Adrian Magson - Death on the Pont Noir

Massin, as shocked by the insulting tone of Saint-Cloud’s voice as the poisonous words, said, ‘How do you know that?’ He’d been assured that all such applications for transfers were in the strictest confidence and never revealed until a decision was made. He’d applied during a rush of dislike for this job and this place, anxious to get somewhere — anywhere — else. Since then, he’d had cause to rethink his application.

‘How do you think I know? I have the ear of certain people in the Ministry, that’s how. It comes with position and influence — but that’s something I doubt you’ll ever realise. Or maybe it’s because I have no stains on my record… unlike some.’

‘What… what do you mean?’ Massin’s voice sounded strangled, even to him. Saint-Cloud was touching on something buried deep, something shameful that should have been beyond the reaches of men like him. For a horrible moment he wondered about Rocco. Had the former army sergeant said something, finally breaking his silence? The risk had always been there, ever since he’d first set eyes on him at the cemetery outside Poissons, on his first morning in the job. It had been an unwelcome jolt to the gut but one he’d had to face up to, hoping Rocco would never speak of what he knew.

‘That business in Indochina; at Mong Khoua, wasn’t it? It’s common knowledge, of course, in certain quarters.’ His eyes flashed with spite and he added, ‘Little Francois Massin, the Academy poltron, shitting his pants in the middle of a battle. Hardly officer behaviour, was it?’

‘That’s outrageous!’ Massin’s face was white with fury and shame, his stomach gripped by the realisation that the past was no longer the forgotten secret he’d imagined. ‘Retract that immediately!’

‘I will do no such thing.’ Saint-Cloud stabbed a finger in the air before Massin’s face. ‘That is why you will never rise higher than commissaire of a backwater region based in a mud puddle like this one, Massin.’ He managed somehow to imbue the title of commissaire with all the gravitas of a minor public fonctionnaire or town hall paper shuffler.

For one awful second, Massin contemplated walking back to his office and picking up his service weapon. A single shot should do it, wiping the sneering ugliness from Saint-Cloud’s face for ever.

Then a sense of calm overcame him. Saint-Cloud didn’t know everything after all. Massin had never been to the fortified base of Mong Khoua, another senseless loss of men and position in a brutal war of attrition. Saint-Cloud was simply feeding on rumour to mount a vile attack. And if Rocco had talked, he would at least have got the detail correct.

He reined himself in. Suddenly he saw the way forward. He’d made a mistake. He had been so distracted… no, not that… in awe of Saint-Cloud’s position and his mission here, so blinded by the opportunity of what the president’s visit might mean for himself, that he’d been ready to doubt one of his own officers at the first accusation.

He took a deep breath. An apology to Rocco could never be enough. He still resented being dragged off that distant battlefield — even Rocco would be able to understand that indignity, no matter what the reason — but he was forced to recognise that he had been weak at the wrong moment when he should have been strong. For Rocco’s sake and his own.

He turned to leave, walking past the cabinet Saint-Cloud had been emptying. As he did so, he noticed a folded map in the very bottom of the drawer. It was of a stretch of open countryside, the detail too small to be certain of its location, but clearly a rural area. A red mark had been made on the map, drawing his eye. Next to it was a heavy dark line beneath two words he had come to recognise all too well… but only in the last twenty-four hours.

Pont Noir.

‘In the name of God, he’s got to be down there somewhere. And where’s Alix?’

Rocco said nothing. Claude was talking to himself and breathing heavily. But it wasn’t from the climb; his concerns for his daughter, Alix, were growing by the minute, and so far they had seen no sign of her or Tasker.

After hearing the shot earlier, Rocco, Claude, Desmoulins and Godard’s men had spread out through the village, trying to determine where it had come from. But sound behaved oddly among the cluster of houses, and nobody could venture a definite origin without some element of doubt. It was enough for Rocco to order everyone to stay back. The last thing he wanted was to give Tasker any easy targets.

Working on the basis that Tasker knew where he lived, Rocco and Claude had made their way up to the grotto to St Paul, which stood on a hill overlooking the village. A man-made cave attended by a statue of the Virgin Mary and three angels, the grotto was rarely used now but gave an ideal vantage point of the area around Rocco’s house.

If Tasker had made his way down the lane, there were few places of concealment and it should be easy enough to spot him from here.

But so far there was nothing. Nothing, that is, Rocco realised with a feeling of dread, other than the body of a man lying in the middle of the lane. Dressed in workman’s blues and a heavy canvas trench coat, he was fifty metres away from Rocco’s house. A bicycle lay nearby, one wheel spinning slowly. He must have been riding down the lane and had been unlucky enough to bump into Tasker. That had been the origin of the gunshot.

Rocco scanned the body through a pair of binoculars. There was no way of telling from here whether he was alive or dead. What he actually wanted to do was charge down there with the Walther in his hand and make Tasker break cover. But apart from the danger to Alix and probably Mme Denis, that would be a short form of suicide. Instead, he clamped down on his impatience and worked on figuring out how to winkle the Englishman from wherever he was hiding.

He saw movement. At first he thought it was a trick of the light caused by the haze of smoke from chimney fires drifting across the village. But it was the man in the lane stirring. He looked around, then rolled quickly away to the cover of a farm building, where he sat shaking his head.

‘It’s old Antoine,’ said Claude, seeing the man’s face. ‘He lives in Danvillers. He comes here once a week for supplies.’

‘It’s his lucky day, then,’ Rocco observed.

‘Really? How do you make that out?’

‘Because he’s still alive.’

The old man was studying his canvas coat with obvious consternation. The front looked torn, but the heavy fabric must have resisted the worst of Tasker’s gunshot. Rocco glanced towards the village square, where his Traction stood across the road, blocking any exit. Godard’s men were visible, ferrying people out of the way, gradually drawing them out of their houses to reduce the chances of Tasker latching onto potential hostages.

‘Lucas — there!’ Claude grabbed his shoulder and pointed. There was movement at the rear of Rocco’s house. Two figures appeared, one slight, the other tall and bulky, imposing, even at this distance.

It was Tasker. And Alix. The Englishman towered over her with one big hand clamped on her shoulder.

Then he brought his other hand into view, and Rocco’s gut went cold. In his free hand he was holding the stubby shape of a sawn-off shotgun or lupara as it was known among Sicilian gangsters. It was a frightening weapon up close and indiscriminate in the wide spread of the shot from its barrels. And he was now holding the gun pointed at Alix’s head.

‘Putain!’ Claude swore, and made to stand up. But Rocco reached out and held him down. A frontal assault was impossible. Tasker had the upper hand. For now.

Tasker looked up the slope, his eyes seeming to drill right into Rocco’s as if he knew the effect the gun was having on him. He shouted something, the sound carrying up the hill, but not clear enough to distinguish the words.