‘It’s been going on for a few months now.’
The pavement was slick with stepped-on vegetable matter from a nearby stall. As if signifying a broader need to tread carefully, Granot picked up his feet.
‘Relationships. Difficult things. Take a word of advice from someone who knows?’
‘Paint the apartment together?’
‘Forget her. Let’s face it, Angeline has always hated the fact that you’re a flic.’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘Have you ever complained about what she does for a living? Forget her. Someone just as bright and beautiful will come along in time.’
They had arrived at Peerless Taxis. Mercifully.
‘Work to do, Granot.’
Darac offered Florian’s key to the latched-back front door.
‘Another one it doesn’t open.’
They walked through streamer curtains into a strip-lit bunker-like space with a door and a customer window set into a cinder-block rear wall. It was not even 10.30 am and there was a pool of fresh vomit in one corner. Above the window was a queuing-system counter surmounted by a soiled polystyrene plaque that read: PEERLESS – WHEN ONLY THE BEST WILL DO. Next to it, a handwritten sign advised: WE NEVER HAVE ANY CASH HERE EVER.
On first impression, the large black woman sitting behind the squawk-box window was poorly cast. The gravity of her mien reminded Darac of the queen of American gospel music, Mahalia Jackson. Granot leaned into the window.
‘Take a ticket.’
‘Point one: we’re the only people in here and—’
‘Take a ticket.’
‘Point two: we’re from the Police Judiciaire, sweetheart.’ Granot showed her his badge. ‘Open the door and let us in or I’ll give you a different kind of ticket.’
Indicating that each move was an intolerable imposition, the woman removed her headset, rapped down her pen, and dragged back her chair before hauling herself up on to her feet.
‘That’s the way.’
‘Ask her if she knows “Amazing Grace”, Granot.’
Exiting stage right, the woman disappeared from the window. In the meantime, Darac tried the key in the door’s lock. No go. After a moment, the door jerked open from the inside. They stepped through into a square, lobby-like space. To their left, a short corridor led back to the squawk box; ahead was a kitchen area and toilet. Staff lockers, eight of them, lined the side wall to their right. They were battered-looking but surprisingly, each seemed to be fitted with a proper cylinder lock.
‘Madame,’ Darac said as the woman closed the door. ‘Which one of these lockers is Imanol Esquebel’s?’
She waved a hand in the direction of all of them and retreated back along the corridor.
‘Thank you.’
Darac tried the key in the first locker. It didn’t fit. Ditto, the second. It was the same for the others.
Granot shook his jowly chops.
‘Don’t get it. Manou was practically shitting bricks at the thought of us coming here.’
They looked around. There were no other connecting doors in the place and the toilet door had no lock.
The phone rang in the squawk box.
‘Peerless.’
As the woman dealt with the call, Darac slipped his mini-tool roll out of his back pocket.
‘Shield me.’
The big man backed into the space. A pile of sandbags would not have blocked the woman’s view of the lockers any more effectively. Darac picked each lock in turn until he found a locker containing a couple of body-building magazines, a hooded jacket, a toilet roll and a bottle of Pagan Man. Darac grabbed the jacket and quickly went through the pockets. Tissues, condoms, an unpaid bill… Then in an inner coin pocket, he felt a promising shape. He took it out and held on to it while he fished Florian’s key out of his own pocket. Laying them side by side on his palm, he turned to Granot.
‘They match.’
11.00 AM
A petite brunette wearing a short orange sundress answered the doorbell.
‘Mademoiselle Marie Lacroix? Lieutenant Alejo Busquet, Police Judiciaire.’ Bonbon showed her his ID. ‘At last.’
‘Ah yes,’ she said, ushering him in. ‘I got your message.’
The place was full of light and furnished in pastel colours. A Dufy painting come to life. Something of an antiques buff, Bonbon’s eye was drawn to a round, marble-top coffee table standing a little way inside the room. On it was arranged a collection of shells, pebbles and what looked like a small bird’s skull.
‘This is lovely.’ He looked at it more closely. ‘Josef Frank?’
‘The table?’ she said, immediately disarmed. ‘I think it’s by somebody called Sven Ten. Or that’s what an old boyfriend of mine said, anyway.’
‘Ah, no. Svenskt Tenn.’ Bonbon smiled warmly. ‘It’s the name of the department store Frank made a lot of stuff for. In Stockholm. It’s early fifties, this. Be worth quite a lot of money, I should think.’
Marie cast him a quizzical look.
‘Are you sure you’re from the Police Judiciaire?’
‘We’re allowed one hobby each.’
‘I like the table too much to sell it.’ Marie did a pretty good line in smiles, herself. ‘Unless I have to at some stage. Drink?’
‘Just some water would be fine. Sparkling if you have it.’
‘I have. Why not sit out? It’s what I was doing.’
Shading his eyes against the light, Bonbon walked out on to a balcony that offered an unobstructed view of one of the Côte d’Azur’s most perfect bays, the Rade de Villefranche. Across the water, the humpbacked silhouette of Cap Ferrat looked like a whale breaking the surface.
‘Wonderful apartment. Is it yours?’
‘I own this one and the one I let to holidaymakers in Rue Verbier. Glass or bottle?’
Bonbon heard the muffled rattle of a fridge door opening.
‘Bottle’s fine. Yes, it was in talking to your new people that we found out about you.’
She returned with an opened bottle of San Pellegrino.
‘Thank you, mademoiselle.’
‘Sit, please. And shall I lower the awning? The sun’s hot and you’re very…’
‘Auburn, yes. Where’s the…?’
‘I’ll do it – it’s tricky.’
‘If you’re sure.’
There were two cedar-wood recliners on the balcony. A pair of white-framed sunglasses sat on a half-read Nice-Matin on the seat of one of them. Bonbon chose the other, pulled its back upright and sat down. The handle for the awning was set into a niche in the wall. Accompanied by a series of squeaks and rasps, a vaguely sylvan atmosphere descended as a canopy of two-tone green canvas unfolded overhead. It seemed an inappropriate moment to begin the questioning.
‘You know, I think a lot of people in your position would choose to live at the Rue Verbier apartment and rent out this one. Top-floor situation right on the old quayside and with a view to die for, you could charge the earth for it.’
‘I did for a… time,’ Marie said, the effort she was putting in showing in her voice. ‘But I prefer it… this way round. Money’s… not everything, is it?’
‘As with keeping the Frank table.’
‘I suppose so… yes.’
The awning finally lowered, Marie went to sit down. Tossing the paper aside, she put her shades back on and adjusted her seat forward.
‘Now, Lieutenant Busquet, wasn’t it? How may I help you?’
Bonbon indicated the copy of Nice-Matin.
‘Pretty vague, isn’t it? The report of the death of a non-Muslim at a prayer service. Could you add anything to it?’
‘Uh, yes. Sorry I didn’t identify myself at the time but I was the one who called you that day.’
11.01 AM
Voices out in the corridor told him the mid-morning shift was coming on. He could hear the short one clearly. He tried to blank her out. She didn’t matter. She would never ask him if he’d changed his mind ab
out the TV. Not that she was lazy. On the contrary, she was all action. That was the trouble. She had no time to think of extraneous matters.
He heard another voice, sweeter, lighter. But did it belong to his beloved fat one? It didn’t sound quite like her. But they were still outside. It was too early to tell. 21.2 degrees it was. That much was certain.
The bed jolted.
‘Good morning!’ the short one said, out of his line of vision. ‘And how are we today? Let’s look, shall we?’ Riffling of paper. Pen scratches. In a lower voice she said, ‘Heartbeat is faster.’
‘Let me look.’
No! It was the horrible blue-eyed one. She hadn’t been on duty for ages. The horrible blue-eyed one who hardly ever said a word to him. Where was the fat one? Now there was no chance. The Tour was gone. No Nice stage. No Mont Ventoux. No following Contador, race number 21, all the way to Paris. It was back to watching 21.2 degrees all the way to nothingness.
But perhaps there was still a chance. Maybe the fat one would come on at lunchtime.
The short one’s face.
‘Feeling alright today?’
He blinked once.
‘Good. You’re comfortable?’
He blinked once.
‘Heart’s only marginally faster,’ the horrible blue-eyed one said. ‘Everything else looks normal.’
The short one’s face.
‘Have you had a letter from your son today?’
He blinked twice.
‘And no one’s just re-read yesterday’s to you, have they?’
He blinked twice.
Face gone. Dropped voices.
‘It’s not that, then.’
‘It’s a response to something.’
Where was his beloved fat one? He knew she would have asked about the TV.
‘He’s probably excited because you’re back,’ the short one said to the doorway – the horrible blue-eyed one had already left. ‘They all love you.’
The bed jolted as the notes went back into their scabbard.
The short one’s face.
‘Happy to see Josette again, yes?’
He thought about it. He blinked twice.
‘No? Ah – I know, you’re missing Hortense. You like her, don’t you? The large girl?’
He blinked once.
‘Well, she’s moved to another department now. So you’ll just have to make do with us!’
No, no, no. She was the only one. The only one who cared.
A heavy rolling sound. A large black screen. Flickering. Trains at a station. Flickering. A woman reading the news. Flickering. Actors in costume. Moving images, one after the other.
‘I know they don’t start riding for hours but what station is the Tour coverage on? Is this it?’
What? It couldn’t be.
On the screen, a woman stood holding a mike. A banner saying DÉPART fluttered across the road above her. He could hardly believe it. This was what he’d been hoping for, praying for…
‘Oh, I didn’t tell you,’ the short one said. ‘He didn’t want the TV after all.’
‘No? I’ve just brought it in here. As if I didn’t have enough…’
‘Perhaps it could go in the day room?’
‘It can’t go in there. It’s all set up so he can watch it lying here. I’ll just put it back.’
A finger jabbed at the case. The screen went blank.
Not just given and then taken away. Put right in front of him and turned on. He wanted to be dead now. It felt as if his whole hellish life had just taken one last lick of flame.
The horrible blue-eyed one’s face.
‘Are you sure you don’t want it, dear?’
Yes I do want it! But just a minute, now. This was important. How should he answer? One blink or two? Would one blink mean ‘Yes, I’m sure I don’t want it’? Or ‘No, I do want it’? Should he not blink at all, prompting her to reformulate the question? Too risky. She might just lose patience and take the set away. The horrible blue-eyed one was like that. Two. It should be two blinks. If she understands grammar, two blinks would mean he wasn’t sure.
He blinked twice. Her face looked as blank as the screen. Come on! Be clever enough to understand what I mean.
‘So… you do want it?’
He knew he wasn’t, but he felt he was smiling.
He blinked once.
‘You do want it after all?’
He blinked once.
‘Oh. Okay. That’s alright then.’
The horrible blue-eyed one had come through for him. The screen flickered into life once more. And in his head, so had he.
11.02 AM
Darac swivelled up his shades as the Peugeot plunged into the voie rapide tunnel.
‘I’m worried by the delightful Madame Peerless,’ Granot said. ‘One word from her and the plan doesn’t work.’
‘She won’t say anything to Manou. She detests him.’
‘She detests everybody, by the look of it. She might mention our visit to him just to spite us.’
‘I don’t think so. Besides, she didn’t see us open his locker. All she saw is that we tried a key in it and it didn’t work.’
‘You’ve got a point.’
Darac’s mobile rang.
‘It’s Deanna,’ he said, glancing at the ID screen. A call from her was always significant. Coming as they emerged into the light at the end of the tunnel made it seem doubly so.
‘We’re listening, Deanna.’
‘I’ve got the low-down on Florian’s COD.’
‘Excellent.’ Darac put the phone on speaker. ‘Go for it.’
‘Florian died as a result of an intramuscular injection into his right bicep—’
‘The same bicep Madame Delage rammed with the trolley? Tell me it wasn’t her.’
‘Will you let me continue?’
‘Continue.’
‘Yes, the same bicep. The injectant was lancuronium mixed with neostigmine. The effect of the latter drug was to substantially delay the onset of the former, a lethal paralytic in the dose administered. Before you ask, I would say the injection was given between twenty to sixty minutes before death occurred. Fin.’
‘You are quite brilliant, Deanna. I hope you realise that.’
‘Save it – I’m busy Thursday nights.’
‘I’ll get you to one of our gigs yet. The timing seems to rule out our trolley killer doesn’t it?’
‘Indeed.’
‘How do you think the injection was given?’
‘The needle used was a very fine one so Florian might not have even felt it.’
Darac was already entertaining theories involving poison-tipped umbrellas and the like. He pitched a few of them to Deanna while Granot rang Perand and told him to abandon his questioning of Madame Delage. Once Darac’s call with Deanna had ended, he rang the duty officer, Charvet.
‘We’ve got some significant movement on the Florian case. I think we need a team meeting. Send out a call, will you? Squad room in an hour.’
In the meantime, he had some permissions to obtain from Frènes.
* * *
The mood was upbeat as teams connected to the Florian case began to assemble. Only the boss herself wasn’t there.
‘What’s happened to Agnès D.?’ Armani said, filing into the room alongside Darac and Frankie Lejeune. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’ll bet she was scared you were going to paw her again.’ He turned to Frankie. ‘All over her body, he was.’
Grinning, Granot squeezed between them. Flopping down in the seat next to Darac, he began riffling through a stack of papers.
‘All over her body?’ Frankie turned to Darac. ‘What’s this?’
‘Her feet were aching.’ He downed the industrial-sized espresso he’d brought with him and set down the cup. ‘Feet.’
Hands on hips, Frankie nodded ambiguously.
‘You gave Agnès a foot massage?’
‘Exactly! That’s all it was.’
‘All – uh-huh.’ Her large, pal
e-green eyes hardened slightly. ‘I worked with you every single day for nearly three years. You never did that for me.’
Armani raised his hands palms upwards.
‘Never did it for me either. And God knows I’ve asked him enough times.’
‘Remember that day up at Saint-Jeannet?’ Frankie was getting into her stride now. ‘“Hell on the rock” they called it afterwards. I would have killed for a foot massage at the end of that.’
‘Listen, if either of you wants to make an appointment, see my lovely assistant.’ Darac indicated Granot, who was taking a crafty sniff of his armpits.
Without looking up, the big man nodded approvingly.
‘Roses,’ he said.
Frankie shared a grin with Granot as she went to sit down.
Armani turned back to Darac.
‘Seriously, where is the boss?’
‘Having the morning off, I guess. I’m going to ring her straight after the meeting, though. Give her an update on things.’
Armani draped a crisp, cufflink-sleeved arm around Darac’s polo-shirted shoulder.
‘Just before we get going – the Tour. I’ve been thinking about your lucky number twenty-one sweepstake ticket.’
‘The one that just happens to correspond to red-hot favourite Alfredo Contador.’
‘Alberto. That is the one. Seventy-five euros for it. And that’s my final offer.’
‘Sorry. No can do.’
Laughter over by the window. Passing a mobile backwards and forwards over his coppery head, Bonbon was in demonstration mode with Erica Lamarthe.
‘See, my hair is so charged, it affects the signal. Look at the meter.’
‘It’s a hot spot in the room, you idiot.’
‘Oh.’ He slipped the phone into his shirt pocket. ‘You won’t believe this but you’re the only one who hasn’t fallen for it.’
‘I do believe it.’
As Darac called Bonbon over, Armani gave it one last try.
‘Be reasonable, okay? Seventy-five is a top offer.’
‘It is. But I’ve already been offered eighty.’
Granot finally found the papers he was looking for.
‘Voilà,’ he said, brandishing them with a flourish.
Armani shot him a filthy look as he went to join his Narco colleagues. He had no doubt Granot was the rival bidder. And the idea hadn’t even been his.
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