Pel And The Touch Of Pitch

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Did he expect to get his permit?’

  Roger laughed. ‘With his money? Of course.’

  ‘Has he any family there?’

  ‘None I know of.’

  ‘He was doing well in France, wasn’t he?’

  ‘As far as I can tell.’

  ‘Then why go to America?’

  Roger shrugged. ‘We were his accountants, not his advisers. He did what he fancied, and he was good enough at it to do it well, then he left us to pick up the pieces with the tax people.’

  ‘Was he honest?’

  ‘We never found he was dishonest. But that’s not quite the same, is it? He had his fingers in a lot of pies and I’m sure he didn’t tell us everything he should. Some people are straightforward with their accountants, As a rule, it’s because they’re honest or because they don’t understand what’s going on and feel it’s safer. But there are also a few who are dishonest who try to pick up a little extra on the side. The ones who’re dishonest and not clever usually find themselves facing a frozen-faced accountant and, if it goes on happening, they have to find another more accommodating accountant, because shifty clients usually indicate shifty accountants. We’re not that sort. But there are also clever clients – some of them not always as honest as they might be – who are able to bamboozle even their accountants, because, after all, we’re only human and if the client’s cleverer than we are, he manages to hide things from us.’

  ‘Which group did Barclay belong to?’

  Cousin Roger scratched his nose. ‘I honestly don’t know. But I know he’d been shifting money about a lot lately.’

  Barclay’s interests were hardly on a world-wide scale, but he seemed to have a lot of them. Boutiques, perfume shops, supermarkets, restaurants, linenware, vineyards. They were none of them vast undertakings and, Pel noticed, they weren’t grouped under one title like Barclay Enterprises. That in itself seemed suspicious, as if, perhaps, Barclay used the funds of one to bolster up another. Fraud in France was rising at an alarming rate – insurance companies believed that computer frauds were costing billions of francs a year – and the number of cases detected bore little relation to the total committed.

  The list Cousin Roger was able to offer was far from complete – he admitted it himself – and didn’t include those affairs that were not based locally. But, Pel noticed, he and his department were already familiar with several of the names.

  ‘Of course,’ Roger said, ‘he was deeply involved in charities, too.’

  ‘Which charities?’

  ‘Children’s homes for a start. Ex-servicemen’s charities. As you’ll know, he was a much-decorated soldier as a young man. He fought at Dien Bien Phu and was taken prisoner.’

  Pel was growing a little tired of Barclay’s heroism. ‘I’ve heard of that. What else?’

  ‘The disabled. He runs several disabled ex-soldiers’ homes and collects funds for them.’

  ‘Any more?’

  ‘Natural disasters. The Mexican earthquake, for instance. Africa. He took a great interest in those and raised a great deal of money. Things of that nature always captured his attention at once. He’d handled millions of francs for recovery schemes.’ He paused. ‘Hospitals, too. There must be a lot of hospitals grateful for the funds he’s raised. Art galleries. He’s given dozens of pictures and sculptures. He was always working. I don’t know how he found the time. A lot of it was here, of course, but he was also in Paris a lot. He was a member of the government, after all.’

  Pel nodded. ‘That’, he said, ‘is what worries me. Was he in financial trouble?’

  Roger considered. ‘I think the tax inspectors had been having a few doubts about his ability to meet his responsibilities. It worried us, I have to admit.’

  ‘You mean you think he was dodging his taxes?’ Pel asked bluntly.

  Cousin Roger hummed and hahed for a while. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘How far would you go?’

  ‘Shall we say we were investigating him a little ourselves. No firm of accountants likes to wake up and find they’re mixed up in something fishy.’

  ‘Was it fishy?’

  ‘It was beginning to smell a bit.’

  ‘So you did think he’d been dodging his taxes?’

  ‘No, we didn’t. But we know he was behind in his payments and the tax inspector was wanting to know why. But he’s not prepared to do anything about it – not yet, anyway, because these big operators often lay well back, feeling that for reasons of their own it’s best to delay paying. To have cash available for some scheme they’re working. To give the impression of wealth being in the right place when it isn’t really. To give confidence to investors, that sort of thing. They accept that they’ll have to pay interest on their unpaid tax, but they feel that it’ll be worth it for reasons of business.’

  ‘And he was a big operator?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was a big operator. But he had drawn a lot out lately. And the bank contacted us a week or so ago because they’d had a request through someone who has power of attorney to draw money on his behalf. He’d been taken ill, it seems. A lot of money went out. Made out to one of his firms.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘A meat wholesaling firm. I can let you have it.’

  ‘I don’t think you need bother. I think I know it.’

  Cousin Roger was silent for a while. ‘Funny you should come to see me,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of getting in touch with you.’

  ‘About Barclay?’

  ‘Yes. There’ve been a few hints that there’s something fishy going on at the hospitals here, too.’

  ‘What sort of fishy?’

  ‘There’ve been a lot of things missing.’

  ‘Surely he wouldn’t be up to that sort of thing?’

  ‘Not him. A type called Guy Rochefort. He’s administrator for three of the hospitals here. The Hôpital des Pauvres, the Hôpital Médico-Chirurgical Ballier and the Hôspital Ste Geneviève. But – and this is the point – Rochefort was given the job by Barclay. At least, Barclay was on the panel which selected him and, though the other two members weren’t very impressed and wanted another type called Magny, Barclay pushed Rochefort and he got the job.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘There’s a belief that Rochefort’s been overbuying – things like sheets, pillowslips, towels – yet the hospitals are always short of them. He handles a lot of equipment.’ Roger looked uncomfortable. ‘Ought I to have got in touch with you before?’

  Nineteen

  Madame Pel had enjoyed her day. But, since Pel was rarely prepared to take time off, she was under no delusions that what had happened had been simply to please her. If it had, she thought, why had her husband disappeared for so long into the shrubbery with Cousin Roger? However, she had been very happy and it always gave Pel a cozy feeling of reassurance that her businesses in the Rue de la Liberté were so well organised that she could safely leave them unattended for twenty-four hours.

  Even Madame Routy seemed happy and handed him his briefcase as he left for Hôtel de Police the next morning as if she had enjoyed her day too. Pel had had no doubt that she had. As soon as they’d gone out of the door, she’d have switched on the television in the salon, turning the volume control from ‘Loud’ to ‘Unbelievable’ and, pouring herself a large tot of Pel’s whisky – always risky because he watched it as if it were made of uranium – would have put her feet up in the ‘confort anglais’ to enjoy an afternoon of good French rubbish.

  He was feeling cheerful enough, however, to forget about her and, in fact, when he reached the Hôtel de Police he actually said ‘Good morning’ to the man on the desk before he’d even opened his mouth. It didn’t last, of course – Pel’s good humour never did – but Claudie followed him into his office, smiling in a way that restored a measure of cheerfulness.

  ‘Patron,’ she said. ‘I heard something last night that you might like to know.’

  Pel raised
his eybrows. ‘About Arri or Barclay?’

  ‘Well, yes. But this is something else.’

  ‘Inform me.’

  ‘Judge Brisard…’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘He’s after you, Patron.’

  ‘He’s been after me a long time.’

  ‘This time he means it.’

  ‘He always did.’

  ‘He’s going to report you to the Association of Advocates and Jurists.’

  Pel shrugged. ‘It’s taken him long enough to pluck up courage. Where did you get this gem of information?’

  Claudie’s cheeks grew pink. ‘Well, last night,’ she said. ‘I went back to that restaurant where that girl, Nenette, was acting as maître d’.’

  Pel couldn’t resist a joke. It wasn’t a very good one. Pel’s jokes rarely were. ‘And she told you?’

  Claudie smiled dutifully. Pel liked to have his jokes appreciated, even when they were terrible. ‘No, Patron. But that’s where I heard it.’

  ‘You were on your own?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Nosjean? De Troq’?’

  She smiled. ‘Not these days, Patron. Jean-Luc Nosjean seems to be rather occupied at the moment and De Troq’s got an eye on a girl who’s got a title like him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He’s a lawyer in Maître Polverari’s office. Bruno Lucas.’ Pel nodded. He’d more than once noticed a tall, good-looking young man in Claudie’s office trying to look as if he’d brought documents from the Palais de Justice. He had to admire her choice.

  ‘He was the one who passed on the information about Judge Brisard?’

  ‘Yes, Patron.’

  ‘I’ll take note. Why were you there? Because we’d found it reasonable?’

  Claudie smiled. ‘It was pleasant’, she admitted, ‘and lawyers don’t get paid a lot when they first start. As it happened, something else turned up, too. There was something wrong with Bruno’s car. It’s pretty old.’

  Pel nodded. He understood about old cars. He’d had one for a long time before his marriage.

  ‘He had to take it to the garage,’ Claudie went on. ‘So, rather than have me sitting around there, he dropped me at the restaurant until he could get it fixed enough to take us home. It took a little longer than he expected and I got talking to the girl who runs the show – that Nenette. I had an idea and said I was sick of my job and didn’t meet enough people. She’d had a few drinks and she talked to me because the place was empty. She admitted her job was only temporary, then she said “You’re pretty”, and asked if I liked men and, after all, if I enjoyed sex.’ Claudie blushed. ‘I said I did. Patron, I…’

  Pel’s hand waved. ‘Go on.’

  ‘She said she could get me a good job, with lots of money, lots of perks and lots of holidays. Including an expensive car. You remember there was a big Jaguar outside. She said it was hers and that I could have one like it if I wanted. Patron, she’s the same as all those other girls we met. I bet I’d have got the same response from all of them if I’d tried. I bet they’ve all got nice cars. They’re tarts, Patron. Poules. Dégrafées. Horizontales. That’s why they look like they do. But for some reason they’re none of them working at the moment.’

  Pel smiled. ‘No,’ he agreed ‘they’re not. Because whoever it is who runs the Manoir de Varas got the wind-up when Arri was found and the place was closed down until the uproar died away. But they couldn’t lose track of their girls or pension them off. So those who weren’t sent on holiday were found other jobs and told to keep quiet. No wonder we ran into such a plethora of beautiful women.’ He looked approvingly at Claudie. ‘Can you arrange for a tail to be put on this Nenette in case she decides to move? On the other girls, too, for that matter. We’ll need witnesses. The local cops can do it. They might even enjoy it. It would give them a good excuse to keep calling in where they work, and there isn’t a cop born who doesn’t enjoy chatting to a pretty girl over a counter. You’d better also ask the boys in St Trop’ to keep an eye on Madame Danton-Criot. Do we have her address there?’

  ‘Yes, Patron. I have it.’

  ‘Tell them we want to know if she moves. I’m going to get in touch with Pépé le Cornet about our friend, Rykx.’

  Pépé le Cornet’s information was that Rykx was not at home.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Where do you think? He’s a Belgian. He’s in Brussels.’

  As he put down the telephone, Pel sat staring at the file on the Arri case for a while. The thing had suddenly become clear – as cases always did when you got the information in the right order. Unfortunately, that was something that rarely happened and nine times out of ten the vital information that linked everything up didn’t turn up until the end.

  But once they’d discovered what had been happening at the Manoir de Varas, like a jigsaw puzzle everything else had clicked into place. Barclay’s wealth seemed to have been founded on the 20,000 francs he’d obtained by blackmail as a student in Marseilles and, with Dominique Danton-Criot knowing exactly what wealthy men needing sex would ask for, the establishment at the Manoir de Varas had been a sure-fire success. Between them, they appeared to have made a small fortune. Danton-Criot was a good businesswoman, Barclay was a financier, and Rykx had been an accountant, and they had been careful to hide their profits in the host of small businesses they had bought for that very reason, while the Manoir de Varas had remained outwardly respectable and had even been advertised discreetly in the sort of magazines men read.

  But Barclay, it seemed, had grown too greedy or too scared, and had decided to move to the States with the proceeds from his shady ventures. Unfortunately, he’d decided also to take the profits from the Manoir de Varas and Rykx had clearly found out and arranged to stop him.

  Somehow, Arri had got to know what was in the wind, or had even been recruited to help. But Arri owed Barclay not only his life but the very well-paid job at the Manoir where his duties, like those of Journais and one or two others they’d turned up, were to remove anyone who drank too much or was indiscreet. It was clearly there where his clothes had picked up the perfume. In a place like that the rooms would be full of it. Probably, even, the girls gave him an occasional playful squirt.

  It was a good job with a good wage – the only condition being that in return he should give nothing away, avoid company who might ask questions, and generally live a low-key life. Since he had always been a loner, it had been a good bargain and with an old soldier’s loyalty – like Yves Pasquier’s with Pel – he had not swerved and had attempted to tell Barclay what was being planned. But, realising what he was up to, Barclay’s enemies had killed him first and the kidnapping had gone ahead as planned, the idea behind it to get Barclay to cough up his ill-gotten gains. It was doubtless Arri’s disappearance that had spurred Barclay into action and he had been about to call at his office to collect the last of the swag when he was snatched.

  It hadn’t taken much to confirm the idea. Pel had simply picked up the telephone and asked for Barclay’s office in the Place Saint-Julien. Barclay’s secretary had answered.

  ‘The money you found in the safe,’ Pel said. ‘The 500,000 francs and 500,000 francs in bearer bonds. Is it still there?’

  The voice that came back sounded worried. ‘No, it was all banked as the police instructed and put under restraint.’

  ‘Has anyone shown any interest in it?’

  ‘A man came. I told him what had happened. He seemed angry. He had a letter giving him power of attorney and permission to collect it. It was signed by Monsieur Barclay and the signature was genuine. I know it as I know my own.’

  Unfortunately, Pel thought, Monsieur Barclay had doubtless written it with the muzzle of a gun in his ear.

  ‘Can you describe this man?’ he asked.

  Thanks, in a way, to Nosjean and the misplaced pride of Vacchi whose manoeuvrings with pictures had helped to confirm a lot of what Pel had already been thinking, it had suddenly become remarkably clear, and once
they knew Barclay was not the clean, bright and shining knight he had appeared to be, it hadn’t been difficult to expose his other interests for what they really were.

  There had been the most extraordinary corruption in the affairs of the Ex-Soldiers’ Bureau, and the contracts for the building of their hospitals and homes had been let to firms which had been far from the lowest bidders, with Barclay taking a third of the profits. The three hospitals at Lyons were in the scheme, too. Invoices showed that large supplies of steroids and other drugs had been delivered, yet, within a matter of a week of their arrival, the hospitals had been complaining there were none left. Further investigations had indicated that there were even false deliveries and corruption between the suppliers and the administration, and it looked very much as if some of the missing money had gone to Barclay’s election campaigns.

  The scheme had been based on simple things. Floor wax had been bought in enormous quantities – enough to last for fifty years – and at high prices from Rykx-Barclay firms – and surplus equipment had been disposed of without difficulty. Eighty-four thousand brand new sheets had been sold by the group at half the price paid for them, to get rid of them without fuss at the very time when they had been buying new ones at five times the price from Barclay suppliers. Towels had gone the same way.

  Drugs were involved, as were voting frauds that had helped to elect Barclay to the House of Assembly and, in addition, the vineyards of La Gratinée on the Loire, another interest of Barclay’s, were among those accused of adding too much methyl alcohol to their wine; while, finally, the Mexican and African disaster funds had discovered they were short of several million francs they thought they had raised and the Collège Privé de l’Est was the proud possessor of a whole array of fake pictures it had imagined to be worth a fortune. The bursar, like the administrator of the hospital group, who – surprise, surprise! – had also turned out to be an old army friend of Barclay’s, was at that moment answering questions put to him by the police. It seemed to indicate, if nothing else, that military heroes couldn’t always be guaranteed to have noble intentions.