Death on the Marais

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

‘So she was here, then. The Berbier girl.’ Claude followed Rocco out of the lodge and kicked the door shut behind him. It bounced open again, trailing the ruined lock and splinters of wood. He let it swing.

‘I think we knew that.’ Rocco felt oddly deflated by the discovery, the piece of jewellery merely underlining the fact that, apart from the crate of forgotten groceries, they had still found no trace of Francine Thorin. But why was the crate left out here to spoil? A few items had been taken, but he didn’t think a random thief would have left anything behind: a prize of fresh supplies like that was simply too good to miss. No, if it was anyone, it would have been Didier, snatching whatever was easy to carry and wouldn’t spoil too quickly. A man on the run has no time to plan his menu.

‘They must have been put off,’ he said half-aloud.

‘Who?’

‘The guests for the latest party… the one this stuff was intended for. They must have heard the news and cancelled… or received a call telling them it was off.’ A murder in the area will do that, he thought sombrely. People aren’t keen on partying with a killer on the rampage.

‘I can’t believe it.’ Claude swept his arm around at the lodge with an expression of disgust. ‘All that inside… and happening right under our noses. And nobody in Poissons knew a thing.’

‘Someone did,’ Rocco corrected him. He switched off the torch and stared out across the marais. ‘Didier Marthe knew.’

‘Just him?’ Claude puffed out his lips in disbelief. ‘Yeah — you’re right. Something else I find baffling: that a worm like him had anything to do with this… this extravagance.’

‘You mean a nonentity having access to wealth?’ Rocco shook his head. ‘Half the crims in the world are nonentities on the outside. It’s what makes them so hard to spot.’ He nudged the crate with his foot. ‘Anyway, I doubt it was his money he was playing with. He was just the local fixer.’

‘You think he had partners?’

‘I’d bet my car on it.’ He thought he knew who that partner might be, but proving it would be the interesting bit. But that was his job. He looked around, a thought tugging at his subconscious: something wasn’t right about this scene. Then he realised.

The blue crate. A car.

‘She couldn’t have carried the crate all the way down here,’ he said softly. ‘And someone saw her driving. So where’s her car?’

They scoured the immediate area around the lodge. The ground was soft, which should have been ideal for finding traces of a car. But the surface had been laid with several layers of wood chippings and dried reeds, and other than a mess of indistinct footprints around the crate and the back door, there were no definite furrows to show the passage of a vehicle.

‘Hang on.’ Claude walked round to the front of the building, to where Rocco had left his car. He inspected the ground where the soil was harder, and looked up towards the nearest bed of reeds that led to the lake. He pointed and said dully, ‘Over there. The bastard drove her into the lake! ’

They ran across to the reed bed. Most of the stronger reeds on the bank were more or less upright. But beyond that, it was clear that something heavy had ploughed right through into the murky water, chopping down the thinner vegetation and carving a trough through the soft mud. A blueish glimmer of metal caught the light just below the surface, and Rocco felt the hairs move on the back of his neck as he realised what he was looking at. It was the roof of a car, just visible through the murk.

‘What car did she drive?’

‘A Panhard,’ said Claude. ‘Duck-egg blue, I think. It probably drove like one, too. Don’t tell me-’

‘It’s here.’ Rocco turned and headed for his car.

‘Wait! Can’t we do something?’ Claude skidded down to the water’s edge, staring at the area where the car was sitting.

‘Like what?’ Rocco called back. There were no bubbles to indicate trapped air slowly escaping, no signs of life. If Francine was down there, she was beyond any help they could give. ‘There’s no point.’

‘How do you know that? You don’t!’ He made to step into the water.

Rocco stopped him. ‘Actually, I do,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve seen enough cars go in the Seine to know. And it’s been down there too long. No car is that waterproof, believe me.’ He gave Claude a look full of sympathy. ‘I’ll go to a phone and get a recovery team out here

… drag it out to make sure.’

It was mid-afternoon before a police recovery unit complete with a diver had arrived and were winching the Panhard with agonising slowness out of the lake onto the bank. By that time both Rocco and Claude had had to restrain each other from going in the lake to investigate the contents of the car themselves. As it ground out of the water and reeds, a stream of near-black water sluiced out of the battered doors and windows, bringing with it a choking stench of mud, stagnant water and rotted vegetation topped off by a cloud of heavy blue smoke from the motor winch on the recovery truck.

The roof and door pillars of the car had caved in under the pressure of being hauled out, but the shell was still intact. The driver’s door had been left open, according to the diver, but he had found no trace of a body on the outside.

‘Could she have fallen out?’ said Rocco.

The diver shook his head and spat expertly into the water. ‘There’s no current down there; she wouldn’t have drifted anywhere.’

Even before the last of the water had drained away, Rocco and Claude were bending close by the car, disregarding the filth pouring over their shoes and staring at the interior with a shared feeling of dread.

It was empty.

‘Thank God,’ Claude whispered, and made a rapid sign of the cross. One or two of the police team echoed the gesture, while the others looked almost disappointed. Claude glanced at Rocco. ‘What now?’

‘We find her, wherever she is,’ Rocco said darkly. He stepped away from the vehicle, squelching through the muddy detritus and nodding his thanks to the team leader. ‘And when we find her, Didier’s going to wish he’d never set eyes on this place.’

It was a short walk through the trees to the Blue Pool, and Rocco led the way, his long stride soon leaving Claude behind. They were followed all the way by the stink of mud and the sound of the recovery team packing up their gear. It was probably a waste of time, Rocco decided, as they arrived at the edge of the sparkling clear water. But he had to be sure. He had seen too many examples of the blindingly obvious being ignored, only to find that it was obvious for a very good reason.

But the pool reflected silently back at them, cool and clear and empty.