It seemed wiser to let Madame do the driving on the way back and the following morning, Pel was still heavy-headed when he reached the Hôtel de Police. Having made his mark there, he repaired at once to the Bar Transvaal for black coffee. Back in his office he found Brochard waiting to report to him. Pel regarded him with acute distaste. He had been hoping for a quiet half hour. But Brochard was cheerfully indifferent. And it was a long story.
Brochard had spent his weekend on the shores of Lac Léman. One day, he felt, he would be truly welcomed in the Ciasca home and he looked forward to evenings of lustful dalliance on the settee while the family was out taking tourists about the lake. He had an aunt in Evian for whom he had suddenly discovered a warm and abiding affection because she had a spare room where he could stay overnight on his visits to Charlie.
When he had been introduced to the family it had finally dawned on him why she was so heavily protected. He had begun to assume their morals were stiff enough to make Martin Luther seem a lecher, but he had finally realised that Charlie was the family’s pride and joy. She was the one who had been educated, the one child with some skill who had managed to get a good job. With her beauty and brains, they felt they could get her married off to someone with better prospects than an enquiry agent for an insurance company, which was what they thought Brochard was. Money and influence, they felt, might postpone the penury that was always threatening them, in a way they clearly didn’t think Brochard could. The two brothers were always around to make sure she didn’t put a foot wrong and compromise the scheme.
It had finally come to a head on his last visit in an argument with them all involved.
‘We are responsible for our sister,’ Jean-Jacques had pointed out firmly.
‘An admirable attitude,’ Brochard had admitted.
‘And we do not trust you. You have been seeing other women.’
‘Have I?’ Brochard said. ‘I’ve been missing something. Where?’
‘We haven’t seen them but we expect to.’
Charlie snorted and gestured at Jean-Jacques with a flurry of fingers that came direct from Italy and contained not one whit of Switzerland. ‘You have the imagination of a pile of sand,’ she said contemptuously. ‘One of these days I’ll disgrace you by running off with someone from across the lake. Even perhaps a Swiss.’
Brochard hadn’t let the family put him off. He’d been told by Mamma Ciasca he could call for Charlie and he was determined not to back down. The house where the family lived stood back from the road at the end of a scraggy lawn that was never cut. The front door was open and it was Italian scents – cheese and olives and ravioli and uncorked wine – that came out at you with the smell of ancient stone. The area was full of Ciascas who had followed the original bearer of the name to Switzerland. They had finally settled on the French side of the lake in a rip-roaring Italian untidiness that made the austere orderliness at the other side of the lake look like a hair shirt. A baby was crying in the next building and someone was playing a piano and singing – and holding top notes until they begged to be allowed to go free.
The Ciascas and their relations, it seemed, were as much a colony as the British and the Dutch who were bothering Pel. In spite of the influence of Swiss efficiency and cleanliness, their personality had managed to stamp itself across the whole area. It had originally been more accommodatingly French than Swiss but by this time it also had a touch of riotous Italian in the background.
As he rang the doorbell, Charlie appeared, all large eyes and spiky lashes. She grinned at him.
‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Busy,’ Brochard said.
‘Doing what?’
‘Making enquiries.’ Brochard played the martyr to get her sympathy. ‘Things don’t always go right.’
She shrugged. There were times when she was more Swiss than French or Italian and then she had an English maiden lady’s rigid attitude. ‘I expect it was your fault,’ she said.
The simple yellow dress she wore suited her. Brochard had a feeling that there wasn’t much beneath it. He also knew that apart from her the Ciasca apartment was empty.
She caught his look and grinned. ‘No,’ she said.
Brochard grinned back. ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ he urged.
‘I’m old-fashioned.’
‘Come to that–’ Brochard gestured, ‘so am I. So is that. People have been at it for centuries.’
‘No.’
‘One day you’ll wake up and find you’re too old.’
‘Not likely.’
They were still cheerfully sparring when a car drew up. From the deep baying note of the faulty exhaust, Brochard knew it was the ancient shooting brake her brothers used. A door slammed and a moment later Papa Ciasca, followed by his sons, Jean-Jacques and Gabriel, appeared. Quite unimpressed by their threats, Brochard regarded them warmly. They were all scowling and all looked alike. Papa Ciasca, thicker round the middle, was all floppy flab and looked as if he’d been stuffed by an unskilful taxidermist. The two brothers were junior versions with only slight variations between them. All were blue-jowled and black-eyed and vaguely malevolent.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jean-Jacques demanded.
‘I came to see Charlie. What happened? Have a bad day?’ Jean-Jacques’ scowl grew deeper. ‘The boat broke down.’
‘Always it breaks down,’ Gabriel snorted.
‘And you had to land your tourists?’ Brochard asked.
Jean-Jacques glowered at him. It was a moment before he replied. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It’s that fizzy lemonade you run it on. The mixture’s too rich.’
Jean-Jacques shook his head. ‘One day we’ll have to get ourselves a new boat.’
Mamma Ciasca appeared, in a dress on which the flowers made her eighteen stone seem more bulky than they were. She was the only one apart from Charlie who ever regarded Brochard with any warmth.
‘We should give up the boat,’ she said, ‘and open a shop. We could sell knick-knacks and the things the Italians sell in the market at Luino.’
Jean-Jacques regarded her sullenly. ‘If I open a shop,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it in Lucerne. They say the tourists in Lucerne are stupider even than they are here.’
It was obvious one of the family rows was brewing up, noisy affairs of cataclysmic proportions that brought the neighbours out of bed.
‘We’d better be going,’ Charlie suggested.
‘Yes,’ Jean-Jacques said to Brochard. ‘It’s time you went.’
‘I wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome,’ Brochard admitted.
Ignoring the brothers, he went off happily with Charlie beside him in his car.
‘That lot,’ Charlie said, ‘think girls should be in purdah.’
They ate a splendid meal at St-Flô and later parked the car by the lake. Breathing brandy over each other, they enjoyed a heavy session in the shadows under the trees. When Brochard took her home, he was studied with disapproval by the Ciascas but Charlie gave him a defiant kiss before tripping into the house. In the doorway she turned to wave. As she vanished, Jean-Jacques appeared by the car.
‘Don’t come back,’ he suggested.
‘Why not?’
‘We have plans for Charlie.’
‘Does she agree with them?’
‘No. But that makes no difference.’
Brochard laughed.
‘Don’t come back,’ Gabriel repeated over Jean-Jacques’ shoulder.
‘I’ve got the point. You don’t have to beat me over the head with it.’
Papa Ciasca saw him off. ‘Don’t take too much notice of the boys,’ he said. ‘But,’ he added, ‘if anything happens to Charlie I’ll cut your gizzard out.’
On the way to his aunt’s in Evian, Brochard stopped in a bar for a last drink. As he left he almost bumped into a man who was about to enter.
‘Sorry,’ Brochard said.
The man ignored him and brushed past.
Outside, Brochard had come to a dead stop. He lit a cigarette and crossed the road. From a position at the other side he could see the man he’d almost bumped into leaning against the bar.
‘Well, well,’ he said aloud. ‘Fancy that.’
Pel wished Brochard would shut up. His head was growing worse and they seemed to be making no progress at all.
Clos and Feray hadn’t turned up, though Misset was putting on a big show of application and nose to the grindstone, and they had got nowhere with the Raby-Labassat case. And now here was Brochard droning on in a way that made Pel’s head feel as though the side was about to fall off. He decided he would give Cousin Roger a miss for a while.
‘That fifth man in the Boulevard Maréchal Joffre hold-up,’ Brochard was saying. ‘The man Nosjean and De Troq’ saw in the Parc de la Columbière.’
‘What about him?’
‘I think I’ve found him. His name’s Gérard Espagne.’ Pel’s head lifted. ‘How did you work that miracle?’
‘It’s a long story, patron.’
‘It had better not be.’
Brochard grinned. ‘I met this girl—’
‘Which girl?’
‘Her name’s Carlota Ciasca.’
‘You know how to make a report,’ Pel snapped. ‘Get on with it. Start at the beginning.’
‘Yes, patron. She’s the beginning so I’d better start with her. I got to know her. She’s an illustrator. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was painting. I asked her what she was painting. She said pictures.’
‘Get on,’ Pel snarled.
Brochard refused to be hurried, enjoying Pel’s impatience. ‘I tried to arrange to see her,’ he went on. ‘But she said I couldn’t and when I asked why, she said because she was going to see her publishers in Lyons. I said it didn’t matter; I could get to Lyons all right. It’s not far down the motorway. Then she said she didn’t live all the time in Lyons. She only had publishers there. Often she worked from home, which was in Evian. You know Evian, patron?’
‘Of course I know Evian. It’s on the shores of Lac Léman.’
‘Anyway,’ Brochard continued, ‘it didn’t matter really. Evian wasn’t much further. You just take the N6 to Macon, then the motorway to Nantua, then the main road runs alongside the Swiss border to the lake—’
Pel had heard these directions before and he sat up sharply. ‘Go on,’ he snapped.
‘She lives at St-Flô and I went to see her. While I was there I went into a bar. I recognised this type as I came out. I nearly trod on him. He even wore the red and green windcheater Nosjean and De Troq’ described. I got him at once.’
‘You recognised someone from an identikit picture? Wonders will never cease.’
‘I had a feeling when that picture was first issued that I knew him. But I wasn’t certain. When I got back from Evian I took another look at the mug shots in the library. There he was. Gérard Espagne. Large as life and twice as nasty. Wasn’t he the type who offered to set things on fire, too?’
‘Yes, he was.’ Pel eyed Brochard coldly. ‘Well, it took long enough to get to the point,’ he said, ‘but perhaps it was worth it in the end. What else?’
‘Well, I didn’t know who he was at the time, patron. I just recognised a face and I wasn’t certain I’d got the right guy. But I followed him home. I got his address. When I got back here I checked Records. He’s got one. In Marseilles. For intimidation. That sort of thing. He also used to live here apparently, but he seems nowadays to have moved to Evian. He lives on and off with his mother. A little house on the outskirts. Rue de Genève. He was born there. Are we going to pick him up?’
‘We are. But not for the robbery. And not just yet. We can’t charge him with talking to Orega in the park and I’ve become interested in his friends.’
‘Haven’t we got them in custody?’
‘I think he has others. Did you find out any more about him?’
‘I didn’t push it, patron. In case I frightened him off. I gather he’s not been home for some time. But he’s in Evian now. Think he’s up to something down there?’
‘Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps he’s just lying low. People who wish to lie low usually do it where they know the terrain and all the holes and corners. What do you propose to do?’
‘Well, now this sheep poisoning thing’s wrapped up, I thought I might keep an eye open for him.’
‘How do you intend to do that?’
‘Well, I’m still seeing this Charlie Ciasca. At weekends. I go to Evian.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘No, patron.’
‘What is it, then?’
Brochard blushed. He blushed easily. ‘I learned this Espagne goes home at weekends. So I thought when I’m down there I might keep an eye on him. Ask around. That sort of thing. See what he’s up to.’
‘You could do that,’ Pel agreed. ‘If he goes home at weekends, that’s probably when he meets his friends. Find out who they are. All right. He’s yours. Let’s have some results. But a little faster than you make a report. And while you’re there call at the Hôtel de Police there and see Inspector Bassuet. He’s an old friend of mine. Ask him if anything’s moving in that area.’
‘Moving, patron? What are we interested in?’
‘Building,’ Pel said slowly. ‘Land speculation. New housing estates for foreigners. Just ask.’