Standing once more in the wrecked house in the Impasse Tarien, Pel stared about him with Darcy. Debris littered the floor – broken plaster, splintered woodwork, dust and soot that had accumulated for years in the ancient chimney. What plaster remained was chipped where bullets had gouged holes in it and there were blood splashes on the walls and, where they could be seen beneath the debris, on the bare floorboards.
As they worked, an army captain, one of the explosives experts from the barracks in the Rue du Drapeau appeared. In his hand were several wide-barrelled felt-tipped pens such as you could buy in plastic packets at the Nouvelles Galeries for a few francs. The ink cores had been removed and the containers stuffed with explosive. They had been tied together with wire, with wire wool threaded round their caps, and a sheet of transistors soldered to a tuft of the wire wool.
‘Good as a steel drum for this kind of explosive,’ the army man said. ‘It’s not gelignite, of course. It’s the home-made stuff. When they’re sealed, the pressure built up inside when it goes off is tremendous. I think they were assembling them here.’
‘What for?’ Darcy asked. ‘To blow somebody up?’
‘Normally they’d use a drum filled with jelly in a sewer for that. Or a couple of kilos strapped to the exhaust of a car.’
‘They’d have a job getting a bomb like that close to the President,’ Pel said. ‘Perhaps they had alternative plans. Perhaps it won’t be explosives, and these things were to be set off just to create confusion.’
They moved about the wrecked building, staring sombrely at the places where Randolfi, Lemadre and Desouches had died. It was a sordid little place of cracked plaster, peeling paint and broken floorboards. Shelves and cupboards had collapsed and the empty bottles which had littered the kitchen lay about in broken shards. The windows had gone and the shutters hung crookedly from broken hinges.
‘They must have been mad to think they could get away with hammering without being heard,’ Pel growled.
‘Some of these people,’ Darcy pointed out, ‘don’t have much grip on reality. They got into Number Eleven, which is the last house in the cul-de-sac, and started living there. Then they knocked a hole through the back wall into the yard and through the wall of the yard of Number Ten. They’d just started on Zimbach’s wall when Desouches turned up.’
In Number Eleven the kitchen table was set for a meal, with a coffee pot, a plastic bottle of stale milk, and dirty mugs. An open tin of meat was going bad in the heat.
As they studied them, Prélat of Fingerprints appeared from upstairs. ‘I expect the place was full of fingerprints,’ he said, stretching his shoulders. ‘But we’ll not find much after the explosion.’
Studying the tools that had been left behind, Pel picked up a hammer. ‘What about this?’ he asked, gazing at the varnished handle. ‘It would give good prints.’
‘There’s nothing, Patron,’ Prélat said. ‘I don’t think it’s been used and if it was, it was used by someone wearing gloves – workman’s gloves, I’d say.’
Pel frowned. He was studying a pale oval mark on the handle where a label had been removed. ‘Let’s have a check on it, all the same,’ he said to Darcy. ‘Misset can do it. It’ll keep him out of mischief. It looks brand new and the label probably gave the name of the supplier and was taken off in case we found it after they’d finished with Zimbach’s and asked who bought it. After all, people don’t often buy hammers. We might get an identification.’
While Pel and Darcy were studying the wrecked house, the police were deploying their forces about the city. The garage hold-up at Regnon had been sorted out quickly and a man was in for questioning about the assault at Auray-sur-Tille, and now police had been brought in from Dôle, Chatillon, Auxerre and Avallon – because there was a chance that the local men were too well-known – and they were out in the streets in a variety of disguises, their ears to the ground, haunting the bars and cafés, their heads cocked and listening. Police were also at barriers on every road out of the city, stopping motorists and checking their cars. Others were digging into all known corners, looking for the missing car, or checking up on anybody who might have been involved and quite a lot who might not, in case they’d heard anything in the shady underworld they inhabited.
Nobody had, of course, and there was a great deal of indignation at the killers. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ one man told Lagé, ‘you can shut up shop at the Hôtel de Police. There’ll be no crime here until this lot’s sorted out. There are too many Flics about.’
The experts soon came up with proof of Darcy’s theory that the criminals were after Zimbach’s safe, and one of the bullets dug out of the plaster matched several of the bullets taken out of the dead policemen and the dead woman, who had finally been identified as a Madame Héloïse Lenotre, from Lyons, who had been visiting her brother in that part of the city where the shooting had taken place. She was in no way connected with the crime.
The following day Madame Colbrun, from Porsigny, found the bullet she had dug out of her thigh and brought it in to the Hôtel de Police. With what had been happening in the city, Nosjean had never been able to organise the search he’d intended, so Madame Colbrun had done it for him. It matched the bullets dug out of the wreckage of Number Ten, Impasse Tarien, and the bullets dug out of Madame Lenotre and the dead and wounded policemen, and confirmed what they’d believed all along – that the detonators from St Blaize had been stolen for no other reason than to set off the gelignite stolen from Dom.
The obvious first calls were on known dissidents and Darcy set up visits to them all. For the most part they were desperately poor, unhappy and maladjusted.
There were plenty of refugees who had arrived penniless in France who had made a new life for themselves. One or two of them were actually doing very well, thank you, but, honest or not, on the whole, their attitude was not one of defeatism. The bitter, the angry, the sad, were all victims of their own temperaments, and Darcy rejected them as suspects.
He was well aware of methods. Terrorism these days was transnational with respect to communication and a few other things, and it didn’t matter a damn what each individual terrorist organisation was after, at bottom they were all after the breakdown of law and order. The British had the Irish problem. The French had believers in Breton, Basque, Corsican and now Burgundian freedom. The Italians and the Germans had their own particular burdens in the form of the Red Brigade and the Baader Meinhof. The Turks, the Iranians and the African countries also contributed a few, and most of those in Darcy’s diocese, who weren’t so defeated as to be lethargic, belonged to one or another of them.
Out of the whole lot, however, there was only one who really meant much to Darcy – one Tadeuz Kiczmyrczik, a Pole who had arrived in France during World War II with a bitter hatred for Russia, which over the years had changed course and was now for any form of government which seemed sane and non-anarchic. He lived with a Czech woman by the name of Anna Ripka, in a narrow-gutted flat near the Industrial Zone, that was filled with ugly furniture piled with books by Marx, Lenin, and a few others. Darcy was shown in by a small round-faced young man with glasses and a broad smile. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’m Jaroslav Tyl. Anna’s out doing the shopping. The old man’s resting. He isn’t well.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Darcy growled. ‘Because I’d like to see him. Get him up.’
‘Can’t you leave him alone?’ Tyl asked. ‘He’s got a lot on his mind.’
‘Not half as much as I’ve got on mine. Fetch him.’
Kiczmyrczik’s bitterness was clearly written on his face. He was gaunt, the lines cut deeply into his features. He was in no mood to be helpful.
‘Why should I help you?’ he demanded. ‘France has done nothing for me.’
Darcy didn’t bother to point out that there were a lot of Poles in France – as there were a lot of Russians, Czechs, Letts, Lithuanians, Esthonians and others – to whom France had given little but shelter but who had shown their gratitude by living useful lives within her boundaries. He came straight to the point.
‘Where were you last night?’ he asked.
‘I don’t have to tell you.’
‘I think you do, my friend,’ Darcy snapped.
‘Then I was here.’
‘Anyone with you?’
‘Only Anna. She is my wife. Not in the way you believe in wives. But she is still my wife.’
‘She the only one?’
‘Who else would there be?’
‘A few of your friends. A few of your disciples. You hold meetings here.’
‘There was no meeting last night.’
‘All the same, I’d like the names of the people who make a point of attending your meetings.’
‘I can’t remember them all. There are too many.’
Darcy’s eyebrows lifted. To his certain knowledge there were no more than a dozen or so. People like Kiczmyrczik maintained small and very private groups.
‘You’d better start thinking.’
‘I have no intention. You’d better call your bully-boys and have me put in prison.’
As they talked, Anna Ripka appeared. She wasn’t old, half Kiczmyrczik’s age, Darcy guessed, a small slender woman with ill-cared-for hair, a complete lack of style, and the same bitter lines on her face that Kiczmyrczik had. Darcy guessed she’d always been ugly and had turned to Kiczmyrczik for no other reason than that no one else had ever looked at her.
‘What’s he doing here?’ she demanded harshly.
‘He’s part of the fascist police,’ Kiczmyrczik said.
She turned on Darcy, her face suffused with hatred. ‘Get out,’ she snarled. ‘Go away, go away!’
The way she spoke made Darcy remember the woman seen following the two men supporting their wounded friend from the shootings in the Impasse Tarien. But Kiczmyrczik gave her an alibi, as she gave him one, and it didn’t really mean a thing. As Darcy left, Tyl, who had listened throughout the interview, a smile playing about his lips, grabbed a handful of pamphlets from a chair and thrust them into Darcy’s hand. The headlines read ‘We need 1789 again, and a new Revolution.’ It was pretty dull stuff and also pretty meaningless.
‘You don’t have to read them,’ Tyl said as he showed Darcy out. ‘Nobody ever does. Anna burns them in the grate in the winter when they can’t afford coal.’
Darcy turned. ‘Are you one of them?’
‘One of what?’
‘Do you have revolutionary ideas, too?’
Tyl grinned. ‘Not really. I’m all for the people, of course, but you’ve only to look at me to see I’m not active. I’m the wrong shape and too good-natured.’
‘You could still have revolutionary ideas.’
‘Oh, sure!’ Tyl beamed. ‘I’m out of work, so it would be normal enough, wouldn’t it? Only I’m an optimist, which they aren’t. The revolution’ll come all right, and it’s our job to help it on by spreading the message, but it’ll come in its own good time and doesn’t need bombs to push it. In any case, I’m too ugly to have any influence. You have to look like the Old Man for that. Bit like an eagle, with lines of suffering on your face. That’s where the appeal lies.’
‘Does he make bombs?’
Tyl shrugged. ‘He’s getting a bit old for it but I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘What about the other members of his group?’
‘I’m one. Jaroslav Tyl, Apartment 3, 79, Rue Georges-Fyot. I live with my sister. She keeps house for me. Our parents died when we were kids. We’re Czechs like Anna. My sister got married but her husband knocked her about a lot and it left her a bit nervous. When he was killed in a car accident – he was drunk – she came to look after me.’
‘What about the rest?’
‘Come and see me tonight and I’ll give you a full list.’
‘Are they active?’
‘Mostly they just talk. Most revolutionaries just talk, of course. What they do usually varies in inverse proportion to what they have to say. It’s the ones who don’t talk you have to look out for.’
‘You do plenty. Where were you last night?’
‘Home. With my sister. We can’t afford to go out much. We’ve got no money. But we’ve got a television. Black and white, of course. We had it given. A type in the same block who was going in for colour and couldn’t get anything for his old one. My sister’s an addict. I’d rather read a book but–’ Tyl shrugged ‘–you know how it is. You’ve got to let them have their way, haven’t you?’
As the few facts that were available were brought in, the press started clamouring for a statement. Fiabon, of France Dimanche, Sarrazin, a freelance who represented anybody who’d use his material, and Henriot, of Le Bien Public, were waiting by Pel’s office. Outside, there were a few others, men from Paris who had come screaming down the motorway as soon as the flash messages from Sarrazin, who acted as their contact in the city, had reached their offices. One or two of them were big names and Pel regarded them with distrust because the Press’ habit of giving things which were best kept quiet, as often as not put criminals on their guard and sent them to ground. With terrorists, it was even more tricky because of the Press’ habit of giving facts which were best encouragement to the men who made them. And terrorists loved publicity and every word that appeared helped them, to say nothing of providing information for the hosts of eager imitators who still hadn’t discovered how to set about things.
He gave them what he could – nothing but the bare facts, but there appeared to be plenty of those for them to get their teeth into. It wasn’t every day that three policemen, a woman and a boy were murdered, to say nothing of a house being blown inside out. Despite this, they seemed to feel he was short-changing them.
‘Is that all?’ Fiabon asked.
‘Isn’t it enough?’ Pel said. ‘It’s all we know at the moment. You have the names of the dead and wounded men and the injured civilians.’
‘We could use more.’ Sarrazin was one of the more ardent and vociferous critics of the police. ‘The big television boys will be here soon. They’ll want more than this.’
Pel didn’t look forward to the big television names with their over-publicised commentators. Half the time their strident utterances became clarion calls summoning the faithful to war. ‘Doubtless by that time,’ he said, ‘we’ll know more.’
As the pressmen vanished, Cadet Martin appeared. ‘There’s a type called Andoche to see you, Patron.’
Pel frowned. ‘Can’t Inspector Darcy see him?’ he asked.
‘He insists on you, Patron.’
Andoche was a young man in his early thirties, wearing jeans, sneakers, a shirt stamped UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, and a great deal more hair than seemed to be necessary for a comfortable existence.
‘Robert Andoche,’ he introduced himself. ‘Mature student. President of the Free Burgundy Movement.’
He held out his hand to shake Pel’s. Pel regarded it coldly.
A little disconcerted, Andoche frowned and went on more uncertainly. ‘Just wanted to let you know we weren’t responsible for the death of the Fuzz,’ he said.
‘For the death of what?’ Pel growled.
‘The – well, you know–’ Andoche gestured ‘–it’s just a name, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not one we use here.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Anyway, we just wanted you to know, so you don’t start making life uncomfortable for us.’
Pel recalled a few occasions when a Free Burgundian meeting, asked to move on because it was obstructing the pavement, had degenerated into a brawl and stones had been thrown. He considered Andoche had a nerve.
He stared at him. He didn’t look particularly clean or hard-working. ‘You’ve made life uncomfortable often enough for what you choose to call the Fuzz,’ he snapped.
Andoche gestured. ‘Well, that’s what you’re for, isn’t it?’
‘My impression was that the police existed not so much to be targets for you and your friends but to keep law and order.’
‘Within fascist rules, of course.’
‘This is a republic,’ Pel snapped. ‘With great socialistic ideals, whatever government is in power. It was the first true democracy of the people, by the people, for the people, no matter what our friends in Britain or the United States might say.’
Andoche could see he was getting nowhere. ‘Well,’ he said ‘Just wanted to let you know. We wouldn’t go in for that kind of violence.’
‘But you wouldn’t say no to others?’
Andoche grinned. ‘Well, anything’s allowed in politics, isn’t it? I thought you’d be pleased. Thought I’d like to help your investigations and all that.’
Pel reached across his desk and pressed the bell. When Darcy appeared he gestured at Andoche.
‘Shove him in a cell,’ he said.
Andoche’s face reddened. ‘I came to help you!’ he yelled.
‘You probably will,’ Pel snapped. ‘Give him a going over, Daniel. See who his friends are. They might be interesting.’