“Maître Lambert isn’t available right now,” the receptionist says with admirable poise. “He is finishing up a phone call and then he has another appointment coming in at noon.”
“I don’t care if he has another meeting. This is urgent. Did you not hear me? I have to see him now!”
Stéphane’s volume keeps increasing with every word and on the last sentence he’s yelling at the poor receptionist. I can see drops of spit flying and Stéphane’s face is so red I’m worried he might have a stroke.
Not that I’d care overly much if he dies but I want to get to the bottom of this case first. I want to know what his involvement in my own death was.
Then he can croak for all I care.
I would have expected Clothilde to stand close to Stéphane and make fun of him in one way or another. But all trace of humor has clearly left for the day and her face is perfectly serious as she presses her ear to the door that has Lambert’s name on it.
“Putting my ear to the wood doesn’t make any difference,” she says, annoyed. “There isn’t even a keyhole for me to look through.”
The door flies open and Clothilde jumps back. Some reflexes never go away, even after thirty years as a ghost.
The man who appears in the doorway looks to be in his sixties with a short impeccable haircut, a set of wire-rimmed glasses, and what I’m willing to bet is a very expensive gray suit that almost hides his paunch. He doesn’t say anything but sends a death glare at Stéphane and makes a cut-it motion across his neck.
“I knew he was here!” Stéphane says to the receptionist. His voice is back to a more normal level but Lambert’s silent instructions clearly weren’t enough to shut him up completely. By the look on the receptionist’s face, this is shocking behavior.
“I need to talk to you,” Stéphane says, taking two steps toward Lambert. “The police came by my house this—”
“Shut it,” Lambert whispers sharply. Stéphane hears it, the receptionist hears it, but Evian and Doubira on the landing outside probably don’t. “They’re in the building. You must leave now.”
Clothilde appears at my side next to Stéphane. “He shouldn’t get to leave, should he?”
“No. Having them both here is a very good thing.”
“Emeline!” Clothilde yells, making me jump. “Time to make an entrance!”
Bless that woman and her sensitivity. Before Lambert has Stéphane halfway to a door labeled as a meeting room, Evian steps through the door, Doubira scrambling in behind her.
“Monsieur Petit,” she says in that genial tone that I’m coming to recognize as something between anger and sarcasm. “Imagine running into you here. You did say you’d never met Maître Lambert, no? When we talked less than thirty minutes ago? Did I get that wrong?”
Stéphane stands frozen, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide with panic.
“You must be Maître Lambert.” Evian walks up to the man and extends a hand. “We have an appointment at noon. Emeline Evian. I’m afraid I’m five minutes early. The traffic was lighter than expected.” She says this with a smile that I think is genuine.
Lambert keeps his cool much better than Stéphane but it still takes him a second or two too many to shake Evian’s hand. “Laurent Lambert. Enchanté.”
There’s something vaguely familiar about the man but I can’t put my finger on it. I’m pretty sure we never met while I was alive and although Lambert is a very common last name, I don’t remember knowing anyone who could be related to the man.
Clothilde comes gliding up to Lambert. I had momentarily forgotten she was there with Evian stealing the show.
I hardly recognize her. She was never one to pay much attention to the rules of the physical realm but at least she mostly kept her human form. Her face is still Clothilde but her body is nothing but a blurry mass of gray. Her hair swirls around her head like it’s a million little live serpents searching for their next victim.
And she’s growing. When she reaches Lambert, she looms over him, almost entirely hiding him from my sight.
“You’re going to pay,” she says to him, her midnight voice lower and scarier than I’ve ever heard it.
Evian’s breath catches and her hand trembles slightly when she lets go of Lambert’s hand. Even Doubira seems to feel something and looks over his shoulder before shaking hands with Lambert.
“Clothilde,” I say firmly. “You need to calm down or Evian and Doubira won’t be able to do their job. If you want him to pay, they need to be able to focus.”
We’re here to help, but ghosts can’t arrest live people.
It takes her a second or two, but Clothilde hears me. She moves away—not much, only a few paces, but it’s enough for her to no longer be a distraction to Evian.
I move to stand by her side and put my hand where I estimate her shoulder should be. “I know you’re angry, Clothilde. But you have to keep it together. We will only succeed if we stay calm and focused.”
“I remember him.” She’s still using her midnight voice but the volume is on low. “He’s the last thing I remember before waking up in my casket six feet under. He gave me a drink. And told me to follow him to his hotel room so he could get his suitcase.”
Her eyes, as she turns to me, are pools of black, but it’s not only anger I see in there. She’s also scared. And lost.
“There’s nothing you could have done differently,” I tell her gently. “Once you tasted that drink, you were as good as dead. We’ll get him now, okay? He’ll pay for everything he’s done. To you and to all those other girls.”
Clothilde’s eyes go back to normal. I think looking at me and turning her back on Lambert helps. Now I just need her to keep her emotions in check while Evian questions Lambert.
The introductions between Lambert and the police officers are done and Lambert is trying to convince Evian that he doesn’t know Stéphane, that he doesn’t understand why the man showed up in his office at all, and that therefore, the other man should go home.
“Quite clearly,” he says in a haughty tone that implies he feels superior to everyone else in the room, “the man heard you say my name and decided to come investigate himself. You really should be careful with throwing names around like that, Captain Evian.”
“He’s right,” Stéphane says, actually managing to catch onto what Lambert is hinting at. “When you said his name, I came here immediately to get answers about my old partner’s death. I will not let his death go unavenged.”
Okay, that’s ridiculous. But unfortunately, it makes sense, and a judge or a jury could find it believable.
Evian doesn’t even bother to argue. She’s in charge here and I’m happy to see that she’s not going to let someone like Lambert walk all over her. “You’ll both stay. Would you like to talk here, Maître Lambert, or do you have a suitable office or meeting room somewhere?”
Lambert seems to realize there’s no point in forcing the issue. He takes one step toward his office before changing his mind and leading the way to the meeting room he’d planned to push Stéphane into earlier.
“Mathieu,” he says over his shoulder to the receptionist. “Why don’t you take your sandwich outside today. I’ll expect you back at two.”
The poor man looks shell-shocked that his boss tells him to take a long lunch but he snaps out of it quickly and is out the door before we’ve all piled into the meeting room.
“We’d like to talk about Robert Villemur,” Evian says.
Forty-Two
“I’m afraid you may have the wrong lawyer,” Lambert says as he closes the meeting room door and takes a seat at the head of the oval table. “I cannot recall having a client named Robert Villemur. Or perhaps his case was handled by one of my colleagues?”
Evian and Doubira have both taken seats at the table, leaving two empty chairs between Evian and Lambert, but Stéphane is still standi
ng. He hovers in the corner, wondering if he should sit next to Lambert or the police. In the end he goes with neither and sits two seats down from Lambert and across from Evian.
I’ve dragged Clothilde with me to the far side of the room, as far away from Lambert as possible. She seems to be in control of her emotions—but just barely.
“Oh, I do not believe Monsieur Villemur was a client,” Evian says calmly. She’s sitting straight in her chair, leaning slightly forward with her hands folded loosely on the table. I notice she has released the safety on the gun at her hip, which is a first. “He was a police officer who disappeared without a trace in 1988.”
Lambert’s eyebrows shoot up. “And you expect me to remember a police officer from over thirty years ago? Was he involved in a case that I worked on? I tend to forget the officers I meet in the context of my work but I never forget a client.”
“There seems to be a link with Gérard de Villenouvelle. Him I assume you’ve heard of?”
Lambert takes a second too long to answer. He wanted to deny ever having heard of de Villenouvelle but realized that with the ongoing case against the man, that wouldn’t have been credible for someone in his position.
Some emotion flickers across his face but I’m unable to catch it.
“I’m going to get closer to watch his reactions,” I whisper to Clothilde. “Can you stay here by yourself?” I don’t want her to get close to the man again but it might not be overly bright to say that out loud.
Clothilde seems to know it too, though. “Go,” she says. “I’ll watch from here.”
I cross the room as Lambert makes his reply. “I’ve heard of the case,” he says. “It’s difficult not to hear of it in Toulouse these days. But he is not a client of mine.”
“Really?” Evian turns a puzzled gaze to Doubira. “I could have sworn I saw Maître Lambert mentioned in the same report as one with de Villenouvelle’s name in it.”
Playing along, Doubira whips out his phone and opens a file. “One Laurent Lambert rented the hotel room where Clothilde Humbert was found dead in August 1988. The official charge hasn’t been made yet since the finding is only days old, but de Villenouvelle’s DNA was found on—actually in—Mademoiselle Humbert’s body.”
Evian nods and turns back to Lambert. “Do you often rent hotel rooms and then let shady police officers rape and murder people in them? Doesn’t sound like a very smart thing to do for an upstanding citizen like yourself.”
I’m close enough to observe every little twitch on Lambert’s face. Right now, his nostrils flare the tiniest little bit and he’s fighting the urge to flex his jaw. The man has very good control over his body’s reactions. He just doesn’t know that one of the people watching him is a ghost who’s less than ten centimeters away.
“There have been occasions in the past where I have rented hotel rooms, apartments, cars—anything—for clients. My work is done with the utmost discretion and sometimes this means making sure there is no trace of my client’s presence. This is never done to hide the client from the police, only to hide them from someone who wants to harm them.”
“Which client did you rent that hotel room for in August 1988?” Evian asks.
His breathing has sped up a little but his shrug seems perfectly insouciant. “My memory is very good, Captain Evian, but surely you don’t remember everything you did on a specific day thirty years ago.”
“I was five in 1988, so no, I don’t remember. But if a young girl was murdered in a hotel room I rented for someone else, it would stay with me for quite some time.”
“Even though I rented the hotel room, that does not mean I knew what happened behind closed doors.”
Evian turns to Doubira again. “Surely, the lawyer was at least interviewed?”
Doubira nods eagerly. “He gave a two-hour statement at the police station two days later. He had an alibi for the time of death, claimed to have not set foot in the place on the day of the murder.”
Lambert extends his hands in a there-you-go gesture, as if this would make it perfectly normal for him to forget all about it.
Evian turns to Stéphane. “Why did you come here, so soon after our visit at your home?”
I decide to keep my eyes on Lambert. Now that all the live people in the room are looking at Stéphane, he’ll believe he’s unobserved.
He keeps his eyes on Evian. He couldn’t care less about what reply Stéphane comes up with—he knows Evian is the real threat here. The fingers of his right hand twitch, as if wanting to fidget, and a muscle beneath his left eye jumps several times. He’s nervous but he’s going to be very hard to break.
“I, uh…” Stéphane trails off before even getting started on his answer. “I heard you say his name so I came to investigate.”
“That’s usually the job of the police. I believe you retired a decade ago?”
“Yes, yes…uh…it’s just so ingrained, though. Following up on a lead is basically a reflex.”
“And trusting your colleagues who are still in service isn’t?” Evian’s face is an impressively neutral mask. It’s impossible to tell if she’s actually insulted or not.
Lambert isn’t very impressed with Stéphane’s answers. I’ve caught one aborted eye roll and one slow and silent sigh. He stays silent and still to anyone not up in his face like I am, though.
“Uh…” I don’t remember Stéphane ever being this out of it. Could be old age, I guess.
“How did you know where to find the right Laurent Lambert, by the way?” She turns to Doubira. “How many people with that name did we find in the White Pages?”
“Three in Toulouse,” Doubira replies, without checking his phone this time.
Evian never takes her eyes of Stéphane, who I see literally squirming out of the corner of my eye.
Silence settles. I don’t think Evian has any intention of breaking it.
This time it’s Lambert’s lips that twitch and he shoots a quick glance at Stéphane. He’s worried what the old man might do.
Clothilde has kept her word and is still standing in the far corner. Her eyes are fixed on Lambert and I’m willing to bet she hasn’t blinked once in the last ten minutes. With her shimmering form and black eyes, she would fit right into a horror movie.
As the silence stretches, even I become uncomfortable. I’m tempted to say something—anything—except nobody would actually hear me and it’d probably make an awkward situation even worse for everybody else.
“He told me to do it!” Stéphane says, his voice high and breathless. He’s pointing a finger at Lambert.
“He told you to do what?” Evian asks.
“As your legal counsel,” Lambert says in a strong voice that plows right over both the end of Evian’s question and the beginnings of Stéphane’s answer. “I recommend you don’t say anything.”
“Since when are you his lawyer?” Doubira asks. “That’s one hundred percent contradictory to what you said ten minutes ago.”
“Since right this moment,” Lambert replies, eyes calm and empty as they stare down Doubira. “The man clearly needs a lawyer and I need some time with my new client before he answers any more of your questions.”
I take one step away from Lambert so that I can also keep my eyes on Stéphane. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with the current turn of events, his eyes darting from Lambert, to Evian, to the closed door.
Clothilde suddenly stands right behind Stéphane, hair moving, eyes pitch black, and body a mass of swirling gray. “Did you kill Robert?” she says in his ear, but loud enough that everybody can hear—those who are sufficiently sensitive to ghosts, anyway.
Seems like Stéphane is somewhat sensitive. He points a shaking finger at Lambert as he shoots out of his chair, making it topple to the floor behind him. “He told me to do it!”
My own partner pulled the trigger on me? Somehow, I’m not ev
en surprised. I don’t feel anger that he’d turn on me, or much of a sense of injustice at having my life cut short at thirty-five. It’s shame that overwhelms everything else right in this moment.
I was bested by this idiot?
“Did Maître Lambert tell you to kill Robert Villemur?” Evian asks Stéphane, still calmly seated in her chair. Her eyes are on Stéphane but I’m willing to bet she’ll jump into action if Lambert moves so much as a finger.
“Do not answer that question,” Lambert says.
“Bad partner,” Clothilde whispers into Stéphane’s ear. The girl is becoming decidedly creepy.
Stéphane must agree because his stress levels clearly spike. He seems to have trouble breathing properly and it’s just a question of time before he makes a run for it.
Except he doesn’t run.
He shoves a hand inside his jacket.
“He has a gun!” I yell. The man shouldn’t still be in possession of a gun if he’s been retired for a decade but I recognize that move. He didn’t like carrying his gun on his hip like everybody else. He kept yapping on about it when we were on a rare stakeout.
I don’t know if Evian—or anyone—hears my warning, and it wouldn’t have given them more than a second extra, anyway.
Stéphane pulls out his gun and points it at Evian.
Forty-Three
It’s a good thing that Clothilde is standing behind Stéphane and is therefore one of the last people in the room to see the gun.
My first reaction is pure reflex, to throw myself at Stéphane. I’m close enough to perhaps be able to knock him down before he gets off a shot, or at the very least work as a human shield for the other people in the room.
Luckily, I remember that I don’t have a physical body one step before hitting Stéphane. And I see the look and intention in Clothilde’s gaze.
We’re both going to crash into him.
“Clothilde, stop!” I yell and manage to change my course to go behind Stéphane’s back and into Clothilde. I can’t actually push her but she’s so used to the two of us interacting that she moves back a step as if there was physical interaction.
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