Dead Reckoning, Chapter Three. An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery. Louis Shalako.

Down in the catacombs, were you...

Louis Shalako

After an hour and a half in the catacombs, looking up various facts and doing more thinking than so-called work, Hubert returned to the room, as those in the know called the Special Homicide Unit.

To find Roger Langeron there was one thing, to find Inspector Delorme there was something else. To find that Levain was essentially being bumped and that Delorme was now appointed acting head of the unit was even more something else…his heart sank.

Hubert had the rank of detective, but his seniority was middle of the pack, and department heads were known to salt their own favourites into the mix, and there were plenty of guys who would bump him in a heartbeat if they saw an opportunity…and this was clearly an opportunity in a small, tightly-knit, but very prestigious unit.

“Ah, Hubert.” Roger, he could handle—

“So, here’s the young man with all the bright ideas.”

Yes, that was Delorme all right, complete with the fucking deer-stalker cap, admittedly not on his head but hanging on the rack along with the tweed Macintosh and a knitted scarf of many colours.

It was June, for crying out loud, but to some the image was everything.

If Delorme is the new Boss, then I am out of here anyways—that’s what he was thinking.

In which case, he had nothing much to lose.

“Yes, sir.” Showing a coolness he did not feel, Hubert took his desk and opened up the steno pad. “So. The river Pique has its source high in the Pyrenees above the town. Fed by multiple side-creeks, it starts off small, shallow and rapid, and then as it goes along, it gets much wider, with waterfalls, rapids and boulder-gardens for much of the way.”

There would be deeper pools and eddies, and gravel beds, and places to do a little fly-fishing. The town lay at an elevation of only six hundred-thirty metres above sea level, but the valley was surrounded by real mountains. Hubert had been doing his homework, all right.

As for the fishing, Gilles wasn’t exactly known for it, but then he’d hardly been down there in years, and maybe it had been the nephew’s idea. Or maybe he really was getting back into some youthful experiences or something—back to his roots.

“Gilles…Gilles was hardly the sort of man that would take a rod and reel down to the Seine and pass the time of day with all the other wharf-rats…” He certainly wasn’t known for it. “Right?”

Langeron nodded, sort of impressed. This young man at least asked questions, and satisfied his curiosity, even at the expense of the company so to speak, but then it was his job after all. These were special circumstances.

“Go on.”

Delorme nodded alongside Langeron.

“Very well, sir.” Hubert threw down the pad and the pen. “I want to go down there. I want to see it for myself. I want to talk to the people.”

Maintenon had all kinds of friends and relatives down there, surely someone would talk to him.

“And surely they have their own people, whom, I am sure, are very professional.” Delorme wasn’t saying no, he wasn’t saying yes either.

“I’ll take a leave of absence if I have to.” Hubert looked him, then both of them, in the eye—both eyes, all four eyes at once, sort of. “Gilles deserves that much. And you might have to fight a few other people as well.”

“So, it’s like that, is it?”

“Yes.” There was a pause. “Sir.”

It was calculated.

Maybe even perfectly calculated, but he could get another job. Somewhere, something, whatever, but another job never the less—

And God-damn them all to hell, anyways.

It was anything but an afterthought, that sir. No, that was purely calculated.

Langeron cleared his throat.

“Well, that seems clear enough, then.” The political chef to the last, or so it would seem.

Delorme fought back a faint grin, going all wooden for a moment. He’d never been that close to Gilles, but then no one really was. Except for these people. It was a consideration.

His eyes dropped, he thought it over, and then the eyes came up again.

There's got to be a hot babe, somewhere in this book... - ed.

“All right, Detective Hubert. Who would you suggest should go along with you.”

Sacre, merde. Hubert had just won one for the Gipper, to borrow a phrase from the Yanks, and without even hardly trying.

He did not hesitate, for he who hesitates is lost.

“LeBeaux. Éliott. He’s the most available, without disrespecting someone who isn’t in the room at present.” The new guy, and now it’s my turn to train him a little. “Firmin is on vacation, when he gets back he can pick up some of the load…”

And maybe get a little training of my own, insofar as how in the fuck do you ever train anyone? Not that LeBeaux was bad, far from it—he was here for a reason. He just hadn’t been there for very long. This might be a very good time to get to know the man.

Hubert gave his reasons in logical order.

Not without his own perspective, Delorme nodded firmly.

“Done. Take all the time you need. Draw some cash, get your tickets. Make your domestic arrangements and get on down there. I want to know everything, Detective Hubert. Everything.”

“Sir.”

All dried up in terms of words, it was all Hubert could do, to wonder when LeBeaux would be back. What in the hell do I tell him, and what is the first step in whatever it is that he was supposed to do next.

He opened up the notebook and began making a list. Cops were famous for lists, timelines, a series of events in chronological order; and chalk diagrams in several colours. It gave them time to think. It was a visual aid, it said so in the manual. Hopefully, something would come to him.

He was as qualified as anybody, and this was important.

The senior men were muttering between themselves and somehow fading away from his attention, but they had been through all of this sort of thing before, and it seemed like every year they lost someone, some years more than that. Best let the boy get on with it, in other words…

And if Delorme and Langeron would just clear the room and get the hell out of there for a while, he might feel one hell of a lot better about things. Sooner or later, Delorme would have to claim Maintenon’s desk, which was not the best of thoughts. Then there was Levain, almost worse in some ways, due to his close relationship with Gilles. He’d have to explain to Levain most of all, and he might be, indeed was, tougher than most. Levain was tougher than whale-shit and that was without even half trying. He wasn’t even obeying an order, not really—this was high-level wangling, and they would have a word for it in pretty much any language.

And then there was Gilles—gone, under mysterious circumstances. Right now, my responsibility is to Gilles. The unfamiliar sting of tears came to his eyes, but he was busy enough and hopefully they wouldn’t see all that…

Maybe Delorme wasn’t such a dink after all.

Maybe.

Maybe—maybe not.

Neither am I, on some level—now, there was a thought.

It never pays to underestimate anyone, not even yourself.

END

 

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See his works on Fine Art America. 

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Chapter One, Scene One.

Chapter One, Scene Two.

Chapter Two.

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