Pel Among The Pueblos

by Mark Hebden

  ‘I’ve found this, patron,’ he said. ‘I heard you talking and I thought it might be interesting.’

  It was a request for a travel visa for Mexico. It appeared to have been made out wrongly and thrown away. On the back was a faint imprint of the office stamp of the Grandcamp Travel Agency near the Porte Guillaume and the date on it was five weeks earlier.

  It was beginning to look without doubt as if they had lost their quarry. They now knew with certainty who had killed Navarro and Desgeorges, but it seemed the murderer had eluded them by acquiring a visa and disappearing across the Atlantic. Where he was now they had no idea.

  ‘Think he’s working with Professor Martin?’ Darcy asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Pel said. ‘But it could certainly be that he’s interested in the same thing.’

  ‘Why? The intervention in Mexico was 120 years ago. Martin might be interested but I wouldn’t have thought Donck was.’

  ‘Unless Martin had discovered something of value and Donck wants to get his mitts on it.’

  ‘So where does Navarro fit into it?’

  ‘There is a connection. Martin’s interested in Mexico in 1861 or thereabouts. Perhaps his interest isn’t entirely honest. If what his wife says is true, then perhaps he turned for information to her brother, Serrano Navarro, a man like her with a Mexican background, and Donck stole the information Navarro possessed, which he’d passed on to Martin.’

  ‘What’s Martin after, then, patron? Something valuable? Something he’s picked up in his research but wasn’t sure about, so that he went to Navarro for help and told him about it? And that started Navarro studying the period, too, because it occurred to him that, if he was quick, he might get to whatever it was Martin wanted before Martin did? Then Donck appears on the scene, having also found out about this mysterious something, visited Navarro and tried to get the information from him? It ended up with him shooting Navarro and, when Desgeorges tried to intervene, him, too.’

  ‘It seems to link up,’ Pel admitted. ‘But it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.’

  ‘And how,’ Darcy asked, ‘did Donck get to know about this thing that was interesting Navarro? – whatever it was. They’ve never worked together. I went through their records. There’s no evidence of collaboration in anything at any time. The only thing they had in common is that both are university graduates.’

  ‘And both dishonest.’

  Darcy shrugged. ‘That, too.’

  Pel frowned. He already had suspicions that would answer some of their questions.

  ‘Let’s have Prélat’s boys give the place the once-over,’ he said. ‘You never know. We might find Martin’s dabs here. Or that Mexican housekeeper’s. Perhaps even Brigitte Bardot’s.’

  What they got didn’t surprise him much.

  Darcy was just wondering again what had happened to Jacqueline Hervé when Prélat arrived.

  ‘A lot of dabs,’ he said. ‘Mostly Donck’s. But a few in the bedroom that we also found at Navarro’s place.’

  Pel’s eyebrows rose. ‘Jacqueline Hervé’s?’

  ‘The very same.’

  Pel looked at Darcy. ‘No wonder Donck became interested in what Navarro was after. She told him. She was playing fast and loose with Navarro.’

  ‘Donck’s a good-looking type,’ Darcy agreed. ‘And he’s nearer her age, too. And she’d have known what Navarro was up to if she shared his bed. Somehow, she got to know Donck and decided he was a better bet. And, after the shooting, Donck, now clearly in possession of whatever it was Navarro had learned, disappears with her, in the hope of getting to it first. She took the night off, not to visit her sister but to contact Donck. She was the passenger in the car.

  ‘Donck’s probably already in Mexico, picking up whatever it is he’s after, and planning to get into the United States before Martin discovers he’s ahead of him. Was there nothing missing from Navarro’s home?’

  ‘Nothing we can pin down, patron. I had the housekeeper go round the place.’

  Pel frowned. ‘Could it be something other than valuables? This thing seems to hang on some information Donck acquired, which he obtained from Navarro, who got it originally from Martin, who got it from his research for the book he was doing. Any papers?’

  ‘No, patron. There’s nothing missing. Not even any sign of disorder. Navarro’s notes for his book on valuables hadn’t even been disturbed.’

  ‘Perhaps there was talk of collaboration – you-need-me-and-I-need-you stuff – and the information was produced but not handed over. There’ve been cases before when information’s been produced and then there’s been a quarrel and a shooting, so that whoever did the shooting disappeared with the information without having to disturb anything.’

  Darcy admitted the fact. ‘Which means,’ he said, ‘that, instead of just Donck being involved, there might be Donck and Martin – both looking for the same thing.’ He frowned. ‘This, patron,’ he ended, ‘is a funny one.’

  Pel agreed.

  ‘Normally,’ he said, ‘we know how it was done, where it was done, when it was done, why it was done. We know the victim and the reason, but we don’t know the murderer. That’s something we work out from the other facts. This time we know who did it, when it was done and how it was done, but we don’t know why it was done. It turns the whole process upside down. Let’s ask Paris if they’ve got anything on Donck. He used to operate up there as part of Pépé le Cornet’s gang.’

  ‘How about asking Pépé himself?’

  Pel gave a small dry smile. ‘You could try,’ he said.

  Four

  A few enquiries to the personnel manager at Métaux de Dijon revealed nothing very odd to Nosjean. Nobody had noticed anyone away from his bench in the middle of the night shift for any longer than it took to use the lavatory.

  ‘What about during the break?’ Nosjean asked. ‘There is one, surely?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there’s a break.’ The personnel manager smiled. ‘There has to be. The union sees to that.’ The personnel manager was young and bright-eyed and looked as though he knew every trick in the industrial book.

  ‘But nobody disappeared?’

  ‘None reported. The foremen watch for that sort of thing all the time. The unions are rigid about us behaving ourselves, so we’re rigid about their members doing the same. It works.’

  ‘Could someone disappear for a while during a break?’

  ‘Not long enough to steal a car.’

  It made sense and Nosjean was busily working his way that evening through the list of stolen cars when Aubineau rang to say another car had been reported stolen from the car park, this time a Peugeot 304, number 73 AK 37, coloured red, two previous owners, value about 33,000 francs.

  ‘He’s not one of ours,’ Aubineau said. ‘He’s with Assurances Générales. They passed it on to me because I asked them to, as you said.’

  ‘Got the owner’s name and address?’

  ‘Yes. François Orain, 1, Rue des Acacias.’

  ‘I’ll see him.’

  Before leaving the Hôtel de Police, Nosjean called in on Traffic. They had had no complaint from François Orain.

  That seemed odd in itself and Nosjean was at 1, Rue des Acacias early next morning when the night-shift workers were due home. As he waited he saw a car draw up and a man in overalls climb out. As he headed for the house the car drew away. Nosjean was at the gate as the man was putting his key in the lock. He was young and dressed in a track suit and windcheater and carried the overalls he wore at work over his arm because of the heat.

  ‘You François Orain?’ Nosjean asked.

  The man turned. ‘Yes.’

  Nosjean showed his identity card with its tricolour strip. ‘Police,’ he said.

  He was studying Orain’s face. Did he see a small flash of alarm cross his features? It might have been nothing but Nosjean was a keen and alert policeman who had jumped swiftly to senior sergeant through diligence and astuteness.

  ‘What’s wrong?’
Orain said.

  It seemed a strange question considering he had just had his car stolen. Nosjean would have expected the question to be ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘You’ve just had your car stolen, I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Oh!’ Orain seemed surprised. ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Sure.’

  While Orain’s wife prepared a meal and coped with four young children, Orain led Nosjean into the garden. Nosjean noticed as he passed through the house that it seemed well looked-after and as if Orain earned good money.

  Orain produced a bottle. ‘Coup de blanc?’ he asked.

  ‘Your car,’ Nosjean began, as they sat on white-painted chairs in the tiny garden with their glasses. ‘Peugeot 304, wasn’t it? Colour red. Number 73 AK 37. Three years old.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Good condition?’

  Orain shrugged. ‘It wasn’t new but I looked after it. I’m a fitter so I know something about engines.’

  ‘You’ve claimed on your insurance, of course?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘But you haven’t reported it yet to the police?’

  Orain seemed a little confused for a moment. ‘Well, no. I hadn’t had time. I was going to.’

  ‘You should always report things like this to the police first,’ Nosjean chided. ‘Immediately, in fact, then we can get a message out to the patrol cars who could very well spot it passing as it got away. When a report comes in at once, they’ve been known to pick up stolen cars within an hour of them disappearing.’

  Orain looked sheepish. ‘I just didn’t think. I was going to, of course.’

  ‘When did it disappear?’

  ‘During the night of the 15th. I was on night shift. When I came to leave it wasn’t there.’

  ‘Did you report it at work?’

  ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘Not to your union official?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It would help. There’ve been a lot of cars disappear from Métaux de Dijon lately.’

  ‘I just didn’t think.’

  Orain seemed not to think a great deal.

  ‘What are you going to do about transport?’

  ‘Well, there’s a bus out to the factory, but it’s slow. I expect I’ll get a regular lift until I can pick up a cheap second-hand car to tide me over. Then perhaps later, when I’ve time to look around, I’ll buy a better one.’

  ‘Attached to your car, were you?’

  Orain gave a small smile. ‘As much as you can be to a second-hand car. Perhaps if it were new, it would be different.’

  ‘Have you never had a new car?’

  ‘I’ve never been able to afford one.’

  On his way back to the Hôtel de Police, Nosjean had to pass the supermarket at Talant. It was still early but there was a police patrol car outside and Bardolle was there with Misset, who was looking bored behind the dark glasses he wore. It seemed there had been another alarm and Bardolle was looking furious. Alongside him was the manager, red-faced and unhappy, who had been called from his breakfast to investigate.

  ‘Another,’ Bardolle snarled as Nosjean drew his car to a stop by the group. ‘Last night. There was no wind, no rain, not even a breeze. It was calm and still, and yet the alarm goes off. I think a lorry passed, or an old man sneezed on the way to the bar.’

  ‘Anything stolen?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A small limping figure appeared from behind Bardolle. Nosjean recognised it as Edouard Fousse, known to the police as L’Estropié – the Limper. He had a twisted leg which was the result of falling off a wall when he was attempting to enter a factory on the industrial estate to the south of the city, and he was very familiar to the members of Pel’s squad because he had a history of fraud and theft, though curiously never concerning anything of much value. He’d had a background of violence in his youth but he hadn’t been involved in anything of that sort since his injury, and instead had gone in for dandyism. Now he wore well-pressed pink trousers and a pale green sweater. In his ear was a gold ear-ring and round his wrists a gold chain. Another gold chain hung round his neck.

  ‘An old guy on his way to work last night,’ he said with a grin. ‘That’s what did it. He broke wind and the alarm went off. Special high note, perhaps. You’ve heard of Le Pétomane, that type on the stage in the last century who could fart the “Marseillaise”.’ He looked at Bardolle. ‘Or perhaps it was you, stamping round with those great feet of yours.’

  ‘Push off!’ Bardolle turned furiously and the little man slipped away, grinning, with a hop, skip and jump on his lame leg.

  ‘No joy?’ Nosjean asked.

  Bardolle scowled. ‘Nothing,’ he growled. ‘Nothing stolen. No door forced. Nothing. It’s that shitty alarm. It goes off if you look at it.’ He stared at L’Estropié’s grinning little figure. ‘You know,’ he said bitterly, ‘he might well be right. Perhaps someone did fart.’

  When Nosjean returned to the Hôtel de Police, he made a point of checking with Pomereu’s man about the disappearance of Orain’s Peugeot.

  ‘I saw nothing,’ the cop said. ‘I was there all the time, prowling around. No cars went out of that car park during the night shift.’

  ‘So what happened to Orain’s car? Taken up by a whirlwind, was it?’

  ‘That place has five exits and cars pour out three abreast at the end of a shift. That’s when it must have gone.’ The policeman frowned. ‘But nothing left during working time.’

  ‘Didn’t fall asleep for an hour or so, did you?’

  The policeman was indignant. ‘No, I didn’t! Though I wouldn’t have minded. I’ll be glad when I’m off this job. I don’t like that car park. I’d rather be back on my own beat in Callou-sur-Ille.’

  Nosjean was puzzled. If no car was taken out during the night shift, then Orain’s Peugeot must have left with the flood of other cars at the end of the shift. Nosjean was beginning to grow very suspicious. There was something about all these stolen cars, he decided, that decidedly smelled of fish.

  As he sat at his desk, Aimedieu was smoking a cigarette at the desk next to him. He was discussing with Lagé his latest job.

  ‘Five-hundred-franc notes,’ he said. ‘Banque Français Agriculture at Cloing reports them regularly. They wondered at first if they were counterfeit.’

  He was about to disappear to Cloing to make enquiries but he was a little puzzled because he wasn’t certain what he was enquiring about.

  ‘They aren’t counterfeit,’ he said. ‘The bank says so. So what am I asking about?’

  He had a strong suspicion, in fact, that he was on a wild goose chase. The bank had apologised for causing the police unnecessary work, so what was the fuss for?

  ‘It’s just,’ he said, ‘that, up there, incomes are small, so 500-franc notes are pretty rare.’

  ‘Perhaps someone’s come up on the lottery,’ Nosjean said.

  When Bardolle appeared, he was still in a bad temper and requested an opportunity to talk to Pel. Not long before he had been a uniformed policeman in Mongy to the north of the city but his sharpness during the case of a drowned girl had brought him into the city and plain-clothes work. He was astute and keen but there was still something of the country cop about him and he looked a little like a frustrated bull.

  When Pel called him in, he entered slowly and carefully. He was so big and so wide, he was always terrified he’d take with him Pel’s coat-stand – four hooks for inspectors and above; most people hung their coats on a row of hat-pegs on the wall. He also sat carefully, because the spare chair didn’t look very strong, and he was very careful not to rest his hand on Pel’s desk. Bardolle’s fists were as big as coal grabs and weighed about as much, and he was afraid the desk might collapse.

  ‘Talant supermarket,’ Pel said. ‘You’ve been having trouble there?’

  ‘I’ve warned them it’s time they got a decent alarm system,’ Bardolle said.

  ‘I think
it is,’ Pel agreed. ‘Have you checked it?’

  ‘Yes, patron. There seems to be nothing wrong with it. But it goes off for no reason at all. One night the wind blew and it went off. Another night it was the rain. One night they said it was because the army had passed a convoy of military vehicles within thirty metres of the place.’

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  Bardolle blinked. He looked like a thirsty cart-horse looking for a drinking trough. ‘I don’t know what to think, patron,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never heard of an alarm that goes off because of the wind. But this one seems to. That little bastard, Edouard Fousse, said it was because I’d been walking round the place and disturbed the wiring.’ Bardolle was sensitive about his size. ‘My weight, patron,’ he explained. ‘The cheeky con. He’s always there ready for a good laugh when we turn up and find nothing wrong.’

  ‘Who’s been working with you?’

  ‘Misset.’

  Pel frowned. He didn’t trust Misset. He was the one flaw in Pel’s team. Once handsome but now fading as the beer he drank caused his features to thicken, he was always on the point of leaving his wife but never failed to plead family life as an excuse for getting out of work.

  ‘Are you watching the place at night?’

  ‘Yes, patron. When I’m not on something else.’

  Pel nodded sympathetically. Most of his team were handling half a dozen cases at once, like jugglers juggling with half a dozen chamber-pots, so that they had to keep their eyes on all of them at once. Crime had reached such proportions a man with only five or six cases on his hands was considered to be taking it easy.

  ‘What about the alarms?’ he asked. ‘Are they always during the night?’

  ‘Or the early morning, patron.’

  ‘Who was on when they occurred?’

  ‘Me, the first time, patron. The other three, Misset.’

  Pel sniffed. It could have been that Misset had been having a drag at a cigarette round the corner, or been snatching a quick one in a nearby bar, perhaps even in a dark alley-way with a girl he’d picked up.