slowly up Alix’s body. ‘Nice uniform. She fills it out well, too. Perks of the job, eh?’ He glanced slyly at Rocco. ‘Bet you been there and done that, ain’tcha, Rocco?’ He laughed outright, his tongue flicking obscenely across his upper lip. ‘I heard Froggie tarts know a few tricks. Never tried one meself. Maybe I should, eh?’ He gave Alix a slow grin. ‘Maybe I’ll come back sometime and we can get together – what do you say?’
Rocco held up a hand. It was enough to stop Desmoulins and the two guards from moving forward. They hadn’t understood Tasker’s words, but the meaning was obvious, and Alix Poulon was sufficiently highly regarded around the station to engender an instinctive need to protect her.
‘Take him downstairs,’ Rocco said quietly.
‘What a horrible character,’ said Alix, once the men had gone. ‘What did he say?’
‘I think you can guess,’ said Rocco. ‘Men like him, their vocabulary is about as limited as their imagination.’
He decided he’d had enough. He’d let the magistrate deal with them in the morning and send them home again. There were far more important things for him to deal with than a bunch of drunks, no matter how unpleasant they were.
‘Three mysteries in one day,’ he said aloud, and picked up the small key. ‘A vanishing cinéma vérité film crew, a missing body and a bunch of English hard men who don’t know when to go home. And,’ he added, ‘I wonder why Mr Tasker was lying about this little item?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘All hands on deck,’ Desmoulins murmured. ‘The bosses have landed.’
Rocco looked up from the case file he was working on to see Commissaire Massin striding along the glass-walled corridor running the length of the building, heading for the stairs to his office. Impeccable in his uniform, he was trailing behind him three men in dark suits, well coiffed and austere of face. Two looked neither right nor left, as if homing in on a target. The third man, a more leisurely three paces to the rear, ran a sharp look over the office, finally settling on Rocco and lingering a moment before flicking away. This man was tall and slim, with the athletic build and easy stride of a soldier.
Officials. Ministry men.
Rocco watched them go. No doubt Massin would put in an appearance later, showing off his terrain and his men, anxious to impress his visitors from the big city.
He knew Massin of old. The autocratic, ascetic and by-the-book police commissaire had been the same in the army in Indochina, when Rocco had witnessed him having a serious crisis of courage under fire. He hadn’t set eyes on the man since escorting him off the battlefield to safety, until fate had intervened several months ago. Rocco had found himself transferred out from Paris on a new policing ‘initiative’ to spread investigative facilities around the provinces.
From Clichy to Picardie had been quite a change, from gangs to … well, anything, strange crash sites on a country road being the latest. But as Rocco had discovered very quickly, crime here was the same animal as anywhere else. It sometimes came disguised as something different, but crime it remained.
Coinciding with his transfer to the Amiens region, Massin had turned up in his life once more. The atmosphere had been strained ever since, with Rocco fully expecting to be transferred out again at any moment. That it hadn’t happened yet was a minor miracle, and probably due to Massin needing a period of calm and playing a waiting game until Rocco tripped up and gave him the excuse he needed.
Surprisingly, Massin and his three visitors stayed upstairs out of sight, with instructions issued for them not to be disturbed. Deputy Commissaire Perronnet did a brief tour instead, checking shift details and ongoing tasks while skilfully avoiding answering any questions about the identity of the three men.
‘Bloody strange,’ said Desmoulins.
The comings and goings went on for the rest of the day. Massin and his visitors went out for a late lunch, returning at the end of the afternoon when the shifts were changing. They looked sombre in spite of the break, raising speculation among the officers and staff who watched them pass by.
‘Something’s going on,’ one of the desk sergeants professed knowingly. ‘The top kepis don’t act this secretive unless it’s going to be bad news for the troops.’
‘We could be in for a pay rise,’ Desmoulins countered. ‘Of course, I have been known to underestimate our esteemed superiors on numerous occasions before.’
Rocco