Pel & The Pirates (Chief Inspector Pel)

by Mark Hebden

  ‘He was there the week before, too, I believe.

  ‘I expect he was. I didn’t bother to ask him. I went my own way. I go over to his sister’s for company. She’s Madame Oudry, who lives in Biz. I go over a lot. Two or three times a week. We get on well. We always have, because her husband’s another of the same sort. Shifty, lazy. Up to things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘He gambles. There’s somewhere they hold cockfights. He’s the baker for Biz but he has a boat and prefers to go fishing. I think he fetches American cigarettes from Italy occasionally. On the quiet. There’s never enough bread in Biz because he’s always too busy doing other things.’

  ‘How did you get to Biz? It’s a fair distance. Did your husband drive you there?’

  ‘Him? He was always too busy doing nothing. I’ve got a motor scooter. It’s only small and I have to pedal up the hills a bit, but it takes me around. How else would I get there? You wouldn’t catch me walking across the cliffs. There are adders. I only go when Oudry’s working or away, anyway. I don’t like him. He drinks too much.’

  ‘Did he drink with your husband?’

  ‘No. He drinks with Maquin, the cooper at the olive oil plant, or with Turidu Riccio, the fisherman who keeps the restaurant on the harbour. They’re as thick as thieves.’

  ‘What about the night your husband was killed? Had you been to Biz that night?’

  ‘No. I stayed home. He was watching the television. He told me he’d met a detective. You, I suppose. Then he said he had to go out. I knew he was going out for a drink.’ She paused. ‘I was out the previous week,’ she volunteered. ‘The previous time when he went to Mortcerf. I wanted to know where he’d been and he told me. He was so late. It was late when I came back and I thought he’d be in bed. But his car was out and I thought, “There’s a moon.” The moon always affects him. He becomes romantic and goes to see that woman at Mortcerf. He arrived home the next morning when it was already becoming daylight. He must have stayed with her. She’s that sort, they say.’

  Pel frowned. ‘He wasn’t at Mortcerf all that time,’ he said. ‘He left at midnight. Are you sure of the time he came back?’

  ‘I heard his taxi. I can recognise it. Everybody in the island knows it because of the noise it made. The exhaust needed repairing and it sounded like a tank arriving. It would be about four o’clock.’

  ‘So, if he left Mortcerf at midnight, where was he until four o’clock?’

  ‘Drinking somewhere, I expect. He usually was.’

  Outside again, sitting in the car, Pel looked at De Troq’.

  ‘There are four hours missing somewhere that night,’ he said.

  ‘Where was he during that time? Let’s go and check on his movements with these drinking friends his.’

  They tried the garage first. Lesage, the proprietor, was a small man with a face like a ferret, who wore overalls so ingrained with grease they looked as if they’d stand up by themselves. By means of a rusty-looking funnel he was filling an ancient van driven by a man who was obviously a farmer, using cans as Luigi André had said, which he had to fill from a drum by means of a pump. He stopped long enough to tell them he saw Caceolari most weeks, either to fill his taxi or to have a drink with him.

  As the farmer drove off, he put down the can he was using, tapped the drum to make sure it was empty and began to roll another in its place.

  ‘I’m thinking of installing an electric pump,’ he announced proudly. ‘Save all this work. I run the fire brigade here and there are always things to see to, so I don’t have much time.’

  ‘Caceolari,’ Pel said. ‘Did he have any enemies?’

  ‘None that I knew of.’

  ‘Nobody who’d want to get rid of him?’

  Lesage shrugged. ‘Only his wife.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘About two days before he was killed, I think. He came for petrol. We had a drink in the bar there.’ Lesage gestured towards the alley behind the garage where they could see a red, white and blue striped blind.

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Bit worried, I thought.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He didn’t say, but it must have been important because he talked of going to see someone.

  ‘Who? A lawyer?’

  ‘We haven’t got any here. But I think he did see someone, I saw him later and he said he’d got nowhere.’

  ‘Who would he see? Beauregard?’

  Lesage gave a grin. ‘Him? I wouldn’t tell him anything.’ He held out his hand and rubbed his finger and thumb together. ‘He’d want some of this before he did anything.’

  ‘Well, who then?’

  ‘Somebody at the château, perhaps. They know more about what goes on than most people. Perhaps that was it. They’re usually helpful if people get into trouble. I’ll say that.’

  ‘This worry of his–’

  Lesage shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he was short of money. He sometimes was. Especially just before the season started – this sort of time – and he had nothing after the winter. It was always better when the holidaymakers came because they were always losing themselves and getting farmers to telephone for him to come and fetch them. Or else the motor bikes they hired broke down. I think Caceolari had an arrangement with young Rabillard, who hires them out. At least they always seemed to have his telephone number. Perhaps Rabillard gave it to them with the bikes and Caceolari gave him a cut on the fare he collected for taking them home.’

  They told him they were looking for a farmer called Magimel and would he know where his farm was?

  Lesage scratched his head. ‘Why didn’t you talk to him when he was here?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Magimel. That was him who just drove off in the van.’

  ‘Pel looked at De Troq’ and sighed. ‘Never mind. We’ll find him later.’

  They found Rolland sweating over his forge. He was a big man in the manner of Riccio, the fisherman who ran the restaurant, wearing a leather apron and beating at a red-hot horseshoe.

  ‘There are still a few horses in the hills,’ he said. ‘And a few mules too. They keep me going.’ He gestured at the walls. ‘I also repair ploughs, rakes and harrows, and bits of tractor. When I’ve got time I make wrought-iron things. Gates. Plantpot holders for hanging on the walls.’ He grinned. ‘You’d be surprised how many I sell to the people who have holiday homes here. People from the north all seem to think that in the Mediterranean you have to have the outside of the house dripping with geraniums.

  ‘Caceolari,’ Pel prompted.

  Rolland whacked the horseshoe a couple of times and straightened up. ‘They say he was stabbed,’ he said.

  ‘He was. Several times. Do you know anybody who’d have reason to do that?’

  ‘Caceolari? Everybody liked Caceolari.’ Rolland grinned. ‘Except when they ordered his taxi and it wouldn’t start.’

  He hadn’t recently been drinking with Caceolari at all because his wife had been unwell for some time and, in any case, he didn’t believe in staying up late. It must have been Desplanques he was with, he said. He liked to stay up late.

  But it wasn’t Desplanques either. They had to get Tissandi’s permission to see him but the estate manager gave them carte blanche to enter the factory and, standing in front of the black corrugated iron sheds where the island’s olives were crushed and the oil purified, Desplanques explained that he hadn’t seen Caceolari for around a fortnight.

  ‘What about the night of the 13th? To be exact, the early hours of the 14th?’

  Desplanques shook his head. He’d been attending a christening that day in Le Havre du Sud.

  ‘My grandson,’ he said. ‘We stayed there all night because we drank quite a bit. My son runs the Solmar Hotel there. Good job. Good wages. It’s a good hotel. Not as good as the hotel in the Vieux Port here, but good. He can afford a good do. He married Fleurie’s daughter. Of course Fleurie wasn’t there. He ran off with
Pinchon’s wife. But Madame Fleurie was there. You’ll have met her? The Black Widow.’

  ‘While you were in Le Havre du Sud,’ Pel asked, ‘did you see Caceolari? Would he perhaps have taken any of the guests there in his taxi?’

  No, Desplanques hadn’t seen Caceolari in Le Havre du Sud. The Solemar Hotel was actually just outside, near the only beach in that part of the island, and, in any case, everybody came in their own car.

  ‘My son’s friends are important people,’ Desplanques said proudly. ‘They all have their own cars. Well–’ he shrugged ‘–some of them use the vans or pick-ups they use for their work, and Quérard actually came in a lorry. But then he would, wouldn’t he? He has no sense of occasion.’

  ‘And in any case,’ he ended, ‘for the time you’re talking of, after midnight into the early hours, they’d all be asleep. I was, anyway. My son put me to bed. It was a good christening.’

  Le Havre du Sud turned out to be no more than a tiny village round a minute harbour where more bronzed students were busy painting rowing boats and pedalos ready for the season. The houses were white and there seemed to be only one grocery store, known, despite the fact that it was no bigger than a garage, as the Supermarket du Sud. There were the usual holiday apartments and houses, most of them still empty, several gift shops, still not open, and three bars, all far from busy. The bars were the obvious place to ask but nobody had seen Caceolari during the evening of young Desplanques’ christening, of which they’d all been well aware because of the noise it engendered, and because it was out of season, and most of them had been invited and had closed early.

  They got exactly the same sort of answers in Biz.

  It took them what seemed hours to find Magimel. People were willing enough to direct them to his farm at Crêvecoeur but, since none of the roads had signs on them to Crêvecoeur, it was difficult to follow their directions. Studying the few they came across, it occurred to Pel that there seemed to be an obsession with unhappiness on the island. L’Aride. Mortcerf. Crêvecoeur. Amorperdu. Désolair. The Barren Land. Dead deer. Broken heart. Lost love. Woebegone. Perhaps it had some connection with the fact that it was impossible to identify the roads; judging by their own difficulties, there must have been quite a few woebegone lost lovers with broken hearts trying to find their way around. Perhaps they killed the deer to avoid starving.

  Eventually they found a stone-built place on the slope of a hill. Its name, Pel was not surprised to notice, was Aventure Désespérée – Forlorn Hope. The islanders really did have a thing about gloom.

  There were a few crops, a few olives, a broken harrow, a few chickens, a vine over the back porch showing its first grapes, and a dog that barked at them as if it had gone off its head. As De Troq’ swung his foot threateningly at it, it bolted, yelling blue murder.

  ‘Mustn’t threaten dogs,’ Pel rebuked mildly, affected by the warmth of the day. ‘If a blind man’s wooden leg explodes nobody gives a damn, but kick a dog and you’re ostracised for life.’

  Magimel had appeared at the noise. ‘I saw you down in the Vieux Port,’ he said as they explained their errand. ‘Why didn’t you ask me when you saw me at the garage.’

  ‘Because I didn’t know then that you were Magimel.’

  ‘Oh!’ Magimel nodded as if he saw the wisdom of that. ‘Yes,’ he went on. ‘Caceolari came here.’

  They had finally drawn blood but there didn’t appear to be much of it.

  ‘He stayed late,’ Magimel said. ‘He didn’t leave until the early hours of the morning.’

  ‘The early hours?’ Pel stared. ‘He couldn’t have. He was killed – on my doorstep – long before then.’

  ‘Not that night!’ Magimel looked at Pel as if he weren’t quite right in the head. ‘Not the night he was killed. The other night.’

  ‘Which other night?’

  ‘The other night he came.’

  Pel glared. ‘Which night was that.’

  ‘The night of those shootings in Nice. We sat in the kitchen and split a bottle of wine. Well, perhaps it was two. We sometimes did – and he stayed later than usual. We got talking about the shootings. Six of them. Smeared across the bar counter. A tommy gun, they said. It was on the radio. They were making a lot of it. We talked about it.’

  ‘Why? Did you think there might be some connection between the island and the shooting?’

  Magimel looked indignant. ‘We don’t go in for that sort of thing here,’ he said. ‘An occasional fist fight perhaps. That’s all. We don’t use weapons here.’

  ‘Only knives,’ Pel reminded him. ‘Such as killed Caceolari.’

  ‘Yes – well – but that’s just the Italian lot.’

  ‘Who’re the Italian lot?’

  ‘The people who’ve got Italian blood in them. From the days when this place belonged to Italy.’

  ‘And who’re they?’

  Magimel thought about it for some time. ‘Well, most of us,’ he admitted.

  ‘What time did Caceolari leave this night you’re talking about?’

  ‘About two in the morning. My wife made it very clear it was time he pushed off. She kept banging on the floor of the bedroom. It’s over the kitchen and she’s got a bad leg and uses a stick, so she can make a hell of a racket. In the end he decided he’d better go. But one of his headlights had fallen off and the other wasn’t working because the bulb had gone and he’d also run out of petrol. But he wasn’t worried. It was all downhill to his house and he knew the roads round the island like the creases on the back of his hand. And in any case the moon was bright enough to read the paper. He left finally about 2.30.’

  ‘How long would it take him to get home then?’

  ‘Half an hour at the outside, going dead slow.’

  ‘So where was he between 2.30 a.m. and when his wife heard him stop outside his house as it was growing daylight?’ Pel asked. ‘It’s my guess that night will tell us as much about the night he was killed as when he was found on my doorstep. If he disappeared into thin air for an hour or more, there must have been a good reason.’ He looked at a list of times he’d written on the back of an envelope. ‘He was with the Robles woman at Mortcerf until around midnight, then, because he fancied a few more drinks, he called on Magimel. That was normal enough but this time he stayed longer than usual because they started discussing that shooting in Marseilles. He left about 2.30 and should have arrived home at 3 a.m. So where did he go after that?’

  Sitting at the kitchen table in the Duponts’ house, with Madame Pel watching bright-eyed from the other side, they studied the map of the island. Beauregard had been unable to provide one – ‘We’ve never needed one,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s lived here all their lives’ – so they’d had to buy one at the newspaper shop in the Vieux Port which sold magazines – usually out of date; books – usually dog-eared from being handled and rejected; foreign paperbacks, most of them from an era long past, cheap plastic toys for children, cottons, wool, writing paper, pencils, and ball-point refills. The map was as dog-eared as the books and was one of a number the proprietor had bought for the tourists who were in the habit of getting as lost on their hired bicycles and lightweight motor-cycles as Pel and De Troq’ had in their search for Magimel.

  It was printed in gaudy colours and showed no contours, but the high points and the views worth seeing, of which there seemed to be remarkably few, were marked with a star. They managed to pinpoint Magimel’s farm, not without difficulty because the map showed only the main roads and none of the by-roads, and they began to trace Caceolari’s route from the Vieux Port to Mortcerf, then to Magimel’s farm and back to his home. The road ended above the harbour.

  ‘I was up there this morning,’ Madame Pel said. ‘It’s only a few minutes walk. I sat under the trees. It’s shady and there’s a beautiful view. You can see right down to the sea. Someone waved to me and I waved back.’ She looked at Pel. ‘Perhaps he stopped there before he went home. Perhaps the moon encouraged him. It would be as bright as day
because full moon was that week.’

  ‘He was only a quarter of a mile from his home,’ Pel pointed out. ‘Surely he wouldn’t stop at three in the morning within such a short distance of his bed to look at a view he’d seen hundreds of times before.’

  ‘Perhaps he – well, he’d had a lot to drink – perhaps he had to stop. Men do, you know. I’ve seen them. Standing under the trees with their backs to the road.’

  Pel looked quickly at his wife. ‘Within two minutes of home?’ he asked.

  ‘Or–’ De Troq’s head jerked up suddenly ‘–or else, in that moon we’re talking about, he saw something down there by the harbour that caught his interest and he stopped to watch. Something illegal, perhaps.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they see him? Or hear his car?’

  ‘Why should they, Patron? They wouldn’t hear him because the engine wasn’t running. He had no petrol and he coasted down hill from Magimel’s place. And they wouldn’t see him because he only had one light and the bulb in that was gone. They’d never suspect there was a car up there with a man in it watching them.’

  It suddenly began to seem a possibility. Pel patted his wife’s hand.

  ‘You’ll make a detective yet,’ he said and she seemed delighted with the compliment.

  Nine

  Pel and De Troq’ were watching from the bar with Beauregard as Caceolari’s body was carried along the harbour. The funeral was a quiet affair and there was no hearse because there wasn’t a hearse on the island. Coffins were always carried on the shoulders of relatives and when someone living in the hills died, they were brought to the Vieux Port in the backs of pickup trucks, specially scrubbed and decorated with black crêpe for the occasion.

  Behind the coffin was Madame Caceolari in a heavy veil, helped along by a youth and another woman in a black shawl, and followed by a tall pasty-faced man. There was only a sprinkling of mourners, among them, Pel noticed, the tall burly Tissandi, the Vicomte’s manager, and Ignazi, the limp youth who acted as his secretary, who, he supposed, were there to represent the Vicomte.