He had endured a bit of attitude from Claude on the way down. Part self-imposed guilt at not knowing about Francine’s double life and how she had taken them all in, part his annoyance at Rocco taking on Didier by himself. Rocco still wasn’t sure what had upset Claude most: being left out or not being able to put a bullet in Didier’s head himself. He’d hardly even bothered playing with the car radio.
As if reading his mind, Claude took out his gun and laid it on the seat beside him. ‘Just shout. I wouldn’t mind using this on someone. Just the once.’
As Rocco crossed the pavement and reached up to press the entryphone button, a black car drew up behind his own. A man climbed out, leaving a uniformed driver behind the wheel. The newcomer wore a suit and carried a briefcase, and was holding up the ID of a senior officer of the Judiciary Police. He looked tough and businesslike and nodded cordially to Rocco.
‘George Bleriot,’ the man said. ‘You ready to do this?’
Rocco returned the nod. Massin had told him someone would be needed to ensure that everything went to order: someone with sufficient powers to do whatever was required. He reached for the button but the gate was already open. He pushed it back, walked across the cobbled yard, past the green cherub in the dry fountain. No fancy car, he noted. Not that they had anyone to drive it, anyway.
He banged on the door, the sound echoing up the stairs. He tried the handle. It turned. The door opened. As he’d expected, the old woman met them halfway up the stairs. She looked aggressive and determined, one clawed hand gripping the banister like a bird of prey about to launch itself into the air.
He’d already decided that if she gave him any shit, he’d toe-punt her down the stairs, followed closely by her treacherous, murderous, double-dealing son. Bleriot would just have to pretend he hadn’t seen it.
‘Where is he?’ he said, walking straight at her.
She moved aside at the last second, gesturing at the same doorway he had used before. As he brushed past he picked up the same sickly-sweet perfume.
It reminded him of death and decay.
‘What do you want?’ she hissed, glaring at them in turn. ‘What are you here for? This is an affront — an insult. I will be calling the Ministry-!’
‘You do that, you old witch,’ Rocco said calmly, ‘and I’ll make sure you end up in a cell with half a dozen heroin addicts doing cold turkey.’
‘Wha-?’
‘If he doesn’t,’ Bleriot added, ‘then I will.’
They found Berbier in his study, staring out of the window. He was dressed in an expensive grey suit, with a blue shirt and discreet burgundy tie, to outward appearances a composed and powerful figure, at ease with the world.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ He turned to face them, chin jutting forcefully from his collar. But Rocco sensed there was little conviction in the words or the pose. There was a shaving nick on one side of the man’s chin, and a tiny spot of blood on his shirt collar.
A scuff came from behind and Rocco glanced over his shoulder. Berbier’s mother had followed them into the room. Her chin was trembling, although whether out of fear, indignation or old age, he couldn’t tell.
No phone call to the Ministry, then. She wouldn’t have had time.
‘End of the game,’ said Rocco. He took a black-and-white photo from his pocket and flicked it onto the desk so both the Berbiers could see. It showed Nathalie, pupils heavily dilated, one breast falling out of a white blouse, being pawed by a fat man with a sweaty face and greedy eyes. In the background stood a pair of large oil lamps. He now knew who the man was, and Massin would, about now, be dropping a heavy dossier with other photos onto the desk of his superiors.
A very chill wind was about to blow along the corridors of power.
An intake of breath came from Berbier mere, but her son showed no reaction other than mild irritation.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Don’t you?’ Rocco wanted to punch him. ‘You don’t recognise your own daughter being groped over by one of your official ‘friends’? You don’t recognise a room in one of your own properties — a place you use for your pals to meet up and treat as a convenient whorehouse?’ He glanced at the old woman, who seemed to be trying to hoist herself into another dimension by sheer willpower.
Berbier said nothing.
‘I have to inform you,’ continued Rocco, ‘that a dossier is currently being placed before the Interior Minister, with photos like these,’ he nodded at the desk, ‘and a reel of film, showing activities at this property involving men of substance and position — that’s my description but I’m being sarcastic only because I actually feel like throwing up — who were there at your invitation and with your connivance.’ He paused while that sank in. ‘Actually, let’s cut the bullshit: you used the place so your buddies could have fun while you filmed them for blackmail purposes to further your business dealings. You also had your own daughter there to entertain these men and play the whore.’
Berbier’s mother flinched at that and closed her eyes. It seemed to be the first honest emotion he’d seen from either of them.
‘I also have the testimony of one Didier Marthe, also known as Tomas Broute, that while working as an SOE officer in 1944, you accompanied a supply drop near Poitiers and conspired to steal money from the Allies… money destined for use by the Resistance. Then, in collusion with Marthe, you informed the Germans of the whereabouts of the Resistance group, to prevent them informing London of your crime. The group was captured and taken to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, where they were executed. That money set you up nicely after the war, didn’t it? Nice going.’
‘That’s outrageous.’ Berbier looked stricken, but his voice was surprisingly quiet and calm. ‘I know nothing of these events.’
Bleriot, in the background, was frowning at Rocco as if uncertain of his ground.
‘Really? So we won’t find a record of your mission to Poitiers during nineteen forty-four, accompanying operating funds which were reported “lost”?’
‘No. That’s a complete fabrication. It must have been another officer.’
Rocco felt his disgust for the man reach new heights. Not content with a life of deceit and betrayal, he was clearly willing to pass off the blame onto someone else, no doubt counting on official secrecy to protect him.
‘You could be right, of course.’ He watched as Berbier’s face registered a momentary relief, then added, ‘Except that the officer accompanying those funds went under a unique code name… and we happen to know what that was from someone who was there at the time. Funny things, code names: they protect the identity of the user, which is good. But they tend not to be used more than once.’
Nobody spoke.
‘The code name was Cormorant.’
‘No… there’s a mistake!’
The words burst in a whisper from the old woman’s lips, too instinctively to be anything but recognition. She would have heard the name over the years, knew it instantly for what it was.
Rocco looked at her. ‘Did you know about this?’ A hint was all he needed for the structure Berbier had built to collapse. She could be the weak link.
But the old woman had recovered quickly and was staring at him with contempt, her jaw muscles working furiously as she tried not to look at her son.
‘Never mind. After the war, Marthe remained in contact with your son who paid him to look after the property in this photograph, to fix it up for weekend parties. Co-conspirators all those years. Mostly it was to keep Marthe from going to the authorities and revealing what he knew.’ He looked at Berbier. ‘You didn’t know what proof he had squirreled away, so you had to keep him sweet… and keep him where you could watch what he did. What you didn’t know was that he was keeping a record of who came and went over the years. It seems he didn’t trust you further than he could throw a bus.’
Berbier said nothing.
‘Very well.’ Rocco took out another photo. It was time for the big guns. Instead of dropping this one on the desk, he handed it directly to the old woman. If his instincts were right, she might turn out to be Berbier’s undoing.
