by Mark Hebden
‘Burning woodland is,’ Pel said quietly.
‘So,’ Darcy added, ‘is vandalising empty farmhouses.’
Brochard’s father was a small man with bright alert eyes that indicated there wasn’t much he didn’t know and hadn’t seen.
‘That Barthelot,’ he said, ‘is about as straight as a corkscrew. A bent corkscrew. You’ve heard of Sebastien Croquis?’
Full of his mother’s food and his father’s wine, Brochard sat back, lethargic but with his mind in top gear. ‘Who’s Croquis?’
‘Keeps that farm at Valdegil. You know the one. Looks as though it’s been hit by a hurricane. Bad farmer. Had a few of my sheep in his time.’
‘Stole them? Did you inform the police?’
‘Didn’t bother. I got some red cotton from your mother and threaded it through the tails of twenty or thirty of my animals. You couldn’t see it but it was there if you knew where to look. Then I told the tannery at Engentil to keep a look-out for fleeces that came from Croquis. When they told me some had turned up I got them to put them on one side. Some had the red cotton through their tails.’
‘So?’
‘Croquis is Barthelot’s brother-in-law.’
‘And is Barthelot the same?’
‘I reckon so.’
The following morning, Brochard went to see Barthelot’s neighbour, a man called La Verne, the man he had accused of killing his sheep.
‘He wants to take over my land,’ La Verne said.
‘Would you sell?’
‘Never. My family’s been here since 1850.’
‘He’s accusing you of putting down poison for his sheep. Has he had autopsies done on them?’
‘He says so. I don’t believe him.’
‘They seem to be dead, all the same. Is he insured?’
‘Yes. Guillemard Assurance. One of their people came along asking questions.’
Barthelot turned out to be a big man with a fleshy face and eyes so small they seemed in danger of disappearing. Brochard introduced himself as a representative of the Guillemard Assurance Company.
‘What’s the trouble?’ Barthelot demanded.
‘Just checking,’ Brochard said.
‘There’s no need. You’ve only to ask at the tannery at Engentil. They’ll tell you how many of my ewes they’ve had. Breeding ewes too. Best Larzacs. I paid a fortune for them. That bastard over the hill poisoned them.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he dislikes me. He thinks I want to take him over. I do, as a matter of fact. He’s a sloppy farmer.’
‘His family’s been at it for generations,’ Brochard pointed out. ‘I thought he wasn’t bad.’
‘What do you know about it?’ Barthelot snorted. Brochard smiled. ‘I grew up on a farm,’ he said.
The following day, by sheer luck, another of Barthelot’s ewes died. Brochard’s father brought the news and Brochard went along to the farm to claim the carcass.
‘What do you want it for?’ Barthelot demanded.
Brochard put on his innocent choirboy face. ‘Just to check,’ he said.
Taking the carcass back to his father’s farm, Brochard and his father opened the animal up. His father laughed.
‘Yew clippings,’ he said. ‘It’s been eating yew clippings. I bet it’s been eating them for ages. They’re enough to knock over any sheep. Especially in this condition. It’s a crossbred and a pretty poor specimen at that. Barthelot doesn’t know anything about farming. He always buys bad sheep.’
Brochard frowned. ‘Where did the yew clippings come from?’ he asked. ‘I bet La Verne didn’t feed them to it. The unmasticated bits look as if they’ve been cut deliberately with a knife.’
That afternoon, Brochard checked that La Verne hadn’t a yew tree anywhere near his land. He then drove over to Barthelot’s farm. Barthelot was at market so Brochard introduced himself to his wife and persuaded her to allow him to look around. ‘Just a formality,’ he said.
He noticed at once that there was a big yew behind the barn, close to the pens where Barthelot kept his lambs and close to where he kept his bales of hay. It had been cut back and there were a lot of fallen needles and clippings among the loose hay and on the ground, and several plastic bags of chemical fertiliser, one or two of them split.
‘You feed hay to the sheep?’ he asked.
‘When the weather’s bad,’ Barthelot’s wife said. ‘We used to keep the lambs and the feed at the other side of the barn but my husband reorganised things. He trimmed the tree and moved the feed nearer, he says it saves him work.’
There was a horse in the paddock and Brochard leaned on the gate, admiring it.
‘Nice animal,’ he said.
‘It’s my daughter’s.
‘Take a lot of looking after, horses. Hay, bran mash, chaff. All that. Have any problems with it?’
‘It was off colour during the cold weather. When it was on hay.’
‘What do you cut chaff with?’
‘There’s a chaff cutter in the stable.’
‘I haven’t seen one of those for years.
Affecting interest as a collector of old farming machinery, Brochard got permission to inspect the machine. Its four geared blades whirled at speed to the slow swing of the handle. Brochard admired it effusively. ‘We had one of those when I was a boy,’ he said. ‘Why we didn’t cut our fingers off I don’t know.’
He moved round the machine, peering closely. Among the chaff on the floor he found yew seeds and needles, some of them chopped into small fragments.
He decided he had all the evidence he needed. All it required now were a few enquiries into Barthelot’s background. But for the time being he had other things to do. Charlie Ciasca wasn’t all that far away.
Driving to Lyons and joining the east-west motorway, he climbed out of his car by Charlie’s flat, watched with interest by all the other girls with whom she shared accommodation. There seemed to be dozens of them.
‘Come on in,’ she said, grinning at him.
‘With that lot?’ he retorted indignantly. ‘Why not somewhere alone?’
‘I think you’re after me.’
Brochard affected innocence.
‘Most men are. And I know what they want.’
It was Brochard’s turn to grin. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not a bad idea.’
‘Haven’t you got a girl?’
‘I had. I broke with her.’
‘Why?’
‘She was too possessive. She said she’d shame me by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.’
‘Did she?’
‘No. But she said she’d set her brothers on to me. She has two.’
‘So have I.’
Brochard was startled.
‘And like me, they’re part-Swiss, part-Italian, part-French. Mostly Italian. And you know what the Italians are like. And, though the Swiss seem pretty placid people, they have hidden depths. They’ve been known to shoot at each other from time to time.’
‘Even club each other with cuckoo clocks?’
‘Even that. They have riots in Switzerland these days. Not many. But some. My brothers protect me. Gabriel and Jean-Jacques. They’re tough.’
When Pel reached his office the following day, Darcy was waiting for him.
‘We’ve had a dental report on the woman at Vieilles Etuves,’ he said. ‘The amalgam in the fillings isn’t French. So, in view of the sweater she was wearing being British, the amalgam’s probably British, too. We’ll try the police there.’
As Darcy left there was a telephone call for Pel from Lyons. The line was bad and the accent was English. It turned out to be Superintendent Goschen, of Scotland Yard. He had helped Pel on previous occasions, and their respect was as mutual as the assistance they offered each other.
‘Charles Goschen,’ the ghostly voice said through a symphony of crackles and bangs. ‘I’m in Lyons and I’ll be passing through your patch.’
They had no difficulty talking beca
use Pel spoke some English and Goschen some French and the extra bits they filled in with Franglais.
‘I’m on my way north from Provence,’ Goschen said. ‘I’ve been on a little job down there and I thought it would be nice to call in and see you. You might even be able to help me.’
Remembering the magnificent hospitality he had received from Goschen and his family on his rare visits to London on duty, Pel was immediately eager to respond in kind.
‘You must stay with us,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t think of anything else.’
When he telephoned his wife, in a panic at the shortness of notice, she received the news as calmly as she received all news of imminent disasters. He arrived home to find she had left her office early and was pottering in the kitchen. She was even singing, one of the strange little songs she seemed to enjoy so much.
Chez nous, il y a trois petits chats,
Chaton, Chaton, Chatonette,
Chez nous, il y a trois petits chats—’
‘He’ll be here soon,’ Pel urged.
‘We’re all ready,’ Madame pointed out calmly.
Half an hour before Goschen was due to arrive, Pel was in the garden wearing the suit he kept for levees, meeting film stars and the President of France, or in case they ever gave him the Légion d’Honneur.
‘Who’re you looking for?’ The speaker was Yves Pasquier, the small boy from next door. As usual, judging by the scratches and bruises on his legs, he’d been having a fight with a motor mower. He was accompanied by his dog. It resembled a dirty mophead and was so shaggy it was hard to tell which was the end that bit.
The boy obviously wanted to chat but, worried that his hospitality wouldn’t measure up to what he’d received in London, Pel wasn’t in the mood to bandy politenesses just then. Mornings, through a hole in the hedge, were the time when he usually held his conversations with Yves Pasquier.
‘Aren’t you doing your homework?’ he asked.
‘Done it.’
‘Shouldn’t you be taking the dog for a walk?’
‘He’s been. Who’s coming?’
‘How do you know somebody’s coming?’
‘They are, aren’t they? I saw Madame Routy going off. She came back with a package that had obviously come from the butcher. I know the way he ties them up.’
‘You’d make a good detective.’
‘It wasn’t just that.’
‘Oh? What else?’
‘You. You’re in a state.’
Pel sniffed. ‘It’s a policeman,’ he said.
‘Do you usually put your best suit on for a cop?’
‘He’s an English cop.’
‘Famous?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Pel said proudly.
‘Would he give me his autograph?’
‘I suppose so if you asked.’
‘I’ll get my autograph book.’
The boy was back within seconds and he and Pel stood in the garden watching the road with all the intensity of stout Cortez about to discover the Pacific.
It was not to be. Just as Pel spotted a car with a British number plate approaching, Madame Pasquier appeared and yanked her son indoors.
‘You shouldn’t let him bother you,’ she said to Pel as she hauled him away.
‘I want to stay,’ her son screamed. ‘It’s a cop who’s coming! He’s famous! I want his autograph!’
‘If you say any more I’ll lock you in a cupboard full of spiders.’
The threat was greeted with derision. ‘I like spiders. Their legs fall off when they’re scared.’
Goschen reacted as Pel expected him to react – with British calm and British good manners. He admired Madame Pel – which wasn’t very difficult; was pleasant to Madame Routy; gave his signature to Yves Pasquier who, having sneaked out while his mother wasn’t looking, appeared at his side; even admired Pel’s garden. On that point, of course, Pel knew he was just being polite. Pel had almost swooned over Goschen’s garden in the London suburb where he lived. Goschen’s lawn was like velvet and there were flowers, because Goschen was a gardener. Pel invariably found he had files to read or a stiff leg or a bad back when Madame mentioned his garden in the spring and autumn.
Madame surpassed herself with the meal and they didn’t talk business until the following morning, when Pel insisted on Goschen’s seeing the Chief, who was flattered enough to bring out the brandy bottle. Then he took him to lunch at the Relais Saint-Armand and they got down to talking shop over the liqueurs. ‘I’m investigating a chap who’s involved in a bit of shifty speculation,’ Goschen explained and Pel’s ears pricked up at once. ‘He’s been buying up land in England,’ Goschen went on. ‘Now we learn he’s doing the same in France. He’s a builder and he’s working along the south coast near St Tropez.’
Pel wondered if he were someone he might be interested in. ‘Name?’ he asked.
‘Cornelius. Dirk Cornelius. We’re not sure what nationality. He has a British passport but we think he might be Dutch.’
‘Does he put up the money?’
‘We think he’s just the front man and there’s somebody behind him. Some Spanish woman. Name of Carmen Vlaxi.’
Pel sat up sharply. ‘It’s not a she,’ he said. ‘It’s a he.’
‘You know him?’
‘Half-Spanish, half-Arab. Came up from Spain. Worked things round Toulouse for a bit. Then he got ambitious and came north. Pretends to be Castilian. Known as Carmen the Bullfighter.’
‘Is he now?’
‘He tried to get into the Paris rackets but they were already pretty full and he hadn’t enough clout to make himself stick, so he came here. We used to have a type called Maurice Tagliatti, but you’ll remember he was bumped off. You were involved. This Vlaxi took over his rackets, his territory and what was left of his troops. After we’d finished with them, there weren’t more than one or two.’
Goschen grinned. ‘That’s what I like to hear. Does he go in for this building business?’
‘What sort of building are you thinking of?’
‘Well, this Cornelius acquires land. Usually cheaply because he puts the frighteners on the owners. Then he develops it. Leisure centres. Beach villages. You know – two hundred rabbit hutches painted white with a few trees and a swimming pool chucked in. Is that his scene?’
Pel was thoughtful. ‘It might well be,’ he said.
Five
Pel was late leaving for the Hôtel de Police the following day. He had lingered over his breakfast coffee reading a report Goschen had left with him, so that he shot out of the house in a hurry and drove like a maniac for the city. As usual, as he hit the main road at the bottom of the hill from Leu where he lived, he was almost rubbed out by a lorry – and what a lorry! Eight wheels plus a trailer with another eight. As it appeared alongside him with a thunder that rattled his car, it was so tall he couldn’t see the top of it, just the driver’s mouth working as he called him names. There was nothing unusual about the incident – it happened regularly – but it shook Pel and he drove the rest of the way into the city as if treading on eggshells. The traffic cop on duty at the Porte Guillaume nodded gratefully as he passed. He knew Pel’s driving and the fact that he was often deep in thought. More than once he had had to nip smartly out of the way.
Still faintly dazed, Pel headed for his office, too absorbed to return the ‘Bonjour, patron’ of the man on the desk in the entrance. The man on the desk didn’t take offence. It happened often.
‘Silly con,’ he said to himself.
Reaching his office, Pel sat down and stared at Goschen’s report again.
Carmen Vlaxi. He turned the name over in his mind. They hadn’t heard much of him since his arrival in the area beyond the fact that he had a house at St-Symphorien-le-Grand and that he had a finger in more than a few pies. But nothing much had ever emerged. They hadn’t pinned anything at all on him so far, though he’d be well worth watching if he’d got into this speculative building-for-foreigners business. That, to Pel, looked as
though there might be a great deal of money in it. But no leisure centre, no holiday village complete with swimming pool and palms was worth going into for profit for people like Carmen Vlaxi unless the land was acquired dirt cheap. But – and this was the point – Carmen Vlaxi was just the type to know exactly how to acquire land at such prices. They’d heard he’d run a protection racket in the south near the Spanish border so it could be assumed he would know the ins and outs of putting pressure on people. After all, whatever the aim, the methods were much the same.
He was still debating it with himself when Darcy appeared.
‘We’ve got a name,’ he said.
Pel was still deeply involved in his mind with Carmen Vlaxi and the speculative builders and at first didn’t grasp what Darcy was getting at.
‘What for?’
‘Not “what”, patron,’ Darcy pointed out. ‘“Who.” The woman found at Vieilles Etuves. I think your good friend Superintendent Goschen’s been pulling a few strings for us.’
‘I did happen to mention it,’ Pel said modestly.
‘Raby-Labassat,’ Darcy went on. ‘Bronwen Raby- Labassat. Aged forty.’
‘Bronwen? That doesn’t sound French.’
‘It isn’t. She was born in Cardiff in Wales. She married Honoré Eustache Raby-Labassat fourteen years ago. No children. Raby-Labassat has three, two sons and a daughter by a previous marriage. He’s a baron.’
‘Is he, by God?’ Pel’s interest grew. He would have loved to be a baron himself He always considered it a shame France had abolished titles.
‘Lives at Faux-Villecerf,’ Darcy continued. ‘It’s the other side of Aignay-le-Duc. Not much more than a hamlet. He has a château there.’
‘Who put us on to her?’
‘Local cop. Apparently her stepson, Auguste Raby-Labassat, reported her missing. She left home six weeks ago without saying why. Apparently it wasn’t unusual. She liked to go back to London from time to time – occasionally without telling anyone. They thought that’s where she was but when time dragged on, Auguste Raby-Labassat made enquiries of her family in Cardiff. They haven’t seen her for over a year. So if she’s been to London she didn’t visit them.’