Death at the Old Asylum: A totally gripping historical crime thriller

Ann, without whom this simply would not happen.

Chapter One

Late summer 1964 – Picardie, France

Fouad Hamal eased the Mercedes-Benz 220S to a stop at the top of a gentle rise and turned off the engine. It had been giving off a harsh, metallic click-clack ever since leaving Marseille. The sound was at one with its silver-grey coachwork, now much faded and bruised by time and wear, and the stained and battered hand-written TAXI sign in the front window. As a taxi driver himself, Hamal knew cars, and there were signs that this one had been given a cheap rebuild after being written off in an accident. The doors didn’t close properly, the chassis creaked incessantly and only the quality of German engineering beneath the bonnet had kept it going this far.

In any case, there was nothing he could do about it; it wasn’t his car and the sooner he could get shot of it along with the three passengers sleeping in the back, the better.

He eyed the soft, rolling landscape of Picardie, northern France, with a growing sense of unease. Unlike the streets of his home in Marseille, the near-featureless fields and slopes here, revealed in the growing light of early dawn, were unwelcoming and scarily open.

The air was chilly to his sun-baked skin, and he wanted nothing more than to be back to the warm and familiar and his wife, Simone. He’d even begun to fantasise about the pleasures of a pleasant breakfast for two; maybe fried eggs, yoghurt and rghaif pancakes, all washed down with mint tea… although right now a large black coffee, strong enough to float a dead dog and with a side order of a jambon beurre would do fine.

Dealing with the promised hell and eternal damnation could come later.

‘What is it? Why have you stopped?’ The old man, seated centre back between his two sons, was awake again. When not asleep he’d grumbled incessantly for most of the long overnight drive, about the suspension, the roads, the discomfort and everything else that seemed to displease him. Clearly sleep had done nothing to sweeten his sour disposition.

Hamal seriously wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, but he’d seen the weapons carried by the two younger men. All three were, like himself, Moroccan, and newcomers to France. They were unshaven and wore crumpled suits and shirts showing signs of the long, cramped journey. Worse, the two younger men were either cops or military, he wasn’t sure which.

Two sides of the same dangerous coin.

‘Answer me, damn it!’ The old man again, voice gravelled by fatigue and more than a hint of spite.

‘Just checking the map, sir,’ Hamal replied softly, eyes flicking from the road in front to the rear-view mirror. He was exhausted after the long drive, with only one decent halt at a truck stop, where he’d been able to make a brief telephone call, and two comfort breaks on quiet stretches of road to interrupt the monotony. Not that there had been rest or comfort; even when the two younger men were out of the car, the air had been punctuated by hissing arguments between them about the need for progress, while the old man, when awake, had been staring at him throughout the journey as if trying to bore a hole in the back of his head.

And therein lay a disturbing element for Hamal: he’d recognised the old man the moment he’d seen him, bringing back memories of Morocco before he’d fled to France. He’d tried to brush them off but the thoughts were too embedded to dispel easily.

Perhaps the old man remembered him, too. If so, it made matters worse. It was like travelling with a scorpion in his back pocket.

Hamal started the engine and made moves as if to drive on, shifting in his seat and adjusting the mirror. He was playing for time, his mouth dry and sour. Surely the men in the back must be able to hear the pounding of his heart and the blood racing through his veins? He had no idea what was about to happen but he hoped it would bring a sense of relief and allow him to go home. Whatever their reason for travelling in this furtive and joyless manner, he had a growing feeling of dread hovering around him like a storm cloud.

‘Let us go on, then!’ The old man sank back with a sigh and rubbed his lined face with a sound like sandpaper on wood.

The younger man on the old man’s left back-handed Hamal hard on the shoulder. ‘You heard him, imbecile. What are you waiting for?’

Hamal didn’t respond. His eyes were on a vehicle coming up behind them. It had appeared out of a side road a few kilometres back. A brief flash of its headlights was the signal he’d been told to look out for during his call at the truck stop, and it had followed him at a distance. Now it was approaching at speed, kicking up a dust swirl in its wake and pulling up behind.

Chapter Two

It had begun with a call three days ago on the apartment block’s shared telephone. An urgent airport trip, the caller had said, naming a pick-up point outside the Musée des Beaux-Arts. Hamal didn’t mind; it was easy money and airport passengers usually tipped well. He was surprised that a stranger had got hold of the number, since he relied entirely on street pick-ups. But money was money so he’d set off for the rendezvous point.

The reality had turned out to be entirely unexpected. Lasting less than three minutes in total and not moving away from the kerb, he’d been given orders to collect a car and three passengers from a garage in the south of the city and take them to Picardie.

Hamal had never been that far north and sensed that something was not right about the job. A quick glance in the mirror had revealed a face in shadow. In a former life in the streets of Casablanca, before escaping to France, he’d witnessed too often the forced conscription of individuals by political and criminal organisations to undertake tasks that had often carried little chance of survival for the unfortunate person selected.

‘It’s a long way. It will be expensive,’ he said, hoping the customer would change his mind. The sunny day, with the Boulevard Longchamp busy with smiling tourists and promise in the air, had turned suddenly sombre and cold.

The man had ignored him. ‘Time your arrival in the region for the early morning, then stop at a point of your choosing and call a number for further instructions.’ He was given a telephone number to write down, followed by the address of the garage where the car and passengers would be waiting. He’d never heard of the establishment and began to suggest he could use his own vehicle, but to no avail. The silence alone made him realise that his move to France for a better life had not distanced him from the snake-like tendrils of religious and extremist forces in his home country.

For just a few fleeting moments he’d considered pleading incapacity before realising that nothing short of genuine hospitalisation would be enough. The future was set.

And now he was here.

‘We have been followed.’ He’d first mentioned the possibility earlier after leaving the truck stop as a way to allow him to cut off the main routes and use back roads instead, avoiding any large urban areas. It would also bring him closer, he’d been told, to the location for the handover and preferably nowhere near any houses.

‘A handover?’ he’d queried. The voice had replied that it was the point where his task was done and he could return home. Someone else would take over from there.

The two younger men had argued against the deviation, citing the need for speed over caution and insisting that he was imagining things; that nobody could possibly know they were here in France, let alone in which direction they were moving.

The comment had done nothing to dispel his concerns, but it was too late now to back out. Better to complete the job, collect his money and move on.

Fortunately, the old man had agreed with him, stilling his sons’ voices with a sharp command. Caution had kept them alive thus far, he’d reminded them, and he wasn’t about to relax until they arrived at their destination. Back roads it was from this point on.

Hamal didn’t wish harm on anybody, but for the two younger men, so openly contemptuous of him ever since he’d picked them up, he was prepared to make an exception. It was an attitude he’d come across before, common in someone from the old country when confronted by one of the many who had left Morocco years before in search of a better life. They didn’t use the word ‘traitor’, but the contempt in their eyes was enough.

He took a deep breath and tried not to think about what might be lying in wait for them at the end of their journey. Instinct told him it would not be pleasant.

The approaching car had stopped a short distance behind them. Was this the handover or simply a Samaritan stopping to offer help? It was a maroon Renault, dusty and nondescript, and looked like a hundred other cars on the road, albeit not this one in particular, which was more of a forgotten route to nowhere. He hadn’t seen another vehicle for over an hour. The Renault driver’s door swung open and a man stepped out. He was tall and thin, one hand in his pocket like a man out for a casual stroll.

‘What’s happening?’ the old man demanded. ‘Why aren’t we moving?’

The two sons craned round to look out the rear window, confused by their father’s sudden agitation, picking up on his air of alarm.

‘Why aren’t we moving?’ he repeated.

‘Because,’ said Hamal, turning off the engine again, ‘there is no point.’ He opened the ill-fitting door and got out, then walked back along the side of the road, passing the newcomer on the way. The man didn’t even look at him, eyes focused on the Mercedes.

‘Hey!’ one of the sons cried, eyes growing wide. He wound down his window and called out, ‘Where are you going? Get back here now!’

Hamal ignored him. The Renault looked like a shit car pulled from a wrecker’s yard but he could hear the engine ticking over sweetly enough. Just as long as it got him home safely, that’s all he asked.

In the other car, the older son had realised what was unfolding. He scrambled to throw open the door, telling the old man to keep his head down. As he jumped out, he reached inside his suit jacket and took out a semi-automatic pistol, swinging to face the oncoming threat.

Far too late. A single shot took him in the head, spinning him around. The sound of the report was flat and snappy, flicking away across the open fields. A nearby family of crows, the only witnesses, scattered in noisy panic at the rude disruption to their morning.

The other young man pushed his father down and leaned over to cover him. But by then the gunman was moving swiftly up on his side of the Mercedes and levelling his weapon. He fired twice through the open window, killing both men instantly.

Fouad was about to climb behind the wheel of the Renault, his mind already picturing the long road south to Marseille, when he heard the first shot. He spun round and saw the older son lying dead in the road. The newcomer was walking across the rear of the car then down the side, a gun levelled at the windows. Two more shots followed, then silence.

He was momentarily rooted to the spot in horror. Then he realised there would be no going back to his wife in Marseille; no early morning breakfasts; nothing more of the new life he had made here.

Instinct took over and he began running, the taste of bile rising in his throat, eyes fixed on the long, empty stretch of tarmac in front of him.

Chapter Three

By the time Inspector Lucas Rocco arrived, the scene looked very different. Several police vehicles and uniformed officers were present along with a heavy tow truck, awaiting instructions.

Violent death wasn’t unknown in this rural area – at least, not so much in peacetime. Place any number of excitable and alcohol-fuelled hunters in proximity on the annual wildlife slaughter and sooner or later one of them would fall victim to a careless blast of buckshot. But a triple killing of this nature was a different story altogether.

Rocco saw the familiar pale figure of Doctor Rizzotti, the local stand-in forensic pathologist at the commissariat in Amiens, kneeling at the side of a grey Mercedes, his wispy hair blowing in the gentle breeze off the surrounding fields.

‘Nasty business,’ Rizzotti murmured, looking up, and gestured at the three bodies, one on the ground, the other two inside the car. He stood up with a groan of tortured knees and shook hands with Rocco, blinking behind his wire spectacles and brushing a fly away from one cheek. ‘A gang execution, do you think?’ He knew Rocco had extensive experience in gangland violence from his time in Paris before being posted to the Amiens commissariat, and would probably have a suggestion. ‘Three in one, though – that’s intense.’

‘Just a bit,’ Rocco agreed. He gathered up the hems of his long coat and bent to study the man lying on the road outside the car. He looked to be in his late thirties, dark-skinned and well-dressed, if a little rumpled. He’d been shot once in the forehead. Just edging out from beneath his jacket was a dark leather strap. Rocco eased the fabric to one side to reveal a leather shoulder holster, shiny with use. The holster was empty. He turned his attention to the pistol on the ground, which he guessed would fit snugly into the leather. It was a MAC 50 9mm and looked in excellent condition, clean and free of scratches. That in itself was telling: most gangland members were accustomed to treating their weapons with casual indifference as if such care showed a form of weakness.

He bent and sniffed at the barrel without touching it. No signs of being fired recently but Rizzotti would confirm that later. If it was the case, the man had been taken by surprise before he could defend himself.

Rocco stood up, brushing dust from his coat. The beginnings of a scenario were building in his mind, and he turned to check out the other two bodies in the rear of the Mercedes. One old, the other young. Like the man outside, they looked of North African heritage, and he thought he saw a certain resemblance in their jawlines. Family members, then. Another MAC lay on the floor of the car by the younger of the two men. Also clean and shiny. He reached in and eased the man’s jacket aside. Another shoulder holster.

The evidence was unsettling. In common use by the French police and army, the MAC had spread out over the years to other countries such as those along the North African coast, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, where France had interests. But most had been acquired for police or military use. Looking at the two younger men and the state of the weapons suggested the guns were service issue, which made these two cops… or bodyguards. Gang crime was problematic enough, but the possibility of outside government forces being victims on French territory was something that would have the Interior Ministry in turmoil.

Still, he preferred to reserve judgement. He’d seen other killings like this, albeit not this neat. They were usually the result of gangland disputes that had been building for years and had finally erupted like an over-heated boiler when tensions and rivalries had become too much to contain. And gang membership sometimes included former military personnel who had respect for their weapons if little else in life.

The usual format for a gang killing would be for a targeted vehicle to be stopped by some innocuous incident such as an apparent motorcycle accident or a broken-down tractor in the middle of nowhere. The attackers would be lying in wait for their moment, and as soon as the target vehicle came to a stop the gunman or gunmen would emerge from hiding and strike.

Depending on the gangs involved there was often more than one killer, usually as a display of overwhelming force to discourage any thoughts of payback. In the aftermath of such a killing, the norm was that those who understood all too well what had taken place would retreat silently to wait for the inevitable violent repercussions to follow while the innocent – and the police – were left to pick up the pieces.

‘No sign of a driver?’ Rocco asked.

‘Not so far.’

Rocco stared out across the landscape into the sun, which was growing hotter by the minute. They were at the tail end of summer and the fields were little more than brown stubble where the harvest had been completed. A nice day all in all; too nice for this kind of horror to be visited on it. But why here? If there was some kind of tie-in with the area, he was damned if he could see it yet. Sure, there was a criminal element in this part of France, like everywhere else, and his own experiences here had included visits by gang members intent on revenge or escape or even extending their criminal influence.

If this was an arranged killing, this site was a classic. On a quiet road and away from witnesses, it offered a perfect escape route either way once the job was done.

He could just make out the outline of the cathedral in Amiens many miles away through the heat haze. Elsewhere the swath of fields showed that whatever had happened here over the years up to and including this brutal act, the farmers would continue regardless to produce their crops. Clumps of trees were dotted here and there, along with a line of telegraph poles and a solid, unromantic shape of a water tower on the horizon. The roof of an ancient barn was just visible in the distance, its structure showing light through the sagging walls and framework. But no houses. Any that were there would be too far away to provide reliable witnesses to what had occurred.

‘Do we know who called it in?’ The radio message on his way to the office had mentioned a killing and the location but no other details. It was probably kept deliberately brief to avoid media interest and to allow Rizzotti and the team to get the investigation under way in relative peace. Give it a couple more hours and the press pack from Paris and further afield, alerted to a new sensation, would be crowding the scene and creating its own brand of mayhem.

Rizzotti said, ‘A farmer on his way to market in Amiens. He found this lot just before seven. The officer on the front desk knows him well. Says he’s a religious man and wouldn’t know how to use a gun if his life depended on it, much less kill three men.’

‘If only,’ murmured Rocco dryly. He’d known several very ordinary people use weapons for the first time in their lives when desperation had called, and it was amazing how quickly they had managed to find their way round an unknown piece of deadly engineering when the occasion demanded. But he knew what the officer had meant; some people would not pick up a gun under any circumstances.

He made a circuit of the Mercedes, leaving Rizzotti to do his work. Although originally a doctor, Rizzotti had been co-opted to his role when no available expert could be found to match the local budget, and the position was now more or less his by default. He’d proven himself skilled at reading crime scenes and understanding what detectives like Rocco needed to know to help in their investigations; he needed no hand-holding.

Rocco tasked two uniforms to check the fields on each side for tell-tale tracks away from the road. The driver might have made a run for it, but it seemed unlikely; the stubble was short enough to reveal bare earth in every direction and the undulations in the terrain here were barely visible. He looked down at the road surface behind the rear wheels, then did the same at the front. No skid marks to indicate the driver had slammed on his brakes or been forced to stop by another car cutting in on him.

Odd.

Chapter Four

Rocco walked along the road away from the rear of the Mercedes, trying to read the scene for himself. It was mostly guesswork at this stage because only the assailant knew for sure what had happened here. But he was already certain that a key person – the driver – was missing. The dead man lying in the road had clearly exited from the rear of the vehicle, and in any case was too tall to have needed the booster cushion in the driver’s seat.

He heard a shout and turned. The uniforms had completed their search through the short stubble, signalling no tracks in the soil and no further bodies. He waved them back in.

Had the driver committed the shooting? If so, where the hell was he?

Rocco chewed his lip in puzzlement. He was about to turn back to the car when he spotted a gleam of reflected light on the surface of the tarmac a few metres away. It came from a small puddle of oil at the side of the road. He bent and dipped his finger in it and studied the result. There was the beginning of a skin forming but it was relatively free of dirt. If it had been lying here overnight it would have become covered in a wind-blown layer of dust and begun to dry. But that hadn’t happened.

‘Found anything?’ It was Detective René Desmoulins, Rocco’s younger colleague. He was keen and reliable, which was more than could be said of his thin moustache. He was fingering it now as usual, as if tugging the embryonic hairs could encourage them into a respectable burst of growth.

‘Not sure yet,’ said Rocco. He held up the oily finger. Desmoulins had been a mechanic before joining the police. ‘You’re the expert. What do you think?’

Desmoulins looked at it, then bent and examined the patch. ‘Pretty recent, I’d say. An older car, too, to have left that much behind. If the oil was hot it would have flowed quite easily.’ He looked along the road surface in both directions. ‘If it was a serious leak there would be other splashes but I can’t see any. I’ll check the Merc to see if it’s losing any. You think this was connected?’

‘Possibly. My gut says probably. But we’ll see.’

‘Judging by some old paperwork I found in the glove box,’ Desmoulins added, ‘the Merc comes from Marseille. But it doesn’t list the owner’s name. I’ll give the local police a call and see what they come up with.’

Desmoulins walked back to the Mercedes and knelt to study the ground beneath the engine. He stood up and shook his head in Rocco’s direction, holding up his thumb and forefinger with barely a gap between them. Nothing serious and nothing like the patch Rocco had found.

Rocco hummed. It was pure speculation but it looked as if the Merc had stopped and the other car had pulled up a short distance behind it. Maybe the second car had flashed it to a stop or, if the driver was a key component, it had been his choice. Which spoke volumes.

He took another careful look around at the immediate area. There was nothing here to provide cover for anyone lying in wait, which ruled out the idea of a pre-arranged ambush. Yet the location made it ideal for an attack. Even if there was anyone within earshot, gunfire in the area would be dismissed as an early hunting party or bird-scarers. People around here tended to mind their own business unless trouble rumbled up to their doorsteps.

Walking back to join Rizzotti, he asked him to take a look at the oil patch to confirm his thoughts. Another view was always useful. He considered the bodies again. Three men, North African or Middle Eastern in appearance: two in their thirties, armed and fit-looking, and an older man somewhere in his sixties, seated in the protective centre of the vehicle. Sadly, it hadn’t done him much good.

‘Any signs of a robbery?’ A brown envelope was now pinned to the jacket on each body, and Rocco recognised Rizzotti’s attention to organisation and detail.

‘No,’ Rizzotti replied. ‘Desmoulins checked. Wallets, ID cards and money are all intact.’

Rocco opened the envelope on the older man and took out an identity card, a passport and a wallet. The latter held some folded Moroccan dirhams and French francs and three family-style photographs of innocent-looking faces smiling goofily at the camera, all light years away from this sad ending. A business card bore a telephone number and a name: Hafid Benhamid. A folded, dual-language entry permit to government buildings showed his age to be sixty-eight years, and gave an address in Rabat.

The face in the photograph was a slightly younger version of the dead man, unsmiling and stiffly formal in a dark suit, high white collar and a tightly knotted tie. Clearly a studio shot against a bland background, it told him nothing useful about what this man was or had been, save for the fact that he’d been a government employee of some kind with the clothes then and now indicating a certain level of money or class above the norm.

The other two men carried similar documentation but less in the way of personal effects. Saad Benhamid, the man who had exited the car, carried a service card bearing a red-and-gold government crest and listing him as a captain in the Royal Moroccan Police. Mohamed Benhamid was a lieutenant in the same organisation. Their faces matched two in the photographs from the old man’s wallet.

So, sons and bodyguards, Rocco concluded. Or maybe nephews. Clearly the three Moroccans had been travelling north and dressed for trouble they had not seen coming in time to save themselves.

Two faded service invoices lay on the front passenger seat. Both were dated from three years ago. The garage was named Autos Samat and located