Death Set to Music

by Mark Hebden

  ‘How about the lab report?’

  ‘Much the same. Nothing unexpected.’

  Pel scowled. ‘We’re getting along fast, aren’t we?’ he said.

  As the door closed behind Darcy, Pel lit a cigarette, spat out a few fragments of tobacco, wondered – with all the bad habits he possessed – how many more years he had to live, and began to study the piles of paper on his desk. Without thinking he began to doodle again on his pad.

  ‘Suspects,’ he wrote. ‘Hervé.’ He crossed it out and wrote ‘Chenandier’. Then he wrote ‘Quermel. Odile. Gardener – when he turns up. Gervase Darcq, brother.’ Then he wrote ‘Neighbours – Layes and Germains,’ underlined it, put a row of question marks after it, drew a square round it and added frills. It didn’t tell him much and he’d already virtually written off the Germains because, as comparative newcomers, they’d never really been assimilated into the set-up in the Chemin de Champ-Loups, and Madame Germain appeared to have spent a lot of time with her mother at St Seine-l’Abbaye, to the north of the city, while her husband seemed to be perpetually away in Arles.

  It still left Madame Quermel, Odile, the gardener, Darcq, Chenandier himself – if he’d somehow arrived from Paris, which seemed unlikely – and the Layes next door. He studied the sheet of paper, drew a few more frills round what he’d written, then he screwed it up and threw it in disgust into the wastepaper basket, and lit another cigarette from the old one, with a sigh at his own lack of will.

  The door opened and Darcy appeared. ‘You’d never believe it, Patron,’ he said. ‘While we’ve been slandering Nosjean he’s been pulling off a feat of detection. It seems he got in touch with the leader of the Italian community in the city. There’s a small one, as you know. They knew of that sister the gardener had. And that’s where he’d moved to. She lives in Boux. Nosjean apparently telephoned the police there. On his own. Without any help from anyone.’ Darcy grinned. ‘Only one problem.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘He isn’t there at the moment. He’s here somewhere – in the city. The sister said he went out on his motobicyclette.’

  Pel scowled. ‘What sort of report is that supposed to be?’

  Darcy smiled. ‘Just thought you’d like to know that Nosjean’s not entirely a fool. He may actually have possibilities. Apparently he even alerted the uniformed boys.’ He gave Pel a quizzical look. ‘You look under the weather, Chief. You all right?’

  ‘I didn’t sleep.’

  ‘Try a sleeping pill.’

  ‘It would need an anaesthetist to overcome the racket my housekeeper makes.’

  ‘What’s she do? Throw parties in the kitchen?’

  ‘She plays the television.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘From the children’s shows in the morning to the late film at night. Particularly the late film at night.’

  Darcy grinned. ‘You should sack her,’ he suggested.

  ‘Who’d look after me?’

  ‘There must be some plump young woman who’d give her right arm to share a house with Detective Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel.’

  Pel glared. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘No, Patron. But you’re not old. You’re a catch.’

  Pel began to look nervous. ‘I’ll stick to Mother Routy,’ he said. ‘She’s not a bad cook. She just goes mad with the television.’

  ‘Perhaps you should marry her and whip her into bed. That would keep her quiet. It usually does.’

  ‘You’ve got a one-track mind, Darcy.’ Pel stood up. ‘Let’s have a talk with Madame’s brother. Fetch him in.’

  Gervase Darcq was a big shambling man with a face like an unmade bed – ravaged with drink, florid, fleshy and with pouches under his eyes big enough to stuff a suit in.

  He sat down opposite Pel, flopping heavily into the chair. He held up a cigarette and raised his eyebrows.

  Pel waved. ‘Go ahead.’

  Darcq lit the cigarette, drew in smoke as if his life depended on it, and looked at Pel.

  ‘Am I a suspect?’ he asked.

  Pel shrugged. ‘At the moment, no.’

  Darcq sighed, as if in relief, opened and shut his jaws once or twice as if his tongue was clove to the roof of his mouth.

  ‘Merde alors!’ he said. ‘Last night! Comme j’étais bourré. I was stoned. My head’s like a dogfight and, Mother of God, how I suffer!’

  He shifted inside his clothes, which were unwholesome with spots of drink and food. He turned and stared about him, squinted at the sun coming in through the window, turning his head away as if the brightness hurt his eyes, and began to open and shut his mouth again.

  ‘That sun,’ he said. ‘It comes at you like a mad dog!’

  ‘Try drinking less,’ Pel suggested.

  Darcq gave a sheepish grin. ‘Unfortunately, booze comes at you like a mad dog, too. At least, it does me. Come to that, so do the women. Perhaps I’m just weak-willed.’

  He gestured at the room. ‘You sure I’m not a suspect?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Why am I here then?’

  ‘Because we’ve got some questions to ask you?’

  ‘Because you think I did it?’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Bash my sister’s head in. I saw it in the paper. I bet you think I did.’

  ‘Bolting didn’t discourage the idea. Did you?’

  ‘No.’ The big man shifted in the hard chair. ‘But I got the wind up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was always fighting with her. She got too big for her boots. We were just ordinary people. My father kept a shoe shop. When she married Chenandier, she started thinking she was someone important. She didn’t like me around.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The big face stared at Pel, then it suddenly lit up with a smile that would have charmed the ducks off the water, and Pel saw what it was that made for Gervase Darcq’s success with women.

  ‘She thought I’d pinch the television set or something.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have minded. It would have brought in a few francs.’

  ‘Did you ever take anything from her?’

  ‘Few things. Not much. Helped myself to some of her brandy once. Borrowed her car when she wasn’t looking. Used her name to get some clothes I needed.’ Darcq paused. ‘Forged a cheque in her name once. I did a couple of months for that because her husband found out and, being the mean bastard with money that he is, he insisted on her taking action. That was what finally finished her off. She told me I wasn’t to go near the house any more.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Darcq grinned. ‘I was her little brother, wasn’t I? And she’d been responsible for me ever since my mother died. She still kept slipping me a few francs in spite of her husband. Not much, but a few. She hated it. She hated me, too. I suppose I can’t blame her.’ He paused and looked at Pel. ‘Did Chenandier do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Bash her head in?’

  ‘Why should he?’

  ‘Because he’s a hypocritical bastard.’

  ‘Oh? How?’

  ‘The way he behaves.’

  ‘How does he behave?’

  ‘You’d think he was a saint.’

  ‘And isn’t he?’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  Darcq shrugged. ‘Merde, I don’t know! I expect he gets up to all sorts of things when he’s in Paris.’

  ‘Do you know this?’

  ‘No. But it’s obvious.’

  ‘That’s a dangerous thing to say without proof.’

  ‘No man’s that good.’

  ‘It doesn’t pay to judge people by your standards.’

  ‘You taking his side?’

  ‘No. What makes you think he got up to things in Paris?’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Darcq waved a fleshy paw. ‘I don’t know. If you want proof, I haven’t any. It’s
just a feeling, that’s all.’

  Pel studied the big man for a while. ‘Where do you work?’ he asked.

  ‘FPSM. They’ve got a branch here in the city.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Machinist. We make tractor parts.’

  ‘What about the night of the murder? Where were you?’

  Darcq grinned. ‘Bar de la Frontière,’ he said. ‘I usually am. And I was broke. That’s normal, too. I expect someone else paid. Some girl, I suppose.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  Darcq grinned again. ‘I haven’t the foggiest. That’s one thing about the way I get drunk. I can never remember afterwards so I never have to apologise or thank anybody. If they leave the bed before you wake up, how can you?’

  Pel paused, taking a long time to light a cigarette to let Darcq stew in his own juice. After a minute or so the big man began to fidget and finally, he stubbed out his own cigarette and cadged another from Pel. Pel sat up.

  ‘Chenandier,’ he said. ‘Your brother-in-law: Did he have any reason to want your sister dead? Money, for instance?’

  ‘No, it was all his.’

  ‘Women?’

  ‘Well, there was that housekeeper of his. Quermel. I should think she’s good in bed.’

  ‘Was he having an affair with her?’

  Darcq shrugged. ‘I’d have loved to have caught them at it. It would have been worth a few francs to me to keep quiet. It might even have been worth a few francs from my sister, too, not to tell the neighbours. But I never did.’

  ‘Did you have reason to suspect they were having an affair?’

  ‘Only that she was worth pushing into bed and Hervé Chenandier was a bit of a bull for women.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Ask him what he got up to in Paris. It wasn’t all business, I bet.’

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘He’s not exactly a fan of mine either. I expect he was the one. Are you going to let me go?’

  ‘Yes. If I can rely on you not to disappear again.’

  Darcq gestured. ‘I promise. I’ll stay home and be a good boy.

  ‘We’ll also need to check your rooms and your clothes.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It’s a formality.’

  ‘If you’re looking for blood on them, you won’t find any.’ Pel shrugged and Darcq grinned. ‘What do I do in the meantime? I’ve only got what I stand up in.’

  ‘I expect we can lend you a blanket.’ Pel turned away, then he paused. ‘You’ll be charged, of course.’

  ‘With murder?’

  ‘With assaulting the police last night.’

  Darcq’s look of shock turned to one of indignation. ‘I didn’t touch the police.’

  ‘You had a good try.’

  When Darcq had gone, Pel sat staring at his papers for a while, flicking through the reports he’d received. So far, there wasn’t enough to suggest anything worthwhile, and in the end he ordered a car and drove out to Aigunay-le-Petit where he found Sergeant Nosjean at work, his youthful face pink. As he greeted Pel with his usual wary manner – as if he expected Pel to attack at once – Pel noticed Odile Chenandier’s back vanishing round the side of the house.

  ‘What’s she want?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, Chief.’ Nosjean looked embarrassed.

  ‘Has she been asking you anything?’

  ‘No, Patron.’ Nosjean blushed again. ‘She just seemed to want to talk, that’s all.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Me. What was it like being a policeman? Was I married? Did I have a girl? She got in the way a bit.’

  ‘In the way of what?’

  ‘Well, I found something, Chief.’

  ‘Go on,’ Pel encouraged. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We’ve checked that land beyond the stream, Patron, and we found a half brandy bottle.’

  ‘What’s a half brandy bottle? A bottle half filled with brandy; a bottle containing a mixture half brandy, half water; half of a broken bottle which once contained brandy, or an empty bottle, half measure, which once held brandy.’

  ‘That.’

  ‘WHICH?’

  ‘An empty bottle, half-litre size, bearing a label marked Les Quatre Ducs Cognac. Three star. It’s not an old one. There’s even a drop left in it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Pel said coldly. ‘When I get reports, I want them factual and in such a way they leave me in no doubt. What else?’

  ‘Not much, Patron.’ Nosjean’s pinkness this time came from humiliation. ‘A cigarette end or two. One right in the middle of the back lawn. A Gauloise.’

  Pel eyed him speculatively. ‘And what do you deduce from that?’ he asked.

  ‘That the murderer was probably someone who enjoyed smoking Gauloises.’

  Pel’s expression was pitying. ‘There are around 52,000,000 people in France,’ he said slowly and patiently. ‘Out of those, including the kids who shouldn’t be smoking but do, perhaps 25,000,000 smoke Gauloises. It certainly could have been the murderer’s, as you so succinctly suggest, but on the other hand, it could also have belonged to the gardener, the dustman, the man who came to paint the house, the man who attends to the telephone, the housekeeper, or one of your own men. It could even have been tossed out of an aeroplane on a routine trip from Paris to Monaco. In point of fact–’ Pel drew a deep, sad, disillusioned breath ‘ – it’s mine. I threw it down yesterday.’

  As Pel turned away, he saw Darcy watching him, a grin on his face. ‘We’ve done a check on what jewellery’s missing, Patron,’ he said.

  ‘And what is missing?’

  Darcy opened his notebook. ‘A ruby ring worth quite a bit of money, for a start. There was also a diamond and sapphire ring and two diamond rings. Worth quite a packet altogether. Some other things as well. I have a rough list.’

  ‘Where were they usually kept?’

  ‘In the bedroom. In that open drawer.’

  ‘Anyone know where they were?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Darcy shrugged. ‘Perhaps everybody. There were other things to take as well. There’s a clock there worth a lot that would fit in a pocket, and a fur worth a franc or two.’

  Pel seemed unimpressed. ‘Did you check the clothes of those two women?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Patron.’

  ‘Find anything?’

  Darcy grinned. ‘Chiefly that Quermel has a very sexy line in underwear.’

  ‘You’re developing into a fetishist. Any signs of blood?’

  ‘Not on hers.’

  Pel turned. ‘And the daughter?’

  ‘On the sole of one of her shoes. I gather it was the pair she was wearing when she found her mother. It’s possible, of course that she picked it up when she went into the room.’

  ‘She told us she didn’t go into the room.’ Pel said. ‘She could see the corpse from the doorway. So why go into the room?’

  Darcy smiled. ‘She’s probably a fetishist too.’

  Seven

  When Pel left the Hôtel de Police at the end of the day, Nosjean was sulking in the outer office. There was no doubt of his disapproval. You could as easily have remained ignorant of an escape of gas.

  He watched as Pel vanished. ‘The way that man behaves to me,’ he said with the bitter gloom of a young man whose life had been blighted, ‘you’d think he was thinking of raffling me off as a prize.’

  ‘Since you mention it,’ Darcy said, ‘it’s not a bad idea.’

  Unaware of the passions he’d stirred up, Pel drove home slowly. Down the Rue Chabot-Charny, by the Place Wilson and out towards the University. His car was giving trouble, so he left it at the garage for a check, promising to pick it up the following morning. Then, lighting a cigarette, he began to climb up the Rue Martin-de-Noinville towards his home.

  As he stopped, he was puffing and, deciding he’d mislaid a lung somewhere, made up his mind for the ten thousandth time that he’d have to cut down his smoking. But the first sight of his home shook him so muc
h he lit another at once without thinking. It was desperately in need of paint and looked far worse than any of the others in the road. It looked, in fact, like a load of old doors and windows just dumped down at the side of the road, and he realised it was because his neighbours – shop-owners, managers and junior executives to a man – not only had more money than he did but also had more time at their disposal.

  He opened the door with a sigh and instantly became aware of a small boy in the lounge watching television with Madame Routy.

  ‘This is my nephew, Didier Darras,’ she announced. ‘My sister’s had to go and look after her father-in-law so he’s come to stay a day or two with me. He can have the spare room. It’ll be all right, I suppose?’

  Pel scowled. ‘Just behave as if the place were your own,’ he said.

  His sarcasm went astray and Madame Routy nodded, her eyes still glued to the television. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I thought it’d be all right.’

  The boy looked at Pel and smiled. It was such a wide smile, such a real one, and of such charm, that even Pel’s hard heart melted.

  ‘Does he like television, too?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ Madame Routy said.

  ‘No,’ Didier Darras corrected at once.

  Madame Routy tore her eyes away from a talk on the cathedrals of France which, judging by the noise the volume control was causing, could easily have been on the storming of the Bastille. ‘But of course you do,’ she said.

  The boy frowned. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said.

  ‘Surely you like les cowboys? Le gunfight?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Anybody knows that cowboys must have been a dirty, smelly lot who never shaved. On the television they look like a bunch of aunties.’

  ‘Aunties?’ Pel said.

  ‘Homos.’

  Madame Routy turned, frowning, and the boy made things clear. ‘Homosexuals,’ he said.

  ‘You shouldn’t know about such things,’ Madame Routy said.

  ‘Everybody else does.’

  ‘You should watch the cowboys.’

  ‘I might if they looked like cowboys.’

  Madame Routy seemed to be on the retreat. She gave Didier Darras a dirty look. Almost as if he were allying himself with Pel. ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ she said tartly.