by Mark Hebden
He seemed set for the day. Almost like a Paris spiv selling dirty pictures, Pel thought, and he interrupted him before he was too well launched.
‘This Doctor Robinson,’ he said. ‘Why does he live in France?’
‘He was born in France. He lived in France until the Occupation. He’s as French as I am, really, in spite of his British passport.’
‘Does he go to Britain?’
‘From time to time. He has a firm near Dover. Making the same things. He’s probably hedging his bets. If I could afford to, I would, too. If things get bad here, he can switch to there. If they go wrong there, he can switch to here. Actually, I think they’re both going well.’
‘Good to work for?’
‘He understands France.’
‘It makes a change,’ Pel observed. ‘Most Englishmen regard us as savages.’
‘Not these days. A few who come here to see him can actually speak French. I was in London not long ago for him and I found quite a lot. At least three.’
‘What about Cormon? Can you tell us any more about him? Ever seem worried?’
Rivard considered. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Often seemed tired, though. But it’s a long way from here to Evanay where he lived. I think he was a worrying kind, too. Besides—’
‘Besides what?’
‘Well, those horses of his: He never seemed to pick a winner. It must have been a bit depressing.’
Pel glanced about him. ‘There are girls working here,’ he pointed out. ‘Did he ever go out with any of them?’
‘Not that I ever heard of. He was single, though, so if he did he was entitled to if he wished.’
‘I wondered if he’d ever been in any trouble with any of them?’
‘What sort of trouble?’
Pel frowned. ‘What sort of trouble do men usually get into with girls?’ he said.
As they left, Elodie Guillemin smiled at Darcy. ‘We’re always here if you want us,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’ve only to telephone.’
In the car, Pel seethed with resentment at the ease with which Darcy picked up girls.
‘One of these days,’ he said bitterly, ‘one of your affairs is going to blow up in your face.’
Darcy shrugged. ‘What if it does, Patron? I’m not married. They can’t send me to prison. And I never tamper with married women. Too dangerous.’
‘You’re too damned skilful at it,’ Pel said bitterly, his mind full of worms with his envy.
‘Of course,’ Darcy was even smug about it. ‘But sex is an ailment you can only cure by indulgence in it. I’m a phallocrat.’ He glanced out of the corner of his eye. ‘How are you getting on with Judge Brisard?’
‘That one needs a transplant,’ Pel growled. ‘A head transplant. He insists on seeing everybody we question. I’ve already sent him Nosjean, Foulot, Madame Clarétie and Inspector Pomereu. Doc Minet reckoned he could keep him occupied for a good hour, too.’ He smiled and cocked his head. ‘I reckon that young man back there – Jean-Pierre Rivard – would also enjoy a day talking to a juge d’instruction, don’t you? He ought to keep him occupied for the best part of the morning.’
Darcy grinned. ‘You don’t like him much, do you, Patron?’
Pel gave a sour smile. ‘If I had rabies,’ he said, ‘I’d probably bite him.’
Back in the city, while Darcy covered the office, Pel treated himself to lunch at the Relais St Armand where he indulged in andouillettes, the tripe sausage of the region. It could hardly be called a luxury dish but Pel had a weakness for them and the Relais St Armand sold a splendid chablis which left your mouth feeling as if it had been worked over by a rasp.
Reading the paper as he ate, he saw that the attack on Philippe le Bozec, of the Ministry of Defence, had got under way again and he was having a sticky time explaining to his constituents what he’d been doing in a brothel in Paris that was frequented by foreign attachés, when he ought to have been busy attending to their needs. He represented Muzillac, a district on the eastern fringes of Brittany, which Pel knew to be a good respectable place, solidly religious, small and narrow-minded. Despite the influx of tourists, Bretons remained stubborn, hard-headed, moral and pious, and even if they might secretly envy their representative, they would nevertheless not hesitate to pillory him for stepping from the straight and narrow. Pel knew the district well because eighteen months before a naval officer with extravagant tastes and a spendthrift wife had been involved in a secrets case. It had led into a few tortuous areas, and a bar owner had been found murdered in a burned-out boat drifting in the mouth of the Loire. It was well-known the two cases were connected but nobody had ever discovered who had killed him and the naval officer, who had gone to prison for his trouble, had never talked.
Le Bozec’s scandal was enough, Pel decided, to make his Breton ancestors spin in their graves like humming tops, but, he suspected, there was a good chance that the erring Under-Secretary would get away with it. With the Tour de France now well under way, everything tended to be overlooked in the spectacle of a hundred-odd lunatics hurtling round the country, each trying to go faster than all the others. The newspapers were describing the event in the Biblical metaphors for which French reporters were famous. A boil on a rider’s behind became his ‘calvary’ and his agony equivalent to that of the Crucifixion, which even to Pel, who was far from an ardent churchgoer, was going too far.
The Belgian, Van der Essen, seemed to be doing the leading in every stage, he noticed. Still, Pel thought, the Belgians were known to be stupid. Perhaps that’s why they went in for winning bicycle races. Everybody knew the stories about them: Like the one who was carrying a car door in the desert and, when asked why, said ‘Well, if it grows too hot, I can wind the window down’. Or the one who was carrying a heavy stone in the jungle so that if a lion came he could drop it and run faster.
When he reappeared in the street, the harsh midday sun had changed to the mellow gold of afternoon. The city looked at its best, the enamelled tiles of the famous rooftops glowing in the brilliant daylight which, in Burgundy, always seemed to have a special quality. Like the countryside, he thought proudly. Like the wine. Like Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel.
The pale stone front of the Palais des Ducs shone like gold, the red, white and blue of the flag flying over the entrance a splash of colour against the mass of stonework. It even managed to make Pel feel optimistic. Remembering Darcy’s success with Elodie Guillemin, he decided life was shooting by at an alarming rate while he, Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, was still dependent entirely on Madame Routy. The only good thing about Madame Routy was that she had a nephew, Didier Darras, who turned up occasionally to stay with his aunt when his mother, her sister, disappeared to look after an ailing father-in-law. But Didier Darras, it seemed, had vanished on a month-long visit with his school to stay with the parents of the boys of an English school. A Burgundian to the core, Pel couldn’t imagine why anyone should wish to go to England or, for that matter, even cross the border into the neighbouring provinces of Aube, Haute Marne, Haute Saône, Jura and all the rest.
It seemed he would have to take his courage into his hands and go and see Madame Faivre-Perret. Diving into the first florist’s he came to, he bought eleven long-stalked red roses. The price rocked him back on his heels and he very nearly changed his mind.
Nanette’s, the hairdressing establishment Madame FaivrePerret ran, was the best in the city, customered by all who were wealthy enough to be able to afford it and quite a few who weren’t. It was a hotbed of gossip from which Pel had managed to acquire more than one titbit of information which had stood him in good stead and now he was well known and not even regarded askance when he appeared at the door.
The girl at the desk beyond the gauze curtains that decorated the front of the premises went into raptures over the flowers.
‘Oh, Monsieur l’Inspecteur,’ she crowed. ‘English roses! How beautiful! For Madame?’
‘Of course!’ The reaction quite overcame the resentment
Pel had felt at the price.
‘She’ll be thrilled! She loves English things!’
At that price, Pel felt, it needed a little rapture. He waited. The girl waited. Pel was puzzled. He was expecting to be shown upstairs to the office Madame Faivre-Perret maintained. To Pel, being shown upstairs always made him think of going to bed and conjured up all sorts of erotic visions.
Still the girl waited. In the end, she reached out for the flowers.
‘She’ll be so pleased,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell her about them on the telephone.’
Pel’s jaw dropped. ‘On the telephone?’
‘Yes. She rings every evening. It’s such a pity, because she had to go to Vitteaux. She has an old aunt there who’s just died and she’s going to be away for a while sorting out her affairs.’
Pel almost snatched the roses back. Perhaps, he thought wildly, he could return them to the shop and get his money back. Only his good sense restrained him because he would still need the good will of Madame Faivre-Perret when she returned. Regretfully, he watched them placed on one side and returned the girl’s friendly smile with a sick look. No cup of tea. No climb up the stairs. No fantasies today.
Bitterly he stalked back to the Hôtel de Police. What, he wondered, did one have to do to get a love life off the ground? No Didier Darras. No Madame Faivre-Perret. France seemed to be coming off its hinges. It wasn’t even August, when it was expected that nobody would be home. In August the whole country seemed to switch places. Nobody who was anybody in Paris would be seen dead there at the weekend but wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else during the week – save in August, when they disappeared to their country homes, to the sea, to the mountains, or to strange foreign countries which couldn’t possibly be half as good as France.
He regarded it as most inconsiderate of Madame Faivre-Perret’s aunt to die just when he was on the point of arriving with a token of his regard, so that Madame Faivre-Perret had disappeared to Vitteaux, probably for ever – Pel was a born pessimist – causing him to fork out an unconscionable number of francs for a bunch of red roses she was never going to see.
He wished she’d hurry and get her affairs in order. He needed a little feminine company. It was only since he’d met Madame Faivre-Perret that he’d realised how starved of it he’d become, because Madame Routy could hardly be called feminine company. She was never company and sometimes he even wondered if she were feminine.
He remembered that the girl at Nanette’s had said that Madame Faivre-Perret liked English things. Perhaps, he thought, it would be a good idea by the time she returned to have taken to a pipe and a walking stick and one of those caps that looked like a chequered plate. For a moment, wildly, he wondered if he might even try a dog.
Nine
Pel arrived early at the Hôtel de Police next day. Madame Routy had been at her most intransigent the night before and the television had been on so continuously he had become convinced she was trying for a takeover bid. The evening meal had been dreadful and to crown everything he had slept badly. Sleeping badly, he felt, indicated he was succeeding at his job but it was nevertheless a bore.
In a thoroughly bad temper, he complained bitterly to the Chief that they were still short-handed since Krauss’ death and that it was time a replacement was delivered, tore Misset a strip off for no reason at all, and even snapped at Sergeant Lagé, who, as usual was working twice as hard as he need, simply because he was ardent and willing. The work, as usual, was mostly Misset’s.
Feeling better, he snatched up Darcy and they headed for Rambillard. If nothing else, he thought, he might be able to work out his ill temper on Doctor Robinson. After all he wasn’t a Burgundian – not even a Frenchman – and was therefore probably so stupid it wouldn’t matter. Besides, he’d heard Darcy had a date with a girl and had decided maliciously that it would teach him not to take things too much for granted.
He wasn’t sure what he expected of the Englishman, but he was certainly disappointed. Sure enough, Robinson lived up to Pel’s impression of a potato-faced Anglo-Saxon because he had no special features which made him easily recognisable – merely a space with eyes and a nose, and a voice like a foghorn that he didn’t attempt to restrain. On the other hand, much to Pel’s annoyance, because he’d always had a good French chauvinistic belief that his was the only nation in the world which bothered to learn foreign languages, he spoke French perfectly, even with a Burgundian accent with rolled ‘r’s’ and everything. He was clearly brainy, and, what was more, immediately offered coffee with excellent brandy and suggested they stay to lunch. The lunch was also excellent, with a splendid wine and more brandy to follow. By the time they’d finished, Pel even had a warm feeling towards the British and was prepared, if necessary, to admit that the Queen, despite the fact that she couldn’t touch a French President’s wife when it came to chic, at least had dignity and charm.
Only when they were feeling truly mellow would Robinson deign to talk about Cormon.
‘I didn’t know him very well, of course,’ he admitted. ‘I leave the running of the place at Montbard to young Rivard. He’s a very capable young man. A little brash, perhaps, a little self-seeking, a little too ambitious – perhaps even none too honest – but he keeps the place ticking over very happily and these days that’s something.’
He offered cigars and sat back. ‘Cormon came to me asking for a job. Rivard said we could use somebody so I took him on. I hear he lost his wages regularly on horses.’
‘He did.’
‘Well, that, of course, was not my business. Sometimes he went to Paris. That again was none of my business but he’d never talk about it. I often heard the other employees pulling his leg. Perhaps he had a woman there; I don’t know. And then there was this character who used to meet him outside sometimes when he finished. The others said – again in fun, of course – that he was being blackmailed.’
Considering he had a record, Pel decided, they might possibly have been right.
‘Which character was this?’ he asked.
‘Well—’ Robinson shrugged his shoulders ‘—he was only a character in so far as he didn’t look local. He drove a large Citroën and he was very smartly dressed. Montbard isn’t big enough for people to be dressed as he was dressed.’
‘Know his name?’
‘I once heard Cormon call him Rambot. It may not have been his real name. I just heard Cormon say “Look here, Rambot – ”, like that. As if they were arguing. That’s all. I was going to my car and I didn’t take any notice.’
‘Did you know this Rambot?’
‘No. I saw him two or three times, that’s all.’
‘Do you think he could have been a representative of some other manufacturer after your secrets?’
Robinson’s eyes flickered then he laughed. It sounded like a horse neighing. ‘We haven’t any secrets,’ he said. ‘Not in Montbard, anyway. I do my experimental work here. It only goes to Montbard when it’s being produced in numbers and by that time it’s not very secret because it’s been acquired under contract.’
Curious, Pel began to enquire about Robinson himself.
‘Of course I live in France,’ he said. ‘Of course I chose Burgundy. I was born in Beaune because my father was a wine importer and preferred to spend his time where the grapes grew. I have my works at Montbard merely because there happened to be a convenient site available.’
‘But you live here?’ Pel made it a question.
Robinson gestured down the garden to where they could see the glitter of the sun on a wide expanse of water.
‘Because the Lac des Getons is here,’ he said. ‘And I wish to sail.’ He looked at Pel. ‘Do you sail, Inspector?’
Pel, to whom anything that wasn’t terra firma was a dangerous element, shook his head.
‘You should,’ Robinson said. ‘That’s one of the points about the British. Nowhere is it more than two hundred-odd kilometres from the sea. Everybody knows about boats. In France it’s much more difficult, bu
t since the authorities have permitted the use of lakes and dams for the sport it’s growmg, and there are far more Frenchmen who’ve become sailors. That’s also why I’m here.’
Pel lifted his eyebrows, and Robinson smiled.
‘I make parts for electronic aids to sailors,’ he said.
‘Such as?’
‘Switches.’
‘Light switches?’
Robinson laughed. ‘Oh, no. Switches in the other sense. I discovered a new means by which it’s possible to reverse currents and I’ve used it to give an added measure of security to self-sailing devices for long-distance yachts. Loick Fougeron was one of my customers. It can be used in various ways and I have a small workshop here, where I employ only one assistant and do all my experimenting. The device – I won’t go into details – can be used for lifts and for changing programmes on televisions. Do you have a television, inspector?’
Pel eyed Robinson with new eyes. Anybody who contributed to the improvement of something which made his life a misery had to be an enemy.
‘You’ve seen what the Americans call blab-off switches?’ Robinson went on. ‘It’s a device that was invented to switch off the sound during the commercials. Nowadays you can also change programmes. My device’s used in some of these. I’m working on an improvement at this moment. I didn’t go in for wine like my father. I turned out to be an engineer instead. And I work in France because France’s bigger than England and it’s possible to get further away from people. My gadgets sometimes have – er—’ he paused ‘—well, let’s say they have enormous value and could be of great use to people for whom they weren’t intended.’
Industrial spying?’ Darcy said.
Robinson hesitated then he smiled. ‘You might call it that,’ he said.
‘It seems to me,’ Pel said as they drove back, ‘that this Rambot might be the key to the whole thing.’