by Mark Hebden
Nosjean eyed her warily, wondering what was coming. ‘I went there,’ he said. ‘I didn’t find the pictures, though. Where would he hide them?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It would be better for you if we could find them. Especially if you were involved,’ he said, tightening the screws a little.
But she remained calm. ‘I can’t. I don’t know where they are. I’ll tell you everything else but I can’t tell you that because I don’t know.’
‘You picked on a real swine,’ Nosjean said with feeling.
She nodded and then stared up at him calmly. ‘How many mistakes about people have you made, monsieur? None at all? You must be a cold fish. As for me – yes, I have made mistakes, and with him I made a big one. I’ve realised that almost all of what he told me was untrue – was a complete fantasy.’ She looked up at Nosjean, her eyes clear and frank. ‘You know, it was Patrick who got me to sleep with Arthur Leygues.’
Nosjean sat bolt upright. He hadn’t expected this and he cursed himself for his complacency. ‘He did what?’
‘I didn’t want to. But that was how Arthur allowed me to have the pictures out of their frames.’
So Distaing had been right after all, thought Nosjean. ‘Did Leygues know about Lourdais?’
‘No.’ She sounded very positive and yet he wasn’t sure if he believed her.
Nosjean was thinking fast, suddenly aware that his objective wasn’t Colette Esterhazy any longer. She had been pretty free with her favours, even allowing for the fact that she was under the influence of Lourdais. Leygues. Courtrand. The man at the University. It could have been me, he thought, if I’d met her earlier. But it didn’t matter now whether she was as honest as he hoped or whether she’d been leading him up the garden path or not. Nosjean wanted to forge on, not to conjecture. He had to telephone Paris.
Leygues was in his office when Nosjean and Regnard arrived at the Musée des Arts Modernes. It was late in the evening and Regnard had hurtled down at a dangerous speed on the wintry roads from Paris. It was already late but Nosjean knew he would find Leygues at the museum because he had an apartment off the main hall.
With the heat on, the museum was like an oven after the cold. It was Distaing who let them in. The gardiens all did a night watch and it was Distaing’s turn. He looked faintly sheepish.
‘I went to see her in prison,’ he admitted.
‘So I gathered,’ Nosjean said. ‘I saw your portrait.’
Leygues was in his office, which was full of pictures. They filled every bit of space and leaned five or six deep against the wall. Leygues was on the telephone and he waved to Nosjean to sit down.
Nosjean waited patiently until the call ended and Leygues straightened up. He introduced Regnard. ‘This is Sergeant Regnard from Paris,’ he said. ‘He’s investigating the death of a man called Patrick Lourdais.’
Leygues’ smooth pink face showed a disdainful lack of interest. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the gentleman,’ he said.
‘He was an artist. He was shot two days ago in his studio.’
‘I see. And what has this to do with me?’
‘I’ve just come from seeing Colette Esterhazy.’
A flicker of expression ran across Leygues’ features. Pain? Nosjean wondered. Anger? Bewilderment? It was hard to say.
‘She’s been telling me about Lourdais. I suppose you’ve read the papers?’
Leygues sat at his desk, frowning. ‘I don’t know him,’ he repeated.
‘I think you know of him.’
‘He’s an unknown, surely? He’s not in any catalogue I’ve read.’
‘Colette Esterhazy lived with him.’
Again the fleeting expression of pain crossed Leygues’ face.
‘He was the man who put her up to stealing the Rousseau and the Paot. Surely you guessed that?’
‘Why should I? I didn’t know the man.’
‘No? Have you got the pictures back?’
‘How could I have?’
‘Because you shot him, didn’t you?’ said Nosjean very gently, and he waited patiently for the shock to take effect.
Leygues sat very still for what seemed a very long while. ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked eventually, his voice composed as if he was asking the most casual of questions.
‘She was your mistress, wasn’t she? She slept with you.’ Nosjean began to rap out statements, putting the pressure on now, hoping that Leygues would break. ‘He persuaded her to. So you’d agree to take the pictures out of the frames for her. They’d be light and easy to carry. You knew of him. You were trying to persuade her to leave him for you.’ Nosjean paused for breath, wondering if he was having the required effect. ‘Did you hope to put her in your debt long enough for her to change her mind? When the pictures disappeared, you knew where they’d gone, who had them. And, unlike me, you knew his name, so you managed to find out where he was.’
‘I have to ask,’ Regnard said, moving forward, doing his bit to put on the pressure, ‘do you possess a pistol? Belgian .38?’
Leygues sat stock still for a moment. ‘I have no pistol,’ he said slowly. ‘I did have a .38 Belgian pistol. I was allowed a licence in view of the treasures we have here.’
‘Where is it now?’
Leygues remained silent for a while then he drew a deep breath. ‘I threw it in the Seine from the Pont St Louis.’
‘And the pictures?’ Nosjean asked quietly. They were there now, he knew they were there. A tingle of excitement pulsed through him. This was why he was a policeman – he knew that. He was a policeman regardless of climaxes like this.
Leygues rose and, taking a key from his waistcoat pocket, went to a cupboard at the back of the room. Unlocking it, he reached inside.
The pictures glowed as Leygues carefully brought them out and propped them against the wall so that the light from a standard lamp fell on them. It was the first time that Nosjean had seen the originals and he caught his breath. They were so clearly alive and so wholly fresh.
‘They’re back where they belong,’ Leygues said unemotionally.
‘What did you intend to do with them?’ Nosjean asked. ‘You could never have put them on exhibition.’ The excitement was still there but subsiding like a satisfying orgasm.
Leygues sat still again, not moving, not a muscle flickering. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘No. Probably not. It was all so pointless, really. I couldn’t have hidden them for ever.’
Regnard stepped towards him briskly. ‘I’m going to charge you with the murder of Patrick Lourdais, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me to Paris. ‘
‘Do I have to?’ Leygues said. ‘I don’t really like Paris. That’s why I moved down here.’ He gave a gentle, reflective smile.
‘The case belongs to Paris,’ Nosjean explained. ‘There’s no choice.’
‘Of course. I understand.’ Leygues sighed and looked at Nosjean. ‘Colette’s so beautiful, isn’t she, Sergeant? She has a rare light to her – as if she comes from a painting. Do you see what I mean? Or do you think I’m a romantic fool?’
`You’re not a fool.’ Nosjean was adamant. ‘Not a fool at all.’
Nosjean handed his report on Colette Esterhazy to Pel, still not certain how entirely truthful she had been. Of course he had got his man. But he wasn’t sure about his woman. ‘I’ve spoken to the Palais de Justice,’ he said. ‘They think she’ll get away with nothing more than probation.’
‘Is that what you think she deserves, mon brave?’ Pel asked.
Nosjean wasn’t sure. He had gone home thankfully to Mijo, drained of emotion. ‘I think that just about fits the bill.’
Pel raised his eyebrows at his colleague’s confidence. He sounded far too certain. But Pel didn’t want to probe. Nosjean was an intuitive policeman and therefore invaluable. But with intuition went emotion and Pel accepted that.
True to form, Nosjean left Pel’s office still doubtful. Was Colette Esterhazy clever or was she
just naive? He supposed he’d never find out now and there was something horribly unsatisfactory about that. The sense of anticlimax in him began to increase.
Pel watched him leave. He knew what Nosjean was going through. Perhaps because he had three sisters, he was always a pushover where the delicate emotions of a woman were concerned. It was the one thing that would prevent him ever becoming a top cop, for he had far more brains and perception than his team mate, De Troq. But De Troq’s ambitions were different. He would retire quite happily on the laurels he’d collected, indifferent to what rank he had. After all, he had a title so it didn’t matter much. Nosjean was probably cleverer even than Darcy. But Darcy was always the better cop because he had a tougher mind and didn’t get involved.
Pel sighed and moved the files on his desk. Though, morally, she probably wasn’t as perfect as she was physically – or as perfect as Nosjean felt she was – Colette Esterhazy had undoubtedly been led astray by a conniving and greedy man. Without doubt the magistrates would be lenient because it was a first offence. But what a first offence. Probably they would be lenient to Leygues, too – even to Morell’s Guy Loisel and René Carrera because they were young and their motives had not been pure greed.
Nosjean and Morell, Pel decided, had done well, much better than he was doing. Their cases had much to do with the emotions, while he was dealing with a beautifully conceived plan that also seemed to be flawless in its execution. He and Darcy were still wallowing in doubtful clues and dead end enquiries and he had a grim feeling that every day he somehow went a step back.
They had followed every lead they had, but had produced nothing from either the equipment or the map the bank robbers had used. There had been no fingerprints anywhere, and even the print of a shoe on the sheet of bank notepaper hadn’t led them anywhere. Footprints didn’t, unless you had the shoe and knew the owner. They were like fingerprints. They were fine for identifying people but, unless the quarry was in the records, they led you nowhere. And, with Meluc dead, the one man who knew the robbers was gone.
It led him to do a lot of thinking.
Even Annie Saxe had got her man, he thought. The Guillets, both on crutches, both, as good twins will, with one foot in plaster, had already appeared before the magistrates. They would not end up bound over because they had been in trouble before.
The one thing that was common to them all, it seemed, was devotion. Morell’s boys had stolen because their grandmother was housebound and they had thought a video would keep her entertained. Colette Esterhazy had stolen the pictures for the love of a man who had turned out to be a rogue and who had deserted her as soon as he’d got them. François Guillet had tried to free his brother for no other reason than that they were twins. Quite a series of cases, Pel thought cynically. Love conquers all. They were all devoted to someone.
He sat up sharply. Devoted? That was the common denominator. They were all devoted to someone. It sounded in his mind like the bleep of a cash register. Devoted.
‘This Dufrenic type,’ he asked Darcy. ‘The one who worked for the sewerage department. Was he bumped off? Or did he die a natural death?’
‘Natural death,’ Darcy said. ‘I checked. Cancer. Aged fifty five. Mid-November. Apparently he knew he was going to die – knew he only had a few weeks. He had a lot of pain, but the only person who knew was his wife. She’s a bit of a cripple and he’d done everything for her for years.’
‘Héloise and Abélard types. Devoted. Till death us do part. What did he do for the sewerage people?’
‘He worked underground for a time. Later he got a job in the office. He would have had access to the maps but the gang would have needed the advice of a policeman to have helped with the diagram of the traffic deviation.’
‘What else do we know about Dufrenic?’
‘He was decently educated, but he worked in a circus for a while, as some kind of clown. He did an act called The Man in a Bottle. Wriggled his way into a large glass jar or something. He stuck at that until he was around forty then he seems to have gone a bit astray. Perhaps he was growing stiff and wriggling into a jar was too much like hard work. Then he was hauled in for the bank job in Reims and he did four years.’
‘Then what?’
‘There’s a bit of a blank when he came out but five years later he turns up working for the sewerage department. Then an injury he’d suffered in the circus began to trouble him and they put him in the office. He wasn’t any kind of expert, Benoist says. He just did minor clerical stuff. Apparently they didn’t want to pension him off so he did the running about. Fetching and carrying. Handling the files. Bringing the plans and documents that were wanted up from the basement and putting them away again. They say he insisted on carrying on doing this even when he was ill. They knew his record but they felt he was safe. Nobody thought sewers could be criminal.’
‘Do they have copying machines?’
‘Who doesn’t these days? They use them for copying plans.’
Pel sniffed. He could say a lot with a sniff. This one expressed satisfaction. ‘Devotion,’ he muttered.
That afternoon, Pel got Annie Saxe to drive him to the cemetery. The snow was thick on the ground and nobody seemed to have been there before them because the only tracks were those of birds and cats. The gardien looked in his book for the position of the grave they were seeking.
‘Plot 7,’ he said. ‘Row 12. Number 34. It’s right over by the wall. It’s a bit of a lost part of the cemetery there. The widow visits it quite a lot, though.’
They tramped through the snow and stopped before a tomb that looked like a huge over-decorated telephone booth, with cast iron gates designed to look like crude wrought iron. In a glass-fronted frame on the front was a photograph which showed a thin-faced man with a sardonic expression, his hair flattened down from a centre parting. Below, the legend ran Sacred to the memory of Josip, beloved husband of Gabrielle. There was a bunch of wax flowers under a glass dome and fresh ones sprinkled with snow in a porcelain jar.
They could also make out the interior beyond the iron gates. It contained a slab of marble let into the ground, and on one side there was a coffin with a small vase on top containing fresh flowers.
‘Don’t they bury them here?’ Pel asked. ‘And fresh flowers? Inside? How did they get there?’
The gardien gave them the answer. ‘She puts them there,’ he said.
‘Who does?’
‘The widow.’
‘Why isn’t the coffin in the vault?’
‘It is.’
‘We saw it. It’s against the law to leave a coffin like that.’
‘That’s empty.’
‘Empty?’
‘It’s for her when her time comes. She says it’s there so he’ll know he’s not forgotten.’
‘She put flowers on it. Aren’t the gates kept locked?’
‘She has a key and she’s quite entitled to unlock them. She likes to have them open. She likes to talk to him.’
‘She talks to him?’ Pel was a little surprised.
‘I’ve heard her. Sometimes she even brings a folding chair and sits there.’
‘What does she talk about?’
‘Oh, things. Old times. Circuses mostly, it seems. They were both in a circus. She calls him Jo-Jo. Sometimes I half expect him to answer.’
‘How long has she been doing this?’
‘A few weeks now. Perhaps she’s going…’ The gardien touched his temple. ‘You know how people go when they’re lonely. It’s not too bad at first but then, after a while it starts to bite, I find. We get some funny types. She’s quite harmless and nobody goes down there these days.’
‘Why was he buried there, then?’
‘His wife asked for it. She said he liked space and wasn’t used to having a lot of people round him. Perhaps she opens the gates so he can hear her better.’
This was a new one to Pel.
‘What’s she like?’
The gardien gestured. ‘Fifty-ish,’ he s
aid. ‘Big woman. Lame legs. Limps badly.’
Pel turned to Annie. ‘I wonder where the money came from to build a sepulchre like this?’
Annie looked puzzled and she stamped her cold feet in the snow. ‘What are we looking for?’ she asked.
‘A criminal,’ Pel said. ‘And I think we’ve found him.’
‘Where?’
‘Right in front of you. You’re looking at the man who masterminded that Crédit Rural job. He must have planned it all and then died before it could be pulled off.’
Annie stared at him. ‘You’re pulling my leg, sir.’
‘No, I’m not. And then the rest of the gang carried out the robbery after his death and paid his share to the wife. He must have had a lot of guts and anyway, maybe he wanted to leave his wife a small fortune. That’s devotion, isn’t it? He looks after her for years and then he gets the chance to secure her future – knew he was dying so he took one big, wonderful opportunity. Why have I been so damned blind? He knew exactly where the sewers ran. I bet in his time he examined the cellars of every bank in the city. I can also bet he died smiling.’
‘Isn’t this all speculation?’ Annie asked.
‘Yes, but I know I’m right. The evidence was all there – sitting with Darcy. I just didn’t ask him, and he didn’t connect it with anything.’
‘Well,’ Annie said, ‘we can’t arrest Dufrenic. That’s for sure. So what now?’
‘We ought to be able to get leads on the gang – and the ex-cop, if there is one.’
‘The wife?’
‘She’ll tell us. It’ll come out if we work hard enough on her. I reckon once Dufrenic got hooked into the underworld in Reims, he never left it. Just think of it. Suggestions from the Sepulchre. Guidance from the Grave.’ It sounded like a cheap thriller.
Annie looked at Pel shrewdly. ‘You still can’t prove anything. So if Madame doesn’t co-operate…’
‘She will,’ said Pel reflectively. ‘She’ll damn well have to.’
Madame Dufrenic lived in the basement of a modest house with shutters by a small park on the edge of town. She was badly crippled and overweight and lived in dusty squalor. Pel could see that the basement had once been a place of comfort, a bolt-hole from a hostile world, for the walls were hung with good Impressionist and Expressionist paintings as well as innumerable little models of various sculptural works of art. Where there weren’t paintings, there were circus photographs clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists, contortionists.