Didier looked up. ‘He arranged it!’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Didier pulled a face. ‘Believe what you like — makes no odds to me. I heard a couple of guests talking. One was a fat bastard from the Interior Ministry; he had a thing for her… always had, apparently. Wanted to get in her pants. They like young girls, him and his sort.’
Rocco thought that was a bit rich. If what Francine had said was true, Didier wasn’t above showing an interest in young girls, either.
‘Go on.’ He needed to keep him talking, to draw out more facts. He didn’t think he had much time left.
‘Well, it’s obvious. Berbier was using her — his own daughter. It wasn’t the only time, either.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was rotten; not like him, though. He’s worse. He thought she was weak.’
‘What happened?’
‘To Nathalie?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She arrived that last time, and that was the last I saw of her… until I found her in the Blue Pool.’
The atmosphere in the small cellar was heavy, and Rocco tried to work out whether Didier was that good at lying, or whether he’d managed to convince himself of his innocence in this case, too, like the betrayal of the Resistance group. He waited, using the interrogation tactic of silence.
Eventually Didier continued. ‘One moment she was inside, the next she was out and gone. It was a noisy business, lots of drinking and stuff, people yelling. I think it got out of hand in the end, especially with the fat bastard chasing the girl. Eventually the guests cleared out and left me to fix up the place. There was some blood on the sheets upstairs… could have been the fat man.’
‘Does he have a name?’ Rocco wanted to track him down. Dispense some justice. Might be better if Massin did it.
‘No idea. His was one name I never got. Some were cagey like that; didn’t trust anyone.’
‘And the uniform?’
‘They liked the girls to dress up. It was an excuse to treat them like sluts.’
Rocco waited. But Didier seemed to be sinking fast, as if tired out by all the talking. He wondered how long the man could last. He already looked as though death was hovering on his shoulder, grinning in expectation.
‘So you didn’t kill her, the daughter of a man you hated?’
Didier’s head jerked. ‘No way! That’s not down to me. Him, yes — I’d gladly see him dead and buried. But you can’t lay that one on me.’
Rocco let it go. ‘But you placed her body in the cemetery.’
‘Well I couldn’t have the cops snooping around the marais, could I? This was my livelihood… my pot for the future. If the cops found the lodge and all that stuff, Berbier would have turned it all on me. I knew what he was capable of.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘As soon as she ran off. He went berserk.’
‘What happened?’ Rocco had to force himself to remain calm. He was within a whisker of finding out what had happened to Nathalie, he knew it. All he had to do was keep Didier talking.
‘I waited for him, didn’t I?’
Rocco nearly slid off the table. ‘Berbier came down here?’
‘Like a snake down a rabbit hole. He was really pissed off at Nathalie. He’d had a phone call from one of his friends earlier, saying how she’d had a fight with the fat man. He said he was coming down to teach her a lesson.’
Rocco felt a drumming in his ears. So that was how Berbier had found out about his daughter: a phone call from Didier, and another from one of the guests. After that, strings were pulled. Friends in high places. He wondered if the magistrate who had signed the papers had ever been a guest here. If so, there might be some film of him Wait. Something didn’t match. ‘You told him she was missing? Not that she was dead?’
Didier screwed up one eye and thrust his good hand down into the chair as if bracing himself against a stab of pain.
‘Christ, you’re slow, aren’t you?’ he sneered. ‘She ran off and hid in the marais. It’s a big place… no way was I going out looking for her in the middle of the night, so I rang him. I wanted to stay out of it. Nothing to do with me if his kid hates his guts. He arrived with that driver of his just before dawn, then went searching for her.’
‘Him and the driver?’ Rocco pictured Andre, last seen dying in the woods. Whatever sins he had committed had finally caught up with him.
‘No. The flunky stayed here, watching me. I was cleaning up.’
‘What then?’
‘Berbier came back. Said he’d found her and was leaving. I assumed she was in his car. After they’d gone, I took a walk around, just to make sure nothing had been left lying around for the locals to get hold of.’ He sat back, eyes blank. ‘I ended up at the Blue Pool. She was lying there, just under the water. Nothing I could do but pull her out. She was dead.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. After a bit, I wrapped her in a plastic tarpaulin and left her under the boat while I figured out what to do. There were people about, so I had to be careful.’
‘How long before you dumped her?’ He didn’t bother asking why the war cemetery: to Didier, it would have been ghoulishly appropriate.
Didier shrugged, no longer interested. ‘Three days… maybe four.’
Rizzotti had been right. Rocco stared at the floor, picturing the nightmare scene, trying to imagine how any father could murder his own daughter.
When he looked up again, Didier was smiling.
And holding a hand-grenade in his lap.
Rocco felt his gut lurch. Cursed himself for being so careless. The grenade must have been secreted down the side of the chair. In a room this small, if it went off they’d have to hose the pair of them off the walls.
‘What now?’ he said.
‘I get up and leave. You stay. First, though, put the gun down.’
Rocco did as he was told, but stuffed the gun in his pocket. It was no use to him now, not with what Didier was holding. ‘What are you going to do? Where will you go?’
‘My business. You’ll never find me.’
‘Don’t bet on it.’
Didier scowled, shook his head. ‘How did you get here?’
Rocco wondered why he wanted to know that. Surely he’d noticed his wet trousers? Then he realised that Didier wasn’t taking in much at all. He was talking and listening, but something in his brain was focused solely on getting out of this room with his money. And the film. Anything else not an immediate threat was a distraction to be ignored.
Instinct made him lie. ‘I came along the main street.’
Didier nodded and stood up with difficulty, face pinched with pain. He was nursing the grenade against his chest with his good hand. He swayed drunkenly but righted himself with a shake of his head. The grenade pin was almost out, Rocco saw. Just a flick of a thumb away from spinning across the room and sending them both to hell.
He tensed, waiting for his moment, then stopped himself. If he rushed Didier, the pin would come out. No way to stop it. No way to put it back.
‘What were you going to do with Francine?’ He was trying to buy time, he knew that. It was pointless, but when it’s all you have left, it becomes a currency, like anything else.
Didier frowned, the question throwing him. ‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything with her. She’s a sick bitch… I don’t need to get my fun with women like that. But she was a useful bargaining tool.’ He smirked. ‘I figured you’d back off if you knew I had her tucked away. I’d have told you where she was eventually, once I was clear of this place.’
Rocco thought he recognised the truth when he heard it, and nodded. Maybe the man had at least one
