Pel And The Touch Of Pitch

by Mark Hebden

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘A body, Patron. Turned up by a couple of kids in the woods near Suchey. It’s been there some time. De Troq’s gone out with Aimedieu. Doc Minet’s just telephoned. He says it looks like murder.’

  ‘Do we know who it is?’

  ‘No idea yet. Everybody’s out there. Photography. The Lab boys. I’ve informed the Palais de Justice. Judge Brisard’s next for call so he should be on his way. We can handle it.’

  ‘I’ll come.

  ‘It’s not necessary, Patron. I was only informing you.’

  Pel cocked his head. Barclay was still droning away to the huddle of admiring women upstairs.

  ‘Makes no difference,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Anything was preferable to Barclay and his house.

  Three

  Darcy was waiting in the office when Pel arrived. ‘De Troq’ and Aimedieu have reported in,’ he said. ‘I’ve also told Bardolle to go along. He was born in the country and a countryman’s views could be useful. He might spot something.’

  He held out a packet of Gauloises. Pel eyed it warily but helped himself nevertheless. Darcy had his lighter out before he could change his mind and, stuffing his pockets with notebooks, pens, pencils and cigarettes as if there were no tomorrow, Pel followed him through the door.

  ‘Inform me,’ he said.

  Behind the driving wheel, heading out of the city in the warm summer evening, Darcy gestured. ‘Two kids,’ he said. ‘Fell into the police station at Suchey and said there was a body buried in the woods.’

  ‘What were they doing in the woods?’

  Darcy smiled, showing his splendid white teeth. Darcy’s teeth were magnificent and looked as if, should you get in their way, they would snap your head off – literally. ‘They said they were walking. But there’s a dam out there full of perch—’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was there when I was a kid. They were hunting for bait. That’s how they found the maggots. I think there were rather more than they expected.’

  The sun was still visible when they reached the wood. Screens and tapes had been rigged and, under a battery of lights, Doc Minet had made a start on the scientific disinterment of the body. Photography had finished. They had been taking pictures with their polaroids from every angle and every stage as Doc Minet removed the layers of twigs, soil, leaves and dirt. As Pel appeared, Darcy spoke to Inspector Pomereu, of Traffic, whose men were putting up barriers at the side of the road.

  ‘Judge Brisard not here yet?’ he asked. ‘He should be, by now. A juge d’instruction’s supposed to see the body in situ.’

  ‘I saw him leaving the Hôtel de Police,’ Pomereu said. ‘It was probably before you telephoned, though.’

  Minet was just removing the last of the twigs and the sprays of beechwood. The body was only lightly covered and it didn’t take him long.

  ‘It wasn’t done here.’ He gestured at the neighbouring trees. ‘There are no beech trees around here.’

  Pel turned to Bardolle who was standing nearby, huge and thickset, like a patient bull mastiff.

  ‘There are no beech trees in this wood at all, Patron.’ His heavy voice echoed among the undergrowth.

  Pel nodded and bent for a closer look. The air which had been full of the hum of disturbed flies, had quietened as the sun disappeared and the shadows took over, but the stench was enough for everybody to work with handkerchiefs to their noses.

  The body was that of a man, fully clothed and lying on his back.

  Doc Minet looked up. ‘It’s murder,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Suicides don’t cover themselves with turf and beech twigs.’

  ‘Accident, perhaps? Somebody caused his death, panicked and covered him up?’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  ‘There’s no sign of a weapon,’ Bardolle pointed out.

  ‘There probably won’t be one,’ Doc Minet said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the state of decomposition, I decided I’d better examine him where he is. There’s blood in the voice box. The small bones of the larynx are crushed. Because of the decomposition, I could pick them out.’

  ‘Strangled?’

  ‘Not a constriction. A blow.’

  ‘On the throat? What sort? A punch? A kick?’

  ‘How about a blow with the fist? Or a karate chop? That could have done it.’

  ‘Could a woman have done it?’

  ‘A lot of women learn it these days,’ Darcy said.

  ‘It’s possible.’ Minet rose and dusted off the knees of his trousers. ‘I’ll have him up and taken to the lab. I can examine him better there. Any sign of Brisard?’

  Darcy frowned. ‘He’s probably making life miserable for some poor con somewhere,’ he said. Judge Brisard was not popular with the Police Judiciaire.

  Minet shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not going to wait long. I might find other injuries. If there are none, then I’d say the blow to the windpipe was definitely the cause of death. It would render him unconscious and he’d inhale the blood and choke. He’d die in a few minutes.’

  ‘Could it possibly have been an accident? A branch that swung back and hit him?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘No chance he could have done it himself?’

  ‘Not a hope. That’s the sort of injury that’s done with the heel of the hand. You try and hit yourself across the throat with the heel of your hand. It’s not possible.’

  ‘Who is he? Any indication?’

  Bardolle shook his head. ‘None, Patron. I’ve tried his pockets but they’ve been turned out.’ His thick finger indicated the lining of one of the jacket pockets among the scattered leaves.

  ‘How long has he been here? Or – the same question – how long has he been dead?’

  Minet pulled a face. ‘It’s too late to measure loss of body temperature,’ he said. ‘And rigor mortis has been and gone long since. The body’s disintegrating. Another week or so in this heat and he’d be unrecognisable.’

  ‘He looks a big type,’ Darcy observed. ‘Can you tell us anything else, Doc?’

  Minet shrugged. ‘Big hands,’ he said. ‘Strong. So he wasn’t a clerk or anything of that nature. He’s tall – around 190 centimetres – and well developed. But gone to seed. I’d say he was a bit of an athlete in his time.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Hard to say. Decomposition’s pretty extensive. Say around fifty. Perhaps a bit more or a bit less. There’s one other thing which should make him not too difficult to identify.’ He indicated the right arm, lying among the disturbed earth. ‘He probably broke his arm at some time during his career. It’s set crookedly.’

  Pel glanced about him. The sun had gone completely now, the shadows deepening, the lights round the screen the only bright spot among the trees. The hum of flies had stopped as the light had vanished, and the laboratory men, who had been searching the undergrowth, had straightened up, unable to search any more.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll call it off until daylight, and tackle it again tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll get in touch with Missing Persons,’ Darcy said. ‘They might have somebody who matches his description.’

  ‘Try round the local stations, too. If he’s local, it might save time.’

  As Darcy moved away, Pel turned back to Minet. ‘How long has he been there? Six or eight weeks?’

  Minet’s smile came again. ‘Oh, mon Dieu, no,’ he said. ‘Nine or ten days, that’s all – certainly not more than twelve.’ He gestured as Pel stared in disbelief and indicated the maggots. ‘Those little chaps are surprisingly informative. It’s amazing how quickly they eat up the flesh. I’ve seen a body reduced to this state in a matter of ten days. It’s fairly safe to assume these are the larvae of the bluebottle Calliphora erythrocephalus. They tell us the time of death.’

  ‘They do?’

  ‘Roughly, anyway. The eggs are laid in dayli
ght in warm weather. A blowfly wouldn’t dream of laying eggs in the dark or the cold, and any self-respecting entomologist could establish, by observation of the various stages of development, just when it happened.’ Minet indicated the body. ‘These are mature, nice and fat and a bit lazy. They’re third-stage unpupated maggots, and I estimate they were laid nine or ten days ago. Allowing a little extra time, in case the bluebottles didn’t find the body immediately, let’s say death occurred on the 16th or 17th of the month.’

  Inevitably the newspapermen had heard what had happened by the time Pel returned to the Hôtel de Police, and three of them – Fiabon, of France Dimanche, Henriot, of Le Bien Public, the local rag, and Sarrazin, the freelance – were waiting in the corridor.

  ‘Heard you’d found a stiff, Chief,’ Sarrazin said.

  ‘How did you hear?’ Pel had long suspected Sergeant Misset, of his squad, of making money by passing on titbits of news to the press. Misset was growing fat and lazy and he was always in need of cash for his growing family and the girls he constantly chased, and Pel was longing to catch him.

  If Sarrazin had received information, however, he was giving nothing away. ‘Heard everybody was out, Chief,’ he said. ‘It indicated something. Made a few enquiries and found the blood wagon had gone from the Lab. That usually indicates a stiff. And not just an accident either, because they don’t handle accidents.’

  It was hard to catch Sarrazin out, and it seemed to Pel best to admit what was going on. They’d be happy to use a ‘Have you seen this man?’ sort of story if nothing else, because everything was grist to the mill. They might even pick up something. French newspapers had a nasty habit of making wild guesses that were sometimes embarrassing, either to the police, the victim’s family, or themselves, but just occasionally they came up with information.

  He told them what he knew. ‘A body’s been found in the woods at Suchey,’ he admitted. ‘A man. We have no name and no details yet. A big man. Around a hundred and ninety centimetres. If anyone has anyone missing of that type, they should communicate with us.’

  ‘Is it murder, Patron?’

  ‘It’s murder.’

  They went away, satisfied, and Pel headed for his office. In the corridor he bumped into Nosjean who was heading for the sergeants’ room, his nose in a file.

  ‘Patron!’

  ‘Nosjean!’

  ‘You look preoccupied, Patron.’

  ‘Come to that, so do you.

  Nosjean frowned. ‘I have a problem, Patron.’

  ‘What sort of problem?’

  ‘This art thing. You remember, of course, that Professor Grandjean and Mijo Lehmann both felt that Deputy Barclay’s Vlaminck was a fake.’

  Pel gestured. ‘We have a murder on our hands,’ he pointed out. ‘I don’t think one fake picture matters much at the moment.’

  ‘Perhaps one doesn’t, Patron,’ Nosjean agreed. ‘But another one’s come up.

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Another fake.’

  Pel directed Nosjean inside his office. ‘Inform me,’ he said.

  For a moment Nosjean considered how to start. ‘The manager of the Banque des Fermiers de l’Est at Givry telephoned me yesterday,’ he said. ‘He wanted our help.’

  ‘At a weekend?’

  ‘He thought it might be important. It concerned a painting, and, since I was already involved with one, I went to see him at his home. He thinks they’re in trouble.’

  ‘Somebody been robbing them?’

  ‘In a way, probably. A type called Jacques Chevrier, who’s a fabric designer living at Givry, needed to raise a loan to improve his house, which is a new acquisition. He approached the Banque des Fermiers de l’Est. The manager wasn’t against the idea because Chevrier’s credit’s good, but he needed a collateral and Chevrier offered a picture he possessed, a Rembrandt called Soldier With Helmet which it was decided the bank should hold until the loan was paid off. The painting’s only small – thirty-six centimetres by forty-two – but it looked good and Chevrier had had it looked at by an expert called Professor Solecin, of the Musée Fervier, near Lyons. He had the verification, all the provenance that was necessary for it, and the painting was valued at 750,000 francs. It was stuck in the vault, Chevrier got his loan and everybody was quite happy – Chevrier because he’d got the money and the bank because they had a picture which they felt was worth ten times what they’d loaned to Chevrier.’

  ‘There’s a “but”, of course.’

  ‘Of course, Patron. On the bank’s inspecting staff from Paris there’s a man who’s keen on art and makes a point of visiting galleries and studying art generally in an amateur sort of way. He doesn’t class himself as an expert but over the years he’s learned a lot about it. When he heard of the bank’s painting, because he likes paintings and because Rembrandt happens to be a favourite of his, he asked to see it. They fished it out for him. He took a good look at it and then another. After about three good looks, he began to have doubts about its authenticity and said so. The bank was worried because it could hardly demand its loan back. But it got a couple of real experts in to have a look at it. They were unbiased and both professionals. One was a professor of Fine Art from Marseilles, the other a retired professor of Fine Art from Paris.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They took about two minutes to decide the painting was a dud. They had no knowledge of a Soldier With Helmet in the Rembrandt raisonné, and it seems catalogues are pretty extensive these days. And, anyway, they didn’t think it was even a very good Rembrandt or even Rembrandt school, pupil of Rembrandt or what have you. They decided it was a deliberate fake.’

  Pel said nothing but Nosjean knew he had captured his attention.

  He went on quickly. ‘The bank manager informed Chevrier, the owner, who was horrified. He swore he didn’t know and wasn’t an expert anyway. He thought quite simply that he’d got a bargain, a lost master, and he agreed immediately to them testing it. It was a fake. It’s supposed to be a Rembrandt of the late period but the style’s all wrong.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Mijo said so. She had a look at it, too.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘It also contains colours Rembrandt could never have heard of, colours which were discovered long after 1669 when he died. One’s a cadmium red, and cadmium wasn’t discovered until 1817. And there’s a Brunswick green, which contains lead chromate pigments, and is also a colour which was produced for the first time long after Rembrandt died. The whites show traces of titanium. This is a modern painting, Patron, and not one for a discerning collector either. The bank manager’s been worrying about it ever since. Yesterday he felt he ought to report it.’

  ‘Do we know where this Chevrier bought the painting?’

  ‘He bought it from a man called Cubescu, who’s a Rumanian expatriate living in Avignon. He’s a geologist.’

  Pel studied Nosjean thoughtfully. He was a handsome young man who was maturing well. Pel had a suspicion he would never make a top policeman because, though he was cleverer than Darcy, he lacked Darcy’s ruthlessness. Nevertheless, having trained him from the day when he had been a very modest young detective complaining about his expenses and the lack of time off, Pel had a soft spot for him.

  ‘How are things with you and Marie-Joséphine Lehmann?’ he asked.

  Nosjean blushed. It always pleased Pel to discover there were still young men who could blush. ‘Still all right, Patron,’ he said.

  ‘Then how about taking her to Avignon’, Pel suggested, ‘and going to see this Cubescu? She’s a bit of an expert and she might spot something you might have missed.’

  Four

  Doc Minet was the first to arrive the following day. Pel spared him a thin smile but as his face came unglued he knew that, despite the cold he’d feared coming to nothing, his sunny temper wouldn’t last long and it was therefore best to get it out of the way so that he could forget the pleasantries and concentrate on his work.

  Minet to
ok the chair at the other side of Pel’s desk and offered a cigarette.

  Grimly, Pel shook his head. ‘I’m trying to cut them down,’ he said. ‘I thought you were, too,’ he added as if Minet was a traitor.

  ‘I was.’ Doc Minet, who was round and friendly, grinned at him. ‘I was a chain smoker. Sometimes, in my job, it’s necessary. But I gave it up. But it was hard work and I didn’t enjoy it and I decided it was better to suffer from the effects of smoking than from remorse at the sin of it.’ He blew out smoke – another, Pel thought bitterly, who could happily transgress without any sign of doubt.

  ‘Our friend in the woods at Suchey,’ Minet began. ‘I’ve been having a look at him. It’s much as I thought. Eight to ten days ago, I’d say. But there’s not much we can tell from the body. It’s too far gone.’ He paused to explain. ‘Decomposition usually starts about forty-eight hours after death following the disappearance of rigor mortis. Putrefaction is caused by bacteria moving from the intestines and spreading through the body by way of the blood vessels. You know all this, of course, but I’ll tell you again. Gross disfiguration arrives usually after three weeks and liquefaction sets in after four weeks. In this weather, it all speeds up and if you’d left him much longer there wouldn’t have been much for us to work on.’

  ‘However—’ Doc Minet seemed to be enjoying his grisly diatribe ‘–the internal organs collapse at a different rate, and the tendons and fibrous tissues are the last to go. Heat advances the growth of bacteria, which is why our friend in the wood was in such a mess. So – what did I find out? Nothing much more than I’d already guessed. What I said yesterday stands. There are no other wounds. He was hit across the throat either with a narrow blunt instrument, the heel of the hand in a karate chop, or by a kick while he was on the ground. Age: As I said. Around fifty-odd. Big chap. When the body was stretched out it measured one-eighty-five centimetres. Teeth had been attended to in the past – well attended to – but neglected in recent years. Left arm broken at some time. There’s a scar, so something must have hit it with some force. Tattoo on left forearm – a number, 179, garlanded with a wreath. It’s quite clear. It looks like some sort of badge and seems to indicate what he’d once been, even if he still wasn’t when he died.’