The Beast of the Camargue

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  The morning had been well spent. He now knew exactly where he would capture Christian Rey.

  Then he would take him to see the beast.

  It was time.

  5.

  De Palma saw her as he passed the war memorial commemorating the dead of the wars in the Far East. She was standing on the other side of Corniche Kennedy, looking out to sea from the bridge of white stones that arches above the stream in the valley of Les Auffes.

  From that distance, he couldn’t make out her face, but she looked beautiful and blond, with a slender figure. Probably a foreigner making the most of the last light of day to take a photograph of the sea.

  Just like thousands of other tourists.

  But the woman had neither a camera nor a camcorder, just a black bag slung over her shoulder. And she seemed to be observing him.

  De Palma stopped for a moment and leaned on the cast-iron railing in front of the war memorial. Rain was on the way. At the far side of the port, the housing estates of the northern suburbs were fading into the dingy nightfall.

  A customs boat emerged from the Passe Sainte-Marie, slipping across the calm sea. The customs officers had recently decided to dismantle the cigarette-smuggling networks, so they were pulling in all the boats that came from North Africa. Instinctively, de Palma glanced to his left and, through the gray light, could make out the El Djezaïr in the distance as it slid calmly between the Château d’If and the Frioul archipelago.

  The din of cars along the harbor road rose above the railings then spread out across the sea. De Palma stopped in front of the Grand Bleu bar, looked inside and signaled to the waiter to serve him a beer on the terrace outside.

  He sat down facing the sea, turning his back on the roar of the traffic. A migraine was starting up. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, as if to open the jaws of a vice.

  “Good evening, M. de Palma.”

  He opened his eyes. A violent rush of adrenalin pinned him to his chair. The creature he had seen near the war memorial was standing in front of him. It was Isabelle Mercier, with her almond eyes.

  For a few seconds, de Palma wondered if he wasn’t suffering from one of his now familiar hallucinations. His hands shook slightly. He hid them beneath the table.

  “Forgive me for introducing myself in such an abrupt manner … My name is Ingrid Steinert.”

  After his appointment with Chandeler, he had supposed that this business of the German billionaire was well and truly over. But he took Ingrid Steinert’s proffered hand, and its soft touch made him feel ill at ease.

  “Good evening, Mme. Steinert … please, do sit down. Can I offer you a drink?”

  She was wearing a huge diamond ring on her middle finger. The sort of luxurious gem that can be seen either in jewelers’ windows on place Vendôme in Paris, or among the hauls from famous burglaries.

  “Mmm …” she said, pursing her lips. “I’d really like a pastis…”

  Mme. Steinert trained her eyes on the Baron. Her resemblance to Isabelle Mercier was striking. She had large eyes of a pure blue that fondled whatever they looked at. Big blue eyes that shifted to turquoise when her mood suddenly changed.

  She produced from her bag a cigarette case of leather and gold and opened it delicately.

  “Cigarette?”

  “No thanks, I’ve quit.”

  He saw in her eyes that he was failing to conceal his discomfort. He cleared his throat, and his curiosity was drawn by the wedding ring on Ingrid Steinert’s finger, which matched her diamond and her earrings. An absolute fortune.

  “What can I do for you, Madame Steinert?”

  Her eyes clouded over, and she ran the tips of her elegant fingers through her hair. De Palma realized that he had upset her, and immediately felt sorry about his brusqueness. He felt awkward, and she noticed.

  “My lawyer met you and he told me that you refused to help me. So today I’ve come to see you myself.”

  “You haven’t wasted time! You’re not used to people refusing you, is that it?”

  “You’re quite right. But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It wasn’t hard,” she said, and glanced at a man who stood across the avenue.

  De Palma spotted the bodyguard, then another: two heavies, probably Germans, who were trying to blend in among the kids of Malmousque who were kicking a ball about.

  “And you never go out without your two bruisers?”

  “Not since my husband died. There are three of them, actually. It’s the price I have to pay to feel safe.”

  De Palma swallowed a mouthful of beer, then slammed his glass down so hard that its contents shot over the rim and splashed her cigarette case.

  “I’m sorry, Mme. Steinert, but I’m going to have to repeat what I told your lawyer. I can’t and won’t do anything to help you.”

  She did not reply, but merely raised her glass of pastis to her lips, without taking her eyes off the Baron. A yacht was moving almost imperceptibly toward the old port, its main jib swollen by the dying wind. For the first time in months, de Palma felt a stab of fear. He observed Ingrid Steinert and realized that something was happening, a game that he couldn’t control.

  “Does it surprise you,” she said mockingly, “that a woman should make contact directly?”

  “It does, when it’s a woman like you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re extremely rich and you can pay for men like me just as you please, and not have to stir yourself!”

  “You think so? Don’t put yourself down! Money can’t buy everything, and Es ist höchste Zeit! as we say in German—we’re out of time.”

  She opened her cigarette case again. Her fingers were shaking slightly. She looked toward the islands.

  “You have to help me, M. de Palma.”

  The tone of her voice had darkened. Her whole body was tense. De Palma felt sorry for her.

  “You have heard of my husband, William Steinert, haven’t you?”

  “No, sorry, I haven’t.”

  Ingrid Steinert’s expression hardened, and her chin jutted out as though to stress her determination. She clasped her hands on the table. In the distance, the hills of L’Estaque were fading into the twilight. In Mourepiane, the lights from the gantries glittered on the ro-ro ships bound for North Africa or the Black Sea.

  “My husband has been murdered,” she said calmly. “And I want to find the person or persons who did it.”

  “Look, I understand how upset you must be, but I can’t help you. Really I can’t. I’m just not allowed to.”

  “You tell me what’s allowed? The Tarascon police are shelving the case. So far as they’re concerned, my husband has gone off somewhere and there’s nothing they can do about it! No one will believe me. What does it all mean?”

  She kept her hands clasped tightly together, which gave even more strength to her bearing.

  “All I can advise you to do is to go to the authorities, to the public prosecutor, and try to have them open an investigation. That’s what Chandeler should have told you to do. The Brigade Criminelle in Marseille has some very good people, the Tarascon section too. I’ve an old friend I could phone up if you want. You could …”

  “There are things that I can’t tell you here. We’ll have to meet again.” Then she added: “If you want to, that is. And don’t forget that money is no object.”

  De Palma remained silent for some time. His migraine was returning and he gently massaged his temples. Ingrid Steinert was observing his slightest reactions. He looked up and met her steady gaze.

  “O.K., tomorrow, I’ll try to get to know your husband’s case.”

  The lights of the cargo boats heading for Corsica lit up one after the other. The wind had turned again, barely a breath of air.

  “Thank you.”

  “Let’s get this straight, I am promising you nothing.”

  A voice inside told him he’d just been snared by Ingrid Steinert. He wan
ted to say something spiteful, but swallowed it back. The woman in front of him wasn’t just trying to clear up her husband’s death. In fact, all through their conversation she had spoken his name just once, and hadn’t shown the slightest sign of sadness. Anxiety, yes, but not sadness.

  “Here’s my card,” she said. “It has all of my addresses and phone numbers, personal and professional. You can contact me whenever you want.”

  She smiled and raised her glass. He had the impression that she was about to propose a toast to their unlikely collaboration.

  “Try the mobile numbers first,” she said in a strangely muted voice. “They’re the most reliable.”

  The moment she stood up, a Mercedes 500 with German number plates drew up at the pavement. De Palma had no idea how Ingrid had summoned her watchdogs. The driver got out and opened the door. She disappeared behind the smoked-glass windows.

  A few sailing boats were roaming around the port of Marseille, propelled by their outboard motors. As it passed by the seawall, the Danièle-Casanova gave two blasts of its siren, filling the sky.

  He strolled for a while in the little quartier of Malmousque before returning to his new acquisition: a vintage red and chrome Alfa Romeo Giulietta coupé, which he had haggled for with an old collector in Mazargues, a few days after coming out of hospital.

  Ten minutes later, he found his legendary car where he had left it in traverse de la Cascade and, not for the first time, had to admit to himself that he was suffering from lapses of memory.

  Reversing dangerously, he crossed traverse de la Cascade and turned onto Corniche Kennedy. The traffic was getting heavier, in fits and starts in some places and total gridlock in others. Most of the Marseillais who worked in the middle of town went home to the southern suburbs by way of the Corniche.

  The Giulietta was heating up. The Baron clenched his jaws, and kept an eye on the dashboard thermometer. His nerves were as taut as steel cables, no doubt because of going on the wagon. Since his accident, alcohol affected him physically as never before, hacking away at his nerve endings.

  In the distance, at the far side of the harbor, the day’s last ray of sunlight crossed the grayness hanging over Ile Maïre. It came like a sign from the elements: it was there, years before, that he had first kissed Marie, his ex-wife. Now and then, on days of nostalgia, he would stand in front of Maïre to count the waves. For some time the island’s tip had been his navel, the center of his existence, but now he was not so sure. He needed a new center.

  At the end of the Corniche, he drove around the statue of David and left the calm of the sea behind him. The long traces of the cars’ brake lights drenched the view of Le Prado in blood red and created the impression that they were rising up to the hills of Saint-Loup. He slipped a C.D. into his walkman and put on his headphones: Mozart, or Boche music, as Jean-Louis Maistre used to say, who preferred the full and brassy melodies of the Italian masters.

  “I’m the bird-catcher,

  Ever joyful, hooray!

  I’m known as a bird-catcher

  By the young and old in all the land.”

  Mme. Steinert’s face settled in his mind, the sheerest fact, above the traffic jams, with its perfectly oval shape, straight nose and azure eyes that could pierce sheet metal.

  Isabelle Mercier.

  The real world up to its tricks again.

  A cop at the end of his tether.

  Dark thoughts his constant visitors.

  A slight prickling made his brows crease. Another migraine. He chased away the images of the two women.

  “I’m known as a bird-catcher

  By the young and old in all the land.

  If I wanted girls, I’d trap them by the dozen!”

  He headed toward Rabateau, overtaking the entire rank of cars that seemed glued to the tarmac, before driving into the industrial estates around La Capelette.

  “If all the girls were mine,

  I’d barter them for sugar,

  And all my sugar I would give

  To the one I liked best.”

  In front of the half-demolished old sulfur plant, he avoided the mattresses and wrecked washing machines on the paving stones. Then he lowered the window to feel the air on his face; there was still that same electric smell as when he had been a boy, when he used to bring girls to these dead streets to fondle them, while his friends were at home groaning over Euclidean geometry.

  When he got home, the Baron drew the curtains across the French window overlooking the gardens of the Résidence Paul Verlaine. Night was falling; the orange light of streetlamps spilling out across the gray and black bark of a tall sea pine.

  Jean-Louis Maistre rang the doorbell. De Palma could not remember having invited him round.

  “Sorry, Le Gros, my brains are jelly at the moment.”

  “No matter,” Maistre said, sitting down on a chair. “Any news of your medal?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because it’s supposed to be soon.”

  “I couldn’t care less …”

  “Come on, don’t play the romantic cop. A bit of recognition never did anyone any harm!”

  Maistre was the exact opposite of de Palma: short and stocky, with a bright face beneath a black mane of hair. Always ready to laugh at anything, even the dirtiest tricks. The two friends had met in the Brigade Criminelle at 36 quai des Orfèvres in Paris, the sanctum of the Police Judiciaire. Their friendship had been cemented during long evenings spent over packs of beer instead of their guns.

  When the Baron returned to Marseille, Jean-Louis had followed him. Now he had a wife and children, and had abandoned the Police Judiciaire for the quieter pastures of the Sécurité Publique.

  “Tell me, Le Gros, does the name William Steinert ring any bells?”

  “You should move to a real police office, Baron, that way you’d be up to date—we know our stuff in the Sécurité Publique! We’ve got a missing person’s alert for him. It arrived this morning. You do mean the German billionaire who lives in Provence?”

  “That’s him. Do you know anything else?”

  “No, sir. Nothing apart from the notice dated today.”

  Maistre’s face was covered with fine wrinkles announcing imminent old age, and tiny pink veins ran across his fleshy cheeks.

  “Why are you interested in Steinert?”

  “Good question! His wife has asked me to find him.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that!”

  Maistre burst out laughing. He crossed his arms over his stomach.

  “I wouldn’t mind playing at private eye myself.”

  De Palma sighed.

  “There’s something that’s bothering me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She looks like Isabelle.”

  Maistre fell silent. He was thinking, trying to find the right thing to say. The Baron interpreted this silence as a sign of mistrust: his friend had doubts about his mental health.

  “When will I see you next, Baron?”

  “Dunno.”

  “How about next weekend? The children haven’t gone on holiday yet. They’d love to see you.”

  “I’m fine for this weekend.”

  Maistre stood up, took a C.D. down from the shelf beside him and pretended to read the cover.

  “Come to think of it, in fact it’s the boys in Tarascon who are on the case at the moment. At least they’re the ones who put out the alert. But I reckon it will all end up with the Police Judiciaire.”

  “Do you think Marceau is in the know?”

  “I reckon so. He’s always the one who deals with this kind of thing.”

  “How do you get on with him?”

  “I haven’t seen him for ages. But things were O.K. the last time I did. We had a good chat: two old-timers going down memory lane.”

  “It’s odd that he should be mixed up in all this as well.”

  Maistre opened his eyes wide and shook his head.

  “It’s a coincidence
, Michel. It’s true that Marceau was with us when we got stuck with the Mercier case, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “He worked very hard on it …”

  “We were three young officers from the same year at the police academy, and we happened to end up on a case that affected all of us. We were marked by Isabelle. Marceau maybe more than we think.”

  “You’re right, Le Gros. I’ll look him up in Tarascon.”

  “He’d like that.”

  The Baron ran his index finger along the line of C.D.s and picked out The Court of the Crimson King. He slid it into the player, poured himself a shot of Aberlour and slumped into the armchair.

  “You’re into pop music now?”

  “You made me listen to it on stakeouts, don’t you remember?”

  “Like it was yesterday. We used to smoke the evidence as well.”

  Maistre pulled a face and knitted his eyebrows. He scratched the tip of his nose and shrugged.

  “I think I’ve found a boat, Baron.”

  “For fishing?”

  “Affirmative. It’s a lad from Pointe-Rouge who’s selling it.”

  “Then we’ll go fishing with King Crimson on full blast.”

  At night in La Capelette, the factories stood in dark rectangular clusters, ruins of pitiless time.

  It was in front of the huge wall of the pith helmet factory that the local boys used to fight with the lads from Pauline or Saint-Loup. With bicycle chains and hobnailed broom handles.

  De Palma was generally the last to get into a fight, but he was also the most violent—a violence he had now locked up behind bars of alcohol and music, and, when he was young, doggerel verse as well.

  The Marseille that the Baron knew could turn the sweetest children sour; it fed them neither folklore nor good intentions, but rather violence and the lure of money.

  In La Capelette, the role models were the local gangsters, who drank in the Bar de l’Avenir under the bridge of the railway that ran through the neighborhood and ended up in the municipal dump. The hard nuts of l’Avenir were the only ones with even a shred of prestige, a success that stuck like shit to a blanket. They all had Italian roots, but were proud to be from Marseille, despite the great white city’s record of injustice.