The Provence Puzzle Read online

  Contents

  THE PROVENCE PUZZLE, by Vincent McConnor

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  THE PROVENCE PUZZLE, by Vincent McConnor

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1980 by Vincent McConnor.

  All rights reserved.

  *

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidepress.com

  DEDICATION

  For Raymond Thomas Baker

  CHAPTER 1

  The unmarked black police car moved straight as a bullet up the dark and deserted street.

  Chief Inspector Damiot remained silent, seated beside Borell—his leather-jacketed chauffeur—feeling unnaturally calm, as usual, when entering enemy territory.

  Nobody knew how many agents de police the Valzo gang had killed. Tonight he must find some clue—anything—that would connect Valzo to the murder of that Laurent woman…

  He didn’t usually get involved with types like Valzo, but the death of Nicole Laurent had raised an outcry from the Paris press. Another Valzo murder, one headline had called it, demanding immediate action from the Quai des Orfèvres.

  There had been a conference this morning that ended with the Director-General ordering Damiot removed from all other investigations and assigned exclusively to the Laurent murder.

  Nicole Laurent had been Valzo’s latest mistress until he handed her over to one of his lieutenants, who in turn had discarded her to a minor member of their gang. Her bullet-pocked body had been found in an alley last week.

  Conveniently, Valzo had been in London on business when the Laurent woman was eliminated by one of his faceless killers.

  Today a police informer had reported that Valzo was in Marseille. The gang was known to be involved in the kidnapping of some Arab oil potentate from a private jet in Algeria. Valzo, behind the scenes, would supervise the ransom deal. He never permitted his lieutenants to handle anything that important.

  The Prefecture wasn’t interested in the kidnapping. For the moment, that was beyond their jurisdiction. They wanted Valzo for murder. Any one of a dozen suspected but unproven murders. Nicole Laurent was the latest…

  Damiot had a hunch that he was getting close to the truth. That pimp, Chulot, picked up last week, was about ready to talk. Another day without drugs and he should spill everything. Chulot was known to have bought heroin from the Laurent woman a few hours before her body was found.

  “What’s in this warehouse, M’sieur Inspecteur?” Borell asked casually. “Where I’m taking you…”

  “That’s what I’m hoping to find out, mon ami. We only know it’s a cover for the Valzo crowd.”

  “Valzo?”

  He heard the note of fear in Borel’s voice. “Valzo’s in Marseille with most of his gang. Gives me an opportunity to take a look inside the warehouse. I had Graudin watch the place this afternoon, but there was no activity of any sort. It’s used to store motorcycles for a chain of outlets Valzo controls around Paris. I suspect this may be where he keeps a supply of drugs and sends off deliveries with the motorcycles. There’s only one night watchman, an old man who sleeps on the job, and no armed guards. That’s to make us think the setup’s legitimate. We’ve raided it several times, but found nothing. I suspect the narcotics are stored in underground vaults with access from other streets.”

  “Am I coming in with you?”

  “No. I’ll have a quick look at the place. Nothing more.”

  “Yes, M’sieur Inspecteur!” Borell sounded relieved.

  “Park here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  “Yes, M’sieur Inspecteur.” Borell slowed the police car to a stop, as though for protection, behind a battered truck that looked abandoned.

  “And keep alert! This won’t take more than half an hour.” He started up the narrow street, passing a row of shops metal-shuttered for the night.

  As he walked, not hurrying, he wondered whether Sophie would be asleep or reading one of her romantic novels.

  God only knew where Olympe would be at this moment. His mistress always had friends to see. Singers and musicians. They sat in some favorite cafe near the Comique, drinking and gossiping…

  Reaching the cross street and staying close to the high wall, he turned toward the warehouse entrance at the middle of the block.

  The double wooden doors were locked, but a small metal door to one side swung in at his touch. No need to use the special device he carried on his key ring.

  He went inside, closing the door silently, and waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. That watchman must have slipped out for a beer at some nearby bar and left the entrance door unlocked. Reaching an inner door, Damiot was surprised to find that it too was unlocked. With the boss in Marseille, somebody had been careless.

  He pushed the door open and slipped inside into complete darkness, closing the door behind him before pulling a hand torch from his overcoat pocket. Its beam revealed a large storage room containing rows of shiny new motorcycles. They seemed to form one monstrous machine with hundreds of wheels.

  There was a whisper of movement at the far end of the room.

  Damiot snapped off his torch.

  He didn’t move, barely breathing, listening… Was someone there? Waiting for him in the darkness… Had he walked into a trap?

  Perhaps he only imagined that something had moved. The place would be infested with rats.

  He stepped forward in the dark, and struck one of the motorcycles with the toe of his shoe. The unexpected clatter echoed like the crash of a metal gong.

  A machine gun blasted and its spitting fire revealed a man’s face. Bullets smacked into metal and plaster, motorcycles clanged and crashed. Something hot burrowed into his left hip.

  The impact knocked him back. Into a bottomless void…

  CHAPTER 2

  The black Peugeot nosed off Route Nationale 7 through heavy rain, onto a secondary road that twisted higher and higher into the hills.

  Damiot, at the wheel, glimpsed a village far below, at the bottom of a deep valley.

  Provence! Empire du Soleil, they called it, but there was no sun this morning.

  His doctor had agreed that his hip should heal more quickly under the hot Provencal sun. He would learn to walk again without a limp.

  And he should be able to make decisions here. Plans for the future, about Sophie and their marriage. About Olympe…

  Once again, Sophie had left him. Would he be able to persuade her once more to come back? That required a drive down to Cannes, and long arguments while her mother listened to every word.

  His hip was hurting much worse now. Waves of pain. Probably caused by climbing those steps to the plane, then sitting in a cramped position on the flight from Paris to Nice.

  The doctor had warned him that he must avoid strenuous exercise. A little walking—half an hour, twice a day. He had already done much more than that tod
ay.

  Eleven years since he had been back to Courville! That last summer before he met Sophie…

  He looked forward to seeing his birthplace again, the old stone building his parents had owned at the northern edge of the main village street. Only half a dozen blocks in length, but they called it Avenue de la Republique!

  Chez Damiot. Restaurant and kitchen on the ground floor and three small bedrooms upstairs. His room had been the smallest.

  He’d grown up there. Always underfoot. His father wearing a chef’s hat and white apron, busy in the kitchen, while his mother ran the dining room with a series of youths from the village working as waiters. He was thirteen when he got a black suit with his first long trousers and took his place helping in the restaurant.

  That’s where he had learned about people. Observed their stupidities and peculiarities. How they ordered dinner, the way they ate, and the ways they complained. What they said when they thought he wasn’t listening.

  He slowed to peer at the sign beside the road, smiling as he read the name aloud. “Courville!”

  The road at once became the Avenue de la Republique. Such a pretentious name for the narrow street lined with plane trees, running south to north from one end of the village to the other.

  He slowed again to inspect a row of small shops on his right.

  First the florist. It had always been here, as you entered the village. There was a new name above the entrance—Sibilat Fleurs—so old Lorois must have died and somebody had bought his business.

  He realized, as he went on, that the avenue had been widened and that the sidewalk edging the churchyard wall on the other side had been eliminated.

  At least the ivy-covered stone wall hiding the cemetery behind Saint-Sauveur—the only church in Courville—hadn’t been touched.

  His parents were buried in there…

  As the avenue curved toward the heart of the village, he saw unfamiliar names above several other shops, their interiors so dim that he was unable to glimpse anyone inside.

  Everything looked so shabby! Like some grubby foreign village he’d never seen before.

  He discovered to his surprise that he was hungry. Been hours since breakfast and he had eaten nothing on the flight from Paris.

  Slowing for a new traffic light at the corner of rue Provence, facing the Place de la Republique, he saw the ancient pissoir on the far side of the square, faded posters peeling from its stone sides. Beyond the pissoir, behind a row of umbrella pines, was the small railroad station where no train had stopped since before the war.

  He drove on when the light changed, staring at everything. Straight ahead were the town hall and the Hôtel Courville, across the square.

  The stone fountain in the center wasn’t spouting any water in this rain. Only a few cars were parked around its marble basin, but on Saturdays, when an open market was held here, farmers came from the surrounding countryside and filled the square.

  The Hôtel Courville looked seedy and dilapidated. It was the only hotel in the village, but he didn’t care to stay there.

  As he approached the town hall, he saw that it needed a coat of paint. The clock in the small tower had stopped with both hands straight up. Noon or midnight? Its chimes would no longer sound the hours.

  Another new traffic light, corner of rue Voltaire, turned green, and he continued up Avenue de la Republique.

  Madame Mussot’s patisserie on the far corner, where he used to buy apricot tarts, seemed unchanged.

  Eleven years ago he had stayed at a new motel on rue Voltaire, behind the town hall. It had been comfortable but served no meals. Should he stay there again? With his injured hip, he would miss having breakfast in bed.

  Easing the Peugeot over the railroad tracks, he slowed past the final row of shops and the filling station that had been built after the war. Today, in the rain, it seemed old and dirty. A mechanic working on a truck in the cramped garage watched him as he drove past.

  He wondered if that girl still lived in the village. The one he had met the summer before he married Sophie. What was her name? Blanche? Blanche Carmet!

  Must find out what had happened to Blanche. A pleasant girl with brown hair and blue eyes. Solidly fleshed body…

  That had been his last holiday as a bachelor. In the spring he had written Blanche and told her he was going to be married. She had never answered…

  He drove past some handsome seventeenth-century houses with carved doors and graceful balconies. A child’s swing, hanging from a tree in a deserted garden, was swaying almost imperceptibly in the rain.

  Next a row of crumbling stucco houses, dingy and narrow. Beyond these, at the end of the avenue, was his old home…

  He would have a quick look at it before he found somewhere to stay.

  The whitewashed stone building in its small garden. He had planted flowers in front, vegetables along both sides and in the rear. Every morning he had cut fresh flowers for his mother to arrange on the restaurant tables and had picked vegetables for the kitchen.

  Rain was flooding his windshield, in spite of the hissing wipers.

  “Empire of the Sun?” he murmured. “Not today!”

  Pray God the weather would clear. He needed sunshine for his hip. The pain was almost constant. A steady monotonous throbbing…

  He could see the roof now, beyond the last of the plane trees.

  “Mon Dieu!” Someone had painted the old house yellow.

  A wooden sign hanging from a metal arm extended from a vine-covered post. Two words, neatly lettered.

  Auberge Courville

  Damiot slowed the car and turned off the avenue into an unfamiliar cobbled courtyard. The Peugeot came to a stop at the place where he had planted his flower garden.

  He sat there, both hands clutching the steering wheel, staring.

  The old building had been enlarged and painted a soft yellow with white trim and shutters, walls barely visible under a thick cover of young ivy leaves. Big new windows in the dining area, plants in white window boxes, and dark yellow awnings.

  Perhaps he would be able to find a room here. Actually stay in his old home!

  Eleven years ago the building had been in complete disrepair. He was told then that it had been vacant for several years.

  Maybe the place was closed. March was off-season in Provence. He picked up his hat from the seat and clamped it onto his head. Opening the door, he pushed himself out, favoring his injured hip. The stab of pain was immediate, and continued as he limped across the wet cobbles.

  The old entrance had been replaced. Instead of a wooden door there was a clear pane of thick glass. Stepping inside, he realized that the former narrow hall had been expanded into a shallow entry leading to a small circular lobby. A faint glow of warm light came from a shaded lamp above a tiny reception desk in an alcove that had never been there in the past. Pale gray daylight filtered out of the dining room. This restaurant was much larger than the old one. At least fifteen tables!

  Limping past the reception desk, he saw that the old staircase was still there, curving up into the shadows. Stairs to climb if they gave him a room.

  He reached out to grasp the wood handrail. Smooth to his touch. How many mornings had his mother polished that! And how many times had he slid down it when nobody was around to see.

  Beyond the staircase a new wing had been added. He looked into a lounge with comfortable sofas, several fauteuils, and a television set resting on an antique chest. Green plants in large earthenware pots. An old-fashioned hooded fireplace. Framed paintings on the walls. Impossible to see, in this light, what they were. A row of tall double windows faced a small terrace with a flower garden beyond, barely visible through the rain, where part of his vegetable garden had been…

  “M’sieur?”

  Damiot turned to face a skinny red-haired boy coming from the dining room, weari
ng a striped apron over his denim work clothes. “I was beginning to think you must be closed.”

  “We open at seven. Never for lunch.”

  “I was hoping to find a room…”

  “La patronne has gone into the village.” He edged behind the desk. “But I could give you a room. How long does M’sieur plan to stay?”

  “I’m not certain. Perhaps a week. I would prefer something quiet.”

  “If you’ll sign our guest book…”

  Damiot wrote his name on the empty page, adding only Paris, without giving his home address. “I’ll bring my luggage from the car.”

  “Leave your key in the ignition and I’ll park it for you.”

  “Won’t be necessary. I’m going out for some lunch and I’ll drive around to the back when I return. May have a nap before dinner. How’s the food here? You have a chef?”

  “The best in Courville! M’sieur Michel’s from Marseille. He worked in a famous restaurant there and before that in Toulon and Cannes.”

  “Then I’ll certainly dine here tonight.”

  “I will ask la patronne to reserve a table.” He bowed and hurried ahead to open the glass entrance door.

  Damiot brought his suitcases from the Peugeot and awkwardly carried them inside to where the garçon waited, key in hand.

  “My name’s Claude, M’sieur. Let me take those.”

  “Merci, Claude.” He set his luggage down. “I’ll have to go up these steps slowly. I was in an—an accident recently.”

  “I noticed M’sieur was limping. So I’ve given you a room on the ground floor.” He handed the key to Damiot and picked up his bags.

  “That was very considerate.” He followed, pain spreading through his hip again, down a tiled corridor leading to the rear of the new wing. A single window at the far end was opaque with rain, but soft light came from behind handsome sprays of copper leaves on the orange-brown walls. The garçon led him to the second door and swung it open, snapped a light switch, and stood aside for Damiot to enter.

  He went through the door unprepared for what was probably the most comfortable room he had ever seen. A large bed with simply carved headboard, an armoire, a comfortable bergere near a small fireplace. All the colors were muted: browns, yellows, and deep greens. Several handsome lamps and interesting paintings. Two pairs of French windows with long curtains that matched the flowered bedcover. The entire room had a curious feeling of security and peace.