Pel And The Touch Of Pitch

by Mark Hebden

  It might be well worth seeing Claude Barclay. On the pavement outside, Nosjean looked at his watch. It was late and Mijo Lehmann had said she’d wait at her flat for him. He remembered the previous night with a little shudder of pleasure. In the big bed they had done unmentionable things that had left him feeling he had been wasting his time for years over all those other girls like the estate agent and the librarian and the girl who worked in a travel agency, simply because they looked like Charlotte Rampling. For years he’d had a thing about girls who looked like Charlotte Rampling but he felt he’d got over it now and Mijo Lehmann was worth ten of them. He had never realised she was as enthusiastic as she had been, always assuming that with her knowledge of antiques, she was cool and self-possessed. And – the thought gave him some pleasure – she looked like Charlotte Rampling, too! He felt a little tremor of what he had to admit looked remarkably like lust run through him and decided that perhaps he could leave Deputy Barclay and his picture until the following day.

  While Nosjean had been busy with the paintings, Darcy had been on the telephone to the War Ministry about Jules Arri, and they had put him in touch with the regimental historian of the 179th Regiment of the Line, currently billeted in one of the big yellow barrack blocks at Metz. The regimental historian, an ex-major called Leroux, ran a small museum there and he was more than willing to help.

  Well, Darcy thought, Metz wasn’t all that far away. Only far enough to leave him worn out for his date in the evening. As Darcy left the city heading east and north, Pel was with the Chief. The Chief was angry.

  ‘Judge Brisard complains that the body at Suchey was removed before he arrived,’ he was saying ‘And that, as you know, is not the usual practice. The juge d’instruction should see it in situ.’

  Pel’s hackles rose. Brisard, he felt, was a powerful argument for euthanasia. He was all for a heart attack crippling him for a while. Nothing permanent. Just something to stop his pious rattle.

  ‘The body remained exactly where it was found until as late as possible,’ he rapped back. ‘The Palais de Justice was informed immediately the message about the discovery came in. Doctor Minet was there when I arrived and everybody else arrived about the same time. Judge Brisard had ample time to visit the scene of the crime before the body was removed.’

  The Chief frowned. ‘He says his department wasn’t informed,’ he growled.

  Pel scowled. He didn’t have a lot of time for the Palais de Justice where, he considered, they spent all their time thinking up ways to advance their own ends at the expense of the police. And Brisard was an old enemy. Tall, pear-shaped, setting himself up as the acme of righteousness with a deep love for his family – though Pel knew very well that he had a woman in Beaune who was the widow of a police officer – he and Pel had hated each other from the moment they had met.

  The Chief knew all about the feud and for a lot of it blamed Pel with his eccentricities and inexplicable dislikes – though, it had to be admitted, he disliked Brisard even more. If he could have got rid of Brisard he would happily have done so for a bit of peace, because he had no intention of getting rid of Pel. For all his irritability, his eccentricity and bigotry, Pel was the most valuable member of his staff and the Chief intended keeping him until he retired or descended into senility. All the same, he thought, the little bugger had to be brought up sharp at times because he always liked to work without a juge d’instruction looking over his shoulder which, as he well knew, was not permitted by the system.

  ‘It’ll have to go in your file,’ he said.

  Pel was quite indifferent. Complaints dropped into Pel’s file like confetti at a wedding, but it didn’t stop him doing his job and the Chief mostly took no notice of them or immediately countered them by putting in commendations to balance them.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s forget that now.’

  Pel nodded, but he was spiteful enough to decide to do nothing of the sort. If Brisard wanted war, he thought, he could have it. He knew the message had been passed on and that somehow he’d find proof. He drew a deep breath and turned to the case of Jules Arri.

  ‘We’ve established his identity,’ he said. ‘Now we have to establish where he went to at night. We have his car but there were no useful fingerprints on it and I’m having it returned to the spot in the supermarket car park where it was found with a notice on it, “Have you seen the owner of this vehicle?” We’ll also have it photographed; with the number prominent, and let the press have it. They’ll be on to it like a lot of vultures and it will give them something to write about and keep them out of our hair for a bit. I’ll have a word with Sarrazin, the freelance, because what he does the others always do, too. Same sort of thing. “Have you seen the owner of this car? Did you see it on or around the 16th of the month and, if so, where?” Somebody may have noticed what he did when he left it.’

  Somebody had.

  When he returned to his office, Inspector Pomereu was waiting for him. Pomereu was a humourless individual but he ran Traffic efficiently. Not, Pel thought contemptuously, that it required more than a third-rate brain to run Traffic. You only had to know the difference between right and left and be able to wave your arms. Anybody could keep vehicles moving and hand out parking tickets.

  Pomereu was not in a very good temper and he was quick to notice Pel’s scowl. ‘Something troubling you?’ he asked sarcastically.

  ‘That ass, Brisard.’

  Pomereu brightened up. He’d had a few passages of arms with Brisard himself. ‘What’s he complaining about this time?’

  ‘He says his department wasn’t informed about Arri. They were. He just failed to turn up. I expect he was somewhere he shouldn’t be.’

  ‘He tries it on,’ Pomereu agreed. ‘It’s a pity his right arm can’t drop off.’

  Pel brightened. He hadn’t realised Pomereu’s dislike of Brisard was as strong as his own. ‘Or that he could be paralysed all down one side,’ he suggested.

  Pomereu grinned. It was unusual in Pomereu, whose pale face was normally totally without expression. For the first time since he’d known him, Pel warmed to him and for a while they contemplated with pleasure the things that might happen to Judge Brisard. Then Pomereu remembered why he was there.

  ‘We’ve found someone who noticed Arri’s car,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The attendant of the car park in the Place de la Liberation, opposite the Palais des Ducs.’

  ‘Here, in the city?’ Pel had been expecting someone from Varagne.

  ‘It’s the only Palais des Ducs I know,’ Pomereu said. ‘He’s pretty indignant. He says it shouldn’t have been in the supermarket car park at Varagne. It should have been in his car park outside the Palais des Ducs.’

  Pel looked puzzled and Pomereu explained.

  ‘There’s no full-time attendant,’ he said. ‘Just an old boy who goes round from time to time to make sure people who park their cars there are doing their stuff. It’s a pay-and-display park with a machine on the wall by the bar-tabac. You put your money in, receive a ticket and stick it on the windscreen of your car. The attendant wanders round to make sure nobody’s in there without paying. He’s often noticed the Peugeot 1111-AR-41 there, but always only for a short while.’

  ‘Why only for a short while?’

  ‘The regulations don’t come into force until 8a.m. which is when the attendant comes on duty and they finish at 7p.m. when he goes off. He’s noticed the car often but it always arrived just as he was packing up to go home and disappeared just as he was coming on in the morning. So Arri never needed a ticket, because none’s required to park there during the evening and night.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Pomereu made himself comfortable on the corner of Pel’s desk. Apparently Arri had arrived every evening about the time the car park emptied, and reappeared to collect his car just about the time it opened the following morning. Then, it seemed, he went into the bar nearby which opened at 6.30, took a café rhum, ate a
roll and finally drove off. ‘Mind you,’ Pomereu said, ‘the old boy admits there were occasional short periods when the car didn’t stay there overnight. When, he thought, Arri must have been on holiday from whatever job it was he did.’

  ‘What did he do? Does he know?’

  ‘No. He didn’t talk much.’

  ‘Not even to the proprietor of the bar where he bought his coffee and rolls?’

  ‘He seems to have been a bit tight-lipped.’

  ‘Does your car park attendant know where he went after he left the car in the evening or where he’d come from when he returned?’

  ‘He says no. Arri never spoke to him: simply nodded good evening and good morning.’

  Pel frowned. ‘He seems to be a laconic type, this Arri,’ he said. ‘We’ll see the proprietor of the bar; he should know something.’

  But he didn’t.

  He was no more help than the car park attendant. Sergeant Lagé, who was growing slow and deliberate as he neared the age of retirement, was offered a cup of coffee because he’d been around a long time and was known by everybody in the city as a fair and responsible cop, but there was no information for him.

  ‘Same as the car park attendant, Patron,’ he reported to Pel. ‘He never spoke. The first few times – about five years ago, they reckon – he asked for a coffee with rum and a roll and butter, but after that they got used to him and he didn’t bother to ask. They just handed it over, and he took it, sat down at a table with a newspaper, got rid of it, got up, nodded and left.’

  ‘Every morning?’

  ‘Every morning.’

  ‘Had they no idea where he came from? Or where he

  went to?’

  ‘Apparently he never spoke to anyone.’

  ‘Where did he buy his paper?’

  ‘The tabac next door. It’s part of the same premises. Always the same one – Le Bien Public. He also bought cigarettes – one pack of Gauloises – and occasionally fuel for his lighter.’

  ‘Man of routine, eh?’

  ‘Seems to be. They knew him and just handed the paper over. Then he went next door, to the bar, looked at the front page over his coffee and roll and left.’

  ‘Never saying a word?’

  ‘Never more than just “Thank you”.’

  ‘Didn’t anybody ever notice where he went when he left his car in the evening, or where he came from when he arrived to pick it up?’

  Lagé had the answer. The bar had usually just opened when he arrived in the morning, he said, and the owner, who stood outside when it was fine to have his first cigarette of the day, used to see him turn into the Rue de la Liberté from the Rue de Bourg, then walk down to the Place de la Liberation and into the newsagent’s. By the time he reached the bar, his coffee, rum and roll were on the counter waiting for him.

  Pel frowned. ‘Rue de Bourg,’ he mused. He crossed to the wall and studied the map there. ‘The Rue de Bourg leads to the station, the General Hospital, the canal port, the Lycée, the Arsenal, and the Zone Industrielle.’

  Lagé managed a smile. ‘It also leads to the Hôtel de Police, Patron,’ he said. ‘Here.’

  Pel treated him to an icy look. Pel’s sense of humour usually lasted until his first cigarette, by which time it had all been expended. ‘He doesn’t work here,’ he said. ‘But he might work at the station, the hospital, the port, the Lycée, the Arsenal, or anywhere in the Zone Industrielle. As a night-watchman.’

  Lagé frowned. ‘So why didn’t he leave his car in the car park where he worked, Patron? Those places all have them.’

  That was a puzzler, to be sure.

  ‘That’s something that will be explained when we learn where he worked. You’ve got a job, Lagé. Find out. Try that area first.’

  Pel watched Lagé leave. Lagé was no longer young and he was slow but he was a hard worker and was willing to help others, something of which Misset, who wasn’t, was always quick to take advantage. Lagé never jibbed at long slow enquiries and he was painstaking. It was an ideal job for him because what he lacked in imagination or inspiration he made up for in dogged concentration. If Arri had worked in the area he seemed to have worked in, then Lagé could be trusted to find out where.

  Darcy arrived back from Metz in the early evening just as Pel was about to leave.

  ‘We’ve got a picture, Patron. The regimental historian found it for me.’

  ‘In uniform? Complete with képi? It’ll be hard to recognise him as a civilian.’

  Darcy grinned, showing his splendid white snappers. ‘No, Patron. Not in uniform. No képi. Not a single brass button. Standing with the regimental rugby team. He played with them for years, and, after he grew too old, he acted as trainer-coach. Very respected.’

  He had been fishing in his brief case as he spoke and he laid on Pel’s desk a photograph of a group of men in shorts and shirts, all heavily built and looking the essence of determination. ‘That’s him,’ Darcy said. ‘On the right. In trousers.’

  Arri had been a good-looking man, tall, strong, and with a ruggedly handsome face.

  ‘Is it like him as he was just before he died?’ Pel asked.

  ‘They said so, Patron. He’d been to regimental reunions and I gather he hadn’t changed much. However, for confirmation, I came back via Valoreille – it’s not far out of the way – and showed it to those two old Ponsardin biddies. They picked him out at once. So did Brigadier Foulet and the type at the garage. I think we can use it.’

  ‘Right. Lagé has a lead to where he might have worked. But it might not come off because he seems to have been a secretive type.’

  ‘That’s what Major Leroux said. A bit of a loner. A good soldier but not the chummy type.’

  ‘Right, then. Let’s have the picture copied and get the boys showing it round. They might turn him up.’

  Darcy paused. ‘Patron,’ he said. ‘There’s another line on him I found. He was wounded at Dien Bien Phu, and Claude Barclay was his officer.’

  ‘The Deputy for Yorinne?’

  ‘The very same. He was alongside him when he was hit and risked his life to drag him to shelter. He got him aboard one of the last planes out so that he survived. If he hadn’t he might have died. Major Leroux told me all this. It’s in the regimental history. Barclay was captured, in fact, but he escaped and got to the coast and finally to Saigon. The Major had an idea that Barclay might eventually have found Arri a job here somewhere.’

  ‘It might save us a lot of time,’ Pel said, ‘if we found out where. Get in touch with Barclay. He might be at Courtois or he might be at his office here.’

  But Barclay was not available. He had gone to Paris and wasn’t expected back until late. ‘He’ll be in his office tomorrow,’ Darcy said.

  ‘Right.’ Pel rose, took the cigarette Darcy offered and headed for the door. ‘How about a beer in the Bar Transvaal? I think we’re making progress. We’ll see him tomorrow.’

  Pel was barely awake when the telephone went the following morning. He was unshaven, in his dressing gown, his hair standing on end, staring at his stomach in the bathroom mirror and wondering where it had come from.

  His wife regarded him with a smile. ‘Something wrong, Pel?’ she asked gently.

  Pel studied his face. ‘I’ve decided it’s never going to improve much,’ he said. ‘The lines are deeper every day. They’re no longer just on the surface. They go right through to the back of my head.’

  As his wife laughed, the telephone went and he snatched it up. It was Darcy and Pel knew at once that something had happened.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Patron,’ he said. ‘We’ve got trouble.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘A kidnapping.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A kidnapping.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you said.’ Pel’s eyebrows rose. He’d been involved in most things but kidnapping wasn’t normally part of the Burgundian scene. ‘Who’ve we lost? The Baron de Mougy’s son? His wife? Somebody with mon
ey, I expect.’

  ‘Somebody with money all right, Patron. But it’s not a child or a wife. It’s Barclay. Deputy for Yorinne and junior minister. They collared him as he arrived at his office half an hour ago.’

  Six

  Darcy was on the telephone when Pel arrived at the Hôtel de Police but he put the instrument down immediately he saw his superior.

  ‘That was Aimedieu,’ he said. ‘I sent him out to Barclay’s home as soon as I heard, to get some idea of that end.’

  ‘You’d no need to bother,’ Pel rapped. ‘You’ll remember I had a conducted tour of the place only a couple of nights ago. Inform me.’

  ‘He left his house at Courtois at 7.30 by car – a big grey Merc. He’s got an office in the Place Saint-Julien and he always arrives early. But this morning he arrived particularly early – eight o’clock. The Place Saint-Julien’s full of offices and at that time it’s fairly empty. It seems there was a car parked either side of the entrance to his office and another one across the other side of the square, all with drivers, and at the end a motor cyclist who was obviously the look-out.’

  ‘Have we numbers or descriptions?’

  ‘Very insubstantial, Patron. There was just room for Barclay to park right outside his office entrance and that’s what he did. As he arrived in the Rue Saint-Julien leading into the square, the motor cyclist, wearing a black visored crash helmet – so he couldn’t be recognised, I suppose – started up his machine, did a complete circle and disappeared down the Rue Armand-Duvalier. He was obviously giving the sign to his pals that Barclay was on his way. As far as I can make out, the car at the opposite side of the square started its engine and, as Barclay slipped into the choice spot outside his office, it crossed the square at full speed and pulled up alongside. With the two other cars on either side of the entrance, one in front, one behind, it was impossible to drive away. The drivers of the cars parked outside his office got out, dragged him from his car, pushed him into the car from across the square, and then all three men drove off with him, leaving his Merc with the engine still running. His brief case went with him. According to one of the eyewitnesses, it looked full and heavy.’