by Mark Hebden
On his way back to headquarters, he passed the house at St-Alban. There was a car outside. It was a flashy-looking Honda and there was a man at the door. Pel’s interest was caught at once, especially as the man looked as flashy as the car. He was dressed like an Englishman, with fawn trousers, a blazer with brass buttons, a blue shirt and a red-spotted cravat, and a skimmer cap as flat as a plate. Pel halted his car but the man at the door failed to notice him until he was standing alongside.
‘You live here?’ Pel said.
‘Yes.’ The man started at his voice and turned. For a moment he looked disconcerted, but he recovered quickly. ‘Yes, this is my home.’
‘And you are?’
‘Jean-Jacques Richter.’
‘Profession?’
‘Haven’t got one. Just “gentleman”. I have money.’
Pel smiled. It looked like the one on the face of the tiger. ‘How come,’ he asked, ‘if this is your home and you’re Jean-Jacques Richter, that this house is registered in the name of Jean Dupont?’
Richter looked disconcerted. ‘Oh! Is it?’
‘According to the law. According also to his daughter, Madame Chappe. She was here yesterday with a key to let me in.’
Richter frowned. ‘Who the devil are you?’
Pel showed his identity card. ‘Chief Inspector Pel,’ he said. ‘Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire.’
‘Oh!’ Richter looked taken aback. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m more interested in what you’re doing here. You were trying to get in, weren’t you?’
‘No. I was just calling.’
‘You have a banker’s card in your hand. Made of plastic. It’s a method criminals use to force doors.’
‘I wasn’t doing that. I just happened to take it out.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going down to the bank now. Monsieur Dupont’s my uncle. I came to see him. His real name’s–’
‘I know what his name is. I also know yours. You’re Madame Chappe’s cousin from Strasbourg.’
Richter smiled. ‘You’ve heard of me?’
‘Yes. It’s a good job, isn’t it, that you hadn’t actually got inside the house. I would have had to arrest you. What were you after?’
‘To see if the old boy had left me anything,’ Richter admitted. ‘He once promised me one or two things.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Well, he had a nice bit of porcelain I liked.’
‘Two, in fact?’
‘Well, yes. Two.’
‘Meissen?’
‘Yes, Meissen. He said I could have them.’
‘I’m sorry to inform you that they’ve disappeared.’
Richter’s face fell. ‘Disappeared!’ he yelped. ‘Has that bitch, Zoë Chappe, got them?’
Pel smiled. ‘No, she hasn’t. As a matter of fact, she’s been wondering if you have.’
Although Jean-Jacques Richter had seemed very likely to have been involved in the death of Jean Dupont, there was nothing much they could pin on him. He seemed to be nothing more than a demi-sel, – a cheap crook picking up a living from minor frauds.
It seemed a case of ‘Back to square one’, back to the same old question: what was a faded ex-barrister with a past, and, judging by the fact that he was in the money again, a future, doing on the motorway near Mailly-les-Temps when his home (both homes, for that matter) was miles away?
It was well into the evening and Nosjean and De Troq’ had been on their feet all day. Nosjean was anxious to get back to the flat he shared with Mijo Lehmann, the expert on antiques and painting, and De Troq’ was expected for dinner at the flat of one of the secretaries from the Palais de Justice whose family also had a title. Not an old one like De Troq’s, just a Second Empire one that impressed nobody much. To a man of De Troq’s background, however, it was better than nothing.
The Manoir at Montagny was an imposing edifice. Not large but large enough, with slated turrets and wide steps up to the front door. It was set in extensive grounds and they were met at the door by a butler. Nosjean and De Troq’ glanced at each other. By mutual consent, it was De Troq’ who spoke. De Troq’s accent – his whole manner even – spoke of breeding and appealed to the snobbery in wealthy people, and it was always left to him to ask the questions when they were involved with the self-important or the aristocratic.
‘Baron de Troquereau,’ he announced himself. ‘And my colleague, Jean-Luc Nosjean. We’d like to have a word with Monsieur Jean-Philippe de Rille.’
‘Which Monsieur Jean-Philippe de Rille would that be?’ the butler asked.
‘There’s more than one?’
‘There’s Monsieur and his son. They have the same names.’
‘Are they both at home?’
‘No, monsieur. Only Monsieur de Rille, the Father.’
‘Not the son?’ Or the Holy Ghost, De Troq’ felt like saying.
‘No, monsieur.’
‘Then we’d better see Monsieur de Rille, the Father.’
Monsieur de Rille, the Father, might well have been God. He was tall and thin, with an aristocratic nose and a cold manner. It didn’t put De Troq’ off: De Troq’ had been handling people like Jean-Philippe de Rille, the Father, ever since he could walk. They ended up sitting down and being offered brandy.
‘A Ford Sierra?’ De Rille said.
‘Exactly, monsieur. Number 1091-AR-41.’
‘That sounds like my son’s.’
‘When will your son be home?’
De Rille managed a wry smile. ‘I couldn’t tell you. He comes home only occasionally. He has a flat in the city.’
‘He has a job there?’
‘If you could call it that. He calls himself a car salesman but he has no showroom and no premises. Not even an office.’ De Rille shrugged. ‘But he does sell cars. Always expensive ones. By contacts, through people he knows. He knows a lot of people. He doesn’t have to work, of course. He was left a great deal of money five years ago by his grandfather, my wife’s father, because he was his only grandson. I believe he’s got through a lot of it, but, on the other hand, he does seem to make money from time to time. He only uses this place to tinker with the cars he buys and sells. Judging by the noise of engines by the stables, I suspect he invites his friends to use it, too.’
‘And this flat of his, monsieur? You have the address, of course?’
De Rille gave another of his wry smiles. ‘No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t. But I have a telephone number.’
It didn’t take long to get the address from the Telecommunications office.
‘Flat 4, 17, Rue Barnabas,’ Nosjean said. ‘We’ll see him in the morning. It’s late now and he sounds like a type who spends his nights out on the town – this one or some other town. Come to that it might well be St-Trop’.’
‘He sounds interesting,’ De Troq’ agreed. ‘A man who likes spending and makes a lot of money occasionally. Drives a big car. No fixed job. Might be worth looking into.’
Seventeen, Rue Barnabas, turned out to be a new block of flats and, arriving early the following day, they fully expected Jean-Philippe de Rille, the Son, to be still in bed. He wasn’t, but he opened the door to them clad in a dressing-gown. He was tall and good-looking but at that moment unshaven, his hair tousled, and holding a mug of coffee.
‘Had a late night,’ he explained. ‘Took a long time waking up.’
They explained why they were there and he looked indignant.
‘What is all this?’ he demanded. ‘Where did you get hold of my name?’
‘You own a fawn Ford Sierra, number 1091-AR-41?’
‘Yes. Why not?’
‘No reason why not. Bought from Garages Europe Automobile?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was left near a bar in Morbihaux on the twelfth and remained there most of the day. Some time during the night it vanished. In its place was a Citroën 19, number 714-CS-13, belonging to an estate agent from Marseilles by the name of Pau
l Lebriand, who had lost it while visiting the city on business.’
‘So?’
‘The Citroën had been used in a hold-up. At Talant.’
‘And you think I did it?’ De Rille laughed. ‘I don’t need to hold up supermarkets–’
‘I didn’t say it was a supermarket.’
‘Sorry, I thought you did.’
‘No.’
‘I must have read it in the paper.’ De Rille smiled. It was a charming smile – a good salesman’s smile – that Nosjean suspected was practised in front of a mirror. ‘But I’ve no need to go in for crime. My grandfather left me a small fortune.’
‘Have you still got it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He died five years ago. Have you spent it yet?’
De Rille’s smile came again. ‘Quite a bit of it. But not the lot by any means.’
‘How come the Citroën turned up at the bar at Morbihaux in place of your Sierra which had been parked there for a matter of several hours?’
De Rille smiled. ‘Well, I don’t know about the other car but I left my car there because I had been visiting the area with a girlfriend.’
‘Name, sir?’
‘Tassigny de Bré. Dominique Tassigny de Bré. I don’t suppose you’ll know the family.’
Nosjean smiled as De Troq’ bridled. ‘I might,’ De Troq’ said shortly. ‘My name’s De Troquereau de Tournay-Turenne. Baron de Troquereau.’
De Rille pulled a face. ‘Sorry, old boy. One doesn’t expect to find the aristocracy among the Fuzz.’
‘Where can we find this Mademoiselle Tassigny de Bré?’ Nosjean asked.
‘Bellecroix. Big house as you enter. Faces the square. It hasn’t an address. It’s simply Tassigny de Bré, Bellecroix.’
Another of them, Nosjean thought, while De Troq’ was assessing lineage and breeding and coming to the conclusion that the Tassigny de Brés, like the De Rilles, were jumped-up parvenus from Napoleon III’s gimcrack Second Empire.
Whatever the background, they couldn’t let the thing go and Nosjean asked if De Rille possessed a gun.
‘Several,’ he admitted. ‘I grew up with guns. I had a rat gun when I was still a small boy and started using shotguns and two-twos when I was around thirteen.’
‘I’m thinking of twelve bores.’
‘Yes. Those, too. I shoot clay pigeons. I belong to the Montagny Shooting Club. I also help keep vermin down on my father’s land. Rabbits, magpies, foxes. That sort of thing. We go out regularly. Arthur Tassigny–’ De Rille smiled, ‘he’s the brother of Dominique Tassigny – comes now and then. He was at school with me.’
‘I’d like to see your guns if I may,’ Nosjean said politely.
De Rille produced two twelve-bores, one a splendid Purdy, and a German Mannlicher 303.
Nosjean indicated the Mannlicher. ‘What do you use this one for, monsieur?’
‘Boar. There are a lot in the forest round Montagny. There’s another gun at my father’s house. They’re all licensed.’
They were, too – all legitimate and above board – and there was no ammunition.
‘I keep it at my father’s place,’ De Rille explained. ‘For safety. Mademoiselle Tassigny will confirm my statement about the car.’
‘What is she to you, monsieur?’
‘Girlfriend.’ De Rille smiled enigmatically.
‘Tell me about her, monsieur.’
‘Twenty-one and very beautiful. Bit of an artist. But she doesn’t work at it. Prefers cars. Unfortunately she can’t afford them so she picks boy friends who can.’
‘Such as you?’
De Rille smiled modestly. ‘Such as me. She once had a Lotus.’
‘What did she run it on?’
‘Petrol, of course.’
‘Money, I mean.’
‘Oh! No, not money. Debts. She’s crazy about cars. Never misses Le Mans. Potters about in the pits there. She had a boyfriend once – Emilio Almoranti, the racing driver. He let her have a go in his Ferrari. She put up a surprisingly good show.’
Nosjean paused. ‘What would you have been doing all the time your car was parked near the bar at Morbihaux? It was there a long time.’
The question came abruptly but De Rille only smiled. ‘Well, some of the time we rowed a boat.’
‘Hired?’
‘No. We just found it by the bank. It had oars. We helped ourselves.’
‘And the owner?’
‘Well, no one objected so I imagine he was occupied in doing something of his own.’
‘That surely didn’t occupy the whole period the car was parked near the bar?’
‘No. The rest of the time we were occupied in–’ De Rille smiled. ‘Well, Dominique is young and very attractive. What would we be engaged in doing?’
‘She’ll confirm this?’
‘Of course. Unless it was just a beautiful dream. It might have been.’
Dominique Tassigny did indeed confirm De Rille’s claim. She was an exquisite little creature with ash-blond hair, as De Rille had said, and enormous eyes. She gave them a rhapsodic account of their time on the river and in the woods, the only discordant note about the interview being the presence throughout it of her brother, Arthur Tassigny. He was a smooth-faced young man with a high aristocratic nose and the same confident manner as De Rille.
‘I’d like to be present while you talk to my sister,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ De Troq’ said coldly. ‘Why?’
‘She has no father or mother. They died a few years ago, and I’m her sole surviving relative. And I don’t trust the flics. You could frame her.’
Though they resented the implication that they were in the business of corruption, they said nothing. Nevertheless, they both noted with interest young Tassigny’s use of the word ‘flics’. It wasn’t really the sort of expression someone would use who was at ease with the police.
De Troq’ gave the boy another icy look and turned to his sister. ‘Sorry to be so personal,’ he said. ‘And to demand such details. But what were you doing all the time you were with Monsieur de Rille?’
She gave him a cool look and smiled. ‘Well, we ate a bit and drank a bit and then – well, what do young people usually do when they’re together?’
‘If I remember rightly, it was a cold day. Where did you do this thing that young people do together?’
She beamed. ‘Here.’
‘Monsieur de Rille’s car was at Morbihaux. This place is twenty kilometres from the river. How did you get here?’
‘We had my car as well.’
‘Which is?’
‘Only a small one. A Peugeot 205. We don’t have the sort of money Jean-Philippe has. We’ve had to keep ourselves ever since Arthur was eighteen. I was fourteen. My parents were killed in a car crash.’
‘It tends to inhibit your spending,’ her brother put in. ‘That’s why we let most of this place off as flats. I have an apartment in town. Dominique stays here as a sort of caretaker. I drive a Renault. A small one. When the oldies were alive we had a Mercedes. A big one.’
The girl beamed. ‘And we went back later for the Sierra,’ she said.
De Troq’ and Nosjean reviewed what they had discovered. They had made further enquiries and come up with some answers. But by no means all of them.
On the way back to the city, they had even been to the river and found the boat just as De Rille had described. The owner, a farmer called Brienne, admitted that the oars would be aboard, tucked under the thwarts, because he always left them there.
‘People borrow it,’ he agreed. ‘A lot of people know about it. But who’s going to steal it? It’s too big to take away. You’d need a truck. And anyway, there’s nowhere to go with it except further up the river.’
‘Doesn’t it ever get stolen?’ De Troq’ asked.
‘It has been but it always comes back and, as I don’t use it much myself, it doesn’t inconvenience me.’
Nosjean studied his notes as they parted. ‘I
don’t like them,’ he said.
‘Neither do I,’ De Troq’ admitted. ‘But we’ve nothing on them and we’ve got to have plenty. They’ve got too much money behind them. Jean-Philippe de Rille, the father, controls Produits Chimiques de Bourgogne. It’s one of the biggest chemical combines in the country. I’ve looked him up.’ He gestured. ‘I’ve looked them all up, in fact. They’re just what they seem. De Rille’s a fils de papa – a spoiled son of a rich father. Occasionally he sells cars. Big cars. Garages Europe Automobile use him from time to time. Know why? It’s a subsidiary of Produits Chimiques de Bourgogne. He’s a sort of unofficial salesman. He introduces wealthy young men he knows and draws a commission. Never does any proper work. Bit of a lady killer. Goes around with the Tassigny girl. Her brother seems to be another of the same sort. The girl–’ De Troq’ shrugged. ‘She’s just a girl. Never seems to have done anything. She’s actually quite a clever artist – I managed to see some of her drawings – but she doesn’t work at it. As he said, she prefers fast cars. She never misses Le Mans.’
Eleven
Pel was also on his way home. But as he reached for his jacket and picked up the keys of his car, the sous-brigadier from the substation at Ponchet, a man called Chevraux, brought in a shoe. He had it in a plastic bag and held it as if it might explode.
‘I thought you’d want to see it, sir,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look as if it’s been thrown away because it’s been worn out. It’s pretty new, in fact.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Near the motorway.’
‘Where the body was found?’
‘No, sir. Two kilometres further on. Outside Lugny. One of my boys found it when he was out walking with his dog. The dog turned it up. Could it belong to the old boy on the motorway, sir?’
Pel examined the shoe. The inside of the sole had been built up so that it was almost a centimetre thicker than on the outer edge.
‘I’d say,’ he said carefully, ‘that it did belong to the old boy on the motorway.’
The discovery of the shoe delayed Pel’s departure home. He had it sent along to Forensic with a note to see that it was passed on to Doc Cham, and this led to a round of telephone calls and a talk with the Chief about a new press hand-out. When he reached home, he found his wife had taken a day off from her businesses and was enjoying working in the garden. Someone had cut the grass – something Pel was always promising to do and never did – and she was busy watering.
