Death Set to Music

by Mark Hebden

  Odile seemed on the point of joining Nosjean in the hollow but seemed to think better of it. She moved awkwardly, all arms and legs, as though she couldn’t make up her mind what to do, and it occurred to Nosjean, as it had occurred to him the first time she’d approached him in the garden when he’d found Pel’s cigarette end, that she was lonely and desperately anxious to talk to him.

  ‘It was my mother who was killed,’ she said.

  She was trying terribly hard to make conversation and, because he was bored, Nosjean had no objection. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do they know who did it yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Nosjean said. ‘But we shall before long.’

  She was silent for a while, studying him. There was a lost, desperate look on her face that Nosjean couldn’t understand.

  ‘It would be terrible if it were someone we all knew, wouldn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Nosjean agreed. ‘But I don’t suppose it will be.’ He paused. ‘You’re not on your own in the house, are you?’

  ‘No. There’s a housekeeper and my father. He’s come back now.’

  Nosjean nodded, wishing his own girl would sometimes be as forthcoming as this one appeared to wish to be. He was young and he was in love. For years his heart had spent its time sliding around under his shirt like aspic on a hot plate every time he met a new girl. He’d thought it was steady at last, however, because for two months he’d been going with a typist who worked in a solicitor’s office and his heart was making a brave effort to move like a metronome. Unfortunately, his girl seemed to regard police work as unprofitable, badly paid and possessing no future, and to his fury spent all her time telling him about the young solicitors who worked with her.

  ‘Have you been a policeman long?’ Odile asked in a breathless sort of way.

  ‘A fair time,’ Nosjean said. ‘But not a sergeant. That’s fairly new.’

  ‘Oh! Is it difficult?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Nosjean tried to look determined. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit tricky. At least it is to me. I’m no Maigret. Not yet anyway.’

  He’d been trying to make her smile because her expressionlessness worried him.

  But her face didn’t change and he hurried on. ‘It’ll come easier when I’ve had more practice,’ he said.

  ‘It must be very interesting.’

  This was a new attitude to Nosjean and he felt pleased and flattered. ‘Well–’ he was just about to launch into a treatise on detective work when he saw Pel beyond the stream and decided he’d better look as if he were busy.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘My boss’ just arrived. I’d better get on with it.’

  Odile’s face filled with distress and she backed away as if she were afraid of him, or at least afraid of annoying him. It made him feel good because normally the boot was on the other foot.

  ‘I’ll come back another time,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t think your inspector likes me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he does.’ To his amazement, Nosjean found he was defending Pel. ‘He’s not a bad chap really. Underneath, you know. I’m sure he likes you. After all, why not? You’re all right.’

  She stared at him as if he’d handed her the freedom of the city. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Will you be here again?’

  ‘I expect so,’ Nosjean said. He was just about to continue that they always gave him the dirty jobs, but he refrained in time and explained instead that it was a job that required a lot of concentration.

  ‘I mustn’t stop you working,’ she said.

  ‘No. Especially with the Chief about. He’s inclined to take a high moral tone about work.’

  This time she managed a small sympathetic smile and it seemed to change her face.

  ‘You’d better be careful,’ she said.

  As Pel had appeared in the drive of 6 Chemin de Champ-Loups, he had been met by Madame Quermel who offered him coffee. She looked attractive and was friendly enough, even if still nervous, and appeared to be working hard at her affability, so that he wondered why none of his own housekeepers ever looked like she did. If Madame Routy had, he thought, he might have done as Darcy had suggested and whipped her into bed, or possibly even married her.

  ‘Mind answering a question or two?’ he asked her.

  She looked at him nervously then managed to summon up a shaky smile. ‘Depends on the question.’

  ‘The night of the murder, a car was seen in the lane. Down near the footbridge. Two people claim to have seen it. I’d like to identify it, because it probably belonged to whoever killed Madame Chenandier. You were out. Did you see it when you returned?’

  She gave him a frightened look. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘I never go down that end of the lane after dark. I simply drove into the drive and left my car in the courtyard. I didn’t even look.’

  ‘Sure? Two people saw the car who weren’t even looking for it. Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  Pel shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps it had gone by the time you came back,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose it matters. Probably just a couple necking.’

  Finishing his cigarette and draining his coffee cup, he walked down the lane to the small stone bridge that led across the stream, then back on the other side, past the Germain house to Chenandier’s and the Layes’. The air, he noticed, was full of the cries of birds and he wondered where they all came from because, normally, French birds were careful to keep out of sight in case they got shot. In the ordinary way, French countrymen fired at everything that moved and he decided the improvement must be due to the ecologists, because young people these days shot with cameras instead of guns.

  As he pushed through the long grass, he noticed Odile walking away hurriedly towards the Langres road.

  ‘Wasn’t that the Chenandier girl?’ he asked as he stopped in front of Nosjean.

  Nosjean blushed. ‘Yes, Chief.’

  ‘That’s the second time I’ve found her here. She’s got her eye on you.’

  Nosjean’s blush became deeper. ‘She only came to talk to me,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Say anything important?’

  ‘No. I think she’s just lonely.’

  Pel studied Nosjean, giving him full marks for perception. ‘You might be right,’ he admitted. ‘What have you found?’

  Nosjean told him, getting worked up a little as he went through the dreary list.

  ‘Calm down,’ Pel advised. ‘You look as though you’re going to burst into flames.’

  Nosjean got a grip on himself and, as the release of tension rose like a cloud of steam, he explained about the can of paraffin and the remains of the fire, not mentioning that he’d only examined them because he’d expected Pel to goad him about them.

  They walked over to where the fire had been and studied the pasty ashes.

  ‘Checked it?’ Pel asked.

  ‘Yes, chief.’ Nosjean took out his little plastic bag and indicated the small charred object inside. ‘There was this?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Looks like the clip thing off a glove. The press stud that fastens it at the wrist.’

  Pel peered at the minute object. ‘Anything else?’

  Nosjean produced another bag. ‘These, Patron.’

  ‘These’ were twisted and welded lumps of plastic.

  ‘What do you diagnose them as?’

  Nosjean decided to go mad with a decision. ‘It looks to me, Chief,’ he said, ‘as if they’re the remains of plastic zip fasteners. You can see what’s left of the teeth on this one. Just. The rest have melted away in the fire.’

  Pel nodded. ‘And that indicates what?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Clothing, Patron.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Something with a lot of zips. Anorak. Something like that.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Pel took the plastic bag and peered at the blackened contents. ‘You’ll make a detective yet. Anything else?’
<
br />   ‘Nothing, Chief. I looked.’

  Pel glanced about him. The remains of the fire lay in a small hollow surrounded by willows. ‘Would you say this could be seen from the Langres road or the Chemin de Champ-Loups?’ he asked.

  Nosjean smiled proudly. ‘I thought of that, Chief,’ he said. ‘I checked and it can’t. Perhaps the glow, but nothing more.’

  ‘You’re doing well. And the paraffin tin?’

  Nosjean pointed. ‘It was in the willows there. There’s a bit of a ditch leading to the stream bed.’

  ‘Within a few yards of the fire. Which indicates?’

  ‘That somebody used the paraffin to burn the clothing that belonged to the zip fasteners.’

  Pel stared about him, wondering if Nosjean was right and it would have been impossible to see a fire from the road. He came back to the present with a jerk. ‘Where’s the paraffin can now?’ he asked.

  Nosjean smiled again. ‘I sent it down to the fingerprint boys,’ he said. ‘I thought there might be something on it.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Pel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You are switched on!’

  On his way home, Pel called in the Bar de la Frontière for a glass of white wine. He fended off the proprietor expertly and was sitting outside watching the men playing boules in the dust when Darcq arrived in a battered Peugeot brake with a wooden frame design that had seen better days.

  ‘You always call here?’ Pel asked.

  Darcq grinned. ‘I’m nearly a permanent fixture. Any time now I’ll put down roots. They’re not bad. They’re always good for a drink if I’m short.’

  ‘That your car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Better not let Traffic see it. It looks to me as if the shock absorbers have gone. The steering looks shot, too. Come to that–’ Pel sniffed ‘ – the bodywork isn’t much to write home about either.’

  ‘It gets me to and from work.’

  ‘The woodwork’s going.’

  ‘Probably woodworm.’ Darcq grinned. ‘The way the engine turns, you’d think that’s got woodworm, too. It’s not bad, though. When you turn the wick up, kids on bicycles have a hard time catching me up, believe me.’

  Pel was not amused. ‘Traffic spend their time looking for cars like that,’ he said. ‘Inspector Pomereu’s very keen on them.’

  ‘Why? Does he collect antiques?’ Darcq shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t help ’em much if they found it,’ he said. ‘I can’t afford to have it repaired. I’m broke again. I’m always broke.’

  ‘You weren’t last week,’ Pel pointed out. ‘You had 3,000 frs.’

  Darcq looked at him quickly then he grinned. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s spent now.’

  Pel lit a cigarette and pushed the packet across. Darcq helped himself quickly before the offer was withdrawn.

  ‘It belonged to your sister, didn’t it?’ Pel said.

  Darcq’s eyebrows shot up but he recovered quickly. ‘I won it on a horse,’ he insisted. ‘I told you.’

  ‘I know you did. But you were lying. You couldn’t have won it on a horse. Not that day. The odds were all wrong. We checked.’

  ‘It must have been the day before, then.’

  ‘You’re a poor liar, Darcq.’

  Darcq gave a wry grin. ‘I always was,’ he said.

  ‘You took it from your sister’s handbag, didn’t you?’

  Darcq shrugged. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘She’d been to the bank that morning. She drew 3,000 frs. You helped yourself to them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you must have been in the house around the time she was murdered.’

  Darcq sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just after, I think. Near midnight. I was drunk. I went in. I often went round at night when Hervé Chenandier was away. That was the only time I could get in. When he was home, he’d never let me beyond the front step. I reckoned I could always get something out of her if I could just get in.’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Through the door. It wasn’t locked. Nobody locks their doors in Aigunay. If I turned up and found it locked, I assumed she’d gone to bed.’

  ‘And this night?’

  ‘Well, I knew Hervé was away so I turned up in the hope of using a bit of persuasion.’

  ‘Go by car?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re lucky Inspector Pomereu didn’t catch you if you were as drunk as you say.’

  ‘I drive well when I’m drunk. Better than when I’m sober, I sometimes think.’

  ‘Where did you leave your car – Chemin de Champ-Loups?’

  ‘Not likely. I don’t like to be seen going in there. My sister didn’t like me to be seen either. She preferred not to know me. I left it in Clément-Rémy.’

  ‘How did you know your sister would be awake?’

  ‘I didn’t. But then I saw a light in the salon and knew she was. I even thought I was on to a good thing and that she might have had a boyfriend in there, because there was a car in the lane and I knew it didn’t belong to any of the houses there.’

  ‘What sort of car was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t go near it. I thought she might even be inside it with him. It was just a car. Big. Dark.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Down near the end of the lane. I knew it didn’t belong to anyone around there. Nobody ever goes down there.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, everything was quiet and I finally decided the car belonged to a courting couple from the city and I went in the house. I saw her handbag in the hall. It was open, just dumped on the table by the door. I could see the wad of money in it, so I helped myself. Because I was drunk, I suppose. Then I wondered if there was anybody about and I looked into the salon. That’s when I saw her.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Doing nothing. She was lying on her back, stark naked except for that thing she had on, staring at the ceiling. It looked like a butcher’s shop. I bolted. It sobered me up, I can tell you.’

  ‘Didn’t you call anybody? The people you thought were in the car?’

  ‘I was scared stiff and I just headed for the bar here. They were just closing. I stayed for a bit, then I got them to let me have a bottle and I got drunk again.’

  ‘And the money?’ Pel said. ‘What happened to that?’

  ‘I spent it.’ Darcq shuddered. ‘Getting drunk. I looked to see if there was blood on it but there wasn’t and it all went – that night, and the next. If I’d gone on much longer, I’d have ended up seeing little green men coming through the windows. Seeing her there unnerved me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’

  ‘I was scared. I thought they’d think I did it.’

  ‘They did.’ Pel shrugged. ‘I expect you’ll be charged eventually with the theft of the money, which makes two charges with the one for assaulting the police. I’d advise a clean breast. And don’t bolt.’

  Darcq shook his head. ‘Not likely. I’m in enough trouble, as it is.’

  Pel wasn’t letting up at all. ‘There’s jewellery missing, too,’ he went on. ‘Did you take that?’

  Darcq shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t try. I’d often thought I might, but that night I wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole.’

  ‘You took the money,’ Pel pointed out quietly.

  ‘That’s different. That was before I found her. And it was there, right in front of my nose. In used notes, too. I knew they’d never trace it. Jewellery’s different. They go round the shops.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I once did help myself to a ring. You lot were down on me like a ton of bricks.’

  ‘Do time?’

  ‘No. My sister withdrew the charge and said it was a mistake. She was afraid of getting her name in the paper, I think. Besides, on that night, to get at the jewellery it would have meant going up the stairs and I thought there’d be blood everywhere – perhaps even another stiff. I wouldn’t have risk
ed that.’

  ‘You knew where it was then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who did take it then?’

  Darcq shrugged. ‘Whoever did her in, I suppose,’ he said.

  Fourteen

  The following day Nosjean distinguished himself again.

  His search round the city jewellers had failed to turn up any of the jewellery but, remembering something one of them had said to him, he had thought perhaps he might push the matter a bit further.

  ‘People from this area who have things to sell,’ he’d been told, ‘sometimes go to Dôle because they’re a bit ashamed of selling family treasures on their own doorsteps in case people recognise them.’

  Picking up the telephone and a list of Dôle jewellers, he had sat down for a long session. It had taken him even longer than he’d expected but eventually he turned up what he wanted and, flushed with self-importance and success, he wondered if he might put in a complaint about the number of hours he was being called on to work, and even plucked up courage to put in a call to his girl at her home. She cut him off with a flea in his ear and, wilting like an unwatered hydrangea, he went home, ridden pell-mell by resentment against everybody of higher rank or authority and all girls who considered themselves important.

  Darcy was first in the office the next morning and when Pel arrived he was all smiles.

  ‘Enjoy Paris, Patron?’ he asked.

  ‘The pavements are harder there even than here.’

  Darcy grinned. ‘Surely you went out on the town in the evening?’

  Pel prided himself on his old-world courtesy, but with Darcy it was inclined to slip a bit at times. Darcy was efficient, keen, ambitious, cheerful, friendly and hard working – all that he should be. At times Pel couldn’t stand him.

  When Nosjean arrived they listened to his story with interest,

  ‘I’ve found one of the missing rings. Chief,’ he announced. ‘In Dôle. Do we take your car or mine?’

  Pel’s face was blank. ‘We take Darcy’s,’ he said.