Pel And The Prowler

One

The first rays of light were touching the spires of the city’s churches – Notre Dame, St Michel, St Jean, St Philibert, Ste Odile, Sacré Coeur, and all the others – catching the high roofs of the Palais des Ducs and filtering slowly towards the Porte Guillaume and the Place de la Libération. The first cars appeared and the first cyclists began to head towards the university or the Industrial Zone. In the Cimitière des Pejoces an old man in blue overalls hauled a barrow from a wooden shed and set off between the tombs. Under the trees down the Cours Général de Gaulle the mist began to disperse as a bus trudged slowly towards the city, trailing a cloud of blue smoke. In the narrow streets in the Rue de Rouen area north of the city centre, the first cafés and bars had opened and early workers were leaning on the zinc counters to take a coffee and rum to combat the chill. It wasn’t yet winter but the mornings were already cool enough to demand warm clothing.

Finishing his roll and coffee, the small man in the Bar des Chevaux zipped up his windcheater and limped out of the fog of cigarette smoke. Heading for the small premises he maintained in a yard at the back of the Rue d’Enfer, he moved slowly along the narrow streets of tall narrow-gutted houses. He had been passing down these same streets for thirty years now, never making much money at his work but always managing to live.

As he limped along, people who had passed him at the same time and the same place every day nodded a greeting. Reaching his place of business, he turned into the narrow alley between the houses that led to the yard where his workshop was situated. The entrance to the alley contained a coca-cola bottle, a beer can and the crumpled sheets of an abandoned newspaper that had drifted in on the breeze during the night. He pushed them aside with his foot, irritated at the thoughtlessness of people who could live in what was one of the most beautiful cities in France yet could destroy it with their litter.

It was still dark in the alley and he stopped as he became aware of someone lying in the shadows at the far end. A drunk, he decided. Drunks often chose the alley for a night’s sleep and, though they were usually quiet enough and simply heaved themselves to their feet in silence and shuffled off, sometimes they could be argumentative, and then he had to go back to the bar and telephone the police.

Then he realised the figure in the shadows was a woman’s and finally it dawned on him that the clothes she was wearing were those of someone he met regularly on his way to and from his work. She must, he decided, have been seeking him, fainted and knocked herself unconscious.

Or been attacked!

His heart thumped suddenly and he looked about him for a sign of an assailant. But the yard at the end of the alley was empty and there was no sign of movement. Then, as he stepped closer and saw the woman’s face, his breathing stopped. For a second or two he peered down at her in the increasing daylight, then he turned and bolted, his limp more pronounced than ever as he tried to hurry.

Stepping out of his kitchen door on to the lawn behind his house, Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel drew a deep breath and decided that life was very good.

It was a thought that had occurred to him a lot lately and he couldn’t remember any period in his life when he had felt such a sense of well-being. That sad specimen, Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, of the Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire of the French Republic, was a new man. He was married.

It had happened unexpectedly, and just when – being inclined to pessimism by nature – he had begun to think he was entering on a gloomy old age. Now he had moved from the cramped little house he owned in the Rue Martin-de-Noinville into this new house his wife had acquired in the Avenue des Pins in Leu, just outside Fontaine, to the north of the city. Large and furnished with taste, it was expensive enough to give Pel, who had never been known as a big spender, nightmares until he’d grown used to it.

It had, however, relieved him for ever of the bullying of Madame Routy, his housekeeper. Madame Routy, he had considered, was the only bad cook in a country which boasted of its culinary expertise and for years she had offered him little else but half-cooked casseroles. Addicted to television, she had never been able to tear herself away from it long enough to give her full attention to her duties, and when the new Madame Pel had insisted on taking her over with Pel he had been terrified of what might result. But, since Madame Pel ran a fashionable hairdressing salon in the Rue de la Liberté, which was noted for its ability to charge its customers vast sums of money for the privilege of its attention, he had submitted not unwillingly in the end, and on the very first occasion that Madame Routy had turned her hand to a meal for them, she had surprised him by what she had produced. These days she wore a white linen overall, something she had never done for Pel, and the television she had once watched so avidly was firmly established in the bed-sitting room she occupied at the back of the house, a move which reduced her watching time to off-duty hours only. Why, Pel wondered, had he never thought of that? There were some things, he was beginning to realise – though it troubled him to admit it – that women did better than men. Madame Pel appeared to be a gem beyond price.

He was just struggling – and it was a struggle! – to decide whether or not to light a cigarette when the lady herself appeared behind him to call him to breakfast. Studying her across the table, with Madame Routy bobbing subserviently in and out of the kitchen, completely under control, he wondered – because he personally had never been particularly impressed with Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel – just why she had agreed to spend the rest of her days with him. With his hair – what there was of it – lying limply across his skull like skid marks on a wet road, he considered that he resembled a rather bad-tempered terrier. Fortunately, Madame was inclined to be short-sighted without her spectacles and, preferring like many attractive women past their youth to go about half-blind rather than be caught at a disadvantage, she probably didn’t always see him quite as clearly as she might. Perhaps, he thought, he could get away with it and she might never see him at his worst.

After all she had plenty to put up with, without that. The names he bore were enough on their own to put any normal woman off. As a schoolboy he had always felt the burden of the labels his mother had bestowed on him. Evariste, Clovis or Désiré – none of them entirely un-noteworthy – might have been all right on their own; together they hung in the air like the flags of a battalion on the march. At the very least like blasts from the horn of Roland or a chorus from an opera. They could well, Pel had often thought, be sung on a high C by a soprano built like a rugby forward with a fifty-strong choir in the background. Perhaps his wife felt the same because lately she had taken to addressing her lord and master by his surname alone. At least, there wasn’t enough of that to cause problems.

As they finished breakfast, the telephone went. Unlike the one he had used in the Rue Martin-de-Noinville before his marriage, which was black and old and ugly, it went with the furnishings. He made no attempt to answer it. He had just returned after two weeks in Amiens investigating complaints of corruption against a senior police officer there, and was not due in the office until the following day. It had been a pretty clear-cut case but there had been a lot of documentation to go through and Pel had never found Northern France exciting. It was too cold for a start and Pel’s blood was like water (since Madame Pel liked a cool room and Pel liked to live parboiled, he could already see cracks in his marriage). It was also barbaric, too near the sea, too near to Belgium and Holland, and finally too far from Burgundy. Anywhere outside the borders of his native province, he felt, left him in danger of falling off the edge of the world into the abyss. It was the attitude of a bigot, he knew, but he had long since accepted he was a bigot of the first water and, for his own pleasure, had even founded the Society of Bigots with himself as president, secretary and only member.

Madame Routy put her head round the door. ‘It’s for you,’ she said sharply and Pel knew at once she meant him because when she addressed Madame her tones were full of honey and weighed down with admiration and deference.

It was Darcy, Pel’s second-in-command. ‘Thought I’d ring, Patron,’ he said. ‘Have a good break?’

‘Yes. Anything happen while I’ve been away?’

‘There was a strangling. Day after you left.’

‘I read about it in the papers. Any progress?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘I’ll have a look at it when I come in tomorrow.’

There was a long pause and Pel was suspicious at once. Inspector Daniel Darcy was as modern as the space age and knew exactly what life was about. Normally he sat by the telephone smoking like a chimney – superbly indifferent to the ills it could cause – and smiling with his large even white teeth which enchanted girls wherever he met them. Now, however, his voice was strangely humble – almost pleading.

‘Patron, I’d be grateful if you could manage to come in today. The Chief also asked if you’d consider it.’

It was with a smug feeling that the department couldn’t get on without him that Pel announced the request to Madame. She didn’t complain. She had already learned that Pel concerned with police business was a very different man from the Pel who had nervously wooed and married her. It was something which had curiously endeared him to her. Pel was a split personality, brusque and confident in his professional life but a mass of uncertainties in his private affairs. He had long been in need of someone to manage him and, because she had a feeling she could do it very well, she sensed that the best way to hold him was to give him his freedom when he needed it.

‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘I’ve been itching to get down to the office to see what sort of mess they’ve been making of my affairs.’

The way she always put him before her business left Pel surrounded by a warm glow. Affection, love, he could understand; indifference to the making of money took his breath away.

He was in no hurry to put on his saddle but, as if she were eager to be shot of him, Madame Routy appeared, with his hat and briefcase, giving him as she did so the sour look she reserved only for him.

Madame Pel stood on the doorstep as he climbed into his car. The ancient Peugeot, with which he had wooed her, had gone, together with its stinking exhaust, its failing gears, its always dubious petrol pump and the oily doors which had deposited smears of black on everything he wore. It had caused him a great deal of pain to draw out from his bank account the savings he had been putting away for his old age, but since, with a wealthy wife, the prospect of a poverty-stricken old age no longer terrified him, he had felt he could just manage to bear the parting. He had turned the old Peugeot over to Madame and hadn’t been in the slightest surprised when she’d promptly changed it for a new one.

The road into town was full of people going to work. One day, he decided, he would have to get to know them. He had always fought shy of friendships, chiefly because he had never felt anyone would want to be friendly with anyone like him, but he was unselfish enough – just! – to accept that Madame might have different ideas.

The sun had got up and he drove with the window open, light of heart for a change and willing to enjoy the day – provided nothing happened to make him change his mind. Burgundy was a generous region. Totally ambiguous, it had no coastline, mountains or rivers to form its boundaries. Even its history – like its art – was an amorphous one and was made up from slices from other regions. Even the Burgundians’ favourite description of Burgundians – ‘sympathetic, fresh, smiling, colourful, frank’ – had been written by a Burgundian, so it couldn’t really be trusted. But Burgundy was different from the rest of France without any doubt, and had produced men of the spirit of Charles the Bold. It had produced the ‘On ne passe pas’ defiance of Verdun, the gallantry of the cadets of Saumur, the courage of Vercingetorix at Alesia, a spirit he felt that Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel possessed in large measure.

As he passed the Ducal Palace, he was as always caught by its magnificence. Rebuilt after the passing of the Valois dukes, it had been finished in 1692. Then the great bronze statue of the King, waiting in Paris for that very day, had set off for its place of honour in front. Unfortunately, after travelling as far as Auxerre, it had stuck there for thirty-three years until the difficulties of establishing it – which included demolishing houses and widening streets – had been overcome, and they had got it erected just in time for the demagogues of the Revolution to use its plinth for their tirades against the monarchy. That, Pel thought cynically, was life all over. Something always happened when you least expected it.

As he breezed into the Hôtel de Police, the man at the desk inside the door looked up and nodded. But he made no comment. Like everybody else in the Hôtel de Police, he had often drawn a great deal of merriment from the disasters of Pel’s private life, but he was also wary of the cutting edge of his temper and, having seen Madame Pel, was also like everyone else beginning grudgingly to admit that there must be more to Pel than met the eye.

As he passed the sergeants’ room, Pel noticed it was empty except for Sergeants Misset and De Troquereau. Misset appeared to be deeply engrossed in work and didn’t look up, but that didn’t fool Pel. Behind the file Misset was reading – he probably had a pornographic book. De Troq’ was openly reading a newspaper with his feet on his desk and, apart from a glance in Pel’s direction, made no concessions whatsoever to his arrival. But that again was completely in character. Expensively educated and an expert in at least three languages, De Troq’ was a baron – even if a baron with no estates – and it showed. When he accompanied Pel on a job, his title, in fact, was inclined to produce a drop-on-one-knee attitude that was often useful, because it wasn’t a Second Empire creation, which wouldn’t have impressed even the servants, but belonged to the Old Régime. The fact that his father had spent everything he possessed didn’t alter De Troq’s marble imperturbability.

The Chief seemed pleased to have Pel back. He was a big man with a slow manner that hid a quick diplomatic brain. Pel, he felt, was sometimes a pain in the neck with his bad temper and the sharp comments that were always causing complaints to drop on the Chief’s desk – chiefly from Judge Brisard, one of the juges d’instruction, who constantly felt that Pel was leaving him out of the investigations he was supposed to be involved in. The Chief had no doubt they were well justified because Brisard was a pain in the neck, too. What was more, Brisard detested Pel but since Pel detested Brisard, it meant everything remained well-balanced and the Chief didn’t have to take sides. However, Pel’s methods of doing things not only didn’t always suit Judge Brisard, they didn’t always suit the Chief. But, unlike Judge Brisard, the Chief was shrewd enough to be aware that in Pel he had someone to be cherished because his successes had a habit of reflecting on him, too, and he was careful to ignore the complaints and even at times bite back his own objections.

‘You’ve heard what it’s all about?’ he asked, as he poured a brandy to go with the coffee he had ordered.

Pel looked up. ‘All what’s about?’ he said.

‘There’s been a strangling.’

‘So I read. When I was in Amiens.’

The Chief frowned. ‘Haven’t they told you? There’s been another. Last night or early this morning. It’s just come in. And it’s exactly the same as the one twelve days ago. I think we’ve got a nutter loose in the city. It has all the hallmarks. I’m glad you’re back.’

Two

As Pel entered his office, Cadet Martin, who helped with the mail, ran errands and fetched beer from the Bar Transvaal when it was needed, stood up. ‘I’ve got the papers, Patron,’ he said. Martin went through the newspapers like an editor looking for follow-up stories, ringing in blue anything he thought might be of interest and in red anything he felt Pel ought not to miss. It tended to spoil Pel’s enjoyment of his newspaper but there were also occasions when it saved time.

Claudie Darel was going through a file. Neat, dark-haired and looking like Mireille Mathieu, she gave Pel a small uncertain smile that had a suggestion of nervousness about it and he guessed it was because of the murders. Two murders at such a close interval worried everybody.

‘Inspector Darcy?’ he asked.

‘Out of the office, Patron.’

‘Scene of this murder that was reported?’

‘Yes, Patron.’

‘And Misset’s been left behind to hang on to the telephone while De Troq’s here to drive me to the scene and fill in the details as we go?’

Claudie smiled. ‘That’s about it, Patron.’

De Troq’ was standing in the doorway as Pel finished glancing at the few papers on his desk. As they drove through the city, he handed out what facts he possessed.

‘Both the same, Patron,’ he said. ‘Both girls and both in their early twenties. We think they’re the work of the same person.’

‘Got the names?’

‘Only the first one, Patron. Second one’s not yet identified.’

‘I left here on the first of the month. If I remember rightly, Number One happened two days later. Right?’

‘Right, Patron. Name of Marguerite de Wibaux, aged twenty-one. Student at the University – Faculté des Médecins. Wealthy family. Father of Belgian origin living at Mezières near the Belgian border. Going steady with another student. Good reports on her. Keen worker. Friendly. Moral. Doc Minet said she was a virgin. No political interests. Never involved with demos. The new one came in only a couple of hours ago.’

‘Right, let’s keep them in order, with the first one first. Where was it?’

‘She was found in the entrance of that block of student flats in the Rue Devoin. We’ve checked it. Including the ground floor, it has three floors, each with two flats – bedroom, living-room, kitchen, bathroom, you know the sort. They’re all occupied. She lived on the ground floor and, from the marks that were found, she seems to have been killed within a metre or two of the door of her room. As she entered from the street, the Lab. boys think.’

‘And this morning’s?’

‘In a passage in the Rue d’Enfer. Rue de Rouen area.’

Pel nodded. The Rue de Rouen area was the oldest part of the city, a district of sagging walls, sway-backed roofs and streets noted for their sharp turns, twists and unbelievable narrowness. American tourists in vast American cars, unaware of the perils of parked vans, were constantly getting stuck