"Confirms. There’s nothing professional save the gun. Colt .45 automatic. Our man with the sun in his eyes sprayed it round a good deal, but there’s no other sign of haste or nervousness. Emptying the magazine like that could be to intimidate any eventual eyewitness, or a professional wanting to appear amateur, or a great accumulation of vengeful rancour – or simply that he did have the sun in his eyes, except that he had dark glasses. The ground was hopelessly scuffed and trodden. A lot of litter but no pointers. No further useful witnesses. You got the best."
"Worthy woman," said Richard. "Couldn’t give a description, which shows at least she’s telling the truth. The man called out ‘Etienne’ in a startling voice, described as a nasty voice, and the cannonade began. Does it mean they knew each other?"
"A simple technique, I should think, to point a target towards you, making it bigger."
"And immobilise it, quite. The good woman stood there paralysed. As Etienne did. He stood there with his mouth open with no sign of recognition. If of course she was looking at him at all. If someone calls out in a sharp voice that’s the person you look at, or am I abnormal?"
"You think she was there as a device to distract him or stop him if need be?"
"I think no such thing. I think she’s a clueless biddy that wasn’t looking at anything but says whatever she imagines we might enjoy hearing. She can’t give a description because she didn’t really take anything in. She let out a monstrous howl and lots of people came running. She didn’t recognise Marcel. You can see people in photographs or even on television a hundred times and still not know them in the flesh."
"This is the point, isn’t it. Very well-known man."
"That’s exactly right. Any thoughts about that?"
"That it makes for a very difficult enquiry. Unless his wife has a demented lover or something."
"Round up the usual suspects," said Richard pleasantly.
"There’ll either be none, or far too many."
"Right. I don’t know what you’re going to find. So as well as being an honest, competent and persevering servant of the State, you will also be fairly bright. You are all these things, aren’t you?"
"I might try reminding you that my wife’s due to have a baby any moment."
"Yes I knew that, even without Fausta reminding me. You get your day off, and more days if you need them."
"What does the judge of instruction – ?"
"Your old friend Madame Delavigne. Go and see her tomorrow morning. The Proc, Castang, doesn’t like this any more than I do. I need hardly say that he’s not keen on terrorists." No, the Procureur de la République, chief legal authority for the district, would not be pleased with anything much save perhaps a demented lover. "Terrorists however have one very attractive side: they provide an excellent excuse for telling the press to keep its mouth shut. That reminds me, it’s nearly time for the local news: who’s got a box around here?… I just love seeing myself on television," said Richard amiably.
The regional news naturally could speak of nothing else and one saw a lot of Richard – that, after all, he remarked, was what he was there for – and nothing, Castang was relieved to see, of Castang. The national news, twenty minutes later, delivered in hushed wise tones by the resident guru, invited France to meditate upon the dreadful consequences should the dread Italian-German disease of Terrorism attack this dear Motherland. A heavy responsibility weighed upon us all: he certainly looked as though it weighed heaviest upon himself, but his smile was kind, and very very brave. Chin up, he conveyed; with me beside you we will see this through together, and our President is also watching over us.
"I hope the President will ring him up," said Richard, "and ask his advice before doing anything rash." The Minister of the Interior also had a few well-chosen words about the defenders of order.
"And I hope," said Castang, "that that oily bastard won’t be coming down to pronounce a eulogy over my coffin. I don’t want to meet him head first or feet first."
"Nor even dick first," agreed Richard. "And you refer the press to me. And who do you want to have assigned to work with you? I rather think not Orthez. We’ll keep him in reserve for terrorists."
"On the understanding it’s not terrorists, can I have Maryvonne?"
"You can," said Richard. "That’s quite a good idea. Let’s go home now… I’ll be at home," he told the switch-board operator.
"And so will I," muttered Castang hopefully.
THREE
DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE INSPECTOR
He went home by bicycle. He generally did; it wasn’t any slower. It wasn’t over fifteen minutes; he lived in the town, in a nice street of old houses facing a canalised piece of river, in itself boring but there were poplars along the disused towing-path. The rent was not very high; the charges, for heating, the lift and so forth, very high and getting all the while higher. Castang, who had never taken any bribes yet – well, hardly any – was faced with the unpleasant alternative of moving, which he didn’t want, or rounding out his income, as it is generally known: not keen on this either, but we’re all getting hit by inflation these days.
He was delighted, if frightened, about the baby. Vera wanted one badly and had been tardy about producing one. Legs that didn’t work for a long time (she’d fractured her spine); and doctors made faces about a pregnancy. For some years afterwards, while the legs became less helpless though still unforeseeably queer (‘Motor Handicap’ and a sticker on the car saying GIC which means Grande Invalide Civile) the harder she tried to become pregnant the less she did, a thing that often happens. Having succeeded she was very serene: Castang wasn’t. She couldn’t walk much, and how was one to make walks with the baby? The inspector of police, cloaked in anonymity, didn’t mind pushing prams or washing nappies – often had his hands in much worse than babyshit – in his free time, but free time, for cops, is a rationed and irregular commodity. What is wanted – no, not wanted – is a Little House in a Garden Suburb, with a little back lawn to stand the pram on. Such things are beyond the income of all but senior police officers. Would one try to get promoted to being a junior commissaire (adjunct) and get posted to some hole of a little country town? He didn’t like this notion at all, but would be forced to think about it. Pay a student to promenade the baby in the park? Vera wasn’t keen on the idea, and he didn’t blame her.
She was sitting round and ripe on the balcony, where she had geraniums and stuff in pots. Little bag all packed in the bedroom, because she was due any minute, unless that stupid gynaecologist had got his dates wrong. Some people said a first baby was always lazy. Room booked in a clinic and everything, just in case it was her pelvis that was lazy. The great beast had been quiescent lately, as though working up energy. Gathering for a spring. No relatives had gathered gluttonously round. He didn’t have any, and hers were all in Czechoslovakia.
She didn’t say anything about his being late: it was enough of a commonplace. Vera’s supper was mostly soup in winter or salad in summer: both would keep an hour or two without spoiling. May mostly announced the salad season. Today there were potatoes with gherkins, raw carrots, olives, and something green. Tomatoes were still too dear, but chives grew on the balcony.
"Etienne Marcel got killed."
"Who’s he?" Typically, Vera was profoundly ignorant about things or people that didn’t interest her. Doubtless the only person in a city of three hundred thousand who didn’t know, didn’t care, and hadn’t heard the news.
"Oh a sort of fat cat. No great loss. No, seriously: he was a bit of everything around here. Adjunct Mayor. City Councillor of course. Cultural affairs guy. Theatre, opera, anything. Pillar of the football club. Pillar of youth clubs, folklore, singing, dancing, any sort of sport. Gladhander and backslapper. Great one for local history, local customs, local anything. Always chatting in patois to grannies. Very popular guy."
Supper was on the table. "I’ve eaten already; the child got hungry," said Vera. "Tell me more."
"I hardly knew him exc
ept by sight. Why are you interested all of a sudden?"
"I suppose I’m allowed to be interested. Other thoughts pass through my head. It’s not all just safety pins and navel bandages." Not nasty; just a bit prickly. Waiting for it isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
"One of these stocky tough men with a lot of energy in the back of their neck. Big round head, a bit bald and strands of long hair arranged across. Skin that doesn’t go brown, so his nose and forehead were always a bit reddened. Big, booming, jolly voice. Ready hand and ready smile. Started with a pub. Worked it up to a big café restaurant with music and a cabaret. Used to sing himself and play the guitar; nice light tenor voice." Castang put his elbow on the table, stopped his fork in mid air, waved it in circles, pointed it at her. "I think perhaps his secret was always to take an awful lot of trouble. He’d let himself be buttonholed and give you his total concentration, and always leave you with the impression that you were immensely important. Nothing was too much trouble. And always on the go. Very thick solid spinal column."
"Now I have a picture," satisfied.
"Well, somebody shot him to pieces this afternoon in front of the opera, with a big gangster pistol. Emptied the whole magazine, turned the car into a vegetable strainer. One would have been enough and he got hit by three."
"Somebody demented, with a grudge."
"On the face of it, certainly, but then there was another demented body waiting with a car, made a very smooth getaway. Car stolen that morning at the airport, so wouldn’t be missed till tonight. Abandoned five minutes later in the suburbs, on the main road South, so all the roadblock stuff looks foolish. We don’t even know whether they’re in the town or out of it."
"So Red Brigade."
"Maybe. A big bourgeois all right, but worked up from proletariat origins, always making a great thing of being one of the boys and speaking patois. Not perhaps a typical target. Richard’s content to advance Red Brigade as an official theory, until we learn more."
"Considered a traitor perhaps to the class. The man sounds a big hypocrite to me."
"Oh yes, could be a football player dropped from the team. Except that the season’s over. It could be any damn thing. Castang takes his pointed stick and stirs about in the compost heap. Liable to create a massive stink."
"Business, thus, as usual." Her voice was unusually harsh, the tone particularly acrid. Jolted out of placidity, Castang looked up. Hadn’t there been rather a lot of this, lately? He hadn’t taken it too seriously. Pregnant women, he told himself with comfortable male vagueness, tend to have fantasies.
"Look, I know it’s not much fun for you, having to hang about biting your nails. Chipping at me, though, isn’t likely to help either of us much."
"Oh, you always say this," contemptuously. "You’ve had a hard day too, yes; and you’re tired and worried as well, yes; so why don’t I keep my mouth shut because what good will an argument do?"
"I can’t help it if it’s true. I mean what can I do about it?"
She was alone too much. He didn’t have any handy sister to come and stay. She didn’t have her mother, or anybody. Other side of the curtain. Not so much iron as a silence curtain. She wrote, regularly, but she never got any answer much. Politics of course. Vera was a traitor. Stalinist lot, those Czechs. Leaving your Motherland in the lurch is bad enough. Treachery to the gymnastics team which has educated you, made you a privileged person, taken you abroad and everything, enabled you to live in luxury… And brought your family honour and prestige too…
Personally they’d never understood either. Vera had always been a sensible girl. To run away like that; and with of all people a common or garden French police officer, a nobody. Young girls getting a passion for Rudolf Nureyev would be understandable. But just a vulgar cop…
"I don’t mind. I’ve never complained." Quite true; she hadn’t. "But when do I see you? Late at night. And then if I want to talk, you say oh, woman, stuff it, I’ve had a long day."
"It’s this goddam waiting." It wasn’t just professional patience. He felt extremely sorry for her. But what was he supposed to do? Life was like that.
"When will it ever be any different? Can’t you see? – you’re a lamp post: everyone can piss up against you. The slightest thing goes wrong and who will get the official blame? Castang will. Yes, so far so good, and isn’t that exactly what the man said who jumped off the building as he passed the first floor."
"I’ll make us both a tisane, shall I?"
"Herb tea! My kidneys are fucking well awash with it." Vera! who never swore. "I must have absorbed a kilo and more of sage. Makes labour easier, or that’s what they always said in that backwoods village of mine."
"Listen. This is an awkward job, right. Local politician, sure, not exactly the number one choice for the subject of a police enquiry. It might get cleared up tomorrow and it might be an instruction that goes dragging on for a year. Sure. But get this straight, even if it gets to be a mess Richard’s not the type to say oh well, that’s due to a cock-up by the investigating officer."
"Stirring in the compost heap with your pointed stick!" Yes, it hadn’t been the most fortunate phrase. "It’s Richard’s dungheap, and right on his front doorstep, and if there’s a bavure…" Bavure! The consecrated word. A blot, a splash. Every time the police make a balls of something the government talks about a bavure.
There’ve been a lot. A hell of a lot too much of a lot, if you take my meaning.
He knew what she was on about. The latest and blackest blot had been the three – drunk, off-duty – cops in Saint-Denis who’d raped a fourteen-year-old Algerian girl. He’d tried to explain. Look, girl, these are oafs, and the worst sort, racist. An undisciplined rabble; good Jesus they throw this lumpenpack into a uniform, give it a meagre six weeks training, so-called, and call it police. We agree, this is an appalling scandal. But far, far worse is the attitude of the government, which has neither the courage to do some radical surgery nor the competence to find an adequate blanket. Halfhearted shushing and shuffling, a feebleminded attempt to stifle. And then when forced to take action by the entire press of the country ringing with it, a lot of hypocritical talk. As though the police hadn’t a bad enough name as it was. These miserable gun-happy little cowboys who go about beating up Arabs – these aren’t police!
What was he to say? That the Police Judiciaire is very tightly disciplined indeed? That Richard for all his languid golf-club manner is a tiger? That there are, at a pinch, a few ruffians – in the antigang brigade they can’t, you know, be choirboys – but that if one of them made a blot, to admit this obscenely prudish word so typical of government spokesmen, Richard would peg him out in the blazing sun until his eyeballs dropped out. He’d said all that, many times.
"Look, I’ve said it often. You like the town; I like the town. I can try for a promotion. It means that almost certainly we’d get sent to some backwoods place, and we thought we wouldn’t like that. But we can try. It would mean a house – a garden! For the baby…"
"Put me to bed," said Vera. "Hold me tightly. Just put your arms round me and hold me, nothing else. I know I’m very large."
"Trust me," he said softly, stroking the fine hair behind her ears.
"Look after me," she whispered.
FOUR
INSTRUCTIONS, FROM THE INSTRUCTING JUDGE
French women are rarely ‘pretty’ though when they are they can be breathtakingly beautiful. Striking-looking, handsome, attractive; this they frequently succeed in being. Good bones; faces full of drawing. Colette Delavigne was a good example. Fine forehead, fine eyes in beautifully modelled orbits, the usual sharp pointed nose, broad serene mouth: furiously kissable. Lower jaw too narrow, throat and ears magnificent. All in all a very French face: Castang had fancied it a good deal once upon a time: a bit too much. Nice speaking voice too, unshrill.
"Hallo, Henri. Haven’t seen you in ages."
Perfectly true. The junior Magistrate of Instruction, and a woman at that…does not have
a great deal to do with the Police Judiciaire, which by definition has to do with grave, complex, sophisticated and showy crimes. In a big city there is a Sûreté Urbaine, a criminal brigade attached to, and part of, the municipal force. The Regional Service of the PJ is spread over a large district; two, perhaps three ‘departments’. Outside the towns there is the gendarmerie, French equivalent of the Sheriff’s Office.
On the tribunal side, a judge judges… ‘sits’ according to his qualifications and seniority. Madame Delavigne had had a spell in the Juvenile Court, where only one judge sits: had ‘filled in’ from time to time in the Police Court. It was rare that Castang found himself in these. In the higher courts she might have found herself acting as assessor, sitting next to the President, but French law, which provides for the elaborate and often lengthy system of ‘Instruction’ (in essence a thorough preliminary inquiry to determine whether in fact an accused person should be required to stand trial at all) forbids an instructing judge to take part in the same trial. She – many are women – or he sends the completed dossier to the Chamber of Accusations, and their rôle in the affair is complete. He’d lost sight of Colette for some time.
The Judges of Instruction, half a dozen at least in a city this size, have a row of offices called their ‘cabinets’ on the ground floor of the Palace of Justice. Outside in the wide corridor is a long row of benches, permanently occupied by the accused, some on bail, some from the local jail, with handcuffs on and attended by guardian cops; and by the endless procession of subpoenaed witnesses.
Colette was alone behind her desk. Her greffier or clerk, who is present at all the official business to make a record and legalise proceedings, hadn’t arrived yet.
Castang’s City Page 2