Death on the Pont Noir (24 page)

Commissaire
François Massin was suffering a mix of emotions.

A part of him was still recoiling at the earlier idea that Rocco, whom he’d found himself believing capable of many things, could be guilty of taking a bribe from a known criminal. For any commanding officer, discovering an officer under his command guilty of corruption was almost inevitably a stain on his own record, ignorance being rarely forgiven among the higher ranks of the Ministry. But now he was facing incontrovertible evidence that Rocco had been set up, and the possibility that he himself had been too easily led into believing the worst of a subordinate.

He walked around his office, trying to make sense of the thoughts swirling around in his head. How had this happened? One moment everything was proceeding smoothly, the next an unwelcome focus of attention was
on him, evidenced by the extended volley of telephone calls from the Ministry demanding reports and updates on the events leading up to the attack on de Gaulle’s car, closely followed by the press requesting comments about the bank robbery at Béthune and rumours of an attack on an unnamed VIP at an unknown location.

Massin’s only meagre consolation was that sorting out the flow of paperwork and briefings over the next few days would probably be the only way of extending his stay here. After that …

He stopped suddenly. The station was down to a skeleton staff, all other available officers taking part in securing the scene of the attack, helping with the Béthune bank investigation or joining the hunt for the Englishmen. The building had been left as quiet as the morgue it did not yet possess.

Yet he’d heard a noise from along the corridor. It had come from the empty office; at least, the office which had been empty until Colonel Saint-Cloud had commandeered it for his temporary base. He’d thought the security man was long gone, hard on the heels of his master now that the visit and the drama were over, no doubt sharing the president’s relief at being back in the relative safety and comfort of Paris.

He walked along the corridor. If it was Saint-Cloud, he wanted to impress on him that Rocco was innocent; that no stain could therefore attach to his own position as
commissaire
. He felt almost ashamed at this instinct for self-interest, but it was too ingrained to change.

He stopped outside the office door and hesitated before entering. The security chief hadn’t heard him coming,
and was unlocking a steel cabinet and taking out some papers Massin had seen him placing inside when he had first arrived. On the top were four buff folders tied with ribbon. He knew these contained details of groups and individuals opposing the president. Next came a small sheaf of papers he recognised as official travel expense sheets; he’d used them himself when attending conferences or training classes. Then a thick folder he had seen going into the drawer of Saint-Cloud the first day, when he had requested the full use of the office along with the only set of keys to the drawer. The folder, he had explained, was his personal operations manual which went everywhere with him; a personal quirk, he’d explained with unaccustomed reserve, which detailed everything to be done in the event of something catastrophic happening to the president. Massin even recalled Saint-Cloud saying that he rarely if ever looked at it, the contents committed to memory, but always close by just in case. Massin had read it at the time as a not-so-subtle reminder of the importance of Saint-Cloud’s office and a need for detailed procedure to be followed if necessary.

Saint-Cloud finally sensed his presence. He turned and looked at Massin with no degree of warmth.

‘I trust you have that man of yours in custody,’ he said curtly. ‘Actually, no.’ Massin stepped into the office and walked across to the window, trying to formulate his words in as confident a manner as he could without sounding deferential. Anything he said now could find its way back to the Ministry through this man’s lips, and he couldn’t afford any misunderstanding. He had enough to deal with as it was. He finally decided on directness.
‘You were wrong about Rocco,’ he said, face to the glass. ‘We were all wrong. He was set up. We – I – should have taken more time to investigate the circumstances before suspending him.’

‘Really?’ Saint-Cloud sounded supremely unconcerned, intent on his packing. ‘Well, if you choose to believe that, it’s up to you. I think the man is incompetent and a loose canon. You should have had him on a tighter rein.’

Massin felt his temper rise at the rebuke, and turned to face Saint-Cloud. ‘But how could I? You had him assigned to you by orders of the Ministry. Now you are saying I wasn’t controlling him?’

Saint-Cloud stopped what he was doing. Dropping a sheaf of papers into a box, he fastened his eyes on Massin. ‘Yes. If you’d had more balls, you could have refused to let him go. But you didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Unfortunately, you’ve always been something of a paper officer, haven’t you, Massin? Governed by rules and regulations like the St Cyr Academy swot that you always wanted to be.’ His mouth twisted with contempt. ‘You were a joke back then, did you know that? A little bootlicker who wanted to join the big boys. I hear you actually had the brass to apply midterm for a senior command post in Paris.’

Massin, as shocked by the insulting tone of
Saint-Cloud’s
voice as the poisonous words, said, ‘How do you know that?’ He’d been assured that all such applications for transfers were in the strictest confidence and never revealed until a decision was made. He’d applied during a rush of dislike for this job and this place, anxious to get
somewhere – anywhere – else. Since then, he’d had cause to rethink his application.

‘How do you think I know? I have the ear of certain people in the Ministry, that’s how. It comes with position and influence – but that’s something I doubt you’ll ever realise. Or maybe it’s because I have no stains on my record … unlike some.’

‘What … what do you mean?’ Massin’s voice sounded strangled, even to him. Saint-Cloud was touching on something buried deep, something shameful that should have been beyond the reaches of men like him. For a horrible moment he wondered about Rocco. Had the former army sergeant said something, finally breaking his silence? The risk had always been there, ever since he’d first set eyes on him at the cemetery outside Poissons, on his first morning in the job. It had been an unwelcome jolt to the gut but one he’d had to face up to, hoping Rocco would never speak of what he knew.

‘That business in Indochina; at Mong Khoua, wasn’t it? It’s common knowledge, of course, in certain quarters.’ His eyes flashed with spite and he added, ‘Little François Massin, the Academy
poltron
, shitting his pants in the middle of a battle. Hardly officer behaviour, was it?’

‘That’s outrageous!’ Massin’s face was white with fury and shame, his stomach gripped by the realisation that the past was no longer the forgotten secret he’d imagined. ‘Retract that immediately!’

‘I will do no such thing.’ Saint-Cloud stabbed a finger in the air before Massin’s face. ‘That is why you will never rise higher than
commissaire
of a backwater region based in a mud puddle like this one, Massin.’ He managed
somehow to imbue the title of
commissaire
with all the
gravitas
of a minor public
fonctionnaire
or town hall paper shuffler.

For one awful second, Massin contemplated walking back to his office and picking up his service weapon. A single shot should do it, wiping the sneering ugliness from Saint-Cloud’s face for ever.

Then a sense of calm overcame him. Saint-Cloud didn’t know everything after all. Massin had never been to the fortified base of Mong Khoua, another senseless loss of men and position in a brutal war of attrition. Saint-Cloud was simply feeding on rumour to mount a vile attack. And if Rocco had talked, he would at least have got the detail correct.

He reined himself in. Suddenly he saw the way forward. He’d made a mistake. He had been so distracted … no, not that … in awe of Saint-Cloud’s position and his mission here, so blinded by the opportunity of what the president’s visit might mean for himself, that he’d been ready to doubt one of his own officers at the first accusation.

He took a deep breath. An apology to Rocco could never be enough. He still resented being dragged off that distant battlefield – even Rocco would be able to understand that indignity, no matter what the reason – but he was forced to recognise that he had been weak at the wrong moment when he should have been strong. For Rocco’s sake and his own.

He turned to leave, walking past the cabinet
Saint-Cloud
had been emptying. As he did so, he noticed a folded map in the very bottom of the drawer. It was of a stretch of open countryside, the detail too small to be
certain of its location, but clearly a rural area. A red mark had been made on the map, drawing his eye. Next to it was a heavy dark line beneath two words he had come to recognise all too well … but only in the last twenty-four hours.

Pont Noir.

‘In the name of God, he’s got to be down there somewhere. And where’s Alix?’

Rocco said nothing. Claude was talking to himself and breathing heavily. But it wasn’t from the climb; his concerns for his daughter, Alix, were growing by the minute, and so far they had seen no sign of her or Tasker.

After hearing the shot earlier, Rocco, Claude, Desmoulins and Godard’s men had spread out through the village, trying to determine where it had come from. But sound behaved oddly among the cluster of houses, and nobody could venture a definite origin without some element of doubt. It was enough for Rocco to order everyone to stay back. The last thing he wanted was to give Tasker any easy targets.

Working on the basis that Tasker knew where he lived, Rocco and Claude had made their way up to the grotto to St Paul, which stood on a hill overlooking the village. A
man-made cave attended by a statue of the Virgin Mary and three angels, the grotto was rarely used now but gave an ideal vantage point of the area around Rocco’s house.

If Tasker had made his way down the lane, there were few places of concealment and it should be easy enough to spot him from here.

But so far there was nothing. Nothing, that is, Rocco realised with a feeling of dread, other than the body of a man lying in the middle of the lane. Dressed in workman’s blues and a heavy canvas trench coat, he was fifty metres away from Rocco’s house. A bicycle lay nearby, one wheel spinning slowly. He must have been riding down the lane and had been unlucky enough to bump into Tasker. That had been the origin of the gunshot.

Rocco scanned the body through a pair of binoculars. There was no way of telling from here whether he was alive or dead. What he actually wanted to do was charge down there with the Walther in his hand and make Tasker break cover. But apart from the danger to Alix and probably Mme Denis, that would be a short form of suicide. Instead, he clamped down on his impatience and worked on figuring out how to winkle the Englishman from wherever he was hiding.

He saw movement. At first he thought it was a trick of the light caused by the haze of smoke from chimney fires drifting across the village. But it was the man in the lane stirring. He looked around, then rolled quickly away to the cover of a farm building, where he sat shaking his head.

‘It’s old Antoine,’ said Claude, seeing the man’s face. ‘He lives in Danvillers. He comes here once a week for supplies.’

‘It’s his lucky day, then,’ Rocco observed.

‘Really? How do you make that out?’

‘Because he’s still alive.’

The old man was studying his canvas coat with obvious consternation. The front looked torn, but the heavy fabric must have resisted the worst of Tasker’s gunshot. Rocco glanced towards the village square, where his Traction stood across the road, blocking any exit. Godard’s men were visible, ferrying people out of the way, gradually drawing them out of their houses to reduce the chances of Tasker latching onto potential hostages.

‘Lucas – there!’ Claude grabbed his shoulder and pointed. There was movement at the rear of Rocco’s house. Two figures appeared, one slight, the other tall and bulky, imposing, even at this distance.

It was Tasker. And Alix. The Englishman towered over her with one big hand clamped on her shoulder.

Then he brought his other hand into view, and Rocco’s gut went cold. In his free hand he was holding the stubby shape of a sawn-off shotgun or
lupara
as it was known among Sicilian gangsters. It was a frightening weapon up close and indiscriminate in the wide spread of the shot from its barrels. And he was now holding the gun pointed at Alix’s head.

‘
Putain
!
’ Claude swore, and made to stand up. But Rocco reached out and held him down. A frontal assault was impossible. Tasker had the upper hand. For now.

Tasker looked up the slope, his eyes seeming to drill right into Rocco’s as if he knew the effect the gun was having on him. He shouted something, the sound carrying up the hill, but not clear enough to distinguish the words.

But Rocco didn’t need to hear them to know what the man was after. Tasker wanted him down there. Nothing else mattered. He’d been cut loose by his bosses and his twisted vision of what had happened saw only one ending: revenge. And that revenge was centred solely on Rocco.

He debated the wisdom of going down empty-handed. Whatever course he took, the chances were that Alix was in the greater danger – especially if Claude couldn’t get close enough. If he could appear powerless, however, while having even a slight edge available to him, he might just get away with it.

‘Give me your knife.’

Claude reached back and took out a bone-handled clasp knife he used for everything from skinning rabbits to peeling an apple, and passed it across.

Rocco quickly stripped out one of his shoelaces and cut it in two. He tied the end of one half through the trigger guard of the Walther, and looped the other end around his middle finger. Then he fed the gun down the right-hand sleeve of his coat. It was a close fit, but with enough play to move quite freely. He used the other half of the lace to secure his shoe, then stood up and brushed the layer of damp from the front of his coat.

Claude was staring up at him and hissed. ‘What the hell are you doing? This isn’t the OK Corral!’

‘I know. But I don’t see that we have much choice. He’s right on the edge. If I don’t go down there, he’ll kill Alix.’ He flicked a glance towards the square where Godard and his men were hustling people away. They seemed unaware of Tasker’s appearance and there was no way Rocco could get
word to Godard’s sniper without warning the gunman. He would have to do this himself with Claude as a diversion. ‘Can you follow me down and cover me? You’ll have to get close.’

Claude nodded. ‘You won’t even hear me coming.’ He patted the stock of his shotgun. ‘Just give me one chance, that’s all I need.’

Rocco nodded and stepped over the edge of the overlook, and began skidding down the slope so that Tasker could see him coming all the way. It was steep and uneven, with few handholds. If he fell, he wouldn’t stop rolling until he hit the track below, which would be of no use to Alix. That would still put him above Tasker, with another hundred metres to go, but still too far away to do anything useful.

As he reached the track leading down to the square, Tasker’s voice drifted up to him.

‘Stick your hands out and show me they’re empty, Rocco, or I’ll shoot the bitch!’

Rocco did as he was told. As he started across the track, he looked towards the square and caught a glimpse of Godard standing in the open. The
sous-brigadier
glanced his way and did a double take. But seeing Rocco’s hands out, he caught on immediately that something was wrong. Rocco pretended to lose his balance momentarily and made a flattening gesture with his left hand, hoping Godard got the message to keep back. Having a bunch of
gardes mobiles
charging down the lane to the house would be disastrous.

He reached the other side of the track and checked for a way down that would bring him out onto the lane across from the house. The slope was less steep here, and littered with trees and bushes. But the absence of foliage meant
Tasker would be able to see him coming all the way. If he tried to drop out of sight even for a second, he figured the Englishman was mad enough to take it out on Alix. Yet coming within gunshot range – even the shorter range of the sawn-off weapon – would be crazy and wouldn’t help her at all.

He just hoped Claude was close by. If an opportunity presented itself, it would be brief, then gone.

As he walked down the slope, his senses seemed to come alive with greater clarity. The crunch of still-frozen grass stems beneath his shoes; the cold reaching through to the soles of his feet; rabbit droppings littered everywhere like sultanas sprinkled on icing sugar; the smell of a wood fire from Mme Denis’ chimney and the sharper tang of cows in the farm building along the lane, with its steaming manure heap in the middle of the yard picked over by chickens. A cockerel crowed, blissfully unmindful of the drama unfolding out here, and Rocco tried to recall if this was how suddenly acute the various sounds and smells had become each time he’d faced danger and death in the jungles of Indochina.

Right now all he could remember from then was the sticky feel of camouflage paint on his face, the reek of unwashed clothing and the absolute stunning silence all around.

He brushed those thoughts aside. He had to focus on the here and now. Nothing else mattered.