The Beast of the Camargue (43 page)

It smelled of burned grass and sugary wood. The heat of the blaze was still rising from the ground and from the stones fallen from the wall.

Moracchini was questioning a fireman from Le Sambuc, who was doing his best to explain, by pointing at the remains of the farmhouse, that the fire must have started inside the building.

De Palma wandered onto the path and walked for about a hundred meters. The reed bed had been caressed by the flames; close to the house, the tips of the canes were singed.

Along the path recent footprints could clearly be seen; some soft green herbs had been broken, what looked like a water hyacinth had been crushed.

He turned round. He was in the middle of the reed bed and the ruins of the house had vanished from sight. All that was left was the smell impregnating the heavy air.

For a hideout, you couldn't find better, he thought. Just a few paces from the road.

He took a few more steps and saw that the vegetation had been disturbed. Some young rushes, lower than the others, had been broken
and prints were clearly visible in the sandy soil and in beds of moss. “This must be Chandeler's escape route,” the Baron thought.

He retraced his steps and saw Moracchini searching in the ruins of the farmhouse.

“We need a forensics team,” she said when de Palma reached her. “Try finding anything in this mess!”

She kicked out at the carcass of a half-melted computer.

“According to the firemen, he set fire to the place with petrol. He must have spread it around then lit a match.”

“Simple and effective,” de Palma replied, lifting up a still-smoking joist.

The fire brigade captain approached and handed them a black object: it was the bowl of a pipe that had resisted the flames. De Palma shifted it in the palm of his hand. He suddenly remembered that the first thing that he had noticed on entering Steinert's office was a strong smell of aromatic pipe tobacco.

He remembered too that Mme. Steinert had assured him that her husband never smoked. De Palma was a man who believed in signs, and he sensed that the genie of the police had just sent him one. All that remained was to interpret it.

Moracchini came over.

“Interesting?”

“Maybe. Let's go on searching. This could be our lucky day.”

Beneath a pile of stone which had fallen from the walls, they found a carbonized mass and, beside it, a singed white feather.

“A white spoonbill,” the Baron said.

Digging deeper, he found a plaster base with wires sticking out of it. After a moment's reflection, he realized that it must be the framework of a stuffed bird.

They learned nothing from the rest of the house. A sea breeze had risen and blown the strong smell of the blaze away across the Vaccarès.

Because that's where they should have looked. In her family
. That sentence, pronounced by an old woman in a Paris graveyard, suddenly struck his forehead like a rubber bullet.
Because that's where they should have looked. In her family
. He felt old, incapable of catching
balls on the bounce, a washed-up player with a lousy backhand. He had not even asked for the old woman's name. Pain entered at the top of his skull and descended between his eyes.

A fireman raised his helmet. The black smoke had given him the face of a miner. He placed his ax against a section of the wall and lit a cigarette.

The next day, Gouirand reported to the offices of the
Brigade Criminelle
at ten o'clock exactly. Moracchini questioned him for over two hours and learned nothing new except for a few details about Morini's youth and some of his friends in the police force. She thus discovered that Morini had quite simply grown up with an important regional politician. Christian Rey had been part of the same network.

“What about Bérard, did you know him?”

“I often used to see him during the traditional festivals, at Christmas or the festivals of the Tarasque. He would come and recite poems and tell us legends in Provençal. People said that he was a member of the
Félibrige
and that he was a descendant of Frédéric Mistral.”

“He was also a Knight of the Tarasque!”

“I know that he had been one once, but long before I started taking care of the Tarasque. I spoke to him about it a couple of times. He even gave me some advice when I wanted to make some new costumes.”

“So you knew him?”

“Only vaguely.”

“What about Steinert?”

“Never met him. Nor heard of him, till I read about him in the papers.”

That morning, de Palma had debriefed Chandeler.

The lawyer explained that S.O.D.E.G.I.M. had been dissolved and Philippe Borland had dropped out of sight long ago. Shortly before dying, Morini had been busy starting up a second company, a kind of gasworks based in Monaco and Luxembourg, and whose capital consisted of cash coming in from every imaginable tax haven.

“Morini was with me when we went to see Bérard. We wanted to buy his stake in the Downlands, but he refused.”

“What happened then?”

“He told us that he was going to see to it that we'd never be able to build on that land.”

“And you threatened him!”

“That was Morini. He got annoyed and wanted to scare him. I guarantee you that I tried to intervene, but I couldn't do anything.”

De Palma knew the rest of the story.

“When did you first receive the mark?”

“One or two days after we went to see Bérard.”

“And did it arrive at your home?”

“Yes, it did. Why?”

“Because very few people know your personal address!”

Chandeler had started. He realized that he would never sleep in peace again until the police laid their hands on the man who had tried to murder him.

“Maybe it's time you told me everything.”

“Yes, I think it is.”

Chandeler had picked up his telephone and asked to be sent up a packet of cigarettes. Two minutes later, a young woman had opened the door and had placed on the occasional table a tray with a pack of filterless Craven-A, a box of matches and an ashtray.

“I need to think things through and get some sleep,” he said. “Could you come back at the end of the afternoon?”

He had lit a Craven-A and drawn on it greedily. The lawyer was in such a state of agitation that de Palma could smell the rancid odor of his fear.

“We all knew each other … That's what you have to understand. I'm a local boy, too.”

After four pulls on his cigarette, he stubbed it out and coughed slightly.

Gouirand glanced nervously at de Palma when he saw him enter Moracchini's office. He had never come across him before, and he read such determination on the officer's face that he instinctively recoiled.

“We're getting to know all the family at last, Michel. I get the impression that everyone knows everyone else!”

“More than you think,” the Baron said.

Gouirand's gaze kept on shifting from one officer to the other. Moracchini noticed this and sat down behind him to unnerve him.

“M. Gouirand, I have the impression that the Tarasque is bringing bad luck all round.”

“I don't see what you mean.”

“Rey and Morini were Knights of the Tarasque, weren't they?”

“It's true, I knew them back in the days when they were part of the team. I've already told that to your colleague.”

De Palma massaged his wounded shoulder. He stared at the chief Knight intently.

“And what about Marceau?”

Gouirand's expression changed, his lower lip drooping slightly. It made him look suddenly old and pathetic.

“I don't know what you mean … I've already answered all your questions.”

The Baron's face relaxed, and his eyes sparkled.

“You see, M. Gouirand, in crime there is always a logic. People kill one another for thousands of reasons, and it often happens that these reasons have no apparent logic. Yet that logic is always there, in front of us. Our job is to understand it. Always, do you understand? It's a duty. I knew Marceau for years. We were colleagues at police headquarters in Paris … They were the best years of my life. Then I came back to Marseille, and Marceau to Tarascon.”

De Palma stood up and passed his hand over his forehead.

“For months, I've been telling myself that Marceau was in Tarascon because the force had sidelined him and that he wanted to return home, just as I wanted to come back to Marseille. Quite simply. Then I learned that he'd been topping up his pay by doing odd jobs for the mob. Quite simply. So far, so logical.”

Moracchini stared at the Baron. She noticed that the muscles of his face were stiffening and the veins in his arms standing out.

“And then Marceau gets eaten by your cursed animal: there, there is no more logic. Why?”

He suddenly turned his back to Gouirand.

“Because there are certain things I don't know … and what can I possibly not know about a friend of twenty-five years' standing?”

He spun round and darted his feverish gaze into Gouirand's eyes.

“M. Gouirand, I've spent all night thinking about this. And I've noticed something stupid. Really stupid. Marceau was born in Tarascon. He came from an old-established family. Just like you, like Rey, like Morini, like most of the knights. It's as stupid as that. Except for this: you and Marceau are from Tarascon. But not your parents, who were born in one of those dismal surrounding villages, like hundreds of the town's inhabitants. Logic, do you understand me? As for the rest, I must say that I used my imagination a little and I think I've got it right.”

The Baron picked up a chair and sat down in front of Gouirand. He sized him up for a few seconds.

“Why didn't you say that you'd known Marceau for ages and that he too was a Knight of the Tarasque … Why?”

“I don't know …”

Gouirand hid his face in his hands. De Palma observed him.

“Did you also receive the warning?”

The Knight's head sank even lower.

The Baron stood up and motioned to Moracchini to come aside and talk to him. They spoke in whispers.

“The best thing for him is to go into hiding, and straight away. We haven't caught our psycho yet, and he could well change his M.O. and start blowing away whoever's left before we can get to him.”

“We could even put him behind bars if we want to. We've got enough on him. All I'll have to do is phone up the magistrate.”

“Good idea. Put him in custody. We'll see clearer tomorrow.”

“How did you work that out about Marceau?”

“I was bluffing. Chandeler told me that they all knew each other, so I improvised from there. I'll have to go back and see him soon. Ask our friend the same questions now. He'll wind up thinking we know everything.”

They went back to Gouirand. De Palma resumed his place in front of him.

“I think you can tell us his name,” said Moracchini harshly. “I think it's time! Enough people have died. Do you realize what your silence can cost you in court?”

“If I knew his name, I'd have told you a long time ago. But I don't.”

She pursed her lips and tried to make eye contact with the Baron.

“I believe you,” de Palma said. “But, I only half believe you … I think you're hesitating between several people. Am I mistaken?”

“No, sir.”

“What if I tell you that he's a keen birdwatcher, crazy about our feathered friends, and spends most of his time in the Camargue? A meter eighty-five tall, looks a bit like a hippy …”

Gouirand stiffened on his chair. He wiped away the drops of sweat that were beading on his forehead.

“It's Vincent Soubeyrand,” he murmured. “It can only be him.”

“He was Steinert's best friend, wasn't he?”

“That's right. Soubeyrand from the Clary domain.”

“Does he still live there?”

“No, there's only his mother, Mireille, and some farm workers.”

Moracchini jotted down the address and summoned an officer to take Gouirand down to the cells. De Palma looked at the road maps. Clary lay beside the road between Maussane and Eygalières, just a few kilometers away from La Balme.

“There's a telephone, shall we try?”

“Why not?”

She plugged the loudspeaker into the telephone and entered the number, without taking her eyes off the keyboard. A man answered. She frowned.

“Am I speaking to Monsieur Lebel?”

“You've got the wrong number.”

“Sorry, I must have made a mistake.”

They looked at each other in mutual thought: a man's voice in a house where a woman was supposed to be living alone. It might mean nothing, but it had to be checked.

“How funny,” said de Palma. “Vincent and Mireille.”

“What's so funny about that?”

“They're the heroes of Mistral's masterpiece.”

“Right. And then there's an unhappy ending in the Camargue.”

An hour later, de Palma and Moracchini drew up in their police Xsara in a sunken track bordered by oak trees, a few meters from the turning that led to the Clary farmhouse. From a distance, the unmarked car was quite invisible.

De Palma drew his Bodyguard and walked into the copse beside the road. The baking air buzzed with the song of the cicadas. At each footstep, scraps of dead wood and dried grass crackled beneath his feet. After fifty meters, he stopped in a sweat. The Clary farmhouse was in front of him, on the other side of a vineyard that still smelled of ripe grapes.

Moracchini came to a halt beside him and took out her binoculars.

“There's nobody outside the building.”

“Let's go.”

“The only problem is the dog. There's always a damn dog in this kind of place.”

The Baron mopped his forehead.

“There's a chance in a thousand that he's here,” she said. “That's all. And if we do anything stupid, we get ourselves demolished by our learned friends.”