Death on the Marais

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Minutes later, they were deep inside Didier’s barn, clearing away a mountain of old farm tools, rotting hessian sacks, rusting bicycles, a seed drill and several worn car tyres. When they reached ground level and brushed away a thick layer of soil, it revealed the wire coming through the wall and disappearing under the floor. Using the crowbar, Rocco dug down just enough to confirm the direction the wire was going in.

‘Straight towards the house,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

The building was a sorry mess, with the windows empty of glass and the shattered front door barely staying upright. Rocco kicked it open and began a search of the building, opening cupboards, moving mounds of clothing, old papers and broken household furniture. The air was foetid and nauseous, every item layered with a coating of grease and dust, with no apparent order to anything. Didier Marthe evidently lived his life in chaos, picking up things as and when he found or needed them, then casting them aside where he stood. In spite of that, it took very little time to search the downstairs. The upstairs was even easier, consisting of two bedrooms, both empty and filthy with age and neglect.

There was no sign of a telephone.

Rocco returned downstairs. Claude was inspecting a narrow cupboard close by the back door. It was fitted with a bolt and latch, but had been left open with a strong padlock hooked through the eye. Inside were the only clean items in the house. One was a conventional side-by-side twin-barrelled shotgun, the metal and butt scratched and pitted; the other was shorter, with up-and-over barrels, and had been well oiled and maintained, with a decorative stock and inlaid butt.

Rocco took out both weapons and checked them. Unloaded but clean. The smaller gun was light, balanced and comfortable to the grip. He wondered how a man like Didier Marthe, scratching a living from dismantling ancient ordnance, could afford a superior piece like this.

He replaced the weapons and locked the cupboard and moved over to the one entrance he hadn’t been able to investigate. The cellar door was solid, with a large lock, and he noticed something he hadn’t seen before: that the door frame had been reinforced, probably where the wood had rotted and given way over the years. Given the state of the rest of the house, he couldn’t see why Didier had bothered.

‘No key?’ said Claude.

‘No.’ He was guessing that Didier was a one-trick pony: if he’d found a way of concealing the wire in the Boutin house, he’d use the same trick in reverse here. Which meant it would emerge somewhere underground — in the cellar.

‘We going to break it down?’ Claude was swinging the crowbar expectantly, eyeing the door with a faint smile. ‘Wouldn’t take that much, not the way I feel.’

But Rocco shook his head. He had a bad feeling about this house. Something wasn’t right. Everything he’d seen so far had been too easy, too open and obvious. Yet all the indications about Didier’s character said the complete opposite. Which meant they were only seeing what they were meant to see.

He pressed against the door. Immoveable. No give whatsoever. Even in new houses, doors gave a little. In old hovels like this, they flexed like paper. ‘No. This is too easy. If Didier goes to the trouble of locking this cellar door, what is it that he doesn’t want anyone to see?’

‘The telephone?’

‘Probably. But what else? He plays with bombs, you said that yourself. What’s down there that would warrant a secure door like this?’

Claude’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You think he might have booby-trapped it?’ He stepped back a pace, licking his lips. ‘He’s certainly crazy enough, I’ll give you that. Anyone who’d do it to a bridge to stop kids trespassing is hardly sane, right?’

‘Maybe.’ Rocco broke off as a car drew up in the yard outside. Doors slammed, followed by footsteps approaching. As a shadow appeared in the doorway, he reached into his coat and put his hand on his gun.

It was a uniformed officer with a colleague a few feet behind him. Both looked wary and had their hands on their weapons. The lead man, tall and thin with a heavy, drooping moustache, waved his colleague to move to the side to cover him and gave Rocco a questioning look. ‘Stand still, please. Who are you?’

Rocco told him, and the man relaxed, nodding at Claude. ‘That’s a stroke of luck. Commissaire Massin says to get you to call in if we see you.’

‘You came all the way here for that?’ He wondered what could be so urgent, and whether Berbier had found another way of firing a shot across his bows, this time for good.

‘Hardly, no. It seems the owner of this place — Didier Marthe? — did a runner from the hospital. He’s wanted on charges of using unauthorised explosives… and now theft and criminal assault with an offensive weapon.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He smacked a male cleaner with a metal tray. Took out a row of teeth and damn near caused him to choke to death. Then he stole his clothes, wallet and car keys and locked him in a cupboard before going on the run. It took an hour for the cleaner to be missed, so Marthe could be almost anywhere. Detective Desmoulins said we should try here in the village first in case he heads back this way. Other units are checking the roads. What’s the story?’

‘We’re not sure yet. But you can probably add phone fraud to the charges, with more to follow.’

The man lifted his eyebrows. ‘Sounds like a real one-man crime wave.’ He looked around the room with distaste. ‘Christ, what a dump.’ He signalled for his colleague to return to the car. ‘We’ll head back, see if we can spot him on the way.’

Rocco nodded and watched them go. He didn’t give much for their chances: wherever Didier Marthe had disappeared to, he would be making sure that the car he’d stolen stayed well hidden.

As they left, he saw an old, mud-encrusted shoe on the floor. He nudged it so that it was touching the cellar door, then followed Claude out into the yard.

They made their way back to the main street, Claude looking perturbed. ‘I don’t get it. I don’t know Didier that well, but all this seems so…’ He stopped, lost for words.

‘Unbelievable?’ Rocco suggested. ‘Out of character?’ He shook his head. ‘People are never quite what they seem. It’s always the quiet ones, the loners, who come up with the big surprises.’ He stopped and looked back towards the house, a ramshackle place tucked away down a side street in the middle of nowhere. Like so many other houses on the outside, yet with a big difference on the inside. Something told him that so far, they had not even come close to knowing all there was to know about Didier Marthe.

Back home, he found another card from another journalist, this time a radio station. The vultures clearly hadn’t tired of trying to find a story. He tossed it aside and rang Massin to fill him in on what he and Claude had discovered about the telephone switch. ‘I can’t fathom out yet where it all fits, but the number assigned to Boutin was written down in Nathalie Berbier’s flat alongside the name Tomas Broute.’ The moment he said it, he remembered too late that he had not told Massin about his visit to the Felix Faure address.

There was a lengthy silence, then Massin said softly, ‘How could you know that?’

He thought about lying, but decided against it. Lies begat lies and soon he’d be knee-deep in them with no way of explaining himself. And so far, for whatever reason suited him, Massin seemed to be giving him a fair degree of latitude and help. He didn’t know why, but neither did he want to push that too far. He explained about their search of Nathalie’s flat and the sudden arrival of the men in cars.

‘Did they see you?’

‘No. And we didn’t leave any traces, either.’

‘You trust this concierge woman?’

‘More than most. She’s an old friend.’

‘Very well. But if Berbier hears that you gained entry to his daughter’s flat, do not expect me to bail you out.’ He paused, then added, ‘As for the logo on the photo you found, it stands for Agence Photos Poitiers — APP. The shop closed during the war because of lack of chemicals for developing, but the owner opened up again afterwards before handing over to his son. He still has an interest, although he now lives near Rouen. His name is Ishmael Poudric. I told him you’d be dropping by and cleared it with the local police, so you shouldn’t run into any jurisdictional problems.’ He read out the address with directions, which Rocco scribbled on the reverse of the photo. He checked his watch. Nearly noon.

‘I’ll get right on it. Thanks.’

The phone went dead.