Read Online The Beast of the Camargue by Xavier-Marie Bonnot - Free Book Online Page B

years, if you see what I mean.”
    â€œSo you think he’s been whacked, one way or another?”
    â€œI don’t think anything for the moment. These are just possibilities that shouldn’t be ruled out. You can’t imagine what’s at stake financially in little rustic villages round here!”
    From the way Marceau slumped back into his wicker chair, de Palma understood that the confidences were now over. Maybe he did not in fact know anything else. In any case, the time had now come to pay a call at the Steinert residence.
    Marceau read his mind.
    â€œI thought you were still convalescing, Michel …”
    â€œI am, more or less …”
    â€œWait till you’re given the case before getting your hands dirty.”
    â€œGiven the case! I’ll never be given this case. No, I’m just out for a little information, that’s all. I couldn’t give a damn about the rest of it.”
    â€œSince when have you been coming out to Tarascon about cases you couldn’t give a damn about?”
    De Palma looked up toward the walls of King René’s Castle. On the ramparts, a few tiny tourists were waving energetically at anyone who chanced to look up at them. Instinctively, the policeman waved back.
    Christian Rey had no time to react, or to do anything at all. Stuck in traffic on the far side of the pont de Beaucaire, he saw a man coming toward him and soon spotted the automatic concealed under his T-shirt. The man asked him to unlock the door, then he sat down on the rear seat.
    â€œGive me the gun you keep in the glove compartment,” he barked, pressing the barrel of the automatic into the nape of Rey’s neck.
    He did so, handing over his snub-nosed Smith and Wesson.
    â€œGood. Now turn round and head for Marseille.”
    â€œLook, I don’t know who you are, but I swear to you that I never touched Nono!”
    The man slapped his neck.
    â€œWho mentioned Nono, you lump of afterbirth?”
    â€œFuck …”
    â€œFrom now on, keep it shut.”
    They left Tarascon heading south, and turned onto the R.N. 568. At the Mas-Thibert junction, the man told him to stop and park behind an abandoned caravan, which must have been used for some years by a whore.
    The sea breeze whistled gently in the cypresses, rolling dried grass and strips of greasy kitchen roll along with it. There was a smell of warm car oil, hay and melting tarmac.
    â€œNow get out and put your hands on the bonnet.”
    With a violent kick, the man spread his captive’s legs.
    â€œHands behind your back!”
    â€œBut …”
    â€œI told you to shut up. Stick your conk on the bonnet and put your hands behind your back.”
    Trembling, Rey did so. He almost felt reassured when he felt handcuffs being closed round his wrists.
    They got into another, smaller car and drove on endlessly along the tracks and roadways of the delta. Rey realized that the man was trying to disorientate him in this maze of byways.
    At the tip of the delta, they turned back toward Arles and the sea, crossing the Salin-de-Giraud and passing alongside the huge mounds of white salt that rose up toward the blue sky like chalk pyramids.
    They came to a halt on a lane that swerved between clumps of saltwort, lost among the samphire at the end of this world of wind and salt. The man put a blindfold over Rey’s eyes and tied it tightly around the back of his head.
    â€œNow walk.”
    They went on for some time. To Rey, it seemed like hours, first on a hard, flat surface, then across a reed bed and finally through a swamp with water up to their waists.
    Rey supposed that they were heading more toward the interior of the delta, through an incomprehensible mass of marshland and wild vegetation. At the beginning, there was a smell of sea air, laden with hints of marine plants and oxygen. Then came the stenches of saline earth and stagnating swamps, warm with sun and maceration.
    The driveway