‘Why would it?’
The race was on again.
‘I need to call Santoor but let’s get moving while the trail’s still hot. Bonbon and Granot – you organise the ground search for Jarret but no APBs – Jarret may be listening in. Cars, slog squads, our own helicopters, the works.’
‘We’re on it.’
‘Perand – go through Gendarmerie HQ for a photo of Jarret. Get them to email it to all our guys, fly copies all over the city and on TV.’
The boy got on with it without comment.
‘Lartou and Flaco – CCTV and webcams, I guess.’
‘Check.’
‘Frankie – get back on to Clinique Rendflore in Paris. Conduct that relayed questioning of Jean Florian we were discussing.’
‘Right.’
Darac was finally ready to make his call but his mobile rang before he could key in the number.
‘Darac? Santoor here. I’ve questioned the crowd who were watching Medusa. You’re looking for a—’
‘Garde Républicaine officer, yes, we know. David Jarret is his name. We’ve got the ball rolling here but what do you have?’
‘How did you…?’
‘There’s no time. What do you have?’
‘I’m still on the ground here at the promenade. The helicopter’s gone off with the victim. She looked bad, I’m afraid. Jarret injected her in front of several people. Made it look like part of the act.’
Darac ran a hand into his hair and kept it there.
‘Jarret tried to stop Astrid alerting us to who he is, right? But he wasn’t as concerned that several bystanders might be able to identify him later.’
‘That’s true.’
‘So it seems his fear is not so much the threat of capture itself, it’s when that capture might happen. Wherever he’s gone to now, it could be to carry out his mission. We must get to him as soon as we can.’
‘This might help you. Jarret’s riding a blue Gendarmerie-tagged BMW with a letter P for Paris on the windshield. I’ve just alerted all… Oh, no, no, no.’
‘What is it?’
‘I may have just alerted Jarret to the fact that we’re on to him.’
‘You sent out an APB on an open frequency?’
‘I am so sorry.’
Darac felt like hitting something. And all around him, the squad room was alive with abuse and expletives. Some just groaned. Bonbon wasn’t alone in reflecting that the man who was carpeting Darac for displaying a photo on his desk had just potentially torpedoed a huge police operation.
‘It can’t be helped now.’ Darac shared a despairing look with Frankie. ‘Which way did he go? Did anyone see that?’
‘Along the promenade towards the west, initially. After that, no one’s sure. But let me get back to you. No more than two minutes.’
Santoor rang off.
‘Two minutes is a long time just now.’ Darac sought a productive way to fill it. ‘Anyone here have Annie Provin’s number?’
‘I’ve got her number, alright, but I don’t have it.’
Darac’s look could have flayed a rhino.
‘Cut out the comedy, you fucking clown.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Perand’s swarthy skin coloured. ‘Sorry.’
‘Frènes has the number, I should think.’ Granot was waiting for an answer on his call. ‘He’s been on her TV show numerous times. They’re pretty friendly in a sparring-partner sort of way.’ He uncovered the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, that’s affirmative – every car you have. I know the Tour is on…’
Keeping his mobile free for Santoor’s return call, Darac picked up a landline phone.
‘Monsieur Frènes – Darac. Listen carefully…’
‘Captain Dar—’
‘Listen! We know who kidnapped the Dantiers. We need someone to review all the TV footage of the Tour’s procession along the Negresco stretch of the Anglais. Especially the aerial footage. Stuff from cameras not providing the live feed, even. Annie Provin and her people can do that. Promise her an exclusive on the case if she can get back to us with a lead in the next few minutes.’
He told Frènes what they were looking for and ended the call as his mobile rang.
‘Santoor?’
‘Not much but something. As we came in to land, the pilot saw Jarret heading up Boulevard Gambetta. He noticed because he thought it odd that a Garde Rép was riding away from the race route while the stage was still going on.’
‘Up Gambetta – we’ll redirect our ground people accordingly.’ He looked across at Bonbon. He nodded back. ‘Is the chopper airborne again?’
‘Yes. They’ll be picking me up shortly.’
‘Nix that. Tell them to track above Gambetta now – keeping their eyes peeled and you informed all the way. Alright?’
‘Check. I’ll keep you posted.’
‘I’m going over there myself now.’
Darac ended the call.
‘Chief?’ Perand raised a hand. ‘I’ve got Commandant Mohr holding. He’s the GR officer commanding the Tour squadron. I’ve outlined the situation.’
Perand’s printer made an odd burping sound. In halting steps, a photo began to appear.
‘Quick work.’ He held out his hand. ‘Let me have him.’
‘The Captain for you now, Commandant.’
His eyes on the emerging photo, Darac took the phone.
‘Captain Darac, is it? What is all this kidnapping and murder nonsense? Jarret? It’s impossible.’
A maxim of Agnès’s came back to Darac: If you can’t pull rank, pull somebody else’s.
‘Everyone from Commandant Lanvalle of the DCRI on down is behind us on this, Commandant. Jarret has killed and he’s about to kill again unless we can stop him. Quickly, what do you know that might help us?’
Slice by horizontal slice, the top of Jarret’s head became visible. The hair was dark brown, and might have been wavy were it not cut so short.
‘Are you all sure? It’s not—’
‘We’re sure. Quickly!’
Jarret’s forehead. It was quite narrow. Otherwise unremarkable.
‘Uh… well he reported sick after the peloton cleared the staggered island at the Gambetta/Boulevard des Anglais turn. Said he was returning to Monaco but he would ride through to Brignoles to rendezvous with the squadron after the stage.’
Jarret’s eyebrows. Dark and angled like ticks.
‘I see.’
Jarret’s eyes. Upside down, they appeared more as an abstract entity than as the ‘windows of the soul’ concept familiar from pop psychology. Orange-flecked hazel, they reminded Darac of Agnès’s. He was seeing her in everything at the moment, it seemed. In everything but the flesh.
‘Commandant, I take it your bikes don’t carry tracking devices?’
‘They do not. We trust our… They do not.’
‘Pity.’
Darac concluded the call with a suggestion Mohr call back should he think of anything that might help find David Jarret.
The printer spat out the photo.
‘Listen, guys.’ Darac held up the shot. Everyone put their call on hold. ‘I’m heading out to Gambetta now. I’m going to cruise around.’ He brandished the photo. ‘Obviously, this man could have gone more or less anywhere from there but at least I’ll be out on the streets when the breakthrough comes. Those of you with a finite task: complete it, update everyone and then join me out there. Those with ongoing tasks: assess whether you need to remain here or whether you could carry them out just as well on the move. If you can – you join me, too.’ He gave it a beat. Was there anything else? ‘Flaco?’
‘Captain?’
‘The white van paperwork. Do you have that list of rented lock-ups?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She reached for a loose wad of heavily highlighted pages. ‘It’s this lot.’
‘I know all of them had an initial visit. Were there any inconclusives, any call backs?’
‘Several but I think they’ve all…’ She flicked through the pages, lookin
g for any white spaces. ‘…been done now. No, hang on, there are a couple… Three altogether. Adèle has put them down for a revisit this afternoon but that won’t happen with this big push.’
‘Let me have the addresses.’
1.52 PM
The rail-thin one. Holding a phone handset. And in the background, a policeman holding a second phone. The blond one was lurking around also. What was going on?
‘Hello there, Jean. How are we doing today? Alright? Move your fingers for me.’
He moved them.
‘And the other hand… That’s it. Lovely! Just need your own breathing to come up that little bit more and then we can take out that nasty tube, can’t we?’
He blinked once.
The thin one’s sad face.
‘Now this isn’t easy for me but we all have things to face from time to time. Things that are really difficult and the Lord knows you’ve had your share these last three months. Well, for most of your life off and on, really.’
Ye gods.
‘But two days ago, life sent something else to you, my darling.’
Get out of my face, woman. Can’t you see they’re coming up to a sprint? Points for the Green Jersey up for grabs. What with David forgetting to give me a wave on TV, the day’s turning out a bit shit.
‘Yes. Something really bad happened to your brother, Emil.’
Don’t tell me the pathetic little bastard has gone under one of those nice new trams? Or choked to death on a piece of socca? That would turn my day around in an instant. Turn my life around. Well, partly.
But then far darker possibilities began to occur to him.
‘I asked them if it could wait just a couple of hours but they said it was urgent. I’m sorry, darling. We’re here to hold your hand. Listen to the lady on the other end of this phone. She sounds lovely, doesn’t she, officer?’
‘Uh… I suppose she does, yes.’
‘But what she has to say to you isn’t so nice, Jean. She’s a police officer too. She’s going to talk to you to explain things first and then she’s going to ask you a series of questions. They are questions about your son. It seems he’s responsible for Emil’s death and… for other serious crimes since. We can hear the questions too. When you hear them, answer them as you normally do and the officer here will tell the lady what you said. What you meant to say, I mean. Let me just move this TV out of the way. You don’t want it at the moment.’
No. For once, he didn’t. He didn’t want anything except to wind back the clock. He should never have told David what Emil had revealed in that barbed, sneering letter he’d written just twelve short months ago. Announcing that their father had now followed their mother into the grave, Emil had told Jean not to expect so much as a sou in the will.
He could remember whole sections of the letter verbatim. ‘Why is there nothing for you? Because you are not a true Florian. I know all about your real mother and father. Especially your mother!’ That exclamation mark. Hateful. But then the nub: ‘My mother told me the whole thing. You see, you were a Jew baby, given away at birth.’ Jean would never forget how he’d felt as Emil went on to recount the story of Officer Adam Djourescu and his wife Elena; the couple whose betrayal at the hands of a brother officer consigned them to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The only thing Emil’s mother seemed not to have known was the full identity of the informant. Jean would just have to make do with the forename – Vincent.
Yet Jean had to pass the revelation on to David. The boy needed to know the fate of his true grandparents. And it explained so much else. It explained why the Florians had treated Jean like a piece of shit once Emil came along. It explained why he had gone on to treat his own wife and son like pieces of shit.
Jean had never blamed his wife for leaving him and taking David with her. He hadn’t blamed her for reverting to her maiden name of Jarret. He hadn’t even blamed the pair of them for hating him. It had been too late to explain things to his wife; she had died years before. But with David, the neglected son who had disowned him, there had been a chance of redemption. Jean had never had any thought of avenging the original crime, he had sought only to win back his son. David had evidently had different ideas.
What a price Jean had paid. By sharing Emil’s revelations, he did get David back; but by sharing them, he might have lost him for ever.
Cold plastic smothered Jean’s ear. The thin one was right – the woman’s voice on the line was soft and beautiful. But it gouged a hole the size of the Verdon Gorge in his heart.
1.56 PM
Neither had spoken for hours. Having to raise their voices wasted too much energy. When the moment came, Agnès wanted to be ready. Or that was how the period of silence had begun. Now, the first seeds of doubt were taking root. Perhaps it would be better, she’d begun to think, if they just gave in. Let the flies take over completely. And how wrong had she been about the harmlessness of their waste? Leave the stuff another day or two and see what it might achieve.
She kicked one foot against the other, sending a searing pain into her spine. She was furious with herself. That sort of thinking was a one-way street. She would not give in.
The silence wasn’t helping. She needed to end it. Trying to manufacture some mucous with her rasp-dry tongue, she moved her head in an agonising arc towards her father. A false errand. He was asleep. It was just sleep, wasn’t it? A chill washed over her like ice water. She peered hard at his chest. The nightshirt was moving. Never mind about breaking the silence. It was best to conserve energy. Just concentrate on getting through the next minute. And then the one after that.
The fattest of the flies finally came in to land on her leg. She retched. A positive sign. The thing was too high up her shin to kick away. Bringing more pain, she drew back her foot, lifting the knee. The fly rode the rollercoaster. She would have to use a finger to flick it away. Pulling the chain through the eyebolt behind her, she extended a hand. Nearly. Nearly. Her eyes watering with the pain, she finally managed it. Success! She had shooed away a fly. It looped the loop a couple of times and returned.
Leave it. It doesn’t matter.
Forty seconds to go… Thirty…
The thunder overhead subsided momentarily. A gap in the trains. She understood that there was a world of interest in the subject if she could just muster the energy to think about it. She heard a lighter rumble. More of a whooshing sound, in fact. Lorries? It made sense – the Cannes–Menton line ran in tandem with a switchback of highways through a long swathe of the city. The heavy rumbling started up once more, slow at first and then speeding up. It meant the train had pulled out of a station. Probably. Think about which station. Rumbling speeding up; rumbling slowing down. The rumble almost never maintained the same momentum throughout. So it was a station where nearly every train stopped. Nice’s Gare Thiers was the principal candidate. No sooner had the theory formed than a continuous rumble challenged it. But it wasn’t moving fast. A freight train wouldn’t stop at the station, she realised. She considered the thunderous volume of that sound. And the accompanying shockwave. It was as almost as if the rail tracks had been laid on the roof of the van. The whoosh of the road traffic, though, was far less distinct. Yes, they were holed up near Gare Thiers, all right. The viaducts carrying the rail bed were very low on either side of the station – several metres beneath the highway. There was an explanation for everything.
Into the next minute…
With a graunching metallic sound, the back door of the van jagged open. Light flooded in, burning her eyes. Now! Assess. Speak. Bargain. But all she could see was a silhouette behind the bruising beam. Vincent cried out. The silhouette swung the torch at the sound, silencing it.
‘What a stink,’ the silhouette said. A female voice. ‘But it won’t be long now.’
With a reverberant clang, the door slammed shut.
Tears lubricated Agnès’s voice.
‘Papa, are you alright?’
The reply was no more than a mumble.
&nb
sp; ‘Papa!’
‘I’m alright.’
Braving the inquisition of her spine, Agnès turned her body towards him.
‘Papa, the woman’s voice? I recognised it.’
‘Yes?’
‘It was Corinne Delage.’
Silence.
‘Corinne Delage, Papa. Do you know that name? Do you?’
‘Sorry, my darling. I’ve never heard of her.’
At last, Vincent was telling the whole truth.
2.13 PM
Two lock-ups down; one to go.
Set to the Brigade’s encoded frequency, Darac’s car radio was alive with traffic. The messages followed a pattern. Possible sighting of Jarret reported; sighting investigated; sighting proved negative.
He slowed on Avenue des Fleurs, checking out a broad echelon of motorcycles parked at the kerbside. With one ear on the output from the radio, he called Granot on his mobile.
‘Yes, chief.’
‘Anything further on Astrid?’
‘She’s still fighting but… I’m not sure she’s winning.’
‘Come on, Astrid, come on. Anything from the TV people?’
‘They’re running stuff but nothing’s come of it yet. Annie Provin herself led the footage review – on camera, of course. And they did find a clip of Jarret but it doesn’t add anything to what we already knew – he’s heading north on Gambetta, going out of frame at Rue de la Buffa. They’re broadcasting the clip in split-screen on their news channel, alternating it with the shot we have of Jarret. It’s great coverage but she’s claiming it merits the exclusive Frènes promised her. He’s already told her it doesn’t unless a viewer gives us a lead from it.’
Darac cleared the echelon of bikes. None was a blue GR BMW.
‘We’ve got the whole fucking world looking for Jarret. Surely somebody will have seen where he went.’
‘Hundreds will, chief, and we’ll talk to them. It’s whether we can act on what we find out in time. We’ve got almost none left.’
Darac turned into Boulevard François Grosso and headed north towards the rail/road viaduct.
Impure Blood Page 36