His jaw set in a determined jut, Darac headed back into the living room. The couple had already finished their timetable task. Bonbon was running an eye over the first page.
‘Artur – at about five o’clock on the Monday, you were seen outside Pierre’s apartment.’
‘I haven’t put that because he wasn’t around.’
‘Indeed not.’ He handed the timetable to Darac. ‘But what were you doing there?’
‘Went to pick up his shaving kit. I was coming out into the corridor when I heard the neighbour’s door open. So I knocked on Pierre’s to make it look as if I hadn’t been inside. Then I left.’
‘That was quick thinking,’ Darac said. ‘Quick as a criminal.’
Artur looked disappointed. ‘Parking tickets. Speeding. That’s my lot, Captain.’
Darac fixed him with a look. ‘Until now.’
The questioning went on for another hour. At the end of it, Darac decided it was more useful to leave the couple where they were than to take them into custody. As he and Bonbon began spiralling their way down through the village, he updated him on Raul Ormans’ possible lead.
‘Cases have been broken on a lot less, chief. Want to ring him?’
Darac shook his head. ‘Best to leave R.O. He’ll call if he comes up with anything.’
The centre of the village was milling with Saturday crowds and the car came to a dead stop in Place de la République. Outside the post office, the slog squad was already showing photos to groups of head shakers. Bonbon indicated the wrought-iron sign hanging over the entrance. ‘See that – the dog chasing the postman? Cute, isn’t it? I tried to buy it once. Without success, clearly.’
‘Where would you have put it?’
‘That’s what Julieta said.’
The traffic began to move.
‘Artur and Odette…’ Darac mused, canting his head as if the change of angle might give his thoughts a new perspective. ‘There’s something odd about them.’
‘I think you’re right but that doesn’t mean they’re lying.’
‘Though Odette did signal our arrival by announcing “Police?” as loudly as she could to alert Artur. And then she tried to hustle me inside once he emerged.’
‘His attempted getaway – what sense did that make if it wasn’t to lead us away from the house? Yet neither Delmas nor his stuff was there. He had packed up and left as they said.’
‘Is it possible that he was still there?’
‘When you were bashing your way out of the cellar, he slipped quietly along the hall and out into the back yard?’
‘If he did, where did he go then? The only way was towards you. I tell you something, though. I’m glad it was Artur and not big old Delmas I had my fling with. Wimp or not.’
As low as he was feeling, Darac couldn’t resist a smile. ‘By which you mean he flung you through the cellar door and then threw away the key?’
‘Exactly.’
He gave Bonbon’s knee a squeeze. ‘Listen, you got out of there quickly enough. For a skinny bugger.’
‘“Bonbon Busquet – Human Wrecking Ball.” He gave his shoulder a rub. ‘That’ll be sore for a while.’ He delved in his pocket. ‘Luckily, I have something to ease the pain.’
‘Advil?’
‘Kola Kube.’ He proffered the bag. ‘From Cours Saleya, before you ask.’
Darac took one. ‘So… We’ve got people out quizzing the locals on Delmas. We’ve got phone records being checked. Better still, we’ve got the Rigauds’ phones being tapped. We’ve got surveillance on the house. And a decent couple of tails in place.’
‘So let’s hope the Rigauds and Delmas try and get in touch. One way or another.’
56
Darac was working through the Rigauds’ timetable when his mobile rang.
‘Didier. How are you doing, man?’
‘Sorting out the memorial gig is helping, I guess. But next Thursday, when we go out to play that final number? I’ve no idea what state I’ll be in then.’
Darac swivelled in his chair and looked out over the compound. He pictured the bandstand set up with Marco’s kit. ‘Me neither.’
‘I’m dropping the bandleader bit for this. What should we play? I’m taking a consensus.’
‘Tricky.’ He gave an involuntary laugh. ‘Hardly says it, does it?’
‘Well listen, Marco loved Shelly Manne above all, probably. Right? The Blackhawk albums, particularly.’
‘True.’
Frankie appeared below, heading for the car park with a couple of her Vice team.
‘There’s a feeling we should open with “I Am In Love” from Volume Three. What do you think?’
‘Yes. Perfect.’ He turned away from the window. ‘Have you put it to Luc?’
‘He suggested it initially.’ Grief tore at his voice. ‘The rhythm section union, you know.’ And then it took on an edge Darac had never heard before. ‘Are you any nearer getting the bastard who did it?’
‘We’re throwing everything we have at it, Didi. Believe me.’
‘I do. We all do.’ He tried to rally. ‘How lucky to have a detective in the band, eh?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I’m going to see Freddy, later.’
‘I rang him again this morning. I warn you, he’s not doing all that well.’
‘Marco would have to show off his one flash riff to the kid, wouldn’t he? If he hadn’t, he’d still be alive and so it’s a double thing for Freddy. He’s devastated at what happened to Marco; and he realises that but for that, it would have been him who was killed. And he blames himself for the guitar’s theft in the first place.’
Granot walked in, carrying a report. He set it down in front of Darac and subsided into the seat opposite.
‘I know… Listen, I’d better go now, Didi.’
As the call ended, Darac picked up Granot’s offering. It was the post-mortem report on Jean Aureuil.
‘Just heard from R.O., by the way.’ He gave a sad shake of the head. ‘No go on the guitar components yet. And the slog squad haven’t found anyone who saw the man wearing the parka.’
Darac exhaled deeply as he opened the report. ‘Right.’
‘You’ll notice Barrau’s guesses at the scene all proved right,’ Granot said. ‘The cause, the moving of the body, etcetera. He could do it all along, couldn’t he? The arsehole.’
‘These timings look interesting.’ Darac cross-referenced them with the Rigaud timetable. ‘Allowing the usual margins for error, Barrau says the strangling happened about four hours before the body was found; about three before it was strung up.’
‘You mean it’s interesting that the body was hanging there for possibly a whole hour before anyone saw it?’
‘Not so much that…’
Darac sat back, staring into the framed absence of the doorway, an unpromising space in which to see a vision. But see it he did. A vision of a tall, strongly built man wearing a pair of earphones.
‘In you go,’ Flaco said.
His eyes trained on the apparition, Darac put the timetable away and got slowly to his feet. ‘Good to meet you, Monsieur Delmas.’
Turning, Granot performed his impression of an astonished walrus.
‘Good morning, Captain. Lieutenant.’
‘A uniform out of Foch, Officer Laurence Filliol, picked him up, Captain,’ Flaco said. ‘At Pont St Michel near the tram stop. There was no struggle.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And no arrest.’
Darac nodded – he’d picked up the inference. Had Delmas been arrested, he would have been entitled to a thirty-minute meeting with a lawyer down the line.
‘And then Officer Filliol put him in his car and drove him here.’ She set down Delmas’s holdall. ‘I’ve checked it. No weapons.’ Her eyes slid to the corridor. ‘Is this a good moment to bring up my overtime, by the way?’
Darac made a show of irritation. ‘Now? Oh, alright then. Excuse me, monsieur.’
‘Needs must.’ He adjusted a control
on his earphones. ‘As long as it doesn’t take long.’
Granot got to his feet. ‘So, Pierre – long time no see. How have you been keeping?’
As the pair renewed their acquaintanceship, Flaco and Darac convened in the corridor.
‘Using the pretext of the weapons check, I had a quick look for other stuff. There’s no mobile, no car keys, no other keys except the ones to his apartment.’
‘Letters, diaries, notebooks?’
She shook her head.
‘There are paperbacks and things but nothing like that. It’s mainly clothes.’
‘A DVD, by any chance?’
‘Several. Monsieur enjoys movies starring someone called Cary Grant.’
‘You’ve never heard of—?’ There wasn’t time. ‘We’ll examine those later.’
‘Might have to arrest him first. I don’t think he would fall for it a second time.’
‘We’ll see.’ He recalled Artur’s earlier account of his visit to Delmas’s apartment. ‘Was there a shaving kit?’
‘Electric razor only.’
‘Okay. What was he doing at Pont St Michel?’
‘Walking briskly. It’s part of a circuit he’s been doing every day for his health, he says. The exercise does him good.’
‘Better than usual, today – he was carting his holdall around.’ He gave her shoulder a pat. ‘Let’s go back in.’
‘You’ve lost a little weight,’ Delmas was saying to Granot. ‘But you need to lose a lot more.’ He saw Darac had returned. ‘May I sit down, Captain?’
‘Please.’
His grin at its foxiest, Bonbon swept into the room, pulling Perand and Lartou along in his slipstream. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Jesus.’ Perand circled Delmas as if he were the prize exhibit in a cabinet of curiosities. ‘It is him.’ He gave Flaco a look. ‘The dragnet actually worked.’
Caught in a crossfire of gazes, Delmas maintained an almost serene calm. And the mood didn’t appear to leave him when he removed his earphones. As the leads fell loosely around his neck, Darac pictured the cheery face of Jean Aureuil, the twin ligature marks bitten deep into his throat.
‘Won’t be a minute, Monsieur Delmas. Just need to get organised.’
‘Don’t be long about it, please.’
Darac’s thoughts once more returned to the Rigauds’ timetable of Delmas’s movements. One thought led to another. And another still. A scenario he hadn’t envisaged began to suggest itself. But would it play? At least they could test it now.
‘Get a secretary in here, would you, someone?’
‘Sabrina Fabre is in, chief.’ Perand gave Flaco a grin as he loped to the door; Darac’s antipathy to the woman was well known. ‘Will she do?’
‘Just wait in the corridor a second.’ He joined him. ‘Yes, ask her to come in. First though, get on to Surveillance. Update them about Delmas but tell them to stay on the Rigaud house. They’re not to stand down.’
‘But…’ The order seemed to mystify the young man. ‘Delmas is sitting right there.’
‘Just do it. I’ll explain later.’ Perand shrugged and headed off. Darac beckoned Bonbon out of the office. ‘Four’s company, seven’s a crowd, don’t you think? For the interview.’
‘We can’t use the squad room, obviously. And last time I looked, we don’t have a two-way mirror anywhere. Unless you want to decamp all the way over to Joinel.’
‘No, no, we’ll stay in my office.’
‘There’ll be a mutiny if you banish Flak, Perand and Lartou and we’ll only have to update them later.’
‘So when we get underway, I’ll put the interview through into the squad room on the phone mike. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do.’ They went back into the office. ‘Tell Flak.’
‘Right.’
Darac picked up the internal phone.
‘If you’re calling Agnès, she’s out. Examining magistrates’ meeting at the Palais.’
‘That’s right.’ Darac glanced at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t be long before she’s back.’ He picked up the landline phone and left a neutral-sounding update on Agnès’s mobile.
‘Still using the two-phone system?’ Delmas said, matter-of-factly. ‘Surprising.’
‘Ah, yes?’
Darac cleared a space on the front edge of his desk and sat there. A casual atmosphere had its advantages. A relaxed suspect was easier to catch off guard. ‘So what do you listen to on your personal stereo, monsieur?’
‘Just then, it was “Summer Rain”. I have severe tinnitus. Most people only listen at night but I have it on during the day as well. Usually.’
For the first time, Darac noticed the tremor in Delmas’s hands and the dead look in his small, deep-set eyes. He was a big man, bigger than Darac remembered from their brief encounter at the cemetery. But could Delmas have carried the body of Jean Aureuil across the rocks on to the walkway at Villefranche? And then hoisted his dead weight aloft? All by himself?
‘Just waiting for someone to take down what we say. Won’t be a second.’
‘Good. The sooner we start, the sooner we can finish.’
Granot gave a derisive grunt. ‘You in a hurry to get somewhere?’
‘My time is short. Perhaps that’s the best way to put it.’
Darac nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand.’
‘And how is your… niece, wasn’t it?’
‘My niece?’
‘Yes, the girl who shares my condition. You mentioned her when I talked to you on the phone some days ago. What is her name?’
It seemed Delmas had not guessed she was a fiction, a ruse to keep him talking.
‘He means Ella, chief,’ Bonbon said, his memory ever reliable.
‘Ella, of course. I hesitated because she’s not really my niece – just the daughter of a family friend. But happily, she’s doing much better, thank you.’
‘That’s good.’
Darac glanced at the doorway. Where had Perand got to with Sabrina Fabre?
‘I really would like to get the interview underway, Captain.’
‘Monsieur, you do understand that we can hold you here for forty-eight hours? In the first instance.’
‘And then for another forty-eight upon application. But only, in both cases, if I am formally placed in custody. True?’
‘True.’ Delmas may have been slow on the uptake, Darac reflected, but there seemed nothing muddled in his thinking, per se. ‘Got somewhere nice to stay, by the way?’
‘Quite nice. My apartment.’
Escorted by Perand, the human sphinx that was Sabrina Fabre rolled into the room as if on castors. As she readied her pad and pens, Bonbon gave Flaco the nod to scoop up Perand and Lartou. The trio trooped out of the office with the air of theatregoers banished to the worst seats in the house.
Darac waited a moment and then rang the squad room. As the call was taken, he returned the handset to its cradle. ‘Hear me alright, Flak?’
‘Loud and clear.’
‘Monsieur Delmas, would you say something?’
A request to sing ‘La Marseillaise’ backwards could not have presented a greater challenge. Delmas remained mute.
‘Anything at all,’ Darac said. Still no response. ‘Just tell me your name.’
‘Delmas. Pierre Henri.’
‘Heard that, too,’ Flaco said.
‘Good.’ Darac turned to Sabrina Fabre. ‘Ready?’
Her pen poised, the woman inclined her head the slightest degree. The room fell silent.
‘So, monsieur – where to begin? It’s difficult to avoid clichés, isn’t it?’
‘It is?’
‘Certainly. “We meet at last”; “You’ve led us a merry dance.”’
‘Yes, we meet at last. But I don’t know anything about dancing.’
‘Actually, apart from our little chat on the phone, we had already met, hadn’t we? Or at least come across one another.’
‘Had we? Where?’
‘At the cemetery in Vence. Where your
daughter and my mother are buried.’
‘Yes, of course. That idiot Carl Halevy. I am more than happy to pay for the damage he caused to your mother’s grave, Captain…?’
‘Darac.’
‘Darac – that’s right. Desecration like that – appalling. I’m more than happy to pay.’
Disarmed, Darac lost his next point, momentarily. ‘Thanks but that won’t be necessary.’ With a sinking feeling, he realised what would soon be necessary. He would have to commune with his father at the ceremony to consecrate his mother’s new grave; commune with him despite the growing silence between them. ‘Monsieur, I think we could save time here. We know a lot about the So-Pro robbery.’
‘Do you? Commissaire Dantier and this gentleman’ – he waved a shaking hand at Granot – ‘thought they did, too.’
‘We know it was planned from the outset that you would take the fall for the gang; that you expected to die during your term of imprisonment; that your unacknowledged daughter Sylvie was to benefit from your share of the proceeds; that she was subsequently cheated out of that sum; that she then died from a terminal condition inherited from you; and that her grand, final resting place was an afterthought designed to fool you into thinking she had been paid her share.’
Fabre’s pen was already in pause mode.
‘An effective summary. And I would have been fooled had Halevy not panicked and tried to make sure I never would find out the truth. A stupid, stupid man.’
‘The other gang members must have been furious with him. Alerting you, like that.’
‘Indeed so. You mentioned the proceeds of the robbery being divided up.’
Bonbon gave Granot a look.
‘Yes.’
‘But the haul was all recovered, Captain.’
‘The haul was the two-million-euro reward earned by Jean Aureuil. He was part of the gang, also.’
Whatever emotions were passing through Delmas, his facial expression had remained blank until that moment. ‘Two million is a poor substitute for nineteen million.’
‘Not when you weigh up the relative risks. Bank robbers always get caught in the end, don’t they? On this occasion, until the gang tried to cheat…’ He remembered Delmas’s earlier insistence on the point. ‘…tried to cheat Sylvie, everyone involved in So-Pro was a winner.’
Box of Bones (A Captain Darac Novel 3) Page 29