by Mark Hebden
She shrugged. There were times when she was more Swiss than French or Italian and then she had an English maiden lady’s rigid attitude. ‘I expect it was your fault,’ she said.
The simple yellow dress she wore suited her. Brochard had a feeling that there wasn’t much beneath it. He also knew that apart from her the Ciasca apartment was empty.
She caught his look and grinned. ‘No,’ she said.
Brochard grinned back. ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ he urged.
‘I’m old-fashioned.’
‘Come to that–’ Brochard gestured, ‘so am I. So is that. People have been at it for centuries.’
‘No.’
‘One day you’ll wake up and find you’re too old.’
‘Not likely.’
They were still cheerfully sparring when a car drew up. From the deep baying note of the faulty exhaust, Brochard knew it was the ancient shooting brake her brothers used. A door slammed and a moment later Papa Ciasca, followed by his sons, Jean-Jacques and Gabriel, appeared. Quite unimpressed by their threats, Brochard regarded them warmly. They were all scowling and all looked alike. Papa Ciasca, thicker round the middle, was all floppy flab and looked as if he’d been stuffed by an unskilful taxidermist. The two brothers were junior versions with only slight variations between them. All were blue-jowled and black-eyed and vaguely malevolent.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jean-Jacques demanded.
‘I came to see Charlie. What happened? Have a bad day?’ Jean-Jacques’ scowl grew deeper. ‘The boat broke down.’
‘Always it breaks down,’ Gabriel snorted.
‘And you had to land your tourists?’ Brochard asked.
Jean-Jacques glowered at him. It was a moment before he replied. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It’s that fizzy lemonade you run it on. The mixture’s too rich.’
Jean-Jacques shook his head. ‘One day we’ll have to get ourselves a new boat.’
Mamma Ciasca appeared, in a dress on which the flowers made her eighteen stone seem more bulky than they were. She was the only one apart from Charlie who ever regarded Brochard with any warmth.
‘We should give up the boat,’ she said, ‘and open a shop. We could sell knick-knacks and the things the Italians sell in the market at Luino.’
Jean-Jacques regarded her sullenly. ‘If I open a shop,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it in Lucerne. They say the tourists in Lucerne are stupider even than they are here.’
It was obvious one of the family rows was brewing up, noisy affairs of cataclysmic proportions that brought the neighbours out of bed.
‘We’d better be going,’ Charlie suggested.
‘Yes,’ Jean-Jacques said to Brochard. ‘It’s time you went.’
‘I wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome,’ Brochard admitted.
Ignoring the brothers, he went off happily with Charlie beside him in his car.
‘That lot,’ Charlie said, ‘think girls should be in purdah.’
They ate a splendid meal at St-Flô and later parked the car by the lake. Breathing brandy over each other, they enjoyed a heavy session in the shadows under the trees. When Brochard took her home, he was studied with disapproval by the Ciascas but Charlie gave him a defiant kiss before tripping into the house. In the doorway she turned to wave. As she vanished, Jean-Jacques appeared by the car.
‘Don’t come back,’ he suggested.
‘Why not?’
‘We have plans for Charlie.’
‘Does she agree with them?’
‘No. But that makes no difference.’
Brochard laughed.
‘Don’t come back,’ Gabriel repeated over Jean-Jacques’ shoulder.
‘I’ve got the point. You don’t have to beat me over the head with it.’
Papa Ciasca saw him off. ‘Don’t take too much notice of the boys,’ he said. ‘But,’ he added, ‘if anything happens to Charlie I’ll cut your gizzard out.’
On the way to his aunt’s in Evian, Brochard stopped in a bar for a last drink. As he left he almost bumped into a man who was about to enter.
‘Sorry,’ Brochard said.
The man ignored him and brushed past.
Outside, Brochard had come to a dead stop. He lit a cigarette and crossed the road. From a position at the other side he could see the man he’d almost bumped into leaning against the bar.
‘Well, well,’ he said aloud. ‘Fancy that.’
Pel wished Brochard would shut up. His head was growing worse and they seemed to be making no progress at all.
Clos and Feray hadn’t turned up, though Misset was putting on a big show of application and nose to the grindstone, and they had got nowhere with the Raby-Labassat case. And now here was Brochard droning on in a way that made Pel’s head feel as though the side was about to fall off. He decided he would give Cousin Roger a miss for a while.
‘That fifth man in the Boulevard Maréchal Joffre hold-up,’ Brochard was saying. ‘The man Nosjean and De Troq’ saw in the Parc de la Columbière.’
‘What about him?’
‘I think I’ve found him. His name’s Gérard Espagne.’ Pel’s head lifted. ‘How did you work that miracle?’
‘It’s a long story, patron.’
‘It had better not be.’
Brochard grinned. ‘I met this girl—’
‘Which girl?’
‘Her name’s Carlota Ciasca.’
‘You know how to make a report,’ Pel snapped. ‘Get on with it. Start at the beginning.’
‘Yes, patron. She’s the beginning so I’d better start with her. I got to know her. She’s an illustrator. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was painting. I asked her what she was painting. She said pictures.’
‘Get on,’ Pel snarled.
Brochard refused to be hurried, enjoying Pel’s impatience. ‘I tried to arrange to see her,’ he went on. ‘But she said I couldn’t and when I asked why, she said because she was going to see her publishers in Lyons. I said it didn’t matter; I could get to Lyons all right. It’s not far down the motorway. Then she said she didn’t live all the time in Lyons. She only had publishers there. Often she worked from home, which was in Evian. You know Evian, patron?’
‘Of course I know Evian. It’s on the shores of Lac Léman.’
‘Anyway,’ Brochard continued, ‘it didn’t matter really. Evian wasn’t much further. You just take the N6 to Macon, then the motorway to Nantua, then the main road runs alongside the Swiss border to the lake—’
Pel had heard these directions before and he sat up sharply. ‘Go on,’ he snapped.
‘She lives at St-Flô and I went to see her. While I was there I went into a bar. I recognised this type as I came out. I nearly trod on him. He even wore the red and green windcheater Nosjean and De Troq’ described. I got him at once.’
‘You recognised someone from an identikit picture? Wonders will never cease.’
‘I had a feeling when that picture was first issued that I knew him. But I wasn’t certain. When I got back from Evian I took another look at the mug shots in the library. There he was. Gérard Espagne. Large as life and twice as nasty. Wasn’t he the type who offered to set things on fire, too?’
‘Yes, he was.’ Pel eyed Brochard coldly. ‘Well, it took long enough to get to the point,’ he said, ‘but perhaps it was worth it in the end. What else?’
‘Well, I didn’t know who he was at the time, patron. I just recognised a face and I wasn’t certain I’d got the right guy. But I followed him home. I got his address. When I got back here I checked Records. He’s got one. In Marseilles. For intimidation. That sort of thing. He also used to live here apparently, but he seems nowadays to have moved to Evian. He lives on and off with his mother. A little house on the outskirts. Rue de Genève. He was born there. Are we going to pick him up?’
‘We are. But not for the robbery. And not just yet. We can’t charge him with talking to Orega in the park and I’ve become interested in his friends.’
&
nbsp; ‘Haven’t we got them in custody?’
‘I think he has others. Did you find out any more about him?’
‘I didn’t push it, patron. In case I frightened him off. I gather he’s not been home for some time. But he’s in Evian now. Think he’s up to something down there?’
‘Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps he’s just lying low. People who wish to lie low usually do it where they know the terrain and all the holes and corners. What do you propose to do?’
‘Well, now this sheep poisoning thing’s wrapped up, I thought I might keep an eye open for him.’
‘How do you intend to do that?’
‘Well, I’m still seeing this Charlie Ciasca. At weekends. I go to Evian.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘No, patron.’
‘What is it, then?’
Brochard blushed. He blushed easily. ‘I learned this Espagne goes home at weekends. So I thought when I’m down there I might keep an eye on him. Ask around. That sort of thing. See what he’s up to.’
‘You could do that,’ Pel agreed. ‘If he goes home at weekends, that’s probably when he meets his friends. Find out who they are. All right. He’s yours. Let’s have some results. But a little faster than you make a report. And while you’re there call at the Hôtel de Police there and see Inspector Bassuet. He’s an old friend of mine. Ask him if anything’s moving in that area.’
‘Moving, patron? What are we interested in?’
‘Building,’ Pel said slowly. ‘Land speculation. New housing estates for foreigners. Just ask.’
Twelve
Since Doc Minet and Leguyader wanted no more from the body, the Baroness Bronwen Raby-Labassat de Bur was buried the following Sunday alongside the church at Faux-Villecerf. The church stood on the side of the hill and the churchyard was so steep it made Pel feel like a mountain goat.
The Indian summer they’d been having was still struggling on but a wind that had fangs and claws in it had started, and, in the shadow of the church, as it swept across the valley, it made the day feel like an arctic winter. Pel shivered in a corner as the old priest droned away at the entrance to the tomb, the carved letters, RABY-LABASSAT, catching the watery rays of a weak sun above his head. The tomb was at the back of the churchyard but, trying to avoid being seen, Pel stood by the high wall which fell away like a cliff to the road that descended to the main highway. His cold, he was convinced, had taken a turn for the worse. To depress him further, there had still been no sign of Clos or Feray. And, as far as he could make out, no Gérard Espagne. Brochard hadn’t seen him again.
Not many of the village had turned out for the funeral, though Pel noticed old Sully, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses, watching carefully as if to make sure that what he was seeing was true and the Baroness really was dead and he had been reprieved. The Baron was there with Marie-Hélène, the Baron looking a little bewildered, Marie-Hélène as though she were pleased to be shot of someone who had been a baleful influence on their lives. The Baron’s three children were also there, with Gilliam and Jaunay, the Maire. In addition, there was a solitary figure in a mackintosh who turned out to be the Baroness’ brother, baffled by the Catholic rites and the strangeness of the churchyard with the family mausoleums that looked like telephone boxes, the wax flowers and the photographs of the dead.
‘I warned her about coming to live in France,’ he told Pel in execrable French. ‘But she insisted. And now look what’s happened.’
About the time Pel was returning from seeing the Baroness off to her eternal rest, Brochard was entertaining Charlie Ciasca to tea in the Bar Lafitte in St-Flô. He was feeling very pleased with himself because from now on some of what it was costing him to visit her could be hidden in expenses. Pel watched expenses like a hawk but he’d told Brochard to keep his eyes open, so it would be possible to disguise a few things as bus fares, petrol and unexpected snack lunches.
Pel’s friend, Inspector Bassuet, had proved a damp squib and Brochard’s questions to him had brought nothing. Bassuet was a lugubrious individual – just the sort to be a friend of Pel’s, Brochard thought – but he’d not heard of anything moving.
‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘It’s very quiet just now. I think all the villains are taking a late summer holiday. Just the usual.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Smuggling. Swiss watches are always good sellers. They smuggle the works. But we can never get our hands on them.’
Brochard wasn’t worried too much and at that moment Gérard Espagne couldn’t have been further from his thoughts because he felt he could detect a distinct thawing in Charlie Ciasca’s attitude.
‘How about dinner tonight?’ he urged. ‘I know a good place on the lakeside at St-Avold.’
‘You’re persistent,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you ever anything else to do?’
‘Sometimes I play tennis.’
‘So do I.’
‘How about a game with me?’
She studied Brochard. He was tall and well built and looked as though he had a forehand which would drive her through the back of the court.
‘No, thanks. I know my limitations. Playing with you would have me on my back.’
He grinned at her and she giggled. Then his grin died. So far it had been a very moral affair and Brochard was growing impatient. On the only occasions he got her away from her flat-mates the two brothers seemed to be around, and that wasn’t at all what Brochard had intended. After all, she was an artist. And artists were supposed to have a bohemian life style, weren’t they?
He pressed his case for dinner by the lakeside. ‘You can eat on the veranda,’ he said.
‘I never eat on verandas,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘Never since I discovered that evening chills congeal the food. I can never understand why people sit on the pavement to eat. I should think all you can taste are petrol fumes. How much better it was when there weren’t motor cars.’
‘And the smell was of the manure from the cab horses.’ She laughed but she agreed. In the meantime, she said, she had work to do but she agreed to meet him at the bar that evening for apéritifs.
‘Can’t I collect you at your home?’
‘My brothers will be there. And you ought to know, they like to behave like Cyrano de Bergerac.’
‘I’m not going to harm you.’
‘Try to convince them of that. They like to keep me on the straight and narrow. Jean-Jacques says it’s a fate worse than death.’
‘There’s a moon tonight. Will you still be on the straight and narrow?’
She grinned. ‘I expect so. But I’ll not struggle too much if you stray off it a bit.’
When she had gone, Brochard drove into Evian and sat with a beer in the speckled sunshine under the trees. He hadn’t seen Espagne again and he suspected that, having assigned Brochard to watch him, Pel would be wanting a report before long. Finishing his beer, he drove to the Rue de Genève. Inevitably, there was no sign of Espagne, no car outside his mother’s house, no Espagne happily playing ball in the garden with a little brother. It didn’t take long to find he’d been around, however. The woman in the bar at the end of the street had seen him. She knew him well.
‘Gérard?’ she said. ‘Sure, he’s been here. Comes regularly. Good boy. Looks after his mother. He’s been at home a lot lately.’
‘Has he now?’ Brochard said.
Deciding more questions might alert the man he was after, he returned to his aunt’s to change his shirt, shave and clean up. As he left he bumped into Jean-Jacques. Behind him was Gabriel. They regarded him with eyes like the barrels of a shotgun.
‘You’re taking her to dinner,’ Jean-Jacques said by way of introduction.
‘That’s right.’
‘She’s our sister.’
‘Does she need a bodyguard?’
‘These days she does.’
Brochard was inclined to laugh at the threat. The two brothers behaved like something out of the more purple passages of Dumas.
‘Oh, ignore them,’ Charlie said when she appeared. ‘They behave as if I were still fourteen.’
‘Are they married?’
‘Both of them.’
‘Haven’t they enough to do looking after their wives?’
‘Their wives are expected to behave.’
‘So are you, it seems.’
‘I’ve been known to slip occasionally.’
‘Tonight would be a good night to slip. Let’s not waste time.’ The meal was a good one and they polished off a bottle of wine followed by a brandy apiece.
‘I bet you’re wanting to work your evil way with me,’ Charlie said cheerfully.
‘It’s an idea,’ Brochard admitted.
‘I thought you might be going to suggest taking me back to your aunt’s to see her etchings.’
‘It crossed my mind, because she’s out for the night. But I thought your brothers might be watching it.’
‘You’d be right. They are.’
‘So the lakeside it is.’
‘I know where to go. I’ve been before.’
‘I bet your brothers don’t know about it.’
She laughed. ‘My brothers know everything there is to know about the lake.’
‘Because of their boat?’
‘Yes.’
‘I prefer sailing boats. Much more fun.’
‘They don’t have their boat for fun.’
‘What do they have it for? Just for the tourists?’
‘Officially.’
‘And unofficially?’
She gave him a sidelong look and suddenly with a shock he remembered a note that had gone round the sergeants’ room some time before.
The night was warm as they sat together on the rug from Brochard’s car, staring at the lights across the other side of the lake. Brochard could feel a breeze on his cheek and it seemed to be increasing. Just below them a small area had been cleared of secondary growth among the trees and there was a huge pile of cut branches, mostly pine, lying haphazardly on top of each other. The ground around was covered with knee-deep brush, twigs and scattered fragments from the clearing.
‘What’s all that?’ he asked.