Rocco and the Nightingale

by Adrian Magson

  ‘I don’t understand.’ The man’s eyes welled up and he swallowed hard, staring at Rocco’s pistol. ‘I don’t understand what you want of me.’

  ‘Pembele. That’s your name, isn’t it? It says so on your identity card.’

  ‘Pembele. Yes.’

  ‘So why did you kill the policeman?’ The words seemed to bounce around the room, but that was as far as they went, the thick walls absorbing the sound like blotting paper.

  ‘What? Policeman? I did not kill anyone, I swear! That is a lie!’

  ‘At the big house – where you kidnapped Bouanga and the woman. Two policemen, dead.’

  ‘No. No.’ He shook his head, the word dying off in a keening sound. ‘I did not. Please.’

  ‘So who did it? One of your friends? Tell me which one and you’ll be allowed to go.’

  ‘No, not me… not my friends.’

  ‘Really? But you were all high on… what do you call it – ncassa? How would you remember what you did? Do you really want to stay here in this place?’

  Pembele looked up. ‘No. You cannot do that.’

  ‘Give me a name and I’ll let you out of here.’

  There was the sound of footsteps outside the door. Rocco turned and saw two tall, dark figures standing in the gloom, belted, booted and buckled, carrying guns. Their faces were streaked in camouflage paint, which made them look cold and threatening. Godard and Lavalle, huge, intimidating and without expression, their eyes fixed on the prisoner.

  Behind him Pembele gave a faint cry of despair and began to sob. Rocco turned back to the prisoner and signalled for the two men to go. Their job was done.

  ‘You attacked the house, Mr Pembele. Yes?’

  A long pause and a sob. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the policemen were shot, yes?’

  The man nodded slowly. ‘But not by me, Mr Policeman. We did not kill anybody, I promise you.’ He swallowed again, then whispered, ‘It was the other.’

  ‘Other?’

  ‘The man who was there before us. The white man.’

  Rocco exchanged a look with Desmoulins. At last they were getting somewhere.

  ‘What was this man’s name?’

  ‘I do not know. He did not tell us that. He was very angry and waving his gun and we thought he was going to kill us all. He had already shot the two policemen and we were frightened we were going to be next.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘He was white and… young, I think. It is not easy for me to tell. He was in blue, like the policemen, but not the jacket. A shirt only.’

  ‘Blue?’

  ‘Blue, yes.’

  It tallied with what the prisoner in Arras had said. To make absolutely certain, Rocco took out the photo from the Place Carnot and held it in front of Pembele’s face. ‘Is this the man?’

  Pembele scanned the photo, squinting in the poor light thrown by Desmoulin’s torch. ‘Yes. This one.’

  ‘Point.’

  Pembele did as instructed, moving his hands awkwardly together. His finger came to rest on the face of Jouanne. ‘But there was another with him, also,’ he added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Another person, but we did not see him. He was in the van.’

  ‘What van?’

  ‘I could not tell the colour – it was too dark. But it was outside the gates when we arrived. The man, this white man, he was waiting for us by the front door. He had already placed the old man and the woman in a room and locked the door. These, he said, were the ones to be taken. One of my friends went to relieve himself and that’s when he saw the dead policeman in the big shed.’ The words were flowing now, unstoppable and desperate, and Rocco could tell the man was finally spilling everything he knew, eager to please.

  ‘Why was the man angry – did he say?’

  A shake of the head. ‘No. Only that it had been a waste of time. I do not know what he meant and was too scared to ask. It was none of our business. We just wanted to have our money and do what we had been told in Paris.’

  ‘That’s where you were hired?’

  ‘Hired?’

  ‘Promised money if you did this thing.’

  ‘Ah, yes. In a café near the Gare du Nord. Café Terminus. An important man, a chef, said we had to go first to a café in Amiens, where the angry man would be waiting to give us money.’

  Chef. A boss or leader. To men like this, any man with the bearing of authority and offering money with a promise of more would fit that title. It confirmed what the man in custody had said. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we would go to the house in the night and take the old man and keep him somewhere until we were told to let him go. It would be two, maybe three days only, he said, then we would be paid in full and could return to Paris. But we did not know this angry man would be here also.’ He nodded at the photo.

  ‘Did you know Mr Bouanga before you came here?’

  Pembele frowned. ‘I do not know this Bouanga person. The chef said the other man would give us instructions. If his name is Bouanga, then he did not say.’

  ‘How did you know him, then – when you met him in Amiens?’

  ‘We did not. But he knew us. He asked if we were from Congo and we said yes. That was all.’

  A simple password, thought Rocco. But it worked. ‘This chef who gave you instructions, do you know his name?’

  Another shake of the head. ‘No, but he is there in that photo. You did not know this?’

  Rocco didn’t need to look to know who he was talking about.

  ‘Point.’

  Pembele did so, his finger resting on the face of Lakhdar Farek.

  Rocco looked up to see someone standing in the doorway. It was Godard.

  ‘I just checked on the hostages. They’ve been examined by a medic at the gates. Bouanga’s a bit knocked about but nothing’s broken. I’ve sent them back to Les Sables with two of my guys. They will stay with them overnight until we get replaced. I suggested a hotel to Bouanga but he asked to go back to the house.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He sensed Godard wanted to say more. ‘What?’

  ‘The Arras guys are getting restless.’ He nodded at Pembele. ‘They want to know why you’re keeping this one in here instead of handing him over. They see it as their collar.’

  ‘You heard what he said?’

  ‘Enough. A white man was the shooter – is that true?’

  ‘Yes. You might want to tell the men that before they do something they’ll regret.’

  Godard smiled. ‘They won’t, don’t worry. Not while I’m here.’

  ‘Good. You can also tell them that we know who paid him, too. This man’s evidence will get the killer convicted, and the man at the top responsible for the whole sorry business. But he has to make it into court to testify.’

  ‘Is it anyone I might know?’

  ‘You’ve heard the name Farek? His brother.’

  ‘I remember. So why was he involved? I thought this was a political job.’

  ‘No. It was a convenient smokescreen. This was aimed to get at me.’

  Thirty-six

  ‘God, it hurts, Lilou! You have to do something!’

  Romain’s breath was coming in short, sharp gasps, a hand clutched to his side, the other thrust against the window and his head pushed back against the cab of the van. His fingers were covered in blood and smearing the glass, and the clothing around his waist was a deep, dark red. Outside, darkness had fallen and they were alone with the sounds of the night and the smell of stale water.

  ‘Let me look.’ Lilou eased his hand away from his body and switched on the inside light. It wasn’t very bright but it was sufficient to tell her that what Romain had claimed was nothing but a flesh-wound was far more serious. By his pallor she could tell he was losing blood at a steady and alarming rate

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he muttered, his voice high, like a child. ‘It didn’t hurt all day, and now it’s… God, it’s agony!’

  Lilou didn’t know what t
o say. Since the kidnap of Bouanga, Romain had seemed fine, other than sounding as if he were drunk after shooting the two cops. When he’d told her how he’d been caught by a chance shot from the gun of the second policeman, he’d waved it off as a graze, of little consequence. At the time she’d been happy to believe him, and he’d relaxed. But as the day had gone by and his colour had begun to change, she’d suspected he was either in shock or hiding the true extent of the wound in some sort of silly show of machismo for her benefit. Now it looked as if an infection was setting in. If she didn’t do something soon, she was worried that it would be too late. But the question was, what?

  She held the torch close and slid her fingers gently around behind his back. She was hoping to find an exit wound, some indication that the bullet had glanced off a rib, that he might be lucky and not still have it inside him. But there was nothing. The bullet was still in there, and getting bullets out wasn’t the kind of skill she possessed. She wouldn’t even know how to begin.

  She sat up and placed a hand against his face. ‘Shhh,’ she hushed softly. ‘It’s fine, Rom, really. You’re just experiencing some after-pain from the bruising around the wound. I’ll put some cream on it to cool it down and you’ll feel a lot better. I’ve got some more tablets you can take, too, to help you sleep.’

  ‘Sleep?’ He blinked hard and shook his head. ‘I don’t want to sleep – I need this pain to stop, Lilou.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ She turned to a box on the floor by her feet and took out a roll of bandages and a tub of ointment. She’d never had to use the first-aid pack before now. They’d put it together thinking it was the thing for people in their line of work to do, in case they should ever, you know, run into some trouble and have to fight their way out. As to the contents, they hadn’t given it much thought. Romain had heard about the sulpha powder; she’d added the tub, and the selection of tablets because she needed them, anyway, for her recurring headaches and hayfever. She figured the ointment might be good for its cooling effect and would help ease Romain’s discomfort. She applied it gently with a piece of gauze, easing it carefully around the wound.

  After an initial jump and a cry of protest, Romain began to quieten down and his breathing became more normal. She tied the bandage in place with a fresh wad of material to stem the bleeding, then gave him two painkillers with a drink of water to wash them down.

  ‘If you hadn’t shot the two cops,’ she said tersely, as he swallowed with difficulty, ‘we could have kept them prisoner in the house until the blacks had taken Bouanga, then left and nobody would have been any the wiser. Now we’re stuffed.’

  She was trying not to get stressed but it was threatening to take over the way it did sometimes.

  Romain’s eyes jerked open. ‘But we haven’t got Rocco yet. He was supposed to be there, wasn’t he? You said we could use the blacks as a diversion and finish him off there and then. Isn’t that what you said?’

  Lilou bit back on a rush of anger at his accusing tone, as if it were she who had brought them to this situation. ‘I know what I said. But you were supposed to check on his movements throughout the day and night. If you had we’d have been able to track him. You never said he was being replaced that night, otherwise we’d never have wasted time going there.’

  ‘I didn’t know because they didn’t tell anyone!’ he muttered, his teeth chattering feverishly. ‘It was all kept very quiet. I told you, I asked around the station but nobody knew where he was so I thought he must be at the house. What could we have done if we had known, anyway?’

  ‘We could have waited and tried again later, don’t you see? Rocco wasn’t going anywhere. He’s a conscientious idiot who follows orders. Sooner or later he would have come back and we’d have had him exactly where we wanted him. If you hadn’t been so keen to use that gun we could have waited for him to turn up.’

  But Romain was no longer listening to her, drifting off instead and justifying his actions. ‘They’d seen our faces – well, my face. There was nothing else I could have done, don’t you see? I had to do it because they knew me. Anyway, they were just a couple of lowly flics, nobodies in uniform, so where’s the harm? It seemed the best thing all round to protect us… to protect you.’

  ‘Really? You think the rest of their tribe are going to write them off as nobodies? I’ve told you before, you never kill ordinary uniforms. If you plan it properly, you should never have to.’

  ‘But Rocco–’

  ‘Rocco is different!’ she snapped. ‘Rocco is no ordinary cop and this was going to be our biggest score. If it had worked out we’d have been able to go into hiding for a few months to let the dust settle, maybe get some easy jobs elsewhere for a while.’

  ‘But we still can, can’t we?’ He looked at her and reached out for her hand, a child seeking approval.

  But she hadn’t fully worked out her mood. She snatched her hand away. ‘And how could those two cops have identified you? They were strangers, you said, isn’t that right? They weren’t even from the Amiens station, you said, but some other hick town.’ She sat back from him and shook her head, her voice trembling with emotion.

  ‘They were from Arras, actually.’ Romain hung his head, his voice tinged with righteous resentment like a punished schoolboy. He inhaled sharply as another stab of pain ran through him. ‘I’d never seen them before.’

  ‘Right. So you’d never seen them before and you were just a face in the dark, you said, which means they couldn’t have identified you anyway. Which is it?’

  ‘I don’t know… I’m trying to think. It was all confusing. Maybe… they might have caught a glimpse, when I first went in and told them I was there to help. I had to let them see the uniform shirt to get me in and up close, don’t you see?’ He coughed, the effort making him groan out loud and clutch his side.

  ‘Great. So they were probably just a couple of traffic cops assigned to a boring guard duty they didn’t want to do. They’d have forgotten you in an instant and concentrated on the four blacks instead. Now you’ve pulled down the entire police establishment on our heads by shooting them. They’ll be hunting us down now and they won’t let up. How could you?’ She slammed her hand against the dashboard as her frustration got the better of her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

  ‘Hey, I did it for us, Lilou! It’s what we do, right – look after each other?’ He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘God, the pain… it’s getting worse. I think I need to see a doctor.’

  ‘What?’ Lilou stared at him in disbelief. ‘You think you can just walk into a hospital and ask to be treated for a gunshot wound? Hey, doc, I’ve been shot by a cop so can you give me a couple of tablets and fix me up? Don’t you think that will cause a few questions to be asked? They’ll treat you all right – but it’ll be in a prison hospital before they send you to the guillotine. And I’ll be right alongside you!’

  She threw aside the blood-soaked gauze and took a deep breath, staring through the window into the darkness. She switched off the torch and inside light, allowing her eyes to adjust. Was that someone moving out there or a trick of the light? Probably some animal in the undergrowth. Bloody swamp was probably crawling with them. What kind of idiot would be out here at this time of night, anyway?

  She sat back and took a deep breath. Only people like her and Romain – and what did that say about them? Seconds later her manner changed in an instant, the night and her anger and the animal forgotten as if a switch had been thrown. She even smiled when she turned back to Romain and leaned in close, her breathing soft on his face. ‘Tell you what, Rom, I know a man in Paris; he’s a nurse – one of the best. He owes me a favour. It’ll cost us a bit but we’ll get you sorted out, what do you think?’

  ‘Really?’ He shifted slowly, turning his head to look at her. His breathing sounded shaky. ‘Can we do that?’

  ‘Of course. It’s only a couple of hours away and we’ve got plenty of fuel. We can set off right away. He’ll do something about that nast
y wound. How about that, my love?’ She touched his face, then switched on the torch again and wished she hadn’t; he looked even worse in the dim light, as if all the life had already been sucked out of his face. ‘Sorry for being a bitch just now. I was worried about you, that’s all. It got the better of me. Forget all that stuff I said. It’s not your fault – you were only trying to help me, I know that.’

  He stirred and nodded, his expression dulled by the pain. ‘That’s right, Lilou. It’s always to help you.’ He shivered, making his teeth chatter for a moment. ‘Always.’ Moments later, overcome by shock and the tablets, he was slipping into a shallow, restless sleep.

  Lilou clicked off the torch and wondered what to do. Driving to Paris was out of the question, no matter what she’d just said. They were inside any police cordon and anything moving at this time of night would be stopped and checked from top to bottom. But more importantly there was still a job that had to be done, and that wasn’t going to go away. Where they were sitting right now was no more than a short drive away from where Rocco lived, which was why she’d driven here as a first stop. All she had to do was bide her time, drive up through the village to check if he was home, and the contract could be fulfilled.

  She laid her head back with a dreamy smile and closed her eyes, picturing how they would do it, the two of them. First, though, she’d take a short nap.

  When they got going, Rocco wouldn’t know what had hit him.

  Thirty-seven

  By the time Rocco got back to the office to file a preliminary report for Massin, dawn was just an hour or so away. Surprisingly, he felt wide awake, as if he hadn’t missed an entire night’s sleep, but it left him wondering when the crash would come, as it surely would. He’d spent plenty of similar nights with little sleep or rest, so the feeling wasn’t new, merely unwelcome, the price for going too long without a proper break.

  He passed Godard and his men and Desmoulins, who were busy checking in the weapons and equipment they’d used from the armoury. The talk among them was muted, but with an undercurrent of tension, and he knew that each man would be running over the night’s events in his own way, seeing flashbacks of what they had witnessed. It would take some time for them to relax, but there was no quick way of doing it.