He snapped awake, mouth gummy and sour. That bloody phone again. He groped in the dark and found it, snatching it to his ear.
‘Inspector Rocco?’ It was a young woman’s voice crackling down the line. Distant, but clear enough. ‘It’s Sophie Richert.’
‘Jesus. One moment.’ He struggled out of bed and switched on the light, shook his head to clear away the last fragments of sleep. He took a glass of water off the table and swallowed a mouthful. It tasted tepid and gritty, metallic. He sat down, composing his thoughts. He’d convinced himself that he would never hear from Sophie Richert again, not outside the fashion pages of some magazine, anyway. He said calmly, ‘My apologies. Are you back in Paris?’
‘No. New York. Sorry — were you asleep? I haven’t got used to the time difference yet.’
‘No matter. What can I do for you?’
‘I have to talk to you… there are things I need to say.’ She stopped as if suddenly unsure.
‘That’s good. But why now and not earlier?’
‘Because it’s safer. From here, I mean. I hope you understand.’
‘I see. Go ahead.’
‘I didn’t want to say before, but Nathalie… she was thought of as a poor little rich girl; her father a war hero and a rich businessman, connected to diplomats, all that.’ She hesitated, and for a moment Rocco thought he’d lost her, that her nerves had got the better of her. Then she continued. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘She wasn’t rich. Her father was, but he never gave her anything. Her mother died several years ago, and that tore her apart. Her grandmother was still around, but all she really cared about was her son. Everything Nat had, she earned herself. She wanted to be independent… to be her own person, you know?’
‘I understand.’
There was a choking sound. ‘She should not be dismissed as just a
… a spoilt girl who got into trouble. That’s so unfair.’
‘I agree, it is.’ Rocco wondered where this was going. An attack of the guilts for running out after her friend’s death, perhaps? Then he recalled Viviane saying that Nathalie’s father paid her rent. ‘She had the flat, of course.’
‘That was just for show. He wanted to be seen as generous and caring… but it was to keep Nathalie under his thumb. Beholden to him. They didn’t get on.’
‘Why not?’
There was a long pause.
‘Sophie?’ Rocco prompted her.
‘She knew things.’
The line pinged with static.
‘What sort of things?’
‘Stuff about how her father made his money… how he managed to become rich and powerful at a time when so many others had lost everything.’
‘Did she give you any details?’
‘No. She said it was too dangerous to talk about. She mentioned it once when she got drunk, after she found out she was pregnant. She was so unhappy… I think it very nearly all came out. But something stopped her.’ Sophie cleared her throat as if she had found this difficult. ‘The only thing Nathalie ever said was that for a man who started out as a simple army captain, her father managed to end up owning lots of land. He acquired it just after the war, when he began buying things.’
‘Things?’
‘I think she meant companies damaged by the war. “Corporate rescue”, she said he called it, like it was heroic or something.’
Or profiteering, as it’s called in some parts, thought Rocco cynically. ‘Go on.’
‘She said that, in spite of him being rich, some of the land he had acquired in his business deals was useless. He was always moaning about how he’d been cheated because there was nothing he could do to profit from it.’
‘Why useless?’ Any land, Rocco thought, was worth something. Especially if you didn’t have any to begin with. It gave most people a feeling that they belonged somewhere. No doubt to an industrialist like Berbier, however, different rules applied.
‘She said some of it was mountainous and good only for a few sheep. The rest was all lakes and marshland.’
Marshland.
Rocco felt a cold chill go through him. ‘Where was this marshland?’
‘Somewhere in the north, I’m not sure. I think she was talking about where she… where it happened. North and boring, she reckoned. All beetroot and cabbages and people scratching a living in the fields. I don’t think she meant that how it came out; she was actually a very nice person.’
Rocco had never met Nathalie Berbier, but in his experience, breeding came through at times of great stress. And sometimes that breeding was revealed as an ugly truth. Still, that was all over now; a pattern was beginning to emerge. The only question was, would it lead anywhere? A distant father-daughter relationship, parental meanness, a soured and suspicious atmosphere based on resentment. Cue almost any family in the land. It didn’t amount to a crime.
Then Sophie spoke again, her voice dull. ‘I told you Nathalie hated the man Broute.’
‘Yes.’
‘She hated her father more.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Early next morning, eyes gritty through lack of sleep, Rocco dragged himself to the Amiens office in search of Desmoulins. He tracked him down to a side office, talking on the phone and making notes. Desmoulins spotted him and waved him in, then ended his call.
‘Hi, boss,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I hear you’ve been busy.’ He nodded at the phone. ‘That was a call from Rouen, checking you out. A Detective Bertrand, talking you up after you met with him yesterday at a crime scene. His boss just got the report and wanted to hear more about the case. I hope you don’t mind; Commissaire Massin was busy, so I filled him in on what little I knew, without giving any names, though.’
Rocco nodded and explained why he had gone to Rouen. ‘Thanks for taking care of it. You’d better fill Massin in on that phone call, for the sake of procedure.’
‘Will do. They’ve put out a bulletin on the student, Agnes Carre, who visited him recently. He said you’d know all about that.’
‘Yes. She was looking for a war photo. The same photo we found in Marthe’s house. Can you do your own records search on her, too? Could be a waste of time, but another pair of eyes might turn up something useful.’ He rubbed at his face and yawned. His whole body was beginning to shut down, overcome by tiredness.
‘No problem. You look like you could use some of our special coffee.’ The detective stood up and left the office, returning moments later with a large mug and some lumps of sugar. ‘Sorry about lack of finesse, but the maid’s off. This is strong enough to raise the dead.’
‘Now that would be a miracle.’ Rocco stirred in sugar and sank a large gulp of strong black that threatened to melt his teeth, then eyed Desmoulins carefully. The detective seemed unusually chipper and he wondered why. ‘Did you win the lotto or something?’ he asked.
Desmoulins grinned. ‘Not quite. Massin told me about the photo coming from a shop in Poitiers. I used a bit of lateral thinking and reckoned that if this Didier Marthe came from that area, maybe Tomas Broute did, too.’
‘Christ, that was a leap. A good one, though. I should have thought of it myself.’
‘I used Massin’s name and got the mayor’s office in Poitiers to run a priority check on the civil register of births for a Tomas Broute in the area.’ He shrugged. ‘It was a long shot but you have to try these hunches occasionally, right?’
Rocco waited, then said calmly, ‘Spit it out, for God’s sake, I’m desperate here.’
Desmoulins looked pleased with himself. ‘In December 1912, a Lisanne Broute, spinster of the parish, gave birth to a son, named Tomas, Didier. No sign of a father, even a reluctant one.’
Rocco played devil’s advocate. ‘Coincidence. Both names are fairly common.’
Desmoulins didn’t even blink. ‘The registrar’s name was Marthe.’ He raised his hands. ‘What can I say?’