Death on the Marais ilr-1 Page 25

  As the two policemen walked through the shadows across the car park, Rocco drew Claude to a stop before they reached the door. Something was niggling at his mind like a bad itch.

  ‘You said earlier about newcomers bringing trouble with them.’

  Claude looked abashed. ‘Sure. It was just a crack. I didn’t mean anything personal.’

  ‘I know that. But who were you thinking of, apart from me?’

  Claude puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, now you mention it, I suppose

  … Didier. Mostly.’

  ‘He’s been here — what, three years, you said?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Let me see… there’s Alain Dutronc down at the far end of the village, near my place… he arrived here about six months ago. He’s a quiet drunk, about eighty-five years old and doesn’t get out much. Then Mme Denis — she’s been here a few years. A bit of a gossip, but she’s OK.’

  ‘She’s not local?’ He remembered her saying something about having lived in Poissons long enough to know there were always surprises. At the time, he’d taken it as a statement about a lifetime’s knowledge of the village, or at least many years. With hindsight, it now took on a slightly different meaning.

  ‘She turned up several years ago,’ Claude confirmed, ‘with her husband. Not sure where from. He died and she stayed on. Someone said she lost her family in the war. I don’t know much about her, to be honest.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t push people to tell me their life histories.’

  Rocco mulled it over, remembering how he’d felt sure someone had been inside the house and moved the photograph of Didier Marthe and the Resistance group. There was also the curtain caught in the window, which he was sure hadn’t been like that when he’d left. Was Mme Denis more than a friendly neighbour? Had she used a spare key to see what he was doing here and how far he’d got with his investigation? But if so, she wouldn’t have needed to open the window to get in, even if she were able to.

  ‘And Francine, of course. But you know about her.’

  Claude’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Francine Thorin. Young, pretty, interesting. A widow. Friendly.

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘She arrived about two years ago.’ Claude shrugged. ‘That’s all I know. She doesn’t talk much but she’s sociable enough, fits into the community. I mean… she’s not exactly a good-time girl, you know what I mean?’

  ‘No secret life, then.’

  ‘If there is, that’s what she’s kept it — secret. But I don’t believe that.’

  ‘You didn’t know she was a widow,’ Rocco pointed out.

  ‘No.’ Claude frowned. ‘I didn’t.’ His frown deepened. ‘Look, where is this going? She’s had a rough time, with the kidnapping thing.’

  Rocco ignored him. Two years ago. He felt something about that time frame tugging at his memory. Was it significant?

  ‘What else happened in Poissons two years ago?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Apart from Francine arriving.’

  ‘Ah. Let me see… there was Jean-Po Boutin dying. Nasty business, but it was an accident. I told you.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘That was it. Nothing else major, as far as I can recall.’

  Rocco nodded, watching a flurry of activity under the lights by the entrance to the hospital as a crowd of press people gathered around a man in a white coat. They fell back as the man shook his head and waved what looked like a stack of papers, the laugh on them.

  Rocco was having difficulty trying to marshal the facts of the various comings and goings around Poissons, and deciding whether they were relevant to his case and why the time frame had lodged in his mind the way it had. Mme Denis arrives several years ago with husband; husband dies. Didier Marthe arrives three years ago. Francine Thorin turns up a year later. Jean-Paul Boutin dies at about the same time.

  Didier takes over Boutin’s telephone shortly after.

  Nathalie Berbier dies in the marais.

  Ishmael Poudric dies near Rouen.

  And years before that, at a time of huge upheaval and horror, a group of men and a woman vanish off the face of the earth.

  Except that two of them came back.

  Discount Mme Denis, he decided. He wasn’t sure why, but instinct told him that anyone with her sense of humour couldn’t be bad.

  ‘That’s a weird thing, now I come to think of it.’ Claude had his hands thrust into his pockets and was staring up at the night sky with his face screwed up as if delving into the secrets of the universe.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, coincidence, that’s all. For the first month or so after coming here, Francine lived in the house where you’re staying.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Rocco stood just inside the cool side room and watched the slim figure lying in the bed. It occurred to him with a sense of irony that Francine was in the very room vacated not long ago by Didier Marthe. Maybe, he thought vaguely, wondering if he wasn’t still feeling the effects of being shot, the hospital liked to save rooms for patients from the same postal area to give them a feeling of community.

  There were no machines here: none of the tubes and wires associated with the wounded, injured or about-to-pass-on; none of the atmosphere normally pervading the space where the seriously ill seem to hover on the doorstep to the next world. It was merely a room where a woman was sleeping.

  Bed rest, he’d heard it called.

  The doctor he’d spoken to said she was in a fragile mental and physical state, nursing vivid memories and trying to come to grips with being safe after her imprisonment. It would take time, he’d added, a less than subtle warning for Rocco to go easy on her. Mental trauma, he’d added pointedly, was not like gunshot wounds, where the scars were mostly physical.

  As Rocco moved towards the window he became aware of the patient’s eyes tracking him across the room.

  He stopped. ‘How are you feeling?’ He wondered how many times she had been in his house, either using the key from her own time living there or entering through the French window. It wouldn’t have been difficult to do. She would have seen the photo and it would have triggered… what?

  ‘OK.’ Her voice was a rasp, echoing sleep and probably drugs. She looked around as if acquainting herself with her surroundings, eyes flickering as they settled on each new item in the room. Then she looked away from him, face turned to the wall. He thought she might have fallen asleep, but when he leant over, her eyes were open.

  ‘You OK to talk?’ he asked, and sat down before she could say no. His side ached and he felt the bandage tight across his ribs, but it was bearable.

  ‘What about?’ Her voice was clearer but lacked strength and vitality.

  ‘What happened?’ When Francine said nothing, he explained, ‘That was a question, not a reply.’

  Her face turned towards his, but she didn’t look him in the eye. This close, he could see that the cuts on her skin were vivid red, but already starting to close and fade. The bruising he’d seen on her cheeks in the ruined lodge had diminished as if by magic, and he guessed that a kindly nurse had applied some discreet make-up.

  ‘Are you interrogating me?’ Her eyes were big, serious.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ he said carefully. ‘But I do need your help.’

  She sighed and nodded. ‘I went to make the delivery.’ The words came out stronger this time. ‘To leave the crate outside the main lodge as I’d been instructed.’

  ‘Was it by phone?’ He knew the answer but needed her to confirm it.

  ‘What? Yes. Yes, by phone.’ Francine looked confused for a moment, eyes almost closing. ‘A man. Several days ago. He said to leave the stuff at the back door and he’d arrange for it to be taken inside. So I did.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’d just got there, and was putting the crate down, looking for a safe spot to leave it where the birds wouldn’t get at it. Then the door opened and he came out.’

  �
�Who? Did you recognise him?’

  ‘No. I… no, I didn’t see his face. It was too quick.’ She shook her head, her hair falling across one side of her head. ‘Just too quick.’ A tear slid out of her eye and down her cheek. ‘I never saw him.’

  Rocco had to resist the temptation to brush the hair away. ‘Not even when he tied you up? Not a glimpse… nothing?’

  ‘I told you. No.’ Her voice dropped to a murmur. ‘He told me to look away or he’d drop me in the marais, where nobody would ever find me. He kept talking about the Blue Pool.’ She shuddered and looked at him. ‘Did you hear about it?’

  Rocco nodded. ‘I did. But it’s not true — it’s just a geological oddity.’ He wasn’t sure about that but he wanted Francine to feel safe. Secure.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Did he at any time say what he was going to do? Why he was keeping you there?’

  ‘No. He said he had… things to do. Things to finish. I was his laissez-passer, he said. I didn’t know what that meant. I kept asking him why but he didn’t seem to have any idea. I thought I was going… to die.’ She gulped and a tremor went through her shoulders.

  ‘Pity you didn’t recognise his voice.’ Rocco kept his tone matter-of-fact, yet probing. The art of suggestion often accomplished what direct questions could not.

  ‘I suppose.’ She still wouldn’t look at him, but he could see her eyes were wet, red-rimmed. ‘I heard a nurse say earlier that there had been explosions and several men killed. What happened?’

  ‘Some men followed the man who kidnapped you into the woods. They trod on some abandoned ammunition from the wars. They’re all dead.’

  ‘What about the man? What happened to him?’

  Rocco paused, stuck for an answer. If he told her Didier was dead, and no longer a threat, the truth would soon come out; he’d be a liar and for what reason? If he told her Didier was still out there, she might retreat into a shell and not come out again. Then something hit him like a cold shower.

  She hadn’t asked about the dead men. She was only interested in Didier. Who wouldn’t show at least some curiosity about who the dead men were? Was that because she already knew?

  He forced himself to push on and said, ‘He got away but he’s badly injured. Don’t worry — we don’t think he’ll be back.’

  She looked him in the eye for the first time, and he found the directness of her gaze oddly disturbing. It was almost as if she was trying to probe his mind. Then she sighed and turned her head away.

  ‘So why me? Why do you think he attacked me? Kept me prisoner?’

  He wasn’t surprised by the questions, but found himself fastening on her tone of voice. He’d dealt with crime victims more times than he could recall: the targets of burglaries, assaults, even two kidnaps. They often asked the same question: ‘ Why me? ’, as if trying to understand if there was a personal element to what had happened. Nearly always they had been fearful, resentful, even angry, as if they’d been plucked out of the crowd with deliberate intent.

  Yet Francine sounded almost detached. Analytical. Calm, even.

  He was tempted to tell her that no, it had been purely random, the act of a desperate man. She’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But something stopped him. ‘Why do you think he did it?’

  She spun her head to look at him again, then frowned.

  ‘What do you mean? I told you, I asked him but he never said. How would I know what it was?’ Her skin flushed and he held her gaze, watching her eyes. She turned away again.

  Rocco stood up, gently patted her arm. ‘OK, I’ll leave it for now. We’ll talk again later, when you feel rested.’ He paused, sensing she was waiting for him to leave. Then he said, ‘One more question, though, for the press outside. They know you’re in here; they’re looking for background details. Is Thorin your family or married name?’

  ‘My family name.’ Her voice was a whisper, the response automatic.

  He left her.

  On the way outside he waved to Claude, who was busy chatting to a pretty nurse, then used the telephone on reception to call the office. He asked to speak to Rene Desmoulins and gave him another job to do. This one, he said, was urgent.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Rocco got Claude to drop him at the office, then went in search of Massin.

  Word had gone ahead and the senior officer was waiting for him in the corridor. He waved Rocco to a room just down from his office and spun the blinds to blank out passing foot traffic.

  ‘You did good work,’ Massin began, taking a tour of the room. It was an impersonal space with a long table and a few chairs. A police radio loudspeaker extension was located at the end of the room. Massin walked over and switched it on, and a flow of voices interspersed with static filled the air. He returned to face Rocco and sat down at the table. ‘Nearly got yourself killed in the process, though. You enjoy living on the edge like that?’

  ‘No. It was the way it worked out.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t bring back any live ones.’ Massin tapped the table with a bony fingertip. ‘It would have been useful finding out who employed those men.’

  Rocco wondered if Massin was playing at being obtuse or merely cautious. ‘Did you trace the car registration?’

  ‘Of course. That was easy. It was one of several stolen in the Paris region over the past five or six months. All Citroen DS, all official in appearance. It was probably kept in a lock-up until it was needed.’ He snapped his fingers, struggling for a phrase. ‘What’s the underworld description for such vehicles?’

  ‘Use, abuse and lose.’ It was also the term employed by crime squad members in Paris for cars used in armed robberies and bullion heists. The driver would be in a police uniform and the car plus the cap would be enough to fool the target long enough to gain access and carry out the job. After the job, the cars were dumped or torched, often both. He wasn’t surprised by the revelation, merely disappointed. It would have been useful to have a line going back to the owner.

  ‘Appropriate. You’ve spoken to the kidnap victim?’

  Rocco nodded. ‘She didn’t see a face, though.’ He went quickly through his chat with Francine, but he could see that Massin wasn’t really listening. He wondered what was on the officer’s mind. He soon found out.

  ‘I tried to find out some of the information you requested,’ Massin said, and waved a finger pointedly at the ceiling and walls. ‘I got nowhere. In fact,’ he straightened his tie, ‘I was told in no uncertain terms to leave it alone. I may not care to be told that, as a professional policeman, but I have to recognise that there are certain… lines of questioning that it would be foolish for anyone to pursue without a clear and solid reason.’

  ‘But what if those lines are connected to a murder investigation and another one of attempted murder?’

  ‘You don’t know that for sure. Thinking it does not prove it. Surmising something is not enough — you know that.’

  Rocco reined himself in. He’d virtually resigned himself to thinking that Massin would not have tried too hard to find out about Berbier’s past, not if it meant pushing his nose into official files. Yet by Massin’s elaborate finger signals just now, was he actually suggesting the room might be bugged? If so, this put things on an entirely different level. He answered equally enigmatically. ‘I understand. At the moment, I have lines of enquiry to follow, but nothing concrete.’

  ‘Pity.’ Massin looked disappointed, even pained. ‘Exactly what information do you have on the… subject in question?’

  The radio had fallen silent while they were talking, and was now emitting a faint hiss of static. Rocco walked over to it and moved the dial until a renewed welter of chatter came back. He turned up the volume, then returned to sit next to Massin. It was time to put what information he had down on the table.

  He spoke quickly. ‘I know Philippe Bayer-Berbier passed through the Poitiers area during the war sometime in 1944. He was on a re-supply trip, delivering essential funds and o
ther material to Resistance groups in the region. He figures in the photo I mentioned — the one with the APP logo on the back.’

  ‘But not recognisably.’

  ‘Not in that one, no. But there is another, full face, taken at the same time. It’s definitely him.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘According to the photographer, Poudric, shortly after the photos were taken, the entire group was caught while holding a meeting one night. The meeting had been called by the SOE agent.’

  ‘The one you say was Berbier.’

  ‘Yes. The entire group was shipped to Natzweiler-Struthof. They never came out.’ He paused, then added, ‘Except for Didier Marthe and Philippe Berbier.’

  Massin looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘If I read you right, that’s quite an allegation. You’re saying… what, exactly?’

  ‘Either Berbier and Marthe must have known what was going to happen and stayed away, or they managed to talk their way out. Since neither of them was ever seen in the area again, and I’ve never heard of the Germans doing deals, I’m leaning towards the former. They simply stayed away and moved on. It’s the only explanation.’

  ‘But why?’ Massin looked perplexed. ‘What would bring two men like this together? They had nothing in common except for the fight against the Germans. That alone might bring them into contact on the battlefield, but nothing more. Do you have an ounce of proof to back this up, such as a meeting or an exchange of correspondence?’

  Rocco took a deep breath. The only proof he had was currently on the run, wounded, resentful and unlikely to give him the spit off his tongue, let alone information. He had a theory, but he was still working on it. Neither would be enough for Massin to take this any further forward.

  Massin read his face. ‘I see. So what do you have?’

  ‘I’m waiting for a piece of information which I think will tie it all together.’ A domino effect, he wanted to add, but wasn’t sure Massin would believe him. He wasn’t sure he believed it himself.