by Mark Hebden
‘It looks very much as if he was, though.’
Darcy shrugged and led the way into the house. In the library there were signs of a struggle. Serrano Navarro, a heavy harsh-featured man with his haircut en brosse, lay on his back near the fireplace, a bullet wound in his chest. Desgeorges lay towards the back of the room, near an overturned armchair. There was a wound in his shoulder and another under the chin. He was fat enough for his body to look as if it had spread – even oozed – sideways. Navarro was wearing blood-soaked pyjamas and a dressing-gown and was unshaven. Desgeorges was also unshaven but he wore a turtle-necked sweater and trousers, though the slippers he wore seemed to indicate he had thrown the clothes on in a hurry. Blood had saturated his sweater and his face was covered with crimson from the wound in the head.
‘We haven’t touched anything until Photography’s finished,’ Darcy said. ‘The old saying: “Hands in pocket, eyes open, mouth shut, until the pictures have been made.”’
Doc Minet, the police surgeon, who was bending over Navarro, looked up as Pel appeared. ‘Straight through the heart,’ he said. ‘He died instantly.’ He gestured at Desgeorges. ‘The wound to that one’s shoulder was inflicted first. The second bullet caught him under the chin, went up through the brain and removed the top of his head. That one was instantaneous, too.’
‘For once, we don’t have to ask you to guess when it happened. We know.’ Pel glanced at his watch. ‘One and a half hours ago. What happened, Daniel?’
Darcy glanced at his notes. ‘It seems a man appeared at the door asking for Navarro. The housekeeper, who was in the kitchen, says Desgeorges, who’d just appeared, answered the door. She heard him say it was too early, but the guy seemed to be insisting. There was some talk at the door, she says, then Desgeorges went to talk to Navarro. He must have been told to show the guy in because he led him in here. They were talking for a long time, then the housekeeper, who was upstairs by this time, heard angry voices, then shouts, and finally a shot, followed by three more shots. She has a telephone in her room so she called the police from there. Soon afterwards she heard the visitor’s car drive away.’
‘Have we talked to her?’
‘Yes, patron. She saw the car arrive. The guy didn’t see her but he must have guessed someone else was in the house and bolted.’
‘Have we found the car?’
‘No, but we will.’
Pel stared at the bodies. ‘Why, Daniel?’ he asked. ‘What was the reason? Robbery?’
‘According to the housekeeper, nothing’s missing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No. Safe’s untouched. Silver’s still in place.’ Darcy gestured. ‘Valuable small painting there on the wall. Twenty thousand francs in notes in the drawer of the desk.’ Darcy’s hand moved again. ‘The only thing that was wrong is that that chair was overturned, and there’s what looks like a bullet hole in the panelling.’
Leguyader, of the Forensic Laboratory, had men crawling about the floor examining the carpet. He looked up expectantly as Pel appeared at his side because Leguyader liked to think that without his department the police couldn’t function. His chief delight was to solve a case purely by forensics or, if that failed, to be able to produce no evidence at all so that the police were at a total loss. Pel had ignored him as long as possible because there was not much love between them, but in the end he had to include him. Leguyader swung round, full of his own importance.
‘Well,’ Pel said, giving nothing away in the manner of friendship, ‘I expect you’re itching to tell me. What happened?’
‘It looks to me,’ Leguyader said, ‘as if the intruder, whoever he was, was talking to Navarro when they suddenly – and very fiercely – quarrelled. He shot Navarro before the bodyguard, Desgeorges, who was at the back of the room, could intervene. Then, as Desgeorges charged forward, the intruder stopped him with a bullet through the shoulder and, as he staggered away, shot him again.’
‘He must have had his head back,’ Doc Minet said. ‘Probably yelling with pain. And this time the bullet entered his head below the jaw and went upwards through the brain.’
‘Did Navarro or the bodyguard get a shot off?’
Darcy indicated a small automatic half under the desk near Navarro. ‘6.35,’ he said. ‘Not used.’ He gestured towards an open drawer. ‘I think Navarro snatched it from there but was shot before he could fire. Fingerprints will tell us whose it was.’
‘And Desgeorges?’
Darcy indicated a heavier weapon on the floor near the bodyguard. ‘This must have been what Desgeorges had in his hand.’ He pointed to the panelling behind Navarro and Pel saw a small splintered hole. ‘There’s a bullet in there somewhere,’ he said. ‘We’ll have it out eventually. The gun’s been fired. You can smell it.’
Pel stared at the weapon. ‘But that’s not the murder weapon?’ he asked.
Leguyader gave a superior smile. ‘No,’ he said. He half-lifted the overturned chair; underneath it was another gun, a Luger. ‘This is.’
Pel glanced at Darcy. Finding the murder weapon seemed an incredible stroke of luck. In most murder cases the police ended up searching rivers, canals, streams, waste ground and rubbish dumps for it. ‘You sure?’
‘Not yet,’ Leguyader said. ‘But I think so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the wounds on the bodies look as if they were made by a weapon of this calibre.’
Pel glanced at Doc Minet who smiled and gave a reluctant nod, as if he didn’t wish to agree with the obnoxious Leguyader but had no option but to do so.
‘I’ll be certain,’ he said, ‘when I’ve examined the bodies. There’s one bullet somewhere in Navarro’s chest and another one among the bones in Desgeorges’ shoulder. There’s also one in the panelling and one in the ceiling. When we’ve dug them all out and Ballistics have had a chance to look at them, we’ll know for certain.’
Pel glanced at Darcy. It was rarely they had a piece of good fortune like this because criminals knew enough from watching television that guns gave the game away and that it was better to remove them.
‘So why did he leave it behind?’
‘In my view,’ Leguyader said, ‘whoever did it was in here talking to Navarro with Desgeorges looking on, as a good bodyguard would. There was a sudden quarrel. Navarro went for the gun in the drawer but was shot before he could use it. As he fell, Desgeorges charged forward but as he fired he was halted with the bullet in the shoulder. However, he’s a big heavy man and the bullet didn’t stop him dead. He cannoned into the man with the gun and was shot a second time as they struggled. As he stumbled, he must have knocked the gun from the murderer’s hand, then he fell against the chair and knocked it over on to the gun which had skated across the floor. Scrambling to his feet, the murderer looked for it, couldn’t find it and decided it was safer to bolt. He guessed someone had heard the shots and telephoned for the police.’
Darcy indicated the telephone on Navarro’s desk. ‘When you lift the receiver anywhere else in the house, that one gives a loud click. Whoever did it realised what was happening and came to the conclusion it was wisest to vanish.’
‘Exactly,’ Leguyader said.
‘Fingerprints?’
Prélat, of Fingerprints, who was working near the desk, looked up. ‘All over the place, patron.’
‘Whose?’
Prélat indicated Navarro. ‘Some are his.’ His hand moved to Desgeorges. ‘A few are his. There are also others.’
‘Members of the staff?’
‘The housekeeper says not. She says this room had been cleaned and polished the previous day so there couldn’t be many of them. Some belong to a woman.’
‘Do we know who?’
‘One or two are the housekeeper’s. One or two seem to belong to a Jacqueline Hervé, who it appears, worked for Navarro as his secretary-typist.’
Pel’s eyebrows twitched. ‘What was he doing? Writing a manual on crime?’
Darcy smiled, and gestured
at a pile of papers on the desk. ‘Seems to be a manual on artefacts and paintings. Desirable objects. Their value and present location. Probably he was proposing to send a copy to every crook in France. It would be a very useful addition to their bookshelves, by the look of it. He could have made a fortune.’
‘Where is this Jacqueline Hervé now?’
‘She seems to have sunk without trace, patron. We’ve made a few enquiries. I gather from the housekeeper she was rather more than just a secretary-typist. She was also Navarro’s adviser in some ways because she’d been in antiques. She was also his girlfriend. There are clothes which must have belonged to her in the main bedroom where he has his things. She seems to have eaten with him, slept with him and spent all her time with him. He gave her some property – a cottage, the housekeeper thinks, though she doesn’t know where – and a few items of jewellery.’ He held up a photograph of a woman – attractive, sophisticated and clever-looking, with a small button mouth that somehow contrived to look mean and marred the good looks with a calculating expression. ‘This is her. I found it in the bedroom. The housekeeper said she heard her on Friday telling Navarro she had to go to Paris to visit her sister who was ill. She had her own car and set off later in the day. That’s probably where she is.’
‘Find her, Daniel,’ Pel said. ‘Get the picture reproduced in case we need it. She might just have returned and been taken away because she saw what happened. Now let’s have the housekeeper in.’
The housekeeper was a small stout woman with a brown skin, jetty hair, dark terrified eyes and an incipient moustache. Her name was Conchita Esposito.
‘French?’
‘No, your honour. Mexican.’
‘You have a work permit?’
‘Oh, yes, your honour. Señor Navarro arranged it. I’m from the village of his parents. I knew them well.’
‘Is he Mexican?’
‘No, your honour. His papa is. Not his mamma. She is French. He does not like French ladies to work for him. He thinks they are not honest. He arranges for me to come.’
‘Did you see the man who came here?’
‘Yes, your honour. Not well, but a little.’
‘Could you describe him?’
She could and Pel turned to Darcy. ‘Arrange to get a description, Daniel. Get the photofit boys on the job. Then let’s have it distributed. To all departments. All forces.’ He turned back to the woman. ‘Was he alone?’
She shrugged. ‘I think I see someone in the car. But not clearly because he does not bring it in the drive, so I don’t know for sure.’
‘What sort of car was it?’
‘I don’ know cars, your honour. Jus’ a black car. He leave it in the road.’
‘This person in the car. Can you describe him?’
The housekeeper moved her head from side to side. ‘No. I don’ see. Too far away. Jus’ a shape. But is not big. Small. Slight.’
‘Tell us what happened.’
She told them in halting French. She had seen the car arrive and the man walk up the drive. She had continued with preparing breakfast in the kitchen, then, while waiting for Navarro to appear, had gone to attend to her bedroom. The visitor was still talking with Navarro in the library. Desgeorges was with them. Suddenly she heard angry voices and almost immediately a shot, and went to use the telephone she had in her room to call the police. As she picked up the instrument she heard three more shots. She dialled the police and as she was doing so she heard feet running down the drive, and then heard the car, which was still waiting, drive off in a hurry.
‘This man who came. Tall? Small? Fat? Thin?’
‘Small, your honour. But strong-looking.’
‘How was he dressed?’
‘In a suit, your honour. White shirt. Very white. Very clean. Very neat.’
She had little else to tell them but at least they had a witness who could identify the visitor when they found him.
‘Get her down to headquarters,’ Pel said. ‘Let her see some mug shots. She’ll probably find our friend among them somewhere.’ He looked about him, satisfied. ‘It seems a straightforward case, Daniel. I don’t think you need me. I’ve got to take my wife to St-Seine. I promised. An elderly aunt who can’t find anyone else to leave her money to. We’ll discuss it tomorrow, by which time you’ll probably have picked up both the car and the driver. There’ll be a conference in my office. Let’s have everybody involved there.’
As he turned away, Judge Brisard arrived. Judge Brisard was the juge d’instruction who had been placed in charge of the case and had the right to be present at the scene of the crime. He even had the right to direct the police in their investigations, though Pel preferred to ignore him and go his own way, something that often troubled Pel’s boss, the Chief, because there were constant shrill complaints from Judge Brisard that he was being totally left out in the cold. Sometimes, even, the Chief wished that Pel and Judge Brisard could both be taken out to sea from the Gironde and dropped overboard with concrete weights attached to their feet, because they had been especially created, he felt, by the Almighty for the personality clash of all time. Doubtless, he had often thought, God had arranged it all as a joke.
Brisard was a tall, youngish man with a behind and hips like a woman. He had a big line in marital fidelity with photographs of his wife and children on his desk in his office in the Palais de Justice but, quite by chance, Pel had discovered he had a woman – the widow of a policeman – in Beaune so it didn’t carry a lot of weight with him. Pel would always, in fact, have preferred Judge Polverari, who was small, stout, had a ready wit, and like Pel, detested Judge Brisard and enjoyed trading sarcastic comments on him. But there was no getting away from the fact that this time it was Brisard and, despite his mannerisms, he was still a judge so that Pel had to give him what details had already been unearthed.
‘Anyone in mind, as the suspect?’ Brisard asked.
‘We’ve only just arrived,’ Pel snapped.
Brisard’s dislike showed like a recalcitrant underslip. A moue of annoyance puckered his mouth until it looked, Pel thought, like a cat’s backside.
‘Anyone acting suspiciously, I meant,’ Brisard explained. ‘It doesn’t pay to let the grass grow under your feet, you know.’
Not for him, anyway, Brisard thought, or Pel’s independent soul would lead him to spirit away the very things he needed to see to form an opinion. The enmity between them was an old one and both were still looking for the opening that would result in the fatal wound. Pel had long been hoping that Brisard, caught in his girlfriend’s bed when he ought to have been busy on a case, might be drummed out of the judiciary. Preferably with all the other judges, barristers and solicitors drawn up in a hollow square to watch his buttons being cut off.
Brisard’s hope was that Pel would commit an appalling faux pas and be carted off in disgrace to Number 72, Rue d’Auxonne, by which charming name the local gaol was known. After that, he felt there might be other more distant gaols. It was a pity, in fact, that Devil’s Island was no longer operating, or he might manage to arrange for Pel, like Dreyfus, to spend the rest of his days there.
They sparred together for a while then Pel headed for his car. ‘Keep an eye on it, Daniel,’ he said. ‘Let me know what develops. You have Lagé. Who else do you want?’
Darcy grinned. ‘I’ll pick them when I’ve discovered what we’re into,’ he said.
Two
When Pel and his wife arrived home that evening, Yves Pasquier was sitting on the grass by the front gate. With him was a small black dog, so shaggy it was difficult to tell which end was front. Only the fact that one end moved rapidly from right to left indicated that it was the other end that bit.
‘This is Gyp,’ Yves Pasquier observed as Madame Pel disappeared into the house. ‘Her real name’s Gypsy. She’s been done.’
‘Done?’
‘Spayed. You know so she can’t have pups.’ The boy sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have minded pups,’ he said.
A
s Pel turned to follow his wife, he found Yves Pasquier was still with him.
‘Do you know anything that will dissolve chewing-gum?’ the boy asked.
‘You have problems with chewing-gum?’
‘Maman doesn’t like me having chewing-gum. So when I come home from school I have to get rid of it. The other day she caught me before I was ready so I had to stuff it in my pocket. It’s got a bit mixed up with some string and some marbles.’
‘It’s a serious problem,’ Pel agreed. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I ought to go in.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll come with you.’
Pel’s eyebrows lifted but he didn’t object. For a man who had never had much patience with his fellow men – not even with himself at times – he got on remarkably well with small boys. In a way, it was one of the burdens he had to bear that Didier Darras, whose friendship he had cherished for so long, was now wearing a police cadet’s uniform and was worrying because his girlfriend, who had been devoted to him ever since she had first hit him over the head with her doll, had begun to notice that other police cadets were interesting, too.
He held the door open and the boy entered. Madame Routy placed a piece of cake she had baked in front of him. He nodded, took a bite and mumbled thanks through his mouthful.
‘You been solving a crime?’ he asked.
‘Here and there,’ Pel said.
‘Caught any criminals?’
‘Not today. But there’s plenty of time.’
Leaving the boy stuffing cake into his face, Pel went to the telephone and rang the Hôtel de Police. Darcy had nothing new to report but he seemed very optimistic. ‘Leguyader’s theory about the shooting seems to be correct,’ he said. ‘And Prélat says he has some good prints. We’ve still got the housekeeper down here going through the mug shots and she’s picked out a few interesting ones.’
Returning to the kitchen, Pel found Yves Pasquier pushing the last mouthful of cake away. He uttered a muffled ‘Thank you’, swallowed enough to make speaking possible and announced that he had to be going.
Madame was in the salon watching the news on television.