by ML Longworth
“No need. Classes are canceled, starting tomorrow, for the rest of the week,” Marine answered, not sure what she was getting into.
“Classes are canceled?” Verlaque asked. “Don’t tell me,” he continued. “A strike?”
“Yes,” Marine answered, smiling. The great number of strikes at the university angered Verlaque, and strikes in general were one of his pet peeves—he had absolutely no patience for them. Nor did Marine, for that matter, and during strikes she usually stayed in contact with her students via the Internet, and she often held class off campus, in the English-language bookstore, which was the only bookstore in Aix that had a café and comfortable chairs and tables.
Paulik hung up and said, “Fréd can meet me this afternoon. Why don’t we go straight to Cannes?”
“That’s what we were just thinking,” Verlaque answered. “If I speed a bit, we might just make it to the Côte in time for a late lunch.”
“Great. You’re both invited to lunch with me at Fréd’s,” Paulik said.
“That’s really nice of you, Bruno, but I think I’d like to take Marine out in Cannes.” Before Marine could protest, Verlaque said, “Bruno, can you call ahead to the police station and let them know that we are coming? See if they can book us an interview with Lever Pogorovski later this afternoon. We’ll need a car and a driver too. I can’t stand the traffic on the Côte.”
Paulik started dialing. Verlaque looked over at Marine and asked, “Do you think you could do some research for us while Bruno and I are at Pogorovski’s? Find out anything you can about Pogorovski and his wife. You can use the computers at the Carlton—I know the manager. I’ll let him know that you’re coming.”
Marine looked out the window, thinking of the teenage Bremont brothers. “When they were young, people used to get them mixed up,” she mused.
Verlaque looked at her. “The Bremont brothers?”
“Yes,” Marine answered. “Even the Nagels had to look closely at the photographs to figure out who was who.” She then turned to him and said, “Think about it. In a dark attic . . .”
Paulik then leaned forward. “Maybe the killer thought Étienne was François?”
“They killed the wrong guy. And yesterday morning they went back to do it correctly,” Verlaque suggested.
He then looked straight ahead at the road, and after a few seconds shot Marine a piercing gaze, what Sylvie used to refer as the “Antoine stare.” Marine looked at him and, much to her amazement, saw a slight smile form at the corner of his mouth.
Chapter Seventeen
“You what?” yelled Sylvie into her cell phone.
“You heard me,” Marine whispered back, looking through the large windows of the Villa des Lys, out to the Croisette, and beyond that, the sea. It was a warm, clear day. The sky was its constant bright blue, and the fronds of the tall, straight palm trees swayed as if to music. She was waiting for Verlaque, who was parking the car—something that’s always a challenge in Cannes. She glanced around at the diners, who were what she expected at a three-star restaurant: elderly and rich. A white-haired woman, sitting alone at the next table, was enjoying her oysters with gusto. She smiled at Marine, and Marine reciprocated. She loved to see people who ate alone without embarrassment or shame.
“Are you looking for punishment?” Sylvie continued. “You threw up into a garbage can in the middle of Aix, remember?”
“I’m here for Étienne de Bremont. The university is closed, and it was easy for me to decide to come,” Marine said, still looking out the window. As soon as she had uttered these words, Marine realized that she hadn’t a leg to stand on. She simply had no excuse for this last-minute trip to Cannes, except for the obvious one. She added, honestly, “I guess I’m not sure why I came.”
“Wait a second . . . He gave you the Antoine stare, didn’t he?”
“I’m hanging up, Sylvie!”
“No! Wait! Antoine always does that when he feels threatened, or jealous. I remember. Did you talk about another man?” Sylvie sputtered, afraid that Marine would hang up. “Did you talk about Arthur?”
“Arthur’s at a medical conference in California.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What about that other policeman you’re with?”
Marine laughed. “No chance.” She paused, and then said, “There was a winemaker we spoke to, who was very handsome . . .”
“Aha! I knew it! Was the winemaker charmed by you?”
Marine paused a little too long before she said, unconvincingly, “I don’t think so.”
“Yes, I think so too,” Sylvie replied. “When you get back to Aix and want to cry on my shoulder, I’ll be here for you. It’s become a big part of my life, you showing up on my doorstep and using all my Kleenex.”
Marine laughed, and the white-haired woman once again cast a smile her way. She hung up the telephone just as Verlaque was being directed to the table by the maître d’. The two men had been talking on the way in, and Marine heard Verlaque address the waiter by his first name.
Antoine looked around and said, under his breath, “They really need to change the decor in here. Why do so many good restaurants in the south have such outdated furniture?” Marine agreed, and they laughed at the bright orange banquettes and red velour chairs. “Even my old aunts wouldn’t like this porcelain,” she said, tilting a plate painted with jungle scenes up so that it faced Verlaque. “You’re right, but it’s probably Hermès,” Verlaque said. Marine took a quick peek underneath and added, “Well done—it is.”
Two glasses of champagne arrived. Marine wasn’t sure if they were compliments of the house or if they had been ordered by Verlaque on his way in, but she knew better than to ask. Questions like that irritated Verlaque. Taking too long to order also bothered him, so Marine quickly closed her menu as a sign that she was ready. A waiter appeared and took their orders, and then disappeared. She reached into her purse and dug out a pen and a small notepad and put them on the table.
“Two brothers dead,” Marine said, writing at the same time. “One brother was more of a mystery than we thought—he was having an affair with his sister-in-law, whose husband is a judge in Marseille. Coincidence?”
“Perhaps,” Verlaque said, puffing on his Cohiba. “Étienne’s boss told me that Étienne could be mysterious at times. I thought he was referring to Étienne’s work, but it sounds like it applies to his personal life as well.”
Marine sipped some champagne; the delicate bubbles immediately refreshed her. She continued, “François seems to be less complicated—a gambler, a cheat, and somehow involved with the Russian Mafia. Dirty, but more straightforward than Étienne.”
“And we have two mafia organizations potentially involved—Russian and Corsican,” added Verlaque.
“Or not involved,” suggested Marine.
“No way—one of them has got to have a hand in all this,” Verlaque said as he let his cigar burn out in the ashtray. Marine knew that Antoine always saved his unfinished cigars and smoked them when he had a chance later in the day. Sylvie, who hated this habit, used to tease him when she saw Verlaque putting a half-smoked cigar in its leather holder, by saying, “Better save it! There’s a least six euros of cigar left there!” Verlaque’s response to this was, as with most of Sylvie’s jabs at his expensive tastes, silence.
A waiter appeared with their first course. “Monsieur has the oysters,” the waiter said, and he began to set the oysters down before Verlaque. Verlaque quickly put out his thick hand to stop the plate.
The waiter froze, and said, “I am sure that it is Monsieur who ordered the oysters.”
“He’s right, Antoine. You know I can’t stand them,” Marine said, smiling up at the waiter.
“Neither of you understand,” Verlaque said, with impatience. He glared at the waiter. “Since when is the man served before the woman?”<
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The waiter blushed, immediately realizing his mistake. “Excusez-moi,” he stammered. He set down Marine’s seafood risotto, then Verlaque’s oysters, and disappeared.
“Now, so that I can enjoy these oysters—and of course I remember that you hate oysters—I want you to explain what happened last night,” Verlaque demanded, folding his arms across his chest.
“The Vogue,” Marine whispered.
“I thought so,” answered Verlaque. “A friend from Paris brought it to Aix with her. A friend. In fact, she called me right after you left.”
“I don’t need the details, Antoine!” Marine exclaimed, a little too loud.
“I want you to have the details,” Verlaque continued, leaning across the table to get closer. “She invited herself to Aix—she hangs out with my brother Sébastien’s trendy Parisian crowd.”
“When did she come? This week?”
“No, last week.”
“Did you sleep with her?” Marine asked. She then covered her mouth and said, “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”
Verlaque stared at her. “Yes, I did.” He held his hand up to stop Marine from leaving. “But last week I hadn’t yet seen you again. It’s been months, remember?”
“Is it over with her?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes. She was fun while I was in Paris. I needed some distraction. But she’s as empty as a tin can. I read her some poetry to shut her up.”
Marine laughed and covered her mouth. Antoine went on, “And so what I wanted to tell you that night on my terrace is this—that I remember everything about you, about our time together. I know that you hate oysters, that you take too long to order in restaurants, that you have no palate whatsoever for wine. But I don’t care. I also know that some of your law lectures elicit genuine applause at the end of them.”
Marine set down her fork and stared at Verlaque. “How do you know that?” she asked.
“Aix is a small place,” Verlaque replied, smiling. He dropped an oyster in his mouth, swallowed it, and continued: “And you’re beautiful and wise and funny, and I miss you.” Verlaque took a sip of wine, as if he were putting a period at the end of his sentence, and then set his glass down. The two of them stared at each other without moving or speaking. Marine had been dreaming for six months that Verlaque would say this, but Sylvie’s warning was ringing in her head. Verlaque knew she was seeing Arthur.
“I don’t think I can eat my risotto,” Marine said.
“Non? Let me get you some olives,” Verlaque said, pretending to look around the room for the waiter. At that moment they both reached across the table and took each others hands, laughing. Verlaque leaned back and rubbed his tummy.
A cough made them both look up, and Paulik stood above them, looking down at their untouched food. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” he said. Marine and Verlaque quickly let go of their hands and began speaking at once.
“What happened to your lunch at Fréd’s?” Verlaque asked, looking up at the commissioner.
“Sit down, please,” Marine added, pulling out a chair.
Paulik sat down and said, “Cut short. We had been talking for about ten minutes, Fréd doing most of it, when a group of twenty showed up, claiming that they had reserved his private room upstairs. It was ‘all hands on deck.’ I didn’t feel like helping.”
Marine interrupted, “Bruno, did you eat? Do you want to look at a menu?”
“I’m famished, thank you. We only had a beer and some peanuts.”
Verlaque signaled for the waiter to come over, and within minutes Bruno had ordered and his place had been set. Verlaque poured some wine, and Paulik looked at the Loire valley sauvignon, commented on its rich golden color, rolled it around in his glass, sniffed the wine with his eyes closed, and then took a sip. He did all of this slowly but naturally, easily. It was clear that he had been tasting, and appreciating, wines for a long time. “Is this a 1998, by any chance?” he asked Verlaque.
Marine stared at Paulik and asked, “Bruno! How did you know?”
Verlaque leaned over and showed the label, confirming that the commissaire had guessed correctly. Paulik said, “Its rich, dark color was my first clue. And then its strong, buttery taste, which is more like a Bourgogne chardonnay than a sauvignon from Anjou. But I was cheating, really, because 1998 was such a noncharacteristic year.”
“Nineteen ninety-eight?” Marine asked.
“Don’t you remember?” Antoine said, looking at her. “That’s the summer we took my grandmother to northern England.”
Marine nodded, remembering the Larkin-inspired journey, driving up the coast to Hull, with Antoine and Emmeline, visiting country pubs and village churches along the way. She then exclaimed, smiling, “Nineteen ninety-eight! The year of the heat wave! We were so happy to be in northern England, and not in France. Bravo, Bruno!” she said, clinking glasses with Paulik.
Paulik, uneasy in his new role as wine expert, shifted in his chair and changed the subject. “When I left Fréd’s, I placed a call to the Cannes police station and spoke with Officer Pellegrino. He told me that a complaint had been made to the Cannes police a few months ago, by a housekeeper, about an incident of domestic abuse at a party at Lever Pogorovski’s.”
Marine’s stomach turned. Despite her experience as a lawyer, she always had trouble listening, or even reading, accounts of abuse of women or children. She asked, “Was the maid mistreated, Bruno?”
“No,” replied Paulik, shaking his head back and forth. “She was more shocked and outraged, and it was Pellegrino’s feeling that she just wanted someone to talk to. She went to the precinct the next day, and Pellegrino was on duty and spoke to her.”
“What exactly did this maid witness?” Verlaque asked, moving in closer.
“It was after dinner. There had been a fair amount of dancing and drinking, and the guests, Russians, began, one after the other, to burn five-hundred-euro notes, throwing the flaming bills into the air, all the while splitting their sides with laughter.”
Marine buried her head in her hands. “That’s disgusting.”
Paulik nodded and continued, “The really disgusting part is that after the party the domestic staff was told to collect the ashes.”
“The maid, Inès she’s called by the police, doesn’t need much encouraging to disclose what goes on at the Pogorovski’s. She regularly contacts the police to complain about some new outrage. Anyway, François de Bremont was a frequent visitor, with a tall blonde Russian girl on his arm. Three days ago Inès overheard Pogorovski telling François that he was going to send him to Spain to work, that the Côte d’Azur was too dangerous a place for François de Bremont.”
“Did Inès hear why?” asked Verlaque.
“Yes,” answered Paulik. “It seems François had lost heavily at the casinos in both Cannes and Monaco, and he had tried, unsuccessfully, to throw one of the polo matches. Apparently it was obvious to everyone present at that match, and he was about to be kicked out of the French polo league.”
“Anything else?” Marine asked.
“No, not yet. Our conversation was cut short because Pellegrino had a meeting. But I did manage to learn from Fréd that the Russian mob has shocked some of the local hoods, who normally aren’t known to be squeamish. Besides the Onassis-style real estate wars these Russian guys are involved in, they also dabble in kidnapping, extortion, fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking, and contract killing.”
Verlaque took a deep breath and said, “It sounds like after our visit with Lever Pogorovski we should see the managers of the casinos and the polo club.”
“I’ll start making some phone calls,” Paulik answered, and he grabbed his cell phone and left the dining room.
“I’m sorry that our lunch was cut short,” Verlaque told Marine.
“So am I. But be care
ful!”
Verlaque wiped his mouth with the linen napkin and smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Bruno has a gun.”
Chapter Eighteen
Even though Verlaque had been to the Côte d’Azur many times, on each visit he was astounded by two things: how beautiful, and how different, the flora and fauna were compared to Aix; and how awful the traffic was. He sat back and tried to enjoy the drive and ignore the bumper-to-bumper lineup of cars that followed the coast, their wait only accentuated by the hundreds of scooters that whined in and out of the traffic. Verlaque was relieved that he had ordered a car and driver from Cannes police headquarters—he was suddenly very tired and wanted to put his thoughts together instead of having to concentrate on the road. It had been a good decision. He looked over at Paulik, who was staring out the window, with his chin resting in his hand. Verlaque wondered what the commissioner was thinking about.
The judge broke the silence by reading aloud from some reports that had been thrust into their hands before leaving the precinct. There were pages and pages of recent real estate acquisition listings—the Riviera luxury market was dominated, as it stated in one report, by about two hundred wealthy Russians. Pogorovski’s name came up frequently. Verlaque passed the documents over to the commissioner and then made a quick telephone call to his brother, Sébastien, who, among many other things, dealt in high-end Parisian real estate. Sébastien had no trouble giving his brother the name of a colleague on the Côte who did the same thing. Verlaque dialed this Riviera realtor, Pierre Dupont, who picked up his cell phone on the second ring. Verlaque quickly explained who he was and what he was doing in Cannes. “Have you sold any houses to Russians?” he asked, after they had been chatting for a few minutes.
“Yes, about a dozen in the past few years. I didn’t sell Pogorovski the Villa Nina, unfortunately for me, but I know who did.”