Death Set to Music

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Why Darcy’s, Chief?’

  Pel ignored the question. ‘See Barbièry?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t get the chance, Patron.’

  ‘Then you’ll be going to Marsonnay to see him in yours, won’t you? And if you’ve any sense, this time you’ll enquire first whether he’s likely to be home.’

  Nosjean disappeared, trying to look dignified and outraged at the same time. As he passed Darcy, the older sergeant’s voice came quietly.

  ‘You didn’t expect cries of delight, did you?’

  It took them less than an hour to get to Dôle. The road was flat out of the city but as they headed south-west it began to rise. As they came to Dôle, they could see the forest of Chaux on a vine-clad slope, then they were driving between the old Spanish Renaissance-style houses. Pel had sat quietly as Darcy drove. Now he came suddenly to life, lit a cigarette, filled the car with smoke, and sat up abruptly.

  ‘If you were going to murder someone, Darcy,’ he said, ‘how would you do it?’

  Darcy shrugged. ‘I expect I’d use a two-two rifle.’

  Pel stared at him. ‘Why not a revolver?’

  Darcy grinned. ‘French game laws being what they are, you don’t have to have a licence for a two-two and you do for a revolver. So, with a two-two, it’s quite legal.’

  Pel stared at him, irritated by his levity. ‘The trouble with you, Darcy,’ he said, ‘is that you don’t take your job seriously enough.’

  Darcy shrugged. ‘I can tell a liar,’ he pointed out. ‘And, as far as I can make out, everybody in this business is one. They’re all involved one way or another.’

  Pel frowned. ‘Laye with Madame Chenandier. Chenandier with Madame Quermel.’

  ‘Fornication Corner,’ Darcy said.

  Pel nodded. ‘And Darcq hanging round all the time for everything he could get. Somebody was in that house that night and I want to know who. Laye didn’t see him. Darcq didn’t. The gardener didn’t. And neither did the two women who were in the house, or Chenandier because he was in Paris. Neither, come to that, did the nighbours. So who was it?’ Pel gestured angrily. ‘Sit on Darcq. Get him in again and give him a going-over. See if you can break his story.’

  There was a long silence then Pel spoke again. ‘When you checked Chenandier’s clothes,’ he asked, ‘did you see any anoraks?’

  ‘No. Quermel said he never wore them.’

  ‘She volunteered the information?’

  ‘Not really. I was checking everything that I thought he might have been wearing that night in the rain – waterproofs, that sort of thing. His daughter said he usually wore a plastic mackintosh – the one he gave us that was in his suitcase. I asked about anything else he might have had. After all, it was raining hard, you remember, and I suggested anoraks myself. But Quermel said he detested them because they reminded him too much of the jump jacket he wore in the paras. Why, Chief?’

  Pel rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘Because Nosjean found a zip fastener in the remains of that fire,’ he said. ‘And I noticed that Laye wears anoraks. There was one in his car. A new-looking one covered with zips.’

  The shop in Dôle was small and dark, and the old man and the girl who occupied it seemed dwarfed by the single brilliant light that threw its beam down on to the counter. The jeweller placed the ring on a piece of red baize.

  ‘Not very valuable, Monsieur,’ he asked.

  Pel’s eyebrows rose. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘A zircon. It’s a good zircon, of course, but zircons don’t compare with rubies, sapphires, emeralds or diamonds. It’s the sort of ring a woman might wear during the day when she’s pottering about the house. When she wished to be elegant, she’d wear something more valuable.’

  It occurred to Pel that if he’d been married, on the pay he got such a ring would probably be his wife’s pride and joy, because she’d have had no other.

  ‘Who brought it in?’ he asked. ‘A woman?’

  ‘No, Monsieur. A man.’

  ‘Describe him.’

  ‘Tallish. Dark.’

  ‘Working-class type?’

  ‘Yes. I thought he was wearing his best suit for the occasion.’

  ‘Didn’t you suspect he might have stolen it?’

  The jeweller smiled. ‘You’d be surprised at the type of people who come in these days to sell jewellery. Most of it’s quite straightforward. He said it was his mother’s and that after the war his family had lost their money. He’d had to take a job in a factory and they were having to get rid of things to make ends meet.’

  Darcy frowned and glanced at Pel. ‘Sounds like Darcq, Chief,’ he said. ‘He works at FMPS.’

  The jeweller looked up. ‘I don’t think this one worked in a factory, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘Or even in a garage. Despite what he said. He hadn’t a factory worker’s hands. We get them in sometimes, buying things for their wives. Some of them have a lot of money these days and they think jewellery is a good investment. They usually have longish nails – so they can pick up things like screws – and usually there’s dirt under them. They aren’t dirty men, you understand, but it’s impossible to get rid of all the grease.’

  ‘And this man’s nails?’ Pel asked.

  ‘No oil. His nails were short and broken and cracked, as though he worked with something rougher than tools.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Stone, Monsieur. Or soil. His hands were hard and scarred with work. But the work wasn’t work that contained oil or grease.’

  ‘A gardener’s hands?’ Pel asked.

  The jeweller smiled. ‘You have one such on your list?’

  Back at the office, Nosjean couldn’t contain himself.

  ‘We’ve found the murder weapon,’ he said.

  ‘Who has?’ Darcy said.

  ‘Those chaps I organised.’

  ‘The way you’re going on,’ Darcy said, ‘you’ll make yourself ill.’

  Nosjean frowned. The only thing that was likely to make him ill, he felt, was frustration caused by his inability to get to closer quarters with his girlfriend. ‘They were ploughing about any old how,’ he said. ‘I got them doing it properly. I got them on a square search.’

  ‘What’s a square search?’

  ‘It’s the way rescue ships search the sea.’

  ‘You brought in rescue ships?’

  Pel interrupted before Nosjean went into his orphan-of-the-storm act. ‘Where is it now?’ he asked.

  ‘Leguyader’s got it. It’s being dusted down for fingerprints.’

  Leguyader had the poker on a bench. It was rusting a little from the dew on its steel surface.

  ‘Someone made an attempt to clean it with grass,’ he said. ‘But there are still traces of blood and hair on it. Her blood and her hair.’

  Pel bent over it. ‘Anything else it can tell us?’

  ‘What more do you want? Parma violets? That’s what was used to kill her.’

  ‘Any fingerprints?’

  ‘Plenty. Chenandier’s, Odile Chenandier’s, Madame Quermel’s, Madame Chenandier’s, that brother of hers – even the gardener’s. He probably touched it when he brought in logs for the fire.’

  Pel sniffed. ‘He might have touched it when he used it to hammer her head flat, too,’ he observed. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A smudge or two which were probably caused by a glove or might also have been caused by someone doing the cleaning and picking it up with a duster in the hand. That’s how people cleaning often do pick up things like this.’

  ‘You know, of course?’

  Leguyader smiled smugly. ‘Do it for my wife sometimes,’ he said.

  He tossed a sheet of paper across. ‘Report on Laye’s clothes,’ he said. ‘Nothing. Madame Chenandier’s hairs. That’s all. But if they were in the habit of going into clinches occasionally, that’s not unusual and certainly doesn’t prove he did her in.’

  Pel stared at the paper bitterly, then he picked it up and turned to Darcy. ‘Let’s go and see
the gardener,’ he said.

  In the car Pel was silent. Before long, he was going to have to admit to Brisard that he had no firm suspect. There were one or two he might have brought in, but he knew perfectly well he could never make a charge of murder stick. He might throw the gardener in front of the judge for being in possession of Madame Chenandier’s ring, or Darcq for having her money, but while he knew that would please Brisard, he preferred to wait quietly. Sooner or later someone would make a false move. There weren’t many after all now, because eliminating the Germains had reduced the field a bit. So who would it be? Laye? Madame Quermel? Odile Chenandier? Chenandier himself? None of them could give any definite proof of where they were at the time of the murder.

  It was midday when they stopped the car in the Chemin de Champ-Loups.

  Pel walked down the drive and round the back of the house to the garden. The gardener had propped a spade against the side of the stone-built shed and on the bench they could see a bottle of wine and the plastic box that contained his lunch. Albertini was eating but as he saw Pel, he jumped to his feet and wiped his hands on his shirt.

  Pel gestured. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  The Italian sat down again on the backless chair. He was clearly nervous and kept wiping his hands on his shirt, his dark-skinned face backgrounded by the whitewashed wall with its scrawled reminders, addresses and telephone numbers.

  Pel produced the ring the jeweller had found. ‘Recognise this?’ he asked.

  The gardener’s face fell. ‘Si, Signore,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Was it you who sold it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  The Italian’s head jerked up. ‘What others, Signore?’

  ‘The other things that are missing?’

  ‘I do not know anything else is missing, Signore.’

  Pel glanced at Darcy. ‘When did you sell this?’ he asked.

  ‘The day after the murder, Signore.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Here in the garden. She took it off. She is doing something and the ring is so big it keeps catching. She put it down on the steps there and forgot it. It is still there two days later. She does not even miss it.

  ‘So I take it and keep it. I was going to wait in case she make a fuss about it and, if she does, say I’d found it. I think there might be a reward. But she never does. I never even hear her mention it. It couldn’t have been much to her. So I decide I will sell it when everything is quiet, but then she is killed and I think I must get rid of it. I go to Dôle on the motorbike.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t realise that all jewellers are notified about missing jewellery,’ Darcy commented.

  The Italian gestured with his hands earnestly. ‘I don’t know about any missing jewellery,’ he insisted. ‘I never even went in the house except to take in logs or perhaps to telephone. She didn’t like me going in the house.’

  ‘Who didn’t?’

  ‘Madame. She once sees me in there and calls me a dirty Italian. Only the housekeeper ever treat me properly.’

  ‘Get on well with her?’ Darcy said.

  ‘Yes. She is kind. I tell her my troubles.’

  ‘You got some?’

  ‘People think I am stupid because I don’t speak the language so well. They also consider I’m a criminal because I’m a gardener and Italian.’

  Pel thought for a while. ‘The night of the murder,’ he said. ‘When you came away from the house you went to your sister’s at Boux. Which way did you go?’

  ‘Down the lane, Signore.’

  ‘The lane doesn’t lead anywhere. It becomes a footpath. Nobody goes down there.’

  ‘I do. All the time. You can take a motorbike down there. It’s a bit bumpy but it saves going all the way round. It leads on to the Langres road, then I turn off for Bazay or Boux.’

  ‘Did you see a car down there?’

  The Italian’s eyes flickered. ‘No, Signore, I didn’t.’

  ‘Three other people who didn’t go down the lane saw it. But you who did go down the lane missed it.’

  The Italian shrugged.

  ‘It is dark, Signore. Very dark. Perhaps I am not thinking about it. It’s bumpy down there and narrow, and you have to concentrate. If you don’t, the bike goes into the stream.’

  Pel gestured at the Italian. ‘Get someone to whip him down to Leguyader,’ he said to Darcy. ‘I want a check on his clothes for blood.’

  ‘Leguyader’s going to be pleased.’

  ‘Can’t be helped. In the meantime, let’s see who else’s about.’

  Madame Quermel was shopping and only Odile Chenandier was in the house.

  ‘She’ll do, I suppose,’ Pel said gloomily. ‘You can ask her about that teacher she attacked.’

  Odile Chenandier received them unwillingly in her flat. It was decorated in a modern style, with black and purple walls, comfortless furniture and blown-up pictures of pop stars.

  She was dressed in tattered jeans and a singlet that showed her breasts.

  She was nervous with them and made no attempt to offer them a cigarette or a drink or even a seat.

  ‘I’d like to check round the house,’ Pel said.

  She eyed them worriedly. ‘I don’t know if I should–’

  ‘I could look myself,’ Pel pointed out.

  Her hand fluttered. ‘I meant, I wondered if he’d want me to.’

  In the end she allowed herself to be persuaded and Pel went carefully through the house checking cupboards and drawers.

  She seemed pleased that he appeared to find nothing that might incriminate anyone, but when Pel tossed at her the discovery they’d made about her attack on a mistress at school, her eyes widened and grew hot with anger.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I did hit her. She’d been picking on me. Because I couldn’t cook. She said all Frenchwomen could cook, but there are as many bad cooks in France as anywhere else. I don’t even like cooking.’

  ‘She provoked you?’

  ‘She had been doing ever since I went there.’

  ‘The psychiatrist said you were hysterical.’

  The sallow skin flushed. ‘I was nothing of the sort. I was angry.’

  Pel’s feet ached and he pulled a chair forward. ‘Did you hit your mother with the poker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. How could I?’

  Pel didn’t mention that he’d come across less likely murderers. ‘Did you ever hit her with anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. My hand.’

  ‘You slapped her?’

  ‘No.’ Tears welled up and her head turned in her desperate anguished way. ‘I used my fist.’

  ‘Your fist?’ Pel glanced at Darcy.

  The girl caught the look and hurried on in an attempt to explain. ‘I was so angry. She’d been sneering at me, asking why I never brought boys home. But she never encouraged me! She never helped me! After I hit her, she tried to be pleasant.’

  Odile paused and sighed. ‘But not much.’

  Pel sat quietly, thinking, and she lit a small cigar. She didn’t appear to enjoy it much and he guessed it was part of her attempts to appear sophisticated and in charge of herself.

  ‘Why did you go to your mother’s room after you found her dead?’ he asked, and she gave him a terror-stricken look.

  ‘You did go, didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why were there traces of blood on the stairs and by the drawer where her jewellery was kept? There was blood on your shoe. You’d picked it up when you found her.’

  Odile said nothing, her face grey with fear.

  ‘All this is correct, isn’t it?’

  She spoke at last. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you take the jewellery?’

  There was a long silence then she nodded. ‘I didn’t know there was blood on my shoe. There couldn’t have been much because I looked on the stair carpet and I couldn’t see any.�
��

  ‘There wasn’t much,’ Pel agreed. ‘But there was enough. Did your father know you had the jewels?’

  ‘He guessed. He knew I’d always loved them.’

  ‘Why didn’t he tell us?’

  Odile’s shoulders moved heavily. ‘He threatened to, so I threatened to tell you about him and Madame Quermel.’

  ‘So you knew about them?’

  She nodded dumbly.

  ‘What about your mother? Did you know she had a lover?’

  Odile sat in silence for a while then she nodded again. ‘Did you know it was Monsieur Laye from next door.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Laye’s daughter told us.’

  She was silent again, for so long Pel thought she’d forgotten them, then she sighed and straightened her shoulders. ‘I wish I’d known she knew,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would have been someone to talk to, someone to share something with.’

  Pel studied her. ‘You didn’t really love your parents, did you?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him, agony in her eyes, then she shook her head. ‘They never allowed me to,’ she whispered.

  ‘And the jewels? Where are they now?’

  ‘I deposited them in my bank. As an unidentified parcel. I said they were a few things belonging to me and I was depositing them because I was frightened after the murder.’

  Pel turned away.

  ‘Go along with her and collect them, Darcy,’ he said wearily.

  Fifteen

  While Pel and Darcy had gone to Dôle, Nosjean had gone sullenly to Marsonnay to see Barbièry. It was a long way and Marsonnay was a hot ugly little town that depressed Nosjean even more than he was normally depressed.

  Barbièry was an enormous lantern-jawed man with hands like coal grabs and a set of teeth that were palpably false and moved in his mouth as he talked. He had a curious manner that worried Nosjean and he decided that Barbièry probably wasn’t quite right in the head. Judging by the shelves full of railway timetables and the experience of his own little search through them, Nosjean came to the conclusion that anyone who could find a railway timetable entertaining had to have something wrong with him.

  ‘Well, you might get via Montluçon and Bourges,’ Barbièry was saying. ‘But I doubt if you’d get there quicker than by going direct. And if you went via Nancy it would take hours longer. Do you know, Monsieur–’ Barbièry gestured ‘ – in England it takes all of four hours to go from London to Sheffield and all night to go to Aberdeen. Yet those British have the nerve to sneer at French trains. There are always too many people in this world inclined to run our railways down. Even Giulle.’