Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [89]
‘Is what we’re hearing your theory or your evidence, monsieur?’ asked Joe, intrigued.
‘I’ve told you what I do for a living. To report on crime you have to be close to the criminals. As close as they will allow you to approach. I know, or think I know, a good many people who are known to you also – by reputation. I’ve shared a drink with them . . . talked to them . . . drawn them out. I have friends in some pretty low places! Brothels, opium dens, absinthe bars . . . Sometimes they shoot me a line for their own benefit. But even their lies and false information can give much away if you’re not taken in by it . . . are prepared to analyse it. I’m aware of what they can do – of what they have done – but I have no name to offer you and would not offer if I knew it . . . The last man who let his tongue run away with him was found two nights ago in the canal with his mouth stitched up. They have a brutal way with those who would . . . vendre la mèche . . .?’
‘Sell the fuse?’ said Joe, puzzled. ‘Oh, I see . . . Give away the vital bit? Squeal. Inform.’
‘The warning is reinforced periodically. Whether it’s called for or not, I sometimes think,’ he added with chill speculation.
‘Is that all you have for us? Aportentous warning empty of any substance?’ Joe’s voice was mildly challenging.
The reporter was spurred to make his point. ‘There’s a small group of villains – six at the most. Deadly. Discreet. For hire. When the Corsican gangs folded their tents and moved on after the war, a central core of bad boys, the survivors, stayed on. Licensed to kill, trained and encouraged to kill, they came out on the other side of it ruthless, skilled and, above all, older and wiser. They regrouped themselves. They’re careful. And that’s most unusual; gangsters have a touch of the theatrical about them as a rule . . . they like to have their names known, their exploits vaunted . . . there are even songs made up about some of the more flamboyant villains! But the men I have in mind are silent. Or else they’re being run by someone capable of imposing discipline on them. And when they work, it’s not in public, for a handful of francs in front of a Saturday night audience of voyeuristic merrymakers, it’s for thousands, in the dark. In secrecy. In anonymity.’
‘Well . . . Well, well!’ said Joe. ‘No name, perhaps, but every man has fingerprints. And he can’t change those every six months. You roundly declare our chap was not wearing gloves? Let’s see what we can do, shall we? Perhaps the officers who worked here on the night of the crime have, inadvertently, recorded his prints. Though, amongst this profusion of sticky dabs, they are not aware of what they have.’
Bonnefoye stared and sighed. ‘So many! It’s going to take a month to process this lot. If they haven’t given up already. And – really – are they going to bother when they have so many of Sir George’s on the victim’s chair?’
‘Ah! Le pigeon! Le gogo!’ was Simenon’s verdict on Sir George and Joe was encouraged to hear it.
‘The “patsy” you might say. Our supposition also.’
The beam of Joe’s torch illuminated the last section of the wall, to the left of the door, passed on and then jerked back again. ‘I wonder if we can reduce the area of search?’
He moved closer to a powdered print on the left door jamb. ‘Here’s a remarkably sticky print, wouldn’t you say? Just look at the detail there!’
‘Not blood?’ said Bonnefoye.
‘No, not blood. The greasiness is pomade! Hair grease. I had some of that muck on my fingers yesterday. It’s the pathologist’s theory that the killer seized Somerton by his hair with his left hand from behind to hold his head in the correct position and then slit his throat with his right hand. So, his right hand might well have been covered in blood and he was obviously at some pains not to touch anything with that but, possibly leaning out to check the corridor was free, he placed what he thought