by Mark Hebden
‘But Giulle was a railwayman himself,’ Nosjean pointed out.
‘Yes.’ Barbièry seemed to have forgotten Giulle again and was lost once more in the intricacies of railway travel as he stared at his timetables. He sighed, and went on. ‘I always thought it a pity when they electrified,’ he said. ‘Of course, it’s more efficient these days and the direct current motor with its excellent accelerating characteristics, light weight and simple speed control is ideal for the purpose. But we lost something when we lost steam engines.’ He glanced at his timetables again. ‘He might have gone via Langres, Chaumont and Châlons,’ he said. ‘But it wouldn’t ever be quicker because the line from Basle and Belfort joins at Langres and there’s always a hold-up for the Swiss passengers, and at Châlons they join from Metz, Saarbrucken and the rest of Germany.’
They seemed to be getting nowhere and as Nosjean fidgeted impatiently, Barbièry’s pale eyes gleamed. ‘He was a traitor to the railways, Monsieur,’ he said.
‘Who was?’
‘Giulle, of course. He took money from them but he was always running them down.’
‘Wanders a bit,’ Pel had said. Nosjean decided that Barbièry wandered a lot. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘About the trains–’
‘Of course.’ Barbièry smiled. ‘He could have gone south, of course, and picked up the Riviera Express at Nevers, but that would take time.’ He gestured. ‘Do you know, in 1955, the USA had a greater railway mileage than any other country in the world. Two hundred and twenty-one thousand miles, they had. For her size, though, France always led the way in innovation. The war did untold damage to French railways – all that bombing – and they’ve never been the same since. But he never allowed for that, did he?’
‘Who?’
‘Giulle. He was constantly running them down.’
‘Well, we all do that a bit with our jobs,’ Nosjean said. ‘Even me with the police.’
‘Not like him, Monsieur.’ Barbièry’s eyes widened and Nosjean decided finally that he was going to get nothing because Barbièry was clearly potty. ‘I never spoke to him on a single occasion when he didn’t run them down. And, you know, I could have sent him from Paris to Toulouse, going by night, quicker than he could go from Cologne to Munich.’
It didn’t make sense to Nosjean. One minute, Barbièry appeared to be perfectly normal and helpful, the next as crazy as they came.
‘Is that so?’ he said.
‘When he just went on and on, it got too much for me.’
‘I can imagine,’ Nosjean said.
‘So I let him have it.’
‘Have what?’
‘It’s a figure of speech, Monsieur,’ Barbièry said. ‘The gun.’
‘What gun?’
‘His gun. He was always out with it. He said he shot a Nazi with it during the war but I don’t believe him. He wasn’t old enough. He was just a big talker. He wasn’t as old as me and I wasn’t old enough for that.’
Nosjean listened to the babbling for a moment then it suddenly dawned on him what he’d heard.
‘You let him have it,’ he repeated. ‘With the gun.’
‘That’s right, Monsieur’
‘His gun? The one that killed him?’
‘That’s right. If ever a man asked for it, he did.’
‘He asked for – !’ Nosjean gulped and he gripped his notebook tighter. ‘You mean you shot him?’
‘Why not?’
Nosjean slowly began to put away his notebook and pencil, with a feeling that he might need both hands free. Carefully, he eased his handcuffs in his pocket and moved warily in his chair.
Barbièry was staring at him now, prattling on about the route from Dijon to Bordeaux. Nosjean stopped him with difficulty. He put aside the book and looked up with a crazy smile.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Nosjean said.
He shifted uneasily. They’d been trying to find out who’d killed Giulle for weeks now. They’d asked about the women he knew, the people he owed money to, anybody who might have upset him at work, all the usual stuff they went through every time someone was found with his head blown off, his throat cut or with a knife stuck in his back. For weeks! And here was this madman claiming he’d done it! His next-door neighbour!
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Nosjean said again. ‘You say you killed him.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Why?’ This was important. There were always lunatics offering themselves for every murder that occurred. Most of them were suffering from a need for the limelight, and confessions of that sort didn’t mean much. ‘Why?’ he repeated.
Barbièry was staring at Nosjean as though puzzled at his dimness. ‘Because we’ve lived next door to each other,’ he explained. ‘All our lives. I’d had enough of him. So I shot him.’
‘Because you’d had enough of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that all?’
‘It’s sufficient, isn’t it?’
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Nosjean asked. ‘You’ve not mentioned it before to anyone.’
Barbièry shrugged. ‘I think it’s gone on long enough,’ he said.
For a while Nosjean tried to assimilate what had happened. It seemed to be the most incredible luck. But then he realised there was more to it than that. A confession wasn’t sufficient. He now had to get Barbièry to a police station and, by the look in his eye and the size of him, it wasn’t going to be easy.
He cleared his throat. ‘I think you’d better come with me, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘I think we ought to have a statement from you.’
Barbièry looked startled and clutched the heavy timetable he’d been using to his chest. ‘What about?’
‘About killing Giulle.’
‘Is that all?’ Barbièry’s stare became suddenly cunning and hostile. ‘I’m not coming to your office just for that.’
Nosjean stood up. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to, Monsieur,’ he said firmly.
He wasn’t expecting what happened next because he’d never thought of a railway timetable as an offensive weapon. When it hit him in the face he realised just how offensive it could be. Since it consisted of a kilo and a half of tightly packed paper, it knocked him half silly. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard, but it threw him off balance, so that he fell over a stool and landed on the floor. Rolling sideways, he saw Barbièry about to kick him in the face with his great boot so, in desperation, he grabbed his ankle and yanked. As Barbièry went over, so did the table with Barbièry’s reference books and the glasses from which they’d been drinking, and Barbièry’s head cracked smartly against the wall. While he was still dizzy, Nosjean clapped the handcuffs on.
It was obviously still more than he could manage to handle the giant on his own, so he dived for the exit and slamming the door, clutched the handle and yelled to a waiter standing in the entrance to a bar across the street, to telephone for the police.
The waiter seemed a little slow. ‘What for?’ he asked.
‘He’s gone berserk!’
‘Why?’
‘Never mind why?’ Nosjean screamed. ‘Do it! And quick!’
‘Why? Who’re you?’
Nosjean had a bright idea. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, he’ll be out of here soon and if he gets out, I’ll take refuge over there and then it’ll be your bar that’ll get smashed up.’
It was unorthodox but it was enough to start the waiter moving.
During the afternoon, Pel sent a car to the FPMS factory and picked up Darcq. Darcy spent the whole afternoon vainly pecking at him, arguing, shouting, sometimes using a quiet sibilance full of threats. For an hour, Pel relieved him, but he found he was getting nowhere, too, and he wasn’t sorry when Darcy returned and took over once more.
Somehow he had a feeling that they’d reached the crunch. The solution to the case was just out of reach somewhere in the shadows and they just couldn’t stretch out and touch it.
As he lifted his hand to take his hat from its peg, Bri
sard rang for him and asked him to call in his room in the Palais de Justice. Pel sighed and set off through the old narrow streets with their tall flat-fronted buildings and silent courts. The heat was still intense and the narrow alleys he chose seemed to be airless. The Palais de Justice seemed to belong to another world, with its ancient halls, cool, stained glass and carved woodwork. Pel decided it was far too good for someone like Brisard.
The judge had obviously had a session with the Procureur and had decided to be difficult. Pel fended him off half-heartedly. He was uneasy. Everybody seemed to have wandered into or around the Chenandier house within minutes of each other without being seen – the gardener, Darcq, Madame Quermel, Laye, Odile; perhaps, somehow, even Chenandier himself. The minutes that separated them seemed important.
‘Give me twenty-four hours,’ he begged. ‘That’s all. Twenty-four hours.’
He walked back to his own office, deep in thought and worried. As he was about to leave a second time, Nosjean burst in. He had a black eye and a livid bruise on his jaw. To Pel’s surprise he was grinning, and seemed to be hovering above the floor like a humming bird in his excitement. He was clearly hypnotised with visions of glory.
‘What happened to you?’ Pel demanded. ‘You have the self-satisfaction of a major prophet once again proved right by the Almighty.’
Nosjean’s grin widened. ‘I’ve found your murderer, Chief,’ he chirruped.
‘Which murderer?’
‘The railwayman. Giulle. I got it while I was checking the trains. It was Barbièry. He came out with it just like that, while we were talking about timetables. He said he did it.’
Pel sniffed. ‘Confessions don’t count for much with a good lawyer. They’ve got to be sound.’
‘This one is. No lawyer would bother to try to get round this one.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s so stupid it can’t be anything else but true. Nobody could have thought up anything as silly as this. He attacked me and I had to arrest him. The doctor I got to look at him at Marsonnay said his family have a history of instability and his father was put away, it seems, for half killing a grocer.’
Nosjean seemed delighted with himself but he was wise enough not to suggest that anyone had been neglectful. ‘Mind,’ he said, ‘it was something that wasn’t exactly shouted about, Patron. There was no reason to suspect him until he started claiming to have done it.’
Pel nodded. ‘What about the trains?’ he asked.
Nosjean’s jaw dropped. ‘Trains, Patron?’
‘You went to ask about train times.’
‘I didn’t get around to that one, Patron.’
Pel sniffed. ‘You’re falling down on the job,’ he said. He waved away Nosjean’s indignant protest. Better inform the Procureur,’ he advised. ‘And for God’s sake, go and catch Judge Brisard before he goes home. Make as much of it as you can. It’ll keep him off my neck.’
‘Then can I go home, Patron? I’m due for a night off.’
‘Your girl getting worried?’
‘I know I am.’
As Pel nodded, Nosjean galloped away, dropping pencils and notebook on his desk as he went. Pel watched him, wondering why he had never felt like that in his life and whether he’d missed something on the way somewhere.
As he drove home, Pel decided his stomach was playing him up again. Convinced he had an ulcer coming on, he worked a couple of bismuth tablets out of the box one-handed and popped them in his mouth. With Madame Routy’s assistance, the evening was going to be murder.
When he arrived, she was watching television with the volume control turned up as far as it would go and the house was shuddering under the shock. He could hear the noise even as he drove up the street. Didier Darras was sitting on the front steps waiting for him, reading a book, his fishing rod on the path beside him.
Neither of them spoke and, as Pel appeared, he picked up the rod, pushed it through the open window of the car, and climbed in alongside Pel. Pel shrugged, and drove to the nearest bar.
‘Coca Cola or Pschitt?’ he asked.
Didier grinned. ‘Pschitt. Coca Cola’s American.’
‘Patriot, eh?’
‘They’re taking over everywhere.’
‘I don’t think they’ll take you over.’
They finished their drinks without saying much and headed for the river.
Pel had brought two bottles of beer with him and a ham sandwich he’d bought at the bar, and he sat and ate and drank quietly while the boy threw out his line.
‘Biting?’ he asked.
‘No. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t come to catch fish.’
Pel’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why do you come then?’
‘I like sitting here. If I catch a fish it’s something extra.’
‘Philosopher as well as a patriot, eh? Doubtless you’ll take a different view when you’re older and consider some things worth putting yourself out for.’
‘What things?’
‘Girls.’
The line sagged and the boy tugged at it.
‘Bite?’
‘No. Reeds.’
Pel sat up. The line ended among a tuft of green surrounded by swirling water. ‘You’ll never get it out of there,’ he said.
Didier was unperturbed. ‘I can always go in and get it.’
‘It must be a good metre deep just there.’
‘Won’t matter.’
‘You can’t get out there, mon brave, without getting wet through and your clothes covered with mud.’
The boy was dragging his shirt over his head. ‘I can always take ’em off,’ he said.
Madame Routy regarded them icily when they returned. ‘I never know when you’re in for a meal or out these days,’ she said. ‘It’ll have to be cold. I can’t keep things hot for ever.’
Pel seemed thoughtful, and didn’t even respond when she switched on the television. Instead, he was just hurrying to the garden when the telephone went.
It was Darcy. He sounded tired.
‘Judge Brisard’s been on the phone, Chief,’ he said. ‘He’s tickled pink about Nosjean picking up Barbièry.’
‘Well, it’ll do Nosjean’s ego a bit of good,’ Pel admitted. ‘Get anything from Darcq?’
‘He sticks to the story, Chief. He’s a congenital liar and he finds it hard to remember what he said last time. But he’s also frightened and that’s making him careful. His story’s tight. Do I let him go?’
‘You’ll have to.’
‘Right. By the way, Leguyader announces negative results from the Italian’s clothes. He’s just rung up.’
Pel frowned and Darcy called out. ‘You still there, Patron?’
‘Yes. Have you got something else?’
‘I think we might have had a break. The fingerprint boys rang. That paraffin can Nosjean found. It’s got Quermel’s prints on it. So has that brandy bottle he found.’
‘Does Quermel drink brandy?’
‘Not so you’d notice, Patron. And, anyway, even if swigging out of the bottle was something women like her normally did, she’d hardly be likely to sit there in the field slugging back that amount, unless she had a good reason.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Trying to work up Dutch courage to do something that required an effort. Do we go and see her?’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Tired, Patron.’
‘How about the others?’
‘Misset’s with his wife and new baby. Krauss set off for Dôle to see that jeweller and he’s not back yet. Lagé was put on some job of the Procureur’s again. And some fool gave Nosjean the night off.’
Feeling a coward, Pel said nothing and Darcy went on. ‘It’ll have to be the Old Guard, Patron,’ he said. ‘You and me.’
‘Right,’ Pel agreed. ‘But let’s leave it until later in the evening. Get a meal then call round and fetch me. We’ll see her when we feel rested and she feels tired. She might be more inclined to talk then, and we might d
o better.’
While Pel was talking on the telephone to Darcy, a Madame Valentine Chornay, of Rue Achille-Luchaire, Bazay, was just wiping her hands to put a newly-prepared rabbit pie in the oven. It was for her husband and, though he invariably arrived home late from the bar where he went for his apéritif, he was also usually hungry and in a bad temper if his food wasn’t just so.
Her husband’s casual attitude to time created endless problems for Madame Chornay so, to be on the safe side, she always took the greatest possible care. Wiping the flour from her hands, she stood back from the table to admire the pastry flowers on the crust she’d made, slapped the fingers of one of the children who was reaching out to stuff a piece of pastry into its mouth, and lifted the dish. She was just on the point of turning from the table to the oven when there was the sound of a revving engine and a crash from the road outside. It was a metallic crash and was followed by tinkling glass and a screeching sound as if something steel was being dragged along the road. With it there was a cry of anguish and terror and again the revving engine and she knew exactly what had happened.
Accidents had occurred before outside her house, which was on a corner, and she’d more than once ministered to some shocked and bleeding motorist; so, without panic, she put the dish down, carefully – because her husband would still come home for his meal, accident or no accident – adjured the children not to touch it, and hurried outside.
It was just growing dark and the village was deserted; there was no sign of a car and, looking up and down the road, she wondered if she’d been mistaken. Then she saw the marks on the tarmacadam where something had scraped the surface, and the torn turf opposite. Heading across the road, she saw a red-painted motobicyclette like the one her husband rode to work lying in the ditch and then, underneath it, legs and a protruding hand.