Death on the Rive Nord

by Adrian Magson

  Debussy’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened, showing a row of long, coffee-stained teeth. ‘Good God. I hadn’t heard. I did hear about Victor, though. That was appalling. Are they connected?’ The legal mind, making the same links which the police would do, but for different reasons.

  ‘That’s what we want to find out. Can you recall anything in Gondrand’s business or personal life that might have led to anyone wanting to kill him?’

  Debussy took his time answering, scratching at the side of his chin with a long fingernail. Then he seemed to come to a decision and sat forward, leaning on his desk. He flicked at the deeds without opening them.

  ‘I represented both Gondrands, Victor and Michel, for several years. Mostly on family matters and the vehicle business – particularly Victor with the latter, until Michel joined him. They had one or two other investments which Victor had acquired. Nothing substantial or even complex, just land he’d bought a long time ago.’ He smiled flintily. ‘He believed in having a strong financial base, rather than simply relying on the car business to keep him going.’

  ‘And Michel?’ The implication from Debussy’s words was that the younger Gondrand had been different.

  ‘He did not come from the same background. Victor indulged him too much, and Michel took to making money for money’s sake, as it were.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘Which is why I parted company with them both twelve months ago. I felt our interests were …’ he searched for a word ‘… incompatible.’

  ‘He was a crook, you mean,’ Desmoulins said, unafraid to speak the truth.

  Surprisingly, Debussy gave a grunt of agreement. ‘He was, shall I say, open to ideas which were beyond what I would call acceptable practice.’

  ‘Such as?’ Rocco said.

  Debussy nodded at the deeds. ‘Such as these matters. In plain terms, he bought cheap and by dubious means, and sold very expensively – or leased, when it suited him. I found these deals particularly difficult to accept, because I only discovered by chance that the land had once belonged to an old farming family. They seemed above board on paper when he first brought them to me, but I subsequently found out that they were anything but.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘He’d cheated them. Persuaded them that they would become wealthy if they signed over the land to him, but subsequently told them it was unuseable due to subsidence and another problem with flooding. Paid them a pittance from what I can gather, and kicked them off their own property.’ He looked pained. ‘They both died shortly afterwards, brokenhearted. Sadly, there was nothing I could do, but I ceased representing both Gondrands not long after that.’

  ‘Why both?’ said Rocco. ‘I thought Victor was honest – for a car dealer.’

  ‘Victor was. But he defended his son against all the evidence. It was his one weak point, I’m afraid. Even when I showed him what Michel had done – and it wasn’t an isolated case, I assure you – he insisted on supporting him.’ He shrugged. ‘The father-and-son bond can be very powerful.’

  Rocco nodded. Indulging a son or daughter could last a lifetime in some families, leading to an unbelievable degree of tolerance, even overlooking huge questions of dishonesty. ‘Would any of these deals have caused someone to want both men dead, along with Michel’s wife?’

  ‘By themselves, I wouldn’t know. I doubt any of the ones I worked on would bring about such a disaster. But he had completed some deals before joining his father, so it’s possible something from back then might have turned sour.’

  ‘What did he do before the car business?’

  ‘Michel? He was a junior manager. He worked for the local town council, in their planning and land management department.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Rocco drove home to Poissons, thinking about this new development. Shootings like the one he’d just seen were rare among the middle classes. Occasional crimes of passion led to violence or even death, but never the death of both husband and wife. And somehow he had a feeling that the Farek thing was a separate issue. Close, perhaps, with Nicole having bought a car from the murdered men, but not connected.

  No, somewhere along the road of his life, and Debussy the lawyer had implied volumes without putting anything into words, Michel Gondrand had cheated and lied and stolen … and someone had finally hit back.

  But who?

  Rocco stopped at the village co-op to collect a few groceries and a box of clean laundry. The new owner, Mme Drolet, turned as the bell sounded above the door. She fluttered her eyelashes at him and patted her hair, which was coiled and glistening like spun sugar.

  ‘Good thing you didn’t want any cakes, Inspector,’ she said, as if he was in the habit of eating a bucketful every day. ‘I just sold the last three.’ She smiled meaningfully, lifting one carefully drawn eyebrow. Rocco thought he recognised it as the look of a woman seeking to share in a secret without actually asking. But whatever it might have been was totally lost on him. He grunted and paid the bill. Maybe she was being flirtatious. Or maybe it was her way of trying to forge friendships among a clientele still suspicious after the previous owner, a young woman, had been imprisoned for murder, and the attempted murder of a local man – a scavenger of wartime ammunition and an exposed Resistance traitor. It was Rocco who’d been responsible for her arrest and the tracking down of the traitorous Marthe, so he knew a thing or two about being an outsider. The inhabitants of Poissons still hadn’t made up their minds about having a cop – a cop from Paris of all places – living in their midst, and apart from a few outward-looking souls, he was still treated with the caution of someone who might be carrying a nasty disease.

  When he arrived home, he killed the engine and sat there for a few moments, enjoying the quiet. It was a welcome change after the day’s events, and he marvelled at how he had grown to relish life here out of the bustling city which he’d once thought was his life.

  He got out of the car and picked up the laundry and box of provisions, and walked to the front door, juggling the packages to get his key.

  The door was already open.

  ***

  Rocco stepped to one side, dropping the bag of laundry and placing his provisions on the ground. He took out his MAB 38 and checked the safety.

  The door shouldn’t be open. Mme Denis was the only person with a spare key, but she would never go inside without his permission. When she left eggs or vegetables, it was always on the front doorstep.

  He listened for sounds of movement, but could hear nothing. He checked over his shoulder towards the lane. He would have noticed any strange cars parked out there, but it was possible anyone showing an undue interest in his home could have circumnavigated the village and approached over the fields.

  He moved along the side of the house, stepping carefully on the soft ground rather than the stony path. An inviting front door was too easy a trap to walk into.

  As he reached the rear corner of the house and peered round, he heard a click and a dark figure stepped out of the french windows into the back garden.

  Rocco stepped wide of the corner, feet apart and holding his pistol in a two-handed grip. His heart was thumping and he automatically glanced to one side as another figure appeared, this time from behind a cherry tree in the middle of the lawn. This figure was very small.

  A child?

  ‘What the hell—?’

  The figure behind the house swung round with a shout of alarm, and the child called out and ran across the lawn, crying, ‘Maman!’

  With a supreme effort of will, Rocco relaxed his finger on the trigger and lowered his arm, recognition flooding in as he saw Nicole’s face turned towards him. She looked pale with shock, her mouth open as she reached out a protective arm towards her son.

  ‘It’s OK … it’s me,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s Lucas.’ He thrust the gun into his coat pocket, thanking the stars that he hadn’t decided to shoot first and worry about consequences later. But it didn’t lessen the anger in his voice when he said, ‘What the hell
are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nicole, stepping away towards the house. ‘I’m so sorry – I came to find you, and your neighbour let me in. She said you would not object.’ She gathered her son towards her and looked as if she were about to flee. Rocco realised that his reaction had frightened her. ‘No. Please … it’s OK, you can stay.’ He held up both hands. ‘You took me by surprise, that’s all.’ When she showed no signs of relaxing, he nodded towards the french window. ‘Let’s get inside. It’s too cold out here.’

  He led them indoors, where the wood burner was pumping out heat and a pleasant smell of something spicy was filling the air. It was the most comfortable atmosphere he’d experienced since coming here.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said. Plates had been set out on the table, with glasses of water and hunks of crusty bread. ‘I hope you don’t mind. It was the least I could do. I had to see you … and I couldn’t stay in Amiens.’ She made sure Massi wasn’t in earshot and added sombrely, ‘Farek is coming. Sooner or later he will find me.’

  ‘I know.’ Rocco looked around, wondering how to discuss the subject without alarming the boy. They were, after all, discussing his father. He noticed a neat cardboard box on the table tied with coloured string.

  Nicole saw him looking and blushed. ‘Oh, that was a small gift for descending on you like this.’ She tugged the string and the box opened to reveal three fruit tartelettes nestling inside. ‘And I bought some chicken, too. Your village shop is marvellous.’ She nodded towards a casserole bubbling on the wood burner. ‘Your lovely neighbour let us in and gave me some vegetables. She seemed suspicious at first but I think she only has your welfare in mind.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘And I appreciate your efforts. I’ve got some wine to go with that somewhere.’ He looked at Massi, who was eyeing the cakes with big, round eyes. ‘Maybe we can talk afterwards.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Would you like to eat now? I’m sure we’re all hungry.’

  Rocco found a bottle of vin de pays and poured two glasses. They ate in awkward silence, Rocco acutely aware that the place was a bachelor’s mess and wondering where this was leading. He was also conscious that sitting here enjoying an excellent casserole and a glass of wine with an attractive woman was in danger of being overshadowed by events gathering like a dark cloud in the corner of the room. Samir Farek would not stop until he had found his wife, and it was only a matter of time before he picked up her trail. Criminals, even more than the police, were adept at building networks of informers and contacts. Sooner or later, one of them would come forward with the information the Algerian gang boss was looking for.

  He wondered how Caspar was doing and thought it a bad sign that he hadn’t yet heard from the former undercover cop. Maybe he’d asked too much of him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Caspar was thinking the same thing and asking himself how he’d come to this point. More crucially, he was wondering how he was going to get out of the deepest shithole he’d ever stumbled into. It had been several hours since Farek and his men had left, and in all that time he’d heard nothing other than the distant sounds of traffic and kids playing. He’d tried getting free of his bonds, but without success. Whoever had tied him up knew what they were doing and had made the knots tight. Now the kids had gone and the traffic had decreased, and the bead of light through the shutter was fading with the approaching night. It was surely only a matter of time before the men returned and his worries would all be at an end.

  He shook his head, which was a mistake. The pain since Youcef had knocked him out of the chair had been a constant, throbbing reminder of his plight, relieved only by his falling asleep with exhaustion after trying to work his way free. Now it was back with a vengeance. A remote part of his brain questioned vaguely if the police academy would be interested in running a course on escape techniques from rooms in deserted houses. The psychology experts he’d been encouraged to see recently would have a field day explaining the mental ramifications of that one.

  He wondered what had caused Farek and his crew to decamp so quickly. At first he’d thought it might be a police raid, come to rescue him. But that was stupid; he was no longer answerable to anyone, so how could they know what he was doing? If they did, how would they even begin to look for one man in one of Europe’s busiest capitals?

  He felt a stab of pain in his left gut and leant sideways in an attempt to ease it, the chair creaking loudly. He took a deep breath and hissed as the pain was repeated. Something must have got busted when he fell over. A rib, probably. Wrong angle, body twisting, normally strong bone giving way under intense pressure. He hadn’t noticed it before, with the headache pounding inside him, but now it was adding to his discomfort.

  The chair creaked again as he sat back up. Fucking thing; the noise was going through his head like a badly tuned violin. How could wood make that kind of racket, high-pitched and relentless?

  Then he laughed. In spite of the pain that brought, the action made him almost happy. Fuck, he really was way past his best, just like they’d said. Maybe it was time he retired, took up knitting or gardening, something which didn’t call for too much active brainpower.

  He eased his bottom from side to side, his naked skin numb with cold. The movement set up a frantic squealing in the chair beneath him. Jesus and Mary, he’d been sitting here for hours now on a crappy piece of furniture that was literally falling apart, and he hadn’t even noticed!

  He started rocking back and forth, tears running down his face. Then he changed direction, going left to right. Stop. Careful. Not too far left. If you’ve got a broken rib and land on it again, it’ll get worse and puncture something. Like your heart, you arse. He went right a bit, then forward and back, working on the joints in the chair, teasing them as hard as he dared, each move more forceful than the last. It was a normal wooden chair with three slats down the back and spindles running between each leg. Probably held together by cheap donkey glue that had dried out thirty years ago. How strong could it be, for Christ’s sake?

  A noise intruded on the creaking. He stopped. A car engine somewhere close by. A door slammed, metallic and heavy. A big engine. Too powerful-sounding to be coincidental, too big to be a neighbourhood runaround.

  Farek was back.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Caspar threw himself with desperation back into his rocking motion, jamming his body as hard as he could down against each joint of the chair, trying to force them apart almost by willpower. He heard voices, then a door opening and slamming back, the impact echoing through the house like a gunshot. He estimated that he was at the rear of the building, and had probably thirty seconds of useful life remaining before the men reached him. After that, all bets were off and he’d find out at first hand what Bouhassa’s reputation was built on.

  With a supreme effort which made the veins of his forehead stand out, he heaved against his bonds and threw himself backwards, tipping the chair until it reached the point of no return. He crashed to the floor, the shock sending shooting pains through his shoulders, neck and head, making him want to throw up. But there wasn’t time. He shook himself, feeling something grinding painfully into his back. Then he rolled sideways, expecting the familiar restraint of his ropes … and continued rolling as the chair fell apart noisily beneath him.

  He heard a shout, and heavy footsteps on bare boards. A man’s voice asking where they had left him, and another, indistinct, saying something about the back room. Doors slammed as they checked the other rooms first.

  Caspar felt a surge of hope. If the men didn’t know where he was tied up, it couldn’t be Bouhassa or the mental giant. That meant ordinary gang members, sent here with a simple job to do. He twisted desperately, ignoring the pain in his side and flailing at the coils of rope which had now loosened around him but clung like strands of sticky weed. He eventually scrabbled free and hurled the rope away. It landed in one corner, loud on the bare floorboards. Too loud.

 
; A man’s voice queried the noise. He was too close for comfort.

  Now Caspar was acting purely on instinct. He bent and grabbed a loose spindle. It had split away from the joint, leaving a sharpened end, a spear of aged and hardened wood. He looked around, assessing his options. There was no other way out of the room except for the door, not now the men were here. A few minutes earlier and he’d have gone for the shuttered window, but that would take too long. He turned to the door.

  It slammed back just as he reached it.

  A heavyset man stood in the opening. He had a boxer’s broken nose and wore a cheap suit and thick-soled shoes. Built like a brick blockhouse, he held a knife in his hand and had a grin on his face as if he was about to have some fun.

  ‘Hey – Dede! Come look,’ he yelled. ‘We got a rat in a trap.’

  Caspar didn’t have time for niceties. He drove the sharpened spindle into the man’s face, then snapped it down, knocking the knife out of his hand. The boxer screamed and clutched his eyes, blood flowing through his fingers. He staggered back and flailed his other arm, trying to grab hold of Caspar as he barged past.

  Caspar turned instinctively to his right and kept moving. He was in a dank hallway with a haze of light at the end. Bare boards, no furniture, no carpet. Street lights throwing an unhealthy glow through the open front door. Enough to show three steps up to another level and then he’d be out in the open and away.

  Then another figure stepped out of a doorway along the hall. He was pointing a gun at Caspar and grinning.

  Caspar turned and ran. Forward was a no-go; that left back … but away from the room. If there was a front hallway, there must be one to allow access to the rear.

  He heard a loud bang and something plucked at his jacket, throwing him off balance against the wall. He staggered and regained his footing, feeling light-headed but still capable of movement. A good sign. Saw a door ahead of him, top half frosted glass, bottom half wood panelling, distant light showing through the glass. A hand reached out from the room he’d just left as the boxer tried to stop him, his breath gusting in anger and pain, the smell of cheap cologne very close. The huge fingers fastened around the shoulder of Caspar’s jacket and his momentum dragged the man from the room. But he was already slowing, the boxer’s bulk too heavy to pull against.