A SERVANT OF THE STATE
Henri Castang. Quite a common French name. In the South generally spelt Castaing, pronounced with a flat American a and a nasal n. Etymology – vaguely, something to do with the Latin for chestnuts; up to modern times an important, even essential food-supply for the people in the poorer areas of central France. He was by birth a Parisian, which meant nothing. He didn’t have any family history. More of a small bullet-headed Gaul than a bony longheaded Frank, which meant nothing either. Blood from anywhere in the Mediterranean basin and probably, he thought, Iberian. There wasn’t anything especially Latin about him, certainly not in a conventional sense of excitable, volatile, explosive. Vera, his wife, who was Slav, said indeed that he was a northerner by nature, and called him The Aquitainian Bastard: when pressed to explain this talked vaguely about Normans. The fact is that France is a melting-pot. The French have nothing in common, said Castang gloomily, save vanity, avarice and the mania for centralisation. His detestation for the State grew year by year but he had not allowed it to become cynicism. The State paid him; he was a servant. There was much he disliked about that, but one had to keep things simple. France is not Argentina. No, agreed Vera, and it’s not Czechoslovakia either. Just that things do close in rather. But Vera, almost full-term pregnant with a first child at nearly thirty, while he was quite a long way over thirty, thought a lot about the future of the world.
He had stayed on the scene till six. This was one job that had better be well done. Make a mess of this, and you’re the navigating officer that hit a rock in the Brest Estuary, and found himself commanding paper-clips at the Recruitment Depôt in Bourges.
He didn’t do anything very spectacular. Found nine cartridge cases, and a good notion where seven bullets had gone: found an eighth in a tree, shortly before leaving. His mine-detector thing supplied by the fire-brigade had also turned up a lot of petty cash, several false teeth, assorted jewellery, a handsome nineteen-thirty model fountain-pen, and nineteenth-century antiquities of unguessable purpose and small aesthetic value. Nothing significant, though a lot of police time would get wasted on parking-tickets, shopping-lists and cashiers’ receipts. The body had got taken to the mortuary, the car towed to the police parking lot. Clothes, contents, and contents-of-car stowed away in plastic bags, but no clue that pointed to anything. No handy menacing letters, assignations or whatnot.
The best thing he had done was turn up two witnesses. One was a young man in the cashier’s office at the opera. Monsieur Marcel had picked up two complimentary tickets for friends. But this young man had run out earlier, for a woman who had bought tickets, paid for them, and then left them absent-mindedly on the ledge: he’d pursued her, overtaken her as she drove off, and noticed a man leaning on a car, smoking. Woman had been profuse in talkative thanks and he hadn’t really noticed the man. A man smoking… The other was a taxi-driver who’d been reading a comic while parked in the rank further along. He’d heard shots, jumped out, seen a man running. Man jumped into an already-moving car. He’d jumped back into his own car, laudably, to give chase. But the two avenues were one-way streets like an autoroute, and he was parked facing the wrong way. He’d reversed back down to the corner but the fellow was long gone: not a chance. Man seen running, tallish, brownish. Hair short rather than long. Dark glasses. Short bloused jacket or might be a pullover, dark green, brownish or beige trousers. Wearing some kind of cap with a peak. Way he ran – youngish man; he’d say around twenty-five. Sorry, can’t do better. Car – easy: this year’s pale green Simca, Chrysler job. Clean, polished. Accelerates well, that thing; lost no time. Driver had been on his side but sorry, he’d not noticed the driver. Long hair but whether man or woman couldn’t say. Fellow running had jumped into an already moving car and whizz, off he was. Apart from telling Lasserre to persecute anyone in a green Chrysler there was little Castang could do. It was easy enough to reconstruct. When the smoking man – same man, little doubt of that, brown with a green top – saw Marcel approaching, he’d given the signal to a confederate to start the motor and have the car moving slowly along the parking lot, as though looking for a gap.
He found Richard alone, thinking, which didn’t mean sicklied over with a pale cast, but looking as he always did.
"Any use?" he asked.
"Evidence of planning," answered Richard. "Even if we’d got to your green Chrysler earlier it wouldn’t have helped. Found empty on the Place de Lattre. Nothing in it of any interest. The plates hadn’t been changed. A local car, which Fausta traced effortlessly. The registration office gave us the name and address, she looked in the phone book, the wife was on the line: all simple. The owner left this morning for Paris on the morning plane, will be back this evening, not best pleased."
"Very simple: they wanted a car for a few hours whose theft would be unnoticed. Go to the airport, watch fifty-odd men on to the plane, help yourself to any car you fancy. Is that professional? Anybody who has seen a few films can do as well."
"So all these road blocks…"
"Precisely, gave us four Arabs forbidden to be in the district. What could one go on? Anybody seeming flustered or incoherent or failing to give a reasonable account of themselves? What’s the average none-too-bright cop looking for? Scowling Palestinians with grenades bulging their pockets out? Terrorist girls reaching nervously for their suspiciously large handbags? There are evidently quite a lot of men with greenish shirts and brownish pants, angry this evening at getting home an hour late. The one in question put a jacket on, took his cap off, went peaceably home to the suburbs; very likely never left the town at all. Roadblocks please Prefects, but never catch anyone save a couple of juvenile delinquents. Now how does this strike you?"
"Confirms. There’s nothing professional save the gun. Colt .45 automatic. Our man with the sun in his eyes sprayed it round a good deal, but there’s no other sign of haste or nervousness. Emptying the magazine like that could be to intimidate any eventual eyewitness, or a professional wanting to appear amateur, or a great accumulation of vengeful rancour – or simply that he did have the sun in his eyes, except that he had dark glasses. The ground was hopelessly scuffed and trodden. A lot of litter but no pointers. No further useful witnesses. You got the best."
"Worthy woman," said Richard. "Couldn’t give a description, which shows at least she’s telling the truth. The man called out ‘Etienne’ in a startling voice, described as a nasty voice, and the cannonade began. Does it mean they knew each other?"
"A simple technique, I should think, to point a target towards you, making it bigger."
"And immobilise it, quite. The good woman stood there paralysed. As Etienne did. He stood there with his mouth open with no sign of recognition. If of course she was looking at him at all. If someone calls out in a sharp voice that’s the person you look at, or am I abnormal?"
"You think she was there as a device to distract him or stop him if need be?"
"I think no such thing. I think she’s a clueless biddy that wasn’t looking at anything but says whatever she imagines we might enjoy hearing. She can’t give a description because she didn’t really take anything in. She let out a monstrous howl and lots of people came running. She didn’t recognise Marcel. You can see people in photographs or even on television a hundred times and still not know them in the flesh."
"This is the point, isn’t it. Very well-known man."
"That’s exactly right. Any thoughts about that?"
"That it makes for a very difficult enquiry. Unless his wife has a demented lover or something."
"Round up the usual suspects," said Richard pleasantly.
"There’ll either be none, or far too many."
"Right. I don’t know what you’re going to find. So as well as being an honest, competent and persevering servant of the State, you will also be fairly bright. You are all these things, aren’t you?"
"I might try reminding you that my wife’s due to have a baby any moment."
"Yes I knew that, even without Fausta reminding me. You get your day off, and more days if you need them."
"What does the judge of instruction – ?"
"Your old friend Madame Delavigne. Go and see her tomorrow morning. The Proc, Castang, doesn’t like this any more than I do. I need hardly say that he’s not keen on terrorists." No, the Procureur de la République, chief legal authority for the district, would not be pleased with anything much save perhaps a demented lover. "Terrorists however have one very attractive side: they provide an excellent excuse for telling the press to keep its mouth shut. That reminds me, it’s nearly time for the local news: who’s got a box around here?… I just love seeing myself on television," said Richard amiably.
The regional news naturally could speak of nothing else and one saw a lot of Richard – that, after all, he remarked, was what he was there for – and nothing, Castang was relieved to see, of Castang. The national news, twenty minutes later, delivered in hushed wise tones by the resident guru, invited France to meditate upon the dreadful consequences should the dread Italian-German disease of Terrorism attack this dear Motherland. A heavy responsibility weighed upon us all: he certainly looked as though it weighed heaviest upon himself, but his smile was kind, and very very brave. Chin up, he conveyed; with me beside you we will see this through together, and our President is also watching over us.
"I hope the President will ring him up," said Richard, "and ask his advice before doing anything rash." The Minister of the Interior also had a few well-chosen words about the defenders of order.
"And I hope," said Castang, "that that oily bastard won’t be coming down to pronounce a eulogy over my coffin. I don’t want to meet him head first or feet first."
"Nor even dick first," agreed Richard. "And you refer the press to me. And who do you want to have assigned to work with you? I rather think not Orthez. We’ll keep him in reserve for terrorists."
"On the understanding it’s not terrorists, can I have Maryvonne?"
"You can," said Richard. "That’s quite a good idea. Let’s go home now… I’ll be at home," he told the switch-board operator.
"And so will I," muttered Castang hopefully.