Death on the Pont Noir (23 page)

It was like stepping into a different world, immediately more sombre in spite of the lack of leaves on the trees. The outside sounds faded as the branches overhead seemed to close in on the two men, shutting out the snow-heavy sky and leaving only the chatter of the police radio to remind them of the outside world. The trunks here were jammed close together, never thinned by man, each new growth pushing against the next, reaching skywards and searching for every bit of space. Dead trees lay withered and rotting or, where there hadn’t been space to fall, hung limply like drunks off their neighbours.

Claude stopped and sniffed the air, eyes flicking over what he could see, then hunkered down, gesturing to Rocco to do the same.

The minutes slipped by, neither man speaking. Rocco was breathing easily enough, but he’d felt his heart rate increase the moment they had stopped moving. Movement
was good, to a city-bred cop. It kept you awake, showed you and everyone else that you were busy and active, allowed you to check you didn’t have someone coming up behind you. But as he’d learnt long ago, movement could be a killer in the wrong place. The kill could come from under your feet, rigged to pierce your flesh with needles of bamboo; it could come from overhead, a swish of noise triggered by a careless kick against a carefully laid peg; it could come out of the undergrowth, so thick you couldn’t see through it to the danger lurking just a couple of metres away.

He said, ‘What are we doing?’ Claude was the expert here, the woodsman, and he was content to let him lead the way. But Rocco liked to know what was going on.

‘We’re waiting.’ The reply was low, just above a whisper.

‘For what?’

Claude pointed at some trees deeper into the wood, where a few small birds were twittering softly and flitting from branch to branch. ‘When they stop, we’ll know.’

They waited some more.

‘You okay?’ Claude queried, and Rocco realised he was grinding his teeth together. He relaxed his jaw and nodded. He wasn’t, quite, but he was getting there. Another few years of creeping through the woods with this man and he’d be as good as new.

Claude seemed to know what he was thinking. He leant close and said softly, ‘I knew a man once who did what you did. Went through the same thing, but in another war. Couldn’t stand the trees. Reckoned they were whispering to him like we are now, calling him names. Actually, he was just scared shitless, but couldn’t admit it.’

Rocco said nothing.

‘Anyway, in the end, he got over it by facing his demons. Went native instead of hiding in a car in city streets all day.’

Claude was talking about himself.

‘I’m like that man, you mean?’

Claude shook his head. ‘You’re nothing like him. Even in here, if I had you on my tail, I’d be running as fast as I could and I wouldn’t stop. I know you don’t like it in here, and why should you? But you use it; you don’t let it beat you. You’re always looking, even when you can’t see anything.’ He stared at Rocco, holding his gaze. ‘But others … like this man we’re looking for, he’s a rat in a tunnel. He only reacts to what he can see. Sooner or later, you’d catch him before he caught you.’

‘Is this leading anywhere?’

Claude smiled. ‘Shit, don’t ask me. I’m just talking to calm my own nerves.’ He stopped and looked round.

The birds had gone silent. Everywhere.

Only the branches whispered overhead, like an army of crickets. Anyone watching right now, Rocco thought, would have the advantage over a newcomer stepping into the trees from the outside. He slowly turned his head behind them, to the light. It was clear.

He heard a grunting noise, followed by a snap of a twig somewhere not far away. The sound triggered an unwelcome memory flash from years ago: heavy vegetation underfoot, stifling humidity, no sky to speak of and a wall of green in every direction. Unlike here where there was only brown and black, apart from the top ends of the branches. Then, there had been danger all around and a sense of utter futility facing an enemy they couldn’t see until it was too
late. He waited, feeling his shoulders stiffen involuntarily; told himself to ignore it and worked hard at not squeezing his eyes shut.

Alongside him, Claude was staring into the dense trees over the barrels of his shotgun, an over-under model, the stock shiny with use and lovingly cared for, darkly functional. A tool of his trade.

Rocco took in the scenery afresh, breathing to relax. All around them was light and shadow and fresh air, and bare, wintry branches and slim trunks clustered tightly together like passengers on the
Métro
. High above, through a latticework of branches, was a glimpse of darkening grey sky.

‘Nice weapon,’ he whispered. ‘You think we need that?’

‘Damn right.’ Claude puffed out his cheeks. ‘It’s a Darne. Best gun ever. I bought it from a farmer who’d given up killing stuff. But this isn’t for any man; there are wild boar in this area.’ He looked at Rocco’s blank expression and said, ‘You do know about boars, don’t you?’

‘Of course. You didn’t think to mention them before we came in here?’ He’d heard the stories; normally placid if left alone and keen to avoid humans, in protection of their young, wild boars were ferocious, especially the sows.

‘Would it have made a difference?’

‘I suppose not. Are they as bad as they say?’

‘If cornered, yes.’ Claude chewed on his lip. ‘If threatened, they’ll kill. Man, beast … they’ll even wreck a car if they feel like it. A herd over by Bapaume opened up a Panhard like a tin can once.’ He indicated the base of a nearby tree where the earth had been ripped and churned over, the surrounding area peppered with small hoof marks. ‘These
tracks are fresh. The animals roam, but these don’t look old. I reckon they’re not far away.’

‘How big are they?’ Rocco couldn’t recall seeing a boar close up, but felt uneasy at Claude’s obvious concern.

‘It’s not size you need to worry about. It’s weight and speed. You get hit low by a hundred-plus kilos of
pissed-off
pig, and you’ll go down, I promise. Then they’ll gore you with their tusks.’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t be nice.’

Rocco took a firmer hold of his gun.
Come on, piggy
, he thought.
As if I haven’t got enough problems to be going on with, I’m going face to face with an enraged pork sausage on legs.

‘If they do come,’ Claude continued, ‘go for the nearest tree. Don’t stop to shoot; they’re too fast for a pistol shot, and once they’re stirred up, they’re not easy to stop, even with this thing.’ He raised the shotgun. ‘Believe me.’

‘What will
you
be doing?’

‘Me? I’ll be up the tree ahead of you.’

He straightened slowly, then stepped past Rocco and led the way deeper into the wood, pausing regularly to peer beneath the thick tangles of branches and other fallen vegetation where the boars’ low height would provide good cover.

Rocco followed, watching his friend’s back.

They had covered maybe thirty metres when Claude stopped and held out a warning hand. Slowly, very slowly, he sank to the ground and signalled for Rocco to do the same.

As they did so, an eruption of screaming came from ahead of them not twenty metres away, and a dark shape
shot out from under a thicket followed by several other smaller shapes.

‘A mother and young,’ Claude hissed in warning.

And he and Rocco were right in their path.

Rocco felt his gut contract. They had nowhere to go but up, but there was no time. He swore and fired twice into the ground in front of where he thought the boars were. Instead of coming on, the boar turned and went back on its tracks, the young following like little boats on a string.

Suddenly the thicket moved and two shots rang out. One of the young boars flipped over and lay still. Instantly the mother squealed and charged, barrelling through the undergrowth like a vengeful rocket.

This time the scream they heard came from a man.

Claude fired two shots into the air, quickly reloading while Rocco covered him, then fired twice more.

In the silence that followed, they heard the squeals of the boars diminishing towards the far side of the wood, then a groan close by. It was followed by a crackling noise as someone made their way through the trees across their front, but too far away to see clearly.

‘He’s heading towards the road,’ said Claude. ‘Come on – we can cut him off.’ He showed Rocco the way and both men ran towards the light.

‘Put the gun down.’ Rocco’s voice didn’t need to be loud; sound travelled well in this cold, thin air. But it carried authority.

He and Claude had burst out of the trees and run across the field in time to see the fugitive coming at an angle towards them. If he saw them or the other men waiting by the road, he made no move to change direction, but staggered on, slipping and sliding on the icy ground. He was dragging one leg badly, his breathing laboured and hoarse.

The man looked beaten and hopelessly unsteady on his feet, like a prizefighter at the end of a long, brutal bout. His shoes were clogged with mud and bits of vegetation and the cloth around his injured leg was badly torn, the flesh beneath showing bright red. His shoulders were dusted with snow and muddy, and his face was pinched and near blue with cold.

Biggs
, thought Rocco. The other one had been Jarvis.

Then the runner seemed to realise where he was. He stopped, breathing heavily, and glanced back as if he thought the boar might still be after him. When he looked round, he shook his head with something approaching despair and looked at Rocco.

‘No way,’ he muttered, and coughed. ‘Too late, anyway.’ He clutched his stomach and spat on the ground. The spittle was bright red.

Claude said, ‘She hurt him.’

The end of the man’s gun barrel was wavering slightly. Rocco wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think enlisted men in the British army used pistols. Most had rifles, a few used machine guns. This one was carrying a revolver, probably army issue. He was holding the gun low, like a cowboy in a western.

Rocco stepped sideways, keeping on the move. No point in giving the man a standing target, even a lucky one. He said, ‘Put it down and lie on the ground, Mr Biggs. We will not harm you.’

The man’s face twisted in surprise on hearing his own name. He looked around wildly, instinctively seeking a way out. When he realised there was none, he said, ‘Piss off, copper.’ And pulled the trigger.

The shot zipped by Rocco’s right leg, hitting the ground three metres behind him.

‘I’ll kill you with the next one!’

Rocco moved sideways, but kept his distance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claude and, beyond him, a group comprising Desmoulins and Godard and his men. The man with a rifle was standing off to one side, the gun into his shoulder, waiting for a signal.

‘Last warning,’ Rocco said quietly, just enough for the man to hear. ‘You do not want to do this. The man back there will not miss.’

The second round came closer, the sound of the shot making a tearing noise as it went past his head. The gunman pulled the trigger again, but this time there was just a click. Frantically he scrabbled in his jacket pocket and produced a fistful of shells, shards of gold light flashing as some tumbled to the ground from frozen fingers. Grunting with pain and emotion, Biggs began tugging out the empties and feeding fresh ones into the cylinder. Then his face twisted in pain and he grabbed his injured thigh.

He peeled back the torn cloth. Blood was running down his leg and across his shoe, forming a puddle on the ground, bright red against the thin covering of snow.

Rocco didn’t bother asking who was behind this. He knew Biggs wasn’t going to give up. The man was operating on instincts alone, a form of bravado that would carry him until he could go no further. He’d seen it before in Indochina and elsewhere, where men on battlefields with nothing else to give simply surrendered to the last-ditch ethos drummed into them in endless exercises and training.

It was just a pity that it was being misused here.

He turned and walked towards the man. He couldn’t let this go on. He waited until the gun came up again, then planted his feet and lifted the Walther, the walnut grip warm and comfortable in his hand.

He fired once.

The shot took Biggs in the left shoulder, lifting the fabric of his jacket. He staggered and looked at Rocco in shock. But he wasn’t finished yet. He swore softly and lifted the
pistol again, finger tightening on the trigger. Before Rocco could shoot again, another shot sounded, this time from the rifleman on the road, and Biggs was hit in the chest, flipping him onto his back.

In the silence that followed, a whistle came from the road, carrying eerily across the cold field. Rocco looked round. Desmoulins was making the sign of a telephone call and pointing at Godard’s blue van.

Rocco picked up the dead man’s revolver and walked towards the road, his shoes heavy with mud, and wondered if he was going to have to buy new ones. This job was getting far too heavy on clothing.

‘Sorry, Inspector,’ said the driver of the van, as if he’d interrupted something. He was half inside the vehicle. ‘A black DS driven by an Englishman named Calloway has been stopped coming out of Poissons.’

‘Anyone else inside?’ But Rocco already knew the answer to that one.

‘No. Calloway said the man named Tasker is in the village.’ He frowned and added, ‘He said Tasker has gone crazy and is going to kill you.’

‘But why come here?’ said Desmoulins. He was driving Rocco’s car with the inspector in the passenger seat. Godard and his men were following close behind. They were heading towards Poissons, leaving the two patrolmen to look after Biggs’s body. ‘He could have been away and clear by now, heading for the ferries.’

‘Away, maybe,’ Rocco replied, reloading his gun. ‘But not clear. Tasker’s been used and cut adrift by his own people, and I suspect he knows it. He’s got nothing to lose.’

It didn’t take much putting together, not once Desmoulins had got the story from the Béthune police. They had interviewed the French gunmen left inside the bank, and the wounded man had been eager to talk. They had been recruited to do the one job, each a solo operator under the command of an older armoured-car specialist, originally from Corsica. He was now dead, shot by the big Englishman, Tasker. They had never met their recruiters,
all discussions having been carried out by telephone and through ‘contacts’. But investigators were already working on that angle. Rocco, however, had a good idea who was behind the recruitment.

Patrice Delarue.

It all fitted together, an oddly shaped jigsaw of disparate events. The original ramming had been a practice run, using Calloway’s skills to avoid maximum damage while giving the important man in the scheme, Fletcher, as near a real scenario as he could get without him knowing. Fletcher the giant fist: the real attacker. The other men had been bit players in a theatrical drama, added to provide a fog to prevent anyone seeing the real picture.

Distraction, too, had been the purpose of the other events, to draw away security and police attention from what was being planned: the smashing of the
Canard Doré
, the openly argumentative front put up by Tasker and his men, all the while knowing they would not be held for long; the burning of the truck, the disappearance – albeit mismanaged – of the damaged Citroën DS. And finally the bank job, skewed deliberately towards failure and using expendable men from two gangs to divert police attention from what was really going to happen.

And that was the real event; the genuine piece of
théâtre
.

It was so simple, Rocco realised, once you peered under the surface. Almost military in terms of ruse and planning, coldly expensive in terms of men – but they were unimportant, anyway, gun fodder to be used and forgotten. What was important was achieving their aims of toppling the president while out from the cover of crowds and the usual security cordon.

And that was where he had a real problem: knowing who was behind the attempted attack. It could be any one of several groups spread across France and Europe, into North Africa. But it was suddenly very clear that
Saint-Cloud
was in there right at the thick of it. Pretending to still be working for the presidential security unit, while all the time he was … what? Sick? Deluded? Plotting? He wondered at the sheer size of the bluff the man had pulled off to arrive here, establish himself – dragging Portier and even Broissard along with him, although Rocco had no doubts they were fooled, too – all without revealing that he was no longer employed to protect the president. But then, had anyone thought for a moment to check his credentials? He himself hadn’t, nor had Massin. Who, after all, thinks to check the bona fides of one of the most important men in the country?

‘Alix is in Poissons,’ said Claude from the back seat. He was holding his shotgun across his knees, broken, the cartridges in his hand. He sounded distracted, as if talking to himself. ‘She had a day’s leave to take in lieu of a late shift. She’s been working too hard. I told her to stay at home and relax. She won’t, of course. She’ll be out and about in the village doing stuff to keep herself occupied.’ He stopped talking and stared out of the window, his words hanging in the air between them.

Rocco took out the revolver he’d taken from Biggs. It held two shells. ‘Do they know what weapons Tasker was using?’

‘A shotgun with sawn-off barrels,’ said Desmoulins. ‘Nasty brute of a weapon – like the man himself. He’s probably got a handgun, too.’

‘What do we do if he’s in the village, Lucas?’ said Claude. He didn’t have to explain himself; Tasker was a city gangster, accustomed to the proximity of streets and houses and people. He’d be in his element among buildings, even in a small village like Poissons, with ample protection and hiding places. And he’d be ruthless and desperate enough to use whatever and whomever he could, and to hell with the consequences.

‘If he’s in there,’ said Rocco evenly, ‘we’ll get him out. Don’t worry about it.’ He closed the cylinder of the revolver with a soft click, and hoped the other two couldn’t hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Because with men like Tasker, at the end of his rope and with nothing to lose, there were no certainties.

They drove into Poissons slowly, watching the buildings for movement, for signs of an impending ambush. If Tasker was a strategist, he’d wait for them to get in among the houses, then take them out one by one. But all the while he’d be waiting for Rocco to show.

A police car was parked across the street, empty, and a group of men was gathered at the door of the village café. Among them Rocco saw M. Thierry, who cared for the graveyard, and Delsaire, the local plumber, and Arnaud, the village handyman.

They liked a good gathering, Rocco remembered. Anything for a bit of excitement.

The men turned when they heard the vehicles and stepped away from the door. Rocco told Desmoulins to stop and jumped out. Leaving Godard and his men to take a look round, he walked into the café, nodding at the men,
and found two uniformed officers with a dejected-looking Calloway slumped in a chair, his wrists handcuffed.

‘Where is he?’ Rocco felt dirty and tired and damp and didn’t want to waste his time talking to this man, but to get on with tracking down Tasker. But he needed to get something from Calloway while he still could. His attitude clearly conveyed itself to the Englishman, because he drew his feet together and sat up straight, eyes wary.

‘I dropped him off near the church,’ he said quickly, without being asked. ‘He said he was going to kill you.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘I mean, does he intend hurting anyone else?’

‘I doubt it. He doesn’t know anyone else. He’s pretty much a mental mess right now; too much to think about and he’d explode.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s over the edge. It’s as if he’s lost all reason. Rambling, playing with his guns and threatening anyone who disagrees. He kicked Biggs out of the car because he said something he didn’t like and he needed a decoy, and he only got me to bring him here by sticking his gun in my ribs. I think he’s nuts – and he wasn’t exactly the most stable of men, anyway. Then he met you.’ When Rocco didn’t say anything, he continued, ‘Tasker’s been pretty much top dog in his own world for years now. There are men above him on the human ladder of pond life, but far more below. He enjoys throwing his weight around but hasn’t got the brains to run his own show, so he’s been playing second fiddle to someone who does.’

‘Ketch, you mean.’

‘Yes. And I think Ketch knew how he felt. Which is probably why he sent him on this suicide mission. Tasker’s problem was, he was too thick to turn it down.’

‘You came, too,’ Rocco pointed out.

Calloway smiled grimly. ‘Yes. What does that say about me? Thing is, none of us knew what we were signing up to, not really. I suspect that in the long run, neither did Tasker.’

‘The bank robbery.’

‘Yes. It was supposed to be the real thing: in, out and away to the ferries, easy money. But it was no such thing. There was no cash drop, Tasker said, and another bunch of gunmen was already inside. I don’t think we were meant to come out of that one.’

Calloway was no fool, Rocco recognised. He’d come along knowingly on an illicit venture, but had clearly put two and two together since it had gone wrong. ‘What do you think it was really about?’

‘We were a giant decoy squad, weren’t we? You remember Fletcher – the big lug? He drove the Renault truck when we did this the first time round. But this trip he was off doing it solo, on direct orders from Ketch himself. The rest of us were assigned to the bank job. On the surface, all a bit disconnected, but we were being paid, so why question it?’

‘You had no idea what Fletcher was doing?’

‘No. He was given specific instructions about today, I know that – and told to keep his mouth shut. He could barely keep it in he was so made up, like a bloody kid in a toyshop. What was he doing?’

‘He tried to kill President de Gaulle.’

‘
What
?’ Calloway shook his head. ‘Fletcher? That’s
crazy. He wouldn’t …’ He stopped, eyes going wide. ‘The idiot.’

‘What?’

‘I should have guessed,’ Calloway said bitterly. ‘It didn’t take Einstein to figure out something big was going on … the black DS, the ramming and the Molotovs and pistols. I thought it was all a test run for someone else. But
Fletcher
?’ He stared at Rocco. ‘I mean, he wasn’t political – he wasn’t
anything
. He was a thug and a haulage driver, but that was it. Are you sure it was him?’

‘I saw him.’ Rocco wondered about it. Calloway sounded too shocked to be play-acting. Maybe Fletcher hadn’t known what he was doing either; maybe he thought the target was someone low-grade – a business rival. But they’d never know now. ‘If you thought it was something big, why did you go along with it?’

Calloway gave a wry smile. ‘I needed the money, didn’t I? I have gambling debts with people who break legs and things if they’re kept waiting.’

‘Nice friends you have.’

‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t just us, though, running this thing. A French group was involved – some big man in Paris, according to Tasker.’

‘Name?’

‘He never said. The French provided the plans to the bank, too. Tasker pretended he was in the know all along, but all he really knew was that Ketch had been paid by this French crew to stage a “scenario”, and we were the players.’

‘A scenario?’

‘That’s what he called it. It was all part of some weird
plan to tie up and confuse the cops in the area. Now we know why, right?’ He squinted up at Rocco. ‘Did it work?’

Rocco refused to answer. He wondered how Godard was getting on out in the village. He responded instead with another question of his own. ‘What about the body of the tramp?’

Calloway’s face paled and he clamped his lips shut. But he was beyond denying anything. ‘Was that what he was? Poor bugger. That was Tasker’s idea. He found the body under the truck … I reckon he’d been sitting on the verge or had collapsed, and the truck ran over him. None of us saw him until we found him underneath the wheels. Anyway, Tasker reckoned you’d never find him in the burnt-out truck as long as we piled in some wood and lots of petrol.’

‘But burning the truck was still part of the scenario?’

‘Yes.’

Rocco wondered whether Calloway had been truly in the dark as much as he said, or was simply a very good actor. He was inclined to think a bit of both. ‘What about the first DS?’

‘What about it?’

‘We found it at the scrapyard. Before it was broken up.’

‘Now that wasn’t part of the plan. It was supposed to disappear completely. I reckon it was hot from a previous job and we were using it for the last time. The scrap merchant – Bellin? – had orders to torch it and cut it up immediately.’

‘Did he supply the car?’

‘No. Both vehicles were supplied by someone else; we just collected them from a prearranged spot. They came
fitted with the harnesses and the timber. We just had to drive them according to instructions.’ He gave another dry smile. ‘A rare case of hands across the sea, wouldn’t you agree?’

Rocco said nothing. A babble of voices came from outside the café door, and Claude appeared with Desmoulins close behind. Godard was in the background, shaking his head.

‘They can’t see him anywhere,’ said Claude. He shuffled his feet. ‘I called home, but Alix isn’t there. Thierry said he saw her walking down the lane towards your place less than twenty minutes ago.’

Then came the sound of a gunshot.