Death at the Clos du Lac

CHAPTER ONE

The man was standing on the bottom of the therapy pool in the Clos du Lac sanitarium, his white cotton shirt billowing out like gossamer in the clear, blue water. Staring up through the glass-panelled roof at a pale, three-quarter moon bathing the world in an eerie light, his expression was one of deep melancholy. But that may have been because his face was some way beneath the surface, and breathing was a thing of the past.

Garde Champêtre Claude Lamotte’s rubber-soled boots crunched with grit as he moved along the side of the pool for a closer look. Behind him a woman in a nurse’s uniform was sobbing quietly, reluctant to come closer. Somewhere in the distance a door creaked open and shut repeatedly, a lonely drumbeat in the night.

The combination of sounds and atmosphere, more than the sight of the body, caused the hairs on the back of Claude’s neck to stir uncomfortably. Responsible for policing the area around Poissons-les-Marais in rural Picardie, he was accustomed to moving around the lakes and rivers and marshes in the small hours, inured to the sometimes sinister mists and dark waters and sudden unexplained rushes of hidden movement in the night. But a death in this place, a supposedly secure haven of luxury and quiet, was something else entirely.

He propped his shotgun in the corner by the door and sniffed at the chlorinated air. It reminded him of his army days and the enforced swims with fellow conscripts every morning. The only difference then was they never had to contend with finding corpses in the water. Not real ones, anyway.

He shivered in spite of the clammy warmth, and gripped his flashlight for reassurance, irritated by the spider-touch of fear crawling up his back. Maybe this was what the training had been all about: finding stiffs in pools and remaining calm.

Signalling to the nurse to stay back, he forced his breathing to settle and knelt with a grunt by the edge of the water. A residue of cold moisture from the ribbed tiles soaked through his heavy cord trousers. At this level he could see every detail of the pool and its grisly contents, lit by a number of underwater lights spaced along one side. A faint mist was lifting off the surface as the colder air from outside met the warmer temperature inside. He debated shedding his jacket and boots and going in. Maybe there was a trace of life left in those staring eyes, a remote chance that he could keep that thread going.

Then a glance at the man’s feet decided him against it. He felt a cold tremor go through him. ‘Merde!’ The word slipped out unbidden, and he glanced guiltily at the nurse. ‘Sorry.’

A large metal milk churn was resting on its side on the tiled bottom of the pool. It was attached to the dead man’s ankles by a heavy chain, the links bright and glistening against the dark of his trousers. Holding the chain in place was a padlock.

According to the nurse, from the time she’d noticed the lights on and had come to investigate, to when she had finally rushed out of the pool house to seek help, the man must have been in there for at least twenty minutes, probably longer. Even if Claude could get the chain off, it would take a kiss of life of which only God himself would be capable to bring the man back from whatever dark and distant place he’d gone to.

‘A telephone. I need to call this in.’ He had to get Lucas Rocco here. He’d make sense of it. He was an experienced investigator, accustomed to this kind of stuff.

He stood and followed the nurse as she hurried away to a desk near the entrance to the pool house. The movement made his stomach lurch, and he fought against the urge to let it all go. He’d seen his share of fights, stabbings, shootings and the gut-churning results of car crashes and agricultural accidents over the years. But nothing like this. It seemed worse, somehow, in a setting associated with health, to see death standing here so casually, so cavalier and blatant.

There was no answer from Rocco’s house in the village of Poissons a kilometre away, so he rang the office in Amiens and left a message. The duty officer recognised Claude’s voice.

‘The inspector’s been called in to an unexplained death in the town centre,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a message to him. Is it urgent?’

‘Very,’ Claude breathed. ‘Tell him I’ve got another dead one for him, even more unexplained. And he’ll need Doctor Rizzotti and his swimsuit for this one.’ Rizzotti was the Amiens area’s forensic representative, a self-confessed amateur seconded from his role as a GP to fill a post vacant now for two years. But the doctor was good, and Rocco had faith in his abilities.

Claude had no wish to return to the pool, but he felt bad leaving the dead man alone. Not that the poor soul would notice, of course, but it just felt wrong. Besides, as first man on the scene, Rocco would want his opinions, so he walked back across the tiled floor and knelt once more by the edge of the water.

He focused on the knuckles of the man’s right hand, just breaking the surface. The fingers, with a sprouting of coarse, dark hairs, were locked into a fist, gripping a thin, helical steel wire running up to a boxed wheel device sitting on an overhead cable stretched across the pool. He followed its length, wondering at its purpose. The cable was held at each end of the pool house by steel plates bolted to the walls, with a wire running out to the box. The down-wire was taut, he noted, and the only thing keeping the body upright.

He heard a scuff of footsteps and found the nurse standing nearby. Her face was a pale oval, the expression unchanged since he’d seen her running out of the building earlier. He didn’t know her name, although he’d seen her in the village once or twice, at the co-op store. A handsome woman with a nice figure. Or maybe it was the uniform. She was lucky he’d been passing, otherwise she would have had to call for help and wait for a team to arrive from Amiens. She had clammed up now, though, he noted. Probably shock.

‘I’d put some coffee on, if I were you,’ he suggested kindly. The activity would keep her occupied until Rocco and the others got here. ‘And if you haven’t done it already, wake your boss because this place is going to be invaded.’

‘My boss?’ Her eyes flickered uncomprehendingly, edging towards the body in the water with reluctant fascination, then away again.

Claude let it slide. ‘Coffee,’ he said again. ‘Make it a big pot.’

Less than half a kilometre away, a dark figure waited for the moon to slip behind a cloud, before emerging from the cover of a hedgerow and walking with a confident stride along the edge of the lane leading away from the Clos du Lac. The narrow route was little used in daytime, even less at night, but the man believed in taking simple precautions.

He was dressed all in black, from flexible, rubber-soled boots to the woollen cap covering his head, practically invisible to anyone unless they took him by surprise. But that wasn’t likely to happen. Even so, he stopped periodically to test the air around him, using skills gained over many years to seek out the presence of others. All he heard was the faint, mournful shriek of a fox drifting on the night air, and a flap of wings in the trees nearby. Satisfied he was unobserved — by humans, at least — he moved on.

He reached a small, dilapidated barn at the side of the lane and stepped inside. He moved easily in the dark, having scouted the place in daylight two days earlier to study the layout and memorise any obstacles. The air was thick with the smell of old straw and mould, and he felt his nostrils react to the dust in the atmosphere.

He reached out and located the moped parked against the wall of the barn. From a pannier on the back he took a slim flask and opened the cap. The aroma of coffee with a lacing of cognac took over from the smell of straw. He poured a measure and drank it quickly, savouring the warmth spreading through his gut. He wanted a cigarette, too, another craving, but it was a risk too far. He would save it for later.

The moped held a second pannier, this one containing a collapsible net and rod, and a box of bait. But he was no fisherman; they were props, simple distractions in the unlikely event that he was stopped by a patrolling policeman or spotted by a farmer with insomnia. Fishing without a permit was easily excused, given the right amount of reasoning and charm and a willingness to apologise. As he knew all too well, the success of a mission was in the preparation, not simply the execution.

He smiled at the play on words. Tonight’s job had been just that — an execution. And it had gone as planned, if a little convoluted at the end. But he didn’t mind that; it added to the frisson he still gained from a task done well. Tomorrow was the next phase, and undoubtedly the most important part of the plan. However, that was for others to deal with. His skills lay more in the role of a troubleshooter — a fixer of problems.

He replaced the flask and checked his watch using a flick of a flashlight. The glass over the face showed a tracery of fine scratches. Plenty of time to get clear. He had to be back on his way to Paris before sunrise. Seconds later he was wheeling the moped out of the barn and along the lane, heading for a route deep into the countryside that connected eventually with a back road out of the area, and his car.

Once he was certain he was well beyond earshot of the Clos du Lac, he jumped on and pedalled at a steady pace, travelling a full half-kilometre before engaging the engine.

He smiled to himself and placed his feet together on the central rest, enjoying the quirky feeling of using such a bizarre mode of transport away from a killing.