Rocco and the Price of Lies

by Adrian Magson

  ‘Understood. What if we find nothing?’

  ‘Then we look again. There has to be something. None of these letters dropped out of thin air. If we find the source for one it will lead to the others.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The letters are the common ground so far. That and the fact that each victim bought copies of paintings, probably from the same source. The writer must have been acquainted with all three men, or at least knew their backgrounds well enough to blackmail them about their weak spots. Finding out who won’t be easy.’ What Rocco didn’t tell Desmoulins was that there was already a potential suspect, namely Cezard, but he didn’t want to colour the younger man’s judgement. It was better if Desmoulins went into this investigation with open eyes and a fresh approach. That way he might see something Dreycourt and Rocco could miss.

  ‘Got it.’ Desmoulins hesitated, scanning the names and addresses. ‘Paris, Abbeville and Mers-les-Bains. That’s going to take me out of the area. Can I do that?’

  ‘Up to a point. Take it as read that you’ll be out of your immediate jurisdiction some of the time, so don’t tread on any toes and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. I’m the visible face on this, you’re in the background. Just keep it that way and stay in touch. Hand over anything urgent already on your desk to Massin and he’ll farm it out. I’ve already cleared it with him.’

  Desmoulins smiled. ‘Fab.’

  ‘Fab?’

  Desmoulins’ cheeks flushed. ‘Sorry – it’s a British expression. I picked it up from a friend. It’s short for fab–’

  ‘Yes, I worked that out, thank you.’ Rocco nodded at the door. ‘Don’t let me hold you up. Go.’

  Desmoulins went.

  Rocco sat at his desk and chewed over what he had to do. A plan of action would be good, as he had a lot of ground to cover and not much time to do it. He would inevitably be forced to go over some of the same ground as Desmoulins, not because he didn’t trust the young detective, but because he was going to approach the investigation in a different way. Hopefully when they came to compare notes they would overlap and that would point to a way forward. Gaining a common intersection for all three men would be hoping for too much, but you never knew. A senior member of the government, a judge and a senior cop: on the surface, it was quite possible they had met, even knew each other well. Social circles at the top of the tree invariably brought people together from different backgrounds. Their lives might have touched somewhere along the way, if only like billiard balls glancing off each other on a green baize table.

  He still felt discomfited by what Massin had revealed to him. It had been uncommonly open of the man to bare his soul in the way he had, and Rocco felt a level of admiration for him in spite of their past clashes. Even more he sympathised with the loss of his career, and all because of a moment of weakness in an unbearable situation. Being dragged through a careless and uncaring grilling the way he had been was unprofessional and brutal enough, but the subsequent trashing of his character was as much the fault of the tribunal as it was Petissier’s. How Massin hadn’t harboured a deep abiding grudge against the man all these years was a mystery, and Rocco wasn’t certain that he himself would have been so understanding.

  He was relieved he hadn’t had to work too hard to sell the idea of bringing Desmoulins into the investigation. It would be good training for the young detective. Massin’s limited agreement was, Rocco understood, conscious of the Ministry and wanting to avoid reflections on himself if it didn’t work out. Not that Massin was the only one with that outlook. It was an instinct for self-preservation common among most senior officers. Promotion was hard-won and the ground easily lost in a growing and flexing agency where competition was tough and there was always someone else on the career ladder looking for a chance to find a slot for their talents.

  He pushed away from his desk and took a tour around the office, hoping for some inspiration. Without realising it, he ended up outside Doctor Bernard Rizzotti’s office at the rear of the building. The stand-in pathologist was behind his desk, studying some papers, and Rocco knocked once and walked in.

  ‘Ah, here comes trouble,’ Rizzotti murmured, lifting his spectacles off his face and scrubbing at his hair. ‘What have we got now? Don’t tell, more dead bodies. I thought things had been a bit quiet lately.’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ Rocco sat down. ‘I need some inspiration.’

  ‘Is that all? How about a drink? I have some fresh formaldehyde around here somewhere. Mix it with a healthy shot of fruit juice and it might do the trick. You could have some trouble standing up afterwards, but that’s your risk.’ He put the papers down. ‘Is this connected with your new high-profile assignment in Paris? Bourdelet, isn’t it?’

  ‘News gets around fast.’

  Rizzotti gestured at the phone. ‘Fraternal and professional interest: the grapevine’s been vibrating like a harp string, although from what I hear, there seems little doubt about what happened. He walked into his office, locked the door and shot himself while of unsound mind. Is that correct?’

  ‘I’m not sure about the state of his mind, Doc. But it seems that way, from first reports.’

  ‘No other way out, perhaps.’

  ‘That’s one of my questions. Is it possible for someone to be pressured into killing themselves?’

  Rizzotti shrugged. ‘I’m no psychologist, Lucas, but I’ve known of a few suicides driven by desperation or fear or loss. So yes, I suppose it’s possible. They were mostly ordinary people, with what might be described as ordinary lives. I imagine a senior figure like Bourdelet might have seen an impending fall as more drastic than most, professionally speaking.’ He gave a weak smile. ‘It’s not as if there are many jobs like that going around. If he had little else to hold on to, like a family, then he might have decided to let go very easily. But to judge that I’d have to have known him on a personal level.’

  Rocco thought about it. Rizzotti was right, everyone had their own limits, their personal sense of what was too much to bear. Reputation and self-esteem were high up on the list for most people, and maybe Bourdelet had seen his imminent fall all too clearly, making his decision the only one possible.

  ‘How about disgrace?’

  ‘It would be more than enough for some, certainly; others might decide to fight it out, even disappear for a while until things blew over.’ He gave a knowing smile. ‘In my experience politicians are usually adept at weathering that kind of thing before emerging in a new guise once the dust has settled. I wish you good luck with this one, Lucas. You’re going to need it.’

  Sixteen

  Rocco drove home with his head in a spin. He was followed part of the way by the Ministry car, before it peeled off and disappeared a couple of kilometres from the village. Getting bored already, Rocco thought.

  He’d spent a couple of hours thinking over his plans, reviewing the three blackmail victims and what their possible connections might be. In the end he’d come up with nothing but speculation. The problem was he didn’t know enough about any of them beyond their professional lives, and could only hope that Massin would be able to fill the huge gaps in his knowledge. Now his eyes felt gritty and he had a bad taste at the back of his throat. If he was going to attack this case, he was going to need a good night’s sleep.

  The first item on the agenda was a visit to Bourdelet’s house. In his experience the place where everything began was likely to throw up some clues, and maybe he could find out more than there appeared to be on the surface. A chat with Bourdelet’s housekeeper might help and, if he was allowed access, his driver and secretary.

  He stopped at the village café in Poissons to buy some soft drinks. He would have preferred a decent bottle of wine, something light and refreshing such as a Muscadet, but that wouldn’t help keep a clear head for the following day.

  ‘Not going dry on us, are you?’ said Georges Maillard, the owner, placing two dumpy bottles of orange on the counter. ‘That would b
e sacrilege.’ He was a large and untidy man, with a fragment of cigarette paper stuck to one lip and a three-day stubble like a harvested cornfield. He seemed to exude a permanent air of defeat, and had been unfriendly at first, until Rocco had helped him out with three men trying to force him into buying stolen alcohol. It hadn’t made him any less melancholy or stopped him playing Georges Brassens endlessly in the café – a musical taste Rocco had never acquired – but he’d at least proved more approachable since then.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Rocco, and paid for the juice. ‘Early start in the morning.’

  ‘Ah. Tough luck. You around for the fêtenationale on Tuesday? Lots going on and there’s a strongman competition.’ He almost smiled. ‘Big chap like you would walk it, no problem. The local champion’s good but about half your size and, between you and me, he’s been drinking a bit recently.’ He patted his own considerable paunch. ‘Stops him being able to bend easily enough for the big lifts.’

  Rocco had seen the posters advertising the events around the countryside and in Amiens, but hadn’t given it much thought. Bastille Day was France’s biggest celebration of the year, although some deferred to the Tour de France, which had passed through the region not long before. Every community held its own events and parades, some big, some small. Drink and music were a popular component whatever the size, making for a loud display of national pride.

  ‘I can’t recall when I last attended one,’ he replied honestly. ‘Always too busy.’

  Maillard frowned, which was much more his usual expression, and scratched deeply at a large armpit. It sounded like scraping mud off the bottom of a bucket. ‘That’s shocking, that is. They work you too hard. You really should try this one, though; we’re having a pig roast, which is a first. If you drop by, I might even go so far as to buy you a drink.’ He winked and moved away, sweeping a cloth along the counter. ‘You should take advantage of that while you can, know what I mean?’

  Rocco didn’t ask him to explain, but left and drove down the lane home. As he stopped outside his house, he caught a glimpse of Mme Denis in her garden, hacking at some long grass with a wicked-looking sickle. She looked up in mid-chop, saw him and, to his surprise, bustled indoors without acknowledging his arrival.

  He remembered her previous abrupt greeting, which was so unlike her. And now this clear display, as if she were diving for cover. What was going on? One thing he’d learned since being here in Poissons was that leaving things to stew, as so many had done before, led to misunderstandings and extended feuds, some lasting years. Some had even led to violence. He couldn’t picture Mme Denis hopping over the fence between their gardens one night and coming at him with her sickle, but it paid not to take chances.

  He knocked at her door. It took another rap of the knuckles before she answered. She peered through the gap at him, blinking against the light like a dormouse coming out of hibernation.

  ‘Yes?’

  Rocco held up the two bottles of juice. ‘I come in peace,’ he said. ‘Whatever I’ve done wrong, I apologise, and if it’s something I haven’t done, tell me so I can put it right.’

  The old lady hesitated, then opened the door wider and looked from the bottles to Lucas’s face. She batted a hand in the air and opened the door fully. ‘It’s me who should apologise,’ she muttered, her face turning red. She turned away, allowing him to step inside. ‘I’ve been a silly old fool. Come in and I’ll get glasses.’

  The air inside the house was cool and smelled of soap and vegetables, a heady mix Rocco had come to recognise and enjoy. It was a pleasant place to be: small, consisting of two rooms and a cellar, neat and spotlessly clean. He’d seen Mme Denis chase down a stray piece of fluff like a cat after a mouse on more than one occasion, which put his own housekeeping habits to shame.

  She nodded for him to sit at the table, which was covered by a patterned oil-cloth topped by a central laced doily, and placed two thick glasses in the middle. Rocco opened one of the bottles and poured juice for them both, then lifted his glass in a toast.

  ‘Death to our enemies,’ he said, and when she smiled and raised her glass added, ‘What’s the problem? Is it your back? You know you can tell me.’

  ‘My back’s fine, thank you. It’s not that.’ She twirled her glass on the oil-cloth as if marshalling her thoughts. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. I have a friend here in the village, named Sylvia. Not a close friend but we chat every now and then about this and that.’

  ‘You mean gossip?’

  ‘Call it what you will. She has a nephew in Amiens. He’s in the police there and they’re close; she helped bring him up, in fact, when his mother fell ill. He’s a good boy so I don’t want to name him and get him into trouble. I know you could probably find out very quickly who he is by going through the files or whatever it is you do, but will you promise me not to go after him? He didn’t mean any harm.’

  Rocco wondered what was coming. ‘Go on.’

  ‘This … nephew rings Sylvia regularly for a chat, the way good nephews do, and told Sylvia something he’d heard in the office. Sylvia then told me and, well … it came as a shock, I have to say.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You’re leaving us.’ She said it in a rush and put down her glass with probably more of a thump than she’d intended, slopping juice onto the oil-cloth. She brushed it away with the back of her hand, which was wildly out of character, and looked directly at him with an expression of sadness mixed, he thought, with embarrassment.

  ‘I see. You know that’s very serious, passing on that kind of information. It contravenes at least three laws that I can think of and–’

  ‘Forget laws, young man. Is it true?’ She stared at him.

  Rocco smiled. ‘Sorry, I was joking. The truth is, I’ve been offered a new job in Paris. It’s going back to what I used to do, but at a more senior level. They’re starting up a new division and want me to join them.’

  ‘I see. That’s good, I suppose, moving up in the world.’

  ‘Maybe. I haven’t given them an answer yet. There’s a lot to consider.’ He reached out and touched her hand. ‘I’m sorry – that information isn’t public yet and I thought I’d have time to make up my mind before talking to anyone. I was clearly mistaken, thanks to Sylvia’s nephew.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he’s in serious trouble, does it?’

  ‘Well, nothing that a spell in one of our remote Pacific Islands territoires won’t put right. And yes, I’m joking again.’

  ‘Of course you are. Thank you.’

  He leaned forward. ‘When I said before talking to anyone, I meant you.’

  She smiled and patted his hand in return. ‘That’s very sweet of you, Lucas. And I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions based on what Sylvia’s nephew told her.’ She turned and looked at a photo on the wall. It was of her husband, Guillaume, resplendent in uniform on his cavalry charger in 1920, back ramrod straight. ‘Guillaume loved horses. He wanted to be a jockey, did I ever mention that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, he did. It was his dream to ride at Longchamp in Paris. One race. He always said he’d have settled for that: one furious gallop down that famous course in front of all those cheering crowds. Actually, I think he’d have settled for doing it if the stands had been empty, and he’d have provided the background noise himself. He was good, too, which is why he joined the cavalry. He loved and understood horses, you see, knew how they thought, what would make a horse run.’ She stopped and shook her head, staring into the distance at a long-held memory.

  ‘What happened?’ Rocco asked.

  She shook herself. ‘Well, the war for one. And … what do they call it – his genes. See that photo? That was taken when he was a young man – and tall. A lot taller than me. Someone once said we looked like a circus act, the two of us, side by side, but I didn’t mind. In the end, though, his weight and height counted against him: too tall, they told him. So, he decided to do what he could, still with horses but not in racing.’ She
sniffed and took a sip of her drink. ‘He became a farm worker, driving teams of horses behind ploughs, carts, harrows – anything where a horse could still be useful. Not that it was going to last forever, with those tractors taking over. But not everyone can afford them, even now. There are still plenty of farms where they use horses, and Guillaume, God rest him, would have still been out there if he was alive. He loved it, I could see that, every day when he went out. It was his dream.’

  ‘But he missed his chance to race?’

  She shrugged, a slow lift of her shoulders, and smiled. ‘Maybe. It’s hard to let go of a dream, especially one started so young.’ She looked directly at him. ‘And the point of me rambling on is that I want to give you one bit of advice, Lucas: you should do what you want. Not what your senior officers want, not what society expects … and certainly not what I might prefer. You only get one chance at this life, so don’t let yourself be swayed by outside forces or silly sentiment. It’s better to regret what you did do than what you didn’t.’ She nodded and finished her drink, putting the glass down, this time with a decisive firmness. ‘If you decide to go, you’ll be sadly missed around here, I can tell you. If you decide to stay, well, I’m sure crime will be the same and my hens will still be laying.’

  ‘Even though they don’t know they’re being kept in the dark?’ Rocco felt a tightness in his throat. If there was anyone he was close to in this community, it was this old lady, who had welcomed him from the very first day. He desperately didn’t want to upset her.