‘Can’t you pull rank?’

‘It’s not that kind of company. Besides, whoever they are, I’d rather they didn’t know we were here.’

They hurried downstairs, footsteps echoing off the walls. As they rounded the last bend, someone began pounding on the front door, and they saw Viviane coming out of her flat. She turned towards them and handed Rocco a key.

‘Out the back,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the same men who came last night. Post the key back to me when you can.’ She clutched his arm. ‘Did you find anything?’

He thought it better to lie, if only for her sake. She was a tough character, but she might find herself facing heavy opposition and he didn’t want her compromised if they leant on her.

‘Sadly, no. No answer from number 10, either. But thanks. Ring me if you think of anything that might help.’ He pressed his card into her hand, his new number scribbled on it. Ducked his head and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Give us two minutes.’

They were just clear of Paris when Claude slapped a hand on the steering wheel and swore. ‘How did they know we were there? Are you sure she—?’

‘I’m sure,’ Rocco interrupted him. It was natural that Claude might suspect Viviane of having made a sneak phone call, but he was certain that she hadn’t. ‘They must have been watching the place. I should have noticed.’

‘Maybe. OK, if you say so.’ Claude thought it over, then shrugged. Moments later, he looked sharply at Rocco. ‘What was that phone number again?’

Rocco took out the piece of paper from the telephone pad. ‘Forty-eight, twenty-seven, eighty-seven.’

‘Thought so.’ Claude looked confused. ‘But how—? My number starts with forty-eight. I bet yours does, too.’

Rocco pictured the number in the house in Poissons. He was right. ‘Forty-eight, twenty-seven, ninety-three.’ He turned and looked at Claude. ‘Who else in the village has a phone?’

‘His highness the mayor. Francine at the co-op. The café. Maybe a couple of others.’ Claude shrugged, making the wheel wobble. ‘I don’t know. Not many. But there’s nobody called Brouté; I’d know, otherwise.’

‘Then he or she must be using another name.’ Rocco scowled darkly and wondered what other secrets the village of Poissons was hiding.

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

Massin sounded frosty, his voice snapping down the line like a whip. The phone had been ringing when Rocco got back home. It was nearly eleven and he had a feeling it might have been ringing for a while.

He gathered up the phone wire and walked through to the kitchen. While Massin continued ranting, he put on some water for coffee. If this went the way he was expecting, he might not get the opportunity later.

‘You break with protocol,’ Massin grated, ‘you cross boundaries without as much as a thought to other regions and you interrogate an important man like Bayer-Berbier – all without clearing it with this office first! Who gave you the authority? Did I say you could proceed outside this division? Did I?’

‘I couldn’t get hold of you in time,’ Rocco lied easily, and sat down to wait for the accusation that he and Claude had entered Nathalie Berbier’s flat without authority and against instructions. Massin had clearly been in receipt of a shit storm from the Interior Ministry, and was now passing it on down the line in time-honoured fashion.

‘Really? What was so urgent that you could break all the rules like this?’

‘Because the body was removed from the pathology room by order of a Paris magistrate before I had completed my investigation. It struck me as suspicious.’

‘You could still have gone through official channels.’

‘The local station wouldn’t have known anything about it. I needed to brace Berbier direct, not through a functionary with one hand on his arse and his eye on his career.’

A brief pause, then, ‘What did he say?’

Rocco noted the change in tone. It represented a slight shift in Massin’s response. Was the man going soft?

He relayed the brief conversation he’d had with Berbier. ‘It amounted to nothing. He didn’t confirm his daughter’s death – in fact he claimed he’d spoken to her the previous evening, which was bullshit. He’s either in denial or hiding something.’

‘Thank you for that expert analysis,’ said Massin dryly. ‘But has it not occurred to you that he might be grieving? Or that being interrogated by a member of the police was too much, too soon? He’s not a country farmer, you know.’

‘Yeah, that occurred to me,’ Rocco said. He got up to pour water into the percolator. ‘The fact is, if he was a local farmer I wouldn’t be having this problem. Berbier pulled strings and got his daughter’s body lifted out of a police establishment before my investigation even began. Farmers don’t get that privilege.’

A short silence, then, to Rocco’s surprise Massin said, ‘I agree. Even so, we operate with the consensus of the people. Don’t forget that. Some of them have powers we cannot dream of.’

‘Really? Damn. And there was I thinking we had a job to do and to hell with what the people thought.’ He still couldn’t work out what Massin was up to. After opening with angry bluster, the man was now sounding almost reasonable.

A door slammed not far from the other end of the phone, and Rocco heard Massin murmur a brief greeting, before the senior officer said, ‘You have your instructions, Inspector Rocco. See that you follow them.’

Rocco immediately knew what was up. Massin had someone close by, listening to his end of the call.

‘Are you telling me to back off?’ he asked carefully.

‘No. I merely suggest that from here on, you proceed with all appropriate attention to procedure. Do you understand me?’

The words were stiff with authority, yet Rocco detected a tone in Massin’s voice which allowed flexibility of interpretation. There was something else: Massin hadn’t mentioned Félix Faure.

‘What if my investigation should take me back to the city?’

‘Is that likely?’

Rocco thought about it. Massin wasn’t expressly forbidding him from going back to Paris, in spite of the clash with Berbier and the Ministry men. As convoluted as he knew the official mind could be, it sounded like a blind eye was being turned.

‘It’s looking possible.’

‘Explain.’

‘Berbier must have learnt about his daughter’s death within hours of her body turning up at Poissons military cemetery; otherwise, how could he have known to claim it? He might be an important figure, but it still takes time to get a senior magistrate to sign release papers for a possible murder victim.’

‘I see. Were there documents on the body?’

‘Not according to Rizzotti. She was simply a dead woman of indeterminate age. Someone must have told Berbier; someone who knew she was in the area. I intend to find out who that person is.’

‘Very well. I accept your explanation and expect to hear no further complaints.’

The phone clicked off and Rocco stood there, trying to figure out what was going on. The call had filled him with unease, but not for having been caught out trampling across regional boundaries or bracing an important figure in Parisian society about the death of his daughter. Either Massin had somehow put aside who Rocco was, along with their history, or he was setting him up for a fall. And that could only be to get rid of him. Except that it would be a messy way of stitching up a subordinate. He must know that Rocco wouldn’t simply curl up and go without making a fuss. So what was he up to?

He poured his coffee and took it through to get changed into fresh clothing. Whatever was going on, he still had a job to do. And worrying about the machinations of senior officers wasn’t going to help with his investigation. All the same, he was going to have to watch his back a lot more carefully than he had done so far.