Impure Blood

by Peter Morfoot

  ‘Just so we’re clear, Astrid – is this the man?’

  ‘It’s him. How…’ She frowned, as if she only half wanted to know the answer. ‘…did he die?’

  ‘In a way, he died as a living statue. A paralytic drug killed him.’

  Looking more than a little unnerved, Astrid took a long drag on her cigarette.

  ‘Everyone’s getting in on the act.’

  ‘Apart from yesterday, did he always stand and watch your performance?’

  ‘The first time I saw him, he did. Not since. Unless he watched from behind, of course. But people don’t do that.’

  ‘So recently, you’ve seen him only in passing?’ Frankie’s honeyed voice made it seem as if they were talking about a mutual friend. ‘Was he ever with anyone?’

  ‘Always by himself.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Frankie gave Darac a look. A little eyebrow semaphore between them put him back in.

  ‘Back to yesterday,’ he said. ‘After you saw the man, what happened then?’

  ‘Well, I had quite a good crowd going. One of them was a guy with a beard. He peeled away eventually and the man in the suit ran straight into him. They nearly went down, the pair of them.’

  ‘Anything stick in your mind about the man with the beard?’

  Astrid gave a dry little laugh.

  ‘Oh yes. If somebody watches your act for like, half an hour and then goes without giving you a cent, they stick in your mind, alright.’

  ‘How long do people usually watch for?’

  ‘Five or six minutes. Ten is a long time to watch somebody standing still. Even with the snake shtick.’

  Frankie made a mental note to ask her about that later.

  ‘So Beard was there for thirty whole minutes. Was it your impression that he was waiting for the man in the white suit? Did he keep looking towards the Avenue, for example?’

  Astrid took a deep drag on the cigarette.

  ‘He did that, yes. A few times. But I don’t know if he was waiting for the man in the suit, particularly. And when he came jogging up, he didn’t shout, “Ah, here’s Charlie!” or whatever.’

  ‘Were you looking at them at the moment the guy peeled away and they collided?’

  ‘Not the exact moment. This real looker had just arrived and I was giving him my death stare.’

  A shadow fell over Darac.

  ‘Come on, guys, you’re eating into my time,’ Obelix said, stowing his foot pump into one of the many panniers on his bike. Behind him, the flattened lump of plastic had turned into a bulbous lump of plastic. ‘My menhir’s pumped up. I’m pumped up – so will you move, please?’

  Darac took out his wallet and handed him a ten-euro note.

  ‘Five minutes?’

  Obelix gave an unimpressed shrug but he took the note.

  ‘Just a second. We’re from the Police Judiciaire. Do you ever work Rue Verbier?’

  ‘Only Astrid goes that far up Jean Médicin.’

  ‘Is it alright if my colleague shows you a photo just in case?’

  Another shrug.

  Concerned she might laugh at the surreal nature of the situation, Frankie duly handed Obelix Florian’s photo.

  ‘No. Never seen him.’

  ‘Our other friend, Frankie?’

  Obelix ran his eye over Manou Esquebel.

  ‘No. But in my act, I never look at the audience, anyway.’

  ‘Pity.’ Darac glanced at his watch. ‘So five more minutes.’

  ‘Five.’ Obelix sloped off. ‘And no more.’

  ‘We were talking about the collision, Astrid. I know you didn’t see the impact directly but who do you think was responsible for it?’

  ‘Neither of them was looking where they were going. But the man with the beard’s back was turned and the other guy was running so you’d blame him, I suppose.’

  ‘Who came off worse – Suit or Beard?’

  ‘Suit. He really yelped – that’s what made me swivel my eyes back toward them. Beard was carrying a rucksack and I think it was that Suit ran into. There must have been… tent pegs in it or something.’

  Darac shared a look with Frankie.

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Suit hurried off down the street towards the market place. The guy with the rucksack walked off in the opposite direction. Towards the Avenue.’

  Darac looked into Astrid’s eyes.

  ‘Would you recognise him again? The guy with the rucksack?’

  ‘I remember every square millimetre of that cheap bastard’s face, believe me.’

  ‘We have a sketch artist at the Caserne Auvare. Think you could—?’

  ‘No need, Captain… Darac, was it? I’m a Fine Arts graduate – I’ll draw the guy for you.’ Elegantly shaping her white marble hands, she struck a dramatic pose. ‘This shit is just temporary.’ She took another cheek-hollowing pull on the cigarette. ‘I hope.’

  ‘You do look fantastic,’ Darac said, sounding lame. ‘The drawing – could you come in to the Caserne to do it?’

  ‘Not just at the moment, I can’t. But later today – definitely.’

  ‘We’ll send a car.’

  They took down her contact details.

  A little to their left, Obelix was starting to look restless – odd preparation, Darac thought, for someone who was about to stand stock still for minutes on end.

  ‘Finally – have you ever seen this other guy?’

  Frankie handed over the photo of Manou. Astrid gave a little snort.

  ‘Torso Boy – sexy but short. Yes, I’ve seen him. Here. A few times.’

  ‘How many is a few?’

  ‘Four, five maybe. Always pays. Not much, but something.’

  Darac was coming to the conclusion that Astrid Pireque was one of the most useful eyewitnesses he’d ever come across.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No. That is, he doesn’t arrive with anyone. But he’s left with someone a couple of times. Different people, I mean.’

  There was genuine appreciation in Frankie’s smile.

  ‘This is really helpful, Astrid. Did anything strike you about these encounters? Could you describe or perhaps even draw the people he went off with?’

  ‘One was a horse-faced boy of about eighteen or so – I could draw him. The other was a girl about the same age, I suppose, but I didn’t get a good look at her. A black girl. Tall. Big shades. Red Crocs.’

  ‘You’ve got one minute!’ Obelix called out, deftly kicking his menhir from one instep to the other.

  Darac gave him a wave as he continued.

  ‘A boy and a girl left with him? In what manner?’

  ‘Just chatting.’

  ‘Flirting?’

  ‘A little. With the girl. Maybe even with the boy.’ She picked up her water bottle. ‘Why do you want to know this?’

  ‘There was no reluctance on their part to going with him?’

  ‘No.’ She gulped down the rest of her water. ‘Didn’t look like it.’

  Frankie gave her a look.

  ‘Must be murder wearing the headdress in this heat.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Did Torso Boy ever have a bottle of water or anything with him?’

  ‘I didn’t see one but he had a bag. Could have been in there. Look, I better stow my stuff and get out of Alex’s way.’

  ‘If we have any further questions, may we ask them when you come in to the Caserne later?’

  ‘Sure.’ She picked up the headdress and carefully lowered it into the plinth. ‘Don’t suppose you need a second sketch artist at your place, do you?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Shame.’ She began lacing up her rollerblades.

  ‘Anything would be easier than this.’

  ‘Astrid, uh…’ Frankie risked peering at the snakes. ‘How do you make them move?’

  The girl looked astonished.

  ‘Make them? I don’t make them – they’re real.’

  On cue,
the snakes writhed. One hand patrolling her skirt hem, the other going to her throat, Frankie emitted a sharp cry and took several backward steps.

  ‘I’m kidding!’ As proof, Astrid flicked one of the beasts in the eye. ‘But I’m not going to reveal how I do it. You alright?’

  Frankie took a deep breath.

  ‘Of course.’

  Still grinning, Astrid put her tips bag into the plinth and strapped it onto her back.

  ‘Thank you,’ Darac said. ‘If everyone were as observant as you, our job would be so much easier.’

  ‘You wait until you see how well I draw. Nice to meet you both.’

  The girl took a few swaying strides and began carving her way down the boulevard.

  ‘Quite a sight.’ They finally left the pitch to Obelix. ‘A classical goddess on blades.’

  ‘And what a witness.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Paul – the snakes. She obviously operates them remotely – but how?’

  ‘Did you notice that ring on her left hand? ’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The ruby. There was a pea-sized bump on the palm-side of it. I think I saw her push her thumb against it.’

  ‘A switch for a radio-controlled transmitter? Bluetooth?’

  ‘Maybe. Where’s Erica when you need her?’

  Frankie gave him a look.

  ‘I was only pretending to be scared, you know.’

  Darac’s habitual half-smile disappearing, he nodded with obviously faux sincerity.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I was!’

  Laughter from behind suspended the debate. They turned to find Obelix juggling the menhir in a series of increasingly extravagant passes. And then, with a concluding flourish, he tossed it onto the end of his upturned nose and froze.

  ‘That’s why he doesn’t see the audience,’ Frankie said, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Impressive. In its way.’

  ‘Let’s just hope he doesn’t get a slow puncture.’

  Releasing a wave of kohl-black hair over her shoulders, Frankie threw back her head and laughed.

  Darac gave her a look. ‘Shame to break this up, don’t you think?’

  ‘Agnès’s apartment?’

  ‘Want to come?’

  ‘Try and stop me.’

  1.48 PM

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for. God bless the TV!

  Everything was in place. The introductions had been made. The interviews given. The experts had pontificated. The promotional circus had paraded along the stage route. From motorised bananas, boats and bottles, the crowds had been pelted with trinkets. Giant hand-shaped gloves appeared to be among the most prized.

  Made of soft green foam rubber, spectators loved to wave them at the peloton. It was all part of the fun. The riders saw it differently. If you were pedalling in train at fifty kilometres per hour, a foam finger could rip your arm open like a shard of glass. It was all part of the pain.

  But there would be no peloton today. Each rider had his own race to ride. The stage was going to be quite long and hilly for an opening time trial. A fifteen-kilometre knee-breaker up and down, out and back. A testing overture to the symphony that was to come. Tomorrow – that was when the piece would really begin. One hundred and eighty-two kilometres with all the riders going off together.

  The first rider was in the start gate. Eyes focussed a few metres beyond the ramp. Long, lung-filling breaths. Thighs flexing to power the bike away. A human spring ready to uncoil.

  My son has made all this happen, he said to himself. My son who bought a TV and had it specially adapted so I could watch it lying flat on my back. After everything I’ve done to him.

  Five, four, three, two…

  Thank you.

  1.50 PM

  Three separate rings having failed to bring anyone to Agnès’s door, Darac slipped a couple of picks out of his tool roll.

  ‘You don’t have a key?’ Frankie said. ‘With all that skin-to-skin contact going on, I would have thought…’

  He halted the conclusion with a look. But Frankie had more.

  ‘And if Agnès is in and has put the security chain across?’

  ‘I’ll just get you to bite through it.’

  The door opened cleanly.

  ‘No post on the mat, look.’

  Frankie took a tentative step inside.

  ‘Agnès? You home?’

  There was no sound from inside the apartment as they walked through a short lobby into the hallway.

  ‘You take the bathroom and the bedrooms.’ Darac indicated three closed doors. ‘And yes, I know which is which.’

  ‘So do I – it’s alright,’ Frankie said, tiring of the game.

  Darac walked through into the lounge, a large L-shaped space flooded with light.

  ‘The curtains are all open in here,’ he called out.

  ‘The bathroom’s clear. You know, Agnès is going to go up the wall when she hears about this.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on telling her. There’s nothing in the lounge’

  Darac craned his neck into the kitchen as he heard Frankie open the first of the bedroom doors.

  ‘Because you’ve made me paranoid, I’m going to try the closets.’

  ‘Okay. Kitchen looks normal.’

  He stepped back into the lounge and walked through it into the dining room. Sitting on a sideboard was a collection of photos, a record of Agnès and Vincent’s respective rises through the ranks. One, a twin of a shot in Agnès’s office, showed a young Vincent standing in front of his locker at the Caserne, a senior officer presenting him with his certificate of promotion and dress uniform. Thirty-plus years on, a companion shot replicated the moment with Agnès centre stage. But pride of place was given to a shot of the two Dantier commissaires taken together. The look on both their faces was touching; apples of each other’s eyes.

  Darac heard a sound behind him. He turned. It was Frankie, her olive complexion an ashen mask.

  ‘Her bedroom,’ she said, all the silk stripped from her voice.

  In the two seconds it took Darac to reach the doorway, a horror show of images flashed across his brain. He’d seen headless bodies, burned bodies, bullet-riddled, stabbed and strangled bodies. But with the exception of his mother, who had died when he was just twelve, Darac had never seen the dead body of anyone he was close to. But there wasn’t time to steel himself. He rushed in.

  There was no corpse on the bed, on the floor, anywhere. And then he saw it. A sheet of A4 paper was lying on the pillow. After almost fifteen years in the police, Darac’s instinct was still to pick it up. He stopped himself in time. The message, formed in cut-out newsprint, read:

  * * *

  The crime scene was a hive of activity, and that was the only thing about it that felt normal. In the bedroom, the senior forensic investigator, Raul Ormans peered at the message and shook his large, patrician head.

  ‘I should have stayed on leave.’

  Bonbon Busquet’s foxy face was all pinch points and pain.

  ‘It’s tricky, R.O.?’

  ‘Tricky?’ The word emerged with all the subtlety of a sonic boom. ‘Unless we get very lucky, this message is not going to tell us anything. Anything of significance, anyway.’

  ‘But you’ve extracted DNA from stamps stuck to envelopes… you’ve lifted clean fingerprints off paper… you’ve traced rare inks, esoteric newspaper fonts – all kinds of strange things.’

  ‘Strange is easy. It’s mundane that’s difficult.’ He pointed a thick forefinger at the newsprint. ‘I’m pretty sure they cut this from Nice-Matin, but even if we prove that, what good would it do us? The paper’s on every stand in the city. And beyond.’ He transferred the page to a bag and sealed it with a conclusive pull on the zip. ‘There’s no envelope here, ergo no stamp. Further, the glue used to gum down the words, I think, is from a stick you could buy anywhere. So unless the people who did this drooled invisibly on the paper, there’ll be no spit to extract
DNA from. Prints? I can run more sophisticated tests for them in the lab but I’m not hopeful.’

  ‘The consensus was that these fucking Sons and Daughters were more or less harmless,’ Bonbon said. ‘Possibly even kids.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about this group or even if they really exist…’

  A voice rang out in the doorway.

  ‘They’re in there, monsieur.’

  Jules Frènes, the public prosecutor, bustled into the room. In his all-in-one crime-scene overalls, he looked like a bad-tempered baby.

  ‘Busquet. Ormans. Where’s Darac?’

  ‘Down in the parking garage, monsieur.’

  Frènes grunted.

  ‘The message?’

  Ormans laid it out on the bed. Frènes peered at it, shaking his head.

  ‘A “non-credible” threat – that’s what they said it was. They were certain. Certain!’ He straightened, wagging an accusing finger at the air around him. ‘Commandant Lanvalle will have something to say about this, no doubt. And I will have something to say to him.’

  A uniform craned his neck around the doorframe.

  ‘Monsieur Frènes? The examining magistrate, Monsieur Reboux is here.’

  ‘Ah.’

  * * *

  In the reverberant space of the garage, radios were crackling on and off, the synaptic firings of the mind of the investigation. One forensic team had been detailed to comb the area in metre squares while another had carried out a preliminary exam of Agnès’s Citroën. A technician reported the findings to Darac as a low loader carried the car away for further tests. Preceded by a couple of official vehicles, the procession had the feel of a funeral cortège.

  ‘There’s nothing so far, Captain,’ the technician said. ‘But Commissaire Dantier could have been abducted anywhere.’

  ‘We had to start somewhere.’ Darac’s face was tight as a fist. ‘Her car was here so it looks as if she got home last night. And the note was on her bed.’

  ‘Right, but it’s unlikely she’s still on the premises.’

  Darac’s face tightened still further.

  ‘So you want to overlook that possibility, do you?’

  The technician shook his head.

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘Good. Where’s the dog handler got to?’