Death on the Marais

CHAPTER FIFTY

Rocco pulled his leg back, balanced agonisingly on one foot. If the wire was released too quickly, it might still trigger whatever device was waiting for him. He put his foot down, then lowered himself to the ground. He began probing the immediate area with his fingertips, nudging aside stems of grass and dead reeds.

The ground was clear. That left the wire itself.

It was drawn tight across the path, held by two metal spikes driven into the ground. He couldn’t see what the wire was connected to, but it ran off to his right after being curled around the spike, before disappearing into the reeds by the side of the path. He leant over and ran his fingertips along its length, stopping abruptly when he encountered something cold, round and metallic, held in place by three more spikes. He recognised the shape immediately.

Grenade.

Rocco felt a chill move across his shoulders and down into his groin. If he had triggered the tripwire, it would have tugged the secondary wire, setting off the grenade just as he moved level with it. It was a mantrap, of the type he’d seen in Indochina and other places. One of the simplest forms of killing device with the minimum of hardware: a grenade pinned in place by pegs, sticks or in a bamboo cup, with the pin balanced and waiting for the lightest of tugs to set it off. Cheap, easy to place and deadly.

He waited for his breathing to settle and wondered what other little surprises Didier had waiting for him. This one had been simple to put in place: with practice — and if anyone was practised in the art of killing it was Didier — it would have taken seconds to ram the spikes home, string up the wire and drop the grenade in place. What he didn’t know was whether Didier was carrying more such devices.

He stepped past the grenade and continued along the path to the bridge. No time to disarm it now… and trying to do so in this light would be a quick way to blow off his face. He could see the roof of Didier’s house. No sounds came from it, no light. No movement.

He eyed the dark bulk of the bridge. The last time he’d crossed it, there had been no tripwires or booby traps. But that was then. Didier had changed the rules of engagement. If he’d once spiked the bridge to deter a few kids, he’d do it for a cop with even fewer regrets.

Rocco shook his head. Was he giving the man too much credit? Would it be another tripwire or a pressure plate and some plastique? Whatever, he didn’t care to take the risk, and discomfort won out over death or dismemberment. He moved past the bridge and slid down the bank until he reached the water, which was cool and flowing smoothly. He slid his feet into the depths, feeling the cold moving up his legs until he was standing knee-deep, with tendrils of weed holding his calves in a gentle embrace. If Didier put in an appearance now, he reflected, bringing up his gun, he wasn’t going to waste any time on semantics: he’d shoot him where he stood.

The water gurgled noisily around his legs as he moved forward, and he reached the far side convinced that his approach had woken half the village. Clambering up the far bank, he looked across to the house and saw a dim light burning just inside the open door.

Before swinging over the top of the bank, he eased off his shoes and emptied them of water, then squeezed out his socks. Replacing them, he waited for the moon to slip behind a cloud, then stood up and walked across the open yard until he fetched up alongside one of the two large artillery shells either side of the door. From inside came the clinking sound of glass, followed by a heavy sigh. Didier drinking.

The clouds shifted again and suddenly moonlight flooded the yard. Rocco felt the hairs on his neck stirring. If Didier happened to poke his head out of the door, there was no way he could miss seeing him. He lifted the gun to head level and waited. There was nobody to see what went on here, no one to enforce the rules and regulations determining calls for surrender or the dropping of arms; one sign of the little man and his big gun and it would all be over. Then he heard a rattle of a key and the sound of a door being tugged open. The cellar.

Rocco waited until Didier’s footsteps faded away down the steps, then stepped inside the house. The shotgun was lying on the kitchen table. He picked it up and placed it out of sight behind a chair, then slid off his shoes and followed Didier down into the dark.

He was at the bottom of the steps before he saw a dim light at one end of the cellar, through a narrow doorway. He stopped to allow his eyes to adjust and checked the floor for obstacles. The atmosphere down here was surprisingly dry, and smelt faintly of nothing more noxious than machine oil. He moved away from the steps and edged towards the light.

Didier had his back to him. He was kneeling in front of a large metal cabinet, with a leather bag by his side. He was dropping items into it in rapid succession, using his one good arm.

Rocco took in the room at a glance. The doorway where he was standing was a cheap plywood partition to section off this end of the cellar from the rest. Apart from the metal cabinet, there was a table, an armchair and a wardrobe. Along one wall was a wine rack filled with dust-covered bottles. A radio stood on a shelf on the opposite wall, with a line of thin paperback books below it. Cheap novels and ageing wine, Rocco noted. Didier’s attempt at a higher form of life than the one he presented to the outside world.

Something must have changed in the atmosphere to alert the scrap man, because he uttered a shrill sound and spun round, dropping something on the floor.

It was a thick wad of money bound together with a rubber band. Alongside it lay a film reel.

Rocco leant against the wall and made sure Didier could see the gun in his hand.

‘Come back for vital supplies?’ he murmured. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the confined space. He gestured for Didier to stand up.

Didier did as he was told, his eyes hot, black holes in a yellowed face. If he was alarmed by Rocco’s sudden appearance, he wasn’t showing it. The stump of his arm was sheathed in a filthy bandage and covered with a plastic bag, and dried blood the colour of a milky chocolate drink showed where it had seeped through the gauze. He hadn’t shaved and looked even gaunter than Rocco remembered. And sick. He was amazed the man was still standing.

‘What do you want?’ Didier demanded. ‘Money?’ He nodded at the wad of notes on the floor. ‘Take it, it’s yours. If you let me go.’

‘No chance.’ Rocco stared at him with disgust. ‘You think you can just buy yourself out of this?’

‘Why not? It’s what you people do, isn’t it — take money to look the other way?’

Rocco stepped forward. He resisted the impulse to lash out, instead nudging Didier into the armchair. He bent and flicked open the bag. It contained a few items of clothing and more cash in rubber bands. And something wrapped in greaseproof paper.

‘You taking a holiday?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘They came to kill you, didn’t they? The men in the woods. What was that about — thieves falling out?’

Didier said nothing, simply sat hunched in the chair with a brooding menace.

‘Of course, you know he’ll get away with it.’ Rocco hitched one hip onto the corner of the table, his gun resting on his thigh. Didier stared fixedly at it, but said nothing. ‘People like him always do. They’re like greaseproof paper — nothing sticks to those ex-SOE types.’

At the mention of the SOE, Didier’s eyes shifted. A bright light was shining there, and Rocco shrugged elaborately, feigning indifference. ‘Still, what’s new, eh? Shit always sinks, you know that. He must have had his life planned since that night in forty-four. Lose the money, come back for it later when nobody was about and sail off into the sunset. He was on his own out there, with nobody to watch him. So what could go wrong?’ Rocco snapped his fingers. ‘Ah, silly me. You were there, weren’t you? Threw a bit of a spanner in the works I expect. But he was adaptable — the SOE had taught him that. He tipped some of the money your way and off you went like two honeymooners, set up for life.’

‘ Bastard! ’ Didier was breathing heavily, his jaw working. A dribble of saliva oozed down his chin and his good hand was shaking as if he’d been holding a road drill for too long.

‘What was that?’ Rocco leant forward. ‘Didn’t quite catch it.’

‘I should have had more!’ Didier spat out, pushing himself forward in the chair. ‘He cheated me… kept me under his foot all these years and treated me like filth! If it wasn’t for me, he’d have been under the guillotine a long time ago!’ He kicked suddenly, catching the corner of the metal cabinet with his boot. ‘But what I’ve got in there, he’ll live to regret it.’