He hesitated before approaching the front door. This could be painfully embarrassing or simply painful. He had no way of knowing if Jacqueline Roget had given him a detailed location of her renegade aunt’s house in Poix deliberately, or whether he was about to make a complete donkey of himself.
There was only one way to find out.
He stepped up the short path and used the brass dog’s head knocker, and heard the sound reverberating inside. A light came on as a door opened, and suddenly she was standing there, looking out at him.
‘Why, Inspector,’ Jacqueline said, quickly tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. ‘What a surprise.’
‘I, uh … I hope this isn’t too late?’ he murmured, feeling a prize idiot. ‘I was in the area, so …’ He shrugged and felt his ears go hot.
‘Bring the inspector in,’ called a voice from the rear. ‘You can’t leave him standing out there like a carpet salesman when he’s come all this way!’
It was Jacqueline’s turn to be embarrassed. She smiled and stood aside. ‘You’d better do as she says. She’s got second sight, and ears like a bat.’
‘I heard that!’
Rocco followed her down a long hallway, carefully skirting plant stands leaking long strands of greenery, and two large and elegantly fragile-looking porcelain jardinières.
‘Limoges,’ whispered Jacqueline. ‘Break those and she’ll poison your drink.’
‘I will not,’ said the voice. ‘They’re clever fakes made by an old lover of mine in Nancy many years ago. Not worth a centime unless you’re a fool.’
They entered a conservatory room with a sloping glass ceiling, and the speaker was revealed as an elderly lady in a Chinese-style brocade jacket and plain trousers, smiling in greeting from the depths of a high-backed wing chair.
The room was a mixture of plants and furniture, as much garden as living area and studio, with a collection of easels and painting materials at the back showing splashes of vivid colour lit by a glass or crystal chandelier balanced on a tall pair of wooden stepladders.
‘Forgive the mess, Inspector. I don’t have much time for cleaning, and there are better things to do with life than primp the place for visitors. Would you like some sherry?’
Without waiting, she picked up a decanter and filled a slim glass, and held it out to him. ‘I’d take a seat if I were you. By the time Jacqueline closes her mouth and jumps into action, you’ll be exhausted.’
‘Thank you.’ Rocco took the glass and sat down on the end of a settee alongside another plant pot, this one with metal handles and covered in large china flowers. He felt it move as his elbow caught it a glancing blow, and watched it rock for a moment before settling down. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Another fake?’
‘No, that’s an Edouard Gilles from the late nineteenth century. Break that and I would poison you … and bury you in the back garden.’ Her eyes glittered and he didn’t know whether to take her seriously or not.
She raised a glass and sipped, then said, studying him openly, ‘I have to say, I wasn’t sure if my niece had invented you or not. You sounded far too good to be true.’
Rocco sipped his sherry. It was dry and excellent, although he was no expert. ‘I hope I don’t disappoint, then.’ He glanced at Jacqueline, who sat on the other end of the settee glaring daggers at her aunt.
‘Oh, she was singing your praises, don’t worry.’ She ignored her niece with a knowing smile. ‘Inspector this, Inspector that, Lucas the other … I was getting quite worried.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I thought it was all an invention. I don’t mean she’s lost her mind, of course, but she’s always been so intent on a career, like her father, there’s been no time for boyfriends, although how you call it a career to be a typist in the civil service, I don’t know.’ She gave a sweet smile of pure mischief and took another sip of sherry.
Lucas glanced at Jacqueline, who gave a minute shake of her head and a pleading look, and he nodded.
‘Actually, I never enquired what she does, Madame,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve only just met.’
‘Of course you have. And please call me Celestine; “madame” is for old biddies. You’d better not hang about, Lucas; this is a whole new age we’re in, you know. Young people don’t stand on ceremony and go through long courtships these days. You’d better get in there quick before someone else does.’
‘Auntie!’ Jacqueline glared at her aunt and avoided meeting Rocco’s gaze, then snatched up her own glass and took a drink, promptly causing a coughing fit.
Rocco reached out and grabbed the glass before she dropped it, then handed her a handkerchief from his top pocket. She gasped a thank you, then dabbed at her skirt and hand where droplets of sherry had landed.
‘Good looking and a gentleman, I see,’ Celestine murmured approvingly. ‘Not bad, not bad at all. So what kind of place do you live in, Lucas?’
He told her about Poissons, and the house behind iron railings at the end of a road into nowhere. ‘I was lucky to find it. It suits me.’ He said the last with an odd sense of realisation. It was something he’d never given voice to before.
‘It sounds very pleasant.’ She stood up, reaching for a stick. ‘Well, my signal to go to bed.’ She smiled as Rocco stood, too. ‘Delighted to meet you, Lucas. Remember what I said about the Gilles?’
‘Of course.’
‘My niece is in the same category … although I’ve a feeling I don’t need to tell you that. Come again, why don’t you?’ With that, she walked out, head up and back straight, pausing to lay a gentle hand on Jacqueline’s shoulder.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Jacqueline murmured softly, once the old lady was out of sight. ‘She’s impossibly blunt, as you can see. No wonder the rest of the family doesn’t see her very often. But I think she’s wonderful.’ She eyed him cautiously. ‘I hope you weren’t offended.’
‘Not if all she said is true, no.’
She smiled. ‘I think that’s definite. She’s never asked anyone to call her Celestine on a first meeting before. You made a good impression.’ She reached out and took back her glass, and waved the handkerchief. ‘Sorry about the display. I’ll wash this and post it back to you. It shouldn’t stain. Hopefully.’
They sat in silence for a few moments, then Rocco said, ‘I have a problem, which I’m hoping you can help with.’
‘Really? A work problem?’ A faint frown had touched the centre of her forehead, and Rocco felt the atmosphere cool a little.
He cursed inwardly. But it was too late to back out now, so he forged ahead. ‘I have reason to believe that the man you told me about – Delombre – working in the Interior Ministry, may be involved in … a criminal enterprise.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I was wondering what else you know about him.’ Christ, he thought savagely. Do I have to sound so much like a cop?
Jacqueline lifted her eyebrows. ‘Does that mean you think I, too, might be involved, Inspector?’ She put her glass on a small side table and dropped the soiled handkerchief alongside it. There was a finality about the movements that made Rocco’s gut curl.
‘No, of course not. I know this sounds as if I came here on business, but that’s not true. I—’
‘No.’ She raised a hand. ‘It’s perfectly fine. I understand. You have a job to do. So how can I help?’
He wondered if there was any worse tone he could have heard in her voice, any more matter-of-fact delivery that could have made him feel lower than he did, as if his legs had been cut from beneath him. But the die was cast. He could only go forward. At this rate he was going to be receiving poison pen letters from Aunt Celestine in the next post.
‘I need to know about this man Delombre. How close is he to Levignier? Does he have autonomy within the department?’
‘What is this enterprise you suspect him of being involved in?’
‘I can’t tell you that – I’m sorry. It would be better that way.’
‘What, you thin
k because I’m a woman I can’t handle bad news?’
‘No. I didn’t mean that.’ He stood up, feeling the ground opening up further beneath him. This had been the worst of all bad ideas.
She said nothing, her eyes cool, unblinking.
He gestured at the door. ‘I’ll be going. Please thank your aunt for her hospitality.’
She nodded, the movement barely perceptible. ‘Of course. Goodnight.’
Rocco stepped outside and threw his head back, breathing in deeply in frustration. Well played, moron, he thought angrily. That went superbly well, didn’t it?
He walked back along the street and drove home.
He’d been indoors two minutes when there was a knock at the door.
It was Mme Denis. She was holding a plate draped with a square of linen. ‘Present for you. Not all eggs have to be eaten as omelettes.’
Rocco lifted the linen cloth. She’d baked him a sponge cake. Decorated with tiny flecks of orange and lemon, and smelling of citrus, it was still warm from the oven.
‘You didn’t have to do this,’ he said, and realised that this was an honour.
‘Of course I did. I used a saucepan, two bowls and at least three spoons – and my cake tin. You think I’m going to miss an opportunity to have something to wash under my new tap?’
He’d forgotten about the pipes being connected, and smiled. ‘That was quick work.’
‘Yes, the men said they had orders from Maillard at the café to finish it double quick, otherwise there’d be no drinks for them all week.’ She gave him a sly look. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not me. Must be all Maillard’s doing.’
‘Really? You think I came down with the last rainfall? The village is abuzz with stories about how you and Lamotte arrested three robbers at the café. Maillard thinks you’re the best thing to hit Poissons since the invention of the corkscrew.’
‘He talks too much.’
‘Maybe he does.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘No matter. I might have to heat my water the old way, but at least I’ve got running cold.’ She smiled with evident pleasure and looked past him. ‘They haven’t done yours yet, then?’
‘Not yet.’ There was the beginning of a trench across his front garden, and a hole bored through the front wall of the house, but no pipes. ‘Would you like to come in for cake and coffee?’
‘No. Never eat the stuff, myself. But you go ahead.’ She reached out and briefly clutched his arm, then turned and walked back down the path.
Rocco put on some water and made tea. Then he cut a large slice of sponge cake and sat down to eat it.
Above his head, the resident guests continued their games in the attic.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Delombre left the Pantin commissariat and made his way through the streets to a small fish and vegetable market behind the railway station. He stopped periodically to check his back trail, conscious that with the falling light it wouldn’t be hard for a follower to stay out of sight. He was pretty sure that Drueault, the search team leader, wouldn’t try to check up on him, but distrust was an ingrained habit he found hard to lose. He distrusted cops most of all.
He cruised the area a couple of times on foot to make sure it was clear, sticking to the shadows, then slipped down a side street bordered on both sides by small businesses and lock-ups. The sound of beaten metal echoed from inside one building, and a man in greasy overalls was clearing up the components of a motorcycle spread on the pavement outside. Delombre walked round him and reached the end of the street, and saw a large furniture van parked up on the pavement near the intersection.
He couldn’t see anybody in the cab. He tried the door. Unlocked. He closed it again and went to the back of the van and opened the rear door. It gave a creak of dry hinges, and a gust of foetid air came out, carrying a smell of overripe fruit and human waste from the bare interior. He stepped up and walked to the far end. The glow of a nearby street light showed signs of a large stain on the floor where something had been spilt, and a blackened banana skin lay curled like a dried leaf against the side wall. The clean-up job had been cursory at the very least, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust, wondering where Levignier got these people. Had they no clue at all? It wouldn’t take much for somebody to call the local cops to have the van moved, and for the evidence inside to signal to even the dimmest trainee officer that a person had been kept captive inside here for some time.
A knuckle-rap on the plywood sheets lining the sides of the van received the dull thud of a filled space in return. At least that had been a job well done; whoever had prepared this space had known what they were doing.
He jumped down and closed the door, then walked back down the street and took a left. This time he was in a narrow residential street with washing airing over balconies and the high-pitched squealing of children at play inside. The few cars here were old and battered, in the way only Paris traffic could make them, and the buildings in need of decoration. Elsewhere a tinny radio was playing a rock number by a French band trying to sound American. Overlaying it all was the steady, muted buzz of people living in close proximity.
He stopped at a door halfway along the street. It opened on to a small tiled foyer. He stepped past a battered racing bicycle and down a narrow hallway lit by a feeble yellow bulb, then walked up a flight of stairs. The air smelt of tabbouleh and cooking oil, and musky dampness.
At the top of the stairs was a small landing. The overhead bulb threw a sickly glow over bare floorboards, the wood scarred and warped. A broken hard-backed chair covered in dust stood in one corner. There were two doors, one either side. One was open, the room beyond empty and bare, the other closed. The silence was intense.
He knocked on the closed door and waited. Tried the handle. It was locked.
He knocked again, muttered drunkenly, ‘Hey, Dede, mon pote. You there?’
No response.
He put his ear to the wood. There were no vibrations, no surreptitious movements. He thought about coming back later, but decided against it. Later was no good; he had too much to do. This needed finishing before he could move on.
He walked across the landing and through the open door, crossing the room and through another door at the rear. A window opened out onto a backyard with a gate sagging off the hinges. Beyond that, an alleyway disappeared into the gloom. He opened the window and peered down. Not much to see, just a square, box-like structure that had probably once housed coal or wood.
He returned to the locked door and put his shoulder against it. He pushed harder, felt it flex. Cheap wood, dried out and ready to pop. He pushed again and simultaneously jerked down on the handle. The door sprang open.
He was in a small, scruffy room furnished with two camp beds, army-style, a single leather armchair leaking stuffing, a radio on the floor, a couple of wooden packing crates and a standard lamp. Dirty cups had been left where they lay, rimmed with dried coffee, one stuffed with cigarette ends. Two empty wine bottles stood like bookends on the window sill, and on the floor beneath them two empty bowls showed the remains of a meal. A pair of underpants hung from the back of the armchair, and a single sock with a hole in the heel lay at the foot of one of the beds.
Kidnapper chic, thought Delombre, and tried not to breathe the foul air. They must have been holed up here all day, and finally broke cover and went out in search of more booze.
A door at the back led to another room, empty of furniture. There was an identical window to the one across the landing, but this one was screwed shut, the heads shiny and new.
The criminal elite: so untrusting.
He returned to the front room and took out a gun, a semi-automatic with an untraceable history, and checked the magazine. Then he reached in his jacket and produced a fat metal tube several centimetres long. He fitted it over the end of the barrel, checked to make sure it was secure, then used the tip of the tube to flick the underpants off the armchair.
&n
bsp; The tube was a once-only suppressor, or silencer, made by a former military armourer in Moulineaux, in the south-west of the city. The man had left the French army under a dark cloud for allegedly manufacturing gun parts for collectors on army time. He’d cautioned Delombre that the silencer would take at most four shots before losing its effectiveness. But four was more than he’d need.
He went out and turned off the landing light, then sat down in the armchair to wait.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
He’d been waiting an hour before he heard the sound of a car at the end of the street. Engine off, two doors closed, dull thuds in the night. Then, much closer, footsteps.
They’d moved faster than he’d expected, already coming in the front door and up the stairs together, noisy and obviously drunk. The landing light went on. It was gone eleven, and the area had fallen silent. Even before the two men arrived at the top of the stairs, he heard one saying how glad he was to have finally got rid of ‘that bitch’.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. First leaving the kidnap vehicle out on the street, with enough evidence to put them on the guillotine; now prattling aloud about how clever they were.
Delombre picked up his gun and rested it on his thigh, facing the door. He was relaxed, sitting back in the armchair, but ready to move at a moment’s notice.
The first man through the door wore a leather jacket and cowboy boots, and was sucking on a cigarette, backlit by the overhead bulb. He frowned at the open door, but drink had made him slow and careless.
Delombre flicked on the standard lamp.
‘What the fuck—?’ The man stopped, his boots making a loud rat-tat on the bare boards.
Delombre gestured with the gun for the man to move sideways. With his other hand, he held a finger to his lips.
The man did as he was told, blinking hard and swallowing, trying to work out what was happening. If he’d possessed any degree of courage, the sight of the gun had frozen his instincts solid. The cigarette fell and bounced off the bare boards in a shower of sparks.
Death at the Clos du Lac (2013) Page 24
