by Mark Hebden
‘Right,’ Pel said. ‘Get Misset on it. He doesn’t seem very busy. Then organise a car. I want to see this Archavanne.’
Archavanne’s business seemed to consist of several new corrugated iron sheds like hangars in a field just outside St Peuple. St Peuple was only a small place, with one bar, one café and a few houses, a typical Côte d’Or village of ancient farm buildings just beyond St Seine l’Abbaye. You could see it as you descended the hill from Cestres, a grey sprawl of old stones and weathered timbers so thick and hard the ravages of hundreds of years of woodworm had barely touched them. Archavanne’s garage lay in the bottom of a valley with steep fields on either side at a point where the road flattened out to give ample space for a row of yellow-painted lorries, trucks and vans. Further along, hidden by a row of trees, was a new house, red-brick, ugly and big for the area, with wide windows and terraced gardens made from the slopes of a field. They looked new, cheap and nasty, with rows of yellow-painted pots full of geraniums.
Louis-Arnold Archavanne was a squarely-built man who gave the impression that he had once been a lorry driver himself.
‘But, of course,’ he admitted. ‘I did my time at it. I worked for my father. Eighteen years. All over the Continent. Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Belgium. Everywhere you could send a lorry I took one.’
He was bald-headed, with eyes heavily wrinkled as though he had peered through too many windscreens into too many suns, and thick forearms strengthened by wrestling for hours at a time with heavy steering wheels.
He also laughed a lot, as though he enjoyed himself and enjoyed enjoying himself. His voice was loud and he spoke most of the time in a shout, as if he’d spent his life trying to talk over the roar of a truck engine.
‘We’re not big yet,’ he said. ‘But we’ll get bigger.’
He seemed to revel in his growing wealth and importance, and Pel caught his eye more than once dwelling lovingly on the appalling room they were in. His wife, who brought the drinks in, went with it. She looked like Archavanne, and Pel reflected that men’s wives often began to look like them after twenty years of marriage. Like Archavanne, she was square and solid, with too much make-up, and like Archavanne she laughed a lot as though she, too, enjoyed what his hard work had brought them. Judging by the spotless nature of the room, she spent all her days cleaning and tidying it.
They were both tremendously enthusiastic and the house was luxurious in the manner of the house of a peasant who had come to wealth. The things in it were valuable, but the taste was atrocious, with too much that was bright and too much that was metallic, as though Archavanne had suddenly found his firm very profitable and was eager to let it be seen in his home.
‘It was my father’s wish,’ he said, ‘to be as big as some of the big boys, and now it’s my wish. My father ran it from a yard behind the bar at St Seine l’Abbaye. We hadn’t half enough room and had lorries parked all over the place. One in a farmyard. Two by the crossroads on some land we rented. Another was always parked behind the Old Man’s house and when you looked out of the salon – if you could call it a salon! – you found yourself looking straight up the exhaust pipe of a damn great Creusot. Talk about spoiling the view.’
Pel let him run on and he didn’t need encouraging. ‘I built this place,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stand the overcrowding. I heard the garage here was going, so I snapped it up. It had plenty of land and the farmer sold us a bit of his field. After all, in this line, you don’t have to be in the middle of the city. What you need is space. If you’ve got the lorries, people’ll come to you.’
Pel fished in his pocket and brought out the paper he had taken from Miollis’ flat. Laying it on the table, he rested his finger end on the number, 80-35-01-601. ‘That’s your number,’ he said.
Archavanne frowned. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.
‘It came from the flat of one, Gilles Miollis, of St Denis, Paris. Know him?’
Archavanne rose. ‘I think we’d better have a drink first,’ he said. ‘How about a coup de blanc?’
He busied himself finding a bottle of white wine and brought glasses which he set in front of them. He took a long time pouring them.
‘Miollis,’ he said, frowning. ‘Gilles Miollis. I don’t know anybody of that name. Who is he, anyway?’
‘He was found in a car in the Rue du Chapeau Rouge, in the city, four days ago,’ Pel said.
‘Dead?’
‘They usually are,’ Darcy said drily, ‘when they’ve been murdered.’
Archavanne smiled. ‘I didn’t know. Is he the man they mentioned in the paper?’
‘You read it?’
‘It didn’t mean a thing to me, of course. What do you want from me?’
‘Did you know Gilles Miollis?’
‘Never met him in my life.’
‘I didn’t ask that. I said, do you know him?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘Your telephone number was found on this paper, which was found in his flat in the St Denis district of Paris.’
Archavanne smiled again. With relief. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you first arrived I thought you were after me.’
‘Would there be any reason for us to be after you?’
Archavanne lifted his glass. ‘There’s always a reason when you’re in business,’ he said. ‘I thought you were after me for contravening traffic regulations.’
‘The Police Judiciaire don’t deal with traffic.’
‘No, I suppose not. But you know what lorry drivers are like. They fail to fill in log books. They don’t do what they’re told. They don’t use the tachographs. Those are the things they have in the cab to prove they’ve been where they say they’ve been, instead of fifty miles off their route, carrying a wardrobe to their grandmother’s new house, or helping their girl friend to set up home in a different village.’
Pel’s finger was still resting on the telephone number on the sheet of paper. ‘The number, Monsieur,’ he said quietly. ‘How could he have got hold of your number?’
Archavanne shrugged. ‘The same way everybody else gets hold of it,’ he said. ‘Advertising. We use the trade journals.’ He rose and fished in a drawer to produce a fistful of yellow pamphlets, all bearing the name of his firm. ‘You’d better keep one. We stick them in letters and they get passed round. You’d be surprised. I expect he got hold of it that way.’
‘As far away as Paris?’
Archavanne smiled. ‘We had someone enquiring not long ago from as far away as Dunkirk. One even from Bayonne, which is close to the Spanish border. He was probably up to something.’
‘He was a small-time crook.’
‘Very probably.’ Archavanne was not perturbed. ‘Dishonest people like to rent vehicles from established firms. When they get up to something the name of a reliable firm on the vehicle they’re using can be quite an asset. One of our vans was used in a bank raid in Amiens last year.’
‘Could he have been smuggling?’
Archavanne shrugged. ‘It’s not unknown. One of our drivers was caught bringing watches in from Switzerland two years ago. It’ll be in your files.’
‘Do your drivers take pep pills?’
‘I expect so. You sometimes need them, believe me.’
‘Benzedrine, for instance?’
‘I wouldn’t know. Why?’
‘Benzedrine tablets have been found. Did Miollis ever contact you?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘You ever been hired by people from Paris?’
Archavanne gestured. ‘Often.’
‘Ever heard of Pépé le Cornet?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s one of the top villains in Paris. He could be interested in hiring vans.’
Archavanne shrugged. ‘If he was, he didn’t give that name. But there’s nothing to stop them giving a false one, is there? And if they guarantee the cash and they seem straightforward, who are we to argue?’
‘What about Mar
seilles? Ever had requests from there?’
‘From time to time.’
‘Recently?’
‘No. But–’ Archavanne shrugged again ‘–what’s to stop them coming through somebody a bit nearer. We wouldn’t know. If you’re thinking of crooks, I’ve known it to happen.’
Pel had been thinking of crooks. Big crooks. The suspicion was growing in his mind that the big boys were moving into his area.
‘Ever hear of a man by the name of Nincic?’ he asked. ‘Fran Nincic.’
‘That doesn’t sound French.’
‘It probably isn’t.’
‘I’d better check.’
Archavanne picked up a telephone on the window ledge and pressed a button. ‘Géraldine,’ he said. ‘Have we ever had an enquiry from anybody called Miollis or Nincic? N-I-N-C-I-C.’ He looked at Pel. ‘Géraldine’s my secretary. We always keep a list of people who enquire. If we hear no more from them, we send them a letter and a pamphlet. You’d be surprised how many of them are just hesitating and change their mind when they hear from us.’ He turned to the telephone. ‘What’s that? Right. Thanks, ma chérie.’ He looked at Pel and smiled. ‘No Miollis,’ he said. ‘And no Nincic.’
Eight
It was Nosjean who turned up Fran Nincic, but it was Didier who put them on the right path.
‘We have a boy at school,’ he told Pel over dinner, ‘who’s called Zupancic. I’ve just remembered him. His mother speaks French in a funny way.’
Pel’s ears pricked up. ‘In a funny way?’ he asked. ‘What sort of funny way. Is he a foreigner?’
‘No.’ Didier was busy with the pommes frites and didn’t bother to lift his head. ‘He’s French. But I think his father came from somewhere else.’
‘Where? Do you know?’
‘No. It’s a funny name. I can’t pronounce it. Full of Js. Lub-something.’
Pel leaned forward. ‘Ljubljana? Could that be it?’
‘It might.’ Didier shrugged and dug again at the pommes frites. ‘I’m not much good on names. Where is it?’
Pel wasn’t much good on names either and he wasn’t sure. Somewhere in the Balkans, he thought, and when he got to the office he dropped it for safety into Nosjean’s lap. Misset was still trying in vain to get an interview with Professor Foussier – chiefly, Darcy suspected, because he wished to meet the legendary Mademoiselle Chahu, his personal assistant – but Nosjean, suspecting, after what Pel had told him of Didier’s comment, that the name was East European, took the problem to the library, which sent him to see a Hungarian professor of physics called Pazstor who had fled to France during the revolution in Budapest in 1956.
‘Slavic,’ the professor said at once. ‘The “ic” at the end is equivalent to the Russian “itch” and the German “itz”. They all come from the same stem. Probably Balkan.’
‘Can you be more precise?’ Nosjean asked.
‘Serbian. Slovene. Croat. The area known nowadays as Yugoslavia. Perhaps Bulgarian, Romanian or Hungarian. There was a lot of shifting about after the Second War among the populations which fell along what is now the Iron Curtain. A lot of them preferred not to live under Russian domination and moved westwards. Some were also forced to come to France after 1940 by the Germans to work and some stayed. There were thousands of displaced persons in 1945. Come to think of it, there’s a Nincic who’s a lab assistant in the Department of Pathology. Probably the same family. You’ll be able to get the address at Biological Studies. Try him. At least he’ll know where the name comes from.’
‘Serbian, eh?’ Pel said thoughtfully as Nosjean reported to him. ‘Let’s have his address.’
Fran Nincic lived at Auxonne. Pel knew the place well. It was noted chiefly for the fact that there was born the man who had promoted during the Revolution the system of metric weights and measures used throughout Europe, an innovation somewhat more intelligent than the renaming during the same period of the months – Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire – which had ended up translated by the English as Wheezy, Sneezy, Freezy; Slippy, Drippy, Nippy; Showery, Flowery, Bowery; Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety.
‘Go and see him,’ Pel said. ‘Take Misset,’ he added maliciously. ‘He was hoping for the afternoon off.’
Nincic’s home was one of a group of small neat white houses, all new, well built, substantial and expensive-looking. Outside was a Mercedes, white, with splayed wheels and a streamlined roof.
‘He seems to be making a lot more money than he ought to be,’ Nosjean said. ‘That wasn’t paid for from the wages of a lab assistant.’
Nincic was a tall young man, handsome, dark and fiery-looking, and he made no bones about his background.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I think my great-grandfather was a Serb, from Sarajevo. But my grandfather and father moved after the First War to France and became French citizens. I was born in Auxonne and I’ve lived here ever since.’
‘And your father?’
‘He married here. He trained as a chemist and runs a pharmacy at Longvic. He left Auxonne fifteen years ago. I sometimes help in the evenings.’
Nosjean studied him. ‘Why didn’t you go into the business?’ he asked.
Nincic gestured. ‘I didn’t wish to. Not my line at all. You have too many worries these days.’
Misset cocked a thumb. ‘That your car outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Expensive.’
Nincic smiled. ‘I like cars, and I save hard.’
‘Insured?’
‘Why?’
‘We like to do Traffic’s job,’ Misset smiled. ‘If they find any unwanted corpses about, they report them to us. If we find any uninsured cars we mention them to Traffic.’
Nincic gave Misset a cold look. ‘It’s insured. With Mutuelle.’
While they were talking, a girl appeared from the kitchen. Nincic didn’t introduce her, so Nosjean asked her name.
‘Duc,’ she said. ‘Madeleine Duc.’
‘Girl friend?’
‘You could call me that.’
‘Address?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m asking.’
‘I don’t have to tell you.’
Nosjean knew the answer to that one. ‘I think you do,’ he said. ‘We’re from the Police Judiciaire and I can make you if I have to.’
She glanced at Nincic who shrugged. ‘This is my address,’ she said.
‘All the time?’
‘Yes.’
‘You a student?’ It was a shot in the dark.
‘Yes.’
‘Long way from the University, isn’t it?’
‘We go in every day,’ Nincic said. ‘By car. If I’m not here, there’s a train. It’s not far.’
Nosjean smiled. ‘How old are you?’ he asked the girl.
‘Twenty.’
‘Parents alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do they write to you here?’
She hesitated, then glanced at Nincic. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I share a room in the city with a girl in Applied Agronomy. Edith Roux. My letters go there. She brings them to class for me.’
‘It’s no business of the police,’ Nincic pointed out.
Nosjean smiled. ‘Who’s making it their business? I’m asking questions because I have to, that’s all.’ He came to the point quickly, beaky-nosed, angular and as intense as a young Napoleon.
‘Paul-Edouard Hertot, Achille Lorre, Jean-Pierre Ramou and Philippe Mortier,’ he said. ‘Know them?’
Nincic smiled. It was an engaging smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know them.’
‘What do you have in common?’
The smile vanished again. ‘What is this? An enquiry?’
‘Yes,’ Nosjean said bluntly. ‘An enquiry.’
‘And why are you asking me these questions?’
‘Because they also knew a boy called Jean-Marc Cortot. And Cortot’s dead. He was on heroin.’
‘So? What has this to do with me?’
‘Your name’s been m
entioned.’
‘In connection with drugs?’
‘You’re a research assistant at Biological Studies.’
‘Yes.’ Nincic laughed. ‘But look at me! Do I look like someone on drugs?’
‘Lots of people on drugs don’t look like people on drugs,’ Nosjean said in a voice as flat as a smack across the chops. ‘It depends what they’re on.’
Nincic scowled. ‘Are you accusing me – ?’
‘I’m not doing anything except ask questions. Did you know Cortot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where he got his drugs?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘No, I don’t. Will that do?’
‘Did he get it from your department?’
‘We don’t handle those kind of drugs.’
‘But you use them from time to time. On rats and things.’
‘Yes. And we have to sign for every gramme and milligramme we use. You can check the books.’ Nincic’s face darkened. ‘Anyway, what’s behind all this – ?’
‘Behind all this is a dead man,’ Nosjean said, feeling a little prim and self-important. ‘The police have to find out how he came to meet his death.’
‘And are you suggesting – ?’
‘We’re suggesting nothing,’ Misset said sharply. ‘We’ve told you several times we’re merely asking questions. If students in the city are getting drugs, it’s our job to find out where.’
‘They’re not getting them from me,’ Nincic snapped.
‘In that case,’ Nosjean snapped back, ‘you’ve nothing to worry about.’
Nincic calmed down a little and even tried to make amends. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I was short. I realise you have a job to do. But when this sort of thing is flung at you it shakes you a bit. Let’s have a drink and forget it and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.’
He produced a bottle of wine and poured four glasses. Misset sat near the girl. She wore an elusive perfume, was very attractive and had on a low-cut dress that showed a lot of cleavage. Misset found it disturbing.
‘Now, go on,’ Nincic said. ‘Let’s see what we can do to help. I knew Hertot, Ramou and Lorre.’
