Death on the Pont Noir

Chapter TWO



The dull pounding in Lucas Rocco’s head gradually moved outwards, morphing from a foggy background noise in a sludgy dream to the more identifiable sound of someone hitting his front door with what sounded like a sledgehammer.

He swung out of bed, instinctively snatching up his MAB 38 on the way. If it was the local priest finally come to welcome him into his flock, he’d simply put a few rounds through the wood before going back to sleep. Just in case it was Mme Denis next door, he yanked the door open with the gun behind his back.

‘Do you know it’s gone ten in the morning?’ It was the stocky figure of Claude Lamotte, the local garde champêtre for the village of Poissons-les-Marais and the surrounding district. ‘You’re not on holiday, are you?’ He raised heavy eyebrows at the sight of Rocco in his shorts, his muscular chest covered in goosebumps. ‘Christ, that’s a sight a man could do without.’

Rocco stood aside and beckoned him inside with the gun, squinting at the grey light of a December morning. ‘Very funny. What do you want?’

‘Coffee and a bite to eat, first,’ said Claude. He brushed past and dropped a fresh baguette on the table, then headed for the sink and began filling a saucepan with water. ‘Some of us have been up since dawn, you know that?’ He put the water on the boil, then turned and looked at the gun as Rocco slumped into a chair. ‘You weren’t about to end it all, were you? Only I’d hate to interrupt a man in his hour of despair.’ He bent and peered closely into Rocco’s face. ‘You do look like crap, though.’

‘You should see it from my side. I was on a stake-out most of the night.’ He put down the gun and rubbed his eyes. They felt full of grit and the view was hazy, like looking through muslin.

‘Really? Sounds like fun. Any results?’

‘No. A no-show. We had information about tobacco smuggling but I think it was a decoy. When I catch up with the so-called informant, I’m going to shoot off his toes one by one.’ He looked at the baguette. ‘Is that mine?’ The baker came round every morning in a battered old 2CV, and if Rocco was out, left it by the door in a plastic box.

‘It is. No longer warm, but fresh and too good to waste.’ Claude tore off one end and took a bite with great relish. ‘Superbe. Best bit of the loaf. You want the other end?’ Before Rocco could answer, he looked around expectantly. ‘You got any butter in this place?’

Rocco waved a hand. ‘Cupboard, top shelf. Help yourself but please do it quietly.’

‘Okay. You want coffee?’

‘Why not? Now you’ve ruined my sleep I might as well get dressed. Excuse me.’ He got up and wandered through to the bathroom. By the time he had dressed and come back, Claude had made coffee and smeared thick butter on slices of baguette, and was sprinkling a layer of cocoa powder over his. He sighed in expectation. ‘This is the way to start the day.’ He took a huge bite and coughed as he inhaled some of the powder, then winked in enjoyment. ‘Takes me right back.’

Rocco sat down and picked up a slice of bread, ignoring the cocoa powder. ‘You country cretins have some disgusting habits.’

Claude dunked his bread in his coffee. ‘That’s the trouble with you fancy city-bred cops – you’ve forgotten how to enjoy yourselves. All croissants and china cups, that’s your trouble. This, my friend, is one of life’s unique pleasures. You should enjoy it while you can.’

‘If I was twelve, I would.’ Rocco took a mouthful of coffee and swallowed. At least Claude knew how to make a wake-up drink. He felt his synapses respond to the jolt of caffeine and shook himself. ‘To what do I owe this debatable pleasure, anyway? Have you lost your way home?’

‘Not quite.’ Claude put down his bread and brushed crumbs from his hands. ‘I had a call this morning from a farmer who works a couple of fields about six kilometres from here, towards Bray. Name’s Simeon. He was calling from a café where he’d gone to take a medicinal drink. Seems he had a nasty shock. He claims he saw a truck ram a car this morning on an open stretch of road out near his fields. Then two men jumped out of a ditch and opened fire on it with handguns.’ He picked up his bread and took another bite. ‘How about that?’

Rocco stared at him. ‘Have you been drinking paraffin?’

‘No. I’m serious.’ Claude held out a hand. ‘See – steady as a rock.’ As Rocco made to get up, reaching for his gun, he added pragmatically, ‘There’s nothing to see. They’ve all gone – car, truck and men. We’ll go out in a while. You want more coffee?’

Rocco sank back onto his chair. As he’d learnt in the past few months since being posted here, there was world time and there was Poissons time. And trying to bring the two together usually gave him a headache.

‘Go on, then. I think I’m going to need it.’



‘An army truck?’ Lucas Rocco tried to imagine what any military vehicle would be doing out here on a deserted road in the middle of open farmland. There was a small barracks in Amiens, but it was used for shipping local army conscripts in and out, and relied almost exclusively on the station for its troop movements.

‘Yes. Small and stubby – not one of the big ones. But it was going fast. It smashed right into the car, as clear as day. Deliberately, I swear it.’ The farmer, a weather-beaten stick of a man named Simeon, dressed in heavy trousers and large rubber boots, pushed his cap to the back of his head and eyed Rocco with caution, as if awed by the sight of a man just over two metres in height with shoulders to match. Or maybe it was the all-black clothing and shoes; black in these parts was usually the prerogative of the old or the Church. Rocco, however, was clearly no priest.

‘And it happened here?’

‘That’s right.’ Sensing a willing if unusual audience, Simeon settled his feet apart and got ready to tell his story all over again. ‘Right here.’ He pointed at the section of road where they were standing, a little-used stretch of straight and surprisingly wide tarmac recently made redundant by a new section of road built three kilometres away under a local government regeneration scheme. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’

You’d have had trouble seeing it with anyone else’s, Rocco wanted to say, still dulled by lack of sleep in spite of Claude’s industrial-strength coffee. He forced himself to concentrate. ‘Where were you when you saw this crash happen?’

‘Out there.’ Simeon pointed across the fields, still sugar-iced by the remnants of frost. ‘By the old machine-gun site. I was about to hitch the horse up to drag an old stump out of the ground when I heard the noise. See the blackthorn?’ He leant towards Rocco as he pointed, bringing with him a waft of sour breath and cheap wine. ‘Just to the left. There’s a bit of dead ground, so they couldn’t see me.’

Rocco nodded. He had to assume that a blackthorn was what he was looking at because it was the only bush in sight. ‘But you could see them?’

‘Sure. Well, pretty good, anyway. The light wasn’t great and my eyesight’s not what it was, but it was clear enough.’

Rocco wondered if the day would ever come when he’d get a witness carrying a camera and a total power of recall. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘Well, as I already told Lamotte, here, after the truck rammed the car, both vehicles stopped, then two men jumped out from the side of the road and threw things – but I couldn’t see what they were. Then they took out guns and started shooting. I got out of here as quick as I could at that point. It was like a war zone … apart from the camera.’

‘Camera?’ There had been no mention of a camera in his call to Claude Lamotte. A car being rammed by a truck and guns firing had been the sum total of the story.

Rocco glanced at Claude who looked blank. ‘He didn’t mention it before.’

‘Didn’t I? I thought I did. By the trees over there.’ Simeon pointed at the only clump of trees around, two hundred metres away. Pines, Rocco noted, sharp and spiky and rigid with cold against the horizon, like a scene from the Eastern Front. ‘The truck came down the track from behind the trees, and that’s when I noticed the camera, sitting on a tripod thing. But there was nobody with it. Don’t they usually have a man sitting behind it with a megaphone shouting at everyone and wearing riding britches?’ He looked at Rocco. ‘Don’t they?’

Rocco decided to change tack before he lost the will to live. ‘Can you describe the men?’

Simeon considered the question, then said, ‘No. Not really. At least four, I’d say. Two drivers, two gunmen … and maybe one other.’ He mimed drawing a gun and firing, making a soft paff-paff noise, and smiled. ‘But from here …? I didn’t get any detail.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Earlier today – about eight. Roughly. I don’t have a watch. No need, see. Seasons are more important in my line of work.’ He pursed his lips and frowned, as if he’d just surprised himself by saying something profound.

Rocco shook his head and walked away towards the copse. It was shaping up to be another tale of unlikely events unsubstantiated by reality or facts, and likely due to the after-effects of too much vin de pays and a bad night’s sleep.

Simeon watched him go, then nudged Claude. ‘Is he for real? I heard we had a new flic in the neighbourhood, but not one like him.’

‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ Claude muttered. ‘He’s been here a while now. And he’s good, so you’d better watch yourself.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve been off sick, haven’t I? It’s why I’m trying to catch up, pulling out tree roots in this shitty weather instead of leaving it until spring.’ He sniffed and lifted his chin towards Rocco. ‘Does he always dress like he’s going to a funeral?’

‘Always. He goes hunting in the marais like that, too, when he has to. Just mind you don’t tick him off because when he goes after someone, he doesn’t stop. He’s … what do they call it – relentless.’

‘That was him?’ Simeon’s eyes widened. ‘I heard about that. A gun battle, so they say. Grenades, too.’ He pulled a face then spat on the ground. ‘And to think it used to be so peaceful around here.’