by Mark Hebden
‘Hé!’
The workman stopped and Escaut gestured.
‘How about a shove, copain?’ he said. ‘They’ve blocked me in and I can’t get out. This car’ll move but it needs two.’
The demolition man tossed away his cigarette end and joined Escaut behind the Renault. Laying his hands on it, with a cry of ‘Et hop!’ he managed to move it quite considerably on his own. Escaut watched him admiringly then lent his own weight and they moved the car several more centimetres.
‘I might do it now,’ Escaut said.
‘Yes, you might.’ The demolition man dusted his hands. Then his nose wrinkled. ‘What have you got in there, comrade?’
‘It’s not my car,’ Escaut said. He gestured at the little Citroën. ‘That’s mine.’
The workman moved round the Renault, his nose twitching.
‘I was with Leclerc,’ he said. ‘I was a sergeant. Aristide Roches, that’s me. We went through North Africa after the Germans. I know that smell.’
‘It’s a bit grim,’ Escaut agreed.
‘It’s more than that. It’s a smell I smelled a lot in those days. It comes when it’s hot and it’s a smell you never forget as long as you live.’
‘What is it?’
‘More likely who is it?’ ex-Sergeant Roches said. ‘I reckon, mon brave, that it would be a good idea for you to walk down to that bar on the corner there and telephone the police.’
There were a variety of reasons why Escaut wasn’t keen to be involved with the police. ‘It’s not my car,’ he said.
Ex-Sergeant Roches gestured at the Renault. ‘You can smell that, mon brave,’ he snorted.
‘I know, but – I don’t think I’ll bother.’
Roches gestured again. ‘Well, if you’re not going to,’ he said, ‘I will.’
The demolition work had stopped. The dust had settled. At each end of the Rue du Chapeau Rouge there were police cars, their blue lights flashing. Several police motorbikes stood by the curb and a large dark van waited in the middle of the road. The demolition men sat on their machines, watching, squinting against the sun, and the tapes the police had put up were crowded with sightseers.
A police sergeant with a bunch of car keys worked over the boot of the Renault, his nose wrinkled at the smell. At last, he managed to unfasten it without having to break the lock and as the lid lifted, the smell that escaped was enough to send him reeling back.
‘Ach, mon Dieu!’ he gasped.
The stench was caught by the people watching from the ends of the street and one or two women turned and hurried away. The sergeant, his handkerchief to his nose, took another look. The body in the boot of the Renault was swollen with the heat, the clothes tight against the flesh. The face had gone from grey to greeny-black, so puffed the features had almost disappeared. The flesh was dark, shining and moist and behind the right ear there was a small hole where the blood, black now, was crusted along the back of the head.
‘This isn’t a job for Traffic,’ the sergeant said, and his inspector, who was watching, lifted his radio and spoke to the Hôtel de Police.
‘Pomereu,’ he said. ‘Inspector Pomereu. In the Rue du Chapeau Rouge. We’ve just found a body in the boot of a car. Black Renault, Number 9643-QT-21. Looks as though it’s been here more than a day or two. Inform Police Judiciaire.’ The inspector paused. ‘You’d better tell them to bring gas masks and aerosol squirts. The stench’s worse than a cow’s inside.’
In the sergeants’ room, Lagé was staring up at Nosjean. ‘You’ve got her telephone number?’ he was saying.
Nosjean smiled at him. ‘Yes.’
‘You couldn’t have,’ Lagé said. ‘It’s ex-directory. So’s the Professor’s.’
Nosjean grinned. ‘I’ve got it all the same.’
‘She’s not that red-headed one that sits in the outer office,’ Lagé said.
‘I know which one she is,’ Nosjean smiled. ‘I’ve been in her office, too. Right inside.’
‘When?’ Lagé clearly didn’t believe him.
‘Yesterday. I went about that kid who was found dead: Cortot.’
‘What’s she got to do with Cortot? Cortot was studying electronics. Foussier’s Modern Languages.’
‘He also runs that committee the University set up to investigate drug-taking,’ Nosjean said. ‘It’s an extra-mural activity.’
‘Like Lagé with his secretary,’ Krauss pointed out.
‘Is that how you got letters from her?’ Lagé asked. ‘The drug thing?’
‘Yes’ Nosjean said.
‘Just letters, I suppose. Typed. Signed by Foussier. I’ve got those. At home.’
‘No,’ Nosjean smiled. ‘I had a note from her in her own handwriting. It was sent here. To me. Marked “Personal”. It’s in the file. Foussier keeps a watch on kids who get involved with drugs. He knew about Cortot.’
‘A fine man,’ Lagé said earnestly.
‘I think he’s a pompous ass.’
‘I wish I had his salary,’ Misset observed.
Darcy looked up from his desk. ‘A bit more attention to detail, mon brave,’ he said, ‘and you might have.’
‘He’s an expert in half a dozen fields and a near expert in half a dozen others,’ Lagé said. ‘Everything from languages to electronics. He makes me want to go in for a few myself.’
‘Me,’ Krauss said, ‘he makes tired.’
Darcy pushed away the papers in front of him, deciding the discussion had gone on long enough. ‘If his eminence, Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, walked in here now,’ he said, ‘you’d all be back on Traffic in forty-eight hours, escorting kids across the road and making sure nobody pinched the Porte Guillaume. How about getting on with a bit of work? Because nothing’s happened lately it doesn’t mean it never will. And when it does you’ll be complaining there’s too much to do. It could happen this afternoon. Or an hour from now. Or in five minutes time. Even now.
It was at that moment that the telephone rang.
For a second Darcy stared at it, as if startled by its reaction.
It was Control and what they said made him grin and look round at the others in the room. There was something in the grin that made their hearts sink.
‘Rue du Chapeau Rouge?’ he said. ‘Who found it? Are Traffic holding them? Good. What’s that? It’s a wonder it wasn’t found before? Why not?’
They were all watching him, and they saw his face fall.
‘Because the smell’s enough to turn your stomach?’ he said. ‘Dieu! Right, I’ll tell the Chief.’
He put the telephone down, and turned to the others.
‘What did I tell you, mes braves?’ he said cheerfully, opening a drawer and stuffing pencils and notebooks into his pocket. ‘It’s come.’
‘What’s come?’ Krauss asked.
‘The incident, mes petites mignonnes, that we were all awaiting with bated breath. It’s a body. And a nasty one, too. Nosjean, inform Lab and Fingerprints. Misset, order a car. Lagé, tell Doc. Minet. Krauss–’
Krauss stared at him. ‘I was going to take the kids out tonight,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, now,’ Darcy said, ‘you’re not. It’s a murder. You’d better sit on the telephone. It’ll save your poor old legs.’
‘It’s my night off,’ Nosjean pointed out.
‘Not tonight, mon brave,’ Darcy smiled. ‘This one sounds a beauty. Traffic have found a stiff in the boot of a car. It’s been there for some time, it seems, and it smells like ripe Camembert. I’d better go and tell the Old Man.’
The ‘Old Man’ had just returned to his office. He had walked from the Palais de Justice and the narrow streets of the old city were hot. His feet ached. They’d been aching ever since the previous evening. There’d been a long session out at St Clément, and when he’d finished they’d felt as if they belonged to several other detectives, all cripples, and like Krauss, all on the point of retirement.
The newspapers had already got wind of the questioning and were doing thei
r best to make it appear that the whole French judiciary system was corrupt. ‘The enquiry is in the hands of Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel,’ they announced.
Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel scowled. They’d obviously somehow got his name from his record. Or from a deadly enemy. Seeing his full name in print always bothered Pel. Even when it was only looking at his driving licence. The names had been his mother’s choice and he sometimes thought they had been the cause of his father’s early death. Perhaps he had worried himself into his grave at the thought of what might happen to a son of his carrying the load of such a label.
Pushing his spectacles up on to his forehead, he sat down, took out a packet of Gauloises, selected one which looked as though it might just be smaller and less lethal than the others and lit it with a sigh. It was Pel’s ambition that one day he might stop smoking. He knew he never would, but he liked to make a lot of song and dance about trying. Any minute now, he thought, he would drop dead of a heart attack, or gasp out his last with asthma or cancer of the lung. The facts were clear. He knew them well. The grim truth, unfortunately, was that he couldn’t stop smoking.
As he drew the strong Régie Française tobacco smoke down to his shoes, he coughed violently, but his eyes brightened and he began to feel better immediately. His depression fell away from him at once and he decided that, with luck and a bit of effort, he might last out the day.
As he stretched in his chair, it seemed almost as if the smoke was leaking out from under his toenails. He began to cough again, racking coughs that made him go red in the face and brought tears to his eyes. When he stopped, he felt a new man.
He was just savouring the feeling of being reborn when the door opened and he sat bolt upright, guiltily aware that he’d been caught relaxing. Sergeant Darcy grinned at him. He knew Pel too well to be put off by his alert expression.
‘Job, Patron,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ Pel asked bitterly. ‘Something dreamed up by a traffic cop between a bock of beer and a session with his best girl?’
‘No, Patron. It’s a stiff. And I gather it’s a strong stiff.’
‘Strong?’
‘As a ripe cheese. Traffic found it in the boot of a car in Chapeau Rouge. Seems to have been there for a few days and, in this heat you can imagine what it’s like. They suggest gas masks.’
Pel scowled. ‘I was just about to go to lunch,’ he complained.
Darcy’s shoulders moved. ‘That’s the worst of this job, Patron,’ he grinned. ‘The tensions. The frustrations. The bitterness that comes with them.’
Pel glared at the sarcasm. ‘Any witnesses?’
‘The two guys who found it. One, Emile Escaut, who was trying to move the car to get his own out. And one, Aristide Roches, demolition worker, who was helping him. Traffic have them answering questions – so far without much help, because they’ve never seen the car before, or for that matter each other. Judge Polverari’s on the case.’
Pel began to stuff a notebook, pens, spectacles and cigarettes into his pockets, a slight, dark-eyed, dark-haired, intense figure in a shabby suit and dusty shoes. Then, rooting round in his drawer, he found a packet of bismuth tablets and pushed those in, too, in case he started a stomach ulcer from missed meals. A second notebook followed the first then, for safety, an extra packet of Gauloises in case he worked his way clean through the others without noticing.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Informed Lab, Fingerprints, and Doc. Minet?’
‘Patron,’ Darcy said sadly, ‘I’ve been doing this job a long time now. They’re all on their way, all as eager as you. Nosjean’s already gone. Misset’s in the office complaining he ought to be home helping his wife with the baby. I’ve got him standing by. Lagé’s following Nosjean. Krauss’ on the telephone. I think he’s going to be busy.’
‘Car?’
‘At the front ready for you.’
Unable to find any flaws, Pel grunted.
‘I don’t suppose you thought to ring my home and tell my housekeeper I won’t be in for lunch?’ he said.
‘I always got the impression,’ Darcy retorted, ‘that you couldn’t care less whether you went home to her cooking or not.’
Pel scowled. His feud with his housekeeper was known throughout Police Headquarters. It had been going on as long as he could remember, and he had only brought it up because he’d been unable to find anything else to complain about. He stared at Darcy.
‘Well,’ he demanded sharply. ‘What are you waiting for? Hanging about as if we had all the time in the world. Let’s be off.’
Two
Nobody was very pleased with the body in the Rue du Chapeau Rouge. The odour was appalling and they were all concerned that somehow it would get on to their clothes.
Misset’s wife, for instance, had a nose like a bloodhound and could almost tell what job he’d been on by the smell he brought home. She knew when he smoked and when he had a beer – something, in view of their growing family, she wasn’t any too keen on – and above all, when he’d been in the presence of another woman. Since Misset’s job often included interviewing women, not all of them old and some of them young and more than sprightly, Misset suffered a great deal from her suspicion, and he knew exactly what she’d have to say if he walked into the house smelling of the smell that was coming from the boot of the car in the Rue du Chapeau Rouge.
Dr Minet was moving gingerly. His concern was that, if there were broken bones, he should not touch them. It didn’t look as if there would be broken bones, but if there were a scratch from a splintered end it could lead to gangrene. His assistants, who were going to have to handle the corpse when Pel gave the word, were even more reluctant. Their job involved touching a great deal that wasn’t pleasant but it was not very often they handled anything as unpleasant as the body in the boot of the Renault. The photographers weren’t any too pleased either. It was their job to produce pictures from every possible angle. Including close-ups. It was the close-ups which bothered them.
Emile Escaut was standing with ex-Sergeant Aristide Roches. He looked worried as he watched what was going on. He had intended bolting when Roches had turned to head for the bar to telephone the police, but Roches, like any good Frenchman, considered it his right to poke his nose into other people’s business where the security and safety of the Republic was concerned, and had deftly removed Escaut’s keys from the dashboard. ‘The police will want witnesses,’ he had pointed out. ‘And you’re one of them.’
Escaut looked bitterly at Roches, who was standing, plump, square and important, watching the policemen. He touched Darcy’s arm.
‘Look,’ he said quietly. ‘My car. That’s it. Do you think I could go now? I’ve got an appointment.’
Darcy eyed him up and down. Darcy looked smart enough to be on guard at the Elysée Palace. Emile Escaut didn’t look smart enough to be on guard anywhere.
‘Is it urgent?’ Darcy asked.
‘Well, no.’
‘Better wait then. You’re the guy who found it, aren’t you?’
‘No. Not really. I just happened to be here.’
‘Live in the city?’
‘Four years.’
‘Well, just hang on. We’ll let you know.’
His handkerchief over his nose, Pel was watching as Minet moved warily about. He was frowning, his dark intense face absorbed, his thin frame alert. Pel didn’t like the smell any more than anybody else, particularly as he had a nose like Misset’s wife. Darcy often said they should put a lead on him and use him as a sniffer dog. But he had a job to do. Alongside him, watching narrow-eyed, Judge Polverari, the juge d’instruction, also waited. He was small and round and fat and his nose twitched unhappily.
‘I think we shall need a large cognac after this, Pel,’ he said.
Pel nodded.
‘In fact,’ Polverari continued, ‘I think I’ll visit the bar down there now, and think about that Lavergne case. It’s a nice comfortable case to think about with this smell ar
ound. Blackmail of a beautiful woman. All boudoirs, perfume and scented baths. It’s something I’ll have to take up with Paris before long, because she lives there. Either way it’ll take my mind off this. Have we got the two who found it?’
‘Yes.’ Pel turned and spoke over his shoulder. ‘There’s no good reason to hold them, though. They don’t seem to be concerned. After I’ve talked to them they can go.’
Polverari nodded. ‘Keep me informed,’ he said. He jerked a hand at a small red-fronted establishment at the end of the road whose door was full of people staring at the activities of the police. ‘I’ll see there’s a brandy waiting for you.’
Pel hardly heard him. As Polverari wandered off, still holding his handkerchief to his face, Inspector Pomereu, of Traffic, appeared.
‘The car was stolen,’ he announced.
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ Pel observed. ‘I can’t imagine anyone having that in his car from choice. Where’s it from?’
‘Auxonne. It was reported stolen four days ago.’
‘Just about the time our friend was stuffed inside it, I imagine,’ Dr Minet said shortly.
‘Get hold of the owner,’ Pel said. ‘We’ll need to talk to him.’ He turned to Minet. ‘What have you got, Doc?’
Minet shrugged. ‘Can’t tell you yet,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to do an autopsy. But it’s a gunshot wound in the back of the head. I can see no other wounds at the moment. You’ll have to wait for the report.’
‘You can do better than that,’ Pel growled. ‘It doesn’t have to be exact and I won’t use it as evidence. I just want an idea.’
