Death on the Marais (26 page)
That immediately led to thoughts about Berbier and his place in the story. But his ruminations were interrupted by the phone jangling. Desmoulins answered. He listened for a moment, then looked at Rocco and held out the receiver.
‘It’s for you. Lamotte from Poissons? He sounds stressed.’
Rocco took the phone. ‘Yes, Claude.’
‘Sorry to chase you down, Lucas.’ Claude sounded breathless, as if he’d run up a flight of stairs. ‘I guessed you’d be there. Something’s not right back here. You know Francine at the co-op?’
‘I’ve met her. What about her?’
‘She’s gone missing.’
‘When was she last seen?’ Rocco met Claude outside the village café and told him to get in. He’d driven back as fast as the road would allow, elbowing aside those vehicles too slow to respond to his lights and horn, an echo of the urgency and worry in Claude’s voice riding with him. He’d left Desmoulins ready to call in extra help if needed, and to explain to Massin what he was doing. He’d also left a note describing the photo of Berbier and asking Massin if there was any
way he could check the industrialist’s SOE credentials. He’d have preferred explaining the reasons himself, but Desmoulins now had the bit between his teeth and would carry a convincing argument for the request being met. It might come to nothing: even Massin might find his authority blocked at the level involving former intelligence service records. But the fact that questions were being asked would be felt like vibrations along a telegraph wire, and that might prove a useful catalyst.
‘Yesterday afternoon. She served two people before closing, but since then, nothing. She didn’t open this morning, and two delivery trucks dropped stuff in the backyard without getting a signature. Someone thought they saw her driving out towards Amiens, but it was only a fleeting glance. She might have been going for special supplies.’
‘Or making deliveries.’ Rocco drove the short distance to the co-op and skidded to a stop outside.
‘What?’ Claude looked at him.
‘She told me she was going to make a delivery to the lodge down on the
marais
. Another weekend party, apparently.’
‘Christ.’ Claude slapped the side of his knee. ‘I never thought of that.’
Three women in traditional dark dresses, aprons and headscarves were standing near the front door, scowling furiously at the windows as if that alone would gain them admittance.
Like ravens at a funeral
, thought Rocco. He led Claude round to the rear of the shop, ignoring the women’s shrill demands about
when it would be open, and pushed through the gate. He found himself in the yard and threaded his way between two rubbish skips, pallets of new stock and several empty bottle crates to the back door. A garage stood empty to one side. The door was open, with an axe and a pile of chopped wood just inside, and the usual garage-type rubbish on a bench at the rear.
‘What are we doing?’ Claude demanded. ‘Shouldn’t we go straight to the
marais
?’
‘Not yet. We’d look pretty stupid if she was here all the time, ill in bed.’ Or worse, Rocco avoided saying. He tried the door, but it was locked fast. The windows were reinforced with wire mesh and steel bars, no doubt a condition of the insurance agreement. He went back to the garage and picked up the axe and walked back to the door. He jabbed the head of the axe through the thick glass panel, then reached through and found the key. Seconds later, they were inside.
It took moments to confirm that the building was empty. Rocco checked behind the counter, where he had seen Francine filling her delivery orders. There was no sign of the blue crate she’d been working on, he noted, nor any paperwork to go with it. And no sign of her car. It meant she had gone out on a delivery and was taking a long time to do it. Too long.
‘We’d better secure that back door,’ said Claude. He nodded at the women outside, who now had their faces pressed up against the window, watching silently. ‘Once word about this gets round, it won’t be long before someone pays the place a visit.’
‘How about … Arnaud, is it?’ Rocco remembered
the handyman Mme Denis had mentioned. ‘Could he do it for the time being?’
Claude nodded. ‘That’s his wife out front – I’ll get her to organise it. She’ll watch the place like a Rottweiler until it’s done and enjoy the drama.’ He went outside ahead of Rocco to make the arrangements, then joined him at the car.
Rocco drove fast for the
marais
. Alongside him, Claude was muttering and staring out at the passing scenery as if he might manage to summon up the missing woman by willpower alone.
Rocco felt for him. A small community like this bred closeness and a protective instinct among its members. And someone as harmless yet as fundamental to their needs as Francine would arouse strong feelings of concern. He tried to quell his own fears by telling himself that she had merely taken off for a break, that she had got tired of being on duty in the shop all the time without relief and had gone shopping. If so, all she would have to worry about was the fall-out of small-community public opinion going against her for letting them down. But that would soon fade: people still needed supplies, and he had the feeling Francine was quite capable of dealing with sniping from dissatisfied housewives upset because they couldn’t buy their cooking oil when they wanted to.
What bothered him more, however, was the thought that she might have walked into something down on the
marais
that she couldn’t handle: something more than just a few dissatisfied crones in black dresses and aprons.
Philippe Bayer-Berbier put down the telephone in his study and went to stand at the window, his brow creased in worry. He had just received a call from his contact in the Interior Ministry, informing him that Inspector Rocco had been signed in at a crime scene in Rouen the previous day. A retired war photographer had been murdered and Rocco’s card had been found on his desk, left from an earlier visit. Word had only just filtered through from the Rouen criminal investigations office that Rocco had returned at the request of a local detective, and had provided some background information on the dead man. So far, there was no information about why Rocco was interested in anyone in the Rouen district.
Berbier chewed his lip. The bloody man was what
the English so eloquently called a bad penny, he reflected sourly: always turning up when and where he was least required. He tried to relax; the muscles in his shoulders were bunching with tension, something he had experienced more often just recently than he was accustomed to. Following his daughter’s untimely and messy death, which had been bad enough, and the investigation unrolled by Rocco, he had also learnt of the sudden disappearance to America of his daughter’s neighbour and friend. While that by itself might have been an entirely innocent coincidence, he had since ordered Nathalie’s flat to be cleared and cleansed as a precaution. He had no reason to think anything remained there which might be found by the police or – God forbid – the press, but it was a possible loose end. And loose ends were what had got him to this situation.
He breathed deeply, feeling his heartbeat gradually settle. Even if the young neighbour knew anything, had picked up some idle chatter from his daughter, it was unlikely she would be a problem all the way across the Atlantic. But he would still have rested easier being reassured that Rocco would not be able to get to her.
He wondered about the dead photographer. Ishmael Poudric, his contact had said. The name meant nothing to Berbier; names from that period were fading with the years, along with the faces. But the man’s former address during the war – Poitiers – had touched something deep inside him, awakening unwelcome echoes of the past and bringing back memories of dark nights, cold, wet weather and the ever present danger
of discovery or betrayal. The more he thought about it the more he recalled seeing a man with a camera with one particular group of Resistance fighters. He himself had always instinctively avoided having his picture taken. But the others had been arrogant and stupid, encouraging the man to follow them. In the end it had made no difference: they had paid for their carelessness with their lives.
All except one.
Berbier winced at that, wondering how he could have been so utterly foolish, so naive as to have trusted his future to one man. Better he should have taken out his knife and dealt with the little ditch rat there and then. Instead, he’d tied himself to the treacherous cretin for life, an unholy alliance forged by his own greed.
He turned to his desk and looked at a sheet of paper containing a list of the police personnel in the Amiens
préfecture
. He’d had it sent over by his man in the Interior Ministry. It was a chance request prompted by an instinctive desire to know more about what and who he was dealing with.
Right at the top was a familiar name.
François Massin, district
commissaire
.
He picked up the telephone on his desk and toyed with the wire, studying the name and wondering. He and Massin had met once at the military academy, when Berbier was a visiting lecturer on intelligence and guerrilla tactics. He barely remembered the man, only that he had been thin, ascetic and lacking any sense of brotherhood, to most members an essential part of the
officer corps. To Berbier’s mind, not having it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: too much military thinking was tied up in mindless tradition, anyway. But what he did recall about Massin was first, his observance of the rule book, and second, that he had since received a stain on his record from his time in Indochina. More than anything, for someone who doubtless wanted to reach the top of his profession before it was too late, that made Massin malleable. And taking advantage of a man’s weaknesses was something Berbier understood only too well.
He read the
préfecture
telephone number off the sheet and was about to dial when there was a knock at the door. It was his driver.
‘What is it?’
‘An update from the Ministry, sir. The duty operator in Amiens says a woman has disappeared in Poissons-les-Marais. A local shopkeeper.’
‘So?’ Berbier’s mind was still on Massin, deciding what approach to take. Senior policemen could be arrogant and unpredictable, especially those with something to prove. He had little regard for the man, but he would still have to be careful not to overplay his hand.
His driver shuffled his feet and continued, ‘The investigator Rocco was present when the call came in and left the office the moment he heard. He seemed unusually concerned, they said.’
Berbier put down the phone, a ripple of tension fluttering through him. He would call Massin later. For now, this took precedence. He had arranged for an
intercept of information passing through the Amiens office for this very possibility. If Rocco was on the move, he wanted to know about it. Why the inspector should be unduly concerned about a shopkeeper disappearing he couldn’t fathom, and nor should it matter. But anything related to Poissons-les-Marais or his daughter’s death had been flagged for his attention. And Rocco was undeniably part of that.
He made a quick decision. Things were coming to a head; he could feel it in his bones. ‘Get some men over there and find out what’s going on. You know who to look for.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The man nodded and left.
Berbier sat down behind his desk and steepled his hands in thought. There was still time, if he played it right, to derail Rocco’s further interference. He set about mentally composing his phone call to Massin.
Rocco skidded the Citroën into the
marais
at speed, the tyres throwing up dirt and gravel and sending up a mad scramble of birds from the trees as the engine blasted the silence apart. Alongside him, Claude closed his eyes and held on tight, muttering what might have been a prayer to the god of all travellers.
In spite of telling himself that Francine’s absence might be purely innocent, a part of Rocco’s brain was telling him that there was only one place where she might be – and not entirely of her own free will.
He felt the front wheels skating on soft earth as they approached the main lodge along the narrow track. With just a few centimetres of solid ground on either side, he had little room for error. But now was not the time for caution. If his fears were correct, everything
depended on getting to the lodge as fast as possible. He felt the steering wheel twitch as the ground tried to suck in the front offside tyre, and a flurry of black mud sprayed into the air and plastered itself across the windscreen. He switched on the wipers but they merely smeared the mixture across the glass, rendering the ground ahead barely visible. Rocco thrust his head out of the window and watched the ground by the front wheel, conscious that at this speed, if he made a mistake and hit wet soil, they would plough right off the track and into the nearest stretch of unforgiving ooze.
Then they were into the turning circle in front of the lodge. Rocco stamped on the brakes, sending the heavy car into a sideways drift and spraying debris across the front of the building. They finally lurched to a stop within arm’s reach of the veranda.
He turned off the engine and leapt from the car. He was carrying the axe from Francine’s garage. The front door was locked and solid, as before, and he already knew by the feel that the axe would make little impression. He hurried round the side of the building, checking the shutters for weaknesses, signalling Claude to do the same the other way.
They met at the rear of the building.
A familiar blue crate of groceries lay spilt on the ground near the back door.
When Rocco last saw it in the co-op, it had been nearly full. But not now. A box of sugar lumps lay on the ground, with a line of ants helping themselves to the contents through a tear in the soft cardboard. Flies
and wasps were feasting on a ripped bag of apples and a bunch of grapes, the fruit already turning soft and brown in the heat, and a carton of milk had ballooned and burst open. A furious army of smaller insects was taking full advantage of the bounty, a moving carpet of black dots in the spreading yellow film.