Pel and the Picture of Innocence

by Mark Hebden

  Through his mirror, Cavalin was watching the van approach.

  ‘They’re taking no chances,’ he called softly to Nosjean.

  Crouching in the undergrowth, Nosjean and the others were well placed to see what happened. Cavalin sat bolt upright in the driver’s seat of the Range Rover, an easy target, apparently studying a map. The rumble of the approaching van increased and they saw it lift slowly over the brow of the hill towards the corner. Cavalin started the engine of the Range Rover.

  As the van drew alongside, they half expected a blast of fire to destroy him, and Nosjean had to admire his nerve as he sat motionless as the van slowed. There were three men in the front and, as it passed, he saw them staring into the rear of the Range Rover. The pause was only momentary, however, then the van moved on. As it rounded the corner, the rear door of the Range Rover flew open and Morell took a flying dive inside. As the door clicked shut, the Range Rover began to move.

  Its speed building up rapidly, it rounded the corner on two wheels. Though he couldn’t see, it wasn’t hard for Nosjean to guess that the Englishmen in the van had been caught off guard, and, judging by the slamming of doors and the roaring of engines that followed, he assumed that Cavalin had managed to pass them and was now in the lead.

  ‘Right!’ he said. ‘It worked. Let’s get on with it!’

  But as they ran through the trees to where they had parked their car, they saw a black Citroën hurtle down the hill from Lordy and swing with swaying body on to the Perrenet road to join the chase.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Nosjean gasped. ‘That was Ourdabi! Where does he come into it?’

  When Brochard took another look from the attic, the black Citroën had gone and so had the watching men. Then he spotted the white Range Rover come into view on the road to Perrenet. It was moving fast and was followed at a distance by the grey van he’d seen labouring up the hill from Leu. Then, as it vanished behind a stretch of hedgerow, he saw the black Citroën containing Ourdabi and the others appear by the corner where he had first seen the Range Rover and watched it turn on to the Perrenet road.

  Reaching for his radio, he called Darcy.

  ‘Brochard here,’ he said, ‘Ourdabi, Sagassu and Guérin have turned up. They’re on their way to join the fun.’

  As Guérin swung the big Citroën on to the road after the Range Rover, Ourdabi was startled to see a grey van between himself and his quarry.

  ‘Where did that damn thing come from?’ he snarled.

  ‘Must have been coming up the hill from Leu,’ Sagassu suggested.

  ‘Knock it off the road,’ Ourdabi snapped.

  ‘Merde, no,’ Guérin said. ‘Something might go wrong!’

  ‘Pass it!’

  ‘I can’t,’ Guérin said. ‘The road’s too winding. Don’t worry, though, it straightens out after Perrenet. I can pass him then.’

  The atmosphere at Perrenet was tense when Brochard’s message arrived.

  Keeping below window level, Darcy moved towards where Pel was crouching.

  ‘Message from Brochard, Patron,’ he said. ‘Ourdabi, Guérin and Sagassu are on the way here, too. They’re in a black Citroën.’

  What passed for a pleased smile moved across Pel’s face. ‘All the lot at one go,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve also just picked up Lagé at Perrenet. The Range Rover’s just come into view. It’s being followed by a grey van. Which, judging by what Brochard says, is being followed in its turn by a black Citroën which must be Ourdabi’s lot. They obviously don’t know who’s in the grey van and they’re trying to get in on the act.’

  Waiting in Perrenet outside the bar, with a bock of beer and a pile of pamphlets each, Lagé and Bardolle appeared to be arguing about seeds. Lagé had taken Darcy’s message calmly and two or three minutes later the white Range Rover appeared round the corner followed closely by a dark grey van. Both were travelling fast.

  Bardolle glanced at Lagé and they were piling the pamphlets neatly on the table as the Range Rover passed them. Soon afterwards, the van passed and they quietly sank the last of their beer as the two vehicles vanished in the long winding drive leading to Deville’s house.

  ‘Why didn’t you pass him?’ Ourdabi was still urging as they entered the outskirts of Perrenet.

  ‘Damn it, I couldn’t,’ Guérin yelled.

  They had seen the Range Rover higher up the slope over the top of the grey van that had appeared so unexpectedly in front of them. Then both vehicles in front had vanished round the corner into Perrenet, and as Guérin swung the Citroën after them they saw only an empty road to the next corner. Both vehicles had vanished and the Citroën slid to a stop.

  ‘You’ve lost them!’ Ourdabi snarled as the brakes shrieked. ‘They’ve gone!’

  Sagassu was silent for a second. ‘They must have gone round the corner there,’ he said. Then his voice rose. ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Cavalin’s heading for Deville’s place! It’s here in Perrenet! That’s it! That’s where the gold must be! Deville worked for Maurice on that cocaine haul.’ He gestured wildly. ‘Those statues he makes! He has an export licence to send them abroad. I bet the stuff’s hidden inside them.’

  Ourdabi gave a shout of triumph. ‘Name of God, I think you’re right! That’s where Cavalin’s vanished. That’s the entrance right there. By those trees!’

  As the big Citroën passed them, Lagé looked at Bardolle.

  ‘That was Ourdabi,’ he said. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  As they started towards where Lagé’s car was parked, they saw the Citroën vanish after the other vehicles into the drive to Deville’s house. As they disappeared down the drive after them, two cars containing Nosjean and his men came whooping up from the corner at Lordy to add weight.

  Cavalin had no idea that the van that was following him was being followed by another car containing Ourdabi and, since the Citroën had breasted the hill into Perrenet after the van had turned into the drive behind the Range Rover, Ourdabi had no idea that between him and his quarry was a vehicle containing men as desperate as he was.

  ‘Here they come!’ Pel said as they heard the sound of the Range Rover’s engine.

  Cavalin brought the Range Rover swiftly up to the front of the house and turned with a swish of flung gravel to stop alongside the blue van the police had parked there to make it look as if Deville was still in residence. Almost immediately, the grey van containing Harding came into view and soon afterwards the Citroën containing Ourdabi.

  ‘Got them,’ Darcy said.

  Almost immediately also, however, it occurred to four different sets of people that something had gone wrong. Harding’s head was turning swiftly to right and left to get a picture of what was happening. Judging by his expression, he had decided it was a trap. Seeing the Citroën behind him with three men in it, he immediately assumed they were police and leapt from the car, shouting, ‘Cops!’ Swinging towards Cavalin, he lifted a hand holding a pistol. ‘You bastard,’ he roared. ‘It was a set-up!’

  He was livid with rage and, realising that something unexpected had happened but not certain what, as Harding pulled the trigger, Cavalin flung himself down in his seat in the Range Rover. Instead of hitting Cavalin, Harding’s shot passed through the skin of the vehicle and hit Morell just under the right shoulder.

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ he yelped.

  Seeing Lagé’s car coming up behind them, Ourdabi had decided that the grey van which had appeared in front of them as they had dived down the winding drive, when they had thought it had continued on through the village, was also part of a set-up and that he was the target. His reaction was the same as Harding’s.

  ‘Cops!’ he yelled.

  Harding and the two men with him thought it was a warning to drop their guns, and as both sides opened fire, Harding went down immediately, as did Ourdabi. Trying to retreat, Braxton fired at Guérin just as Sagassu started to fire at Lagé and Bardolle, and Guérin began to fire at Braxton and Coy. For a moment or two everybody seemed to be
firing at everybody else, with the police trying to get in shots from the windows at a lot of men jumping about like fleas on a hot plate. Caught in the crossfire and with Morell wounded in the back of the Range Rover, Cavalin revved the engine and jerked forward and round the corner of the house. Bumping over the rough ground of a flowerbed, for safety he smashed through the hedge into the field beyond.

  ‘Mother of God,’ Morell yelled in agony. ‘Stop! Stop!’

  By the time Nosjean’s cars were brought to a stop in the drive by Lagé’s car which had been halted by the flying bullets ahead, five of the six men involved in the gunfight were on the ground, with the sixth, Sagassu, screaming for mercy with his hands in the air as if he were trying to claw his way up to Heaven.

  ‘Good God,’ Darcy said. ‘Everybody’s shot everybody!’

  As they ran outside, Harding was in agony with a bullet in his hip, Braxton was huddled in a groaning heap in the bushes, Guérin was sitting with his back to the off rear wheel of the Citroën, clutching a shattered knee. Ourdabi and Coy were dead.

  ‘Who shot which?’ Darcy asked.

  It had been like a Keystone Cops sequence, with one vehicle after another arriving at full speed. First Cavalin, then Harding, then Ourdabi, followed by Lagé and Bardolle, and finally Nosjean’s two carloads. It had been almost farcical – but for the shoot-out. Each assuming the others were the police, Harding’s group and Ourdabi’s group had both opened fire with everything they’d got and at a range where they could hardly miss. As they discussed the matter, it seemed the police hadn’t shot anybody because they hadn’t had a chance. Then, as they counted noses and moved vehicles, it suddenly dawned on them that the Range Rover that had started the fuss was missing.

  ‘Cavalin!’ Pel yelled. ‘Where’s Cavalin!’

  At Pel’s shout, heads jerked round and they immediately spotted the hole in the hedge where Cavalin’s heavy vehicle had crashed through.

  ‘He’s got away!’ Darcy yelled.

  ‘Mother of God,’ Pel stormed. ‘What was Morell doing?’

  Several men scrambled through the hedge and started up the slope, Darcy in the lead. As he reached the top, Pel saw him stop, stare, then turn round and start galloping back.

  ‘He drove straight through the gate at the other end on to the road,’ he snarled. ‘You can see his tyre marks all the way. There are bits of gate everywhere. He must have gone across that meadow like shit off a shovel. Those damned Range Rovers are built for it.’ He was scrambling into a police car as he spoke and, a second later, with Bardolle trying to get inside with him and shut the door as it moved away, he shot off down the narrow winding drive, removing a wing mirror from the indignant Lagé’s car as he tore past.

  Two hours later, with the ambulances beginning to crowd the forecourt of Deville’s house and the ambulance men trying to clean up the mess, Darcy came back, scowling, followed by Bardolle driving the Range Rover.

  ‘The bastard’s given us the slip, Patron,’ he said furiously. ‘By God, it was quick thinking! He knew we’d be issuing a description of the Range Rover and he’s already switched vehicles.’

  ‘What about Morell? Why didn’t he stop him?’

  ‘Morell’s in hospital. I drove him there. He was in the back of the Range Rover all the time. But he’d got a bullet under his right shoulder blade. He got it when the shooting started so it wasn’t ours. He couldn’t move his arm or even get himself upright. He managed to get one shot off but, with Cavalin driving like a kamikaze pilot and the Range Rover bouncing all over that field, it went through the roof. You can see the hole. He thinks he passed out as they smashed through the gate on to the road. Later on, he says, he remembers Cavalin saying he was sorry he’d inconvenienced him but that he’d telephone the police as soon as he could, and warn them where to find him.’

  Even as Darcy spoke, one of the walkie-talkies squawked and Cavalin’s message arrived via headquarters.

  It was all over. They had the gold back. Not all of it. But most of it. A million francs’ worth was still missing, but insurance would cover that and nobody was complaining and the newspapers were assuming that Maurice had used it for petty cash.

  Goschen appeared to collect the gold and it turned out to be quite a celebration, with brandy in the Chief’s office and Goschen staying at Leu where Pel was childishly pleased to show off his new wife, his new home, and his new better manners.

  ‘The gold hadn’t been sold,’ he said. ‘It was sitting in a shop here in the city. Having stolen it, Maurice didn’t know what to do with it and decided to make it into boules and hide it in Léon’s strong room. When Léon panicked, he moved it to Deville’s place, because Deville really did have a customer in the Far East who wanted statues for his garden. He even had an order and Customs and Excise export papers. It couldn’t have been better.’

  Suddenly everybody was doing all right. Nosjean was a hero in the eyes of both Mijo Lehmann and his family and even Morell hadn’t come out of it all that badly. His shoulder still hurt a bit but he was in hospital with Catherine Deneuve’s double keeping an eye on him and was knee-deep in fruit, flowers, chocolates and get-well cards from the Pasquiers. Even Misset was doing all right and appeared in the Hôtel de Police pushing in front of him a scruffy-looking individual with about three days’ growth of beard.

  ‘Soscharni, Patron,’ he announced. ‘He’s decided to give up scribbling in books he disagrees with. He’s decided to spit in them instead.’

  When the full story of Maurice Tagliatti’s murder appeared in the newspapers, names were mentioned and Henri Pasquier found his clients were more interested in what he knew than in his accountancy, Madame Pasquier discovered she had become remarkably popular with the housewives at Leu, as had her son, Yves, with his schoolmates. Despite the pictures of him in the press – they make me look as if I’ve been struck by lightning,’ he said – Pel kept a low profile. He believed in low profiles. High profiles were bad for the police. However, he did finally make a point of supplying Yves Pasquier with an answer to his query about boules.

  ‘The general view at the Hôtel de Police’, he said gravely through the hole in the hedge, ‘is that there’s a lot to be said for boules. Some people appear to put a lot of money into boules.’

  There was a snag, of course. There always was, and the final word came a few weeks later. It was a telephone call and Pel recognised the voice at once as Pépé le Cornet’s. He sounded as if he were making a conspiracy.

  ‘Thought you’d like to know, Chief,’ he said quietly. ‘Carmen Vlaxi’s moved in.’

  ‘Moved in where?’

  ‘Everywhere Maurice moved out. The word went round that Cavalin was running things but, for your information, what’s left of Maurice’s organisation’s now fallen completely apart. That left a vacuum with Vlaxi sitting in the middle of it. He just took over. Just thought you’d like to know.’

  As the telephone clicked, Pel stared at it. You got rid of one and almost immediately there was another to take his place. You couldn’t win.

  All the same – there was always something to lighten a policeman’s heart – Maurice’s mob was no longer around to trouble them. Maurice was dead. Several others were dead, too, and the rest, including Harding, were in prison. With the aid of the police in Marseilles, they had even picked up Boileau, Léon’s contact who had been arranging the route for the gold to the Middle East and, in addition to everything else, he had turned out to have been handling drugs. Vlada Preradovic had vanished back to London and Maurice’s children had been removed from the expensive school they had been attending, and soon afterwards Sidonie had boarded an aircraft with them for the United States.

  Only Cavalin had got away. He had ridden off into the sunset and they had found a trail of abandoned and stolen cars all the way to Marseilles. From there the route led to Italy and finally to Milan airport where it had completely disappeared. They learned nothing until a telegram arrived a few weeks later.

  It came from Bu
enos Aires and was addressed to Pel. It was signed Georges Cavalin and the message was brief. Arrived safely, it said. Sidonie sends regards. Nicely provided for. Maurice didn’t use the million for petty cash. I did.

  Note on ‘Chief Inspector Pel’ Series

  According to the New York Times, Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, of the Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire, in Burgundy, France is ‘in his professional work, a complete paragon. He is sharp, incisive, honest, and a leader of men and everything else a successful cop should be.’ Outside of work, however, ‘he is a milquetoast, scared of his gorgon of a housekeeper, frightened of women, doubtful of his own capabilities.’

  In fact, his morose attitude has been said to add ‘a piquancy’ to the reporting of his adventures. His general complaints about all those around him are mollified a little when, in the course of the series, he marries - but readers are left to judge that and the events surrounding it for themselves.

  One of the delights of the books is their setting - Burgundy - and Pel is ‘Gallic’ to the core. Moreover, his complex character makes a refreshing change from many of the detectives to be found in modern crime. Solutions to his cases are found without endless and tedious forensic and his relationships are very much based in real life.

  Order of ‘Pel’ Series Titles

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels

  1. Death Set To Music Also as: Pel & The Parked Car 1979

  2. Pel & The Faceless Corpse 1979

  3. Pel Under Pressure 1980

  4. Pel Is Puzzled 1981

  5. Pel & The Bombers 1982

  6. Pel & The Staghound 1940

  7. Pel & The Pirates 1984

  8. Pel & The Predators 1984

  9. Pel & The Prowler 1985

  10. Pel & The Paris Mob 1986

  11. Pel Among The Pueblos 1987

  12. Pel & The Faceless Corpse 1987