by Mark Hebden
‘Vacchi’s pictures aren’t genuine’, he said. ‘I made them for him because he said he wanted something expensive-looking for his office. He told me what he had in mind and offered a lot of money. He’s a bit of a bully and it’s not easy to refuse him. It would be just like him to claim them as original works of art.’
‘Why did he create such a fuss when he found there were other pictures like his? Wouldn’t it have been better to say nothing?’
Luca shrugged. ‘Perhaps he was trying to convince people his were the genuine ones.’ He managed a small smile. ‘Perhaps even he was trying to convince himself.’
‘Was one a painting known as Soldier with Helmet.’ Nosjean gestured at the wall. ‘That one.’
‘Yes.’
‘Which is the original?’
‘Neither. I copied the original for my own enjoyment when Riault sent it to me for an American client of his to have it cleaned, appraised and verified. I did the others from that. It’s been done before. When the Mona Lisa was taken from the Louvre, it turned up some months later unharmed. But by then there were half a dozen copies in existence in America. The people who stole it had no need to keep it. They’d more than made its value with the copies.’
So Nosjean had heard. ‘Was the Soldier with Helmet one of the paintings Riault sold to Vacchi?’
‘Probably. There’s another Riault’s house.’
‘So I noticed. How many are there altogether?’
Luca looked on the verge of tears. ‘Several,’ he said.
The situation at the Hôtel de Police was still difficult. There was no doubt that of the two major cases on their hands, the murder of Jules Arri and the kidnapping of the Deputy for Yorinne, the kidnapping was considered the more serious. Both newspapers and television were constantly harping on the case, decrying the absence of any momement by the police but failing to notice that it was impossible to move very far when the kidnappers had not yet bothered to get in touch with anyone in authority.
Every possible hiding place had been searched, and had been searched within a few hours of the kidnapping. But by this time the victim could have been at the other end of France and, without any demand from the kidnappers, it was impossible to tell where.
Policemen had been drafted in from every district within reach and were working all hours so that many of their wives were beginning to wonder what they looked like and why they’d bothered to get married. Every available man was on the streets, checking on every likely suspect. Officers in plain clothes appeared in the strangest places and anyone who was reported by neighbours to be behaving oddly, or not where he ought to be, was brought in and questioned. The request to the public had turned up a few likely suspects but they were none of them the right ones.
An emergency telephone number was announced and the pressure was kept up. Information continued to come in but it was never the information that was wanted and there was never anything positive to go on. Tracker dogs and men with walkie-talkies were still searching and a large reward had been offered.
The whole area was stood on its head and messages were sent to all forces to check everyone who was brought in for theft, because the kidnappers, alarmed at the enormous search they had caused, might have gone into hiding and been forced to steal to stay alive until the uproar died down.
By this time Lamiel was arguing even that they must be hidden somewhere with a woman’s assistance, and a search was made of all small hotels and apartments. Most of the sightings that were reported were made in good faith but a few jokers found themselves in 72 Rue d’Auxonne. Every postbag brought letters and they all had to be checked – so much so that normal crime in the area virtually came to a stop.
‘There’s not much point in anything else,’ Darcy was told by a man he’d brought in more than once for burglary. ‘There are too many flics about.’
Still nothing happened. There were no ransom notes and no arrests were made and the streamer headline in France Soir seemed to indicate what the country thought of the police’s efforts. ‘VIVE L’ENNUI,’ it declared.
With the Hôtel de Police in a state of controlled panic, Pel’s position was difficult. There he was, sitting in his office – suitable in size for a chief inspector, choice of colour for carpet, hat-stand instead of a hook on the door, and a Goya print, which he detested, on the wall – taken off the case, which was being handled locally at police level by his deputy, Darcy.
Everybody in the Hôtel de Police was aware what had happened and Judge Brisard had made sure that everyone at the Palais de Justice had heard, too, so that people meeting Pel in the corridor gave him nervous ‘Bonjours’ or disappeared into offices so they could avoid saying anything at all. Nobody quite knew what he’d been accused of but there was a feeling around that he’d been taking bribes or something from Deputy Barclay. Fortunately, among his own team there was still a lot of loyalty and they were solidly behind him. Didier Darras punched one of the other cadets on the nose and Bardolle promised to take apart anybody he heard taking the name of his boss in vain. Since Bardolle was built like a carthorse and had fists like sacks of coal this was very effective at shutting people up.
But it didn’t halt the feeling that Pel had been caught with his hand in the till or something, and Lamiel made no attempt to alter this view.
Madame Pel watched her husband carefully. He was quiet, subdued and thoughtful and she was concerned for the effect the ban was having on him, feeling he was depressed and low in spirits. In fact, he was anything but, and was brooding chiefly on vengeance on people like Lamiel and Judge Brisard. Pel was no saint and enjoyed thoughts of vengeance as much as anyone. And having long harboured the hope that Judge Brisard might one day break out in warts all down one side, he could see no harm in Lamiel doing the same.
His silence worried his wife, though. She knew her Evariste Clovis Désiré well by this time and, while she was aware of his faults, the fact that he could well at times be a subject for a psychiatrist and was likely in his old age to descend into bigoted eccentricity, she loved him nevertheless. Despite his confidence as a policeman, in his private life he was a mass of doubts, permanently concerned that he didn’t come up to the high standards he assumed his wife expected of him, humble in his attitudes to her, and grateful that she, a successful businesswoman, had taken him, a poverty-stricken, ageing policeman with what must by this time be incipient lung cancer – Pel’s opinion of himself – and seemed prepared to cherish him.
‘Are you worried?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said.
But he was. He knew a thing like this could ruin his career. Policemen these days were far more vulnerable than they used to be. A small incident on his file could turn his future from success to disaster. He pretended it didn’t matter but it did, and his wife tried to make it clear that she was right behind him whatever happened.
There were other allies, too. Surprising ones. Madame Routy had become astonishingly quiet and, these days, when she handed Pel his briefcase as he set off for the Hôtel de Police in the mornings, she never did it with the sort of expression that suggested she hoped it would blow up in his face. Yves Pasquier also made his position clear. ‘I’m on your side, Monsieur Pel,’ he announced gravely as they shook hands through the fence before breakfast. ‘Whatever they say about you, I’m on your side.’
‘My side?’
‘Maman said you’d been taken off the kidnapping.’
Pel gestured. ‘Nothing,’ he insisted. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘All the same,’ Yves Pasquier insisted, ‘I’m loyal.’
‘I’m deeply touched,’ Pel said. He was, too.
Finally a letter arrived from Cousin Roger, who, though he might enjoy his wine a little too much, obviously had his heart in the right place.
‘It’s rubbish,’ he wrote about the newspaper reports. ‘Half-wits writing rubbish to be read by more half-wits.’
There was more in the same vein and it was pungent stuff that helped to smoot
h Pel’s ruffled feathers. He seemed to have been accepted by one member of Madame’s family, at least.
Lamiel had turned up again. From time to time he could be seen at the Hôtel de Police, usually heading for the office of the Chief who, these days, was wearing a hangdog expression, as if he were finding it all a little too much and was longing to call in Pel and toss the whole thing in his lap.
But Lamiel had power behind him and the Chief could do little. And Lamiel was still baffled that there had been no ransom demand, no demand for an exchange of hostages. There were always hostages, he knew, usually from half a dozen countries, languishing in French prisons, so surely someone must be interested. He seemed loath to regard the kidnapping as a straightforward moneymaking affair.
‘All right,’ he informed the Chief. ‘They’re not demanding anything from the government. So eventually they’ll demand money. What’s the point of it, otherwise? If it’s not political, it’s a fund-raising exercise. It must be. They need to fund their activities and this method’s been used before. We shall get the ransom note all right.’
But it showed no sign of coming and Lamiel was still keeping an eye on Kiczmyrczik and his friends in case they made any suspicious moves, and had his men out checking the movements of Furet’s Right Wing Groupe Revanche Française. So far, he had not turned up Furet himself, who was believed to be in Corsica endeavouring to recruit followers, so he occupied himself with delivering regular lectures on terrorism to bored policemen to keep them on their toes.
‘There’s one other thing,’ Darcy said, ‘that we might look into. Madame Pouyet. Huguette Pouyet. She was at Barclay’s house the night he gave the party there, I’ve discovered. She was one of his girl-friends.’
‘Mistress?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then say so.’
Darcy shrugged and pressed on. ‘She’s since left her husband and gone to Italy.’
‘You’re suggesting it’s a crime of passion?’
Darcy gave Lamiel a cold look. ‘French people go in for crimes of passion. That’s why our knives are always sharp. So they can be snatched up to deal with an unfaithful wife or husband. The English never have sharp knives. They don’t believe in passion.’
Lamiel didn’t appreciate Darcy’s kind of humour. ‘You’re suggesting this has happened to someone as important as Barclay?’ he asked.
‘Pierre Chevallier’, Darcy pointed out slowly, ‘was shot by his wife in 1951 when he was a minister in the government of René Pleven. In 1914, Madame Caillaux shot the editor of Figaro. In 1946 a sixty-six-year-old former Minister of Justice in New Zealand was found guilty in London of the murder of an innocent man he thought was making eyes at his woman friend, who was also sixty-six years old. There are other cases I can find if you want them.’
Lamiel was effectively silenced for a moment. ‘Go on,’ he said sharply.
‘Could Pouyet have got Barclay somewhere and be holding him until he promises to leave his wife alone?’
Lamiel looked at Thomas. ‘Get hold of this Pouyet,’ he snapped.
‘He goes over the top a bit, Patron,’ Darcy said in the Bar Transvaal. ‘He sees a Russian spy behind every lamp-post. He’s found a little cell out near the Industrial Zone now. It’s Kiczmyrczik and Michelowski. We stopped watching them years ago. Kiczmyrczik is sixty-nine and Michelowski’s sixty-five, and their only supporters are more old socks like themselves.’
Pel managed a dry smile. ‘Is he going to arrest them?’
‘I think he feels they’re a direct line to the Kremlin.’
Pel decided it was worth having a cigarette on the strength of it. He dragged the smoke down to his shoes and felt better at once. ‘Kiczmyrczik’s been wanting to be a martyr to the Cause all his life,’ he said.
‘Martyrdom gets you nowhere,’ Darcy said flatly. ‘Look at Joan of Arc. The English burned her.’
‘They didn’t make a very good job of it.’
Darcy shrugged. ‘They never did know how to cook.’
They discussed possibilities for a while.
‘What about the offices overlooking the kidnapping?’ Pel asked. ‘Anybody in there who might be interested?’
‘Nobody at all. We’ve checked. Nobody seems to have had much interest in Barclay, though he seems to have been liked by those who knew him. That’s understandable, of course, because he’s good-looking, wealthy, approachable, has a voice like a trumpet and a politician’s flair for putting people at ease.’
When Pel returned to his office, Claudie Darel was waiting for him. ‘I’ve checked with Central Computer, Patron,’ she said. ‘Our friend Arri seems to have a record.’
Pel looked up sharply. ‘He has?’ Perhaps he’d been involved in major crime and this could lead to who had killed him. He was due for a disappointment.
‘A break-in at a supermarket.’
‘Not the one at Talant, for God’s sake?’
Claudie smiled. The supermarket at Talant was a standing joke at the Hôtel de Police. ‘In Dole, Patron,’ she said. ‘1961. Mitigating circumstances. He was badly wounded at Dien Bien Phu – as we know. Stomach and arm. Hadn’t been able to work and he’d gone down the drain a little. Good army record, though. I checked the reports on the case. Claude Barclay spoke up for him. You’ll remember he was also at Dien Bien Phu.’
‘Go on.’
‘Arri mentioned that Barclay was his officer, somebody contacted him and he turned up in court. He spoke up for Arri and even offered to find him a job. Arri was let off with a suspended sentence. Touching pictures in the press of him and Barclay shaking hands. I went through the files.’
Pel nodded and even managed a smile. Claudie drew a smile from most people, even Pel, and besides she was efficient and didn’t miss much. It was typical of her that she’d not only checked the court and police reports but had also checked the newspapers.
He frowned. ‘It’s a pity Barclay’s not available,’ he said. ‘This job he obtained for Arri might well be the one that kept him occupied at night.’
Eleven
Lamiel was beginning to grow a little desperate.
‘A strategy session held in Teheran last year was attended by the Foreign Ministers of Libya and Syria,’ he announced to the cops assembled in the lecture room at the Hôtel de Police. ‘And the Israelis maintain that they agreed to a joint strategy for terrorist operations on targets in Western Europe. It’s a hundred per cent certainty, they insist, not speculation, and they say they decided to divide responsibilities and territories so they could operate separately or in close co-operation. It could be anybody who grabbed Barclay.’
‘Suppose it’s not terrorism?’ the Chief said.
‘What else could it be? Anything might have happened to delay the ransom demand or the claim for responsibility.’
The Chief sighed. ‘What about this Pouyet?’
‘He swears he wasn’t responsible.’
‘Have we let him go then?’
‘No,’ Lamiel said firmly. ‘We’re holding him.’
It was a long session and Darcy was feeling weary as he returned to his office. As he sat down the telephone rang. It was the front office to say Henriot of Le Bien Public was asking for him. Going downstairs, he found Henriot by the front desk, looking nervous and holding a brown envelope.
‘I’ve got this for you,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a ransom demand.’
Darcy stiffened. So Lamiel had been right. It had come at last. ‘It’s what?’ he said carefully.
‘A ransom demand. It says…’
‘Hold it!’ Darcy knew exactly what had to be done and he was determined to protect his tail. ‘Hang on! Let’s do this thing properly. We’ll need to have this thing recorded and witnessed. Come upstairs to my office.’
Leading Henriot upstairs, he yelled for assistance and sent Didier Darras to contact Lamiel. When the shorthand writer arrived and De Troq’ was present as a witness, Darcy looked across his
desk at Henriot. ‘Right. Let’s have it. You’re Joseph Henriot, of Le Bien Public.’
‘You know I am.’
‘Of course I do. But let’s have it down.’ Darcy glanced at the shorthand writer and gestured. ‘And this ransom note? It’s in the envelope, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, put it down. And don’t touch it again. It may have fingerprints on it.’ Darcy studied the envelope. ‘Note that, De Troq’. One brown envelope. Creased and a bit grubby. Grease stains and what have you.’ He frowned and looked at Henriot. ‘How did it come?’
‘I found it stuck in my door.’
‘At the office?’
‘No. At my home.’
‘Why at your home?’
‘I suppose whoever wrote it had seen my name in the paper. They’ve read La Bien Public. Something like that.’
Darcy frowned. ‘Which indicates he’s a local, and that doesn’t sound like some international organisation to me. What did you do with it?’
‘I opened it, read it and took it to the office. There’s obviously a story.’
‘Maybe. What happened then?’
‘The editor told me to bring it here.’
‘Did he handle it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘His secretary. I had to show it to her first. The editor was in conference.’
‘Go on. Anybody else.’
‘The chief sub-editor. He looked at it. To decide…’
‘So every con in the office had his maulers on it?’
Henriot looked put out. ‘We didn’t realise.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘We’re not in the habit of handling ransom demands every day.’ Henriot was beginning to sound faintly indignant now.
‘That’s all right,’ Darcy soothed. ‘I understand. Right. Let’s have a look at it.’ He took a pair of tweezers from a drawer, carefully removed a single sheet of paper from the envelope and examined it, speaking all the time to the shorthand writer. ‘Single sheet of paper. Looks as if it’s been torn from a school exercise book. Grease stain top right hand corner. Could be a fingerprint. Writing unformed. Spelling indifferent. Several words are wrong. It’s headed “Leftist Freedom Movement”. It reads, “We have the missing politician, Claude Barclay, Junior Minister for Welfare. He will be executed unless a million francs are handed over immediately.” It goes on to say the money should be placed in a poste restante box at the general post office where it will be picked up by one of their members.’ Darcy paused, gave a deep sigh and laid the sheet of paper on the desk. ‘I think I should stop worrying,’ he said.