Death on the Pont Noir - By Adrian Magson Page 0,30

smoke hanging in the air like a ghost. The carcass had settled onto the axles, and the tyres had burnt down to the rims. The throat-catching aroma of burnt metal and rubber was overlaid with the harsher tang of petrol fumes.

Rocco recognised the model by its stubby size and shape. A Renault Goelette 4x4, a small, brutishly effective workhorse, often used as a military ambulance among other functions. There were a few about in private hands, sold off by the military and used in all manner of capacities. He stood back from the scene while Dr Rizzotti took an initial look around, but could see nothing about the location to tell him why the truck had been torched here. It was parked off the road in an old chalk quarry, just out of sight of passing vehicles, but he could think of lots of other places where it would have probably remained unseen for longer. But why set fire to it? It was screaming to be noticed by someone sooner or later, no matter how uninquisitive the locals might be. Perhaps it had become a liability and the men driving it had been left with no choice but to dump it and leave.

‘You think I can tell anything from this?’ Dr Rizzotti murmured, gesturing at the remains. ‘I’m a doctor, not a mechanic.’

‘I’m not asking for an annual service on it,’ Rocco replied. ‘I need your scientific eye, that’s all.’ He had initially found Bernard Rizzotti defensive and overcautious in his opinions, but over the ensuing months they had formed a good working relationship. The doctor had found the investigative side of his work rewarding, and responded well to Rocco including him in the procedure whenever possible.

Rizzotti grunted and smiled an acknowledgement. ‘Very well. Let me see. As you can see from the remains, the fire was clearly fierce enough to scorch the surrounding vegetation and blacken the chalk face of the diggings. But there is not enough soft material in a truck cab like this to cause that level of heat, so I think perhaps the person who set the fire used petrol to help it along.’ He shrugged. ‘That would suggest they wanted to obliterate as much as possible of the vehicle and leave nothing for us – you – to work with.’

The fire had certainly done that, eating away at anything consumable on the truck and leaving a shell of thin metal for the cab and hood, and the bare metal structure of the rear bed with the wooden floor and sides almost completely gone.

Desmoulins found a stick and began teasing open the driver’s door and poking around inside, while Rocco went round to the front of the cab, where Rizzotti was squatting before a pile of ash on the ground.

‘Interesting,’ Rizzotti muttered. Under the remains of the vehicle’s front wing, he had found a thick section of wood that had not burnt all the way through. The end of the wood showed traces of saw marks and a sticky coating. Rocco bent to touch it. Was it tar … or black paint?

Rizzotti supplied the answer. ‘It looks like a railway sleeper. I bought a couple recently from the rail depot, for my garden. Extremely heavy and durable.’ He prodded the end with his pen. ‘See? Weathered by age and preservative. The flames ran out of heat before they could consume the wood completely.’ He dug gingerly in the pile of ash and lifted something from the powdery remains. It was curved and uniform, the thickness of a little finger, and heavy, about a metre in length.

‘Steel cable,’ said Rocco. He recognised the spiral shape of the burnt metal. He’d seen plenty in burnt-out trucks in Indochina. The sight triggered flashes of memory he didn’t wish to pursue. He shook his head and focused hard on what he was seeing.

Rizzotti pursed his lips, anticipating Rocco’s question. ‘The sleeper could have been lashed to the front of the truck to act as a counterweight,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe the truck had a small crane or winch fitted by a previous owner.’ He gestured towards the rear of the vehicle. ‘It’s definitely not there now, though.’

Rocco recalled what Simeon had told them. The truck had rammed the car, coming out of the track at speed. That being the case, a large lump of wood on the front would have acted as an ideal battering ram and added extra weight to the collision.

Desmoulins came round to join them. ‘Nothing useful in