Adrian Magson - Death on the Pont Noir

‘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 cafe 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.

Commissaire Francois Massin was suffering a mix of emotions.

A part of him was still recoiling at the earlier idea that Rocco, whom he’d found himself believing capable of many things, could be guilty of taking a bribe from a known criminal. For any commanding officer, discovering an officer under his command guilty of corruption was almost inevitably a stain on his own record, ignorance being rarely forgiven among the higher ranks of the Ministry. But now he was facing incontrovertible evidence that Rocco had been set up, and the possibility that he himself had been too easily led into believing the worst of a subordinate.

He walked around his office, trying to make sense of the thoughts swirling around in his head. How had this happened? One moment everything was proceeding smoothly, the next an unwelcome focus of attention was on him, evidenced by the extended volley of telephone calls from the Ministry demanding reports and updates on the events leading up to the attack on de Gaulle’s car, closely followed by the press requesting comments about the bank robbery at Bethune and rumours of an attack on an unnamed VIP at an unknown location.

Massin’s only meagre consolation was that sorting out the flow of paperwork and briefings over the next few days would probably be the only way of extending his stay here. After that…

He stopped suddenly. The station was down to a skeleton staff, all other available officers taking part in securing the scene of the attack, helping with the Bethune bank investigation or joining the hunt for the Englishmen. The building had been left as quiet as the morgue it did not yet possess.

Yet he’d heard a noise from along the corridor. It had come from the empty office; at least, the office which had been empty until Colonel Saint-Cloud had commandeered it for his temporary base. He’d thought the security man was long gone, hard on the heels of his master now that the visit and the drama were over, no doubt sharing the president’s relief at being back in the relative safety and comfort of Paris.

He walked along the corridor. If it was Saint-Cloud, he wanted to impress on him that Rocco was innocent; that no stain could therefore attach to his own position as commissaire. He felt almost ashamed at this instinct for self-interest, but it was too ingrained to change.

He stopped outside the office door and hesitated before entering. The security chief hadn’t heard him coming, and was unlocking a steel cabinet and taking out some papers Massin had seen him placing inside when he had first arrived. On the top were four buff folders tied with ribbon. He knew these contained details of groups and individuals opposing the president. Next came a small sheaf of papers he recognised as official travel expense sheets; he’d used them himself when attending conferences or training classes. Then a thick folder he had seen going into the drawer of Saint-Cloud the first day, when he had requested the full use of the office along with the only set of keys to the drawer. The folder, he had explained, was his personal operations manual which went everywhere with him; a personal quirk, he’d explained with unaccustomed reserve, which detailed everything to be done in the event of something catastrophic happening to the president. Massin even recalled Saint-Cloud saying that he rarely if ever looked at it, the contents committed to memory, but always close by just in case. Massin had read it at the time as a not-so-subtle reminder of the importance of Saint-Cloud’s office and a need for detailed procedure to be followed if necessary.

Saint-Cloud finally sensed his presence. He turned and looked at Massin with no degree of warmth.

‘I trust you have that man of yours in custody,’ he said curtly. ‘Actually, no.’ Massin stepped into the office and walked across to the window, trying to formulate his words in as confident a manner as he could without sounding deferential. Anything he said now could find its way back to the Ministry through this man’s lips, and he couldn’t afford any misunderstanding. He had enough to deal with as it was. He finally decided on directness. ‘You were wrong about Rocco,’ he said, face to the glass. ‘We were all wrong. He was set up. We — I — should have taken more time to investigate the circumstances before suspending him.’

‘Really?’ Saint-Cloud sounded supremely unconcerned, intent on his packing. ‘Well, if you choose to believe that, it’s up to you. I think the man is incompetent and a loose canon. You should have had him on a tighter rein.’

Massin felt his temper rise at the rebuke, and turned to face Saint-Cloud. ‘But how could I? You had him assigned to you by orders of the Ministry. Now you are saying I wasn’t controlling him?’

Saint-Cloud stopped what he was doing. Dropping a sheaf of papers into a box, he fastened his eyes on Massin. ‘Yes. If you’d had more balls, you could have refused to let him go. But you didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Unfortunately, you’ve always been something of a paper officer, haven’t you, Massin? Governed by rules and regulations like the St Cyr Academy swot that you always wanted to be.’ His mouth twisted with contempt. ‘You were a joke back then, did you know that? A little bootlicker who wanted to join the big boys. I hear you actually had the brass to apply midterm for a senior command post in Paris.’