The Beast of the Camargue

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  The others, that seething mass of proles, worked like nobodies. After their shift was over the smartest of them used to go and rack their brains at the offices of the Communist Party, reforming the world with Stalinist slogans.

  The Baron had been born in this area, but had never belonged to it. He was not raised with his feet treading sawdust in the bars or cafés, talking too loudly and waving his hands around the way the plebs do on T.V.

  But when he bumped into a childhood friend in the street, who had been in and out of prison, he would greet him as a friend. Their eyes would meet, and commonplaces rained on the tarmac. Nothing more. The true Marseillais is a silent man.

  6.

  On Friday, July 11, at 5:50 a.m., a fine drizzle was blowing in from the bay.

  From the dual carriageway overlooking the harbor, you could see the flickering yellow lamps on the bellies of freighters streaming with rain. Anne Moracchini and Daniel Romero were driving in silence, their mouths bitter from the day’s first cup of coffee and their eyes still puffy with sleep.

  Capitaine Moracchini, the only woman in the Brigade Criminelle, did not like the rain. It reminded her of her early years with the Police Judiciaire in Versailles.

  “Daniel, did you remember the blotting paper?”

  “Yes, Anne,” Romero sighed. “It’s in the bag.”

  Daniel Romero was wondering whether his boss’s explosive mood was going to cool down, or if she was always like this when she went to grab a gangster while the milkman was still doing his rounds. He did not know that Moracchini could not bear rain, especially not at 6 a.m. when they were about to make a difficult arrest in a lane in the village of Saint-André. It was enough to make you think that criminals had a guardian angel out to ruin the best-laid plans.

  “What’s your aftershave, Daniel?”

  “Habit Rouge.”

  “Tomorrow morning, try Pour un Homme by Caron. It’s just as virile and doesn’t get up my nose so much.”

  Lieutenant Romero had just arrived on the brigade. With his good looks and relaxed, feline gait he looked perfect in his new part. He kept his cool in all circumstances, had a brain that still sparked and a true belief in his mission. He had been with the Brigade Anti Criminalité, before taking the officers’ exam and joining the Criminelle in Marseille—his deepest wish come true.

  On the church square of Saint-André, Moracchini looked at the clock on the Xsara’s dashboard.

  “Jesus, what are the B.R.I. boys up to? They’re not here yet! And it’s six already!”

  “Maybe they’re lost?”

  “That’s not funny, Daniel …”

  At the top of rue des Varces, a Mégane appeared, with its headlights off, followed by a 306.

  “Just look at them,” Moracchini said, mechanically checking her Manurhin. “Aren’t they just wonderful?”

  “They’re on time, you can say that for them. On the dot of six …”

  “Yeah,” she said, spitting her chewing gum out of the window.

  A third unmarked car drew up behind the Xsara.

  “How many are we altogether, Anne?”

  “Eleven …”

  She got out and shook hands with Capitaine Bonniol, of the Brigade de Recherches et d’Intervention.

  “It’s there,” she said, pointing at number 32, which was half erased.

  It was a ramshackle maisonette, set back from the rest of the street. A rusty fence, mended with reinforcings for concrete, stood in front of a small garden of irises and scrubby rose bushes. To the left was a prefabricated garage, and at the far end the house itself, with its bedroom under the rafters; one of those prewar shacks put up by Italian laborers in one weekend, using materials nicked from building sites. A first step out of their shanty town.

  Moracchini drew her .357, signaled to the B.R.I. hard cases to hang back and gave four violent kicks that almost demolished the door.

  “This is the police, M. Casetti!” she shouted loud enough to crack her voice. “Open up!”

  More kicks, then she nodded to her teammate.

  “This is the police.” Daniel Romero, in a voice that was almost soft. “Come quietly, M. Casetti.”

  “Shall we break the door down, Anne?”

  “Why not bring in the anti-terrorist squad and T.V. reporters while you’re at it! Are you joking or what? We’ll do it the old-fashioned way. He’ll come down and open up like a good boy.”

  “My ass he will,” said Bonniol.

  At that moment, a light shone through the bedroom shutters. A shotgun barrel gleamed in the air.

  “This is Capitaine Anne Moracchini, of the Brigade Criminelle. I have a judge’s warrant … You know me, Jean-Luc … come on, open up!”

  Events unfolded just as the two had imagined from the start. The door was pulled ajar, a figure appeared and a pair of eyes shone in the half-light. Romero kicked hard at the bottom of the door and Moracchini aimed her revolver at Casetti standing ashen-faced in his underpants.

  “No messing now, Jean-Luc. And no sudden moves. Put your hands where we can see them and turn round.”

  Jean-Luc Casetti, a crook used to the routine, turned and offered his wrists to the police officer. Bonniol turned on the kitchen light, and a greenish glare came down from the neon on the ceiling.

  “Not too tight, please,” Casetti begged.

  “Don’t worry, Jean-Luc. We’ve been here before!” Moracchini grabbed hold of Casetti and sat him down on the kitchen table.

  “We’ve got a warrant …”

  Casetti shook his head and looked skyward.

  “We’re here because you’re suspected of taking part in a raid on a security van. So, as of now—and it’s ten past six—you’re in police custody. If you want, you can see a lawyer, and also a doctor. How are you, no problems at the moment?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Jean-Luc Casetti was short, with bright eyes that darted around in all directions. A gypsy called Bagdad de la Cayolle had fingered him as the gunman in the double murder of the Ferri couple. After two lean years in a post in Nice, the Criminelle’s new boss, François Delpiano, had jumped at the chance of solving his first big case in Marseille. But Moracchini was sure that the tip was a phony. She had said as much to Delpiano, but he wouldn’t listen. All he had agreed was to bring in Casetti for a hold-up, so as not to put the wind up the people who had taken out the contract on the couple.

  “Casetti, the security van raider …”

  “Please Inspector, not in front of the children. Don’t say a word.”

  “No, Jean-Luc, I’m a Capitaine now!” Moracchini said, to cool things down a little.

  A little girl wearing a blue-flowered dressing gown over her bony shoulders and foam slippers on her feet was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hello,” Moracchini said, as simply as possible, smiling at the wide-eyed girl.

  “Hello, Madame.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “She’s called Marion,” Casetti butted in proudly.

  “You had a son too, no? A big lad …”

  “Christophe? He’s in jail.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he takes after his prick of a father.”

  “For a long stretch?”

  “Ten years.”

  “Jesus, ten years, Jean-Luc! That’s no life.”

  Despite her years on the force, it still riled her when a crook spoke so coolly about his family’s troubles. The verdicts seemed to rain down on the Casetti family without ever teaching them anything. They went in and out of prison and seemed to accept these return trips between the free world and “inside” as if they were the terms of a contract. A contract often settled by a bullet.

  “We’re going to search the house, Jean-Luc. Have you got anything to tell me before we begin, and find it ourselves?”

  “There’s nothing here. Zilch,” he said, gesturing at the corridor from which his wife had just emerged, with the family’s latest addition in her arms.
>
  “Here’s our youngest—Pierre. He’s just turned three.”

  Moracchini and Romero looked at each other in silence. Casetti’s wife, her eyes still red with sleep, put her son down. The child immediately went over to his father and grabbed him by the handcuffs, beaming widely. Romero looked away.

  “O.K., Jean-Luc. We’re going to have you spit on some blotting paper, so as to take your genetic imprint. You know, your D.N.A…. Then you’ll come along with us, and if you’re clean you’ll be back home tomorrow morning. O.K.?”

  “Jesus, you turn up mob-handed with all that artillery! It’s like the Napoleonic wars in here. That one over there’s got a pumpgun loaded with buckshot, and you ask me if I’m O.K.?”

  “That’s right!” Madame Casetti almost screamed, raising her hand toward Bonniol. “The last time you turned up, there were just two of you. With that big copper, the one who was in the paper. What’s his name again?”

  “Commandant de Palma.”

  “Yes, him. He’s a real man. He risks his life. Everyone knows that. He’s got respect for people. No need to come with a squad. I’ve got nothing against you, Madame. I know you’re on the level. But him”—she pointed at a guard from the B.R.I.—“aren’t you ashamed of pointing a gun at children?”

  Bonniol made to open his big mouth, but Moracchini glared at him.

  Five years ago, on the orders of a nervy magistrate, she and de Palma had come to fetch Casetti on suspicion of murder, but nothing had come of it. Forty-eight hours later, they had taken back home “Casetti the Gangland Killer” as an inspired sub-editor had dubbed him.

  “In fact, we nearly brought the T.V. cameras along,” she said, to lower the pressure.

  “That’s all we need! The last time, for the lad, we had those local telly shitheads round. I thought it was just the new police procedure to film everything. Then two months later, they showed the boy on T.V., and everyone knew. Fuck the lot of them!”

  Moracchini’s mobile rang. She went out into the garden.

  “Anne? It’s Michel.”

  “What’s up with you? Insomnia?”

  “I’m not waking you up, am I?”

  “Thanks for the kind thought. It’s six thirty, and you’ll never guess where I am.”

  “Go on.”

  “At Casetti’s. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”

  “For the Ferri murders? What a prick that magistrate is. Every time there’s a hit he’s going to send us to Casetti’s!”

  “No, this time it was the new boss.”

  “Delpiano! Good, now I feel better off on leave.”

  “What’s more, we’ve picked him up on a Friday, which means we’ll spend all weekend questioning him.”

  “That triple bastard.”

  “And I wanted to see you a little!”

  One of the B.R.I. team came close, so she went out into the alley.

  “O.K., so what’s up? You’re going to pop the question?”

  “Um, no, but I’ll have to think about it …”

  “We’re made for each other, Michel, but only after ten in the morning.”

  “I can imagine those nights of passion.”

  “Hmmmm …”

  “Tell me, does the name Steinert mean anything to you?”

  “You never change. I talk love to you, and you talk job. Who do you mean?”

  “A guy who’s disappeared. I found the case interesting and …”

  “And you want me to ask around! O.K., Baron. But right now I’m going back to Casetti. Who told you that it was the Ferri murders?”

  “I know everything, you should know that.”

  She went back into the house. Casetti had spat conscientiously onto the blotting paper that Romero had handed him—so conscientiously that the two from the Criminelle realized at once that he must be in the clear. Or at least over the Ferri affair. The rest was quite another story. De Palma had always suspected him of doing jobs for the one-armed-bandit racketeers. Before running his own amusement arcade, Casetti had been a top bank robber. Not the sort who screws up and gets pulled in by the Brigade de Répression du Banditisme every time he fails to make ends meet. But between that and becoming a gangland trigger man lay a gulf that a magistrate fresh in from Lyon was too quick to cross. The credo was to apply constant pressure on the big boys of organized crime. To dig for information constantly, whenever official procedures gave them enough leeway. The police might drag their heels, but the magistrate took himself very seriously.

  Moracchini glanced at Casetti’s daughter. She was born during his first spell out of prison. A child of the visiting room, which explained the great difference in age between her and her elder brother. The little girl had the look of a weary Madonna, despite the sparks that occasionally lit up her eyes.

  “It’s half-past seven. Are you going to school soon, Marion?”

  “Go to school while you take my daddy to prison?”

  “If it isn’t him, he’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “The last time, the magistrate put him in prison anyway! For my daddy, even when it’s not him, it’s still him!”

  “Don’t talk to the police like that,” Casetti said. “They’re doing their job.”

  At ten o’clock that same morning, de Palma was driving slowly along Route Nationale 568, northwestward from Marseille, in heavy rain. Visibility was down to about twenty meters, which did not improve his mood.

  The thirty-year-old radio in the Alfa Romeo was crackling. De Palma took out his walkman, put on the headphones and swore when he realized that he had forgotten the box set he had bought the day before: a legendary version of the Götterdämmerung with Astrid Varnay and Wolfgang Windgassen, conducted by Clemens Krauss. He wanted to compare it with the ten other versions of The Ring he already owned.

  So now he would have to be content with reflecting on the day he was going to spend far from Marseille. That night, he had made the decision to investigate the Steinert case. It had been neither the billionaire’s wife’s money, nor his unhealthy curiosity that had clinched the decision; but rather the simple fact that this woman looked like Isabelle Mercier. De Palma saw it as a sign, something that had risen up from the chaos in order to drive him forward. He was also intrigued by the fact that she had personally sought him out, after the blunt refusal he had made to Chandeler. Something in her story rang false, and de Palma could sense the turbulence in these big-money cases like a weather radar.

  The rain redoubled, and he suddenly had the impression of being inside the belly of a snare drum during a parade on July 14, which made him slow down even more, and thus increased his irritation.

  He hated this long road, as straight as an American freeway, punctuated with chip vendors, sellers of melons and other local produce, and whores in caravans who serviced truck drivers by the edge of meadows as flat as the sea.

  Each time he took the R.N. 568 it was always for some shady affair: bar owners murdered by slot-machine racketeers, or some settling of scores among the gypsies of Arles and its outskirts. All he needed now was a migraine to ruin his day completely.

  When he reached Tarascon, by now on Route Départementale 99, the rain stopped abruptly. He parked on rue du Viaduc in front of the commissariat, in one of the spaces reserved for police officers. Straight away the security guard, wrapped in his royal blue outfit, hurried over.

  “De Palma, Marseille P.J.,” he said, flashing his tricolor card. “I’m here to see Jean-Claude Marceau.”

  “Oh, right. Talk to my colleague then.”

  The second security guard behind the grille was not so bad: brunette, about twenty, with an angular build, an inviting smile and big dark worried-looking eyes. The first hint of charm on this gloomy morning.

  “Capitaine Marceau? Yes, stay there; I’ll see if he’s free,” she said, poring over her list of telephone numbers.

  The hall of the commissariat smelled of stale tobacco and the sour breath of its hundreds of visitors. A winding staircase, pockmarked with che
wing gum and cigarette burns, led up to the first floor, where the departments of investigation and public safety lay in a curving corridor with a low ceiling and brick walls. Voices broke out from behind the wall of the drug squad.

  “On my mother’s life, it wasn’t me …”

  “Fuck your mother, asshole. We’ve been tailing you for six months. Can’t you see yourself in the fucking photos?”

  “On my mother’s life …”

  That morning, in the Cité des Rosoirs, the drugs squad of the Service d’Investigation et de recherches de la sécurité publique had nabbed a housing estate baron with 40 kilos of dope in the boot of his car, some of it in his son’s cot and the rest in his wife’s vanity case.

  De Palma arrived at the door to the investigation rooms.

  “Hide everything! The P.J.’s here!” a voice wrecked by filterless Gitanes yelled from behind the half-closed door.

  De Palma shoved it open.

  “Hi, Jean-Claude, sounds like things are heating up next door!”

  “Really? It’s never them, you know how they are …”

  Marceau greeted the Baron with a hug and took a long look at him.

  “Jesus, Michel de Palma. The Baron … you can’t imagine how pleased I am to see you. It’s been ages.”

  “You haven’t changed.”

  “And you’ve still got just as much imagination! How are things?”

  Jean-Claude Marceau was a year younger than de Palma, and had kept the look of an eternally melancholy teenager, into hard rock and dope. Of course he was into neither, just an excellent police officer who was now rotting in a small commissariat after a brilliant start to his career with de Palma and Maistre in Paris. It had all been down to a fit of nostalgia.

  In the early 1990s, Marceau had decided to go back to Tarascon, his home town. He wanted to find his roots again, to unlock the Provence that lay deep inside his body and soul. He had started with the Brigade de Répression du Banditisme in Marseille, before asking to be transferred to the Sécurité Publique.

  Through the partition, the din was growing louder.

  “I’ve got out of touch with the drug squad,” said de Palma, pointing at the wall with his thumb.