Pel and the Sepulchre Job

by Mark Hebden

  ‘All right. Sir.’

  As the door closed, Darcy turned to Pel. ‘You were a bit tough with her, Patron,’ he said.

  ‘She’s got too much bounce.’

  ‘Cops need bounce. Self-confidence does no harm.’

  ‘Self-confidence sometimes gets them killed. I prefer them alive. They’re more useful that way.’

  ‘You didn’t put Claudie through that sort of routine.’

  Pel sniffed. ‘Claudie was different,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll introduce you to everybody,’ Darcy said as he met the girl in the corridor outside. She appealed to him. Give her a few days, he thought, and if she were any good – and Darcy had a feeling she would be – Pel would back her to the hilt.

  He fished out of his pocket a small booklet printed in black and orange on white. It contained a list of streets, hotels, restaurants, transport and a detailed map of the city.

  ‘I’d advise you to get hold of one of these as soon as you can,’ he said. ‘It’s a Plan-Guide Blay. It covers the city and the suburbs. One of the district around would help, too, but this is the most important. Plan-Guides Blay produce them of every city in France.’

  ‘We’ve got one of Belfort.’

  ‘Every sensible cop carries one. It’s not a matter of official police instruction but it’s pure common sense. It not only impresses tourists because it enables you to answer their half-baked queries, it also enables you to find the quickest route to any nest of criminal activity. You can buy them at any newspaper shop. Despite their value to us, the powers that be do not believe in providing them free of charge.’

  In the sergeants’ room, Nosjean and De Troq’ were bending over a desk studying a report. They often worked together and were known as the Heavenly Twins. Nosjean looked like the young Napoleon on the bridge at Lodi. De Troq’ – Baron Charles Victor de Troquereau Tournay-Turenne, the only cop Darcy knew with a title – was small, neat, with a perfect haircut and smart clothes. His family was supposed to be poor but poverty seemed to be a comparative thing because De Troq’ drove a car the size of a zeppelin with a strap over the bonnet, headlamps like a lighthouse and wheels like an airliner. He was currently escorting a girl who worked in the Palais de Justice whose family also had a title. Unlike De Troq’s, their title was only a Second Empire creation but, De Troq’ felt, it would do for the time being.

  Misset was there, too, smooth and oily behind the dark glasses he affected. With him were Brochard and Aimedieu, two more bright boys from Pel’s squad, and Lage, the golden oldy, who was close to retirement but was still their expert on intricate cases that didn’t require a lot of inspiration but did call for a great deal of sheer hard graft. There was also Debray, who had taken a course on computers and had a gift for looking anonymous, a not invaluable asset in a plain-clothes cop, and Lacocq and Morell, the last arrivals in the squad. There was also Bardolle, their heavy man, as wide as he was high with a voice like a foghorn. He looked like the wicked giant out of a fairy story but when he smiled he was more like the sort of traffic warden who crossed the road with infants hanging on his arms like bunches of grapes. Finally there was Cadet Darras, who was a protégé of Pel’s.

  They were a mixed bunch, Darcy thought as he introduced them. ‘This is Annie Saxe,’ he said. ‘She’s come to take Claudie’s place. She’s from Belfort.’

  ‘They say that in that part of France,’ Misset observed with the smooth smile of a ladykiller, ‘they’re as thick as their own trees.’

  She gave him a cold smile, and they crowded round her, asking questions, sizing her up.

  ‘Belfort’s a bit out of the way,’ Misset went on from a position behind her. ‘Nothing much to do round there, I should think.’

  ‘I found plenty,’ Annie Saxe retorted. ‘When I was younger I played rugby with my brothers.’

  ‘I should think you got knocked about a bit.’

  ‘Not really. There were five of them and they taught me a few things about looking after myself. Some of them very painful. I use them on men who consider my backside free pasturage for their hands.’

  Misset drew his hand back as if she’d been red hot.

  ‘She’s arrived,’ Pel announced when he reached home that night and stood in the hall shaking the rain off his hat.

  Madame Routy, the housekeeper with whom he had kept up a running skirmish for years, took his briefcase and placed it beside the table in the hall. She looked at Pel as if he were a terrorist who had brought home a home-made and not very stable bomb. She had been Pel’s housekeeper before his marriage and had been taken on with Pel, lock, stock and barrel. He wiped his feet with elaborate energy to make sure she noticed.

  ‘Who’s arrived?’ Madame Pel said, appearing from the study.

  ‘The new help. Claudie’s replacement.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘A bit like a red haired rat.’

  Madame frowned. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, Pel,’ she admonished gently. ‘I’m sure she isn’t.’

  ‘She comes from Belfort.’

  ‘That’s a brave city.’

  ‘It’s to do with being close to Switzerland. They don’t think much round that way. She’s probably got Swiss relatives.’

  Madame remained unconvinced. ‘I’m sure she’s not half as bad as you think. Perhaps we ought to have her in for a meal.’

  ‘No,’ Pel yelped.

  ‘We had Claudie.’

  ‘Claudie was different.’

  ‘This one might be, too, given a chance. You must remember she’s probably nervous. She’s a long way from home in a new city with new colleagues. She’s even probably very lonely.’

  Pel felt humbled enough to throw himself at his wife’s feet.

  Madame was pouring him a whisky now and he took a sharp look at the bottle. With Pel humility didn’t last long. He had taken his wife out to dine the night before and at such times, he felt, Madame Routy took advantage of their absence to help herself. He hadn’t quite got to the point of marking the level with a pencil but he liked to keep an eye on it. It wasn’t that he was mean, he felt. It just paid to be careful.

  The meal that appeared was excellent with a fine Chambertin, the wine beloved of Napoleon. If it were good enough for the First Emperor, Pel felt, it ought to be good enough for Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel.

  ‘Splendid meal,’ he remarked.

  ‘Madame Routy,’ his wife pointed out.

  ‘She did it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did she never cook meals like this when she was my housekeeper before we were married?’

  His wife gave one of her cheerful little smiles and said nothing. She had a special gift of calmness, of being able to say nothing when so many wives would have claimed some responsibility for the miracle. It was just another of her qualities, like having the perception to realise how Pel hated his Christian names. It had taken her no more than a few weeks to start calling him simply ‘Pel’. You couldn’t muck about with that much and it saved endless bad temper and made her seem very wise. Pel considered himself very lucky to have her and could only put it down to the fact that she was slightly short-sighted and must have fallen for him when not wearing her specs. His hope was that he would continue to get away with it.

  He slept badly that night. The meal gave him indigestion and he was pleased he could blame Madame Routy for something. But there was something else, too. What his wife had said had begun to trouble him and he was worried that he had reacted badly to Annie Saxe’s arrival. After all, he thought, she wasn’t very old and was probably only lacking in experience. In addition, she came from the border area which for almost fifty years after the disaster of the war against the Prussians had been part of Germany. Her red hair probably even indicated that somewhere in their past, one of the family had mated with a German. But, however he looked at it, he couldn’t bring himself to like her name. It sounded like a rifle shot instead of running off the tongue like Claudie Darel. And she didn�
��t look like Mireille Mathieu.

  He shifted restlessly on his pillow and tried to dismiss his criticisms with the thought that he was probably being biased – even racist. He eventually settled himself to sleep with the decision that the following morning he would make up to her by being as nice as possible. He would smile at her in a kindly way – he was unaware that his kindly smiles were enough to frighten a paratrooper – compliment her on what she was wearing, and generally behave like a Dutch uncle.

  He woke in a bad temper, relieved to see the rain had stopped because, when it rained, he was always convinced he’d got rheumatism.

  The first thing he did was switch on the television for the early morning news. Madame raised her eyebrows, knowing he detested television at breakfast time, but she suspected there was method in his madness.

  ‘3 December,’ he said. ‘I wondered if anything had happened yet.’ He had discussed the date with her, as he discussed all his cases. ‘It’s today.’

  ‘Do you think it meant anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m listening to the news.’

  But the news provided no clues to the meaning of the strange diagram or the date written on it. The President was meeting the Prime Minister of Britain. The farmers in the south were complaining again. The Middle East wouldn’t go away. Thank God the Russians had discovered what a lot of crooks their leaders had been and finally settled to being part of a world community. But there was nothing that indicated why 3 December was important. Most of what was on the news was part of the ongoing scene. It seemed safe to go to the office.

  As usual, his wife cheerfully prepared to leave for her own office in the Rue de la Liberté where she ran a hairdressing salon whose prices were enough to frighten away all but the wealthiest. Alongside, in case her clients had anything left after paying for their hair, she had opened an expensive boutique and not far away a teenagers’ shop, a sportswear shop, a children’s wear shop and a shop selling denim. She was now thinking of branching out and selling shoes. Probably eventually, Pel often thought, there would be houses, limousines, transatlantic liners. It made him feel ashamed to be only a policeman but at least it reassured him that his future after retirement would be secure.

  As he picked up his briefcase, the telephone went. Pel snatched it up and glared at it as if he expected a mouse to jump out of it. ‘Pel,’ he snarled.

  ‘Annie Saxe here, sir.’

  He had forgotten his resolutions of the night before. ‘What do you want?’ he barked.

  ‘The Chief said you ought to come in at once.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He doesn’t tell me things like that. Sir.’

  ‘This is the morning when I don’t come in till later. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘Then it’s a pity – sir – nobody thought to tell me.’ The comment came back, brisk and defiant.

  Pel considered the request. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything threatening. But it was 3 December and this might mean something.

  ‘Let him know I’m on my way.’ he said.

  Madame saw him off. She studied his car. It was small and growing old. He had had it ever since his marriage and had only bought it then because Madame had finally refused to be seen dead in his old one. The doors of that one had deposited oil on her clothes and didn’t fasten properly so that she was in danger of being dumped in the gutter every time they rounded a corner.

  ‘I think you need a new car, Pel,’ she said mildly.

  Pel looked round in alarm. It was only seven years – well, nearly eight – since he had bought the one he was sitting in.

  ‘Think of your position,’ his wife said.

  It was the iron fist under the velvet glove.

  ‘Cars cost money,’ he pointed out.

  ‘We’ve got plenty,’ his wife urged. ‘Between us we’ve got quite a lot. Treat yourself. Spend some of it. It’ll make room in the bank for the next lot that comes in.’

  It was a hard argument to counter.

  As he switched on the engine, he saw Yves Pasquier, the small boy from next door, looking at him through a hole in the hedge. It was through this hole that they conducted most of their conversations. Judging by the bruises, cuts and scratches on his legs, Pel would have said the boy had had a fight with a motor mower. He was accompanied by his dog. It was shaggy enough for Pel to be unable to tell which was the end that bit.

  ‘Off to work?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Pel admitted. He always respected the interest of any small boy in police work because it sometimes led him to want to be a policeman himself when he grew up.

  ‘Anything big on at the moment?’ Yves liked to be kept au fait with what was happening at the Hôtel de Police.

  ‘Not much.’ Pel knew he was being optimistic. Demands for his presence from the Chief didn’t seem to indicate not much.

  Yves grinned. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘all the gangsters have gone on strike.’

  Well, Pel thought as he drew away, there could always be a first time.

  When he reached the city, police sirens were going and Pel realised at once that 3 December was living up to the threat suggested by the scrawl on the strange diagram from Meluc’s wallet. He had been too optimistic by a long way.

  There was no policeman at the Porte Guillaume, but there was a whole group of them at the junction of the Rue Bossuet and the Rue de la Liberté and, he noticed, they were all armed, yet the usual man outside the Hôtel de Police was missing. It looked ominous.

  Inside he found uproar. Policemen seemed to be dashing in all directions and every telephone in the building appeared to be ringing. The sergeants’ room was empty except for Annie Saxe who was sitting by the telephone, umbrage written all over her face. She had obviously taken offence at the way he had answered her call to his home.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Pel asked.

  ‘Hostage situation,’ she said. ‘Banque Crédit Rural de Bourgogne.’

  Pel understood at once what the date on the scrawled diagram meant. It had been the day for what was now happening at the Banque Crédit Rural de Bourgogne and the diagram had some connection with it. He also understood why the Chief had been so cagey about the method of calling him in. Bank hold-ups and hostage situations weren’t things the police liked to have bruited about.

  ‘When the staff arrived,’ Annie Saxe was saying, ‘they found the premises occupied. The report at the moment is that there are four of them. They’re holding sixteen staff. They collared them one by one as they arrived. The manager was last and they threatened to do for his wife and children. He handed over the keys. While they were busy in the vaults, though, somebody managed to get to a telephone and Uniformed have surrounded the place. Reinforcements are on their way. All leave’s stopped. Uniformed checked at the manager’s home. The family are safe but a guard’s been put on the house. The manager and the staff are being held as hostages. There’s been shooting.’

  It was a brief but admirable report.

  ‘Who’s handling it?’

  ‘Uniformed Branch. It’s their affair, I suppose.’

  The answer was sulky but Pel had to admit that this one was brighter than he had imagined. It certainly was Uniformed Branch’s affair. He supposed that the Chief had been called in and would take over. Turgot, who ran Uniformed, would be there, too, biting his nails and wondering how best to tackle it.

  ‘Where’s everybody?’

  ‘Inspector Darcy thought he’d better have a look, in case we were called in. He didn’t think we would be. Everybody else’s out.’

  ‘Why are you on the telephone? Misset should be handling calls.’

  ‘He said he’d better go and have a look, too.’

  He would, Pel thought.

  I expect Uniformed are making a mess of things,’ he said. ‘But it’s their pigeon. Still, I’d better put in an appearance. If only for the look of the thing. Get hold of someone to sit on the phone. You’d better come with me. It’ll
help you get to know the city.’

  She gave him a grin that changed her whole face. From being sullen, defiant and challenging it suddenly filled with sunshine. It rocked Pel back on his heels.

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Can you drive?’

  ‘Not half.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Like the wind, sir.’

  ‘I hope it doesn’t,’ Pel said gravely. ‘I’m of a distinctly nervous disposition. Get the car. I’ll meet you outside.’

  Three

  The Banque Crédit Rural de Bourgogne was situated on the edge of an area of narrow streets near the Church of St Philibert. It occupied part of a block of offices in a small open space that wasn’t quite a square but also wasn’t quite a street, though it was called the Rue de la Queste. Clubbed acacias, empty of leaves, grew from iron gratings outside, and on the edge of the pavement there was one of the tall round pillars leading to the sewers, plastered over with theatrical posters, gaudy placards advertising ancient rock concerts, football matches and the summer’s fairs, cassoulets and sardinages, as well as just plain graffiti, sprayed on, chalked or stuck on.

  Cars were parked anyhow, but there weren’t many because the entrances to the area had been blocked off with steel barriers and police vans drawn up crosswise across the highway. There wasn’t a soul in sight but there were plenty of people around, mostly police, keeping their heads down behind cars, vans and walls. Inspector Turgot, of Uniformed, a tall, handsome man, looked worried. He had only recently taken over the job after the death of his predecessor and it was his first big occasion. Rifles were obvious everywhere, with loudhailers and electronic equipment.

  The Chief was there, too, looking as if he could chew the heads off nails. He was talking to Inspector Pomereu, of Traffic, whose men were handling the barriers and the snarl-up of cars they were causing.

  ‘This isn’t the sort of thing we expect here,’ the Chief growled.

  ‘What is?’ Pel asked.

  ‘There’s been shooting.’