The Beast of the Camargue (36 page)

The Baron came over to him. He hunched up even more.

“A group of people with …”

“With Morini among them.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“You know that you're starting to get on my tits, telling me things I know already!”

The telephone rang.

“Answer and tell your secretary to go home. Anyway, it's time.”

Chandeler did so, while drying the blood that was dripping from the corner of his mouth.

“O.K., let's try again. Morini isn't a scoop. I hope you've got something better …”

The Baron decided to play a card he wasn't sure of. He made a gesture, a simple gesture: he ran his index finger over his belly as though he was cutting through his torso with an imaginary weapon.

Chandeler opened his eyes wide and started to tremble all over.

“The problem is they don't want to sell, and in the region it's the only place where such a project can be carried out.”

“What's all this nonsense? You can build a park wherever you want.”

“Check out who owns all the land around the site, and you'll understand.”

“Names, Chandeler, I want names … You know them, they're your clients.”

“If I tell you, I'm a dead man.”

The Baron grinned.

“And also if you don't,” he half murmured.

“Why not do a deal …”

“A man has just died. He has to be avenged.”

“O.K., there are some people from around here, then some Italians and Americans …”

“I want a list.”

Chandeler went over to his desk, opened a file and handed a sheet of paper to de Palma.

“It's all there,” he said, looking away.

“You see, where there's a will …”

He looked at the list of names. Morini's was not on it, but he recognized one or two cronies amenable to laundering his money.

“I just hope that the beast doesn't eat you, too!”

“I too have received the mark.”

The Baron nodded as though he knew what he was talking about.

“Show me,” he said.

Chandeler stared at the Baron with his eyebrows raised. He slowly opened a desk drawer and removed a plain white feather. It was just like the one de Palma had seen in Steinert's office.

“Who else received this mark?”

“We all have.”

“All the rich bastards on your list?”

“Yes, that's right.”

“Pray to the god of swine like you that the police you despise get him before he gets you.”

The Baron backed away to the door, opened it and left.

Maistre was standing bolt upright facing the sea. It looked as though he were savoring infinity. After a while, he came alive again and poured red wine into a plastic cup.

“I've got the truth at last … or at least, part of it.”

Maistre did not turn round. He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon which was still red with the fury of the sun. The siren of a roll-on roll-off boomed in the terminal of Mourepiane.

“If I'm not mistaken, the whole business was actually quite banal.”

“That's often the way it goes, Baron. You think you're up against exceptional villains who are pulling off incredible capers, and
generally you end up with a couple of pricks not worth getting up in the morning for.”

Maistre looked at his watch. Moracchini appeared at the end of the patio. She was wearing a linen dress that revealed her shoulders and slender ankles. She took off her sandals and walked barefoot across the limestone tiles.

“Delpiano already knows that you've given Chandeler a pull.”

“Why, are they in the same chapel, I mean lodge?”

“He's just told me about it on the phone. He wants your hide, Michel. I have no idea why he's got it in for you so much, but it scares me.”

She sat down just beside him. De Palma sensed his body turn electric from the stealthy contact with her dress. He quickly stood up, removing the sheet of paper Chandeler had given him from the rear pocket of his jeans. Moracchini took it and read it carefully.

“There are some people I know in here!”

“Yes, and some others you don't. It doesn't matter! But they all have a point in common.”

“What's that?”

“Someone has sent them a feather like this.”

“And what does it mean?”

“Not much for the moment, except that when I mentioned bodies that had been sliced in half to Chandeler, he practically shat himself.”

Maistre picked up the paper and stared at the list.

“Jesus, there are two or three here that the financial brigade would like to nab: Grimaud, Landrace, Rossi … fuck me!”

“They're the ones who wanted to buy up Steinert's land, the patch they didn't want to sell, the famous Downlands. It belonged to his father, and Bérard presumably sold it to him before the war.”

“You mean the woods that burned down yesterday?”

“That's right. But they weren't involved in the arson.”

“Who was it then?”

“Bérard himself. He wanted everyone to know that there are Greco-Roman ruins in the forest so that no one could build anything there.”

Moracchini was rubbing her forearms as if she was cold.

“And you think that's why they killed Steinert?”

“It might look that way, but I don't think so. The problem is that I'm not sure we'll ever get to the bottom of this business. Unless we get a stroke of good luck at last.”

Maistre lit a cigarette and drew on it nervously.

“There's something I don't understand,” he said.

“These people have got enough dosh to build their damned park where they want.”

“You're right, Jean-Louis. But I think there are one or two things we're still missing. Around here, it was just about the only viable site. There are lots of tourists, and everyone had something to gain. The people selling the land could name their price. A plot where you can get planning permission in this Bermuda Triangle is worth a fortune: as much as 4,000 euros per square meter! Did you realize that?”

“Maybe so, but there's still the coast and everything. I mean, it's the back of beyond out there.”

“I reckon that there's subsidy on offer, but above all it was a group of guys who'd known each other since childhood. A sort of clan. Morini and Rey were old pals!”

“Yes, but one was the godfather and the other the stooge!”

“You're right, Le Gros. We've now got to uncover their connections with the others.”

Maistre stood up and got out two bottles of wine. He put three glasses on the table and uncorked the first bottle. The roll-on roll-off which was sailing out of Mourepiane gave another blast of its siren.

“Some guys who are rolling in it get rid of a troublesome billionaire. That works. Especially when you see the names on the list. But still you say that it's something else!”

“Yes, something else.”

Moracchini nearly spun off the road to avoid hitting a tourist. The Xsara swerved to the left and collided with the pavement. Romero laid his hands on the dashboard.

“Jesus, Anne, watch out. I've got kids, you know.”

“Put the lamp and siren on the roof. We'll be more visible.”

In front of the castle of Tarascon, she took the wrong turning, going toward the church instead of the ring road. She reversed back, then shot off the wrong way along the outside lane.

Just after the castle, a traffic cop appeared in the middle of the road and pointed left, toward the car park by the banks of the Rhône.

She parked the Xsara just in front of the security cordon.

“Ah, there you are, Moracchini. Jesus, what a mess. And you knew him, I think?”

Larousse's face was creased, his eyes almost hanging from their sockets.

“I'm sorry, I don't know the identity of the …”

“It's Marceau.”

“What?”

“He's down there, on the rocks. He's like the others. It's … it's hideous.”

She climbed down to the edge of the river, walked among the clumps of grass that grew just beside the water, then halted. Larousse pointed in the direction of the castle.

“He's there, can you see him?”

“Yes, quite clearly. Now get rid of those idiots who're trampling around all over the place. The forensics team will be here in a minute.”

Larousse turned on his heels without replying. He made do with yelling at some onlookers.

“Daniel, call de Palma again. Tell him to get out here. We need him. Too bad if that prick Delpiano kicks up shit, we'll find an excuse. He and Marceau were friends, I think.”

“O.K., I'll deal with it.”

“Then we'll have to go and search his place. At once. In two minutes' time, I want there to be three officers turning over his house.”

Marceau had been laid at the foot of the ramparts, on the rock often used by the kids of Tarascon as a diving board. It was a fisherman who had discovered him. His first thought was that it was someone who had fallen from the ramparts.

“Anne? Michel here. I'm not going out there. It's too late, anyway …”

“Up to you.”

“I'm sorry, Anne, but it'll take me an hour to drive there. Do you see?”

She hung up and took a good look at the people who were watching what was going on. Way up in the ramparts, over 80 meters from the ground, there were several faces framed in the crenellations.

She noticed a brigadier from the local police section and asked him for some binoculars. He disappeared among the horde of police cars, then came back with a pair of 8×30s. She aimed them at the castle and made out some tourist heads, all of them fair, probably English or Dutch, out on a family excursion. Then she panned left and saw three little boys leaning over the wall and gesturing at the corpse.

“And their parents leave them to it,” she said to herself.

She scanned along the walls of King René's Castle. There was no trace of blood or anything out of the ordinary. At last she reached Marceau's body, which shone in the sunshine like a pool of nail varnish.

“The first time, it was in front of the Tarasque,” she muttered to herself. “The second in the crypt of Saint Martha, and now on this rock.”

She was about to lower the binoculars, when a taller figure appeared behind the boys. She peered upward and saw a man with a cap on his head. The outline remained for some time in her field of vision. Then she had the feeling that their eyes met. The figure disappeared, all at once.

She immediately grabbed Romero by the arm and whispered to him:

“There's a man up there acting suspiciously. I don't know if I'm imagining things or what, but I think we should take a look. And be quick about it.”

“O.K., but no running otherwise he'll spot us.”

In less than two minutes, they were both standing in front of the castle's postern. As they went through the door, Moracchini flashed her card at the janitor.

“Close the entrance and let nobody out, except for children.”

The local official, who was bulky and half asleep, struck a pose of importance and carried out the order without a word.

“How many stairways lead up to the roof?”

“Today just one. The other one's closed.”

She drew her Manurhin and entered the castle courtyard.

A few tourists stared at her and backed off whispering when they saw a revolver's black steel in the policewoman's hand. She stared at them one after the other. Mentally she compared each face and form with the capped silhouette on the ramparts. None of the men in the castle courtyard matched the image she had engraved on her memory a few minutes before.

Romero took up position on the far side of the courtyard and scrutinized the arrow slits and windows around him.

Some tourists in shorts and sandals emerged from the Gothic staircase, clearly surprised to see an armed man and woman looking at them. It was the family that Moracchini had spotted earlier, with the three little boys who had been leaning over the battlements.

Romero asked them if there was anybody left at the top, but no one understood what he was saying. He moved them out of the courtyard and told the doorkeeper to hold on to them while they searched the castle.

“Shit, Anne, we don't have a radio.”

“Too bad. We can't waste any time. Let's go up.”

She dived into the half-lit stairwell, climbing fast and trying not to let her Converse shoes clack against the cold stone.

After two L turns to the right, the steps came out in a vast room hung with tapestries. Romero entered behind Moracchini, then ran across to the far side, before entering a second room and emerging again at once. To her right, Moracchini noticed a wooden arrow against the wall, indicating the route for the visitors in three different languages.

A staircase as broad as the first led to another room as vast as the previous one, but better lit. A tourist was reading an information display inside it. She aimed her gun at him, and he turned pale. He put his hands up and stammered something in German. She motioned to him to leave by the stairs. He did not need telling twice, but walked crabwise as far as the door without taking his eyes off the threatening gun.

A second arrow pointed to the upper floors of the castle. Moracchini saw that the staircase was a spiral one, narrower than the others. A real rat trap. She gestured to Romero to cover her, before starting upward as quietly as possible, two steps at a time. He followed a meter behind.

The roof was deserted. She headed for the place where she had spotted the man in the cap and leaned out over the void. It certainly was the best vantage point for observing what was going on below. She could see the two forensic scientists who were busying themselves around Marceau's body and, beside them on the riverbank, Larousse gesticulating wildly as he talked into his telephone.

Meanwhile, Romero was pacing around the roof.