Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  "Didier came within his orbit. So did Thierry. The others coincidentally. He had a plane, and may have seen or known something of Lallemand. That advanced-driving place, possibly, though Orthez doesn’t think so, was a contact with Thierry. Later, no doubt, that billiards-playing café served as a place to meet, study, and instruct these disciples. The crank-religion soft spot, in your librarian type, which naturally fascinated a person like Thierry, of weak character, indolent ways, and an inflated notion of his own brilliance, would be another handy tool.

  "Where the responsibility lies I leave to the judge: why should I let it bother me? Lallemand, once he gets the retractations and counter-retractations sorted out, sees a lawyer, begins to piece a system of defence together, will throw all the blame on Maresq. Who on his side will do just the same. I leave all that to a tribunal, but where do we come in?

  "What do we have on Maresq? Nothing at all. He can laugh it all off. Sure he is remotely acquainted with these little people, but I ask you, Monsieur the President, do they look like friends of mine? And so forth. He’ll have alibis for all the essential period covering Etienne’s death. Did he kill Didier, who must have found something out and threatened to blow the whistle on him? Maybe he did, and maybe we’ll never get to prove it.

  "What we can feel certain of is that he decided to tighten his grip. He had Thierry in his pocket. Didier – but Didier’s death, even if he was not the author, lessens that hold. The woman Chantal – but she’s small fry. If though he can get a good grip on the family, there’s pickings there and money to be made. We may guess he tried to use what he knew on Noelle. She reacts violently, but not as he had expected. He shifts his ground a bit. Try to get Bertrand, or Magali, or both, into a corner. The one is vulnerable – big companies don’t like executives that are linked to a scandal as smelly as this one is likely to be, in a town this size. The other – who knows? She might have strayed into some stupidity of this sort, in a moment when she’d drunk too much – it doesn’t matter."

  "She has still a strong family feeling."

  "Look mate, what matters to us is to get this grip established that Maresq wanted, from spite, revenge or what have you. If he can use the leverage he’s got to rope them into his wife-swapping games, then the more lock on them all round.

  "Simply, we’ve had again a stroke of luck. That trip of Magali’s out to the hotel was to get this set up. A party tonight – a small select party. The other woman, this Sabine – "

  "Salome."

  "That’s right. Either in the act before or roped in too – she was friends with Magali before, you said. Makes no odds: it’s the time factor, where we’re concerned."

  "If Maresq finds out we’ve got Lallemand he’d smell a rat, you mean."

  "Draw in his horns and lie low, and abolish all the evidence. There may be some we don’t know of. We haven’t got Thierry yet. He may have news for us. But if he’s cool enough to keep his trap shut…"

  "Isn’t this Maresq taking a big unnecessary risk, inviting people out to his house?"

  "Risk on what? No criminal offence in the code. Where’s any proof? Where’s any real link? Don’t you see, Magali, and Bertrand, will never say a word of what they know or guess of all this. From simple self-protection. Noelle will never say a word either. What, Thierry – involved in the killing of his own father even when not the actual author – that really is traumatic; would be to anyone. No, he’s safe there. Unless we can catch them in flagrante – that’ll lever their jaws open.

  "Look at it from his viewpoint. Get Magali out to his house for a purpose like this – likely the idea is to take a few compromising pictures as an extra insurance – and she won’t broadcast any guesses, let alone hints, less still knowledge. And incidentally – I haven’t seen her – wouldn’t she be a pretty juicy catch?"

  "Yes, she’s extremely pretty."

  "And wife, huh, of this highly regarded and successful young executive. A plum, make no doubt of it. But if we are any later than tonight – that arrest of yours was inevitable. It was not foreseen, but it could not be put off. How many people saw it? Bound to be in the press echoes, tomorrow. You with your douane fraud-squad!"

  "Seemed likeliest on the whole. The Bouvet and quite possibly the Thierry are on the mind-expanding kick, and a lot of that stuff could come in by private planes," said Castang defensively.

  "I’m not criticising you, my boy. I never expected you to find the gun; neither did you. Neither surely did Maresq: he must have felt sure it was ditched long ago. There was no other sound evidence against Lallemand. But if it leaked out – there’d be no party tonight."

  "You feel sure it hasn’t?"

  "I got a tap put on Maresq’s phone," said Richard simply. "Not that he’d say anything, ever, on a phone! But I’d guess there’d be a code word, perhaps any call, just to say wrong number, from the likes of Chantal…"

  At this moment Richard’s own phone went; the intercom from the switchboard.

  "They’re on their way," he said, putting it down.

  THIRTY TWO

  THE NIGHTS OF THE POLICE JUDICIAIRE

  They were in no very great hurry, because they felt sure of their ground and because, as Lasserre said vulgarly (cross at being left at home and missing, he said, ‘all the fun’) one had to wait for the party to warm up enough for people to feel comfortable, and ‘get into something loose’.

  Castang wasn’t sure it would be fun. There was a nasty kind of excitement about it, and something mean. Like picking a dead man’s pocket. Vera said, when asked, that the nastiest thing she could think of – leaving aside, please, special circumstances like tortures in cellars or setting dogs on people in concentration camps (Irma Grese was a fresh, pretty young blonde, described by Mr Pierrepoint-the-hangman, a simple man, and highly self-respecting, as ‘an extremely bonny lassie’) – was perhaps bystanders, hurrying in their cars in morbid excitement to view the scene, looting the mutilated, burned, dishonoured bodies of air-crash victims. Castang had never been present at this sort of scene, though a cop in his thirties has already seen much human behaviour, and he didn’t want to be. But yes, he agreed, if he saw that – it would bring out the worst in him too.

  Richard, whose imagination was both less exuberant and better disciplined, for one doesn’t become a divisional commissaire upon a talent for feeling queasy about what one has to do, didn’t think about whether it would be fun or not. Obtaining convictions is the tribunal’s affair, and the Procureur’s aim: the job of the PJ is to secure evidence.

  They took as few cars as possible. Orthez, driving Richard’s big Citroën, with Castang and Maryvonne in the back. Davignon driving the other PJ car, with Lucciani (battle-hardened, and exposed to jokes) and Liliane: the six that had been on the business from the start.

  There was silence in the Citroën on the way up. Orthez drove quietly once they were on the hill road, which was bumpy and narrow, and full of blind bends. Cops are as prudent as any bourgeois, over nine-tenths of the time.

  The main road runs up the valley, branches off into the hills with little distinction between the wealthy, wine-growing villages with good soil and southerly slopes (only an expert, such as Monsieur Maresq, can tell at a glance whether it will be good, or merely drinkable) and the less fortunate areas of scattered forest and upland grazing. Not one of the more picturesque parts of France, but pretty enough. It was a still, clear night: they were telling one another that the weather was going to turn good at last, that they were due for it, etc. There was some discussion about holidays. The strong winds and heavy rains of recent weeks, the volatile shifts of temperature, with occasional ground frosts, had caught the grapes as they were ‘setting’ and made the farmers gloomy. A rotten spring, printemps pourri. Did this mean a good summer, or a bad one? Everybody had a different opinion on the subject. But for the most part nobody spoke.

  Getting towards the village the leading car slowed, looking for the gendarmerie, in ambush hereabouts. Two or three cars coming d
own had flicked their lights: the boys in blue are around with their balloons. Richard stopped, and borrowed a chap to show him the lie of the house. Half a dozen bourgeois cars had gone up the hill, but nobody who looked like Thierry.

  The house lay in the village, but the streets turned confusingly upon one another. Only just ‘off the road’: it lay upon the crest of the ridge, with the land falling away steeply behind the house. From the terrace the owner would look down upon his vines, and get a pretty sunset, too. In front were armorial gateposts, but no pompous avenue or grand approach, a simple cobbled courtyard with stable buildings on either side. The ‘château’ as usual in French villages was pretty but unpretentious and as much farm as manor, built in bits and pieces in a jumble of styles, most pleasing, one or two elegant. Numerous cars were parked: there looked to be twelve to twenty guests. They left theirs outside.

  Everything was quiet. No light showed but a hospitable lamp over what looked to be the main entrance.

  "Mm," said Richard, and took Castang on a tour round the corner, where there was a bit of lawn and flowerbeds, a sundial and a horrid little octagonal summerhouse where nobody would want to sit. At the back it was better: a paved terrace with wide shallow steps led down to a formal balustrade with urns: beyond were the vines. The garden facade had the high, beautifully proportioned windows of the early eighteenth century, glimmering in the starlight. Those on the lower level, down to the ground and opening onto the terrace, were curtained but not shuttered – heavy velvet curtains. Wisps of light showed here and there: a ghost of music filtered. "Good," said Richard. The other corner, masked by shrubberies of flowering bushes, was reached by a winding gravelled path leading round to outhouses and a kitchen entrance; and so round to the front again where boots were waiting for an instruction, beyond the fringe of light.

  "No problem. A certain tact. Orthez, you and Lucciani round the back; there’s a terrace with French windows. Polite but firm, nobody is to leave that way. You have no power to prevent people leaving but they will please do so by the normal way. You, my lad," to the gendarme, "the same outside the kitchen. Liliane, you and Davignon here, rather stiff and formal; names and addresses please, identities verified on grounds of possible association with, blahblah. Anybody who high-hats, face them down. Anybody – being frightened, they’re likely to – gets stroppy, don’t argue. Refusal to cooperate noted, they will hear from the examining magistrate. Keep in mind: they won’t be happy.

  "Castang, you and Maryvonne come with me, you’ll take the women, my girl. Simply, get dressed and leave quietly: repress any incipient hysteria: the party’s over, behave in orderly fashion. No show of threat but any of the studs get bullish, Castang, use your judgement. General Dayan – is he one? – quelling discontent in the ranks." Castang did look sinister in the shadows with his black patch. "Okay? Dolce vita, here we come."

  His ring was not answered for some time. The door was opened on a chain by an old woman in slippers, who stood peering suspiciously at the business-suited Richard. He bowed politely, and said nothing.

  "Are you invited? Everybody came a long time ago.

  "Yes, I am a little late, I’m afraid." But he has a reassuring country-clubby look, Monsieur Richard. Rather English. The others had withdrawn discreetly from the sightline. She gave him a very careful looking-over.

  "Well; I s’pose… I didn’t know there was anybody to come," undoing the chain. "Hey – who’re you?" seeing the other two.

  "A business call. Fetch your master, will you?"

  "Can’t do that. Got to go to the office, tomorrow: too late now."

  "It won’t wait, I’m afraid."

  "No no, he’s engaged I say, y’ll have to leave, go on, please."

  "No question of that," sharp and hard. They walked her back: she retreated across the wide shallow hall, arms spread, defending tenaciously.

  "Can’t come in here: ‘s private. I tell you I’ll yell."

  This was getting ridiculous.

  "Do not yell," said Richard curtly. "We are police officers. You need not be frightened. Fetch Monsieur Maresq." But the old lady clung paralysed to the door handle.

  "I can’t, I tell you."

  She knew; that much was obvious. And was terrified, which was making her more obstinate still. Richard hesitated: he did not want to use force on an old peasant woman. The whole tactic was to avoid a scuffle. Without even noticing she had pressed the doorhandle down. The door did not give: undoubtedly the key was turned.

  Richard raised his hand for the knock of authority, but something had been noticed. There was no high noise level within: the door was solid, three-inch oak, fitting tightly. but one could hear the music. That worked both ways. The old woman’s voice was a high squeaky soprano; Richard’s, when raised, became sharp. Something of the altercation had filtered. The music seemed to die, or was lowered, and then was turned up again, higher. There was a short pause.

  Then the door was opened abruptly, a crack, and an angry face appeared.

  "What’s going on, out here?"

  "Business with you, Monsieur Maresq." Richard’s voice was conversational.

  He saw at once who they were: that was plain. He did not lose his head. The old woman was tiny and his face loomed over hers: her body blocked the aperture. He did not lose countenance either. He put an arm out, pushed her out of the way and said, "Off with you." He slipped out, closed the door behind him, crossed his arms and stood there frowning. He was not a big man. He was wearing an Oriental sort of djellaba, and bare feet thrust into mules. In this absurd costume he looked bigger than he was, and not ridiculous. Castang felt a certain admiration. He braced himself against the door, thrust his jaw out, and said "Well?" with aggressive concentration.

  "Commissaire Richard, Police Judiciaire. These are two of my officers. I have come to take you with me, Monsieur Maresq. There are questions for you to answer."

  "How dare you force your way in here! This is a private dwelling house. And, moreover, in the night hours. You will leave immediately. And complaint will be made against you, for abusive procedure. You are breaking and entering – bullying my staff. You’ll get an official reprimand, I can promise you that, at the very least."

  "We won’t talk about reprimands. I hold a mandate from the Judge of Instruction."

  "Judge of Instruction! What Judge, of what instruction? I’ll tell him a few home truths, too."

  "That," calmly, "in charge of the judicial enquiry into the death of Etienne Marcel." Maresq held his ground, tenaciously.

  "That must simply be some absurd and only too characteristic aberration. I shall sue for wrongful arrest, and ask the court for civil damages."

  "Don’t compel me to use force," said Richard, bored with this.

  Maresq looked at him as though sizing him up.

  "You talk about force," he said more quietly. "You come here in the middle of the night, while I am entertaining guests, and you talk about force. If that’s the way you go on I suppose I can’t resist you. You’ll answer for it though. And you will permit me to tell my guests that I am victimised by this – gestapo inquisition. You will please wait."

  "No. You will please come to your room, and put some clothes on. My officers will do all the explaining that’s necessary, to your guests."

  With Castang and Richard on either side of him, sidling him, he could not stand ground without losing more face. He opened his mouth to give a bellow but nothing came out. What was he to bellow? ‘The fuzz is here.’ ‘Sauve qui peut.’ ‘Mayday.’ Anything would be too little and too late and too ludicrous. It wasn’t Mayday, it was already may-night. Castang took hold of the handle and he and Maryvonne walked in.

  He had occupied himself on the way up with sardonic suggestions about pictures shown him at one time or another by Vera. Turkish Bath, by Ingres. Sack of Sardanopolis (he was sure he’d got that wrong) by Delacroix. Rape of Sabine Women, by – conceivably – Rubens? Déjeuner sur l’herbe, with gentlemen in frock coats, with side whiskers,
such as had greatly shocked the Academy. Around 1880 would that have been? And not Rubens surely – David, more like.

  None of these classical, romantic, or impressionist visions met his critical, ho, baudelairean eye. Nor, really, was there an orgy. All that palaver outside the door and both nymphs and satyrs had taken fright. Lasserre would be disappointed. Ladies floundering, gentlemen getting tangled in their trousers, all much delayed by frantic hurry: it doesn’t look erotic or even porny, but does look ridiculous. Well, the whole proceeding had been ridiculous up to now: might as well go on being so.

  Japanese! He had seen art from that country with this cruel attention to humiliating detail. The ungainliness of the women, looking like either sows or camels. Men jumping out of bed with nightcaps still on and putting one foot in the chamber-pot. All the beautiful people changed into lumpish creatures, the sharpest light on knock knees and hammer toes. The beautiful blonde who a minute before had been the Venus of Urbino, smiling inscrutably into a little looking-glass, gets someone’s elbow in her eye, backs doubled in anguish and gets the spout of a boiling kettle wedged in her rectum. The judge, frantically getting his robe on back to front, treads upon the dog’s tail and gets his ass grabbed. Coarse English caricatures too of the Regency time Gillray was the name. Eminent Cabinet Ministers playing Tittytitty-Bumbum. The black humour, finally, of today’s drawings – a young American Miss, hands clasped in ecstasy, beams at her birthday cake. Instead of candles, arranged in a neat ring are twelve sanitary tampons. The Hollywood athlete, whose penis has turned inexplicably into a tennis racket and has no balls left. The girl eyes it suspiciously and says ‘Double Fault’.

  Castang, stolid in his boots, wading through all this débris, now sadly detumescent.

  The air was foul. The heating had been on, of course, and the windows shut. Cigar smoke, and pot, and perfume. A buffet supper had been lined up on the tables against the wall, giving a sickening smell of food and drink. Since someone had tried opening the French windows the candles had guttered and some had blown out, adding another horrible stink. Entwined in it all was the shrill reek of changing-rooms; sweat and excitement, anticipation and fear. On court had been a lot of losers, and no winners.