Rocco waited for more. It sounded plausible, unless you considered that Didier had probably erased from his mind his own involvement over the years, lumping all the responsibility on the rich, powerful, well-connected Berbier, despoiler of the working masses. He’d no doubt been in awe of the man at first, with his exotic SOE cloak-and-dagger appearance. Maybe he still was.
‘So you had to disappear. But you didn’t lose touch with Berbier, did you? You decided to milk him.’
‘So what? He could afford it. It was only right.’ He shrugged. ‘It was fate. I saw his photo in the papers one day not long after the war
… realised who he was, who he’d been. I watched him making himself richer over the years. Kept in touch, though: a phone call here, a note there — just so he knew I was out there. Then he approached me. Said he’d acquired a place in the country where he wanted to hold parties for business contacts. Fat, rich sickos who liked to live it up away from home. People he wanted to influence. He couldn’t be involved, though: he needed me to run the place, be the fixer.’
The fall guy if anything went wrong, more likely, thought Rocco. Two birds with one stone. ‘He paid you for this service?’
‘Of course he did. Paid me well, too. Couldn’t not, could he? He thought I’d got proof of what he’d done with the Resistance group. I let him believe it, that’s all.’ Didier chuckled proudly, then coughed wetly, clutching at his chest. ‘All I had to do was manage the place, get it cleaned after each session and keep it stocked with stuff.’ He glanced up at Rocco. ‘You’ve seen inside?’
‘Yes. Sleazy as a Montmartre bordello. Where did the girls come from?’
‘His people arranged it. Young, fancy bitches from Paris, mostly, earning money on the side… or rather, on their backs. After a couple of sessions, I started taking notes. On the sly, of course. Big names, some of the people who came down here. Influential. Even a couple of — what do you call them? — civil servants. Grey drones in grey suits who probably couldn’t get it up any other way. Then I realised Berbier was doing the same, only using his driver with one of those movie cameras.’
Rocco nodded. He glanced at the film reel on the floor. It chimed with what the driver had said before he died: Berbier was the controller, using the lodge for his schemes, and Didier was the factotum who knew too much. It was the reason the men had been sent after Didier: a reel was missing. The man had gone too far; become a liability. The danger of the reel getting into the wrong hands had been too great to ignore.
‘He was going to use it for blackmail?’
‘Not for the first time.’ Didier took a deep breath, his chest rattling. ‘You think he got all those business deals because he was good at adding up? He’d got it planned. Or his mother had.’
Rocco pictured the haughty old woman in the Bois de Boulogne, and saw nothing in the image to counter the idea. She was undoubtedly an old snob and social climber, and probably ruthless in steering her son to her idea of greatness. Manoeuvring business and official contacts for advancement would have been as natural to her as breathing, as would keeping him at arm’s length from anything that might rebound on him. Hence the need for a middleman. Didier.
‘She’s a nasty cow,’ Didier continued. ‘I met her a couple of times. She treated me like something she’d picked up on her shoe. But she’s no better: the idea for the lodge was all hers.’
Rocco was no longer surprised. It fitted. Set up a party venue out in the sticks, invite a few ‘friends’ for the weekend to have a good time, send a couple of girls out, lots of booze… and a man with a camera. Most business types relied on a day at the races, theatre tickets, that kind of inducement. But this was a whole lot better. Risky, though, no matter how carefully Berbier kept his distance from the nasty stuff. If it ever went public that he’d used blackmail and sex to further his businesses, it would blow the lid off his empire along with a lot of important names in high places. The repercussions would be enormous.
Massin would have a fit of indecision.
‘Where did his daughter come in?’
Didier hawked and spat on the floor. The gobbet lay there, a sheen of bright red catching the light. He studied it for a moment, then said, ‘I didn’t know who she was at first. She was just a tart sent to join in the fun. One of them, anyway.’ His head dropped and he groaned faintly.
‘When did you find out?’
‘After a couple of visits. She told me who she was… it seemed to please her, like she was rubbing his name in the dirt.’
‘That must have gutted you, seeing her there: the daughter of a man you hated, who’d made it when you hadn’t.’ He said it with flat deliberation, twisting the knife that was already there.
Didier didn’t react. He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It meant nothing to me. She was just proof of how corrupt he was, him and his kind. In the end, I figured it was something else to bring him down.’
‘When did he find out she was coming here?’
Didier looked up. ‘He arranged it!’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Didier pulled a face. ‘Believe what you like — makes no odds to me. I heard a couple of guests talking. One was a fat bastard from the Interior Ministry; he had a thing for her… always had, apparently. Wanted to get in her pants. They like young girls, him and his sort.’
Rocco thought that was a bit rich. If what Francine had said was true, Didier wasn’t above showing an interest in young girls, either.
‘Go on.’ He needed to keep him talking, to draw out more facts. He didn’t think he had much time left.
‘Well, it’s obvious. Berbier was using her — his own daughter. It wasn’t the only time, either.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was rotten; not like him, though. He’s worse. He thought she was weak.’
‘What happened?’
‘To Nathalie?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She arrived that last time, and that was the last I saw of her… until I found her in the Blue Pool.’
The atmosphere in the small cellar was heavy, and Rocco tried to work out whether Didier was that good at lying, or whether he’d managed to convince himself of his innocence in this case, too, like the betrayal of the Resistance group. He waited, using the interrogation tactic of silence.
Eventually Didier continued. ‘One moment she was inside, the next she was out and gone. It was a noisy business, lots of drinking and stuff, people yelling. I think it got out of hand in the end, especially with the fat bastard chasing the girl. Eventually the guests cleared out and left me to fix up the place. There was some blood on the sheets upstairs… could have been the fat man.’
‘Does he have a name?’ Rocco wanted to track him down. Dispense some justice. Might be better if Massin did it.
‘No idea. His was one name I never got. Some were cagey like that; didn’t trust anyone.’
‘And the uniform?’
‘They liked the girls to dress up. It was an excuse to treat them like sluts.’
Rocco waited. But Didier seemed to be sinking fast, as if tired out by all the talking. He wondered how long the man could last. He already looked as though death was hovering on his shoulder, grinning in expectation.
‘So you didn’t kill her, the daughter of a man you hated?’
Didier’s head jerked. ‘No way! That’s not down to me. Him, yes — I’d gladly see him dead and buried. But you can’t lay that one on me.’
Rocco let it go. ‘But you placed her body in the cemetery.’
‘Well I couldn’t have the cops snooping around the marais, could I? This was my livelihood… my pot for the future. If the cops found the lodge and all that stuff, Berbier would have turned it all on me. I knew what he was capable of.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘As soon as she ran off. He went berserk.’
‘What happened?’ Rocco had to force himself to remain calm. He was within a whisker of finding out what had happened to Nathalie, he knew it. All he had to do was keep Didier talking.