by Pirate Irwin
Lafarge was pleased he had time to think over other parts of the case for in the event the Courneuves proved to be more Hamlet and Ophelia than Macbeth and his scheming wife he would need to have another angle. He didn’t see Cocteau and Marais, much as the latter liked to think of himself as a macho matinee idol in the Errol Flynn mould, as murderers and neither did he suspect were their guests in that line of artistic work.
However, the third pair of initials GP could lead him to another avenue of enquiry as they belonged to Gaston Palewski, one of General de Gaulle’s closest confidants like de Boinville supposedly was, but certainly not according to Pinault reputed to be homosexual. Rather quite the opposite, he was very much a ladies’ man.
Lafarge had broken his own rules, not for the first time, by actually obeying an order and calling Pinault at home once he deduced that Palewski was the man the Count was due to meet so urgently but which never took place because of his murder.
Lafarge’s call had been more to get Pinault to facilitate a meeting between them as he knew his superior had the contacts to do so whereas he wouldn’t have known where to start.
Indeed his contacts were all but gone and certainly not names to drop to a man like Palewski, who had initially flown sorties like Lafarge’s brother, Albert, with the French air force against the Luftwaffe and then moved onto more political roles and was now considered indispensable, in as much as anyone was, by de Gaulle .
Pinault had appreciated, Lafarge could tell by his voice, that he had informed him about de Boinville’s scheduled meeting with Palewski and said he would organise that he got to see him, although he added he might have to accompany him so as to ensure the Chief Inspector did not revert back to his bad old habits of haranguing senior officials. Lafarge had felt like retorting that it was only Bousquet but refrained, thinking he had earned some credit with the boss and there could come a time when he needed to use it up.
Lafarge, though, did not seriously think that Palewski would be implicated in the murder or indeed in the blackmail. He rather fancied that de Boinville was about to divulge everything, whatever that was, to his fellow Gaullist and that is why he ended up with his member protruding from his mouth, not because he had already talked.
Thus to his mind everything still pointed in the direction of the delightful Courneuve couple, they had the opportunity, the position and he bet the motive too. Whether it related to politics or simply to their avarice – blackmail followed by taking a few paintings off the Count’s hands – remained to be seen, but he fancied that they could be candidates for an early post-Liberation date with the guillotine.
Lafarge returned to the present task in hand as he passed a sign on the National 7 indicating Fontainebleau was only three miles down the road. He could see Courneuve was three cars ahead of him and didn’t want to lose him now as he had no idea of the address or the layout of the town, having never had occasions to visit the place despite the large forest and beautiful Chateau built by Francis I as a regal way of getting over the upset of a year spent at the mercy of his Spanish enemies.
Lafarge shuddered slightly as he looked to either side of him and saw the thick forest, which played host so often to Fontainebleau residents taking charming post-prandial walks – no doubt the Courneuves’ two Wehrmacht generals had done as well when they could take time off their combat duties – but hid many dark tales and crimes.
The most notorious murder, Vichy termed it an ‘execution’, was by their own fanatical militia the Milice, of the celebrated and respected French politician Georges Mandel, who had suffered terribly during the Occupation, being imprisoned in some German camp. To Lafarge it demonstrated the depths that France had sunk when Vichy Prime Minister Pierre Laval was either too powerless or craven to lift a finger to save a man he had been a fellow minister of in a pre-war government.
Happily his thoughts about how many others suffered similar fates in the forest were interrupted as they entered the town down a main thoroughfare and then swung left past it and into a small residential street called Rue d’Avon.
Courneuve had slowed so Lafarge felt obliged to pull to the side at the entrance to the street and he watched as the suspect parked and then, once out of the car, open a gate to his left.
Lafarge allowed him five minutes grace and then walked down towards the gate, only stopping to let out the air in the front tyre of Courneuve’s Citroёn in case he tried to make a hasty escape. Lafarge didn’t care if he was after all totally innocent, the guy was a supercilious asshole and he would enjoy the sight of him huffing and puffing when he found he would have to change the tyre.
The view from the road into the three-storey house was blocked by the gate and a hedge to its right, so Lafarge went round the back – he had the time anyway as Courneuve wouldn’t be able to go very far even if he was just rushing in to pick up some incriminating evidence.
There was a wall but he managed to climb over it and landed in a spacious garden, which provided some cover with shrubs and what he took with his limited knowledge of nature to be a vast rhododendron bush.
He saw there were lights on in the basement as the sun didn’t appear to have infiltrated there, so he carefully made his way round the side of the garden and looked for the backdoor entrance.
There were two doors, one leading directly into the basement – servants’ entrance no doubt, he thought to himself – and one up some stone stairs and which gave out onto a terrace. Lafarge tried the bottom door and found it was locked, which pleased him to the extent that if he gained access from above it would block Courneuve downstairs.
To his satisfaction the doors into what turned out to be the breakfast room were unlocked and he managed to, he thought, cover the distance between that and the door to the hallway relatively silently despite the parquet floor. He trod carefully to the stairs that led both upstairs and to the basement, and listened for any clue as to where Courneuve was.
To his surprise he heard sounds of a conversation going on in the basement. He couldn’t make out any of it so, in case he came into full view of Courneuve and his interlocutor, he edged step by step down until he came to a curve in the stairwell.
He had cocked his gun before he entered the house so he was ready if there was trouble, and the odds on that had shortened considerably with the presence of the anonymous male.
From the tone of the voices the conversation was not an amiable one.
“You’re a fool, Hubert. I always thought you would overplay your hand, too bloody confident in being bailed out no matter how deep the hole you found yourself in,” said Courneuve’s visitor, his tone striking Lafarge as well educated and the accent of the Normandy region.
“Well de Boinville gave me no choice. It was clear after the lunch that he was not going to honour his word and instead was intent on exposing us. I couldn’t let him do that, not after all we have invested in the plan over the past year,” whined Courneuve.
“Yes, but now you and your cruel bitch of a wife have complicated matters. What you have done is made us postpone indefinitely our plan of action, one which a lot of powerful people have been building towards ever since it became clear the Nazis would be beaten,” said the man, his tone becoming menacing and prompting Lafarge to doubt Courneuve’s life expectancy went beyond the afternoon.
Lafarge would have gladly let him be killed except that he needed Courneuve, for the moment, very much alive. It was clear now the Ice Maiden was involved as much as her husband and there was little doubt they had murdered the Count. However, he wanted to know more about the organ-grinder who was giving Courneuve so much grief and hoped the weasel would drop his name.
“Isn’t there any way of pointing the finger at others? I mean you have contacts and the General’s ear. Paranoia is rife at the moment so why can’t you suggest that it was one of Maurras’ fanatical followers angered at the Count’s volte-face?” asked Courneuve plaintively.
The other man laughed, though without humour.
“G
od, Hubert, you can be so stupid sometimes! You and Marianne are well known to have been among his adherents, so why would we try and turn the suspicions hanging over you onto some of your fellow believers? It would only come back to you and as you are, or were, living the floor below the Count it follows that you murdered him,” said the man.
“Well for the moment the police have nothing on us, simply conjecture and wild accusations. Following on from which, do you know either Pinault or the rude Chief Inspector that harassed us last night?” asked Courneuve.
“No, I don’t know either of them personally, only by reputation. Pinault is a safe pair of hands and has nothing that we can hold over him, hence why he was asked to replace Massu. Lafarge is another matter, a maverick so they say, who had highly placed Vichy connections but was considered unreliable, especially by your close friend René Bousquet.
“He is considered one of the best detectives in the force, but overly emotional on occasion and prone to drinking too much, but then both of those are hardly crimes,” he added drily.
“Yes, but can’t you see if he could be diverted from our trail? Thrown a false piste? The homosexual angle could be one for instance,” said Courneuve.
“Oh really. Come, come, Hubert! What are you suggesting? It was you after all that seduced de Boinville in the first place in Algiers and then, displaying your totally perverted and psychopathic tendencies, encouraged him to bring along one of the locals to your disgusting soirées,” said the man, his disapproval clear by his tone.
Courneuve tittered.
“Ah, but you have to say that was a stroke of genius, Arthur. Murdering the little Arab and then making de Boinville believe it was him who had done it ensured he was bound to us and owed us a huge debt for keeping it quiet,” said Courneuve.
The other man sighed.
“Yes, but the long answer is that you miscalculated very badly. De Boinville’s loyalties ran too deep with the General for him to betray him and dishonor him after all he had fought for while he had been in London.
“In the end de Boinville wanted the General to succeed more than he wanted to preserve his good name and any hopes he had of becoming his Foreign Minister should he become head of state.
“That’s the trouble with people like you and your wife, you become so used to jumping onto different horses that one day you don’t realise you have got on an Arab rather than a thoroughbred, and in a race there is no competition between them. The trouble was de Boinville, despite his sexual tastes, was a throughbred; I think he played you so he could get as much information out of you and who else was involved in the conspiracy.
“On that note I suppose I have to thank you for ensuring he remained silent, but I would add that if you think that has bought you a guillotine-free pass should this Lafarge build a strong case against you and your wife, then you will be sorely disappointed.”
Lafarge could hear Courneuve gasp at this unwelcome news.
“Now hold on a minute, Arthur. I hardly think you are in a strong position to simply desert us and leave us to go to our deaths as martyrs for the cause. As you just said, we are adept at switching horses and what is to stop us doing the same to you if Chief Inspector Lafarge puts us in such a position?
“I mean, we have your name and we have other evidence that we have kept in case such a day arose. We are, after all, master blackmailers,” said Courneuve, and the pride with which he did so made Lafarge recoil in disgust.
It obviously didn’t provoke the same reaction in the visitor, as he simply laughed.
“Good grief, Hubert! How do you know what my name is, do you really think it is Arthur Duroc? I have during this war like so many other people – Jean Moulin, god rest his soul, being a prime example – used endless aliases. So why would I use my real name with a couple of cheap blackmailers such as you and your tart of a wife!
“Is this why you called me in such a state of excitement last night? You wanted to rattle my cage and threaten me, another of the General’s confidants, with extortion if we didn’t agree to help you? Dear, oh dear, Hubert, you have definitely overplayed your hand this time.
“You know also, Hubert, that the only thing you have done right today, and that wasn’t by design, is not to have brought your wife with you. Because if you had done I would have taken care of both of you – well I would have enjoyed myself with your wife in front of you first and then murdered both of you.
“I would have ensured it was a much more professional effort than what you did to the Count. Murder suicide it would have been. But now it seems I can leave that safely in the hands of the police – state murder,” said the man his tone a mixture of amusement and ridicule.
“You are a son of a bitch! You can’t just think that you are going to get away with all this scot-free? You and your kind are as bad as the other lot – no scruples so long as you remain in a position of power and direct us like little puppets to do the dirty work,” said Courneuve, whose effort at conjuring up rage was undone by the high-pitched tone of his voice.
The other man groaned.
“Hubert, please stop with the self-righteous, self-serving crap. There is a reason why some of us continue to pull the strings: it is because we were born to and no matter how many times we foul up we continue to rule.
“Of course people like yourself and your wife and others serve a purpose, because you put into action the sort of things we wouldn’t want to do ourselves directly.
“However, at the end of the day you and your kind are ten a penny and expendable for we can always find people to replace you. That is why we can afford to postpone our plan, because sooner or later we will find some other common criminals who may prove to be rather more adept and less arrogant in fulfilling the duties they are set.
“Thanks to you and your bungling you have inadvertently given the General some breathing space and we can only hope that in his own inimitable style he screws up with his Allies and we achieve our aims without another drop of innocent blood being spilt.”
Lafarge’s blood had run cold at the last statements by the visitor, but he didn’t even want to contemplate the size of the plot or the fact de Gaulle was the target as he had a more immediate concern and that was to make good his escape. For he could tell ‘Arthur’ was keen to be on his way and with the basement door locked his only exit was by the stairs he was presently occupying.
‘Arthur’ may have been reluctant to kill Courneuve there and then because he was on his own, but if he were to chance upon Lafarge, Chief Inspector or not, he would not hesitate to kill him. Lafarge was in little doubt about that.
Thus retreating carefully backwards up the stairs – he preferred to keep his eyes fixed on who might come up them – to his relief he managed to make it up to the top without alerting those below. It was made easier by the fact that Courneuve’s nerve had clearly failed him, for he was sobbing and pleading with ‘Arthur’.
He didn’t need to hear the response to know that it was all in vain. ‘Arthur’ was plainly in control and his self-confidence and unbelievable arrogance – the ‘we were born to rule’ remark had particularly riled Lafarge – would not soften in the wake of Courneuve’s tears.
Lafarge crept up another half flight of stairs to a semi-landing between the first floor and the second floor and soon afterwards he heard just one set of feet climb the staircase he had just vacated. He didn’t catch tnhe face of ‘Arthur’ full on, really just his back, but he could see that he had black hair, cropped in military style, and that he was around 6ft tall.
He had obviously taken precautions regardless of his confident air because he was dressed as a civilian – a dark navy suit – so as Lafarge imagined no one in the neighbourhood would recall an army officer having paid a visit to the Courneuves, which would have given credence to Hubert’s conspiracy theory should he get time to air it.
Lafarge waited until he heard the front door shut, and assured himself that Hubert was still alive as he heard him still sniffling down i
n the basement. He used the time to look through the master bedroom on the second floor and the downstairs rooms for anything that stood out to him.
He didn’t really find anything save the papers belonging to the sale of the apartment in Rue de Grenelle. He doubted they would be of much use but he wanted to unnerve Hubert even more than he was now. He wanted him to think ‘Arthur’ had stolen them and would pass them onto the police, anonymously of course, before he and Levau officially arrested him and his wife for the blackmail and murder of Count de Boinville.
They wouldn’t be going very far. Marianne had been ordered to bring their passports to the Quai that morning and if she hadn’t, then their apartment was to be ripped asunder until they were found, and he doubted that Hubert Courneuve was courageous enough to flee on his own. Besides, these two were totally interdependent and would go down with each other and he was looking forward to giving them a helping hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lafarge had wanted out of perverse pleasure to stick around and see how the already frazzled Courneuve reacted when he finally came out of his bijoux residence and saw that his tyre was as deflated as he was.
However, Lafarge considered it as being too risky and he didn’t want to push his luck too far. In any case it was far better if Courneuve thought that ‘Arthur’ had done it as a malevolent farewell gesture, and despite the military man’s confidence about him remaining anonymous, Lafarge still believed that Hubert would be able to furnish them with some clues as to his identity.
One of the only qualities blackmailers possessed was their attention to detail and Arthur was bound to have let slip something that would have stuck in either Hubert or Marianne’s minds.