Death at the Clos du Lac

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rocco and Claude arrived back at the Clos du Lac to find the small search party gathered around the kitchen table. Piled on the surface was a collection of food packets, sweets, several assorted bits of cutlery, a pair of nail scissors, a small silver clock, a man’s leather belt, a lipstick, two magazines and a bundle of papers held together by a clip.

‘The lipstick’s mine,’ said Inès. ‘It went missing a few days ago. I knew it must have been Stefan, but he just grinned like an idiot and denied it.’

‘Where was it found?’

‘In an air vent in one of the back rooms, along with those.’ She pointed at the papers.

‘The rest of the rubbish was dotted all over,’ said Desmoulins. ‘Nothing exciting, though, unless you can see anything relevant.’

Most of the papers were to do with running the sanitarium, from copy orders for supplies, compliment slips, old, blank letterheads, some unused envelopes, several pages of official instructions regarding the maintenance of the building, even a slim manual for operating an electric mixer.

The magazines were a surprise. Copies of an American photographic monthly, they were expensive and their presence was sufficiently unusual to warrant further examination. They looked well-thumbed, proof no doubt that they had been attractive enough to an inveterate jackdaw to want to hide them away from anyone else. Rocco put them to one side; he’d take a closer look later.

Among the papers was a letter addressed to Drucker. It was on Interior Ministry letterhead (Employment Section) dated two months ago, confirming a percentage increase of salary to an unspecified amount. The significant fact for Rocco was that it gave Drucker’s home address. He put that to one side also.

Another letter was addressed to Paulus. It was also on official letterhead, this one from the Interior Ministry (Defence Section), confirming his change of role from that of a serving NCO in the naval military police and taking on a short-term contract (to be extended if and when deemed necessary and depending on satisfactory performance) assigned to the Clos du Lac facility. This role was general security of the establishment and its residents, with authorisation to carry his naval-issue sidearm. His reporting line was daily to Director Drucker, and weekly direct to the Interior Ministry (Defence Section). A telephone number was underlined. A short paragraph at the end emphasised specific duties to watch patients S. Ardois and J. Tourlemain.

‘The names sound made up,’ Desmoulins commented.

The letter went on to request that Paulus report any unusual behaviour in the area, contacts between patients, and to take ‘all necessary action in the event of access to the patients by outsiders’.

‘Sounds a bit extreme,’ said Alix. ‘What were they frightened of?’

‘Actually, it sounds like the military,’ said Rocco. ‘A rule for everything so that everybody knows where he stands.’ He glanced at Inès. ‘What’s so special about Tourlemain?’

‘I don’t know.’ She looked mystified. ‘He’s one of the men who came here not long after André arrived. The other one was …’ She stopped, blinking rapidly.

‘Ardois?’ Rocco suggested.

‘Yes. They arrived at about the same time.’

‘So André was watching them both?’

‘Yes. How do you know?’

‘It makes sense. You said he was sent here after one patient went missing and shortly before another two arrived. If they had two more to watch over, who better than a military cop to do it?’

‘They must have been worth the effort,’ Desmoulins put in. ‘And the way one of them was killed, that sort of proves it. Can we trace them back?’

‘No.’ Inès shook her head. ‘We never know their back history, why they’re sent here or where they’re from. And not their real names.’

‘Or where they’re going?’ She nodded and Rocco wondered at that. ‘Somebody must know. You can’t just shift people around the country without some degree of planning.’

‘But why would you?’ said Alix. ‘What kind of people have false names and no back story?’

‘Spies.’ Desmoulins looked at them. ‘Spies operate undercover, without contacts or a real history. Not even their families know what they do.’

‘I can think of another group.’ Rocco stood up. He’d had a wild idea, but it needed corroboration to make it fly. And preferably the real identity of at least one of the former inmates. That made him pause: why was he thinking of them as inmates? Prisons had inmates, not sanitaria.

‘Where are you going?’ said Desmoulins.

Rocco picked up the letterhead with Drucker’s home address on it, and on impulse, the American photography magazines. ‘Hopefully, to a man who might have some answers. Even if I have to click his teeth together.’

Drucker’s home address was a neat house in the eastern suburbs of Amiens. It sat on a raised garden, with a garage underneath and had the air of a model, as if created by a giant. Drucker was obsessively tidy, Rocco thought, and must spend all his off time trimming the grass and polishing the slate chips filling every bit of space not covered by lawn or driveway.

He knocked on the door. No answer.

He tried the garage door beneath the house. It opened and swung up with a ping of metal springs to reveal an empty space. No tools, no rubbish, hardly a speck of oil on the concrete floor. In the far left-hand corner was a single door. He walked across and opened it. The aroma of polish was sucked into the garage. Something sharper, too, vaguely familiar, but not a cooking smell. Perhaps Drucker ate out a lot.

He stepped through the door. Immediately in front of him was a small cellar space, empty save for some cardboard boxes and a stack of newspapers. A flight of tiled steps ran up to a wooden door. He walked up and stepped into a hallway, also tiled. Silence.

The kitchen held the most basic equipment but that was all. The place was stripped of anything personal. No food in the cupboards, no personal clutter, a room barely used. The same elsewhere; no clothing left lying around, nothing in the bathroom save for a heavy smell of disinfectant, and in the living room, not even a lost sock or an envelope tucked down the back of the sofa. The bedroom contained an empty wardrobe, the door hanging open, a dresser and bedside cabinet, all empty, and a double bed with one pillow. Unless there was a Mrs Drucker, and she or her husband had neck problems, it meant Drucker lived alone.

He checked the rubbish bin at the rear of the property. It contained two empty bottles of floor cleaner and a wet rag.

He checked the bathroom again. It was spotless. Not a grain of dirt, not a splash of soap, not a strand of hair. Just the smell of cleaning fluid. The kitchen, by contrast, although clean, had the quick-wipe appearance of most houses, done to a presentable standard, but nothing to impress the neighbours.

Rocco could feel his antennae twitching. Something wasn’t right. It centred mainly on the smell he’d picked up when he first came through the inner door in the garage, and now in the bathroom. The two empty bottles of cleaning fluid.

Why so much — and only in the bathroom?

He checked his watch. Too late now to get Rizzotti. Still, he picked up the phone on the kitchen wall, got the dialling tone and rang the station. He left a message for the doctor to come out and take a look first thing in the morning. Another pair of eyes might spot something he was missing.

Next he rang Philippe Poitrel, the mayor of Poissons-les-Marais, and asked if he had any information about ownership of the Clos du Lac. He’d only ever spoken to the man once, and found him a stuffed shirt. But he was punctilious about his responsibilities, which were the administration of the commune.

‘I regret I cannot help you, Inspector,’ said Poitrel, with the hint of a sniff. ‘That building falls under central government control and I have no files relating to it. You will have to go to a higher authority than mine, I’m afraid.’ He sounded faintly peeved, Rocco thought, affronted by having been overlooked in the chain of paperwork.

‘Thank you, Monsieur le Maire,’ he said politely, and hung up.

He went home. It had been a long day and he needed some sleep.