Pel Under Pressure (Chief Inspector Pel)

by Mark Hebden

  ‘How?’ Nosjean asked.

  ‘I met them at a party. They were always together.’ Nincic hesitated. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I guessed they were on soft drugs.’

  ‘How about Cortot? He was on heroin.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I thought he was like the others. After all, people don’t go around telling you “Look, I’m sniffing dope.” But you sometimes begin to suspect. Behaviour. That sort of thing. There are lots of kids trying dope these days. More than there ought to be. Personally, I think the university authorities ought to sling them out. They just get in the hair of the serious students and get them a bad name.’ Nincic smiled. ‘After all, some go to university to work, don’t they? They want to go into the professions, and they’ll not manage that on drugs, will they?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Nosjean said.

  ‘Universities are the basis of France,’ Nincic went on earnestly. ‘They always have been. And if they get a bad name, the whole thing falls apart. There’s enough Marxism, Communism, Maoism and all the other isms, without druggism.’

  ‘Ever heard the name Pépé le Cornet?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Maurice Tagliacci?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever come across other students on drugs?’

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘Know where they get them?’

  Nincic shrugged. ‘No, I don’t. Have you seen Professor Foussier? He says what we need is something like Alcoholics Anonymous. I try to talk to these kids when they come to the lab and start trying to wheedle stuff out of me. They get up to some pretty bad habits, I can tell you, because they’re away from home for the first time. They get slovenly, then they start drinking and eventually trying drugs. I’ve pleaded with more than one of them to cut it out.’

  Nosjean didn’t believe a word of it.

  Nincic’s father lived with his wife over his shop in the Rue Georges Guynemer. There was a microphone and a loudspeaker by the door and Nosjean had to announce who they were before the cordon was pulled and they could enter.

  The old man had the same fiery eyes as his son and the same aggressive spirit. ‘I’ve been in business since the war,’ he said. ‘I started with money I’d saved. There’s nothing wrong with that, I hope.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Nosjean agreed. ‘Do you ever have trouble with students trying to get hold of drugs?’

  ‘The shop’s been burgled four times. Chiefly for tranquillisers or benzedrine – what they call pep pills.’

  ‘Have they ever come in demanding harder drugs?’

  The old man gestured. ‘They have done. We always send them packing.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘I have one assistant. My son helps occasionally in the evening.’

  ‘Why didn’t he join the business?’

  The old man shrugged. There was a suggestion of disappointment in the gesture. ‘He prefers the University. He studied there, of course. I sometimes wonder if it was a mistake. People who go to university sometimes get the bug and they can’t live without it. Sometimes they don’t ever grow up.’

  It seemed to be time to go to the top. If anybody knew the drug scene at the University it had to be Foussier.

  Taking out his notebook with all the telephone numbers of his contacts, Nosjean deliberately waited for Lagé to come into the office before he asked for the number.

  ‘Is that Mademoiselle Chahu?’ he asked. As he saw Lagé’s eyebrows shoot up, he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. Lagé leaned to one side, straining his ears.

  ‘This is Sergeant Nosjean. You told me I could contact you any time.’

  The voice that answered was dark velvet in colour. ‘That’s correct,’ it said. ‘I remember.’

  ‘I need to see Professor Foussier.’

  ‘The Professor’s always booked up two days or so ahead.’

  ‘This is the police, Mademoiselle,’ Nosjean pointed out. ‘It’s urgent.’ He decided to inject a little drama into the discussion. ‘Two days from now might be too late.’

  There was a long pause. ‘I’ll see,’ the voice said.

  As he waited, Nosjean smiled at Lagé, who rose abruptly and left the room, frowning. But to Nosjean’s disgust, when Marie-Anne Chahu came back on the line, it was not to say an appointment had been made but merely that Professor Foussier would speak to him on the telephone.

  ‘Drugs,’ Foussier said in a hurried eager voice as if he were headlining a lecture. ‘They do, of course, pose a problem here and unfortunately it’s already a growing problem. In this city – away from Paris and Marseilles – we haven’t been very bothered with it up to now, but there have been cases.’

  ‘Many, Monsieur le Professeur?’ Nosjean asked.

  ‘Not many,’ Foussier admitted. ‘One or two. Then it became three or four. Eventually it became five or six. Next year I expect it will be seven or eight. Which is why I agreed to head the committee we set up to look into it. After all, who’s likely to know most about the students and what they get up to but the heads of departments?’

  ‘What happens to the students if they’re found out?’

  ‘A few are sent home,’ Foussier said. ‘Or, if they need it, they have treatment. One or two are caught by the police – you people. The worse they’re affected, the more careless they become, of course.’

  The urgent voice went on, enthusiastic and full of concern. Foussier was a man who was highly publicity-conscious and liked at every opportunity to get in touch with anyone who might get his name in Le Bien Public, and his office sent out a stream of notes, advices and opinions on every subject under the sun to anyone who wanted to receive them – and a great many who didn’t.

  And since Foussier’s interests seemed to cover the whole University spectrum and a few subjects outside such as flying, he had a pretty wide field for airing his opinions. Every society in the city had him as a patron or a benefactor – even Lagé’s half-baked photographic society – and they were all proud to pass on information about his activities on their behalf. It was a threadbare edition of Le Bien Public that didn’t include his name at least half a dozen times. Nosjean often wondered if he were fishing for a Légion d’honneur.

  As Nosjean tried to pose a question he interrupted in his plummy arrogant voice. ‘You must have the letter I wrote you on the subject,’ he said.

  Nosjean couldn’t resist it. ‘Which one, Monsieur le Professeur?’ Up to now he had three, all carefully filed.

  There was a moment’s silence. Foussier clearly hadn’t noticed the sarcasm. ‘The one dated the 12th.’

  ‘Yes. I have that.’ Nosjean was reading it even as he listened. ‘Mon cher Sergeant Nosjean,’ it read. ‘You have asked about the student Cortot. I knew the boy well. His was a weak character not strengthened by his military service. He was lonely and his tutor passed on to me the suspicion that he was on drugs, knowing I would be interested in helping him. I considered he needed clinical assistance and I advised this. He doesn’t appear to have acted on the advice…’

  Foussier was still rattling on. ‘Everything’s in that letter,’ he said. ‘All my thoughts on what happened. You may use it, of course, or you may pass it on to the Press. Just as you please.’

  Nosjean managed to shove his voice through a chink in the diatribe. ‘Have you come across instances of drug pushing, Professor?’

  Foussier paused, as if he were startled that anyone should have the temerity to interrupt him while he was in full cry. ‘Not yet, thank God,’ he said.

  ‘Could it be that someone’s trying to expand the scene here?’

  There was another pause. Nosjean repeated the question and Foussier came to life sharply. ‘More than likely,’ he said. ‘Judging by the increase. It’s only a marginal increase, but it is an increase. It started three years ago, I suppose. That’s when we found our first suspect. It’s quite new.’

  ‘Somebody’s noticed us, I think.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been discovered all
right. Perhaps it comes from Marseilles. I don’t know. I often wonder if it isn’t a Russian plot to undermine the youth of the West.’

  It was something that had crossed Nosjean’s mind more than once. Get the whole population sloppy with drugs, then let the tanks roll.

  ‘But why here?’ he asked.

  Foussier paused again. ‘Because it’s safe, perhaps. Well away from the usual places like Amsterdam, Marseilles and Hamburg. It would make a good picking, after all, wouldn’t it? And a safe picking. Do you have a narcotics squad, sergeant?’

  ‘All forces have a narcotics squad,’ Nosjean said cautiously. He didn’t add that sometimes the narcotics squad consisted of men taken off rapes, assaults and robberies with violence and that, at that moment, it consisted chiefly of him, Nosjean.

  ‘Not as big as a Paris or Marseilles operation, I imagine,’ Foussier said. ‘After all, we’re a bit out of the way here, aren’t we, from the clever boys who’re being watched by the police.’

  ‘Do you think there are clever boys setting up in this city, Professor?’

  Foussier gave a little laugh. ‘There are clever boys everywhere these days, aren’t there, sergeant? Everybody wants a quick return for their money. My father once said he considered a good profit was ten per cent. He was complaining of people who wanted fifty per cent. Nowadays they want a hundred – and even more. The media don’t help. Every fifth programme’s about some tycoon who uses his money for power. It’s only television, it’s true, but you’d be surprised how it influences young people. When they’re young they get dreams and it’s then that they’re vulnerable.’

  When Nosjean put what he had learned to Pel two days later, the corruption case at St Clément had come to a head and a sous-brigadier and two policemen had been suspended, and Pel had had to sit in on the Chief’s enquiry with Judge Polverari.

  He listened quietly, while Darcy leaned on the door, a half-smile on his face.

  ‘So Foussier thinks we’re becoming a drugs centre, does he?’ he said. ‘Well, he may be right. We’re nicely central, of course. At least for Eastern France, Switzerland and South-West Germany. No wonder Miollis was interested. How about Nincic? Is he a pusher?’

  ‘Nothing’s known, Patron. But I’ve a feeling he’s involved.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just a hunch.’

  ‘Hunches are good things for a detective to have, mon brave,’ Darcy said. ‘Hunches are what make detectives. Krauss never had a hunch in his life, except that it’s lunch hour or time for a beer.’

  ‘We’d better go and see him.’ Pel leaned forward. ‘Even hunches are based on something,’ he went on. ‘What’s yours based on?’

  Nosjean shrugged. ‘His set-up. It’s not what a research assistant affords. He runs a Merc. It’s insured with Mutuelle. I went to see them. I found out he took out a foreign travel insurance in February and another in May. There was one last winter, too.’

  ‘Where did he take them out for?’

  ‘Mutuelle said they covered “all countries”, so they could be for anywhere. It’s a lot of trips abroad for a research assistant, Patron.’

  Nine

  When Pel and Darcy reached Auxonne, Nincic wasn’t there, though his girl friend, Madeleine Duc, was.

  Pel came to the point quickly and placed on the table the photographs of the bone button that had been found with Gilles Miollis in the boot of the Renault in the Rue du Chapeau Rouge.

  ‘That’s edelweiss,’ he said. ‘They have it in countries where there are mountains. Serbia’s mountainous.’

  The girl looked interested.

  ‘Your friend, Fran Nincic, is from Serbia.’

  She smiled and shook her head. ‘He’s French,’ she said. ‘His grandfather came to France about 1919. His family have lived here ever since.

  Pel pushed the photographs forward. ‘Of course,’ he admitted, ‘it could be German. Or Swiss. Or Italian. It had a scrap of green cloth attached to it. And that probably makes it German.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘Your friend, Nincic,’ Pel said. ‘Does he have any clothing of that type?’

  ‘With bone buttons?’

  ‘Like this one.’

  She smiled. ‘Nino’s a smarter dresser than that. That sort of thing’s a bit out of date, anyway, isn’t it? Even Germans don’t wear it much these days, and lederhosen are definitely out. People these days prefer jeans.’

  It was a point, Pel had to admit. There was no such thing as national dress any more. Only international dress, with everybody trying to look like Americans. Even countries tried to look like America; while children, whom teachers spent years trying to teach French or English or German, much preferred to sound as if they came from Texas.

  ‘Where’s Nincic at the moment?’ he asked.

  The girl’s shoulders moved. ‘Away. On business.’

  ‘I thought he worked at the University?’

  The shoulders twitched again. ‘It doesn’t stop him doing a little business on his own, does it?’

  ‘What sort of business does he do?’

  ‘He doesn’t tell me. I don’t ask.’

  It was a funny world, Pel thought, when a girl would happily live with a man, cooking his food, darning his socks, warming his bed, without being interested in what he did for a living.

  ‘Why is he in business?’

  ‘Why?’ She seemed puzzled.

  ‘There must be a reason for a man to want to do two jobs at once.

  The shrug came once more. ‘To make money, I expect. Everybody wants their own set-up, don’t they?’

  ‘He told my sergeant that his own set-up was the one thing he didn’t want.’

  ‘Oh, he does.’ She smiled pityingly. ‘Believe me. And a better one than his father’s, too.’

  ‘What’s wrong with his father’s?’

  She pulled a face. ‘A small pharmacist. Pharmacists don’t make the sort of money Nino wants.’

  Pel guessed at the sort of money Nino was after. ‘Where has he gone?’ he asked.

  ‘He said Dôle.’

  ‘He went away in May and February, too. And last winter. Did he say he was going to Dôle then?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Then why did he take out a foreign travel insurance for his car to cover those dates?’

  Her smile died. ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me. Perhaps he changed his mind.’ She was trying to appear indifferent but Pel could see she was troubled. She didn’t like to think her boy friend had lied to her about where he’d been and was doubtless wondering if he’d been visiting another girl.

  ‘When is he due back?’ Pel asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Again the casual attitude. ‘It doesn’t make any difference to me, anyway. I’m going home for a holiday this weekend. To Avallon. My father’s a dentist there.’

  Pel pondered. There was something about Fran Nincic that smelled and it seemed no coincidence that the car in which Miollis had been found had also come from Auxonne.

  ‘The 13th,’ he said. ‘Remember it? Weekend before last. Was he here then?’

  ‘No.’

  Pel gave Darcy a quick glance. ‘Where was he? Do you know?’

  ‘Yes. I was with him. We went camping. In the Jura.’

  ‘You were together the whole time?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  She stared at Pel, then gave a giggle of laughter. ‘That was the weekend that man Miollis was murdered, wasn’t it? You think Nino might have done it.’ The giggle became a gurgle and she stared at Pel as if he’d suddenly grown two heads. ‘Oh, no,’ she laughed. ‘Not Nino!’

  Pel waited patiently until the laughter died down. ‘Were you together the whole time?’ he repeated coldly.

  ‘Of course! Day and night. We went camping.’

  Camping was a useful alibi. It was difficult to check campers. Doubtless Nincic was clever enou
gh to be aware of it, too.

  ‘Only we didn’t bother to camp,’ she went on. ‘All that fuss about going to a site. Signing in. Putting your name on the fiche d’hôtel. Kids playing football. People playing radios. We just found a field and slept there.’

  ‘How?’

  She gazed at him with large, frank brown eyes. ‘We just went into each other’s arms.’

  That wasn’t what Pel had meant but he didn’t argue. She had answered his question. It made it even more difficult to check on them.

  ‘Where exactly did you go in the Jura?’ he asked.

  ‘Pontarlier way.’

  ‘That’s close to the Swiss frontier. That could account for the button. Go there often?’

  ‘Not since last year.’

  ‘Did you go last year, too?’

  ‘Yes. We met some Austrian students who’d crossed the border. There’s a café on this side.’

  ‘Did you know their names?’

  ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘I’d never seen them before. They were from Innsbrück and were climbing in Switzerland, but they’d taken a day off to come into France.’

  ‘It’s not climbing country there.’

  ‘It’s walking country.’ She smiled. ‘I expect they were just collecting countries. You know how you do.’

  Pel had never wanted to collect anywhere in the world but Burgundy. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘We got talking, because Nino’s parents had lived in Innsbrück at one time and he recognised their accent. They asked us to post some letters for them to Austrian students in France. The café had no stamps. The season hadn’t started. Nino said he’d do it and they gave him the money. It wasn’t much. Just three letters and a small parcel.’

  Pel’s ears pricked up. ‘What was in the parcel?’

  ‘They said it was photographs. It was a small box, about the size you get photographs in.’

  ‘Did you notice the names and addresses?’

  ‘Yes. All in Paris. There was nothing on them. Just things like “Greetings” and “Grüss Gott”. That’s what the Austrians and the Swiss say to each other.’

  ‘What about the parcel?’

  ‘It was addressed to “Poste Restante” in Dijon.’