by Mark Hebden
‘Where was it this time?’
‘The Humeur.’
‘Do you have proof? Another ticket perhaps?’
Chenandier placed the ticket on the table.
‘Do you always save your theatre tickets?’ Pel demanded.
‘No.’ Chenandier seemed agitated but as if he were trying hard to control himself. ‘Like anyone else, I put them in my pocket in case there’s any dispute about seats – as there sometimes can be – and I invariably find them several days later and throw them away. This time, of course, I looked for them. I was concerned that I’d been alone and had no alibi. Why, don’t you believe me or something?’
‘But of course, Monsieur. I was only curious.’
Chenandier was moving nervously about the hall again, straightening a picture, pulling a rug into place with his heel. Pel watched him.
‘I would prefer that you touched nothing, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘One never knows.’
‘Of course. Of course.’ Chenandier gave him a quick nervous smile. ‘I forgot. Clues, naturally. You have to look for clues.’ He slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand again. ‘This is terrible, Inspector. I don’t know what to say. I only learned what happened when I got back to the hotel.’
‘What did you do? Telephone home?’
‘I didn’t think I needed to. I suspected at once that it was my wife.’
Pel studied Chenandier for a moment. ‘Unusual, don’t you think, Monsieur – not ringing?’
Chenandier shrugged.
‘You suspected she was the victim of this murder you read about in the paper?’
Chenandier shrugged. ‘The name was the same. The address was slightly wrong.’
‘But you didn’t think of ringing to check?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Shock, perhaps. I don’t know. I wish to God–’ Chenandier stalked up the hall, turned, and came back quickly. ‘What can we do?’
‘We’re doing all we can already, Monsieur,’ Pel said. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you for the clothes you had with you in Paris. We shall have to check them, of course. As we shall have to check everyone else’s, too.’
‘What for?’
‘Traces of blood, Monsieur.’
‘You don’t think – ?’
Pel gestured. ‘I don’t think anything,’ he said. ‘It’s only a formality and I don’t expect any problems. But, as you can imagine, as the dead woman’s husband and since you weren’t with anyone at the time, we have to consider you.’
‘But I was in Paris!’
‘We have only your word and two ticket stubs to confirm that at the moment. Eventually we shall be checking with all the people you said you met and with your hotel. It sounds as if there’ll be no difficulty. But for the moment we must have your clothes.’
Chenandier looked worried. ‘I hope to God this won’t get round the city,’ he said. ‘I’m well known there. It could effect my business.’
‘We’re very discreet.’
Chenandier gestured at the suitcase. ‘Well, there’s my bag,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to help. There’s a suit in it. I also had this one I’m wearing with me.’
‘Coat, Monsieur? Mackintosh?’
‘Just a grey plastic mac. It’s in the case. It’s one of those things you can put in your pocket. I don’t believe in being in a rush like some businessmen, and if it rains I simply wait in a bar until it stops or I can call a cab.’
‘What if it’s cold?’
‘I’m pretty tough.’
Pel nodded. ‘I’ll get Sergeant Darcy to collect your clothes,’ he said.
‘All of them?’
‘Every one, Monsieur. Shoes as well.’
Chenandier stared nervously at Pel for a moment then he shrugged. ‘I never realised before what it felt like to be a suspect in a murder case,’ he said. ‘Now I know.’
Pel spoke placatingly. ‘You aren’t suspected, Monsieur,’ he pointed out. ‘We’re going through the motions of an enquiry and there are certain movements we have to make. This is one of them.’
‘Have you questioned my wife’s brother, Gervase Darcq?’ Chenandier asked.
‘Why do you ask that?’
Chenandier frowned. ‘Because it’s the sort of damned thing he would do.’
‘Is it?’
‘He’s been nothing but a pest to me since I married. He’s cost me a fortune one way and another. He’s shiftless, crafty, cunning, dissolute, and most of the time penniless except when he’s worked a wangle on some woman. He also has a temper. You should look him up.’
‘I probably will eventually.’
‘Why not now? You’re questioning me. Why not him?’
Chenandier was suddenly growing irritable and Pel tried to calm him. ‘One thing at a time, Monsieur.’
‘I can’t see why you haven’t chased him up already?’
‘I prefer to work my own way.’
‘You don’t know him. You should move.’
‘I don’t like to be hurried, Monsieur. If you’ll change, Sergeant Darcy will come up to your room for your clothes.’
Chenandier studied Pel for a moment then he turned and headed for the stairs. A few minutes later Darcy reappeared with a suitcase.
‘Pass it on to Leguyader,’ Pel said. ‘Tell Nosjean to handle it. Even his limited intelligence ought to be up to that. Then get hold of this brother who’s missing. You have his name?’
‘Yes, Chief. Darcq, Gervase Darcq.’
‘Find him. Turn him up.’
As Darcy vanished, Pel went up the stairs. Chenandier was still adjusting his tie at the mirror in the bedroom. Pel indicated the wardrobe. Stacked in a compartment at the side were two squash rackets.
‘You play squash, Monsieur?’
‘Not now. I used to play a lot. I swam a lot, too.’
‘No longer?’
Chenandier gave a little twisted smile. ‘I’m getting a bit old now. But I’ve always been keen on keeping fit. I used to trot through the woods fairly regularly. Two or three miles. To get my weight down. It’s very easy here. Straight out of the door and down the lane.’ Chenandier gave his worried smile again. ‘Then I came home with such an appetite, I always had an extra cup of coffee and two extra croissants. It didn’t help much but I suppose I enjoyed it.’
‘Do you still take this exercise?’
‘No.’ Chenandier gestured. ‘It becomes more difficult as you get older to get out on a cold morning and start running. But it was a habit that died hard because I was always fit as a youngster. I did my military service with the paras.’
‘North Africa?’
‘Indo-China. Dien Bien Phu.’
‘Prisoner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any ill effects?’
Chenandier’s yellow eyes were on Pel. ‘Such as homicidal tendencies, Inspector?’
Pel frowned. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’
Chenandier’s expression became more friendly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We weren’t badly treated, in fact. There was enough food – just – and I managed to keep fit. They tried brainwashing us, of course, but I just thought about other things. About my business – or my father’s, as it was in those days. I don’t think I ever really noticed what they were saying. But, because I didn’t object to it, they left me alone.’
Pel indicated the room. ‘Is there anything missing that you’ve noticed, Monsieur?’
Chenandier peered in the wardrobe. ‘I don’t know. Madame Quermel checks my clothes. You’d have to ask her.’
‘Not your wife?’
Chenandier shook his head. ‘Not for a long time, Inspector. She left it to the housekeeper.’
Pel nodded. ‘What about valuables?’
Chenandier glanced about him. ‘Well, I’ve not had a chance to check yet, but my wife did have some jewels.’ He moved to an open drawer. ‘She kept them here, I think.’
‘You don’t seem
very sure.’
Chenandier blinked, then he seemed to shake his head as though to rid himself of some unpleasant thought. ‘When I – when–’ he stopped and drew a deep breath. ‘I didn’t use this room except for my clothes, Inspector. I sleep in the dressing room next door, and have done for some time.’
‘Can you give me a date?’
Chenandier’s shoulders lifted. ‘Hard to say. Three years? Four? About that.’
‘And why, Monsieur?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why sleep apart from your wife?’
Chenandier shrugged and gave his small worried smile again. ‘Well, you know how it is, Inspector. As you grow older you think more of sleep than the other thing. Besides, like most men, I snore, and my wife said it kept her awake. It made no difference to us.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I think it made things better because she was happier and got more sleep. Do you understand?’
Not having married, Pel didn’t, but he nodded.
Chenandier drew a deep breath and, when Pel didn’t pursue his questioning, he seemed to shake himself as though to drive away the events of the morning. ‘Well, if there’s nothing more you want – ?’
‘Not at the moment,’ Pel said.
‘But there might be later?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On what we find out.’
‘About me?’
Pel shrugged. ‘Or about other people,’ he said.
Six
The temperature increased, shooting up suddenly so that the hot air hung over the city like a suffocating blanket. The place gasped and between the tall tenements, the streets seemed to boil. The Place des Ducs wavered in the shimmering heat that rose from the traffic, while the Hôtel de Police appeared to be specially designed to trap the sunshine, and its occupants looked longingly at the people sitting behind their bocks of beer on the terrasse of the café opposite. The week before, everybody had been complaining about the lack of sunshine. Now they were complaining it was too hot.
Pel loved it, feeling it went a long way towards staving off his increasing rheumatism. Since Madame Routy had warned him she was going to visit her sister, he dined in the city, eating coq au vin in the open air near the Place du Théâtre. He was still in a good mood when he reached home, fully intending to take advantage of the absence of television noises, and he was just sipping a glass of wine in a chair in the garden when Darcy rang to say that Madame Chenandier’s brother had been turned up at Jailly-les-Moulineux, staying with his landlady’s cousin.
‘They have something going,’ he said, ‘and the landlady doesn’t approve. I’m not surprised, either. He was very drunk and very difficult.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He tried swinging his fists, Patron, so I brought him in to let him cool down. It seemed a good idea. The uproar was like Versailles at the birth of a dauphin.’
‘Right,’ Pel said. ‘See what you can get from him, then let him sweat it out. I’ll see him in the morning.’
That at least was a step in the right direction, he thought, and prepared to enjoy his evening. But he was just stretched out on the settee with a book in a glow of well-being, a second glass of wine alongside him, when a car drew up outside and Judge Brisard appeared on the doorstep to find out what was happening. He hedged all round the subject in an attempt to dig out of Pel some facts without appearing to, and, irritated, Pel produced cigarettes and a bottle of marc and they chatted for a long time about Brisard’s health, even for a while in accord because Brisard seemed to suffer from the same horror of ill health and old age that Pel did.
When they got on to the Chenandier case, though, it was different, with Brisard fidgeting about as if he needed to go to the lavatory. Listening doggedly, Pel seethed inside, wondering why the man hadn’t the courage to come out with it and say what he meant.
Eventually they got down to facts but, as Pel could have announced half an hour before, there was nothing to report. The people at the top always gave themselves headaches wondering why the men on the spot weren’t making progress when, in fact, they were. As they always did – slowly, patiently, edging forward inch by inch, getting rid of the unnecessary details first and linking up all the connecting ones. For some reason best known to themselves, examining magistrates always seemed to expect all detectives to be Maigrets, when they ought to have known from sheer experience that police work was more often than not a simple process of elimination after a long period of checking and cross-checking by a great many policeman standing, as Pel so often did, on their own two weary flat feet.
Brisard got nowhere and in the end changed the subject in sheer desperation. ‘That railwayman, Giulle, who was found shot,’ he said. ‘What progress have you made there?’
‘Not much,’ Pel admitted.
‘Was it suicide?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pel said. ‘We’re looking into it. It looked like suicide because it was his own gun and it was alongside him with his fingerprints all over it. But I’d like to know more about it first.’
‘And what are you doing about it?’
‘Talking to everybody in Marsonnay who might know. I’ve got a man on it. But even the chap next door – chap called Roger Barbièry who works at the enquiry desk at the station – couldn’t help. He was the one who found him and reported it to Incidents.’
‘Couldn’t he tell you anything?’
Pel frowned. ‘He bored me stiff most of the time talking about railway timetables,’ he said. ‘He knows them forwards, backwards and inside out. He’s obsessed with ’em. He’s one of these chaps who buys them for light reading and spends his spare time working out how to get to Toulouse from Arles via Paris and gain ten minutes on the direct route.’
Brisard frowned. ‘I can never tell whether you’re joking or not, Inspector,’ he said.
Pel shrugged. ‘Neither can I,’ he admitted.
Glad to see the back of Judge Brisard, Pel rushed back to the settee. Putting his feet up, he relaxed happily once more, hoping to get in some reading, but, to his disgust, he fell asleep instead and woke up at 11.00 pm with a sour mouth just in time to stumble to bed, and was just in a deep sleep at midnight when a thunderous roar beneath him announced that Madame Routy had returned from her sister’s and had decided to watch the late film.
The evening which had promised so well had turned out a disaster.
He woke too early, feeling brown and crinkled round the edges like the first leaves of autumn. His bedroom had been stuffy in the heat, and his good humour when he arrived at the office was in an advanced state of disrepair. He put it all down to his health and advancing age and helped himself to a couple of bismuth tablets. Not that they ever did much good, he thought bitterly. Despite the claims that were made for them, all they did for Pel was leave a chalky taste in his mouth.
He was just glaring at the doodles on his blotter when Darcy arrived. He looked cheerful and Pel disliked him at once. No one had a right to look as cheerful as Darcy always did.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Done a check on all the vagrants, tramps and other assorted dropouts who might have done in the Chenandier woman for a spot of ready cash?’
Darcy didn’t turn a hair. ‘It’s being done now, Patron.’
Pel frowned. ‘Better also have a look at all known alcoholics and drug addicts in case they were after her money to buy themselves a bottle or a fix. Any known nuts?’
‘Only Barbièry, the chap who lives next to that railwayman, Giulle. He’s a nut.’
‘Only on railway timetables. You needn’t bother with him. What about the brother?’
‘Still sweating it out downstairs, Patron. He’d been hitting the bottle pretty hard and he looks like something the cat dragged in. It wasn’t very clever of him to go and stay with his landlady’s cousin in Jailly, was it?’
‘Perhaps he isn’t a man who’s full of good ideas. What about that Italian gardener? Has he turned up yet?’
‘N
ot yet. But I’ve found out that he has a record. Madame Quermel let it slip.’
‘When?’
‘She gave me a beer.’
‘Where?’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘As a prelude to further advances on your part, no doubt.’
Darcy grinned ‘You know me, Patron–’
‘Only too well. Keep your nose clean, Darcy. What did she say?’
‘Apparently he once confided in her when she was giving him coffee. I looked him up. Two cases of fraud, three of stealing from parked cars, one of assault, one of attempted blackmail.’
‘You’d better make enquiries about him.’
‘Where, Patron?’
‘He must have relatives. He married a French girl. For all we know, he was probably related to Mussolini or someone. Go and ask them. And while you’re at it, let’s have all those cars checked for blood. Odile’s. Quermel’s. Chenandier’s. Even Laye’s. You never know. With all the blood that was splashed around, there ought to be some somewhere.’
‘I’m pretty busy, Patron? Can’t Nosjean handle it?’
‘Nosjean’s checking the land beyond the stream for the weapon. The Proc wanted Lagé for something of his own, and Krauss is off sick.’
‘Misset then?’
‘He’s handling the Giulle death. His wife’s expecting a baby and he wants to be free when it comes. I decided Misset could drop that better than anything else. That only left Nosjean.’
‘He’s got a couple of uniformed men out there to do the work for him.’
Pel shook his head. ‘With the capacity for mental calculation that Nosjean possesses, if he had to do two things at once he’d make a mess of both of them. He’s all right for answering the telephone and putting reports in the right files. After that – well, after that, he’s good for fetching the coffee or a bottle of beer on a hot afternoon. He’d get himself in a knot. He has an unparalleled virtuosity for getting himself in a knot.’ Pel dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. ‘Got the doctor’s report yet?’
‘Unofficially, Patron. Just what we expected. Lacerations to the brain. All the usual. In blunt terms she’s dead because somebody hammered her head flat. Nothing else. No signs of recent sex. It’s being sent along.’