by Mark Hebden
The revelation took the wind out of police sails at once and the major operation for the apprehension of the murderers was called off as they tried to work out what second thoughts they ought to have. Only hardened criminals normally took pot shots at cops and, now that the men from Auxerre had given themselves up, they seemed to have no one else they could look at. It left a sort of hiatus in procedure as they began to call in the men they’d deployed in the forest and tried to decide how best they could use them instead; because, whichever way you might look at it, a cop was still dead and whoever had killed him was still at large.
While Inspector Nadauld, of Uniformed Branch, drove in frantic circles round the Forest of Grasigne, trying to round up his scattered men and wishing he hadn’t been quite so thorough about their deployment as he had, Pel sat in the Chief’s office with the experts, listening to Doc Minet’s version of Burges’ death.
‘I think the one that hit him in the chest was fired first,’ he was saying. ‘The one in the face was fired after he fell backwards. From the angle, it must have been. No one would bend down to shoot upwards. The bullet entered the head at an upward angle so if he’d been standing up whoever held the gun would have to have been holding it low and pointing upwards. Instead, I think they held it pointing down and, because Burges was on the ground it entered his head at the same angle.’
‘The gun was a 6.35,’ the Ballistics man said. ‘Probably an FAS Apex. Eight-shot single-magazine weapon made by Fabrique d’Armes de St Etienne. Cheap and not difficult to get hold of. People buy them for self-protection. Small and not very accurate. Not a hit man’s weapon.’
‘So it doesn’t sound like a professional?’ the Chief said.
‘No. And it’s also probably not new because it has a hammer that strikes fractionally off-centre. It shouldn’t be hard to identify.’
‘If we find it,’ Leguyader observed cynically.
‘What about the road blocks?’ the Chief asked.
‘They’re still manned,’ Pomereu, of Traffic, announced. ‘Everybody who passes through’s being questioned and searched for the gun.’
They were still at it when Nosjean and Doc Cham turned up at the Hôtel de Police. Nosjean’s face was grim as they appeared outside Darcy’s office. When Pel returned to his room, Darcy followed him in, and for once there wasn’t any smile on his face and the flippant attitude he normally adopted towards his work was missing.
‘I’ve been talking to Nosjean and young Cham,’ he said. ‘Doc Minet’s deputy. They’ve come up with a bright idea. They’ve decided that killing in the wood at Garcy was probably done by a couple of girls.’
‘So?’
‘They’re wondering now if this new one – Burges – was done by the same two girls.’
‘What?’ Pel sat up. ‘Girls?’ he said. ‘What makes them wonder that?’
‘They’ve come to the conclusion that that chap at Garcy had picked up two girl hitch-hikers. They worked out that he wouldn’t pick up a male hiker or two male hikers, but they’re certain from the wounds he received that he was attacked by two people – and they think now it was by two girls because a man might well pick up two girls, thinking he was safe. He might even have been hoping for a little something on the side in return for his kindness. It goes on all the time.’
Pel lit a cigarette and drew several puffs at it. ‘I’d better have a word with Nosjean,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’
‘In my office,’ Darcy said. ‘With Cham.’
‘Send them in here.’
When Nosjean and Cham appeared, Pel gestured to chairs while Darcy closed the door and leaned on it.
‘Right,’ Pel said. ‘I’ve heard your theory. Inform me.’
Nosjean looked at Cham and drew a deep breath. He explained how he and Dr Cham had reached their conclusions about Vienne’s death and why they had thought what they had about Burges.
‘Go on.’
‘When we read the facts on Burges we immediately thought he might have been shot by the same girls – or by one of them. His van wasn’t driven away and that’s odd, because you’d expect someone who’d shot a cop would want to put as much territory between them and the crime as possible. Even if it meant using a police van for a while. If they’d taken Burges’ Renault they could have been a hundred kilometres away within an hour or so. So why didn’t they? For the same reason they didn’t take Vienne’s car from the woods. Because they couldn’t drive. And why couldn’t they drive, Patron? Because they had no driving licence. Because they weren’t old enough to have one.’
‘That makes sense.’
‘We’ve been in touch with the radio people,’ Nosjean went on, ‘and asked for anybody who saw two girl hitch-hikers on the N6 to come forward. I expect Burges knew of the appeal. Perhaps he spotted two girls and wondered if they were the two we were looking for. He stopped them and asked them.’
‘If he did, it seems they were.’
‘That’s what it’s beginning to look like, Patron. When he started to ask questions, they shot him. He probably asked to see their identity cards and they fished in their handbags or whatever they were carrying. But instead of ID cards, one of them produced a gun. He was probably so busy looking at his notebook he didn’t even see it until he was dying. It hangs together, Patron. We’ve already decided that Vienne was stabbed by two girls and we thought they must be young because none of the wounds was fatal – as if whoever had done it had only a rudimentary idea of where the vital organs in the human body are situated. Vienne died of loss of blood. Not one vital organ was touched. It all seemed to us to suggest youth or at least inexperience and above all, girls. Burges’ murder seems to suggest the same thing, so what more likely than that they’re the same girls?’
‘Why weren’t they picked up at a road block?’ Pel snapped.
‘The whole area was stopped up. They must have passed through one.’
‘I expect they did, Patron. But who was looking for a couple of girls?’
‘Have you spoken to Nadauld?’
‘I’ve contacted him by radio and asked if any of his men noticed any hitch-hikers. Apparently, they didn’t. They spoke to pedestrians who passed through the road blocks but no one noticed two young girls on their own. They were probably careful to pass through with others, of course, and weren’t noticed, especially as no one was looking for girls.’
Pel frowned. ‘If they stabbed Vienne to death, why didn’t they stab Burges? He was looking at his notebook. He was off-guard.’
‘It’s easier with a gun, Patron,’ Nosjean pointed out. ‘A knife involves getting blood on your hands. They probably didn’t enjoy that part of it. And they must have acquired a gun because we don’t think they had one when they met Vienne on the N6.’
‘Well, as Burges’ was still in its holster, it must have been Vienne’s.’ Pel rose and gestured. ‘I think you’d better find out if he was in the habit of carrying one. And if so, what kind.’
There was one way to find out. There had been no sign of a gun in the glove compartment of Vienne’s car but there had been a duster among the objects scattered around his body and, sniffing at it, Nosjean immediately detected the distinctive smell of gun oil. A visit to the police garage where Vienne’s car was still being kept under wraps for the attention of the Forensic and Fingerprint boys and a sniff at the glove compartment confirmed that a gun had been kept in there, obviously wrapped in the duster.
From that it didn’t take long to learn for a fact that Burges had been shot by Vienne’s gun. Madame Vienne, dry-eyed now and trying to face up to the fact that she was suddenly alone in the world, confirmed that her husband had indeed been in the habit of carrying a pistol in his car. She even managed to find the licence.
‘He sometimes had to carry money,’ she said.
‘A lot?’
‘Yes.’
Was he carrying money the day he died?’ Nosjean asked.
‘Not that day. He had special days for it. But the gun was always kep
t in the car.’
De Troq’, who had been examining the gun licence, looked up. ‘Apex 6.35,’ he said.
‘Pity we haven’t a spent bullet that Monsieur Vienne fired,’ Nosjean said. ‘That would confirm it.’
‘But we have,’ Madame Vienne said. ‘He practised with it a few times when he first got it. He’d been in the army, of course, and knew about guns and he said he had to know whether it kicked up or down. I wasn’t sure what he meant. But he brought a few spent cartridge cases home to show me. I used one of them as a pin holder for when I was sewing. You always need somewhere to put the pins you take out and this little brass thing was just the right size. You could put them in point down and they were easy to pick up again if you wanted them.’
The Forensic boys were happy to make a pronouncement on the cartridge case.
‘Same gun,’ they said. ‘The hammer strikes a fraction off centre.’
Nine
They now had two murders but still no description.
Pomereu and his men came in for a tremendous roasting from the Chief for failing to notice two young girls passing through their roadblocks and, while armed to the teeth and paying full attention to car boots, for taking on trust what backpacks and handbags contained.
‘We were looking for a couple of escaped convicts,’ Pomereu complained in a bleat to Darcy. ‘Not a couple of kids. It’s not our job to frighten young girls.’
Meanwhile, flushed with success, Nosjean stepped up the search for the shop which had sold the two knives which had done Vienne to death. Du Toit’ was still insisting the knives were new and that they were bought not long before the murder. ‘By a couple of women,’ he said. ‘They’d be young and wouldn’t look like two housewives, so they might be remembered.’
By now, in addition to the main enquiries as to the how, the where and the why, they had several sets of enquiries going – the origin of the hair-slide, the shop that had sold the knives, the people who might have seen their suspects hitch-hiking.
As their men tramped from street to street or hunched over telephones, Nosjean and De Troq’ began to look again at the female hitch-hikers who had so far been noticed along the N6. By checking and cross-checking carefully, they were slowly eliminating them when suddenly, unexpectedly, they hit pay dirt. One couple, described as very young, had a pattern about their hitch-hiking which seemed highly suspicious. They had picked up three rides to the north of where Vienne had been stabbed to death and in every case they had asked the driver if he was going to Lyons. Yet, although they had seemed to want to go to Lyons, in every case they had changed their minds and asked to be set down after only a few kilometres. Finally, they had picked up another ride somewhere just to the south of where Vienne had been found dead and this time, instead of asking to be set down, had ridden all the way into Lyons.
‘I think we’ve got them,’ Nosjean crowed.
‘I don’t think we have,’ De Troq’ pointed out. ‘We’ve found two girls. who might be the ones. But we have no names and addresses or descriptions, and they were obviously on their way somewhere. South, by the look of things. By this time, they’re probably on the Mediterranean. Probably the Baltic. Perhaps Italy. Perhaps China. Perhaps even Russia. It’s easy these days. They’ve probably picked up an airliner and emigrated to America.’
Nosjean pulled a face. It was a fair summary of the situation.
‘I think’, he said, ‘that we’d better have a word with these drivers and see what they have to say.’
The four drivers who had given lifts to the two girls were brought to the Hôtel de Police. They were a little nervous, unsure of themselves and not enjoying being involved in a murder enquiry. Like most people questioned over a serious crime, they found it hard to accept that they were merely witnesses and not suspects. However, they confirmed Cham’s theory that the girls were young and they all told much the same story.
The first was the tough-looking driver of a Nicolas wine lorry who had picked up two young girls south of Beaune. They had asked him if he was going to Lyons but beyond that they had not addressed a word to him except to answer questions he had put to them. After two or three kilometres, without discussing it with each other or with him, they had asked to be put down.
‘What were they like?’ De Troq’ asked.
Though his description was vague, the lorry driver’s conception of them indicated youth, long hair and prettiness.
‘Except that they didn’t look all that clean,’ he added.
‘How were they dressed?’ Nosjean demanded.
The driver hadn’t really noticed.
‘Provocatively?’
The word seemed to puzzle the lorry driver.
‘What sort of dresses?’
‘One had a blue skirt. One a red. I remember that. And long sloppy sweaters.’
‘These skirts: short or long?’
‘Long – I think.’
The girls had made no overtures to him of any kind, he said. ‘Some girls do,’ he added.
The second driver, a man called Monnier and the owner of a car, had picked them up at roughly the spot where the wine lorry had set them down. Monnier thought they were provocatively dressed. They were wearing very short skirts and had allowed them to ride up as they sat down.
‘Where were they in your car?’ Nosjean asked.
‘Rear seat.’
‘Both of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Couldn’t that be dangerous these days?’
‘I suppose it could. But it wasn’t.’
‘And you could see their skirts had ridden up?’
‘In the mirror. I looked.’
‘Do you make a habit of looking?’
‘Yes.’ Monnier grinned. ‘I don’t think they were wearing anything underneath the skirts.’
‘You could tell that?’
‘Not for certain. But I thought so. I’m sure one of them hadn’t anything on underneath.’
His car had been giving trouble and he had had to stop after a kilometre or two to check the fan belt. When he returned to his seat, one of the girls had moved into the front passenger’s seat. When he had driven off, she had put her hand on his knee and moved it up to his thigh.
‘She said they were heading south but were short of money and anxious to earn some,’ he pointed out. ‘When I asked her what they intended to do to get it, she said they weren’t very worried how. I thought that if I’d suggested it, we could have driven off the road and I could have had a bit of nooky for a few francs.’
‘What did you say?’
‘What do you think? I told them I wasn’t interested. I’m not.’
Nosjean was inclined to doubt him. Any man who studied the rear mirror sufficiently to discover his passengers weren’t wearing underwear probably indulged himself on occasion with female hitch-hikers. There must have been some reason this time why he hadn’t.
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not that kind.’
‘So,’ De Troq’ asked, ‘why do you pick up girls?’
After a while they got him to admit after all that it was his habit to pick up girls for what he might get from them. There were no moral reservations, but this time he had been suspicious and had thought the situation dangerous. He hadn’t liked the look of the two girls. He had watched them enough in the mirror to be able to give a description.
‘Pretty,’ he said. ‘Good legs. One had blonde hair – dyed, I thought. Thin lips. The other was similar, but dark. In fact, I thought they were sisters. But the second one had plucked eyebrows. Very thin. Like Marlene Dietrich used to wear.’
It was something to go on.
‘How old?’
‘Sixteen. About that.’
Nosjean and De Troq’ exchanged glances. Murderesses! Aged sixteen!
‘What happened?’
‘I told them I wasn’t interested in sex.’
‘But normally you were?’
Monnier grinned. ‘Who isn’t? But I said I’d sti
ll give them a ride to Lyons if the one in the front would stop stroking my thigh and the one in the back would close her legs and pull her skirt down. It was distracting. Soon afterwards they asked to be set down.’
‘We think these same girls had been picked up by a truck driver just north of where you met them. He said they weren’t provocatively dressed.’
‘They were when I picked them up. They looked like hippies.’
‘They wouldn’t change at the roadside, surely?’
‘Why not? They could put a mini skirt on under a longer wider skirt, then take off the first skirt.’
‘You know this?’
‘I’ve seen it done.’
‘Had they any luggage?’
‘Just two big cloth shoulder bags. The sort you can get everything in. They probably even just hitched up their skirts by turning the waistband over. A couple of turns and they’d become mini skirts.’
‘Could you see if they’d turned the waistbands over?’
‘No. They had these big sweaters on. Big and loose and coming down over their behinds.’
The third driver, a man called Rostane in his late fifties, was a spare desiccated man with grey hair and a straggling moustache. He had picked up the two girls in roughly the spot where Monnier had set them down. He was a writer and was working on a book about Rousseau and his thoughts had been far away.
‘Why did you pick them up then?’
‘I noticed them,’ he said. ‘My daughter hitch-hikes. I’ve warned her not to. She’s a student. But you know what youngsters are like. She thinks she’s safe. She trusts everybody.’
‘I hope you tell her not to.’
‘Yes, I do. I picked these two up because of what I’d warned my daughter about. I felt that if they were with me, no one else would be picking them up and they’d be safe. I thought they were two children.’
‘Children?’
‘Thirteen. About that.’
Thirteen! Nosjean and De Troq’ exchanged startled glances once more.
‘Did they make any advances to you?’