Pel and the Promised Land

by Mark Hebden

  ‘That’s why I came here,’ he said. ‘The quality of light. The only bloody light you get in England’s filtered through sheets of rain. My wife found us a place in the Dordogne but, Christ, there’s no one there these days but Brits, and I hated the bloody place! I didn’t come to France to be surrounded by Brits. Then we got a place in the Tarn. One of those little hill towns. We were all right there for a bite but then the place filled up with yoghurt-weavers.’

  Pel’s eyes caught Darcy’s. ‘Yoghurt-weavers?’

  Gilliam grinned. ‘Well, they didn’t weave yoghurt. That would be about as rewarding as trying to nail jelly to a wall. No, they were just a wet lot who seemed to live on lettuce and yoghurt. Health food types who looked on the point of death. They tried to make a living out of what they made. Artificial flowers. Woven cloth which looked like sacking. Nude sculptures that looked as if they’d got a hernia. Paintings that looked as though they’d been done with coloured mud. They didn’t know the first thing about light.’ He gestured at the canvas he’d been working on. It had style and was ablaze with good Burgundian sunshine, reflecting off the fields, bouncing as if alive from the walls of houses.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ Gilliam said. ‘It’s everywhere in France. If you can’t paint that, you should stick to painting doors. They never lasted long, these people who came. A year or so, then they found they’d run out of money, and the French didn’t like them, anyway. They used to come and weep on my neck about how unfriendly the French were. In the name of God, you can’t be friendly with someone who can only say “Nice weather today”, can you?’

  It was a familiar refrain and Gilliam seemed to enjoy the fact that it didn’t apply to him. ‘It never seemed to occur to the silly buggers that they might take a few lessons and spend a few nights learning vocabulary,’ he went on. ‘Somebody told them that you could learn the language just by living here. Or that all you had to do was shout. Or that all foreigners could speak English.’

  Pel was studying a silver salver. It looked valuable but Gilliam didn’t seem to regard it with much affection because it was stained and supported a jam jar full of brushes. It carried an inscription: ‘Presented to Major the Hon. W S Gilliam on his retirement.’

  ‘Hon?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a sort of title,’ Gilliam explained. ‘My father’s Lord Marchmont.’

  ‘And you will become Lord Marchmont in time?’

  Gilliam grinned and shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I have two older brothers both of whom have sons. “Hon.” is a sort of consolation prize for younger sons who don’t inherit.’

  He slashed pale yellow on to his canvas, working with confidence. ‘Sell many?’ Pel asked.

  Gilliam laughed. ‘Of course I do. But not here. The locals don’t want them. Why should they? They see what I paint every day of their lives – in the flesh, so to speak. I sell a few to tourists who are passing through and want a present for Granny. But this isn’t a district where you find many of them and, anyway, they don’t want to pay the prices I charge. No, I go to England from time to time and take a crateful to a gallery in London that handles my work. Londoners swoon over them. Who wouldn’t, if all you see are those bloody awful buildings and all that traffic and the crowds on the Underground. Are you interested by the way?’

  Pel backed away. He only went in for bargains.

  He explained why he was there.

  ‘The Baroness?’ Gilliam said. ‘I didn’t like her. The Baron’s not a bad old stick. Bit eccentric but he sometimes drops in for a glass of wine. I prefer that to drinking his, which is ghastly. He gave me permission to paint anywhere in his grounds. I never have. Bit stylised, that sort of subject. But I dropped in. Nice woman, that Marie-Hélène he lived with. Tragic he never married her. Sheer snobbery. But he never had much backbone, I gather. She’s far better for him than that silly bitch he did marry.’

  ‘How did he come to marry her?’

  ‘Met her at an architectural exhibition. There were photographs of his place on display. I think she was involved with the people who were putting it on.’

  ‘When was it?’

  Gilliam smiled. ‘I can tell you exactly. Because I visited it. 1976. At the Wesley Hall, Broom Street, London. Put on by Bolt Marketing. It wasn’t much of an exhibition. I can’t even remember what it was about now. Properties for sale in France or something.’

  ‘Was the Baron’s place up for sale at the time?’

  ‘Oh, no. The pictures were just there to get people interested in the region. They got him over to add weight. All expenses paid, of course. Free holiday in London. He’d never have afforded it, otherwise. She could speak some French and was delegated to show him around. There was a bit of a drive on at the time to stir British buyers into buying property in this area. Perhaps you remember it. It didn’t seem to come off, because they never sold many. Mind you–’ Gilliam grinned, ‘I don’t help. Every time I hear of anyone thinking of buying I make a point of meeting them accidentally-on-purpose over a drink and get around to telling them the facts.’

  ‘What facts?’

  ‘That there’s no drainage, all the roofs leak, the land’s soggy and sour and won’t grow anything, and that the water’s tainted by ancient cesspits. It usually puts them off.’

  Gilliam gave a hoot of laughter. ‘I’ve been known to tell stubborn ones that the area’s dotted with plague pits dating back to the Black Death and that the plague’s been known to seep through the soil to the surface. I even quote statistics. Not genuine ones. Mine. I found out as a schoolboy that the best way to make room for yourself on a train was to cough a bit and inform everybody around you that you’d just had measles. It always emptied the compartment. But damn it, I came here to get away from Brits so I don’t want to be surrounded by the silly buggers, do I? Try Antoine Charrieri.’

  ‘Who’s Antoine Charrieri?’

  ‘He’s an architect. His offices are in Lyons. In a block he designed himself.’

  ‘Why him?’

  ‘I saw her with him once or twice.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Faux-Villecerf. Once when I called on the Baron I saw them together in the yard.’

  Looking up Charrieri’s number, Pel tried to telephone him. The reply came from an answering machine. ‘Sorry, but we are occupied at the moment. Please state your business when the pips go.’

  Pel loathed answering machines and he glared at his telephone as though about to bite a lump out of it. At that time of day, Charrieri’s office must be functioning, he decided, and the lazy cons were just not bothering.

  The message was still being repeated in his ear and he barked into the telephone as the pips finished.

  ‘This is Chief Inspector Pel, of the Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire. I will now give you an excerpt from my extensive repertoire.’ He followed this with a few faltering lines of Sur le Pont d’Avignon, then roared at the telephone. ‘I now expect to be rung back immediately! I am dealing with murder!’

  Not surprisingly, the telephone rang within half an hour and a nervous voice told him that he would be dealt with at any time he cared to arrive. With Darcy still at Faux-Villecerf, he was about to rush out to his car when he decided he had had enough excitement on the road for one day. The eight-wheeled lorry with trailer had unnerved him a little.

  He started to yell for his car. When it arrived, Misset was in the driving seat. Pel glared at him. Misset was never Pel’s favourite subordinate. He spent too much of his time with his eyes on girls instead of where they should be.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Pel demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be searching for Feray and Clos.’

  ‘There was nobody else, patron,’ Misset said.

  ‘Where’s Cadet Darras? He could have driven me.

  ‘On leave, patron.’

  ‘Claudie Darel?’ Pel enjoyed being driven by Claudie. She looked like a young Mireille Matthieu, and was intelligent and easy to talk to. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t have h
er for much longer because she had just announced her engagement to one of the barristers at the Palais de Justice.

  ‘There’s been a breaking and entering at Fontaine,’ Misset pointed out. ‘Old lady. She’s a bit upset, so Claudie went.’

  Misset wished he could have gone with Claudie. Her calm was infinitely preferable to Pel’s testiness. ‘It only left me,’ he ended lamely.

  Pel climbed into the car. ‘Lyons,’ he said. ‘I’ll direct you when we get there.’

  Misset let in the clutch and moved forward with Pel watching his every move. He didn’t think much of Misset. He was growing fat and lazy. Once upon a time Misset had been in the habit of asking for time off to help with his growing family. Now his family had grown, he didn’t bother any more. He would much have preferred it if they could have been fired off into outer space.

  For a while they drove in silence. When Pel spoke it made Misset jump.

  ‘Got a line on Feray or Clos yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No, patron.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I heard they were back at Tar-le-Petit. I was going there when the call for the car came.’

  Pel lit a cigarette without a word. Misset wished he could smoke. He would much have preferred to have been going to Tar-le-Petit. He had a date that evening with a woman who worked in a bar near the University and he was praying he would be back in time. He had had it all planned. He’d been intending to do a little gentle questioning at Tar, have a beer or two, then drive back slowly for his date. He wasn’t expecting romance but anything was better than going home to his wife. His wife was hardly an agreeable companion at all these days and, in addition, her mother had arrived for a visit. Madame Misset was bad enough; the two of them together were enough to turn milk sour. Even the kids took their side. For that matter, the dog, too. It had once bitten Misset in the ankle for handing out a well-deserved clout to his eldest son.

  Charrieri’s office occupied the ground floor of a block in the centre of the city near the Pont Bonaparte. It was recognisable at once by its outrageous modernity. The large private car park outside was almost empty but among the modest cars of the office staff was an ostentatious silver Mercedes which somehow seemed to go with a man who could design such a hideous building.

  Misset opened the car door for Pel and was just about to sit back and enjoy a cigarette when Pel rounded on him.

  ‘Lock it up,’ he said. ‘I want you with me.’

  ‘Yes, patron,’ Misset said meekly. ‘I was just coming.’

  Charrieri’s premises had been designed to impress clients. The main hall was huge. It contained several small shops but to Pel’s surprise they were all empty. The staircase to the upper floors was barred by a grill and on the door of the lift was a notice, Out of Order.

  Despite the signs of disuse in the hall, Charrieri’s office looked busy. It was as big as a cathedral and seemed to be entirely walled with glass or orange brick. It was filled with rubber plants and modernistic pottery. On every upright surface were bright water-colours or architect-designed projects – halls, restaurants, leisure centres, shopping malls. After the pattern of all architects’ impressions, they were all decorated with trees and as garlanded with flowers as the Vales of Arcadia.

  In the front office, behind a small barrier, a young man was sitting before a large drawing board working on plans. Beyond him, at the other side of the barrier, they could see draughtsmen at work with typists and filing clerks. There seemed to be banks of electronic machines that gave Pel nightmares. He hadn’t yet even learned to adjust his new digital watch and had to ask Yves Pasquier, aged eleven, from next door, to do it for him.

  ‘What are they all for?’ he asked the young man at the drawing board.

  ‘To blind people with science,’ the boy said. ‘Producing plans. Producing pictures. Calculating measurements. Weights. Stresses. Strains. Costing. There are files, copying machines, computers, electronic typewriters, word processors. All producing enough cost lists and figures to dazzle you. The more paperwork you can push out, the more people are impressed. Especially the big outfits we try to deal with. They’re blinding people with science themselves, you see, so they understand.’ It seemed the young man was something of a cynic.

  ‘How many people work here?’ Pel asked.

  ‘You can see them all. They’re on display so that clients can see them at point blank range.

  ‘How many partners?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘You mean all these people are employed here just to keep one man busy?’

  ‘Not all that busy.’ The boy gestured at the watercolours round the room. ‘He didn’t design those. They’re just for show. He likes show. He likes to work with two juniors attendant on him, an aide to take down memos and outline his thoughts, and a secretary to hold his hand and keep the world at bay.’

  ‘Does he get that many requests for his time?’

  ‘A few. Here and there. The small jobs he allows his underlings to handle. But the name on the plans, indicating who does them, is always Antoine Charrieri – even if he doesn’t.’

  Pel eyed the young man for a moment. ‘I suspect,’ he said dryly, ‘that you have either been sacked and are serving notice, or else that you expect to be shortly.’

  The young man grinned and shrugged. ‘I expect to be shortly,’ he agreed. ‘This isn’t my line of country. I suppose you’ve come to see him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky. He’s not in.’

  ‘He’d better be,’ Pel growled.

  ‘However, I heard him say he’d be back. He knows he has an appointment. He blew his top when he heard about it.’

  ‘Does he blow his top often?’

  ‘Regularly.’ The boy seemed undisturbed. ‘When his debts catch up with him.’

  ‘Does he have many debts?’

  ‘Not more than most people. But he likes to live well so they’re big ones, I suppose. He also loses his temper when he finds me drawing faces when I should be drawing plans. He once shoved me off my stool.’

  ‘Did you shove him back?’ Pel asked.

  The young man grinned. ‘He didn’t mean anything. He apologised. He’s just got a hot temper. He increased my salary to make up for it. I suppose I must be of value to him, though he’s not a lot to me. I want to draw people not plans, and one day I will. You’ll see my name, Claude Dumanoir, in lights, with Renoir and that lot eventually. But artists don’t make a lot of money so I decided to train for this job to tide me over. Bear me in mind.’

  Well, it had been an entertaining few minutes and eventually a girl of statuesque proportions, who turned out to be Charrieri’s private secretary, ushered them into his inner office. She admitted they were expected but that Charrieri had just slipped out. ‘He’ll be back,’ she said.

  ‘I hope so,’ Pel said darkly.

  In fact, Charrieri appeared before Pel’s notoriously short fuse had even begun to fizz. He was a tall, handsome man with spectacles hiding enormous eyes, a shock of dark, greying hair, and a high tenor voice. His cheeks were pink and healthy and he looked as if he had disgusting habits like jogging and playing games. He grinned at Pel, unashamed at keeping him waiting.

  ‘I liked your singing, Chief Inspector,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I must apologise for the over-enthusiasm of my staff, however. My secretary instituted that thing to keep me from being disturbed. It’s always answered at once, as you doubtless discovered, but it gives them time to find out from me if I’m involved in some calculations that can’t be interrupted. They sometimes go over the top a bit. As you can see, this is a busy office.’

  ‘It’s a big one,’ Pel admitted. ‘But the top floors don’t seem to be occupied.’

  ‘They will be.’ Charrieri gestured expansively. ‘We use one or two rooms for storage, of course. I’m looking for the right people. We don’t want noise or anything like that. We need quiet. We’ve had enquiries but we don’t want to fill the lift with office workers or the hall
with visitors. We have to consider our own needs—’

  Pel decided they could go on all day about Charrieri’s office and it was time to get down to business. ‘Did you know Bronwen Raby-Labassat?’ he asked.

  He stared up at the architect with hot eyes. He wasn’t very big and Charrieri was handsome, elegant and imposing. But Pel could always make his presence felt when necessary. His question wiped the grin off the architect’s face and he seemed to come to attention, almost as if he’d received a barked order.

  ‘Of course I knew her,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know anything about her?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She owes me money.’

  ‘Did you know she was dead?’

  ‘Good God, is she?’ Charrieri stepped back, shocked.

  ‘She was found at Vieilles Etuves. She’d been murdered.’

  ‘Good God,’ Charrieri said again. ‘I read about that. Was it her?’

  ‘Did you know her well?’

  ‘Just as a client. But that’s enough to make it a bit of a blow.’

  ‘You met her on more than one occasion?’

  ‘She got me to draw up plans for alterations to the stables at Faux-Villecerf.’

  ‘Altering to what?’

  ‘She wanted a gymnasium.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘I assumed for herself. The Baron’s a bit old for that sort of thing.’

  ‘And did you draw up plans?’

  ‘Yes. Gymnasiums are the thing these days. I belong to one. Don’t you?’

  Pel ignored the question. Once he left work, he never did anything that might prove painful, difficult or exhausting. ‘These plans,’ he said. ‘Did you draw them up personally?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I understood from the young man in the entrance that you don’t normally do trivial jobs of that sort. That you leave them to juniors.’

  Charrieri looked down the office at Dumanoir. ‘That young man,’ he said sharply, ‘ought to learn to be a little more discreet. Secrets of that sort aren’t to be bandied around. But, yes, I did do the plans myself.’