Death on the Marais ilr-1

by Adrian Magson

  ‘See to it, otherwise I will speak to my friend, the depute, and have you removed. He can do it, too. Like that!’ She clicked her fingers with a sharp snap.

  Rocco was debating whether to use a hip throw on the old woman or simply kick her down the stairs, when they were interrupted by a deep voice echoing down the stairwell.

  ‘Maman!’

  He looked up and saw a man standing on the bend of the stairs, peering down at them. The face was familiar: it was Bayer-Berbier. He was tall and elegant in a pear-shaped way, dressed in an immaculate grey suit and a white shirt. Rocco guessed him to be in his sixties. He had the short, stiff brosse style of hair affected by Frenchmen of an ex-military background, and the steel-grey eyes behind frameless glasses were cold and unemotional.

  The old woman made a huffing noise and beat a retreat through a doorway, muttering something uncomplimentary as she went and hawking deep in her throat.

  ‘My apologies,’ said the man, coming down to meet Rocco. He held out his hand. ‘My mother believes it is her duty to intercept all callers — my mail, too. She is concerned about my safety. Last week she placed some documents from my office into the fire because she thought the paper might be contaminated with germs.’

  ‘I hope they weren’t valuable.’

  ‘They weren’t, fortunately. But it took me three hours and a lot of telephone calls to make sure of that. How may I assist you?’ His gaze was intense and Rocco had the feeling the comments about the man’s mother were merely a smokescreen to break the ice and lower barriers. It was executed smoothly, man to man, equals for the moment in spite of their undoubtedly different stations in life.

  ‘I have to talk to you about your daughter, Nathalie,’ he said carefully, reminding himself that this man was so high up the food chain, he was probably accustomed to dealing with officials via his lawyer. Not that he could have faced the kind of discussion Rocco was going to have with him too often.

  ‘Do you have some identification?’ Berbier held out a hand.

  No questioning of the subject matter, thought Rocco. No frown, no doubt in the voice, the way most normal people would react when a policeman came calling. Iced water in his veins. He wondered at the ‘war hero’ tag which had followed Berbier around. A glorious but secret period operating with the SOE, he recalled reading somewhere; keen to fight the Germans, Berbier — a captain at the time — had found his way to London and joined the Special Operations Executive, parachuting back into France to help the underground fight. The detail remained clouded but the myth grew stronger as his prominence increased.

  He produced his card and handed it over.

  Berbier studied it, rubbing a thumb across the printed surface. It was a gesture Rocco had seen before: a tactile check among those who cared about such things, feeling for embossed letters. A faint lift of the Berbier eyebrows might have been a show of approval.

  ‘It is refreshing to see,’ he said, ‘that there are still those who take their work seriously. Were you with the military?’

  Rocco nodded. ‘Once. A long time ago.’

  It was all Berbier seemed to need: Rocco was a policeman, therefore not a civilian, a man with credentials, therefore not a peasant. He slid the card into a top pocket. ‘So. How could my daughter be of interest to you? A parking infraction, maybe? A traffic offence? She is sometimes a little careless about these things. You know how it is with the young, I’m sure.’

  Rocco felt his breath go still. Was this man playing him or was he in denial? His daughter had been found dead, he’d claimed the body, yet here he was acting as if she were in an adjacent room, alive and well.

  ‘None of that,’ he replied, his mind racing ahead. ‘When did you last see her?’

  Berbier shrugged, pushing out a thin lower lip. ‘I can’t recall precisely. Last week? Yes, last week. She has her own apartment in the fifteenth arrondissement — off Avenue de Felix Fau-’ He stopped as if he had said too much, then recovered. ‘We do not live in each other’s pockets, Inspector Rocco. She is young, pursuing her own career… her own life.’

  ‘Of course. May I ask what she does?’

  ‘She works in fashion.’ Berbier’s eyes glittered, and Rocco felt the balance tip in the air like a tangible force, as if a decision had been reached. ‘Tell me, on whose authority are you here, Inspector?’

  ‘My own.’ Rocco stared back steadily. He’d faced men like this before. They were powerful, confident and usually arrogant. They could, in the usual order of things, break a man like him with a simple phone call. ‘I’m investigating the death of a woman in a village called Poissons-les-Marais, in Picardie. Her body was discovered in a military cemetery and was taken to the station in Amiens, where it was released on the orders of a senior magistrate.’

  ‘And how does that affect me?’

  ‘The body was released to this address.’

  The sound of firm footsteps echoed from the bottom of the stairs. The chauffeur, Rocco was willing to bet, coming in response to some unseen signal. Berbier said nothing, his face blank. Then he took Rocco’s card from his pocket and studied it again. ‘This does not give your prefecture. If you are asking questions about some place in — Picardie, was it? — you do not have any jurisdiction in Paris.’

  ‘I have jurisdiction wherever a crime has been committed,’ Rocco replied softly, ‘and wherever my investigations may lead.’ He was treading on thin ice and knew it; like stepping without care in the marais. But thin ice had never stopped him in the past.

  Berbier indicated the stairway. ‘You have made a mistake. Please leave.’

  ‘A mistake? Are you saying your daughter was not reported dead and her body shipped back here?’

  ‘She couldn’t have been. I spoke to my daughter only last night.’

  ‘But you said earlier that you’d last seen her a week ago.’

  If he’d been caught out in a lie, it didn’t faze Berbier one bit. He nodded. ‘I was being precise, Inspector. I last saw her a week ago. But I spoke to her last night.’ He waved a thin hand. ‘It was only a minute or two… just a brief hello and goodnight.’

  He’s lying. Rocco was stunned by the ease of Berbier’s words. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent.’ Berbier looked as if he could spit fire. ‘I will be reporting this matter immediately to the highest authority. How dare you come here with this ridiculous story? You will be lucky if you escape with your job and your freedom.’ With that, he turned and walked back up the stairs, ramrod straight.

  If that’s his idea of grief, thought Rocco, left with no option but to make his way back down to ground level, thank God I’m not part of this family.

  The chauffeur had stepped back outside and was waiting for him. The duster was gone and the man was standing squarely in his way, hands loosely clasped in front of him. He looked solid and tanned. Resolute. A man not to trifle with. Probably ex-para and full of spit, thought Rocco. Thinks himself unbeatable.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said softly, advancing on the chauffeur without hesitation. ‘You’ll end up breathing through a tube.’

  The chauffeur wavered… then stepped aside at the last second.

  As Rocco stepped through the gate onto the street, he came face-to-face with two men. They were dressed in smart suits and had just stepped out of a black Citroen DS. Neither looked as tough as the chauffeur, but one was holding up an Interior Ministry badge, which trumped toughness any day.

  ‘Inspector Rocco?’ the man said.

  ‘Yes,’ Rocco replied. ‘What do you want?’ He knew what they were here for; Berbier must have called them the moment he’d shown up.

  The man ignored the question and held out his hand palm upward. Rocco took out his wallet and showed him his badge. ‘You realise,’ said the man stiffly, giving it a careful examination, ‘that you are outside your jurisdiction?’

  ‘That’s what Berbier thought, too,’ said Rocco. ‘I’m investigating a possible murder in Picardie. The victim lived he
re. That gives me jurisdiction.’

  ‘That’s not reason enough. There are channels, as you well know. Procedures. If we had every policeman running all over the country on a whim, there would be chaos.’

  ‘And,’ put in the second man with a show of teeth, ‘we can’t have that.’

  Rocco took a deep breath. They were taking the piss, daring him to tell them where to go. The frightening thing was, he could see that they were absolutely serious. Official machines.

  ‘You should read your latest bulletins,’ he suggested. ‘I’ve been given a roaming brief as part of a nationwide policing plan. Are you saying the Interior Ministry doesn’t like the idea?’ He kept his voice level: losing his temper with these men would be like fighting fog. Best try and use their own regulations and decisions against them.

  ‘Enough.’ The man handed back Rocco’s wallet with a sour look. ‘You say “possible” murder. Does that mean you’re not sure? Do you have any proof which you can bring before a magistrate?’

  Rocco sighed. The fight against bureaucracy was all about detail.

  ‘You want to see my case notes?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘I have no proof. Yet.’

  ‘Really? Yet you thought you could waste time by driving all the way here from — where is it you’re from?’

  ‘Poissons-les-Marais. It’s a nice place, full of people who pay your wages. I doubt you’d know it.’

  ‘You’re right. I don’t. Wherever it is, you’d best get back there. You’re wasting your time here. Police time.’ The man looked superior. ‘I suggest you find something important to occupy your life, Rocco. Trying to catch the eye of people above your pay grade is not for the likes of you.’

  The man was being deliberately insulting. Rocco contemplated wiping that supercilious expression off his face, but a grain of sense held him back. It was probably what they were hoping for: drive Rocco into a confrontation and it would give them an ideal excuse to rope him in and take him off the street. These two had not happened along here by accident; they were following orders. There could only be one reason for that: to derail his investigation.

  A movement out of the corner of his eye broke his concentration. Another car had turned into the street and ghosted to a stop twenty metres away. Three stocky men in dark-blue kit and jump boots climbed out and stood watching. He recognised the uniforms. They were members of the CRS — Compagnies Republicaines de Securite — the unit charged with crowd control and head banging. One of them was spinning a short wooden baton into the air and catching it without looking, the smack of wood against flesh a clear warning.

  Rocco turned back to the man in the suit. ‘You’re quite an offensive little prick, aren’t you?’ he said amiably. ‘You must love telling your kids what you do when you get home at night. Must give you a real sense of pride, following orders from people like Berbier. Thank Christ you’re not a real cop: you’d make me ashamed to share the same badge.’

  He stepped round the two men and walked down the street. The three CRS men stood their ground, then one of them looked past Rocco and his eyes flickered in disappointment.

  Rocco felt just as disappointed when they stepped aside.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Berbier was standing at the window of his study trying to stifle a rising sense of panic when the door opened. It was the two men he had summoned from the Interior Ministry to deal with Rocco.

  ‘Well?’ He did not bother turning, intent on staring at the rooftops across the way, where pigeons were conducting their daily courting rituals. Flying rats, many people called them, but he found them amusing. Watching their pointless antics helped take his mind off the clouds he felt gathering overhead. Clouds he’d thought were long past being able to bother him.

  ‘We warned him off, sir,’ said the first man. ‘But I don’t know for how long.’

  Berbier spun round. ‘What? He’s a plodding country bumpkin, for heaven’s sake! This is intolerable. My daughter is dead, my family is grieving… and this nobody…’ His hand made an angry, chopping motion in the air, the action replacing words.

  ‘Problem is, he’s not just a country cop,’ said the second man. ‘He’s an experienced investigator with a tough record. He was transferred out of Paris not more than a week ago.’

  ‘Really?’ Berbier pounced on the information. ‘Discipline problems?’ That was the usual reason cops were sent into the back of beyond, where they could quietly wither and die. Maybe it was an opening he could use to his benefit. But the other man dumped cold water on the idea.

  ‘He was moved as part of a national crime-fighting initiative to put seasoned investigators into rural divisions. They get a free hand to conduct their own affairs. It’s a trial run.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Rocco’s got a reputation for being a hard-nose. We tried to get him to kick off but he wouldn’t play.’

  ‘Kick off?’

  ‘Cut up rough. Even cops get themselves locked up for that.’

  ‘It would have taken him out of circulation for a while,’ explained the first man smoothly, with a warning look at his colleague. ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t work.’

  Berbier looked from one to the other, his nose pinched and his cheeks pale. He sighed impatiently, trying to remain calm. ‘In that case, I will need your assistance further. My daughter had a flat in the Fifteenth, near Felix Faure. Rocco now knows about it.’

  ‘We know the place. What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Get round there and remove any papers. Anything, you understand? Take my driver and get others if you need them.’

  The two men nodded and left.

  Berbier watched the men cross the yard, scooping up his driver on the way. He felt a worm of anxiety building in his chest. He already sensed from facing Rocco that the inspector was not a man he could steamroller out of the way. The two from the Ministry he could rely on for their silence and cooperation, as he could his chauffeur. But Rocco was an outside force who would not toe the line. No matter what bureaucratic or procedural obstacles might be placed in his way, he would eventually get round to Nathalie’s flat. It was merely a matter of time and procedure. Whatever was there, whatever she might have felt resentful or malevolent enough to leave lying around that might implicate him in a scandal, had to disappear.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rocco? A gentleman. A cop, too, unfortunately, but he always treated us like ladies.

  Mme Viviane Bernard — escort services provider — Etoile

  ‘I need to go back to Paris.’

  ‘What — now?’ Claude opened the door in his pyjama bottoms and an old vest, eyes heavy and ringed with sleep. ‘It’s five-thirty in the morning!’

  ‘Blame the cockerel.’ Rocco thrust a flask at Claude and stepped past him. ‘Coffee. You drink, I’ll drive.’

  ‘OK. But why so early?’

  ‘You know Paris. It’s the best time to go. Chop-chop.’

  Claude stumbled away to get dressed, leaving Rocco to wait and consider what he was doing. He wasn’t looking for further confrontation with the Interior Ministry goons, but something had been nagging him all the way back from Paris and into the night: Berbier had mentioned his daughter’s flat. He’d been cursing himself ever since for not going to see it. True, it might reveal nothing useful. But in his experience, the homes of murder victims always showed something, even if merely a side of their character that had been hidden from others.

  ‘Is this a good idea?’ said Claude, returning and tucking his shirt into his trousers. ‘Those CRS morons don’t play games, you know.’

  ‘They won’t stop us. They were there for show. You ready?’

  Ninety minutes later, having almost tamed the wobbly gear shift on Claude’s 2CV, Rocco drove through the outer suburbs of the city, keeping one eye out for a cafe with a line of taxis nearby. When he saw one, he pulled up outside and explained to Claude what he needed.

  Claude disappeared inside, and returned five minutes later, sme
lling of wine. He shrugged at Rocco’s look.

  ‘Hey, I had to buy a drink — it’s only polite. Anyway, I got what we need. I didn’t think a Berbier would be in the directory, but Nathalie Berbier is — or was.’

  Rocco nodded. ‘According to her father, she’s in the fashion business. People like that don’t hide; they’re like moths to a flame — they want everyone to know who and where they are.’

  ‘Well, we know where she used to be. The cabbies in there told me the exact building.’

  Claude took the wheel and pointed the nose of the car towards the south-western corner of the city. ‘Fashion? Huh. They’re as tight as a hedgehog’s arse, I know that. Lousy tippers. I remember the street from my taxi days: full of students, hippies and rich kids pretending they were working class.’

  Twenty minutes later they crossed the Seine over the Pont de Grenelle, and Claude eventually steered into a narrow street and pulled up outside an apartment block over a row of shops. The area was quiet, with just a handful of people — mostly young — going about their business. Denim jeans were in evidence, as were lurid sunglasses and colourful hats and bags; exotic butterflies on display even at the break of day. It looked to Rocco like a place trying hard to be something it wasn’t.

  ‘Hasn’t changed much,’ said Claude, ‘apart from the colours.’ He nodded at the apartment block. ‘Up there on the third floor. Number twelve. If you can get past the concierge. There’s usually one — but you’d know that, anyway.’

  Rocco nodded and checked his watch. Nearly eight. Just the right time for a raid. Motioning Claude to follow, he crossed the pavement and pressed the bottom button outside the building. The door buzzed and clicked open, and he found himself in a neat foyer facing an elderly woman with a ginger rinse and a face like a chow. A door with a curtain across the glass panes stood open behind her, the sound of Piaf drifting faintly from inside.