Death on the Pont Noir

Chapter FIFTY-FOUR



Commissaire François Massin was suffering a mix of emotions.

A part of him was still recoiling at the earlier idea that Rocco, whom he’d found himself believing capable of many things, could be guilty of taking a bribe from a known criminal. For any commanding officer, discovering an officer under his command guilty of corruption was almost inevitably a stain on his own record, ignorance being rarely forgiven among the higher ranks of the Ministry. But now he was facing incontrovertible evidence that Rocco had been set up, and the possibility that he himself had been too easily led into believing the worst of a subordinate.

He walked around his office, trying to make sense of the thoughts swirling around in his head. How had this happened? One moment everything was proceeding smoothly, the next an unwelcome focus of attention was on him, evidenced by the extended volley of telephone calls from the Ministry demanding reports and updates on the events leading up to the attack on de Gaulle’s car, closely followed by the press requesting comments about the bank robbery at Béthune and rumours of an attack on an unnamed VIP at an unknown location.

Massin’s only meagre consolation was that sorting out the flow of paperwork and briefings over the next few days would probably be the only way of extending his stay here. After that …

He stopped suddenly. The station was down to a skeleton staff, all other available officers taking part in securing the scene of the attack, helping with the Béthune bank investigation or joining the hunt for the Englishmen. The building had been left as quiet as the morgue it did not yet possess.

Yet he’d heard a noise from along the corridor. It had come from the empty office; at least, the office which had been empty until Colonel Saint-Cloud had commandeered it for his temporary base. He’d thought the security man was long gone, hard on the heels of his master now that the visit and the drama were over, no doubt sharing the president’s relief at being back in the relative safety and comfort of Paris.

He walked along the corridor. If it was Saint-Cloud, he wanted to impress on him that Rocco was innocent; that no stain could therefore attach to his own position as commissaire. He felt almost ashamed at this instinct for self-interest, but it was too ingrained to change.

He stopped outside the office door and hesitated before entering. The security chief hadn’t heard him coming, and was unlocking a steel cabinet and taking out some papers Massin had seen him placing inside when he had first arrived. On the top were four buff folders tied with ribbon. He knew these contained details of groups and individuals opposing the president. Next came a small sheaf of papers he recognised as official travel expense sheets; he’d used them himself when attending conferences or training classes. Then a thick folder he had seen going into the drawer of Saint-Cloud the first day, when he had requested the full use of the office along with the only set of keys to the drawer. The folder, he had explained, was his personal operations manual which went everywhere with him; a personal quirk, he’d explained with unaccustomed reserve, which detailed everything to be done in the event of something catastrophic happening to the president. Massin even recalled Saint-Cloud saying that he rarely if ever looked at it, the contents committed to memory, but always close by just in case. Massin had read it at the time as a not-so-subtle reminder of the importance of Saint-Cloud’s office and a need for detailed procedure to be followed if necessary.

Saint-Cloud finally sensed his presence. He turned and looked at Massin with no degree of warmth.

‘I trust you have that man of yours in custody,’ he said curtly. ‘Actually, no.’ Massin stepped into the office and walked across to the window, trying to formulate his words in as confident a manner as he could without sounding deferential. Anything he said now could find its way back to the Ministry through this man’s lips, and he couldn’t afford any misunderstanding. He had enough to deal with as it was. He finally decided on directness. ‘You were wrong about Rocco,’ he said, face to the glass. ‘We were all wrong. He was set up. We – I – should have taken more time to investigate the circumstances before suspending him.’

‘Really?’ Saint-Cloud sounded supremely unconcerned, intent on his packing. ‘Well, if you choose to believe that, it’s up to you. I think the man is incompetent and a loose canon. You should have had him on a tighter rein.’

Massin felt his temper rise at the rebuke, and turned to face Saint-Cloud. ‘But how could I? You had him assigned to you by orders of the Ministry. Now you are saying I wasn’t controlling him?’

Saint-Cloud stopped what he was doing. Dropping a sheaf of papers into a box, he fastened his eyes on Massin. ‘Yes. If you’d had more balls, you could have refused to let him go. But you didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Unfortunately, you’ve always been something of a paper officer, haven’t you, Massin? Governed by rules and regulations like the St Cyr Academy swot that you always wanted to be.’ His mouth twisted with contempt. ‘You were a joke back then, did you know that? A little bootlicker who wanted to join the big boys. I hear you actually had the brass to apply midterm for a senior command post in Paris.’

Massin, as shocked by the insulting tone of Saint-Cloud’s voice as the poisonous words, said, ‘How do you know that?’ He’d been assured that all such applications for transfers were in the strictest confidence and never revealed until a decision was made. He’d applied during a rush of dislike for this job and this place, anxious to get somewhere – anywhere – else. Since then, he’d had cause to rethink his application.

‘How do you think I know? I have the ear of certain people in the Ministry, that’s how. It comes with position and influence – but that’s something I doubt you’ll ever realise. Or maybe it’s because I have no stains on my record … unlike some.’

‘What … what do you mean?’ Massin’s voice sounded strangled, even to him. Saint-Cloud was touching on something buried deep, something shameful that should have been beyond the reaches of men like him. For a horrible moment he wondered about Rocco. Had the former army sergeant said something, finally breaking his silence? The risk had always been there, ever since he’d first set eyes on him at the cemetery outside Poissons, on his first morning in the job. It had been an unwelcome jolt to the gut but one he’d had to face up to, hoping Rocco would never speak of what he knew.

‘That business in Indochina; at Mong Khoua, wasn’t it? It’s common knowledge, of course, in certain quarters.’ His eyes flashed with spite and he added, ‘Little François Massin, the Academy poltron, shitting his pants in the middle of a battle. Hardly officer behaviour, was it?’

‘That’s outrageous!’ Massin’s face was white with fury and shame, his stomach gripped by the realisation that the past was no longer the forgotten secret he’d imagined. ‘Retract that immediately!’

‘I will do no such thing.’ Saint-Cloud stabbed a finger in the air before Massin’s face. ‘That is why you will never rise higher than commissaire of a backwater region based in a mud puddle like this one, Massin.’ He managed somehow to imbue the title of commissaire with all the gravitas of a minor public fonctionnaire or town hall paper shuffler.

For one awful second, Massin contemplated walking back to his office and picking up his service weapon. A single shot should do it, wiping the sneering ugliness from Saint-Cloud’s face for ever.

Then a sense of calm overcame him. Saint-Cloud didn’t know everything after all. Massin had never been to the fortified base of Mong Khoua, another senseless loss of men and position in a brutal war of attrition. Saint-Cloud was simply feeding on rumour to mount a vile attack. And if Rocco had talked, he would at least have got the detail correct.

He reined himself in. Suddenly he saw the way forward. He’d made a mistake. He had been so distracted … no, not that … in awe of Saint-Cloud’s position and his mission here, so blinded by the opportunity of what the president’s visit might mean for himself, that he’d been ready to doubt one of his own officers at the first accusation.

He took a deep breath. An apology to Rocco could never be enough. He still resented being dragged off that distant battlefield – even Rocco would be able to understand that indignity, no matter what the reason – but he was forced to recognise that he had been weak at the wrong moment when he should have been strong. For Rocco’s sake and his own.

He turned to leave, walking past the cabinet Saint-Cloud had been emptying. As he did so, he noticed a folded map in the very bottom of the drawer. It was of a stretch of open countryside, the detail too small to be certain of its location, but clearly a rural area. A red mark had been made on the map, drawing his eye. Next to it was a heavy dark line beneath two words he had come to recognise all too well … but only in the last twenty-four hours.

Pont Noir.