Death on the Pont Noir (26 page)

In Amiens,
Commissaire
Massin put down the phone from talking to Captain Santer and drew a deep breath. He had a sudden urge to be sick.

The story Santer had just told him had confirmed his wildest fears, and put him in the worst kind of dilemma. He was now in possession of numerous anecdotes, suppositions and allegations, all pointing towards a conspiracy inside the presidential security apparatus. A conspiracy to assassinate France’s head of state.

He could barely believe it. Yet it was all so simple. And most of what he had heard would be sufficient for any ordinary man to find impossible to explain away, such was the collection of facts.

But Colonel Jean-Philippe Saint-Cloud was about as far from being an ordinary man as a person could get. He had the ear of the president and his colleagues, he was in the confidence of the highest men in the Ministry of the
Interior, he worked hand in glove with the most influential members of the country’s security apparatus. His word carried weight and authority that was almost unrivalled anywhere.

In a word, he was untouchable.

Or was he?

Massin weighed up the risk of doing nothing; of sitting here and accepting that he had insufficient hard evidence to take action; that Saint-Cloud’s word and position and background trumped anything and everything he had heard so far. Sitting here would be easy. Forgetting what he’d heard would soon go away, brushed beneath the carpet of quiet convenience protecting the state apparatus.

But he knew that he wouldn’t forget, and neither would Rocco. And instinct told him that everything he’d heard was true and that his conclusions could not be faulted: Colonel Saint-Cloud, the president’s chief security officer, had conspired out of a sense of fury and resentment to kill de Gaulle, using a disparate chain of disenchanted ex-soldiers, OAS killers, English gangsters and men hired by the Paris gang lord, Patrice Delarue.

It sounded crazy, even now. Yet impossible to ignore. But there was something else driving Massin; something almost intangible that would never find its way into any court of law, because it would be viewed with ridicule and derision. Except by him.

He would never be able to forget the insults
Saint-Cloud
had thrown at him as long as the man walked free.

The telephone rang, the harsh jangle unsettling his nerves. He ignored it. Most likely the Ministry or one of any number of people with a drum to beat.

Massin stood up and straightened his uniform. Picked up his revolver and went to the door. Pulled it open.

Colonel Saint-Cloud was standing outside.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ Saint-Cloud murmured. ‘Shoot someone?’

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Massin replied. ‘Do you have any candidates?’

His response seemed to take Saint-Cloud by surprise, and almost without realising it, he stepped up close to the security officer, forcing him to move backwards. It was a tiny, maybe symbolic victory of wills, and he wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to follow it up by simply pulling the trigger and having done with it. It would be an inglorious end to his own career, but at least he would gain a momentary satisfaction from it.

Saint-Cloud didn’t reply, so Massin said, ‘How long has the Pont Noir visit been known about?’

‘It hasn’t. I told you.’

‘Really? But the British office in Arras knew. They were waiting for a date.’

‘That’s rubbish. It was probably wishful thinking on their part.’ Saint-Cloud looked unsettled, as if caught off guard. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Because I want to know how de Gaulle ends up on a near-deserted stretch of road in the middle of open country with no support team and no notification from you to this office.’ He breathed heavily with a rush of certainty. ‘The Ministry is also puzzled because they didn’t know about it, either.’

The security man’s face flushed with irritation. ‘For God’s sake, man, the president is not a slave to the Ministry or anyone else. He often moves without prior notice.’

‘So you’re saying he chose, on the spur of the moment, to come down here and all without telling you – his head of security? I find that surprising.’

‘Do you?’ Saint-Cloud took a deep breath. ‘Maybe if you had worked with him for as long as I have, you would not be … surprised.’ He flapped a vague hand, twin spots of red appearing on his cheeks.

‘So Pont Noir meant nothing to you before you came here?’

‘How could it? Until that idiot Rocco came to me with his ridiculous supposition, I’d never heard of the place.’

‘Yet he was correct, wasn’t he? In every detail. It wasn’t so ridiculous after all.’

‘Clearly because he knew something I did not.’
Saint-Cloud’s
voice snapped, and he glanced down at the gun in Massin’s hand. ‘I cannot stay here arguing all day. I have to get back to Paris.’

Massin watched him turn away, feeling his control of the situation beginning to fade. Maybe he’d made a horrendous
mistake after all. Maybe Saint-Cloud hadn’t known, left out of the loop by his boss and principal. But that didn’t make sense. He forced himself to try one last thing.

‘You have a map in your office. It’s in the drawer of the cabinet and Pont Noir is clearly marked. I saw it just now.’

Saint-Cloud shrugged without turning back. ‘Rocco must have put it there in an effort to place any suspicions elsewhere.’

‘Really. So if I contact Paul Comiti, who I’m sure was in the president’s car today, he will tell me that this visit was completely unknown … even to you?’

The mention of the chief of the bodyguard quartet that accompanied de Gaulle every step he took seemed to have a paralysing effect on Saint-Cloud. He stopped dead, shoulders stiffening. His head dropped, and he turned round to face Massin and walked back.

He was now holding a gun.

‘You loathsome little cretin!’ he shouted. ‘How dare you question me!’ His eyes flickered as if the light inside was faulty, and his mouth trembled, his lips curling with hatred and rage. ‘Why could you not leave well alone?
Imbecile
!
Do you not see that this country is on the road to hell … that we once had an army which is now being emasculated?’ He threw his head back. ‘Of course, with men like you in charge, what can good people expect?’

Massin nodded, suddenly seeing with great clarity what this had all been about. What was driving
Saint-Cloud
and others like him. ‘The army? Do you mean the army generally … or the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment in particular? Is that what this is about – revenge for a disbanded regiment?’

There was a moment when Massin thought he’d gone too far. Saint-Cloud’s finger went white around the trigger and his face appeared to swell with indignation. He tensed, waiting for the arrival of oblivion, and wished he’d taken more decisive action instead of pushing the man like this. After all, who was there here to listen?

But Saint-Cloud hadn’t finished. His voice came out softly. ‘That wasn’t enough? A once proud regiment reduced to ignominy … a regiment that had shed the blood of its officers and men for this country – and for what? To be overrun by foreigners and weaklings and … governed by vainglorious fools. Yes, that’s what this is about, Massin. I would see that vile man dead for what he has done to us!’ He sneered. ‘But how would you know? You’re a failed soldier and a failed country policeman. What would you know of tradition or honour?’

‘Evidently more than you. What about Captain Lamy – was he part of this, too? Another parachute regiment sympathiser?’

‘Lamy?’ Saint-Cloud looked puzzled, then waved a hand. ‘Lamy was an opportunist who blew with the wind. He even thought he could take my job. He knew about my affiliations with past members of the regiment and threatened to tell the authorities. I had to get him out of the way.’

Massin recalled what Santer had told him about the attack at Guignes, and why Lamy had been involved. ‘You set him up. You used his brother and Delarue to get him on board, then fed the group false information about the car. They thought the president was on board because you told them he was. Just to get rid of Lamy.’

‘Prove it.’

‘Put down the gun, Colonel,’ Massin said softly, and raised his own weapon. His hand was shaking, but even he couldn’t miss from here.

But Saint-Cloud moved even quicker, stepping right up to Massin and raising his own gun. He placed it against Massin’s forehead, between his eyes.

As the cold, hard tip of the gun barrel ground into his skin, Massin felt his every nerve screaming at him to move away from what was surely coming. But he couldn’t. He was rooted to the spot. He wondered, was this what real terror was like? Bringing you to a point where you accepted death because you couldn’t do anything else?

Instead, he found his voice and said, ‘Put it down, or I will shoot you.’ And took up the slack in his trigger.

Saint-Cloud laughed out loud, a fine spray of saliva touching Massin’s face. Up close, his eyes looked distanced, somehow, as if seeing things from a long way away, and Massin realised the man had lost his mind. ‘You haven’t got the courage, Massin. You’re a sheep. You won’t shoot me.’

‘He might not, but I will.’

It was Rocco, standing at the end of the corridor, tall, dark and resolute, his eyes as cold as death. Behind him stood Desmoulins and Dr Rizzotti, their expressions deep in shock at what they had heard.

‘You’re no longer the presidential security chief, are you?’ said Rocco. ‘You haven’t been for a while. Put the gun down.’

‘He’s what?’ Massin blinked hard.

Saint-Cloud turned his head, his concentration broken. He frowned as if unsure of what had just happened, then looked back at Massin.

But the
commissaire
had stepped sideways and was now pointing his gun at Saint-Cloud’s head, his face set.

The former security officer was stranded and knew it. He must have also known that his last words had been perfectly audible to the three men at the end of the corridor, and he had no way out.

Slowly, he lowered his pistol. ‘So be it, gentlemen.’ He looked at them one by one and said contemptuously, ‘The game is played, it seems. Forgive me if I do not stay to sing “La Marseillaise”; I wish you well in your rotten Utopia.’

He gave a final withering look at Massin, then turned and walked away down the corridor, back rigid, his gun held down by his side. When he reached the office he’d been using, he stepped inside and closed the door.

Rocco started along the corridor after him, but Massin stopped him.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I will do this—’

The gunshot was shockingly loud, sending a tremor through the glass panels in the office doors. A pigeon clattered away from the window sill in Massin’s office, and someone shouted in the distance. Booted feet began pounding up the stairs towards them.

Rocco breathed deeply and looked at Massin. ‘So he gets away with it. What’ll it be – a military funeral with full honours?’

Massin shook his head and waved back two officers who appeared at the far end of the corridor with drawn weapons. ‘He gets away with nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘Nor
will any of the others involved in this business, including the criminal, Delarue. I will personally see to that.’

There was something in Massin’s tone that Rocco hadn’t heard before, and he wondered what had taken place here between the two officers before he, Desmoulins and Rizzotti had arrived.

He would probably never know. He watched as Rizzotti, accompanied by Desmoulins, walked past and opened the door to Saint-Cloud’s office. After a few seconds, Desmoulins came out again and shook his head.

Rocco decided to make his escape for a while. He said to Massin, ‘Do you need me for anything? Only I could really do with a strong coffee and cognac.’

‘Of course. You deserve it.’ Massin gestured at the radio loudspeaker chattering away quietly in his office and said, ‘I understand the man Calloway is talking.’

‘Yes. I think he knows a lot more than he’s saying. He’ll try to barter his way out of trouble.’

‘That might prove useful. At least you managed to bring one of them back alive,’ Massin ghosted a smile, ‘which is somehow reassuring.’ He turned to go, then said, ‘When you come back, perhaps you could step in to my office and collect your badge and gun. You’ll be needing them.’

With grateful thanks to Maggie Needham of Brackley photographic, for proving old technology did work; to Susie and everyone at Allison & Busby, for their continued belief in Rocco; and to David Headley, for his ongoing advice and support. Another team effort.

A
DRIAN
M
AGSON
began writing short fiction and features for women’s magazines, contributing over the years to publications in the UK, US, Scandinavia, Japan and Australia. As well as writing comedy material and stories for BBC radio, he also turned to writing crime thrillers, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award. Since then he has gone on to have several crime thrillers published and is a regular contributor to
Writing Magazine
.

www.adrianmagson.com

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