Pel & The Pirates (Chief Inspector Pel)

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Well, Rambert and this other man.’

  ‘Which other man?’

  ‘The one that came with him.’

  ‘Would it have been Maurice Tagliatti?’ She hesitated for a long time before answering. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘A little. He’s been here, too. But not lately. He’s gone to Switzerland.’

  ‘So I heard. Why did he come here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Rambert always brought him.’

  It was Pel’s turn to be silent for a while. So both Tagliatti and Hardy had interests on the island. And they seemed to be the same interests as those of Rambert, who was obviously not anxious to be associated with them. Which was doubtless why they used Luz Robles’ bar in the hills instead of the bar of the hotel in the Vieux Port where they might have expected better service and greater comfort.

  ‘Did Tagliatti put up any of the money for the estate at Muriel?’ It was more than likely because it was well known that, having made his pile from shady deals, Tagliatti was now trying to appear respectable.

  Madame Robles nodded. ‘He has a house there.’

  ‘Does he indeed? What about the harbour at the Vieux Port? Does he have any interests there?’

  ‘He part-owns the hotel.’

  Pel shifted his position. Things were growing interesting. There was nothing they could accuse anybody of yet but it was safe to assume if Tagliatti was in on any business deals they were shady ones, which seemed to suggest that Rambert’s – and Hardy’s – could be shady, too. Perhaps they were connected with a few other names the police were interested in. And were Tagliatti and his boys up to something on the island, and had Caceolari discovered what it was and had he been threatening blackmail?

  ‘Caceolari,’ Pel said.

  Madame Robles looked sullen. ‘I’ve already talked about him.’

  ‘Let’s talk about him again. When he came to see you the night before he died, you told me he mentioned that shooting on the mainland.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Did he seem to know something about it?’

  She gave him a quick look. ‘I think he did. I never thought about it until now. I just thought he was nervous that perhaps the people who’d done it had hidden on the island or something.

  ‘They might have done,’ Pel said quietly. She gave him a sharp look. ‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure I lock my doors at night. Where are they?’

  Pel ignored the question. ‘Why do you think he was nervous?’

  ‘Just the way he went on about it. I got the impression he’d seen something.’

  ‘Did he say what?’

  ‘No.’

  Pel knew she was lying. He’d had enough experience of lying to recognise it at once.

  ‘I think you can do better than that,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think he did tell you.’

  ‘No. No, he didn’t.’

  ‘Would you be prepared to come down to the police station and swear to that? Perhaps even go to Nice and swear to it there?’

  She started at Pel. ‘I think he saw guns,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a boat that came into the harbour. The night those men were shot down in Nice. He saw one, anyway. He said it was covered by a tarpaulin but that the tarpaulin snagged on something and pulled away.’

  Pel glanced at De Troq’. ‘It must have been a big gun to have to carry it under a tarpaulin,’ he said.

  ‘He said it was a sub-machine gun. A tommy gun.’

  ‘Only the army, the police and certain security organisations are allowed sub machine guns,’ Pel said slowly. ‘Did he say who was in the boat?’

  ‘He said there were three.’

  ‘But he didn’t recognise them?’

  ‘He didn’t say so.’

  ‘Do you know a man called Riccio? He keeps a restaurant in the Vieux Port.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. I gather it’s not very good.’ Pel was inclined to agree and she went on, almost as if suddenly she were pleased to get things off her chest.

  ‘When I eat out I use Luigi’s or the hotel,’ she said. ‘They’re much better. These little places are a bit scruffy.’ Remembering the charcoal and the fish, Pel was inclined to agree with that too. ‘But I didn’t know him,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘Maquin?’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Friend of Riccio’s.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the third man? Who was he?’

  ‘Caceolari didn’t say.’

  Pel paused. ‘This boat Caceolari saw. What happened to it? Did he say anything about that?’

  ‘He said it came into the harbour then went away again towards the north. I said where could it go to the north? There’s only Biz. He said it probably went back to Nice.’

  Pel rose. As he reached the door, she smiled nervously, as if relieved that the questioning was over. ‘When I go to Nice,’ she said, ‘I’ll be able to dine out on this for weeks.’

  Pel turned quickly. ‘I think you’d be better advised to keep it to yourself,’ he said. ‘It might be safer.’

  She looked startled. ‘You think someone will shoot me or something.’

  Pel sniffed. Marseilles was full of Corsicans and the Union de Corse and the Corsican Mafia was reputed – though nobody was ever certain – to have its headquarters and its most powerful influence there.

  ‘If it was the Marseilles lot Caceolari saw,’ he said quietly, ‘they well might.’

  Eighteen

  Things suddenly began to look different.

  ‘A good catch,’ Pel murmured thoughtfully. ‘Caceolari told his wife it was heavy and Riccio himself said they’d done well, yet, though he had a freezer, all he had when we arrived a few days later was swordfish. Frozen swordfish. We took our very first meal in that restaurant and that was all he could offer us.

  ‘Swordfish was all he could ever offer us,’ Madame commented.

  ‘He obviously wasn’t such a good fisherman as he claimed,’ De Troq’ smiled.

  ‘Or perhaps he didn’t use his boat much for fishing.’ Pel leaned forward. ‘When we asked why he had nothing but swordfish he said it was because all the fresh fish had been eaten. But Madame Caceolari said the islanders didn’t eat in his restaurant because it was too expensive and we were the first tourists to go there. He said so. He hadn’t been open until then. And I’ve never seen many since.’ Pel looked at his wife. ‘So why didn’t he have mullet, or tunny or pilchards? What happened to this famous catch he’d made? Could it be that he hadn’t been fishing at all?’

  Madame was finally beginning to get the drift of the way they were thinking. ‘This is much more exciting than watching elderly ladies having their hair done,’ she admitted. ‘Elderly ladies with wet hair aren’t the prettiest sight, anyway.’

  They sat outside the bar near Riccio’s, their eyes on Riccio’s door. Three tourists had turned up from Biz on motor scooters and they could see Riccio moving about inside preparing food – without doubt, swordfish.

  Pel was quiet, deep in thought. Why had Riccio been so friendly with Jean-Bernard Fleurie and his friends from Tagliatti’s gang? Was it simply that he’d always been friendly with young Fleurie? After all, he might not have known his friends were gangsters. Gangsters didn’t go around with little buttons in their lapels indicating their profession. On the other hand, island gossip being what it was, there was a good chance that he did know what Fleurie was involved in and, if so, that he also knew what his companions did for a living.

  There was certainly something going on from the island and it began to seem that Jean-Bernard had brought Tagliatti into it, with the encouragement of whoever it was who was behind it, and that Caceolari had stumbled on it.

  ‘It’s fairly clear,’ he said, ‘that what Caceolari saw that night he’d been with Magimel was Riccio’s boat coming into the harbour and that
what Riccio was carrying ashore was not fish, as he told us, and not a body – but guns. From that we can assume with some safety that, since it was the night those six were shot in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte in Nice, that that’s where the guns came from.’

  ‘Think it was a gang wipe-out, Patron?’ De Troq’ asked. ‘Was Tagliatti muscling in on somebody else’s territory?’

  ‘If that was it,’ Pel asked, ‘why didn’t Tagliatti’s mob respond? Even in Switzerland he wouldn’t let his men be bumped off without hitting back twice as hard.’ He was on the point of lighting another cigarette when he suddenly shook out the match and sat staring in front of him at the boats bobbing in the harbour.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Madame asked.

  ‘Of course!’ Pel came to life abruptly. ‘It wasn’t the opposition who wiped out those six. It was Tagliatti himself! It must have been! So why? There must have been a good reason.’

  ‘The best one I can think of, Patron,’ De Troq’ said, ‘is that they’d done something he didn’t like. These gangs demand tight discipline.’

  ‘And that’s why they used guns. Their usual method of getting rid of people is to bake them in a concrete cake and drop them in the harbour or place them under a new motorway.’ As Madame winced, Pel patted her hand. ‘But this time it was guns. And with a lot of publicity. They must have been trying to put something across to him and he wanted to make sure everybody else who worked for him would get the message and not try the same trick. So he had it done this way to make it loud and clear.’

  De Troq’ frowned. ‘It’s something we’ll never prove, Patron,’ he said. ‘There’ll be half a dozen people between Tagliatti and whoever did it.’

  ‘But not a lot between us and the types who did it, because we already know Riccio was involved. Was he one of Tagliatti’s informers? Did he pass on some information he’d picked up to Tagliatti’s hit men? Did he find out that Jean-Bernard and his friends were up to something Tagliatti wouldn’t have approved of? He must have been part of the business because you’ve only to look at him to see he’s obviously not expecting any reaction from anybody, as he would be if he’d been involved with some other outfit and set up the shootings for them. He must be working for Tagliatti, too.’

  He paused, deep in thought. ‘Those six were merely errand boys,’ he went on after a while. ‘They were probably responsible for seeing whatever it was that was being moved came safely into the country. Perhaps they’d been helping themselves and Riccio found out. Jean-Bernard boasted to his mother that he’d just done well out of some deal. Perhaps he boasted of it to Riccio. Perhaps Riccio’s one of Tagliatti’s shadows. The types he pays to keep an eye on his boys. But if he was, Jean-Bernard didn’t know. Otherwise they’d hardly boast about putting something across Tagliatti which, it seems, is what they were doing when Jean-Bernard’s mother saw them from her window. So it got back to Tagliatti and – paf!–’ Pel slapped his knee with the flat of his hand ‘–that was that! They didn’t know it but they’d just signed their own death warrants.’

  He paused and sipped his pernod. ‘Perhaps Riccio was used to get the weapons away afterwards. None were ever found, and Riccio arrived back here with the guns some time after 2.30 a.m. It would fit. He went out during the afternoon. He said so. He could have been waiting off Nice for one of Tagliatti’s launches – I’m sure he’s got some – to bring them out to him, then he left Nice immediately and headed back to sea. Perhaps Tagliatti had arranged beforehand for him to hide them. After all, no weapons, no charges. It’s an old dodge. Get rid of the weapons and you’re safe.’

  ‘Perhaps it was bigger than that,’ Madame suggested. She had been listening quietly ignored by the other two in the excitement what they’d learned, and they turned quickly to look at her.

  ‘Bigger than that?’ Pel said.

  ‘Much bigger.’

  ‘How much bigger?’

  ‘Bigger by a murder. Six murders?’

  De Troq’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You think Riccio did it?’

  Pel studied his wife for a moment then he turned to De Troq’. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘On Tagliatti’s orders?’

  ‘Why not?’ Pel said again. ‘Perhaps he went to Nice especially. It wouldn’t be difficult. Six hours there and six hours back. It takes the ferry five and the ferry’s faster than anything else in the harbour.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the harbourmaster in Nice report his boat? They do everywhere else.’

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t go into Nice. Perhaps they anchored well offshore and were picked up by a fast Tagliatti launch. Once on dry land, they could have been driven into the city, done the job, been driven back and been taken out to their boat, and set off home. They’d be out of the city before the road blocks were set up and at sea before anybody noticed. It would take them at least until 2.30 a.m. to get back. It has all the stamp of Tagliatti’s way of working and would account for all those splendid alibis the police found. Tagliatti’s boys had good alibis for the simple reason that they weren’t there. They simply provided the means for Riccio to get clear. The rest Riccio attended to himself.’

  It began to seem a distinct possibility.

  ‘After all,’ Pel said, ‘Caceolari saw three men in a boat – Riccio, Maquin and one other. We know that. There were three men in that bar shooting. Was it Riccio and Maquin and this other man? Perhaps Riccio rubbed them out for Tagliatti and, because Caceolari, who’d been drinking with the Robles woman at Mortcerf and with Magimel, the farmer, was late getting home, he saw them arrive and saw the guns. When he read of the murders next day he put two and two together and made a guess. And they guessed he’d guessed. Perhaps even they found out that he saw them.’

  ‘How, Patron? Who passed on the information that he’d seen them? Caceolari was wary. He told Luz Robles he saw guns but he mentioned no names. To his wife he only said he saw Riccio and mentioned no guns. So how did Riccio learn he’d seen them with the guns? Somebody knew. And we still have to find out who.’

  Nevertheless Pel patted his wife’s hand. ‘I think we’ve suddenly begun to make progress.’

  Nineteen

  The following evening the police in Marseilles picked up a seventeen-year-old boy who had died of an overdose of heroin.

  He had been found in a basement flat, half-starved. He had left home some time before and instead of spending his money on food he’d been spending it on drugs and had been living in the basement room for some time. Alongside him was a syringe and the small paper packet which had contained his fix.

  It was enough to alert the police and later that night, Jean-Bernard Fleurie’s girl, Madeleine Rou, who worked at the Kit Kat Klub, a sleazy joint near the harbour, not as the boss’ secretary as Madame Fleurie thought, but as one of the strippers, was spotted handing over a small parcel to one of the other girls. Though the owner hadn’t known it, the club was full of cops and they had pounced at once.

  Madeleine Rou and the other girl were charged with being in possession of drugs. They strenuously denied it and the girl who had accepted the drugs had hurriedly shoved the packet behind a group of wine bottles behind the bar. But when tested, they were both found to have traces of the drug on their hands.

  ‘It’s something you can’t get off,’ Inspector Maillet pointed out cheerfully. ‘It’s always a great help.’

  Both girls were hostile and unhelpful at first but as Maillet began to lean on them and talk of long sentences, they broke down. The drugs had come from Jean-Bernard.

  That was all Madeleine Rou knew. The other girl was the go-between for a man who peddled drugs on the streets and, when he was brought in, too, he didn’t know anything either. He just took the drug, broke it down into sizeable doses and sold it where it was needed.

  It was the same old story. Everything was sewn up tighter than the old Resistance réseaux of wartime France. No one knew who was involved beyond the next one in the line. That way, the people at the top who organised things never got raked in o
r had to answer charges.

  All Madeleine Rou knew about the drugs was that Jean-Bernard Fleurie, La Petite Fleur, had produced them, told her to hide them and pass them on later when and where he told her to. Since he was no longer there to help and since she needed money she had done the next best thing. Having asked around, she had found that one of her co-strippers at the Kit Kat Klub knew people who were involved with drugs so she’d arranged to hand it over at what was, it turned out, a staggeringly low price. When she learned how much the drugs were worth, Madeleine Rou turned on her co-stripper and might have attacked her but for the presence of the police. As it was, she treated her to the length of her tongue and a promise to get her later for swindling her. The other girl insisted that she, too, hadn’t known the value and had offered only what she’d been told. At which point, Madeleine Rou turned on the man who was to have taken possession from the other girl, and this time it ended up in a free-for-all that had required three policemen to sort out.

  The thing that intrigued the police, however, was the shape of the bags that Madeleine Rou had tried to hand over. Normally heroin came in plastic bags about twenty centimetres long and ten centimetres wide, which was a useful size for stuffing into the nooks and crannies of motor cars, caravans and other vehicles. These bags were only fifteen centimetres long and about four centimetres across. Obviously they didn’t hold as much as the normal ones but nobody was kidding that there weren’t more.

  When the police launch from Nice arrived in the harbour of the Vieux Port, Pel was waiting for it with the Duponts’ car and he went on board at once to see Inspector Maillet who had asked for a conference.

  ‘It came from here,’ Maillet said at once. ‘I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Proof?’ Pel asked.

  ‘None. It’s just a guess.’

  ‘Well, never mind,’ Pel said. ‘There are a few people we’ll be wanting to pick up here before long. They’ll probably talk. Did you bring search warrants?’

  ‘We did. They took some getting because officially the judiciary on the mainland has no authority here but we managed to get the rules waived. Quietly. It’ll be good enough to make a search, though there’ll be a hell of a row if we find nothing.’