Death at the Clos du Lac (2013)

by Magson, Adrian

‘I hear what you say, of course. And I agree. But you won’t win on this one. Levignier is very established within the Ministry. He will have the backing of senior figures and his brief gives him considerable power.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know of him, but only by reference and reputation.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He runs the Internal Security Directorate. That is all I know. All I need to know.’

  Rocco sighed. He’d heard of them. No wonder Massin was jumpy. The vast and multi-layered Ministry of the Interior based in central Paris was responsible for internal security in France, and the ISD was its internal police watchdog, plugging holes and rooting out problems wherever they existed. Working separately from the normal security and intelligence departments, Levignier’s team worked on finding rats in the woodpile and isolating threats to the stability of the government and the status quo. It gave them great reach and power, but rarely made them any friends.

  ‘Why would they be interested in a death in a sanitarium?’

  ‘I have no idea, Inspector. Levignier’s work spans the police, intelligence, the military and other departments. Best leave it alone, I think. One death, even as odd as this one, is not worth fighting over. Get your man Lamotte out of there and leave it to Levignier to sort out, if that’s what he insists on doing.’

  Rocco put the phone down and walked across to the poolside to take a last look at the body. He was reluctant to let this matter go, but he could recognise when a fight wasn’t worth having. Yet …

  ‘Who put pussy in the well, d’you think?’

  Rocco spun round. A man in a bathrobe and slippers was standing behind him, staring into the water. He was in his fifties, fat and balding, with deathly pale skin and liver spots across his head. He looked half asleep, his eyes crinkled at the edges, and yawned. ‘Dear me, poor old Simon. What’s he doing in there? He couldn’t swim, you know. He told me. Hated water. Don’t know what made him use that bloody device. I wouldn’t, if you paid me.’

  ‘Simon?’ Rocco heard voices approaching outside. ‘Simon who?’

  ‘Simon Ardois. At least, that’s the name he used. Can’t rely on that here, though. It’s the house of smoke and mirrors, know what I mean?’

  ‘Not really. Tell me.’

  He gave Rocco a sideways look, like a big child about to tell a lie. ‘Well, nothing is what it seems here. Same with the people.’ He leant forward and whispered, ‘Lots of secrets in this place, let me tell you. But I’ve got a few of them tucked away.’ He winked conspiratorially and laid a finger along the side of his nose, the dramatic co-conspirator. Then he yawned again and looked about as if surprised to find himself here. His eyelids drooped suddenly, and he shook his head.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Rocco asked him.

  ‘From my room. I was looking for the kitchen. I need coffee. I woke up, but had trouble getting out of bed.’ He squinted. ‘What was all the shouting about? Lights on everywhere, too. Bloody place is usually so quiet. Too quiet, in fact. Not last night, though. Couldn’t have been Simon, though, could it? Sounded more like a woman’s voice.’ He nodded at the dead man. ‘He’d have blown a few bubbles but not much else, eh?’ He giggled, his jowls wobbling. ‘Sorry – that’s in bad taste. These damned drugs are terrible; destroy everything in the end, including one’s sense of decorum.’

  ‘You’re on drugs?’

  ‘Yes. To help me sleep, they say. We’re all on them. Don’t know which way is up most of the time. And don’t get me started on the physical side effects. Some nights I can’t even pee in a straight line.’ As he scratched at his chest, his bathrobe moved aside slightly, revealing a small tattoo of a tiger between his neck and shoulder. It was a style Rocco had seen before, in backstreet tattoo parlours in Paris, and further back, in Indochina during the war. This man didn’t look like any soldier, however.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Rocco asked. The voices were closer now, just outside the building. Someone – it sounded like Drucker – was arguing about security.

  ‘I can’t tell you!’ The man looked shocked, if slightly stupefied. He smiled coyly. ‘You’ll get me into trouble, asking me questions like that. Naughty man.’

  ‘But you do have a name.’

  ‘Of course I do. Tell you what, you can call me Stefan – only don’t tell the Gestapo I said that, otherwise I’ll get into trouble.’ He giggled again and suddenly seemed to realise what Rocco looked like. ‘Christ on a bike, you’re big, aren’t you? Oops – see? Told you.’ He looked mock-sheepish and smiled dreamily. ‘What’s your name, then?’

  The voices had entered the building. Rocco took Stefan by the arm and said softly, ‘I’m Lucas Rocco. Tell you what, let’s not tell anyone we spoke.’

  Stefan winked and patted Rocco’s hand. ‘Good idea. Very decent of you. Pity about poor Rotenbourg, though, eh?’

  ‘Rotenbourg?’

  ‘Yes. Him in the water.’

  ‘You said his name was Ardois.’

  The man looked confused. ‘Did I?’

  ‘Earlier, you called him Simon Ardois; now you just called him Rotenbourg. Which is it?’

  ‘I didn’t. We don’t know each other’s names. You must have misheard me. I—’

  He was prevented from saying anything more by Drucker bustling through the door, followed by Levignier and one of his men. They saw Rocco and stopped.

  ‘You need to keep a closer eye on your patients,’ Rocco said sternly. ‘This one was looking for coffee and nearly went for a swim instead.’ He left Stefan with them and walked back to join Claude, wondering what kind of drugs they pumped into people like Stefan to keep them docile and rendering them stupefied at the same time.

  Alix was with her father, looking flustered.

  ‘One of those men told me to get lost,’ she muttered. ‘Claude, too. Can they do that?’

  ‘Looks like they just did. Claude, call your diving friend. He won’t be needed just yet. Alix, did you get an address for Paulus?’

  Alix nodded. ‘He rents a small place about seven kilometres from here.’ She handed him a page from her notebook with an address written down. ‘I think they might have a thing going, her and the guard.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘She got a bit defensive when I asked her about him. I told her I just wanted to make sure he was all right. She reckoned it’s out of character for him to disappear like that, and in any case, Drucker can check on his work throughout the night.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Paulus carries a time-stamp register. He has to insert a key from a series of boxes around the building every hour. The register stamps the time on a card, and Drucker checks them religiously every morning. She doesn’t like Drucker. Calls him a lapdog.’ She smiled. ‘That was the polite expression.’

  ‘Good work.’ He was already harbouring thoughts about Paulus. His disappearance halfway through a shift could mean one of two things: either he had deliberately gone missing to allow someone free rein to enter and do his business undisturbed … or Paulus himself was the killer. But he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She trained in the General Military Hospital in Brest.’ She paused. ‘Actually, the way she said it, I don’t think she ever left.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was the way she talked, as if she’s still attached to the military in some way. Paulus, too – she mentioned something about Drucker being the only civilian in the place apart from the patients. Why would that be?’

  Rocco thought about it. He could think of one or two reasons, but he needed to make sure, whatever Levignier’s instructions had been. ‘Why indeed?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The air along Avenue de Friedland felt cool and fresh after the warm, perfumed atmosphere of the exclusive Salon Elizabeth, and their first client of the day brushed a stray hair from her face and walked east towards Boulevard Haussmann. Her thoughts were on shopping, and meeting her
husband for an early lunch. He had been tied up for several days in business negotiations, and she wanted to make sure that he took a break from work and relaxed, if only for an hour or two. Success, as she knew well, was too expensive if bought at the expense of one’s health.

  She caught a glance of her reflection in a window, pleased with the magic worked on her hair by Marcel, the Elizabeth’s chief stylist. She hoped her husband would approve, and gave a wry smile before moving on.

  She came to a narrow street between elegant apartment buildings. A block of shadow was cast over the pavement and she shivered momentarily, glancing back to check before crossing, eager to be back in the sun. As she did so, a grey furniture van signalled and pulled alongside her, the driver holding up a clipboard and smiling.

  She stopped. Another out-of-towner lost in the maze of city streets. It happened all the time and she sympathised. She waited for the driver to wind down his window. But instead of looking at her, he was now glancing up and down the street, frowning in concentration. Something touched her consciousness, that tiny part of the human instinct warning of imminent danger, and she heard the metal ping of a door opening, and the scrape of feet on tarmac. A movement to one side caught her attention, and a tall figure stepped out from behind the van.

  ‘What are—?’ Her words were choked off by an arm whipping across her throat. She felt herself lifted by another powerful arm around her waist, and a smell of male body odour filled the air around her. Then she was out of the sunshine and in the dusty, close interior of the van, and being thrust face down onto a mattress lying on the floor.

  The van began moving.

  ‘Lie still. Don’t shout,’ whispered the man holding her, his breathing hot in her ear. He smelt of onions and cigarette smoke, and she felt the smooth texture of a leather jacket against the skin of her neck. ‘Be good and you’ll live to see your fancy salon another day. Give us trouble and … well, you wouldn’t want Robert to have to attend your funeral, would you?’

  She lay still and was quickly bound with lengths of fabric tape, which she recognised as the sort used by furniture delivery men to lash goods to the sides of their vans. Then a soft cotton hood was drawn over her head. She realised that she still hadn’t seen her captor’s face.

  ‘I can’t breathe!’ she cried, and shook her head violently as a rush of claustrophobia overtook her. ‘You’re making a mistake!’ Then she recalled that the man had mentioned her husband’s name. This was no error. With it came the cold chill of knowledge that the one thing Robert had feared, but that she had never truly believed possible, had finally happened: she was being kidnapped.

  Her instinct was to fight. She had played a part in the Resistance during the war, mostly as a messenger and a carrier of weapons, sometimes ammunition and supplies. Young women were able to move about much more easily than men, although the risks had still been great. But the experience of battling the constant dread surrounding her back then had given her courage beyond her understanding, and the idea of being taken by the Germans had instilled in her and her colleagues the certain knowledge that to submit was to die. It was that early experience that she called on now.

  She drummed her heels on the floor of the van, then lashed out with a kick, hoping to connect with the man who had torn her away from her freedom out there on Avenue de Friedland. The mattress absorbed all of her attempts to draw attention from outside, and her kicks were fended off with ease before her ankles were caught and held in a powerful grip.

  ‘Enough,’ said the man, as if he were chiding a troublesome child. ‘You’re wasting your time. Nobody will hear you from in here.’ Seconds later, she felt the same fabric tape being used to tie her legs together, and she became immobile, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Her breath was coming in short gasps as the van’s movement began to rock her back and forth on the mattress. It absorbed some of the bumps, but she could feel the ribbed aluminium floor underneath and picture the road speeding past below. They had already made several sharp turns, but she soon lost all sense of direction or speed, and gave up trying. Instead, she focused on listening to sounds, hoping for something to indicate where they were. But soon that became a blend of noises and she gave that up, too. She could hear other traffic outside, but it was muted as if through cotton wool, and she guessed they had taken precautions to reduce any chances that she might call for help and attract attention.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded. Engage him in conversation, she told herself. To communicate is to lower barriers, according to her husband, a practised and very successful negotiator. But there was no reply. Whoever her captor was, he either did not believe in unnecessary talk or had learnt the same lesson about communication.

  She forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply, trying to regain a sense of calm, in spite of her fears. There was no point in becoming stressed to the point of exhaustion, and this entire episode had taken place with no shouts of alarm on the street, and with such ease that it spoke of practised skill. It was probable, therefore, that it had all gone unseen, with nobody the wiser that a woman had been snatched off the street and was now being carried who knew where by men who would no doubt soon make their demands clear.

  She put her face down and continued breathing. Robert would soon have her freed, she was certain of that. For now, though, she had to survive.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Should we be here?’ Claude eyed the surrounding countryside as they pulled to a stop. They had driven in Rocco’s car to a tiny village a few kilometres north of Poissons, leaving Alix on duty at the sanitarium as the local police presence.

  Berlay hardly merited the title of village, consisting of a clutch of houses and two smallholdings strung out along a narrow dead-end road leading into open fields. No church, no shop, no bar. Lots of perfectly formed cowpats in the road, though, Rocco noted, so not much motorised traffic passed this way.

  ‘Better than hanging around near Levignier,’ Rocco replied.

  It struck him that if a man wished to hide himself away, this was as good a place to do it as any. Like dropping off the end of the world. Yet he wondered why Paulus would live here when there was so much more choice in Amiens or even Poissons. Maybe Alix had been right about him having a relationship with Ms Dion; they certainly couldn’t ask for more privacy than this.

  The cottage rented by Paulus was a single-storey plaster-and-lathe building with a corrugated metal roof and a rusted chimney stack. The structure looked lopsided, as if it was trying to melt into the landscape. And if Paulus was any kind of gardener, he’d put his talents on hold for a while: the grass was long, a once cultivated area with sticks for vegetables was overgrown, and the path leading to the front door was a barely visible trail of flattened stems.

  Claude checked the chimney. ‘No smoke. Could be out.’

  Rocco got out of the car and led the way up the path. ‘Check the back,’ he said.

  He knocked on the door. It rattled, the sounds echoing back with the uniquely hollow aura of a deserted building. Above the keyhole was a handle with a simple thumb latch arrangement. He pressed it down.

  The door swung open and he stepped inside.

  They were too late.

  Whatever Paulus had or had not done at the Clos du Lac, his part in the proceedings was now over. He was lying slumped in an armchair, head thrown back, a mass of dark blood across his chest, soaked into his shirt. None on the floor, though, or the chair, Rocco noted.

  Paulus was a big man, somewhere in his forties, with a no-nonsense brush-cut and the beginnings of a day-old growth of beard. He had probably been good-looking in life, but he now looked softened and somehow twisted in death, his mouth open and wrenched to one side. He was dressed in dark trousers and shoes and a dark-blue shirt, but no tie. Almost a uniform. The watch on his wrist was a utilitarian model, probably steel, of the kind favoured by military men for simplicity and robustness.

  Rocco bent close to examine the chest area. Paulus had
been shot twice at close range at the base of the throat. He went behind the chair and gently eased the body forward. It felt cold and the stiffness of rigor mortis was on its way. No exit wounds and no blood. Low charge rounds.

  The work of a professional.

  Claude came through the front door and joined him. ‘Nothing to see round there – Mother of God!’ He crossed himself.

  Rocco checked the room carefully. It didn’t take long; it was a living room-cum-kitchen combined and held a table, two chairs, the armchair, a heavy metal range and a rustic oak dresser with a collection of household bits and pieces on the shelves instead of crockery. He saw nothing that would be of any help: a couple of paperback novels, scattered newspapers, magazines, pens, a large flashlight battery, some keys, a few coins and some new socks still clipped together. The twin cupboards underneath held a selection of saucepans and heavy plates, cups and bowls, with an assortment of tinned goods, two bottles of wine and half a stale baguette. Not unlike his own collection, he reflected; just enough to get by, a single man’s idea of the basics in life.

  He walked through the only door into a small bedroom. The air smelt stuffy. There was a double bed with rumpled bedclothes and a single, ancient wardrobe. A few clothes hung from a rail inside: shirts, trousers and a couple of jackets. And a woman’s blouse, plain white.

  The single shelf held a pair of women’s panties, folded and resting on brown paper alongside a small, floral washbag. The bag held a small bar of soap, a tin of tooth powder and a toothbrush and a small jar of face cream.

  A woman’s overnight kit. Alix had been right.

  ‘Do you think he could have done it – the murder back at the Clos?’ Claude had followed him in and was standing by the door looking back at the body.

  ‘Possibly. As a night security guard he’d have had access to all areas of the building. He would have had plenty of opportunity to get into the patient files, too, if he needed.’

  ‘And he might have known how to operate that pulley thing.’