THE MANDATES OF THE MAGISTRATE
Having taken particular pains to be just a little late at the Palace of Justice he was quite happy to be kept waiting no more than a quarter of an hour. She listened to his argument with no very great enthusiasm. Her manner could be called polite.
"So you’ve got these three, or possibly more, malcontents, talking a lot and bragging – but from there to plotting and carrying out an assassination, there’s a wide gap."
"I’d say I feel sure there’s a directive force, organising and impelling. Taking a good deal of pains to stay uninvolved, and indeed unattackable. We’re working on it, and perhaps we can forge links, but we can’t get him on anything. This is exactly the problem. Take these three in, and we’ve probably got three psycho cases, and where are we then?"
"I’m not by any means convinced that I could issue a mandate for arrest – what have you got? – two lukewarm eyewitnesses."
"Photographs, and movie – very poor guides to an identification. If I can take this fellow for a start, dress him up in the clothes as described, have an identity parade…"
"Double-edged. If then your witnesses fail to recognise him, I’ve got no good grounds for holding on to him, your famous evil genius in the background has been tipped off, and what then? What about the others?"
"If I arrest all three there’ll be an uproar of publicity. And the family will be up in arms too. Thierry… Upset the cart if you lay hold of the horse, and if you touch the cart the horse will take fright. What I thought was, could we take up this fellow on a pretext?"
Madame Delavigne frowned.
"I don’t like that, Castang. A mandate as you know must specify the charge." The Code of Criminal Procedure is fussy about warrants, as they are called in England. The police, even officers, cannot arrest persons unless taken flagrante delicto. The judge of instruction, on the other hand, has four different kinds of warrant, in ascending order of severity. It is all very formal and legalistic and concerned about the rights of the citizenry. As also happens with the Bill of Rights, the citizen gets arrested just the same because the police have a catch-all, the garde-à-vue which provides that a person may be held on suspicion for twenty-four hours, after which he must either be released or presented to the magistrate and charged, exactly like Habeas Corpus. Instructing judges vary widely in the latitude they allow the police in these matters, and Colette Delavigne was sticky about form.
"Something," said Castang, keeping his eye on her, "more or less fabricated that needn’t concern these others. Suspicion of handling contraband or something." It can be so difficult, indeed, to secure adequate grounds for arrest that the police are suspected now and then of planting evidence. It has been known…
"And have the tribunal throw the case out on grounds of malpractice," on a rising note. Castang, who had been cherishing his rôle as Inspector Robillard of the Customs Fraud Squad, sighed and resigned himself.
"Why not go down and make a search?" A slight hint of hypocrisy about this. A PJ officer not a simple agent – is entitled to search without a mandate from the magistrate. "You might turn up the gun."
"Some hope! The gun’s the first thing any murderer, however psycho, knows how to get rid of."
"Then if your eyewitnesses fail you I don’t see much for it. If you’ve really got hold of the right one, you’ll have to hope the one or the other will get rattled." He sighed again, and left. "Don’t see much for it," said Richard in the same tone. "Pull a gag like this, your witnesses fail you, you’ve nothing but to turn him loose: you’ve tipped your hand and for nothing. Clap the lot then under a twenty-four hour surveillance on the hope someone’s nerve will go and he’ll do something silly. Not an exciting prospect.
"You’ve no motive, Castang; these people are catspaws. There are arguments for picking up this librarian individual, and even better ones for leaving him; his mind’s expanded that far there’s nothing left of it. Thierry you can’t very well touch: too far dug in.
"Furthermore there’s a second assassination."
"Didier. I don’t see how it can tie in, or how one can make anything of it at all. I haven’t thought of it."
"I on the other hand have thought of it a good deal."
"We can’t even be sure it’s a homicide, except on very slender grounds of an expert opinion. There’s no connection with any of these people unless you count the family tie. Or with Maresq, who is I’m convinced the moving spirit behind all this, though why or how the Lord alone may know."
"Maresq," said Richard, testing it. "Somewhere at the back of my mind, if I could just get hold of it, is the suspicion I’ve heard this name before. Now if I could recall in what context…"
"A link," said Castang slowly, "with Thierry. A link, which it seems reasonable to question Monsieur Jouve about, with both Marcel’s son and his son-in-law. I’ve been wondering increasingly whether Noelle’s peculiar behaviour may not have something to do with this. That effing shrink won’t let me anywhere near her, but it’s only a question of time. Somewhere there’s a fact staring me in the face, if I knew where to look for it."
Richard was staring at his blotting-pad, as though a carrier pigeon had just alighted there.
"Questioning Bertrand," went on Castang remorselessly, "isn’t going to get me anywhere. He knows Monsieur Maresq. Why yes, they occasionally play bridge together. They may have some present or projected business connection. Then what? It’s evidence of nothing at all. All these people have only to keep silence, and wait for us to get tired. We’ll never get a shred of legal proof."
Richard’s hand and wrist, which had been flexing and stretching like a serpent uncoiling from a nice sleep in the sun, was reaching slowly out towards the telephone.
"Would it be possible," asked Castang, "to throw a horrible scare into Thierry by suggesting we know why his mother attempted suicide? Mm, he’s a cool card. And if it backfires – again, we’ve nothing."
Richard wasn’t listening: he had picked his phone up.
"Massip… Massip, you recall we went through Didier Marcel’s files, in an effort to discover anything questionable. It seems to me we made a record… Do you still have that paper anywhere round the office? Bring it up here would you." There was a satisfied look on his face, as though the snake had just swallowed the pigeon and was now digesting peacefully. Massip, whose office was always tidy and who never lost pieces of paper, entered with a few carbon flimsies stapled together.
"The originals must be in Fausta’s file. It’s not of any use – only a list of his house-dealing activities."
"Who was it made this?" asked Richard taking it. "Maryvonne was it?"
"No no; some clerical boy downstairs."
"As you say, house deals – nothing interesting there. Builders, and building promoters – ditto. Agency stuff, split-commission deals, all very normal. Rents collected for property owners. I knew I’d seen this before. Run of the mill stuff, as you say, Massip, it went into Fausta’s file and the other copy, since Didier’s death has an interrogation mark hanging over it, to the examining magistrate. And somewhere along the way, I cast a perfunctory eye upon this mess of boring paper. Just shows you how easy it is to miss things, Castang – there’s your link; letter M. The thing’s in alphabetical order."
"Maresq, Jacques. Delestang et Cie. Rue des Ecuries no 26. Where is that?"
"Big, old houses. Side street somewhere off the Boulevard Wilson." This in turn stirred something small which writhed an instant at the back of Castang’s mind, but he could not tell what it was.
"Thanks, Massip, that’s what I wanted. All right, Castang, there’s now a link with both sons, and the daughter through her husband. As for the mother, the judge will give me an order for interrogation, and I should be able to overcome the reluctance of the shrinks. Now tell me again about this nonsense last night. Maryvonne typed it up but I haven’t read it yet; I’ve been busy."
"Simply an oddity. The daughter – Magali – drove up into the hills and there had a meeting, I don’t know could you call it in any way surreptitious, with Didier’s ex-wife, who used to be a friend of hers so it arouses no particular interest, and with this woman who was Didier’s secretary, and more or less his mistress. I took it to be irrelevant – some family matter connected with the estate, or the goodwill of the business or something: after all he was her brother, and Bertrand has been busy clearing up that office."
"Hence, possibly, a meeting with Monsieur Maresq. Whose rent Didier collected, for a property of Delestang’s in the Rue des Ecuries."
"Yes, that’s all quite plausible and very likely the explanation. If it wasn’t that Maresq seems more of a family friend than that, huh? Can I use your phone? – I’ve just thought of something… Where’s Lucciani? Not in yet? All right. Has Fausta got that report Lucciani did about the partouze?"
"Fausta," said Richard, "somewhere near the top of that voluminous dossier of yours is an extravagant piece of journalism concerning young Master Lucciani’s adventures at a sex party: somewhat embarrassed as I recall, at the thought of you, or possibly me, reading it."
"Should have been typed with a red ribbon – I’ll dig it out."
"What’s this then?" asked Richard.
"I’m not sure till I look," said Castang. "But as the instructor says pompously ‘one can never pay too much attention to the most trivial of reports on seemingly unconnected circumstances’. You just gave a convincing demonstration and this might be another."
"Here we are," said Fausta.
"Reporting verbally to me the boy said something about a street off the Boulevard Wilson. And here we are, too. Number twenty-six Rue des Ecuries."
"Which as we learn is an investment property belonging to Delestang et Cie, wine merchants and shippers. This," said Richard, "becomes interesting."
"Lallemand, and Lucciani’s other little drunken pals, got this address from somebody called Jackie. And the house is owned by Monsieur Jacques Maresq. Who doesn’t know his tenants since Didier Marcel collected rents for him. Or does he? Shall we ask him?"
"Whom we might ask, I think, is Didier’s secretary. See if Liliane’s in yet, will you?"
"Aren’t you going to ask the judge for a mandate first?" asked Castang, grinning now, no longer worrying about when he was going to get home and see Vera.