CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rocco took a direct route down the hill, his shoes skidding on the unofficial path worn by generations of kids sliding down across the chalky soil. He was puzzled by the young woman’s sudden disappearance. He came out on the road leading down to the square, half-expecting to see her walking down the hill towards him. Instead, he saw a cream-coloured Peugeot 403 driving away. It had the local departement licence plates, he noticed, and a sticker in the back window advertising last year’s 14 ^ th July gala in Amiens.
The driver was a woman wearing a headscarf.
He walked home, mulling over what had been, on the surface at least, a banal conversation, a pleasant but uneventful meeting between strangers willing to idle away a few minutes. Yet Rocco had an ear for the unusual, just as a music teacher might have an ear for an instrument slightly out of tune. He couldn’t think of what it was specifically, only that something in what the woman had said had sounded off. And why had she taken off so abruptly?
He checked his watch as he entered the house. It was gone nine. Time to find out if anything about the dead man had come in overnight. First, though, he wanted to check something else. He picked up the telephone and got through to detective Desmoulins, and gave him instructions, saying he would be in later. After that, he rang Claude, Poisson’s font of all local knowledge, rumour or fact. Sometimes asking questions on your own doorstep led to the blindingly obvious.
‘You know anyone around here who owns a cream Peugeot four-O-three?’ he asked. ‘About four years old?’
‘Plenty of those,’ Claude replied, and Rocco’s spirits sank. The English had a saying about the impossibility of looking for a needle in a haystack, and he realised this was a fine example. ‘Not a bad car in its day,’ Claude continued knowledgeably, ‘but a bit underpowered and corners like a pregnant hippo. I borrowed one once; put me off for life. Why do you ask?’
Rocco made up some vague explanation and rang off before Claude could grill him further. Admitting that he was trying to find out the identity of an attractive stranger he’d spoken to at the grotto would be like taking out an advert in the local paper. If he thought there was a possibility of romance in the air, Claude would lay waste to the entire region.
He drove to Amiens and found Detective Desmoulins pinning up a black and white photograph of the dead man on the office noticeboard. A stack of copies stood on a table nearby, ready for distribution to the duty patrols. He picked one up and studied it. Rizzotti had done a good job; the man’s face looked puffy, but no more than it might have done after a heavy Saturday-night drinking session.
Desmoulins waved a bunch of car registration documents at him. ‘I checked the local registrations, and that car was sold three months ago to a dealer for cash in a house clearance. The previous owner was deceased, no family. There’s been no re-registration of ownership since, so I was just checking the latest batch received to see if anything new had come in.’
‘Which dealer?’
‘Moteurs Gondrand on the Abbeville Road. It’s the biggest in the area… but count your fingers if you speak to Michel, the son.’ He looked hopeful. ‘Want me to have a quiet word? I know Victor, the old man. He’s a bit dodgy, too, but he knows what’s good for him.’
Rocco shook his head. He couldn’t justify taking up the detective’s valuable time on a matter of idle curiosity. If Massin found out, he’d have both their kidneys on a plate, and he had no intention of giving the officer that pleasure. ‘No. I’d rather get a team organised to start trawling factories and foreign residents with copies of the photo to see if we can identify the body from the canal.’
‘Right. I’ll speak to Captain Canet and ask him if he can assign some of his boys to it. You think the dead guy came from Amiens?’
‘I doubt it. But we have to start somewhere.’ He explained about the sandal being unusual footwear for the region, and the details uncovered at the canal pointing towards the body having been dumped off the parapet after being taken from a truck or a car. ‘It’s thin, I know, but we work with what we’ve got, right?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Can you handle the briefing to Canet and his men?’ He should have done it himself, but Desmoulins was good at his job and needed the exposure.
‘Will do.’ Desmoulins frowned. ‘Whoever dumped the body must have stopped for a few minutes at least. Somebody might have seen the vehicle.’
‘Long shot, but a good point. I’ll deal with that.’ He was thinking about Claude and his contacts throughout the area. The uniforms, as well intentioned and effective as they were, would find making progress outside the town very difficult. Viewing visiting policemen with suspicion did not help unlock people’s memories or their willingness to help. The garde champetre, however, was already part of the community and would be more likely to turn up something useful.
Desmoulins pursed his lips. ‘I’ll get a bunch of men on it around town. It shouldn’t take too long to cover all the usual places.’ He grinned sharply. ‘I could put Tourrain on it; that would spoil his day.’
‘Good idea — if you want the job done badly.’
He rang Claude and put him on asking around for any sightings of a truck or van over the nights prior to the body being pulled from the canal, especially along the road near the parapet. It was, as he’d said to Desmoulins, a long shot, but worth a try.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rocco headed out on the Abbeville road and soon arrived at the Gondrand dealership, an oasis of brightness in a drab line of houses and small businesses. It stood on an extensive patch of gravelled ground with a small office building at one end and streamers fluttering from poles like a circus event. There were some two dozen cars of every description on view, and the impression Rocco got was that Gondrand had taken the American high-volume approach to car sales, with lots of glitz and gleaming paintwork to draw in the customers.
Inside the front office a man in a dark blazer was leafing through a calendar showing smiling women in scant costumes, his feet up on the desk. When he saw Rocco, he tossed the calendar to one side, patently beyond embarrassment, and stood up without haste. He eyed Rocco’s clothes with a commercial gleam in his eye and a professional smile sliding into place.
The younger Gondrand, Rocco decided. He was close-shaven, skin shiny and soft-looking. Pampered.
‘Your father in?’ Rocco asked.
‘Maybe. Who’s asking?’
‘Police.’
‘Right.’ The gleam disappeared and a blank mask dropped down in its place. ‘Well, I’m in charge of day-to-day operations here. What’s it about, Sergeant…?’
‘Inspector. And your father would be fine.’
Gondrand nodded and seemed about to argue, but turned and went through a door at the end of the room. He returned seconds later, visibly annoyed, with an older and fleshier version of himself in tow.
‘Inspector Rocco, isn’t it?’ said Victor Gondrand. He beckoned Rocco to follow him inside and gave his son a steely look, closing the door firmly and indicating a visitor’s chair. The office was small and neat, with little clutter, the domain, Rocco decided, of a professional businessman. And no girlie calendars.
‘How do you know my name?’ queried Rocco.
Victor smiled. ‘It’s good manners, Inspector. It’s not a huge town, so it makes sense to at least know who I might be dealing with, especially a business like ours.’ He sat down, but not behind his desk. Instead, he dragged up a second visitor’s chair and sat near Rocco. ‘What can I do for you? I take it you don’t want to buy a car.’ He glanced out through a small window looking out on the front of the lot, where Rocco’s Citroen was parked.
Rocco decided that this was one Gondrand he might get to like. ‘I’m looking for the driver of a Peugeot four-O-three,’ he explained, and listed the details.