Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  "Thanks, Massip, that’s what I wanted. All right, Castang, there’s now a link with both sons, and the daughter through her husband. As for the mother, the judge will give me an order for interrogation, and I should be able to overcome the reluctance of the shrinks. Now tell me again about this nonsense last night. Maryvonne typed it up but I haven’t read it yet; I’ve been busy."

  "Simply an oddity. The daughter – Magali – drove up into the hills and there had a meeting, I don’t know could you call it in any way surreptitious, with Didier’s ex-wife, who used to be a friend of hers so it arouses no particular interest, and with this woman who was Didier’s secretary, and more or less his mistress. I took it to be irrelevant – some family matter connected with the estate, or the goodwill of the business or something: after all he was her brother, and Bertrand has been busy clearing up that office."

  "Hence, possibly, a meeting with Monsieur Maresq. Whose rent Didier collected, for a property of Delestang’s in the Rue des Ecuries."

  "Yes, that’s all quite plausible and very likely the explanation. If it wasn’t that Maresq seems more of a family friend than that, huh? Can I use your phone? – I’ve just thought of something… Where’s Lucciani? Not in yet? All right. Has Fausta got that report Lucciani did about the partouze?"

  "Fausta," said Richard, "somewhere near the top of that voluminous dossier of yours is an extravagant piece of journalism concerning young Master Lucciani’s adventures at a sex party: somewhat embarrassed as I recall, at the thought of you, or possibly me, reading it."

  "Should have been typed with a red ribbon – I’ll dig it out."

  "What’s this then?" asked Richard.

  "I’m not sure till I look," said Castang. "But as the instructor says pompously ‘one can never pay too much attention to the most trivial of reports on seemingly unconnected circumstances’. You just gave a convincing demonstration and this might be another."

  "Here we are," said Fausta.

  "Reporting verbally to me the boy said something about a street off the Boulevard Wilson. And here we are, too. Number twenty-six Rue des Ecuries."

  "Which as we learn is an investment property belonging to Delestang et Cie, wine merchants and shippers. This," said Richard, "becomes interesting."

  "Lallemand, and Lucciani’s other little drunken pals, got this address from somebody called Jackie. And the house is owned by Monsieur Jacques Maresq. Who doesn’t know his tenants since Didier Marcel collected rents for him. Or does he? Shall we ask him?"

  "Whom we might ask, I think, is Didier’s secretary. See if Liliane’s in yet, will you?"

  "Aren’t you going to ask the judge for a mandate first?" asked Castang, grinning now, no longer worrying about when he was going to get home and see Vera.

  TWENTY NINE

  VERIFICATION OF IDENTITY

  Police catch-alls contain several clichés of a disturbance-of-the-peace kind. Hold somebody for questioning, and a lawyer may turn up and say ‘look, what is it exactly you’re questioning him about, and on what grounds?’ A variety of trivial misdemeanours, called in France contraventions, possibly punishable by the speed-tribunal with a fine of a hundred francs, provide the answer.

  Thus, if you happen to be one of a dozen people picked up by the cops after a street demonstration got a bit riotous, the police, instead of charging you with an incitement to violence, will be likely, in France, to clap you for a longish moment in the waiting-room, idea of cooling your heels a little, for Verification of Identity.

  Various intimidatory techniques can be added to this ad hoc. Harrowing you by being far too busy even to notice your existence. Bellowing at you that you’re in ‘deep, deep trouble’ and are going to be ‘very, very sorry.’ Freezing silence while a lot of extremely important things get written on a paper, or while other important papers get read at great length, with occasional ominous glances in your direction; the implication being that this is your secret life, of which nothing is hidden from them.

  With a little experience you realise that all this means nothing, and that they will do nothing. They just want to be nasty, a little.

  With a person they really think might be a witness to something they are not going to waste time.

  Castang was present at the beginning of the job; a temperature several degrees below zero and Richard looking at the woman as though she were something the cat turned up its nose at. A slow level voice; a deadly politeness.

  "I am Divisional Commissaire Richard of the Police Judiciaire. You have been brought here on strong presumptions that you have wilfully concealed information relevant to a judicial inquiry, that you have obstructed police officers by withholding co-operation, that you have deliberately sought to mislead. These are delicts punishable by prison sentences.

  "It is my duty to tell you that I have the power to hold you here, until the examining magistrate decides whether releasing you would be prejudicial to public interest, on the grounds that you hold communication with persons concerned in assassination.

  "It is further my duty," gimleting, "to warn you that while you are not upon oath, and will not be charged with perjury since the law provides that both silence and lying form part of systems of defence, you had better take refuge in neither. We have more than enough independent information to check all you say. You had better grasp how serious this is."

  The woman stuck to stout denial, but inroads had been made upon her.

  "Take her," said Richard in a patient tone of one who has heard all this too often, "to Commissaire Lasserre."

  Since Lasserre left the door open, since he knew well how to vary greasy affability with loud bullying, scraps of the resultant interrogation floated through to Castang and Liliane, supplying him with paper next door.

  "You describe yourself as a house agent. Perhaps I should describe you more accurately as a Girl Agent. Tell me," at his chilly greasiest, "why I should not treat you like a common prostitute?

  "A lawyer? You’ll find yourself with a lawyer, my child, quicker than you bargained for. And you’ll wish you never laid eyes upon him.

  "I have here a statement by a police officer concerning these activities in this flat in the Rue des Ecuries. You are going to tell me that you were unaware of them? That your employer Didier Marcel was unaware of them? That you don’t know this ‘Jackie’? Let me tell you that I don’t Believe you. You are known and you have been observed to have been in contact with these men. Against whom, I may tell you, very grave presumptions rest.

  "Now we come to this meeting at the Hotel du Cerf. Don’t bother to deny it. You see that we know all about it. Now I want the subject of this conversation, without omission and without evasion.

  "Castang!" In a sudden fearful bellow.

  "Sir," he said, appearing in the doorway.

  "Take what people you need, and pull this rabble in."

  "Sir!" Resisting the impulse to jump smartly to attention and stamp his boots. He went down the passage to Richard, who had paid a silent, sinister visit to the scene of activities.

  "She knows this Lallemand – she’s been of course in these partouzes herself. Lasserre will turn her over to Liliane; we’ll rest her awhile and then we’ll try a confrontation. We’ll see too whether your eyewitnesses can identify him. Tell him you want him as a witness. Leave the other, the Bouvet, for the moment, until we want him."

  Castang went back, found Maryvonne, and said, "Come on."

  The little airfield was a peaceful place. In late afternoon sunlight the mechanics were tinkering with the usual little Pipers and Cessnas to a background of pop from a transistor standing casually on a wing, distorted by the metal walls of the hangar. It was too windy for jumping: the ‘Pilatus’ with its odd high square wing and its long turbo-engined nose stood sleeping and there was no overalled group with packs on. In the parachute hangar the careful, expert work of folding and repacking was going on placidly, to a quieter version of the pop accompaniment down the road. Lallemand, in his tracksuit, looked up wi
th his cheery grin.

  "Hello Monsieur Robillard, still enquiring into crime?"

  "I’d have thought you were a bit vulnerable, here."

  "I’ll say. We’ve over three hundred packs, and they’re worth ten thousand each. But a couple of us sleep close by, and we’ve dogs of course."

  "I’d like a little word, and in private would be best."

  "You want to go over the club, for a quick one? Nearly knocking-off time anyhow."

  "These quarters of yours are closer by."

  "Sure. We have this shack out the back. Lead the way, shall I?" A kind of prefab barrack, one storey, with half a dozen rooms, and a military type messhall; kennels at one end. Rumpled bed, chair and table, wardrobe and drawers, posters and caricatures. Guitar in one corner, fishing-rod and a hunting rifle in the other.

  "Patrol a bit, nights. Wouldn’t do to have any kites or anything outside. Vandals!"

  "Monsieur Lallemand, I’ve come to ask you whether you’d mind coming down town with us, for it may be some hours, to see whether you can help in an investigation we’re conducting."

  "I’ve already told you – we see to it we’ve no trouble with thieving and no stolen stuff gets passed on round here. And contraband I know nothing about. We care about physical fitness, and we don’t use any drugs."

  "Nonetheless you’ve no objection to coming, I’d hope?"

  "Well it’s a bit heavy, like, a bit thick, coming it like this."

  "A duty of the citizen, right, to co-operate with law-enforcement officers."

  "Well, I suppose, if you’re making such a thing of it. Take long?"

  "Shouldn’t suppose so. This your gear, in here? Mind my taking a look?"

  "Hey, that’s personal."

  "I am a PJ officer, Monsieur Lallemand, and I have the right as well as the duty to make searches and seizures on suspected premises, in the presence of the owner and with respect for his private property."

  "What’s this suspected?" on an angry high note. Castang was rummaging along the hangar rail for things green or brown. "You mean I’m suspected?"

  "Just look through the drawers, Maryvonne. Not unless you deserve to be: you tell me," lightly. "Those suitcases under the bed, mind opening them for me?"

  "What you taking out that gear for?"

  "I’ll tell you, perfectly frankly; let’s keep calm. Nothing to get excited for. We’ve a couple of fellows down town, we think might recognise people seen at the scene of a crime. To test their credibility and the accuracy of their observations, we often like to have three or four different types, looking more or less the same, wearing the same sort of clothes. These’ll do. Your height and build will fit in roughly. Okay? Nothing to worry about, you see."

  "You mean you want me to change into those things," said Lallemand in a more normal voice, sitting down on the bed.

  "That’s the general idea. Needn’t fuss you, need it?"

  "Then why’s she looking in those drawers?" leaning back with an elaborately casual air of sprawl, elbow on the pillow. "For a tie or something?" Sarcastic.

  "You might just get up till I can see in those cases. And reach down the box there, on top of the locker."

  "Look for yourself: I don’t see why I should help you," reaching over for a paperback book by the bedhead. "Go ahead and amuse yourself: I’ll read while I’m waiting, if you don’t mind that." As Castang made a half turn towards the wardrobe, dumping the clothes on the bed, Lallemand slid his hand under the bolster.

  "Don’t do that, friend," said Castang quietly; he had been waiting a minute or more with his thumb tucked in his belt. "Just look at the young lady and you’ll see you’re bracketed. Even if that thing is cocked" showing the gun in his right hand and pinning the wrist with his left. "Loosen your arms." Half lying, the man could not do much, but his left arm was ready for a punch and Castang was too close; he poked a muscle-packed rib with the pistol barrel. "Spare me any judo stuff," dryly. Maryvonne, standing quite still with her gun braced against a hip, gave a slight cough.

  "Stand. Arms limp. Turn your back to me. Arms behind you. It’s lined up on the centre of your back, Lallemand. Stay that way. You have resisted arrest, and you’re armed with a prohibited weapon, I’m putting handcuffs on you. In the car, Maryvonne. Legs apart. Further. Flat on your feet, and wide apart: keep your arms behind you. Cuff him, Maryvonne. Now you can turn round, and don’t be funny. We’ll take a look. Well – I hadn’t hoped for this." An old US army forty-five. "A blast, that," talking too much, aware he was still highly strung up. "I’d never thought you’d keep that. In fact I was categoric you hadn’t. Read you wrong, I realise. You valued it too much. Weapons are very important to you. And when the revolution comes you’ll know how to use them. Front line activist, what, us real freedom fighters. Take the clothes, Maryvonne, I don’t know if they’re right but we maybe won’t need them."

  " ‘S not my gun," said the man sullenly.

  "It never is," cheerfully. "You borrowed it, or you found it in the bushes. A man in a bar sold it you last week; wartime souvenir. You get in the front, busterboy. You drive, Maryvonne." He was talking too much but yes, his nerves were a scrap more fluttered than he would care to admit to himself. The heaviness in the butt told him the gun was loaded, and it wasn’t the sort of antique cannon you cared to have pointing at you. He had a memory of what it had done to Etienne.

  Richard poked at it in a disbelieving way.

  "You got tied to it and blown from its mouth, in the time of the Indian Mutiny. It’s an unexpected stroke of luck."

  "He wanted to take a clap at me with it, which would have been another."

  "Carrying it, was he?"

  "Under his pillow. When I started looking at his clothes he felt the jaws tightening. One doesn’t much like these types that want to be heroes. Think – cocked and the safety off: he’d have tried, I think, if it hadn’t been for Maryvonne."

  "Anybody left in IJ this time of the evening? Doesn’t matter. We’ll have it test-fired tomorrow and the cartridge marks compared. Leave this fellow in the cell: I’ve no time for him now. The girlfriend gave at the seams finally and told us a lot; not about this naturally, she’d no knowledge of that. But Maresq – he’s quite a case. You’d better phone your house: you’ll be out late. And now you’ve been seen escorting the handcuffed prisoner, etcetera, you’d be well advised to go pick up that Bouvet, before the light fades, because some wiseacre out there may phone up to say his pal’s down the hole." Castang’s face showed disbelief.

  "I’m not talking about accomplices," said Richard. "I’m thinking of that helpful little man you meet on the road, who flicks his headlights to tell you there’s a radar speed-control up ahead. Solidarity, my boy, against bastardly fuzz."

  "And Thierry?"

  "Liliane’s gone after Thierry," calmly. "Let’s just hope Thérèse doesn’t have a gun and decide to shoot it out defending him."

  "What d’you make of the motive in all this?"

  "What motive?" said Richard coolly. "Motives are old-fashioned things. That’s where both you and DST went wrong, looking for motives. I should have thought it clear that you can get people to do anything, including murder and suicide, with a phoney religious stimulus. You need a guru, and we’ve found the guru."

  "You mean Maresq?"

  "None other. I don’t think he designed any assassination: that was going too far altogether and probably took him by surprise. But with the eye to profit of his kind, I’d guess he saw the blackmail possibilities. No time for that now; go find that librarian fellow with the expanded mind."

  THIRTY

  A FLY IN THE EYE

  "Who’s got Bouvet under observation?"

  "Orthez," said the switchboard.

  "Raise him on the blower for me."

  "Here you are – you’re through on the link."

  "Castang – whereabouts are you, old son? I’m coming to pick you up: we’re going to pinch this phenomenon."

  "He left work a bit early. Mo
stly he walks home, and goes through the park. Pick you up at his home?"

  "No; by the park – I want to see whether he knows anything. Might have got tipped off. I’ll be at the corner of the boulevard by that big flowerbed, the one that’s a clock. Waste no time or you’ll miss him."

  "No need to bust yourself; he stopped for a drink. Bit agitated but he’s often like that: you know, talks to himself. There he goes – over the far side; see?" said Orthez.

  "We’ll leave the cars here."

  Nobody would ever see the librarian as anything but a pathetic type, watching him. A Walter Mitty; the passion for souped-up cars and four-wheel-drift told one all. Not that he was particularly weedy or given to twitches, being indeed a colourless person with dusty hair, neither tall nor short, looking simply what he was; a junior functionary in one of the dustier of state or municipal backwaters; the Ethnographic Museum or, as here, the Bibliothèque Nationale. He was dressed conventionally, and taking a breath of fresh air and hygienic exercise on his way home. Lots like this can be seen jogging on the perimeter paths of any park. Perhaps, following him on foot at the same pace, as Castang was, one might find something odd in his walk, a queer way of balancing his shoulders, of tossing his head. He walked in a rapid broken rhythm, stopping to stare about him, at trees, or ducks or whatever.

  "You think he’s on to us?"

  "He’s always like this," said Orthez indifferently. "Might be on to me or Davignon: we’ve had to get too close this last time or two."

  "We’ll separate. He can’t be on to me; he’s never seen me. I’ll get a bit closer and see what he does. You skirt off towards the middle."

  Bouvet turned once, and stared at him, but showed no sign of suspicion. Even if he has been tipped off, and four or five people saw us walking Lallemand back to the car, a phone call says ‘Cops picked Jojo up’ not ‘a cop with a bluish jacket and dark trousers pinched Jojo’.

  The Municipal Gardens are long and narrow, with a central path featuring Floral Display, grass, and paths near the edges lined with speckled laurels and conifers and suchlike economical, pollution-resistant cover. The path is sandy, mixed with pine-needles, pleasant to walk upon. Castang got to within ten metres, but Bouvet was in no way disquieted. I’ll walk him home, thought Castang, pinch him there, send Orthez back for the car. No, that’s too far. The Gardens stretch out to near suburb, where two main roads diverge and lead to middling-near suburb. Near the end there is a public lavatory in a chaste grove of yew trees; that’ll do nicely. Helpful towards this project, Bouvet turned into the lavatory. A very nice one, with elegant yellow tiling, kept extremely smart by a zealous Dame Pipi, who had now gone home. The gates here were closed at sunset, to discourage delinquency. Castang followed into the lavatory – deserted save for his chap buttoning his trousers. Nice and discreet: he felt he’d had enough publicity.