by ML Longworth
Flamant took a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket and put them around Mme Auvieux’s wrists. “I’ll call an ambulance,” Verlaque said, and he got out his cell phone and dialed 18, directing them to the public parking lot for hikers, which he guessed was just on the other side of the lavender field. He then called the police station and asked for backup, directing them to the same parking lot and describing the cabanon.
Jean-Claude Auvieux had run to the cabanon door when he saw the policeman break the glass in the window. His first thought was of the broken window, which would now need repairing, but then he remembered that his sister was in there with the professor. He had had trouble falling asleep earlier that evening, after he had hung up the telephone with the judge. The judge’s questions had got him thinking about the night in Cotignac and wondering how he could have possibly fallen asleep so easily. He remembered the drink that Cosette had brought him—it was China tea, and he only liked herbal tea before bed. But she had insisted that he drink it. He stood outside the cabanon doorway and saw the policeman put handcuffs on his sister, and he saw the judge holding the professor. She looked like she was sleeping. He hoped that she was sleeping, and not the other thing, like Étienne, and then François. He jumped when his sister looked up at him and hissed, “You told them!”
Auvieux shook his head back and forth. “No, no. I didn’t tell them anything.”
Verlaque, who was holding Marine, rested his back against the wall and asked, “Told us what?”
“About the papers in the suitcase.”
“No,” Verlaque lied. “I figured that out for myself, with the professor’s help.”
Marine opened her eyes and moved slightly, blinking twice. Verlaque held her close, rubbing her forehead. He then looked into the open doorway of the cabanon and saw that Jean-Claude Auvieux was now sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up to his head, and his head resting on his arms, looking down at the red earth. The caretaker no longer looked like the middle-aged man that he was but like a boy, the same boy who had followed the Comte de Bremont around the gardens and orchards. Cosette opened her mouth to speak, but Verlaque interrupted. “Shut up,” he demanded. They would get all the information they needed later, back in Aix. For now he just wanted Jean-Claude Auvieux to be left alone.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Xavier Régis put his sneakered feet up on the coffee table at Souleiado Films, took a sip of the machine-made cappuccino, and started watching the unedited footage from Étienne de Bremont’s last film. Xavier, an intern, had been thrilled to film the bird’s-eye view of Marseille with Étienne in a helicopter: the green-blue sea to the south and white rocky hills to the north. The sea and the rocks and the city’s million-plus inhabitants were protected by the Baroque basilica on the hill, the one that Xavier and his buddy Georges had once visited, taking the tourist train when they were mildly stoned. Xavier had never been in a helicopter and was surprised that Souliado Flims could afford one. He had said so to Etienne, who, he now remembered, had laughed and replied, “Someone owed me a favor.”
The uncut film was strangely silent at first—the soundtrack hadn’t been added to that section yet. Five minutes into it the interviews started: the camera was in the Belle de Mai neighborhood, on the very streets that Xavier walked daily. Various policemen were interviewed—some in uniform, others not—followed by conversations with criminals and small-time hustlers. The location then changed from working-class neighborhoods to police stations to multimillion-dollar villas overlooking the sea. After an hour’s worth of footage, Fabrizio Orsani came into view. Xavier sat forward in his chair, watched the scene, swore under his breath, and then rewound the film and watched it again. Orsani was walking through a pristine garden, blaming a recent murder on a rival gangster. He looked, and sounded, every inch a mob leader, at least to Xavier’s inexperienced eyes and ears: the grimacing and scowling face, the gravely voice. A familiar voice from behind the camera began to speak, and Xavier turned up the volume. It was Étienne de Bremont, who then came around from behind the camera and up to Orsani, taking his arm and leading him through the garden, whispering in his ear. Whether Bremont had forgotten that the camera was still rolling, or didn’t care, was unclear to Xavier—at any rate he was evidently getting Orsani to do a second take. Orsani laughed and said, “Oh, I understand. Sort of like this?” and he gently took a rose in his hand. Once Étienne was back behind the camera, Orsani spoke lovingly of the olive trees and their beautiful bounty each year and how they reminded him of Corsica. The camera followed Orsani into his well-appointed home, filled with tasteful abstract paintings and African sculptures. The two men stood in front of a large painting, and Étienne said something that Xavier couldn’t make out, despite rewinding the film and listening to it again. But he was fairly sure of Orsani’s reply: “Thanks to my funding, your pretty film is going to get made.”
Xavier knelt down, tied his dreadlocks back with a rubber band that he kept around his wrist, and rummaged through a box until he found a tape labeled “Edited, version one.” He took the raw footage out of the player and inserted the new one. It didn’t take much time—perhaps an hour or so—before Xavier saw that the scenes with Étienne’s voice in the background had been removed. Orsani looked, and sounded like, a retired village doctor or civil servant. He spoke of his contributions to museums, an orphanage in Romania, the Marseille hospital. The murders that had been linked to Orsani, the sixteen-year-old prostitutes who worked for him near the opera house in Marseille, the car bombings—all the crimes that had been revealed by policemen and witnesses in the uncut version no longer seemed as clearly connected to Orsani. Xavier got up, tossed his plastic cup into the garbage can, and picked up the telephone, dialing his boss’s office number. “M. Mad,” he said. “I think you’d better come into the screening room for a bit. You won’t need to watch very much.”
Madani arrived in no time—he was hoping that this film would be another award winner—and Xavier showed him certain footage in the uncut version. Madani stared at Xavier in disbelief. “Why was Étienne redoing those takes? The first ones were great: Orsani seemed totally unaware of how brutish he sounded. And what’s with Orsani’s film-funding comment? Was Étienne’s film going to be funded with Mafia money?”
Xavier got up and took out the first video and then put the edited version in the player. He turned to his boss and said, with a flourish of his hand, “Watch and be amazed.” Madani rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and said, “Just play it, would you, Xavier?” and they watched the edited film in silence.
After some time had passed Madani told Xavier to stop the film, and he turned on the lights. “I’m in shock. I had a feeling that they knew each other, but I never imagined that it went this far. It’s hard to tell where Étienne was going with the film, since he only had the chance to edit a small part. But preferring those second, coached takes to the raw first ones . . . What was he doing?”
Xavier nodded. “You didn’t know, boss?”
“No,” Madani replied. “I had no idea. Étienne insisted on filming much of it alone, remember? Or if he needed a sound man, he would pick various students who were here on work terms, never the same one twice, which at the time I did think was odd.” Madani stared at the screen, now white.
“Yeah, I remember,” said Xavier. “I thought that he was mad at me. He only asked me to film with him a couple of times, and that was just the scenic stuff.”
Madani said nothing and put his chin in his hand. He looked at Xavier and said, “I’d better call Aix. Don’t tell anyone about this. Hide this footage back under your desk.” Xavier stood up, and Olivier Madani looked at his young intern, a boy he had grown to like, and one who had been given nothing but obstacles in life—orphaned by ten, raised by an aunt who already had six kids, black, dreadlocks! and now had dreams of being a filmmaker. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go see what the plat du jour is at Lulu’s. My treat.”
/> “Yes, sir!” Xavier said, smiling and saluting Madani. Xavier looked at his boss, a man he had grown to like, and one who had only been given blessings in life—a beautiful wife, born to wealthy parents who were both still alive, white, and a successful filmmaker. But that haircut!
They stopped by the stairs, and Xavier looked out of the window, as he always did. When he had first come to Madani’s film company, he had expected to look out on another building or factories or a cheap apartment building. What he saw had stunned him, and now he looked out the window whenever he passed it. Madani watched Xavier and smiled. “That’s the neighborhood’s biggest secret. They’ve been there for centuries. Marseille always does this to you, just when you don’t expect it—when the traffic is awful and the streets are looking too dirty and noisy—then you get delivered one of these bombshells, and it reminds you why you are here and why this town is so magical.”
Xavier got closer to the window, wanting to see the details. He thought of Étienne and the film footage he had just watched. “You never know, do you?” he said into the air.
“No, you don’t. Life is full of surprises,” Madani answered, thinking of Étienne de Bremont’s sudden death. He too leaned closer in, and the two men silently watched the black-robed nuns of the convent attached to the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur pick fruit in their walled orchard.
The late afternoon sun came in through the window from the west, and Verlaque rushed over and pulled down the blind. But the sun had woken up Marine, who, after being taken to the emergency room, bandaged up, and then discharged, had been brought back downtown just before dawn by Verlaque and Flamant. Verlaque didn’t want her staying at the Aix hospital—it had a lousy reputation. He’d pay for a private nurse if he had to. Once Flamant was gone, Verlaque carefully undressed Marine and put her in a pair of striped Hermès pajamas that his mother had bought for him, as she did every Christmas. He had a drawer full of them and even more, never worn, in a box. He had considered putting them on auction at the next police fund-raiser.
Marine turned her head toward Verlaque and saw that she wasn’t in her apartment but in his. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked.
“Twelve whole fucking hours,” Sylvie bellowed, coming into the room carrying a coffee for Antoine.
Marine smiled but she knew not to laugh—that would hurt too much. “Take it easy,” Antoine demanded. “You not only got a great blow to the head, but you’re pretty bruised on your right side. Did you fall down?”
“Yes,” Marine answered, trying to sit up a bit. “I kept falling in the olive grove, and I think I may have slipped down some of the château’s stairs.”
“Why didn’t you run for it when you were walking to the cabanon?” Sophie asked.
“Cosette had a knife,” Verlaque answered.
Marine looked at Sophie and said, “When we left the château, I saw that Jean-Claude’s car still wasn’t back, and so I thought that when we got to the cabanon I could at least try screaming. There’s that parking lot nearby, where teens sometimes hang out.”
“Well, while you’ve been sleeping I’ve been trying to be social with the judge,” Sylvie said, handing Verlaque his coffee.
Verlaque took the coffee and smiled, acknowledging Sylvie’s attempt to humor her friend. “Cosette Auvieux confessed to pushing Étienne de Bremont,” Verlaque said, thinking that Marine would want an update. “Commissioner Paulik is with her now. She flatly denies killing François de Bremont, which would have been impossible anyway. She isn’t strong enough to strangle an athlete, and she has the whole town of Cotignac as her alibi.”
“Polo?” Marine asked, her voice strained. “The casino?”
“No, every single polo player has an alibi, except for one—but he’s new to the club and barely knew François and had no motive. The Cannes casino guys are all clean too—it was so early in the morning that they were either at home, getting ready for work, or still at work, getting ready to come home.”
Marine requested a pillow, which Antoine put behind her head. She licked her lips and asked for some water, and she drank more than she thought she could. “How about an espresso?” she then asked.
“No, how about more water?” Verlaque answered. Marine looked to the bedside table and saw a vase full of yellow daffodils and a box of locally made chocolates. She smiled and said, “Thank you, Antoine.”
Verlaque laughed, embarrassed. “They’re not from me, sorry. They’re from Yves Roussel. He brought them himself.”
“How sweet.”
Verlaque grunted. “Yeah, sweet.” He shifted a bit in his chair and stared at Marine.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she asked.
“Yes, I had a phone call from Maria Pogorovski. Can you handle more information?”
“Yes, go on.”
“Mme Pogorovski left a message on my cell phone, so I called her back after I put you to bed, only to find out that she had driven to Aix early this morning.” Verlaque’s aching back reminded him that he very much wanted to be in bed, under a feather quilt, with Larkin’s poetry in his hands. He yawned and continued, “We met at the office.”
“Le Mazarin?”
Verlaque smiled. “No, my office—not yours. She told me that she was tired of the sleepless nights, and she couldn’t get the image of Natassja Duvanov out of her head. The models were in fact being used as high-end prostitutes, as we suspected. But Natassja Duvanov was the prize. One hundred thousand euros a night, reserved for Pogorovski’s friends when they were in New York. Natassja and the other girls were told that the escorting was a temporary arrangement, a sort of payment for their visas, which Lever Pogorovski arranged. But of course that was a lie. Mme Pogorovski claims that she had suspected the girls were being used for sex, but they wouldn’t talk to her about it. When Natassja Duvanov committed suicide, Mme Pogorovski couldn’t stand it anymore. She met with François, who confirmed her suspicions. François had known about the prostitution, but at first he turned a blind eye to it because it happened only rarely. But the prostitution ring flourished, and when he found out that Natassja was being presented as the trophy, he flew to New York to try to help her.”
Marine licked her lips and asked, “Was he killed for that? That was back in January.”
“No, he was going to be sent to Spain, but then he tried to help another model get back to Russia, and was found out. Mme Pogorovski was there when François and Lever Pogorovski were arguing: François was wild and threatened to go to the police. She understood that her models were being forced more and more into prostitution, and she went straight to her lawyer. They were preparing her dossier together when she got the news that Tatiana, that model you spoke to, was badly beat up.”
“What?” the two women asked in unison.
“Someone was watching her speak to you the other day on the beach.”
Marine thought instantly of a man who had hopped off his bench and jogged in the same direction as Tatiana. She then closed her eyes and groaned, “The baby?”
“She lost it, I’m afraid.” The three were silent. “Maria Pogorovski has wanted out of the marriage for years, and only now is she free do to so.”
“Why now?” Sylvie asked.
“Pogorovski had something on her brother, who’s a politician in Russia—some crooked real estate deals years back, which Pogorovski had the proof of. Sadly, the brother and his wife died last weekend in a car accident, so now Mme Pogorovski is free.”
“This Russian guy can’t be nailed on any of this, can he?” Sylvie asked.
Verlaque shook his head. “Whoever killed François covered their tracks well, and I doubt we’ll ever be able to connect it to Pogorovski. But Maria Pogorovski is willing to testify against her husband regarding the prostitution ring.”
Marine looked up at Verlaque. “Last night Cosette hinted at a proj
ect between François and Jean-Claude.”
Verlaque nodded and answered, “François wanted to restore the château at Saint-Antonin and turn it into a luxury hotel, keeping Jean-Claude on as a partner—he’d be head of the buildings and grounds. There would be a few big deluxe rooms and an organic garden that would provide the fruit and vegetables for what they hoped would be a Michelin-starred restaurant. François needed a third business partner since he was cash poor, so he went to the Pogorovskis. Maria Pogorovski was present at the meeting, and she said that her husband flatly refused to take part in any business deals with someone who was hopelessly addicted to gambling. That was when François blew up and threatened to blow the whistle on Pogorovski’s prostitution ring, calling him a pimp. It was a crazy act on the part of François, calling someone that powerful a pimp, but it confirmed Maria’s suspicions that the girls were being mistreated.”
“Il était perdu,” Sylvie mumbled.
“Yes, he was a lost soul. His gambling addiction, combined with his wild temper and trying to help the models, sealed his own fate. Pogorovski threw him out, escorting him to the front door and into his car. That was the last time Maria Pogorovski saw François—he was killed a few days later. Lever Pogorovski had tossed aside the portfolio that François had prepared on the hotel project, and Maria picked it up and put it into her purse. Over the next few days she read it. She said that François had done an amazing amount of work on the project, and she saw great potential in François’s idea.”