Pel and the Predators

by Mark Hebden

  It started raining as they settled in and Pel glared at it. For Darcy, he thought bitterly, it would have been a balmy night with a moon as big as an orange and they’d have been able to stroll hand in hand near the sea. Because it was Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, it chose to emulate the Flood. Doubtless the Ice Age and the End of the World were just around the corner.

  Faintly nervous and unsure of himself, he met Madame for apéritifs in the bar where he went mad and ordered champagne to celebrate their first holiday together. The champagne was just beginning to work and his face had finally become unfrozen when an enormous figure like a badly-set blancmange appeared in the doorway. It was Le Bihan.

  ‘Thought I’d look you up,’ he said. ‘I can join you for a meal and talk a bit of business. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’

  Pel was all for hitting him over the head with the ice bucket.

  Back at the Hôtel de Police the following afternoon, uncertain whether to be depressed by the fact that the arrival of Le Bihan had ruined his evening or elated by the fact that Madame had insisted that she didn’t mind so long as she was with him, Pel felt exhausted. Le Bihan had hung on, talking about himself, long enough to spoil the evening and Pel had gone to bed with a feeling of having missed an opportunity.

  As he’d undressed, he’d wondered if by chance Madame was expecting him to make a foray down the corridor after the lights went out. Was it possible? Women seemed to expect these sort of things. On the other hand, if she didn’t, it could ruin a beautiful friendship. It seemed to call for courage, however, and a touch of élan, and the Pels were not unknown for such things. There must have been a Pel, he felt, leading the attackers at the storming of the Bastille. On the other hand, of course, he had to admit, the family was also noted for its commonsense so it was also very likely that ancestor of his had quietly disappeared down a side street until it was all over.

  Nevertheless, the situation had seemed to demand a show of spirit, but the spirit of Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel was obviously not the spirit that had made France great. He had thought about it for a long time and had just reached the conclusion it was worth a try when he had fallen asleep.

  He was sitting in his office frowning at a photocopy of the article Dominique Pigny had cut from the newspaper in Concarneau, wondering just what it meant. He had placed it exactly in the middle of his blotter. Now that he’d reached high rank, Cadet Martin felt he should have his blotter changed every morning whether he used it or not and was making great inroads into the Police Authority’s stocks of blotting paper. The clean white sheet made the photocopy look almost as if it were in a frame.

  Pel frowned. Josée Celine was still only a vague shadow of a person. And what Dominique Pigny had been up to still eluded them. Full of rectitude, Madame Charnier had asked for the body for interment in the family plot, but they still had no idea why Dominique la Panique had telephoned just before her death to say she was coming home. Money? Advice? Charnier himself?

  As Nosjean and Claudie appeared round the door, he pushed the photocopy aside and waved them to chairs.

  ‘What about Sirdey?’ he asked. ‘Has he turned up yet?’

  Nosjean shrugged. ‘No, Patron. He covered his tracks pretty well. If we could only move forward a step or two, I think we’d sail away. It’s the twenty years immediately after getting rid of Josée Celine that have us beaten. We think now that he joined the Milice while the Nazis were occupying the country.’

  ‘Then you have a problem, mon brave,’ Pel said. ‘You know about the Milice? They worked for the Nazis, and because they were French they knew how French people thought and behaved and were twice as dangerous. And when it was over, most of them vanished as if they’d never existed because everybody was wanting to cut their throats. I think you’ll have trouble finding him if he was part of that obnoxious outfit.’

  ‘All the same—’ it was Claudie who spoke this time ‘—we think we might have a lead. He went to Dole and we’ve found a man who might be him called Morot, who married a girl called Henriette Devoise. With her money he bought up a lot of military material when the war ended, much of it American and all of it going cheap. Vehicles. Blankets. Beds. Cooking utensils. Electric light bulbs. Linoleum. Shirts. With the shortages at the time, everybody was crying out for them and he made a small fortune. She died in 1953.’

  Pel leaned forward, suddenly interested. ‘Of what?’

  ‘Natural causes, Patron.’

  ‘Unless it was “poudre de succession”.’

  ‘Inheritance powder?’ Claudie looked blank.

  ‘Arsenic. It’s very hard to trace and very useful for getting rid of elderly relatives without being found out.’

  Seventeen

  The following day Brochard suddenly cleared up the theft of the petrol at Loublanc, so that, from all the assorted minor crimes they’d been dealing with, they were left only with Madame Argoud, of Roumy, who was still sitting sphinx-like under the interrogations, refusing to say why she had hit her husband over the head with a brass candlestick. Finally, Darcy got a definite sighting of Philippe Duche near Arne. The policeman who saw him was shown photographs and said he’d seen him in Mercourt. He’d been driving a dark blue Peugeot with a smudged number plate and in the back he’d noticed a long, newspaper-wrapped object.

  ‘Gun,’ Darcy said. ‘The one stolen from Dole.’

  Heading back to Mongy, he informed Bardolle what he’d found out and they arranged for help to be available from the substations at Mercourt, Essenet and La Parque while Bardolle posted his men on the high ground overlooking Arne.

  Unaware of what was going on in his name, that night Pel stopped his car outside his house in the Rue Martinde-Noinville to find Didier had turned up again in the hope of another meal. His mother was still busy with her father-in-law and Madame Routy. Pel looked at Aimedieu who, on Darcy’s instructions, was still tailing him like a hound-dog.

  ‘You hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m just going back to my apartment to cook a banquet, Patron. Out of a tin.’

  Pel sighed and jerked his head at Didier. ‘Get in,’ he said. ‘You, too,’ he said to Aimedieu. ‘Lock your car up. You can pick it up later. We’ll eat at the Bar de la Frontière.’

  The Bar de la Frontière on the edge of the city was an old haunt of Pel’s. It had a dubious clientele of racegoers, lorry drivers and market traders and, in an effort to establish himself as a well-bred, upright, middle-class citizen, he had eschewed it since meeting Madame Faivre-Perret in favour of the Bar du Destin near the Relais St. Armand. The Bar de la Frontière was a dark little place surrounded by horse chestnuts, one of its walls painted with an enormous fading sign ‘Byrrh.’ It smelled of stale wine and the dining area consisted of a long room filled with scrubbed tables. There was a sandy stretch under the chestnuts where men in blue overalls were playing boules. Children and an old woman with a shopping bag filled with long loaves were watching them and two old men were waving their arms in an argument as if they were about to seize each other by the throat, though entirely without disturbing the tranquillity of the scene. The air was full of a smell of Gauloises that made Pel’s nostrils twitch and, Pel was pleased to notice, the blanquette de veau was good – and cheap.

  ‘Have you found out who killed that woman we found?’ Didier asked.

  ‘Not yet, mon brave,’ Pel said. ‘But we will.’

  ‘Do you know who did it?’

  ‘We have an idea. But it was a long time ago and he’s moved around a bit since then. How about you? Have you completely recovered from the experience?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Didier finished his meal and laid down his knife and fork. ‘It was nothing, really. Louise is all for me joining the police when I’m old enough. What did he look like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The type who did her in.’

  ‘We’d like to know. He seems to have been very careful never to have his picture taken.’

  Didier mopped up his plate wit
h a piece of bread. ‘That’s a sign of guilt, if ever there was one,’ he said.

  Pel nodded. It had occurred to him, too.

  When he woke the following morning, Aimedieu’s car was in the road outside, waiting to follow him to the Hôtel de Police. Pel’s throat was sore and he felt strangely lazy, so he invited Aimedieu in and they had a cup of coffee laced with brandy before they left. As they arrived at the Hôtel de Police Darcy appeared. He looked as though he’d been up all night.

  ‘Who was she this time?’ Pel asked.

  Darcy grinned. ‘She was Bardolle,’ he said. ‘We were doing a bit of a prowl round Arne. Duche’s out there somewhere.’ He lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it then blew out the smoke in a blue cloud.

  ‘I also saw Le Gaston again,’ he said. ‘Bardolle says he’s a liar and it seems he was even charged with perjury in 1949. But because he’s a liar it doesn’t mean he’s telling whoppers all the time. Bardolle decided that the type he thought was a poacher wasn’t after rabbits but after somebody’s fat calf. But there was only one man so that rules out calves. He had a description of him. Short, square. Strong-looking. Blond. I reckon, Patron, that Le Gaston was lucky. If he’d tangled with him, he might have got a bullet in the gut for his trouble. I think he stumbled on Philippe Duche.’

  Pel said nothing for a moment. He reached out, helped himself to a cigarette from Darcy’s packet, lit it with a guilty feeling, and waved away the smoke.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I’m going across to the Bar Transvaal for breakfast.’

  Pel nodded. ‘Well, don’t take long over it,’ he advised. ‘I’m going out to Arne again in a minute and you’ll perhaps want to be with me. That white Mercedes Le Gaston said he saw still hasn’t turned up so he might be lying over that, too. It might be worth checking.’

  The lay-by where Le Gaston claimed to have seen the white Mercedes provided an excellent view of the north and west sides of the Château d’Ivry, and as Judge Polverari had suggested, it would have provided a splendid place from which a would-be thief could study the place. On the other hand, a good burglar would have also made a point of finding out about the staffing arrangements and immediately come up with the fact that the Guichets were always around and alert for noises, even during the night. Any house-breaker worth his salt would have turned it down at once as a bad risk.

  ‘And,’ Pel observed, staring at the turrets sharp against the sky, ‘it occurred to me that if the château was visible from a car, a car would be visible from the château. Perhaps the Guichets saw it.’

  Near the entrance to the château the road widened and the trees on the opposite side came down in thick undergrowth from the hill above. Darcy didn’t like the look of it and insisted on giving it a quick once-over before allowing Pel to step from the car.

  The Guichets were in their room and Pel came to the point quickly. ‘The 15th of last month,’ he said. ‘A white Mercedes car was seen waiting in the lay-by in the road there on that day. Were you in the house at the time?’

  ‘I expect so,’ Hubert Guichet said. ‘Because of the old man. We have to be here to answer his bell. But I never saw a car.’ He glanced at his sister who shook her head. ‘We’ve been here nearly two years and in all that time I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car parked down there. There’s not much traffic – just between Mongy and Violette – and none of it stops. There’s nothing to stop for – only us, and if anybody’s coming here they drive straight up to the house.’

  ‘Then why is there a lay-by?’

  ‘It’s not a lay-by. It’s just that the road was widened early in the century so that carriage horses could take a wide sweep to get into the drive. It’s been like that ever since.’

  ‘The car was there on the 15th,’ Pel insisted. ‘Facing in the direction of Mongy. It was there also on the 14th, the 13th, and probably the 12th. You should have seen it.’

  They looked quickly at each other and Bernadine Guichet shook her head.

  ‘This place commands a good view of the road.’

  They shrugged and Pel felt his heart sinking. Was Le Gaston a liar about this, too? Was he, as Bardolle had suggested, just trying to draw attention to the fact that his roof needed repairing?

  ‘I’m always being rung for,’ Bernadine Guichet was saying. ‘And when I go to his room I usually find it’s for something quite unimportant. I look out of his window. You can see the whole road from there. I saw nothing.’

  She crossed to a small table where a diary lay open. ‘I was here all day,’ she said. ‘We telephoned Doctor Lecomte on the 14th because the old man was complaining of his rheumatism. The doctor said he’d come but he didn’t come until the 15th because he knows he’s always complaining.’ She glanced at the diary. ‘I was also in on the 16th, and the 17th because the boy who drives the tractor for the farm took the car into Mongy to be serviced. So we were both here for four days in a row. The farmhands could tell you. They must have seen us.’

  ‘What about Monsieur Stocklin? Would he have seen it? I’d like to ask him.’

  Mademoiselle Guichet seemed hesitant. ‘He won’t like being disturbed just now,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ Darcy asked bluntly. ‘Is this when he does his weight-lifting?’

  She studied them for a moment, then shrugged and turned to the door, saying nothing. Her brother followed them in silence.

  The noise of the television could be heard going full blast long before they entered Stocklin’s room. It sounded like the climax of the Battle of Waterloo. The old man was near the window clutching a blanket round him and holding up his pyjama trousers as if he expected them to fall at any moment round his ankles.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ Guichet snapped.

  ‘I was looking through the window.’ The old man saw Pel behind Guichet and gave a little cackle of laughter. ‘Oh, it’s you again, is it?’ he said. ‘Still not found what you’re looking for?’

  Pel frowned, faintly depressed by the claustrophobic feeling of the old man’s room and the subtle elusive smell of old age.

  Mademoiselle Guichet crossed to the television and switched it off. The old man sent up his usual wail of protest.

  ‘I want to watch it!’

  ‘You were looking out of the window and, anyway, it’s time for your rest.’

  ‘Leave me alone! Go away! Leave the house! You’re fired!’

  Mademoiselle Guichet sniffed. ‘How will you manage? Who’ll cook your meals?’

  ‘I can eat out of tins.’

  ‘You couldn’t look after yourself for two days. You’re too old. You know you are.’

  The old man gave her a savage look and she began to push him to the bed. She obviously knew exactly how to handle him.

  As he surrendered, the Guichets began tucking him into bed, using the sheets and blankets almost like bonds to make sure he didn’t get out again. His protests were loud and angry and Pel had to wedge his question into a chink in the din.

  ‘On the 15th of the month,’ he said, pointing from the window, ‘a white Mercedes is supposed to have been parked just down there on the bend. Did you see it?’

  ‘What’s he want to know about a car for?’ The whining voice was directed at Mademoiselle Guichet.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t there at all. I never saw it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I did either. I don’t look for cars. I just watch the road.’

  ‘Why?’ Pel’s temper, never very stable, was slipping a little. ‘What were you looking for?’

  The old man heaved in his blankets, muttering to himself. It was impossible to catch what he was saying.

  ‘I said “What were you looking for?”’ Pel repeated.

  ‘It wasn’t a what, damn you! It was a who.’

  ‘A who?’ The room had suddenly become silent and Pel straightened up and looked at Darcy. ‘A person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  The old man’s face appeared
above the bedclothes. His cheeks were flushed with anger and exertion and his faded eyes were curiously bright.

  ‘I was looking for Sidonie,’ he snarled.

  Eighteen

  The sudden silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Pel glanced again at Darcy then he moved nearer to the bed. The Guichets were watching carefully.

  ‘Sidonie who?’ Pel asked.

  The old man glared at him. ‘Sidonie Charnier,’ he said.

  His spectacles had obviously been discovered because this time they were on the table by the bed and Pel gestured at Darcy. ‘The pictures, Daniel,’ he said quickly.

  Darcy produced the copies of the pictures Madame Charnier had provided. As Pel showed them, the old man’s face lit up at once.

  ‘That’s her!’

  ‘Her name’s Pigny, Monsieur,’ Pel pointed out. ‘Dominique Pigny. Did you know her?’

  ‘Of course I knew her. She worked here. I liked Sidonie. She was a good girl. She liked me, too. I know she did.’

  Pel turned to the Guichets. The woman’s eyes were worried.

  ‘Nobody by the name of Dominique Pigny ever worked here,’ she said quickly. ‘She said her name was Sidonie Charnier.’

  It made sense if Dominique Pigny were trying to hide but it still needed an explanation. ‘I showed you photographs,’ Pel said. ‘You must have recognised her.’

  She shrugged. ‘They were bad photographs. Bad photographs take all the life out of a face.’

  ‘These were very good photographs,’ Pel snapped. ‘Her sister – by the name of Sidonie Charnier, by the way – vouched for them.’

  He drew the Guichets to the other side of the bedroom out of earshot of the old man. ‘Why did you hide the fact that she worked here? She did, didn’t she?’

  Bernadine Guichet sighed. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘She worked here.’

  ‘Then why not say so?’