Pel and the Prowler

by Mark Hebden

  In the silence, listening to her own footsteps, she could imagine the agony of Marguerite de Wibaux, Bernadette Hamon, Alice Magueri and Honorine Nauray as they had realised they were about to die. They had all – even Alice Magueri – been too young to have seen much life and had all been looking forward to a lot more of it. In her heart of hearts she hoped that if anyone caught friend Prowler, it would not be her but somebody like Bardolle, whose fists were as big as sacks of potatoes.

  She had done her best to make herself look like a tart. She was wearing too much make-up, her lips a livid slash across a dead-white face, her eyes darkened with eyeliner and eyeshadow, her dark hair twisted on her cheeks into kiss curls. Have I overdone it, she wondered. Do I look like something out of the Twenties? Perhaps I ought to wear garters and rolled stockings and do the Charleston.

  Her heels clicked on the road and she wriggled inside her clothes, aware that her brassiere was hauled up too tight to produce a more erotic silhouette. Several men had approached her but most of them had had too much to drink and weren’t concerned with chasing anything that was hard to get. She hadn’t minded. She knew how to handle drunks and they’d broken up the empty hour a little. In addition, though she tried not to admit it, she was scared, and even with a drunk in the vicinity she had felt safer than she did now when she was alone.

  De Troq’ was somewhere near at hand but she’d never once seen him and she just hoped he could see her.

  She tugged the woollen hat she was wearing over her eye. It made her look a little more saucy but she couldn’t see out of one eye half as well as she could out of two. But the hat was padded with dusters and she hoped that if it came to a blow on the head it might absorb a little of the shock. In addition, she had a surprise or two about her just in case. Her gun was in her pocket where she could get at it quickly, and her handbag contained half a brick. It was a trick suggested by De Troq’ who had once used it successfully to catch a mugger.

  Where was the Prowler, she wondered. Had she chosen the wrong district? Or the wrong night? Was he at home with Mamma, playing with the children, or reading the Bible with his wife? Ten to one, he’d turn out to be someone like that. As a cadet she’d once attended a lecture on the varieties of sexual perversions that had left her astonished. She’d learned a lot about the personalities of sex criminals, the symptoms of their illnesses, and the deep compulsions that drove them to violence. Up to then she’d never realised that sex crimes were progressive so that, like drugs, they demanded more and more from the perpetrators; that molesting sometimes led to rape and finally to murder; that you couldn’t trust appearances; and that a sexual killer could be a kindly old man who was fond of his dog.

  In the shadows nearby, one eye on the white blur that was Claudie’s coat, De Troq’ yawned. His feet, like Claudie’s, ached and he wished he could do the job in the big roadster he drove. But there must be no mistake. Nobody must hurt Claudie. Like everybody else in the Hôtel de Police, De Troq’ had fallen for Claudie the minute he’d seen her, and he knew that if he allowed any harm to come to her, he could reckon on the contempt of everyone else, very probably a punch on the nose from Jean-Luc Nosjean, and heartbreak from himself.

  By this time Claudie had taken to counting her footsteps. It was growing boring and she was beginning to wonder why she’d volunteered for the job. She had arrived in the city from Paris because her father had changed his place of work and she wished to live at home, but she now felt curiously secure in this old city in Burgundy. In Paris, there were too many foreigners, too many types. Even in the Police. Besides, in Paris, there had been no shy Nosjean, no mannered De Troq’, two men whose attention made her feel warm and wanted. She was fond of them both, though she had a feeling that when she finally met the man she would marry he wouldn’t be a cop. He’d be a type who would stay at home at nights, perhaps a barrister, sitting in front of the fire reading briefs while she attended to the children, and –

  Wait!

  Because she was always listening, even through her private thoughts, she heard the footsteps behind her in good time. She glanced at her watch. Almost midnight. The Prowler was a little early tonight. He didn’t usually strike before midnight. Perhaps he was restless and couldn’t sit still.

  She quickened her pace to make it harder for anyone to grab her, began to waggle her hips, and pressed the button of the bleeper to warn De Troq’. She hoped it would work. Police bleepers and personal radios always seemed to be on the blink when they were most needed.

  The footsteps were close behind now, and she steeled herself, waiting, her grip tightening on her handbag. As the footsteps came up behind her, she sensed somehow that this wasn’t the man they were after. The Prowler seemed to move more silently than this, but she was ready for him nevertheless. He was a tall man, and in the light of the street lamp, she saw a face red and pitted with acne. As he reached for her shoulder, she grabbed the wrist, pushed out her hip and heaved, so that he went sailing over her head to land on his back on the pavement with a crash that must have jarred every bone in his body. As he struggled to his feet, she kneed him in the groin and swung the handbag containing the half-brick. It caught him at the side of the jaw with a whack that seemed to lift him off his feet.

  She could hear De Troq’s feet pounding the pavement. Her attacker heard them, too, and scrambled up to set off in a dazed reeling run into the shadows. As he did so, De Troq’ shot past her. For a moment she stood, trembling a little, then set off after him. She found him round the corner, with the attacker backed up against the wall.

  ‘Who is he?’ she asked. ‘Anybody we know?’

  ‘Soon find out.’ De Troq’ whipped the man round, wrenched his hands behind his back and slapped on the handcuffs. Swinging him round again to face them, he shoved him against the wall once more.

  ‘Call headquarters,’ he said.

  While Claudie was speaking on her personal radio, De Troq’ glared at the man cowering by the wall.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Don’t hit me!’

  ‘I haven’t touched you. Not yet. But I will. Name?’

  ‘Bigeaud. Philippe Bigeaud. I meant no harm. Honest. I just wanted to talk to her.’

  Within a quarter of an hour Philippe Bigeaud was at headquarters, and Pel was bending over him as he sat at the table in the interview room. His face was tear-streaked and the acne he suffered from seemed like a raw wound.

  ‘I was lonely,’ he was wailing. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘So why did you grab her?’

  ‘I didn’t grab her.’

  Darcy appeared, holding a file. ‘He’s got a record, Patron,’ he said quietly. ‘Molesting girls. None of them suffered injuries. He just likes to touch them. So far,’ he added cryptically. ‘He’s also been brought in for exposing himself and for indecent behaviour with a child. He’s on our list of deviates.’

  Pel stared at Bigeaud. He was a sorry specimen with his acne, his long neck and dirty hair.

  ‘Any more?’ he asked.

  ‘Worked as a clerk at Plastiques de la France. But they employ a lot of women and they felt it wiser to get rid of him. Father dead. Mother works as a cleaner at the Nouvelles Galéries.’

  Pel stared at Bigeaud. ‘Marguerite de Wibaux,’ he said and Bigeaud stared back at him as if he were a rabbit petrified by a snake. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘I don’t know her.’

  ‘When did you visit her apartment?’

  ‘I don’t know her. I’ve never heard of her.’

  ‘Bernadette Hamon?’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  He didn’t know Alice Magueri or Honorine Nauray either. Or Monique Letexier. They got nothing out of him and he soon had his head on his arms on the table, sobbing, admitting only to an attempt to molest Claudie.

  ‘That’s not the Prowler,’ Darcy said in the end. ‘He’s not the type. You can tell. It’s an instinct.’

&nbs
p; Pel knew that Darcy was right. It was an instinct. All they’d done was save Claudie from molestation – and she’d probably done that herself because Bigeaud had a severe headache and a bruise at the side of his face that was rapidly turning blue.

  They left him with one of Nadauld’s uniformed men to keep an eye on him and went to the sergeants’ room where the others were drinking coffee.

  ‘You all right?’ Darcy asked Claudie.

  ‘He didn’t touch me,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not friend Prowler.’

  ‘I didn’t think he was.’ Claudie shrugged. ‘There’s always another night.’

  ‘Did you see anything else?’

  ‘Nothing. You’d be surprised how empty streets can be after dark.’

  ‘They used not to be,’ Pel said gloomily. ‘The place used to be jumping, with the bars full and people standing on corners arguing. Sometimes even fighting. Nowadays everybody stays at home and develops square eyes watching television.’

  There was truth in what he said. Television had not only changed a few amateurs into professionals with the details it gave, it had also changed the hours of crime. Criminals, it seemed, also had their favourite programmes and they had pulled in a burglar a few weeks before who had been operating on a different schedule from normal because he liked to watch Dallas. ‘I wanted to see how it turned out,’ he had announced.

  ‘I think we’d better call it a day and have everybody in,’ Pel said heavily. ‘It’s time we went home.’

  He was just heading for his office to pick up his coat when the telephone went. Immediately, all the relaxed figures sitting on desks and draped across chairs stiffened.

  It was Misset. Misset, of all people!

  ‘There’s been another,’ he was yelling. ‘Near the Bar de la Renaissance, Rue Hauts Pavés. I got there just in time!’

  Fifteen

  Misset was exaggerating a little – but that was Misset all over. He hadn’t got there just in time. He hadn’t got there at all.

  When they arrived, half-expecting to find he had the Prowler in handcuffs, he was standing on the doorstep of the Bar de la Renaissance, trying to look as if he were guarding the place. It was a blank little establishment, done out with plastic surrounds, at the end of a narrow winding street. It had a wide glass front and, with the lights all on, you could see the entire interior from a hundred metres away.

  The woman was sitting in a chair drinking brandy. She looked green and her dress was torn near the neck.

  ‘That’s her, Patron,’ Misset said.

  ‘What about the Prowler?’ Pel snapped. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘She said he went down the alleyway there.’

  ‘Then what in God’s name are you doing here? Get after him! Go with him, Darcy.’

  As they vanished, Pel sat down quietly in front of the shaken woman.

  ‘I’m Chief Inspector Pel,’ he said gently.

  The landlord appeared. ‘This city,’ he said loudly, ‘isn’t safe to live in. I don’t know what the Police are doing.’

  ‘The Police,’ Pel pointed out crisply, ‘are doing their duty. My men were all out on the streets tonight, and we picked up an attacker. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the one we wanted. And while we were arresting him, the one we did want was operating here.’

  The landlord retired, squashed, and a moment or two later reappeared at Pel’s side and sheepishly placed a small brandy in front of him.

  ‘On the house,’ he muttered.

  Pel leaned towards the woman. ‘Can I have your name?’

  ‘Marie-Yvonne You,’ she whispered. ‘I thought I was dead.’

  ‘Well, you’re not, thank God. Where do you live and why were you on the streets alone at this hour?’

  ‘I live at 92, Rue Georges-Caromil. It’s just round the corner. I didn’t think he’d get me in that distance.’

  ‘It’s like wearing a safety belt in a car,’ Pel pointed out quietly. ‘The time when it matters you’re not wearing it.’

  ‘Who wants to wear a seat belt?’ the landlord asked. ‘It isn’t the Gallic temperament to belt up.’

  Pel turned, smouldering, his arteries hardening even as you looked at him. ‘Would you mind belting up?’ he snapped. ‘And leave me to do my job.’

  The landlord backed away as Darcy reappeared. ‘Whose bar is it, anyway?’ he said to him as he entered.

  Darcy looked blank and turned to Pel. ‘Nothing, Patron,’ he said. ‘There’s a clear run through the alley to the next street. As usual, he’d planned his retreat. Misset’s round there and I’ve called in all the others to give the place a once-over.’

  Pel turned back to Marie-Yvonne You. ‘You haven’t told me what you were doing on the streets at this hour.’

  She gestured at the bar. ‘I work here,’ she said. ‘In the bar. I was going home.’

  ‘I could have told him that,’ the landlord said loudly. ‘If he’d bothered to ask me.’

  For a man given to outbursts of bad temper, Pel was being remarkably restrained. ‘Couldn’t you have got someone to see you home?’ he asked. ‘A husband, perhaps?’

  ‘I haven’t got a husband. I’m divorced.’

  ‘What about our friend over there with the long tongue?’

  ‘He didn’t think it necessary. I only live a hundred metres away.’

  ‘Past an open alley end. It’s a pity he didn’t read his newspaper. All previous attacks have been close to such places. What happened?’

  ‘I helped tidy up here. Lined up the glasses for tomorrow. Then we stacked the chairs on the tables. I don’t pull the shutters down or anything like that. I’d just turned the corner when I felt this thing drop over my head. I knew what it was straight away.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I heard him say “Whore”, then my legs gave way. I was terrified and I just fell to the ground, and he fell on top of me.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No. I was terrified, I tell you. I thought I was going to be killed.’

  ‘You very nearly were. Did he say anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could you recognise his voice if you heard it again?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Anything about him you noticed? Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? Anything odd about him? Perfume? Smell of tobacco?’

  ‘I was too terrified to notice and when he fell on top of me I thought that was the end. But I felt him scramble up and heard feet running away and I realised he’d gone. I didn’t think of going home. I ran back here.’

  ‘I was just going to pull the shutters down,’ the landlord said, ‘when she came round the corner, screaming and sobbing. I put her in a chair, called my wife and went to the telephone. I was just going to pick it up when this cop appeared.’

  There was a long silence. Pel took out a packet of cigarettes, removed one, stared at it for a while then put it in his mouth and lit it. He drew a deep puff of smoke and looked at Madame You.

  ‘Did you see the cord?’

  ‘No. I just felt it.’

  ‘Or a knife?’

  ‘I thought he strangled them.’

  Pel frowned. ‘He might have tried stabbing.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ She seemed awed. ‘No, I saw no knife.’

  ‘He called you a whore. Those were your words. He said that to one other, and one of his victims was a whore. We think he feels all women out late on the streets are this type of woman. We think he watched them. Would he have any reason to suspect you of being a whore?’

  Madame You made a remarkably quick recovery. ‘No,’ she snapped in a voice that was suddenly as strident as a football rattle. ‘He wouldn’t. It’s not my fault I’m divorced and have to earn my living. And it’s not my fault I have to do it in a bar. I’m a decent woman.’

  Pel indicated the glass window of the bar. The lights were fully on and it was obvious that it would be possible from th
e other side of the street to see everything that went on inside.

  ‘It’s a difficult point,’ he admitted. ‘But I have to clear it up. If he were out there, would he ever see you in here talking to men?’

  She looked indignant and well recovered now. ‘I have to talk to men,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t get far in a job like this if I didn’t. If they want to talk, you talk back, even if you’d prefer to spit in their eye.’

  ‘Do these men make suggestions to you?’

  ‘Some of them. Of course they do. Men are all the same. They’ve only one thing on their minds.’

  ‘Has anyone made such a suggestion to you recently? Someone you didn’t know.’

  She considered for a moment. ‘No,’ she admitted.

  ‘The men who come in here: I suppose you know most of them.’

  ‘Yes. They always come in at the same time. One on his way from work. One for a quick one before his evening meal. One because his wife wants help with the kids and he prefers to be out of the way. One or two while they’re doing the evening shopping for their wives. They’ve all got their own special times.’

  ‘Have there been any men in here recently you didn’t know?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘Well, there’s always the odd one. But none I can remember specially.’

  ‘None who made a special set at you? Or kept watching you all the time?’

  ‘No.’

  Pel indicated the window, with the notices of football matches and dances pasted to the glass. ‘If a man stood across there just down the street, he’d be able to see you. But he’d be in the dark and you wouldn’t see him. Did he ever see you leave with a man?’

  She looked indignant again then the expression faded and she hesitated. ‘Well, he might. After all, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. My divorce has gone through.’

  ‘Would he ever see you take one home?’