Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  It was normal; it was even a basic ingredient in the fabric of social intercourse. You live in a tiny box, work in a tiny box: you go thus nowhere, see nobody. People no longer have close family links. The poor still do to some extent; going to see Auntie at weekends, dropping in at Granny’s. But fewer and fewer are born, grow up in, stay their life in the same quarter. Social mobility.

  Provincial towns there were still like Georges Simenon’s Liegè, where the patterns were so tight that men went to drink a cup of coffee in their mother’s kitchen every morning on the way to work. Sat in the same bench of the same parish church at Mass every Sunday. The same table in the same pub. You knew everyone. Those you weren’t related to by blood or marriage going back three generations, you had polished the bench at school with, you’d done your military service with. There was nothing that bound you all together like your distrust and dislike of outsiders.

  Oh yes, some of it still held good. But such a mighty flood of Outsiders now came bursting all the old bonds that you had to seek new ways of finding togetherness. Other powerful forces fight against it, the most notorious of which is television. So join the canary-fanciers.

  Harmless gossip-marts for the most part. Shoptalk about canaries blurred after a drink or two into a delightful exchange of inside information, which Chose had from Mrs Thingummy’s son who works in telecommunications. ‘You want to dial long-distance, right? For next to nothing, right? What you do is this, and same again all round, Jeanette. There are these ten figures, okay, before your real number. You’re getting Châteauroux all right, only down the road but your call’s gone to Barcelona and back: I’ve got one and it goes through Glasgow: now where is Glasgow? I’m playing these numbers on my lotto ticket this week.’

  "Very funny people," said Fausta. "Extremely touchy and elitist, and of course a perfect mania for secrecy. Don’t have anything to do with them. You won’t get anything out of them anyhow. They sent in a report to Richard, practically with lead seals on it. I wasn’t allowed to handle it of course: confidential file. There can’t be anything much in it: I caught sight of his face while he was reading it. It’s not anyhow being pursued, that side."

  "How do you know?" A silly question since Fausta always knew everything.

  "There was a long confabulation with the Proc. They may of course be pursuing it, but for reasons of their own. Their word was negative on the homicide but that you know already."

  "I’d like to have sort of an unofficial chat."

  "Well they’re not in the phone book, you know. Everything is masked in obscurity. One doesn’t even know how many there are – nor even what their salary scale is."

  "Bound to be higher than ours."

  "I suppose so," said Fausta sympathetically. "Here’s anyway a number you can ring. I’ll probably get into trouble just for giving you that."

  It was a secret society. Normal enough, he supposed. They were after all supposed to be the experts on secret societies, and had acquired the mannerisms.

  Grudgingly, a man who said his name was Boileau thought he might meet Castang in a pub for a beer. Sorry but a quarter of an hour was all he could manage; okay?

  It’s a murky crowd, DST. Even the name, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, one of those pompous mouthfuls of pebbles to be found in the mouth of the President of the Republic, is meaningless. There’s surveillance there all right – this after all was what interested Castang – but what of? The Territory, hm. Geological surveys no doubt: any uranium around here? Archaeological: much interested by fragments of pots.

  It is possible of course to find out a little about them: what Castang knew already. France has always been a great place for Secret Societies, and at turbulent moments in this country’s history up they pop, surrounded by a melodramatic aura. Older people whose memories go back before nineteen thirty-nine will recall the Croix de Feu and the Cagoulards (that’s right, just like the Ku Klux Klan: sillier, if possible) and Colonel de la Roque. Throughout the duration of the Fourth Republic, numerous nonsensical conspiracies. At the time of de Gaulle’s accession, Algérie Française – everyone remembers that! And the Organisation of the Secret Army: more colonels, and even several generals.

  The present rulers of France are conspicuous for liking a quiet life. The General was estimable, even likeable, in his distaste for mediocrity, a fondness for barrackroom language, and an elfish impulse to set the cat among the pigeons. He even told the French the truth about themselves now and again, causing consternation.

  We are modern now. The pigeons strut unflustered. Security has been tightened up no end. Nothing ever happens. France lies on a feather bed and says little prayers. Matthew, Mark, Luke ‘n’ John, bless the bed that I lie on. Were anything at all to happen, from the explosion of a nuclear power station to an apparition of the Virgin, it would be quickly wiped away with a soapy flannel. And illustrated on national television by little animated drawings: the average age of the French population is four, and backward at that.

  In this atmosphere, DST flourishes. Nobody hears of it. It laughs heartily at the welter of publicity surrounding American secret services, and does so in a whisper. It is blissful in its mediocrity. Oh, it’s well enough in its way. He’s well served, the President of the Republic. But what by?

  Monsieur Boileau was another beaming fatface, freshly washed with a soapy flannel. He wanted to be helpful. Castang would really have preferred his being sour.

  "But of course we’re pleased to co-operate with the Police Judiciaire. What we’re there for. Homicide naturally isn’t a terrain on which we function – normally," chuckling. "As our report made clear – you haven’t read it, naturally – nothing abnormal about this. Your Commissaire accepts this. You’ve got a lingering doubt – glad to reassure you." Four angels round my bed…

  "Tell me about secret societies."

  "I see. Thanks, no, I don’t smoke. Yes, Marcel was a great joiner. One of his power bases. Join them all, and become a power in them all."

  "You do much the same."

  "Yes, yes. Can’t join them all; bless my soul, one wouldn’t have a minute to call one’s own. Put it like this. There are innumerable groupuscules, to be sure, and they get together in cellars and talk all sorts of subversive nonsense no doubt. But to acquire leverage enough ever to do anything, mobilise anything, in a word to jell… Need money, right? Keep an eye on the finance, and the rest will look after itself. We can’t prevent some discontented comrade stealing a stick of gelignite from a quarry and blowing up a television relay. But said comrade hasn’t threepence to bless himself with, so we can generally lay hands on him if need be with no great pains. As for assassinating your Monsieur Marcel – there’s a pattern in these things as you’re aware. Look for money, or publicity, or both. If he’d been held to ransom now – there’s a body of opinion that holds it’s cheaper and easier than cracking banks. But no. You’ve the odd crackpot group that preaches violence. But what are they getting out of it here? Nothing. Pillar of the glee club, great man in the local football, no percentage in that. Might as well shoot any early-morning jogger. Set your mind at ease. I’d love another beer but you do understand, don’t you?"

  Castang went to see Monsieur Bianchi.

  This old gentleman had been a cop for donkey’s years, probably since before the war, since he would by now have been at mandatory retiring age. He had been retired a year early by force majeure: a bullet in the lung. This had actually stopped him smoking, a thing nobody had thought possible by human agency. Being an honest cop he had nothing to live on but his pension. But he occupied a house built before 1948, and since he’d been living there since the same date his rent was laughably low. My penthouse he called it. A row of three attic rooms, eighth floor of a big bourgeois house, the rest of which had long been given over to luxurious living at great expense, on one of the noisiest streets in the city. But up there he had light and air, little noise, lots of space, perfect peace. One simply had to climb eight flights of fire
stairs, starting from a dark corner by the courtyard, where there was a smell of dust-bins. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs.’ For his shopping basket, and his garbage bin, he had a cord on a pulley. Served for coal too. ‘I never did like the smell of oil.’

  ‘What’ll you do when you can no longer manage all this?’

  ‘Then I’ll die up here,’ said Monsieur Bianchi happily. ‘But I reckon, you know, it won’t be yet awhile.’ He had no telephone, no electricity, and no gas. Vera was attached to him. She couldn’t get up there though. Too many stairs. Castang himself, at the top, unstuck his shirt from his back and took deep breaths of the antique dust on the landing. Not much light filtered through the skylights, grimed with the patina of ages, and many strange objects of unguessable purpose stood about on the dust-coloured coconut matting. There was a knocker in the shape of a naked girl: he rat-tatted with her brass behind.

  Le père Bianchi had never looked better: a man at peace with himself. The place was as dirty and comfortably untidy as you would expect. Odd patches were clean, and an old pedal sewing-machine stood in a good light. Castang arched an eybrow and the old man got his cop look back on.

  "Old ram," said Castang.

  "Not a bit of it. Like a daughter to me. Mark you, I like watching her dressing. But it doesn’t bother me any more. I enjoy her little female ways. We’re company for one another. Like a cat. I’ve a cat too. She doesn’t talk much, and that’s very restful."

  "She a student?"

  "That’s right. Old man’s got to have something to love, you know. Cats are all right. A girl’s better. How’s your girl?"

  "She’s fine. She just had a baby."

  "Good. That’s what they’re for. Mine don’t, of course. Pill ‘n’ all. Got lots of boyfriends. They look at the dirty old man. I can tell by the way they look at me, whether they’re any good."

  "This is why I came to see you," said Castang, and explained.

  Bianchi nodded.

  "Sure. See it in everything. All those people with dogs. Phone-in radio programmes. Young fella amiable enough, but knows nothing about anything. Women tell him everything, all their private lives. Say it’s daft. Does them good though. Look at the small ads. Every week a page full. ‘Meetings’. Sure, lots of whores."

  "Tenderness assured for small personal contribution. Discretion assured."

  "You’re reading them too fast. Me, I’ve got the time."

  "Couple looks for other couple, or tactful young girl for threesome. It’s only sex."

  "Sure it’s only sex: what the hell else do you expect? Talking about love all the time and wondering what the hell that is. Sex is all they know how to do. Bloody poor substitute for the other, though. You don’t know how lucky you are. You got a girl. You don’t know how lucky I am. I got a girl. What most people got is a lifesize doll." Castang nodded. "You know otherwise, you couldn’t do this stinking job."

  "There’s no way out of it. Get into your boots and up and down, up and down. That girl of yours – what’ll you do when she’s gone?"

  "Let her go. What you want me to do – have her stuffed? What’s yours, a boy or a girl?"

  "Girl."

  "Lucky you. Just think of all those daddas who don’t know how to cope. Smash the baby on the floor. Want to stay for a drink?"

  "No, I’ve got to run. Come and see Vera."

  "Sure."

  "As one nun to another, you’ll get on well together."

  "Sure." Castang knew he wouldn’t come.

  "See you." The old boy had gone pottering over to a table full of junk, hunting for something.

  "Richard, you know – hold on a sec, I’ve something to show you – he’d never keep going. There’s more to people’s private life – here, catch hold. F’your little girl. Sugar almonds, like." Something in a small twist of dirty tissue-paper, like a pinch of snuff, but oddly heavy.

  "His wife came to see Vera."

  "Remarkable woman," said Bianchi. "All right boy; keep y’boots in shape."

  Out on the street Castang remembered the twist of paper. He’d thought a medal or something, a Saint Christopher or a Star of the Sea. But it was quite materialistic. Vera was enough of a star for Monsieur Bianchi. Two gold napoleons. He stood staring up at the building. A student girl cannoned into him and said, "Mind your bum, stupid chum." Well even a bump in the street is better than no human contact at all. Quite right, Bianchi. Sex is not to be despised. Given a scrap of sex, a scrap of money, even a cop could face the future. Forty gold francs for Lydia. Incidentally, over seven hundred in today’s small change. Worth a lot more than that though.

  Monsieur Bianchi had agreed that he was not making a fool of himself…

  "Follering people about an’ taking little pictures…" He himself had been the best hand at it in the department. "Won’t tell you much about them. But it’s that old gag about the planets. Observe them. One or more get a little tiny bit out of position, means there’s something unseen, unknown, around the shop."

  TWENTY TWO

  EXCHANGE AND MART

  "Now where the hell did you get to last night?" Lucciani had only just come on and had still not had time to write his report up. But this was the only moment for getting them all together and Castang was holding a round table. He had to shove the accelerator down. Richard was none too pleased about Noelle, who had been dragged back into quite sound physiological shape, but was like Queen Elizabeth on her cushions: face to the wall and say nothing. Richard like Monsieur Bianchi had reached an obvious cop conclusion; this was a planet out of position. He’d used the phrase ‘fucking fishy’ which in a man not given to casual obscenities was forcible.

  "Relatively restrained circle, there’s been five of you on it. Now there’s one more of you and one less of them. Now get your foot down on it. There’s more to it than this," flicking at Liliane’s neat pile of typescript about a week’s blameless behaviour of a dozen blameless and boring lives.

  "Well you see," Lucciani shuffling and mumbling, not very sure how this would be received, "a partouze, actually."

  "A what?" Tone of incredulity. Castang was one of these virtuous cops, houseproud and priggish. Group sex parties are not counted among normal police activities, despite all the jokes about Vice Squads. Still, one could say for old Castang, he did have humour, and so thank God would Richard think it funny: at least he hoped so; they’d better.

  "Well I knew you’d be back today, and would start moaning about all this got-up-and-went-to-bed stuff, which is all we get, hanging about, so I decided to get closer."

  "A partouze! We re seeing life." The whole table was enjoying itself – Castang with a finger in his ear, pretending he’d wax stuck in it. Orthez guffawing and scratching his crutch.

  "Get any good pictures?" Liliane humorously tolerant and less like Reverend Mother than usual despite the armour-plated bosom. Maryvonne thoughtful, wondering what she’d have done if invited. Even Davignon, all high intellectual forehead and hornrims, had a grin twitching at his severe mouth.

  "For once you’ve an attentive audience."

  "Well, I’ve been stuck with this Thierry…goes out every day; doesn’t do anything much. Frigs about in the National Library, always reading up this occultism and eastern religions and stuff; you know the way. Telling fortunes out the I Ching ‘n’ all that. Pally there with the attendant, the weaselly one with the old car."

  "Who belongs," said Orthez, "to the Veteran Car Club, and they go to the clubhouse out at the place where they’ve an Advanced Driving School out on the old motorbike circuit."

  "Yes, that’s the one. Thierry’s got one of these old hotted up Renault Tens with a Gordini motor, and they’re always busy making it go, which it don’t, half the time."

  "Get on with it."

  "Another place they go is that café in the old town behind the bishop’s palace, the Vienna Woods."

  "Where they play billiards."

  "Right, and they’ve an English pool table too, and there’s a fel
low there sometimes who’s real hot. So as I said I was sick of sitting there dumb so I got into conversation, and after havering about they decided to go down the airport. Not the commercial port but the old field beyond Saint-Just where they have the parachute club. The café there is a hangout for the free-fall types. I did it myself a bit till it got too dear. So I know a couple of them, and it fitted in well, and I thought I might see something. One of those instructors, ex-marine type, found there were six or seven of us and said how about hotting the party up, get some girls."

  "Is that the one with the old Mercedes? SL 190." Orthez’ interests.

  "Right. There’s another, a mechanic with a gull-wing 300 who gets out the car club but that’s not the same."

  "We’ll learn to distinguish," said Castang dryly. "You were just organising the girls."

  "That’s the funny thing: I thought it would be a lot of scruffy sluts and I wasn’t keen to have a dose of clap as a souvenir. Anyhow the fellow phones and I wasn’t close enough to get the number but he talks to someone called Jackie. The upshot of which is hang on and I’ll ring back. Which happens two beers later: we pile in the car when the word is given and we go into the town, and those big old houses off the Boulevard Wilson: I’ve the number of course in case it ever does us any good. Second-floor flat, big like all those, and it’s not a whory setup; three of these dames live there and they’re secretarial types, quite hoity-toity and Now boys don’t make so much noise, and nothing to drink. In their thirties at least and two at least are or were married women but not les or anything…"

  "What’s anything? So there are you six big husky studs and there’s only three girls."

  "Three or four more came. One, no two, young crumpets but I didn’t get them; I got…"

  "Spare us; just put the essential on paper and Fausta can curl her lip. I take it you got no pictures."

  "I wasn’t set up for it but they weren’t having any. A fellow said how about the Polaroid then, but the girls weren’t having that. No no, Nanette, not a chance."