‘What was that?’ Rocco leant forward. ‘Didn’t quite catch it.’
‘I should have had more!’ Didier spat out, pushing himself forward in the chair. ‘He cheated me… kept me under his foot all these years and treated me like filth! If it wasn’t for me, he’d have been under the guillotine a long time ago!’ He kicked suddenly, catching the corner of the metal cabinet with his boot. ‘But what I’ve got in there, he’ll live to regret it.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
It began to ease out, like pus from a gangrenous wound, and Rocco listened, rhythmically swinging his leg. The regular movement seemed to calm Didier, keeping him talking as if hypnotised, a metronomic inducer of all his innermost secrets.
‘I knew he was up to something. He spent too much time out on his own at night, walking in the fields near the drop zone. Why would he risk that unless he was looking for something? One night I followed him. I saw him with an oilskin package — like they used for wrapping stuff. He took it out of a ditch, in a drop canister.’
‘Money?’
‘Yes. I watched him counting it.’
‘How much?’
‘I forget.’ Didier shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. Back then, anything was worth having.’
‘Go on.’
‘I said I wanted a cut. He refused at first, then agreed. Knew I’d tell, otherwise. He gave me a wad, said he was heading south to get the escape pipeline out. But the others found out what he’d done and threatened to tell London. He agreed to meet them, to give the money back. But he got in touch with the Nazis instead and told them where the meeting was taking place. He didn’t turn up, of course.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Because they were waiting, weren’t they? The Germans. At the quarry.’ His eyes glittered sharply. Sly. ‘It could only have been him.’
‘Or you.’
‘Me?’ Didier shifted his arm, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’
‘Because you argued with one of the men over Elise.’
‘ Elise? ’ Didier looked surprised by the mention of the name. Then a shadow of understanding crossed his face. ‘Christ, is that what that daft bitch Francine told you? She’s not right, that one. Follows me here and then tries to kill me, can you believe that?’
‘You knew?’ Rocco thought back to his talk with Francine. She had clearly thought otherwise.
‘Of course I did — I knew as soon as I first saw her. She looks a lot like her sister. She’s cracked, you know that? I stayed out of her way. Can’t be doing with people like that.’
‘You didn’t feel threatened by her turning up here after all those years?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘Because it’s impossible to believe, that’s why!’ Rocco felt annoyed by the man’s play-acting. ‘The whole of France to choose from and you two pitch up in the same small village?’
Didier gave a sign of agreement. ‘OK. It was spooky, I grant you. But stranger things have happened. As far as I could tell she didn’t recognise me… never gave a hint. I thought it best to leave it that way.’
‘But you can see how she might have seen things — about her sister and you. And you were the only other survivor.’
‘Yeah, all right. I had a thing for Elise… but I wasn’t that put out just because she wouldn’t play. And it wasn’t me who told the Germans. I turned up early but I smelt them before I got there. You think I wanted to be hunted down by every Resistance gunman in France for betraying the group? No way. The kid’s got it in her twisted mind that it was my fault. Well, it wasn’t — it was Berbier’s.’
Rocco waited for more. It sounded plausible, unless you considered that Didier had probably erased from his mind his own involvement over the years, lumping all the responsibility on the rich, powerful, well-connected Berbier, despoiler of the working masses. He’d no doubt been in awe of the man at first, with his exotic SOE cloak-and-dagger appearance. Maybe he still was.
‘So you had to disappear. But you didn’t lose touch with Berbier, did you? You decided to milk him.’
‘So what? He could afford it. It was only right.’ He shrugged. ‘It was fate. I saw his photo in the papers one day not long after the war
… realised who he was, who he’d been. I watched him making himself richer over the years. Kept in touch, though: a phone call here, a note there — just so he knew I was out there. Then he approached me. Said he’d acquired a place in the country where he wanted to hold parties for business contacts. Fat, rich sickos who liked to live it up away from home. People he wanted to influence. He couldn’t be involved, though: he needed me to run the place, be the fixer.’
The fall guy if anything went wrong, more likely, thought Rocco. Two birds with one stone. ‘He paid you for this service?’
‘Of course he did. Paid me well, too. Couldn’t not, could he? He thought I’d got proof of what he’d done with the Resistance group. I let him believe it, that’s all.’ Didier chuckled proudly, then coughed wetly, clutching at his chest. ‘All I had to do was manage the place, get it cleaned after each session and keep it stocked with stuff.’ He glanced up at Rocco. ‘You’ve seen inside?’
‘Yes. Sleazy as a Montmartre bordello. Where did the girls come from?’
‘His people arranged it. Young, fancy bitches from Paris, mostly, earning money on the side… or rather, on their backs. After a couple of sessions, I started taking notes. On the sly, of course. Big names, some of the people who came down here. Influential. Even a couple of — what do you call them? — civil servants. Grey drones in grey suits who probably couldn’t get it up any other way. Then I realised Berbier was doing the same, only using his driver with one of those movie cameras.’
Rocco nodded. He glanced at the film reel on the floor. It chimed with what the driver had said before he died: Berbier was the controller, using the lodge for his schemes, and Didier was the factotum who knew too much. It was the reason the men had been sent after Didier: a reel was missing. The man had gone too far; become a liability. The danger of the reel getting into the wrong hands had been too great to ignore.
‘He was going to use it for blackmail?’
‘Not for the first time.’ Didier took a deep breath, his chest rattling. ‘You think he got all those business deals because he was good at adding up? He’d got it planned. Or his mother had.’
Rocco pictured the haughty old woman in the Bois de Boulogne, and saw nothing in the image to counter the idea. She was undoubtedly an old snob and social climber, and probably ruthless in steering her son to her idea of greatness. Manoeuvring business and official contacts for advancement would have been as natural to her as breathing, as would keeping him at arm’s length from anything that might rebound on him. Hence the need for a middleman. Didier.
‘She’s a nasty cow,’ Didier continued. ‘I met her a couple of times. She treated me like something she’d picked up on her shoe. But she’s no better: the idea for the lodge was all hers.’
Rocco was no longer surprised. It fitted. Set up a party venue out in the sticks, invite a few ‘friends’ for the weekend to have a good time, send a couple of girls out, lots of booze… and a man with a camera. Most business types relied on a day at the races, theatre tickets, that kind of inducement. But this was a whole lot better. Risky, though, no matter how carefully Berbier kept his distance from the nasty stuff. If it ever went public that he’d used blackmail and sex to further his businesses, it would blow the lid off his empire along with a lot of important names in high places. The repercussions would be enormous.
Massin would have a fit of indecision.
‘Where did his daughter come in?’
Didier hawked and spat on the floor. The gobbet lay there, a sheen of bright red catching the light. He studied it for a moment, then said, ‘I didn’t know who she was at first. She was just a tart sent to join in the fun. One of them, anyway.’ His head dropped and he groaned faintly.
‘
When did you find out?’
‘After a couple of visits. She told me who she was… it seemed to please her, like she was rubbing his name in the dirt.’
‘That must have gutted you, seeing her there: the daughter of a man you hated, who’d made it when you hadn’t.’ He said it with flat deliberation, twisting the knife that was already there.
Didier didn’t react. He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It meant nothing to me. She was just proof of how corrupt he was, him and his kind. In the end, I figured it was something else to bring him down.’
‘When did he find out she was coming here?’
Didier looked up. ‘He arranged it!’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Didier pulled a face. ‘Believe what you like — makes no odds to me. I heard a couple of guests talking. One was a fat bastard from the Interior Ministry; he had a thing for her… always had, apparently. Wanted to get in her pants. They like young girls, him and his sort.’
Rocco thought that was a bit rich. If what Francine had said was true, Didier wasn’t above showing an interest in young girls, either.
‘Go on.’ He needed to keep him talking, to draw out more facts. He didn’t think he had much time left.
‘Well, it’s obvious. Berbier was using her — his own daughter. It wasn’t the only time, either.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was rotten; not like him, though. He’s worse. He thought she was weak.’
‘What happened?’
‘To Nathalie?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She arrived that last time, and that was the last I saw of her… until I found her in the Blue Pool.’
The atmosphere in the small cellar was heavy, and Rocco tried to work out whether Didier was that good at lying, or whether he’d managed to convince himself of his innocence in this case, too, like the betrayal of the Resistance group. He waited, using the interrogation tactic of silence.
Eventually Didier continued. ‘One moment she was inside, the next she was out and gone. It was a noisy business, lots of drinking and stuff, people yelling. I think it got out of hand in the end, especially with the fat bastard chasing the girl. Eventually the guests cleared out and left me to fix up the place. There was some blood on the sheets upstairs… could have been the fat man.’
‘Does he have a name?’ Rocco wanted to track him down. Dispense some justice. Might be better if Massin did it.
‘No idea. His was one name I never got. Some were cagey like that; didn’t trust anyone.’
‘And the uniform?’
‘They liked the girls to dress up. It was an excuse to treat them like sluts.’
Rocco waited. But Didier seemed to be sinking fast, as if tired out by all the talking. He wondered how long the man could last. He already looked as though death was hovering on his shoulder, grinning in expectation.
‘So you didn’t kill her, the daughter of a man you hated?’
Didier’s head jerked. ‘No way! That’s not down to me. Him, yes — I’d gladly see him dead and buried. But you can’t lay that one on me.’
Rocco let it go. ‘But you placed her body in the cemetery.’
‘Well I couldn’t have the cops snooping around the marais, could I? This was my livelihood… my pot for the future. If the cops found the lodge and all that stuff, Berbier would have turned it all on me. I knew what he was capable of.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘As soon as she ran off. He went berserk.’
‘What happened?’ Rocco had to force himself to remain calm. He was within a whisker of finding out what had happened to Nathalie, he knew it. All he had to do was keep Didier talking.
‘I waited for him, didn’t I?’
Rocco nearly slid off the table. ‘Berbier came down here?’
‘Like a snake down a rabbit hole. He was really pissed off at Nathalie. He’d had a phone call from one of his friends earlier, saying how she’d had a fight with the fat man. He said he was coming down to teach her a lesson.’
Rocco felt a drumming in his ears. So that was how Berbier had found out about his daughter: a phone call from Didier, and another from one of the guests. After that, strings were pulled. Friends in high places. He wondered if the magistrate who had signed the papers had ever been a guest here. If so, there might be some film of him Wait. Something didn’t match. ‘You told him she was missing? Not that she was dead?’
Didier screwed up one eye and thrust his good hand down into the chair as if bracing himself against a stab of pain.
‘Christ, you’re slow, aren’t you?’ he sneered. ‘She ran off and hid in the marais. It’s a big place… no way was I going out looking for her in the middle of the night, so I rang him. I wanted to stay out of it. Nothing to do with me if his kid hates his guts. He arrived with that driver of his just before dawn, then went searching for her.’
‘Him and the driver?’ Rocco pictured Andre, last seen dying in the woods. Whatever sins he had committed had finally caught up with him.
‘No. The flunky stayed here, watching me. I was cleaning up.’
‘What then?’
‘Berbier came back. Said he’d found her and was leaving. I assumed she was in his car. After they’d gone, I took a walk around, just to make sure nothing had been left lying around for the locals to get hold of.’ He sat back, eyes blank. ‘I ended up at the Blue Pool. She was lying there, just under the water. Nothing I could do but pull her out. She was dead.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. After a bit, I wrapped her in a plastic tarpaulin and left her under the boat while I figured out what to do. There were people about, so I had to be careful.’
‘How long before you dumped her?’ He didn’t bother asking why the war cemetery: to Didier, it would have been ghoulishly appropriate.
Didier shrugged, no longer interested. ‘Three days… maybe four.’
Rizzotti had been right. Rocco stared at the floor, picturing the nightmare scene, trying to imagine how any father could murder his own daughter.
When he looked up again, Didier was smiling.
And holding a hand-grenade in his lap.
Rocco felt his gut lurch. Cursed himself for being so careless. The grenade must have been secreted down the side of the chair. In a room this small, if it went off they’d have to hose the pair of them off the walls.
‘What now?’ he said.
‘I get up and leave. You stay. First, though, put the gun down.’
Rocco did as he was told, but stuffed the gun in his pocket. It was no use to him now, not with what Didier was holding. ‘What are you going to do? Where will you go?’
‘My business. You’ll never find me.’
‘Don’t bet on it.’
Didier scowled, shook his head. ‘How did you get here?’
Rocco wondered why he wanted to know that. Surely he’d noticed his wet trousers? Then he realised that Didier wasn’t taking in much at all. He was talking and listening, but something in his brain was focused solely on getting out of this room with his money. And the film. Anything else not an immediate threat was a distraction to be ignored.
Instinct made him lie. ‘I came along the main street.’
Didier nodded and stood up with difficulty, face pinched with pain. He was nursing the grenade against his chest with his good hand. He swayed drunkenly but righted himself with a shake of his head. The grenade pin was almost out, Rocco saw. Just a flick of a thumb away from spinning across the room and sending them both to hell.
He tensed, waiting for his moment, then stopped himself. If he rushed Didier, the pin would come out. No way to stop it. No way to put it back.
‘What were you going to do with Francine?’ He was trying to buy time, he knew that. It was pointless, but when it’s all you have left, it becomes a currency, like anything else.
Didier frowned, the question throwing him. ‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything with her. She’s a sick bitch… I don’t need to
get my fun with women like that. But she was a useful bargaining tool.’ He smirked. ‘I figured you’d back off if you knew I had her tucked away. I’d have told you where she was eventually, once I was clear of this place.’
Rocco thought he recognised the truth when he heard it, and nodded. Maybe the man had at least one redeeming feature after all.
Didier coughed suddenly, and a pink bubble appeared at the corner of his mouth. He licked his lips and blinked very slowly, as if his eyelids had become sticky. He shook his head again, nodded towards the floor. ‘Pick up the money and the film, put them in the bag.’ He waited while Rocco complied, then put out his bad arm so that Rocco could hook the bag’s strap over it. He moved aside and nodded at the chair. ‘Your turn. Sit.’
Rocco sat.
‘What’s in the bottom of the bag?’ He had a good idea already, but confirmation might be useful. It was heavy and smelt faintly familiar. Like a brick of C4. Not that knowing would help him much. But any delay might give him the tiny edge he’d need to get out of this.
‘What’s it to you?’
Rocco shrugged. ‘Just interested.’
For a moment Didier said nothing. He simply stared at Rocco in a detached manner. The silence lengthened, and Rocco wondered if he’d pushed it too far, or whether Didier was about to fall over and drop the grenade. But then he turned and walked away.
As Didier moved up the stairs, Rocco looked around the room, his gut churning. He knew what was about to happen; what the end would be. He wasn’t meant to leave this room. Didier would get to the top, then flick out the pin and toss the grenade back down the stairs and slam the door. End of another problem. The thin partition across the room would offer no protection, merely adding to the deadly debris coming Rocco’s way. Minced meat and the beginning of the long, dark night.
He listened to Didier’s footsteps fading, crunching on grit. A split second before the door slammed, he heard a metallic ping and the rattle of the pin on the floor. Then a leaden thumping noise as the grenade bounced down the concrete steps and wallowed across the floor towards him.
Death on the Marais ilr-1 Page 28