Death on the Marais (16 page)

Claude leant forward. ‘The stuff is unstable. He probably hit it too hard.’

‘Undoubtedly. But doesn’t he know he’s supposed to report finding things like that?’

‘How’s he doing?’ Rocco cut in. ‘Will he live?’

‘Yes. But he won’t be playing cards for a while. And if he gets anywhere near another bomb with a hammer, I’d leave the immediate vicinity, if I were you, because he’s not going to be doing it with any precision.’ He started to walk away, then paused and glanced at Claude. ‘You’ll have to wait, incidentally – your colleagues are on their way here. They’ll want a statement. But I guess you’d know that, wouldn’t you?’

‘We’re well aware of the procedure,’ said Rocco. ‘What’ve you got there?’

The doctor didn’t even look at what he was holding. ‘It’s for the police.’ He gave Claude another look. ‘The proper ones. No need for you to concern yourself.’

Rocco sighed and held up his badge. ‘I am the police, so enough with the crap. What is it?’

‘Oh. You should have said.’ The doctor held up the bag. ‘This item was embedded in his forearm; probably blown there by the force of the explosion. Do you know what it is?’ It was clear by his expression that
he
did.

Rocco studied the object inside the bag. It was
the thickness of a pencil and made of pale metal, like aluminium. It had a ragged end, as if it had been broken from a longer piece, and was blackened by scorch marks.

He nodded. ‘I know. What was Marthe’s explanation?’

‘He didn’t have one. He lost consciousness before I could ask him. If he’s using this technique for taking ordnance apart, Inspector, he needs locking up, for everyone else’s protection if not his own.’

The doctor walked away, calling for the next patient.

Moments later, they heard a car squeal to a stop outside and a police
sous-brigadier
marched into the foyer, young, fresh-faced, self-important and austerely immaculate, his
képi
under one arm. He was followed by another uniform who stationed himself by the door. The first man glanced briefly at Claude before disappearing down the corridor after the doctor, clearly familiar with the layout. When he emerged a few minutes later, his face was pale and unfriendly. He strode up to them, eyes inspecting Claude with an expression of distaste.

‘You’re Lamotte.’ he said accusingly. ‘We’ve seen this kind of lunacy before. What’s it this time – another idiot with a death wish looking for scrap?’

‘A grenade,’ Claude explained, stiffening under the man’s eye. ‘He picked up a grenade. I explained to the doctor.’

‘So he said.’ He turned to Rocco. ‘You’re the new
inspector, aren’t you? Odd you should be involving yourself with these people.’

‘People?’ Rocco felt his temper rising. ‘What I do and who I get involved with is none of your business. We’re in the middle of a murder investigation and we brought in a man who’d had an accident.’

‘That’s as may be.’ The young man lifted his chin and Rocco guessed he didn’t need to shave often. By his badge of rank, he’d probably put in about a dozen years, but that still put him at not much more than thirty, possibly less. ‘But I have to report the facts of any explosions and related injuries. Further action may need to be considered.’

Rocco reached out and clamped a hand around the pompous officer’s neck in a pseudo-avuncular manner, but with just enough grip to stop him talking. ‘Great. That’s good. Glad to hear you’re so keen on the rule book. But listen to me, sonny. We don’t have time to get caught up in any of your official rubbish. If you think otherwise, why don’t you have a word with
Commissaire
Perronnet or Divisional
Commissaire
Massin. They’ll set you straight. Now, if you’ll excuse us.’ He patted the man on the shoulder and walked away before he could argue, leaving Claude to throw up a vague salute and follow.

‘What was that about?’ said Claude, as they got back in his car. ‘And what was in the bag?’

Rocco sat there, mind racing. What the doctor had found was something that no scrap man, no matter how unconventional, idiotic or desperate he might be, should have had access to. It was inconceivable that
Didier Marthe was using it to break down grenades or shells. The idea was ludicrous, although he hadn’t said as much to the doctor.

‘What did Didier say when you first got to him?’

‘I couldn’t be sure. He was rambling on about something being covered with mud. Why?’

‘Because whatever took his hand off wasn’t just a dodgy grenade. It was part of a detonator. The kind used with plastic explosives.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Claude stared at him. ‘He was using
plastique?
That’s madness.’

‘Didier wasn’t. But somebody was. It wasn’t mud he saw on the grenade, either; it was explosive moulded and coloured to look like it. The question is, why would someone with access to that kind of equipment want to kill Didier Marthe?’

He told Claude to return to Poissons, and more specifically, Didier Marthe’s house. Although unnerving to experience the other man’s driving – and him a former taxi driver – it allowed him time to mull over what they had just learnt.

Plastic explosive, otherwise known as C3 or C4, was the current tool of choice for demolition work, bomb disposal … and guerrilla warfare. It was easy
to hide, mould and place, and could be disguised to blend into almost any background. It had the added benefit that, with the right timers or detonators, it could be set off remotely.

Rocco had never used the stuff, but he’d seen it in action, employed by engineers to destroy traps in the jungle and bridges used by the Viet Minh. It was very effective in the right hands but, as he knew all too well, the right hands weren’t the only ones capable of getting hold of it.

What he couldn’t get his head round was the idea that someone had laid a booby trap for Didier Marthe. Whoever it was must have been watching him, and was aware of his movements and the methods he used in his insanely dangerous line of work. The only question was, what had Marthe done to warrant such an attack? From the little he had seen of him so far, he was quick-tempered and unpleasant, and could undoubtedly do with a bath or two, but that was insufficient reason to try blowing him to bits.

By the time Claude pulled into the yard of Didier’s house, Rocco had worked his way through various possible scenarios, but without reaching one specific conclusion.

He got out of the car and walked over to the bloodstained sandbags. The area of the blast was easy to identify, with the focal point between the two arms of the ‘V’ formed by the bags. At the sharp end of the ‘V’ was a gap, big enough for a hand and arm to fit through. Although he had no way of verifying it until Didier himself came back, he guessed that the scrap
man had somehow realised what he was holding and had thrust his hand between the sandbags to shield himself from the blast. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been quick enough.

But where had he got the grenade from? Picking it up in the fields or woods would have been too random: there was no way the person who’d planned this could have known what he would do. That meant it had to have been left here for him to find – or handed to him by the intended killer.

He turned and surveyed the area for clues, but quickly dismissed it as a waste of time. The ground was a mishmash of footprints where everyone had gathered around Didier, and any trace left by whoever had been here before the explosion had long been obliterated.

He walked around the yard, trying to think it through. Didier’s work was well known around the village. It presupposed that anyone watching him for any length of time would soon come to know his routine. And if Claude was correct about the kind of ordnance lying around in the countryside, he had an almost inexhaustible supply from which to choose. That meant he would spend relatively little time out searching, but a lot more here in his yard.

‘The door’s open.’ Claude nodded at the house. The front door was sagging on its hinges.

It was too inviting to ignore. Rocco pushed the door back and stepped inside, ducking his head beneath the low frame.

The smell was the first thing to hit him. Sour
with sweat, unwashed clothes and burnt cooking oil, the choking atmosphere was enough to make his stomach revolt. The light was poor, with heavy net curtains over the windows, now free of glass. The furniture was ancient, darkened by smoke and grease, with any visible surfaces covered in dust and mouse droppings, the remainder laden with dirty crockery, filled ashtrays and cooking utensils. Old newspapers and magazines spilt over from chairs onto the floor, most of them trodden flat and shredded beyond recognition.

There was no obvious sign of a telephone, he noted.

Three doors opened off the room. One led into a sleeping area of sorts, made up with a single, unmade metal-framed bed with no sheets and shabby blankets, a wardrobe and matching sideboard on a bare wooden floor. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, a nipple of brown grease hanging from the thin glass. A second door led to a narrow stairway, but it was soon evident by the layer of dust on the treads that it hadn’t been used in years.

The third door was locked, with a stone step just visible at the bottom. A cellar, Rocco guessed. He studied the lock. It was ancient but solid, and he decided to leave it. If there was anything down there worth seeing, he could come back another time.

‘You see this?’ Claude was standing by a small side table. Nailed to the wall above it was a bulletin board, the kind used by every police station, school and council office in the country. Among the various
bills and notes pinned to it were several photographs, faded and discoloured by age and the toxic atmosphere of the room. Most looked like family groups, taken in the Thirties, judging by the style of clothing. But the one Claude was pointing at looked different. It wasn’t old, not in contrast to the others, which were faded and grimy, although the subject matter clearly was. It had been pinned on top of the others, where its size and freshness made it stand out.

‘Interesting,’ Rocco murmured.

The photo showed a group of six men and one woman, huddled around a campfire. Their faces were gaunt, the expressions sombre and inward-looking. One man was turned away, his face blurred, but the others were staring into the camera. They all held rifles, and one or two had bandoliers of ammunition slung across their chests. The woman was holding a pistol in one hand and a dagger in the other.

‘Resistance fighters,’ said Claude. ‘
Maquisards
. I’ve seen pictures like this before, but not often. It was taking a hell of a risk having your face recorded like that. The Germans would have paid good money for this kind of evidence.’

Claude ran a fingertip across the faces, stopping on a thin individual sitting next to the woman. The man looked about forty years of age, although he might have been younger, and appeared to be leaning against the woman, with one hand resting on her knee. He wore a heavy jacket and a beret and, like the others, looked as if he had not eaten or washed in days.

Claude tapped the man’s face. ‘Look who we’ve got here.’

Rocco looked. Felt a jolt of recognition.

It was Didier Marthe.

‘Did you know he was in the Resistance?’ said Rocco. He slid the photo into his pocket: it would be another line of enquiry to consider, although he didn’t hold out much hope of turning up anything useful. As Claude had said, the records of Resistance members were sketchy, and those in the know were inclined to be very secretive on the subject. In any case, it might not have any bearing on why someone had tried to kill the man.

‘I never heard him say anything.’ Claude shook his head in wonderment. ‘You occasionally hear of someone being involved – usually after their death. But it’s not something people talk about.’ He shrugged. ‘Those who do are usually the ones who like to
suggest
they were part of it, but weren’t, if you know what I mean.’

Rocco nodded. It was the same with the Indochina campaign: those who had been there talked about it the least. He’d come across the braggarts himself. Sad, most of them, to be pitied for their pretence and their false lives. ‘It might explain where Didier got his knowledge of explosives.’

‘True. But so what? It’s just an old photo.’

Claude was right; it was just an old photo. And unless he could come up with a plausible reason for Didier having plastic explosives and detonators in
his home, he was making a puzzle where one did not exist.

As they walked outside, he automatically checked for signs of a telephone wire running into the house. He couldn’t see one … but neither could he imagine Didier Marthe having many friends to chat with, either on the phone or face-to-face.

Later that afternoon, he took a walk round the garden, trying to empty his mind of conflicting thoughts about the dead woman and the nearly dead Didier. Two events in such close proximity in Paris would have been unremarkable: murders and assaults with no obvious bearing on each other occurred in adjacent streets every day. It was the way of things in heavily populated areas. But out here in the middle of nowhere? It didn’t seem feasible.

He stopped beneath an old cherry tree and took out the photo of Didier Marthe and his fellow Resistance members. He turned it over. There was nothing to identify the group: no names, location or date scribbled helpfully for him to pursue. But there was a small blue stamp, an ink mark in one corner, in the shape of a triangle. He peered more closely and was able to decipher three letters, one on each side of the triangle. APP. The developer’s name?

He went back indoors and rang Amiens, asked to be put through to Massin. The
commissaire
came on and went immediately on the offensive.

‘Rocco, why are you involved with some idiot who wants to blow himself to bits? Your time is
too valuable to waste on low-level misdemeanours.’ Clearly, the officer at the hospital had wasted no time spreading the word about Didier’s injury and Rocco’s presence at the hospital.