Death on the Pont Noir Read online

  Rocco was about to pass the task back to Claude to deal with, when he happened to glance at the large wall map of the region, idly tracing the usual route taken by Pantoufle from Audelet through Poissons and around the other nearby hamlets until he fetched up again back at Audelet.

  The route ran along the same stretch of road where they had found the blood and the tooth.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘What do you know about this Pantoufle?’ Rocco was driving his black Citroën Traction, with Claude in the passenger seat fiddling with the radio. They were on their way to see Father Maurice in Audelet. Rocco had never met the priest, and had asked Claude to come along in case he needed the familiarity of a known face. He had little time for men of any cloth and felt uncomfortable in their presence, as if they were trying to read his soul. It was fanciful rubbish, he knew that, but he preferred not to encourage them.

  ‘He’s a clochard,’ Claude replied. ‘A tramp. Always has been, I think – or as long as anyone can remember, anyway. Some say he was wounded in 1918 by a shellburst, and lost his memory. He’s been wandering around the district ever since, sleeping in barns and under hedges. It’s not his real name, by the way.’

  Pantoufle. Slipper. Rocco thought the name oddly appropriate for a tramp, a gentleman of the road. A hobo, as the Americans called them. A hobo in slippers. ‘What is his real name?’

  ‘Nobody knows. He popped up in the area about forty years ago, I gather. People asked his name, but he always went blank. I asked him myself once; it was like looking into an empty bottle. Nothing there. After a while, people gave up. Then some wag gave him the name Pantoufle because he always wore slippers, even on the road. Reckoned proper shoes hurt his feet. He must have gone through a few thousand pairs over the years. The name stuck. He’s genial enough and harmless, so they leave him alone.’

  Rocco wondered if they were chasing a false line of enquiry. All the indications at the crash scene pointed to a serious injury or death. But add in the report of a missing person – a tramp – who frequented the very road where the crash had happened, and it was hard to ignore the possibility that the two might be connected. While he was certain that Massin would want him to concentrate on more serious issues, there was something about the information at the crash scene which had remained with him, as if it were trying to convey a message. The only way to get to the bottom of it was to clarify at least this aspect and prove that this particular person wasn’t involved.

  ‘About Alix,’ Claude continued after a while, sounding uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything before – you know that, right? It’s just that … well, I worry about her. She’s not as tough as she makes out.’ He clamped his mouth shut and looked out the window at the passing greenery.

  ‘You have every right to worry,’ Rocco replied. ‘Let’s be honest, she’s what the Americans would call a hot dame. Of course, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know when we decide to get together.’

  Claude’s head snapped round, his mouth open. ‘What?’

  ‘Calm down, you idiot. I’m kidding. Anyway, how do I know she won’t turn out to look like you in a few years?’ He shuddered. ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Bloody cheek!’ Claude pretended to be disgruntled. ‘She looks like her mother, if you must know – and she was a real beauty. You could do worse than—’ He stopped. ‘What am I saying? It’s just that … Alix speaks highly of you. Says you’re an honourable cop – for a man.’ He reached out for the radio. ‘It’s just that I—’

  ‘I know what you were thinking. Stop worrying.’

  Honourable. That wasn’t a word Rocco or any other cop heard too often. And he was pretty sure it didn’t apply to him. He’d bent the rules occasionally when it suited him, although usually to get closer to securing evidence and a conviction, never to implicate an innocent man. Not very long ago, days after Alix had joined the Amiens district, he’d deliberately disposed of a piece of evidence from a murder case. He’d done it knowing that an investigation would have achieved nothing, unless you called it nothing to track down and prosecute a terrified young mother fighting for her life and the life of her child. A conviction hadn’t been likely, anyway, in his view, even if they’d managed to find her.

  Fortunately, she’d disappeared like smoke, probably out of the country, and Rocco had thrown away the one bit of evidence likely to have been used against her: the weapon she had used to defend herself.

  Although Alix had been close when he’d disposed of the weapon in the canal, it had been too dark for her to have seen. But she had to have known what he’d done. She hadn’t spoken about it, then or since. The shared knowledge had bound them together, somehow, loosely knotted but unbreakable. Yet distant.

  Audelet turned out to be larger than Poissons, but not by much. A collection of houses, a church, two cafés, a small garage and a crumbling chateau with a sad, neglected air and sheep grazing around the grounds. Rocco counted two cars and a tractor as they entered the village, and two pedestrians. And a horse walking along the road untended, minding its own business. Compared with Poissons, it was almost humming with activity.

  He pulled into the inevitable square and parked in front of the church. It was neat and solid, the way of all churches in the region, and grimly austere. Or maybe it was just him.

  He and Claude climbed out and walked up the path alongside the church to a small house with flowers around the door. At least that was a good sign.

  Father Maurice was waiting for them. He poured coffee into thick brown cups and offered a box of sugar lumps and a metal jug of fresh milk, the kind children carried to the farm to fetch their daily quota, with a handle and a metal lid. After Clichy and its air of sophistication, where milk came from a store in a cold sealed container, it was like stepping back in time. But Rocco was getting used to it, like lots of things around here.

  Such as a priest who wasn’t wearing a dog collar.

  Father Maurice was dressed in baggy corduroys and a heavyweight knitted jumper. He was smoking a dark-brown cigarillo, waving away the smoke with a beefy hand, and looked more fisherman than cleric. In Clichy, Paris, priests wore their uniform like a badge, to give them an identity in a bustling, impatient world. Out here, not everyone conformed to type.

  ‘Pantoufle is a complex character,’ the priest said, pushing the filled cups across the table. ‘He’s war-damaged, like many others, and deserving of our understanding.’ He eyed Rocco keenly. ‘A man of your age and experience, I imagine you’ve been there, Inspector? War, I mean.’

  Rocco said nothing. His war history was none of this man’s business. But he was prepared to let the priest get to the point, as long as it didn’t include a spot of God-fearing psychoanalysis along the way.

  He made do with a shrug.

  ‘Of course, many men learn to live with it. But Pantoufle?’ Father Maurice flicked ash from his cigarillo. ‘Whatever happened to him left no visible scars … and no idea of who he used to be. Or maybe he chose to leave that person behind deliberately. A sad case but not unusual.’ He glanced at Rocco beneath bushy eyebrows. ‘You have some news about him?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to establish,’ Rocco replied easily. They were back on the safe ground of earthly investigations. ‘We don’t have a body, if that’s what you mean. But we do have this.’ He reached into his pocket and took out the button he’d found at the crash scene. It was wrapped in a fold of paper. Without showing the priest what it was, he asked, ‘Did Pantoufle have a full set of teeth?’

  Father Maurice looked surprised by the question, but recovered quickly. ‘Um … yes, he did. Well, nearly a full set. There were a few gaps here and there, now I come to think of it.’ He looked at Claude for support. Claude nodded but said nothing. ‘Men of his lifestyle don’t, always. Hygiene and self-care are not high on their agendas and Pantoufle … well, he was eccentric and disconnected, I think one might call it. But he was no different in that respect. Why?’

 
Rocco unwrapped the button and placed it on the table. It lay there, winking in the daylight. He had cleaned off the worst of the blood and mud.

  ‘Goodness.’ It was obvious by his expression that Father Maurice recognised the button instantly. He crossed himself with an economic flick of his thumb, an instinctive warding off of evil. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘You recognise it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. It was one of several on the old man’s jacket.’ He stared at Rocco. ‘I know what you’re going to ask, Inspector: why should I recognise a simple button?’

  ‘And I hope you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘It’s very easy. One of our helpers, a wonderful woman – she used to be a mission worker in Gabon – noticed one day that Pantoufle had lost all the buttons from his jacket. He had a habit of twisting them – a bit like a child does when anxious – until they fell off. Anyway, she came in one Friday, when we were giving out food, and persuaded him to take off his jacket so she could replace the buttons. He wasn’t keen to begin with, but she showed him these birthday buttons from a child’s coat that was too damaged to give away, and he agreed. She sewed them on using fishing line so he couldn’t twist them off.’ He stared down at the button and pushed it with the tip of his finger. ‘Where did you find it? Could it have fallen off and he’s out there wandering—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Rocco interrupted him. This wasn’t a family matter and he saw no point in pretending there was any great chance of finding the missing vagrant alive. Besides, experience told him that most people preferred the truth rather than false hope. ‘We found it at the scene of a car crash. There was no sign of a body, but the indications are that he might have been hit by a car or a truck.’

  ‘Indications? Inspector, come on – I used to do work in Africa. I’m not going to faint with shock.’

  ‘There was a lot of blood.’

  ‘I see.’ A repeat flick of the hand as Father Maurice crossed himself. ‘I’ll say a prayer for him this evening.’

  ‘Do whatever you think is best.’ Rocco finished his coffee and scooped up the button. He would have to speak to Simeon again; the man might recall seeing Pantoufle in the area just before the crash. ‘Only I don’t think prayer’s done him a lot of good so far.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Do you think that’s it?’ said Claude, once they were outside. ‘It’s just one button.’

  ‘You tell me.’ Rocco led the way back to the car. ‘What’s your instinct?’

  Claude puffed and clambered into the passenger seat with a sigh. ‘Yes, you’re right. He was too much a man of habit to miss some free food.’ He stared out of the window towards the church. ‘I’d still like to find him, though. It doesn’t feel right, him being out there somewhere.’

  ‘Same here.’ Rocco started the car. ‘I’d also like to find out how he died.’

  Claude said, ‘You don’t like the clergy much, do you?’

  ‘I’ve never found one I’d care to share a car with, no.’

  Claude’s eyebrows shot up and down, and he smiled. ‘Thanks – I’ll take that as a compliment.’ He turned on the radio and began spinning the dial.

  As they drove out of the village, Rocco was surprised to see Simeon standing by the side of the road, waving them down. His old moped was leaning against a concrete lamp post. Rocco pulled over and stopped.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Other way round, Inspector,’ the old farmer replied. ‘It’s I who can help you. I’ve just remembered something else about that business yesterday.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘There was someone else out there.’

  Rocco felt his spirits plummet. With some witnesses, it was like their memory came in dribbles, each one smaller and more distant than the last. It was as if they couldn’t let go, determined to recall every detail until, inevitably, they began to remember things which had never happened.

  ‘Pantoufle, I know. We’re trying to find him. We think he’s dead.’

  ‘What makes you say that? I know about the blood and stuff. But it wasn’t him I saw.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘There was someone in the wood, watching what was going on. A man. But not Pantoufle – I’d know him immediately. I only worked it out this morning; it was bothering me all night. He was standing right at the back of the trees – in shadow. Just watching. But as I was leaving, I heard a motorbike moving away after the crash. Not hurrying, though – like he was being careful not to make too much noise.’

  ‘He might have been with the other men,’ said Claude.

  ‘The cameraman,’ Rocco agreed, and wondered how he’d missed the signs. Taking a leak, most likely, away from his precious equipment. Odd lapse in timing, though, with all the action going on out front.

  ‘That’s just it, Inspector; he was riding along the track in the opposite direction. I mean, if he was with the others, why go the other way?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  George Tasker stared out through the window as the Calais train drifted slowly into the channel port, and shifted uncomfortably on the shiny plastic seat. He’d be glad to get off this cattle wagon and hit the ferry bar for a few bevvies. Set himself up for their arrival back in the smoke. That’s when the tough questions would start.

  ‘What do you reckon they’ll say?’ said Calloway, voicing their collective concerns.

  Tasker shrugged, feigning indifference, although he didn’t feel it. ‘Search me. We’ll soon find out, won’t we?’ He gave a nasty smile and looked around at the other men. ‘Nothing’s changed, right? You let me do the talking. If the bosses ask, we did what we came to do. Any of you talk out of turn, you’ll have me to answer to. Got it?’

  Privately, he wasn’t looking forward to getting back. They’d been told to keep it going for at least two days, hopefully tying up resources as much as they could, creating a logjam for the simple country Frenchies to fight their way out of. He’d have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for Calloway getting a sneak phone call out to one of his friends. Bloody nancy boy was too clever for his own good, fooling the guards with that lame story. He was asking for a good smack … and he’d get one if this all went tits up because of that call.

  He was also niggled by the way the French cop, Rocco, had questioned Calloway first. Being overlooked in front of the others was something he wasn’t used to, and the more he thought about it the more it got under his skin. He had a name and reputation in London and across the South, and it had been earned the hard way. Having some snooty Frog copper treat him like a nobody just wasn’t on. Christ, he got more respect from the Sweeney – the Flying Squad. He was also annoyed at the game Rocco had played. Calloway hadn’t been writing a statement at all; he’d been kept in an adjacent room, then put back in with the others while Tasker was being questioned. Unfortunately, Tasker had already given him a rough time before anyone had clued him in.

  And there was the truck key. He shifted in his seat; he’d made a mistake there. He should have told Rocco it was his front door key or something. Instead he’d fluffed it and ended up sounding false. Still, what were the chances they’d connect the key to the truck? It was a blank copy with no serial number or brand name, so no way would they trace it back.

  He sniffed at the strong smell of stale seawater and engine smoke. At least they were getting off French soil; he didn’t like France or the French, and if he never came back, it would be too soon. Except that he was beginning to fantasise about having a quiet talk with Rocco – preferably down a dark alley. Nobody treated him like second best. And that woman copper with the nice arse; now, she was something else. He’d like to get her down a dark alley, too. Only it wouldn’t be to do any talking.

  ‘You reckon the big guy was an ordinary copper, George?’ Fletcher asked. He hadn’t said much since last night, which had surprised nobody. With the face on him, it was clear he was still fighting off the effects of all the booze he’d poured down his gullet in the bar.

>   ‘Nah. Just another French bean picker, full of himself because he could speak English.’ He wanted to add that it was lucky Rocco had had the other cops there, but he knew it would sound false. Sod ’em. Let them think what they liked.

  ‘He didn’t look much like a bumpkin to me,’ Calloway murmured. ‘Not the way he was dressed. Expensive clothes, good shoes. Quality stuff … for a bumpkin.’ He smiled and stretched his legs, and Tasker very nearly launched himself across the carriage to wipe the grin off his face. He’d have enjoyed shoving his fist down that smarmy throat. But starting a fight here wasn’t clever, and anyway, Calloway wasn’t without influential friends back in London; friends of people who paid Tasker his wages. No, now they were out, they had to stay out and get home.

  ‘Forget him,’ he growled. ‘And once we’re on the boat, keep your mouths shut. There’s too many people about who’ll be earwigging what we say. So button it.’ He stared at Calloway in particular. ‘And you all know who we’ll have to deal with if word gets out about what we were doing.’

  That put a dampener on the atmosphere, until Fletcher looked up and said, ‘I suppose we could always go and join the Richardsons.’

  The comment was met by a stunned silence all round. There were certain names that were never mentioned in some quarters, and the Richardsons, who ran a gang south of the river, sat right at the top of the list.

  Tasker shook his head. He wasn’t smiling, and everyone knew why: it was the thought of what might happen if a certain someone closer to home took the way the operation had gone the wrong way.

  ‘Glad you’re feeling so bloody cocky, Fletch,’ Tasker breathed finally. ‘Just remember, when they ask who cut the operation short by crocking that truck, there’s only one name in the frame – and it ain’t mine.’