Death on the Marais ilr-1

by Adrian Magson

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Rocco found himself wondering how long Didier had set the fuse for. Six seconds? Ten? Three? A split second later he was throwing himself across the room, hurling the armchair towards the partition doorway and grabbing the metal cabinet. He ripped it away from the wall and threw it across the gap, too, then upended the wardrobe. It might not be enough, but it was all he had, a barrier against certain death. Trying to go for the grenade instead would merely be a quicker way to die.

  At the last second, he dropped flat to the floor. Covered his ears. Opened his mouth.

  The grenade went off.

  The noise in the confined space was unbelievable. The concussion shook his whole body and he felt a hundred needle stabs of pain in his hands and across the back of his head. Something hot touched his leg, then was gone, and the air was sucked away from him, making him gag with the effort to breathe. The room filled with choking dust and he felt a shower of debris falling across his back.

  The light went out, bringing total blackness.

  Then Rocco was up and hurling himself towards the stairs by instinct, clawing past the cabinet and wardrobe and wondering how long he had before the ancient building caved in on top of him.

  He reached the door at the top and kicked it open in a fury, slamming it back against the kitchen wall. The lights were on. He drew his gun and checked the empty room. Saw through the dirty window a pale shape on the other side of the stream, moving crablike along the path into the marais.

  He lifted the gun, then heaved painfully, emptying his stomach on the floor and coughing, dropping to one knee. Eyes streaming and disorientated from the effects of the explosion, he looked around and saw the room tilt. For a second he thought it was the cellar ceiling giving way and dragging the house with it. Then he realised his sight and balance were playing tricks.

  He was in no shape to follow Didier. Not yet. He needed his shoes, anyway. Running through the marais in his socks would be murder.

  He got to his feet, swaying momentarily, then pushed himself off the wall and went to the kitchen sink. It was filthy, the God-awful smell enough to make him throw up if he hadn’t already emptied his guts. No taps, but a jug of water stood on the side. He gulped at it, the liquid swamping down his chin and across his chest, cool and refreshing. He swilled out his mouth and spat a mixture of saliva, dust and blood into the sink. Not too much red, he noted vaguely; must have bitten his lip when the grenade went off.

  He’d been lucky.

  Shoes, he reminded himself dully. He had to get his shoes. And something from the cellar. But what? He couldn’t remember, only that it seemed important. His brain felt fried. He rubbed his face, trying to instil enough control to do the right thing. He listened to the creaking of the building around him. It seemed to be settling on its haunches like a mortally wounded animal with a series of cracks and groans.

  The cellar. Now.

  Rocco groaned and took a deep breath. He desperately didn’t want to go back down there, but he had no choice.

  No more than two minutes later, Rocco returned to the kitchen with a cardboard box tucked under one arm. He’d caught a quick glimpse of it, thrown on the floor when he’d upended the cabinet, and found it again by feel. The one glimpse had been enough. Inside one of the open flaps he’d seen the glossy sheen of black-and-white photographs. They were grainy and of poor quality, but good enough to make out clearly the faces of the men involved. And the girls they were with. There was also a notebook stuffed down one side, crammed with names and dates. The handwriting was untutored and shaky, but still legible.

  Didier’s proof.

  He walked out of the house, gun held aloft. He doubted he’d get to use it: Didier would be long gone by now, scurrying away through the marais like the little weasel he was, on his way to freedom and obscurity.

  He stepped on the bridge, trusting Didier not to have endangered his own escape route. He wasn’t sure why he was coming this way, or what he was going to do when he got across. He’d be better off taking the photos to his car and leaving Didier for someone else to worry about. He’d fall over if he didn’t rest soon. That wouldn’t be good. Humiliating, even. Christ, he felt tired, he just wanted to go home and sleep for a week.

  But going home wasn’t what he did. He chased criminals.

  He was halfway across the stream when the explosion came. Flat and vicious, the sound echoed across the marais and ripped the night apart. It shook the trees, emptying the marais of birdlife in a surge of flapping, frantic wings and cries of protest. Rocco stopped, thinking he’d sprung one of Didier’s traps.

  Then he realised he could still feel his legs. Knew what it was.

  Didier. He’d run into his own tripwire.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The street near the Bois de Boulogne still wore an air of tranquil exclusivity. The house martins were singing discreetly, the cars were parked nose to tail and the usual dog shit was scattered liberally across the pavement; all was well with the world in true Parisian fashion.

  Soon change that, thought Rocco. He climbed stiffly out of the Citroen and sniffed the air, welcoming the familiar smell of city fumes topped with the hint of coffee.

  ‘You sure you don’t want me up there?’ Claude was in uniform. He’d discarded his boots in favour of polished shoes. On the way into the city, he’d mentioned that the circumstances called for correctness: the official face of the law. He had also refused to wait at the end of the street.

  Rocco wasn’t sure about correctness. Not yet. But then, it had been a long time since he’d worn any kind of uniform. ‘I’ll be fine. If I’m not, you’ll soon hear.’ He paused and tapped the car roof. ‘Thanks, though. Good to have you along.’

  He had endured a bit of attitude from Claude on the way down. Part self-imposed guilt at not knowing about Francine’s double life and how she had taken them all in, part his annoyance at Rocco taking on Didier by himself. Rocco still wasn’t sure what had upset Claude most: being left out or not being able to put a bullet in Didier’s head himself. He’d hardly even bothered playing with the car radio.

  As if reading his mind, Claude took out his gun and laid it on the seat beside him. ‘Just shout. I wouldn’t mind using this on someone. Just the once.’

  As Rocco crossed the pavement and reached up to press the entryphone button, a black car drew up behind his own. A man climbed out, leaving a uniformed driver behind the wheel. The newcomer wore a suit and carried a briefcase, and was holding up the ID of a senior officer of the Judiciary Police. He looked tough and businesslike and nodded cordially to Rocco.

  ‘George Bleriot,’ the man said. ‘You ready to do this?’

  Rocco returned the nod. Massin had told him someone would be needed to ensure that everything went to order: someone with sufficient powers to do whatever was required. He reached for the button but the gate was already open. He pushed it back, walked across the cobbled yard, past the green cherub in the dry fountain. No fancy car, he noted. Not that they had anyone to drive it, anyway.

  He banged on the door, the sound echoing up the stairs. He tried the handle. It turned. The door opened. As he’d expected, the old woman met them halfway up the stairs. She looked aggressive and determined, one clawed hand gripping the banister like a bird of prey about to launch itself into the air.

  He’d already decided that if she gave him any shit, he’d toe-punt her down the stairs, followed closely by her treacherous, murderous, double-dealing son. Bleriot would just have to pretend he hadn’t seen it.

  ‘Where is he?’ he said, walking straight at her.

  She moved aside at the last second, gesturing at the same doorway he had used before. As he brushed past he picked up the same sickly-sweet perfume.

  It reminded him of death and decay.

  ‘What do you want?’ she hissed, glaring at them in turn. ‘What are you here for? This is an affront — an insult. I will be calling the Ministry-!’

  ‘You do that, you old wit
ch,’ Rocco said calmly, ‘and I’ll make sure you end up in a cell with half a dozen heroin addicts doing cold turkey.’

  ‘Wha-?’

  ‘If he doesn’t,’ Bleriot added, ‘then I will.’

  They found Berbier in his study, staring out of the window. He was dressed in an expensive grey suit, with a blue shirt and discreet burgundy tie, to outward appearances a composed and powerful figure, at ease with the world.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ He turned to face them, chin jutting forcefully from his collar. But Rocco sensed there was little conviction in the words or the pose. There was a shaving nick on one side of the man’s chin, and a tiny spot of blood on his shirt collar.

  A scuff came from behind and Rocco glanced over his shoulder. Berbier’s mother had followed them into the room. Her chin was trembling, although whether out of fear, indignation or old age, he couldn’t tell.

  No phone call to the Ministry, then. She wouldn’t have had time.

  ‘End of the game,’ said Rocco. He took a black-and-white photo from his pocket and flicked it onto the desk so both the Berbiers could see. It showed Nathalie, pupils heavily dilated, one breast falling out of a white blouse, being pawed by a fat man with a sweaty face and greedy eyes. In the background stood a pair of large oil lamps. He now knew who the man was, and Massin would, about now, be dropping a heavy dossier with other photos onto the desk of his superiors.

  A very chill wind was about to blow along the corridors of power.

  An intake of breath came from Berbier mere, but her son showed no reaction other than mild irritation.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ Rocco wanted to punch him. ‘You don’t recognise your own daughter being groped over by one of your official ‘friends’? You don’t recognise a room in one of your own properties — a place you use for your pals to meet up and treat as a convenient whorehouse?’ He glanced at the old woman, who seemed to be trying to hoist herself into another dimension by sheer willpower.

  Berbier said nothing.

  ‘I have to inform you,’ continued Rocco, ‘that a dossier is currently being placed before the Interior Minister, with photos like these,’ he nodded at the desk, ‘and a reel of film, showing activities at this property involving men of substance and position — that’s my description but I’m being sarcastic only because I actually feel like throwing up — who were there at your invitation and with your connivance.’ He paused while that sank in. ‘Actually, let’s cut the bullshit: you used the place so your buddies could have fun while you filmed them for blackmail purposes to further your business dealings. You also had your own daughter there to entertain these men and play the whore.’

  Berbier’s mother flinched at that and closed her eyes. It seemed to be the first honest emotion he’d seen from either of them.

  ‘I also have the testimony of one Didier Marthe, also known as Tomas Broute, that while working as an SOE officer in 1944, you accompanied a supply drop near Poitiers and conspired to steal money from the Allies… money destined for use by the Resistance. Then, in collusion with Marthe, you informed the Germans of the whereabouts of the Resistance group, to prevent them informing London of your crime. The group was captured and taken to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, where they were executed. That money set you up nicely after the war, didn’t it? Nice going.’

  ‘That’s outrageous.’ Berbier looked stricken, but his voice was surprisingly quiet and calm. ‘I know nothing of these events.’

  Bleriot, in the background, was frowning at Rocco as if uncertain of his ground.

  ‘Really? So we won’t find a record of your mission to Poitiers during nineteen forty-four, accompanying operating funds which were reported “lost”?’

  ‘No. That’s a complete fabrication. It must have been another officer.’

  Rocco felt his disgust for the man reach new heights. Not content with a life of deceit and betrayal, he was clearly willing to pass off the blame onto someone else, no doubt counting on official secrecy to protect him.

  ‘You could be right, of course.’ He watched as Berbier’s face registered a momentary relief, then added, ‘Except that the officer accompanying those funds went under a unique code name… and we happen to know what that was from someone who was there at the time. Funny things, code names: they protect the identity of the user, which is good. But they tend not to be used more than once.’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘The code name was Cormorant.’

  ‘No… there’s a mistake!’

  The words burst in a whisper from the old woman’s lips, too instinctively to be anything but recognition. She would have heard the name over the years, knew it instantly for what it was.

  Rocco looked at her. ‘Did you know about this?’ A hint was all he needed for the structure Berbier had built to collapse. She could be the weak link.

  But the old woman had recovered quickly and was staring at him with contempt, her jaw muscles working furiously as she tried not to look at her son.

  ‘Never mind. After the war, Marthe remained in contact with your son who paid him to look after the property in this photograph, to fix it up for weekend parties. Co-conspirators all those years. Mostly it was to keep Marthe from going to the authorities and revealing what he knew.’ He looked at Berbier. ‘You didn’t know what proof he had squirreled away, so you had to keep him sweet… and keep him where you could watch what he did. What you didn’t know was that he was keeping a record of who came and went over the years. It seems he didn’t trust you further than he could throw a bus.’

  Berbier said nothing.

  ‘Very well.’ Rocco took out another photo. It was time for the big guns. Instead of dropping this one on the desk, he handed it directly to the old woman. If his instincts were right, she might turn out to be Berbier’s undoing. All he had to do was shake her foundations to the point where she couldn’t deny her knowledge any longer. The photo showed another man having sex with Nathalie. She looked unconscious, brutalised, mascara streaked across her cheek, her eyes swollen. She was wearing the uniform of a Gestapo officer. The same uniform she had been wearing when she died. The dark mark he had seen for himself on the body showed on the side of her neck, where she had been bitten.

  The old woman uttered a noise midway between a whine and a cry of protest. Rocco stared at her.

  ‘That’s what your granddaughter was subjected to. You saying you didn’t know?’

  ‘ I didn’t! ’ She flung the photo away as if it was burning her fingers.

  ‘You sure?’ Rocco was relentless. ‘You saying you didn’t know she was doing this to earn money? That she had no option because she couldn’t get any from her father for the operation?’

  ‘Operation?’ She looked at him, then Bleriot, then at her son in evident confusion. ‘Why would she need money for an operation? What was wrong with her — was she ill?’

  Berbier said nothing. But a vein in the side of his neck was pulsing heavily and his breathing had become laboured.

  ‘What?’ the woman repeated, grasping Rocco’s arm, her nails digging into his skin through his coat. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Your granddaughter was pregnant,’ he said softly, this time without malice. ‘Probably by one of the men your son was going to blackmail. She needed the money to go into a clinic and this was the only way she could get it. I have the testimony of a friend of hers to the effect. Your son, it seems, had a reputation to preserve.’

  Berbier’s mother seemed to sag, her face in torment. Then she turned on her son, lashing out with a spindly hand and scratching him deeply across one cheek. The score mark raised blood, a bead of which ran unchecked down his face. ‘You filth! You promised me… you said she was safe… that she was at a friend’s party that night when the… the accident happened. And you knew? ’

  ‘This is all unsubstantiated rubbish,’ Berbier said, his voice shaking. He stared at Rocco with glittering menace. ‘I will be making a prote
st to the minister immediately and you, my friend, will end up in prison for this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ Rocco reached into his pocket and looked at Berbier’s mother. ‘When I examined your granddaughter’s body, she was wearing a single earring.’ He pointed at the photo, where the earring in the shape of a marguerite was plainly visible. ‘The other was missing.’

  She stared at the photo, then nodded slowly, her voice a whisper. ‘Yes. One was missing when she… when her body came home. I gave them to her when she graduated. She looked so pretty in them… such a pretty girl.’ A sob broke loose from her chest and shook her thin frame, and she looked about to collapse.

  Rocco opened his hand, capturing the moment. Nestling in his palm was the other earring, the one he’d found in the lodge.

  The old woman gave a small cry. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes fastened on the jewel in recognition. She looked as if she was about to be sick.

  ‘It was no accident, nor was it at a friend’s house,’ continued Rocco. ‘Nathalie was running away from a man who was raping her. A man known to your son. She ran into the surrounding marais in panic, hid there for some hours. She was drowned in a pool of fresh water close to the lodge where these pictures were taken.’

  ‘Drowned? By who?’ Her eyes looked haunted. ‘By Marthe? By that horrid little man?’ She ignored her son as if he were no longer there. ‘The man in the photo?’

  ‘No. Not Didier Marthe.’ He was on shaky ground here, but since neither Marthe nor the family driver were alive to dispute what he said, it made little difference. ‘Nor the man in the photo.’ He looked closely at her, judging how much he could say, how much she might believe. ‘Your son’s driver, though, he was there.’ He waited, hoping she might connect the dots.

  ‘Andre?’ The woman looked at Berbier, but he failed to meet her eyes. ‘But Andre… he worshipped Nathalie… he would have gone through hell for her…’ She stopped and grasped her son’s sleeve. ‘But wait. That night… Andre went out at about four in the morning… with you.’