The Beast of the Camargue (8 page)

It was nothing to get excited about, but there were little signs of improvement in the area: for the older locals, a stylish house with a swimming pool in a Provençal village; for the younger, a dwelling of the same sort in an estate by the highway. It would always be better than council housing in Marseille, or worse, the Paris
suburbs … De Palma respected this sort of police work. He knew that it was as hard to arrest a middle-league drug dealer as it was a mad-dog killer.

“What's your feeling about the Steinert case?”

“There are two possibilities. Either he's dead, or he's off gallivanting for a few days. There'd be nothing surprising there, with this kind of customer. In the latter case, we don't give a shit. In the former, we wait to find the body and the cause of death. That's all.”

“You're right, Capitaine. In fact, you can't get any righter. But apart from that, do you know anything about our client?”

“Yes, a couple of things …” Marceau slid his right hand beneath a file and produced a packet of filterless Gauloises. “I know that he's been buying up land left, right and center, and not everybody likes that. I also know that he's often been seen in the company of local personalities.”

“What sort?”

“The sort that have been under investigation for decades …”

“For example?”

“Mayors, deputies, a couple of well-known Greens … but only the sort who have friends among the magistrates.”

“That doesn't mean anything!”

“Of course not, but you asked me what I knew. So I'm telling you!”

Marceau's gray eyes were sparkling.

“Talking of pastis, I think it's time.”

“And you leave your magic camera on all day?”

“Twenty-four-seven, my friend. This is real police work here.”

“That's what Maistre says too, since he started work with the
Sécurité
.”

“How's Le Gros doing?”

“He's fine.”

Outside, now that the rain had stopped, a peppery smell was creeping through the white streets of the old town.

Marceau drew de Palma through the maze of paved sidestreets that glittered in the blue light. The shopkeepers were taking back
out their revolving displays of postcards, until the next shower arrived. On place de la Mairie, the owner of the café/tobacconist was sticking his nose outside to inspect the sky, while drawing on a cigarette gripped between thumb and index finger.

The two officers sat down on the terrace of the Guardian, a discreet bar between two plane trees, just opposite King René's Castle. Marceau surveyed the area several times, before leaning closer to de Palma.

“Michel, in fact there is something that's been bothering me about this business.”

“I'm listening.”

“Those public figures I mentioned. All of us have already seen or heard their names somewhere, in police reports or files, during phone taps or else in real estate deals. There aren't many of them, but they are the ones who pull the strings around here. This isn't Marseille, you know, everything comes out sooner or later.”

“O.K., O.K., but I don't see what's so surprising about a businessman like him hanging out with their sort.”

“Steinert isn't from around here … How can I put it, people here…”

“I see, I see …”

“He's bound to have upset some of the local big boys. In his neck of the woods, by Maussane, there are some big landowners who are well known for their shady deals … and the price of land has shot up, these last few years, if you see what I mean.”

“So you think he's been whacked, one way or another?”

“I don't think anything for the moment. These are just possibilities that shouldn't be ruled out. You can't imagine what's at stake financially in little rustic villages round here!”

From the way Marceau slumped back into his wicker chair, de Palma understood that the confidences were now over. Maybe he did not in fact know anything else. In any case, the time had now come to pay a call at the Steinert residence.

Marceau read his mind.

“I thought you were still convalescing, Michel …”

“I am, more or less …”

“Wait till you're given the case before getting your hands dirty.”

“Given the case! I'll never be given this case. No, I'm just out for a little information, that's all. I couldn't give a damn about the rest of it.”

“Since when have you been coming out to Tarascon about cases you couldn't give a damn about?”

De Palma looked up toward the walls of King René's Castle. On the ramparts, a few tiny tourists were waving energetically at anyone who chanced to look up at them. Instinctively, the policeman waved back.

Christian Rey had no time to react, or to do anything at all. Stuck in traffic on the far side of the pont de Beaucaire, he saw a man coming toward him and soon spotted the automatic concealed under his T-shirt. The man asked him to unlock the door, then he sat down on the rear seat.

“Give me the gun you keep in the glove compartment,” he barked, pressing the barrel of the automatic into the nape of Rey's neck.

He did so, handing over his snub-nosed Smith and Wesson.

“Good. Now turn round and head for Marseille.”

“Look, I don't know who you are, but I swear to you that I never touched Nono!”

The man slapped his neck.

“Who mentioned Nono, you lump of afterbirth?”

“Fuck …”

“From now on, keep it shut.”

They left Tarascon heading south, and turned onto the R.N. 568. At the Mas-Thibert junction, the man told him to stop and park behind an abandoned caravan, which must have been used for some years by a whore.

The sea breeze whistled gently in the cypresses, rolling dried grass and strips of greasy kitchen roll along with it. There was a smell of warm car oil, hay and melting tarmac.

“Now get out and put your hands on the bonnet.”

With a violent kick, the man spread his captive's legs.

“Hands behind your back!”

“But …”

“I told you to shut up. Stick your conk on the bonnet and put your hands behind your back.”

Trembling, Rey did so. He almost felt reassured when he felt handcuffs being closed round his wrists.

They got into another, smaller car and drove on endlessly along the tracks and roadways of the delta. Rey realized that the man was trying to disorientate him in this maze of byways.

At the tip of the delta, they turned back toward Arles and the sea, crossing the Salin-de-Giraud and passing alongside the huge mounds of white salt that rose up toward the blue sky like chalk pyramids.

They came to a halt on a lane that swerved between clumps of saltwort, lost among the samphire at the end of this world of wind and salt. The man put a blindfold over Rey's eyes and tied it tightly around the back of his head.

“Now walk.”

They went on for some time. To Rey, it seemed like hours, first on a hard, flat surface, then across a reed bed and finally through a swamp with water up to their waists.

Rey supposed that they were heading more toward the interior of the delta, through an incomprehensible mass of marshland and wild vegetation. At the beginning, there was a smell of sea air, laden with hints of marine plants and oxygen. Then came the stenches of saline earth and stagnating swamps, warm with sun and maceration.

The driveway of La Balme farmhouse was lined with old free stones and described a large S through groves of olive trees. It was an ancient property in the foothills of the Alpilles, with a fine solitary dwelling for the owners and large buildings for the farm workers.

De Palma had had to scour the region to find it. In Mouries, he was told to take the road to Les Baux, but then he had driven too far. So two bends before the entrance to the village he had turned back and asked the way once more from a laborer who was tinkering with the motor of a chainsaw in the shade of an olive tree. The man, as knotty as the tree he was threatening with his saw, shot him a suspicious look.

“La Balme? Go straight down toward Maussane, then turn left onto R.D. 78.” The man gestured broadly, the better to indicate the direction. “Then, after about two kilometers, you'll see three pine trees, three tall ones that is—round here we call them the Fairy Pines. Then take the track that leads toward the mountain. You can't miss it.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Don't mention it,” the man mumbled, leaning back over his chainsaw.

From the Fairy Pines, a few meters off R.D. 78, the Steinert place looked like something from Tuscany. A few sunbeams broke through the ceiling of the sky which was muffled in darkness, and cut the gloom with broad, gilded shafts.

The property covered over 100 hectares, smoothly sloping down at first, then rising gently up toward the buildings that stood with their backs to the Alpilles. This solid earth, with stones as large as fists, had been constantly plowed through the centuries; it was never sticky or black, and rose in dust beneath the stifling sun.

The homestead of the farm was thirty meters long by fifteen wide, and stood at right angles to the outbuildings. Four huge plane trees framed a fountain and stretched their pollarded branches over what used to be the stables.

From a distance, the sight was impressive, but only the turquoise rectangle of a swimming pool almost as large as the stables suggested that the owners had greater means than the soil would usually support.

As it happened, the Steinert family had maintained most of the buildings in their original functions: the barn door was open on a giant tractor, parked like a crab in its hole; next to it there was a vine tractor, which looked like a scale model with its narrow chassis.

De Palma parked his car beneath a plane tree. To his right, he could see the pool, which was a good twenty meters long, and, beyond it, a green artificial tennis court complete with changing rooms.

Further on, where a green meadow stretched as far as the first white rocks of the Alpilles, three horses were killing time by chasing off the flies that pestered them.

There was no gate or fence. And apparently no bodyguards. If the farmhouse was under surveillance, then it was highly discreet.

Ingrid Steinert was in the midst of three groups sitting around like obedient schoolchildren at small tables on a vast paved patio half covered over by climbing vines and flowering wisteria.

The lady of the manor was radiant, passing from one group to the other, making her light dress swirl with its Provençal motifs. Each group was gathered in front of small phials full of olive oil. The various members were holding tasting glasses and scribbling on notepads.

When she noticed de Palma, Madame Steinert did not look surprised. She gave him a formal smile and graciously beckoned him to join her.

“We're defining the new collection of our oils,” she said, shaking his hand energetically. “We taste them again and again. They're last year's oils.”

“You're … you're tasting oil?”

“Of course … it should be savored like a fine wine! In fact, let me introduce you to Eric Bartel, one of France's greatest wine experts.”

Bartel, a little fellow with a turned-up nose, barely glanced at de Palma before he grimaced and bent back over his glass.

“We taste each variety so as to decide which one we're going to send to the miller, and which ones we're going to dilute and flavor, such as Salonenque, Lucques or Grossane, and then sell in bottles. A lot of it goes abroad, especially to the U.K. and Germany.”

Bartel suddenly came alive. He wriggled on his seat, his eyes flashing.

“This one is more mature,” he said, raising his glass in front of his animated eyes. “It has notes of toast and hints of rosemary. Just enough, no more. It's extremely fine … And beautiful, just beautiful.”

He twisted his glass, while the other tasters adopted serious expressions and confirmed the chief expert's diagnosis.

“We're aiming to get an
appellation d'origine controlée
,” Ingrid said. “That would bring us some sizeable business opportunities.”

De Palma felt about as relaxed as a young actor struck by amnesia.
Madame Steinert went over to him, laid a hand on his forearm and said softly:

“I think that we have a lot of things to talk about. If you have the time, of course. As a matter of fact, I was expecting you.”

She turned back toward the tasters, delivered a few remarks, cutting the air with a swipe of her right hand, and arranged to meet them later that afternoon to continue their deliberations. She then beckoned discreetly to de Palma to follow her indoors.

The farmhouse living room was huge and worn by time. Four narrow windows looked out over the terrace and, in the distance, rows of olive trees.

“My husband never altered anything,” she said, with a sweeping gesture. “At least, not in this part of the house. He was rather mystical … He used to say that we shouldn't change the old ways. Hence the lack of luxury. Simplicity, always more simplicity. Practically the whole place is the same, apart from the few rooms I dealt with myself and decorated as I wanted.”

The whitewashed walls were hung with a hunting rifle, a set of battered copper saucepans and a few paintings, presumably by Provençal artists, which slumbered in the darkness alongside a couple of abstract canvases. These were the only touches of wealth in this decidedly peasant décor.

“William finally agreed to putting up these pictures, after years of arguing … As you might imagine, there were no works of art here originally. People just worked and had no leisure time at all.”

“But you also have a tennis court, horses and a swimming pool!”

“Oh, you noticed?” she said with a broad smile. “But it was I who wanted them, not my husband. Although he did take a dip sometimes, when it was really hot.”

The entire place created an odd impression. Why had Steinert left everything as it was? Why hadn't he wanted to leave his stamp on it?