Pel and the Prowler

by Mark Hebden

  ‘It never did,’ Pel agreed.

  ‘It’s the politicians in the end,’ Darcy said. ‘They’re quick enough to give themselves a rise but when it comes to providing money for the Police they always complain that social services will be neglected. What in God’s name are the Police but social services? We spend too much of our time struggling with bad equipment.’

  ‘We always did.’

  ‘When I read of the Americans it makes me spit. They have enough computers to choke them. We can’t even get new typewriters for the sergeants’ room and we’re still having trouble with personal radios. The last batch from Electroménage just don’t work as they should, and Traffic are going spare because they can never call in when there’s an emergency.’

  Darcy was only working off steam, Pel knew, because the faulty personal radios had been a thorn in their side for a long time now. ‘And the Hamon case?’ he asked gently.

  Darcy sighed. ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘I’ve done it all before and I don’t think I’m bad at it. But you’re better, Patron. You bring it together somehow. I hope it won’t keep you from home too much.’

  ‘I suspect the situation’s well under control there. What’s your set-up?’

  ‘Aimedieu’s at the university, and Brochard’s gone to Arles where the Hamon girl came from, in case there’s anything there. Lagé’s covering the bars near the Rue d’Enfer. He did the same job round the Rue Devoin after we found the De Wibaux girl. De Troq’s spare man, and Nosjean will be clearing up the old stuff that’s still in the book.’

  ‘While Misset’s sitting on his fat backside watching the telephone?’

  ‘I don’t trust him much, Patron.’

  ‘Neither did I when I had your job.’ Pel studied his glass for a moment. ‘This Hélin. A likely prospect, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Patron. But so, I think, is our Algerian friend, Moussia.’

  ‘Only for Marguerite de Wibaux, Daniel. And both he and Hélin say they’ve never heard of Bernadette Hamon. So there’s no connection there, yet it looks as though both jobs were done by the same man.’

  They finished their wine and headed for the office where they found Misset in a panic. He looked, in fact, as if, having panicked, he was wondering what came next.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you everywhere, Patron,’ he panted.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Darcy asked. ‘World War III broken out?’

  ‘Hit and run at Borgny. Old touch found at the side of the road by Uniformed Branch. They reported by telephone because their personal radio—’

  ‘ – wasn’t working,’ Darcy growled. ‘Go on.’

  ‘She hasn’t been identified yet. De Troq’ went out to it.’ Misset’s fat hands flapped. ‘Then this other one came in. Nosjean’s gone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go?’ Pel snapped.

  ‘I was just about due off duty. I have a family, Patron.’

  Pel snorted. Misset’s family didn’t mean a lot to him but they were always a good excuse for wanting to vanish.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Rape, Patron.’

  Pel and Darcy looked at each other.

  ‘Well, not rape exactly. This bell starts ringing in this house—’

  ‘For the love of God, which house?’ Pel rapped. ‘Give your report properly. You know how to.’

  ‘Number 15, Rue Charles-Borderay. Home of Louis Abrillard. He runs Plastiques de Bourgogne. I looked him up. He’s worth a lot—’

  ‘Get on with your report, man!’

  ‘Yes, Patron. Of course. Well, the bell goes and, as it’s the maid’s night out, Abrillard himself answers it. He’s careful, mind – he told me on the telephone – and he never lets anyone in unless he knows them. Not with all the muggers there are about. He’s got one of those spyholes and when he looks through it he sees this girl on the doorstep. She’s distressed and crying and her dress is torn. “Let me in,” she says. “A man tried to rape me.”’

  ‘Another one?’ Darcy’s eyes flew to Pel’s.

  Misset’s hands flapped. ‘Well, he lets her in, full of sympathy and offering to call the police, and she promptly pulls a gun on him.’

  ‘So it wasn’t rape. It was armed robbery.’

  ‘Well, yes, it was. Because she then lets in a guy with a suitcase who’s waiting just outside out of sight, and they ransack the house. Hold the Abrillards at gunpoint and start to beat up the old lady until the husband tells them where the safe is and gives them the key. Then they hit him over the head with the gun and disappear with all the jewellery and a lot of silver. They must have had a car outside.’

  ‘And you thought of going home?’ Pel’s voice was like broken glass. ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you go along there at once?’

  Misset was full of excuses. ‘Well, Nosjean came in. I said I’d been told to stay here.’

  ‘Well, now you’ve been told to go and help Nosjean.’ Darcy snapped. ‘Beat it!’

  As Misset vanished, Darcy looked at Pel. ‘It looks as if it’s going to be a busy night, Patron,’ he said.

  Nosjean’s red Renault was outside the door of Number 15, Rue Charles-Borderay. Inside, a doctor was attending to Madame Abrillard’s wounds, which, though they looked unpleasant, were only superficial. But there was blood down the front of her dress and she was white with shock and still giving hiccoughing sobs. Abrillard, a short, grey-haired man with a sticking plaster on his head, was talking with Nosjean.

  ‘How can such a thing happen?’ he said as Pel and Darcy arrived. ‘In the middle of the city? Within reach of the public highway? With buses running past?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Monsieur,’ Pel said, ‘this is a new trick we haven’t struck before. Every time we counter the last one, they think of a new one. We shall counter this one, too, I’m sure, but I’m afraid there’ll be another.’

  He took Nosjean aside. ‘Where was this silver?’ he asked quietly.

  Nosjean shrugged. ‘Displayed in the dining-room and salon, Patron. In full view of the road. Open invitation to somebody to consider ways and means of nicking it. There are no photographs of it.’

  ‘And the girl?’

  ‘Young, Patron. Well-dressed. Medium height. Fair. Blue eyes. Slim with a good figure. The old boy was smart enough to keep his eyes open. She was heavily made up. Lots of eye-black and so on. As a disguise, Abrillard thinks.’

  ‘Would he recognise her again?’

  ‘He thinks so. His wife was too distressed and in some pain.’

  ‘What about the man?’

  ‘Stocking mask. He also had a gun. But I suspect both weapons were probably imitations because, although they hit the Abrillards with them, the wounds aren’t the sort of wounds you get from being pistol-whipped. I’ve got cars scouring the streets and Uniformed Branch’s asking in the bars. I’ve told Misset he’s to ask round the antique shops. But you know how that goes. The dishonest owners say nothing and the honest ones are indignant that we should ask.’

  ‘You’d better get the old man down to headquarters and let him look at the files. He might recognise their faces. Though it doesn’t sound to me like a professional job. More like someone who’s just thought of a new idea. They probably saw it on television even. Still, we might be lucky.’

  It was late when Pel arrived home and the house was in darkness. He stopped his car in front of the garage and stood for a moment sniffing the air and catching the smell of pines and grass. It smelled different from the Rue Martin-de-Noinville where he’d lived until recently. The smell there had been of the streets – wet or dusty according to the season – and the warm oil and hot machinery from the traffic and the railway that ran nearby. He wondered why he had never missed the country because he’d been born in a village and hadn’t lived in a city until he’d joined the Police.

  He tried to resist the urge to light a cigarette but he was tired and succumbed without much of a struggle, to stand by the door, drawing in the smoke and enjoying the silence. Finally,
tossing the cigarette away, he went inside. There was no sound so he imagined Madame had gone to bed. As he climbed the stairs, he found his depression over the murders had been lifted a little by the silence of the night.

  A light went on. Madame was sitting up in bed, small-framed and, without her spectacles, large-eyed in the subdued glow. ‘You’re late,’ she pointed out. ‘I heard you arrive. Why didn’t you come straight in? What have you been doing?’

  Pel smiled. ‘Standing outside,’ he said. ‘Sniffing the air. It smelled like wine. When I lived in the city I never realised how much I liked living in the country.’

  She studied him gravely. ‘Was it a difficult day?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you tired?’

  Pel felt he ought always to be tired, the amount of work he got through, and this time he was. ‘Yes,’ he said in a pained voice. ‘Exhausted.’

  She eyed him with a warm affection. She had got to know her Evariste Clovis Désiré better than he realised and she was well aware that what he said wasn’t entirely true because he had remarkable reserves of energy. He thrived on crises that put other men flat on their backs and could keep going long after everybody else had come to a full stop. Nevertheless, she was also aware that this time he must be more tired than normally but she also knew that he liked sympathy and even expected it when the occasion was right. She gave it in full measure.

  ‘You must be worn out,’ she said, touching his cheek. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Murder. Two murders. One the day after I left for Amiens. A new one this morning. They’re connected. Both girls. Young girls. Pretty young girls.’

  Madame’s face twisted into a grimace of unhappiness. ‘What a thing to come back to!’

  He sat on the bed alongside her and with a sigh unfastened his collar. ‘I’m going to be busy for a while, I think,’ he said. ‘There was also a hit and run and a robbery with violence.’

  Her hand touched his and he turned towards her. As he did so the telephone went. In the silence it seemed to shriek at him.

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ Exacerbated by his frustrations, Pel’s always lurking temper leapt to the surface at once. ‘Now what?’ He picked up the telephone alongside the bed. It clattered in his ear for a while. When he replaced it, he was frowning. ‘I’m going back,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve only just come home.’

  ‘Doesn’t change things. That was Darcy. They’ve called him in.’

  ‘Can’t he handle whatever it was?’

  ‘Probably,’ Pel said. ‘But I don’t think he should have to. They’ve found another one.’

  Six

  The press were waiting in the hall of the Hôtel de Police when Pel arrived – Sarrazin, the freelance; Henriot, of Le Bien Public; Fiabon, of France Dimanche; Ducrot, of Paris Soir. How they had learned so quickly he couldn’t imagine. He had often suspected that Misset, who was always short of money, was their contact, but he’d never been able to prove it.

  Aimedieu had been on duty and had called everybody in, and the whole team were there – Nosjean; Misset; Aimedieu with his choirboy’s face; Brochard and Debray, the Heavenly Twins, great friends but curiously anonymous with their light colouring; Lacocq and Morell, new recruits from Uniformed Branch; Bardolle, until recently a country cop at Mongy, big as a brewery dray with his enormous shoulders; even Claudie Darel and Cadet Martin. When something big broke, there was no such thing as time off.

  ‘De Troq’s out there already with Lagé,’ Darcy said.

  ‘Where is it this time?’

  ‘Rue Constance. Cop in a car saw her lying on the pavement, half-in, half-out of a shop doorway near the Church of St Josephe.’

  The St Josephe area contained many old blocks of houses left over from the last century with a multitude of narrow streets and dark courtyards. Like the Rue de Rouen area, it had a high crime rate, but it was a long way from the Rue d’Enfer and the Rue Devoin. A police car was waiting at the end of the Rue Constance and as they pulled up the man standing alongside it jerked a hand to give direction. A few seconds later they were halting with the squeak of brakes halfway along the street. A policeman was standing by the recessed doorway of an empty shop. The windows were dirty and notices had been pasted to the glass. Opposite was an open space where buildings had been demolished.

  ‘Sous-Brigadier Boucher, sir. We spotted her from the car.’

  As he stepped aside, Pel saw a pair of legs and the sheen of nylon stockings. The feet wore high-heeled red shoes, and round the knees was a froth of tawdry lace from an underslip. The woman lay on her back, her hips twisted sideways. She was older than the De Wibaux girl and Nurse Hamon, and her face was heavily made up, but like them she had been strangled with a cord, and on her cheeks, as they bent over, they saw the same hurried cuts.

  ‘Know who she is?’

  The policeman nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Name of Alice Magueri. She’s got an apartment in the Rue Mellier. Known as Alice the Alsatian.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She comes from Alsace. Maiden name was Hermann.’

  ‘Respectable women don’t get nicknames,’ Pel said coldly.

  ‘Oh! Well, she’s one of them, sir. On the game.’

  ‘Prostitute?’

  Boucher shrugged. ‘Not full time. She’s married and has a couple of kids just entering their teens. But she’s always picking up men. They pay her.’

  Drawing Darcy to one side, Pel spoke quietly. ‘Name begins with M,’ he said. ‘Could that mark be an M?’

  ‘It could, Patron.’

  ‘Then who in God’s name’s going round killing women and putting the initial letter of their name on their faces?’

  Darcy frowned. ‘He’d have to know who they were to do that, Patron, and I don’t see how he could know them all. Their handbags are left untouched. Hers is there under the body.’

  ‘Check all known sexual deviates. Rapists, sadists, clothes slashers, exhibitionists. The lot, Daniel. Let’s have mental health institutions checked for escapees. Ask at dry cleaners for torn clothes. One of these girls might have grabbed hold of him and torn something before she died. And let’s remember the usual one – if it’s a psychopath, there’ll be nothing odd about him. He’ll look exactly like everybody else and won’t be foaming at the mouth.’ Pel glanced at the sky. ‘He could be one of those. The moon’s high and three-quarters full.’

  They all knew of the belief that mentally deranged people were affected by a full moon. Yet this wasn’t a full moon and when Marguerite Wibaux had died there must have been almost no moon at all. Pel glanced along the street. He could see Sarrazin arguing furiously with a policeman who was refusing to let him approach. Behind him were the other newsmen.

  ‘Have barriers put up, Daniel,’ he said. ‘We want nobody to see that mark on her cheek. If that lot get hold of it they’ll blow it up into a scare—’

  ‘Which it is, Patron.’

  Pel acknowledged the fact. ‘But let’s not make it worse. We’re going to have to tell them something, if only so they can put out a warning to women to watch what they’re doing – but we don’t want to start a panic, and any mention of mystic marks on the bodies will suggest strange practices – even the supernatural.’ He gestured at the newspapermen. ‘They’d love that. They’d play it big and use both hands. They’d scare everybody to death. Besides –’ he paused and gestured at the bloody marks ‘– this is something we’ll want to keep quiet so that anybody who mentions it will have some knowledge of what’s happened. Any references in the report are to be only about scratches caused as they fell to the ground. Only we know they have some significance.’

  ‘Right, Patron.’

  ‘And, Daniel – as few as possible to see the reports. Understood? Claudie can type them. Above all, keep them from Misset. Just in case.’

  Within minutes, the cameramen had arrived and begun setting up their lights, while other men started the usual processes of drawing pictures and marking the posit
ion of the body. Tapes were strung up to cover a large area round the doorway and Inspector Nadauld, of Uniformed Branch, arrived with barriers and a van load of men to keep away the spectators who would inevitably arrive in dozens. There were already a few with their heads out of windows, drinking it all in. Pomereu, of Traffic, started setting up diversions, and finally Goriot, who was supposed to co-ordinate all the different branches, appeared, sour-faced and fussy, to organise the paperwork. Leguyader, from the Lab., was directing men on their knees searching for anything that might be a clue. Pel didn’t have much hope. There would be no weapon because all that had been used was a short length of something like a clothes line which, like the knife which had marked the woman’s cheek, would go into a pocket.

  Prélat, the fingerprint man busy on the glass of the window round the recessed doorway, turned. ‘Patron. There’s something here.’

  ‘Fingerprint?’

  ‘No, Patron. Looks like a message.’

  Crudely written on the dusty glass were two words, or, to be exact, the parts of two words – ‘Stras-St D Nov 9.’

  Pel stared at the dirty glass. ‘“Stras-St D Nov 9.”’ He spoke the broken words aloud. ‘What do they mean?’

  Darcy stared at the smudged letters, too. ‘What sort of nut have we got, Patron?’ he asked. ‘Who writes messages to us? “Nov 9” must be November 9th and that’s in a week’s time.’

  ‘And “Stras-St D”?’

  ‘A place. “Stras” is probably Strasbourg.’

  ‘And “St D”?’

  Darcy fished in the pocket of his car for the street map he always carried. ‘Here you are, Patron. It’ll be the Boulevard de Strasbourg. Right alongside it’s the Ecole St Dominique. That must be what he means by “Stras-St D”. Boulevard Strasbourg-Ecole St Dominique. It must be the corner there. And something’s going to happen there on the 9th.’

  ‘If it is,’ Pel said grimly, ‘we’ll be there.’

  As soon as the Medical Examiner, the photographer and other specialists had finished, Pel nodded and the body was removed. Underneath it was the red handbag of which they had been able to see only the corner. After Prélat, of Fingerprints, had dusted it for dabs and photographed it, they took it to the car and emptied the contents on the seat. It was as anonymous as the others. Cigarettes, matches, handkerchief, identity card, little else. Nothing unusual except a slip of paper bearing a name and address.