Pel and the Sepulchre Job

by Mark Hebden

  ‘No,’ the Chief said. He had calmed down a lot in the hours since he’d first been called out. ‘There are women in there.’

  ‘We can take those guys out.’

  ‘And a few others with them,’ the Chief snapped. ‘I know you lot. Once you get started you take a lot of stopping.’

  The snipers thought they could pick off the robbers if they could only get them to the window.

  ‘Lined up?’ the Chief snarled. ‘Like targets on a fairground stall? You’d only need to hit one and the rest would go berserk.’

  As the snipers’ leader moved away, the Chief turned to Pel. ‘What would you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait,’ said Pel gloomily. ‘And keep on waiting.’

  The day continued to drag. It had started off gloomy with winter threatening and a line of heavy cloud that looked like snow hanging over the hills to the north. The sun had come out around midday, the first rays touching the varnished roofs for which the city was famous. It caught the spires of the city’s churches – Notre Dame, St Michel, St Jean, St Philibert, Ste Odile, Sacré Coeur and a few others – and coloured the high roofs of the Palais des Ducs, the Porte Guillaume and the Place de la Libération. The light splashed off the curves of cars moving round the University and the Industrial Zone and down the Cours de Gaulle. Having given a spectacular display the sun then vanished abruptly. There was no mistaking the message. It wasn’t yet winter but everybody knew it was right on the doorstep.

  During the afternoon the weather changed back to rain. On the roofs round the Crédit Rural, the policemen on watch turned their collars up and tried to find enough shelter to allow themselves to keep their eye on the ball. Turgot began to worry that rain would blur the view and spoil the sharpshooters’ aim if it came to shooting.

  The light faded quickly, the day becoming grey and wet so that the queues of homegoing shoppers scrambled thankfully aboard the buses, glad to be out of the rain. The streams of cars beginning to make their way from the city centre to the suburbs, their wheels throwing up a mist of water from the wet road, had their windscreen wipers going, the glass reflecting the kaleidoscope of the neon signs and the red, yellow and green of the traffic lights. In the Rue de la Queste still nothing moved.

  Afternoon crawled towards evening and the CRS men again suggested that they should go in. But, like the ever-cautious Pel, the Chief was still for waiting and as the light began to go he sent for illumination.

  At just about the time when the police were setting up screens and hauling stands bearing arc lights into position in preparation for an all night siege, they unexpectedly discovered the meaning of the strange ray-like diagram that had been found in Robert Meluc’s pocket.

  Oddly enough, it was Misset, of all people, who realised it first whilst studying the xerox of the strange shaped diagram as he sat by the telephone. Alongside him was a copy of the plan prepared by Inspector Pomereu to indicate to Pel’s department just where the traffic deviations ran, where the barriers had been raised. To keep traffic away from the bank and to enable the police to conduct their operations without hindrance, roads had been sealed off and office workers and shoppers were having to do their business outside that area. Buses were going round a perimeter consisting of the Rue de l’Arquebuse, the Boulevard de Sévigné, the Rue de la Liberté, the Rue Bossuet and the Rue Monge. Smaller roads were also involved, where buses and vans were scraping their way past with difficulty, hemmed in by honking cars, but those were the main thoroughfares affected. In addition to keeping the traffic moving, the deviations and the sealing of roads meant that if the men in the Crédit Rural decided to bolt, they would find the main roads out of the city already cut off.

  Misset wasn’t a man whose brain was very active. It wasn’t that he was stupid. He saw things when they appeared in front of him brightly lit and sounding a warning. It was just that he had lost most of his ambition, and for most of the time kept his brain in neutral. But now, as he stared at the xeroxed diagram and the route Pomereu had drawn up for the deviations round the Rue de la Queste, he suddenly noticed that they matched each other like the image in a mirror reflecting its subject. Turning the diagram Doc Minet had found upside down, he realised it was almost the same as Pomereu’s route. Without any indication about which was top and which was bottom they had been misled by the hurriedly scrawled date and had been looking at it upside down. Now, studying it the right way up, he saw they were remarkably similar. Not exactly alike, but Pomereu’s routes seemed to follow the lines of the diagram.

  Finding a piece of tracing paper – not without difficulty – he traced the route Pomereu had drawn. It had been taken from the city map in the Plan-Guide Blay and it fitted almost exactly over the diagram found on Robert Meluc.

  Misset could hardly contain his excitement. Reaching for the radio telephone, he got in touch with the operational headquarters of the men surrounding the Crédit Rural in the back room of the Café St Michel. This, he thought wildly, would ensure promotion and for the first time in years ambition touched him and he saw himself being advanced in rank, even saw himself eventually sitting in the Chief’s chair. The fantasy was pleasant but eventually unsustaining.

  Unhappily for Misset, he was just too late. At about the time he was trying to get in touch, an old man, Richard Bridier, was walking his dog in the Place Nozay. It was a brown miniature poodle called Tou-Tou. It was suffering from a form of eczema and, like its owner, was getting on in years. Bridier lived in a second floor apartment in the Rue Saules, behind the Church of St Philibert, and the dog had belonged to his wife. She had died the previous year and the dog was now his sole companion: his only child had emigrated to Canada years before and never bothered to write.

  The dog had been fidgeting and whining for some time and the situation had begun to be tricky for Bridier hadn’t wanted to go out at all with the tension in the street. But, grimly, he knew he had no other option and, taking the lead, he lifted the dog to the crook of his arm and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Let’s go, Tou-Tou,’ he said. ‘Come on, old boy.’

  Near the church Bridier could see groups of people and police with rifles and, deciding that his route might be dangerous, he turned in the opposite direction. From the Rue Saules he arrived in the Rue Croix Moreaud which led him into the Place Nozay which was virtually empty. It had been cut off so well by the traffic deviations that some of the shops hadn’t even bothered to open. It seemed perfect for the dog.

  He put Tou-Tou down and slipped the lead. Immediately the dog cocked its leg against a tree with a look of ecstasy. Having completed the task, Tou-Tou wandered over to a manhole cover where he stopped and sniffed, looking more than usually interested.

  ‘What is it, little one?’ Bridier asked. ‘Something interesting?’

  He always talked to the dog who never took any notice. Probably Tou-Tou thought him a silly old fool with his baby talk.

  Then to Bridier’s surprise, the manhole cover moved and he froze. It slowly lifted and a man emerged. He was dressed in overalls and wore an orange protective helmet. There were marks on his sleeve as if he had brushed against a damp and dirty wall. In his hand he carried a large canvas sack. He looked at Bridier and climbed through the manhole to the street. Behind him a second man appeared, similarly dressed. Then a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth. They were all dressed in similar fashion and they carried large canvas holdalls. Under Bridier’s startled gaze, the last one carefully replaced the manhole cover and then, turning to Bridier, courteously raised his helmet, gave a little bow, and walked away after the others.

  Across the square, pointing away from the restricted streets towards the free access to the rest of the city, was a large, dark blue builder’s van into which the six men climbed. Then the engine started and the van roared away. Bridier stared after it, unable to understand what had happened. He had seen men at work in manholes before, repairing electricity mains or gas mains or water mains. But never so many – not such unlikely looking l
abourers.

  When Pel returned to the Crédit Rural the whole area around had come to a standstill. A security van was parked nearby which had arrived during the afternoon and Turgot’s squad were still questioning the crew. ‘We might find out who knew they were coming,’ he said. ‘Today’s clearance day when the old notes are replaced by new ones and we’re going to have a job identifying the ones they take if they get away.

  ‘We’ve now heard’, he went on, ‘that the old boy who collapsed – name of Malabry, Jules Malabry – has died without recovering consciousness. Doc Minet says it must have been a heart attack brought on by the blow he received.’

  ‘Well, that’s the first casualty,’ Pel remarked wearily.

  ‘There might be a lot more before this is over,’ said Turgot sadly. ‘They seem pretty determined. We’ve emptied the districts of men to screen the Rue de la Queste area. I’ve asked for more. They’ve still got the manager and the under-manager and they swear they’ll shoot them if we don’t let them go.’

  ‘We’ve promised them everything they want,’ the Chief snarled. ‘Why don’t they come out?’

  ‘They don’t believe you’ll keep your promises,’ Pel said drily.

  ‘I won’t,’ the Chief snapped. ‘I don’t bargain with crooks and terrorists. As soon as they stick their noses out of the door, they’re ours.’

  ‘They’ll have hostages,’ Pel warned him unnecessarily.

  ‘Since the bombing last year, there’s been a barrier at the airport and they don’t seem to have thought of that,’ snarled the Chief. ‘They’ll have to stop and that’s when we’ll get them. We have men there,’ he added smugly.

  Pel frowned. ‘There’s something odd about this business,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘For ruthless men prepared to murder, they’ve become remarkably quiet. And if there’s an insider who gave them information, why didn’t they know the under-manager always arrived early? Are we still in touch?’

  ‘They haven’t had anything to say for some time,’ Turgot pointed out with sudden unease. ‘The last time they demanded food.’

  ‘Caviare? Turbot? Coq au vin?’

  The Chief glared. ‘They get nothing more from me,’ he growled. ‘How long since they were in contact?’

  ‘Nearly two hours. I suppose they’re working things out.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve worked them out,’ Pel said cryptically.

  The Chief was just trying to sort out what he meant when Sergeant Lotier, Turgot’s deputy, pushed his head round the door.

  ‘Something’s happening,’ he said. ‘The man with the headphones reports women talking.’

  ‘Women? Are they free?’

  ‘We can also see movement behind the window,’ he added bleakly.

  In sudden agitation they hurried outside and watched from behind a police van. The windows of the bank were of opaque glass but there was definitely movement. Then, quite clearly beyond the glass, they saw the shape of a man who seemed to be struggling at the window.

  ‘Get the Didon girl,’ the Chief rapped.

  Annette Didon appeared within a minute or two. She was a tall attractive woman in her late twenties. She stared at the blurred figure beyond the glass. ‘That’s Monsieur Labarre,’ she said. ‘The under-manager. I recognise him.’

  ‘Even through that glass?’

  ‘Even through the glass.’

  The Chief whirled. ‘Get Turgot,’ he roared. His eyes were glazed with shock and sudden realisation.

  As the Chief disappeared, looking urgently for someone to demolish, Annie Saxe appeared. ‘Patron,’ she yelled at Pel. ‘Misset called in. He says he’s discovered what that ray-shaped thing was. It’s the route of the deviations Traffic set up.’

  ‘What?’ Now it was the taciturn Pel’s turn to panic.

  ‘He says it was done from the Plan-Guide Blay map which matches Traffic’s map almost exactly – but it’s the other way up.’

  ‘Who’s got a map?’

  Half a dozen Blay guides appeared immediately and, sure enough, Misset was right.

  Pel stared at the map, the perspiration breaking out on his forehead. ‘How in God’s name did they know where Pomereu would place his deviations?’ he snapped. ‘And this tail thing. Where does that lead to? It appears to start around here in the Rue de la Queste…’

  ‘And seems to stop somewhere round the Place Nozay,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s a pity Misset didn’t notice it before.’

  ‘It’s a pity’, Pel said, ‘that none of us did. Get over there, Daniel, and see what you can find out. Now.’

  The Chief was sitting in the office of Gilbaud, the bank manager. He looked as if he were about to internally explode. By permission of Gilbaud, he was in the manager’s chair while Gilbaud sat alongside him, thereby retaining his authority but allowing the Chief the position of supreme outraged importance. After a preliminary prowl round the premises, among scattered pieces of rope, paper and discarded clothing, the Chief had decided that it was his job to soothe the hostages. He had left the rest to his underlings, who were now poking into the various rooms and passages, trying to find out how the robbers had escaped without being seen. In a half-circle in front of him on chairs were the bank staff and the seven frightened customers. They were surrounded by policemen, doctors and a psychiatrist from the Hospital of the Sacred Heart. The body of the man who had died of a heart attack had been removed and the remaining survivors were suffering from nothing more than the after effects of being bound and gagged. There was no sign of their captors and the Chief was trying to ask his questions gently, fighting all the time to hold down the lid on his explosive fury over their crafty escape.

  ‘How in the name of God did they get away?’ he kept asking feverishly.

  The hostages weren’t able to help much. They had been obliged to lie face down on the floor, with their hands tied behind their backs. They were all excited and one or two of the women were touched by shock and on the edge of hysteria. Those less affected by the ordeal were answering questions. Only when they had seen no movement for some time had the under-manager succeeded in struggling to the window to raise the alarm. But they were all clear on one aspect. The raiders all had weapons.

  ‘Rifles?’ Pel asked.

  ‘No,’ one of the typists said. ‘Pistols. Or are they revolvers? That sort of thing anyway. Like cowboys use.’

  ‘No rifles,’ Pel mused. ‘Funny that people as desperate as these seemed prepared to be would have nothing more than hand guns.’

  But apart from the man who had died from natural causes, albeit brought on by a blow from a cosh, no one was hurt. Not even the manager or the under-manager. That was something. The ropes which had bound them and the gags that had chafed their jaws lay on a desk to be examined later in the hope they would produce some clue to the identities of the thieves. The whole affair, Pel considered, had been conducted coolly and the staff and customers had been obliged to lie still while the gang, using the manager’s keys, had opened the vault and removed safe deposit boxes. They had shared their spoils on the floor of the office and Bonds and similar documents had been tossed aside. Clearly they had been after only money or jewellery.

  The police still hadn’t worked out how the robbers had entered and left the premises, though at that moment Sergeant Lotier was beginning to get warm. Trampling through scattered paper, envelopes and forms, he was wondering why so much of the material that was normally in the stationery store-room was stacked neatly in the corridor and what advantage it could have been to the robbers.

  He tried the door of the store-room. It was locked, but with a key borrowed from the manager’s secretary he managed to open it. Inside he found himself staring at a wooden cupboard that took up a large proportion of the rear wall of the room. It was locked. He tried to pull it aside and was surprised to find it would move. He finally managed to shift it away from the wall and, after a moment or two of silent astonishment, he began to head to where the Chief was holding court.

  At the sam
e moment Darcy arrived back from the Place Nozay with the information that six men had been seen climbing out of a manhole there.

  ‘What!’ The Chief’s voice rose to a shriek and the assembled company anticipated apoplexy.

  Immediately, it had become clear what had happened. The gang had deliberately made the robbery appear to be a dangerous situation with hostages and as a result this had concentrated every available policeman in the city round the bank while the robbers had entered the sewers, strolled casually under the streets to the Place Nozay, five hundred metres away, and there emerged unnoticed, well behind the police cordon, a good hour before their escape had even been discovered. The Chief buried his head in his hands and gave up. He needed a drink. Several drinks.

  Six

  The inquest into the robbery was held next day as hundreds of angry customers crammed into the bank demanding to know whether their safe deposit boxes containing savings and jewels were intact. ‘A lot of them contained money,’ the Chief told Pel. He looked grey and liverish. ‘Cash. Stuck in there to hide it from tax inspectors, I expect. While we were negotiating with their spokesman, they were stuffing sacks with large denomination used notes and cracking open safe deposit boxes. There were dozens in the vault and they’d got the key from Gilbaud.’ His voice was sepulchral with gloom.

  It was now becoming all too clear exactly what had occurred. A thirty metre long tunnel, dug from one of the sewers and out of sight of anything but a very careful inspection, had been discovered. The careful excavation ended up behind the bank’s stationery store where all forms, documents, headed notepaper, envelopes, files, typewriter and word processor ribbons, and other paraphernalia were stored. The gang had made a hole in the wall big enough to climb through, and got into the bank that way. It had not occurred to Annette Didon in her description of the premises to mention the humble store-room.

  ‘It must have taken several days to dig,’ the Chief told them. ‘It was driven from the sewer that leads from the Place Nozay – as a perfect escape route. Apart from the man who was there as they climbed from the manhole, nobody ever saw them.’