Death at the Clos du Lac (2013)

by Magson, Adrian

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘You think?’ He dropped the lens back in the box, eliciting a squeak of protest from Stefan. ‘I’m not making judgements; I’d just like to know, that’s all. Why – what’s the secret? Or is there something you don’t want me to know?’ He tipped up a hard-backed chair to shake off a pile of magazines and sat down opposite Stefan. He looked at him with a faint smile and counted to twenty. Silence was always a great way to loosen tongues, he’d found, especially with the guilty. ‘Come on, Stefan. There’s no need for us not to be friends, is there? Help me out here.’

  ‘Why should I? We have nothing to talk about.’

  ‘Really? See, you haven’t even asked what I want. That’s a bit of a giveaway in my profession.’

  Stefan merely looked sulky. He shrugged. ‘All right. So I like taking photos. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Photos?’

  ‘Landscapes. Pastoral stuff.’ His lower lip was trembling and he was breathing rapidly. Rocco wasn’t sure what the man’s normal colour might be, but he didn’t look healthy. He hoped he wasn’t about to have a heart attack on him.

  ‘Don’t get excited. I’m not really interested in your decadent little hobbies, Stefan. I’ll leave that to others.’ It was a lie, but he felt no guilt about it. If he could find anything on this man, he would. But for now Stefan appeared to be protected from any further action.

  ‘What do you want, then? Why are you here – and why pretend to be Simon Ardois?’

  ‘Because it was quieter than the alternative.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Kicking down your front door. Now, let’s stop messing about. I want to hear everything you can tell me about the Clos du Lac and the people in it.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Stefan tried to look blank, but succeeded only in looking guilty. ‘I don’t know anything about the place.’

  ‘Really?’ Rocco reached out and gripped the front of his jumper between his thumb and forefinger. The material felt greasy. Stefan tried to pull away, but couldn’t. ‘What was it you said to me that night at the Clos du Lac? Lots of secrets in this place … but I’ve got a few of them tucked away. Have I got that correct?’

  ‘I don’t remember. It must have been the drugs they had me on. Like I told you, they have all kinds of side effects … make me imagine things.’

  Rocco let him go, and Stefan shrank back into the sofa. ‘Of course – the drugs.’ He reached into his coat pocket and took out the photography magazine. Unrolled it. Stefan recognised it instantly and his eyes widened. ‘But you see, I know different. I found this little item in one of your hiding places.’ He flicked through it until he came to the page with the address written in the inside margin. ‘You know a lot about what went on at that place, don’t you? All the little secrets you picked up on your nightly forays around the house when you were supposed to be sleeping. The nurse told me you used to avoid taking your medication.’ He rolled up the magazine and slapped it into his palm with a loud smack.

  ‘That’s rubbish. She was lying!’

  ‘Really? Like the night we spoke – were you sleepwalking?’

  ‘I don’t know … I didn’t know what I was saying,’ Stefan muttered, trying to edge away along the sofa. A dribble of spit crept over his lower lip. He wiped it away with his sleeve.

  ‘But you do remember talking to me.’ He noticed Stefan’s jumper had sagged at the neck, revealing a lot of throat and part of his upper chest. Before Stefan could stop him, he reached out and tugged the material to one side.

  It revealed the dark outline of a stylised tiger on the skin between his throat and shoulder. The tiger looked angry, as if about to attack.

  ‘Nice. Get that done in Thailand, did you?’

  ‘No.’ Stefan pulled the jumper back into place. ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’

  ‘Where was it done?’

  ‘Here in Paris, if you must know. I’ve never been to – where was it – Thailand?’

  ‘Where in Paris?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Where did you get the tattoo? Which shop? What street? How much did it cost?’

  Stefan’s lower lip flopped at the speed of the questions, and he looked around as if hoping for a way of escape. ‘I don’t know – I can’t remember. It was years ago.’

  ‘Two years? Five? Ten?’

  ‘Six … about that.’

  ‘Not long after you went to Thailand, then? How did they do it – long distance?’ Stefan said nothing, so Rocco pressed him. ‘It’s on record, Stefan. That’s why we keep them, so we know where everyone is. Or did you think you were going to be allowed to move around the world for the rest of your life without anyone knowing?’

  Stefan’s face went stiff for a moment as he analysed the question. Then he seemed to deflate. His chin settled on the rolls of fat around his throat and he shook his head. ‘They said I wouldn’t be harassed like this.’ His voice was a whisper, resentful.

  ‘They?’

  ‘My lawyer. He said there was an arrangement … that I had immunity if I … if I helped them out.’

  An arrangement. That could only mean one thing: they had done a deal in return for immunity from prosecution. It happened all the time.

  ‘You gave up some names. People with the same line of interests.’

  ‘Yes. No – not the same thing at all.’ He looked angry. ‘All I did was sell photos. The others, they were into … extreme stuff. I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Of course not. Yet you provide the material for them and their kind.’ Rocco felt like smacking him, but it wouldn’t have helped. He’d come across sick individuals like Stefan before; they had built-in defensive measures that helped them shut down when attacked. Whatever they did could be justified in their own minds, and only the rest of society was at fault. Physical assault and threats were like hailstones off a brick wall.

  ‘You faked your death in Thailand. Did your lawyer arrange that, too?’

  Stefan nodded. ‘I had no choice in that. They said I had to … that my family was suffering and there was a danger that I might be recognised as people travelled more.’ He reached across to a tobacco tin and opened it. He took out a roll-up and a tin cigarette lighter and lit up. The smell of lighter fluid was strong in the room. He blew smoke into the air and flicked off some ash. ‘I didn’t want to go along with it, but they made me.’

  Everybody else’s fault, not his. Rocco recognised the tactic.

  ‘Did they help you back into the country too?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sucked at the cigarette, consuming half its length, and coughed. ‘My mother was ill. They said it was the only way to do it … to get me back into the country. After that I’d be kept in places like the Clos du Lac until they decided it was safe to let me go where I wanted.’

  ‘But not home?’

  He looked miserable. ‘No. Not home. People had circulated stories about me. It was all lies – I wasn’t doing anything wrong.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She’s fine. But I can’t see her, either. It’s so unfair.’ His chins wobbled, but Rocco wondered how much of this was an act, and whether his mother had ever been truly ill, or if it had been part of the ‘arrangement’. He let it slide. There was nothing he could do about it right now, and he had more important matters to deal with. Clearly Stefan had no real concept of what he’d done to have made him such a pariah, and saw only the injustice to himself.

  ‘So why here? This isn’t a government place.’

  ‘I wanted to be free, that’s all.’ Stefan stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer on the floor. ‘They transferred me to a place near Rennes, but it was worse than the Clos du Lac, so I walked out. A friend said I could stay here as long as I liked.’

  ‘Generous friend. How do you support yourself?’

  For the first time, Stefan let slip a hint of something from beneath the mask of misery he was wearing, and a brief smile touched his lips. But he said nothin
g.

  Rocco remembered how Inès had described him as manipulative. He glanced at the box of envelopes on the table. ‘You’re selling photos again. Isn’t that what you used to do – before you got caught?’ He picked up the box containing the telephoto lens and flipped it in his hand. ‘You realise, I hope, that the “arrangement” your family lawyer came to is null and void if you’re arrested and convicted of a fresh offence?’

  No response. But there was a flicker of something in Stefan’s eyes.

  Rocco looked at the magazines he’d tipped onto the floor. Most were old and battered, well-thumbed. But one looked brand new. He bent and retrieved it. It was the same title as the one in his pocket, but the current issue. There was a sticky label on the back. It had no name, just a customer number. The address was to the family house in Evreux.

  He tossed it back on the floor. ‘Your family knows where you are, don’t they? They’re still helping you out. And you a dead man, too.’

  Stefan remained mute.

  There was a knock from the kitchen, and the back door opened.

  It was Desmoulins. He was holding a skinny youth by the arm and carrying a small holdall in his other hand.

  ‘This one just snuck in by the back gate. I think he might have something to show us.’ He dropped the holdall by Rocco’s feet. ‘Take a look – but you might want to wash your hands afterwards.’

  Rocco glanced at Stefan. The man had gone pale and was licking his lips, trying hard not to look at the bag or the youth.

  The bag contained three large brown envelopes. They each held a banded pack of black and white photographs. Most were postcard size, with one pack slightly bigger. Rocco lifted them to his nose and sniffed. Freshly developed. They had been taken somewhere on a beach, and he realised the children running around and playing on the sand and in the surf were mostly Asian, with just a handful of white westerners. Most were naked, innocently playing and oblivious of the man with the intrusive camera.

  Rocco looked at Stefan. ‘You’ve been busy. You brought back some of your work with you. Is this what the envelopes on the table are for? Your latest customer mailing?’

  Stefan sneered. ‘You didn’t find them in this house. I don’t know what he’s doing here, do I?’ He still wasn’t looking at the youth, but he was now sweating heavily.

  ‘You’re absolutely correct. We didn’t find them here. But how long do you think your little friend is going to hold out to questioning when we take him in and lean on him? An hour? Two hours? A day?’ He looked at the youth. ‘What do you reckon? We could put you in a cell overnight with a couple of lifers. They’d enjoy that.’

  The youth looked terrified. He tried the same kind of sneer as Stefan, but couldn’t quite pull it off. ‘Go screw yourself, flic,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t have to talk to you.’

  Desmoulins cuffed him behind the ear. ‘Watch your language, you little maggot. You’re facing jail time.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Rocco asked. ‘Help us and we’ll help you. But you’d better be quick.’

  ‘Alain Préault,’ the youth muttered. ‘But I’m just a messenger – I was paid to bring the bag here. I didn’t know it had any of that shit in it.’ He nodded at the photos and threw a malicious glance at Stefan. ‘Sale putain!’

  Rocco caught Stefan’s eye. ‘Well, there goes one line of defence already. You ready to talk?’

  Stefan took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘Let him go first.’

  Desmoulins looked at Rocco, who nodded, and escorted the youth to the back door. With a warning to keep his mouth shut, he pushed him out the back and told him to get lost.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Stefan muttered. He’d lost what little bravado he’d had, and Rocco guessed he was aware that if Alain Préault developed a loose lip, it wouldn’t take long for news of Stefan’s line of business to get around the neighbourhood. When that happened, he’d have to move again.

  ‘Who were the other patients, and why were they being held at the Clos du Lac?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Stefan, it seemed, had managed to make himself a duplicate key to the filing cabinets in Drucker’s office, and over a period of several nights had trawled the files uninterrupted, scavenging information which he had hoped one day to sell. Of the five residents, two had been genuine government employees being treated for stress, according to the records, and sedated throughout their stay.

  ‘But that was a lie,’ Stefan muttered. ‘They were like zombies. I tried talking to them, but it was as if they’d been lobotomised. Then I saw their history notes.’

  ‘What did they say?’ Rocco asked.

  ‘A lot. Some kind of shell shock, according to the notes, and severe intestinal problems due to bacteriological infections. They’d been attached to our embassy in the Central African Republic, on “strategic affairs”, and got taken hostage by rebel groups opposed to French activities in the region. They were tortured until a ransom was paid, but only after they’d had both hands amputated. The notes said that could never be made public, probably because it would reflect badly on the embassy negotiators for having delayed paying up.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Apart from me, you mean? Well, there was just one. His file name was Tourlemain. Jules Tourlemain.’ Stefan grinned without humour, showing nicotine-stained teeth. ‘How’s that for a made-up name? You’d have thought they could try harder than that.’

  ‘But you got his real one, of course.’ Stefan was keeping the best for last, which was where the bartering would begin. This was just a taster.

  ‘What’s it worth, Rocco? You can’t expect me to give up what I know without something in return. Without my help you’d have nothing. And don’t tell me that slimy worm Levignier will help you. He’s part of this whole business.’ He gave a sly smile, like a kid wanting to trade secrets in the schoolyard, building up what he had ready for the big reveal.

  Rocco decided to play along with him. ‘Give me a flavour, as a sign of good faith.’

  Stefan blinked a couple of times, then glanced at Desmoulins. But there was no help there. ‘All right. I know what Simon Ardois is. Was.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Rocco roughly. ‘He’s a dead man.’

  ‘OK. What he used to do, then. His real name was Simon Rotenbourg. He was a civil servant working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on trade matters.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He wasn’t a patient, though. He was a prisoner. He’d been accused of spying.’ Stefan sat back and waited, a hint of smugness around his mouth.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What?’ Stefan looked stunned. ‘How could you?’

  ‘Because I spoke to Pascal, his brother. He told me all about the trade talks. Is that all you’ve got?’

  ‘No. Wait … that’s not all.’ Suddenly Stefan was desperately trying to justify what he had, searching for something else to trade, his chins wobbling as he became more animated. ‘I spoke to him one time,’ he said quickly, leaning forward, ‘in his room. The nurse had gone downstairs and left his door open. All he could tell me was that he’d tried to expose a massive case of fraud by government negotiators backed by big industry, but nobody would listen to him.’ He reached out a hand. ‘Listen, this is true, I promise. He was mumbling … something to do with the Chinese being a preferred partner to Taiwan, and officials in the Foreign Ministry being paid to swing the vote towards Peking. I couldn’t make much sense of it … but it was like he’d cracked under the pressure. But it was most likely the drugs they’d put him on to keep him quiet.’

  So Pascal had been right.

  ‘Not that he would have been surprised by what happened in the end,’ Stefan finished. He seemed suddenly drained, as if he’d used all his energy to get the words out.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I got into his room again two nights before he was killed. He was virtually immobilised with drugs and couldn’t get out of bed. He’d soiled himself and was rambling on about how th
ey were going to kill him. It was the only way they could keep him quiet, he said, to shut him up for good. He said it was going to be a quiet execution, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.’ Stefan looked shaken by having to recount the incident, a line of sweat beading his forehead, and for the first time, Rocco believed what he was saying.

  ‘Did he say anything else? Who was doing it to him?’

  ‘No. I said he should tell Drucker. I mean, I was trying to help him out but what did I know? He said Drucker was a patsy, scared of his own shadow, that he was there as a public face. But he was resigned to his fate. He was just waiting for the moment when they came to kill him.’

  It sounded too brutal, too authentic to be made up, or the result of some drug-induced fantasy. There were some things, Rocco reflected, that simply didn’t need embellishing. This, he guessed, was one. Whether Rotenbourg himself had imagined the threat or not, Stefan had believed him sufficiently not to try colouring it further. Because of that, it carried the chilling tone of reality.

  ‘But you didn’t hear or see anything else that night?’

  ‘No, I told you at the time. I never heard a thing until I woke up with all the shouting and noise. But that wouldn’t have been from the pool, would it?’

  ‘No. It wouldn’t. But now you’ve had time to think about it, is there anything else you can remember?’

  Stefan shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t know anything until I saw Simon in the pool … and you standing there.’ He looked up, his eyes wet. ‘For a moment, when I first saw you there, and the body, I thought you were the Angel of Death.’ He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. ‘God, I’m so sick of all this.’

  ‘So tell me the rest,’ said Rocco softly. ‘Get it off your chest.’