Pel And The Paris Mob

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Madame Vocci,’ he said.

  ‘I am Mademoiselle Vocci,’ she corrected him firmly. ‘Lucrezia Desiderata Ada Vocci.’

  Disconcerted by the coolness in her voice, Misset adjusted his glasses and pressed on, determined not to be put aside. ‘Nice name,’ he commented.

  ‘All Italians have nice names.’

  It was becoming hard work and his smile was already a little forced. ‘Just happened to be here on duty,’ he explained. ‘Police. Making enquiries.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She turned back to the magazine, trying without putting it into words to suggest she had never seen him before. She was doing very well at it, too, and her unrelenting hostility made Misset feel vaguely insanitary.

  ‘What happened to er–?’ He gestured lamely. ‘I got the impression you were married,’ he said.

  ‘I am Mademoiselle Vocci.’

  Misset gazed at her expressionlessly. There must be some good reason why she was fibbing and he decided she didn’t wish to be recognised by him. He was fully aware of what she was up to: Deny everything until you could come up with a thumping great lie that was good enough to cover everything. He’d done it often with his wife.

  It seemed to be time to twist her arm. Standing there, ignored, Misset was beginning to feel like a piece of discarded soap. She was pretending to read her Elle again. He laid the black gloves alongside her on the arm of the chair.

  ‘You forgot them,’ he said loudly. ‘Two hours ago. When you were a widow.’

  Although she kept her eyes on her magazine, she was sitting as still now as the statue on the lid of a stone coffin. Misset saw one of the waiters watching them.

  ‘The police in France take a poor view of the falsification of documents,’ he continued loudly and she finally put down the magazine.

  ‘What are you after?’ she asked. When he didn’t answer, she stared at him a moment longer, then she picked up her belongings and rose abruptly. ‘Perhaps you’d better come to my room,’ she said. ‘We can talk better there.’

  She had a suite at the back of the hotel overlooking the garden where it was quiet and there was a warm air of luxury about it that appealed to Misset. As she put down her bag, he moved about the room, trying to look sinister behind his dark glasses. The settee was large and wide and the bed, which he could see through the open door to the next room, looked big enough to hold a circus in.

  She stared at herself in the mirror, giving a few casual pushes at her hair. She was tall, built like Sophia Loren, and she wore a contemplative expression as she turned towards him, as though she were weighing up how to approach him.

  ‘Nice little place you’ve got here,’ Misset said.

  She stared at him for a moment and he noticed how cold the green eyes were, then she turned to the sideboard.

  ‘I expect you’d like a drink,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not often known to refuse.’

  She poured two whiskies. ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  Misset sat on the edge of the settee.

  ‘Now, Monsieur–?’

  ‘Misset. Detective Sergeant Misset. Police Judiciaire. You can call me Josephe if you want to.’

  ‘Most people call me Ada. You deserve an explanation.’ She tried a smile. ‘My name really is Vocci,’ she explained. ‘All I’ve done is change my title from Madame to Mademoiselle.’

  ‘To make the running easier?’

  She smiled properly for the first time and immediately the room seemed warmer. ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed. ‘After all, I’m young and not unattractive.’

  Misset nodded in acknowledgement of the fact.

  ‘You know how Italians regard death,’ she went on. ‘I see no reason why I should be treated as though I’ve got a disease. I was never in love with my husband and his death doesn’t mean much to me.’

  ‘So why bring him home in a box?’

  This time she laughed. ‘There’s a little trouble over a will. A lot of money is involved and I am the sole beneficiary.’

  ‘And you like to have him around to make sure of getting it?’

  She nodded. ‘His family are being difficult, you understand. They want proof of death. I went to Poland to bring his body home, together with the documents that prove he’s dead.’

  ‘What was he doing in Poland?’

  ‘He was on business there. I got permission to bring his ashes out. The Communists were helpful and an American friend at their Embassy in Warsaw made all the arrangements.’

  ‘And now?’

  She opened her handbag for a cigarette. ‘I’m going to enjoy myself.’

  ‘Marry again, for instance?’

  She shrugged. ‘First of all, I’m going to have some fun. So, as the Italians have such a depressing attitude towards widowhood, I prefer to be unmarried.’

  ‘It certainly improves your chances.’ Misset looked about him. There was no sign of the brass-bound box. ‘Where’s Himself?’ he asked.

  ‘Serafino?’ She smiled and, crossing to the mantelpiece, indicated a small decorated urn.

  ‘Is that him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that all there was in that damned great box?’

  ‘There were marble chippings.’

  ‘To make him feel more cosy?’

  She laughed again. ‘You are not respectful, Sergeant Josephe Misset,’ she said.

  Misset was staring at the urn, fascinated. ‘Seems funny to think he’s in there,’ he said.

  She picked up the urn and crossed to him. ‘Take a look.’

  There appeared to be nothing inside but grey dust and a few crystals.

  ‘I didn’t know they could crystallise them,’ Misset said.

  She laughed again. ‘The crystals provide perfume,’ she explained. ‘They use them for embalming. Smell.’

  Misset sniffed, then stared, interested. ‘And which is Himself?’

  ‘Serafino is just – among them.’

  Misset studied the contents of the urn thoughtfully, then he looked up. ‘You’ll have to be careful you don’t use him in mistake for bath salts,’ he said. ‘It’d be awful to think he’d gone down the plughole.’

  She laughed again and the slanting green eyes lost their chill. Putting the urn back in its place, she sat down opposite him and crossed her legs, so that he had a view of a handsome slice of thigh.

  ‘I like you,’ she said impulsively.

  Misset wasn’t neurotic about having friends.

  ‘Now that we have cleared up my little mystery, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Job I’m on.’

  ‘May I know?’

  Misset put on his 007 face. ‘Can’t tell you. Secret.’

  She smiled at him again, this time warm and encouraging. ‘We should see more of each other.’

  Misset was all in favour of that. ‘I have a few small trips to make. But otherwise–’

  She changed her seat on the settee, moving against him so that he felt his arteries swell disconcertingly. ‘Serafino was a wealthy man,’ she said. ‘His solicitors have already paid out something on account. Can one enjoy oneself here?’

  Misset gestured. He never seemed to. ‘Bit dull,’ he said. ‘They take the sidewalks in at ten-thirty. But you can get around if you’re with someone who knows the place.’

  ‘Would you like to show me, Sergeant Josephe?’

  Misset hesitated only for a moment. A quick whip round the night clubs, he thought, then oops into bed.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Do I seem wicked to you?’

  Misset gave what he considered to be a modest smile. ‘I’m a bit of a specialist in the more subtle varieties of sin myself,’ he said. ‘How about tonight?’

  Five

  ‘I’m going home,’ Pel said, closing the drawer of his desk. ‘I haven’t seen my wife for two days.’

  Darcy fished out a packet and handed over a cigarette. ‘Before you go, Patron,’ he suggested. ‘It’ll be one less yo
u’ll need to smoke around the house.’

  Pel nodded. The last cigarette before he headed for home had become almost a ritual. His wife was well aware that his efforts to stop smoking weren’t meeting with much success but she was a tolerant woman who turned a blind eye to his bad habits. She knew he smoked too much, had an uncertain temper and was inclined to be mean with his money, but she was wealthy enough in her own right not to need his money, he was never bad-tempered with her and it was clear he made an effort to cut his smoking down whenever she was around.

  He lit the cigarette and drew the utmost enjoyment from it while he could. ‘I’ll really give them up one of these days,’ he said.

  Darcy smiled. He didn’t believe a word of it.

  For a while they stood by Pel’s car discussing the De Mougy robbery then Pel threw down the cigarette end and carefully placed his foot on it. ‘There’s just one thing,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘De Mougy has a reputation as a gambler and there’s just a possibility he might have lost a lot. Let’s check, shall we, Daniel? It might be he’s in difficulties.’

  ‘With what he possesses?’

  ‘A lot of it’s in property, paintings and so on. There might be problems with cash and it’s the oldest dodge in the world to recoup your losses by saying you’ve lost something or had it stolen and then claiming the insurance on it. It’s virtually impossible for an insurance company to prove you haven’t, unless you’re stupid enough to be caught selling it later. Let’s find out how much it was insured for and if he is in difficulties. Let me know what you turn up. Soon as you can.’

  Climbing into his car, Pel set off home with a feeling of a day well spent. He hadn’t enjoyed it but, then, he didn’t expect to enjoy his days. Pel never considered things should be easy. Life, he believed, was hard work. Being alive took nerve. If you lost your nerve, you might as well curl up and send for the undertaker. Nevertheless, there was a certain smug feeling of satisfaction at having suffered for the sake of the security of the Republic. Though he complained enough about it, Pel never really objected to hard work done to bring criminals to book. For Pel, being a detective was a crusade. Criminals were a blot on the fair land of France and it was his duty to remove them from circulation – preferably for as long as possible.

  He drove slowly, his mind busy with what he’d been doing, enjoying the fact that he was well off enough now to live in a pleasant area outside the city. Since his marriage to Madame Pel, who ran an expensive hairdressing salon in the Rue de la Liberté near the Hôtel de Police and was wealthy beyond the dreams of a normal policeman – whose pay always precluded a life of sybaritic luxury – Pel had actually begun to his surprise to enjoy his leisure. What was more, he no longer had to struggle with a car whose doors might drop off at any moment. Madame had persuaded him it was time he abandoned the ancient Peugeot he drove – despite a lifetime of squirrelling his savings away, he had always considered himself too poverty-stricken to risk it – and he now drove a splendid new one. Modest in size, of course – the wrench of forking out always almost gave him heart failure – but new, nevertheless, so that he no longer suffered the insults of lorry drivers who liked to pull up alongside him at traffic lights and ask what sort of bottled gas he ran on.

  Moving from the centre of the road where he’d wandered, deep in thought, he concentrated on his driving. He wasn’t the world’s best driver and had been known to run into ditches when his mind was occupied. Madame Routy met him at the door as he put the car away. Before his marriage, in the house in the Rue Martin-de-Noinville, Madame Routy, who had appeared to be the only bad cook in a country that prided itself on its culinary expertise, had been his house-keeper. She had been addicted to the television, so that even her bad cooking was rushed. Since his marriage – thanks to his wife’s wealth and the new large house at Leu, near Fontaine – by some miraculous arrangement Madame Routy’s television viewing had been restricted to the evenings in the small flat she occupied at the back of the building, with the result that she had amazed Pel by proving she could cook as well as anybody when she tried. He could only assume – grudgingly, mind you, as a good male chauvinist pig – that, since Madame Pel had worked this wonder, there were certain things that women could do better than men.

  However, being Pel, he was never prepared to give much away in the way of friendliness, while Madame Routy’s scowl indicated what she thought of him. She would have lain down and permitted Madame Pel to walk up and down her in spiked heels if necessary, but there was no relaxation of her long-held dislike for Pel.

  ‘Wipe your feet,’ she snapped.

  Pel kept her waiting while he spent as long as he could at the job. ‘What have you spoiled for dinner today?’ he asked. Honours, he felt, were even.

  Madame Routy’s nephew, Didier Darras, was in the kitchen. As Pel appeared he stood up politely, a tall, sturdy boy with the sort of good looks that were going to make him a lady-killer before long. He had been a tower of strength to Pel in the days before his marriage. His grandfather was a sick man whom his mother regularly had to visit, so that for odd meals Didier had tagged on to Madame Routy in Pel’s old house in the Rue Martin-de-Noinville. Pel never minded because Didier disliked Madame Routy’s television as much as Pel did and had a great fondness for boules, fishing, and eating out, and they’d often disappeared into the blue just as Madame Routy finished cooking one of the disgusting dishes she had prepared in those days so that she’d had to eat it herself.

  ‘I’m going to join the police,’ Didier said.

  ‘Already?’ Pel was startled.

  ‘I’m old enough.’

  With a little mental arithmetic, Pel had to accept sadly that he was. Which meant that Pel had also grown older and was probably even – Pel was never one to be optimistic – rapidly approaching the period of decline.

  ‘Louise Bray says she’ll be proud of me,’ Didier went on. Louise Bray lived next door to him and had been his steady girlfriend from the day she’d first hit him over the head with her doll. ‘I thought you’d tell me how to go about it.’

  Pel sniffed. He could put a lot into a sniff and this one indicated doubt. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to go to university first?’ he asked. ‘Promotion’s quicker.’

  ‘You always said experience counted most.’

  Pel agreed. He had never been over-fond of the young men who arrived on the force expecting rapid promotion simply because they had a degree. Some of them turned out to be awful and, because Pel had had to struggle to the top the hard way, he was sour enough to think everybody else should too.

  ‘You’ll need to submit a summary of your background,’ he advised. ‘What you’ve done. Sports. Exams you’ve passed and so on.’

  ‘I’ve written it out. I’ve got it here with me.’

  Pel read the sheet. ‘You could have mentioned you know me,’ he said. ‘It might help.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Didier said. ‘They said so.’

  ‘Who did?’ Pel felt miffed.

  ‘The type I saw. “Why make a fuss,” he said, “when you know everything’s all right? When you’re aiming for something and can reach it easily, just go straight for it.” That’s what he said.’

  Madame Pel was in the salon listening to Mahler. Everybody listened to Mahler these days, Pel noticed. He’d been suddenly discovered as if he were an old sock left lying around at the back of a cupboard and had suddenly fallen out. They said the fashion had been started by an English politician. Pel, who didn’t think much of Mahler, decided that the English must have dull politicians.

  Madame was looking beautiful. It wasn’t too hard for her, of course, because she owned the most expensive beauty salon in the city. Brave women broke down when they couldn’t afford to use it. Her salon was so successful, in fact, there was a story that a farm sow once wandered in by mistake and came out looking like Catherine Deneuve.

  Without letting her see him, Pel poured apéritifs and sat down by the door to wait, not interrupting the music. He reg
arded his wife warmly. Some cops, he thought, fell for lady cops, some of whom these days managed to be attractive – take Claudie Darel, for instance! Some fell for the typists employed about the Hôtel de Police. Some fell for the lawyers’ secretaries they bumped into in their work, even occasionally for lady lawyers. Misset fell for anything in skirts and Nosjean, it had to be admitted, also found it hard to resist a pretty girl – especially if she looked like Charlotte Rampling. The number of Charlotte Ramplings Nosjean had fallen for, in the guise of librarians, shop assistants, and secretaries, was nobody’s business.

  Some cops fell for people they’d interviewed, some for witnesses, some were even stupid enough to fall for women they’d arrested. Pel felt he’d been wise. His wife had her own business – and a lot of money besides, he thought comfortably – and, what was more, knew how to run it in such a way as to make colossal profits. She had her own interests and therefore didn’t feel deserted and resentful when he was busy.

  He waited for Mahler to finish. It seemed to go on for ever, but as it drew to a stop Madame looked round, saw him and turned her head so he could kiss her. She wasn’t wearing her spectacles, Pel was pleased to note. Since she was inclined to be short-sighted, he always felt he could be seen to greater advantage without their assistance.

  As he handed over the drinks, he described his activities for the last forty-eight hours – with more than a few sharp words about the church bells at Quigny. Madame listened with interest. Though she wasn’t involved with Pel’s work, she always liked to know what was going on. It was, she considered, much more exciting than watching elderly ladies have their hair shampooed and set.

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked.

  ‘The Baronne de Mougy. She’s one of your clients.’

  Madame’s salon didn’t have customers. It had clients and they were so proud to be allowed to use it they happily paid not prices but fees.

  ‘Road blocks were set up at once,’ Pel went on. ‘We stopped and searched cars but nothing turned up. I expect the gang were already clean away with the loot.’