All he had to do was shake her foundations to the point where she couldn’t deny her knowledge any longer. The photo showed another man having sex with Nathalie. She looked unconscious, brutalised, mascara streaked across her cheek, her eyes swollen. She was wearing the uniform of a Gestapo officer. The same uniform she had been wearing when she died. The dark mark he had seen for himself on the body showed on the side of her neck, where she had been bitten.
The old woman uttered a noise midway between a whine and a cry of protest. Rocco stared at her.
‘That’s what your granddaughter was subjected to. You saying you didn’t know?’
‘ I didn’t! ’ She flung the photo away as if it was burning her fingers.
‘You sure?’ Rocco was relentless. ‘You saying you didn’t know she was doing this to earn money? That she had no option because she couldn’t get any from her father for the operation?’
‘Operation?’ She looked at him, then Bleriot, then at her son in evident confusion. ‘Why would she need money for an operation? What was wrong with her — was she ill?’
Berbier said nothing. But a vein in the side of his neck was pulsing heavily and his breathing had become laboured.
‘What?’ the woman repeated, grasping Rocco’s arm, her nails digging into his skin through his coat. ‘Tell me.’
‘Your granddaughter was pregnant,’ he said softly, this time without malice. ‘Probably by one of the men your son was going to blackmail. She needed the money to go into a clinic and this was the only way she could get it. I have the testimony of a friend of hers to the effect. Your son, it seems, had a reputation to preserve.’
Berbier’s mother seemed to sag, her face in torment. Then she turned on her son, lashing out with a spindly hand and scratching him deeply across one cheek. The score mark raised blood, a bead of which ran unchecked down his face. ‘You filth! You promised me… you said she was safe… that she was at a friend’s party that night when the… the accident happened. And you knew? ’
‘This is all unsubstantiated rubbish,’ Berbier said, his voice shaking. He stared at Rocco with glittering menace. ‘I will be making a protest to the minister immediately and you, my friend, will end up in prison for this.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ Rocco reached into his pocket and looked at Berbier’s mother. ‘When I examined your granddaughter’s body, she was wearing a single earring.’ He pointed at the photo, where the earring in the shape of a marguerite was plainly visible. ‘The other was missing.’
She stared at the photo, then nodded slowly, her voice a whisper. ‘Yes. One was missing when she… when her body came home. I gave them to her when she graduated. She looked so pretty in them… such a pretty girl.’ A sob broke loose from her chest and shook her thin frame, and she looked about to collapse.
Rocco opened his hand, capturing the moment. Nestling in his palm was the other earring, the one he’d found in the lodge.
The old woman gave a small cry. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes fastened on the jewel in recognition. She looked as if she was about to be sick.
‘It was no accident, nor was it at a friend’s house,’ continued Rocco. ‘Nathalie was running away from a man who was raping her. A man known to your son. She ran into the surrounding marais in panic, hid there for some hours. She was drowned in a pool of fresh water close to the lodge where these pictures were taken.’
‘Drowned? By who?’ Her eyes looked haunted. ‘By Marthe? By that horrid little man?’ She ignored her son as if he were no longer there. ‘The man in the photo?’
‘No. Not Didier Marthe.’ He was on shaky ground here, but since neither Marthe nor the family driver were alive to dispute what he said, it made little difference. ‘Nor the man in the photo.’ He looked closely at her, judging how much he could say, how much she might believe. ‘Your son’s driver, though, he was there.’ He waited, hoping she might connect the dots.
‘Andre?’ The woman looked at Berbier, but he failed to meet her eyes. ‘But Andre… he worshipped Nathalie… he would have gone through hell for her…’ She stopped and grasped her son’s sleeve. ‘But wait. That night… Andre went out at about four in the morning… with you.’
‘Andre didn’t kill her,’ Rocco assured her. ‘He couldn’t have — he was with Didier Marthe all the time. He told me himself just before he died and Marthe confirmed it. There was only one other person present in the marais who could have.’ He kept his eyes on Berbier just long enough to make the point, and felt the atmosphere harden to a brittle texture. ‘Some people will do anything to preserve their reputation. Isn’t that right?’
Rocco left Bleriot to arrange the arrest, and walked downstairs. He needed some fresh air, away from the rotten sickness harboured within the building. He felt tired and drained and his ribs were hurting like hell. He was also frustrated, not least because there were still many questions to which he doubted they would ever find complete answers.
But they had enough to begin proceedings, of that he was certain. And Massin had turned out in the end to have the bite of a bulldog. According to Canet, who had called in while Rocco was being treated in hospital, the senior officer had surprised everyone by going out on a limb to get the investigation going and to prevent it being stifled by interference from Berbier’s powerful friends.
Massin. Rocco still wasn’t sure about him or his intentions. No doubt his star would be in the ascendant after this, with elevation further up the greasy pole of seniority. It was the way of things.
Quite where his own star might be going was another question. He knew too much about Massin’s past — and would any boss like to be in that position? Somehow he doubted it. Only time would tell.
Claude was waiting by the car, chatting to Bleriot’s driver and smoking. Rocco walked up and bummed a cigarette. He didn’t usually indulge, but he’d had enough fresh air; now he needed something to occupy his hands, even if it choked him.
‘All done?’ said Claude, holding a flame to his cigarette.
Rocco puffed tentatively, the smoke scorching his throat. Harsh but bearable. A bit like some forms of justice. He looked up into the sky, where pigeons were playing fighter planes over the expensive rooftops of Paris, and found himself wondering what the fruit rats were up to in his attic. Noisy little bastards.
‘All done,’ he confirmed, and flicked the cigarette into the gutter to join the dog shit.
‘I suppose you’ll be staying on here now, then.’ Claude gestured towards the north-east of the city, towards Clichy. His expression was bleak at the prospect. ‘Going back to fighting big-city gangsters.’
‘No.’ Rocco shook his head. After this lot hit the fan, he’d be about as welcome in the city as an attack of the plague. Not that he was bothered. ‘Big-city gangsters are predictable. I like a real challenge. Come on, let’s go solve some more crimes.’
