Death at the Clos du Lac

by Adrian Magson

  ‘So what’s wrong with using the press this time?’ asked Captain Paul Detric, the team leader. He had worked on many such cases and knew that there had been times when a press campaign had resulted in the early release of a kidnap victim. He was also aware that it had failed on more than one occasion, with tragic results.

  ‘This is not like other cases,’ Drueault had replied calmly. ‘If someone’s taken this particular woman, it’s not simply for money. They could have done that at any time. She uses Avenue de Friedland like you and I use the Métro.’

  ‘So why now?’ asked Sebastien, one of the other men. ‘It might help us to know.’

  It was a fair question. But not one Drueault was prepared – or even allowed by his superiors – to answer. He shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you. Just know this: if we balls this up, she will most likely die. The kidnappers aren’t going for cash or diamonds or any of the usual stuff. If they took her, it’s got to be for something far more important.’

  ‘You know what that is?’ asked Detric, probably the only one of the three who could.

  ‘No. And I haven’t asked. Some things we don’t need to know. We just do our jobs, right?’ He looked at them each in turn, Detric, Sebastien and Ivrey, the third man, until they nodded agreement, confident that if any three officers could find a single trace of the woman, these three would. Then he nodded towards the outside world. ‘Go find her.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rocco and Claude arrived back at the Clos du Lac to find the small search party gathered around the kitchen table. Piled on the surface was a collection of food packets, sweets, several assorted bits of cutlery, a pair of nail scissors, a small silver clock, a man’s leather belt, a lipstick, two magazines and a bundle of papers held together by a clip.

  ‘The lipstick’s mine,’ said Inès. ‘It went missing a few days ago. I knew it must have been Stefan, but he just grinned like an idiot and denied it.’

  ‘Where was it found?’

  ‘In an air vent in one of the back rooms, along with those.’ She pointed at the papers.

  ‘The rest of the rubbish was dotted all over,’ said Desmoulins. ‘Nothing exciting, though, unless you can see anything relevant.’

  Most of the papers were to do with running the sanitarium, from copy orders for supplies, compliment slips, old, blank letterheads, some unused envelopes, several pages of official instructions regarding the maintenance of the building, even a slim manual for operating an electric mixer.

  The magazines were a surprise. Copies of an American photographic monthly, they were expensive and their presence was sufficiently unusual to warrant further examination. They looked well-thumbed, proof no doubt that they had been attractive enough to an inveterate jackdaw to want to hide them away from anyone else. Rocco put them to one side; he’d take a closer look later.

  Among the papers was a letter addressed to Drucker. It was on Interior Ministry letterhead (Employment Section) dated two months ago, confirming a percentage increase of salary to an unspecified amount. The significant fact for Rocco was that it gave Drucker’s home address. He put that to one side also.

  Another letter was addressed to Paulus. It was also on official letterhead, this one from the Interior Ministry (Defence Section), confirming his change of role from that of a serving NCO in the naval military police and taking on a short-term contract (to be extended if and when deemed necessary and depending on satisfactory performance) assigned to the Clos du Lac facility. This role was general security of the establishment and its residents, with authorisation to carry his naval-issue sidearm. His reporting line was daily to Director Drucker, and weekly direct to the Interior Ministry (Defence Section). A telephone number was underlined. A short paragraph at the end emphasised specific duties to watch patients S. Ardois and J. Tourlemain.

  ‘The names sound made up,’ Desmoulins commented.

  The letter went on to request that Paulus report any unusual behaviour in the area, contacts between patients, and to take ‘all necessary action in the event of access to the patients by outsiders’.

  ‘Sounds a bit extreme,’ said Alix. ‘What were they frightened of?’

  ‘Actually, it sounds like the military,’ said Rocco. ‘A rule for everything so that everybody knows where he stands.’ He glanced at Inès. ‘What’s so special about Tourlemain?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked mystified. ‘He’s one of the men who came here not long after André arrived. The other one was…’ She stopped, blinking rapidly.

  ‘Ardois?’ Rocco suggested.

  ‘Yes. They arrived at about the same time.’

  ‘So André was watching them both?’

  ‘Yes. How do you know?’

  ‘It makes sense. You said he was sent here after one patient went missing and shortly before another two arrived. If they had two more to watch over, who better than a military cop to do it?’

  ‘They must have been worth the effort,’ Desmoulins put in. ‘And the way one of them was killed, that sort of proves it. Can we trace them back?’

  ‘No.’ Inès shook her head. ‘We never know their back history, why they’re sent here or where they’re from. And not their real names.’

  ‘Or where they’re going?’ She nodded and Rocco wondered at that. ‘Somebody must know. You can’t just shift people around the country without some degree of planning.’

  ‘But why would you?’ said Alix. ‘What kind of people have false names and no back story?’

  ‘Spies.’ Desmoulins looked at them. ‘Spies operate undercover, without contacts or a real history. Not even their families know what they do.’

  ‘I can think of another group.’ Rocco stood up. He’d had a wild idea, but it needed corroboration to make it fly. And preferably the real identity of at least one of the former inmates. That made him pause: why was he thinking of them as inmates? Prisons had inmates, not sanitaria.

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Desmoulins.

  Rocco picked up the letterhead with Drucker’s home address on it, and on impulse, the American photography magazines. ‘Hopefully, to a man who might have some answers. Even if I have to click his teeth together.’

  * * *

  Drucker’s home address was a neat house in the eastern suburbs of Amiens. It sat on a raised garden, with a garage underneath and had the air of a model, as if created by a giant. Drucker was obsessively tidy, Rocco thought, and must spend all his off time trimming the grass and polishing the slate chips filling every bit of space not covered by lawn or driveway.

  He knocked on the door. No answer.

  He tried the garage door beneath the house. It opened and swung up with a ping of metal springs to reveal an empty space. No tools, no rubbish, hardly a speck of oil on the concrete floor. In the far left-hand corner was a single door. He walked across and opened it. The aroma of polish was sucked into the garage. Something sharper, too, vaguely familiar, but not a cooking smell. Perhaps Drucker ate out a lot.

  He stepped through the door. Immediately in front of him was a small cellar space, empty save for some cardboard boxes and a stack of newspapers. A flight of tiled steps ran up to a wooden door. He walked up and stepped into a hallway, also tiled. Silence.

  The kitchen held the most basic equipment but that was all. The place was stripped of anything personal. No food in the cupboards, no personal clutter, a room barely used. The same elsewhere; no clothing left lying around, nothing in the bathroom save for a heavy smell of disinfectant, and in the living room, not even a lost sock or an envelope tucked down the back of the sofa. The bedroom contained an empty wardrobe, the door hanging open, a dresser and bedside cabinet, all empty, and a double bed with one pillow. Unless there was a Mrs Drucker, and she or her husband had neck problems, it meant Drucker lived alone.

  He checked the rubbish bin at the rear of the property. It contained two empty bottles of floor cleaner and a wet rag.

  He checked the bathroom again. It was spotless. Not a grain of dirt, n
ot a splash of soap, not a strand of hair. Just the smell of cleaning fluid. The kitchen, by contrast, although clean, had the quick-wipe appearance of most houses, done to a presentable standard, but nothing to impress the neighbours. Rocco could feel his antennae twitching. Something wasn’t right. It centred mainly on the smell he’d picked up when he first came through the inner door in the garage, and now in the bathroom. The two empty bottles of cleaning fluid.

  Why so much – and only in the bathroom?

  He checked his watch. Too late now to get Rizzotti. Still, he picked up the phone on the kitchen wall, got the dialling tone and rang the station. He left a message for the doctor to come out and take a look first thing in the morning. Another pair of eyes might spot something he was missing.

  Next he rang Philippe Poitrel, the mayor of Poissons-les-Marais, and asked if he had any information about ownership of the Clos du Lac. He’d only ever spoken to the man once, and found him a stuffed shirt. But he was punctilious about his responsibilities, which were the administration of the commune.

  ‘I regret I cannot help you, Inspector,’ said Poitrel, with the hint of a sniff. ‘That building falls under central government control and I have no files relating to it. You will have to go to a higher authority than mine, I’m afraid.’ He sounded faintly peeved, Rocco thought, affronted by having been overlooked in the chain of paperwork.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur le Maire,’ he said politely, and hung up.

  He went home. It had been a long day and he needed some sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He was woken early next morning by a knock at the door. It was his elderly neighbour, Mme Denis. Grey-haired and brusque, and dressed in a worn, grey-patterned dress and white apron, she made no attempt to come in, but thrust out her hand. She was holding a small basket of fresh eggs.

  ‘You should eat breakfast,’ she said. ‘A nice omelette to start the day. My chickens are overproducing and I hate waste.’

  He thanked her, seeing through the white lie, which was her way of being neighbourly. Taking the eggs was easier than arguing, and refusing them, along with the vegetables and fruit she occasionally left on his doorstep, was unthinkable. Local blood feuds had been started for less. Besides, she meant well and had his best interests at heart. She had helped ease his acceptance into the village, and had once saved him and Claude from a shooting, and destroyed an accusation of Rocco taking bribes. He wasn’t about to overlook that kind of support.

  ‘Tell your chickens their contribution is warmly appreciated.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ She turned to go, then hesitated. ‘You had some visitors yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Did they say who they were?’

  ‘No. They didn’t stop. Just pulled up in the lane outside and sat there for a few minutes. Then they left.’ She peered at him keenly, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. ‘I know they weren’t interested in me or my chickens, so it must have been you. You’re not in trouble with foreign gangsters again, are you?’ She was referring to his previous encounter with an English gang member – the one who’d offered the bribe.

  ‘Did they look like foreign gangsters?’

  ‘No. More like your bosses, actually. Smart suits and short haircuts. In a black Citroën DS.’ She handed him a scrap of card with a car number written on it in a shaky hand. ‘I wrote it down because I knew you’d ask.’

  ‘You’re getting good at this.’ He took the card. The number wasn’t familiar, but he could check it out. ‘I should hire you as an investigator.’

  Mme Denis’ eyes twinkled. ‘Well, live next door to a flic long enough and you start to develop a nose for trouble.’ She turned and shuffled back down the path with a vague wave of her hand, duty done.

  Moving to this house in Poissons-les-Marais the previous year after working the gangs and serious crimes beat in Paris and other centres had seemed like stepping back in time. At first the natives had been suspicious of the cop from Paris, and the quiet of the countryside had seemed almost threatening; almost as threatening as the unexploded ordnance scattered in the woods and the marais – the marshland – outside the village. Since then he had settled in more and was in danger of being almost accepted within the community. Another twenty-five years here should do it. His closest friends were Mme Denis next door, Claude Lamotte and his daughter Alix, and a family of fruit rats up in the attic. The latter were undemanding company, and there were times when he found the idea of living here long-term beginning to grow on him.

  He went out to the water pump and filled the large jug, and put on some coffee. He looked at the eggs and decided an omelette wouldn’t be so bad. He put some butter in a frying pan on his latest acquisition, a new gas stove, and began cracking eggs.

  ‘Aha. I thought I could smell something.’ It was Claude Lamotte, sniffing appreciatively and carrying a fresh baguette. ‘Her next door been nagging you to eat properly again?’

  ‘She means well.’ Rocco held up two eggs and Claude nodded. He cracked them into a bowl and began to stir. Claude never refused food, day or night.

  ‘Got a message from Philippe Delsaire,’ Claude told him, drawing up a chair and breaking off two hunks of bread. Delsaire was the village plumber and man-of-all-trades. ‘He’s got the contract to connect the houses down here to the mains pipes along the road and needs access to your place to do the work.’

  ‘He can have it anytime he likes,’ said Rocco. ‘Mme Denis has a spare key. I’ll let her know.’ The pipes had been laid along the road outside for months now; all Rocco and the other houses along here had been waiting for was completion of the job. At least it meant he could give up having to use the handpump to draw water.

  ‘He’s got two men to dig the trenches from the road to the house.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  Claude looked awkward, and Rocco said, ‘Come on, spit it out.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Say it. Something’s on your mind.’

  ‘Well, yes. You wouldn’t know, being still new here, but the work will go a lot faster if you… you know, stand them a drink down at the café. The faster they complete yours, the sooner everyone else gets done.’ He smiled briefly and cleared his throat.

  ‘I see.’ Rocco nodded slowly, letting him squirm. ‘So, let me get this straight: I pay for drinks and everyone else benefits. They put you up to this, didn’t they?’ He was referring to the other residents along the street whom he hardly ever saw.

  Claude puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, that’s not exactly how it happened.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Yes.’ A drink meant putting up a bottle or two behind the bar. ‘I’ll see to it. Tell him that includes Mme Denis, too. In fact, they should do her place first.’

  Claude smiled with relief. ‘She’ll be pleased, but she won’t like it.’

  ‘I know. She’s stubborn and proud. Don’t worry – I’ll talk to her.’

  When the omelette was done, Rocco poured coffee for them both and they sat and ate in companionable silence.

  Claude looked up at the ceiling, head cocked to one side. ‘You haven’t got rid of your neighbours, have you? I thought you liked them.’

  ‘I do. They’re harmless enough.’ They had gone quiet recently, although he could hear them some nights, scuttling about like dry leaves whispering across the bare floorboards. ‘They like to sleep late these days. Must be the warmer weather.’

  Claude’s eyebrows lifted and settled again, and he smiled. ‘Have you ever seen what’s up there?’

  ‘Not yet. Why?’

  ‘Well, some people use the term “fruit rat” for anything that lives in the roof space and eats fruit. I know people who’ve lived here all their lives and never seen one. But there’s more than one species. You thought it was a fouine, fair enough.’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t. That’s what Madame Denis called it.’

  ‘Really? Well, there you go. She’s probably never seen one, eithe
r. Mind you, if it is a fouine up there, it’s not what I’d call cuddly. They have razor-sharp teeth.’

  Rocco stared at him, thinking about the times he’d gone up to investigate the noises. ‘How come you’ve never mentioned this to me before?’

  ‘I didn’t want to spoil your perception of life in the country. Nor did I want you blowing holes in the roof with your gun if you saw a big one. Some people can be funny about stuff like that.’

  ‘Do you have them?’

  ‘Sure I do. No idea what kind, mind you, but they’re up there.’ He shrugged. ‘Live and let live, I say.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

  ‘You’re going native, you know that? Happens to all of us in the end. Any day now, you’ll start changing those fancy black imported clothes for a set of working bleus from the farm supplies store and a packet of Gitanes.’ He laughed at Rocco’s scowl and wiped his plate with a piece of bread, popping it in his mouth with relish. ‘You’re getting good at this, too. You’ll make someone a fine husband one day. You know Mme Drolet’s still available, don’t you? And she’s on the hunt.’ He fluttered his bushy eyebrows. ‘Word is, she likes ’em big and tough.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Rocco growled. Mme Drolet had recently taken over the village co-op. She was a handsome, single woman with what Claude had once called the tendencies of a black widow spider, and seemed hell-bent on getting an invitation to cook Rocco supper. So far he had managed to resist her advances. ‘Anyway, she’s not my sort.’

  ‘Of course she’s your sort.’ Claude grinned earthily. ‘She’d keep you entertained at nights and do more than cook an omelette, I can tell you. Lots of warm, loving meat on those bones. We’re all laying bets, you know – she’ll have you in the end.’ He smacked his hands together as if he were crushing an insect. ‘Paff!’

  Rocco stood up and put the plates in a bowl of water. ‘You and the rest of your degenerate friends should get out more,’ he said mildly. ‘What exactly did you want, anyway?’