Episode 21 - France

Wednesday April 2

It took Gary most of Tuesday to get to his hotel in Dijon. He phoned home, ate something at a nearby brasserie and went to bed early to think about strategies, but fell into a deep sleep that lasted until he heard tradesmen banging around at 7 a.m.

Gary was not sure how he was going to get the Dijon police interested in looking for a second Mortimer since they thought they had done their job finding one. At nine sharp he entered the Gendarmerie and introduced himself. He was sent to the department that had received Roger’s request to look for Mortimer. They had been contacted by Europol as well and had – they assured Gary – done everything they could. They were proud that they had succeeded in their search for a Mr Mortimer. End of story.

Before Gary could practice any more of his rusty French, he was introduced to Pierre Ford, a bilingual police officer who turned out to be British born and immediately started to interpret everything.

“That won’t always be necessary,” said Gary, who understood more French than he could speak. The old, pre-Cleo Gary would have been offended and refused help. The new Gary was grateful and thought Pierre would be more helpful than the senior gendarme, a pompous wind-bag of a guy who seemed anxious to be rid of him. Gary was unperturbed. The guy reminded him of someone in Frint-on-Sea.

“Have you searched the factory?” Gary asked.

“We found your Mr Mortimer, didn’t we?” snapped the gendarme, who seemed to be in charge of things.

“There are two Mortimers,” said Gary. “We need to find the second one.”

Gary understood that Pierre was being told to take care of things. He was to show Gary around the factory. That would prove that the gendarmerie had done all it could. Then Mr Hurley could go home to Britain.

“I’m sorry my boss was so rude,” Pierre said, when they were in Gary’s hired car and Pierre was directing the way to the toy train factory.

“Some boss,” said Gary. “All wind and little brain. I’ve come across that kind before. Giddy from the power of being in charge. Prone to delusions of grandeur.”

“In a nutshell,” Pierre agreed. “By the way, don’t call the trains toys, will you? All the adverts say that they are miniatures.”

“I’ll remember that. To put you in the picture, a guy calling himself James Mortimer is sitting in an arrest cell in Middlethumpton, Oxfordshire,” said Gary. ”We don’t know if it is that brother or the other one. We suspect the brother John of killing his family. The Mortimer we have in custody would not say where the brother is now, or perhaps he doesn’t know. I came here to try to locate that brother. If the John Mortimer in custody in Middlethumpton is using James’s travel documents, the search is for James, in which case we also have ask ourselves where the other brother is, John killed his family, we think, but we don’t know for sure.

“Did the Mortimer you have in the UK say he was James?”

“He insisted on it, Pierre, and showed me his passport, but I wonder if he was too insistent. I should add that the brothers are identical twins.”

“You obviously don’t trust the Mortimer you have in custody.”

“No. If he is John and knows where James is, he might have borrowed or stolen the passport. Whichever twin it is might have killed the other one.”

Gary was not sure whether to tell Pierre about the drugs yet, but he did.

“There’s more to it, however. Apart from finding John Mortimer’s family shot dead in the house, we found heroin in one of those model trains there. Do you know anything about the drug trade here?”

“Do you think one of the Mortimer brothers is drug-trafficking?”

“Yes Pierre.”

“We could get a drug-trained dog on the job, Mr Hurley.”

“It’s Gary and no. Let’s find the second Mortimer brother first. Any hint that we suspect drugs puts people on their guard. Turning up with a snooper dog would do just that.”

“So we are looking for whichever brother is missing, aren’t we? Do you know when the second Mortimer was last seen?”

“No, Pierre. The family was found shot 10 days ago and had been dead for two or three days.”

“That’s awful.”

“Mortimer could still be in Britain, but his neighbours told us that he commuted regularly to Dijon and did business with his brother, so it’s on the cards that he or his brother killed the family unless it was an outsider. The brothers look so alike that you can’t tell which one is which unless you know them well. If we draw a blank at the factory, we could go to Mortimer’s house and look there.”

“But that’s where M. Mortimer was found, Gary, and he was alone. There was no one else in the house, I’m sure.”

“Was a search made?”

“No. Once we had found a Mortimer, the hunt was called off,” said Pierre.

“You know what the guy looks like, of course.”

“Yes.”

“DNA tests showed up for John, who lived in the house in Upper Grumpsfield. We haven’t even started to look for a murderer who isn’t John Mortimer.”

“I don’t think any DNA evidence was gathered at the house since we assumed that catching James Mortimer, whose house it is, would make that superfluous.”

“That’s an argument with a loophole, Pierre.”

“I know that now.”

And the DNA would be the same for both Mortimers.”

“As if it wasn’t complicated enough,” said Pierre.

***

Gary parked outside the factory and he and Pierre went to the entrance. They both showed their police badges to the receptionist.

“We want to talk to Monsieur Mortimer,” Pierre told her.

“He’s on holiday,” said the receptionist.

“Oh,” said Pierre. 

“Can we talk to his secretary?” Gary asked.

“She’s been on holiday, too, but I think she’s back today.”

Gary and Pierre made their way to James Mortimer’s office.

***

Suzanne Rocher’s name was on a brass plaque perched on the counter of the CEO’s reception area. A youngish woman was typing busily on an electronic device that went out when PCs came in. Computers had not got as far as Mortimer’s office.

“Vous êtes Mme Rocher?” Gary asked.

“Yes,” said the woman in English. “What do you want?”

“We’d like to speak to Mr Mortimer,” said Gary, deciding that his French was definitely inferior to Mme Rocher’s English.

“He is on holiday,” said the secretary. “He has gone to play golf.”

“Has he? Where?” said Gary.

“He often goes to Britain,” said Mme Rocher.

“When will he be back?”

“He did not say. I was away last week so I did not know he was going to be away, Monsieur.”

“Do you know where your boss’s brother is?”

Mme Rocher blushed. She was clearly embarrassed.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“We need to talk to him. I don’t suppose you know where he is, do you?”

Mme Rocher stuttered a “Non”.

“Why are you nervous, Mme Rocher?” said Gary.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Are you having an affair with James Mortimer?” Gary asked, guessing that Pierre would not ask that question.

Mme Rocher categorically denied the affair.

“Not with James,” she said.

“So when did you last see John Mortimer?” Gary asked her.

Pierre stepped back. He did not want the backlash that would come when his superiors found out what Mme Rocher had been asked. Not that Pierre was responsible for Gary’s questioning, It was just that the activities of important and influential persons and their families were not to be scrutinized too closely.

“He was … He was at my house. Not last weekend, the weekend before that.”

“Would that be around Saturday March 22^nd, Mme Rocher?”

The secretary consulted a date-a-day diary and nodded.

“He came on the Thursday before that weekend. I was surprised. He usually comes on a Friday.”

“So you are having an affair with John Mortimer, are you?”  said Gary.

Mme Rocher nodded.

“And you know which brother is which, I expect.”

Mme seemed to have trouble answering that question.

“What I mean is whether John was the same as always, Mme Rocher.”

“He was a bit nervous. He asked me if he could stay in my house while I visited my family in Marseille.”

“You said he could, I expect. When did you leave?”

“Last Tuesday, it must have been,” said Mme Rocher.

“So you spent the weekend together,” said Gary.

“Yes,” she said.

“And you are sure it was your lover, Mme Rocher?”

“Oh yes, Monsieur.”

“The problem is that Mr Mortimer probably killed his wife and her sons just before he visited you, Mme Rocher.”

The woman was horrified.

“He would not do that,” she said.

“He might,” said Gary. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

“He said his wife wanted a divorce.”

Gary walked past Mme Rocher into the main office. Mme Rocher thought that her boss was going to be away for at least another week since he had been on such golfing breaks before, so she had not yet organized the old mails and circulars that were strewn around as though they had been looked at briefly and discarded. It did not look like a CEO’s office.

Gary went to the window and looked out.

“What is that building across the yard,” he asked.

“The original factory, Monsieur. It is used as a storeroom now. All the very old machines are still in there, but nobody goes there.”

“Do you have a key, Mme Rocher? I would like to look at the old machines. I'm very interested in that kind of thing.”

“They are not for sale, Monsieur.”

“I don’t want to buy them. Just look at them.”

***

Pierre was a little surprised that Gary would take time out to look at old machinery, but he took possession of the key. Gary thanked the secretary and hoped he had not been a nuisance. Her private life was her own affair, after all. The two police officers went down to the back entrance that opened onto the courtyard.

“Do you have something in mind apart from looking at old machines, Gary?”

“I wanted to get away from Mme Rocher,” said Gary, “but now we have the key, we could look inside that building.”

The key turned easily, as if the lock had been oiled. Gary wondered if drugs were stored there. A disused workshop would be an ideal place and dealers could come there via a gate at the back of the yard after factory hours without being seen, since the yard did not overlook the front entrance.

The lock was definitely in use. There was very little daylight inside, but the lights worked and soon the building, a single factory hall with a door to private quarters at the far end, was bathed in a cool light. It was like visiting the ghosts of yesteryear and it gave Gary the creeps.

Do you want me to take a look round first,” said Pierre, seeing Gary’s unease.

“We’ll go together, Pierre,” said Gary.

The machines for cutting, stamping and forming metal were in a central area. The assembly, painting and packing had been done on tables lining the walls. No wonder a bigger building had replaced this one.

At the far end of the hall there were boxes and other wrapping equipment that had obviously been discarded.

“You could hide things under that pile of stuff,” said Pierre.

“Yes,” said Gary. “I was just thinking that myself. We could move some of it and see what’s underneath.”

“Shall we look for a corpse, Gary?” Pierre jested.

“I don’t expect to find a dead Mortimer, but it’s possible, isn’t it?”

Pierre sobered up. Gary was quite obviously determined to leave no stone unturned and it would be a feather in Pierre’s cap if he could show those Dijon police what was what.

“I agree. It is possible,” he said. “This building was not searched because we were told that it was out of use.”

“The Mortimer I questioned reckoned that he had nothing to do with his brother’s activities. I asked him if he knew about the drugs found in his brother’s house, and he denied knowing anything. I wasn’t convinced then, and I’m not convinced now.”

The two men pulled the boxes and cartons away and it was not long before they uncovered the body of the other Mortimer brother.

“That’s definitely a Mortimer,” said Pierre, shocked but appreciative of Gary’s determination. “He looks as if he’s been smothered, Gary.”

“He does, doesn’t he? KO drops in a drink then a cushion or blanket pressed onto the face of someone in a coma – almost the perfect murder,” said Gary. “We had a case like that in Middlethumpton only a few days ago. But he has also been shot, Pierre, and that’s good.”

“Why?”

“We might be able to match the bullets with one taken out of Mrs Mortimer’s lung,” said Gary.

Pierre shuddered at the sight of the corpse, the rising odour of decay and the ghostly light falling on everything, but he was determined to stay professional since Gary obviously had his aversion under control.

“There are some old blankets covering some of the machines,” said Pierre. “I expect one of those was used. What a pity they don’t retain prints. What do we do now?”

“Call in the appropriate services, Pierre. You know who they are. It’s your game, though it might be more diplomatic if you said we found the corpse together since your colleagues neglected to search this building. You might get a tracker dog in, too. I don’t think we should search for drugs without one.”

“When all the ritual is over, will you come and meet my family, Gary?”

“I’d like to, Pierre, and I’d like to hear how you came to be in Dijon. Your English does not sound French.”

“I’m British, Gary. My mother is French.”

Gary and Pierre drove back to the Gendarmerie in Gary’s hired car. It was late afternoon by the time they had been back to the factory with the rest of the team that should have included a search of the building and found the corpse after they had searched the main factory. A post mortem would confirm Gary’s described mode of murder. The building was cordoned off pending forensic investigation.

Gary returned briefly to his hotel to change into something casual and phone Cleo and Roger with news of his progress before driving to Pierre’s house on the outskirts of Dijon. There was still no still no binding indication of which brother was lying dead in that old factory.

***

Over dinner, Pierre explained that he had met his wife Rachel while on holiday and returned to France because they wanted to be together. She was teaching and could not move for at least six months. Pierre had quit his cop job in the UK and worked as an interpreter in Dijon until Rachel found a job at a school. They had two children. Pierre applied for a police job in Dijon and was lucky. His interpreting skills were often in demand and that had helped him to get on.

“I’d go back to the UK if I had a job to go to,” said Pierre. “Rachel has decided to retire from school teaching and concentrate on tutoring.”

“Would you take a job in the backwaters of Middlethumpton, Pierre?”

“Why not? My wife can tutor French anywhere and the children are bilingual.”

“OK. I’ll find you a job at my HQ,” Gary offered. “I can’t promise, but my word carries weight.”

“That would be great,” said Rachel, whose English was as fluent as Pierre’s French. “But not until the end of the school year, please.”

“I’ll get onto it tomorrow,” said Gary. “Middlethumpton is quite near Oxford, so you won’t be devoid of culture, though the district around Middlethumpton is more famous for its potatoes than its grand opera.

“Make time for a tour of Dijon, Gary,” said Pierre. “It’s a beautiful city and your mission here is all but complete.”

“I’ll come into the Gendarmerie and meet you there, shall I? I should thank the homicide team for their help and cooperation and ask for the report on the dead Mortimer to be sent to me.”

“Eleven o’clock OK?”

“Great. Your cooking is marvellous, Rachel!”