The Beast of the Camargue (20 page)

“What about the motor?”

“We found it at the bottom of Plan d'Aou. Classic.”

Moracchini tidied away a file that was lying on her desk, making as much noise as possible.

“And Lornec?” said de Palma. “What happened when you nabbed him at McDonald's?”

“I got him to take off his shirt, and bingo! He had a lovely scar on his left shoulder.”

“Nice one,” said de Palma with a whistle.

“That day, I cracked. I stood right in front of the fucker and said: ‘I'm the one who got you in the shoulder. The next time, it'll be one in your head.'”

Romero sat down, lost in his memories.

“All he answered was: ‘I don't understand a word you're saying.' End of story.”

“And what became of Lornec?”

Moracchini closed the cupboard door, making a sound of buckled sheet metal.

“He does odd jobs,” she said. “He's a big boy these days. In fact, he's just out of prison. He did a year for gun possession. Apparently, security vans are his thing.”

“That doesn't surprise me. I told you, they were a gang of real bastards. You should see the boys in records to check if there's anything new.”

“You haven't got any other names?”

“No, none,” Romero said, gazing at de Palma as though he wanted to question him in turn.

“I've found a bullet that comes from a gun used in a hold-up by that gang. The Ben Mansour case.”

Romero literally jumped backward.

“Fuck me! Show!”

The Baron stuck his hand in his jeans pocket, removed the plastic bag and placed it daintily on the table. Moracchini looked at him sharply.

“I shouldn't think it was them … after all this time. They must have passed on the piece, though it's surprising they didn't junk it.”

“Not that surprising. Such things happen. Especially with gangs like that. They aren't great thinkers. They aren't about to take a PhD in logic, if you see what I mean.”

“So, if I'm getting it right, you're back on the team?”

“Soon, soon. A month from today.”

Romero was longing to ask where the bullet came from, he could sense it.

“That bullet almost killed me a few days ago.”

Moracchini looked daggers at the Baron. Romero didn't know what to say. A few seconds later, he walked out of the office.

“I'll have to check. But I reckon I know how to get hold of your Lornec,” Moracchini said.

She walked over to the Baron. He realized that she needed to hold him, to feel him against her. He hugged her waist and nestled his face in the hollow of her breasts. They stayed like that until the ringing of the telephone parted them.

Casetti looked around in all directions when he saw Moracchini draw up beside him and lower the window of her Xsara.

“Jean-Luc, I dropped by at your place, and your wife told me that you'd taken the car. So I drove round the block, and here I am. Can we talk for a minute?”

The gangster glanced at his rearview mirror.

“I'm alone, Jeannot, so don't worry. I just want to ask you for
some information. You're not scared of a woman, are you?”

“Follow me, I don't want to be taken for a grass.”

“O.K., except you follow me.”

She drove toward L'Estaque along the coast road, keeping Casetti's Volvo in her mirror. Once they had reached the village, she took the chemin de Cézanne up toward the hills that overlooked the whole of the port of Marseille, with its huge sea wall, the Sainte-Marie pass and further away the white heights of the city.

Glancing around him, Casetti got out of his car. Moracchini checked her clip, undid the leather strap of her holster and walked over toward him.

“I'm here as a friend, Jean-Luc. There's nothing to fear.”

“Don't worry about me.”

“I'm trying to connect Lornec and Le Grand. Do you know how?”

The gangster swayed from one foot to the other, his hands stuck deep into his jeans pockets.

“Le Grand you say?”

“Don't pretend you don't know. Morini!”

“Lornec is at home, in Les Tourettes, you know where! But for Morini, it's more complicated …”

Casetti was panting as though he had just performed some feat of acrobatics.

“Does he carry a gun for Le Grand?”

“Who, Lornec?”

“No, the Pope!”

“People say a lot of things … anyway, what I've heard is that Le Grand spreads the good word whenever he can.”

“He's a saint!”

For the first time, he looked straight at her.

“I swear it, he always spreads the good word.”

“And it's best to listen.”

“I think so.”

She shifted so that she was looking at him in profile. In the underworld there are things that aren't said face to face.

“I closed the case yesterday. But I'd advise you to change your mobile. Understand? Change it at once.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

“And if you hear about a SIG 9 mm lying around there, you phone me, O.K.?”

“O.K., Madame. I'll ask around for you, but don't think I'm turning into a grass. This is just returning a favor.”

She lowered her head and whispered:

“And if you want my advice, drop Le Grand. It's starting to smell bad for him.”

She turned on her heel and went back to her car. By radio, she notified Mélina, the center of all Marseille's police, of her whereabouts just in case Casetti changed his mind and lost his cool.

Lornec was sitting on a low wall outside a building. He looked to be rehearsing his prison career to a couple of teenagers who were hanging on his words.

“What shall we do, Jean-Louis? Jump him?”

Maistre dropped his binoculars onto his stomach.

“This is a gypsy camp, my old mate. You can't barge in just like that! We'll go round the block and in from the other side. After that, let me handle it.”

Maistre started up the unmarked Clio and drove round Les Tourettes: two rows of shacks lined with the wrecks of cars, standing back from the coast road, between Saint-André and L'Estaque.

The Clio pitched across the bumps on the only road. Maistre stopped in front of the second house and got out. A little old man, bearded and wrinkled like a piece of old fruit, raised the curtain over the entrance and shook the officer's hand. They exchanged a few words, then Maistre returned to the Clio.

“It's O.K. We're expected.”

Lornec had not moved. He stood up and waved away the teenagers when he saw the Clio approaching.

“Jérôme Lornec?”

“That's me.”

“I'm Commandant Maistre of the north section and this is Commandant de Palma of the
Brigade Criminelle
. Can we ask you a couple of questions?”

“Anything you want, boss!”

Lornec was more than 1.80 meters tall, lean and wiry. His face was pockmarked, his hair black, and his green eyes flashed with energy. He kept tensing the muscles of his jaw while he gazed from one policeman to the other.

“We've found a weapon,” said Maistre, “a SIG that belonged to you and your gang a few years back. Does that ring a bell?”

“I've never had a gun, boss.”

“Bullshitting already! Look, Jérôme, you're going to change your tune, because you and I haven't got any time to waste. This weapon, we're not trying to pin it on you, because we know you've got nothing to do with this business. Only it's killed somebody, and it used to belong to you. So, as we're decent people, and know that you're a real man, we've come along to talk to you respectfully.”

Maistre walked over to the gangster.

“Respect, Jérôme! But if you mess me around, you'll be explaining yourself to the magistrates.”

“O.K., boss! Respect. It's just I don't get why you've come to see me. Because the guns from back then were captured.”

Maistre and de Palma glanced at one another for a second.

“I was even questioned about that SIG. It had my prints on it. You should look in your own house, boss!”

Maistre took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. He nodded to de Palma to indicate that he could now join in.

“They say that you're working off and on for Le Grand. Is that true?”

Lornec's expression changed at once. He was angry, and bristling with violence.

“I don't know who you're talking about.”

“Are you taking us for idiots? Don't try and be smart. Does the 421 ring any bells?”

Lornec scuffed up the street dust with the tip of his shoe.

“You know where I mean? The nightclub, near Marignane, with the dice-shaped neon lights on the front.”

“I go there sometimes.”

“I know, and once you were seen with a certain Morini. You know who I mean.”

“Don't know him,” Lornec said, shrugging.

“The snag is, kid, that we've got photos.”

De Palma walked into the middle of the road. It was deserted. He kicked a tin can hard, making it bounce against the wall.

“In your opinion, how many people know that you're talking to the pigs? How many, apart from your tribe?”

“I couldn't give a fuck, boss! Everyone knows I'm no grass.”

“For now they do, Lornec. For now. But I'd advise you to watch out in the future. Because I'm going to put the word around.”

Lornec clenched his teeth. His eyes looked as though they were going to pop out of their sockets. The veins in his arms stood out.

“What do you want from me? For me to tell you I'm with Le Grand? Everyone's with him these days, you prick. You know that as well as I do!”

“O.K., cool it! Just try and understand what we're after.”

De Palma took out his notepad.

“The scene is the northern suburbs. The three boys who might have used that SIG are in the same gang. Their names are Lornec, Vandevalle and Santiago. They're travelers. Vandevalle was nailed in 1988 for armed robbery, he went down twice, including five years for pimping. He died in 1997 in the scrubland round Carpiagne—it was the start of the barbecue season. Santiago: done for armed robbery in 1990. He was the youngest. Three sentences: possession of a weapon, robbery and criminal conspiracy. Died in April 1998.”

“A work accident?” Maistre asked.

“Exactly.”

“Still nothing to say, Lornec?”

“No, not about that gun. I've told you everything.”

“So what's Le Grand up to at the moment?”

“No idea, boss. Honest.”

“Try and find out, my son,” Maistre said. “We're not here to hassle you. Respect, O.K.? Respect. But Le Grand is playing the fool right
now. Tell us what you know, or else the shit will hit the fan. If we're talking like this, it's because that SIG was used to shoot someone.”

“Who, boss?”

“One of ours,” said de Palma. “And that's really not good news.”

“I don't shoot cops, boss.”

When they were back in the car on the motorway that passed by the port, Maistre and de Palma remained silent. Lornec had put them in their place. If he was telling the truth then a SIG had vanished either from police headquarters or from the clerks' office after it had been seized. Apart from the enormity of the event, there was also the difficulty in following up this sort of lead.

“I'm on duty at 5 o'clock, Michel. I'll have to drop you off in town.”

“Wherever you want, Le Gros.”

“I'll deal with the SIG.”

Voices were rising from out in the darkness. Christian Rey could hear them intermittently. When he had completely woken up, the voices had melted into the reality that forced itself back once again.

How many days had he spent without eating or drinking?

His mouth was now no more than an open wound. His lips had split open from thirst. The stench of his guts filled his mouth, as if he'd swallowed barrels of putrid wine.

His tongue had shrunk. He was sure of it. It felt like a little piece of black horn, as hard as a knife handle. It clattered against his palate each time he moved it.

His eyes burned in their sockets, the final flames of life in his battered body; a timid blaze rising from the warm embers of a fireplace. He remembered how in his last dream he had called on death, but death had not come.

Death does not come just like that. He had been its delivery boy often enough, too often, to know that.

How many people had he killed? Gangland small fry, and big-time chiselers too. How many?

Faces appeared. Faces compressed by the forceps of memory, distorted as though pressed behind a window. He remembered the number twelve. No more, no less. He obeyed the law of the jungle. There was no fixed price, despite what was said in the press and by experts on the box. He killed to order, and his rate ranged from nothing to a hundred thousand.

The police had never found out about him. They just had their suspicions. Nothing more. All they knew about was the machines.

“A big hello from uncle”—that was what he used to say before pressing the trigger of an anonymous .45. “A big hello from uncle.”

“SAY HELLO TO HIM FROM US!” the voices out of the void seemed to yell back.

He wanted to shout, release a little suffering from his guts, from the rubbish chute of his memory. But sounds no longer came: his throat was like a red-hot exhaust pipe.

Half dead, he listened to the shadows that were smothering him.

Someone or something was moving a few meters away. On the other side of his prison wall. A panting sound and banging. As though a heavy object was being dragged across the ground and a door or a cover being closed. It made a dull crack. He analyzed the sound and found nothing in his memory that might fit it. The sound was not sharp, like two objects banging together.

Rey moved around as much as possible in order to make a noise: so someone might hear and bring help. He crouched on the ground like a limbless saurian and tried to wriggle over to the wall.