Death at the Clos du Lac (5 page)

The moped was lying upside down in a ditch, just as Hervé had described. Rocco squatted down beside it and noted the worn tyres and scarred paintwork of the frame and mudguards. It had long ago experienced its first flush of newness, yet in this area even old machines like this had a value. Then he noticed the panniers, almost masked by an overgrowth of grass and weeds at the bottom of the ditch. He slid down further and hauled at the wheels until he could wrestle it up the short bank and lay it down on the grass for a closer inspection.

Alix undid the straps on the uppermost pannier and took out a net with a folding handle and a fishing rod composed of several short pieces with interlocking joints. Last came a box with dried bait on one side and a selection of hooks, weights and floats on the other.

‘Looks like somebody had a bad day’s fishing,’ she suggested.

‘If he did,’ Rocco replied, ‘it would have ended up in the lake or river, not out here.’ He lifted the moped so that Alix could get at the other pannier, which revealed a flask but nothing else.

Alix used her handkerchief to lift it out, then opened the top and sniffed at the contents. ‘Coffee, with something else. Could be brandy. It’s still warm.’

Rocco lowered the moped and stood back. He didn’t know about the bike, but why on earth would someone dump a perfectly good set of fishing equipment – especially in an area renowned for its fishing enthusiasts?

He walked over to the entrance to the field and climbed the gate, jumping down on the other side. ‘Where does this lead?’ he asked Alix. He’d never had cause to come here, and had only a vague idea of their location on the map.

Alix pointed to the right. ‘Poissons that way, about four kilometres, and a road to Amiens the other, about three. This lane is hardly used ever since the Clos du Lac pretty much stopped people going down it, other than a few older locals and farmers with fields further along.’

‘So somebody could have come from the Clos on the moped, and met up here with a waiting car?’

She nodded and joined him on the lane. Rocco walked fifty metres one way, towards Poissons, scanning the verge. The grass was long, but untouched, and he soon gave up. It was evident that nothing had stopped here in a long time.

‘Here’s something.’ Alix was standing just a few metres beyond the gate, where the verge was wider, beneath the shade of a crab-apple tree. Rocco walked back and stood alongside her.

Twin tyre tracks showed clearly in the grass, with the
stems flattened or bent, and at one point there was a deep rut where a patch of softer ground had given way beneath the vehicle’s weight. Rocco felt the soil underneath with his fingertips. There was a definite tyre-tread pattern here, and he guessed it was from a car or small van rather than a truck. Whether the details would be enough for Dr Rizzotti to make anything of, he wasn’t sure. But it was a start. Somebody had been here just before or just after a murder had been committed. And that spelt opportunity. All he had to do now was find motive and who might have benefitted.

He stood up and walked across the road, trying to read the scene from a distance. If the driver had been careful, he could have driven down from the direction of the road leading to Amiens and left his car here where it wouldn’t have been noticed, then used the moped, perhaps slung in the back of a van, to travel the short distance to the Clos du Lac. After completion of his task, he could have ridden the moped back here, disposed of it in the ditch, then driven calmly away, with nobody any the wiser other than hearing engine noises in the night.

The Clos du Lac looked unnaturally quiet when they drew to a stop in the car park; unnatural in the way that deserted buildings have no warmth, no sense of human occupation, no vibrancy. Even the birds had fallen silent. There was no sign of Levignier or his men, and the pool house was closed, with a chain and padlock through the double handles barring the way inside.

With a sense of foreboding, Rocco led the way through the main entrance. The air was cool inside, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the tiled floor. He looked round. No sign of a bell to signal their arrival, so he walked along the corridor towards the kitchen where he’d first seen nurse Dion.

A woman in an apron was sitting at the table, drinking coffee. A mop and bucket stood nearby. The woman looked up and brushed at her cheek. She was plump and rosy-cheeked, with greying hair, and looked faintly lost.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’d like to see nurse Dion or Director Drucker, please,’ Rocco said politely. ‘Tell them it’s Inspector Rocco.’

The woman put down her coffee cup and stood up. ‘Sorry – I wish I could. But there’s nobody here.’

Rocco frowned. ‘Where are they?’

‘If I knew that, I’d tell you.’ She waved a hand around. ‘I got here fifteen minutes ago, ready to put dinner on for the evening as usual, and do a bit of cleaning. But the place was empty. Everyone’s gone. Looks like I’m out of a job.’

‘What about the patients?’

She sat down again with a sigh, as if her legs had failed her. ‘Them, too. All gone. Do you believe in flying saucers and … what do they call it – alien abduction? I never did, until now.’

Rocco looked at Alix. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back.’ He left the kitchen and raced up the stairs, following the corridor through to the back and checking rooms as he went. Some showed signs of recent occupancy, with bedclothes thrown back and wardrobe doors flung open. Other rooms were stripped bare and cold, evidently unused. Everywhere else had an air of hasty evacuation.

He found an office. It looked bare of anything helpful; a desk, two comfortable visitors’ chairs, two filing cabinets and a bookcase. But no paperwork of any kind.

He ran back downstairs and checked the ground floor rooms. A library, a large lounge area, a games room with a pool table and two smaller rooms he guessed were reading areas, both looking out to the rear of the building.

All empty.

He turned and went back to the kitchen. The woman and Alix were sitting in silence.

‘Do you have telephone numbers for Dion or Director Drucker?’ he asked.

The woman pursed her lips. ‘Never needed them,’ she replied. ‘Someone’s always here normally. Except today. I just cook and clean. What’s been going on – and why’s the pool chained up?’

‘There’s a problem with the water.’ Rocco had a thought. ‘How did you get here?’

‘My husband dropped me off, same as always. I live in Fonzet. I’d come on my bike, but my back’s playing up. What kind of problem?’

‘A patient drowned in it. If you can leave your name and address with
Gardienne
Poulon, we’ll be in touch.’ He smiled at her look of concern. ‘I’m sorry this has happened, but it’s a surprise to us, too.’

He walked out of the building to his car, took a tyre iron out of the boot and went over to the pool house. The chain was strong but the door handles weren’t. One of them ripped out of the wood and he was inside.

There was no sign of the body.

He walked around the pool area, but found nothing to show what had happened here, save a large wet patch on the tiles where they had hauled out the body. Whatever heating was in the place had not yet dried the area completely.

‘They worked fast,’ Alix murmured, coming to stand alongside him. She was eyeing the length of chain and the milk churn lying on the bottom of the pool. The steel wire still hung in the water, but it had now been moved closer to the edge, no doubt once the chain had been unfastened.
‘The cook’s gone. She called her husband and he’s going to pick her up. Who did this?’

‘Levignier,’ said Rocco. He knew instinctively that the body was gone for good, spirited away God and the ISD alone knew where. ‘He employs some very resourceful people.’

As they walked back towards the main building, a small Renault drew up in the car park. Nurse Dion climbed out and stood watching them. She was rubbing her eyes and looked very pale. Rocco guessed she must have heard about Paulus.

‘Sorry, Inspector,’ she said, walking over to join them. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she was clutching a white handkerchief. ‘Have you been waiting long?’ Her voice sounded rubbed raw with emotion. ‘Director Drucker told me to take the afternoon off, but … I need something to do.’ She looked towards the main building, then at the empty car park, and frowned. ‘What’s going on? Where is everybody?’

‘That’s what we’d like to know. When did Drucker tell you to take off?’

‘This morning, just before noon. What about the patients?’

‘All gone.’

Her jaw dropped. She gestured towards the road. ‘I saw a woman walking away. Was that Mrs Sevrier, the dinner cook?’

‘Yes,’ Alix said. ‘She didn’t know anything, either.’

‘But I don’t understand. Where would they all go?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Rocco said carefully. ‘But first of all, I’m sorry about Mr Paulus. We’re hoping to find out what happened to him. Can we talk somewhere?’

‘Of course.’ She turned and led them through the entrance
and into a darkened side room lined with bookshelves. She closed the door and pulled back the curtains, flooding the room with light.

‘Those other men wouldn’t tell me what happened,’ she said, looking between them. ‘You’ll tell me, won’t you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rocco said carefully, and explained what he and Claude had discovered at the house outside Berlay, keeping strictly to the facts.

She said nothing for a few moments, merely nodding slightly as if absorbing the news and consigning it to a safe place. Her expression was unreadable. Then she sat down heavily on a sofa, her expression collapsing into one of utter confusion and loss.

‘Why didn’t they say?’ she whispered. ‘Levignier and the other two – they were with Director Drucker all morning. I heard them mention André’s name but … they stopped talking when they saw me.’ She looked at Rocco. ‘All they said was that he was dead and that it should not concern me. Why would they say such a thing?’

‘Did Drucker know of your friendship?’ Alix asked, sitting next to her.

Dion bunched her handkerchief and wiped her eyes, which were brimming over. ‘There’s no need to be quite so diplomatic,’ she whispered. She tried hard to smile, but it didn’t quite come off. ‘We were having a relationship, André and I. And yes, Drucker knew. It’s impossible to keep any secrets in this place.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Ironic, when you think about it. The whole place is built on secrets of one sort or another.’

Stefan had said much the same thing. ‘
Lots of secrets in this place
…’

Rocco waited to see if she would enlarge further. There was a moment in most investigations when a tipping point was reached that could change the entire nature of an enquiry; it could be at any time in the proceedings, with no warning. But it usually hinged on a simple revelation, a careless or unexpected word, a change of attitude. Rocco knew that point had been reached. Dion was ready to talk.

‘We still don’t know why he was killed, or who is responsible,’ he said calmly. ‘But I believe it is connected with the death of the man in the pool.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Well, most killings usually have a motive driving them. Anger, fear, greed, hate … even love, occasionally. But nobody in this area knew him well enough; like me, he was brought in from outside.’

Alix said, ‘Had he made any acquaintances here – people he might have mixed with outside of work?’

‘No. He liked to keep to himself … when we weren’t together, anyway. He was a very private man. Very conscientious, too.’ She looked at Rocco. ‘That’s why I don’t understand why he would have disappeared like that. He never believed in taking time off when he was on duty. Something must have happened to make him leave his post.’

‘Something did. Or someone.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re suggesting he left deliberately?’ Her face flushed quickly and she looked alarmed at the idea.

‘No. I’m not. But he was a trained security man, wasn’t he?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I was in the army in a previous life. And now I’m a cop. I know the type.’

‘I see. Well, he was a naval policeman until he suffered a back injury in training. He was transferred to other duties. Still security but … onshore.’

‘Other duties?’

‘I can’t talk about that. You’ll have to take my word for it.’

‘So he was still serving?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you?’

A brief hesitation, then, ‘Yes. Me, too.’

‘You were engaged here
because
you were in the military?’

‘Yes. Nobody told us why – only that it was important
work.’ She gave a lift of her shoulders. ‘I was thinking of going into civilian nursing, anyway. It seemed a good move to make, for the experience.’

‘What about André?’

‘He arrived one day not long after one of the patients went missing. You’ve heard of closing the door after the horse has gone? Well, that’s what it was.’

Rocco nodded. Standard military practice the world over. Most armies ran training courses in it – or should have.

‘Was he armed?’

‘Yes. He was sent here to improve security. When a couple of new patients were checked in and they couldn’t get a reliable guard, he was asked to stay on.’ Her eyes misted up, and Rocco guessed that it probably hadn’t been a hard decision for Paulus to make. She was an attractive woman to be around. ‘Best time I ever had, meeting him.’ She wiped angrily at her face and looked at the ceiling.

There was a short silence, and Rocco wondered at the kind of work that could get a military-trained guard killed and frighten his lover into silence. What made this place so important that the Internal Security Directorate should assign a military cop to guard the doors?

Was it to keep people out … or to keep them in?

‘You’re saying that André was conscientious, never cut his duties?’

‘No, he never did.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I know what you’re thinking – and I don’t blame you. But we never compromised our work and he wouldn’t have walked away willingly. He wasn’t like that.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Some time after two this morning – ten past or so.’

‘You sound fairly sure. Was he here in the building?’

This time the blush was nothing to do with anger. She looked away and said, ‘He was with me.’

‘Upstairs?’

‘Yes. I … I fell asleep … and he went off to do his rounds.’

So, they’d been having a little private time when everything was quiet. Rocco couldn’t fault that. For every soldier the world over, the credo was the same: when things were quiet and under control, you catnapped, ate or relaxed, because one thing was certain – it never stayed that way for long.

‘Did he know anything about the patients … about Ardois, for instance?’

‘You know the name? Who told you that? It’s cla—’ She stopped speaking, eyes wide.

‘Classified? Is that what you were going to say?’

‘No.’

‘I think you were. You should know that now I have a name, I can start asking questions. You might as well tell me, save us both a lot of time.’

‘Really? Will that help André? Will it bring him back?’

‘No. I’m afraid it won’t do that. But if I can find out why he was taken away and killed, why Ardois was murdered, it will help shift any element of blame away from André. Why was Ardois here?’

A few seconds went by, then she gave a small sigh. ‘André didn’t know anything about him, only that he wasn’t really ill. Anybody could see that.’

‘So why was he here?’

‘I have no idea. All I do know is Ardois wasn’t his real name. It was a file name, to be used while he was a resident here. Everybody has one; it comes with them. When they move on the file name is destroyed and they’re given a fresh one. I’ve no idea why – something to do with confidentiality, I suppose.’

‘Does that happen a lot?’

‘Over the past year, probably four times.’

Four patients moved in and out of a small
government-controlled
facility, all with names that weren’t their own. It sounded improbable, but Rocco had heard of stranger things.

‘Do you know his real name?’

‘No. They don’t tell us. But I heard Drucker mention it once when he was on the phone.’ She frowned, trying to remember it. ‘Sorry – it’s gone. If it comes back I’ll let you know. Other than that, all I have is their current medical regime and background notes in case of emergencies.’

‘They’re all on a regime?’ Alix asked.

She gave a wry smile. ‘If you can call it that. They’re on various medications, some stronger than others. Mostly it’s sedatives, to keep them calm.’

‘To shut them up, you mean? Keep them under control?’

‘Yes. Once they’re down, they don’t move.’

Not quite the case with Stefan, Rocco thought, and asked her about him.

She pulled a face. ‘Stefan’s different.’

‘How?’

‘He’s highly manipulative, very clever and loves to play games. He pretends to swallow his pills, but doesn’t always do it. Then he wanders the corridors at night, poking around.
But he’s harmless.’ She looked at Rocco and explained, ‘I know a bit of his history. He’s a genuine case. He had a series of nervous breakdowns and his family used their influence to get him in here and away from outside pressures. His family has connections. He’s not like the others.’

‘Did he tell you that?’ In Rocco’s experience, serial manipulators never dropped the habit. Like habitual criminals, it was in their blood. Stefan had even been able to work his magic on him for a short while.

‘Yes.’ She looked doubtful. ‘I shouldn’t have believed him, should I?’

Alix glanced at Rocco and he nodded. There was really only one main question to ask.

‘You said he’s not like the others,’ she said, and placed a gentle hand on Dion’s. ‘How are they different? The dead man, for example. It won’t go any further, I promise.’

Dion hesitated, then shook her head angrily. A teardrop flew from one cheek and she brushed a hand down her face, smearing her make-up. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it? They’ve gone. But André didn’t kill him. You have to believe me. He just wouldn’t.’

‘We believe you,’ Rocco said. He doubted a military man like Paulus would have chosen anything so elaborate; if soldiers decided to kill, it was usually short, sharp and brutal. He changed tack to lower the tempo. ‘Let’s go back to last night. Did you see or hear anything?’

‘Like what?’

‘Cars going by … voices … a knock at the door?’

‘No. It’s always so quiet here. We never hear anything.’

‘What about the patients? Have they said anything about last night?’

‘Not to me. Stefan said he’d talked to a nice man, though. I thought he was imagining things. He does that a lot. Was it you?’

‘Yes.’ He wondered whether Drucker was going to turn up and spoil things, and went back to his original question. ‘So, who were the other patients?’

Dion stood up. ‘I’ll show you.’ She walked out of the room and they followed.

She led them to the office Rocco had seen before.

‘Drucker keeps everything locked away. He’s obsessive about secrecy and doesn’t trust anyone.’ She reached under the desk and took out a key. ‘He doesn’t know I found this, though.’ She went over to one of the filing cabinets and unlocked it, and swept open the top drawer.

It was empty.

‘Looks like someone got there already,’ observed Rocco.

‘I don’t understand.’ Dion looked stunned. ‘It was full only yesterday. All the patient records were in there, arranged alphabetically. The staff files, too – everything.’ She checked the lower drawers but they were also empty. Then she used the key to open the other cabinet. The same. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘It’s what they do.’ He took a turn around the room. It was standard security behaviour if a place became compromised: cleanse the scene thoroughly and leave nothing behind. But why here? What were they hiding?

‘What do we do now?’ said Alix.

‘We keep looking,’ he said quietly, and picked up the telephone. He rang the office in Amiens and got through to René Desmoulins. ‘Can you get away?’ he asked him. Desmoulins relished getting involved in investigations with
Rocco, and had a usefully rebellious streak when it came to dodging authority and cutting corners.

‘Just tell me where and when.’

‘Now. But quietly.’ He gave him directions and cut the connection, then handed the handset to Alix. ‘Can you get Claude here?’

‘Of course.’ She looked at him knowingly. ‘You’re planning something.’

‘We’re going to search this place,’ he told her, ‘starting with the patients’ rooms and working our way down. Desmoulins can help when he gets here, and Claude can do the outside.’ He looked at Dion. ‘You probably shouldn’t be here for this. But thanks for your help.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do until I contact my base for instructions. Is what you’re going to do legal?’

‘I don’t have the authority to do it, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Fine. Count me in.’ She gave a half smile and reached into her jacket pocket, and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘I’m not normally allowed to smoke on the premises,’ she said, and lit up, then blew out a mouthful of smoke with relish. ‘Drucker would have me transferred on the spot if he knew. But who’s going to stop me now?’ She gestured towards the door. ‘I’ll show you where everything is. And if we’re going to break the law together, Lucas, my name’s Inès.’