Box of Bones (A Captain Darac Novel 3)

by Peter Morfoot

  ‘Is Laure on something?’ he whispered to Elise.

  ‘If she is, I hope she keeps taking it.’

  As Didier started a droll routine on the theme of the over-commercialisation of music, Darac took the SG off its stand. It was second nature to him to check that the guitar’s pick-up volume controls were set to zero before he connected it to the amp – failing to do so created a loud grating buzz that no one wanted to hear. The controls on zero, he sat down and picked up the lead. The jack plug stabbed blindly around the socket on the guitar as he tried to catch Charlie’s eye.

  ‘Hey! That was fabulous. Super hot.’

  ‘I want that in writing.’ Charlie’s eyebrows rose, making ledger lines high up on her forehead. ‘And how about that return you played? It was amazing.’

  Her assessment catching Darac off guard, he held on to the jack plug for a moment. ‘Amazingly boring, you mean.’

  ‘No – it was… monumental. I haven’t heard you do anything like that for a long time.’

  At the mike, Didier was nearing his punchline. ‘So don’t line their pockets, everyone – line ours.’ A ripple ran around the audience, even though most of them had heard variants of it before. ‘Yes, our CDs are on sale at the desk, reasonably priced at ten euros. And we’ll sign them at no extra cost.’ He looked across at Darac. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Okay this is “Blues For Philly Joe”. And it’s going to feature two of our very hottest hotshots: drummer Marco Portami… and guitarist Paul Darac.’

  Applause. Jacques Telonne smiled to the room and glanced at his watch. Frènes yawned behind his well-manicured hand. Laure’s cheeks flushed. She craned forward.

  Darac finally inserted the lead into the SG’s socket. Click. His hand went to the neck pick-up volume control.

  ‘Chief?’

  He turned. ‘Bonbon? What…?’

  ‘I’m really sorry, mate.’

  41

  It was 9.30 and the streets were practically deserted. Buffeting wind and lashing rain will do that even to a place as beautiful as Villefranche-sur-Mer.

  Windscreen wipers barely coping with the deluge, Bonbon turned toward the foot of a high, buttressed wall. In his rear-view mirror, the blurred mass of the Citadelle Saint-Elme sank into the darkness like a whale going down in the ocean.

  ‘Thought it better to stop you before you got started, chief. Examining Magistrate Reboux asked for you personally. Didn’t think I could say no.’

  ‘It’s fine. In fact, you saved me. I’m playing in a whole new style at the moment – shit with a monumental twist.’

  Bonbon slowed, the dripping stonework blooming brighter in his headlights as he drew tight in to the wall. ‘It’s better than monumental shit, I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ Darac slipped on his police armband. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Around to the other side of the Citadelle. The body is either on the paved walkway that runs alongside the water, or it might be on the rocks below it. The guy that phoned in on his mobile had a really bad signal. They could hardly make out a word he said.’

  Darac glanced at the fortress-like structure morphing into abstract shapes on the rain-streaked rear screen. ‘All that masonry in the way, I guess.’

  ‘Yes. Perand’s with him. Or should be by now.’

  Bonbon reached for his police-issue cap. Using the peak for leverage, he ratcheted it hard down on to his skull. The bird’s nest of copper wire that was his hair had other ideas. The cap immediately began to rise.

  ‘You need a chin strap.’

  Bonbon kept his hand firmly on the crown of the cap as he got out of the car. ‘This hair of mine. Talk about a blessing and a curse.’

  ‘What’s the blessing part?’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Leaning into stinging spits of rain, the pair set off along the void between the buttressed outer and inner walls of the Citadelle. It was like walking through a wind tunnel.

  ‘One good thing about a filthy night,’ Bonbon shouted. ‘No rubberneckers.’

  ‘We’re not at the scene yet.’

  Pulling the lapels of his leather jacket together, Darac glanced up at the sloping inner walls of the Citadelle. He wondered how many poor sods had been hurled to their deaths off its battlements over the centuries. Maybe that was what they would find waiting for them around the other side.

  The walls extended to a narrow, turret-capped corner. Walking beneath it was like rounding the prow of a stone battleship. With every step, the wind tunnel effect eased but it was still a wild night. Ahead, lights danced on the choppy Rade de Villefranche like tinsel scattered on black satin. Black satin bounded by red cordon tape. The waterside walkway began at a wrought-iron gate. Next to it, a soft-walled shelter the size of a sentry box had been set up. Standing in it was a familiar figure wearing white hooded overalls.

  ‘Hi, Patricia.’

  ‘How’d you like my new on-site accommodation?’ She struck a pose like a trade-show model. ‘White. One-person. Strong but lightweight material. Good, huh?’

  ‘Lovely.’ Darac signed in and held the clipboard for Bonbon. ‘White-clad gatekeeper; white walls; a stack of white garments waiting to be dispensed to new arrivals. All you’re missing is St Peter.’

  ‘He’s gone for coffees.’ She took back the clipboard. ‘If by St Peter you mean the big, burly officer who’s meant to be guarding me.’

  Darac scanned the terrain. ‘You’re vulnerable here. He shouldn’t have left you.’

  ‘He’ll be back in a minute. Besides, I’m armed.’

  ‘Who’s stationed at the other end of the walkway?’

  ‘Emil. And he’s not happy. No nice new shelter for him.’

  Darac grinned at the pleasure in her voice. ‘You’re a wicked woman. So what have we got, Patricia?’

  ‘A hanging. That’s all I know.’

  ‘The person who found the body around?’

  ‘He lives back that way.’ To her left, a flight of steps descended away from the Citadelle toward the Port de la Darse. Halfway down, a landing gave on to a lane. ‘Perand’s with him.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll take a look at the body first.’

  A sudden gust lashed Patricia’s shelter but it remained anchored to the spot.

  ‘You warm enough in that thing?’ Bonbon said.

  ‘Only because of my thermals.’ She dispensed a couple of sets of overalls. ‘You didn’t need to know that but I’ve stopped caring.’

  Bonbon handed her a paper bag in exchange. ‘Keep them. Aniseed twists.’

  She unwrapped one immediately. ‘You married, Bonbon?’

  ‘Twenty years, nearly.’

  ‘Pity.’ She gave Darac a most unholy grin. ‘It’s one revelation after another this evening, isn’t it?’

  Another gust ripping through, Bonbon shivered like a Chihuahua whose owner had forgotten its waistcoat. ‘Hang on – you’re married as well, aren’t you?’

  ‘Twenty-two years. Slipped my mind for a moment.’

  ‘Ai, ai, ai.’

  Darac clocked a uniform with outstretched arms emerging at the top of the steps.

  ‘St Peter’s back. We’d better get to it.’

  He glanced at the first signature on Patricia’s sheet. It belonged to pathologist Carl Barrau.

  ‘He’s a new man since you tore him off a strip, Captain. He’s even more obnoxious.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Stay warm, sweetheart.’

  The walkway under the seaward wall of the Citadelle was too narrow for a proper pathology tent so the team had set up a structure of screens and breaks instead. As Darac and Bonbon drew close, a flashgun fired a shadow-play of forms on to the rippling fabric. Downwind of the entrance, a pair of jocular figures were enjoying a crafty smoke. Darac recognised them as the two morgue boys from the Alain Saxe murder.

  ‘Alright, guys? How’s your hearing tonight?’

  ‘Better wait and see, Captain.’

  ‘So i
t’s a hanging?’

  ‘A bloke. Middle-aged. Fully clothed.’

  ‘Dressed for outdoors?’

  ‘Yeah but that’s about all we know, really. Only just got here.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘We’ll be in directly, Captain. If he wants to know.’

  Its face to the wall, the body was hanging from a lantern bracket cast in the form of an anchor. Peering intently at the corpse’s neck, the thin-limbed figure of Carl Barrau was clinging anxiously to a ladder set up alongside it.

  Exuding his usual bonhomie, pathology lab assistant Lami Toto stepped pleasantly forward. ‘Hello, Captain. Lieutenant.’

  ‘Good to see you.’

  Lami took a breath but Darac stopped him – Barrau using an assistant as a shield was a thing of the past.

  ‘A moment, Lami.’ Darac turned to the wall. ‘Good evening, Dr Barrau.’

  No response. But the man was hanging off a ladder all of a half-metre from the floor.

  ‘Who? How? When? Any preliminary thoughts, Doctor?’

  The morgue boys came back in at that moment. Excluding Barrau and the corpse, there were now five people at the scene. All eyes turned to the ladder. As if the four rungs he had to descend constituted a Man on Wire-style challenge, Barrau clung on for dear life as he went for it. After a dodgy moment on rung two, he made it. It took a special sort of person to metamorphose from quivering jelly to arrogant stuffed shirt but in the blink of an eye, Barrau aced it.

  ‘Follow me, Captain,’ he said, walking away. ‘You also, Busquet. We’ll need three more sets of overalls, Lami.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Once out of earshot of the others, Barrau turned, a duellist ready to fire. ‘After your unprofessional, unwarranted and ungrateful outburst, Darac, I, nevertheless, have been asked to effect certain changes in my approach – to wit, offering of preliminary opinions at the scene. Although I stress once again that the value of such opinions is limited by so many factors as to be virtually useless.’

  ‘Not at all. You were spot-on with Alain Saxe.’

  ‘That was an unusual case.’

  ‘It was an excellent piece of analysis that was scarcely revised subsequently.’

  Something as rare as hen’s teeth appeared on Barrau’s face. A smile. ‘Don’t try to curry favour with me, Darac.’

  ‘No favour sought. You do good work, Barrau. Usually. We’ll have no problems with each other if you implement’ – he almost said ‘Deanna’s instructions’ – ‘the recommendation you mentioned.’

  Barrau was clearly seething with righteous injustice yet there was an oddly positive look in his eyes. Something was giving him comfort. Darac understood right away what it was. Somewhere down the line, the pathologist expected Darac not just to bend regulations at some crime scene, but break them. That would be when Barrau exacted his revenge. And Darac suspected it would lead to far more than a ticking-off.

  ‘Very well,’ Barrau said. ‘Let us return.’

  Darac gazed along the path. ‘It seems unlikely that a man would come out here to hang himself.’

  ‘You have never known anything unlikely happen?’

  Out of Barrau’s eyeline, Bonbon performed ‘Arrogant Masturbator’ from his repertoire of character vignettes.

  ‘Yes I have. Do you think the man hanged himself?’

  ‘I… suspect he may have been strangled with a cord of some sort and then strung up.’

  ‘What leads you to that conclusion?’

  Barrau’s lips tightened. ‘There appear to be two ligature furrows around the neck: one a clear narrow lateral at the larynx; the other, a wider inverted V-shape. We’ll get him down presently, at which point we will know more.’ They slipped on fresh overalls. ‘But even the sainted Professor Bianchi would tell you, Captain, that we won’t know exactly what happened until we examine the body properly in the lab.’

  Darac hated ‘sainted’. ‘I understand that.’

  Familiar voices fought their way along the path. One was the delicately enunciated Ghanaian-accented French of Lartou, the officer responsible for collecting and logging evidence. The other was the booming delivery of Raul Ormans. ‘Anything for me to look at?’ Ormans said to no one in particular.

  ‘The rocks abutting the path directly outside.’

  ‘Who said that?’ Ormans looked around theatrically – he knew perfectly well the words had been Barrau’s. ‘So what’s good on the rocks? Apart from a dry Martini?’

  ‘The doctor believes the man was killed before he was strung up,’ Bonbon said, amused. He turned to Barrau. ‘You’re wondering if it happened out there, or if the body was brought there from elsewhere?’

  As if fielding a question from a lowly lieutenant were a bridge too far, Barrau remained silent for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘I do wonder that.’

  Ormans looked astonished. ‘Wondering at the scene? Well done, that man.’

  Lartou opened a metal evidence case. ‘Can we log the deceased’s effects first, Lami? If that’s alright with you.’

  ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. There are none. Pockets empty. No ID. No mobile. Nothing.’

  Darac gave Ormans a look. ‘Do you want to dust up there before we get him down, R.O.? Or after?’

  ‘After will be fine.’ He gave a nod to the morgue boys. ‘As long as our brawny friends give it their feather-fingered best.’

  ‘Don’t let the body down on the rope,’ Barrau cautioned them. ‘Lift it up and support its weight.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ the older man trilled, but his expression said: We always do that, you prat.

  As the younger one hopped up the ladder, the older man positioned a trolley and locked its brakes. Taking a deep breath, he put his arms around the corpse’s thighs.

  ‘Don’t loosen the running knot’, Ormans said, ‘until he’s down. Happy with that, Barrau?’ Barrau raised an eyebrow by way of agreement. ‘He’s happy.’

  ‘Maybe there’s a name tag in his clothes,’ Lartou said, as the men took the strain.

  ‘Heave!’

  The move was accomplished with the minimum of fuss. But it was with the utmost care that they laid the body on to its back on the trolley. Discolouration, swelling, lingual protrusion, blood spotting – the face exhibited signs of both strangulation and hanging. And then Darac saw it.

  ‘We won’t need to check the clothes for an ID. I know who this man is.’

  And knowing who he was had broken the case.

  42

  Good news travelled fast: Darac could hear the buzz in the squad room from way down the corridor.

  ‘I’ve got tickets for the match,’ a uniform called out. ‘Tickets for the big game!’

  Darac hoped that the celebrations weren’t premature. He may have broken the case but whether it would bring a speedy end to the murder-by-murder liquidation of the So-Pro gang was still open to question. He tossed his bag on to the front centre desk and for the moment, just stood taking in the scene.

  From Agnès on down, officers from several divisions had made it in. A group had gathered around the seated figure of Wanda Korneliuk. The patrol car ace was either demonstrating how to perform a drum solo or a handbrake turn. Probably the latter, he decided. Flaco seemed particularly fascinated, he noticed. He made a mental note not to accept a lift with her for a while.

  Over by the water cooler, strapping beat officer Serge Paulin was sharing a joke with Bonbon and sketch artist Astrid Pireque. The talented young rugby player was making the story live, judging by their helpless reactions.

  A motley assortment of photocopiers and other electronica lived in the far corner of the room. Lartou Lartigue appeared to be giving a seminar on the subject of the exposed cabling that hung like thrown spaghetti from the ceiling above it. He alone, it seemed, knew what went where and why.

  As Flaco took a turn in the driver’s seat, another peal of laughter rang out from Serge’s corner. The whole atmosphere put Darac in mind of the Blue Devil’s dressin
g room before a DMQ gig. Since looking into So-Pro, he’d been thinking about his year-long secondment with the Brigade in Paris, the cause of his absence during the investigation. He’d found it a sobering experience. Yes, the workload had been huge. Yes, the problems they faced had sometimes proved intractable. But his team in Paris would have fared much better, he believed, if they had gone about things less like a dysfunctional family and more like a united group. It had been a team in name only. It was thanks to Agnès’s stewardship that a culture of true teamwork thrived in the Nice Brigade; teamwork in which individuals, even mavericks like him, were given scope to express themselves.

  His mobile rang. Parking his backside on the desk, he took the call.

  ‘Paul,’ his father said, ‘I was expecting to leave a message. Are you on a break or something?’

  ‘No, I had to abandon the club. Called out on a case.’

  ‘You got to play your beloved old guitar first, I hope?’

  ‘Still awaiting that pleasure.’

  Granot entered the room, pausing to whisper, ‘Just had a thought,’ in Darac’s ear. He gave the big man a thumbs-up as he joined the throng. Granot’s ‘just had’ thoughts were usually invaluable.

  ‘Ah, pity,’ Darac père went on. ‘Anyway, is this convenient? Only take a second.’

  ‘Yes, go ahead. Things are still being set up here.’ He smothered the mouthpiece as he opened his bag. ‘Anyone bringing me a double espresso will be promoted immediately.’

  Serge Paulin volunteered to run what he must have known was a fool’s errand. Within a couple of paces, he was taking orders from all around the room. Darac caught Erica’s smile as her man called on the spurned Perand, of all people, to help him.

  ‘So basically, Paul,’ Martin went on, ‘Julie would love to stick to our original plan for tomorrow night.’

  ‘You’re marrying someone who doesn’t like caille au thym?’

  ‘That would be unconscionable, I agree. No, it’s the café idea she’s not keen on.’

  ‘The place may be humble but the chef is a genius, I’ve heard.’

  ‘It’s not that. She’s got her heart set on us eating at your place, that’s all. Seeing where you live. Experiencing the roof terrace and everything. I think it’s sweet.’