Pel and the Party Spirit

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Did they blackmail him into helping? Or was he the force behind it?’

  ‘Not on your life, Patron,’ Nosjean said firmly. ‘That would be the Dupont girl.’

  ‘She’s only nineteen!’

  ‘She’s a tough nineteen,’ Aimedieu said. ‘I think her brother’s scared stiff of her.’

  ‘Can we be certain it’s her?’

  ‘I have their fingerprints,’ Aimedieu said. ‘I lifted a glass ashtray they’d been using.’

  ‘Somebody round here,’ Pel observed dryly, ‘has been using a lot of brains and initiative. So they took her and hid her. Where?’

  Didier, who had been taking notes, sat bolt upright. ‘She’s the ghost!’ he said.

  They all looked at him.

  ‘What ghost?’

  ‘Bernadette Buffel told me her grandfather had heard noises. He said it sounded like wailing. Perhaps it was Sybille Junot shouting for help.’

  ‘Patron–’ Aimedieu leaned forward. ‘Le Bernard told me he saw Remarque – Dupont, if you like – and his pals arrive home one night carrying a heavy property basket. I bet Sybille Junot was inside. That was the night the third girl was away so the coast would be clear.’ His eyes were gleaming. ‘There’s another thing, Patron. I once saw seven plates of food at their place. There were six of them at the time. They said the extra one was for a dog. I never saw a dog there.’

  Pel rose. ‘I think’, he said slowly, pushing a packet of cigarettes into his pocket, ‘that it’s time we went to see our friend, Remarque, or whatever he’s called. Alfred Fouché’s body was in the Cat Tower for thirty years without being discovered. So why shouldn’t Sybille Junot be concealed somewhere there, too?’

  Twenty

  Puyceldome seemed empty as the two car loads of men roared in.

  Stuffing the vehicles hard up against the arcades, they moved in ones and twos into the Rue Nobel where they paused outside the door of the narrow-gutted little house rented by the Molière Company.

  ‘That’s a thick door,’ Pel said, eyeing it. ‘Let’s make sure that once they open it, they don’t get a chance to close it. We don’t want a hostage situation.’

  ‘Shove your foot in, Aimedieu,’ Darcy said. ‘It’s big enough.’

  As Pel nodded, Darcy hammered on the door. There was a long pause then they heard a key being turned. As the door opened a fraction, Darcy got his shoulder to it and it swung open, sending Remarque flying. As he rolled over, Aimedieu barged in.

  The single room was as untidy as usual and contained Béranger, Gus Blivet and the Flichy girl. De Troq’ pushed Remarque in to join them. The girl Puyceldome had known as Mercédes Flichy was at the table writing on a theatre programme with a pen – in violet ink. The glasses she normally wore lay on the table. Alongside them was a riding whip.

  Darcy snatched the sheet from under her hand. ‘Violet ink,’ he said. ‘Same as the underlining on the ransom note.’

  Remarque/Dupont and his friends seemed frozen, but the girl gave a cry that was almost a snarl and reached for a drawer in the table. As she straightened up, she had a pistol in her hand. As she turned, Darcy sent her reeling with a backhand swipe and the gun went flying. Aimedieu wrenched her to her feet and Darcy picked up the gun.

  ‘Vienne’s?’ Pel asked.

  ‘Same number, Patron,’ Darcy said. ‘I expect we’ll find it’s the one that did for Burges. We’ll probably find a few other things belonging to him here, too.’

  ‘Where’s the other girl?’ Pel said, rounding on Dupont. ‘Gabrielle Dupont. Where is she?’

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘She’s your sister, isn’t she?’

  Dupont paused, then he nodded.

  ‘I told you not to let the bitches hide here!’ Gus Blivet yelled.

  ‘Where is she?’ Pel persisted as Aimedieu pushed them apart.

  ‘She’s not here. She went out.’

  ‘Where’s Sybille Junot?’

  ‘Who?’

  Darcy grabbed Dupont by his shirt and half lifted him to his toes. ‘We know you’ve got her somewhere–’

  ‘Patron!’ It was Didier who had been poking around in the shadows. ‘There’s a door behind this screen!’

  ‘Right.’ Pel gestured to Aimedieu. ‘Open up, Aimedieu. Didier, stand back.’

  But Didier didn’t wait for Aimedieu and wrenched at the door. It was locked but there was a huge iron key on a hook in the wall. Grabbing it and inserting it in the lock, he started twisting. As he did so, they heard a cry from somewhere beyond. Heaving the door open, Didier stepped forward into a passage that lay behind.

  There was a long corridor and, pressed on by Aimedieu, through another door he found himself in a small bare chamber. Then, in the light from the living-room that filtered down the passage, diffused by the old stonework, he became aware of someone crouching in the shadows.

  ‘Don’t.’ The voice was a girl’s. ‘Don’t hit me!’

  ‘It’s the police,’ Aimedieu said.

  The next thing Didier knew, the figure had thrown itself at him and, to his startled amazement, he found himself holding a totally naked girl who clutched him, sobbing and half out of her mind with terror.

  ‘We’ve found her, Patron,’ Aimedieu called.

  In the few moments before Pel arrived, Didier realised that the girl’s flesh was icy cold and that she was filthy dirty. One eye was swollen and her hair hung over her face in damp rats’ tails. Her body was covered with bruises and her buttocks and the backs of her thighs had livid weals on them as if she’d been whipped.

  ‘Surely to God–’ The voice was Pel’s, brisk, no-nonsense and imperative. ‘–one of you idiots can find something to put round her.’

  Aimedieu snatched up a dirty blanket from a scruffy bed Didier could see in a corner and with Didier’s help wrapped it round the sobbing girl.

  ‘She kept hitting me,’ she said.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The big one.’

  Darcy fished out a flask – trust Darcy to have a flask, Pel thought – and persuaded the girl to take a sip from it. Instead she took a swallow and started coughing. As she almost collapsed, Didier clung to her, suddenly feeling like a knight in shining armour. His arm round her, he helped her along the corridor to the living-room where Nosjean and De Troq’ had the others lined up against the wall. Darcy glared at them and, without thinking, he took a swing at Dupont and sent him reeling.

  ‘You bastards!’ he snapped. ‘The magistrates can only send you to gaol for life. That’s not enough for what you’ve done. I’d happily see you guillotined. I’d even pull the lever myself.’

  ‘Cut it out!’ Pel snapped.

  ‘I’d like to do it to the lot of them, Patron,’ Darcy growled. ‘Someone’s tortured her. I’d enjoy doing it. They never intended to free her. We’d have found her eventually in a ditch. She’ll remember this to the end of her days. An ordeal of this sort doesn’t finish when she’s rescued.’ He stopped and gestured speechlessly at the sobbing girl.

  Pel stared coldly at the four lined up against the wall. Without her spectacles, the Flichy girl might almost have been described as pretty, apart from the bitter expression on her face. No wonder she hadn’t been recognised. None of the men who had picked her up had been able to give a good description of her or her companion. Only Vienne and Burges had probably been able to take a good look at the two girls, and neither of them had lived long enough to pass on a description.

  ‘Not difficult to disguise themselves,’ Aimedieu said. ‘They had the contents of the property and make-up box to go at.’

  ‘Gabrielle Dupont had worked as a hairdresser,’ Nosjean added.

  ‘And her brother was a make-up man.’

  As they talked, they heard a step outside and the heavy street door was flung open. Framed in the opening was Gabrielle Dupont and in that instant they saw the similarity in her features and those of her brother. For a second the tableau was frozen. Didier felt the girl he was holding crin
ge in his arms then he saw the startled expression of Gabrielle Dupont’s face dissolve in a flash into one of fury and, with a swing of her arm, she flung the door to. Aimedieu was just springing forward to grab her and it hit him in the face and sent him reeling back to knock Darcy flying into Nosjean and De Troq’. As they wrenched the door open again and started running, Didier heard a car door slam and an engine scream as it revved up.

  The policemen bursting out into the alleyway saw the white Peugeot brake start away with spinning wheels and protesting tyres. Reaching the square, they saw it head into the Rue Goillac which led down the hill, then they were racing for the police cars to set off in pursuit.

  The white brake spun away, its rear end swinging, and as it disappeared down the Rue Goillac, Le Bernard, who was just coming out of his house, stepped back in such a hurry he tripped over the lintel and fell flat on his back, his feet in the air. A wooden-framed stall, a relic of the medieval night, was knocked into flying pieces of timber as the wing of the brake hit it. A woman snatched a couple of children back into an alley.

  Gabrielle Dupont had managed to learn how to drive a car but it was clear her experience didn’t stretch to handling a big vehicle at speed. The Peugeot was disappearing down the Rue Goillac in a snaking route and several times they saw dust and sparks leap from the stone of the ancient walls as the swinging rear end hit them. Then it vanished round the corner with shrieking tyres and began the swift descent down the winding road to the plain.

  The police car was close behind. De Troq’ was handling the wheel, but he was a good driver and despite his speed he was careful to watch what he was doing. The brake, driven by an inexperienced girl, was hurtling towards the plain at a tremendous rate, even gaining on the men in the police car. Then as it reached The Cat’s Jump, the wing hit the wall again and the brake went into a series of uncontrolled swerves.

  ‘She’s going over,’ Darcy yelled.

  The brake swung back to the centre of the road and they could see Gabrielle Dupont, her hair flying, heaving desperately at the wheel. The brake hit the wall again, sent stones and pieces of fence whirring away, then it shot out into space, shedding parts in an incredible leap. As De Troq’ jammed on the brakes and the police car screamed to a halt, they saw the brake smash on to the rocky slopes below. Pieces of metal whipped through the air, a wheel detached itself from the rolling bundle and went bounding down the hillside as if it were alive, then, looking as if some giant hand had folded it in two, the brake stopped rolling and burst into flames.

  As they climbed out of the police car and ran to the wall, a second car containing Nosjean and Aimedieu slid to a halt behind them. Darcy stared into the valley at the rolling black cloud of rubber smoke beginning to spiral into the air.

  ‘It’s yours, Nosjean,’ he said. ‘I think you and De Troq’ can handle it. She was your case, anyway. Turn your car round, Aimedieu. Take me back. I think two will be enough and I suspect the Chief will need the rest of us up there.’

  When Darcy returned, Sybille Junot had stopped sobbing but she still had Didier’s arm round her as if, recognising him as of her own age and generation, she had refused to leave his side. Dr Mercier from across the square was with her and an ambulance had arrived at the end of the Rue Nobel. Dupont and the others had vanished. Mercier had insisted they went first. ‘I’m thinking of her sanity,’ he explained.

  He looked at the girl clinging to Didier. ‘She’ll be all right in a while,’ he said. ‘But you were the first person she saw. She’ll let you go eventually.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Didier said, willing to hold the girl until Doomsday if necessary.

  ‘I always knew when they were all going out,’ she was whispering. ‘Because they always tied my hands and feet. I tried to shout for help. But they always said nobody would ever hear me.’

  ‘We’re going to take you to hospital,’ Mercier said. ‘And then we’ll send for your parents. You’re safe now.’

  They got her on her feet and, with the blanket still wrapped round her, helped her down the alleyway to the ambulance.

  ‘Get hold of Claudie,’ Pel said quietly to Aimedieu. ‘I want her at the hospital. It’s a woman she wants, not a great hairy policeman.’

  As they walked, the girl stumbled and Didier instinctively swept her up into his arms. She was only slight and her cheek rested against his.

  He put her down as they reached the ambulance but as she stood upright she turned and looked beseechingly at him. She was still clutching his hand as if she intended never to let it go. Mercier recognised the symptoms.

  ‘I think he’d better go with her,’ he said to Pel. ‘She’s still confused and frightened. She’s been pretty badly treated and she must have been frozen and terrified in that cellar in the dark. He’s the one she associates with security. Let him stay near her until her parents arrive and a policewoman turns up.

  Pel gestured. Didier climbed into the back of the ambulance. Even then, the girl refused to lie down and, instead, sat upright, still in the dirty blanket, still clinging to Didier as the vehicle drew away.

  A few days later Pel headed from the Hôtel de Police to his car. It was over. Not one case but two. Paperwork, as Didier had been informed in no uncertain terms on several occasions, took time, but it was done now.

  They’d even got the name of the big boy who had been supplying Dupont, Speedy Sam and the boy called Gorgeous, and the Marseilles police had picked up a nice little crop of criminals and a haul of cocaine. They had thought the Cat Tower case was the complicated one but it had turned out instead to be the murder on the N6.

  It was all a bit of luck really. But then there was always an element of luck in police work. If the body in the tower hadn’t turned up, they’d never have been at Puyceldome and therefore would never have found the two murderous girls. A bit of luck, a lot of hard work, some inspiration and, above all, team spirit. Team spirit – plus party spirit, because if Ellen Briddon hadn’t wanted to join in the celebrations in the ancient bastide, she’d never have wanted to put out a flag. And if she hadn’t, there’d have been no need for a flagstaff, and in the end no hole in the Cat Tower and no collapse. The Chief was pleased at the teamwork, and so was Pel because it was his team.

  He arrived home early, set up a chair in the garden, then went indoors to pour himself a whisky, full of the thought that his wife was due home the following day. As he reappeared he was surprised to see Didier in the drive talking to Yves Pasquier, the small boy from next door.

  ‘Hello, mon brave,’ he said. ‘Come to see Aunt Routy?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Didier said.

  ‘It’s over now,’ Pel said. ‘Even the paperwork.’

  ‘Yes.’ Didier blushed. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ He paused. ‘I went to Treffort to see Sybille Junot,’ he added.

  ‘Oh?’

  Didier was offhand. ‘Just to see how she was getting on.’

  ‘Your concern becomes you. Police officers should always show as much interest in the victim as in the criminal. She’s also a pretty girl. Interested?’

  Didier shrugged. ‘Not really. I also called at Puyceldome to see Bernard Buffel Bis. His sister was there.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Didier grinned. ‘There’s also a new girl in the typing pool in the Palais de Justice. Blonde.’ He held out his hand. ‘About this tall.’

  Pel gave him a sharp look, aware that his leg was being pulled. But if nothing else, Didier seemed to have got over his problems.

  ‘Then,’ the boy went on, ‘I thought I’d come round here to see Madame Pel.’

  ‘She’s not here till tomorrow.’

  Didier grinned. ‘In that case, Patron, I’ll have to make do with you.’

  Pel looked at him gravely. If he hadn’t been Pel he might even have smiled. ‘Fancy a game of boules?’ he asked.

  Didier shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘We’ll play a three-hander.’ Pel gestured at the small boy from next door. ‘This is Y
ves,’ he said. ‘He’s no mean hand with boules. Yves, this is Didier Darras. We used to play boules a lot. He’s a policeman.’

  Yves’ eyes glowed. ‘Honest?’ He looked at Didier. ‘I’m going to be a policeman when I grow up,’ he announced. ‘What’s it like?’

  Pel waited, his breath stilled in his throat. Then Didier replied.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said.

  As he spoke he glanced at Pel. Pel knew exactly what the look meant. All was well again.

  Note on ‘Chief Inspector Pel’ Series

  According to the New York Times, Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, of the Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire, in Burgundy, France is ‘in his professional work, a complete paragon. He is sharp, incisive, honest, and a leader of men and everything else a successful cop should be.’ Outside of work, however, ‘he is a milquetoast, scared of his gorgon of a housekeeper, frightened of women, doubtful of his own capabilities.’

  In fact, his morose attitude has been said to add ‘a piquancy’ to the reporting of his adventures. His general complaints about all those around him are mollified a little when, in the course of the series, he marries - but readers are left to judge that and the events surrounding it for themselves.

  One of the delights of the books is their setting - Burgundy - and Pel is ‘Gallic’ to the core. Moreover, his complex character makes a refreshing change from many of the detectives to be found in modern crime. Solutions to his cases are found without endless and tedious forensic and his relationships are very much based in real life.

  Order of ‘Pel’ Series Titles

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels

  1. Death Set To Music Also as: Pel & The Parked Car 1979

  2. Pel & The Faceless Corpse 1979

  3. Pel Under Pressure 1980

  4. Pel Is Puzzled 1981

  5. Pel & The Bombers 1982

  6. Pel & The Staghound 1940

  7. Pel & The Pirates 1984