Adrian Magson - Death on the Marais

He breathed deeply and checked his gun. Took out a spare ammunition clip. Then he walked out of the cemetery and started up the track towards the wood. The ground here was deeply rutted and hard, and he stayed to one side, ready to throw himself down by the cemetery wall if Didier appeared. He realised that he was still wearing the rubber boots; hardly the best gear for a manhunt, but he doubted it would matter much, not once he was among the trees. He tried telling himself that coming here alone was stupid, that he should wait for help to arrive from Amiens. But deep inside he knew it would take too long. If Didier got away from here, they’d never find him again. He heard a car engine and turned. The black DS had passed the station and was barrelling along the road towards the cemetery, kicking up a furious cloud of dust in its wake. It showed no signs of stopping for the main road.

Rocco now had no choice. Going back to lead them away was no longer an option. They would be on him before he could get back to the road, and even if he got that far, their car was far more powerful and would soon overhaul him in a chase.

He turned and jogged up the track into the trees, and whatever was waiting for him.

Francois Massin put down his phone with a trembling hand. He hadn’t been expecting the call from Berbier, still less had he been quick enough to deal with the man in the way he would have liked. But as the voice had dripped like acid into his ear, part cajoling, part threatening, laying out in carefully camouflaged terms what his future might be — would be if he wasn’t able to appreciate the ‘delicacy’ of the situation — he had begun to feel a deep anger building inside him.

He stood up and walked around his office, uncertain about what his immediate response should be. He had few friends in the senior ranks of the police service — mostly his fault, he acknowledged that, and there was little he could do about it now. But right now he could have done with some wise advice on how to handle internal politics. Being threatened by the likes of Philippe Bayer-Berbier, even in the subtle, ‘friendly’ tones the man had employed, was something he had never faced before. Yet he was all too aware of the enormous power the man wielded among the ranks of senior policemen and politicians — men who could decide Massin’s fate at the snap of a finger. In a straight test of wills, he would be no match for that kind of influence.

He found himself standing before the photo of his younger self in uniform. So proud, he recalled his feelings at the time. So intense. And so determined to redeem himself and regain some of the self-respect he’d lost in the army.

And now this. He shook his head. He’d be an idiot to go up against Berbier, no matter what Rocco said the photo suggested. It would be professional suicide. He’d have no allies, no backing and would become a pariah with no fate but a lonely, humiliating resignation and a disappearance into obscurity.

It was not the ending he had envisaged for himself. And with that thought, he hated himself more than at any time in his life.

A knock sounded at his door. He straightened his shoulders and called, ‘Come in.’

It was Desmoulins, looking flushed. Captain Canet hovered behind him, face tense.

‘Urgent call from Poissons, sir,’ said Desmoulins. ‘Officer under threat. The missing woman has been found and there’s been gunfire… several armed men are in pursuit of Inspector Rocco.’

‘What?’ Massin stepped towards the two officers. ‘What men?’

‘That’s not clear, sir. One of them — the kidnapper — is Marthe, the man from the hospital. The caller said the others look like ex-military. Rocco’s been forced to go to ground in the local marais.’

Massin turned away in a moment of indecision. Ex-military men who were prepared to go up against the police? Impossible, surely. What if Rocco had stumbled on some kind of official operation? Careers could be fatally damaged if the wrong response was made. Yet if it was true, and the men were not part of the state, then it boded ill if it was allowed to go unchallenged. He glanced at the photo on the wall. He hadn’t done much to be proud of since those days. Now he was embroiled in a battle of wills with an enemy he could hardly see, let alone fight.

‘Sir?’ Canet prompted him. ‘The lads are ready to go. Your orders?’

Massin turned. Desmoulins had his service weapon strapped on and a bunch of car keys in his hand. Canet, too, was armed and looked ready for action, his eyes bright. Behind them in the corridor, he sensed the presence of others.

He nodded. Maybe this would be a new start. If not, he could deal with his future later.

‘You’d better get them moving, then, hadn’t you?’

Rocco felt chilled. Stepping into the trees had been like walking into one of the giant cold rooms used by meat wholesalers in Les Halles, in Paris. Thirty paces into the wood had taken him out of the light and into a world of shadows and shifting vegetation. He stood still and waited. As long as he stayed low on the slope and off the skyline, and wasn’t silhouetted against the outside, he should be safe. He shivered, in spite of his coat, and sank to his knees, listening for the faintest sound of movement, of anything alien.

The quiet here was almost crypt-like. Barely a whisper penetrated from the outside, and if the men approaching up the track were still in their car, he couldn’t hear the engine. He realised the advantage Didier would have in this landscape. The scrap man would be in his element: he knew the terrain like the back of his hand. To anyone else, it was a hostile environment.

Something hard and unyielding was digging into Rocco’s left knee. He shifted his weight and looked down. A shape too uniform to be natural lay half-buried in the leaves and weeds. He shrank back, his gut going cold as he made out the familiar nose of a large artillery shell. He had no idea of the size, only that it had probably been designed to take out an enemy fortification or bury the occupants of a trench where they stood.

He lifted his knee and backed away, his thigh and back muscles protesting at having to move so slowly and carefully, stepping from one clear spot to another. It was all a gamble, he knew; God alone knew what he was treading on here. Most of the stuff had probably been buried deep, but over the years had risen gradually to the surface as the trees and vegetation grew and the elements flushed through, breaking up the surface soil and allowing the subsoil to yield up its deadly secrets.

The harsh whine of an engine penetrated the wood as it tore up the track at speed. The DS driver was making no attempt at subtlety, and Rocco heard a hollow crump as the Citroen’s soft suspension bottomed in one of the many deep ruts.

He stayed where he was, breathing easily, confident that he couldn’t be seen — at least, not by the gunmen. The thought made him want to spin round and search the immediate area for signs of Didier, but he resisted it. If the men came charging in here, they would be moving from light into shadow, fuelled by adrenalin and the desire to take him out as quickly as possible. Their vision would be slow to adjust and their control diminished, giving him ample time to identify the threat and move away.

As it would Didier.

As if on cue, a crackle came from deep in the wood to his rear. Rocco turned his head slowly, and was immediately rushed back to a time and place where every bush harboured an enemy, where sudden movement was to invite a rattle of automatic fire or a tripwire-linked explosion. He swallowed, his mouth dry, and felt a familiar tremble in his calves. For him, it had always been the legs, he remembered. For some men in the moments immediately before battle, it had been the hands shaking or the eyes flickering uncontrollably. For others it had been dark humour and dry laughter. Each had covered their own minor betrayals by gripping their weapons tighter, by thrusting their hands under their arms or simply by shutting their eyes and mouths and praying. In his case he had waited it out, because sooner or later it had always stopped.