Pel and the Picture of Innocence

by Mark Hebden

  ‘I was due out tonight to play boules,’ he said. ‘Now I can’t.’

  Brochard smiled at him. ‘Good job it’s raining then, isn’t it? They’ll call the match off.’

  The fingerprints on the car used by Maurice Tagliatti’s killers had still not been identified and there was a lull in the investigation. Running his fingers through his thinning hair, Pel took out a packet of cigarettes and stared at it for a while as if it might attack him. Finally lighting one, he stared at the glowing end, deep in thought. It always irritated him to have to investigate the killing of a criminal. Much better, he always felt, to be thankful that someone had done their job for them.

  He brought himself back to the present with a jerk. Could it have been Pépé le Cornet? He mentally shook his head. Pépé preferred these days to lie low and live off his ill-gotten gains. And these days he rarely left Paris. Pépé, he decided, was a spent force. But what about his lieutenants? From what he had heard, there was no one in the offing as a leader. Paris claimed that when Pépé went his organisation would split up into half a dozen smaller organisations which would eventually cancel each other out and that it would take ten years for such an organisation to grow again.

  Other bosses? There was this type, Carmen Vlaxi. He hadn’t made an appearance in Pel’s diocese yet but there was always a first time.

  Maurice’s wife? Née Sidonie Thrénier. Once a minor actress without much future until she had caught Maurice’s eye. Maurice had never been short of women, but somehow Sidonie Thrénier had managed to put a rein on him. The general opinion now, though, was that she had never been able to hold him and had turned her interest elsewhere.

  Where?

  Darcy had it that Cavalin, Maurice’s heir apparent, had been seen around with her. Were they working together? To remove Maurice and leave the path clear for moonlight and roses and to put Cavalin where Maurice had reigned? It was an idea.

  ‘Cavalin,’ he said abruptly. ‘See him in church, Daniel?’

  Darcy looked up, signed his name at the bottom of the form in his hand, then sat back. ‘He wasn’t there, Patron.’

  ‘I wonder why? Has he bolted? Was he the one who planned it? The Crown Prince, they call him, don’t they? The Dauphin. I wonder if he’d started to get ambitions? I wonder if he was after Maurice’s job?’

  ‘Or Maurice’s wife, Patron?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pel mused. ‘Or Maurice’s wife.’

  As they were talking, Leguyader put his head round the door. Pel scowled. He never welcomed Leguyader into his office because Leguyader was pompous and self-opinionated, and in Pel’s opinion there was room for only one self-opinionated individual in the Hôtel de Police. Unfortunately, Leguyader was good at his job and Pel knew it, so he made an effort to be pleasant. He gestured towards a chair but Leguyader ignored it and advanced to the desk. He was holding a small envelope which he laid in front of Pel.

  Pel stared at it, then at Leguyader, then picked up the envelope and opened it gingerly. Inside were a few flakes of grey substance and a little powder of the same texture.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It came off Maurice Tagliatti’s trousers,’ Leguyader said. ‘It’s clay.’

  Pel frowned. ‘There’s no clay round here.’ He knew it was so, because he had heard his wife say so when she’d been discussing the garden with Madame Pasquier over the hedge.

  ‘It’s not that sort of clay,’ Leguyader pointed out. ‘It’s modelling clay.’

  Pel had never heard of modelling clay.

  ‘It’s made of potter’s clay mixed with a little finely powdered sandstone,’ Leguyader explained. ‘They use it to teach art students to be sculptors – as a way of seeing things in depth. There’s a clay modelling department at a lot of art schools, and in them there’s usually a big tub of that stuff. It’s kept pliable by adding water or, for a short time, by covering it with a wet cloth. I understand they model with their thumbs and fingers and with small scalpel-like wooden tools. I’m told that the head of Socrates is a standard exercise because he had a lot of beard and it has to be shaped into curls and curves with the thumb.’

  Pel listened carefully. There were times when Leguyader’s devotion to his encyclopaedia had its uses.

  ‘Clay models are used for a variety of purposes,’ he went on. ‘If they’re going to be large and likely to sag they use metal supports – wire, flexible tubing, iron rods – which they shape to the basic structural image and then lay the clay over them. For instance–’ Leguyader demonstrated ‘–that famous statue of Perseus by Cellini has an arm held at right angles to the body – like this – holding the head of Medusa. But for the fact that the arm was supported inside, it couldn’t have been done. Perhaps–’ Leguyader gave a little self-satisfied laugh ‘–that’s why the Venus de Milo hasn’t any arms. Perhaps the sculptor forgot to support them and they dropped off.’

  Pel gestured at the fragments of clay. ‘And this was on Maurice’s trousers.’

  ‘I thought it was mud. I’ve been in touch with the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. All modellers apparently get it on their clothes.’

  Pel frowned. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how did Maurice get it on his?’ He ground out his cigarette, pushed his chair back and gestured at Darcy. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

  As they appeared in the drive of the Manoir de Lordy, the wheels crunching on new gravel, workmen were moving about, as if Maurice’s renovations were still going on despite his sudden departure, and a painter was up a ladder working on a window. The interior was newly enough garnished to smell of fresh paint.

  Pel dispensed with the courtesies quickly. ‘Maurice,’ he said. ‘Did he have any hobbies?’

  Cavalin looked puzzled. ‘Roses,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Nothing else? He didn’t draw? Or paint? Or model with clay?’

  Cavalin looked blank. ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘How about his wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any of the boys?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘How about Ourdabi?’ For some reason, Ourdabi, with his Humphrey Bogart look, had caught Pel’s attention and he was prepared to assume him guilty of every crime in the statute book. He was by no means given to introspection or self-analysis, and his judgement, he felt, was impartial – and, of course, always correct.

  Cavalin was looking at him with an amused smile on his face. ‘Don’t you like Ourdabi, Chief?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t like any of you,’ Pel snapped. ‘How about him? What are his pastimes?’

  Cavalin smiled. ‘Chiefly tossing a bunch of keys up and down and trying to look like Humphrey Bogart.’

  ‘Bozon, Benjamen. How long had he worked for Maurice?’

  Cavalin shrugged. ‘About four years.’

  ‘What exactly did he do?’

  ‘He was a driver-handyman. He was trained as a burnisher but he gave it up and came to work for Maurice.’

  ‘What about you? What are you?’

  ‘I’m a director of Maurice’s companies.’ Cavalin pushed across a sheet of notepaper. Maurice Tagliatti et Cie, it announced, with headquarters in Marseilles.

  ‘So why are you here in Burgundy?’

  ‘Maurice had ideas of buying up vineyards. It’s profitable just now.’

  ‘I thought since President Pompidou people in France were drinking less wine.’

  ‘They are.’ Cavalin smiled. ‘But they’re drinking more in England. We export.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to murder Maurice?’

  Cavalin shrugged. ‘Can’t think. Maurice was an honest–’

  ‘Come off it,’ Darcy snapped. ‘We know what Maurice was.’

  Cavalin shrugged again.

  ‘What happens to his organisation?’

  ‘Organisation?’

  ‘He had one. You’re part of it.’

  Cavalin gestured. ‘That’s something we have to decide with the widow. There’ll be lawyers to see. The will to read. We shall have
to know what Sidonie wants. It’s all in the air at the moment. We’re just keeping everything going until we know.’

  ‘What was your relationship with Maurice?’

  ‘He was a good man to work for. He paid well. He left things to me.’

  ‘It’s a big organisation. Ever thought of taking it over?’

  Cavalin stared at them for a moment, his face expressionless. He was as good at avoiding expressions as Maurice had been. ‘I couldn’t take it over,’ he said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t want to. I haven’t the skills. Maurice was good at what he did. I’d always rather be Number Two.’

  Probably, Pel thought, because as Number Two he was less likely to be bumped off.

  ‘I suppose you always knew what Maurice was up to.’

  ‘Not always. There were things Maurice preferred to keep to himself.’

  ‘What exactly were Maurice’s relations with his wife like?’

  Cavalin smiled. ‘Poor.’

  ‘She’s good-looking, isn’t she?’

  ‘Intelligent, too.’

  ‘Ever fancied her yourself?’ Darcy asked.

  Cavalin stiffened and Pel thought for a moment he was going to become angry at Darcy’s blunt question. Instead he smiled. ‘I think we all like to have her around.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I said.’

  Cavalin paused. ‘Then, no,’ he said. ‘I haven’t. It would have been most unwise.’

  ‘What about now that Maurice is dead?’

  Cavalin smiled. ‘I’ve never been involved with women,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t pay.’

  ‘Never with Sidonie?’

  ‘Never.’

  Somehow they didn’t believe him.

  ‘Has she always been on the right side of the law?’ Pel asked. Cavalin’s face hardened. ‘Always,’ he said. ‘You can look her up. She has no record. She wasn’t very old when Maurice swept her off her feet with his Cadillacs and I think she’s regretted it ever since. She stuck to him because of the children.’

  ‘Did Maurice trust you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Even with his wife?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you try to comfort her?’

  ‘Of course. It was a situation none of us liked.’

  ‘Maurice’s killers were waiting for him. Could anyone have tipped them off?’

  Cavalin’s eyebrows rose. ‘Who, for instance?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s stop playing, Cavalin,’ Pel snapped. ‘We’re not dealing with ordinary people. We’re dealing with one of the mobs. We ask the sort of questions that go with them. Could you?’

  ‘I could, but I didn’t.’

  ‘What about Maurice’s wife? Could she?’

  ‘I can’t imagine it for a moment.’

  ‘Who would know that Maurice’s car was going down the road at that particular time?’

  ‘Only Maurice. Or his secretary. Or one of the boys.’

  ‘Which one?’

  Cavalin shrugged again.

  ‘Was he playing square with the secretary?’

  ‘I imagine not. Playing square wasn’t a habit of his. He met her in London in April while he was on a visit there.’

  ‘Was she a secretary in London?’

  ‘No. She was an au pair.’

  ‘So why did Maurice think she’d make a good secretary?’

  Cavalin laughed outright for the first time. ‘Because she has good legs,’ he said. ‘And a nice pair of boobs.’

  ‘What was Maurice doing in London?’

  Cavalin laughed again. ‘Probably preparing to make away with the Crown Jewels. You say you know what he gets up to, Chief Inspector. If you do, you know more than I do.’ Cavalin was thoroughly relaxed now. ‘It’s no good. I can’t put you on to any plots. Sidonie wouldn’t try to kill Maurice. Nor would I. And, I suspect, nor would Vlada. She’s not bright enough.’

  Vlada Preradovic was a small slight girl, barely into her twenties. She had blonde hair – Maurice seemed to have liked blonde hair – huge blue eyes and the figure of a film starlet, and the perfume she wore was powerful enough to make their knees buckle. Her looks were marred at the moment by a red nose and red eyes because she’d obviously been weeping. She had no idea who might have been responsible for Maurice’s death, only that it had robbed her of what had begun to look like the chance of a good life.

  ‘He looked after me,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Did you ever do any secretarial work for him?’ Darcy asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Much?’

  ‘No. Not much.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘When was the last time?’

  She couldn’t even remember.

  ‘Did you really do secretarial work for him?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘What did you do for him?’

  She gave them a sharp glance and said nothing. They didn’t pursue the subject.

  ‘Ever do any modelling?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Once. I’ve got the right figure. I did it for a shop in London. You can ask. Eve, it was called. In the King’s Road. I used to do it in my spare time.’

  ‘Not that kind of modelling. Clay modelling.’

  ‘You can wear clay?’

  ‘You make models with clay.’

  Light dawned and she shook her head.

  ‘Did Maurice?’

  She laughed. ‘You have to be joking.’

  Pel tried a different line. ‘You were close to Maurice. Did you ever hear anyone threaten him?’

  ‘People didn’t threaten Maurice.’

  ‘Did you know of anyone who would want him dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he ever talk to you about anyone wanting him dead?’

  ‘He once said there were people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me.’ Her brows came down. ‘He promised he’d marry me. Now look what’s happened. She’ll get all his money.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His wife. What about me? What do I get?’

  Pel glanced at Darcy, who shrugged. It certainly looked as though Vlada Preradovic wasn’t going to get very much.

  Sidonie Tagliatti wasn’t much help either. Her mouth was tight, not from meanness but to avoid saying too much. Her eyes had a dead look.

  Like Vlada Preradovic, she had never heard of modelling with clay, she’d never known that Maurice was interested and didn’t know anyone who was. Nor, she said, had she had anything to do with Maurice’s death.

  ‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of setting it up,’ she said. ‘I often thought I’d like to see him dead – especially when he brought that stupid little creature, Vlada, here and expected me to be nice to her – but I wouldn’t ever have dared to make a move in case it went wrong – as this one did.’

  ‘What was this one about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you’d been up to something and Maurice had found out, what would he have done?’

  She didn’t bother to answer.

  ‘I understand relations between you and Maurice were difficult? Was there anyone else you were interested in?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘It’s police business.’

  ‘It might be, but I don’t tell what I feel and think to policemen.’

  Pel shrugged. ‘Do you know anyone who would want Maurice dead?’

  ‘I should think the world’s full of people who wanted Maurice dead.’

  ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘I can’t help you. I never knew what he got up to. I tried hard not to know. It was safer.’

  ‘Who would tip off the killers that Maurice’s car was about to pass down that road at that particular time?’

  She gave a bark of laughter. ‘Any of them. All of them. You don’t think Maurice’s boys loved him like a father, do you? They were all in it for what they could get out of it; they’d all like to take over fr
om him.’

  ‘Who? Cavalin?’

  ‘No. Not Georges.’

  Pel remembered Humphrey Bogart. ‘Who then?’ he asked. ‘Ourdabi?’

  She stared at them for a long time before she spoke. ‘Particularly Ourdabi,’ she said.

  Eight

  The man who had locked the woman trying to sell her house in her own lavatory and then rifled her jewellery box had not been caught. Not only that. He’d done it again in a different part of the city and, with everybody else concerned with the late lamented Maurice Tagliatti and his henchman, Benjamen Bozon, the job had been handed to Lacocq. Lacocq was still fairly new to Pel’s team and hitherto had been used just for leg work and asking questions. The fact that he was now working on his own made him grow ten centimetres overnight. Misset’s book-defacing Italian, Soscharni, had appeared before the magistrates and, having no previous convictions, had been bound over to be of good behaviour.

  Since they were all busy on their own inquiries, it was some time before it occurred to Darcy that he had still done nothing about the assault on the shop assistant, Julien Claude Roth, who, it seemed, was now employed by Sport Olympe, another sports outfitters in the Rue de la Liberté. As Darcy appeared, he was in the window arranging a bright pink track suit over a stand and attaching nylon thread to the sleeves and trousers with clips and securing the other ends to the display unit with drawing pins. He looked up as Darcy entered.

  ‘Looks pretty,’ Darcy observed.

  Julien Claude Roth blushed. ‘Not bad,’ he agreed.

  Darcy looked for signs of desperate wounds, but there was nothing beyond a small scratch high on his cheek. Julien Claude Roth looked just what he was – a normal eighteen-year-old, pink and white, innocent, not too bright, and good-looking only because he was young.

  Darcy flashed his identification. ‘I’m Inspector Darcy, Police Judiciarie. We’ve had a complaint.’

  ‘Oh, Dieu,’ Julien Claude said. ‘She came. My mother came.’

  ‘Yes,’ Darcy agreed. ‘She did. She laid a complaint against one Fernand Léon, of Sport France, in the Rue Général Leclerc. She said he’d beaten you up.’

  Julien Claude Roth blushed again. ‘He didn’t beat me up.’

  ‘What did he do?’