REORIENTATION
Polish those boots, boy, and examine them for roadworthiness, because there’s no discharge in the war.
Castang, dapper, was met by a summons to Richard’s office. Richard this morning very dapper. A new suit, of a creamy beige colour like oatmeal, a grey tie, a clear healthy eye, an air of just having had his hair cut.
Present Lasserre, with a lot of horribly healthy flourishing hair, blue-black and shiny, needing cutting; neck full of Assyrian curls. Unshaved, would look like the Guardia Civil. Overshaved, as he always was, and smelling strongly of attar of roses or something equally Bulgarian, looked like a colonel in the KGB. His suit the colour of the blue in the French flag, a perfectly hideous shade.
Present Cantoni, hair dry, brown, wavy, here and there in tufts, looking as though he’d had a fight with a Harridan who’d pulled a lot out. Tight pursed wicked mouth; quick roving blackish-grey eye. Muscles loose and ready: a dodgy rapid sidestepper, a clever elusive runner. Looking as sinister as Gravedigger and Coffin Ed rolled into one, and armed with both of their guns. A good man to have on your side in a scuffle: you wouldn’t worry at finding him behind you. Chocolate brown suit with little white lines, rather dressy.
Present – a rarity – Massip-the-Fraud, in pale grey, looking like a banker: his protective colouring was almost perfect.
Present the Secretary, a model of discretion, who never lost files and always knew who’d had how much leave. Big broad shoulders, huge in a scratchy great tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, and a dreadful knitted tie. Pockets full of pencils, erasers, calculating machines: a deep trustworthy gruff voice.
Present – rather oddly – Liliane, the senior of the women. Tough well-shaped legs, broad Polish shoulders, massive bosom husked in an iron brassiere, square humorous face and springy dark curls, pretty grey eyes and a Lille accent. Short pudgy hands, hard. Our Karate Queen.
Present finally, and everybody had been waiting for him, Castang the Bookmakers’ Friend, neat rather than small, not really in the least like a jockey; no smaller than Cantoni but more compact and not quite so like a chimpanzee.
"Late," said Lasserre.
"Had his bicycle pinched again," said Cantoni.
"Let’s be grateful," said Richard, "that we don’t have to listen to the minutes of the last meeting. To come straight to the point, in this matter of Marcel, we’ve got nowhere. On the ground, nothing; some ejected cartridges of which we can only say that they’re a common make and belong to no weapon that’s on the central file. Professional in that whoever loaded them left them wiped clean. Gun fairly old, rifling somewhat worn, but clean and well cared for.
"The car used tells us nothing either. Every indication is that it was lifted there because it wouldn’t be missed for some time; further that it was a commonplace model that would attract no attention. No handy prints, threads, loose buttons or any of those comforting shortcuts. We did perk up a little at finding some sand, until learning that the owner’s brother-in-law had been mending his garden gate.
"No clear description of the two men concerned at the scene, and none where the car was left: at the airport of course nothing was noticed. It was in the car park half an hour; we recovered the ticket. We have thus nothing but obvious premeditation, a planned conspiracy, an ambush. Carries a death sentence; much good may it do us.
"Marcel’s movements tell us nothing either. They picked him up at one or another of his well-known haunts, followed him around till a good opportunity was present, and made a thorough job. He does not appear to have known or recognised the gunman, according to our eyewitnesses, and seems to have been taken by surprise. He himself had received no threat, showed no sign of anxiety or preoccupation, had been behaving normally, made no break in habitual patterns on that day or those preceding. One can say that all the routine threads of approach break off short in the hand. Any comment or question so far?"
"His mail? Or phone messages?"
"At his office of course it all went through his secretary: he had only an interphone direct and an outside line goes through the switchboards and through her: normal shield against the importunate. Mail marked personal, confidential or whatnot she put on his desk, and he went through it with her. He was a careful man, and experienced: he kept every scrap of writing.
"Mail and messages at his home passed his wife, who saw nothing attracting his or her attention. We’re short once again of any handy cliché like ash or torn-up envelopes. At the pub he got plenty, especially local people who knew him. We can’t thus say categorically he got no letter or message, but we can say that everything passed through other hands first. I’m not giving any weight to this point.
"Incidentally he had a hidey-hole – Castang, did he get letters there?"
"I didn’t think of asking."
"Check on it, though," making a note. "Right, finance next. No unusual payments either made or received: no peculiar or unnaturally complicated dispositions. Once more, careful and prudent man, who kept everything, took witnesses to transactions, knew how to protect himself. This takes away, naturally, a promising line of inquiry, or what seemed so. Bank, notary, advocate, everything sewn up. Anything to add, Massip?"
"Careful, and quite naïve, or should I say unsophisticated. He didn’t try anything tricky. Bought a few shares but didn’t dabble. Bought a bit of gold. Nothing speculative. No trouble with tax. He wasn’t rich. Plenty came in, but plenty went out. House cost him a packet, and he was openhanded. He made cash deals, like everyone, so that they would go untraced, but nothing that would arouse comment. I can sum it up: he wasn’t a manipulator in that sense. He wasn’t even much interested in money, nor clever with it. He could have got a lot more milk, if he’d tried. The deals are standard, such as any adviser would recommend, and in fact did: all his business connections confirm. He was interested, and skilful, in the traffic of human beings, in influence, information, contacts. But money – no."
"Multifarious doings," Richard took up, "official or semi-official. But in none of them do we find a financial interest as such. He liked to be a queen bee, a key figure. Would scatter little favours, football tickets, a word in someone’s ear. In return, his car would be fixed or his plumbing mended, it’s fraudulent in the sense that when he was handed a bill he got a ruddy great discount. Some fraud…which of us stays out of jail?" It got a snigger round the table.
"As for vice – the Mayor’s been rather puritanical about that. Fabre, in confidence, put through a trace. Negative: neither boys, children nor decorative stimuli. One wouldn’t have expected any: he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did. Ditto gambling. None of this surprises me. It wouldn’t be in the pattern. A prudent man, and secretive, but balanced, extrovert, no oddities.
"What are we left with? The terrorist thing…there’s been a lot of dotty anonymous mail, but nobody claims credit, seeks to build on it or try to make leverage out of it. We’ve a blank, and DST say there’s nothing in it. We’ve thus a general loss of momentum. Fantasy begins to reign: the mayor sits there in his office, reads terrible stories about people left weltering in their gore in bars in Marseille, and rings me up with dark tales about Settlement of Accounts. He begins this fearful screenplay of the hired gun riding into town with the cold eye and the slow voice. You may all snigger: I have to listen to stuff like that. What Accounts? – I don’t know of any. To which he replies by urging me to go out and find some. I may remind you that while the Mayor is a clown he has too many friends in Paris to be treated like one. We’re under pressure; I may tell you strong pressure. We’ve got to start again with what we have, in the light of any new fact, and have we got a new fact? Castang?"
"New in the sense that the Mayor doesn’t know yet that the death of the son of night before last is homicide." At which, suddenly, the conclave woke up and conversation became general.
"The judge doesn’t want the fact made public at present."
"We’ve nothing to base it on but expert opinion in the path. lab."
"The expert opinion – crackpot theories of Deutz…" Lasserre.
"What’s this? – one fellow’s shot in the street, and another’s sliding about on the soap in the bathroom?" Cantoni, moustache bristling.
"Yes, there’s a complete break in pattern."
"Look mate, the first is professional, right? This Marcel gets shot, and we’re all high and dry? No amateur is going to do that. Then you come along with this, which is straight out of Agatha Christie, and you expect us to believe they’re connected?"
"What you mean," Liliane said, "is they’re connected by happening within the same family."
"Yes. Why should Marcel be killed? – I mean Etienne. We haven’t the remotest idea. Why should Didier be killed? – a question nobody’s had time to ask yet. As a revenge killing? That he was in some way behind his own father’s death? And somebody guessed it, or knew it? Or found it out? That too far fetched? Would it account for the break in the pattern?"
"Or a quarrel with accomplices, since there obviously was more than one? A falling-out, say over money?"
"I’ve never heard of anything as crappy as this," said Lasserre disgustedly.
"That doesn’t interest me," Castang said. "If we’ve two unsolved homicides, the pressure on us is that much greater, and if the explanations are crappy, that’s too bad for the explanations. Sure, the super Criminal Brain is a bad comic strip. Any second now one of us will drop dead, and it will turn out to be South American arrow poison. There may be more than one person involved."
"Terror Reigns in Concarneau!"
Richard had had enough.
"That’ll do. The inquiry takes on a new dimension, the inquiry must be put on a different footing. In consequence reorientate. The fact clear to me is that there’s a family connection. I want the scope extended beyond the immediate circle. I want to know who they see; when, why, how. Without their being aware of it. Two light surveillance teams: now who have we got?"
"I’ve nobody to spare," said Cantoni.
"No; we don’t want all this respectable crowd suddenly noticing they’ve acquired gorilla bodyguards. Castang, you plainly take charge of one; you’ve Maryvonne anyhow, now who else: Lucciani?"
"He’s busy with that false number plate fiddle," said the secretary.
"Well take him off it. We know all about it and it has no great urgency. And where’s Orthez?"
"Back tomorrow."
"I’d rather have Orthez – he’s a great deal brighter than he looks."
"Unlike some we know," muttered somebody; Lasserre probably.
"Liliane, you for the other. Maryvonne can brief you on the clan. You take Lucciani then, who’s useful enough, and Davignon, who knows what he’s at, and you co-ordinate this, Jean."
"Exactly."
"Davignon has done the paperwork for the judge, Castang, and Massip will brief you on the financial file. I’ll talk to Madame Delavigne, and I’ll talk to the Mayor. How long I can stall him for… I repeat; there’s something there. Get hold of it."
Castang was thinking that Vera would be out of the clinic in another two or three days, and what about his time off? It was no misfortune to be on good terms with Liliane.
There wouldn’t be much chance to get over to the clinic this morning. He’d have to give them a ring.
"What about a cup of coffee, Liliane?"