The Beast of the Camargue

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  But that would not explain the open gate! It must be a human presence, maybe the type of keen birdwatcher who came to take up position long before the sun rose over the marshes so as to admire the dawn ballet of the birds of the Camargue.

  He went down from the observation hut, crossed the last few meters of the path beneath the trees, and stopped at the edge of the clump of samphire. At the far side, the bright walls of the shed and its pointed, churchlike roof stood out clearly against the dark gray of the tamarisks.

  The sound of footfalls had started again, in fits and starts, as though someone were looking for something beside the reed bed, at the far side of the swamp.

  Then came a splash and movement in the water.

  And footsteps. Massive, weighty ones.

  It reminded Texeira of the big game animals he had tracked in eastern Africa. He threw himself flat behind some samphire to get a better view.

  Then a strange high voice, like a counter tenor, like a tinkle of crystal, arose from the surface of the stagnant water:

  “Lagadigadeu, la tarasco, lagadigadeu …”

  Then a second, more virile voice, as deep as an organ’s bass notes, joined the first one, becoming a scream of terror ripping apart the shadows.

  “Laïssa passa la vieio masco … Laïssa passa que vaï dansa …”*

  The two voices mingled.

  “La tarasco dou casteu, la tarasco dou casteu …”†

  Then utter silence fell. Texeira emerged from his hiding place and aimed his torch in the direction of the voices. But he saw nothing. He searched through the darkness, playing the light across the black surface of the swamp. Nothing.

  To build up his courage, he shouted: “I am Christophe Texeira, the head of the reserve. You’re trespassing, and I’m asking you to leave now … Immediately! The joke isn’t funny any more.”

  4.

  Monday, July 7.

  De Palma rang the doorbell of Chandeler & Associés, 58 cours Pierre-Puget, just a stone’s throw away from the high court, in a desirable residence guarded by a pair of brawny telamones.

  A female voice husky with years of smoking emerged from the intercom.

  “Chandeler & Associés, can I help you?”

  “Michel de Palma. I have an appointment with Maître Chandeler.”

  “He’s on the first floor. Come on up.”

  De Palma climbed slowly up the huge staircase flanked by cast-iron banisters that led up toward the light streaming in through a glass roof.

  He knew Chandeler by name: a youngish lawyer specializing in the most lucrative cases, a squeaky-clean, US-style brief, whose clients included shipowners and thrusting promoters of the tourist business that was flourishing along the coasts of the city.

  Earlier that year, in spring, Chandeler had been shaken up by two incorruptibles from the drugs squad during an investigation into one of his clients: a big name in the export–import business, a king of the container trade, who had finally been put away behind the bars of Baumette prison for smuggling cigarettes and cocaine. The drug squad reckoned that Chandeler had been in it up to his ears, but couldn’t make it stick.

  “Please do take a seat,” said the voice from the intercom, a tall blond secretary, painted like a Sicilian puppet, who pointed to a sofa upholstered in buffalo hide. “I’ll tell Maître Chandeler that you’re here.”

  Chandeler & Associés had huge premises, full of period furniture and collector’s items: an eighteenth-century sedan-chair, antique ship’s compasses, a few Ambrogiani paintings, a harbor scene of Algiers by Bascoulès.

  All that wealth on display must have excited the boys from the drugs squad, who would still have in mind the several other famous lawyers who happened to have figured prominently in recent trials of underworld bosses.

  From the hall, the Baron could hear plaintive telephones in the neighboring offices, as well as deeper voices punctuated by the tap of a computer keyboard.

  A huge man appeared through the double doors. In two strides, he was standing in front of the Baron and sketching a ferocious smile.

  “Monsieur de Palma, I presume. I’m so pleased you’re here,” Chandeler said, shaking the policeman’s hand with a vice-like grip.

  “I was rather at a loose end today,” the Baron replied, shrugging awkwardly.

  “How lucky!”

  Chandeler invited de Palma to sit, then flung himself down on a leather-upholstered armchair.

  “First, allow me to thank you for agreeing to see me. I suppose you must be wondering what this is about?”

  The Baron trained his eyes on the lawyer, who was now swiveling ninety-degree arcs back and forth on his chair, as though an axis ran through his body and up to the crown of his skull.

  “So, why are we meeting?”

  “It’s rather delicate. Here it is. My client, Madame Steinert, believes that her husband has been murdered. Unfortunately, the police have concluded that he has simply gone away, and so of course there’s nothing as yet they can do.”

  “And how long has her husband been gone?”

  “Thirteen days.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I see what you mean, but his wife, my client, is convinced that he is dead! She has good reason to think so: her husband is not in the habit of going off. He’s not exactly footloose, if you see what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do see. But what I don’t see is what I can do for you.”

  Chandeler stopped fidgeting. He placed his elbows on his desk and joined his hands in mid-air, as though about to pray.

  “Well, the point is that my client is not just anybody. Have you heard of Steinert-Klug Metals?”

  “No.”

  “Never mind. And does the name William Steinert mean anything to you?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Evidently you do not read the papers!”

  “You know as well as I do that hacks write a load of nonsense.”

  “But they do repeat things they’ve been told,” Chandeler said, tightening the knot of his tie. “There was an article about his disappearance, as well as an article that drops me in the shit!”

  De Palma sized up this lawyer, who met his gaze for a few seconds before looking down and starting to rummage around on his desk.

  “Here,” he said, handing him a press cutting. “William Steinert was one of the most powerful magnates of the German metal industry. Imagine what a fortune that means!”

  “I can,” de Palma said, nodding.

  “And this is the man who has disappeared. Of course, his family would like the investigations to be carried out as discreetly as possible for the time being.”

  De Palma put the cutting down on the desk without reading it, and instead glanced at the blue file that lay in front of Chandeler. He read, upside down: “William Steinert Case. SK Metal.” Nothing else.

  “I see you’re already calling it a case. What makes you think that he hasn’t just dropped out of sight for a few days, as people like that often do?”

  “I’d so like to agree with you. But I think that what we have here is at best an accident or a kidnapping, and at worst a murder.”

  De Palma uncrossed his legs and rubbed his chin.

  “O.K., Chandeler. There’s plenty of money in the family. Millions, if I get your drift.”

  The lawyer nodded and swiveled again on his chair.

  “They can afford whatever they want. Including the best services that the French police force has to offer.”

  Chandeler leaned heavily on his elbows and clasped his hands together.

  “I can easily imagine what you’re thinking,” he said, flashing de Palma a smile. “But I must say that you now belong to the police aristocracy, given that the hacks you despise so much have been talking about you for so long. I have even heard that you are to be decorated shortly.”

  De Palma raised a hand, as though chasing away such flattery.

  “And then, surprising as it may seem, there are very few private detectives who k
now the region really well, its criminal culture, the underworld, that sort of thing … and you know all that like the back of your hand. To be quite honest, I was the one who suggested you. I only knew of you from the media and your reputation at the high court. So I know that you’re a brilliant officer, even if you don’t like being mentioned in such terms! You have a career full of big cases and high-profile prosecutions. Most important, you go all the way. You have the courage to do that. And it’s you who knows the local underworld best. All of your former colleagues agree about that. And I think that the underworld is involved in this business. There you have it.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be interested in this case?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that my client …”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Of course, you will be paid for what I’m asking you to do. And, believe me, you won’t regret it.”

  “And you know perfectly well that I can’t accept! I may be on sick leave, but I’m still on the force and intend to stay there till I retire.”

  “I know, I know … all I’m asking for is a few days’ spare time. In any case, the affair will become public knowledge in a few weeks’ time. We won’t be able to keep it secret as long as we should like to. This article has done us considerable harm. I don’t know where their information came from … Well, never mind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, officially, or at least up until today, William Steinert has gone off on a little jaunt to the tropics. But you know as well as I do that there’s no fooling people in a scene like this one. Last Friday, questions were already being asked. When this article comes to the right people’s attention, I hate to think what will happen. At the next board meeting, the wolves will be baring their teeth. I suppose I am making myself clear?”

  “Loud and clear. But once again, I don’t see what I can do to help.”

  “What I want you to grasp is that I’m ready to do all I can so that, in a week’s time, the theory of a kidnapping can be ruled out.”

  “So what you want to know is whether a ransom is in the offing or not.”

  The lawyer tightened his lips and nodded.

  “And perhaps you’d also like to know if Steinert is still alive?”

  “You are reading me like a book! So, yes, we quite understand one another, M. de Palma.”

  “I still haven’t said yes.”

  Chandeler clenched his jaws several times and focused on a point in front of him.

  “Do you know where he disappeared?”

  “In Tarascon.”

  De Palma smiled: the emperor of the machine tool disappearing in the town of Tartarin …

  “I know, it might seem funny to you, but that’s how it is. William Steinert hasn’t been heard from since June 24.”

  For the Baron, Tarascon was an unlikely name and place, with a castle adorned with beautiful towers and spanking new arrow slits. The home of the true-blue Provençals, in the heart of their eternal land, a white town at the top of the vast Rhône delta.

  “His wife wasn’t worried for the first few days. In those circles, people don’t see each other all the time. But then she made some phone calls to Germany, and then to his Paris office, and she had to face the truth: her husband had indeed vanished somewhere between his office in Tarascon and the farmhouse where they live a few kilometers away, between the villages of Maussane and Eygalières.”

  Maussane: part of the golden triangle of Provence, the home of snobs, fading artists, and natives proud of their stuffy traditions. Everything that the Baron most detested.

  “So what do you think, M. de Palma?”

  He took a deep breath then curled his lip skeptically.

  “I think that you suspect someone, or some organization, and that you don’t know how to contact them … I mean, you don’t want to contact them. That’s why you thought of me and were given my phone number. Probably by some retired old bastard who keeps going on about what a great cop he used to be. How he arrested gangland bosses … never mind.

  “And it’s true that there are not many private detectives in this town, and I’m one of the last policemen able to recite the local mafia’s phone book without getting a number wrong. I’ve taken liberties with official procedures, but the times required it. The old bastards you know aren’t up to date. They are a murder or two in arrears. And that’s what matters! I can tell you quicker than anyone else when someone in the mob catches a cold or steps out of line. It’s a hobby of mine. Some people bet on horses, I keep up with all the files on serious crime. Which means that I’ve got my informers out there and can find out quite a lot.”

  Chandeler coughed slightly and fiddled with the Steinert file. De Palma laid his palm on the lawyer’s desk.

  “Chandeler, you know that I know a lot about the underworld, but I’ve always stayed as straight as a die. Both feet in the gutter, but straight. I’ll be able to write a book about it when I’m an old bastard too … Just like all the old coppers who think that they’ve served some purpose on earth.”

  “I can see that there’s no getting round you …”

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but policemen like me aren’t there to help men like you …”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t like your furniture, or your secretary, or your shoes …”

  Chandeler took the blow manfully. He stayed sitting, completely understanding the barely veiled threat that had just been made.

  “I’m sorry, M. de Palma, I thought that we could reach an understanding. Never mind.”

  De Palma stood up and stretched, without taking his eyes off the lawyer.

  “If you should change your mind, de Palma, don’t hesitate to call me, even late in the evening. I suppose you have made a note of my mobile number!”

  When he pushed open the door of the La Rivière bookshop in the middle of Tarascon, he pretended not to notice the bookseller who was smiling broadly at him. She was pretty, with her milk-white teeth and big shy eyes.

  He went over to the Provence section, which took up all the space beside the window and which thus provided a view of the Bar des Amis, on the other side of the rue de la Mairie.

  He took down a huge coffee table book that covered Provence from Paleolithic times to the present, taking in the glory of Rome as well as all its major and minor conflicts, its parades and traditional flim-flam. It contained some beautiful photos: Arlésiennes in their ancient costumes, the fields of lavender around Sénanque Abbey, gypsies on the pilgrimage to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, white manes and long bracket-shaped horns in the Camargue half drowned by salty water, rare birds … But no white spoonbills. What a shame.

  Over the road, the owner of the Bar des Amis went out onto the pavement and waved his large hairy arms about as if to chase the unhealthy air of his premises from his tarry lungs.

  The man replaced the book, then looked for another title on the shelves, without taking his eyes off the comings and goings across the street.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?”

  “Um, no,” he said, still staring at his objective. “It’s for a present. And I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “Maybe I could help you?”

  “No, don’t worry. Thanks anyway.”

  The pretty bookseller gave him a thin smile and disappeared among the shelves of paperbacks.

  Then he saw the person he was looking for. Christian Rey was going into the bar. A second man, whom he had never seen before, arrived less than a minute later. He was tall, with a swaying gait and gray hair. He might well be no more than a normal customer.

  “Can I take this please?” the man asked the bookseller, handing her Mémoires et récits by Frédéric Mistral.

  “Do you need it gift-wrapped?”

  “No, no, I’m in a bit of a hurry in fact,” he said, giving her the exact amount.

  He placed the book at the bottom of his bag and went out. The first tourists h
ad now appeared. He walked fast, turned down the first alley to the right and stopped in a doorway, as though following a pre-rehearsed route, then from his bag he took a cotton jacket and a baseball cap. He added a pair of light sunglasses and took out his Nikon with the 200 mm lens.

  He retraced his steps and stopped for a moment to examine his appearance in the chemist’s window: his disguise looked convincing enough to confuse any potential witnesses. Whatever happened, he would be the man in a cap with sunglasses and a camera—a commonplace sight in the streets of Tarascon in midsummer.

  A minute later, he went into the Bar des Amis and ordered a beer at the counter by pointing at the tap of Leffe. That way, he would be the man in the cap who did not even speak French.

  The owner, a big Corsican with a gray complexion and smiling eyes, set the beer down and went on shining the zinc bar in silence, occasionally glancing at the television screen, which was showing highlights from that year’s football championship.

  All at once, Christian Rey emerged from the back room like a shadow, accompanied by the man with gray hair. The two exchanged a few words. As they did so, he paid and left the bar.

  Rey and the man with gray hair … this was something new. But, it did not disturb him, and did not unduly complicate the mission he had set himself. Maybe he would have to eliminate Gray Hair too? It did not matter much. One more or one fewer. He took a couple of photographs in front of the bar, as Rey turned left, and Gray Hair right.

  Then he had to change once again, quickly at the corner of rue de la Mairie. He knew that Rey was cunning, and he did not want to take any risks. He took off his jacket and glasses and put on a red polo shirt.

  Rey stopped at Chez François, then opposite the town hall at Le Narval, and finally at the Bar de la Fontaine, not far from the ramparts of King René’s Castle. Each time, the scenario was the same: he went inside, shook a few hands, then came out again a few minutes later with a package concealed in a supermarket bag. And each time, the man took some photographs.

  Rey then headed for the castle car park and got into his Kompressor convertible. The man watched as he drove off, and only stopped looking when he took the bridge that crosses the Rhône toward Beaucaire.