The Grave Gourmet

by Alexander Campion

  For the next ten minutes Capucine painstakingly typed in a long list of biographical details, specific enough to include items such as the dates and department of birth of his parents. Only when this was done did she ask him to provide a more complete version of his statement of the previous day, which she typed as a succinct three-paragraph summary, printed it out, and handed it to Lionel.

  “Here, read this and tell me if it’s okay. I’m going to get you to sign the whole thing when it’s done.”

  Lionel announced it was perfect.

  “Okay,” she said, pushing the keyboard away and sliding the printout into a file folder. “Now tell me about Project Typhon.”

  “It’s totally awesome. It’s this device that shoots a mix of catalysts into the cylinder head and makes engines three times more powerful.”

  “So they go faster?” Capucine asked.

  “That’s not the idea. What it does is make any given car, with just a few modifications, use only a third as much gas. With gas prices the way they are, it’s a totally major breakthrough. Jesus, it’ll revolutionize the industry.”

  “But why is Guyon so secretive about it?” Capucine asked. “If it’s done the patents must have been applied for so security leaks won’t be an issue.”

  “That’s just it. There’s still an important thing left to do. We’ve figured out the right chemical composition for the catalysts—there are three of them—and all about the quantity and timing of the injection, and a whole ton of other technical stuff. But the nozzle is far from ready. See, the brilliant thing about Project Typhon is that the catalysts, which start out life as unstable liquids, are transformed into hard lozenges so they’re safe. Then an electric current is run through them to produce a tiny puff of gas, which is injected into the cylinder head. It’s brilliant, the way it’s going to work. Once the nozzle is done, we’re good to go. But we’re not quite there yet.”

  “So what did you show that phony agent at the test track?”

  Vaillant looked at Capucine with admiration. “You sure catch on fast. We have a bunch of vans rigged up with the catalysts in gaseous form in tanks. There are computers in the vans that inject the gases into the engine. The vans are used for practical testing of the catalysts at different speeds and loads and all that stuff. Let me tell you, when we took that lumpy van from zero to sixty in three seconds, burning the rubber off the tires, that agent was one impressed dude! When he got out of the car he had to make a trip to the john. I bet he nearly wet his pants.” Vaillant laughed uproariously.

  “You have no problem with adding all this to your deposition, I hope.”

  “Hey, that’s what I came down here for. To be as helpful as possible.”

  Capucine typed up the addendum and printed out a draft. Lionel wrote in a few changes. Capucine typed in the corrections but did not print the document out.

  “Okay,” Capucine said, “now tell me about this ‘Agent Etienne.’”

  “Gee, there’s not that much to tell. Like I told you yesterday, I got this call from Guyon, who says I have to go up to our installation at Courcelles-lès-Gisors and show this DGSE agent around the place and give him a ride in one of the test cars. So I did all that and even did one better and took the guy to lunch. We went to this two-star restaurant in the village. He lapped it up, let me tell you.” Vaillant suddenly looked crestfallen. “You know, I’ll bet you that bastard Guyon is not going to approve my expense account for that lunch since he didn’t actually ask me to do it. It was goddamn expensive, too.”

  “You poor thing. What did this agent look like?”

  “Not much to tell. A business-type guy. Fortyish. You know. Suit. The sort of guy you’d find in any business. Nothing to tell he was an agent. I guess spooks are supposed to look like that.”

  Capucine leaned toward Lionel. “Come on, you can do better than that. Think. Close your eyes. Picture the man. What was distinctive about him?”

  “Just like I said, your basic business guy.” Lionel’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Wait. There is something. He spoke like a Belgian. Well, not exactly like a Belgian, but there was something in the way he spoke that was odd. Like he was a foreigner, but the kind of foreigner who grew up speaking French. Does that help?”

  “Anything helps at this stage.”

  Later, after Vaillant had left and Capucine had reread his deposition, the enormous potential of the Renault invention hit her. She had the unsettling feeling of having wandered into the wrong set for the film she was supposed to be making.

  Chapter 16

  That afternoon another e-mail from Tallon’s secretary summoned Capucine to finish the update session. She buzzed with the satisfaction of having something significant to report—at last. But when she arrived she was again irked to find Rivière already there, this time apparently well ensconced, chortling gutturally with Tallon. The strength of the male cabal was just too much. Hoping that she would eventually come to believe it, she had repeatedly told herself that Tallon’s desire for Rivière to act as her mentor was reasonable enough given her inexperience in homicide cases. But the combination of his Casanova routine and his flagrant lack of interest in her work was just too much for her not to conclude that Rivière’s only possible added value was his gender.

  Despite her dismay Capucine launched into Vaillant’s description of Project Typhon with élan. When she finished Rivière flapped his open hand like a flag and whistled, “Pas mal. I’m going to have to get one of those gadgets when they come out. I’d love to see my car do a wheelie like a motorcycle.”

  “Jeanloup, you’re missing the point. It’s not a hot rod item. If it really can cut gas consumption by three-quarters it would revolutionize the automobile industry. Just think, it would even transform the oil industry and have a major impact on the world’s economy.”

  Rivière shrugged and blew air out of his mouth in the classic gesture of Gallic indifference. Tallon said nothing and looked at her, stone-faced. “What else?” he asked. When Capucine forged ahead with Vaillant’s description of the fraudulent agent’s foreign accent, Tallon relaxed slightly, making a noise that sounded like the executive summary of a contented Labrador stretching out in front of a fireplace. “Good. That’s something that could be followed up. What else?”

  “The brigadiers ran down the cell phone number of the phony DGSE agent. The number was part of a large block that was sold by Bouygues to a company in Paris. It seems that many of these phone companies sell large bundles of SIM cards—”

  Tallon raised a hand. “Lieutenant, spare me the technobabble. What the hell are you talking about? Get to the point.”

  As Capucine smarted from the rebuff, Rivière jumped in, the sage who would pour oil—no doubt because it was soon to be a debased commodity—on troubled waters. “Commissaire, let me explain. You’re on the other side of the generation gap from cell phones.” He grinned with satisfaction despite Tallon’s frown. “Those little chip things you slide in the slot under the battery in cell phones are called ‘SIM cards.’ You can move your number from one phone to another by taking the chip out and putting it in another phone.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tallon said without interest.

  “Well, what Le Tellier is trying to explain is that all the big phone companies sell these cards in blocks to large corporations. These are prepaid accounts, not billed monthly, so there’s no expense account stuff. The guy just gets his phone and that’s that.”

  “Ruuuff,” Tallon grunted as if clearing his throat, his enthusiasm visibly declining. He looked away from Rivière and focused on Capucine. “Lieutenant Le Tellier, what does this have to do with the case?” he asked irritably.

  “The phone number is not traceable back to an individual, but we do know it was in a block of cards sold to a small data recovery company called Ibas, based in Paris,” Capucine said.

  “Good,” Tallon said. “Go over there and shake up a couple of people and see if you can trace the number to somebody. Shouldn’t
be too hard in a small operation.”

  “There could be a complication. I checked them out on the Ministry of Finance database. The tax people have just finished a great new listing that tags any French company with a strong enough financial link to a foreign company to make it possible for them to move profits out before they are taxed here. This Ibas came up. They are a subsidiary of a subsidiary of an American company. It could be that some of the phones were used for visiting staff.”

  “What’s the parent company called?”

  “Trag, Inc.”

  Tallon squinched. “Trag, eh,” he said slowly. “Well, at least things begin to make a little more sense. But it puts a whole new complexion on the case.” He stared out the window lost in thought for a few seconds and then pursed his lips at the two lieutenants’ blank looks. “And neither of you have any idea who that is, right?”

  Capucine shook her head. Rivière shrank into his seat like a schoolboy trying to make himself invisible because he didn’t know the answer to the teacher’s question.

  “Trag is something only the Americans could dream up. It’s a private DGSE. Any private citizen with a big enough bank account can use to do whatever he wants. Trag doesn’t care. Imagine the consequences of a fully equipped mercenary espionage agency with 15,000 employees completely on the loose.”

  The two lieutenants stared at him, perplexed.

  “In theory Trag does only legitimate corporate work,” Tallon continued. “Things like investigating companies for acquisitions or guarding against industrial espionage or even retrieving hostages. Much as a policeman hates a private detective, you have to admit there’s need for that sort of stuff in today’s world. But the problem with Trag is that they don’t hesitate to cross the line. Just last year the Brazilian police raided them and found Trag had been guilty of sabotaging a major corporate acquisition and even spying on their president.”

  “Excuse me, Commissaire,” Rivière said. “I don’t get it. Cool dudes for sure, but why do we care?”

  “Simple. The thing they’re best at is industrial espionage. Not only will they protect your company from spies but they’ll spy on your competitors for you if that’s what you want.” He paused to let this sink in.

  “Big fucking deal,” Rivière said. “They get caught, they get caught.”

  “It’s a bit more tricky than that. Trag seems to be so hand in glove with the CIA that nobody knows where one ends and the other begins.”

  “So are these guys foreign agents or not?” Rivière asked. Subtlety irritated him.

  “They’re private citizens with no official diplomatic immunity. If they’re up to industrial espionage in France, or if they’re involved in Delage’s death in any way, they’re definitely eligible to be long-term guests of the nation.”

  “With respect, Commissaire, what’s the problem here? Let’s just go get them,” Rivière said.

  “I think I understand.” Capucine said. “If it becomes known that Trag is involved the case will be taken away from us and handed over to the DST, is that it?”

  “Precisely,” Tallon said in the tone of grade-school teacher awarding a pupil a gold star. “Handed over to the DST with kid gloves made from the finest Alpine goats so the DST can dither and do nothing until the press has forgotten about it.”

  “Sir,” Capucine asked. “Have you ever come across Trag before?”

  “About ten years ago the minister of the interior, a very emotional gentleman from Provence, got it through his head that there were more CIA agents in France than there were rats in the Paris metro. He got a number of them sent home, but the big fish just signed on with Trag and slipped through the net. The minister ordered the DST to bug Trag like no company has ever been bugged before. There was a mike behind every picture, in every lightbulb, in every phone. They even went after Trag’s clients. Of course, it wasn’t the DST who did the actual work, it was the PJ. Before we really found out anything there was a very sharp protest from the American government. We were seriously damaging Franco-American relations. They made it sound like we were bugging the U.S. Embassy. Our government went belly-up and blamed it on ‘rogue elements’ in the PJ and DST. A number of wrists were slapped, some of them badly.”

  From his tone, Capucine had the impression Tallon’s wrist was one of the ones that had stung the most.

  “How does this affect the case?” Capucine asked.

  He gave her a sly look. “We’re going to let our juge d’instruction worry about it. It’s her call, after all. I’ll try and get us in tomorrow morning.” He smiled at Rivière with complicity and said, “It’s not a juge we know. The ministry, with its infinite wisdom, has handed this case to one who deals with commercial cases, I guess because the functionary stopped reading the file when he got to the word ‘Renault.’”

  Rivière guffawed. “Don’t worry, Commissaire, I’ll watch my language.”

  “By the way, Lieutenant Le Tellier,” Tallon continued. “I see that you’ve worked with this juge once already. A certain Madame d’Agremont. I’m sure with you around she won’t be too unsettled by our uncouth ways.” Rivière’s guffaw sounded almost like a belch.

  Chapter 17

  The businesslike white stone building that housed the juges d’instruction who dealt with corporate matters had figured as a large part of Capucine’s past in the fiscal squad. She had spent far more time reporting on her work to its denizens than to her superiors in the police. As inquisitorial magistrates, the juges were responsible for bringing cases to court and were in charge of the police the way a bombardier takes command of the plane when it is over target. It had never failed to amaze Capucine that the building was so heavily guarded but she assumed it was only because the authorities equated the potential danger to the sums involved.

  As the three officers walked through the familiar glass door of the building a metal detector, invisible in the door frame, triggered a discreet flashing red light at the receiving guardian’s desk. A jovial stocky man in his middle sixties, undoubtedly retired from the police, rose beaming. “Step over here and check your artillery with me. Don’t be shy.”

  Capucine and Rivière handed over their Sigs in exchange for a numbered plastic tag. Tallon remained behind, pacing in the hall, apparently lost in thought.

  “You too, Monsieur le Commissaire,” the guardian boomed cheerfully.

  “Commissaire Principal!” Rivière hissed at him.

  “I don’t care if he’s the goddamned president of the Republic. No one goes in to see a juge wearing a piece.”

  At the commotion, two uniformed gendarmes had started to move forward, their hands on their holstered pistols. The man at the desk waved them back.

  Tallon came over, smiling easily.

  “That’s okay,” the receiving officer said. “I know what a commissaire looks like even without seeing his tricolor card.”

  “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere. Here you go.” He slid a big .357 Magnum Manurhin F1—made even clunkier by the addition of a Trausch rubber butt—from a well-worn leather shoulder holster and handed it grip first to the receptionist. It was the old-model police sidearm, no longer authorized since the Sig had been introduced, altered in a way particularly favored by the Police Judiciaire.

  “That’s what I carry, too,” the guardian said, pulling his jacket open to reveal a similar revolver. “It’s worth it even if it can get you reprimanded. I don’t trust these new-fangled things. They look like they’re made of plastic. Who needs fifteen shots? Six is plenty if you can shoot straight and shoot a real bullet. Right, Monsieur le Commissaire Principal?” he said, emphasizing the word “principal” and darting a sarcastic look at Rivière.

  Tallon smiled at the receiving officer. “Regulations sometimes do need to be put into perspective just a bit.”

  Madame le Juge d’Agremont was in her early fifties, incongruously a bit vain, her black suit showing more cleavage than Capucine would have dared on the job. Surprisingly, the décolletage reinforced her loo
k of a woman who would brook no nonsense whatsoever. Madame le Juge was a very powerful woman indeed and knew it.

  D’Agremont greeted Capucine like a favorite niece. “Ma petite Capucine, so you’ve moved into the Brigade Criminelle. How courageous of you!” Capucine was unable to suppress a blush. Rivière guffawed and was shushed by Tallon. The world of the juges never failed to surprise Capucine. It was the only environment where the police lost all their privileges, where they became almost the suspects. She was struck by Tallon’s overt subservience. He was a different man. Of course, it really wasn’t all that surprising; after all, she was the boss. Only Rivière, openly ogling d’Agremont’s décolleté, stayed completely in character.

  Tallon summarized the week’s work, deferring to the lieutenants occasionally to amplify a piece of data. D’Agremont never interrupted but held up her index finger every now and then, as if she were hitting a PAUSE button, to make a note with a gold Waterman fountain pen.

  When the summary was over she looked at Tallon severely. “There’s not much here, is there, Monsieur le Commissaire Principal?”

  Tallon shook his head. “No, there isn’t, Madame le Juge.”

  “In a nutshell, a murder has been committed. But there is no apparent motive. Nor are there any credible suspects. You know, of course, that I need a suspect in order to send the dossier to the public prosecutor. You also know that your job is to present me with that suspect.”

  Tallon said nothing.

  “Now,” she continued, “we have an anomalous situation with this Project Typhon. There’s no demonstrated, or even logical, connection. It’s just an anomalous situation.

  “We also have a second anomalous situation with this impersonation of a DGSE agent and a thin link—a very tenuous link—between that impersonation and Trag, Inc. Two anomalies. Interesting. Suggestive. But nothing that even comes close to incriminating Trag.

  “Do you agree, Monsieur le Commissaire Principal?”