Nineteen

While Desmoulins’ lower leg was being assaulted by Filou, Rocco was making his way through the layers of security and bureaucracy at the Louvre Palace. It was a slow process. His police card appeared to carry less weight than he’d expected in these hallowed quarters. Responses varied between uncertainty and outright suspicion. So far, however, the letter of authority given to him by Dreycourt had been enough to get him through two levels to the third-floor landing, where he found another security desk.

Word had evidently gone out about his impending arrival. On his way up, he’d been aware of people looking at him with sombre expressions and standing aside as if he had a communicable disease. It was a common reaction to a police presence where death had occurred, and he didn’t let it bother him. In a close-knit working environment like this, the death by suicide of a senior figure and a subsequent police investigation would create more ripples than a snap election.

‘How do I know this is genuine?’ said the latest security officer, stepping out from behind his desk. He flapped the letter of authority in a dismissive manner, having given it barely a glance. A lanyard hanging from his neck showed his name to be Brasseur C. ‘You could be anyone.’ His expression was deliberately blank and it was clear he was playing to the gallery of two other officials standing nearby, dressed in identical suits and lanyards.

Rocco struggled to hold his temper. He’d been fine with the first two checks, waiting for self-important bureaucrats to pass him on to the next level of official obstruction, but now his patience was growing thin. ‘I’m a police officer investigating the suicide of a secretary of state, and that letter should be enough to confirm the fact.’ He waited for a response but there was none. ‘You could, of course, try ringing the telephone number in the letter to confirm my status – if that isn’t too much to ask.’

The man looked at the letter more closely, his lips moving slowly as he did so. ‘Inspector Lucas Rocco,’ he read out, his voice echoing around the landing. ‘From Amiens. Bit out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you? Or maybe you don’t have enough to do up there. What do they do up in Amiens, apart from growing sugar beet?’

Rocco said nothing as the man gave him a careful up-and-down look, focussing on his long coat. ‘Feeling the cold?’

Before Rocco could reply, one of the other security men stepped forward and took the letter out of Brasseur’s grip. He was neat and compact, and walked with a slight limp. ‘I’ll make the call, Inspector.’ He threw Brasseur a warning look but it failed to register. ‘Can you wait here, please?’

Rocco watched him hurry away. The man looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t recall where from.

Brasseur, meanwhile, was enjoying getting in Rocco’s path too much to move. ‘I’m sure it won’t take long,’ he said with studied insolence. ‘If it’s genuine, of course.’

Two minutes later the other man returned, slightly red in the face, and handed the letter back to Rocco.

‘It’s confirmed, Inspector Rocco,’ he said quickly, glaring at his colleague. ‘You’re cleared to go. Last door on the left. My apologies for the delay.’

Rocco took the letter and folded it into his pocket. ‘Have we worked together?’

‘That’s right, sir.’ The man looked pleased at being remembered. ‘Officer Tellier I was then, attached to the Clichy district. It was a while back, though. I was invalided out.’

‘What happened?’

Tellier slapped his leg. ‘I got in the way of a bank job getaway. It smashed my thigh and that was it.’ He shrugged pragmatically. ‘Dangers of the job, right?’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Good to see you again.’ Rocco nodded and went to move on but found Brasseur still barring his way and now looking at his colleague with a venomous stare.

‘Are you going to move,’ Rocco said softly, ‘or do I have to kick you down the hallway?’

After a momentary hesitation, Brasseur swallowed and stepped aside.

In contrast to the rest of the building, where activity was evident, the suite of offices assigned to the late Jean-Pascal Bourdelet were empty save for a woman in her sixties sitting quietly at her desk, staring into the distance. She was what some would call soignée, with elegant hair, a smart suit and careful make-up. She gave a start when Rocco appeared, and quickly dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘Inspector Rocco, isn’t it? I was told you were coming.’ She stood up and pointed towards an ornate wooden door across the way. A pair of wooden stands joined by a length of thick rope stood across it, barring entrance. ‘You’ll be wanting to go in there, I expect. Give me a moment and I’ll move the rope and unlock the door.’

‘No need, Mme Boyesse,’ Rocco said, lifting a hand to stop her. He felt certain the last thing the poor woman wanted to do was to go anywhere near that door. As the first person on the scene, it undoubtedly hid an image she would remember for the rest of her life, and he was surprised she had come in to work at all.

She looked grateful and sank back in her chair. ‘Can I get you anything, Inspector?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Thank you. I won’t be long. I believe nobody else has been in here since he died?’

‘No. Well, just two men earlier, just before you arrived. Security, they said.’

Rocco felt a faint drumming in his chest. No doubt the same two men who’d cleared out his desk at home. ‘What did they want?’ According to Dreycourt, Rocco himself was to have sole access.

‘I don’t know. They showed me their security passes, so I had to let them through. Did I do wrong?’ She looked concerned and he quickly moved to calm her down. She would have been following orders, so it was pointless blaming her.

‘No. Not at all. Did you see if they took anything with them?’

‘Some papers, I believe. They had a large cardboard box with them; it looked heavier going out than going in.’

‘Fine. Please don’t let anyone else in, will you?’ He moved the rope and stepped inside the room, closing the door after him. The lock mechanism had been torn from the wood, he noted.

The office was spartan compared with some Rocco had seen, holding little in the way of furnishings and no personal touches such as family or official photos. Having seen Bourdelet’s home, Rocco came to the conclusion that, apart from the painting in his study, Bourdelet had simply preferred unfussy minimalist surroundings.

He stood for a while, absorbing the atmosphere. The air was heavy with a smell he’d come across too many times in the past, in battle and in peacetime, and he quickly pushed it to the back of his mind. Death always carried a lingering atmosphere, but violent death held an aroma all of its own.

The desk was covered with a grey blanket. He lifted one corner. There had been no attempt at cleaning it or the floor in the immediate vicinity. The blood had dried to a near-black hue where it lay thickest on the desk’s leather-inlaid surface, with heavy brown spots on the floor and on the chair where Bourdelet had been sitting. The chair had been pushed to one side, no doubt while removing the body.

Rocco checked the ceiling and walls, but they were devoid of any blood, thanks to Bourdelet’s thoughtful covering of his head with his jacket.

The jacket and the gun were gone, along with the letter, a copy of which Rocco had in his pocket. He checked the desk drawers, but they had been emptied of all but office stationery, pens, a large ink bottle, writing pads and paper clips. The doors of a tall cupboard against one wall hung open, revealing a bare interior, and he wondered what had been removed so completely. Secrets of state not even an investigator should see? Or was someone higher up the chain of authority being ultra-cautious? He would probably never know.

He took a tour around the room but saw nothing worth pursuing. The windows were shut fast and didn’t appear to have been opened in a long while. That did away with any possibility of a locked room mystery and another’s hand in Bourdelet’s death. And now it wasn’t even a crime scene in the normal sense, since there was no longer a body or a weapon. The removal of evidence had happened, so it was too late to do anything about it now; he would have to accept what the first people in the room had seen and take their word for it.

He was about to leave when the door opened in a rush and a tall man in a smart suit stepped inside. He was in his early fifties, Rocco judged, tall and fit and, by the look of him, an ex-cop, probably early-retired and on his second career. He wore no lanyard, but carried the authoritative bearing of a man in charge. Behind him Rocco could see Mme Boyesse looking agitated.

‘You’re Rocco, I take it,’ the newcomer announced, and extended a hand. ‘Captain Goubier, head of security. Any problems?’

In other words, Rocco read, how long are you going to be here and when are you getting out of our hair?

‘Nearly finished,’ he replied, and shook the man’s hand, then gestured at the desk and cupboard. ‘There’s not a lot left in here. Why is that?’

‘Ah, yes. We removed a few items of a sensitive nature, such as files and folders, that kind of thing. It’s standard procedure when an outsider comes in.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘No offence, of course.’

‘But it’s a crime scene.’

‘Really? I thought it was suicide.’

‘I was tasked with investigating a death. It’s the same thing, with the same rules of procedure. The office should have been sealed with all access barred. Or was the gun sensitive, too, in a locked room?’

‘That wasn’t my decision.’ Goubier coloured slightly. ‘Orders came from on high. Bad enough having a body with a hole in the head on the premises, let alone a weapon lying around.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘The body?’

‘The gun.’

Goubier said nothing and Rocco realised he wasn’t about to get an answer. After an awkward silence, he asked, ‘As head of security, answer me this: there are at least three security checks on the way into the building, yet Bourdelet managed to bring in a loaded firearm. How could he do that?’

Goubier looked uncomfortable. ‘The checks are – or were – fairly basic in nature. In any case, as secretary of state he wouldn’t have been subjected to a search. But after what happened,’ he shrugged, ‘we’ve been told to be more thorough in future. Is there anything else?’

‘Who was first on the scene?’

‘Well, Mme Boyesse was nearest, of course, although the door was locked from the inside so she couldn’t get in. She summoned one of my security officers and he broke in.’

‘I’d like to speak to the man involved.’

‘What good would that do?’

Rocco sighed. ‘It’s called crime scene detail. The room has been extensively disturbed and it’s important to confirm what the first arrival saw.’

‘Sorry, but he’s on sick leave. The whole thing hit him rather badly.’

Rocco stared at him, unsure if the man was joking. He concluded not. ‘You must be so proud.’

Goubier frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Proud of what?’

Rocco nodded towards Mme Boyesse in the outer office. ‘To know that at least there’s someone around here with the courage to carry on with their job regardless.’ He ignored the way Goubier flinched. ‘Bourdelet was assigned a driver. I’d like to talk to him.’

Goubier gave an almost imperceptible shift of his eyes. It wasn’t much but enough.

‘What?’ Rocco snapped. This was a farce.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Lopez has been reassigned.’

‘That was quick. On whose orders?’

Goubier looked towards the ceiling but said nothing. Instructions from on high, was what he meant. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

‘Where has he gone?’

‘I don’t know. They don’t have to tell me these things.’ He actually managed to look embarrassed at the admission and looked away. ‘Sorry.’

‘Me, too,’ said Rocco. ‘Me, too.’

Rocco left the Louvre Palace with more questions than answers, and a feeling that too many doors had been slammed shut too quickly. But, judging by the way Bourdelet had lived, both professionally and privately, with few unnecessary embellishments other than a dubious work of art, he doubted there would have been many clues for him to discover. What had driven the man to go to his office to kill himself, however, was probably something only Bourdelet could have answered. Was it some sort of stab back at his former place of employment, like an end-of-term schoolboy prank?

By the time he got back to Amiens it was late. He found Desmoulins waiting for him with a report on his trawl of the neighbourhood around Bourdelet’s home. The only high point was the reported sighting of a yellow van.

‘It’s a lead,’ Rocco assured him, ‘and worth keeping in mind. Bourdelet’s housekeeper said there was nothing in the postbox when she left at ten the night before.’

‘So the van could have dropped off the letter earlier that morning.’

‘Yes. As your man said, right colour and easy to mistake for a genuine PTT vehicle. Ring the local depot, will you, and ask if they have any unmarked vans in their fleet.’

‘Already done,’ said Desmoulins. ‘They haven’t any and it was definitely too early for a delivery to that area.’

Rocco smiled. ‘Good work, René. It’s a step forward.’

Desmoulins acknowledged the compliment with a nod. ‘So what next?’

‘Mers-les-Bains. The same exercise in the neighbourhood around Gambon’s house. See if someone noticed anything.’

‘And Abbeville, near Petissier’s home?’

‘That, too, as soon as you can.’

‘Will you be coming?’

‘Not immediately. I’ll be visiting Gambon’s place at some stage, too. But first I need to speak to a master forger.’

Before leaving the office, he rang Sébastien Cezard. Eliane answered.

‘Hello, Lucas. I’m sorry, but Pa’s in the middle of a project. I don’t want to disturb him unless it’s absolutely urgent, but I will if you want me to.’

‘No. I just wanted to see if he’s going to be in tomorrow. I’d like a chat.’

‘That’s fine. He’ll be here, since he rarely goes out. I’ll tell him to expect you. Can I tell him what it’s about? It’s not more shooting, is it?’

‘No. Not that. I’d like to seek his expertise on a subject.’

‘Oh, very well.’

Next, he rang Claude and arranged to pick him up the following morning.

‘Sure. Where are we going?’ Claude asked. ‘Will I need my gun?’

‘Not this time. I think we’ve frightened enough people. We’re going to make another call on Cezard and show him some photos. I’d like you to watch his reaction.’

‘Suits me,’ Claude replied, a laugh in his voice. ‘This has nothing to do with Eliane being easy on the eye, has it? You being single and she being … well, also single?’

‘You’re an old romantic and the answer’s no.’

‘Damn. You’re going to die a lonely old detective, you know that?’