Pel & The Pirates (Chief Inspector Pel)

by Mark Hebden

  ‘I very much regret the inconvenience,’ he said. ‘Especially since you’ll not have the advantage of the normal police equipment you’re used to.

  ‘Police equipment?’ The only police equipment Pel ever trusted was his own brain.

  ‘Computers. That sort of thing.’

  Pel sniffed. Computers usually produced only meaningless quantities of statistics of crushing banality such as – as if they didn’t know – that eighty-five per cent of the prison population in the Republic was of below normal intelligence.

  ‘I shall manage,’ he said.

  Rochemare smiled. ‘Well, since this is likely to interfere with your holiday–’

  ‘Honeymoon,’ Pel snapped. ‘And it hasn’t started yet.’

  Rochemare bowed. He had the look of one of those great lovers from the old films you saw on television. Just a little past his prime. Probably he’d had more than a dozen honeymoons.

  ‘If I may make a suggestion,’ he continued, since this is likely to interfere with your celebration, then may I offer you, later in the year, at any time of your choosing, another holiday here at my expense. Either at my house or at a house in my grounds which was built originally for my daughter, Elodie. Unfortunately at the moment it’s being repaired so it’s not available, but it has every convenience – luxury even – and there would be a staff who would administer to your needs, while everything – food, wine, transport – would be at my expense. For the meantime, something more than adequate will be provided at no cost to yourself?’

  Pel eyed him warily. It was a generous offer and Pel, being Pel, felt obliged to consider it. In any case, it seemed, he had no option.

  ‘I shall have to speak to my wife,’ he said.

  Madame Pel was in no doubt about what they should do. ‘Since you have no option,’ she said, ‘then you must accept. After all, a house – doubtless a big house, too – with a staff to do all the work would be excellent. I think we can wait a little longer.’

  ‘And what will you do in the meantime? I’m going to be busy. It’s a murder case.’

  ‘I shall be comfortable. The Vicomte promised I should. If not I shall find an apartment myself. In the village, so I shall feel safe. We can afford it.’

  Pel said nothing. He was always impressed by the way his new wife threw money about as if there were no tomorrow. On his wedding day he had been surprised to find how many imposing relatives she possessed. Her side of the church had been packed solid with terrifyingly wealthy people while his own had contained only his sister from Chatillon, where her husband ran a men’s clothiers, and the sister married to an Englishman who – highly amused that, after years of dodging, her little brother had finally allowed himself to be caught – had felt she had to make the trip. Apart from these, there were only a few colleagues from the Hôtel de Police. The Chief, of course, the Maire, the Prefect, Judge Polverari, whom Pel liked, and Judge Brisard, whom he detested but had to invite – all very necessary if he were to retain their favour. The rest was made up of people like Detective Sergeant Nosjean, momentarily uninvolved with a girl, De Troquereau, Darel, Lagé and Misset, of his team – though he would gladly have left out Misset who could almost be expected to ruin the show with his stupidity – Inspector Nadauld, of the Uniformed Branch; Inspector Pomereu, of Traffic, Inspector Goriot, the Co-ordinator; Minet, the police doctor; Leguyader, of Forensic; Grenier, of Photography; and Prélat, of Fingerprints; all people whose good will it was important to keep. Finally, there were the newspapermen – who had to be there because a warm relationship with the press – ‘Make sure there’s plenty of booze for them,’ Pel had said – was essential to good policing. Not a very prepossessing lot on the whole. And not a millionaire among them.

  ‘Won’t you go home?’ he asked.

  ‘And leave you here? Of course not. I shall expect to see you occasionally, surely.’

  ‘You’ll be alone a lot of the time.

  ‘Then I shall telephone my sister Berthe and get her to come and share the place with me. She’s unmarried and has money, and she’s always complaining she doesn’t get enough holiday.’

  ‘You’d do that? To be with me? What about your business?’

  ‘It’ll manage without me. I have an excellent staff. If we lose a little custom, we’ll soon recover it.’

  Pel couldn’t imagine what he’d ever done to produce such devotion. Loneliness he could imagine, but losing money! He was deeply touched.

  ‘It’s not my idea of a honeymoon,’ he said. She smiled. ‘It’s not mine either. But you have your job to do. If you do it well, one day you’ll probably be Commissaire of Police in Paris.’

  The very thought made Pel shudder. He loved the thought of Paris as he loved the thought of hell. It was too far from Burgundy and, stuck away in the barbaric north, was very nearly outside France. All the same, it was pleasant to feel that she should think him capable of holding such a position.

  ‘After all,’ she went on. ‘As I’ve found in business you have to take your chances when they come. If you don’t, they’re gone for ever.’

  He saw why she was wealthy.

  By the afternoon, they were installed not in an apartment as they’d expected but in a house overlooking the bay in the Vieux Port. It was modern, well-furnished and looked as if it had belonged to someone with money. Pel suspected that Rochemare had turned out at a moment’s notice whoever owned it, because there was still food in the cupboards and the place showed signs of having been recently occupied. It was a touch smart and over-coloured, however, and had been decorated with the sort of taste that made Madame, whose taste was impeccable, wince a little. Nevertheless, it had been furnished with an eye to comfort, though there were just too many objets d’art about it, small Dresden figurines, china birds, silver snuff boxes, and so on. One whole table of them that seemed permanently in the way and in danger of being knocked flying gave Pel a fit of nerves just to look at it, so that he wondered who would turn over their house at a moment’s notice, complete with all its treasures, for a totally unknown police officer and his wife.

  A Peugeot that looked familiar and a small Renault in the garage were also at their disposal, it seemed, and it was only as Pel was inspecting them that he found a pile of brochures advertising villas about the island stamped with the name ‘Pierre Dupont’ and realised the house had belonged to the smiling treacherous couple who had welcomed them to the Villa des Roses the previous night. For the first time, he warmed towards Rochemare. Justice, it seemed, sometimes prevailed.

  By the time he returned to the house, a car was just drawing up. It was one of Rochemare’s maids, who had been put at their disposal. She was a young woman in her late twenties by the name of Nelly Biazz, pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed, intelligent-looking and full of smiles.

  ‘I used to work with the Vicomte’s daughter, Elodie,’ she said. ‘She was lonely, because the Vicomte was often away on business – he still is – and she liked to talk to me. There was no one else, I suppose, because his wife’s also always away in Spain. She never seems to come home.’

  The fact that the Vicomte’s daughter liked and trusted Nelly reassured them at once. She would do all the work, she said, so that despite the circumstances, Madame’s holiday could still be a real one and she would also sleep in, so that Madame would never be alone.

  ‘I know what to do,’ she said. She held up her arm and indicated a gold bracelet she wore on her wrist. ‘I was given this by someone I looked after as a mark of thanks.’

  Meanwhile a telephone call had already gone to Lyons and Madame’s sister had agreed to appear in a day or two.

  ‘So–’ considering what they’d just experienced, Madame looked remarkably cheerful’ – you can safely go to your work and we’ll look forward to another splendid holiday later in the year at the Vicomte’s expense.’

  By the time Pel returned to the Villa des Roses, the police had placed tapes all round the grounds. It was impossible to seal it up because the doors
wouldn’t lock, but Beauregard informed Pel that the Duponts had been ordered to replace the locks as soon as the fingerprint experts had arrived from Nice and gone over the place. Once again, justice seemed to be prevailing.

  Caceolari’s car, its steering wheel covered with blood and with more blood on the driver’s seat, still stood at the top of the slope, guarded like the house by an impassive policeman who looked more Italian than French, and on the scree slope tapes had also been strung round deep scars made by feet in the loose surface of the slope.

  ‘These are the prints made by Caceolari as he ran down,’ Beauregard said. ‘There are other prints, obviously made by whoever was chasing him. Then there are prints going up again. They’re easy to identify because, you’ll remember, it rained last night, heavy enough to blur the ones you made when you arrived. There are tyre marks up there as well, and they coincide with Caceolari’s tyres. But there are also others which can’t be identified. They’re smooth like Caceolari’s so they never will be, I expect. Everybody has smooth tyres here.

  ‘Does no one on this island ever replace them?’ There was a touch of acid in Pel’s voice.

  ‘It isn’t necessary, Chief. You can’t go very fast anywhere because the roads are too winding and we never get snow.’ Beauregard shrugged. ‘It looks to me as though someone followed him up here from the village and that he knew he was being followed. He tried to get down the slope but he wasn’t quick enough. We found blood on the slope, as if that was where they caught up with him.’

  ‘What was he coming down the slope for?’

  Beauregard shrugged. ‘To see you, Chief? His wife said he mentioned meeting a famous detective off the ferry.’

  Pel frowned. It seemed very likely. Especially in view of Caceolari’s obvious anxiety to talk. Perhaps he’d seen something illegal going on and felt he should report it. He couldn’t think of any other reason. ‘Who is he, this Caceolari?’ he asked.

  ‘Paolo Caceolari. Italian background originally. A lot of Italians came here from the Italian mainland in the last century. Political reasons. Sometimes they were wanted by the Italian police. A lot of families here sprang from them.’ Beauregard gestured at the policeman standing in the doorway of the house. ‘Nizzi’s one. His family came originally from Sardinia.’

  ‘What about Caceolari’s?’

  ‘Corsica, I think. Before it became French.’

  ‘Could it be some sort of vendetta? They flourish there.’

  ‘They flourish here, Chief. We’ve had a few knifings in our time. No mystery though. They were soon discovered, because everybody knew everybody else’s family feuds.’

  ‘Was Caceolari involved in a feud?’

  ‘Nobody knows of one.’

  ‘Was he just a taxi driver?’

  ‘That was what he was supposed to be. But half the time his taxi wouldn’t go – puncture, flat battery, no petrol – and one of the farmers or Lesage from the garage would turn out with their own cars. Still, I suppose you’d say he was a taxi driver. But he was a bit of an odd-job man too, Chief. Everybody here does several jobs.’

  ‘What a pity the police don’t,’ Pel said. ‘If they did, we could have sorted out the fingerprints by this time. What about the doctor? Who’s he?’

  ‘Doctor Nicolas. Local man. Lives near Mortcerf. Alone, except for his cat. Drinks a bit. But people trust him. He’s pretty old. You can’t get youngsters to come here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Too far from the mainland. No discotheques, except during the summer season when the holidaymakers want to dance. No big football matches. Only between the villages and they’re pretty grim. The pitches are usually at an angle of forty-five degrees because there’s nowhere flat on the island. There’s also no bingo, and television reception’s poor and the kids don’t like it because they’re into video and electronics. So they grow bored and go to the mainland to find work as soon as they’re old enough. The clever ones even go as boarders for school. It’s the only way they can get into universities and a lot never come back. In a few years time there’ll be nobody here but old men and women.’

  Pel had heard the story before. It seemed to be common to all offshore islands.

  ‘I shall need an assistant,’ he suggested. ‘Who’s your brightest man?’

  Beauregard, who seemed to be a realist, shrugged. ‘There aren’t any bright ones, Chief.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Chief, I have to run the whole island. There isn’t much in the way of crime, but there’s a lot of paperwork.’

  Pel considered. ‘I’d better get one of my team here then,’ he said. ‘Will the island’s finances stand it?’

  ‘The Vicomte’s will, Chief.’

  Pel paused. ‘Who is this Vicomte, anyway?’ he asked. ‘Old title or one he made up himself? There are a few of those about.’

  Beauregard grinned. ‘It’s genuine enough, Chief,’ he said. ‘Second Empire brand. Granted to his great-grandfather about 1862. I think the old boy helped Napoleon III in some financial fiddle or over some dame.’

  ‘And will he pay all expenses?’

  ‘Everything, Chief. Anything you want. It’s his island. Me and my boys, we’re sort of really on loan. The French government insists on having its police here, but the Vicomte pays our wages.’

  ‘How many helpers would he stand for?’

  ‘Certainly one. Perhaps two, if you insisted. He’s got more money than he knows what to do with. In addition to the big hotel here, the ferries to the mainland and to Calvi in Corsica, and the farms he owns, he has interests in oil, coal, steel, plastic and the import and export business. He’s probably one of the wealthiest men in France.

  Pel nodded. ‘In that case,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to use your telephone.’

  Four

  By evening, the Chief had agreed to release one of Pel’s squad to assist him and Sergeant Charles-Victor De Troquereau could be expected to arrive some time the following day.

  Pel had thought a lot about whom to employ. Darcy, of course, was ruled out at once because someone had to go on running the department. So was Nosjean, the senior sergeant, for the same reason. Misset never had a chance. Lazy, careless, bored with his marriage, always with the threat of being returned to the uniformed branch hanging over him, Misset was the last man Pel wanted. Lagé? He was friendly and willing enough but he lacked imagination. Claudie Darel was clever but he needed a man. The rest of the team, Aimedieu, Brochard, Debray and the others were all new boys, not really tested as yet, though Aimedieu seemed to have the makings of a good sleuth. It left only De Troq’, and Pel had decided on De Troq’ long since, anyway.

  Self-confident and keen, De Troq’ was the exact opposite of Misset and another in the line of Darcy and Nosjean, never whining about evenings off and always managing to slot his private life into the gaps left by his work. Besides, Pel had a feeling that De Troq’ would suit his purpose for another reason. It looked very much as though he would be working closely with the Vicomte de la Rochemare and Pel suspected that out of his whole squad De Troq’ was best suited for that task. Educated to the extent of speaking several languages, arrogant, handsome, De Troq’ was a baron – an impoverished one, true, but still with a baron’s autocratic manner as Misset who had tried to bully him when he had first joined Pel’s squad, had swiftly discovered. The Baron Charles-Victor de Troquereau Tournay-Turenne wouldn’t let anyone push him around and in him the Vicomte de la Rochemare, Pel considered, would surely find his equal. If nothing else De Troq’s title belonged to the Old Régime, and that, Pel decided, immediately put him in a higher league altogether than Rochemare.

  Because he felt he needed to get the feel of the place, Pel and his wife took their dinner in one of the small restaurants that huddled round the harbour of the Vieux Port. Signs of the approaching holiday season were everywhere. The place stank of fresh paint and at every small hole in a wall that would eventually sport a bar or a disco someone was applying colour. Away from
the ferry harbour, however, at that moment there was only one bar open near the sea. Judging by the decorations, it catered chiefly for the locals but clearly its owners were after tourists, too, and tables had been placed on the sea wall alongside. The landlord’s wife was putting out the Martini-decorated umbrellas, and the landlord himself was stringing coloured lights over the door.

  There was even a newspaper to read. Not a new one, to be sure, but one which had come over on the ferry that afternoon. It was still speculating about the shooting of the six men in the Bar-Tabac de la Porte in Nice and the questioning of the Minister responsible for the Bureau of Environmental Surveys, and it was pleasant to be reminded that there were other places in the world besides the Ile de St Yves. And when Pel managed to find a paragraph about a nine-car pile-up on the Autoroute du Sud near Avallon in Burgundy he felt almost at home.

  The owner of the restaurant, who was also putting the finishing touches to a paint job on the door, stood aside as they arrived and welcomed them with his arms widespread. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘You’re my first customers this season. As you can see, I’m still getting the place ready.’

  He took his paintpots through the back door of the restaurant to where they could see a small cobbled yard that contained several stone outhouses, and returned a moment later, wiping his hands on a towel. ‘Turidu Riccio, at your service,’ he said. ‘Turidu’s short for Salvatore.’

  ‘Everybody knows Turidu,’ Beauregard had said. ‘Just ask for Turidu. You’ll be all right.’

  They had to be. Since the season hadn’t yet got going, Turidu Riccio’s restaurant was the only one open. Riccio himself was a tall man with broad shoulders, burly, strong – a fisherman, he admitted, out of the holiday season – with a set of gold teeth that looked as if they had come direct from the vaults of the Banque de France. As they talked, Pel realised he’d been one of the group of men standing in the shelter of the bar in the Vieux Port when they’d landed, leaning on a wall beneath the sign Save food. Eat tourists – the group of men who’d pushed Caceolari’s car when it had refused to start.