by Pirate Irwin
Opening the rickety wardrobe was greeted with a smell that normally forewarned one of a corpse, but thankfully Vandamme wasn’t hanging from the rail where the three jackets and two pairs of trousers were hung.
The jackets reeked of body odour and the trousers of urine, leading Lafarge to suspect Fayette had perhaps suffered from a renal complaint rather than just an alcoholic’s weakness for passing out and losing control of one’s bodily functions.
Levau and Durand turned up nothing and made their excuses at wishing to move on to the bathroom and the kitchen respectively. Lafarge couldn’t blame them although he was thankful to Levau for taking the bathroom and he didn’t pity Durand his visit to the tiny kitchenette.
Lafarge found a wad of betting slips in the inside pocket of one of Fayette’s jackets, he’d paid a fruitless visit to Longchamp evidently but had clung on to the useless pieces of paper. Hardly a trophy of war like the Iron Cross they had found in Vandamme’s apartment but perhaps a further insight into the sad loser Fayette had been.
Lafarge went to throw them onto the floor but stopped and thanked Fayette for this habit at least for he noticed the date on the betting ticket was the day he was murdered. Wow man you had one lousy day, talk about a losing streak thought Lafarge!
It gave them at least one firm fact about one of the guards and their movements. He would go to the racecourse for the next day’s racing and show his photograph around to see if there was anyone who recalled seeing him at Longchamp.
It also opened up the possibility, though it was a remote one given the similarity of the two murders, that Fayette may have been eliminated by some disenchanted illegal bookmaker who he owed money to, for on the course betting was strictly limited to the state owned PMU and bookies offered generous odds to encourage losers like Fayette to plunge more money on.
Lafarge pushed that thought to the back of his mind and bent down to feel under the mattress, but fearing he could do more damage to his fingers this time than he had done at Vandamme’s if there was a broken bottle or shards of glass he opted against that and instead pulled the mattress onto the floor before turning it over.
There was nothing, and no sign the mattress had been opened to hide some secret papers and then sewn back up. He sighed and then bent down again, his knees creaking, and felt under the bedstead. He hit pay dirt as there was something taped to the base. He lay down and ripped at the tape and an envelope fell into his hand.
He resisted the urge to call Levau and Durand, they were still busy in the other rooms, and ripped it open. The envelope contained photos. Some looked like family ones, him, his wife and youngsters he took to be his children. The two boys resembled him or at least when he had been younger and the girl was a pretty little thing who had the knowing look of her mother.
He flicked through those, and then came to a series of rather more disturbing snapshots. These were of German soldiers and terrified civilians down by the Vieux Port in Marseille. This, guessed Lafarge, was when Bousquet’s collaboration in such terrible crimes extended itself to the south and the Germans and their French gendarme colleagues had brutally rounded up the Jews.
There was even a photo of Bousquet himself looking pleased with himself, hardly new, chatting to a German SS officer, who bore the piglike features of Oberg, head of the SS in France. Beside Bousquet as always was his faithful lieutenant Jean Leguay, who had disappeared into thin air since the Liberation.
He passed on to the next one and his mouth fell open. For it was a photo of Fayette in plain clothes but armed with a machine gun, standing on the running board of an American gangster style car, and looking quite different from the sad figure he had met, smart suit, flower in the lapel, and a clipped moustache, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
It was all a bit cliché Chicago style mobster but it brought back to Lafarge the words of Vandamme overheard by Madame Meunville of how Fayette wouldn’t be begging for money now if he hadn’t drunk it away. Obviously Fayette had had some profitable rackets going on down in Marseille and with the tacit agreement of the Nazis, for they as Lafarge had learnt in his time under their heel in Paris had lucrative shares in most of the gangster operations, primarily the French Gestapo run by Bonny and Lafont.
Both like Fayette were now dead, but they had ended up in front of a firing squad. Lafarge didn’t regret their passing, far from it as he had come close to becoming one of their many victims. However, he felt their trial had been rushed through so as to prevent embarrassing revelations about some of the best known resistance leaders and their business activities during the war.
He passed on to the penultimate photo and shockwaves ran through his body, for it was another photo of Fayette, but this time with several other men, amongst whom was Bousquet and Leguay but also to be seen just behind them and raising a glass it appeared to the health of Fayette was none other than his partner Levau.
Lafarge sucked in his cheeks and chewed his bottom lip, before replacing the photographs in the envelope and tucked them away in the inner pocket of his jacket.
He’d tackle Levau about that later. All he wanted to do now was sleep.
***
Lafarge rolled the battered black Citroen into the owners and trainers car park at Longchamp, the city of light’s flagship racecourse beautifully situated in the Bois de Boulogne, and took some pleasure in parking it alongside a well-polished Rolls Royce.
Racing had only recently returned to the racecourse, its blue riband race the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe having been raced in 1943 and 1944 at the far less glamorous Le Tremblay some way out of Paris but considered safer for both man and beast. The change of venue had been forced upon the authorities after an Allied bombing raid hit the Renault factory, which was quite close to the track, in 1943 killing some of the workers.
Lafarge was glad, though, that normal service had been resumed at the racecourse, for apart from being relieved to have not had to make the trip to Le Tremblay he had enjoyed some good days at Longchamp before the war. Thus his being there although essentially in a professional capacity was also a personal interest to see if a lot of the faces had changed and whether the atmosphere had altered from before the Occupation.
He hadn’t wished to go during his time back in Paris after returning from the POW camp. The thought that a percentage of each franc gambled went to the Nazis was enough to dissuade him from setting foot on any of the tracks, although many hadn’t taken such a moral stance and flocked to the meetings.
Today, though, he was not going to spend with the members in their enclosure but drifting around with the ordinary race goer and asking if they recognized Fayette, and if so had they seen him with anyone on the previous day’s racing. It was a longshot but Lafarge was used to backing them at the end of a race day to try and desperately recoup his losses. Normally that had not paid off but it was the last refuge as it were of the desperate greenhorn punter.
There wasn’t that large a crowd, it was a working day after all and even though wages weren’t being paid on time, or at all, people still went to work as they were guaranteed not to be paid if they didn’t show up, which had a Kafkaesque appeal to Lafarge.
However, if Fayette had been a regular as it looked like from the tatty tickets in his pocket then the diehards who were attending that day’s racing would surely know him reasoned Lafarge. The only slight handicap he faced with regard to the day of Fayette’s death was that it had been the Arc and 70 odd thousand people would have been there that day.
Any face would have got lost or forgotten in that crowd but ever the chancer he pressed on regardless. He walked round outside the parade ring casting a cursory glance at the personalities inside it who were giving last minute instructions to the jockeys before they climbed on board their mounts.
He allowed the crowd to melt away from the parade ring and place their bets before progressing down to the rails below the main stand. While they waited for the horses to flash past them for the final two hundred metres of the rac
e, straining their necks to see if their runner was in contention, he studied the people.
He let the winners go off to pick up their winnings and focused instead on those who retired to the bar, not just because he was eager to have a drink himself but it was a more convivial atmosphere to ask questions in. He remembered one of the also rans names so he could commiserate with those who also lost money and armed himself as he browsed the card with a tip for one of the later races.
However, he didn’t need to use that as back-up initially as he recognized someone when he entered the bar. It was Freddy Marchand, his slicked back black hair and pencil thin moustache looked eerily similar to Fayette in one of the photos, a well-known face among the criminal fraternity. Lafarge had made his acquaintance on several occasions. Their relations had been mostly cordial as Marchand had charm and used it to his advantage when he was cornered in tight situations.
Thusfar this had served him well as he had yet to be condemned to a prison term even though his prints were certainly all over a couple of armed robberies, tobacco smuggling and two murders of rival gangsters.
True to form Marchand was accompanied by an attractive female, usually classier fare than him. His latest was mouse-haired with lively brown eyes and a lithe figure for someone of her age and had dressed accordingly keen obviously to show off her curves.
Lafarge waited until Marchand had ordered drinks at the bar, returning with a beer for him and a glass of white wine for his companion.
Having got himself a cognac, the most expensive brand as he feared what the run of the mill one would do to his insides although by now he thought they are probably ironclad such was the amount he had consumed over the past few years, he interrupted their conversation.
“Ah Freddy having a day off from your business?” he said with an amiable grin.
Marchand didn’t look best pleased and the grin didn’t prove a winner with him either. The woman smiled politely but looked nervous.
“Ah Chief Inspector Lafarge, I haven’t seen you round the tracks for a while now,” said Marchand, his tone not one of delight the Chief Inspector had rediscovered his love of the sport.
“I’ve been missing you Freddy. I thought an afternoon at Longchamp might solve that empty space in my heart,” said Lafarge before apologizing to the lady and introducing himself. She reciprocated by holding out her hand and gave her name as Mireille Morand.
“I’m glad that your mission has been successful Chief Inspector. But what do you really want?” asked Marchand, whose manner was lacking the charm of old which Lafarge put down to two things he wasn’t in trouble so he didn’t need to deploy it and he also wanted to be left alone with Mireille.
“Good of you to come to the point Freddy. I’m looking for someone who might know a person that I’m interested in and was here on the day of the Arc,” said Lafarge purposefully omitting the fact that this person was dead.
“You being a regular on the track and having had the luck to see you I wondered whether you could help me on that score,” he added while withdrawing a photo from inside his jacket.
Marchand cast a glance around the now virtually empty bar, as the next race was about to commence, and reassured there was nobody of gangland importance who would spread it around he had been helping a policeman he gestured to Lafarge to show him the image.
Lafarge passed it expressly to Mireille so she could see the photo, not just out of courtesy so as for her not to feel left out but to see if she registered a flicker of recognition which she didn’t. However, to Lafarge’s satisfaction Marchand did recognise Fayette and didn’t try and hide the fact.
“Yes I know him, what is your interest” he asked pushing the photo back across the table to Lafarge.
“That’s not your concern Freddy for the moment,” replied Lafarge dangling a small carrot in front of the crook’s face.
“What I would like to know is who he was with that day and whether you noticed if his behaviour was different to previous occasions you had crossed paths,” added Lafarge.
Marchand pushed his empty glass towards Lafarge and indicated Mireille’s was empty as well. Lafarge took the hint and returned with three refreshed glasses.
“Napoleon said an army was useless if it marched on an empty stomach, I prefer to think he meant a few drinks,” said Marchand smiling for the first time.
Lafarge laughed politely.
“My only Napoleonic sentimentality lies in drinking the cognac,” said Lafarge chuckling.
“Touché!” said Marchand raising his glass in appreciation of the detective’s remark.
Marchand licked the foam from the top of the beer from his lips and smacked them with satisfaction.
“Drinks always taste that much better when you haven’t paid for them yourself,” he said.
Mireille smiled but Lafarge remained impassive and made it clear he was hoping for something more rewarding.
“Right Fayette well what can I tell you. For me he was shiftier than usual on Sunday and as a result he got drunker than normal,” said Marchand all but sneering.
“He had a succession of losers, the only thing he couldn’t lose, which was extremely irritating, was me. He was like a limpet mine and believe me his breath was explosive!” added Marchand laughing.
Lafarge, though, wasn’t laughing.
“Keep the clever remarks out of your account Marchand,” he said coldly.
Mireille perhaps sensing the conversation could be turning frosty excused herself to go to the loo and have a look at the horses for the third race, the second one having run its course.
Marchand handed her a roll of cash and whispered something in her ear.
“Ok Chief Inspector lets remain civil. To put it bluntly Fayette was a danger to himself on Sunday, making little sense. He kept saying he needed a big win so he could get himself back to Marseille,” said Marchand the last bit arousing Lafarge’s interest.
“I knew him from a brief spell I spent in Marseille during the Occupation. Things had got a little bit hot up here, don’t worry Chief Inspector it was before you returned so I have nothing against you, and I needed to rest up.
“Anyway friends put me in touch with Fayette and his gang and they looked after me. He was a very different man then. When I next saw him in Paris just prior to the Liberation I was shocked at how he had deteriorated. Before you ask why he came here when Marseille was his fiefdom I will tell you.
“He had some business venture, sure it was crooked, which tied him in with Bonny and Lafont. Both of those thugs and their business interests need no introduction so you can imagine what Fayette was involved in.
“Anyway cut a long story short Bonny and Lafont fled as the Allies closed in leaving our friend Fayette high and dry. There was no escape for him back to the south as an Ausweis had lost its currency with the Nazis in disarray. I felt rather sorry for him in a way because he was desperate about what would happen to his family as Marseille threatened to become the French Stalingrad.
“However, he had no choice but to stay put. The fight had gone out of him cut off from his base and in a city where his only friends had disappeared. Thus the money ran out pretty quickly, hardly a surprise the way he was drinking and whoring, and he was in desperate straits.”
Lafarge halted him there as he noted down the salient points and then thought about the information before considering what to ask Marchand.
“So did you help him find an apartment and also the job in Fresnes? I could think of a lot less demanding jobs than being a prison guard in charge of a load of vile anti-Semites and thugs with more blood on their hands than the average inmate of the prison,” said Lafarge.
Marchand laughed humourlessly at the suggestion, then turned and got them two more drinks. Lafarge asked why he hadn’t got one for Mireille and he replied she’d be returning after the fifth race.
“No Chief Inspector I didn’t help Fayette do any of those things. I wished to turn over a new leaf and being associated with him woul
dn’t have been good for that. That’s why having him attach himself to me at the races last Sunday was decidedly not to my taste,” said Marchand.
“That’s not very generous of you Freddy. He helped you out in Marseille when you needed it and you fail to reciprocate once he requires it up in your own neighbourhood. I thought there was a kind of code of honour among your fraternity, bizarre as that sounds coming from my mouth,” said Lafarge.
He made a mental note to do some more delving into Marchand’s past. The smug crook may have thought this session was like a confessional with a priest in staying between them. However, he’d backed another loser because the Chief Inspector despised the Catholics sacred belief in confession – believing it to be the worst form of escapism from one’s responsibilities. No, there was only one confession he accepted and that was a bona fide one in an interrogation room at the Quai.
Marchand smiled sourly and ran his tongue along his full lips.
“Ah that old cliché rears its head, honour among thieves! Well no Chief Inspector four years of Nazi Occupation even kills that notion. It was everyone for himself, during and especially after the Liberation. You recall what it was like plenty of people tried to make up for failing to get their denunciation in on time before the Nazis fled by doing it once de Gaulle and his crew arrived.
“All very unattractive, and one vice I don’t subscribe too. Anyway I made myself scarce for a while. I didn’t go far as that was impossible and ensured that Fayette didn’t know where I was going. When I resurfaced I was told he’d found some flat out in Aubervilliers, what a dump!
“And that he was now a prison officer at Fresnes because he reckoned he could make a bit extra on the side smuggling stuff in and out of the prison for the increasing number of former Vichy apparatchiks and bureaucrats being sent there. I believe he did rather well in that respect, but of course his drinking had got out of hand and anything he earned he poured down his throat stupid bastard!
“He asked me for money at Longchamp but I refused and no it wasn’t totally down to cold heartedness. It was because I didn’t think it would serve any good. He was too far gone and he may sincerely have wanted to return to Marseille and his family but drink had totally taken him over. Also to be honest he would have done well to avoid being shot on sight in Marseille.”
