by Mark Hebden
It sounded typical of Hélin.
‘Where is he now?’
‘He’s disappeared. A neighbour reported the sound of violent quarrelling and when we went out to investigate we found the girl in tears with a black eye and no sign of her boyfriend. But she gave us his name. It was Hélin. They’d had an argument and he’d walked out on her. We’ve got everybody out looking for him. We’ll find him.’
‘Unless he’s already back here!’
Replacing the telephone, Pel arranged for a warning to be sent out to Claudie and the men on the streets that Hélin was somewhere about the city. They still had no real proof against him but Pel wasn’t taking any chances.
Returning to his office, he put on his spectacles and began to shuffle the files round to find those for Hélin and Moussia. Several new reports had come in and, picking up the top one, he read the name on the cover and idly scanned the first few lines. For a few moments he stared at them, then abruptly he sat up, adjusted his spectacles, crushed out his cigarette, lit another without noticing and continued to read, by this time totally absorbed. When he’d finished, he laid down his spectacles, stubbed out his cigarette without having drawn on it at all, and sat back, breathing deeply. Turning the file over, he stared at the name again, and, lifting his head, shouted at the next-door room. ‘De Troq’!’
As he looked up, he saw De Troq’ standing in the doorway. ‘I was just on my way to see you, Patron.’
Pel lit yet another cigarette, crushed it out after one puff and indicated the folders in front of him.
‘It’s here,’ he said in an awed voice. ‘Every bit of it.’
De Troq’ looked startled and waved a sheet of paper he held. ‘It’s here, too, Patron. In this. It’s not conclusive but I dare bet I’m right enough to bring him in and lean on him.’
They exchanged the name they’d settled on and stared at each other, aware that they’d both reached the same conclusion, but for entirely different reasons.
‘It was in the reports that came in from outside,’ Pel said. ‘An attack on a prostitute. Someone tried to strangle her but she was strong and escaped. The police had their suspicions but our friend was staying with an aunt out of town at the time. At least, he was supposed to be staying with her but they think, in fact, that he’d quarrelled with her because she was always chivvying him about his behaviour and that he’d returned home. But they could never prove it because his aunt swore he was with her and his mother swore he hadn’t returned home. Those two women must have known it could have been him. But they kept quiet, and thanks to them five women are dead. He was seventeen at the time. He’s now grown into a man and his obsession’s grown with him.’
As Pel stopped, he suddenly became aware of the time and glanced at his watch. ‘Eleven-ten,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and pick him up.’
‘If he’s not already out there on the streets, Patron.’
Pel gave De Troq’ a quick glance. ‘Is Darcy back yet?’
‘Not yet, Patron. He’s due any moment.’
‘Right. Get your car. I’ll leave a message for him to say where we are and to get Claudie back inside.’
As De Troq’ shot off down the corridor, Pel headed for Darcy’s office where Cadet Martin was dozing near the radio, waiting for Darcy to return and take over. He sat up with a jerk as Pel appeared.
‘Claudie,’ Pel snapped. ‘Have you heard from her?’
‘Not for some time, Patron.’
‘Call her. Tell her to come in at once. We’ve got the Prowler. There’s no need for her to take any more risks.’ Pel tossed the file he’d been studying on to the desk. ‘Give that to Inspector Darcy as soon as he arrives. That’s our boy. Tell him I’m going over there now to pick him up. I’ll be in touch.’
As Martin scooped up the file and reached for the microphone in one move, Pel headed for the door. De Troq’ was waiting in the street with his big roadster.
They drove in silence. When they arrived at their destination, several radios and record players were going. They went upstairs. Bangs on the door brought no reply from inside, only the sound of a door opening elsewhere in the building and a blast of music coming up the stairs with a girl’s voice demanding to know what was going on.
‘Where is he?’ De Troq’ shouted.
‘He’s not gone out, so he must be in his room.’
Pel gestured at the door. ‘Break it down, De Troq’.’
The crash brought another yell from below. ‘Hey! You can’t go breaking into people’s rooms!’
‘I think we can,’ Pel said. ‘We’re the Police.’
De Troq’ was already inside the room, with Pel hot on his heels. The room was empty and the first thing they noticed was that the bed had been pulled to the window and stripped of its coverings. The sheets, dark blue in colour, had been knotted together, tied to a bed leg and hung out of the window.
They stopped dead, staring at each other, then De Troq’ started sniffing about like a tracker dog. He nosed through drawers and, lifting the lid of the iron stove, picked up a poker and eventually came up with the charred fragments of a jersey.
‘He’s been burning clothes, Patron,’ he said. ‘Only one reason why a penniless student would burn clothes. They had blood on them.’
Pel had stopped in front of a large white-painted cupboard that looked like a wardrobe. ‘Open it, De Troq’,’ he said.
De Troq’ had it open within seconds. Pinned inside the door was a group of smudgy photographs of unclothed girls. They might have shocked people in 1908 but they were unlikely to inspire much enthusiasm in anyone normal in the present relaxed moral climate. They were all too fat by modern standards, with drooping bosoms and thick thighs. But, one and all, they were naked.
De Troq’ passed over a book he’d dug from the back of the cupboard. It was a life of Toulouse-Lautrec in photographs, some of which showed the dwarf painter standing in his studio with groups of naked models who could well have been harlots. There were other books of a similar nature and a group of biographies.
‘Der Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit.’ De Troq’ read the names aloud. ‘German. Sade, Mon Prochain; French. The Life And Ideas of the Marquis de Sade; English. He’s got one by Von Sacher-Masoch, too, Patron. The type who invented masochism – Gelizische Geschichten. And one on the same subject in English by an American author. There are others, too. All languages. All perversions. He believed in getting to know his subject.’
Reaching into the cupboard again, he fished out three large notebooks written in spidery scrawls. The writing was different in each case.
‘Can you read them?’ Pel asked.
‘Yes, Patron. They’re diaries.’ De Troq’ was silent for some minutes. Then he said: ‘This one belongs to a soldier who was in Paris in 1940. His grandfather, I think. It concerns the women he went with. It goes into some detail, too.’
‘He must have found it among his possessions when he died. And this one?’
‘I think it must be his father’s. Seems to be much the same, judging by the subject and the dates. Women again. But different women, different places, different times. But roughly the same content.’ De Troq’ read briefly then picked up the third notebook. ‘This one’s the grandson’s – our boy. There’s not much in it but he has some strong things to say about prostitutes.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘His grandfather caught syphilis from a woman in Paris during the war. There’s even a date, Patron. He’s underlined it in red and put a big ring round it.’ As he pointed, they bent over the notebook. ‘November 9th, 1940. He spent a lot of time in hospital. He even gives the place where the old boy picked her up.’ De Troq’s head lifted. ‘The corner of the Boulevard de Strasbourg and the Boul’ St Denis.’
‘Go on,’ Pel snapped. ‘What else?’
Moving impatiently about the room, he waited as De Troq’ rapidly scanned the handwritten pages.
‘It seems to have wrecked the family home,’ De Troq’ said. �
��His wife left him and took the family with her. One of the children was a son, our man’s father, the writer –’ De Troq’ tapped the second notebook ‘ – of this. It was obliging of our man to summarise it all in his notebook. It makes it a lot easier to grasp. It seems this son wasn’t much better than his father because he was also later caught with a woman. Seven years ago. He lost his job because of it.’
‘Naturally.’
De Troq’ was turning the pages of the third notebook. ‘He committed suicide. It left his wife and son – our boy, the writer of this book – penniless. There’s your motive, Patron. Women ruined two generations of his family.’ De Troq’ flicked over a few pages and looked up again to meet Pel’s eyes.
‘It’s all here, Patron,’ he went on.’ Set out neatly – so he could study it when he felt like it, I suppose – as plain as if it were daubed on a wall. It’s even got De Wibaux’s name here. His grandfather was at it and so was his father. I’d say that, thanks to his mother and that aunt of his, he grew up believing that all women but those two had loose morals.’
Pel was staring about him. ‘So where is he now?’ He gestured at the diary De Troq’ was holding. ‘Does that thing indicate how he operates?’
‘There are some references to his movements, Patron.’
‘Dates?’
‘Yes, Patron.’
De Troq’ spread the notebook on the table and they studied it together. The dead women were all there and easily identifiable either by name or description or by some name he’d given them. ‘Marguerite de Wibaux.’ ‘Bar des Chevaux’ – the place where Bernadette Hamon had been in the habit of taking a quick cup of coffee late at night on her return from the hospital. ‘Alice Magueri.’ That name was in full, as if she’d picked him up and even told him her name. ‘Doucet’s woman’ – obviously the only way he’d known Honorine Nauray. ‘Blondie’ – the name he’d given to Monique Letexier. ‘Woman, Bar de la Renaissance,’ by which he clearly meant Marie-Yvonne You. Obviously he hung about outside late-night bars watching for what he considered immoral behaviour. Finally, ‘Gilbertine Guégan.’ Then there were three names they’d not so far come across. ‘Daisy Amaad.’ ‘Louise-Marie Pienaar.’ ‘Sylvestrine Boch.’
‘I think those three are prostitutes, Patron,’ De Troq’ said. ‘I know two of them. Daisy Amaad works near the Ducal Palace. I brought her in once for an assault on another girl – this one, Louise-Marie Pienaar. She said she was stealing her clients. He obviously talked to them, because he knew their names.’
Alongside the names or descriptions of Marguerite de Wibaux, Bernadette Hamon, Alice Mageuri, Honorine Nauray and Gilbertine Guégan was the letter H, a date, and a cross like the cross at the head of a grave. The identities of Monique Letexier and Marie-Yvonne You had been cut across with a single line. Against the remaining names were question marks.
‘These must be women he’s marked down for later, Patron.’
‘Is there anything to say where he is now?’
The tension was electric as De Troq’ hurriedly turned pages. So much so, they barely noticed the beat of the music that seemed to fill every corner of the building. Then, at the end of the notebook, De Troq’ came up with another list. There were four names on it, three of them the new ones they’d already noticed – Daisy Amaad, Louise-Marie, Pienaar and Silvestrine Boch. But to this list had been added another in different ink, framed at each side by a question mark. Alongside it was that day’s date. The name was Mireille Mathieu.
They stared at each other. This was the name of a girl the killer obviously didn’t know so that, like Monique Letexier, he’d had to give her a nickname. And there was only one person they knew of other than Mireille Mathieu herself who looked like Mireille Mathieu.
‘Claudie,’ Pel said. ‘Thank God she’s been brought safely inside.’
When they left the building, through the group of curious students waiting outside, a light drizzle was making the streets wet and the car headlights were reflected on the black asphalt. With Claudie safely withdrawn, the urgency had gone out of their chase because they knew enough about the Prowler now to know he planned his killings, and when he didn’t find her where he expected he’d return home. As De Troq’ drove, Pel spoke into the radio.
Darcy, by this time back at the Hôtel de Police and in touch with the men on the streets, sat up in his chair as he heard Pel’s voice.
‘Patron,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to find you.’ He sounded anxious. ‘Have you picked him up?’
‘We’re looking for him now.’
‘Patron –!’
‘We’ve taken a man off the beat to watch the place for when he returns. Get Nosjean over there. He’s out now but they can pull him in when he comes back. Is Claudie safely in?’
‘No, Patron—’
‘What!’
‘No, Patron—’
‘Then, in the name of God, get her in! He’s looking for her! Tell her to come in as fast as she can before he finds her!’
‘Patron!’ Pel was just about to put down the microphone when Darcy’s voice came back, loud and alarmed. ‘We can’t contact her! We’ve lost touch with her! So has Nosjean!’
Twenty-three
Pel was sitting bolt upright in his seat. ‘You mean you’ve lost her?’ he yelled.
‘You know what these damned radios are like, Patron!’ Darcy sounded desperate. ‘They never work when you want them to. She may just be somewhere the buildings are too close, but she’s been off for a good ten minutes now and Nosjean’s doing his nut because he’s lost her in the dark. We’ve been trying to reach her ever since you left.’
‘In the name of God, Daniel,’ Pel snapped, and you could almost feel the sudden tension in the car. ‘If anything happens to that girl somebody will pay for it! Get everybody on his toes! Everybody! We’re heading for the Rue de Rouen district!’
The streets were dark and empty of traffic. People in the Rue de Rouen area mostly didn’t have cars but those who did had parked them in the streets, empty lots and backyards, and were preparing for bed or watching the late film on television.
De Troq’ crouched over the wheel of the car as they moved past the alley ends. The headlights caught the stare of a cat, then it slunk down a passage and vanished. A solitary old man trudged home from a bar, his coat flapping in the breeze. There was nothing else.
‘Where is she?’ Pel kept saying. ‘Where is she, De Troq’?’
‘Hold on, Patron,’ De Troq’ begged. ‘We’ll find her. She’ll be all right. I’m sure she will. Nosjean’s probably picked her up again. Nosjean wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I know he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.’ He spoke with such earnestness Pel glanced quickly at him.
‘Besides,’ De Troq’ said, though this time he didn’t sound so certain, ‘Claudie can look after herself. Remember how she handled that Bigeaud type. Straight over her shoulder. All he got out of it was a set of strained balls. And she’s still got my half-brick in her handbag.’
‘It won’t be much good,’ Pel grated, ‘if he grabs her from behind.’
‘He won’t, Patron! He won’t!’
But Pel knew De Troq’ was only trying to convince himself and was as scared as he was himself.
They turned into the Rue des Fosses. It was deserted, as if nobody wanted to share it with the darkness and the drizzle. A drunk emerged from an alleyway and leaned against the wall, staring dazedly as they passed.
‘Patron!’ It was Darcy’s voice. ‘We’ve picked her up! She’s somewhere near the Rue de Panama. But she’s been without cover for half an hour. Nosjean’s on his way as fast as he can and we have cars closing in.’
De Troq’ jammed his foot down on the accelerator and, as they swung into the Rue de Panama at last, he slowed and they rolled down the windows. The street was winding so they couldn’t see along the whole of its length. But it seemed empty. There wasn’t even a prowling cat. Like all the other places where the attacks had occurred there were empty hous
es and few lights.
The place was silent, then they heard the faint sound of a train down in the yards near the industrial area of the city, coming quite distinctly across the silent night. For a while they sat still, the car in the shadows with its lights off, listening.
‘Can you hear her heels?’
The train sounded again then, faintly, over it, they heard a cry nearby.
‘Down there!’ Pel snapped.
They leapt from the car and started to run. For a moment, Pel thought they’d made a mistake then, in the shadows, he saw a girl fighting with a man. She had her hands to her throat and was bent backwards as he pulled at her. He was tall and heavy and his hands were behind her head.
De Troq’ shouted and a white face turned towards them. As the man released the girl and swung away she slid to the pavement at his feet. De Troq’ literally dived over her.
The running man staggered as De Troq’ crashed into him to send him reeling, then Pel had reached him, too. A foot kicked out at Pel’s legs and he went to his knees, but he had his arms tightly round the man’s ankles and De Troq’ swung a fist. The struggling stopped just long enough for De Troq’ to roll the man on to his face and wrench an arm up behind his back, his other hand on the back of his head, grinding his face hard down into the wet pavement.
As Pel struggled to his feet, Nosjean arrived at the gallop.
‘Patron, is she all right?’
‘No thanks to you if she is,’ Pel snapped, knowing even as he spoke that it wasn’t Nosjean’s fault but that of the unreliable personal radios they carried. As he bent over her, Claudie stirred. ‘Thank God,’ he breathed.
The cord, a length of clothes line knotted at each end, was still across her throat, the free ends hanging down her back, and there was a livid weal along her neck. Otherwise, she wasn’t much harmed, though she was shuddering from shock.
‘Have we got him?’ she said.
