Death at the Clos du Lac

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Inspector Leon Drueault was halfway through a snatched cup of coffee in the Pantin commissariat and checking a local map of the area, when he was told he had a visitor.

He swore mildly. It had been a very long day, and it wasn’t over yet. Worse, nobody other than his commanding officer and a very select few were aware of his presence here. Even the officers and few remaining staff on duty upstairs hadn’t been brought in fully on the act, merely told that a special task force was operating in the district and to give them a wide berth. He and his men had deliberately dropped off the edge of the planet as far as the rest of the Paris force was concerned, to allow them to operate without hindrance.

If someone had tracked them down here, it had to be somebody from higher up the chain of command.

Someone with clout.

‘Tell them I’ll be out when I finish my coffee,’ he said bluntly, without turning from the map. His men were in a corner on the other side of the room, taking a well-earned break, while he was trying to read the local map to find where, in a haystack of places to hide, the kidnappers might now be holed up with their captive. The truth was, he was trying to stem a mild case of panic, because so far they were in the dark, with no further clues or sightings.

‘That’s all right, Inspector,’ said a voice from the door. ‘No rush.’

Drueault spun round and saw a tall, slim man walking across to meet him. He was dressed in regulation suit and tie, confirming Drueault’s suspicion that he was from the Ministry, but there was not much about him that identified him as a desk man. In fact, Drueault thought he walked too much like an athlete. Or a soldier.

He put down his cup and extended his hand. ‘My apologies. We’ve been up all night chasing ghosts. I didn’t mean to be rude, Mr …?’

‘Delombre,’ said the visitor. His grip was firm without being competitive, yet Drueault suspected he could have applied far more pressure had he wanted to. There was something about this man that spoke of an interesting history. And danger.

‘Very well, Mr Delombre. What can I do for you?’

Delombre produced an identity card. ‘First things first, eh? Mustn’t forget the basics.’ He turned and looked at Captain Detric, Sebastien, and Ivrey, the third team member, who were watching to see what happened, hands wrapped around breakfast bowls of coffee. The table top in front of them was sprinkled with crumbs from the crusty sandwiches they had been eating. They all looked drained and pallid, and were dressed in ordinary street clothes, more like workmen than cops.

Drueault inspected the card and handed it back. ‘Fair enough. You’re from ISD. Now I am worried. What brings you out here? I didn’t think many people knew our location.’

Delombre gave a tiger’s smile. ‘Then you can count me in as one of the favoured few, can’t you?’ He nodded at the map on the wall. ‘Any clues as to their location yet?’

‘Who are we talking about?’ Drueault kept his face blank.

‘Cute,’ Delombre murmured dryly. ‘I must remember that. The people who kidnapped an important person’s wife a few days ago from Avenue de Friedland.’

‘Not yet. We’re following a trail all the way across the north-east of the city. Whoever they are, they’re staying on the move, but so far they’re keeping a step ahead of us.’

Delombre tilted his head to one side ‘You think there’s a pattern?’

‘Definitely. We believe they’re using a furniture wagon, possibly with a defective exhaust system or an old engine. There have been sightings all across here.’ He swept his hand across the map from left to right. ‘The last one was yesterday right here in Pantin, but they’ve either gone to ground somewhere since or moved out.’

‘So you have no idea where they might be, then.’

Drueault blinked at what might have been criticism. ‘Ideas, no. A couple of guesses, perhaps. But that’s all they are.’ He flicked a glance at his men, who were listening intently while pretending not to.

‘Well, we’ll have to go with that, then. Your best guess.’

Drueault hesitated. Voicing his beliefs to a suit from the Ministry, especially one from ISD, was risky. If his suspicions proved flawed, and the kidnappers turned up a hundred kilometres away with a dead captive, he could wave goodbye to his career. He had heard about ISD’s methods in the past, and they didn’t care about leaving bodies lying in their wake.

‘They’ve been using abandoned or unoccupied buildings so far — places nobody would think to look. But only for short periods. I think they’ve opted to stay on the move deliberately. The moment they pick up a whiff of interest, they simply move on and find somewhere else to park. In fact,’ he was taking a real punt here, but he didn’t really care, ‘the closer we get, the more I believe they’ve had a number of such hideaways scoped out from the very start.’

It was Delombre’s turn to blink. ‘Is that so?’ He turned and looked at the other three in the corner. ‘Do your men share those thoughts?’

‘Why don’t you ask them?’

‘We’ll save you the trouble,’ said Detric, stretching out his legs before standing up and walking across to join them. He looked tired and cranky and not a bit in awe of Delombre. ‘We do all think the same. This was pre-planned; the pickup, their method of transport and the bolt-holes they’re using. Nobody but an idiot would drive a furniture van around Paris day after day with a kidnap victim inside and take a chance on finding any old place to stop. They knew what they were doing, where they could go and what places were safe.’

‘You talk like a soldier …?’

‘Captain Detric. I used to be, yes. Now I’m a cop.’

‘Excellent.’ Delombre looked past him at the other two men, then turned back to Drueault. ‘So, assuming your little team of bloodhounds is on the right scent, Inspector, where does that put these people now?’

Drueault very nearly shrugged, but thought better of it. The use of his rank had been a near reminder by this man that a casual response wasn’t permitted. It also told him that Delombre didn’t share his belief and was saying so openly. What he couldn’t understand was why he was choosing to do it in front of his men. Normal rules of command etiquette dictated that any disagreement with officers was voiced at a discreet distance so as not to undermine the chain of command.

‘They’re still here,’ he said. ‘Probably no more than two kilometres from where we’re standing right now.’ In spite of his confidence, he was keeping his fingers crossed mentally. It was risky, but this stranger was beginning to piss him off.

‘Really?’ Delombre’s eyebrows rose slowly in open disbelief. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

‘Instinct. Experience.’

‘Ah, of course. Gut feel — the policeman’s crystal ball.’ A glimmer of something approaching malice danced in the other man’s eyes. ‘I thought that had died out along with seances and seaweed. Is that really all you’ve got?’

‘Pardon me?’ Drueault felt the sting of the verbal slap. He saw Sebastien and Ivrey stand up, and gave them a signal to hold fast. If Delombre was looking for a fight, he didn’t want to drag them into it.

‘You heard me, Inspector. You’re chasing shadows all right — but shadows of your own device. Why on earth would these people stay within the city area, with all the police and security personnel we have available to search for them, when they could be a hundred kilometres away in the middle of nowhere? It makes no sense.’

‘Because they’re not country people,’ said Detric.

‘Sorry?’

‘They’re city, not country. Driving a big truck around this city the way they’ve been doing takes skill. They haven’t got stuck in side streets, they haven’t hit anyone apart from a badly parked bike, they’ve avoided random street stops by traffic cops and they seem to know where they’re going.’ He gave a wise-guy smile. ‘As the boss said, they’re still here.’ With that he turned and walked away, and sat down with his back to Delombre.

The ISD man watched him go, then turned to Drueault. ‘So, you’ve got men who are loyal to you. That’s admirable. Take a round of applause, Inspector.’ He reached into his jacket and took out a folded sheet of paper. Drueault recognised it as an intelligence bulletin. He’d seen enough in his time.

‘What’s this for?’

‘According to latest information, sightings of known faces in the kidnap-and-ransom business have been made in four places. One south of the city near Orléans and three to the north. None of them is less than an hour’s fast drive. Longer in a truck. That means they couldn’t have been anywhere near here when you say they were. You’ve been chasing nothing, Inspector.’ He slapped the bulletin against Drueault’s chest. ‘Or are you saying your instincts and experience have greater merit than up-to-date intelligence from the Ministry?’

Drueault took the paper but didn’t bother reading it. He had no idea why this man seemed intent on provoking him, but it was obviously what he was trying to do. However, nobody but a fool argued with intelligence bulletins — at least openly. The information in them was not infallible, but it was culled from a variety of sources and more often than not proved correct.

Delombre turned and walked over to the door, then paused. He surveyed the men one by one, then said, ‘Seems to me you’d best stand down, Inspector. Get back to the kind of police work you understand.’