Pel and the Party Spirit

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Advances?’

  ‘Sexual advances.’

  Rostane hadn’t noticed anything, but he was a little naïve and when Nosjean pressed him it seemed the girls had made advances but he hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Well, they said they needed money and were willing to do anything to get some,’ he said.

  ‘Did they say what they would do?’

  ‘No. Not really.’ Rostane slapped his forehead. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘They were offering themselves sexually. I didn’t realise.’ His mouth hung open. ‘Me? Holy Mother of God! Me! They suggested we turn off the road and go into the woods. They said they needed a rest. I told them I was in a bit of a hurry but that they could use the back seat to sleep if they wished. Soon afterwards they asked to be set down.’

  ‘Where? Do you remember? Exactly.’

  Rostane did. It turned out to be eight kilometres north of the turn-off to the glade where Vienne had been murdered.

  The fourth and last driver, who had taken the girls all the way to Lyons from just south of where Vienne had been killed, agreed with the description of the girls as hippy types and that they wore mini skirts. He also confirmed the colour of their hair, and the thin lips of one, the thin eyebrows of the other.

  ‘I think they were up to something,’ he said. ‘I was glad to get rid of them. I don’t know what it was but they were managing to communicate with each other somehow. Not in words. But I noticed they made gestures to each other. I think it was some sort of secret sign language they’d developed.’

  It seemed to be time to get all four drivers in together and let them argue it out. The move was very successful and ended in an argument where they swopped impressions that produced details.

  ‘They were big girls,’ the van driver said.

  ‘Tall?’

  ‘No. You know.’ Monnier made gestures in front of him with his hands. ‘Here. Big boobs. One of them, the older one, had blonde hair that looked dyed. The other had straight dark hair. They wore it long. Well below their shoulders. They were wearing mini skirts or skirts hitched up to look like mini skirts. Heavy sweaters. But no stockings, and not much else.’

  ‘They used a lot of bad language,’ the lorry driver offered.

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘You know. The sort a lot of youngsters use these days. They think it’s the thing to do. It is, I suppose, with smart-arsed kids.’

  Nosjean interrupted the discussion. ‘Did either of these girls wear a slide in her hair?’ he asked.

  There was an immediate dead silence then Monnier spoke.

  ‘They both did.’

  ‘You’re quite sure?’

  ‘Dead sure.’

  What he said was confirmed by the lorry driver and the man who had taken them into Lyons, and Nosjean gestured at De Troq’, who fished in a drawer and brought out a plastic bag and laid it on the desk.

  ‘This one?’ he asked.

  The three men looked at each other then Monnier nodded. ‘That one,’ he agreed.

  Nosjean was thoughtful as De Troq’ showed the four men out.

  ‘These are the ones,’ he said as De Troq’ returned. ‘There are just too many descriptions that fit. Now we have to find out if they bought the knives en route. If they did we’re a step nearer. Young girls don’t normally carry butchers’ knives around with them so they must have bought them specially for the job, and they did that because they must have planned it some time before and at that time they hadn’t a gun and didn’t know where to lay their hands on one.’

  They had continued to badger Lyons to keep a sharp look-out for their suspects and had been reasonably confident they would turn up, so it was with something of a shock that they learned that, yes, certainly, two girls answering their descriptions had been seen, but not in Lyons.

  ‘Where?’ Nosjean asked.

  ‘Near Villefranche. At one of the service stations on the northbound carriageway of the motorway.’

  It brought a new angle. The girls they were seeking must have moved north again and were probably now back in their own area, so that God alone knew where they’d got to. They would have to start again, questioning motorists to see if they had been picked up, and alert the towns alongside the motorway to the north in case they were there.

  ‘They must have caught the radio appeal, too,’ De Troq’ said. ‘I expect they have a radio. Every kid over ten does these days. They doubtless decided they were better off somewhere else than Lyons.’

  As they were talking, the telephone went. It was the man on the switchboard. ‘There’s a type on the line called Claude Fraslin,’ he said. ‘He says he bought a watch in a bar. He wondered if it was the one you’re interested in.’

  ‘Who did he buy it from?’

  ‘He says a girl.’

  Nosjean snatched up the telephone, spoke briefly to the man at the other end of the line, then headed for where his car was parked. Two hours later, well to the north, he was sitting in the office of the manager of a brickworks. With them was Claude Fraslin, the brickworks foreman, a small thickset man with arms like the branches of a tree. He indicated the gold watch Nosjean was holding.

  ‘I bought it in a bar in Avallon,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, why?’

  ‘Well, do you usually buy watches from someone in a bar?’

  Fraslin looked indignant. ‘If you’re suggesting I knew it was stolen, you’re wrong. I was out with the wife and kids and I’d just lost my own watch. It had one of those metallic wrist straps and the catch must have come undone. We looked all over for it but it had probably been gone an hour before I noticed. Then we were sitting in this bar. The kids wanted a drink. Come to that, so did I, and this watch was offered to me. It’s a good one. You can see that. And it was cheap.’

  ‘Who offered?’

  ‘This girl.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  Fraslin couldn’t help – he’d been looking at the watch not the girl.

  ‘Was she on her own?’

  ‘No, there was another girl with her. A bit younger. She said she was her sister.’

  ‘So you bought the watch?’

  ‘I needed a watch.’

  ‘Did the girl give a name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were taking a risk buying a watch from someone you didn’t know. It might not have been any good.’

  Fraslin snorted. ‘I’m not that stupid,’ he said. ‘I listened to it. I could tell by listening that it was a good watch.’

  ‘It belonged to a murdered man.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God! I didn’t know. Does that mean I’ve lost the watch?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. It’s evidence. We shall have to keep it. Perhaps you can get it back later. I don’t know. This girl: did she say anything about herself?’

  ‘Did she do the murder?’

  ‘Perhaps. We’re not sure yet.’

  ‘She didn’t look old enough.’

  ‘You don’t have to be apprenticed. Did she say why she was selling the watch?’

  ‘She said it was her father’s and he’d just died. They needed the money to go to Paris and find work and they hadn’t the rail fare. It was my wife really.’

  ‘What was your wife?’

  ‘She persuaded me. She’s soft-hearted – especially for someone young who’s in trouble. She nudged me and said, “Go on, Claude. Buy it.” So I did.’

  Madame Vienne identified the watch at once. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s my husband’s watch.’

  ‘You’re quite certain?’

  ‘I bought it for his birthday last year. He had a lot of appointments and he needed a good watch. Where did you find it?’

  ‘It was offered for sale in a bar in Avallon.’

  ‘Who by? The man who murdered him?’

  Nosjean hesitated. ‘We think that the person who offered it was the person who killed him,’ he said.

  Fraslin’s description of the two girls could only h
ave been described as casual. But a visit to his wife brought better results, because, while he had been examining the watch, she had been studying the girls. Her description matched that of the drivers.

  ‘Aged between fifteen and nineteen,’ she said. ‘Long-haired. One dark. One fair. Artificial, I’d say. The kids all do it these days. The one with the fair hair, the older one, had thin lips; the other had plucked eyebrows. Very plucked. Like Marlene Dietrich. They both wore short skirts and sweaters and carried large cloth shoulder bags.’

  Big enough, Nosjean decided, to carry butchers’ knives or Vienne’s gun.

  He was thoughtful as he drove away. They would now have to put out a new appeal, asking if anyone had given their suspects a lift north and, if so, where to? It was quite possible that by this time they were in Paris and, if they were, the chances of finding them were almost nil. Girls who stood out like sore thumbs on a motorway would never be noticed among the teeming thousands on the streets of the capital.

  Ten

  There was little they could do now about the body they had found at Puyceldome except await developments. Darcy was still pursuing his enquiries into who had built the factories and houses in the developments along the clayey streak beside the River Orche, and when he had sorted that out it was a case then of going through the names of every bricklayer who had ever been employed on them. It was going to take a long time. Meanwhile there was little chance of much forward progress and Pel’s place seemed to be in his office co-ordinating the enquiries Nosjean and De Troq’ were making about the deaths of Vienne and Burges. Puyceldome for the time being could be safely left to Aimedieu.

  He was bright, intelligent and got on well with people, and Darcy, who was on his way there, anyway, to make a little enquiry of his own, was told to pass on orders and instructions on what to look for.

  ‘Talk to everyone over fifty,’ he told Aimedieu. ‘Preferably without being noticeable. Somebody must know something about what happened thirty years ago. It’s up to you.’

  With Darcy in the car had been a small grey-haired shrewd-looking man who was now poking round the roped-off area of the Cat Tower. As he worked, Darcy turned to Didier Darras, who had done the driving while Darcy sat in the back in earnest conversation with the grey-haired man. Didier was standing to one side now, listening to Aimedieu’s instructions. He was looking a little sick.

  ‘Does it bother you?’ Darcy asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Murder. We’ve had three. Two connected. Both very unpleasant. Does the thought of blood upset you?’

  ‘No.’ The boy shook his head. ‘It’s happened before. I’m sorry about Burges, of course. I knew him. They killed him in cold blood. I don’t like that.’

  Darcy nodded. He felt the same. Gangsters and common or garden criminals he could handle. It was the viciousness of the arbitrary murders that bothered him.

  ‘You’re setting everything down?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m setting everything down.’

  ‘Everything I’ve just been telling Aimedieu?’

  ‘Well, not that. No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Didier was startled at Darcy’s harsh tone.

  ‘My notebook’s full,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a great help,’ Darcy snapped. ‘Haven’t you a spare?’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d need one.’

  ‘That’s one of the things you learn as a cop, one of the things you have to appreciate. Or perhaps you don’t wish to.’

  Didier looked stubborn. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘What had you in mind after you leave us?’

  ‘I could always become a clerk at the railway station. That’s all I am now.

  Darcy glared. He was as dedicated to police work as Pel was and he disliked indifference in anyone. ‘Before moving on from cadet to policeman,’ he said, ‘one of the things you have to learn is that paperwork’s important. That’s why we have the Incident Book, why we have records, why we take statements. So that everything’s there in black and white. Arresting a criminal takes a minute. Writing it up afterwards takes hours. But it’s that writing up that policemen will look at when they wish to make an arrest in the future; and it’s there that they’ll learn that the man they’ve got is probably guilty even when he says he’s not – because he’s done it before and it’s there on paper that he has. Go and buy a notebook from the shop across there before the Patron finds out.’

  Didier scowled and walked across the ancient square to the shop under the arcades, more determined than ever to resign. As he entered the shop Jean-Paul Remarque, of the Molière Company of Players, was just leaving. Under his arm he held a thick book entitled The Middle Ages – Life and Entertainment.

  A girl was stacking boxes of pencils, scholars’ notebooks and loose-leaf files. She produced the notebook Didier asked for – a thick affair with a wire spiral hinge.

  ‘You can have it cheap,’ she said. ‘It’s old stock. We want to get rid of them.’

  She was pretty and looked a little like Bernard Buffel Bis. Enough, in fact, for Didier to ask. She grinned at him.

  ‘He’s my brother,’ she said. ‘I’m Bernadette Buffel.’

  ‘There must be a bit of confusion in your family from time to time. Do you work here?’

  ‘No. I’m still at school but I help in the holidays. It’s in the holidays when the tourists arrive that it’s busy. It’s my aunt’s shop. Everybody in Puyceldome’s related.’ She laughed. ‘Her name’s Bernadine. I’m glad you came in.’ She gestured at Remarque who was crossing the square. ‘He’s trying to pick me up.’

  Didier hadn’t failed to notice her attractiveness. ‘Does he do it all the time?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s always coming in, pretending to buy something. He doesn’t spend much because he always asks for things he knows we don’t stock. He just wants to talk. To me.’

  Despite his decision to resign, Didier became at once the all-protective policeman, keeper of the Republic’s Conscience. ‘I’m a cop,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on the place.’ He didn’t bother to ask himself how, stationed as he was most of the time in the Hôtel de Police miles away. He could always make a point of finding an excuse to see Aimedieu, he decided.

  The door of the shop was plastered with notices for pageants, get-togethers, discos and fireworks in the area over the holiday period.

  ‘There’s a lot going on round here,’ he commented.

  ‘There always is in August.’

  ‘Ever go to any?’

  ‘Sometimes. He asked me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That actor. He says he’s studying what to do for the medieval night they’re putting on. I think he’d like to get me in a corner.’

  Didier put on his stern policeman’s face again. ‘I’m all for fireworks,’ he said. ‘There are some at Gonne. Are you going?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve got a scooter. With two helmets. Matching ones.’

  She went pink, obviously not yet used to being asked for dates. ‘I’m going with a party. My brother and some others. But I could meet you there.’

  She spoke uncertainly, as if she expected to be turned down, and Didier reacted by becoming even more the custodian of France’s good name.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you.’

  ‘There’s a disco at Argentre on Friday,’ she suggested and Didier smiled, feeling much better, even with a little of his pride restored.

  ‘Fine,’ he said again. ‘I’ll take you.’

  Darcy was still occupied with the grey-haired man but he kept glancing round impatiently. ‘I’d better go now,’ Didier said. ‘The Inspector’s looking for me.’ He studied the telephone on the counter and made a note of the number in his new notebook. ‘I’ll give you a ring.’

  As he left he bumped into Aimedieu. Behind the innocent expression of a cherub, Aimedieu had a shrewd and sympathetic mind and Didier admired him considerably.

  �
�Darcy was rough on you,’ Aimedieu said.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ Didier said. ‘You should hear the Old Man.’

  ‘Bad temper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing odd about that. His wife’s left him.’

  Didier’s eyebrows shot up. He had always admired Madame Pel and he had known her even before she and Pel had married. He was shocked. ‘She has?’

  ‘Not for good.’ Aimedieu grinned. ‘Just on business in the South or somewhere. For a fortnight. He’ll be better tempered when she returns.’

  The grey-haired man had finished poking round the ruins of the Cat Tower and was heading for the car. As the doors closed and Didier climbed behind the wheel, Aimedieu turned and saw Ellen Briddon watching him.

  He had long since decided that the job he’d been given at Puyceldome was ideal. All he had to do was appear there in the morning and go away again in the evening, after taking coffee with all the golden oldies in the place, often with a glass of marc thrown in. And there was always Ellen Briddon to fall back on. She had clearly taken a fancy to him and was more than willing to have him in her salon and offer him the drink of his choice.

  She was attractive, good-humoured, naïve about France but eager to learn and, younger than her husband, only a little older than Aimedieu and very pleasant to be seen with. Aimedieu felt he was onto a good thing, especially as she seemed a little disillusioned with her husband.

  She greeted him with a smile. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You again?’

  ‘You’ll be seeing me round here a lot,’ Aimedieu pointed out. ‘I’m in charge.’

  ‘Oh, I’m pleased. Do come and let me give you coffee when you fancy one. There are so few people here to talk to.’ She sighed. ‘The language barrier.’

  ‘You’d do better if you learned French,’ Aimedieu said.

  ‘I suppose I would. I must do something about it this winter. I ought to get you to teach me.’

  Aimedieu didn’t respond to the invitation. More than one woman had shown interest in him and he preferred not to become entangled.

  She had noticed his reluctance and appealed to his sympathy. ‘It’s such a funny place, this,’ she said. ‘It’s haunted. Did you know?’