Misset’s new job suited him down to the ground. He glanced at his watch and smiled as he saw that it was about time for Pel to hold his conference. Because he wasn’t concerned with any of the cases involving Pel’s team, he was spared the conference. Which was splendid. Since he’d always found work a bore, he also found the conferences a bore. They went on too long. Too many people said too much. And most of the time Misset had nothing to add. He was there merely to receive orders and he didn’t consider it fitted the virile getup-and-go image he felt he presented to the world.
He was feeling pleased with himself and was enjoying his independence. He was terrified of Pel and liked to keep as far away from him as possible, but he was still a little dubious about Major Chaput’s story and suspected that somehow he was being used. He had no delusions about why Pel had placed him at Chaput’s disposal. He even at times suspected Chaput was a fraud. But then he thought about the taxi that had picked him up with Ada Vocci from the restaurant where they’d dined. It was now in the yard at the Hôtel de Police with a bent wing to show where it had collided with the Mercedes, and its owner was not the man who had driven them away from the restaurant. Misset hadn’t dreamed it. The taxi had been stolen, and he remembered uneasily how it had appeared, to pick them up the minute they had emerged. He had no doubt now that the driver was the man who’d come to the aid of Gold-thread as Misset was grabbing him. The taxi had been waiting for him. Or for Ada Vocci. Either way, he didn’t like the look of it.
Stopping at the station buffet for a beer, he was accosted by the porter who had hoisted Ada Vocci’s luggage on to his trolley. He was sitting on his barrow, smoking a cigarette, and he followed Misset into the bar like a harbinger of doom.
‘Some guy was asking for you,’ he pointed out. ‘He was asking for that taxi driver who drove you and the dame to the hotel.’
Misset immediately thought of Chaput. ‘Big type with a moustache?’
‘No. Little type with a suit with a gold thread in it.’
Assailed by worry, Misset swallowed his beer hurriedly. Who in the name of the Great Lord God of Stresses and Strains was this type in the gold-threaded suit? He was always popping up and, as he’d already shown, he could be unpleasantly aggressive.
‘What did he want?’ he asked.
‘He was asking about the other day,’ the porter said. ‘When the train came in. He wanted to know where you both went. I didn’t know, so he tried to find the taxi that took you. But the driver’s gone to Dole. His mother’s ill.’
Preoccupied, Misset tossed enough money to the counter to pay for a small beer. ‘Buy yourself a drink,’ he said.
The porter eyed the coins. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll try not to get too drunk.’
Misset hurried away from the station. He didn’t fancy having his throat slit. Near the Porte Guillaume, he saw Chaput sitting outside one of the bars in the spring sunshine. Chaput moved the chair next to his own in invitation and called a waiter. Misset studied him. In daylight, he looked like anything but a nutter. He seemed, in fact, to be exactly what he claimed.
‘You thought I was mad that night I picked you up, didn’t you?’ Chaput said.
‘Yes I did,’ Misset admitted. ‘But I’ve checked since. I still find it hard to believe, though.’
There seemed far too much sunshine for the murky underside of international activities to be credible and too much colour about the square from the girls in their spring dresses to be able to believe in it. ‘Why did you pick me?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ Chaput said simply. ‘Chief Inspector Pel suggested you.’
‘I’ll bet he did.’
‘He said you knew the woman I’m interested in.’
Misset preened himself a little. ‘Elle a du chien,’ he said. ‘She’s sexy, that one. Are you still wanting to know if she’s got that file or not?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why can’t you go in and get it?’
‘Don’t want to make a mistake.’
‘So you let me do your dirty work?’
‘We’ve got to do it right. It’s got to be quick when it’s done. No publicity. I don’t want my face smeared across the front pages. Somebody might turn nasty.’
Misset didn’t think much of the idea. After all, if somebody might turn nasty with Chaput they might well turn nasty with Misset. ‘What about the other side?’ he asked. ‘Will they have a go too?’
Chaput shrugged. ‘Expect so. They’ve got sources, the same as we have. We know what they’re doing, the same as they know what we’re doing. They’re watching us as much as we’re watching them. Half the time we only know when something’s happening because one of the other side moves from A to B. When that happens we know that what we’re after’s also moved from A to B. In this game, when Father says “Turn”, we all turn.’
‘Don’t you ever get in each other’s way?’
‘It’s not exactly a crowded profession.’ Chaput finished his beer. ‘I’ll be here most days about this time. If you want me, this is where you’ll find me. If I want you, I’ll contact your headquarters.’
Misset stared after him as he left. The interview seemed to have the mad overtones of a spy send-up. But Chaput seemed real enough, and there was a suggestion of evil beneath the farce.
Misset finished his beer hurriedly. Somehow, after listening to Chaput, he felt very conspicuous. Then he remembered Ada Vocci and felt a little better.
At the Hôtel Centrale he was about to march up to the reception desk to ask for her, determined this time to find out the truth, but someone else was there before him, a tall dark, good-looking man – younger, Misset had to admit, than he was, with better features and less of a belly.
‘Mademoiselle Vocci?’ the receptionist was saying.
‘She’s registered here,’ the man said. ‘I looked at your book while you were on the telephone.’
Misset’s ears had pricked and, instead of remaining by the reception desk, he moved to the stairs, as if waiting for the lift, and began to examine the menu which was exhibited on a stand.
The receptionist was annoyed. ‘You had no right to examine the register, Monsieur,’ she was saying. ‘That’s for the use of the hotel and for our residents.’
The man seemed irritated by the comment and waved it aside. ‘When will she be back?’
‘She didn’t tell me, Monsieur. People don’t.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘She didn’t tell me that, either. But as it happens, I think it was into the Jura and perhaps into Switzerland. She hired a car and was asking for the road to Pontarlier and the border.’
‘Pontarlier? Switzerland?’ The man seemed suddenly worried. ‘Did she say where in Switzerland?’
‘No, Monsieur. Would you like to leave a message for her?’
‘No.’ The man hesitated.
‘Are you sure you’ve got the right name, Monsieur?’
‘No.’ The man seemed suddenly doubtful. ‘Where did she come from?’
‘I’ve no idea, Monsieur.’
‘What was she like? Small? Fair hair? Blue eyes?’
The receptionist smiled. ‘That’s not Mademoiselle Vocci, Monsieur. She’s tall, with red hair and green eyes. Think of Sophia Loren and you’ve got Mademoiselle Vocci. I wish I’d got her looks.’
‘You’re sure she’s not here?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘I’d better go to her room to make certain.’
‘That’s impossible, Monsieur.’
The man frowned. ‘I’m a policeman,’ he said, and Misset’s eyebrows lifted because he’d never seen him before.
The receptionist was still uncertain. ‘That makes it different, of course,’ she admitted. ‘But don’t you need a warrant? Perhaps I could see your identity card? That would do.’
The dark man frowned and for a moment he looked flustered. Then he started patting his pockets. ‘I seem to have left it on my desk,’ he said. ‘Never mind.’ He was snapping his fingers irritatedly. ‘I’ll come back,’ he said. ‘I have to make sure.’
As he turned away, Misset stared after him. Who the hell was this one, he wondered. Because he was certainly no cop. Old ladies shoving their noses round doors had learned not to admit strange men into their houses – not even when they said they were cops – and any cop making enquiries would as soon go out without his trousers as without the card that established what he was.
Misset frowned. First Gold-thread. Then Briand. Then Chaput. Now this type. The damned place was filling up with mysterious strangers, all of whom seemed interested in Ada Vocci. It made what Chaput said more believable.
He became aware of the receptionist staring at him. ‘Monsieur?’
Misset was still in a daze, his mind busy. Had Ada bolted? He jumped as the clerk spoke.
‘Nothing,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Nothing. I was waiting for someone but they don’t seem to be here.’
As he disappeared, the receptionist turned to the hall porter. ‘The place seems to be full today of people looking for people who aren’t here,’ she said.
There was plenty to discuss at the conference Misset was fortunate to miss, because the car used in the hold-up at Quigny had turned up at Besançon. It was a blue Renault 9 – Number 424 HC 75 – and since the number was on the list of those cars stopped and examined near the scene of the incident, the fact that it had been abandoned had immediately led to suspicions.
Because they were handling three cases at once, it was decided to take them in the order in which they’d occurred, and the details of the car were subjected to a close scrutiny. There had been no identifiable fingerprints on it, but there were other things to interest them.
‘It was one of those that passed the road block at Pontailly,’ Inspector Pomereu, of Traffic, admitted. ‘We have a note of its number and make. The men in it were accepted as bona fide travellers. They were dressed in suits and said they represented the firm of Constructions Gine-Romero, of Paris, and produced folders and so on to prove it. But we’ve checked and, though the firm’s genuine, it knows nothing of the names we were given: Etienne Gambrionne, of Issy; Jean-Paul Dupont, of Viroflay; Georges Thomas, of Belleville. Their papers were false. We didn’t know that, though, and there was no reason to suspect them.’
Pomereu seemed to be on the defensive. ‘The car was reported missing three days before,’ he went on. ‘In Paris. We checked. It belongs to an industrial chemist by the name of Jacques Barnardi. Unblemished character, no record. He’s identified it as his from scratches on the body and a tear in the rear seat caused by one of his dogs. We have it on the list of stolen cars but we didn’t identify it at Pontailly because the number plates on it aren’t Barnardi’s. They’d been changed and the men in it had what appeared to be sound documentation for it. I think, after being stolen it was taken to a garage and the new plates and documentation provided.’
‘In three days?’ Pel said.
Pomereu nodded, accepting that he wasn’t being blamed. ‘And after all there are dozens of blue Renaults of this model about. There was no reason to stop it, any more than there was for the other cars that passed through.’ He paused. ‘Besides, the clothing the men in it were wearing doesn’t match the description the De Mougys gave.’
‘Perhaps there was another car waiting on the road at the other side of the forest,’ Darcy suggested. ‘And the loot was taken through the trees to it and disappeared with it before the road block was set up.’
‘Did your men get a good look at the men in the car?’ Pel asked. ‘Could they have been Pat the Bang or Nick the Greek?’
‘I suppose so.’ Again Pomereu was on the defensive, as if he felt he was being accused of letting the side down. ‘But there was no reason for my people to take more than the normal notice of them. They seemed to be what they claimed to be.’
‘They could easily have had decent jackets in the car. They could have changed out of them as soon as they were out of sight of the De Mougys and thrown away the windcheaters they were wearing for the hold-up. Let’s have a search made, Daniel. Anything else?’
‘It was noticed that two of the men were dark and the other was fair.’
‘It could have been Nick the Greek, our friend Lafarge and one other,’ Pel said gently, so that Pomereu was finally satisfied no blame was being attached to him. Pel could be tough with carelessness but he didn’t attach blame where circumstances didn’t call for it. ‘I wonder who the other one was. Was the car searched?’
‘My people know their job,’ Pomereu said in a huff. ‘They were all searched. There was nothing in the car except two briefcases with what appeared to be genuine business documents. No jewels. No money. No extra clothing. Somebody had thought this thing through.’
‘Pépé le Cornet,’ Pel murmured. ‘He worries a lot about details.’
‘We didn’t know about Nick the Greek or Pat the Bang at that time.’ Even now, Pomereu was still faintly defensive. ‘And my men didn’t know them from Adam, anyway. They must have got rid of the stuff before they reached Pontailly. The whole area’s covered with woods. Somebody could easily have gone across country with the loot. Even buried it and appeared at the other side of the forest as an ordinary farm worker. It’s been done before.’
‘That means,’ Pel said, ‘that there must have been some big organisation behind it. Only a big organisation could supply papers as fast as these were supplied. And that,’ he ended, ‘brings us back to where we were before. It was a gang job with a tip-off from inside.’
It was Leguyader’s turn next. His boys had searched for dust to get an idea where the car had been but had found nothing helpful.
‘How about Pouilly?’ Pel asked, thinking of the dead man they’d found in the bracken. ‘It’s peaty soil there. Find any of that?’
‘Nothing,’ Leguyader said. ‘A few scraps of gravel in the treads of the tyres, but nothing we could use to connect it to anything else we’re involved with. Fingerprints are still working on it.’
‘What about De Mougy?’ Pel asked. ‘Was he insured anywhere else apart from the firms we know of?’
Lagé sat up. He was growing slow as he approached retirement but, though he was never in the habit of coming up with brilliant deductions, he could be relied on to work carefully. He made no mistakes.
‘I checked, Patron,’ he said. ‘I was at it all yesterday. I worked through every known insurance company in the country. And I made them go back to their head offices just in case. Apart from the ones we know, no extra insurances have been taken out in the name of either of the De Mougys. There may be a few small ones I’ve missed but I’m still checking and so far I’ve found no insurances on the jewellery beyond the one we know about. It doesn’t mean there weren’t any, of course. They may have used a false name or gone abroad. Belgium, for instance. Or Holland. It’s easy to get there and they have big insurance companies, some of them connected with English companies. It may have been hidden. I’ll keep checking.’
Nosjean appeared. He’d been called to the telephone and he slipped into his seat quietly. Pel glanced at him. Nosjean had become the expert on stolen jewellery and silver. He’d got to know all the antique dealers during a recent case and in addition had a girlfriend in the antique trade who was never against giving a little help.
‘Nothing, Patron,’ he reported. ‘I’ve asked. Nothing’s appeared.’
‘What about the footprint that was found?’
‘Nothing unusual, Patron,’ Nosjean said. ‘Except that it was small.’
‘As if made by a small man?’
‘It wasn’t deep so he wasn’t heavy.’
‘Which again could mean our friend, Lafarge.’ Pel swung to Darcy. ‘What about him, Daniel? Are we watching him?’
‘Aimedieu’s there now,’ Darcy said. ‘He’s got the use of a telephone to call in with if he sees anything odd.’
‘Where is he?’
Darcy smiled. ‘Madame Bonhomme’s letting him use her front bedroom. I think she’s thoroughly enjoying herself.’
‘Have we dug up anything more about Lafarge?’
Darcy gestured. ‘Ballentou’s come up with something interesting, Patron. Lafarge was in jail at the same time as he was, and he was friendly with Nick the Greek.’
‘So it could be a Paris mob job.’
‘It very well could. With Lafarge as the stooge.’
‘I wonder how they got to know about it? Who’s the contact who gave them the tip-off?’
‘I can only think of the chauffeur, Patron.’
‘I’d rather look for a woman,’ Pel said. ‘Nick’s good-looking.’
As they were moving on to the next case, Prélat from Fingerprints arrived. His department had just finished working on the car found at Besançon and he couldn’t wait to tell them his news.
‘Clean, Patron,’ he reported ‘Somebody had been over it. Every inch. Professional job. Someone who knew what they were doing.’
‘Which also encourages the belief that it was a gang.’
Pel frowned and Prélat grinned. ‘On the other hand, Patron,’ he said, ‘we do have some good news. The guy at Pouilly. We’ve got an identification. His dabs are in the file. It’s Richard Selva. You’ll know him.’
Pel rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘Richard Selva? Is it now? Well, we won’t be wearing black armbands for him.’
‘He’s only just out of jail,’ Darcy put in. ‘He didn’t last long, did he? I suppose there’s no doubt?’
‘No doubt at all.’
Pel frowned. ‘When exactly did he come out of jail?’
‘Just over three weeks ago,’ Darcy said. ‘Drugs. He belongs to the Paris mob. One of Pépé le Cornet’s men. Handles that side of the business for him.’
‘There’s another thing, Patron,’ Nosjean added. ‘Although his pockets had been emptied, on the lining of the right jacket pocket there were traces of heroin. He was obviously back in the game.’
‘It doesn’t take them long, does it? And the gun that killed him?’
The man from Ballistics came to life. ‘As we thought. Another 6.35.’
‘And when did it happen?’
Doc Minet looked up. ‘When I thought,’ he said. ‘He’d been dead about forty-eight hours. The post mortem made it quite clear.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as I can be.’
Pel frowned. ‘That puts it just about the time Madame Huppert was shot. Is it some type who’s going round shooting people with a 6.35 for some reason?’
‘And what’s the connection between Selva and the Huppert shooting?’ Darcy asked. ‘Have the Paris mob been falling out or something?’
‘Perhaps he was killed for cash,’ Nosjean suggested. ‘Perhaps the killer was looking for heroin, but Selva had just got rid of it, in which case his wallet was full of cash and the killer took that instead.’
‘Has his wallet been found?’
‘No, Patron. Not yet. We’ve made a search where the body was found, and along the verges of the bridle path and the road. If the type who killed him examined the wallet there, he didn’t throw it away there. There were also no footprints where he was found. Tyre marks, but nothing very clear. I think it was just as Forensics say. Selva was in a car with the type who had the 6.35. They stopped, and the type with the gun opened the door, shoved the gun against Selva’s head and pulled the trigger, so that he was literally blown out of the car. The door was slammed and the car was driven away. He must have got the wallet or the drugs off him before he shot him.’
‘If the Paris mob did it,’ Pel said slowly, ‘then why? Was Selva double-crossing them? And Huppert – could Selva have been using Huppert’s place as a drop for something? Drugs, for example. Without Huppert’s knowledge, even. That would explain the first intruder. Perhaps he was trying to pick up what was hidden there. He couldn’t find it the first time and had to go back.’
‘If it was drugs,’ Darcy put in, ‘it would explain the shooting. Those boys don’t take chances. They’ve a lot to gain and a lot to lose.’
‘It wasn’t drugs, Patron,’ Bardolle interrupted. ‘I thought of that and I had the sniffer dogs in. They found no trace.’
‘So what was it? There must be some connection between Madame Huppert and Selva.’
‘Not just Madame Huppert and Selva,’ the man from Ballistics said. ‘All of them.’
Pel’s head jerked round. ‘All of them?’
‘All of them, Patron. Selva, Madame Huppert, Huppert, the man who fired at Huppert. He was shot with a 6.35 too. We’re dealing with four guns. All 6.35’s.’
There was a long silence before anyone spoke.
‘Four?’ Pel said. ‘In the name of God, has the man an armoury?’
The Ballistics man shifted uncomfortably in his seat but he didn’t change his opinion. ‘There were four guns, Patron. The one that killed Selva at Pouilly. Huppert’s, which we’ve got and identified. And two others, one of which killed Madame Huppert.’
‘Two others? At Montenay?’
‘Yes, Patron.’
‘So there were two intruders?’
The Ballistics man looked puzzled. ‘Don’t ask me, Patron. I just supply the details, not the guesswork. But there were four altogether and they were all the same calibre and we think the same type of gun. All FAS Apex 6.35s. Eight-shot single-magazine guns like Huppert’s. Made by Fabrique d’Armes Automatiques de St Etienne. They’re cheap and not difficult to get hold of and people buy them for self-protection. But they’re small and not much use at long distance. They’re not a hit-man’s weapon.’
‘Go on,’ Pel said.
The Ballistics man looked at his notes. ‘Two shots were fired at Pouilly. From a 6.35. Ten shots were fired at Montenay. Six in the yard, from two different guns but both 6.35s. Three from Huppert’s gun which we’ve got and identified, because we’ve found both bullets and cartridge cases. The 6.35 has magazine-fed cartridges and the spent cases are ejected automatically. At the same time a fresh round’s pushed into the breech and the weapon’s recocked. We fired shots from Huppert’s gun with his ammunition. We identified the bullets he fired without difficulty.’
‘And the others?’
‘As I said, six shots in the yard, three from Huppert’s gun. Madame Huppert was shot by a different 6.35, which also fired three shots in the yard, one of which hit her. The other two hit the wall. In the forge two shots were fired by Huppert. We found them embedded in the plaster in the wall opposite the door where he says he was standing. Two other shots were fired in there, too – presumably at him by the intruder because one was in the wall by the door and one was in the beam alongside. They were also 6.35s. But those were fired by a different gun.’
‘Different from what?’
‘Different from the gun that was fired in the yard and killed Madame Huppert. In my opinion it was an FAS Apex, like the others, but a different gun all the same. Three guns in all – one at Pouilly, two at Montenay – four, if you count Huppert’s. And all, I’d say, from the same batch, except Huppert’s which was older.’
They all looked puzzled.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Pel said. ‘Ten shots were fired at Montenay, but none of them by the gun that did the shooting at Pouilly, even though it was the same type.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And six of those shots were fired in the yard, three at Huppert, one of them killing Madame Huppert, and three by Huppert’s gun at the intruder.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Then, as Huppert went into the forge, he fired two shots with his own gun, and two shots were fired back at him – one of them wounding him – but with a different gun from the one that was fired in the yard and hit Madame Huppert.’
The Ballistics man shrugged. ‘That’s how we work it out, Patron.’
They looked even more bewildered.
‘So there were two intruders.’ Pel said. ‘This is the first we’ve heard about a second burglar. Huppert thought there was only one.’
‘I think there was only one too, Patron,’ Bardolle added.
‘In that case, he had two guns. One intruder with two guns.’ Pel’s frown deepened. ‘But if one intruder, why two guns? Why carry two? And why fire with a different one. He’d only fired three shots in the yard from an eight-shot weapon so he had five shots left. So why change weapons? There must have been two intruders.’
‘He might have been an amateur,’ the Ballistics man said. ‘We’ve found that some people who don’t know much about guns think that only the ammunition supplied with the weapon will fit it properly. Or perhaps he was short of ammunition and the gun fired in the yard wasn’t fully loaded, so he had to change weapons.’
They discussed it back and forth for some time without coming to any satisfactory conclusions, before passing on to the shooting at Pouilly.
‘What about the gun that shot Selva?’ Darcy asked. ‘That was an FAS Apex 6.35, too?’
The Ballistics man agreed. ‘Without doubt. But a different gun again. Same calibre, same type, but definitely a different weapon. That’s clear from the markings on the bullets and the spent cartridges we examined. We know Huppert’s gun was an Apex and I’d bet my pension all the other three were, too.’