Pel And The Touch Of Pitch

by Mark Hebden

  Pépé scowled. ‘Because he’s too clever,’ he growled. ‘He fronts everything with a legitimate business. He runs a wholesale meat distribution business and was right at the front when the Rosbifs in England tried to flood the country with their rotten lamb. He’s also got a string of small businesses. Wholesale vegetables. Restaurants. Grocery chains. You name it, he’s in it. He’s into finance, too. He started work as an accountant so he knows the ins and outs. I dare bet he fiddles his tax.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Pépé gave a weak smile. ‘It’s only the tax people, and everybody likes to have a go at those sharks. They don’t have a sense of humour, Chief.’

  Pel had noticed it himself. They certainly showed none where his salary was concerned.

  ‘Did this Rykx know Barclay?’

  Pépé shrugged and started stroking the Pekinese again. ‘Chief, I don’t know. These days I don’t want to know. I’m sixty-two now and I’ve got an ulcer. I thought it was a cancer at first, in fact. All I want is a quiet life. I don’t go shoving my nose into other people’s affairs. On the other hand…’

  ‘On the other hand, what?’

  ‘On the other hand, there are a few people round here who wouldn’t mind seeing Monsieur Rykx removed from the scene for a bit. It would enable them to get in on his territory. If they did, he’d never get it back.’

  Pel nodded. ‘I’ll do my best to oblige,’ he said and tried the newspaper story about Barclay being weary of politics.

  ‘Barclay was heard saying he was wanting to get out,’ he said. ‘Was it politics, as they suggested, or something a bit more dubious?’

  ‘It wasn’t politics. He was talking to Rykx.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘When was it?’

  ‘Several days before he disappeared.’

  ‘Was he trying to pull out of whatever it was Rykx had involved him in?’

  Pépé shrugged and Pel didn’t press the point. Pépé had a strange kind of reliability, he’d found. Provided you didn’t ask too many questions about his sources.

  Claudie was waiting for him when he returned. ‘Risse, Patron,’ she said. ‘He was a Belgian and he might very well be Rykx. The age is right and the description fits. Marseilles thinks that they couldn’t have got his correct name. They have now, though, because he was one of those who tried to muscle in on Maurice Tagliatti’s territory over the casinos.’

  Pel nodded his approval. ‘What about the Darnand girl?’

  ‘Age right. Description right. Said to be very beautiful. Tall. Striking. Moved north after the affair involving Barclay.’

  ‘Perhaps she never lost touch with him. Perhaps Rykx didn’t either. What happened to her?’

  ‘Operated in Paris for a while. Then some man took her under his wing and set her up in a house outside Lille. Wealthy industrialist called Videlle. That lasted about eight years. Then he died and his family moved in and claimed everything and, as there was no will, she was out on the streets again. She disappeared. Then, if she’s Dominique Danton, she turned up in our diocese about five years ago. It all seems to fit very neatly.’

  She had also prepared a long list of Rykx’s interests and Pel decided it was time he visited the ones in their area. It seemed pointless getting involved with the wholesale meat trade or the wholesale vegetable trade or any financial affairs, but there were a lot of other small businesses – a chain of grocery shops called Epicéries de l’Est, an estate agent’s office, a restaurant – just the sort of things for a man wanting to make his profits disappear from the sight of the tax inspector. Hé, presto! Now you see it, now you don’t! There were plenty of people at it, which made taxation a bit of a fraud, really, because, while a poor man couldn’t hide a damn thing because he had nowhere to hide it, a wealthy man could always find a corner or two where he could stuff money out of sight.

  The nearest of Rykx’s interests was at Maillay, a large employment agency with branches in other places. Pretending she was interested in finding a job, Claudie went in and a girl appeared from a door behind the counter. Through the window, Pel was startled by her looks and svelte clothing. She wore a name tag on her shirt, with the word Din-Din on it, but she didn’t seem very sure of herself and fetched an older woman to answer Claudie’s questions.

  ‘There’s something very odd in there, Patron,’ Claudie said as she returned to the car. ‘The first one who appeared – that Din-Din, or whatever she calls herself – claims to be running the show, but she didn’t know the first thing about it and had to call the other woman. It’s my bet the second one runs it really and the one with the looks is the owner. Or some sort of front. She didn’t even know her way round the card index system.’

  Their next call was in Gervigny, where a flashy-looking estate agency fronted the town square. A girl was sitting at a desk, smoking. She was smartly dressed and had endless legs and bright red hair that looked as if it were dyed. Her eyes were green and she wore green earrings that matched. Never in his life had Pel seen a clerk in an estate agent’s office who looked like that.

  It seemed to be part of the Rykx policy to establish personal contact with customers and clients, and the girl wore the same sort of name tag on her dress that the girl in the employment agency in Maillay had worn, this time with the name Reggie emblazoned across it. She made little attempt to answer Pel’s questions when he said he was interested in houses in the area, and called over a young man with long hair from a neighbouring desk who supplied the answers they didn’t really want.

  Finally, for lunch, they decided to try another of Rykx’s interests, the Relais de Chanzy, a restaurant on the main road to Dijon. It was set back among the trees and wasn’t as expensive as it looked. Outside were several cars, including a large red Jaguar. The maître d’ was a girl, and she seemed to fit into the same category as all the others they’d met that morning. On her breast was a small badge with the name, Nenette. Since her job consisted of no more than showing people to their tables and taking bookings, she seemed well able to do it, but she made no attempt to take orders for food or advise on wine, and once again they had the impression that she was new to the job.

  ‘Another one,’ Pel whispered as they ordered. ‘All beautiful. They could have come from the Crazy Horse. And all with cozy names. Domino, Nenette, Reggie. What happened to all the Marie-Frances, the Madeleines, the Sophies, the Michelles? Where have they all come from all of a sudden?’

  Seventeen

  The last publications before the election flung out their final flurry of insults so that it began to seem there wasn’t an honest politician in the whole of France.

  Opinion polls showed that the government had slipped back several points, something that was attributed to the mystery surrounding Barclay. There were still references to him in the newspapers: in his own party’s press with words of deep sympathy and a suggestion that his disappearance had been engineered by the opposition; in the opposition’s with a suggestion that there was something pretty shifty behind it all. France Dimanche tried to imply he’d gone off with a woman, but nobody believed it, of course. France Dimanche was not aimed at intellectuals, anyway, and didn’t really expect to be believed.

  On the Sunday which had been designated as polling day, because nothing much was moving Pel rose in leisurely fashion. ‘Leisurely fashion’ was something of a misnomer because there was nothing about Pel that had ever been leisurely. The minute he was on his feet, his nervous energy drove him like a bee possessed. However, he was aware that there were times when he owed it to his wife to appear to be leisurely and this was one of them. One couldn’t vote for the next government of France with a rush, after all. The fact that he had already made up his mind made no difference. France had always contained millions of political parties – one for every voter – and no good Frenchman, and certainly no good Burgundian, to whom things were always more important than they were to flippant Parisians, would ever dream of showing haste
in indicating his choice. Even the method of voting had a certain amount of ceremony, which the French enjoyed, unlike the British who were casual enough to make jokes about theirs.

  After a long slow breakfast, which had Pel wriggling on his chair with impatience, he waited for his wife to disappear upstairs to dress, then headed for the garden. Inevitably Yves Pasquier was waiting by the hole in the hedge and the shaggy dog standing beside him wagged its far end to indicate it was facing Pel and not away from him. It wasn’t always easy to tell.

  ‘Elections today,’ the boy said. ‘Who’re you voting for?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be secret, so I never tell anyone.’

  ‘My Mother and Father do. They argue about it. They want to vote for different people. My father said my mother should vote the same way he does, and she said. “Haven’t you ever heard of Women’s Lib?”’

  ‘I trust the dust has now settled.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They’re all right now. When I grow up I shall vote socialist.’

  Pel shrugged. ‘There’s a saying that if you don’t vote socialist before you’re forty, you have no heart, but if you continue to vote socialist after you’re forty, you’ve no head.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  Pel paused – who was he to influence the future generation? ‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ he said.

  The day’s ceremonies completed, Pel returned to the house, to find his wife descending the stairs, singing quietly to herself as she often did.

  Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment,

  Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie…

  She smiled at him, picked up her handbag and called for Madame Routy, who appeared from the kitchen, girded for the fray in a square red coat like a cloth box and a hat that looked like a turban belonging to a not very particular Arab. She looked at Pel, as if daring him to vote differently from her, and headed for the car.

  The village hall, where the voting was taking place, had been emptied of chairs, save for half a dozen or so ranged behind two long tables, in the centre of which was a large black box with a handle, in front of it small piles of paper containing the names of the candidates. In a long row behind sat the presiding officers, clerks, returning officers, tellers and what have you, all very solemn in their temporary authority.

  Picking up their papers, Pel, his wife and Madame Routy went to the booths to ponder their decisions, then returned to the long table to hand them in. It was all very serious. After all, the future of the Republic depended on them.

  As Madame Pel handed in her name, the man behind the table called out ‘Geneviève Hélène Pel,’ and the man handling the black box watched the paper disappear into the slot and slammed down the lever. ‘A voté,’ he shouted solemnly. ‘Voted!’

  Madame Routy followed and the same ceremony ensued. ‘Annabelle Angéline Philomène Routy’ – bang! – ‘A voté!’

  Pel was still delighting in discovering that Madame Routy’s name was as daunting as his own when he noticed the officials staring hard at him and came to life with a jolt. This was the bit he dreaded. ‘Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel’, the man behind the table yelled and Pel cringed, certain that everybody in the hall had turned round to examine the possessor of such an outlandish name. He had always sworn never to disclose it in public until he had to report to St Peter at the Pearly Gates.

  Bang went the box, ‘A voté’ yelled its operator, then they were safely outside again and Pel’s secret was safe until next time.

  ‘Who do you think will get in?’ Madame asked as they reached the car.

  Pel shrugged. ‘It won’t matter much. These days we don’t vote for the man who can do any good. We simply vote for the one who can do least harm. It’s safer.’

  As a celebration, Madame had laid on a special lunch and Pel drank enough wine to drop off in a deck chair in the garden afterwards. When he woke, he realised it was later than he’d intended – that was the trouble with French meals, they always went on longer than intended – and he headed for the telephone to contact Lagé.

  By the sound of him, Lagé had also just appeared from a deck chair in the garden and his voice seemed drowsy.

  ‘I’m ready, Patron,’ he announced.

  He arrived soon afterwards, driving his own car, and they headed for Vallefrie and Arbaçay. It was almost dark and the countryside was bathed in a purple twilight as they drew to a halt under the trees on the grass verge alongside the barbed wire fence of the Manoir de Varas. They sat there for a while, smoking, until dark finally came, then climbed from the car. It didn’t take them two minutes to climb through the wire and head into the trees.

  ‘I don’t like this, Patron,’ Lagé said.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Pel agreed.

  ‘French law says you can’t search private premises in the hours of darkness.’

  ‘We’re not searching them. We’re examining the outside. Now shut up and keep your eyes open.’

  After a while, they spotted a small cottage through the trees. It looked old but it had been newly decorated, as if someone had taken a woodman’s home and modernised it. Then they saw another cottage beyond it, though it was clear that both were unobtrusive and that neither could be seen from the other.

  For a long time they watched until they were certain the cottages were unoccupied, then they moved towards the nearest of them. It was locked and the shutters were closed on the inside. But one of them was not properly secured and, peering in, they could see a large bed with a canopy of filmy drapings.

  ‘Funny bed for a woodman’s cottage,’ Pel observed.

  At the other cottage they were able to see into the bathroom where they could see rows of cosmetics, high quality bath salts, and male and female perfumes.

  There were six other cottages in the forest, four of them old and renovated, two of them of recent construction. They were all attractively done, with bright paint and small gardens, and not one of them was overlooked by any of the others, because high fences had been erected and beech hedges had been planted.

  Moving further among the trees, they came to a square building that was obviously a squash court. Pel knew all about squash – an hour of frenzy then a heart attack; Darcy played it regularly. There were also two tennis courts, a large swimming pool and a small pitch and putt course. Beyond them were the workings for what they assumed was the new swimming pool. It was near the trees and seemed a long way from the buildings for a children’s pool. Parents weren’t all that keen on being at a distance from their children.

  As Pel approached it, he was surprised to see that it had been filled in again. The marks of the scoop and the caterpillar tracks of the digger were plain, but the earth had been shovelled back and was level once more. Slowly, he walked round it, deep in thought.

  It looked very much as if someone had had second thoughts about it.

  Driving round the lanes at Vallefrie early the following morning, eventually they heard the racket of an engine coming from behind a farm and found a digger at work. Ear muffs in place, the driver didn’t hear them approach and Lagé had to risk his neck by appearing in front of the scoop with waving arms. Stopping the digger, the driver removed his earmuffs.

  ‘You could have been killed, you stupid con!’ he roared.

  ‘Never mind that now,’ Pel said. ‘Were you responsible for digging out the swimming pool at the Manoir de Varas?’

  The digger driver nodded. ‘Yes, I dug it. But, merde, they asked us the following week to fill it up again. Said they’d made a mistake and would have to think again.’

  They ate at the Hôtel de la Poste at Vallefrie. Lagé’s opinion of it appeared to be correct because the meat tasted like old carpet slippers and the wine had the flavour of shellac. Returning to the city, they discovered that the party Pel had voted for had failed to get in, but he decided that the man who would now be Prime Minister was so stupid he couldn’t do any harm, anyway, and felt much better.

  The sergeants’ room seemed to be occupied less with s
tamping out crime than with assessing the damage done to the Republic by the election. Inevitably, Misset was loudest in his protestations.

  ‘That type couldn’t run a crêpe stall in Brittany,’ he was saying. ‘In two years time we’ll be a banana republic. What do you think of the type who’s going to be running the country, Patron?’

  Pel scowled. ‘I’m just thankful’, he growled, ‘that it isn’t you.’

  He had just sat down in his chair when Nosjean appeared.

  ‘Art frauds, Patron,’ he said.

  Pel leaned back. ‘Inform me, mon brave.’

  ‘There’s been a new development.’

  Pel sat up. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s a big one. Involving the United States. I’ve been in touch with Paris and even with the States.’

  ‘On the telephone?’ Pel was aghast. ‘For how long? The Chief will have a fit.’

  Nosjean smiled. ‘Not on the telephone, Patron. Paris put me on to an American cop who’s in Paris checking it out.’

  Pel relaxed. ‘You’d better tell me.’

  Nosjean drew a deep breath. ‘In the States, it seems, donations to charity are considered exempt from tax, which means that anyone giving a big donation can deduct it from his income tax. People give buildings to hospitals, universities, schools and churches, and the charities benefit while the type who does the giving doesn’t lose. That’s fine. Only there are snags.’

  Pel shifted restlessly. ‘Let’s get to them.’

  ‘A type called Kaufman started a racket to make money out of it. Valuable paintings given to decorate walls, of course, come into the category of charitable donations. But, unlike buildings, carpets, etcetera, paintings can be fiddled. Duds can be offered as genuine and a few people started getting hold of fake old masters, giving them to some deserving cause and then claiming back their value from the Inland Revenue. The outlay amounted to only a few hundred dollars for the fake but, with present-day prices on old masters, the profit was considerable. The big advantage, of course, was that the recipients of the fake pictures would never admit their pictures were fakes.’