Death on the Pont Noir

CHAPTER FORTY

‘I didn’t realise today was a national police holiday.’ Mme Denis was waiting in the dark outside Rocco’s gate when he returned from a punishing five kilometres run along the Danvillers road. A sharp night chill had settled across the countryside — not ideal weather for running, but he’d used the exercise on the deserted road to vent some of the impatience and frustration from his system, and to free up his mind for what lay ahead. He was well aware that if he didn’t manage to clear himself of suspicion very quickly, he’d face a rough time indeed and be out of a job at the very least. And that was without the looming possibility that there was a credible threat to the president’s life, no matter what Colonel Saint-Cloud believed.

He opened the gate and led his neighbour into the house, his skin tingling at the sudden warmth. The road surface had been a shimmering patchwork of early ice crystals, promising a heavier than normal morning frost, and the grass on the verges was already showing stiff and pale. But the run had managed to make him feel energised once more. He considered how much he could tell his neighbour, and what the likelihood was that she would find out soon enough what had happened to him.

‘I’ve been suspended,’ he told her, putting some water on to boil. ‘Accused of taking a bribe.’

There, it was out. But he couldn’t think of handling it any other way. Mme Denis had welcomed him to Poissons and helped ease him into the village community as much as Claude Lamotte had done, albeit in her own way, and she was no fool; she knew today was no holiday for the police or anyone else.

‘Hah!’ She barked at him and nudged him to one side. She took the lid off his percolator, inspecting the filter before upending it and banging it onto a sheet of newspaper and dropping the contents into his rubbish bin. She rubbed her fingers on her apron. ‘I knew they were up to no good.’ She rinsed off the filter and replaced it, then filled it with fresh ground coffee from a tin in the cupboard.

Rocco watched her with amusement. ‘I’m glad you know your way around my kitchen. Who are you talking about?’

‘Those men who came to see you. Why do strangers think they can sit outside a house in a place like this with the engine running and not be noticed?’ She placed two cups and saucers on the table. ‘I saw him, the big one. He tried your front door, then went and stood out in the road with the other one. He looked like a weasel.’ She looked at Rocco with piercing eyes. ‘Not friends of yours, I hope. They looked like trouble. Foreigners. You shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late at night — it’s bad for the digestion.’

Rocco said, wondering if he wasn’t hoping for too much, ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw the big one hand you an envelope. Is that what this is all about? He was giving you money? Damn stupid of you to take it, if you ask me. No wonder someone thinks you’re a bad one.’ She pursed her lips and poured water onto the coffee, then placed the percolator on the stove, where it began to bubble with a regular, gloopy sound.

Rocco felt his spirits sag. He could have done with the support of this woman more than most. But if asked, all she would be able to say was that she saw him take an envelope from a stranger. It wasn’t going to make for the most convincing defence.

‘Still,’ she continued, dropping two sugar lumps into his cup, ‘you did the right thing by throwing it back at him, although,’ she prodded him in the chest, ‘I was hoping you were going to knock his head off — but you didn’t.’

‘You saw me give it back?’ He felt a weight lift off his chest. It was no guarantee, bearing in mind that she was his neighbour and friend. But it offered a slim chance that his story might now be believed.

‘Of course I did.’ She looked up at him and nudged him with her elbow, eyes twinkling. ‘What good are nosey neighbours if they never see anything?’

Rocco smiled down at her. ‘Thank you.’

‘Now, don’t go getting all emotional,’ she told him. ‘You’re not out of the mud yet. Who do I speak to?’

Massin. It had to be. ‘Commissaire Massin is my immediate boss,’ he said. ‘He might pass you on to someone higher — maybe in another station. But he’s a start.’

‘How do you get on with this Massin? Is he a good boss?’

He shrugged. He wasn’t about to go into their shared history, but she might as well know that they were not exactly best copains. ‘We manage — but that’s about all.’

‘That’s good.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘Because if he believes you, you’re in with a chance.’ She walked to the door. ‘I’ll call him from the phone in the cafe tomorrow first thing and put him right. And don’t worry — I’ll make sure all the gossipmongers are out of the room when I do it.’

Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door.

It was Claude Lamotte, carrying a shoebox under one arm.

‘Sorry it’s late,’ he announced, although he didn’t look it. He was puffing against the cold. ‘Are you in to visitors?’ He sniffed. ‘Ah, coffee. Lovely. I could do with a cup, thank you.’ He brushed past Rocco and dropped the box on the table, then helped himself to a cup and looked into it as if searching for gold.

Rocco took the hint. He lifted a bottle of cognac from the cupboard and handed it over. Claude grinned and added a liberal dose to his cup. He took a sip and looked at Rocco, eyes suddenly serious.

‘You all right?’

‘I’ve felt better,’ said Rocco. The police grapevine worked, even out here. Or maybe Alix had filled her father in on his news.

Claude cleared his throat and pushed the shoebox across the table. ‘That might help.’

Rocco lifted the lid. From the weight, he knew instantly what was inside, even before he smelt the familiar soft tang of oil.

Claude said nothing, merely studied the ceiling, rocking back and forth on his heels and slurping his coffee.

Rocco dropped the lid to one side. Wrapped in cloth in the bottom of the box lay a Walther P38. It had a walnut grip and included several loose rounds of ammunition.

‘It’s not right,’ Claude said quickly, when Rocco looked up at him, ‘a cop without a gun. Where the hell do they think this is — England?’ He looked flushed and blew out his cheeks with indignation. ‘Never heard anything so outrageous.’

Rocco took the pistol out of the box and checked the mechanism. It was in perfect working order and lightly oiled, the metal parts sliding together with immaculate precision. It had been well cared for over the years.

‘I suppose it’s no good me asking where you got this,’ he said.

‘I found it in a field.’ Claude stared innocently back at him without blinking, then shrugged expansively, daring him to suggest different. ‘It’s criminal what people leave lying around.’

By ‘people’, Rocco figured it had been a member of the German military. He wondered if that was all he’d lost. He put the gun down. ‘Thank you.’

Claude looked pleased. ‘Hey, don’t thank me — it was Alix’s idea.’ His eyebrows lifted and he looked decidedly proud. ‘Bloody kids… no respect for regulations. Still, what can you do, huh?’

The phone rang. Rocco leant across and picked it up. It was Santer.

‘Right, two things,’ the captain said without preamble. ‘The Lilas garage in St Gervais is a chop shop. They don’t like casual callers; Caspar went in as a buyer and nearly got himself tenderised with iron bars.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘He’s fine. His radar was working and he ducked out. I told him to stay away, and he’s going after some OAS group he’s got word on. After that, I did some digging. The garage is owned by a woman called Debussy… who is the wife of the manager. He in turn happens to be a nephew of… Patrice Delarue.’ He gave a bark of disgust. ‘The nerve of these people — they don’t even bother trying to hide what they’re doing! An intern could have found this in minutes.’

‘Delarue’s just keeping it in the family,’ said Rocco. ‘But he keeps his hands clean and the Debussy woman can always claim her husband was working without her knowledge. Nice people. Can we use it?’

‘Well, it’s enough to allow us in there to look at their paperwork, given a helpful judge to sign it off. If we can trace a receipt for the DS battery, it proves a link. We’ll probably find it hard to make that stick, but it’ll disrupt his organisation for a while until we get something better.’

‘Good work, Michel. I’ve a feeling a lunch is in order.’ It was a step nearer, and one that the Paris police would jump on. They had been after Delarue for far too long to let go easily of a chance to bring him down.

‘At last,’ Santer breathed, and laughed. ‘Food. The man’s talking my language. I can’t wait.’

‘You’ve earned it. What was the other thing?’

‘You recall the paratrooper, Captain Lamy, wounded in the N19 attack?’

‘Yes.’

‘It seems he’s just been found and questioned by the DST, our esteemed internal security organisation. He caught a secondary infection and had to be taken to hospital. He’s currently spilling his guts and claims he took part in the attack to help his brother. You now have to ask me who his brother is.’

‘I have no idea but you’re clearly about to tell me.’ He could sense Santer was enjoying this moment of triumph.

‘Actually, his name doesn’t really matter. Suffice to say he’s a gambler and general black sheep of the Lamy crop. Not a good gambler, because he owes a small fortune to a private casino owned by none other than Patrice Delarue. Captain Lamy claims Delarue told him if he didn’t help out, his delinquent brother would end his days in the Seine tied to a large piece of concrete. Personally, I think Lamy had to have been a sympathiser, anyway, so the decision wasn’t too hard for him to make. It just needed something like his brother’s skin to justify why he’d go along with it.’

‘That proves Lamy’s involved with Delarue. But is he tied in to any anti-Gaullist groups?’

‘I can’t prove that. But I did find out one little snippet.’

‘Which is?’

‘Six months ago, Captain Lamy applied to join the presidential security department run by your new best friend, Colonel Saint-Cloud.’

‘What?’

‘Yes. And in spite of his record of discontent, his name was placed on a reserve list. Given a few weeks and he could have been on the inside.’