by Mark Hebden
‘Anything else?’ Nosjean asked.
‘Somebody’s been through his pockets,’ Du Toit, the Forensic man, said.
Among the things picked up from the grass was a card in the name of a Michel Vienne, representing a firm called Busson and Company, of Marseilles and Lyons, which, judging by the logo in the corner, were manufacturers of kitchen equipment. Michel Vienne appeared to be one of their representatives. There was a photograph of a young woman holding a baby, an empty wallet, a penknife, a handkerchief, and that was about the lot.
Dr Cham was industriously poking about in the best manner of Doc Minet, his boss. ‘Stabbed,’ he said. ‘No sign of shooting.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Forty-eight hours ago. Around there.’
When De Troq’ arrived half an hour later, Nosjean had reached a few conclusions.
‘It wasn’t done in the car,’ he said. ‘There’s no blood in there. He’s lying in it.’
‘I reckon he wasn’t dead when he was left either,’ Cham said. ‘I think he died where he’s lying now – from loss of blood and nothing else. If he could have got some help he’d probably still be alive. He bled to death.’
‘Robbery?’ De Troq’ asked.
‘Looks like it. I reckon he picked up someone in his car – some hitch-hiker probably – and somehow he was persuaded to drive in here and he was stabbed to death.’
‘There are fingerprints,’ Prélat’s deputy said. ‘Some of them women’s.’
‘Wife, do you think?’ De Troq’ asked.
‘Well, there were a lot on the passenger side of the car. They could well be his wife’s. But there were one or two different ones.’
‘Then he must have a girl friend he sees occasionally.’
‘Unless he’s in the habit of picking up hitch-hikers.’
‘I wouldn’t pick up a hitch-hiker,’ Dr Cham said firmly. ‘Not these days. You never know what you’re getting. You might get a pistol shoved up your nose or accused of rape.’
‘I think’, Nosjean said thoughtfully, ‘that perhaps we’d better try to get those women’s fingerprints identified. Perhaps they didn’t all belong to his wife or her friends. In which case, they probably did belong to a girl he picked up. In addition, we’d better look into his background. It could be that robbery wasn’t the motive and was only staged to put us off the scent. Lyons and Marseilles are places where a lot of shady characters hang out. He might be one of them, or at least on the fringe of something they were up to. For all we know he might be the right-hand man of some type who wants to rule the world.’
It was a flippant approach to what was a serious crime. Death was never a subject for jest, but a sense of humour was important. If you lost it, you went home and spent your time reflecting what a lot of rotten people the world contained. Pel often thanked God for Darcy. You needed a sense of humour to be a policeman. Those without one usually ended up manic depressives. The humour was usually black, grim and mordant, but what other kind could there be for men who were always picking up stiffs along the motorway, in back alleys, even in glamorous boudoirs? Blood didn’t make for laughter, but after a while you grew so you could make a joke about it.
He listened to Nosjean’s theories quietly. His own mind was occupied still with the body they’d found at Puyceldome. The fact that it was thirty or 50 years old made no difference. It still seemed to be murder.
‘Stay with it,’ he advised. ‘Have you found out anything about him yet?’
Nosjean was puzzled. ‘The Lyons police have checked him out for us,’ he said. ‘He seems to be exactly what his papers say he is: Michel Vienne, Apartment 6, 8 Rue Plivier, Lyons, representative for Busson and Company, of Marseilles and Lyons, manufacturers of kitchen equipment. He was popular and good at his job. He sold things and sometimes collected cash. He’d been away several days and was supposed to be on his way home – that is, he’d be driving south.’
‘Family?’
‘Married two years. Small child. No known enemies and no reason they know about to have any.’
‘You can’t always tell,’ Pel said. ‘Perhaps we’ll move ahead a bit with the post mortem. Who’s doing it?’
‘Doc Cham.’
‘How does he seem? Doc Minet’s due to retire soon and it’d be nice to know we’d got someone competent to take his place.’
‘He’s on the ball,’ Nosjean said. ‘He uses his head. De Troq’s out there handling things.’
As Nosjean left, Darcy appeared. ‘I’ve confirmed the name of the people who rented that property at the time our type must have been walled up in the tower,’ he said. ‘I got it through the Maine. Property changes have to be registered and they’ve got them all. It’s pretty clear.’
In fact, it had been very clear. The Maire’s secretary had made it so.
‘This is an ancient town,’ he had pointed out. ‘A place the Ministry of Arts and Crafts like to keep an eye on. We’re always getting builders and speculators trying to buy property for development, but the Ministry likes to know about things like that and we pass on all information. Madame Briddon was given permission to open the tower because nothing was expected to show outwardly and because permission had been given to previous occupants. We couldn’t get around that.’
‘The type from the south who bought it’, Darcy said, ‘was called Caillas – Armande Caillas. He’s down there in black and white. Address in Marseilles – 2 Rue de la Mer.’
Pel looked up. Addresses in Marseilles were always viewed with suspicion.
‘Genuine?’ he asked.
Darcy grinned. ‘I checked. The address is genuine but the owner’s name isn’t. At the time we’re interested in, 2 Rue de la Mer was occupied by one Laurence Luzeau.’
Pel frowned, his mind clicking away like mad. ‘I’ve heard of Laurence Luzeau somewhere,’ he said. ‘Know anything about him?’
‘I’m checking, Patron. He might have a record.’
‘It’s going to be an old one,’ Pel observed. ‘If Doc Minet thinks that chap was put in the tower thirty years ago, our friend Luzeau – if that’s who Caillas is – must be drawing his old age pension by now.’
As they were talking, the door opened and Doc Minet appeared with Leguyader of the Lab.
‘The identity card revealed nothing,’ Leguyader said at once with a big smile. ‘Not even a name.’
Pel glared. He and Leguyader had detested each other for years and Leguyader loved to announce that he had nothing to offer. Doc Minet smiled and tried to lower the temperature with a little encouragement.
‘We’ve managed to straighten him out,’ he said. ‘And there are a few things that might help. He’s around a metre eighty-eight tall. Hefty. Strong. Big bones. He was wearing working men’s boots – and big ones at that – and the overall he had on is an outsize. You’re looking for a big man.’
‘There’s another thing,’ Leguyader said. ‘Something that might be interesting. Among the debris we found a rope with a grappling hook on the end. It must have been in there with him.’
‘A grappling hook?’ Pel’s eyebrows rose. ‘Was someone fishing for something?’
‘Somebody must have been at some time. It was under the body so it was there before he was. I suspect our long-dead friend was using it when something unexpected happened, so that he dropped it and it fell inside and he went in after it.’
‘There’s one other thing that might help,’ Minet said. ‘He had red hair. There was still some attached to the skull. It was the dark red hair you find in Normandy.’
‘Every area has its own peculiarities,’ Leguyader said pompously, as if he knew all about it – which, being Leguyader, he probably did. ‘Here in Burgundy we’re known for having round faces. They say it’s all the wine we drink and all the food we eat.’
Pel frowned. ‘Well, it’s something,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
‘The overalls,’ Leguyader suggested. ‘The label inside is old, faded and worn but it indicates the
y were bought here in the city. Made by Jaunet and Company. They were overall makers.’
‘Were?’
‘They disappeared fifteen years ago.’
‘Oh, charming.’
‘They made overalls, white coats and butchers’ aprons, and sold builders’ safety helmets, waterproofs and shoes with reinforced toes. Everything for the industrious working man. I used to buy my lab smocks there. Not much help. However–’ Leguyader leaned forward importantly – ‘I’ve found on the trousers of the overalls traces of soil. Not much, but some. Soil containing calcium.’
He sat back, looking like a dog sitting up and expecting a lump of sugar for a trick. Pel wasn’t in the sugar-presenting mood. He sat stolidly unspeaking and Leguyader was forced to continue.
‘Soil contains five types of constituents,’ he said. ‘A mineral matrix derived from rocks disintegrated by weathering forces; organic matter from the decomposition of plants and animals; a mixture of micro-organisms; water; and air.’
Leguyader had been at his encyclopaedia again. It was a standing joke in the Hôtel de Police that he spent every evening reading it so that he could blind Pel’s conferences with science.
‘Calcium,’ Pel reminded him coldly.
‘Most soils are formed from parent rocks broken to tiny particles by heat and cold which cause fragmentation by expansion and contraction. Water, by freezing, increases in volume to exert tremendous pressure.’
‘Calcium,’ Pel said again.
‘Wind transports soil particles and erodes rock masses. Plants cause mechanical and chemical reactions.’
‘Calcium,’ Pel snarled.
‘No need to shout,’ Leguyader said.
‘I’m not shouting,’ Pel bawled. ‘I just want to get on with it! I’m not here to listen to a lecture. You mentioned calcium. Right, let’s hear about calcium without a diatribe on the weather.’
Leguyader flushed and glared back. Their enmity was caused as much by the fact that both were good at their jobs as by differences in temperament. Leguyader liked to think Pel’s department couldn’t function without the Lab – something which was eminently true – but it was also his pride and joy to claim that his discoveries were the only reason people got sent to gaol.
He sat up now, frowning heavily, and delivered his report in precise terms. ‘I found traces of soil on his trousers. As far up as the knee. Clay. Clay with calcium in it. Before he got himself sealed up in the tower he must have worked somewhere where the soil was clayey with a calcium content. The soil at Puyceldome is not clayey.’
‘Thank you,’ Pel snapped. ‘You can leave the rest to us.’
With Leguyader sent away with a flea in his ear, Pel prepared to head for the Chief’s office to present his report. But there was to be one more interruption – Judge Brisard.
‘Yes?’ Pel snapped. ‘You wanted to see me?’
‘I missed you at Puyceldome,’ Brisard said, sitting down at the other side of Pel’s desk. ‘What progress have we made?’
‘None,’ Pel snapped.
‘Oughtn’t we to have made some?’
‘Progress will be made,’ Pel said, ‘when we’ve had time to get the facts straight. When we have decided who the dead man is. When we know how he came to be walled up. When we discover who exactly was the occupant of the property at the time. It was thirty years ago.
‘We must rely on the team.’
Pel glared. ‘We always do.’
‘Team spirit’s essential.’
Pel was too independent-minded to believe that team spirit was the be-all and end-all of an investigation and could take the place of brains and a determination to regard police work as a crusade against crime.
‘We’ll get by,’ he growled.
‘I shall have to question this man, Bernard Buffel.’
‘Of course.’
‘He seems to know more about this business than anyone.’
‘Naturally. He’s a bricklayer, he’s worked on the building and he’s lived in Puyceldome longer than anyone else who’s still active. It seems reasonable.’
‘You have no reason to suspect him?’
‘I’ve hardly had time to suspect anyone.’
Brisard looked smug. ‘The fact that the dead man, whoever he is, died thirty years ago changes nothing.’
‘I didn’t think it did,’ Pel said.
‘The investigation will still have to start from scratch – as if he died yesterday.’
‘As I imagined.’
‘We must examine every avenue, even the most fundamental, without being influenced by the fact that what we have is not a corpse but a mummy.
Pel gave Brisard a dirty look. There had been a time when examining magistrates – policemen too, he realised – were faceless individuals who got on with their job without fuss. But television had made them ambitious and a few had begun to see themselves as heroic figures, had even seen the possibilities of advancement as television presented them to the public. Brisard was one. These days he liked to give interviews to the Press and he was always available to the television cameras.
‘That’s exactly what we’re doing,’ Pel said.
Brisard sat back. ‘When can I expect your report?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘No earlier?’
Pel gave him a look that indicated he might be about to bite him in the leg. ‘Difficulties we can overcome,’ he said firmly. ‘Miracles take a little longer.’
They managed to discuss the case a little further without going for each other’s throat, but it was largely for show. Brisard had no intention of retreating in a hurry that would look like a defeat, and Pel had no intention of unbending, so they kept up the pretence for a few minutes longer.
The Chief was easier. He had walked a beat himself once and knew the strains and the patience a cop needed. He had once been a boxer and was reputed as a young cop to have saved a lot of would-be criminals from gaol by giving them a smart clip over the ear. Though it was frowned on these days, there were a few who were now even grateful to him because it had brought them up sharp as youngsters and stopped them slipping further into bad habits.
He sent for coffee and brought out the brandy bottle. He knew Pel enjoyed his café fine and he had long since learned that it was a splendid way to keep him in a good humour, something he had discovered was always essential. Sometimes he found Pel a pain in the backside with his bad temper, his bigotry and his feuds, but he was well aware that Pel was an asset, too, because he never let his personal failings interfere with his work, and his successes always redounded to the credit of the Chief.
‘Go on,’ he said cheerfully.
‘It’s thirty years old,’ Pel explained. ‘But we’ve got a lead. We’ve got the name of the occupant of the property at the time it must have happened, and an address in Marseilles. The address is genuine, but the name seems not to be.’
‘Have you got an identification yet?’
‘No. But we shall. Leguyader found he has a clayey calcium deposit on the legs of his overalls, so obviously he must have worked somewhere there was soil of that kind. We have to find out where and check with anybody else who worked there.’
‘You’ve got a lot on,’ the Chief commented.
‘People keep records.’
‘As long as thirty years?’
‘Such is the bureaucratic urge for paperwork and the delight in referring back to it,’ Pel said stiffly, ‘people keep records until they’re virtually swamped by them. Sometimes, even, firms build new headquarters with vast and expansive cellars for no other purpose than the keeping of records. I keep my old cheque stubs for ten years, my income tax receipts for the same time – you never know with that lot; they might try to make you pay twice. I keep my old notebooks and diaries for fifteen years.’
The Chief grinned. You would, he thought.
‘You never know,’ Pel said. ‘We might be lucky.’
Five
It was late when Pel reached home.
>
When a weary De Troq’ had appeared to make his report on Speedy Sam – real name Samuel Boulay – Pel had sat up, interested at once.
‘Have you got him?’ he asked.
‘No need, Patron,’ De Troq’ said. ‘It’s finished.’
‘Don’t say he’s decided to retire.’
‘No, Patron. He fell under a truck. He’s dead.’
Pel was silent for a while. ‘There’ll be a deputy,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The boys at the top believe in continuity. They’ll have someone handy to step into his shoes.’
He had told De Troq’ to stick with Nosjean for the time being until things quietened down, but to keep an eye on the drugs scene when he could. He and Nosjean were old friends, for some years rivals for Claudie Darel’s affections, and both were intelligent and knew how to use their heads. He felt he could rely on them to handle the case at Garcy while he and Darcy got on with what appeared to be a more complicated affair at Puyceldome.
He was just leaving when Sarrazin, the freelance – hot on his trail from Puyceldome – arrived, demanding to know what was going on at Garcy. Right behind him were Fiabon and Henriot who, knowing Sarrazin could outdo them every time in news-gathering with one hand tied behind his back, had developed the tactic of following him wherever he went.
They had to be satisfied, and it left Pel irritated and tired. As he appeared in his drive a small boy with a dog was just on the point of leaving. The boy was Yves Pasquier, aged eleven, from the house next door. He had a pretty mother, and even faithful husbands – and Pel could never have been anything else – noticed pretty mothers. Daily he and the boy exchanged news through a hole in their communal hedge.
‘On a case?’ the boy asked.
‘Two,’ Pel said.
‘Robbery?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Murder?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Big ones?’
‘Sort of.’
The boy didn’t question him any further. He recognised that Pel was busy, tired and absorbed, and Pel didn’t volunteer information. A small boy’s mind couldn’t conceive the cruelty and viciousness that went on around the world.