‘Why did he do that? What did you think at the time?’
‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But Aureuil was a… common sort of a man.’
Flaco scowled, uncomprehending. Granot caught her eye. ‘Porn,’ he explained. ‘There was a load of homemade stuff stashed away in the So-Gén vault back in ’76. Local dignitaries screwing each other, en masse, in some cases. Maybe Aureuil was hoping for some of the same, thirty years later. Is that what you assumed, Delmas?’
‘I must confess it was. And I thought no more about it at the time.’
‘But later,’ Darac said, ‘in those long, long hours in prison, you did begin to wonder about it.’
‘Why did I?’
‘Because you had nothing else to do,’ Perand said, redundantly.
‘That was only part of the reason.’
Bonbon exhaled deeply. ‘Presumably, Aureuil showed no interest in pocketing any other DVDs. Right? And there were some – I remember seeing entries for them on the claimants’ inventories.’
Delmas nodded. ‘That is the correct answer.’
‘Look, monsieur.’ Darac’s patience was beginning to wear thin. ‘This isn’t a guessing game. You’re in serious trouble. Just answer our questions. All of them.’
Delmas looked at his watch, holding his wrist with his free hand to steady it. ‘Then get on with it, please.’
‘Alright, I will. Let’s call the person who commissioned So-Pro… Monsieur X. He has a guilty secret, something so heinous it must never under any circumstances be discovered. But Red Face knows about it. Judging by his state of health, and the reference he makes to “not being around” to see his gag pay off, I think it’s safe to infer he was dying. He contacts Monsieur X, tells him he has an incriminating photo and that he’s stashed it in a safety deposit box that will be opened at the time of his death. It’s interesting that Monsieur X believes him, isn’t it?’
‘He must have known him,’ Bonbon said, his wiry frame twisted into an elaborate contrapposto in his chair. ‘Perhaps he was part of the guilty secret itself.’
‘Possibly. So now, there’s only one course of action Monsieur X can take that would retrieve the photo without alerting everyone to the fact. He has to mount a bank robbery in which everything is taken. A gang is hired. It seems that no one but Aureuil knows it is a smokescreen. He finesses the opening of the deposit box that he understands contains the photo. As we’ve seen, the cupboard was bare. But there is a DVD and Aureuil pockets it. He may then have made a copy and hands over the original. At which point, Monsieur X, after all that effort, has a good laugh and toasts Red Face for having played such a brilliant practical joke on him.’
Delmas shook his head. ‘I don’t believe he would have laughed, Captain. After all that planning and hard work?’
Darac didn’t bother explaining that he was being facetious. ‘Are you sticking to your story that you don’t know the identity of the person who commissioned the robbery?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have a suspicion who it is?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not telling the whole truth. Who do you think it is?’
No response.
Granot hauled himself on to his feet. ‘Tell us, you arsehole!’
Perand got in close. ‘Or you’ll regret it!’
Clad in the armour of his illness, Delmas allowed the threats to bounce harmlessly off. Once again, he clamped his left wrist with his right hand and looked at his watch. ‘Really, I must insist—’
Darac neither raised his voice nor moved toward him. ‘You won’t be going anywhere but the cells unless you cooperate, monsieur.’
‘Alright. I don’t know who commissioned the robbery. But I know it wasn’t Aureuil, Halevy or Alain Saxe.’
‘Which gang member approached you with the idea?’
Hesitation once more. As tells went, it seemed a pretty obvious one. ‘It was Saxe. We… knew each other from a long time before.’ Delmas winced suddenly, bending forward. His hand went to his temple. It didn’t look like a ploy.
‘Are you alright, monsieur?’
‘Need… to take my pills.’ He reached into his jacket and with shaking hands, fished out a blister strip of tablets.
‘Water, Perand?’ Darac said. ‘Proper cup.’
‘Yes, yes.’ He rolled his eyes at Granot as he went to the cooler. For once, the big man shared the moment with him. ‘And only half fill it, right?’
Darac got to his feet. ‘May I, monsieur?’ He relieved Delmas of the tablet strip.
‘Thank you. I tend to drop them. The lighter the load, the harder it is to carry.’
Darac pressed the tablets squarely into the centre of Delmas’s palm and then stood by with the water. ‘You’re happier with heavier weights?’
‘Much.’
‘Like Jean Aureuil’s dead body?’
‘What? Oh… I keep telling you. I didn’t kill him or anyone else.’
As Darac helped Delmas haltingly complete the task, he wondered how accurately the man’s life expectancy could be determined. And if it turned out to be just a couple of days, he wondered what would be the most effective, and also the most humane, way of proceeding with the investigation. ‘I could have a doctor here in five minutes,’ he said.
‘To what end?’
‘Don’t be coy.’
‘I do not want to see a doctor.’
Darac made a mental note to call Deanna. Even just a guideline would help. ‘So, alright to continue, monsieur?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘You’ve told us who made the pitch to you. What was the pitch?’
‘He asked if I wanted to earn some serious money. I said I did. For Sylvie. I explained my health situation and the scheme gradually took shape. I was concerned about the risk of discovery – not because of what might happen to me, of course, but what it might mean for Sylvie. I knew she wouldn’t be able to keep the sum if it was shown to be profit from a crime.’
‘How did Saxe sell you the idea?’
‘As you said – it’s distributing the haul after a robbery that causes most of the problems. But that was never part of the plan. I felt encouraged by that and I was more than happy to play my part in the deception. Also in our favour was the fact that none of the gang was a criminal.’
Granot’s shaggy eyebrows rose as if on springs. ‘Listen to him!’
‘None of the others had a criminal record, I mean – so that was also a safer position than usual. Is that not true?’
‘Up to a point,’ Darac said.
‘I thought so.’
‘Monsieur – why don’t you tell us who the remaining gang member is?’
‘I have my reasons.’
‘I’m going to have my reasons in a minute,’ Granot said. ‘For giving you a kick up the arse.’
Darac wasn’t listening. He was back with Artur Rigaud. ‘Monsieur, did Artur know you’d robbed Aureuil’s safe?’
‘No. I thought it best not to burden him with that.’
‘So he doesn’t know about the existence of the DVD?’
‘No. How could he?’
Darac wasn’t sure what Artur knew. But his connections to So-Pro went beyond offering a shoulder and a bed to the one man to have been punished for the job. Of that, he was becoming surer all the time. ‘Why did you leave the Rigauds earlier?’
‘I thought I’d imposed on them long enough.’
‘Particularly on Odette?’
‘No. I think she enjoyed having me around. She’s always liked me, for some reason.’
‘She didn’t ask you to leave?’
‘No,’ he said, without hesitation.
Darac shared a look with Bonbon. ‘You had dinner with her once. Some time before the robbery, it was. Café Grinda. Just the two of you because Artur was ill and couldn’t make it. Yes?’
Long hesitation. ‘Yes.’
‘It was your treat, to thank them for some kindness they had done you.’
/> ‘No. It was their treat.’
More and more possibilities were piling into Darac’s head, all of them outlandish. ‘Let’s go back to your parting company with the Rigauds this morning. Was the decision to leave entirely your own?’
‘In the end. Artur had asked me if I thought the time was right to leave. He said he was sorry but the strain of having a wanted man in the house was just too much for him. I understood perfectly.’
‘And when was that said?’
‘On the Thursday evening after dinner.’
‘But you weren’t there for dinner on Thursday. You were out killing Jean Aureuil and stringing up his body on a walkway in Villefranche.’
‘I was not.’
‘What did you have for dinner that night?’
‘Uh… was that the loup de mer en papillote evening? No. It was lapin à la cocotte. Artur shoots them. Delicious dish. And Odette is a superb cook.’
‘You were asked to leave on the Thursday evening. But you didn’t leave until today.’
‘Artur said it would be fine to leave it until the morning. But when it came to it, he suddenly had a change of heart. They felt bad about asking me to go, he said, and begged me to stay. Begged me until they were blue in the face. Stay for another week, they said.’
‘Did you think it odd? Changing their minds like that?’
‘Not really. Artur is a kind man but he is an up-and-down sort of character.’
Darac got up and went over to the water cooler. ‘How did you leave?’
‘I walked down through the village and got the bus. I thought Artur had come after me, at one stage. Perhaps to have one last try at getting me to change my mind. But when I looked round, he was just going shopping.’
‘“For bread,”’ Bonbon said, absently reprising Artur’s line.
‘No, he went into the Bouygues Telecom place.’
Darac shared another look with Bonbon as he went to sit down.
‘Did he?’
A figure appeared in the doorway. ‘Hello, monsieur.’
Delmas rose as if in the presence of royalty. ‘Commissaire Dantier,’ he said, eyes lowered, ‘May I express—’
‘Of course you may but not just at the moment.’ She slid her eyes toward her office. ‘When you can, Paul.’
‘I won’t be long.’ As Agnès spun on her heel and left, Darac picked up a desk phone. ‘Charvet? Send a couple of dogs up to my office, please.’
‘Dogs?’ Delmas’s voice was riven with anxiety. ‘Why do you ask for dogs?’
‘It’s just our word for guards. They’re going to escort you to the cell block. As promised.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Perish the thought,’ Granot said to no one in particular.
‘You’re not under arrest. Yet. But you are failing to cooperate fully. And I also think you look tired. Exhausted, in fact. Go and have a lie-down and think about things.’
‘I’ll come and tuck you in later,’ Granot said, smiling horribly. ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘I ought to be going, really, but a nap would do me good.’
‘Granot, Bonbon?’ Darac retrieved the Rigauds’ timetable from his desk. ‘Let’s go.’ Once out of earshot, he took out his mobile. ‘I’m ringing Proux up in Levens,’ he said, answering Bonbon’s questioning look.
‘To check out Bouygues Telecom?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Interesting variation on good cop, bad cop, by the way,’ Bonbon said to Granot. ‘Good cop, grumpy cop.’
‘Well, I ask you.’
‘You mean it wasn’t an act?’
Agnès was already behind her desk when they walked into her office. Bringing up chairs, they arranged them into a rough semi-circle opposite her.
‘Now this is what I call a turn-up for the books.’ She slipped off her shoes. ‘I saw Erica on my way in. Yet another layer to So-Pro – interesting. What do you think we should do with him?’
‘Buy him a nice pair of slippers?’ Granot said.
‘Before we do anything, I want to show you this. I was working on it when Flak brought Delmas in.’ Darac unfolded the timetable. ‘It’s a plan of his movements during his stay with Artur and Odette Rigaud.’ He set it on the desk in front of Agnès. ‘Made by the couple.’
‘Come around,’ she said, swivelling her reading glasses on to her nose. ‘I’ve never had a thing about people looking over my shoulder.’
Darac said nothing as the trio studied it.
‘It could be pure fiction,’ Granot said, at length.
‘That’s just the point. I think it is.’ He pointed in turn to a couple of entries. ‘But not in the way you might expect. Artur’s not quite the big-hearted friend of the downtrodden that we thought, is he?’
‘Nor Odette,’ Bonbon said. ‘Although, the jury was always out on her, I guess.’
Agnès replaced her glasses and sat back. ‘Every five minutes of Delmas’s time seems to be accounted for, except around the times of the murders.’
Granot subsided back into his chair. ‘Yet they were insistent Delmas wouldn’t hurt a fly, you said, didn’t you?’
Bonbon gave him a look. ‘Oh yes – while also dropping into the mix that the man was spitting mad at the gang for cheating Sylvie.’
Darac ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s not just that they’re unwilling. Anyone might shy away from providing an alibi in a murder case if they weren’t sure. But there’s nothing shy or unsure about the Rigauds.’
Granot shrugged. ‘That may be true—’
‘What is true is how precise these timings are. Precisely incriminating.’
Bonbon pressed his lips together. ‘The Rigauds couldn’t have made a better job of fingering Delmas if they’d been paid to do it.’
‘And consider this.’ Darac opened his notebook and handed it to Granot. ‘It’s not just a case of gaps, omissions and discrepancies. The timings the Rigauds assert directly contradict Delmas’s statements. He says he was with them at the times of the murders. And his account of how he came to leave Levens this morning is quite different from theirs. Who do you believe?’
Granot checked the statements. ‘Ye-es. At last, you’ve put something intelligent together. But it’s as thin as a Spaniard’s wallet. You’d never convince a judge with it.’
‘I know.’
‘And if it came down to the Rigauds’ word against Delmas, who has the most credibility, do you think?’
‘I know the word of a convicted criminal isn’t worth much—’
‘It’s worth nothing,’ Granot said. ‘Especially in court.’
‘Yet I’m inclined to believe Delmas’s version of events.’
‘So am I,’ Bonbon said. ‘Or he’s the greatest actor since Philippe Noiret.’
‘There was a naturalness in the way he talked about being given the bum’s rush by the Rigauds,’ Granot conceded. ‘But I haven’t heard their version.’
‘I haven’t heard either of them,’ Agnès said.
Darac summarised both.
‘Interesting. So we come back to whom to believe.’
‘I’ve come to doubt that Delmas has the imagination, or perhaps the energy, to lie,’ Darac said. ‘Effectively, I mean.’
‘He seemed to have little difficulty back in 2003.’ Agnès gave Granot a look. ‘He lied most convincingly, didn’t he?’
Granot folded his arms as if forming a bulwark against the memory. ‘He did. And once an arsehole, always an arsehole, in my book.’
Darac didn’t buy it. ‘There could have been a lot of deterioration in seven years. Seven prison years, at that.’
Bonbon nodded. ‘He’s very literal, isn’t he? In fact, he’s got little imagination even for telling the truth. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say when you asked him to test the phone mike, for instance. All he could do was give his name. When you prompted him to do it.’
‘And it shows in those hesitations, as well, I think. He’s done that once or twice before
answering, as if he needed time to work out what he could afford to tell us. But there was no hesitation when he told us about what he was doing around the time of the killings. And he’s always said straight out that he has never killed anyone.’
‘He hesitated at what he’d had for dinner the evening of Jean Aureuil’s murder,’ Granot said.
‘Just momentarily and then it was only a question of sorting out which dinner he’d had on which evening.’
Granot gave the slightest of nods, conceding if not the point, then at least the possibility. ‘Alright but what about his other stock response? Silence. He just refuses point blank to answer some questions.’
‘Which questions?’ Agnès said.
‘According to him, Fouste wasn’t in the gang and so that leaves one member unaccounted for. He refuses to name him.’
‘Refuses, note,’ Darac said. ‘A liar would have come up with a name. Probably.’
Granot grunted. ‘Don’t forget Delmas deceived us with Saxe’s mobile. He had you and Bonbon tearing around the place like maniacs.’
‘Yes, he did. But that’s slightly different.’
Agnès sat forward, her hazel eyes locked on Darac’s. ‘With the revenge motive so well established, do you really believe Delmas is innocent of these murders?’
Darac pursed his lips. ‘I’m inclined to believe it. And I suspect the Rigauds are part of a conspiracy to make us think otherwise.’
‘Is Artur’s “forgetfulness” about not going into the village part of that suspicion?’
‘Potentially, yes. I’m awaiting a call from Proux on that one.’
‘Proux? So when Delmas came in, Paul, you didn’t stand down the surveillance team watching the Rigaud house?’
‘No, I expressly kept them on.’
The corners of Agnès’s mouth curled into a smile that conveyed just the slightest suggestion of pride. It seemed mentoring Darac over the years had been time well spent.
‘Good.’ Slipping an arm of her glasses into her mouth, she sat back and stared into space. ‘So what does all this imply?’
‘Okay…’ Darac ran a hand into his hair. ‘How’s this? The Rigauds are keeping tabs on Delmas on behalf of the true killer of Saxe and Aureuil. It’s their job to ensure he’s with them at the time the killer goes to work. If you’re trying to frame someone for murder, a solid alibi – say Delmas lying in a hospital bed at the time – would obviously screw the whole thing up.’
Box of Bones (A Captain Darac Novel 3) Page 31