THIRTEEN

Young Lucciani’d had a nice quiet day, breaking off in plenty of time, under the pretext that the bus was only every half-hour, and he’d had no car. Primed now with a lot of stuff to show how hard he’d been working.

     ‘Feel like a beer?’ he suggested generously. ‘And Peyrefitte’s been asking for you.’ Castang gave a grunt, to both, and went to ring. The Commissaire had been showing zeal.

     ‘I’ve been looking up everyone with a record for violence as well as for larceny. The judge wanted a real purge, so we’ve looked at everyone round here. All verified and no soap.’

     ‘Mm,’ said Castang. What’s he telling me for?

     ‘That’s that then,’ he said aloud with a lack of warmth.

     ‘Yes, but the computer turned up something interesting. Somebody’d asked for a print-out of the file at headquarters.’

     ‘Lucciani was looking after it.’ It had been a long day and there was something dulling about that computer. Or perhaps numbing.

     ‘I had a telex half an hour back and I thought it worth seeing the judge about it. Some people, sort of gipsy characters, a bit out in the country. We’ve a file for a dozen misdemeanours, affrays and stuff, but no felonies. But the computer turned up a larceny with violence at Douai.’ Interest quickened but very slightly. That was typical of the computer. It was always turning up peculiar things that had happened at Douai.

     ‘The judge is pretty excited and is thinking of pulling them in on a mandate.’

     ‘Too late now, surely.’ The police can only use search and seizure warrants in daylight hours.

     ‘Arrest them and be done with it, he thinks. He hasn’t decided yet, but I’ll keep you in touch.’

     ‘Fair enough.’ Castang was beginning to see light. Monsieur Peyrefitte would be pleased, and feel refreshed, if he managed to arrest all these frightful criminals while the PJ was stumbling about holding up its trousers with both hands.

     ‘Peyrefitte’s arresting a crowd of names he got off the computer,’ drinking beer. ‘He must have something else he isn’t telling yet. He’s preparing a triumph. What about you?’

     ‘I phoned through. Richard says the dodo man is identified. Bona fide junk dealer. You know, selling stuff to Parisians who’ll buy anything as long as it’s wired for electricity. So that’s out. Then this computer thing – some people to be verified by the gendarmerie. And they’ll look up any other complaints made concerning vagabonds and hitch-hikers, all that stuff. And I said we’d be here, so he just said continue that way he has.’

     ‘The village buttoned up?’

     ‘I think so. But whatever they saw, thought, or imagined…’

     ‘Or invent in order to sound interesting.’

     ‘Anyway nothing fresh. By the way,’ elaborately casual, ‘the dark blue Peugeot – it’s a local estate agent. I did some work on it.’

     ‘I’ve just been talking to him,’ without admitting he’d done no work on it.

     ‘Oh,’ said poor Lucciani, who’d done more than he admitted. ‘Well, in case you hadn’t known.’

     ‘On the contrary, good. Anything known about him?’

     ‘They say he’s honest and you can rely on him. Clean reputation.’

     ‘You have anything to conclude, about all this?’

     ‘I think,’ not sure whether he’d be jumped on, ‘that the vague talk about vagabonds and hippies is just wishful thinking. What would they be doing in this neck of the woods anyway? They stick to main roads. Pass unnoticed there, but here surely – in the village – they’d draw attention. Nobody’d seen any: it was always someone else who had.’

     Castang nodded.

     ‘I’d agree. Write it all up anyway in précis form, so that I’ve something to show the judge for his trouble. Can’t write it off. You’ll have to go through all the gendarmerie reports tomorrow.’

     ‘If I’d killed anyone, I’d get out of the district quick.’

     ‘They don’t always reason. Think they’re invisible. Disdain for stupid cops. An incredible vanity even when they aren’t on drugs.’

     ‘If nothing got pinched but money there’s no way of tying it up.’

     ‘Can never be sure. This year one walked into a shop and bought a transistor radio: he hadn’t had a penny the day before. Anything that turns up – breaking into an empty house is likeliest.’

     ‘Except that it isn’t noticed, often, till the owner comes next weekend.’

     ‘I agree it’s a bore. There’s nothing for you to do here, though, and little enough for me.’ The boy was in his first year of PJ work, and still made faces at the idea of an ‘enquiry’ petering out into days at the office, searching through piles of typed flimsies, straining the eyes and crooking the back. A computer could turn up a ‘coordinate’ in statistics of, say, condemnations, but could not handle the innumerable petty-larceny complaints. Young Lucciani still had visions of himself on the Violence Brigade, flat on the pavement outside a bank while bullets whistled, and wore his gun while behind a typewriter to show he was a cop.