by Anne Stuart
It was a very long, fishy kiss, and while Claire could see Tom’s participation was more polite than enthusiastic, it didn’t keep from arousing at least a trace of fury in her apathetic body. She glared at the woman’s departing wave, glared at Tom’s amused expression, and hugged Nicole’s sleeping body tighter.
“Are you going to sit in the back seat and glower?” he inquired coolly. “Or are you going to keep me company up here?”
“I think I should watch Nicole.”
“And I think I’ll have a hard time driving with you fuming behind my back. It’s not my fault Hélène’s an affectionate girl.”
“Hélène’s a …” Nicole’s sleepy moan stopped Claire before she said something she knew she’d regret. “I’ll stay back here,” she said again.
“Suit yourself. It’s going to be a long drive.”
Her whole body ached with weariness and pain. She couldn’t remember if Marc had ever been as rough as he’d been last night. He probably had and she’d been too besotted to notice. But she noticed now. At least she’d managed a long shower, but even twenty minutes under a steaming spray hadn’t managed to make her feel clean.
“The longer, the farther away from Paris and Marc, the better,” she said, turning her face into the cracked leather seats.
And without another word Tom pulled into the rush hour traffic with all the reckless self-concern of a kamikaze pilot intent on his mission.
The battered white Fiat looked like a thousand other cars caught in the maelstrom of Paris rush hour. The interior of the car was shadowed in the early-evening light, and the driver wore a broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his face. It would have taken a discerning eye indeed to realize that face was covered with thick white makeup, the mouth painted in a grin of maniacal glee at odds with the stylized tears dotting the clown-white cheeks.
The Fiat pulled away from the curb, following the Peugeot through the crowded streets of Paris, heading toward the northeast. And in the car there was absolute silence.
CHAPTER 19
Claire slept. How and why she couldn’t quite figure out, but when she awoke in the back seat of the borrowed Peugeot she was stiff and sore and it was dark outside. She could hear the muffled noise of the car radio above the raucous engine, see Tom’s profile in the reflected light of the oncoming cars. He looked distant, preoccupied, and once more she was swamped with guilt for having dragged him into this sordid mess.
And then she looked down at the child curled up next to her. Nicole was still asleep, though her breathing was more regular and even in the dimness Claire could see her color had improved. Her skin felt normal, not too hot, not the clammy coldness of earlier. Any lingering guilt vanished. For Nicole she would have endangered anyone. For the pale, helpless, not particularly endearing child still wrapped in a drugged sleep she would have done anything, and to hell with the consequences.
“Feel any better?” Tom pitched his voice low, flicking off the staticky radio.
“I guess so. Nicole seems to be doing okay.”
“Good. If you hadn’t woken in the next half hour I was going to pull over and check on you both, and I’d rather not do that. I’ve already lost one tail, and I don’t want to chance picking up another one.”
“Someone was following us?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I was being paranoid. It was probably just some French suburbanite on his way home for the weekend. He never got too close, but every time I looked in the mirror there he was. You missed my fancy driving—it was pretty impressive. Maybe I should have tried being a race-car driver instead of heading for the arts.”
Claire managed a weak smile. He was trying to amuse her, to lighten the oppressive atmosphere of the car, and the least she could do was show some appreciation. “What kind of car?”
“An old Fiat. White, I think. The driver was wearing a hat.”
Relief washed over her. “It must have been your paranoia. Marc has a Mercedes, and he hates hats.”
“Okay, that rules out Marc.”
“Maybe.”
“How are you doing?” Tom asked.
Claire laughed shakily. “Not too good.” She leaned forward over the front seat, close enough to touch him. “I find the man I’ve been living with, the man I was going to marry, is a crazed murderer. He said he’s been killing those old women, and I don’t know whether to believe him or not.” She pressed her head against the cracked leather seat. “How could I have lived with him and not noticed? I can’t believe he could be that crazy. I keep thinking he must have been lying to me. He always liked fantasy. He could be making this up, just to terrorize me.”
“Do you really think so?” Tom said, his voice noncommittal.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said desperately. “He could be so strange. There were days when he’d be completely silent, moving around the apartment like Marcel Marceau, refusing to talk to me.”
“How did you react to that?”
“It drove me crazy. I tried screaming at him, but it didn’t work. He’d just stretch it out even longer. Do you realize how hard it is to argue with someone who won’t talk, just stares at you and shrugs?” She shivered. “Those were the worst times. I should have realized.”
“When would he start talking again?”
“Usually the next morning. After …”
“After?” he prompted.
“Those nights were very bad,” she said simply, shocked at the belated realization. At the time she’d accepted it, passive, as she’d been passive for so long.
“Why didn’t you leave him?”
“It wasn’t that simple. He didn’t hurt me. It’s just … there was a nightmarish quality about it all. An eerie feel to it, with Marc in control and me simply reacting to him. It was weird—sort of a pleasure-pain. And the next morning I’d feel sick to my stomach, and Marc would be talkative and charming and I’d forget.”
Tom didn’t say anything for a long moment, but Claire could see his long fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “You don’t think Marc really murdered the old women?”
“I can’t believe I wouldn’t have known.”
“That’s not an answer. Do you think he murdered the old women? Do you think he’s capable of it?”
“I think he’s capable of it,” she said. “I just can’t think why he’d do it.”
“There’ve been some interesting reports on the radio. Apparently the police believe there are several killers with one thing in common. They all went to the same orphanage in a small town outside of Paris.”
“Are they sure?”
“Pretty certain. Two of the suspects are dead, a butcher and someone who worked for the government. A third, a minor-league gangster, is still on the loose, and they’re not saying much about the fourth.”
“But he must have been in this orphanage? Thank God,” she said, her voice faint with relief. “Marc grew up in Rouen with his aunt and uncle. His parents died in a car crash when he was eight. He never spent time in an orphanage.”
“You’re sure?”
“He would have had no reason to lie to me.”
“Unless lying had become second nature.”
“I’ve seen pictures of him with his aunt and uncle. They look like a very happy family. They took care of him, nursed him …”
“Nursed him?”
“He burnt himself quite badly when he was ten years old. He still has scars on his hands. He’d been playing with matches in the Bonnards’ barn and the hay caught on fire, and he’d tried to put it out with his hands.”
“Interesting,” Tom remarked in a neutral voice.
“Why do you use that tone of voice?” she demanded.
“Still trying to find an excuse for him? What year would he have been ten?”
“Nineteen sixty-three. Why?”
“Because in nineteen sixty-three the Marie-le-Croix orphanage burned to the ground, with an old woman inside. Several of the orphans were suspected of being involved. The same orphan
s that grew up to murder grandmothers.”
“No!”
“Yes. Whether you like it or not, Claire, you’ve spent the last four months making love with a mass murderer.”
And Claire retreated into the darkness of the back seat without a word, hugging her horror to herself.
Tom waited until she fell back asleep before he flicked the radio on again. He couldn’t rid himself of the certain knowledge that he was the world’s worst shit, and half a dozen times he opened his mouth to apologize, to lie to her and give her hope that Marc Bonnard was simply playing some sort of sadistic mind game with her.
But half a dozen times he closed his mouth again. Comforting lies wouldn’t help her, much as he wanted to comfort her. As long as she clung to the ridiculous, infuriating hope that Marc was innocent, she was vulnerable. Bonnard could trace them, show up all charm and sweetness, and she’d probably go to him like the besotted fool she was.
No, that was his own jealousy talking. She was no longer besotted with Bonnard; she was sick and frightened and trying to make some sort of sense of what had happened. If she was looking for excuses, rationalizations, she didn’t need him blowing them all to pieces. She knew, deep down inside, just how dangerous Bonnard was. She was just having trouble admitting it.
And it was his own crazy jealousy that was making him act like such a bastard. He wanted to drive Bonnard from her heart and soul, leaving no room for anyone but himself. And the more he pushed, the more Claire held on.
He had to get himself back under control. No more cheap shots; he had to be strong and supportive while she dealt with all this. In a few more hours they’d be at Jassy. There they’d be safe. The head vintner’s cottage was in reasonably decent shape—he’d stayed there last fall when he went down for a final visit. It would provide a haven, a place to hide while they dealt with the unbelievable events of the last thirty-six hours, while they dealt with Claire’s denial and his own anger. Sooner or later the police had to listen.
And sooner or later Claire had to listen. When Nicole finally awoke from her drugged sleep and told her what she’d seen, then Claire wouldn’t be able to lie to herself anymore. And then he could give her the comfort she needed, instead of giving in to his own frustration and rage.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. No white Fiat—either he’d lost him or he’d been ridiculously paranoid. The green Citroën had been shadowing him for quite a while now, but Tom had learned his lesson. He couldn’t let his imagination get the better of him. This was the only major road heading toward the northeast—probably he’d been traveling in the company of the same half dozen cars for hours now, and they all couldn’t hold Marc Bonnard.
He peered behind him just as a car passed, and the headlights illuminated the driver, putting Tom’s lingering fears to rest. The dark, heavy-featured face of the driver was far removed from Bonnard’s almost celestial beauty. The man behind him looked like a hoodlum, with his black leather jacket and cigarette drooping from his surly lips. No, it was a coincidence that he was following so closely.
Putting the Citroën and its unprepossessing driver out of his mind, Tom stepped on the gas and moved a little closer toward their destination.
Malgreave surveyed the practically deserted offices with a feeling of triumph. At six-thirty the following morning he’d finally managed to beat the ever-determined Josef in to work. He nodded as he passed various yawning members of the night shift, moving in to his darkened office and flicking on the light.
Someone had emptied his overflowing ashtray, someone had shifted his chair, and it didn’t take the full power of Malgreave’s deductive reasoning to guess who. The cleaning staff had orders not to touch his office—it could only have been Josef auditioning for the future. Some of Malgreave’s good-humored anticipation abated. Usually Summer’s ambition amused him. Today, this early morning, it crowded him.
He sat down heavily in his chair, lighting his sixth cigarette of the morning and pulling the files toward him. Vidal had managed to unearth an old photograph of some of the boys from Marie-le-Croix participating in a Christmas pantomime. The delicate, almost angelically beautiful child in the center of the grainy photo certainly could have grown up to be Marc Bonnard, but then, that might have been an illusion of the whiteface makeup. He simply didn’t have enough to issue an arrest warrant. Not yet.
But it was coming. He could feel it in the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers. Soon, soon now, he’d have what he needed to bring in both Rocco and Bonnard, to nail them to the wall and send them, an unlikely couple, to the guillotine. And then Josef could empty his ashtrays and sit in his chair, decorate the offices with no-smoking signs, and Malgreave would no longer give a damn.
Anything he did right now would be killing time. The stage was set—they had to wait for their actors to make a move, a final, incriminating move. Pray God another old woman wouldn’t have to die in order to catch the bastards.
He smelled the coffee first, and looked up, expecting to see Josef’s doglike devotion. Instead Vidal was there, holding a steaming mug in his hand. No brioches, Malgreave noticed. And he was wearing peacock blue trousers. Nobody was perfect.
Vidal set the mug down beside the concentric circles of coffee stain on Malgreave’s desk, and Malgreave accepted the pale brown liquid with a resigned sigh. He liked his coffee black, but it did play hell with his stomach.
“Morning, sir.” Vidal slung his lanky body into the chair opposite him. “Where’s Josef?”
“Not in yet.” Malgreave took a careful sip of the coffee. It was surprisingly good, and easier to take. And he didn’t need the brioches—he’d been putting on a little weight recently as Marie had been slimming down. One had to keep up appearances.
Vidal nodded, but Malgreave could see the surprise and faint trace of malicious pleasure in the young man’s face. Perfectly understandable, he thought. Josef was the front-runner, but Vidal was coming up fast.
“Guillère’s left town,” Vidal announced abruptly.
“Damn.” Malgreave spilled hot coffee on his conservative blue shirt. “When did you hear that?”
“Robert called in a few minutes ago. He lost him somewhere outside of Epernay. He was driving an old green Citroën and he hadn’t packed. Maybe he’s just off on a job.”
“And maybe he had enough sense to get out while he still could. Damn,” he said again, furious. “Have you notified the local gendarmes?”
“They’re keeping an eye out for him. I presumed you didn’t want him picked up if they could help, just watched.”
“You presumed correctly. Any word on Bonnard?”
“No one seems to know where he is. His apartment’s deserted—the Americans and the little girl drove off yesterday and haven’t returned.”
“I don’t suppose anyone had the sense to follow them?”
Vidal shook his head. “The man assigned to watch Bonnard’s apartment took his instructions very literally. He was waiting for Bonnard and only Bonnard.”
“God preserve me from dogmatic fools,” Malgreave said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the tail of his dying one. Without asking, Vidal fished in his pocket for his own pack and lit one, and Malgreave’s approval rose another notch. In this world of militant nonsmokers it was good to find another warrior in the battle.
He looked up. Josef had finally appeared, his face flushed, his thinning hair awry as he practically sprinted through the office toward Malgreave’s inner sanctum. He stopped in the doorway, and the expression on his face was ludicrous in his outrage at finding Malgreave keeping company with his greatest rival.
He started mumbling excuses as he darted warning glances at an unrepentant Vidal, but Malgreave cut him off, uninterested in car problems and recalcitrant alarm clocks. “Guillère’s flown the coop,” he said. “So has Bonnard’s mistress and stepdaughter. I want them located.”
“What’s been done so far?” Josef drew himself upright, and Malgreave caught him wrinkling his nose at the heavy s
mell of cigarettes surrounding the two men like a cloud. If Josef was truly ambitious he’d start smoking, Malgreave thought with the last trace of amusement he would feel for days.
“Vidal’s informed the gendarmes in the northeast. Guillère was headed toward Epernay when his tail lost him, and God only knows where the American’s gone. Probably to meet with her lover, though she went in company with another American.”
“Maybe she’s leaving Bonnard. Maybe she knows something?” Vidal suggested.
“Maybe.” Josef’s tone was dismissive. “What would you have me do, sir?”
Malgreave rose, stubbing out his cigarette. “One thing’s for sure—this won’t be a day spent sitting on our tails. We’ll check out Bonnard’s apartment, see if there’s anything inside to tell us where he might be, where the Américaine would have gone to. And then we’ll head over to Guillère’s pigsty and see what we can come up with.”
“We?” Josef echoed.
“The three of us, Josef,” Malgreave said gently. “Unless you’d rather stay behind and deal with paperwork?”
“I’m coming,” he said fiercely. And the telephone transcripts remained unnoticed on his desk as he followed Malgreave out into the early-morning streets.
The sky was just beginning to lighten when Tom pulled the car to a stop. Claire moved, stretching her cramped body, and to her relief Nicole did the same. The child yawned, opening her puffy eyes, and then a sudden tremor of panic shook the slight body. Until she focused on Claire, and the tension drained from her narrow little shoulders.
She said something in French, in a low, sleepy voice, and Claire bent her head down to listen. “In English, darling,” she said.
“Where are we?”