Pel and the Faceless Corpse

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Then he disappeared,’ they pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ Pel said. ‘We’ve found him.’

  In his frustrated disappointment, Pel took it out on Nosjean. ‘Where’s Massu?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Why hasn’t he reported to me yet?’

  ‘I told him, Patron,’ Nosjean bleated. ‘I told him you wanted him.’

  ‘Get him!’ Pel snapped. ‘I want him in front of my desk. You’re falling down on the job again.’

  Nosjean went out, bewildered, and telephoned Massu. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said. ‘Fast. Or it’ll be worse for you.’

  As he put down the telephone, Krauss handed him a message that had come from the hospital. It seemed their chief witness was dying.

  Grabbing his coat, Nosjean hurried off at once, feeling he was running short of time because he was certain he hadn’t yet found out everything Bique à Poux had to tell him.

  When he arrived Catherine Deneuve’s sister warned him he’d only got half an hour. ‘After that,’ she said, ‘anything could happen.’

  He stared into the ward. ‘What was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Another heart attack. We were watching him carefully but he got out, as you know.’

  ‘Would that have an effect?’

  ‘If he tried to hurry. And I expect he did.’

  ‘He got a black eye. Somebody hit him. Would that have any effect?’

  She gave him a sad look. ‘Bound to have,’ she said. ‘He’s in a bad way, so go easy. I’m not having him badgered.’

  The transformation in Bique à Poux was quite considerable. His face seemed to have fallen in and his eyes, large and blue-grey, were surrounded by enormous hollows that showed the formation of the skull. Even his nose seemed to have sunk back on its bony support.

  ‘Was it what Sergeant Massu did to you?’ Nosjean asked.

  The old man shook his head. ‘No. It’s this place. I told you. They expect you to behave like everybody else. Breathe in. Breathe out. Drink your coffee. Eat your roll. Finish your soup. Go and empty your bladder. I can’t live like that. Why don’t they let me out?’

  ‘They will when you’re better,’ Nosjean said.

  The old man was under heavy sedation and was sleepy. ‘It was me pinched those chickens,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Yes,’ Nosjean said. ‘I know.’

  The old man’s eyes opened. ‘You knew?’

  ‘Your place was full of feathers and chicken bones. It didn’t take much working out.’

  Bique à Poux smiled tiredly. ‘I had a good run for my money. I only went in for that when I discovered I got pains in my chest when I was after rabbits. It was easier, and there were always plenty. I saw some funny things.’ His eyes opened again. ‘Matajcek killed her, you know,’ he said.

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Yes. She was kind to me. Used to give me bread and some-times soup. But Matajcek was a mean bastard. He was always quarrelling with her. He beat her up more than once because of me.’

  ‘Why did he kill her?’

  ‘Because she objected.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘He got mixed up with a gang from Marseilles way. She didn’t like them. Neither did I. They were a mean-looking bunch. All young and hard. They quarrelled, and she tried to hit him with the poker, but he took it off her and hit her with it instead.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw it happen. I waited my time.’

  ‘You waited your time to do what?’

  ‘To get him. I got him in the end with a spade.’

  ‘It was you who hit him?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘It took a long time, but if I hadn’t the others probably would have.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Those chaps from Marseilles. They weren’t going to go on hiding in that barn for ever.’

  ‘Which barn?’

  But Bique à Poux was asleep.

  When Nosjean went to report to Pel he was in his office, frowning at his desk and the scrawls in his notebook again. The Germans had been on the telephone once more. They’d been to see Gestert’s widow in Koblenz. It seemed the Gesterts had spent a holiday the year before in the south of France and to get there had crossed the frontier at Breisach and headed through Vesoul for the autoroute south.

  At St Sabrin, Gestert had stopped and stared round him, and had then diverted unexpectedly from their route via Savoie St Juste. He had marked the place on the map, which his wife still possessed, and when they’d returned to Germany he’d spent the whole day searching the attic for old papers he possessed, digging them out of an old kitbag in which he’d kept souvenirs from the war.

  ‘And then?’ Pel asked.

  ‘And then, apparently,’ the German policeman said, ‘he announced he had business to do and he expected it to be good.’

  His widow had noticed that he had a map of some sort and he’d left, saying he was going to Belfort. When she’d asked why, he’d announced that, with the German mark as strong as it was, it was a good time to invest in land in France. She’d never seen him again.

  Pel sighed, then he became aware of Nosjean standing in front of his desk and he looked up, scowling.

  ‘Where’s Massu?’ he said.

  ‘Hasn’t he been in, Patron?’

  Nosjean looked puzzled and Pel glared. ‘I don’t suppose you told him,’ he snapped.

  ‘I did, Chief. He said he’d come.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t,’ Pel growled. ‘Ring him again. I want him.’

  ‘Yes, Patron,’ Nosjean said. He explained what Bique à Poux had told him. ‘Hadn’t I better investigate a bit further?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pel gestured. ‘Get out there. But first ring Massu and go along to Records and bring me his file.’

  The file was a thick one. Nosjean laid it on Pel’s desk and bolted. With a bit of luck he was hoping to have the night off and he wasn’t taking any chances of jeopardising it.

  As the door shut behind him, Pel pulled the file towards him and glanced at the title. ‘Massu, David, Brigadier.’ Turning at once to the end, he saw there were numerous commendations and good conduct marks and a recommendation for promotion on passing the necessary examinations. There were also several reprimands for using his fists.

  It didn’t tell him much, and he turned to Massu’s career.

  ‘Military service, 1960 – 62. Provost department, Metz, Limoges, Marseilles, Dijon, with a short spell in Algeria.

  Where he’d doubtless learned to hit his prisoners, Pel decided.

  He turned the sheet. ‘Joined police October, 1963. Sous-brigadier 1969. Brigadier 1975.’ There wasn’t much there either.

  He turned to the sheet covering Massu’s background.

  ‘Born Sept 17, 1940. Inmate of Bernard Massu Orphanage, Fontaine-les-Dijon.’

  Pel’s eyebrows shot up. Bernard Massu Orphanage! An orphan! So Massu wasn’t his real name but one given him by the nuns!

  He turned a page slowly, almost as if he half-expected something to jump out at him.

  It did.

  He was still staring at it when the telephone went. As he picked it up, the sergeant’s voice came from the front office.

  ‘Sergeant Massu from Orgny to see you, sir.’

  Pel was still peering at the file as he held the instrument to his ear.

  ‘Massu?’

  ‘He said you ordered him to report to you.’

  Pel came to life. ‘Yes, that’s right. Send him up.’

  He put down the telephone and closed Massu’s file slowly. Then, without thinking, he fished in his drawer and, taking out a packet of Gauloises, lit one and sat in silence, deep in thought. Though he was staring at the smoke rising in front of him, he wasn’t seeing it.

  When Massu arrived in his office, Pel had placed the file in his drawer. As the sergeant stopped in front of his desk, Pel looked up at him and went into the attack at once.

  ‘Alois Eichthal,’ he said sharply. ‘Also known as Bique à Poux: Don’t you
like him?’

  Massu scowled. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Why not? Because he’s an Alsatian?’

  Massu was silent for a moment before he answered. ‘I didn’t know he was an Alsatian.’

  ‘What else would he be with a name like Alois Eichthal? He could only have been a German.’

  Massu stared sullenly in front of him, his face dark. ‘The man at the calvary was a German,’ Pel went on. ‘We’ve finally found out who he is. Have you heard?’

  Massu’s big shoulders moved. ‘Yes. Heinz Geistardt.’

  ‘No.’ Pel paused. ‘This chap wasn’t Geistardt.’

  Massu’s heavy jaw dropped. There was a startled look on his face. ‘He wasn’t?’

  ‘No. His name was Gestert. Hannes Gestert. It’s a reasonable mistake for anyone to make, I suppose. Why did you hit Bique à Poux?’

  ‘He was escaping.’

  ‘It’s not the job of the police to be judge, jury and executioner,’ Pel snapped. ‘I’ve been talking to the Chief, Massu. There seem to be quite a few instances in your career of people being beaten up because they were trying to escape. The Spanish call it ley des fugas. Law of flight. It entitles the police to shoot a man if he tries to run. The Germans used to do it, too. In France we don’t.’

  Massu’s big shoulders moved again. ‘I lost my temper.’

  ‘Your temper’s well known,’ Pel said. ‘You’d better get out there and write me out a full report.’

  ‘Is it going to the Chief?’ Massu looked worried.

  ‘Never mind who it’s going to. Go and do it. And don’t come back in five minutes with it scrawled on half a sheet of paper. I want a full report properly written. Exact times. Descriptions. Everything. Take a long time over it. Take all day.’

  As Massu vanished, growling, Pel sat staring at the door. After a while, he lit a Gauloise and for a long time sat puffing at it. Then he sat bolt upright and pulled the telephone towards him.

  ‘Pel here,’ he said as Leguyader answered. ‘There’s a little job I want you to do.’

  Nineteen

  It was Heutelet who explained to Nosjean what Bique à Poux was getting at. ‘Matajcek had a barn in the woods,’ he said. ‘It was built years ago. Long before the war. During the war, we hid our guns there. Matajcek used to hide stolen cattle. I think he had more than one from me in his day.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  Heutelet produced a map and jabbed a finger at it. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It’s falling down now. The roof’s collapsed.’

  Nosjean stared at the map. ‘Can I get at it from here?’ he asked. ‘It’s quicker this way than from the road,’ Heutelet smiled. ‘You can’t drive up to it, but if you cross our land and go through the fence, you can drop into the valley. Then you just cross the stream and climb up the other side and there it is.’

  Nosjean left his car at the Heutelets’ and set off walking. The deep grass of the fields was wet with the recent rains, and his trousers were soon soaked and he could feel the water squelching in his shoes.

  After climbing through the fence, he descended into the valley, most of the way on his back, because the rain and the snow had made the banks muddy and his feet shot from under him as he began to climb down, so that he slithered all the way to the bottom, crashing and smashing through the wet undergrowth.

  At the bottom he picked himself up, soaked, muddy and angry. The bank out of the dip was even more difficult. It was so steep and so muddy after the rain it was almost impossible, and he had to follow the valley for some way until he found a winding path upwards. It hadn’t been used for years, but it was clear of big trees as if it had been made by farmers and labourers heading home across the fields.

  After a while, through the trees to his left, he saw a rough stone wall in the shape of a gable, and a few beams that had once formed a roof. Deciding he’d see nothing from the back, he circled the ruin to approach it from the front.

  As he began to move forward again, he saw what looked like an area of heavily-matted undergrowth, but it dawned on him abruptly that the leaves were all dead and that it was, in fact, a hiding place of cut branches concealing a car.

  Moving round it, he was creeping slowly nearer to the barn when he saw a splash of red through the trees.

  Dropping flat on his face he stared through the undergrowth. The red came from a windcheater with black lines down the sleeve and it was worn by a young man with long hair and a drooping moustache who was relieving himself into the bushes. As he did so, he spoke over his shoulder to someone and Nosjean saw another youngster appear through the door of the barn. This man also wore a windcheater, a blue one this time with red and white lines down the sleeve.

  Two, Nosjean thought, and even as he did so a third man appeared and they stood in a group, talking.

  Whoever they were, whatever they were up to, Nosjean suspected it was no good. Men didn’t hide in derelict barns in the middle of woods in winter for no reason at all.

  As his thoughts ran on, he heard a voice inside the barn and one of the three men turned and waved.

  Four, he thought. Four!

  For a long time, he remained where he was, watching, wet, cold and muddy but warmed by his discovery. After two hours he came to the conclusion there were no more than the four men he’d seen, and it seemed to be time to report to Pel.

  Returning the way he’d come, he picked up his car at the Heutelet farm, taciturn as they questioned him, and drove to the city as if the hounds of hell were after him.

  ‘Four?’ Pel said. ‘Describe them.’

  Nosjean did so to the best of his ability.

  ‘Four,’ Pel mused. ‘All young. All tough-looking. All wearing clothes that fit the description you got from the bank clerk. Get me the list from the sergeant in the charge office, Nosjean. Darcy, get hold of Lagé. He’s been doing nothing at the hospital for days and we’ll need him. And Krauss and Misset.’

  When Nosjean returned, Pel was on the telephone to the Chief. ‘It’s obviously the same lot,’ he was saying. ‘They’ve been using the place – with Matajcek’s knowledge, I imagine – until the uproar dies down. They’ve probably used it before, judging by the amount in his bank account. I’ll want a squad of uniformed men. I want to surround the place. Yes, I can get the men from Savoie St Juste. And I’ll take Sergeant Massu and his man.’

  There was a pause and Nosjean distinctly heard the Chief say, ‘I thought you didn’t like Massu. You put in a note about him a couple of days ago.’

  Pel’s eyes flickered towards Nosjean and he gestured to the telephone. ‘He’s a good policeman,’ he said. ‘I don’t like his methods and I don’t like his temper, but he’s got a good record for keeping his head in a crisis.’

  While they were assembling their men, the telephone went. Nosjean answered it. It was Catherine Deneuve’s sister to say Bique à Poux was dead. Nosjean put the telephone down, his face tragic.

  ‘The old man’s died,’ he said.

  Pel put a hand on his shoulder. ‘At least he’s clean and comfortable,’ he said.

  Nosjean frowned. ‘I think he’d rather have been dirty and uncomfortable and alive,’ he said.

  Pel gave him a little shove. ‘He had a good life, mon brave, and he’s done us a good turn. Make it worth his while. There’s a job to do.’

  It only took a couple of hours to gather the men at Orgny. Massu was there, with his constable, looking faintly sheepish in front of Pel, and four men had come from Savoie St Juste. There were also a dozen from Dijon, together with Pel’s squad, and a car with a man to handle the radio contact with headquarters.

  Pel made his wishes clear. ‘We surround the place,’ he explained. ‘Keep your ears to your radios because I don’t want any move made until I give the word. Nosjean will lead one group from the Heutelet place, Sergeant Misset will approach from the direction of Bussy-la-Fontaine, and Sergeant Krauss from the opposite side. I’ll lead the approach from the main road and Matajcek’s farm. Understood?’
<
br />   Heads were nodded and there was a lot of hitching at belts and straightening of képis.

  ‘Report when you’re in position,’ Pel continued. ‘I’ll then give the word to go. But don’t hurry. Don’t go crashing about in the undergrowth like wild elephants. The idea’s to catch them, not frighten them away. When I give the word, you can make all the noise you want. If they start shooting – and they probably will, because with two dead men behind them they’ve nothing to lose with another one – shoot back. You all got your guns?’

  They nodded. ‘I shall want you to account for every round you fire afterwards,’ Pel said, and they looked at each other, puzzled, wondering what he was getting at.

  ‘There may be more than we think,’ he said. ‘We’ll need something in reserve. Off you go.’

  There were six car-loads of men and they separated and headed in their various directions. Driving up to the main highway, Darcy turned left.

  ‘Matajcek’s place, Patron?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. As fast as you can.’

  Darcy glanced at him. ‘You’ve got a look in your eye, Patron,’ he commented. ‘Is something in the wind?’

  ‘More than you think,’ Pel said.

  ‘You think this lot’s involved with Gestert and Vallois-Dot?’

  ‘Not directly,’ Pel said. ‘But it’ll sort itself out.’

  ‘Here?’ Darcy’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Arresting four bank robbers who murdered two cops in St Symphorien?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Darcy gave him another curious look but he knew Pel and decided he was best left alone in this mood. It would all come out in the wash.

  They pulled up in the muddy lane outside Matajcek’s farmhouse, where they left the cars, then, with Darcy leading, Lagé operating the walkie-talkie and Pel close behind, they moved quietly up the lane into the wood.

  Eventually, the lane became no more than a pathway and they started to push through the trees.