‘Name of God!’ Pel yelled as he heard the crash.
Beyond the balcony was a sheer drop to the flagstones below, but when they reached it and looked out there was no sign of either Brochard or the man he’d been clutching. Then a movement from the middle of the vast box hedge below caught Pel’s eye. The hedge seemed to heave and Brochard emerged from its side.
He straightened up, shook himself, shedding twigs and leaves, and blinked a few times, then he reached into the hole in the hedge where he’d emerged and, one-handed, levered out a block of stone. Shoving it to one side, he reached into the hedge again and hauled out the man he’d been wrestling with. He seemed to have come off worst. His face was scratched and one eye was a welter of blood.
Brochard became aware of Pel above. He waved and gave him a shaky grin.
‘Charrieri, patron,’ he said. ‘He landed underneath.’ His face went deathly white. ‘I think I’ve broken my wrist,’ he ended.
It seemed to be Brochard’s arrest again, so, as soon as reinforcements arrived, Pel sent him off in the police car with Charrieri handcuffed to a uniformed cop.
Temporary repairs had been done by a doctor from the next village. Charrieri had a broken shoulder-blade and the tough twigs and branches of the box hedge had torn his mouth and almost gouged out an eye. He no longer seemed quite sane, but they managed to get an incoherent statement from him in between falsetto complaints about his injuries. It would do as a basis for a better one later. He named names:
Jaunay, Gilliam. The Welshman, Lloyd Jones. Cornelius. They weren’t important now but he confirmed that Lloyd Jones and Cornelius had been behind the vandalism and the attempt to set fire to the wood at Evian. Charrieri himself had sunk money in the first venture at Faux-Villecerf and had even drawn the plans – in Michel’s office in Lyons, so that his involvement wouldn’t be discovered. When Bronwen had gone back on her promise to go along with them, it had been just too much. While the big boys could stand the possibility of a loss, there were a few who couldn’t. Charrieri had been one.
Pel watched the cars go. He was feeling a little smug. He even felt as if the cold he’d been expecting wasn’t going to materialise after all. Then, as they climbed into the car and prepared to follow, Claudie spoke.
‘You knew something was going to happen, patron,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Pel agreed. ‘I knew. The car confirmed it.’
‘Which car?’
‘The one in the car park in the Place de la Poste.’
‘I didn’t see a car.’
‘I did. Charrieri’s silver Mercedes. He left it there when he picked up the hire car. I’d begun to think he was in the Lorrièere-Coubertin group, because he knew the walls of the château were sound. He told me so himself. He’d obviously examined them. Why? It could only have been for the group, and with Bronwen’s permission.’
He lit a cigarette, feeling he deserved it and to hell with good health. ‘He was desperate for money,’ he went on. ‘He’s badly overstretched. I got confirmation this morning.’
Cousin Roger had done a lot of digging and his message couldn’t have been clearer. ‘That block of offices he maintains is the biggest white elephant in Lyons. He lost money building it and the top floors have never been occupied. I hear they’re inconvenient and, under the new regulations, even considered a fire hazard. His money’s disappearing hand over fist. Yet his own office is overstaffed with electronics and people. It’s all show. He liked to look important. There were also one or two things that went wrong, that did him no good. One at Arles. That’s where they picked up all their cheap bricks and cement and tiles. He was borrowing heavily.’
‘And they were leaning on him?’
‘Not just the banks. I heard he went elsewhere. Shadier people in Marseilles. Even Vlaxi, I believe. I don’t suppose he knows even now that Vlaxi’s behind the group that ruined him. He was in deep trouble. Faux-Villecerf was the only thing that could save him. And it might have. Within eighteen months, if they could have gone ahead with it. But when Bronwen let him down,’ Pel shrugged, ‘he was a dead duck. He must have tried to approach the Baron, to get his agreement to the scheme. With no Bronwen, they needed that and, after all, the Baron couldn’t have seemed as though he would be hard to persuade with all the money that was available. But, though the Baron didn’t have much time for Bronwen and her ideas, he believed in law and order and the approach must have made him suspicious. When Charrieri turned up he doubtless told him he intended going to the police. Charrieri had to shut him up. But killing the old man put Auguste in the driving seat and he was a much firmer character. A measure of Charrieri’s state of mind was the fact that he was prepared to do away with Auguste, too.’
Pel tossed the cigarette away. ‘I thought he might, mind you,’ he ended. ‘And when neither of them went home last night it was obvious why. Auguste was eager to make sure of his possessions. Charrieri was eager to make sure of Auguste.’
As Claudie settled herself behind the wheel and started the engine, Pel noticed Auguste watching them from the doorway. He looked shaken. He hadn’t a lot to look forward to, Pel decided as they rolled down the drive. Both carefully thought-out schemes would collapse now, and Auguste would have a furious brother and sister on his neck as soon as they discovered what had slipped through their fingers. To say nothing of a draughty house and precious little money to maintain it. He wondered how long he would manage it.
The place would probably end up after all as a nursing home. As a place for old people. Even, as Charrieri and his friends had planned, a holiday hotel for foreigners. There were always plenty of agate-eyed entrepreneurs around prepared to pick up what other people dropped.