by Mark Hebden
‘Do they have anything they can add?’ Pel asked.
‘I don’t think they had anything to do with it,’ Brisard said. ‘Beyond the fact that it was probably the mother’s fault that the boy made friends where he shouldn’t.’
How right he was, was proved that afternoon when Pomereu appeared with one of his men.
‘This is Sous-Brigadier Floc,’ he said. ‘He has something to tell you.’
Pel stared at Pomereu. ‘Then let him get on with it,’ he snapped.
Floc nodded, about turned and disappeared. Pel looked at Pomereu. ‘That is it?’ he said. ‘He has become an expert at doing the vanishing trick?’
‘Wait a moment,’ Pomereu said and, sure enough, two seconds later Floc reappeared, pushing in front of him a small man with glasses. ‘This is Monsieur Bailly. He found a note under the windscreen wiper of his car after leaving it parked in the square opposite the Palais de Ducs.’ He jabbed Bailly in the kidneys. ‘Produce your evidence,’ he said.
Bailly fished in his pocket and solemnly produced a slip of paper. On it were the words, ‘I killed Crébert.’ It was signed with three crosses.
Pel stared at it. It was printed carefully on a piece of paper torn from an exercise book. ‘This is evidence?’ he said slowly.
Bailly indicated Floc. ‘He said it was.’
Pel studied Floc coldly. ‘Haven’t you yet discovered that every crime since Cain killed Abel brings in its wake all the usual nutcases who claim to be part of it for the simple reason that they wish to enjoy a little notoriety. Up to now, I would say we’ve had about three million of these.’ He glared. ‘To me, it’s just another hoax. Get rid of him, Pomereu.’
Fourteen
Despite his contempt for Sous-Brigadier Floc’s witness, when Nosjean brought in another note later in the day, Pel began to wonder if he’d have to eat his words. This time, the note was addressed to Delacolonge, was signed ‘The Strangler,’ and described exactly how Charles-Bernard Crébert had been killed. Since no details had been released to the press on this point, it was enough to make Pel sit up and take notice.
‘Fingerprints?’ he asked.
Nosjean shook his head. ‘None, Patron. Prélat’s boys have been over it. There’s nothing at all. But that doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody’s read the books these days. They know to wear gloves. Delacolonge thinks it must have been pushed through his door because there was no stamp on it.’
The following day another note arrived, brought in by Doctor Nisard, once more claiming responsibility for Charles-Bernard’s murder, and then they began to come in at a rate of one or two every morning and afternoon from a variety of addresses. Another for Doctor Nisard, two more for Delacolonge. One from the newspaper, Le Bien Public. One from St Saviour’s.
‘There’s a pattern emerging,’ Nosjean said, as he bent over a map with De Troquereau. ‘They all seem to be addresses in the area around the home of the Créberts. That is, with the exception of the St Saviour’s one and the one sent to the newspaper.’
‘Think they’re genuine?’ De Troq’ asked.
‘He’s got the details right. And nobody knows them but us.’
‘Then,’ De Troq’ said, ‘we must be dealing with a nut.’
‘I’m sure we are,’ Nosjean said. He produced the note which had arrived some time before, complaining about the lack of notice taken of the case in the newspapers. It was on the same sort of paper. ‘He hadn’t expected the police shootings when he killed the boy and he feels other people are getting more publicity than he is.’
The following day a new note arrived, brought in by one of the Créberts’ neighbours. It was again signed ‘The Strangler’. ‘I shall strike again,’ it said. ‘This is the crime of the century.’
‘He’s beginning to get hysterical,’ De Troq’ said.
The Post Office was asked to look out for letters addressed to the area round the Créberts’ home with a view to recognising the writing, but it was a case of closing the stable door after the horse had escaped. Several were handed over from the sorting office but they told them no more than they knew already, and the letters were now being addressed further afield. There was one to Radio Diffusion Française, demanding that the story be told over the air, one to Le Figaro in Paris, saying there would be more murders unless the case was given full coverage in the newspapers, on the radio and on the television – inevitably it was – and one even sent to England, addressed to the editor of The Times in London.
The climax came when Claudie Darel appeared with Pel’s mail. She held out a brown envelope showing the lower half of a figure dressed in jeans, one hand holding a revolver. The photograph, which had been cut off just below the head, was signed ‘The Strangler.’
Pel looked up. ‘Is it male?’ he asked. ‘Or female?’
Claudie shrugged. ‘Hard to tell, Patron. It’s not a good photograph. It could be either.’
‘Tell Nosjean I want to see him.’
Nosjean arrived almost at once. He silently laid another note on Pel’s desk. ‘From the Chief,’ he said. ‘Arrived in his office this morning.’
The message had been printed in the sort of letters used by computers. It had been carefully done so there should be no identification and it described in detail how the boy had died, how the blood had pulsed in the carotid artery. ‘I knew it would be easier with the thumbs in front,’ it said. ‘But it took almost five minutes and even then he tried to crawl away. In the end, it was much simpler than I realised. I pushed his face into the soft soil and he suffocated.’
Pel read the note and looked up. On the faces of all three of them was a look of horror and distaste. ‘What sort of a lunatic would write this sort of stuff?’ he demanded. He came to life abruptly. ‘Find out where the picture was printed. It was certainly done somewhere. Check your suspects. See if any of them go in for photography. And keep on your toes, mes braves. The man’s obsessed. He thinks he’s committed the perfect crime. He’s done something nobody else could do. He may have another go.’
When Nosjean had gone, Pel paced up and down, frowning. On the table at the other side of the room from his desk were all the articles which had been brought from the house where Kino had been found dead. Pel stared at them. He had studied them again and again – the clothing Kino had worn, the pistol recovered from under the mattress, the letters and pamphlets found on the floor by the fireplace which the Garthier girl had been trying to destroy, the suitcase which had contained his few items of clothing.
He glanced at the calendar. Time was growing short. Only five days were left before the President arrived. What were the terrorists up to? What were they planning? He was due in the Chief’s office in half an hour to talk the thing over.
There was a tap on the door and Darcy appeared.
‘No luck with the key, Patron,’ he said. ‘We’ve checked all apartments overlooking the courtyard of the Palais des Ducs. None of them has a Brouard lock. I’ve also checked what the President will do. He’ll lunch with the city officials – Brisard and Polverari and the Chief and a few more will be there. That’s in the great hall. Then he’ll talk with them for a while in the Maire’s apartment. Aperitifs will be taken in the Blue Salon. Afterwards, of course, he goes to the exhibition of Burgundian art in the Musée des Beaux-Arts. I’ve checked all apartments overlooking the windows of all those rooms. No Brouard locks.’
Pel’s eyes narrowed as he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.
‘People don’t fit Brouard locks unless they want to keep something safe,’ he said. ‘It must have some significance. Try Brouards themselves. See if they can help.’
Frowning, as Darcy left he moved across to the table and picked up the coat with the hole in the back. It told him nothing. Leguyader had been able to produce no new facts. The labels had been removed, because people like Kino and his friends liked to be dramatic and would remove them as a matter of course, and it was impossible to trace where it had been bought. Like the rest of the dead man’s clothes
, it had doubtless come from a supermarket where the turnover was so brisk it was unlikely that customers could be identified. The suitcase was the same. It was cheap and scuffed and had originally been bought, he suspected, at somewhere like the Nouvelles Galeries.
He stared at it for a moment, frowning, fingering the scuff-marks as if he expected them to tell him something, then he flicked the catches and opened the lid. Inside was the usual old fluff that went with someone who was inclined to be indifferent about his habits, together with one or two pins, a cigarette end, several matches, and a few tiny particles he’d seen before which he assumed were crumbs. For a moment, he stared at them. The fluff, the pins, even perhaps the cigarette ends and matches, had a reason for being there. But not many people carried food in a suitcase. It was possible in this case, though, because Kino would inevitably have moved about a lot contacting friends and sympathisers and, like them no doubt, he had lived a hand-to-mouth existence, so that any journey he made would be made in the cheapest possible way, and that would mean taking his own food to eat en route.
He picked up one or two of the tiny particles, rubbing them between finger and thumb. Were they crumbs? Crumbs became as hard as lead pellets after a while but these weren’t and they didn’t crumble.
As he peered at the minute fragments in his fingers he noticed that one of them had a red fleck on it and, abruptly, he remembered Didier Darras’ description when they’d been fishing – months ago now, it seemed – of Louise Bray, his girl friend, who as a child had had novelty flowers at her parties that opened when placed in water.
He peered closer at the ‘crumb’ and on an impulse he turned to the intercom on his desk and pressed the switch. ‘Claudie,’ he said. ‘Bring me a glass of water.’
She appeared, looking puzzled, because it was Pel’s habit to consider water only of use to wash the glasses he drank wine out of. He indicated the suitcase. ‘A small experiment,’ he said, placing one of the crumbs in the glass.
For a while they watched it, then Pel saw a faint movement. ‘It’s not a crumb,’ he said.
He peered more closely, thinking warmly of his good friend Didier, now doubtless languishing in Brittany far from the charms of Louise Bray.
‘It’s paper,’ Claudie pointed out. ‘It’s uncurling.’
Fascinated, they stared as the tiny piece of paper began to take shape until they could see colour, a distinct red and black.
‘What is it, Patron?’
‘It looks as if it might be part of a label. Put the rest in.’
Carefully, Claudie picked the remaining ‘crumbs’ from the suitcase and placed them in the glass, watching them uncurl.
As Pel tried to pick one of them out, Claudie stopped.
‘Just a minute, Patron,’ she said. ‘For this we need tweezers.’
‘And these you have?’
‘For the eyebrows, Patron.’
Carefully, using the eyebrow tweezers, they picked out the minute fragments. They were all printed in red and black on white paper. By the time they had finished they had enough paper to cover an area of about four square centimetres. Some of the pieces had curved edges.
‘It’s a label,’ Claudie said.
Pel gestured. ‘It’s also a jigsaw puzzle,’ he pointed out. ‘Sit down over there, and put it together. I have to see the Chief. Perhaps by the time I return you’ll know what it was a label for.’
The conference in the Chief’s office was a grim one. So far they had made only a little progress in either of the two cases which were involving them, and Paris was beginning to be difficult, with the Minister asking awkward questions. What were they doing to allow three policemen to be murdered, and why hadn’t they found the murderers yet? The sort of questions that were always asked by people who had no idea what went on, but it didn’t make things a lot easier and the Chief was understandably short-tempered.
‘I’ve had the mother of the boy brought in again for more questioning,’ Judge Brisard said. ‘I think she knows more than she says.’
Judge Polverari sighed. ‘I make no progress,’ he said. ‘All I know for certain is that the people we’re holding didn’t shoot Randolfi and the others.’
‘Can Goriot or Durin contribute anything yet?’ the Chief asked.
‘Nothing,’ Pel said. ‘The only man they saw properly was the one we found dead – Kino – and Goriot swears that Kino did not have a weapon. The shots came from the back of the house.’
‘That would be my opinion, too,’ Doc Minet agreed.
‘We know who they are now,’ Pel said. ‘We’ve even managed to identify them. Kasimir Hays and Tom Kotchkoff. It’s believed they’re Serbians who changed their names and that their families came to France because they objected to the Tito régime in Jugoslavia, which forced Serbians, Montenegrins, Slovenes and Croatians to accept a single nationality known as Jugoslav. There were many who preferred to keep their original nationality and many fled. It’s thought in Paris that the resentment of Hays and Kotchkoff eventually became anarchical and they were prepared to join any and all protest movements. They’re experienced at the game and offer their knowledge to any movement in need of it. Their names and descriptions have gone to all forces.’
The Chief frowned. ‘What about the key we’re trying to identify?’
‘Brouards don’t keep a list of where individual locks are sold.’
‘Can’t the people we have in custody be made to talk?’
‘They know nothing. They were only on the fringe of the organisation, the women simply because they were living with the men. Hucbourg was little more than a passenger and Hogue was only the driver. Hays, Kotchkoff and perhaps others seem to have been the active part of the organisation, with Kino as the go-between. There may be a third man who’s the leader, but so far we have no hint who he is. It’s my opinion we shan’t find him until we find Hays and Kotchkoff.’
‘And are we likely to find Hays and Kotchkoff?’ the Chief asked quietly.
‘It’s just possible,’ Pel said cautiously, thinking of Claudie Darel in his office, ‘that we might be nearer today than we were yesterday.’
When he returned to his office, Claudie had pulled up a chair and was working at his desk. Carefully, she had placed all the small pieces of coloured paper on a fresh sheet of white typing paper.
‘There are one or two pieces missing, Patron,’ she said. ‘But nothing very important. I suppose they got caught up when the clothes were removed from the case. I’ve searched all the cracks but I can’t find any more. All the same, I think we have enough to make an exhibit for the court and enough to identify what it is.’
‘Inform me.’
‘It’s a label, Patron. I think it came off that hammer we found at the Impasse Tarien.’
Pel bent over the label with her. ‘Quincaillerie Madon,’ it said. ‘—e Pasteur.’
‘The bit that’s missing,’ Claudie pointed out, ‘seems to be the number and the first part of the word “rue.” Unfortunately, practically every town and city in France has a Rue Pasteur.’
‘Not all of them with an ironmongers in it, though. Try Dôle, Besançon, Beaune, Chalon, Autun, Vesoul. Even Auxerre and Avallon. If they had enough sense to scrape off the label, they probably also had enough sense not to buy the hammer in this area.’
Half an hour later, Claudie was back, holding a directory in her hand. ‘There’s a Rue Pasteur in Dôle, Patron. Pasteur was born in Dôle. I’ve been in touch with the police. There’s an ironmongers there by the name of Madon. Number Seventeen.’
Pel smiled at her. He didn’t often smile at the members of his team but Claudie was different. Everybody smiled at Claudie.
‘You busy?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have to organise someone to watch the phone.’
‘Organise it. We’re going to Dôle.’
Dôle’s narrow streets were hot in the rays of the midday sunshine. They found the ironmongers in the Rue Pasteur not very far from where Pasteur was born. It w
as a large shop filled with garden furniture, motor mowers, tools, and shelves containing boxes of nails, screws and bolts. Out of the heat, it was cool and pleasant.
Pel produced the hammer. The man behind the counter looked at it as if he thought Pel had brought it back with a complaint and wanted it exchanged.
‘This one of yours?’
‘It’s a line we carry.’ The man reached behind him and produced a replica, carrying the red, white and black label they were seeking. Pel produced his identity card with its tricolour strip. ‘Police Judiciaire,’ he said. ‘We’re searching for the man who bought this one. Would you know?’
The man stared at the hammer. ‘Was it used to kill someone?’ he asked. ‘That case in Metz? They used a hammer in that, didn’t they?’
‘This isn’t the case in Metz,’ Pel said coldly. ‘It’s more serious than that.’
‘More serious than murder? What’s more serious than murder?’
‘Four murders.’
The man’s eyes flickered over Pel and Claudie. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we don’t sell hammers very much. People seem to inherit them. Father to son. That sort of thing. Mostly the new ones go to apprentices or people setting up as carpenters or something like that. I didn’t sell it myself but my wife might have.’
The proprietor’s wife came in from the back of the shop in a waft of cooking. ‘I sold the hammer, she said. ‘It’s the only hammer we’ve sold in three or four months.’
‘How did he pay? By cheque?’
It was a wild hope and it didn’t come off.
‘For a hammer?’
‘Prices are high these days. A lot of people do.’
‘This one didn’t.’
‘Any way you could identify him?’
‘None.’
‘There must be something. Do you remember him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what did he look like?’
‘Just ordinary.’
Pel drew Claudie to one side. ‘Talk to her,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she likes men. She might remember for you. I’ll wait in the car.’