by Mark Hebden
It pleased him. Then he noticed there was a note to go with it, which pleased him even more and he turned and gestured at the television. The Tour de France when he was about to read the only letter he’d received from a woman in years was like sacrilege.
Madame Routy sullenly turned down the volume but she didn’t turn it off.
The note was disappointing. Hardly worth the effort of moving the switch. ‘I have heard about the roses. Though I fear I shall not manage to return in time to see them, I am very touched. I’m afraid I shall be here for some time yet, but when I do return I hope you’ll call round and take tea with me. Geneviève Faivre-Perret.’ It could hardly be called a love-letter and there wasn’t a lot that was heart-stirring. Try as he might, Pel found it hard to read much into it. It might, by a wide stretch of the imagination, hint that she was dying to reappear in Pel’s sphere of influence and was longing to see him again, but in his heart of hearts he couldn’t really feel that it did. At least, the roses had touched her, though people could be touched by being helped across the road.
Pel sighed. And she’d be in Vitteaux for some time yet. If Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel had been Menelaus and Madame Faivre-Perret had been Helen of Troy and he’d led the Greek fleet to rescue her, he’d probably arrive to find she’d gone off to the country for the day to visit her aunt, or that somebody had done for Castor and Pollux and there was a message for him to return home at once to lead the enquiry. Romance didn’t seem to intrude very far into Pel’s life.
‘Anything important?’ Madame Routy asked.
‘No,’ Pel said, determined that she at least shouldn’t bandy his affairs around. She already suspected him of having a mistress somewhere and considered he was off to an illicit love affair every time he put on his best suit. He looked at the letter again. Sadly, he decided there wasn’t anything in it. He almost began to wish Didier Darras would turn up. Between them, they could always reduce Madame Routy to a state of explosive fury by disappearing just when she’d cooked a meal. At the very least, they could have played scrabble in the kitchen, which was always better than trying to read through the clamour of the television. Even when Madame Routy watched a programme on the Churches of France, she made it sound like the attack on the Malakoff.
As he’d expected, it was a wearing night. It wasn’t the Churches of France that Madame Routy was watching. It was a quiz competition and the sheer fatuousness of it drove Pel early to bed. The following morning, in a foul temper, he arrived at the office to find the telephone already ringing.
It was Madame de Saint-Bruie again and the shock was as powerful as last time, while the screech down the telephone like an eagle stooping to its prey – almost shattered his eardrum.
‘My dear Mijo tells me you were in this area yesterday,’ she yelled. ‘Your young man came to see her. Why didn’t you come to see me?’
Pel hummed and hahed over an excuse. It sounded shamelessly made-up, but she seemed not to notice. ‘I had to know, – Evariste,’ she shouted. ‘I had to know. Have you unearthed any clues yet?’
It left Pel feeling faintly dazed. To have one woman requesting his presence was extraordinary, to have two was unbelievable.
Madame de Saint-Bruie was a new experience for Pel. Unusual, daring, slightly weird. But obviously wealthy. To a policeman as poor as Pel considered himself to be, wealth was important. She’d talked of a houseful of treasures. What was more, she’d kissed him. It was a long time since Pel had been kissed and it was an explosive experience. And there was no getting away from the fact – she appeared to be interested in him. She telephoned. She wanted to know how he was, what he was doing. For all her quiet elegance, Madame Faivre-Perret seemed to show a curious indifference. Bachelordom had long since palled for Pel; he needed to be needed, and Madame de Saint-Bruie seemed to be indicating the way.
He was still sitting at his desk, his eyes blank, when Nosjean put his head round the door. He held a newspaper.
‘Patron,’ he said, ‘have you seen this?’
Pel lifted his head. ‘What is it? Jacqmin turns out to be a member of the Ecole du Louvre in disguise?’
Nosjean gave a twisted smile. ‘Not quite, Patron. But you’d better look at it.’
The newspaper was the one Darcy had been reading, the front plastered with the details of the shooting in Paris.
‘This is of interest to us?’ Pel said. ‘Like insurrections, assassinations in Paris are nothing new. They’ve happened too often before.’
‘All the same,’ Nosjean said, ‘just take it into your office, Patron, and read it through. I’ll wait outside.’
Pel read the story carefully, wondering what Nosjean had found. It didn’t seem to have much connection with the châteaux robberies, the loss of the panel at St Sauvigny or Cormon’s death on the hill down to Destres. It seemed to be connected with an unannounced visit of the Prime Minister of Great Britain to the President of the Republic. The visit seemed to concern some projected getting-together over arms, which in itself was quite an occasion, considering De Gaulle had taken France out of Nato some years before. The meeting, it seemed, was to duplicate weapons as a means of standardising training and generally to pull up a few socks in the West in face of the danger from the East. Pel read on, puzzled.
The dead man, it seemed, was a British official by the name of John Ford, and he had been shot while the Prime Minister and the President had been dining together. With his chief safely surrounded by the security forces of the Republic, he had stepped out of the Elysée Palace into the Faubourg St Honoré; to be met with a fusillade of bullets which had killed him at once.
It was the next paragraph that made Pel sit up. Men had been seen running away and shots had been exchanged. As was usual in such cases, a civilian or two had been hit and slightly wounded but, with the security men shooting better than normally, one of the assailants had been killed. He had not yet been identified but in his possession had been found drawings of the dead British official, obviously provided as an identification.
Pel folded the paper carefully and called for Nosjean and Darcy. All the warmth he’d been feeling was dispersed and he was coldly efficient again.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
He looked at them as cigarettes were passed round.
‘I begin to think we might have put our foot into something we didn’t expect,’ he said slowly. ‘This looks a bit bigger than industrial espionage, bigger even than robbing châteaux.’ He looked at Nosjean. ‘This clearly struck a chord, mon brave. You were thinking of the quick sketch that was done yesterday by our friend, Jacqmin, and were wondering if this sketch they found in Paris was done by the same man.’
Nosjean nodded. ‘That’s right, Patron.’
Pel looked at Darcy. ‘These gadgets Cormon was involved in making,’ he said. ‘Could they be explosive devices? For assassinations? There was some talk, wasn’t there, of one of them looking like a switch. Could it be a trigger device?’
Darcy shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know, Patron, but it’s my guess it could.’
Pel stared at his blotter for a moment then he lifted his head, brisk and on the ball, the efficient half of his dual personality well to the fore. ‘Better get a message off to Paris,’ he said. ‘Tell them what we’ve stumbled on. Make it tentative for the moment, because so far we have no proof. In the meantime, Nosjean, get in touch with the police at Châlon-sur-Saône. Tell them to pick up Jacqmin.’
There was a tenseness about the office as the morning wore on. It involved talking to Brisard, which was unfortunate, but Polverari had returned and Pel asked him with his experience and influence to sit in on the conference, too, and to bring the Chief.
‘Why wasn’t I told of this?’ Brisard tried at once to be difficult, but Polverari shut him up immediately.
‘Because it was only in the papers this morning,’ he said. Though Polverari was small and fat and smiled more than most, he was shrewd and could be as sharp as anyone when he wished.
�
�I should have been given an opportunity to talk to this man, Jacqmin.’
‘Doubtless, in good time, you will,’ Polverari said. ‘How much do you think this Jacqmin was involved in the business in Paris, Inspector?’
‘So far,’ Pel said, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. It might be nothing more than a coincidence. But it seems worth investigating, because whatever this thing’s about in Paris, it’s bigger than what we’ve been involved in so far in this area. This Englishman seems to be some sort of secret military adviser to the British Prime Minister and that takes us out of the realms of industrial espionage into international terrorism, which is a different thing altogether.’
As they talked, there was a knock on the door and Nosjean appeared, pink and flushed as if he’d been hurrying.
‘Châlon rang up, Patron,’ he said. ‘Jacqmin’s disappeared. His girlfriend Léonie Sars, by name – doesn’t know where he is. He went out last night, soon after they’d been watching the news on television – that’s when the first report of the incident in Paris was given, it seems – and he didn’t come back. She said he seemed upset.
‘He can’t be far away,’ the Chief said, brisk and commanding at once. ‘He’s got to be found. Put out a general request to all forces and all sub-stations, Nosjean. In the meantime, Pel, under the circumstances, I think we’d better let Paris know that your suspicions appear to have been confirmed.’
The atmosphere in the office was electric and when Lagé appeared to ask how much longer he had to parade up and down between the Hôtel Central and the works of Louis-Napoléon Pissarro, he was told to get on with it and not argue. When Misset appeared, mistaking the silence in Pel’s office for calm, to demand the night off, he received the mother and father of a dressing down.
‘If you find plain clothes work so wearing,’ Pel snapped, ‘I can always arrange for you to go back to the uniformed branch and have you put on traffic control at the Porte Guillaume.’
Misset vanished at full speed.
Everything seemed to have come to a stop. Nosjean and Darcy were still pursuing their enquiries but they were avoiding getting in too deeply, in case their presence was demanded elsewhere in a hurry, and they sat at their desks with their ears cocked for the first cries of alarm. It was noticeable that neither of them got involved with telephone calls to girls. For a change Odile Chenandier, Charlotte Rampling and Mijo Lehmann were not in Nosjean’s mind and when the girl from the university rang up asking for Darcy, he told the man on the switchboard to tell her he was out on an enquiry.
None of them knew quite what direction the reaction from Paris would take and when it finally manifested itself, it surprised them all. The roof fell in. Pel was summoned to report at once to New Scotland Yard in London.
Fourteen
‘London?’
Pel was shocked. London was at the other end of the earth. The fact that he could fly direct from the city to Gatwick in a matter of two or three hours and be in London an hour later was immaterial. London was in England and England was not only outside Burgundy, it was outside France and, like a delicate wine, Pel considered that he didn’t travel well.
Shaken, he went home, put on the suit he kept for the day when he met the President of the Republic – just in case he had occasion to greet the Queen of England – and packed a small suitcase.
‘You going away?’ Madame Routy asked.
‘Yes.’ Pel said.
‘Holiday?’
‘No. Business. London.’
‘You’ll be away a day or two then?’
Gloomily, Pel admitted that this was more than likely and Madame Routy smiled. With Pel away that long, she could really enjoy herself with the television, merely doing a quick skip round the house with a duster just before he returned.
‘When are you due back?’ she asked, making her preparations already.
‘I don’t know.’ Pel wasn’t too depressed not to respond at once to the challenge. ‘It might be two days. Or three. Or a week. It might be tomorrow.’ If she didn’t know when he was due to return she’d have to remain on her toes – at least, as far as Madame Routy ever remained on her toes.
Returning to the office, he found Polverari waiting to greet him.
‘They want you to go to Buckingham Palace,’ the judge smiled. ‘To receive the Order of the Garter.’
Pel wished he could.
As they talked, Brisard came in. ‘You’re going to London, I hear,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll go straight home and pack. You’ll need me with you. Legal affairs need legal minds. I’m involved in the case. Deeply involved.’ Brisard managed to make it sound as if he’d been doing all the leg work.
Pel glared bitterly at him. It would be nice, he thought, if it could be arranged for a steam roller to drive over him – slowly.
Polverari caught the expression on his face and turned to Brisard. ‘You consider this your affair?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ Brisard had no doubt. ‘It’s far too important to leave to a mere policeman.
Polverari looked at Pel. ‘Tiens,’ he said. ‘Les clichés.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘The instructions, Pel.’
Pel handed over the telex that had come from Paris. As Brisard turned to the door Polverari looked up. ‘One moment, my friend,’ he said. He held up the telex and read it out. ‘“Inspector Pel to report at once to New Scotland Yard, London. To see Commander Fergusson.”’ He looked up again at Brisard. ‘Do I see any mention of Judge Aristide Brisard?’ His eyebrows rose. ‘No, I don’t. This,’ he said cheerfully, ‘is nothing to do with you, my young friend.’
A plane was leaving the city late that afternoon and Pel was pushed aboard, faintly awed at the importance he seemed suddenly to have acquired. He arrived at Gatwick to find the red carpet laid out for him. New Scotland Yard weren’t wasting time. A young man was standing by the steps as he emerged from the plane and whisked him through Customs before the other passengers had even started to head for the terminal building.
‘I’m Inspector Goschen,’ he introduced himself in passable French. ‘Charles Goschen. I’m taking you home to my place for the night. My wife’s expecting us. I hope you enjoy English food. I’m to wheel you in to see Fergusson first thing in the morning.’
Inspector Goschen lived in a large semi-detached house in a quiet side street. The houses around all looked much the same and the evening was full of golden-bronze light and the sound of birds. In France, Pel reflected, they would probably have been shot by some eager hunter determined to add them to his bag. French huntsmen shot at anything that moved, whatever its size, sometimes even at each other.
Goschen’s wife was about the age of Madame Faivre-Perret and he was surprised to find she was quite neat and smart. The house was bright and colourful, and there were two young children who were vastly intrigued by Pel’s accent. It made Pel wonder what qualities one had to have to acquire such a wealth of comfort and happiness.
The meal, better than he’d ever dreamed the British could manage, consisted of roast beef and something he’d never heard of before, called Yorkshire pudding, and it all appeared on the same plate, which hitherto he had considered a barbaric British habit but now, charmed by Goschen’s wife, he felt was merely a delicate touch.
Goschen produced an unexpectedly good wine and afterwards, because it was still warm, they went outside to have coffee on the lawn. Pel studied the immaculate garden with its roses and flower beds and the grass that looked like green velvet. It made his own lawn look like the stubble of a cornfield.
‘It is permitted to walk on it?’ he asked.
The following morning, as Goschen had promised, he was wheeled in to Commander Fergusson, who was an older man with greying hair and a clipped moustache. Coffee was produced and they got down to business with Goschen standing with his back to the door so that no one came in.
‘Do you know who this man is who was shot in Paris, Inspector?’ Fergusson asked.
‘I have his name,’ Pel said. ‘John Ford.’
Fergusson frowned. ‘That’s the name he goes under. His real name’s something else entirely. But that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t an IRA shooting, of course. It’s been made to look like one but it isn’t. It’s connected with arms and arms secrets, but I won’t go into that too much. Just sufficiently to say that your country and ours are trying at last to come to terms with each other instead of competing. You have a few secrets and so do we. The meeting between our prime minister and your president was to conclude the arrangements. It was somewhat marred by the shooting of Ford. Fortunately for the relations between the two countries, an incident wasn’t entirely unexpected, though it was thought the Prime Minister or the President rather than Ford would be the target.’
‘Why was he shot?’ Pel asked.
‘Because clearly it’s to the advantage of what I might call our enemies to prevent the exchange of secrets taking place. Ford was well aware of the people who were involved.’
‘Do we know them?’
‘Unfortunately, not for certain. Ford played his cards close to his chest.’
‘Please?’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Fergusson gestured. ‘I meant he was secretive about what he was doing, because he had to be. We thought he was quite unknown but someone clearly identified him and we think we know when. There was another unannounced meeting in Paris recently. Between the two Defence Ministers on the same subject. Ford was with our man. Because it was unannounced and because Ford wished as usual to remain anonymous, he was kept well away from the press and we know no one was able to photograph him because vehicles were placed so that no one could use a zoom lens. It’s possible a secret camera picked him up, though, and that the drawings which identified him were made from that. Though we doubt that, because there would be no point in changing a photograph to the less certain medium of a drawing. I gather now you’ve turned up some dubious character who specialises in this sort of thing. Instant portraits.’