Lake Isle

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘Indeed I have.’

  ‘Well, what’s your answer?’

  ‘Are we talking ethics? I’ve got a bit muddled.’

  ‘If you are going to stir up trouble for my father with the tax people – well, I could find a lot of policemen who’d be hard put to it to account for every shirt they buy.’

  ‘I’m not proud of it. In fact society can’t get on without a police force, even a bad one, but we’re not going to swap arguments about corruption, like what does an hour on your horse cost? It’s irrelevant. If I’m corrupt and so are you, where do we go from there?’

  ‘I thought I’d offer you a bribe.’

  ‘You don’t cease to surprise me,’ meaning it. ‘For forgetting about tax fiddles?’

  ‘Yes, look, I can tell you with truth and certainty that there was nothing at all queer in this deal. There may have been a bit of finagling at times, and that’s my fault. I cost him a lot of money.’

  The way these children’s minds worked!

  ‘What’s the bribe?’ he asked bluntly.

  ‘Me,’ likewise.

  All was now clear. But his existence was getting complicated.

  Being offered bribes was a familiar situation. Sometimes one pretended to accept them. One of the little professional dishonesties of existence. Much like pretending to believe something, in order to get information about something else.

  Being offered young girls was trickier, because one was tempted to take them.

  ‘That’s an honest deal,’ said Martine. ‘Nothing to do with your homicide thing, because I know my father isn’t involved in that. Just to forget about technical finance stuff, right?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Castang calmly.

  And if he didn’t keep his bargain, her idea would be Sophie as a witness?

  ‘Fruit?’ said Sophie with a dish. ‘The pears are rather hard. There’s cheese. And a chocolate cake.’

  He’d better do a bit of police work.

  ‘You’ll excuse me a minute.’

  ‘Through there and up the stairs. Cake for you, Martine?’

  There were a dozen people in the little restaurant, now. The stairs were steep and crooked. An old house, built into the back of the city wall. A bathroom next to the lavatory, a little landing with three rooms, marked one, two, and private. Mm. He had an idea that Sophie knew about this brilliant notion of Martine’s.

  He found her smoking a cigarette, and looked at her with affection. Pale and meditative.

  Sophie was cleaning her glasses on the corner of the tablecloth; looked at him with the blank beautiful gaze of myopia.

  ‘Coffee when you like,’ said Castang.

  ‘Can we stay, Sophie?’ with a show of being colourless.

  ‘Sure,’ indifferently. ‘So coffee, and a drink.’ She went to sit on her stool behind the bar to write bills, sucking her pencil and concentrating, gazing at the horizon.

  ‘Nice girl, that.’

  ‘She’s a good friend.’

  ‘She stays the night too, sometimes?’

  ‘It isn’t my affair,’ said Martine sharply. ‘I don’t ask.’

  Coffee and a drink, a nice one for young girls, a delicious summery smell of sunshine on ripe greengages. Sophie’s face as impassive as a policeman’s.

  Castang’s face had a look of several pieces of leather, cut in a complicated fashion and painstakingly stitched together; some salients blurred and effaced; some shadows and hollows more deeply hatched. Corrosion and oxidisation had played a part. Disciplines, pains and constraints had cut profiles deeper, and being much out of doors had cleaned the face as though with acids.

  This look, that of an old coin, can be seen in most policemen of experience.

  In repose it looked severe. But if one watched him for any length of time there was a phenomenon of much charm; a sunny smile. Vera had much pleasure in these moments when an old, much tilled, eroded landscape was lit by errant sunlight.

  Martine noticed it and was pleased, opened her mouth to say so, found no words, was overcome by shyness.

  Her own face, round and open, conventional and a little boring, became delicate: Castang was touched. The expression of the obstinate little horse, that has made its bed and is going to lie on it however thistly, had become something more adult, and much more interesting.

  ‘You are good,’ he said. ‘And patient.’

  The sulky blush, at once, of the snubbed schoolgirl. She saw that he had wanted her, and no longer did. But not going to be tearful, whatever happened.

  ‘You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘No.’ He felt clumsy himself, looking for a word that would not sound insulting, or diminishing. Couldn’t just pat her head and say good dog.

  ‘You’re too good to treat frivolously.’ It crossed the cop’s mind that Sophie might have a tricky relationship with the local cops, and that it might have been a help, having a PJ inspector around who took girls upstairs.

  ‘Not that easy,’ he said. ‘But first rule when posted to Russia is don’t get caught in bed with the girls.’

  ‘Shove it,’ said Martine, humiliated. ‘Shit; I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘It has to be spontaneous. Like having a leg amputated on the battlefield. Go ahead and cut, you bastards: give me another drink.’

  She laughed a little.

  ‘You know what Bismarck said would happen, if the English army invaded Germany?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘That they’d be arrested by the police, if they did.’

  Good, he’d turned a difficult corner: she put her head back and laughed. Splendid throat like a pillar; splendid tit. See what you’re missing.

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Disturbing the peace, what else?’ But oh, what a dose of castor oil he’d have had to take, next morning.

  ‘Then say something spontaneous.’

  ‘Very well. Tell your father from me that a thing like tax doesn’t interest me. I’m not the fraud squad. But that anything to do with a homicide does. Any information he has for me I’ll keep discreet. The examining magistrate doesn’t have to know where it comes from.’

  ‘You’re looking for an informer.’ Lip curling, somewhat.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Castang dryly. ‘And contrary to belief, we pay informers very little. Generally they get paid in terms of their own immunity. A bad system, but the administration is extremely parsimonious.’

  ‘I’ve understood.’

  ‘You’d like me to take you home?’

  ‘No thank you.’ But she didn’t say it nastily. He asked Sophie for the bill.

  ‘Oh, you can pay in the morning.’

  ‘I’m having another drink instead.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said tranquilly.

  ‘Ever come across Madame Lipschitz’s son?’ he asked Martine.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a small town.’

  ‘Oh, I may have seen him, but I wouldn’t know him if I did.’

  ‘What about your neighbour, Monsieur Barde?’ A busy little bee, taking in any flowers along the way.

  ‘Barde? Oh yes, I know him.’ No great interest.

  ‘Character sketch.’ She was pleased to be off the hook at last, on to something that was just gossip.

  ‘But what’s your interest in that old phoney?’

  ‘Not much. He’s an old friend of the Lipschitz family. And that, incidentally, was what I was doing out your way this afternoon. Drinking tea with Monsieur Barde.’

  ‘I don’t know him much. Wouldn’t want to; he makes faces of odious politeness when he meets me out on the horse. Beds his maids.’

  ‘Oh, anybody can see that.’

  ‘Well, let’s see. Calls himself a writer. Can’t write, but does twee little bits about people who can.’

  The unforgiving judgements of a girl of twenty. What would she say about himself?

  ‘Plays the wealthy landowner. Big swagger, but not much behind it.’

  ‘How do you k
now?’

  ‘Oh, he sold a lot of land. Dad got some, and cheap. Did well out of it, too: we got Green Gables that way. We were putting margarine on our bread before, in a flat. Barde wouldn’t like doing without butter. He likes exterior signs of wealth, as the Finance Ministry calls it. Yachts and racehorses and stuff.’

  ‘Has he racehorses?’ Castang was amused at these youthful cruelties.

  ‘That old nag? Don’t make me laugh. No, but a dinky girlfriend dressed up as parlour-maid. So he supplements the wherewithal with bits of literature and other crafty little combinations. Pawnbroker.’

  ‘Ouf,’ said Sophie, sitting down and kicking her shoes off. ‘Rush is over. Here’s your bill. Being a cop, I’m sure you want it for the expense account.’ Not too maliciously.

  Quite a little family party they made. It was only ten, but the day had been a long one. Castang felt like kicking his shoes off, too.

  FIFTEEN

  It was not to be. Lucciani wasn’t back from his sex film yet, but the good lady of the Hotel Central was still alert behind her bar, helping the government to collect its Value Added Tax.

  ‘Monsieur Peyrefitte asked you to ring him back as soon as you got in.’ How singularly ill-timed of him.

  The voice came harsh through the phone receiver.

  ‘I’ve been trying to reach you: where the hell you been?’

  ‘Military brothel.’ Fellow sounded too excited.

  ‘What? Now hell, this is serious. I’m pulling these people, and that’ll be your affair settled, likely.’

  ‘At this time of night?’ scandalised.

  ‘Judge reckons there’s enough evidence. Got a good tip. Pick you up with the car, in a few minutes: I’ll explain then,’ hastily, before there could be any complaining. Castang had time to think that he could, instead of this gallop, have been in bed with Martine…

  Second thought was technical. A judge of instruction possesses vast powers. He can issue several sorts of warrants to the cops. Besides the convocations inviting Mr Thing to present himself, voluntarily and without coercion, there is a detention warrant, authorising the cops to consign Thing to jail. And there is an arrest warrant, which permits the cops to pick Thing up, if need be by force, at any time of day. This one is not all that frequently used. Well, well, thought Castang: these country judges can throw their weight about.

  Third thought was that if Peyrefitte seemed unusually zealous it was Castang’s fault and no other. The local cop would be pleased to give a demonstration of his own efficiency, and wipe the PJ’s eye for it. These city boys, who think themselves clever.

  If, of course, Peyrefitte had identified the burglar who had used violence on Sabine (involuntary homicide: blows and wounds resulting in death, grave crimes these; not to speak of assorted felonies like armed robbery, breaking and entering – either plain burglary or climbing-in in the nocturnal hours)… well then, of course, the judge was quite right. The forces-of-order would gallop in the nocturnal hours, and he, Castang, would be only too pleased to go home to his wife with his homicide tidied behind him.

  The police car flicked headlights at him from twenty metres along the pavement. He got in at the back, next to Peyrefitte’s second, a stolid man with a finger missing. Not his trigger finger.

  ‘We think this is hot,’ said the commissaire over his shoulder, ‘and we’re taking every precaution.’

  Tyres whirred on the cobbles of the old town, through the medieval gateway – a scant hundred metres from the Bay Tree down the Rue des Remparts – over the river-crossing this fortress had once defended. The land beyond the bridge was low-lying: this was the ‘new town’, a dreary sector of industry and municipal housing, deserted at this hour. The road stretched out into a featureless farmland of potatoes and sugarbeet while Peyrefitte talked in choppy sentences and Castang fought against feeling sleepy. He turned around: they were being followed by a Citroën van.

  ‘Turned out in force.’

  ‘They are four brothers: tough group they make, too.’

  ‘Four black bastards,’ muttered the adjutant.

  ‘They Arabic or what?’ asked Castang.

  ‘Basques. Got those unpronounceable names. All right,’ to the driver, ‘cut the motor; coast in quietly. Pack of hooligans,’ sourly. ‘This may not be funny, and I’m taking no chances. They may easily possess arms, and they might not be slow to use them once they realise that I mean business.’

  Like the man in the Rue d’Aboukir, though this was not very like the Rue d’Aboukir. An isolated small farmhouse, or rather a dilapidated bundle of outbuildings huddled round a cottage. The night was cloudy: vision just good enough to see that the cottage was oddly neat, even prim, with flowers growing round it.

  The dispositions were rather more elaborate than in the Rue d’Aboukir. It was as though ‘whatever Paris can do, we can do better.’ Four cops with assorted weapons got out of the van: eight armed men made the brothers seem unusually formidable, but not by terrorist standards. They didn’t have any armour, or marksmen with sniperscopes. The cops scattered round the outbuildings. Peyrefitte advanced purposefully, Castang flanking. The adjutant and the driver stayed at the gate.

  Light glowed through the bars of a shutter, at a ground-floor window: the bluish flicker of a television screen. Peyrefitte knocked at the door: the sound died instantly. There was silence for a count of ten: he knocked again.

  ‘Police,’ he said, in an unemotional way. Castang moved a little further sideways to where he could not be seen.

  The light went out. A pounding of feet sounded on the stairs. A window opened above Castang’s head. There was enough light to catch the oily glint on a pair of well-looked-after shotgun barrels.

  ‘Now don’t act the imbecile,’ said Peyrefitte, tucking himself against the wall on the lock side of the doorway. ‘I don’t want to have to use any force.’ Silence went on ticking and nothing happened. ‘Let’s have this door opened quietly, boys. Order from the judge. Refusing just gets you in worse trouble.’

  Nobody stirred, but the glint upon the shotgun slid gently along the barrels. Castang watched them dip.

  ‘Idiot,’ he said. ‘Live one and die one: the man’ll blow your head off.’ One was down here, and one was up there, but he was wondering where the other two were, and if they were deciding to be heroes.

  ‘We start again from scratch,’ said Peyrefitte patiently. ‘If the door gets opened quietly, then nothing need be said about resisting arrest.’ Castang, stifling yawns and wondering how much shotgun pellets would scatter from three metres high – in no hurry to find out – was getting a crick in his neck.

  There was a dragging movement behind the kitchen door.

  ‘No shooting?’ said a soft hoarse voice. ‘Word of honour?’ It sounds serious, in Spanish.

  ‘Word of honour,’ said Peyrefitte.

  All this talk about honour, thought Castang.

  ‘You might just break the gun open,’ he said conversationally. The glint wavered and wobbled, and then drooped with a snick. He took a couple of steps forward, turned round and tucked his gun into his belt, quite surprised to find it still there: such a strong feeling of his trousers coming down.

  ‘Put it down on the floor.’ The adjutant, holding a big Star pistol against his hard belly, advanced ponderously. The door-bolt creaked and a large man with lank hair glinting like the gunbarrels was smiling politely in the opening with a hunting rifle in the crook of his elbow. He and Peyrefitte bowed at each other like two penguins, all very formal. Out beyond the gate, the driver was dropping a tear-gas gun back into the boot of the car.

  The other two were at the back. One had a long single-barrelled shotgun for duck. The other, a boy of eighteen, grinned impudently at all those cops with submachine-guns, and put down a .22 repeater.

  ‘For rats,’ he said, showing his teeth.

  ‘No prohibited weapons,’ said the eldest. ‘All legal. You frightened us. No resisting arrest.’ The judge would appreciate that, and so,
thought Castang, would everyone else.

  The four brothers were taken back two by two, while the adjutant and a couple of cops stayed for a search. They got back at around three in the morning, with an old army revolver, two-thirds of a kilo of plastic explosive, several objects known to have been stolen from a parked lorry, and a lot of gold coins.

  ‘Too many,’ said Peyrefitte, ‘for a small potato farm, and nobody has four tape recorders.’ But neither this fact, nor all the interrogation up to then, produced anything to do with Sabine.

  Castang indeed made a face at the results of the search, and went home. Neither Peyrefitte nor the judge would lose face.

  Certainly not. The brothers had several activities interesting Justice, including the Basque Liberation Front, and contravention of Common Market Regulations concerning potatoes. The rummaging went on till nearly midday, turning up a packet of detonators, which are Prohibited Weapons, and also the microscopic scratches made by the previous owner of eighty-four gold napoleons, by which he could identify them. But Castang had gone to bed. He didn’t believe that the four brothers had anything to do with Sabine, despite the denunciation sent to the judge. Their contempt for the idea of hitting old ladies was too genuine: the notion was altogether against Honour.

  SIXTEEN

  Young Lucciani had missed all the excitement, but knew enough not to be talkative at breakfast. Fruity chuckles at the paper; further instalment of the misdeeds of the vice-squad commissaire. Castang, biting into a far-from-crisp croissant, reflecting gloomily that half-cooked bread was spreading like the cholera, was reading an economics article. Chocolate-coated double-talk: we are governed by poltroons. He hadn’t had enough sleep. The croissant was like Tampax. As Vera said, ‘The one thing one knows about the tap-water is that it’s been five times through the human body already.’

  Paris! As provincial as this place here. Little frightened eyes, peering over the battlements to make sure the drawbridge was lowered, chatters about the Hexagon, as though it were a wizard’s star, able to keep out horned things with tails. In one paragraph of jargon Belgium was ‘Over the Quiévrain’, Germany was ‘Across the Rhine’, and England was ‘Beyond the Channel’. The writer seemed grateful for all these muddy little ditches, as though they had been designed by the prudent foresight of Vauban. The English talking about ‘continentals’, or the French complaining of ‘islanders’: who sounded the sillier, muttered Castang crossly.