This time it would be different. By 6 a.m. the next morning Martin and Isobel had met up in a local schoolroom with her young colleague, Philippe, and an armed group of DCRI officers. In support were a team of gendarmes, under the command of Inspector Cambery from Cahors.
The estate had been recce’d by plain clothes officers the day before, and Isobel showed the team the pictures they’d taken as well as some Google aerial views of the nearly one hundred acres, with barns and stone outbuildings. She said that as far as was known there were about thirty people living there, including women and children. Concluding the briefing, she said, ‘It is very hard to say what we will be encountering at Le Barbot. I hope there will be no violence but we think there are arms and possibly explosives hidden somewhere on the estate. Our purpose is to find and remove them. We need to identify everyone present; arrest anyone who resists. Our particular targets, who should be arrested on sight, are the ringleaders, René and Antoine.’ She passed around photographs of the two men. Antoine’s picture, Martin noted, was a police mug shot.
They drove in convoy, led by Inspector Cambery and his team in a police van. A bolt cutter soon disposed of the chain on the gate and the convoy drove along the rough track that led to the front of the house. The drive ended in a circle of mud and sparse gravel on which a VW camper van was parked next to a C2 Citroën. The police van came to a halt, blocking the exit route for any vehicle.
Cambery lifted the tarnished brass knocker on the front door and let it fall with a resounding bang. Silence from within. After thirty seconds, he banged the knocker down again. When he was about to lift it for a third time, the door began to open and they found themselves face to face with a small boy, not much taller than the handle he had managed to turn.
‘Bonjour,’ he said brightly. ‘I am Fabrice.’
‘Are your parents here, Fabrice?’ asked Cambery and the boy nodded. ‘Go and get them for me, will you? There’s a good boy.’ He turned and ran up the dilapidated staircase while Cambery stepped into the hall and motioned his men to follow. Meanwhile, Isobel, Philippe and the DCRI team fanned out to search the estate.
When they were all inside, Cambery issued orders. ‘Mauriac,’ he said, pointing at one of his men, ‘stay here and guard the front door. No one is to leave the house.’ Two more men were despatched to the rear to guard any other exits, and two were sent upstairs to check all the rooms. ‘I want everyone down here in the hall. They can get dressed later; don’t let them dawdle. Get their names and particulars.’
In less than ten minutes a motley collection had assembled, some in night clothes, some wrapped in blankets, and a few in hastily thrown-on clothes. There must have been twenty-five of them, thought Martin, watching as one of the policemen, now carrying a clipboard, went to each resident in turn, taking down their names and details. Half of them were women, and there were three or four small children as well as Fabrice. Seurat noticed Philippe’s agent Marcel standing at the rear, along with a young woman who must have been his partner. But there was no sign of Antoine or René.
‘Inspector,’ he said to Cambery, who was supervising the small crowd. ‘Their leader is not here. Nor his sidekick Antoine.’
Cambery raised an eyebrow. ‘If they’re hiding in the house we’ll find them. My men are very thorough.’
But Martin was not satisfied. He walked down the hall and stopped in front of the man standing next to Marcel. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.
The man started, his fright obvious. ‘Aubisson, Monsieur.’
Martin nodded and turned to Marcel. ‘And yours?’ he barked.
‘Jacob. Marcel Jacob, Monsieur.’
‘Come and show me the rest of this floor.’ And Martin opened a door that led into the drawing room off the corridor. Once inside he turned to Marcel who had followed him in. ‘Where is René?’ he asked quickly.
‘I don’t know. He was here last night.’
‘And Antoine?’
‘He left the day before yesterday on some errand.’
‘Okay. You’d better go back and join the others.’
The drawing room faced the rear of the house, looking out on to what must once have been grand formal gardens. Martin opened the French doors, stepped out on to a paved terrace and walked along the rear of the house until he came to the back door, where he found one of the policemen on guard. ‘Has anyone tried to come through this way?’ he asked.
‘No, Monsieur. There was a woman in the kitchen making breakfast, but she was told to join the others.’
‘And you’ve seen no one else?’
The policeman shook his head. Martin was about to go inside again when the officer added, ‘Except for the milkman. But that’s all.’
‘The milkman? When was that?’
‘Just after we arrived. He was coming out of the kitchen.’
‘How do you know he was a milkman?’
The policeman looked at him strangely. ‘He was carrying the empty bottles, Monsieur. And he had a milkman’s apron on.’
‘Then where is the milk float?’ demanded Martin, his voice rising.
The policeman pointed across the back gardens. ‘He left it on the other side of those trees. He said the track this side’s too overgrown to drive along it.’
‘Merde!’ said Martin, and ran across the lawn. Ahead of him he saw where the vestigial lines of a track went through the trees. He followed it until the wood ended at a large field of melons, small and unripe this early in the year. Peering across the field to the road, he wondered if René had made a run for it that way. Probably not: the little wood he had just come through was in fact a dense untended copse, full of brambles and bushy undergrowth – and full of hiding places he thought. They might search all day and never find the man.
He was looking around hopelessly when his eye caught a flash of white on the ground, underneath a bush about forty yards from where he was standing. As he drew closer, he saw that it was a piece of cloth – a bit of sheet, perhaps, or a scrap of torn shirt. He knelt down and tugged at it – it was a crumpled apron. Further inspection revealed a metal crate containing six empty milk bottles, one of them smashed.
He was standing up when a voice said, ‘Put your hands in the air. Slowly… very slowly. Then turn around. If you do anything stupid – anything that even looks stupid – I will shoot you.’
Martin did as he was told. Turning, he found himself facing a thirty-ish man in a white T-shirt and khaki combat trousers. René. Martin recognised him from the photographs. He stood about five feet away, holding an automatic pistol.
‘I’m no great marksman,’ said René, ‘but at this range even I won’t miss.’
Martin nodded to show he had no intention of trying anything on. He only hoped the others would come soon. But would they? Isobel and her team might be anywhere on the estate, and Cambery and his policemen were occupied in the house.
‘You won’t get very far, you know,’ said Martin, in his most assured tone.
‘Perhaps, though I think they will be busy in the house for a while yet. There are quite a lot of us to count off.’
‘But it’s you they’re most interested in.’
‘Really?’ René seemed pleased by this, but then his tone changed. ‘What do they want anyway? We aren’t doing any harm.’
‘Not yet, you mean. And if you’re so peaceful, what are you doing carrying that?’ He nodded at the gun.
‘It’s a good thing I have it, or I’d be having this conversation with handcuffs on. As it is, your presence creates a bit of a problem.’