‘We could ask him, but I doubt he’ll tell you.’
‘Maybe he won’t have to. Not directly, anyway.’
CHAPTER TEN
Rocco? Contrary… dogged… astute.
Didier Marthe’s home was a large, ramshackle house at the end of a twisting, narrow lane near the centre of the village. Following Claude’s directions, Rocco steered over a series of potholes and deep ruts into a wide, sunken yard containing an ancient manure heap, dark and evil-smelling. Twenty metres away, across from the house, a fast-flowing stream cut between the yard and a belt of poplar trees and disappeared towards what Rocco judged to be the road leading towards the station, where he and Claude had just driven. He recalled a slight hump in the road near the village outskirts, just before the first scattered houses, and guessed it might be where the stream ran beneath the road.
He stopped the Citroen and climbed out, and. was struck immediately by the silence hanging over the property. Everywhere else he had been, from the village centre to the cemetery, birdsong was evident and plentiful; here there was none, only the clack-clack of a loose shingle on the side of an outbuilding.
‘Does he have a vehicle?’ There were none in sight, although plenty of recent tracks were evident in the dried mud of the yard. They criss-crossed each other, showing where the wheels followed the same route around the yard in a circle, entering and leaving.
Claude nodded. ‘A Renault van for carrying his scrap. He’s probably got it with him.’
‘Where does he keep it?’ Rocco counted two barns and three smaller outbuildings scattered around the place. Most were as shaky as the house, but the barns looked plenty big enough to house cars, vans or tractors. He walked over to the nearest barn and kicked back one of the twin doors.
The grey nose of a battered Renault stood inside.
He touched the bonnet. ‘Hasn’t been used recently.’
Claude stared at the van as if it might disappear in a puff of smoke. ‘Damn. I was sure he’d be out in it.’ He looked at Rocco. ‘Maybe it wasn’t him you saw in the woods.’
‘It was him.’ Rocco walked up to the front door and pounded on it with his fist. The sound reverberated through the house. No answer. He tried again, the wood quivering and, just in case Didier Marthe had gone deaf, finished with a kick.
‘You don’t hold back, do you?’ said Claude. ‘Is this how they do things in Paris?’
‘No point pissing about — not in a murder enquiry.’ He knocked again, but the sound reverberated through the building.
The front door was bracketed by two massive artillery shells. Although the casings were pitted and dull, the noses were shiny at the tip, as if a hand had been laid on them in benediction each time someone passed. To one side stood a heavy wooden bench fitted with an enormous metalworker’s vice and covered with a variety of hammers, pliers and hacksaws, and odd scraps of lead, brass and other rusted metal. The tools and cast-asides of Didier’s unusual trade.
‘Let’s just say he was in the woods looking for shells. Wouldn’t he have taken his van to haul them back in? No point making two trips.’
‘Of course, normally. But…’ Claude looked unsure, and for the first time it occurred to Rocco that the two men might be friends. Yet here he was assuming otherwise and relying on this man to help him.
‘Are you with me on this?’ he asked casually. ‘Because now’s the time if you want to bow out and go tend your roses. Is Marthe a friend of yours?’ It was rough, bordering on offensive, but he needed to know where they stood. Having Claude Lamotte working half-heartedly would only undermine his task.
Claude looked offended. ‘Me and him — friends? That stunted little bigot? Christ, no. What made you think that?’ The denial had a natural ring of authenticity and Rocco breathed more easily.
‘Sorry. Just making sure. What’s his story, then? Is he married?’
Claude puffed out his cheeks and inspected a small cannon shell lying on the table. ‘Not married, no. What sane woman would have him, with this lot? He arrived here about five years back, from somewhere further south. He’s openly communist and proud of it, but he’s no political brain. The only factor preventing him being a Trotskyite is he probably can’t spell it. He hates fascists, priests, Americans, the British, industrialists and Parisians… but not necessarily in that order. If he’s got any real friends, I’ve never met one, although he got pally for a while with a neighbour along the street. All in all, he keeps to himself, even when he’s in the cafe.’
‘No kidding.’ Rocco remembered the man’s bad breath. He studied the two artillery shells. ‘I bet he doesn’t get too many repeat visitors.’
‘Probably not.’ Claude put the cannon shell down with utmost care and looked at Rocco across the bench. ‘You think he’s involved in that woman’s death?’
Rocco shook his head. ‘I’m a detective, not a medium. I just wanted to see where he lived, that’s all. A man’s home can tell you all manner of things, if you know how to look. Most of all, though, I’d still like to know what he was doing in the wood behind the cemetery.’
‘Coincidence?’
Rocco turned and walked towards the stream and stared out at the trees. ‘Coincidence is a lame defence. You’d be amazed how often it crops up, though. What’s over there?’
‘The marais. The lakes. Take a straight line from here and it’s a short walk. We passed them on the way back, although they’re not easily visible from the road.’
‘Handy.’ Rocco walked along the stream to where a huge weathered tree trunk had been laid to form a rough footbridge across the stream. The top surface had been chopped flat, the axe marks clearly visible, and wide cracks ran the length of the trunk. He bent down and inspected the dirt at the end of the trunk.
Claude said, ‘I wouldn’t step on there if I were you.’
Something in his tone caught Rocco’s attention.
‘Why?’
Claude looked faintly embarrassed. ‘I don’t know if it’s true, but four years ago, not long after he arrived, some boys coming back from fishing in the marais saw Didier putting something in those cracks. They used this as an unofficial short cut home.’
‘And?’
‘He told them the bridge was booby-trapped. Anyone stepping on it would be blown to bits. They swore he wasn’t joking.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Me?’ Claude shrugged. ‘I looked into it, of course, him being a stranger still. But I couldn’t find anything. I thought he was having them on… you know, playing the mad, bad bastard just to keep them off his property.’
‘And was he?’
‘Not sure. About a month later, there was a hell of a bang in the middle of the night. When we got down here, we expected to find Didier in bits around the yard. Instead we found a young wild boar spread all over the bridge, blood and guts everywhere.’
‘What did Didier say?’
‘He claimed it must have picked up a grenade he’d been working on. I couldn’t prove otherwise, so had to let it drop. Since then, nobody’s been near the place.’
Clever, thought Rocco. An effective way of Didier ensuring his privacy — unless he was as mad as a snake.
As they walked back to the car, Claude waved a hand around at the yard. ‘So what does this tell you?’ he asked, as if clues were jumping off the ground to be counted. ‘Anything?’
‘Not much. Not yet.’ Rocco slid behind the wheel, eyes on the house. No movement, no sounds. Too quiet,
