Death on the Pont Noir - By Adrian Magson Page 0,108
thing: in, out and away to the ferries, easy money. But it was no such thing. There was no cash drop, Tasker said, and another bunch of gunmen was already inside. I don’t think we were meant to come out of that one.’
Calloway was no fool, Rocco recognised. He’d come along knowingly on an illicit venture, but had clearly put two and two together since it had gone wrong. ‘What do you think it was really about?’
‘We were a giant decoy squad, weren’t we? You remember Fletcher – the big lug? He drove the Renault truck when we did this the first time round. But this trip he was off doing it solo, on direct orders from Ketch himself. The rest of us were assigned to the bank job. On the surface, all a bit disconnected, but we were being paid, so why question it?’
‘You had no idea what Fletcher was doing?’
‘No. He was given specific instructions about today, I know that – and told to keep his mouth shut. He could barely keep it in he was so made up, like a bloody kid in a toyshop. What was he doing?’
‘He tried to kill President de Gaulle.’
‘What?’ Calloway shook his head. ‘Fletcher? That’s crazy. He wouldn’t …’ He stopped, eyes going wide. ‘The idiot.’
‘What?’
‘I should have guessed,’ Calloway said bitterly. ‘It didn’t take Einstein to figure out something big was going on … the black DS, the ramming and the Molotovs and pistols. I thought it was all a test run for someone else. But Fletcher?’ He stared at Rocco. ‘I mean, he wasn’t political – he wasn’t anything. He was a thug and a haulage driver, but that was it. Are you sure it was him?’
‘I saw him.’ Rocco wondered about it. Calloway sounded too shocked to be play-acting. Maybe Fletcher hadn’t known what he was doing either; maybe he thought the target was someone low-grade – a business rival. But they’d never know now. ‘If you thought it was something big, why did you go along with it?’
Calloway gave a wry smile. ‘I needed the money, didn’t I? I have gambling debts with people who break legs and things if they’re kept waiting.’
‘Nice friends you have.’
‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t just us, though, running this thing. A French group was involved – some big man in Paris, according to Tasker.’
‘Name?’
‘He never said. The French provided the plans to the bank, too. Tasker pretended he was in the know all along, but all he really knew was that Ketch had been paid by this French crew to stage a “scenario”, and we were the players.’
‘A scenario?’
‘That’s what he called it. It was all part of some weird plan to tie up and confuse the cops in the area. Now we know why, right?’ He squinted up at Rocco. ‘Did it work?’
Rocco refused to answer. He wondered how Godard was getting on out in the village. He responded instead with another question of his own. ‘What about the body of the tramp?’
Calloway’s face paled and he clamped his lips shut. But he was beyond denying anything. ‘Was that what he was? Poor bugger. That was Tasker’s idea. He found the body under the truck … I reckon he’d been sitting on the verge or had collapsed, and the truck ran over him. None of us saw him until we found him underneath the wheels. Anyway, Tasker reckoned you’d never find him in the burnt-out truck as long as we piled in some wood and lots of petrol.’
‘But burning the truck was still part of the scenario?’
‘Yes.’
Rocco wondered whether Calloway had been truly in the dark as much as he said, or was simply a very good actor. He was inclined to think a bit of both. ‘What about the first DS?’
‘What about it?’
‘We found it at the scrapyard. Before it was broken up.’
‘Now that wasn’t part of the plan. It was supposed to disappear completely. I reckon it was hot from a previous job and we were using it for the last time. The scrap merchant – Bellin? – had orders to torch it and cut it up immediately.’
‘Did he supply the car?’
‘No. Both vehicles were supplied by someone else; we just collected them from a prearranged spot. They came fitted with the harnesses and the timber. We just had to drive them according to instructions.’ He gave another dry smile. ‘A rare case of hands across the sea, wouldn’t you agree?’