Chapter Ten

Porthos headed away from the wine merchant's shop in the direction of the street that ran parallel, where he and Maurice Pellier had seen the glimpse of the grey truck as it had passed by on the night in question. He was determined; before the day was out, Porthos would find it.

This was the lead he wanted, as he firmly believed that whoever drove that truck did it as part of a plan to bring Athos down.

These streets were a rabbit warren, with a history of small businesses. Currently, according to M. Pellier, it was inhabited by a variety of merchants, book shops, bakeries and the like. Now a good many were private dwellings apart from the bespoke establishments.

He found Henri Joubert's shop easily enough. As it turned out, his security system was sophisticated and Henri was as amenable as his friend to Porthos viewing his footage. Porthos offered up silent thanks that they were both security conscious and concerned citizens, willing to help the authorities without argument. Both had heard of the recent accident of course, though the wreckage had been cleared by the time they opened up their establishments, so they hadn't been able to help with enquiries, until Porthos had contacted them.

Henri's jewellers shop was double fronted, its window sparkling with an array of trays that held silver necklaces, bracelets, earrings and watches. At any other time, Porthos would have paused, attracted by the bright, expensive items, but today, he was on a mission.

Henri came through as the door bell chimed above Porthos's head, extending his hand immediately.

"Good day," he said, "Maurice told me you wished to look at the security footage."

Porthos shook his hand and told him the date he was interested in.

Henri, like Pellier, the wine merchant, saved the CCTV footage in date order. Gone were the days when old fashioned tapes wiped themselves. In the computer age, everything could be saved indefinitely. Porthos now knew what he was looking for and the CCTV picked up the truck quickly.

They both watched as it disappeared past the jewellers and down the street.

Porthos's heart sank when he thought it would continue, disappearing once more into the night and he would have to track it by other means. Then it slowed, the tail lights bright in the shadow of the building on the other side of the narrow street. Whoever was driving knew where he was going. Porthos's breathing quickened. The truck turned left and disappeared.

"Do you know that street?" Porthos asked, looking up at the man.

"Yes," Henri replied, quickly. "It's a dead end."

Porthos allowed a mirthless smile to spread across his face.

"Gotcha," he said, quietly.

"But there are a lot of lock-ups," Henri added. "Several breweries used to store their equipment and barrels down there. And there are garages and warehouses."

Not quite as easy then, Porthos thought, but it was the truck he was looking for and a dead end street to search. He thanked Henri and left.

Ahead, he turned into the street and stopped.

Ahead of him stretched a long, empty street.

It had once, no doubt, been a bustling part of the city's manufacturing quarter, judging from the different facades that reared up on each side of the road. He could narrow his search down though, because the truck would have had to have passed through a wide entrance and he could strike off half of the street on that score.

There was no-one about and he suspected that many of the premises were empty behind their roll-down shutters and doors. While the main streets were busy and businesses did well, the back streets were a different story.

Porthos tried a few doors as he walked on. Ahead there was a metal door, at least three doors wide but the rust and dust was undisturbed. No-one had rolled this shutter up in several years. A further three doors he judged too narrow, and one had an ordinary door in the middle of it, which was the only entrance, so he discounted that one. He looked up at the windows above him. There were blinds on a couple of the windows, indicating private dwellings but the windows were not open and there was no sign of life today. He was half way down the street now and he crossed the street to observe the buildings from the other side of the road.

Ahead on the left he saw a wide dark blue rolled down door. Certainly wide enough for a truck, it was not disfigured by rust. Checking it out, he saw the whole structure was secured by a sturdy padlock at the base of the shutter. That would have to be locked from the outside, so he turned his attention to the door that was built into the right side of the shutter. That had a keyhole. Looking around, he pulled out his wallet and selected a pick. Inserting it in the lock he shifted it for a few moments, before hearing a distinct click. Pushing the door open, he grunted in frustration as it stopped, held by an internal chain. Squeezing his fingers inside, he put his shoulder to the door and pushed it as far as he could, which gave him space enough to feel around and make contact with the bolt at the end of the chain that slotted into the plate on the inside of the door. Sliding it across, the chain fell away and he pushed inside.

Looking around, he saw he was in a garage. There were no windows and the whole interior was shrouded in shadow. There was a mixture of smells that assaulted him; those expected in a garage, chemicals and oil, plus another one, equally familiar to him. Ahead though, sat the truck and his attention was drawn to it. It looked as if it was in the process of undergoing a respray.

He walked slowly toward the truck, his eyes flicking around the interior, but it was obvious that there was no-one there. The truck stood over an inspection pit, a hydraulic control dangling over his head. Reaching up and taking hold of it, he pushed the button and the whole mechanism cranked into life, the truck rising up on the two metal plates it stood on.

As it rose, the pit beneath came into full view. Porthos took an involuntary step back, although he had expected what he now saw.

It was not the body, sprawled at the bottom of the inspection pit that disturbed him. It was the blood that covered the floor and the walls of the concrete pit. Looking around, he saw a roll of blue paper on a nearby bench and he pulled off a long piece, balling it up and holding it over his nose and mouth, before climbing down into the pit.

He tentatively searched the cadaver's overall pockets but they were empty. As a last thought before calling Treville, he pushed the dead man over with his boot. Beneath the body, there was a phone, covered in blood. He used the paper towels he had been holding over his face to pick it up. He pressed the on button and to his surprise, it flickered into life. It gave a very brief few seconds of residual battery before it died.

Cursing loudly, he climbed out of the pit, wiping his boots against the stone floor, leaving long smear of blood. Walking over to a battered desk next to a workbench, he found several items plugged into an overloaded socket. There was also a staple of mechanics on an overhead shelf – a box of latex gloves, so he gratefully pulled a pair out and put them on. Searching through the drawers, he came upon a charger.

"Yes!" he grunted, pulling out the other plugs and pushing the charger in.

While he waited for it to charge the phone enough for him to scan the messages, he looked through the desk at the piles of paperwork, smudged by greasy fingers. The garage would be sealed off as an investigation into the murder began, but he wanted to have the first look into the man's business. Using the edge of another sheet of blue paper to flick through the various invoices, he could see nothing helpful, apart from the name of the garage on the invoices and bills. He would have to wait.

Turning his attention back to the phone, he had just enough battery now to scan the messages. He read the last message the man in the pit had received;

"Weather ahead good. Contract completed."

"Cryptic," he muttered, switching it off. It would be their department's techies job now to look at it.

Porthos grunted. He pulled out another latex glove and pushed the phone into it, before dropping it carefully into his pocket. He doubted there would be fingerprints on it but he followed procedure as best he could.

Time to plug himself back into the system. At least he had a lead of sorts, if the tech bods could trace the number and location of the message.

First though, Porthos had a call to make to Aramis, and he wasn't sure what reception he would get.

To be continued ...