Chapter Eleven
Aramis was tight-lipped when Porthos rang. He made Porthos work for it.
"Sorry," Porthos said, aware he was being made to work for it. His well-rehearsed explanation went flying out the window as he heard Aramis's tone.
"Had to do something," he muttered.
There was a long silence.
"And what precisely, did you do, assuming you completed it, whatever it was," Aramis eventually replied, tartly, putting his feet up on the chair in the waiting room he had retreated to.
"Found the truck," Porthos replied, a little smugly, now the initial ice had been broken.
Another frosty silence ensued though, as Aramis was obviously processing his reply. Porthos waited him out.
"And?" Aramis finally asked. Any questions as to Porthos's actual methods could wait.
"It's the one that set Athos up for the shunt," Porthos added.
"I didn't think you were talking about an ice cream truck," Aramis hissed. When Porthos did not reply, he relented. "You're certain?"
"Certain as I can be. Driver's dead. Usual manner." Porthos replied, quietly. "Messy."
"How do you know it's him?" Aramis asked. "Mendez," he added, quietly, barely able to say his name.
"I didn't think you were talkin' about anyone else." Porthos grunted, nudging Aramis's words back at him, as the ice finally melted. "What other knife wieldin' maniac are we searchin' for?" he added.
He heard Aramis huff at the other end. Best to let him stew a little. Aramis never could resist new information.
"Go on," Aramis finally said, reluctantly. Best to let him tell his tale. Porthos liked to tell a tale.
"I think it's pretty obvious," Porthos shuddered a little at the memory of the gruesome inspection pit. "But whoever killed him let 'imself in and locked up after himself. And I found the dead man's phone, wedged under his body. His killer missed it. Going to drop it off with the techies."
Porthos related the short message he had read on the phone.
He heard Aramis huff out a breath, though it sounded lighter, and he relaxed a little.
"Sounds promising," Aramis replied a few moments later, and Porthos now heard the smile in his voice. "Good work," he added.
"It's not much though, is it?" Porthos grunted.
"Best lead we have so far, my friend," Aramis returned, brighter now.
"We'll have to wait and see what the tech boys turn up. Might lead nowhere," Porthos persisted, his original euphoria at finding the truck draining a little at the task still ahead.
"The man has not been butchered without a reason, Porthos. Someone used him and then finished him. What are you going to do now?" Aramis added, wondering if Porthos was about to take off again.
"Nothing more I can do," Porthos sighed. "Coming back to the hospital. Spell you?"
"That would be good," Aramis replied. He sounded exhausted.
"How is he?" Porthos asked, quietly, beginning to feel more than little guilty. He had managed to push any guilt to the back of his mind while he was on his mission to find the truck, but speaking to Aramis was making him feel slightly nauseous now.
"Better than he was," Aramis replied, picking up on Porthos's tone. "He's been giving me a hard time," he smiled.
"He's talkin'?"
"No. Just the glare. And the body language. You may have to explain yourself though."
"Mea culpa," Porthos grunted.
"Oh, yes," Aramis added, and this time, he laughed. "He's even glaring at the nurses."
"Alright. See you soon then."
"Porthos?"
"Yeah?"
There was a long pause, as they both held their phones tightly.
"Bring doughnuts."
It was Porthos's turn to laugh. They were his favourite snack, and Aramis knew it. All was well between them, it seemed.
"You bet," he chuckled.
oOo
Treville chose to overlook the fact that Porthos had gone off grid. He knew Aramis would give him a hard time and at least his little sojourn had borne fruit. He was now waiting for three pieces of information as a consequence.
The dead mechanic's phone had been collected by one of their IT operatives, Simon leClerc, from the second floor. Treville expected results on the contents of the phone fairly quickly. He had made his expectations on that quite clear to leClerc, who had nodded his understanding and had seemed keen to help. They were, after all, investigating an assault on one of their own.
Treville then fired off an email to the Coroner's office.
His request to the Coroner would take a little longer. Red tape slowed everything down in the public sector, but again, he hoped his position would pull a few strings.
The third piece of the puzzle was the identity of the mechanic.
oOo
Simon leClerc called as quickly as Treville had hoped.
"The call originated from a region around one hundred miles south of Paris," he said. "I can give you the co-ordinates."
Treville breathed out a steady breath. More than he had hoped. He reached for his pad and scribbled the location down.
"The last message was short," Simon continued, "but there was no encryption. Nothing either side of it. Doesn't seem to be code, just a straight-forward message. No names either."
Treville hummed.
"Alright, thank you, Simon," he said, putting the phone down.
Standing up, he stretched out his back, before walking to the large wall map on the wall. Finding an approximation of the location of the message, by the co-ordinates Simon had given him, and the one hundred mile distance, he drew a circle encompassing it.
During the afternoon, information began to come in on the mechanic himself.
He was a petty criminal by the name of Richard Martine. He owned the garage, though he did seem to be in debt. The papers in his desk did not reveal anything of any use.
Dissatisfied, and at a loss of where to go next, Treville decided to check out the trucks registration. He knew he could have delegated that task, but he was frustrated at the whole business and wanted results. The truck, it seems, was legal, which was a surprise, given the owner's background and apparent associates. It stated the original colour as silver. No doubt, once it was resprayed, Treville thought, the man would have put false number plates on and it would begin a new identity.
And then, something caught his eye.
It seemed that Martine owned something else. Clicking through to another page, he found himself on a civil aviation webpage.
Richard Martine, apparently, owned a small used twin-engine aircraft.
Now, he delegated. Printing off what he had found, he strode from the room to the large office at the rear of the building, where he found one of his detectives still at his desk.
"I want you to look into the whereabouts of this aircraft," he said, dropping the papers on the man's desk. "It's for Athos. Do your best," he added.
Seeing the look in his Captain's eye, the man nodded and took the papers readily from him.
"On it, Cap," he said, rolling around in his chair to his pc.
Treville stood for a few moments, touched by the man's quick understanding. His men were a tight team, and it was good to see their duty to each other on display.
As it turned out, it did not take the man long to track the plane down and Treville, not for the first time, thanked the heavens for modern technology. When he had first started, a task like that would have taken numerous phone calls and feet on the ground. Now, a few clicks and the information was there.
The plane, apparently, was in storage at a small airfield in Aubigny-sur-Nere.
Treville quickly said his thanks and ended the call, striding across to his wall map.
Tracing his finger over the map he found the icon showing the airfield in question. It was within the circle he had drawn around the location of the phone message.
"Weather ahead good. Contract completed."
Wasting no time, he looked up the airfield and rang the number.
After several long, frustrating minutes, the voice of an old man answered.
The plane had been stored there for some weeks, the man finally said, after Treville threatened him with a thorough police investigation into his affairs. But it had gone.
"Where?" Treville had demanded.
"He did not say," the man said. Whatever Treville threatened him with, did not compare to what awaited him if he gave out that information, Treville finally realised. He stopped pushing. The man was obviously scared to death.
The pieces were beginning to drop though, he considered as he swallowed a cup of strong black coffee.
That just left the response from the Coroner's office. That would take time.
To be continued ...
