by Mark Hebden
Pel nodded. ‘Then we’d better find something,’ he said.
They drove across the island to Muriel, De Troq’ handling the big car as if it were his roadster. His style shook Maillet and even Pel, who was used to it, looked vaguely uneasy.
De Troq’ had already discovered which was Tagliatti’s house but when they arrived it was locked up, the doors and windows barred. An old man was working in the garden.
‘He isn’t here,’ he said.
‘We know that,’ Maillet said. He produced the search warrant and demanded that the door be opened. ‘Have you got a key?’
‘Well, yes, I have,’ the old man said. ‘But I was told to let nobody in.’
Maillet flashed his identity card. ‘We’re the police and we have good reason for wanting to see inside. Open up.’
The house was built on the same lines as Rambert’s, with rooms big enough to play polo in without damaging the fittings. The furnishings were luxurious and the paintings were modern and looked just as expensive. They went through the place from top to bottom, replacing everything carefully. There were clothes in the wardrobes and more in the drawers, one room full of women’s garments.
‘Wonder who the lucky lady is,’ Maillet said. They found wines of a sort that none of them had ever dared consider drinking – it would have been sacrilege even to open the bottle – occasional bundles of high-denomination notes in the drawers, as if they’d been thrown in and forgotten – and in the garage a large Citroën like the Vicomte’s, polished until it shone, but cold and obviously not used for some time.
‘Makes you wonder how they get away with it, doesn’t it,’ Maillet observed.
There was nothing by which they could connect Maurice Tagliatti to the drugs in Nice, however. They weren’t really surprised. They knew Tagliatti to be far too clever to leave things about.
‘He probably has his own private detective to go round after him,’ Maillet said ruefully. ‘Some bent cop who’s employed to make sure there are no give-aways left lying about.’
It was disappointing but only what they’d expected, and they returned to Maillet’s boat in silence.
‘There’s one other angle,’ Pel said. ‘Riccio. He’s involved. What’s his background?’
Maillet’s assistant had looked him up. He opened a file. ‘Salvatore Riccio,’ he said. ‘Known as Turidu Riccio. Background: Paras. He was used in North Africa while he was still very young on secret missions that seem usually to have resulted in some awkward Algerian being removed from the scene.’
‘A hit man?’ Pel glanced quickly at De Troq’. ‘That makes sense.’
‘We think now – now that we’ve turned this up – that he’s been used before, in gang murders in Marseilles and Paris. We’ve had Tagliatti’s deputy in and chewed him up, of course, but we got nowhere. Tagliatti, of course, is in Switzerland.’
‘Tagliatti,’ Pel said, remembering his own encounter with the gangster, ‘would ride something like this without turning a hair. He has nothing to fear, I dare bet. What about Maquin?’
Maillet picked up another file. ‘Also Paras. Not with Riccio. But I bet Riccio would recognise another Para straight away and recruit him. He’s a dead shot with a rifle. He’s known to have helped with game shoots on the mainland.’
‘He’s known to have helped with them here too,’ Pel said.
Maillet looked puzzled. ‘But they removed Caceolari with a knife,’ he pointed out.
Pel shrugged. ‘A knife’s quieter.’
‘And how did they find out he’d seen them?’
‘We still have to sort that one out.’
‘Will you want us to help?’
‘No.’ Pel shook his head. ‘We’ll handle it ourselves.’
‘Got enough men?’
Pel smiled. ‘We’ll make it enough,’ he said.
‘We’ll tackle it tomorrow evening and we’d like the helicopter here the day after to take away the catch.’
That night, however, there were complications. There was another burning.
This time it was a small cottage at Biz belonging to a retired couple from Nice called Vésin. They had put their savings into it and lived in a flat for the rest of the year so they could enjoy the solitude of the island during the summer when the south coast of France grew too busy with tourists. Since Beauregard seemed unwilling to do much, Pel decided to take a look.
The cottage’s white walls were blackened by smoke and the roof had fallen into a mass of burnt timbers and cracked tiles, on which Lesage and his men were pumping water from the swimming pool. A large fig tree that overhung it was scarred by the flames and one or two locals were staring at it, picking up odds and ends. One man was about to make off with a rake when Pel stopped him.
‘Where are you going with that?’
‘Well, they won’t want it, will they? Not now.
‘Have you asked them?’
‘No.’
‘Then put it back.’
The man stared Pel full in the face. ‘And who might you be?’
De Troq’ grinned. ‘For your information, this is Chief Inspector Pel, Brigade Criminelle, Police Judiciaire. And he does his job rather better than Brigadier Beauregard. If I were you, I would put it back.’
The man dropped the rake as if it were red hot and scuttled off. Obviously one or two of the others had also been prowling round for what they could pick up and they began to shuffle off, too.
They moved towards the building. There was a little garage built on the back and as the roof of the cottage had collapsed it had brought down the roof of the garage. A man was poking about in the debris with a fork and they recognised him as Oudry, the baker from Biz, Caceolari’s brother-in-law.
‘Looking for something, Monsieur?’ Pel asked.
‘My property, that’s all.’ Oudry raised his pasty face to them.
‘What property would that be?’
Oudry shrugged. ‘Tools. Things like that. We’re short of space at home and Madame Vésin gave me permisison to store them in their garage while they’re away. We had a key and kept an eye on the place. They paid us for it. I was going to remove them before their first let in June.’ He shrugged. ‘It won’t be necessary now. There won’t be anything left.’
Calling on Beauregard in his office, Pel found him engaged in writing a laborious report on the new arson case. He looked bored but his boredom vanished at once as Pel informed him that he’d come across a hint of smuggling at Le Havre de Sud, and that he was to stand by in his office until he received a telephone call informing him where to meet Pel who was laying on a raid later that evening.
Beauregard looked interested. ‘Where will it be, Chief?’
‘I won’t know until the last minute,’ Pel said. ‘I’ll inform you by telephone.’
As they left the office, he heard the telephone click. ‘He’ll be spreading the word that we’re coming,’ Pel said. ‘And everybody in Le Havre du Sud who’s ever done any smuggling will be stuffing away anything illegal they possess within minutes. In the meantime, you and I will pick up Riccio and the Nice boys can tackle Maquin. I suspect Riccio’ll be the awkward one. Beauregard can help us.’
‘Can we trust him?’
‘He won’t know until it’s too late and we might kill two birds with one stone. Inform the Marseilles boys that Maquin’s not to be allowed near the telephone. We don’t want anyone spreading the gospel and I don’t want to move on Riccio until I feel we have good reason to.
Madame Pel looked from one to the other. ‘You’re going to arrest someone, aren’t you?’
‘That depends,’ Pel said, ‘on whether we find anything or not.’
Pel and De Troq’ took their apéritifs on the harbour and in no time were in conversation with the three young men in jeans who, by this time, had hired two-stroke motor bikes to get around. They talked together for a long time, laughing a lot to hide what was being said, then De Troq’ and Pel returned to where Madame Pel had provided an excellent
meal.
‘This looks as if it were hard work,’ De Troq’ said gallantly.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, with equal gallantry. ‘Nelly’s very good and a lot of it comes out of tins. It’s amazing what you can do these days. We didn’t go in for anything elaborate in case you were delayed and it was spoiled.’
After the meal, they studied the photographs from the Ballistic Department that De Troq’ had brought back with him, while Madame and Nelly stacked the dishes in the Duponts’ dishwasher. As they finished they found Madame looking over their shoulders and obviously itching to know what it was all about. Pel explained how in firearm identification the cartridge case and the bullet itself always had clear marks on them. Several ejected cartridge cases had been picked up in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte in Marseilles and photographed under microscopes, and each one bore the imprint in considerable detail of every minute mechanical imperfection of the weapon that had fired it, from the firing pin and breech block to the ejector.
‘They mean nothing, of course,’ he said. ‘Unless we find the gun that fired them.’
‘Ordinary 9 mm bullets from a pistol were found in the bar walls,’ De Troq’ went on. ‘It’s believed they were fired with the express purpose of making the bar staff and customers keep their heads down while the type with the Sterling polished off the opposition at the counter.
The telephone went soon after it grew dark. It was Claverie, one of the cops from Nice. ‘We’ve got him,’ he said. ‘He has a 9 mm pistol which he can’t account for. It’s been cleaned recently, which suggests it’s also been fired recently. There’s also an old army revolver big enough to bring down an aircraft. First World War, I reckon.’
‘Did he get to the telephone.’
‘Nowhere near it, Chief. I’m speaking on it now. I think he’d like to strangle me.’
‘Good. Keep your eye on him. Don’t let him out of your sight.’ Pel slammed the telephone down. ‘Come on, De Troq’. Let’s go and get Riccio before the jungle telegraph gets to work.’
Riccio had just finished cooking and a few last tourists were finishing their wine. Standing in the shadows among the boats on the slipway, Pel indicated the bar nearby.
‘Go in there, De Troq’,’ he said. ‘Use their telephone and inform Beauregard that he’s needed here and tell him why.’
When De Troq’ came back, Pel raised an eyebrow. ‘What did he say?’
De Troq’ grinned. ‘He seemed startled, Patron. He said he’d be here in two or three minutes.’
‘I’ll bet it’s nearer five,’ Pel said. ‘At this moment, I dare bet he’s telephoning Riccio.’
As they watched from among the shadows near the boats, sure enough they heard the telephone go in Riccio’s restaurant, then they saw Riccio suddenly start chivvying his customers out, yelling at them that he had to close.
‘We haven’t finished,’ one of the men said. ‘Yes, you have! I’ve just shut the place up!’ Pel smiled. ‘Come on, De Troq’,’ he said. As they stepped into the light of the restaurant doorway, Riccio saw them. For a second he stared, then leapt for the back door leading to the yard. But De Troq’ was too quick. Snatching up one of the chairs he hurled it at Riccio. It caught him in the legs just as he reached the door and brought him down. As he fell, he sent one of the tables flying. A glass crashed against the wall and the tourists leapt up, the women screaming. As Riccio struggled to his feet, De Troq’ wrenched his arm up behind him.
‘What’s going on?’ one of the tourists demanded. ‘What is this? A robbery?’
‘Hardly,’ Pel said. ‘We’re the police.’
Beauregard came panting up just as they found a Sterling sub-machine gun, well-greased and wrapped in rags, under a pile of sacks stuffed into a space beneath a loose floorboard in one of the outhouses at the back of the yard. His tunic was buttoned incorrectly and he was still hitching at his rusty gun in its unpolished holster on his belt.
‘You took your time,’ Pel snapped.
‘I came as soon as I could, Chief.’
Upstairs in Riccio’s bedroom, where they also found a girl of about sixteen, who turned out to be a German holiday-maker, they found 9 mm ammunition in boxes and several empty magazines for the Sterling. There was also a 9 mm pistol and a commando type dagger.
‘That’ll be what did for Caceolari,’ De Troq’ said.
‘Not on your life,’ Pel said. ‘That’ll be in the harbour somewhere.’ He turned to Beauregard. ‘Right, Brigadier, you’re going to have company in your cells tonight. And you’d better make sure they don’t escape. Come to think of it–’ Pel looked at De Troq’ ‘–under the circumstances and since these types are badly wanted and we’ve got plenty of help, we’ll have Claverie, Lebrun and Mangin sit up on guard with them.’
Twenty
It wasn’t the helicopter that came from Marseilles, but the launch. It took away Riccio and Maquin, as well as Beauregard and one of his constables. The constable had admitted that things had happened, bribes had been taken and blind eyes had been turned and, in a fury, Beauregard, anxious that the constable should share in any delights that were going, returned the compliment. It also took away the three detective sergeants from Nice, all cheerful and very pleased with themselves.
Pel watched them go. Lebrun was in no doubt that the weapons they’d found were the ones which had committed the butchery in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte. As the boat left, Pel turned to see a large Citroën which he recognised as the Vicomte de la Rochemare’s standing just behind them. As he turned away, the Vicomte beckoned him. The door of the car opened and the Vicomte gestured at the half-acre of plastic tables and chairs.
‘I think we need a drink, Chief Inspector,’ he said.
Pel felt the occasion warranted it – even, perhaps, a cigarette, too. After all, they’d taken another step forward in the march against crime. He had spent half the night and part of the morning doing the paperwork necessary to commit Riccio, Maquin, Beauregard and his constable to the arms of the Nice police and, liking paper work no more than any other cop, had smoked enough cigarettes in the preparation of the documents to turn his lungs to cinders. He ordered a beer to wash away the ashes and they sat back, enjoying the sunshine, Pel thoroughly pleased with himself. His Honour General Baron Pel. Charles de Gaulle Pel. Foxy Pel. Lone Wolf Pel. He was all of them at once. And the triumph made him feel he’d hit back at the island for getting him there.
‘I have to congratulate you, Chief Inspector,’ the Vicomte said. ‘When I asked you to help, I didn’t really expect such a quick or such a dramatic result.’
Neither had Pel but he didn’t mention that. ‘I knew Riccio, of course. Not personally, of course, but as a restaurateur. Whenever I had unwanted visitors in my home – politicians, tourists, the sort of people who result from chance meetings – Tissandi arranged for him to put on a dinner at his restaurant for them. Tissandi arranged for supplies to come from the château and Riccio did it quite well. It pleased them, of course, because his place has the island atmosphere that the hotel doesn’t have. Perhaps more than my own place which, after all, you can see repeated ad nauseam up and down the Loire. But this–!’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘And Beauregard, too! No wonder we never seemed to get anywhere with the smuggling on the island. What’ll happen now?’
‘I suspect,’ Pel said, ‘that before long you’re going to have some difficulty over your laws here. As you’ll doubtless remember, General de Gaulle was once all set to take over Monaco if it didn’t fall into line with French thinking, and I suspect your police force, from now on, will be nominated – and supervised – by Nice.’
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing. What about you?’
‘I shall now continue my holiday. In peace, I hope.’
The Vicomte laughed. ‘I hope so, too,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you and your wife will do me the honour of dining with me one night.’
Pel thought they might. Madame would certainly be intrigued by the gold plates. It would give her something to
talk about with her friends for weeks to come.
When Lebrun telephoned, the call came through to Beauregard’s office, at that moment occupied by Pel and De Troq’. A search through Beauregard’s desk had brought to light a lot of odd things. It seemed that the brigadier had been taking bribes for a long time – who from it wasn’t clear, but they found clear proof, because Beauregard was a careful man where his finances were concerned and had set it all down. An examination of his bank account would undoubtedly show far more than a police brigadier ought to have and doubtless there were also other bank accounts that would turn up later.
Lebrun sounded pleased with himself. ‘The Sterling and the two 9 mm Lugers matched the ejected cases found in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte and Riccio’s fingerprints were all over them. Our little friends were clearly involved in the murders there. They’ve been charged and they’ll eventually come up before the magistrates. No question about it, Chief. We’ve got them cold. These are the Bar-Tabac murderers.’
That evening, as they ate a celebratory dinner at Luigi’s, Madame brought up the question that was in the minds of all of them.
‘What happens now?’ she said. ‘Do we all go home at the end of the week, or do we take a little extra holiday at the Vicomte’s expense – and the Duponts’, I might add – to make up for the time we’ve lost.’
Pel was silent for a moment. ‘There’s no rush,’ he said.
This was unlike Pel. He was normally as restless as a flea and she couldn’t imagine, any more than De Troq’ could, what he would do with himself now that the thing had been sorted out.
‘Well,’ De Troq’ said. ‘I’ll have to go. That’s certain.’
‘Not yet,’ Pel said and De Troq’s eyebrows rose.
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t think we’ve finished yet.’