Death on the Marais (34 page)

Rocco found he was holding his breath. He didn’t dare look at Claude for fear he might break the spell and Francine would shut down.

‘What then?’

‘Didier then told the agent he’d followed him out one night and seen him concealing a package in an abandoned cowshed. He threatened to tell the others if the man didn’t give him a cut.’

‘Which he did?’

‘Yes. The agent told the group that the money was lost, then he and Didier split the package. But the rest of the group found out. I think Didier began to spend his share and someone noticed. Elise said that word
would have got back to London and the two of them would have been hunted down and killed.’

Claude butted in. ‘And your sister told you all this? You, a twelve-year-old girl?’

Francine nodded. ‘Why not? She told me lots of things. She taught me lots, too.’ Her eyes glittered with what could have only been secret pride, and Rocco felt a worm of disquiet as he wondered what else lay beneath that expression.

‘Go on.’ Rocco stared hard at Claude, a warning to stay quiet.

‘Didier told her everything because he wanted to impress her. All it did was increase her contempt for him. In fact, she thought he was making it up, a braggart. She still thought that at the end.’

‘What happened then?’ said Rocco.

‘A couple of nights later, the men in the group met in a deserted quarry where they had their equipment concealed in caves dug out of the rock. It was a strategy meeting called by the agent. But Elise said they were going to use the meeting to confront him and Didier about the theft. They warned Elise to stay away, that it might be dangerous. When they got to the quarry, the Germans were waiting.’ She sighed with a deep shudder that seemed to embrace her whole body. ‘That same night, the Germans raided our house and took my sister away. I never saw her again.’

‘What about Didier and the other man?’

‘They disappeared, too. Nobody saw them again. As far as anyone knew, they were taken at the same time. But now I realise that they weren’t even there,
otherwise they’d be dead.’ Her face twisted with bitterness. ‘How did the Germans know about the exact time and location of the meeting? It must have been because Didier and the other man betrayed the group – it’s the only explanation.’

‘But you didn’t know that at the time.’

‘No. Of course not.’ She shrugged. ‘It was just a horrible part of the war. Then, just over a couple of years ago, I saw a face in the newspaper. I thought I was going mad, delusional. It was the same face, the same smile … older, of course, but definitely the same man, now very important and rich. That’s when it all hit me: when I realised that he must have got away … that Didier hadn’t been bragging about the money after all.’

‘So you reasoned that if the agent had got away, there was a chance Didier had, too?’

‘Why not? They were in it together – traitors both.’

‘So you came after Didier and tracked him to Poissons.’

‘It wasn’t like that. I followed the other man first, for two weeks, when he was visiting his factories. Him I knew where to find: he lived in the public eye, so rich, so important. I wanted to learn all I could about him. One of his factories is here in Amiens. It makes plastic buckets for export to Germany. Can you believe the irony of that?’

Neither man said anything.

‘Anyway, after his visit, he drove out towards Poissons and turned off the road into the
marais
. I followed him on foot. He met up with another man at the big lodge.’

‘How did you manage to follow him all that way?’ muttered Claude. He hadn’t said ‘you being a mere woman’, but the inference was clear.

‘I worked for the tax authorities before coming here. I had to spend time with their investigators, watching people. It was easy. If he saw me on the road behind him, he probably looked right through me. Elise also taught me how to be invisible, how not to stand out.’

Rocco thought about the description Ishmael Poudric had given of the woman who’d called on him.
Plain … instantly forgettable.

‘And the man he met – that was Didier?’

‘Yes. I recognised him immediately. He’d been to our house twice, chasing Elise, so I’d seen him up close. He had a way of looking at women … and twelve-year-old girls. He was a vile little man. Repulsive. They were standing outside the lodge, arguing. Then they left. I knew where I could find one; now I wanted to find where the other lived.’

‘Which you did.’

She nodded. ‘It was simple. I followed him through the
marais
until I came to his house.’

‘Was it you who pinned the photo to the board in his kitchen?’

She hesitated just for a second, then nodded. ‘Yes. But that was much later.’

‘To make him run?’

‘No. To make him squirm.’

‘Did he ever realise who you were?’ He meant at any time; if Didier had taken her deliberately, it would point to motive, to planning. To recognition.

‘No. I was a kid when he last saw me.’

‘Did you ever enlighten him?’

‘No.’

‘Not even after he took you?’

‘No.’

Rocco took a turn around the room to ease the sting in his ribs. The tablets the nurse had given him were wearing off and it was hurting like hell; he hadn’t noticed it for a while, too absorbed in what he was doing. He returned to stand in front of her.

‘You could have gone to the authorities.’

‘And told them what?’ Her eyes flashed. ‘That I, as a twelve-year-old girl, remembered from all those years ago seeing a little weasel and the great industrialist and war hero stealing and cheating and betraying? Who would have believed me? Who would have cared? Would
you
?’

He had no answer to that. She was right: it was too old, too long ago. Best buried and forgotten, along with countless other crimes and misdemeanours. But not for him. There was one more detail he needed her to give voice to. Essential, in fact. ‘The face you saw in the newspaper; the man you followed to Poissons. The SOE agent. He has a name?’

‘You know it. Philippe Bayer-Berbier.’ The words came out flat, lacking any feeling.

Seconds ticked by before anyone spoke. Then Rocco said, ‘What were you thinking of doing when you found these two men?’

She shrugged again, this time looking him straight in the eye. There was nothing there, though: her eyes
were empty. The very absence of emotion was utterly chilling.

‘I was going to kill them.’

‘How were you going to do that?’ he said finally. Another tour of the room had not eased the discomfort in his ribs. He felt as if he had nothing else left to ask. Claude had sunk into his chair, incredulity on his face.

‘Any way I could. I was going to bide my time. As to how, Elise told me. She blew up a train once, when it was in a siding. I was a good listener. I nearly did it, too.’ She gave a half-smile, eyes drifting, and Rocco felt the last vestige of sympathy fall away.

‘So Elise knew all about explosives?’

‘Enough.’

‘And guns?’

‘Naturally.’ She sounded proud of the fact, and he wondered how much of that was for her own skills, picked up at her big sister’s knee.

He glanced at the photo again, at Elise holding a dagger as if she knew how to use it. ‘And knives, too.’

This time she said nothing. Simply stared at him, a flicker of something crossing her face, then gone.
She was ahead of him; knew where that question was leading.
No matter. It was all he needed.

‘Did you kill Nathalie Berbier?’ He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that. He’d failed to judge Francine Thorin correctly until now. But Poudric apart, her approach to getting revenge was fairly basic: she focused on and went directly for those she held responsible for the death of her sister. Her response confirmed it.

‘Is that who the dead woman was?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘No. Why would I?’

He believed her. There was something undeniable in her reply. Besides, he knew she’d had no prior contact with the lodge or anyone else in it until she had been taken by Didier. He nodded and stood up. As he reached the door, he turned and asked casually, ‘Who was Agnès Carre?’

She turned on her side away from him and pulled the covers over her shoulder, shutting him out. ‘Someone I once knew,’ she said softly.

He glanced at Claude, who lifted an eyebrow. That she hadn’t denied knowing the name might be enough. That and having admitted to pinning up a copy of the photo in Didier’s house. Enough to prove that, after seeing the photo in Rocco’s house in the Rue Danvillers, and realising only then that the photographer, Ishmael Poudric, was a loose end that needed clearing away, she had driven back to Rouen and murdered him.

Tidying up loose ends. No doubt something else Elise had taught her.

He walked out of the room and called the office. After a few false starts, he was told Massin was still there. He was put through. He gave the senior officer a summary of events, then asked him to arrange for someone to come to the hospital and serve Francine Thorin with an arrest warrant for the murder of Ishmael Poudric and the attempted murder of Didier Marthe.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The
marais
at night was a ghostly environment. Musty smells, strange sounds and the furtive movement of wildlife echoed in the ever-changing and almost invisible landscape. With a weak moon flitting through thin cloud cover, it was a mass of shifting shadows, too, adding to the unreal quality of the place. Rocco had spent too many nights on surveillance in city streets and back alleys to be anything but easily bored by inner-city stillness and its lack of vibrancy; but this place had an undercurrent all of its own that was almost a relief to a bored cop.

He was lying beneath the overturned aluminium boat near the reeds, a few paces from the back door of the main lodge. Arriving on foot just after 02.30, he’d slid underneath the curve of its side, dragging in
a square of canvas tarpaulin to form a groundsheet against the damp grass. The location gave him a clear view of the lodge and the approach along the path into the
marais
, but the road and the turning circle in front of the building were hidden from his sight. He had debated waiting in the reeds across the far side, giving him a view of both approaches, but a sneak look earlier had revealed soft, marshy ground underneath. He’d also dismissed the interior of the building: it was too restrictive and Didier would expect it of a city cop, anyway.

In the end, the boat had been the only solution.

He hadn’t mentioned his intentions to anyone, mainly to prevent Claude from insisting on joining him. Two-man surveillances were easily spotted, and he’d seen so many fall apart through the presence of two breathing souls trying hard to remain still. In addition, he had no guarantees that the scrap man would come back here. For all he knew, he was a hundred miles away by now, nursing his wounds. Yet something told him otherwise. Too much had been happening in a very short space of time for Didier to have gained access to his home for long, and if he wanted to remain at large – and he was too much of a survivor not to – there were things he would need, like money. And that meant the locked cellar. Didier didn’t seem the sort to have faith in bank accounts.

He shifted his weight to ease the pain in his side. The nurse at the hospital had said it would be uncomfortable for some days, and had given him
a supply of painkillers if it got too much to bear. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to bring them with him.

He tensed as something pale entered his field of vision. But it was too high off the ground to be human. He relaxed as an owl flashed briefly through a patch of moonlight. Soundless and white, it glided into the trees and was gone, swallowed by shadows. Then a fox appeared, trotting nimbly along the path and nosing under a fallen branch before disappearing among a heavy growth of reeds. From his position, Rocco could feel the cooler air coming off the lake, and heard a variety of plops and soft swirls as the creatures of the water went about their business. At any other time, he would have enjoyed the opportunity to study the place. But now was not it.

Time had passed quickly. When he tilted his watch towards the moonlit gap near the ground, he saw it was 04.00. The time most cops on surveillance detail found the hardest to stay awake. Not criminals, though; they loved the hours leading to dawn, like feral cats on the prowl, going about their unseen business.

He yawned, mouth threatening lockjaw, and wished he’d brought coffee. A strong caffeine hit would have worked wonders right now, but he knew that a hunted man like Didier would pick up the smell from fifty paces away.

He checked his watch again. 04.10. Now time was hanging. Then he tensed as a crackle of grass came from his left, and he heard the familiar, faint whistle-brush of undergrowth against fabric.

A bird flitted up into the trees and a swirl of water in the lake behind him indicated something moving nearby. Whatever it was had come through the trees from his left, following the line of the track from the road. He cursed. The boat was tilted to the left, with the lower edge against the ground, and he wouldn’t get a sight of the intruder until he or she moved across his front nearer the lodge.

Was it a moonlight hunter? Someone else from the village on a foray for fish or fowl?

Silence.

Something brushed against the hull of the boat and Rocco froze, half-expecting his cover to be lifted away. He was sure he could hear someone breathing. A man, it had to be. There was a sour smell, like that of disturbed water or mud mixed with body odour.

A faint cough, followed by a sigh. Rocco tensed, ready to follow the boat upright, gun at the ready. Instead, he heard a metallic click and a footfall. Whoever was out there was moving away.

He lay on his side, giving him an extra few centimetres of view under the curve of the boat. A shadowy figure crossed between him and the lodge, paused for a moment, then continued walking. Stopped again as the clouds shifted and pale moonlight flooded the clearing. The figure had moved in an odd, crablike fashion, as if normal walking was too hard, and was now standing slightly bent over, as if nursing a bad back. Or a gunshot wound.