Pel & The Pirates (Chief Inspector Pel)

by Mark Hebden

  Pel looked up sharply. ‘If you know something, you’d better say so,’ he said coldly.

  Luigi shrugged. ‘I know nothing. It doesn’t pay to know things. I just guess.’

  ‘Somebody had better know something.’

  ‘I expect somebody does.’

  ‘Who, for instance?’

  Luigi was looking worried now. ‘Doctor Nicolas will always talk for a brandy and soda, I’m told,’ he said. ‘He’s the police doctor so he knows what Beauregard’s up to. And he doesn’t care what happens to him either. After what happened to him already, why should he?’

  ‘What did happen to him?’

  ‘His wife was in a car accident. Multiple injuries. He put her on morphine to ease her pain and she became an addict. And while she was at it so did his son. They’re both dead. It started him on the booze. That’s why he came here. Nothing matters much to him any more. He’ll tell you, Monsieur.’

  Without saying why to Madame or De Troq’, Pel decided they should take their after-dinner coffee and brandy by the harbour of the Vieux Port. He was almost enjoying himself – at least he was as near as Pel ever came to that happy state – because it was wonderful to eat and drink what you liked, knowing that no finance committee would query your expenses, better still that they were being paid by someone to whom a million here or there meant nothing. They found places in the expanse of coloured seats near the harbour that De Troq’ had started calling Hell’s Half-Acre and as they sat down, Doctor Nicolas appeared alongside them like a spectre – almost as if he’d spotted them and decided they were good for a few drinks. He looked as unwholesome as ever, unshaven – probably even unwashed – his clothes unpressed, his trousers still apparently on the point of dropping round his ankles, his greasy grey hair sticking out from beneath the battered straw hat.

  Pel shook hands solemnly and bought him a brandy and soda which he downed at a gulp. His soulful look got him another.

  ‘How long are you staying here on police business?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not here on police business,’ Pel said. ‘Though you’d never believe it, I’m on my honeymoon.’

  Nicolas rose and solemnly removed his hat to Madame Pel. ‘My apologies, Madame,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a police official, too.’

  Madame smiled. She seemed flattered.

  Pel didn’t beat about the bush. ‘How well do you know Beauregard?’ he asked.

  Nicolas held out his hand, palm down, and tilted it from side to side. ‘Nobody knows Beauregard,’ he said.

  ‘I’m told you know him as well as anybody. After all, you work with him.’

  ‘When I can’t avoid it.’

  ‘Does he take bribes?’

  Nicolas looked blank. ‘How should I know that?’

  ‘I’m told you know a lot of things.’

  ‘Maybe I do. Maybe not. In any case, I mind my own business.’

  ‘I’ve heard that smuggling goes on round here. Has Beauregard ever caught anybody at it?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘And that perhaps the gangs in Marseilles have an interest in this place. Luigi said you’d know. Have you heard that?’

  Nicolas glanced about him as if he were afraid of being overheard, then he picked up his glass and, holding it in front of his face as if he were about to drink, spoke from behind it.

  ‘Those six who were killed in Nice had been here,’ he said quietly.

  ‘How do you know?’ Pel was alert at once. ‘Did you see them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘See Madame Fleurie. Ask about her son. She had one. I brought him into the world.’

  Nicolas’ voice rose nervously and he spoke loudly for everyone in the square to hear. ‘The Black Widow. You’ll have heard of her, Monsieur. She’ll always let you have money. She acts as banker to the whole island. Foreign currency. Bankers’ cards. I’ve often wondered why nobody murders her for what she’s got in that safe of hers. I suppose it’s because it’s so strong nobody can get inside it. But she gives better rates than the hotels. You’ll be all right with her.’

  ‘Where does she do business?’

  Nicolas gestured with a limp hand towards the narrow streets behind the harbour. ‘Down there. You can’t miss it. It’s an ironmongers’ and ship chandlers’.’ He laughed. ‘It’s a joke really. She’s a Communist. Eine Bisschen Rote. A little Red. I often wonder how much of the money she takes off the capitalist holidaymakers goes to the Communists’ fighting fund. Treat her properly, though, because she’ll do nothing for you if she takes a dislike to you.’

  Nicolas stopped, swallowed the last of his drink and rose abruptly to his feet as if he were anxious to be rid of them. ‘Well, I must be on my way,’ he said at the top of his voice. ‘People dying all over the island. Most of them need a priest, not me, but I have to put in an appearance.’

  They watched him shuffling away to the ancient car he drove.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Madame Pel said. ‘You’re not short of money, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Pel said. ‘But tomorrow I think I’d better see this Black Widow.’

  Eleven

  With Madame safely established on the verandah chattering happily to Nelly over coffee, Pel turned his nose in the direction of Madame Fleurie’s shop.

  ‘I’ll tackle this one myself,’ he warned De Troq’. ‘Two of us might frighten her off.’

  Madame Fleurie’s establishment wasn’t far from the harbour, down a side street facing an open space where a small bar-restaurant had spread its tables under a flowering acacia. It consisted of a large room that looked like a garage, with two heavy doors painted a rusty red, one of them open to show the interior of an ironmongers’ shop. Round the walls were shelves full of tins of paint and emulsion, plastic containers of paraffin and thinners, boxes of brushes, scrapers, trowels, hammers, saws, screwdrivers, vices. In the centre were benches covered with hemp and nylon rope, blocks, tackles, marline spikes, twine, tins of anti-fouling, workmen’s gloves. The floor was piled with cartons and boxes of more equipment, rubber boots, rubber gloves, coveralls. The money exchange was behind the closed door and consisted of a desk and nothing else. Standing in a short queue alongside it was a group of newly-arrived holidaymakers. Pel heard both German and English.

  Madame Fleurie fitted her nickname. She was dressed entirely in black, a sallow-skinned woman with black eyes like boot buttons circled by purple rings. Her hair was black, going grey, and was dragged back from her face so that she looked like something out of a horror film. Pel could just imagine her showing the heroine into a bedroom to which the vampire had a secret passage.

  Studying the tins of paint and emulsion, he waited patiently at the end of the queue as the visitors changed their travellers’ cheques and foreign currency. Madame Fleurie was a slow worker and disdained the use of computers, tills or adding machines. She had one drawer in her desk, divided into four compartments, two for French coins and notes, two for foreign coins and notes, and she did all her sums in her head. Behind her, however, stood a large elderly man who looked as though he’d once been a bouncer in a night club, and he seemed to be not only her bodyguard but also her check, because he seemed to count every scrap of money she handled. From time to time people came in for something from the shelves, for screws, nails, twine, a tin of paint, and every time, as the old man served them, Madame Fleurie stopped work until he’d finished. It made changing money a long drawn out business and one or two of the tourists grew tired of waiting and drifted off. ‘I’m going to change mine at the hotel,’ one of them said. ‘I’m wasting good sunbathing hours here.’

  The morning dragged and Pel had finally sat down and was half dozing when he heard Madame Fleurie’s voice.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  Looking up, he saw the shop was empty and the old bouncer was regarding him suspiciously as if he might have hung on to rob the place. He jumped to his feet.

  ‘Monsieur wishes to c
hange a traveller’s cheque?’

  ‘No–’

  ‘Foreign currency?’

  Pel shook his head. ‘I’m French,’ he said. Madame Fleurie studied him. It was like being studied by a vampire looking for a tender place to sink its teeth in. ‘I thought you were Italian,’ she said.

  Pel was shocked. He had always considered himself the very essence of French good looks. Noble brow. Clear dark eyes – if perhaps a little faded these days and needing spectacles for reading. Soft black hair – thinning a little on top, mind. A Napoleon of sorts even. To be considered to look like an Italian was as bad as being considered to look like an Englishman. While the Italians had too much in the way of features, the English didn’t have any at all. They just had eyes, noses and mouths.

  The Black Widow was eyeing him speculatively and the old bouncer moved menacingly from behind her chair to the centre of the shop.

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ Pel said. ‘Chief Inspector. Brigade Criminelle, Police Judiciaire.’ He flipped his identity card at them. ‘I wish to talk to you.’

  Madame Fleurie studied the red, white and blue stripes on the card and looked up. ‘About what?’

  ‘About your son.’

  ‘I haven’t got a son.’

  ‘Dr Nicolas said you had.’

  ‘Did he send you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She studied him for a few moments then glanced at the old bouncer. Keep an eye on things, Frédéric,’ she said.

  At that moment a tourist appeared in the doorway, clad in flowered shirt, straw hat and Bermuda shorts. ‘Is this where I change my currency?’ he asked in halting French.

  ‘No.’ Madame Fleurie swept about a hundred thousand francs into a drawer and locked it. ‘I’ve run out of money.’ She gestured at the old bouncer. ‘Shut the doors, Frédéric. I’m going for lunch.’

  As the doors slammed in the tourist’s face, she watched until they were locked then gestured at Pel. ‘This way, Monsieur.’

  Taking out a bunch of keys, she unlocked a door in the wall behind her desk and swept through. Just beyond was a passage and beyond that another door. Unlocking it carefully, she showed Pel into a kitchen. It was little wonder Fleurie had left her. This was obviously the place where she did all her living because there was a television set and armchairs, as shabby as everything else in the old town. The table, like Madame Caceolari’s, was covered with an ancient strip of patterned American cloth.

  Madame Fleurie gestured at one of the chairs then, turning to a cupboard alongside an enormous safe where she obviously kept all her currency, produced a bottle and glasses.

  ‘Coup de blanc?’ she asked.

  Pel nodded and she sloshed out the wine. Sitting down, she looked at Pel. ‘Now, Monsieur. What is it you want?’

  Pel wasn’t sure what he wanted, but, as Luigi André had suggested, Doctor Nicolas had seemed to know everything that went on in the island. Constantly moving about, visiting his patients, a down-at-heel old doctor whom nobody feared, he knew where everybody lived, what they were up to and when they were at home. He was sharper than he looked and had clearly learned a great deal that he shouldn’t. Pel decided to try the one clue he’d been given and see what happened.

  ‘Doctor Nicolas said you have a son, Madame.’

  She glanced quickly at him, with black eyes that seemed to glow. Then she sipped at her wine and spoke quietly.

  ‘I had a son,’ she said.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He was shot.’ ‘When?’

  ‘Nearly three weeks ago now. In Nice.’

  It dawned on Pel what Nicolas had been getting at. ‘One of the six in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The one known as La Petite Fleur?’ The inference in the name was suddenly obvious. ‘Jean Bernard?’

  ‘His name was Jean-Bernard Fleurie.’

  ‘And those others who were shot?’ Pel had their names in his head still. ‘Richet, Epaulard, Grimeaud, Bayon and Cerbet. They were his friends?’

  ‘They were his associates. My son was a good boy. He never did any harm.’

  They never did, Pel thought. Murderers, rapists, torturers were all warmly regarded by their mothers as good boys who never did any harm.

  ‘He was an altar boy,’ Madame Fleurie went on. ‘He went regularly to church, and to confession. But he grew tired of the island. They all do. He wanted to go to the mainland. He was only nineteen and I asked my husband to stop him. But he was involved with the Pinchon woman and never lifted a finger. He got in with a bad lot and they started calling him La Petite Fleur. He was so good-looking. He should never have gone to the mainland. He had a good job here.’

  ‘Working for you?’

  ‘No. He didn’t want this.’ She gestured. ‘He could have been wealthy–’ though there seemed little to show for it, Pel suspected she was one of the richest individuals on the island after the Vicomte ‘–but he preferred to work at the château.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘He worked in the packing department. Preparing those japanned things they get from China and the coffee machines from Sicily. He helped fill the tins and assemble the machines. It made work for a few and a lot of money for one.’

  ‘The Vicomte?’

  ‘Who else?’

  He remembered she was a Communist – a strange political view for a woman who seemed to have all the best capitalist instincts. He changed the subject.

  ‘Did Dr Nicolas know what your son did?’

  ‘Dr Nicolas knew everything. He brought him into the world. He watched him grow up. He came here sometimes when he had to borrow money. I always lent it to him. He drank so much, you see. But he delivered my son and he liked to talk about him.’

  ‘Did he ever say anything that might indicate why your son’s now dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When your son went to the mainland, he got in with Tagliatti’s gang, didn’t he?’

  ‘He wanted to get married but he couldn’t afford to buy a house – the prices have risen so – so he went to Marseilles. He ran errands for Tagliatti, that’s all.’

  Doubtless involving swindles, blackmail and protection, Pel decided.

  ‘Did he ever come back here?’

  ‘He never forgot to come and see me.’ Her smile was proud and wistful and suddenly she was no longer the hard-faced Black Widow who had her finger on the island’s currency, just a grieving mother. ‘But when they shot him they wouldn’t let me bring him home. They said he had to be buried there. Despite the fact that they often came here.’

  ‘Who often came here?’

  ‘My son and his friends.’

  ‘To this island?’ This was what Luigi and Doctor Nicolas has been hinting at. ‘Did you know his friends?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Only by sight.’ She gestured through the window at the little restaurant on the corner of the street opposite where Pel could see the disconsolate tourist in Bermuda shorts drowning his sorrows in a glass of beer. ‘They sat there. Under the tree.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The last time they came.

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Just before he was – before they were all killed.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Talking. They were celebrating.’

  ‘Celebrating what?’

  ‘They were in the money. Jean-Bernard told me. They’d just completed some business.’

  ‘On this island?’

  ‘Something to do with this island, I think.’

  ‘Were they big shots, these friends of his?’

  ‘No. Small fry, really. Jean-Bernard wanted to get close to Tagliatti. But for the time being he was working with these others. Like him, they just ran errands. Collected things.’

  ‘What things?’

  She gave him a haggard stare. ‘What sort of things do they collect? You know that better than I do.’

&nbs
p; He acknowledged the fact. Blackmail. Protection payments.

  ‘Jean-Bernard had plenty of money,’ she went on. ‘New suits. A car. He’d got a nice girl, too. A different one. On the mainland. He showed me her photograph. Madeleine Rou, she was called. Her father was a manufacturer or something in Marseilles. She worked for a night club.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Kit Kat Club. She was the boss’ secretary, Jean-Bernard said. He was proud of her. He was proud of himself. So was Riccio. I saw him slapping him on the back.’

  Pel leaned forward ‘Riccio? Turidu Riccio, the restaurant proprietor? Did he know them?’

  ‘He knew my son.’

  ‘Was he with them?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Was he friendly with these gangster friends of your son’s?’

  ‘My son wasn’t a gangster.’

  Pel ignored the comment. ‘Was he friendly?’ he repeated.

  She shrugged. ‘They were eating and drinking together.’

  ‘How well did Riccio know your son?’

  ‘When he wasn’t at the château, Jean-Bernard worked on his boat. Before he went to Marseilles.’

  ‘And this occasion when they were sitting outside the bar there? When was it? Exactly.’

  She shrugged. ‘Two weeks before it happened. Before the shooting?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell someone?’ She gave him a hard stare. ‘Who? Beauregard?’

  He saw her point. ‘Well, if not Beauregard, someone else. Why didn’t you go to Marseilles and tell the police there?’

  ‘You don’t get mixed up with gang feuds.’

  ‘Not even when your son’s killed?’

  ‘Not even then.’

  ‘Why didn’t you drop a hint in the right place then? Why didn’t you see the Vicomte, for instance?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t you like the Vicomte?’

  ‘There are many reasons why I shouldn’t like the Vicomte.’

  ‘Name one. Inform me.’

  ‘He buys votes. He allows the farms on the island to go only to the people who support him. And they make sure their tenants and workers do the same. Anybody on this island could be removed if he said the word.’