Death on the Pont Noir Read online

  ‘I suppose.’ Tasker thought about how hard the small truck had hit them. Anything bigger would have run right over the top.

  Ketch’s eyes glittered. ‘That’s that, then. You’d better get going. By train and boat this time, I’m afraid. We need to keep the flights for special occasions.’

  Tasker stood up, an electric feeling building in his veins. It was always like this before a job. Now he knew what it was, and what was required, he was itching to go. And by train and boat suited him fine.

  ‘Before you do …’ Ketch stood up and came round his desk. ‘You asked why now. Our French pals tell me the weather’s closing in and there could be a lot of snow on the way. It’s changed the agenda over there, that’s all. Still, no worries, eh? A job’s a job. Tell Fletcher all he needs to do is what he did last time: wind up the spring, wait for the target and hit it square on. As for you, you do your bit and don’t you worry about him. He’ll be busy.’

  Tasker felt uneasy. No matter what Ketch was saying, this was nothing like last time. Last time hadn’t been for real.

  ‘He’ll be on his own, then.’ Jesus, that was cold. Fletcher out in the middle of nowhere … he’d never make it back. Other than his usual delivery routes, the big idiot barely knew his way around the south-east of England, let alone some foreign patch of mud.

  Ketch’s next words put a cap on the subject with chilling finality.

  ‘Casualties of war, George. Casualties of war.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Waiting for Santer to call back was going to be agony, and Rocco knew he’d be climbing the walls before that happened. He decided to fight fire with fire. He picked up the telephone and called Inspector Nialls in London.

  ‘Hello, Lucas.’ Nialls sounded wary. ‘Sounds as if you’re having problems.’

  The British art of understatement, Rocco figured. He wondered how Nialls had heard.

  ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘you do not believe everything you hear.’

  ‘I don’t. Especially when I heard so quickly. Your friend Broissard called me about an hour ago. He suggested in a roundabout manner that it might be better if I ignored any further approaches from you.’ He paused. ‘Sorry, Lucas, I shouldn’t have told them about our chat, but I figured you were all working in the same neighbourhood.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Rocco. ‘I thought the same. Can I still ask for your help?’

  ‘Of course. I’m retiring, so I don’t care.’ He chuckled lightly down the phone. ‘It’s a refreshing change after all these years of jumping through hoops and doing the right thing; a bit like being out of school, if I can recall that far back. How did it happen? Broissard wouldn’t say; merely suggested you’d been compromised by contacts with a criminal organisation.’

  Compromised, not accused. Broissard had been clever, he thought, no doubt acting on instructions from Saint-Cloud. The very mention of being compromised would make many police colleagues back away fast from the officer concerned, and would be enough to sink most careers without further question. ‘It was George Tasker and a man called Bones.’ He described what had happened and heard Nialls making explosive noises at the other end.

  ‘And they believed that load of old cobblers? Sorry, that means—’

  ‘I know what it means. And the answer is yes, they believed it.’

  ‘Christ Almighty, Tasker being involved would be enough for most coppers this side of the water to smell a rat, he’s done it so often. It rather explains where he was flying off to, though, doesn’t it? I suppose there are similar small airfields near you where he could have landed?’

  ‘A few,’ Rocco agreed. There were often small planes buzzing around the skies in the area, and he had a good idea where the most active club airfield was situated. He made a note to get Desmoulins onto it.

  ‘The other man was Bones, you say?’ Nialls continued. ‘That sounds disturbingly familiar. Did you get a first name?’

  ‘No. We were not introduced. But he takes a good photograph.’ Rocco described the man and heard the sound of a low whistle at the other end.

  ‘I thought so. There’s only one man I know who fits that description. Let me double-check, will you? I’ve a colleague here who knows Tasker’s circle of festering little mates better than I do. Won’t be a second.’ The phone went down with a clunk and Rocco heard a mumble of voices in the background, followed by laughter. Seconds later Nialls was back.

  ‘Well, that was easy. Fortunately, Tasker’s no Einstein; he used one of his own friends. My colleague confirms that it was a photographer named Patrick Daniel Skelton, known as “Bones”. That’s a play on words, although I suspect you know that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Right. Skelton lurks at the lower edges of his profession, providing so-called evidence for divorce scams set up by a couple of private detectives. When he’s not doing that, he freelances for one of the nastier news rags and does photographic work for magazines in Soho. He has several minor convictions for handling pornography. I’ve had the dubious task of talking to him myself on a couple of occasions. I felt like having a bath after each one.’

  ‘And he is a friend of Tasker?’

  ‘Yes, although probably more supplier than friend.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I gather George Tasker has a rather brutal approach to getting women. Skelton gets them coming to him all the time, hoping for “film” work. One feeds the other.’

  Rocco recalled Tasker’s expression when he’d seen Alix at the station. The air of sexual menace in his eyes had been blatant, and what Nialls had said came as no surprise.

  ‘Can you find out if this Skelton was out of the country at the same time as Tasker?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?’

  ‘What exactly does Fletcher do?’

  ‘You mean when he’s not throwing his weight around for Ketch or Tasker? He’s a doorman – a bouncer. But when he’s not bullying drunks, he drives haulage trucks. Most of it’s involved with shifting illegal goods, but we haven’t been able to catch him at it yet.’

  Rocco thanked him and put down the phone. So, another driver.

  A truck driver.

  A truck ramming a car. He pictured the scene, and thought about the two men involved. Fletcher the giant fist, the battering ram; Calloway the expert, the artist. Which one would be more useful for an attack on the president? A getaway driver with the skill to out-distance any police pursuit must be high up there. In most of the previous attacks, putting distance between themselves and the vengeful authorities had proved the most difficult thing for the gunmen to accomplish. In most cases, anyone who had escaped had done so through a knowledge of the area, of being able to slip away through narrow backstreets and hide among the local population. Or by sheer unadulterated good fortune. Because sometimes luck favoured the ungodly, too.

  But if Rocco’s suspicions were correct, what use would a racing driver be on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere? With none of the usual security, public or press on hand, why would they need speed to escape afterwards? If the planned visit to the Pont Noir was going to be private, even the normal publicity machine would be unaware of the president’s presence. Any ensuing getaway would therefore be almost surreally casual in its execution.

  Which meant Calloway wouldn’t be required. Not there, at any rate.

  Because Fletcher would be the instrument of assault. Fletcher would be the giant fist driving a very blunt instrument. Everything hinged on him.

  He’d been looking at the wrong man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The Lilas Garage in St Gervais was a hive of activity when Caspar arrived and parked across the street. It was just after seven in the evening. Set amid a row of small houses down a cul-de-sac, the place had an air of neat respectability, with a freshly painted frontage and a large roller door keeping the noise in and, he suspected, unwanted visitors out.

  He’d driven out from the city as soon as he’d got the c
all from Santer, keen to help in any way that he could with Rocco’s dilemma, the need to go trawling for OAS leads forgotten. If the DS wrecked near Amiens had come from this garage, and it was tied in with an assassination plot against the president, then he was ready to do whatever it took to prove the link. Not that he felt overly bothered by a threat to de Gaulle. But helping out Rocco, who had given him a chance when nobody else had, was very high on his list of priorities. If that also helped preserve Le Grand Charles for another day … well, you couldn’t have everything.

  A tour of local bars, playing the part of a cautious motorist seeking a reputable garage to supply and service a decent car, had thrown up the names of one or two local businesses. Oddly, few had mentioned Ets. Lilas Moteurs, and those who had had been reluctant to give glowing endorsements, with one or two clamming up when he’d pressed them for details. Caspar’s nose for the faintly dubious, along with a friendly call to a one-time colleague in the area, had soon verified that the garage was not quite what it seemed. They did not encourage walk-in customers, and had no visible used-car lot. They appeared, however, to process a good number of vehicles, although few, if any, buyers were ever seen on the premises.

  Caspar watched the place and waited. He’d picked up a hint from his one-time colleague that the owner was actually only a manager, but it was going to be difficult to prove who owned the place without going through a lengthy process of accessing business records with the local town hall. That was something Santer would be able to do legitimately. In the meantime, Caspar preferred to see if he could shake something up the old-fashioned way.

  A heavyset man in blue overalls appeared from a Judas gate in the roller door, stepping to one side and lighting up a cigarette. Behind him as the door opened and closed came the bright flutter of a welding torch and the clatter of metal hitting a concrete floor.

  Caspar climbed out of his car and wandered across the street, lighting up a cigarette and holding it with the glowing end cupped in his hand. He nodded at the mechanic, who grunted in return, but eyed Caspar warily.

  ‘A guy said this might be a good place to pick up a decent car,’ he said casually, and named one of the bars where the garage had been mentioned. ‘I think his name was Marco.’

  ‘Is that right?’ The man studied him carefully. ‘I don’t know any Marco.’

  ‘Well, maybe I got it wrong. But you do sell cars, right? For cash?’

  ‘Now and then.’ The man indicated with his chin Caspar’s car, a dark-blue Peugeot. ‘But it looks like you’ve already got one.’

  ‘It belongs to my brother. He lent it to me but he needs it back.’ He dropped the cigarette and stamped on it. ‘Still, if you’re not interested.’

  ‘Depends how much you want to spend,’ said the man. ‘We do good work – we’re not cheap. And it would have to be cash.’

  ‘Sure. Are you the owner? Only I like to deal with the boss.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t trust me?’ The man looked prickly, his eyes narrowing. His voice had dropped to a low growl.

  ‘I’m not suggesting that. I just like to know who I’m dealing with, that’s all – especially if I’m going to spend a decent amount of money.’

  ‘Then I’m the boss, yes. You dealing or not?’

  The man was lying. Caspar didn’t know who he was, but he wasn’t the main man – he could feel it. ‘Okay. Have you got any models I can see?’

  ‘Not here.’ The mechanic flicked his cigarette away and turned to go inside. ‘Meet me in thirty minutes … I need to finish up here first.’

  ‘Sure. Where?’

  ‘Back to the main road, go right and take the third on the right. There’s a lock-up down there where we keep our cars. Bring cash. You do have cash, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Caspar held out his hand. ‘I’m Michel.’

  The man ignored the hand. ‘Good for you. See you in thirty.’

  Caspar drove out of the street and followed the directions to the lock-up. It was as the man had said. The building was fairly new, a brick-built, metal-clad unit of the type springing up everywhere, and big enough, he estimated, to house about a dozen vehicles. It was in darkness, with no cars outside and no signs of life. He parked along the road and walked back to the front door, and peered through the glass. All he could see was an office containing two desks and a scattering of paperwork. He checked he wasn’t being watched and walked around the back, where he found a large roller door opening out to a hardstanding. The area was unlit, sunk in heavy shadows. There were no cars here, either. He stepped up close to the roller shutter, where an oval window was set in one of the metal sections. He rubbed away a film of grime and put his face against the glass. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the poor light.

  The lock-up was empty.

  He stepped back from the roller door and kept moving, walking away from the building until he was standing in the shadow of some trees fifty metres away, off-site. His skin was prickling and he felt his pulse quickening. He’d been in this situation many times before, and had learnt to follow his instincts; and right now, his instincts were telling him to get out – fast.

  But he waited.

  Ten minutes later, a car appeared and turned in at the front of the building.

  The man was early.

  Then he saw movement inside the vehicle. At least three occupants, all big. He stood absolutely still. The glow of the headlights wasn’t strong enough to reach back here, but he didn’t want to take any chances. This was their turf, not his, and they’d soon pick up on anything unusual.

  He heard the car doors opening and closing. A murmur of voices, then footsteps. One man appeared, walking away up the road, passing briefly beneath a street light. He was wearing a leather jacket and boots, broad-shouldered and with a shaved head. Checking out the parked cars, Caspar decided.

  Then two more men came round the side of the building and checked the rear yard. They were dressed in work clothing and heavy boots, and moved in concert without talking, as if they had done this before.

  Caspar heard an oath when they found the area empty, and watched as the men walked back to the front and stood chatting. The first man came back, and as he met his colleagues, he shook his arm and a length of metal pipe slid out of his sleeve.

  The three men laughed and got back in the car and drove away.

  Caspar found a bar and used the phone at the back. He called Santer at home. ‘It’s a chop shop,’ he reported, using an Americanism. ‘And they’re very jumpy. Word locally is, they don’t do any normal trade, just specialised stuff.’

  ‘Did you talk to anyone inside?’

  ‘Briefly. Their idea of customer relations is a bit unusual. I arranged a buying meet, and three of them came armed with iron bars.’

  ‘Ouch. You okay?’

  ‘Yes. I had a feeling about them and stayed out of the way. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t made – I just think they’re on high alert. I couldn’t even get a name. You’ll have to go through the paperwork.’

  ‘I can do that. Thanks, Marc. You’d better put your head down and stay out of trouble.’

  ‘I can follow up one of the OAS leads I’ve got.’

  ‘Okay. But watch your back.’

  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 l
ed 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.’