Pel Among The Pueblos

by Mark Hebden

  ‘The youngest of our new neighbours,’ Pel said. ‘He ate a slice of cake.’

  ‘He does that almost every day.’

  ‘Do we send a bill to his parents?’

  ‘I think Madame Routy enjoys him coming.’

  ‘Good God!’ That Madame Routy could possible enjoy anything beyond television – with the possible exception of Pel’s whisky when he wasn’t looking – had never occurred to him.

  ‘What has Daniel to say?’ Madame asked.

  ‘He seems very happy with the way things are going. We seem to know exactly what happened for a change. All we have to find out is why it happened. If we get that we ought to know who did it. That’s the way it usually goes.’

  This one was going to be different, though.

  By the time the conference in Pel’s office started, the Hôtel de Police was a hive of activity. In Pel’s own office, Claudie Darel – for the moment unassisted by a cadet because the last incumbent had disappeared on to the streets and had not yet been replaced – was putting all the papers ready. Sergeant Bardolle was shouting into the telephone, big and bulky, his iron voice shuddering the windows. As he crouched at his desk, Sergeant Misset came in, full of false bounce because he was really a sad individual with a failing marriage and no interest in his job.

  ‘Dry up,’ Bardolle said. ‘I’m talking to Marseilles.’

  ‘Why don’t you use the telephone then?’ Misset asked.

  Bardolle glared and Pel frowned. He didn’t like Misset but always – always – just as Pel was about to send him off for some stupidity or laziness back to Uniformed Branch to direct the traffic round the Porte Guillaume, he managed to produce a rabbit from the hat and save himself.

  De Troquereau had his head down with Nosjean, both young, slim and good-looking, De Troq’ a baron with a baron’s tastes, Nosjean looking like the young Napoleon. They were often together, good friends despite both being engaged in pursuing Claudie Darel. There was also Lagé, plump, slow-moving and heading for retirement; Aimedieu, looking like a mischievous choirboy; Brochard and Debray, pale-haired and pale-eyed and so alike they were known as the Heavenly Twins; and finally Lacocq and Morell, only recently brought in from Uniformed Branch and used chiefly as errand boys.

  Eventually, Darcy appeared, handsome and immaculate, looking like a film star from the days when film stars looked like film stars and not like corner boys in jeans and windcheaters. He was in a newly pressed suit with a white collar that seemed to saw at his ears, and his teeth – those magnificent teeth that captivated every woman who ever saw them – shone as if they’d just been gone over with scouring powder. He spoke a few words to Nosjean, the senior sergeant, picked up a pile of papers and swept everyone who was involved into Pel’s office.

  The report from Ballistics showed that the gun found under the overturned chair was without doubt the murder weapon. Three shots had been fired from it, and all three had been found. One was in Navarro’s chest, one in Desgeorges’ shoulder, and one in the ceiling, almost lost among the plaster medallion in the centre. Judging by the angle, this one had first passed through Desgeorges’ head.

  ‘And the gun was covered with dabs,’ Darcy said.

  Prélat, of Fingerprints, looked up. ‘There were some good ones,’ he said. ‘We’re checking them now.’

  ‘We had the Mexican woman here for a long time last night,’ Darcy went on. ‘She picked out several faces, most of which she later discarded. Three, she insisted, could have been the man she saw: Marc Donck, known as the Bookworm. Like Navarro, he’s a brain that went wrong. Picked up for burglary when he was a student and been at it ever since. Jean-Pierre Lefêvre, known to be keen on breaking and entering. And Pierre Rebluchet. Known as Pierrot-le-Pourri. We sent him down for the châteaux art thefts but I gather he’s now out. There was one other, but he’s still inside so we can forget him.’

  ‘Let’s check them, Daniel.’

  Darcy also reported that a black Citroën had been found abandoned in the next village, Sorgeay-le-Grand, and enquiries had shown it to have been stolen in the city the previous morning.

  ‘We think it might be the one that was used to visit Navarro,’ Darcy said. ‘Prélat’s boys are going over it now for fingerprints.’

  Photofit descriptions of the man Señora Esposito believed she had seen had also been worked out. ‘We’ll get them prettied up and sent out to all stations,’ Darcy said. ‘And we’ll also get out descriptions for television and the newspapers.’ Darcy frowned. ‘One very odd thing, patron. We found that Navarro had turned to reading history.’

  ‘History? I thought he was interested chiefly in artefacts.’

  ‘Well now he seems to be interested in history. There were several books on his desk dealing with the French intervention in Mexico in 1861.’

  Pel was no historian and required some enlightenment.

  ‘I had a talk with De Troq’,’ Darcy said. ‘He knows about it. In fact, he appears to have an ancestor who was there with the French Army. Napoleon III attempted to put an Austrian archduke on the throne there.’

  ‘I didn’t know Mexico had a throne.’

  ‘It did once. Napoleon tried to revive it.’

  ‘In the name of God, why?’

  ‘Lots of reasons, patron. I’ll need to do a bit of reading. But it seems Napoleon thought it might be a good idea to use his archduke as a means of collecting some bad debts. Something of the sort. It didn’t work. The Mexicans shot the archduke.’

  ‘Oh, charming! What has this to do with us?’

  ‘Navarro had a Mexican father, you’ll remember. When he died, his mother brought him to France and he grew up here. He also had a Mexican housekeeper.’

  ‘Is it significant? I have a French housekeeper. Other people have Portuguese or Italian.’

  Darcy refused to be put off. ‘It’s worth checking,’ he said. ‘There might be a connection.’

  Because he didn’t know much about his country’s history and still less about Mexico’s, Pel passed over it hurriedly, deciding to leave it to Darcy to find out more, and began to go through the day’s list. The army of criminals who appeared to be trying to undermine the Republic of France had been busy. There had been a series of muggings in Dole, a bank robbery in Auxerre, a hit and run in St Rémy, a rape case, and a few break-ins here and there about the city – nothing much, considering.

  ‘There’s also,’ Darcy said, ‘a very nice thank you from Lyons for picking up that counterfeiter, Jean-Paul Leroy, with his stock of phoney notes and can they have the dud money back some time?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Mostly 50- and 100-franc notes. It’s not important but they’d like to have it. Perhaps they’re going to have it framed.’

  ‘No hurry,’ Pel said. ‘They have what they need to convict him and, with a double murder, we’ve plenty to occupy us.’

  ‘Finally – ’ Darcy cleared his throat, faintly embarrassed ‘ – there’s a new rash of alarms from the supermarket at Talant.’

  Pel sighed. The supermarket at Talant was one of their bêtes noires. It seemed to have intruders the way most people had mice.

  ‘Find anyone?’

  ‘No. But there’ve been three false alarms in the last three weeks. Every time the manager’s been turned out but nothing’s been stolen, and there were no indications of any breaking in.’

  ‘It sounds as if they need a new alarm system,’ Pel growled. ‘Better get someone to go round and tell the manager what we think of him.’

  Darcy nodded and skated a sheet of paper across the desk. ‘We’ve also had a request from local insurance companies to keep an eye on the car park at Métaux de Dijon. There’s been a rash of stolen cars.’

  Pel frowned. Métaux de Dijon was one of the biggest consortiums in the area and with room for eight or nine hundred cars, the car park was big enough to present a problem.

  ‘What is it? Teenagers taking joy-rides?’

  ‘It seems to be more than that.
A lot of cars have disappeared in the last three years. It’s the sort of thing Nosjean’s good at. I’ll give it to him. He’s only got about fifty-four other things going at the moment. He’s practically free.’

  While they were talking, one of Prélat’s men appeared and quietly handed him an envelope. As the door closed again, Prélat opened the sheet of paper, stared at it and looked at Pel.

  ‘Reports on the fingerprints at Navarro’s home, patron,’ he said. ‘Several sets: Navarro’s. The housekeeper’s. Desgeorges’. The secretary, Jacqueline Hervé’s. And one other. We found three or four good prints and they’ve been identified as belonging to Marc Donck. Donck’s prints are also on the gun.’

  ‘That seems to wind it up,’ Pel said. ‘Find out where Donck is, Daniel.’

  ‘They’re still working on the abandoned Citroën,’ Prélat continued. ‘If Donck’s fingerprints are on that, we’ve got him.’

  Pel sniffed. ‘We’ve got nobody,’ he warned. ‘Not until we have him behind bars. All the same, it’s a good start.’

  By afternoon, they had Prélat’s report on the abandoned Citroën. It was short and to the point.

  ‘Somebody had made an attempt to wipe it clean, patron,’ he said. ‘Somebody who knew what he was doing. But he missed one. Just one. It was Marc Donck’s.’

  ‘Do we need to look much further, patron?’ Darcy asked. ‘We have Donck’s prints at Navarro’s house, on the gun and now on an abandoned stolen car, believed to be the one used at Sorgeay. We also have his description by the Mexican woman and the photofit picture, which could also be Donck.’

  ‘Have we found out where he is?’

  ‘Not yet. But we will.’

  Just as Pel was preparing to go home, Darcy appeared again, this time in a hurry. ‘Patron,’ he said, ‘I’ve just discovered an interesting point. I was checking on Navarro.’

  ‘Was he involved in anything?’

  ‘Nothing we can find. But his sister married a type called Martin – Henri Martin, who was a professor of history at the university until he packed it up to make a living by writing. I’ve looked him up.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘His wife was Henrietta Navarro. Married her fifteen years ago.’

  Pel shrugged. ‘So? It’s not unknown for honest people to have dishonest relatives or in-laws. Or for dishonest people to have honest relatives and in-laws. What about the secretary, Jacqueline Hervé?’

  ‘Seems to have vanished, patron. I’ve had Brochard and Morell on it. They’ve contacted all her friends and relations. No sign of her. Last in touch with her parents in Auxerre three months back. She doesn’t seem to have been one for the family much and only contacted them occasionally and rarely visited them.’

  ‘What about the sister in Paris she’s supposed to have visited?’

  ‘We found her address from the parents. She’s not heard from Jacqueline Hervé for two years and certainly hasn’t seen her.’

  ‘So her story to Navarro was a false one?’

  Darcy nodded. ‘That’s the way it looks, Patron.’

  Pel was deep in thought. Why would Jacqueline Hervé disappear as she had? And why should she lie to Navarro? It was always possible she’d quarrelled with him or walked out on her job, but the Mexican woman had reported hearing no angry exchanges involving her, and on the last occasion she’d seen her with Navarro they had seemed on good terms. In addition, while the excuse of visiting her sister in Paris seemed to indicate that, although she may have been deluding him in some way, it also indicated she was still on speaking terms. So why had she disappeared? Had she been fiddling Navarro’s money? Had she a spare boyfriend somewhere?’

  They had to find her because she was probably the key to the whole thing. Pel felt faintly frustrated. They had a double murder and they even had a suspect, whose fingerprints had been found at the scene of the crime, on the murder weapon, and on the car they believed he had used in his get-away. Yet, somehow, there was something wrong, because they had no inkling of why the crime had been committed and the only person who was likely to know anything about it had disappeared.

  The puzzle was compounded the next day when Darcy came back from the university. He was frowning and obviously a little out of his depth. As he entered Pel’s office he lit a cigarette. Pel had just resisted lighting one and Darcy’s action melted all his resolve. With a sigh he lit one himself.

  ‘This is a funny one, patron,’ Darcy said. ‘I’ve been doing a little checking on Martin. He did marry Navarro’s sister, Henrietta Navarro, known as Riri. They had the usual business in the Maire’s office then went to the Church of St Dizier for the marriage to be blessed. The priest who conducted the ceremony – it was in March 1971 – is dead now but it’s all there in the register, as it is in the Maire’s office records. The best man was Serrano Navarro. I’ve checked Henrietta Navarro’s address at the time and it turns out to be the same as the address Serrano Navarro gave when he was picked up on suspicion of handling that Medusa’s head that disappeared in Paris. That isn’t coincidence, patron. That’s fact.’

  Pel frowned. ‘What are you suggesting Daniel? That she worked with Navarro?’

  ‘Oh, God, no, patron! In fact, I don’t really know what I am suggesting. But I haven’t finished yet. Listen a bit longer. I asked at the university about Martin. He’s known there all right. He was a highly respected member of the faculty there until five years ago.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Yes, patron, was. He was asked for his resignation.’

  ‘Surely to God he isn’t a criminal?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way, patron. I’ll tell you all I know. Henri Martin was educated at the Sorbonne, specialising in European history. But later, apparently like other historians, his interest was caught by other parts of the world and he went on to the French colonies. He wrote a book on the subject, La France et ses Colonies. It did very well and made him money, which, apparently, is quite a feat these days with non-fiction. He then turned his attention to France’s intervention in Italy in the middle of the last century when the place was just a collection of small states struggling to become a nation.’

  Darcy held up his finger. ‘Another book, patron. On the Italian Risorgimento. It involved a study of Garibaldi. He then went on to a historical biography of Marshal Bazaine. It’s not hard to understand why. Bazaine was involved in Algeria and in Italy so it’s normal enough that his interest should move on to Bazaine. But, about then, someone accused him of stealing whole chunks of the book he’d written on the Risorgimento and the university authorities began to look askance at him.’

  ‘How did you get on to this?’

  ‘Angélique Courtois.’

  ‘Angélique Courtois?’ It was hard to keep track of Darcy’s girlfriends because he had girlfriends like most people had dandruff.

  ‘The one who works at the university.’

  ‘You’re seeing her again?’

  ‘I’ve never stopped seeing her.’

  ‘What about Odette Héon, and the one with red hair?’

  Darcy grinned. ‘Oh, I never give any of them up. I have a stable of them. Like a racehorse owner.’

  ‘Don’t they ever learn about the others?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Why don’t they shoot you?’ Pel gestured. ‘Go on.’

  Darcy glanced at his notebook. ‘By this time, Martin was heading the history department, but it seems that his book on the Risorgimento was nothing but a rewrite of a book by a type called André Mallet, and included no original research. I’m a bit out of my depth but this is what I’m told. It seems plagiarism’s hard to prove, though, and nothing came of Mallet’s annoyance. But the university had been alerted and, when documents disappeared, they began to look again at Martin. Again nothing was proved but then they learned of other documents that had been missed – at the Bibliothèque Historique in Paris and from the Library of the University of Naples, where Martin had been doing research. Again nothing could be prove
d but the libraries had their suspicions. Gradually, Martin was eased out.’

  Pel was listening intently now.

  ‘It didn’t worry Martin,’ Darcy went on. ‘He’d become well known by this time and was regarded as a good popular writer of history. His books sold well, he did work for television. They made a big series two years ago on the French North African colonies with his book as a basis and he was employed as adviser. The thing that’s interesting, though, is that at this moment he appears to be engaged on a history of the French intervention in Mexico.’

  ‘Him, too?’

  ‘Yes, patron. What you might call a coincidence, isn’t it? I went to see his wife. She agreed that Navarro was her brother, but she apparently isn’t in touch with him and hasn’t been for years. I’d say she was honest even if her brother’s dishonest and her husband belongs on the shady side of straight.’

  ‘Go on.

  ‘I asked her what her husband was working on and she told me, as the man at the university I saw did, that he was working on a big book on the French intervention in Mexico in 1861. Apparently it was rather a shady business managed by a few dubious politicians and financiers who foisted the idea off on to Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie, his wife. Because of that, historians have tended to avoid writing about it; it’s not a piece of French history we can be very proud of.’

  ‘Did you see Martin?’

  ‘No, patron.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘Martin, too? Could it be with Jacqueline Hervé?’

  ‘I tried that on her. He has a way with women and likes them too much, it seems. But she doesn’t think he’s ever heard of Jacqueline Hervé. But she did think he might have seen Navarro. Navarro was part Mexican, as we know, and apparently Martin had been to ask him the whereabouts of certain documents he was after. So he might just have met Jacqueline Hervé.’

  ‘Had she any idea why he’d disappeared?’

  ‘None, patron. Apparently the marriage’s pretty fragile and he often disappears to do research – when he isn’t chasing girls. She grew tired of it and she seems to live her own life with her own friends and associates. She’s an analytical chemist and she met Martin when she was a lecturer at the university. But now she works for Produits Pharmaceutiques Bourguignons. There are no children.’