Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  What was new, unheard-of, not to be thought of in the office, and not to be tape-recorded, was Richard staying all evening, Richard drinking a lot, and between long silences Richard carrying on a long monologue, sprinkled with scraps of conversation with a subordinate who – or so Castang thought – wasn’t even there half the time.

  "How old are you, Castang? Thirty-three, – four?… Good age to be, mm…

  "Good age to retire. Like an athlete. Jacques Anquetil was thirty-four. How old I wonder is Gareth Edwards?

  "No, the point is that if you go on longer than that you risk becoming pathetic. You know too much but you’ve no punch left. And the government sends you back to school, to be recycled. And of course indoctrinated. Renew your vaccinations, lest you catch the very fatal disease of thinking for yourself. Mm, dangerous age…

  "I haven’t pulled your file in a long while. Full of stuff about your small arms proficiency, your tendencies to paranoia. Let’s see though, you’ve a master’s certificate, right? And you’re still second mate, on the good clipper ship under Master Mariner Richard. And you’re not anxious for command of a coasting steamer carrying coal between Fishguard and Rosslare: well, I understand…

  "But you want more. And you’re a family man now.

  "I’d not recommend any son of mine to become a cop, now. What, if you’re really anxious to work evenings, weekends, and other people’s holidays become a cook. In Switzerland, naturally. It’s airy now, and hygienic. Not even as hot any more. You’ve seen these magic stoves that don’t give out any heat? And the money’s excellent. Somebody asks your profession, you say Gourmet. Kiss enough behinds and get your prices up high enough you might get asked to lunch with the President of the Republic. That’s a thing never happened to a cop yet. You have that perfume of money being made. Whereas a cop of course, the day a Minister comes to lunch is the day you’re laid out in your coffin.

  "So that in five years’ time, when I’m gone, you’ll still be under forty.

  "Stay till then and you’re up shit creek. Too young on the one side and too old on the other. Though you needn’t think you’ll be stuck with Lasserre. He’ll get his step, and he’ll be sent to command the convict hulks at the Ile de Ré.

  "You assume that I keep him and cherish him because every department head needs a real bastard as his enforcer, and childish as it may seem, you’re quite right. Lasserre is my Haldeman and my Ehrlichman. One also needs several Gordon Liddys: you’re well acquainted with them.

  "With money, of course, you can do anything you like with the French.

  "When I was a boy I wanted to go to Spain. We had a Popular Front Government then. Great, I thought: we’ll whip in there. We didn’t, as you know. Non-intervention has been the name of the game for too much of my life. My generation, Castang, is like the SS, we have a tattoo on our armpit we never get rid of, and ours says ‘Munich’. And the police commissaire of Munich, that’s me.

  "Oddly enough I met the real one once. Interesting man…

  "Spain was the country to belong to. Still is, oddly enough. It would be sentimental to say that they at least don’t get down on their knees for half a crown. It is fair though that there are some who don’t."

  Bemused, Castang still understood several things about Richard’s house, and about the mysterious Madame Richard, who was never seen and was reputed not to speak French after thirty years in the country.

  Most shattering of all; was Richard getting coolly drunk?

  "In its natural resources, Castang, this is the richest country in Europe. The most varied, the most beautiful, the most balanced. The ideal marriage between north and south. Is it on that account that we are the most mediocre?

  "The curse of futility is upon us. The General knew that, secretly. It’s the explanation, I believe, of the strain of hysteria in him. He needed badly to believe that we were worth something, and he had such contempt for us, and so justified.

  "In fact we have plenty of talents, including some very good ones, if we were allowed to settle into our component parts. That’s right; our antique provinces. We haven’t been allowed to do anything worth doing, for five hundred years now.

  "But take a look, Castang, at some of our best-known Patriots, hammering and screaming with their veins standing out about the Nation, and notice how hard they have to scream, because it sounds thinner and more unconvincing with every month that passes.

  "It’s argued that Germany or England rival us in mediocrity. Don’t believe it.

  "Our twin qualities, of vanity and avarice – they’re very unattractive you know.

  "This town – of course it’s far too big. Anything this size, anywhere, it’s the pest and the cholera combined, in permanent, endemic state. But it’s a natural, old, good provincial capital. I wish there was something I could do for it. Our tragedy, in the PJ, is that we’re nothing. We’re the agents and slaves of a centralised apparatus. The Nation. Which doesn’t deserve to exist, and doesn’t in fact exist. We’re nobody. Hated by the people, as we deserve, treated with contempt by Paris, as we deserve, underpaid little informers, dressed in shoddy clothes, armed with shoddy guns, with shoddy little minds. We do nothing, Castang, but keep in power a crew that isn’t worth powder and shot.

  "We’re the Guardia Civil, and that’s just our speed. We’re – just barely possibly – less bad than we were.

  "Keep that in mind, boy. That’s your job. Try to leave things less bad than they were.

  "Well, thanks for the drinks. A pleasant evening that: a gossip from time to time."

  Castang watched him go, strolling loosely along the street to where he had left his car. Drunk? Not a bit of it. Monsieur Richard was as always; perfectly self-possessed.

  SIXTEEN

  REORIENTATION

  Polish those boots, boy, and examine them for roadworthiness, because there’s no discharge in the war.

  Castang, dapper, was met by a summons to Richard’s office. Richard this morning very dapper. A new suit, of a creamy beige colour like oatmeal, a grey tie, a clear healthy eye, an air of just having had his hair cut.

  Present Lasserre, with a lot of horribly healthy flourishing hair, blue-black and shiny, needing cutting; neck full of Assyrian curls. Unshaved, would look like the Guardia Civil. Overshaved, as he always was, and smelling strongly of attar of roses or something equally Bulgarian, looked like a colonel in the KGB. His suit the colour of the blue in the French flag, a perfectly hideous shade.

  Present Cantoni, hair dry, brown, wavy, here and there in tufts, looking as though he’d had a fight with a Harridan who’d pulled a lot out. Tight pursed wicked mouth; quick roving blackish-grey eye. Muscles loose and ready: a dodgy rapid sidestepper, a clever elusive runner. Looking as sinister as Gravedigger and Coffin Ed rolled into one, and armed with both of their guns. A good man to have on your side in a scuffle: you wouldn’t worry at finding him behind you. Chocolate brown suit with little white lines, rather dressy.

  Present – a rarity – Massip-the-Fraud, in pale grey, looking like a banker: his protective colouring was almost perfect.

  Present the Secretary, a model of discretion, who never lost files and always knew who’d had how much leave. Big broad shoulders, huge in a scratchy great tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, and a dreadful knitted tie. Pockets full of pencils, erasers, calculating machines: a deep trustworthy gruff voice.

  Present – rather oddly – Liliane, the senior of the women. Tough well-shaped legs, broad Polish shoulders, massive bosom husked in an iron brassiere, square humorous face and springy dark curls, pretty grey eyes and a Lille accent. Short pudgy hands, hard. Our Karate Queen.

  Present finally, and everybody had been waiting for him, Castang the Bookmakers’ Friend, neat rather than small, not really in the least like a jockey; no smaller than Cantoni but more compact and not quite so like a chimpanzee.

  "Late," said Lasserre.

  "Had his bicycle pinched again," said Cantoni.

  "Let’s be grateful,
" said Richard, "that we don’t have to listen to the minutes of the last meeting. To come straight to the point, in this matter of Marcel, we’ve got nowhere. On the ground, nothing; some ejected cartridges of which we can only say that they’re a common make and belong to no weapon that’s on the central file. Professional in that whoever loaded them left them wiped clean. Gun fairly old, rifling somewhat worn, but clean and well cared for.

  "The car used tells us nothing either. Every indication is that it was lifted there because it wouldn’t be missed for some time; further that it was a commonplace model that would attract no attention. No handy prints, threads, loose buttons or any of those comforting shortcuts. We did perk up a little at finding some sand, until learning that the owner’s brother-in-law had been mending his garden gate.

  "No clear description of the two men concerned at the scene, and none where the car was left: at the airport of course nothing was noticed. It was in the car park half an hour; we recovered the ticket. We have thus nothing but obvious premeditation, a planned conspiracy, an ambush. Carries a death sentence; much good may it do us.

  "Marcel’s movements tell us nothing either. They picked him up at one or another of his well-known haunts, followed him around till a good opportunity was present, and made a thorough job. He does not appear to have known or recognised the gunman, according to our eyewitnesses, and seems to have been taken by surprise. He himself had received no threat, showed no sign of anxiety or preoccupation, had been behaving normally, made no break in habitual patterns on that day or those preceding. One can say that all the routine threads of approach break off short in the hand. Any comment or question so far?"

  "His mail? Or phone messages?"

  "At his office of course it all went through his secretary: he had only an interphone direct and an outside line goes through the switchboards and through her: normal shield against the importunate. Mail marked personal, confidential or whatnot she put on his desk, and he went through it with her. He was a careful man, and experienced: he kept every scrap of writing.

  "Mail and messages at his home passed his wife, who saw nothing attracting his or her attention. We’re short once again of any handy cliché like ash or torn-up envelopes. At the pub he got plenty, especially local people who knew him. We can’t thus say categorically he got no letter or message, but we can say that everything passed through other hands first. I’m not giving any weight to this point.

  "Incidentally he had a hidey-hole – Castang, did he get letters there?"

  "I didn’t think of asking."

  "Check on it, though," making a note. "Right, finance next. No unusual payments either made or received: no peculiar or unnaturally complicated dispositions. Once more, careful and prudent man, who kept everything, took witnesses to transactions, knew how to protect himself. This takes away, naturally, a promising line of inquiry, or what seemed so. Bank, notary, advocate, everything sewn up. Anything to add, Massip?"

  "Careful, and quite naïve, or should I say unsophisticated. He didn’t try anything tricky. Bought a few shares but didn’t dabble. Bought a bit of gold. Nothing speculative. No trouble with tax. He wasn’t rich. Plenty came in, but plenty went out. House cost him a packet, and he was openhanded. He made cash deals, like everyone, so that they would go untraced, but nothing that would arouse comment. I can sum it up: he wasn’t a manipulator in that sense. He wasn’t even much interested in money, nor clever with it. He could have got a lot more milk, if he’d tried. The deals are standard, such as any adviser would recommend, and in fact did: all his business connections confirm. He was interested, and skilful, in the traffic of human beings, in influence, information, contacts. But money – no."

  "Multifarious doings," Richard took up, "official or semi-official. But in none of them do we find a financial interest as such. He liked to be a queen bee, a key figure. Would scatter little favours, football tickets, a word in someone’s ear. In return, his car would be fixed or his plumbing mended, it’s fraudulent in the sense that when he was handed a bill he got a ruddy great discount. Some fraud…which of us stays out of jail?" It got a snigger round the table.

  "As for vice – the Mayor’s been rather puritanical about that. Fabre, in confidence, put through a trace. Negative: neither boys, children nor decorative stimuli. One wouldn’t have expected any: he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did. Ditto gambling. None of this surprises me. It wouldn’t be in the pattern. A prudent man, and secretive, but balanced, extrovert, no oddities.

  "What are we left with? The terrorist thing…there’s been a lot of dotty anonymous mail, but nobody claims credit, seeks to build on it or try to make leverage out of it. We’ve a blank, and DST say there’s nothing in it. We’ve thus a general loss of momentum. Fantasy begins to reign: the mayor sits there in his office, reads terrible stories about people left weltering in their gore in bars in Marseille, and rings me up with dark tales about Settlement of Accounts. He begins this fearful screenplay of the hired gun riding into town with the cold eye and the slow voice. You may all snigger: I have to listen to stuff like that. What Accounts? – I don’t know of any. To which he replies by urging me to go out and find some. I may remind you that while the Mayor is a clown he has too many friends in Paris to be treated like one. We’re under pressure; I may tell you strong pressure. We’ve got to start again with what we have, in the light of any new fact, and have we got a new fact? Castang?"

  "New in the sense that the Mayor doesn’t know yet that the death of the son of night before last is homicide." At which, suddenly, the conclave woke up and conversation became general.

  "The judge doesn’t want the fact made public at present."

  "We’ve nothing to base it on but expert opinion in the path. lab."

  "The expert opinion – crackpot theories of Deutz…" Lasserre.

  "What’s this? – one fellow’s shot in the street, and another’s sliding about on the soap in the bathroom?" Cantoni, moustache bristling.

  "Yes, there’s a complete break in pattern."

  "Look mate, the first is professional, right? This Marcel gets shot, and we’re all high and dry? No amateur is going to do that. Then you come along with this, which is straight out of Agatha Christie, and you expect us to believe they’re connected?"

  "What you mean," Liliane said, "is they’re connected by happening within the same family."

  "Yes. Why should Marcel be killed? – I mean Etienne. We haven’t the remotest idea. Why should Didier be killed? – a question nobody’s had time to ask yet. As a revenge killing? That he was in some way behind his own father’s death? And somebody guessed it, or knew it? Or found it out? That too far fetched? Would it account for the break in the pattern?"

  "Or a quarrel with accomplices, since there obviously was more than one? A falling-out, say over money?"

  "I’ve never heard of anything as crappy as this," said Lasserre disgustedly.

  "That doesn’t interest me," Castang said. "If we’ve two unsolved homicides, the pressure on us is that much greater, and if the explanations are crappy, that’s too bad for the explanations. Sure, the super Criminal Brain is a bad comic strip. Any second now one of us will drop dead, and it will turn out to be South American arrow poison. There may be more than one person involved."

  "Terror Reigns in Concarneau!"

  Richard had had enough.

  "That’ll do. The inquiry takes on a new dimension, the inquiry must be put on a different footing. In consequence reorientate. The fact clear to me is that there’s a family connection. I want the scope extended beyond the immediate circle. I want to know who they see; when, why, how. Without their being aware of it. Two light surveillance teams: now who have we got?"

  "I’ve nobody to spare," said Cantoni.

  "No; we don’t want all this respectable crowd suddenly noticing they’ve acquired gorilla bodyguards. Castang, you plainly take charge of one; you’ve Maryvonne anyhow, now who else: Lucciani?"

  "He’s busy with that false number pl
ate fiddle," said the secretary.

  "Well take him off it. We know all about it and it has no great urgency. And where’s Orthez?"

  "Back tomorrow."

  "I’d rather have Orthez – he’s a great deal brighter than he looks."

  "Unlike some we know," muttered somebody; Lasserre probably.

  "Liliane, you for the other. Maryvonne can brief you on the clan. You take Lucciani then, who’s useful enough, and Davignon, who knows what he’s at, and you co-ordinate this, Jean."

  "Exactly."

  "Davignon has done the paperwork for the judge, Castang, and Massip will brief you on the financial file. I’ll talk to Madame Delavigne, and I’ll talk to the Mayor. How long I can stall him for… I repeat; there’s something there. Get hold of it."

  Castang was thinking that Vera would be out of the clinic in another two or three days, and what about his time off? It was no misfortune to be on good terms with Liliane.

  There wouldn’t be much chance to get over to the clinic this morning. He’d have to give them a ring.

  "What about a cup of coffee, Liliane?"

  SEVENTEEN

  LIGHT SURVEILLANCE

  Much like a lightly-boiled egg. As light as you choose: exactly how light that is you will see when you come to eat it. When the police speak of holding so-and-so under observation the impression you receive depends pretty well on how many spy stories you have been reading recently.

  A few hints are conveyed by the word ‘light’. Not around twenty-four hours: that’s ‘intense’ and needs three separate shifts; and all police forces are parsimoniously administered, and chronically short of manpower. It is indeed possible to recall off-duty staff and wring out a lot of largely unpaid overtime. Reasonably, the police has small stomach for this, and no officer in his right senses will order it more often than he has to. The fuzz in question will be cross, sleepy and not at its brightest. When you come to think of it most people (outside spy stories) have work to do, and most of their activities can be encompassed between eight in the morning and midnight. That is quite enough for two shifts, thanks, especially when you think of rotating them, and Sundays, and days off. Spy stories don’t bother about that detail, but secretaries of police departments had jolly well better.