The Beast of the Camargue (17 page)

Maistre produced a second cigarette and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it.

“And don't tell me that all this proves you're right, Baron. I don't want to hear it.”

The sun disappeared behind the harbor wall of Pointe-Rouge, so that the sea turned violet and tinged with pink on the surf around the rocks. At the end of the jetty, a boy was playing with a puppy. Maistre stopped and finally lit his cigarette.

“I'm sorry, Le Gros.”

“What's there to be sorry about? Some fucker is out to whack you. The problem is that he won't let it drop. Have you got that into your sorry head?”

“I…”

“And if that's so, he's there ahead of us. Have you got a description?”

“No. Just an automatic with a silencer.”

“Classic. But not with a silencer. I don't want to give you the wind up, but this sounds like a contract.”

“I don't think so. If it had been, he would have waited for me to reach the street. That would have been easy.”

“Get your car and come back and stay at my place. Then we'll see.”

“Not this evening.”

“Drop it, Michel.”

“Not this evening, I've got an appointment.”

“Go fuck yourself, Baron. One day, you'll be beyond anyone's help.”

He tried to make his words sound as forceful as possible, but the
Baron had already taken out his car keys. He was no longer listening. His face was set.

The Majestic was at the corner of boulevard Banon and traverse Casse, in the quartier Montolivet. It was a shabby bar that had seen its moments of glory in the days of the French Connection: it was there, over a formica table, that the smuggler, Constant Ribellu, and the greatest chemist of them all, Jo Cesari, had discussed the next shipments of heroin to New York and Italy. All under the observant eyes of the boys from the drug squad.

From behind the bar, Paul Brissonne was staring at the Baron. A worried furrow formed an S shape between his pale gray eyes.

“You should lay low for a while, boss. Otherwise they'll end up nailing you once and for all.”

“Don't worry, Paulo. If he'd wanted to get me …”

Brissonne blinked several times, which for him was a sign that he felt nervous. Suddenly, he slammed his fat hand down on the counter, palm turned upward.

“Don't talk shit, Michel. Some guy tails you without you noticing, then takes a potshot at you using a silencer … so this guy had really thought out what he was doing, no question.”

De Palma took a swallow of his beer and drew imaginary forms in the condensation on the cold glass.

“But what I don't get is that he could have taken me down in the street!”

“Maybe he missed you on purpose! I mean, sorry to put it this way, but it's one of our guys. I've no idea who, but someone from our side of the fence. And if I ask around, I'll find out.”

De Palma had known Paul Brissonne for ages. He had arrested him during a police round-up after a settling of old scores, one more in a long series of killings between rival clans. Brissonne was not part of any team or family, just a good fellow, half gypsy and half Italian, as dangerous as a big cat and at home in any kind of water, even the filthiest.

He was almost sixty but still very much alive. In Marseille it was said that he feared no one. His record was perfect: the social services,
borstal, the attempted murder of his own father, a good thirty holdups, Poissy prison and a few other stretches inside before coming back to the old port.

Brissonne had become de Palma's friendly informer during a spell in police custody. The gangster had been beaten up all day, and been passed to the Baron for questioning at around eight p.m. He was like a beast chained to the wall and had been thirsty for the past twenty-four hours. De Palma had ordered a crate of beer and the two of them had talked for several hours. The crook then laid out his life story like a bad poker hand, full of fishy runs and busted flushes. He described beatings and more beatings until the day when he had decided to stop taking it and punch before being punched.

That day, he had grabbed the man who claimed to be his father by the neck and squeezed with an iron grip. He would have killed him if the neighbor had not come by.

“I'm vicious, chief. If you only knew how vicious I am,” he added in tears.

At the end of the night, the Baron had torn up his statement and typed out another, which Brissonne dictated to him. And at eight in the morning, Brissonne had left police headquarters with a debt of honor to the Baron.

“I'll ask around, Michel. By the way, if I find out who did it, do I ice him or not?”

“Don't touch him, Paulo. I want him for myself.”

“Any ideas?”

“There's some real estate deal which is going to be signed around Eygalières and Maussane, down in Provence. Serious dosh … for an amusement park with all the trimmings. And maybe someone got in the way, a man called William Steinert. For now, that's all I know. They're burying Steinert tomorrow, and I'm going to be there.”

“Do you want me to come with you, or send someone along?”

“No thanks, Paulo, but I'll keep my eyes peeled.”

Brissonne clicked his signet rink on the zinc of the counter.

“It's only the boys from Aix who could take on a score like that … I know them. Last year Morini, Le Grand, wanted me to open a bar
with him. It was going to be Lulu, the Chink and Paulo. Not forgetting Le Grand, of course. If it's them who've taken out the contract, I'll know by tomorrow. But it'll be bad news if it is. They're crazies up there.”

“What about S.O.D.E.G.I.M., ever heard of it?”

“Fuck it, yes! You've hit the nail on the head. It's one of Morini's covers. He's got a guy called Philippe Borland to run it. They're involved in the buildings going up in the new suburbs around the port.”

“Morini controls all that?”

“Yeah, I'm telling you, Le Grand is no slouch.”

“What about this Borland?”

“Don't know him. He's never much in view. But that's normal for a figurehead.”

With the back of his thumb, the thug massaged the white scar on his lower lip.

“No later than tomorrow. I'll call you around four.”

“Thanks, Paulo.”

“My pleasure.”

“Come on, let's get some pizza.”

“Have you seen the time? Are you mad, Baron?”

“There's Vincent's place. He's open late.”

Brissonne took his .45 from under the bar and they went out into the night.

William Steinert was buried early the next morning.

Ingrid had made it known that her husband had always wanted his funeral to be as private as possible: family members, a few people who had frequented the farmhouse, and no one else.

A very simple farewell ceremony was conducted among the olive trees, with Steinert's body facing the Alpilles. Madame Steinert did not weep, and looked very dignified in a black silk dress with her hair tied back.

She read out a beautiful text which she had written for her husband the day before: a few simple words, which summed up their shared life, the year that they had loved each other, and then their rather solitary existence in Provence which he had made his second fatherland.

“Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,
Einen bessern findst du nit,
Er ging an meiner Seite
In gleichem Schritt und Tritt
.”
*

No one noticed the tiny black figure, sitting on a bump of windswept rock. It was Bérard, the solitary shepherd in the middle of the hills and burned trees.

The old man, his head bare, had not taken out his flock that morning and was murmuring some verses by a distant relation, the Master of Maillane:

“O belli Santo, segnouresso
De la planura d'amresso,
Clafissès, quand vous plais, de pèis nòsti fielat;
Mai à la foulo pecadouiro
Qu'à vostro porto se doulouiro,
O blànqui flour de la sansouiro,
S'es de pas que ié fau, de pas emplissès-la
.”
*

Steinert's body was then taken to the cemetery of Eygalières, where the industrialist would now sleep beside his father.

As the cortege passed in front of the chapel of Sainte-Sixte, at the entrance to the village, it halted for a minute. This was Mme. Steinert's decision. She remembered that the first thing her husband had spoken to her about, when they had first met in Munich, was this simple chapel which had since become a symbol of Provence for tourists.

He had said: “Sometimes, I feel as if I had been born there. I don't know why, but I really feel at home … I belong to that land.”

The procession then set off down the avenue lined with Florentine cypresses which led to the graveyard.

De Palma hung back, beside a plane tree a good ten meters from the Steinert burial vault. He watched as the little crowd gathered and he mentally photographed as many faces as possible. He looked for resemblances to the figure who had fired at him, and noticed that about a dozen people had similar builds.

There were a few village elders, who never missed a burial while awaiting their own. They stayed for a few moments, then vanished behind the tombstones.

The mayor of Eygalières also attended. He shook a few hands, then offered his condolences to the widow. They exchanged a few words and, from his expression, de Palma deduced that he knew her well. So Simian had lied to him.

Behind her stood two men, as stiff as church candles, whom de Palma had noticed at the farmhouse. One was about forty, and the other twenty-something; they were both Provençal, at first glance country people who were ill at ease in their black suits. The two of them looked as though they were on guard duty behind their mistress. They seemed so alike that de Palma would have sworn that they were father and son. The elder of them stared hard at the policeman, as you do at an intruder, or someone whose face and appearance you want to remember.

The close family, from Germany, stood in front of her. From the photographs he had seen, the detective recognized Karl, the younger brother, and his wife. To his right, stood the second brother, plus a few friends or cousins. He looked at them intently. Their grief was sincere, and he eliminated the family hypothesis completely. Nobody here could help him in any part of his investigation.

A prayer in German rose up, like a murmur from between the graves. He had the impression that the stones around him were shivering.

The prayer came to an end. The family and close friends formed a line to say a last farewell to William Steinert. De Palma waited for the widow to be alone before offering his condolences.

“That's curious,” she said in a thin voice. “You look sad as well.”

He did not answer and gazed into the blue of her eyes, washed pale with grief.

“Death always affects me. And today more than ever.”

He waited for her reaction, and that of the two men behind her, but she seemed not to have heard.

“Come to the house. The custom is to get together and eat something in memory of the dead.”

“I can't. I have to go back to Marseille this morning.”

De Palma went over to the grave and stared at Steinert's coffin. He picked up a handful of earth and threw it down. As it fell on the pale oak, it set off a hollow echo.

He had just glimpsed the truth behind this murder, which he had so far refused to see.

*

At 3:50 p.m., the Baron's telephone flashed up a number withheld.

“Good day, my man. Can we meet?”

He recognized Paul Brissonne's voice.

“Whenever you want.”

Brissonne sounded slightly strained, as though out of breath.

“As usual, then?”

“O.K., five o'clock.”

De Palma thought for a moment about the boys from Aix. For some time now, they had been involved in all the deals from Nice to Marseille, including all of the small towns in between.

The man who ruled this empire was obese, a huge tub of lard: Marc Morini, a.k.a. Le Grand. He was a vicious thug de Palma had watched climbing since the end of the 1980s.

Le Grand had done time, just four years for pimping, and had escaped by the skin of his teeth from the killers of the Marseille clan as he emerged one night from The Funk House, a nightclub in Aix.

That was in 1995. The
Brigade Criminelle
had counted 69 bullet holes in the crime boss's car, mainly double zeroes, 9 mm rounds and the inevitable 11.43s.

Le Grand had had the presence of mind to lie flat in his Merco Coupé and drive blind before piling into the car of a tipsy student girl. In fact, he owed his life to his lieutenant, who had opened fire to cause a diversion before taking a burst from an Uzi in the chest.

When Laurent Le Gulvinec, the brigade's commander, had caught up with Le Grand in the pine forest, panting and with blood pouring from his forearm, the sun was rising over the steaming countryside.

The gang boss had stared at the cop like a child scared by the dark. He had pissed himself. This was a story that did the rounds of the dark corridors of the
Brigade Criminelle
for some time: “Le Grand had pissed his pants.” But the story had gradually faded from memory as the pisser had risen in the ranks of the underworld. Nowadays, in criminal circles, not even the police dared to speak of it.

So there was nothing surprising about Marc Morini taking an interest in plans for an amusement park. He had put money into the new opportunities in Marseille: theme bars, rum dives, karaoke
joints blazing with neon, techno clubs … So he was not about to go back to bourgeois jazz haunts in the center of Aix. So it was natural that he wanted to expand a little, and the Provence of Mistral must have seemed to him to be the best investment in the world. Especially because Morini was a local boy, born in Tarascon and jailed for the first time in Arles.

De Palma took the sun-bleached R.N. 568. The road was littered with vegetable crates and melon packaging, left there by greengrocers' vans and blown by the wind.