on their faces at the information, and even a hint of respect for his financial situation and artistic appreciation.

  No, a denial wouldn’t do. The only alternative was to follow the instructions in the letter and pay up. It would be costly, even painful, on a personal level. But he could see no way round it; he’d have to take the hit, as he’d once heard an American diplomat say.

  He took another tour of the room, his thoughts ranging around the alternatives and on what else might follow. What if the matter didn’t end there? Blackmailers, once they had their hooks into a target, were known to come back for more. The very fact of a victim having paid up in the first place confirmed that they had something to hide. More demands would follow, he knew it in his bones. His position guaranteed it. His wealth, such as it was, was mainly inherited, a fact gleefully documented in the press more than once by his political enemies. But that particular well wasn’t so deep that it couldn’t be emptied, no more than his capacity to withstand the public humiliation if the blackmailer made good the threat outlined in the letter. He felt sick as the full import of what he’d brought upon himself began to hit home. The humiliation would be complete and lasting; the thought of everyone knowing he was a thief and a liar – a fraud, no less – was like a dagger to the gut. The downfall would be swift and his enemies would relish seeing him end his days in prison, a figure of contempt. By the third tour of the study, he’d come to a firm decision. He couldn’t count on the PM to defend him if and when the news came out, and the idea that he might be able to use some personal leverage to slip out from under the axe was a pipe dream. The fact that others had managed to do so for greater indiscretions was no guarantee. For one, the PM and he had never quite made that kind of connection. Forced together by circumstance and convenience, he knew above all else that his position was at best tolerated, at worst, on eggshell-thin ground.

  He rummaged in a lower desk drawer and picked out a wooden box, transferring it to his briefcase. Walking outside, where he was greeted by Lopez standing by the open rear door of the car, he reflected that he didn’t need the briefcase, but carrying his badge of office was as instinctive as breathing. Without it he would feel naked. He climbed into the car and closed the dividing glass partition to indicate his need for quiet. Conversation, right now, was the last thing he wanted.

  On reaching the office, he walked upstairs, relishing the smell and atmosphere of the building, and feeling that in getting this far in his chosen profession, he had achieved something concrete in his life.

  He walked past Cécile, already busy at her desk, and nodded briefly, telling her that he needed a few minutes and not to come in. She acknowledged this with a faint frown and watched as he closed the door behind him.

  Once inside, he turned the key in the lock before taking his seat. He took the box from his briefcase and opened it, laying it on his desk. Inside was a moulded tray. Nestling against the felt cushion was something that both frightened him and filled him with awe. It was a steel-grey revolver.

  He lifted the heavy weapon out and set it to one side, then took out the letter and envelope. He placed these on the open box, which he pushed to the front of his desk. He had no idea who the author was, but there was some bitter salvation in that, from it, any investigators would be able to find a lead.

  He removed his jacket, his eyes on the gun. There was no need to check if it was loaded because he knew it was. Nor was he inclined to take a final look out of hi
s window; the view had never been much good: a stretch of dull grey wall in permanent shadow from the building next door, uninspiring and soulless. And right now, anything more attractive would have been an unwanted distraction.

  He took a deep breath and thought through what he was about to do. There would be no payment of the blackmail sum for what he’d done, at least he could deny them that. And, if living under the conditions that faced him was impossible to contemplate, he might at least in the alternative achieve some small level of belated integrity. Whatever revelations or humiliation might be heaped on his name afterwards, there was nothing he could do to change it. Nor, he reflected, would there be too much sorrow from his passing, especially from his ex-wife or his daughter Karine, both estranged beyond return.

  With a final thought for the one person who had always been loyal to him, now sitting in the office on the other side of the door, he picked up the gun and pulled his jacket over his head. After a moment of hesitation, maybe even a fleeting sense of regret, he put the tip of the gun barrel beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

  Four

  ‘So, what is this place?’ Inspector Lucas Rocco stepped up alongside the solid figure of Detective René Desmoulins, who was squinting through the late afternoon heat haze across a stubble-covered field towards a building in a slight depression at a crossroads some five hundred metres away. The structure was decrepit, sagging, with holes in the roof and shutters hanging off the walls like an old man’s inside-out pockets. Surrounded by rusted and broken barbed wire hung with faded notices warning people to keep out, it seemed to be a long way from anywhere, and Rocco wondered what had driven the original owner to settle at such a remote spot.

  Checking the map for directions before leaving the office in Amiens, Rocco had noted that the minor routes which joined at the crossroads were no longer accessible, having been replaced by a single diversionary road and closed off several years ago. The move had been the death knell for the already isolated building, as if fate had been determined to make sure that it eventually sank into decay and ruin.

  ‘It was a café once, a long time ago,’ said Desmoulins. He was young and fair-haired, with a nascent moustache that struggled to achieve a full growth, much to the amusement of his colleagues in the Amiens commissariat. ‘Then the authorities discovered an old map showing a huge World War One ammunition dump in the back garden. They didn’t have the money to move the ammunition, so they declared the place out of bounds. The owner couldn’t get compensation and went bust.’ He shook his head. ‘Nobody goes near it any more.’

  ‘Except for two out-of-town bank robbers looking for a place to hide.’ Rocco had scanned the incident report from earlier in the day. Two men had entered the Rue Massena branch of the Crédit Agricole in Lille late yesterday afternoon, just before the weekly armoured van collected the cash from the tills and safe. The amount taken was unknown but thought to be considerable, due to recent livestock sales and harvest revenues from farms in the area. One of the two robbers had been armed with a shotgun and, whether by accident or deliberately, had blown a hole in the ceiling on the way in, bringing down a large quantity of plaster and lathes. Two members of staff had been slightly injured by the debris and, in the confusion, the robbers had made their escape in what had been described by onlookers as a new white Mercedes.

  Rocco borrowed a pair of binoculars from the detective and studied the building. ‘And they definitely headed this way?’

  ‘They were tracked because of the car,’ Desmoulins said. ‘Not many Mercs in this part of the world, and both men were covered in plaster dust from the ceiling.’ He grinned. ‘You could say they stood out a bit.’

  ‘Not your top-of-the-heap robbers, then.’ Using a white Mercedes was hardly brilliant planning, especially in a rural area not known for fancy forms of transport. And drawing attention to themselves by using a gun to scare people was stupid. It might and sometimes did work in big cities like Paris, Rocco conceded, where confusion and fear allowed robbers to disappear among the streets and back runs before any alarm could be raised; but out here they might as well have tied a skull and crossbones to the car aerial and played loud pirate music on their way out of town. ‘How come you’re here?’ he asked. ‘I thought this was a Lille case.’

  ‘It is.’ Desmoulins gestured towards two uniformed officers standing nearby, armed with MAS-49/56 rifles. They were staring at Rocco as if he was a being from another planet. No doubt they had heard of his exploits in the area since arriving from Paris, but seeing him in the flesh was evidently hard to take in. ‘These two were here keeping a watch with a Detective Aubrey, but his wife went into labour an hour ago and Commissaire Massin sent me to fill in until more men got here.’

  ‘From Lille.’

  ‘Yes. There’s been a breakdown in communication, apparently. I think they mean a balls-up.’

  Rocco was about to question whether the robbers had managed to slip away unseen in the meantime when he noticed movement at one corner of the building. He focussed quickly on a face pressed against the crumbling wattle and daub wall. It disappeared again in seconds, leaving behind a puff of smoke from a cigarette. But the glimpse he’d caught of the person’s features was enough to leave him with a feeling of surprise.

  ‘Fontenal?’ he said softly. ‘What the hell–’

  ‘You know him?’ Desmoulins had also seen the man appear and duck back.

  ‘I wish I didn’t.’ Rocco explained that ‘Bam-Bam’ Fontenal, nicknamed after his liking for letting off guns, was a career criminal operating around the outer reaches of the Paris area, who only occasionally ventured into the city proper. He’d spent years in and out of prison, but so far had avoided lengthy sentences because his crimes, in spite of the guns, had never netted him more than a handful of cash or cheap jewellery. He had never actually killed anyone. Rocco had arrested him more than once for low-level robberies in the Clichy district, putting him away twice for a couple of years. It seemed Fontenal hadn’t benefitted from the experience.

  ‘He’s a long way from his normal base, then,’ Desmoulins commented.

  ‘Because he’s an idiot. He gets carried away with his own sense of ambition and tries to act like Bonnie and Clyde.’ Rocco handed back the binoculars and took out his service weapon. ‘Let’s get this settled, shall we?’

  ‘Our orders are to wait, Inspector,’ one of the Lille uniforms put in. ‘More help will be arriving soon, they said.’

  Rocco looked at the officer. He was young, tough-looking and seemed capable and confident. He didn’t look like the sort of young cop accustomed to waiting for things to happen. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Officer Pouillot, sir.’ He gestured towards his colleague. ‘This is Officer Maté.’

  ‘Well, Officers Pouillot and Maté, right now there’s nobody else here, so this makes it your responsibility and your arrest. Detective Desmoulins and I are here merely as observers.’ What Rocco didn’t say was that he knew Fontenal well enough to figure that the crook would probably come out without a fight if they made the correct approach. ‘Waiting will only increase the risk that those two morons will do something stupid. You really want to wait for someone else to come along and grab the glory?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Maté said quickly, and nudged Pouillot. ‘Come on, he’s right – let’s do it.’

  Rocco didn’t wait for further discussion and said, ‘Spread well out and walk slowly. Watch for my signals. Give them time to see us but don’t shoot unless they do. I’d rather take them alive.’

  The two men nodded and moved away, checking their weapons and separating themselves by a good twenty paces.

  Desmoulins looked at Rocco with raised eyebrows. ‘You know this man that well?’

  ‘Well enough. I’ve put him away a couple of times.’

  ‘How do you know he won’t shoot or make a run for it?’

  ‘If he was going to run, he’d have done so already.’ Fontenal was too tied to his own base near Paris to s
tay away for long; he might have chosen this place to get out of sight for a while, but it would have been for one night only. After that he’d have felt the strong pull of the banlieue – the suburb he called home. ‘Something must have kept him from leaving. Car trouble, perhaps.’

  ‘With a new Mercedes?’

  ‘It happens. Anyway, I doubt it’s his and he probably got so excited he forgot to fill it up before he came out this way. He’s not used to long trips.’

  ‘Or something else intervened.’ The words seemed to come out before Desmoulins could stop them.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Desmoulins took a deep breath. ‘Don’t quote me on this, Lucas, but when the café was closed down the owner went bust. He also discovered his wife was cheating on him with one of his customers. The story is he took a shotgun to the pair of them, planning to shoot himself afterwards. But he’d run out of cartridges so he tied a rope to a beam in the bar and jumped off the counter.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The place is haunted. Everyone says so. They won’t go near it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with there being a massive amount of old, highly unstable explosive in the back garden that would blow off peoples’ socks ten kilometres away?’

  ‘Maybe. Who knows?’

  Rocco stared at him. ‘You believe that ghost stuff?’

  Desmoulins shrugged and rubbed his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Not really, but a couple of years back they got a priest to go in and do a … what do they call it?’