The Beast of the Camargue

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  An ambulance from Tarascon came to fetch Bérard at 8 p.m. Ingrid and the Baron decided to go with him.

  At 10:32 p.m., the old shepherd died. The doctors at the hospital failed to make any real diagnosis. They just mentioned his great age and the psychological shock.

  That evening, Ingrid took de Palma’s hand and squeezed it tight. She put up her hair, which had tumbled down over her shoulders. Her profile stood out against the crude light of the neon lamps. Between her cheek and the lobe of her ear, there was a beauty spot shaped like an ace of spades.

  At two in the morning, de Palma dropped Ingrid off at La Balme. He told her about the photograph he had seen on the shepherd’s bedroom wall and realized how hard it would be to use it now that Bérard was dead.

  He left the farmhouse, drove up toward Eygalières and parked Maistre’s 205 by the entrance to an olive grove, where the road to Maussane met the sunken track that led to Les Fontaines. No one could see the car from the main road.

  He took a torch from the glove compartment, closed the car door quietly and headed off down the path, keeping the beam of light fixed on the ground.

  To the right, the dark ranks of vines looked like ridges of coal in the shadows. There was a fragrance of ripe grapes and warm pine resin. Each footstep crunched in the sharp little stones along the track. Suddenly, the Baron dived in among the trees and advanced into the darkness.

  Les Fontaines farmhouse was about forty meters away, out in the open. He switched off the torch and felt his way forward in the moonlight. Five minutes later, he was crossing the yard.

  The flock was calm. He slipped into the doorway, used his wire in the lock and went straight up to the bedrooms. Everything was eerily silent. He found the photograph, took it down and played his torch over the faces of the people around the Tarasque.

  It was at that moment that he sensed he was not alone.

  The photograph comes to life.

  The crowd surges with clamor.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  The crowd opens like a wound.

  Before the papier-mâché monster that is rushing toward it.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  Bérard is holding on to the monster’s tail.

  He steers it with precise gestures.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  Bérard calls out: “Laïssa la passa … Laïssa la passa …”

  The knights join in: “La tarasco dou casteu … Lagadigadeu …”

  The children run away screaming.

  The monstrous mouth clacks its teeth.

  One of its knights finds a girl in the crowd.

  She is beautiful and dark, like a gypsy virgin.

  The beast’s servant captures her.

  Two other knights force her up onto the animal’s neck, chanting: “Lagadigadeu …”

  The virgin roars and wriggles her bare legs.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  Bérard grips the beast’s tail so as to make a seasaw movement.

  The entire crowd sings: “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  The neck rises.

  The virgin bounces upward.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  She straddles the Tarasque.

  Her thighs are half naked.

  She grabs at the hideous monster’s mane.

  “La tarasco, la tarasco …”

  People are laughing and giggling.

  People are sparkling, their eyes lit up with pastis.

  Glasses clink.

  On the terrace of the Café du Centre, people are chatting in German.

  In German and in Provençal.

  De Palma spun round and pointed his torch at the window. A livid face stared at him from outside, its features carved out by the beam of light.

  He drew his Bodyguard. The face vanished at once, and he heard the thud of a body landing on the ground. He ran to the window, opened it and played his torch over the farmyard. It was empty. In the pen, the sheep were jostling each other, barging against their mangers.

  21.

  The temperature had dropped. The muggy heat of the past few days was over. Breezes were blowing between the clumps of rushes, making wrinkles on the smooth waters.

  Moracchini and the two forensic technicians jumped off the punt that Texeira had lent them. Just behind them, de Palma and Romero were sitting in an inflatable dinghy, making a first reconnaissance tour around the reed hut. At each push, Romero’s pole splashed loudly in the water.

  Richard, a forensics veteran, entered the hut first. He stayed there for half an hour before emerging carrying an armful of bags which he placed in a plastic crate.

  “We’ll put the seals on later, when we get back to the office,” Romero said. “I’ll just note down what they are.”

  “There’s quite a lot of stuff,” said Richard. “It looks rich.”

  “That’s good news,” Moracchini said, looking at the packets.

  Richard had listed the contents of each sample and the number of the marker.

  “I’m just going to take a couple more shots, then we’ll go down into the hole.”

  “As you like.”

  De Palma and Romero examined the bank that ran around the hut. They didn’t see much, apart from bird tracks in the sodden earth. They were all over the place.

  But no traces of human feet.

  They went back to the place where de Palma and Texeira had noticed, some days earlier, that the bottom of the marsh had been disturbed.

  The water level had risen slightly and there was nothing usable. But the Baron still wanted to explore in the northerly direction given by the footprint he had found. He advanced through the reeds, but the vegetation grew so dense that he had to concede defeat: it was impossible to go this way.

  “Let’s see if Richard’s finished with the hut. I want to be there when they go down into the hole.”

  Richard was finishing taking photographs. His colleague, Patrick, hadn’t found much around the hut except for a few feathers.

  “Michel’s right. Someone has cleaned up. And I must say the guy has talent. You’d think they belonged to our team.”

  “Don’t tempt fate.”

  “No really, it’s as if they’d had police training.”

  Richard came out of the hut and put his camera down on its case. He wiped his forehead and took off his gloves.

  “We’ll wait for Michel, then down we go.”

  The smooth slope that led down to the underground room was about two meters long. The room itself measured two by three meters—high enough to stand up. It had been dug out of the earth, which was quite hard here, and then the floor had been crudely concreted over. The walls had simply been smoothed down, like cob.

  It all formed a proper room, which, in its shape and conception, recalled the underground hides of the Viet Cong.

  “It stinks down here,” Moracchini said.

  “Yeah,” said Richard. “Shit and piss. Human, and not that old. It’s like being in a lair. I’ll put the CrimeScope over it, but at first sight there isn’t much to find.”

  Moracchini pulled herself up out of the tunnel and sat down next to the Baron. She produced a packet of cigarettes and offered him one. He waved his left hand to say no.

  “You’ve really stopped smoking, Michel?”

  “It’s bad for migraines. So I’m trying to stay stopped.”

  “What do you think about all this?”

  “I don’t understand a thing. We’re finding a new piece of jigsaw every day. On the one hand, there’s a lunatic wiping out mobsters one after the other. Then there are voices, here, in the asshole of the world. Voices talking about the Tarasque in Provençal. Plus a billionaire who drowns in the same patch. Add to that the bastard who’s trying to shoot me, then you have the entire picture. If you can find the least bit of logic in all this, then let me know.”

  “Maybe not everything’s connected. O.K., they intersect, but they’re not necessarily
linked. It’s happened before.”

  “I’d put it differently: there is a connection, but no logic. That’s what makes it all so hard.”

  “And what’s the connection?”

  “The Tarasque.”

  She looked up at the ceiling.

  “You really believe in all that?”

  “I don’t believe, I’m making an observation. Steinert was interested in the Tarasque, Christian Rey was a Knight of the Tarasque, so was Morini, who was even born in Tarascon. Plus he was a neighbor of Steinert and had an interest in the famous Downlands. I also found out that he knew Rey, who worked for him collecting his slot machines takings. Is that a link, or isn’t it? Then there’s the fact that the corpses are found in places or next to places that have something to do with the Tarasque.”

  “O.K., so this isn’t all coincidence. Steinert was into the Tarasque. O.K. Everyone in Tarascon is into the Tarasque. Voices have been heard here. O.K. Steinert died nearby. Right. But what tells you that there’s a link between the two bodies?”

  “The adrenalin.”

  “What?”

  “Adrenalin. This blasted adrenalin. It’s in every body. Loads of it. Mattei is adamant. The people who died around here had the fright of their lives before they died. That’s the only true, definite link. And it’s a good scientific one. The rest is still hazy, I quite agree, and I must admit that it’s been messing with my head for days now.”

  In the series of hold-ups involving Lornec and his gang, Marceau had signed most of the statements and almost all of the reports. Just a few of them bore the signature of Alexandre Vander, a capitaine in the B.R.B.

  Maistre leafed through scores of pages trying to get to the essentials. There were statements by Lornec, Vandevalle and Santiago. The last two had been killed. Only Lornec was still of this world.

  The reports were uninformative. Everyone had denied everything and had provided bogus alibis: Lornec was supposed to have been at his sister’s place, Santiago had gone to see a friend in Nîmes, while Vandevalle claimed that he had been watching the semi-final of the European Cup.

  According to the list of exhibits, some weapons had been seized at Lornec’s house. But a SIG automatic pistol was not among them. Maistre flicked through Marceau’s conclusions, closed the file with a sigh and returned it to the secretary of the records department.

  On his way back to his office, he dropped in on the B.R.B. Vander was there, typing up some phone-tapped conversations made during an investigation into stolen cars.

  “How are you, Vander?”

  “Fine, except that I’m spending all my time tapping phones. Jesus, that’s no job for a real policeman!”

  “I need your help, Alex.”

  “Are you inviting me to join the Sécurité publique?”

  “No, I want you to think back to the case of Lornec, Santiago and Vandevalle. They did hold-ups during the Nineties.”

  Vander rolled his chair backward and placed his huge hands on his thighs.

  “That was the crew in the north. And they go back quite a way. We never got any real results. Two of them have been iced since then. But as far as I know, Lornec is still alive.”

  “Did you work with Marceau at the time?”

  “Jean-Claude? Yes, we collared them together, but the case fell through.”

  “Were there some guns?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the models?”

  “Hang on, I’ll have to get back in the mood … There were some hunting rifles, maybe a couple of revolvers. I can’t remember. That’s quite a poser you’ve asked me.”

  “Try and remember! An unusual weapon.”

  “Just a second. Wasn’t it then that we found something a bit odd …”

  Vander gripped his chin and closed his eyes.

  “A SIG. Yes, I think there was a SIG. You don’t often find a piece like that.”

  “Even nowadays?”

  “No, absolutely not … it’s the only time I’ve seen robbers using a SIG. They generally prefer big pieces, like an 11.43, and not fine artillery like that.”

  “And you don’t know what became of it?”

  “It was taken as an official exhibit, of course! What do you imagine? Get out the file and you’ll find it. But if you’re looking for the actual piece, I’m not so sure. It may be downstairs in records or still at court.”

  Vander glanced at his computer screen, clicking twice on “Save.”

  “You’ve got one hell of a memory, Alex.”

  “Haven’t I just! You know, sometimes I can recall the phone numbers of people we were tapping three years back. Just imagine that!”

  “You’ve always impressed me.”

  Maistre slapped him on his bulky shoulder. Vander pretended to wince.

  “Tell me, why are you interested in all that ancient history?”

  “I just wanted to check something out in a case. We’ve got a gun that’s talking, and it’s the same one.”

  “That’s odd. Because at the time, it had never been used. It was brand-new.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definite. No doubt about it. You remember the guns that mobsters use. They’re like miracles at Lourdes! Just ask Marceau, and you’ll see!”

  “Thank you, my man.”

  *

  Maistre waited to be in his car and stuck in a jam on the northbound motorway before telephoning the Baron.

  “This business about the SIG is starting to look funny. Vander tells me that he saw the gun and that it was officially recorded, but there’s nothing in the file. What’s more he says that the weapon had never been used.”

  “It’s more than just strange. Have you checked out the chronology?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The date when the exhibits were sealed, and the date when they picked up the bullet.”

  “I don’t have the date on me. I meant to get it.”

  “The exhibits have the wrong number, but the date must be the same as for the statements!”

  “Sorry, Michel. I don’t think as fast as you do.”

  “Check the day they found the casing in the old grocer’s shop against the day when Marceau and Vander pulled in the three little sods. If it’s before, then there’s no problem. If it’s afterward, then you’ll have hit the jackpot. And you know what I’m hoping …”

  “I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  Maistre pushed his knees up to steady his steering wheel and opened the file. It took him just five minutes to work out that there was a period of no less than two years between the two dates. This revelation gave him the heaves.

  “Bingo Michel! The bullet was discovered later …”

  “What’s your conclusion?”

  “That the weapon disappeared from our nice safe haven. And that some people are so cocksure that they leave things as gross as this behind them.”

  “And after all that, it wound up in the hands of the man who tried to kill me.”

  “Three times.”

  “Exactly. Well done. But we need to know more than that. Have you mentioned this to anyone?”

  “Yes, Vander.”

  “There’s no risk with him. But don’t tell anybody else. Otherwise, we could really end up in hot water.”

  “O.K.”

  “And then, we mustn’t look for links when there aren’t any, if you see what I mean.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s Lornec who provides the link. Lornec, then Morini. Lornec was working for him right up till his death.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m psychic.”

  “Leave it out, Michel.”

  “All the same, Lornec has nothing to do with this. He was just unlucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. But I’m sure he’s not behind it all. A piece arrives at headquarters or the court, then it leaves. That’s the real problem. And there are only two people who could have done it.”

  “Stop it, Michel.
You’re giving me the shivers.”

  “Either a magistrate or an investigator.”

  “Marceau!”

  “Obviously. The judge had no interest. Too dangerous for him, and anyway they know the ground. In those days, the magistrate was probably Alonso; she was certainly not the kind to give a gun back to a mobster with a letter of apology.”

  “Why Marceau?”

  “I have no idea. To be honest, I’m at a loss. This comes as a bomb shell to me.”

  “But, Michel, just imagine, we’ve known him forever! Really, I can’t believe it.”

  “I realize that. But if I remember right, four or five years ago there was a big shortage of guns on the market. That might explain it. Marceau has always had money problems. The Inspector General’s office has already bawled him out on a couple of other occasions for similar reasons.”

  “I hope we’re wrong about this!”

  “I’d like us to be, Le Gros. I really would.”

  The Baron took a long look at the map. He wanted to avoid the area of the fire so that no one would spot him. To approach from the north, on the Fontvieille–Maussane axis, was impossible. The same applied to the direction from Eygalières. He would have to go from the south, even if that meant cutting through private property.

  The map showed several paths through the forest. The hardest part would be avoiding any fire patrols or the local police. He would leave the car as far away as possible from the place he was aiming for.

  In Marseille, he had rented a 4×4 Nissan Patrol. It had cost him a fortune and he wouldn’t get it back.

  He folded up the map and drove as far as Raphële, where he took the road that led straight to the Alpilles. A quarter of an hour later, he was going down a track that led away from the main road into the wilds.

  He drove for some time between two rows of barbed wire, then the road climbed through the first wood of pines and stunted oaks. The 4×4 gobbled up the steep slope and started to pitch like a boat. Then the road began to snake along increasingly rugged hillsides.

  In the distance, the plain of La Crau melded into the sky, the sea, and the marshlands of the Camargue. It was a huge, flat expanse, hazy in the evaporating dew.

  When he passed the final bend, which formed a pass, the first charred trees appeared. The landscape changed suddenly. Nature had been blowtorched; dark stumps stuck up from the earth like charcoal claws. The limestone formed a few white patches that stood out from a blanket of soot.