"Monsieur Bouvet?" The man finished tidying – please adjust your dress, as the neat notice has it – and turned to face him with a puzzled look, taking hold of his jacket lapels.
"Yes?" in a normally startled voice.
"I am a police officer. I have to ask you to accompany me to the commissariat, for verification of identity."
"Oh," he said. He stood, doing nothing, just looking startled.
"There’s nothing to fear. Walk back, shall we? I’ve a car at the top end." This wasn’t a violent man.
Imprudence? Guard a bit down, after the peaceful stroll? Simple stupidity? Or reaction, from the tension and watchfulness of the moment with Lallemand.
As the man walked quietly towards Castang he drew some sort of flexible club from his inner pocket, and as Castang sidestepped he swished with it, left-handed, in a quick backhand flip. An instinctive jerk of the head, backwards, in tune with the sidestep. Ward with your left hand, as your right goes back in a gesture practised already today, to the belt holster back of the right hip.
But all this too little and too late. Enough to make it what is politely named a Glancing Blow. Wouldn’t like to have one that did more than glance: take my whole flaming head off instead of getting a black eye that can go in the Guinness Book of Records.
More eye socket than eye – for which thanks – and it was not a cutting blow – more thanks and believe me, sincere.
Castang went down on one knee, blind in his left eye bar catherine wheels, roman candles, a lot of things all wrong against this egg-yolk-yellow background. Come to that, the right eye felt like a strenuously shaken kaleidoscope. Lot of good a gun would do him: fill a few yew trees with copper-jacketed lead. He lurched out holding his eye. Fellow was running there like the March Hare, and so were the yew trees and so was Orthez and as the kaleidoscope changed they all came together in an untidy collision, but who hit what, in what order, he felt unable to say.
"Corblimey." Better not say that either: He nearly did.
"Come on jocko, upsydaisy," said Orthez’ voice. Speaking to him? He approached with measured steps, something between a rumba and a slow waltz. In this part of the world was a cast-iron drinking fountain. Push very hard you get a trickle. Push very hard indeed, as he was doing, and you get it in the eye, which for once is exactly what we want.
"You sit here," said Orthez sensibly, putting him on a bench. "And jocko here I cuff to the bench, like this. And I go get the car. Right? You okay?"
"I’m okay." The yew trees had stopped being orange and vermilion like canna lilies, and started being yew trees again.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty," said Orthez, exactly the way one would to a dog that pissed in the corner. He was holding a thirty centimetre length of heavy-duty electricity cable. Creamy shiny skin: complicated core. Not altogether unlike a stick of Brighton Rock. Among my souvenirs. A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces, an airline ticket to romantic places; these Foolish Things remind me of you.
"Raw beef steak," said Richard, sounding unfairly entertained. "Make that two raw steaks, one tartare, with olives, and capers, and gherkins, for ol’ Moshe FitzCastang here." He had a black patch, supplied by Maryvonne from the Aid Box, following ice cubes and a stiff whisky from the other aidbox. "You want to go home?"
"No no, my wife would have a fit. And I’m quite eager to learn what happens next."
THIRTY ONE
THE EVENINGS OF THE POLICE JUDICIAIRE
What happened next was that they all went to eat. Even the police has to eat. The tenacious legend that it subsists entirely on the beer and ham sandwiches sent in by the ‘Brasserie Dauphine’ is untrue. Since that dreadful ham sandwich is a reality, all too often, it is avoided where possible and especially by Commissaire Richard, who detests it. When all the boots are on overtime – a lot of which is not paid – they try to make up a bit of the leeway on expenses, and shovel down the grub. This is tolerated by Richard, whose troops fight poorly on an empty stomach, and ‘given a certain measure of tolerance’ by the Comptroller, who yields grudgingly, and chips assiduously at the drinks bill.
It is psychologically important too. If the boots, much of whose work is of the most leaden monotony anyhow, are kept late, especially scrabbling at paper by artificial light, then freighted heavily with bread and beer, the most ludicrous mistakes get made.
The Code of Criminal Procedure is pedantic, and remarkably punctilious, about the rights of detainees. The intervals at which they must be rested (the transcripts of all interrogations must state the hour and minute of beginning and ending or suspension) and fed are carefully laid down. It says nothing about when the boots get a break. Much police brutality is attributable to bad digestions.
The answer in general is the neighbourhood pub. It is convenient, and a place of relaxation in a way no canteen can be. It is quite cheap, and though not comfortable it’s not like the office. One is known there, and little whims and preferences catered for. One is anyhow not robbed. The menu, and the cooking, are far too well known and much criticised, but are more artisanal, and less industrial, than canteen food. Not so much of the canned sausage and dehydrated-rehydrated mashed potato, both of which have made inroads into French grub. Briefly, however primitive, it is a place of rest and refreshment for boots. Richard, whose digestion is delicate and gets little meals cooked him by Fausta on camping-gas, rarely appears there, save on these occasions, showing solidarity with the boots.
The pub puts up with all this. The police are not particularly good customers; they are indeed rather bad and the landlord complains that he makes no profit at all, what with all the topping up of glasses, and squabbling with the Comptroller over grubby chits signed with illegible scrawls, and people who will go and make phone calls while eating, and expect their food to be hotted up for them; and getting one’s bills paid two months late, and never any tips. But he tolerates, and is even sycophantic, because it is a good thing to keep in with the police, because they turn a blind eye to little lapses in legality, and because boots in general are a bit subhuman but occasionally pleasant. He says he never makes a penny but this is a flagrant lie.
The pub has a tiled floor, varnished wooden tables, bottom-polished benches, and if you want to eat, paper tablecloths, knives which don’t cut, and forks which bend under pressure. There is never enough bread. There are two waitresses, known respectively as Nixon and Carter because of pretended facial resemblances. The place is fairly clean, but never smells clean because the landlord hates fresh air and pretends there is a draught. This does not bother the boots, who get too much fresh air and are used to smells, much worse ones.
Richard (Lasserre was still conducting interrogations) hustled in with Castang, Orthez and Maryvonne. Liliane, who had ‘lost Thierry’, was God knew where: Davignon and Lucciani were keeping an eye on Magali and Bertrand, and probably eating too, and most other people had gone home.
"What’s to eat?"
"Thon Bordelaise. Delicious." Tuna in red wine sauce; yes, that is good but…
"The fish always stinks here. What else is there?"
"Some navarin of lamb over from lunch – that’s very good."
"All bones, and too many carrots."
The voice sank conspiratorially.
"Pheasant."
"Young pheasant?" suspiciously.
"Well no, rather old pheasant. Braised. En chartreuse. With cabbage – but special. Not dear."
"You mean poached."
"Shush, we won’t say anything about that."
"All right, pheasant, but I won’t drink white wine; that stuff gives me the bellyache." Castang, who wasn’t going to eat tartar steak here – it would be horse – said "Two."
"Three."
"Four." If one got pheasant at this price of course it was poached. In fact even old, with onions, cabbage, a bit of bacon, glass of bellyache wine, pheasant – that overrated bird – eats well all times of the year.
"And soup to start? And two jugs of the special beau
jolais."
Richard filled his mouth with bread and mumbled, "Caught the judge before she went home." Judges of instruction generally do work late; it is a chronic complaint in legal circles. Tribunals are up to all hours.
"She give you a mandate?"
"Yes. Since we have the gun. Said blandly it was what she had expected. Need it." They were proposing to enter a dwellinghouse in the hours of darkness, and even a Divisional Commissaire needs authority for this.
"Bloody lucky it’s tonight."
"Yes, the moment Maresq smells a rat he’ll wrap up and be untouchable. As soon as that Chantal gave away that the party is tonight it was try and get a wedge in, straight off."
"Unless Thierry tips him off."
"I don’t think Thierry would do any such thing. If you were Thierry, don’t you think you’d be happy to see him fall in the shit?"
"I don’t pretend to understand Thierry."
"The others, sure, stout denial is their system of defence. They’ve never heard of Maresq, except oh, is that the billiards wizard? Incriminating him would do them no good. Lasserre got nothing out of the paratrooper. Normal – Lasserre is just like any sergeant-major every soldier has ever suffered from. The other one, who clonked you, is just going to go on acting dim-witted. Said he thought you were a mugger. I left, at that point. They always call this vegetable soup, and it’s always beans. Now Thierry – he’s part of the family. He’s implicated fatally. He must know that, sly little bugger. But he held no gun, he committed no assassination – not Etienne anyhow. Parricide, just think. If he can pin responsibility on the guru, he has a chance of not much more than a concealment charge; conspiracy maybe."
"Psycho case anyhow."
"They all are, aren’t they? Save Maresq, who probably is, but he’ll find it less easy to plead. Incitement and instigation."
"I still don’t see clearly how…?"
"Pass the salt. I’m not going to discuss this over a meal. But how many phoney religions are there in California?"
"Aren’t there around three hundred, registered for the tax dodge?"
"And how many dotty sects of ten persons or so who don’t qualify?"
"God knows."
"And how many in France, would you estimate?"
"Maybe sixty?"
"Hm, I’d call that conservative."
"I don’t manage to read Maresq as a guru."
"I don’t suppose he is, in any accepted sense of the word," said Richard coolly. "This soup’s not all that bad; any more in your pot there, Maryvonne? He hasn’t organised a sect for financial purposes, has he? Got plenty of money. Nor for religious worship, with initiations and rites and stuff. Just in the sense of power over people. I’m not making any diagnosis, till I know him, and then as little as I can help… You know, there’s a case in history that has always interested me. Galigai."
"Who’s that?"
‘The Marechale d’Ancre. Acquired, along with her husband, Concini, immense power, wealth and prestige during the regency of Marie de Medicis, who was not too bright in the head, and the minority of Louis Treize, who at no time was conspicuous for decision. Getting rid of the husband was fairly simple. Louis finally got fed up with being bossed around, all the nobility loathed this jumped-up Italian bastard and a chap called Vitry, captain of the guard or such, finally shoved a sword through him, shouted Long Live the King, and everyone cheered. You think he got pegged for murder? He got made a duke, and a Marshal of France, vide the unlamented Concini.
"But," slurping his soup, "the woman was the interesting one. She had the husband under her thumb, but more to the point she had the queen mesmerised. For years the imbecile Medicis woman did whatever she was told.
"Right, Concini dead, they felt bold enough to arrest the frau. Typically medieval; unable to explain her dominance they charged her with witchcraft.
"What was the secret – they asked, meaning how did you enlist the Power of Satan – of your influence over the queen?
"What could poor old Galigai say? No secret, no influence, no sinister machination.
"But there was an influence! No more, gentlemen – can you see them all there – than the power of a strong mind over a weak one.
"I’ve an idea that’s all there is here. Now shut up, and bring me this pheasant, so-called, and let me study it closely. Another jug, Gribouille."
They got back to relieve Lasserre, and Liliane, who returned cross.
"Thierry is nowhere to be found."
"Done a bunk."
"Yes, out the back, while Davignon was sleeping in front."
"Well," said Richard, "not a tragedy. He’s no transport then, I take it."
"No. I’ve checked all the family places, the pub and so on – nobody’s seen him there and would be surprised if they did, so the odds are pretty much against that. His friends, as far as we know them… I’ve got the railway police looking out. The airport I suppose – he may have more money than we think; little cash reserve somewhere. Paris perhaps: mostly that’s where they think of once they’re on the run. But if he hitched a ride…"
"Not worth blocking the roads for," thought Richard aloud. "Make the usual telex signal, since there’s a mandate, but it’ll do tomorrow."
"He might be headed out to the hills?" suggested Castang.
"I’d be delighted if he is: have him bottled out there with no great pains. I left the gendarmerie instructions not to hold up any people heading into the village, but to stop anybody coming out, on the usual breath-test formula."
"He might not go out there with the idea of tipping Maresq off."
"Wreak a bit of personal vengeance, you mean? On the ground that if the cops were interested in Lallemand and the other, it could only be because Maresq had alerted them? An attractive scenario, but if I may say so, Castang, made up on the spur of the moment by your over-active imagination. Getting all the characters handily together like that is a thriller-writer’s device. It’s too tidy. Too melodramatic. Reality has looser ends, and more of them. Things as they stand… Catch some supper, Liliane: these brave people," looking at his watch, "will be making a move soon. It’s a good hour’s drive out there."
"What exactly did you get out of that female?" asked Castang. They were waiting for a signal from Davignon and had nothing to do but smoke. Richard seemed very sure of his ground.
"She told some very gaudy lies," sounding as though he had had lots of entertainment, while Castang was getting hit on the head in public lavatories. The piece of thick cable, unusually simple and competent form of blackjack, lay on his table as ‘material evidence’: been a stroke of luck, he said cheerfully, like the gun. Castang, who had been on the sticky end twice now, felt less cheerful even though his cheekbone had been pronounced uncracked and an ‘anti-inflammation’ pill had got prescribed by the police doctor who’d been called in to look at the catch: they always are nowadays, and as much to fend off any eventual defence tales about police brutality as for any other reason. Though Lallemand had been what written reports call ‘over-excited’; not to say hysterical. He’d had some sedatives: being blackjacked by Lasserre was not among them, though people ‘resisting arrest’ have been known to acquire black eyes ‘while being physically restrained’ say the reports virtuously. To Castang’s credit, he very rarely beat up anyone even when he’d had a few knocks himself. To Richard’s credit, he kept his regiment tightly in control, and that included Cantoni’s bang-bang brigade, a set of toughs with much contempt for ‘intellectual cops’, which thought Castang a right milk pudding. Nor was Richard the kind of commissaire who turns a deaf ear and blandly pretends he had no idea what was going on. He did not dodge his own responsibilities. A reason as strong as any other for the loyalty of his subordinates.
"Lots of lies," Richard repeated, playing with the supple club and narrowly avoiding a blackened fingernail on his own account, "but that kind of half-educated, pretend-sophisticated, chairborne clever woman is handicapped in her lying. Can’t lie the way a gipsy does
. Once they start talking you get at the truth. Muddled, and full of holes. And of course Maresq was too clever to let her know much.
"What’s clear is this. Friend Didier, and there are a lot of question marks still around that sly little operator, was fond of girls, and indulged happily in parties with other people’s wives. Not really blackmail, but the definition that limits the word to a formal demand for money, backed by menaces, is very inadequate. He had some notion of municipal politics. Etienne played this game too, and we may guess it was his undoing. Collect, and file, every little scrap of information about anything: you never know when it might come in handy. To serve as leverage it must be discreditable. When it isn’t, technically, can it be made to look discreditable? In certain circumstances? – good, wait for those circumstances to arise.
"Didier used this woman, in lots of ways, as a go-between. Sooner or later her path crossed Maresq’s: whether his tastes already lay in that direction we don’t know yet. Put it that Maresq, much richer, much brighter, moving in much wider and more genuinely sophisticated circles, found these fish small; but useful. Whether he had singled out Etienne as a target, because of some real or imagined grudge, remains to be seen. There’s no trace of him in any of Etienne’s business affairs, which as you know we combed pretty thoroughly, looking for something of just this sort.
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