‘Christ. What has the wind blown in?’ The woman stared at Rocco, her face unfolding in recognition. She was small and neatly dressed in a blue skirt and cream jumper, and could have been anyone’s maiden aunt.
Only Rocco knew better. He chuckled in disbelief. He doubted that Viviane Bernard was her real name, but it was the only one he’d ever known her by.
‘You look well,’ he said, and held out his hand.
She took it in both of hers and squeezed firmly, smiling coyly the way he remembered. But then, coy had once been Viviane’s stock-in-trade, back when she ran a string of ‘escort’ girls operating out of a large apartment near the Arc de Triomphe. He knew because he’d had the dubious pleasure of pumping her for information whenever one of her girls took a beating from a drunken client.
‘Lucas Rocco?’ she breathed. ‘It’s been a while.’ She glanced at Claude, who was eyeing them both in surprise.
‘Sorry,’ Rocco muttered, and made introductions. They shook hands. ‘I thought you’d retired to the country.’
‘I did. It was boring and far too quiet. I couldn’t sleep so I came back here.’
‘And became a concierge? You?’ He allowed her to lead him inside her flat, which was surprisingly big and comfortably furnished. Or maybe not so surprisingly, he decided. Viviane had been a very successful madame for a lot of years, and it was rumoured that she had salted away a decent amount of money in the process. The bit she wasn’t allegedly paying as protection money to senior policemen in the area, anyway.
‘Not the concierge,’ Viviane replied. ‘I own the building and I didn’t want to have someone else running it.’ She shrugged. ‘It seemed the best arrangement.’
Rocco revised his opinion of her financial acumen. She had evidently made more than he’d guessed.
‘A drink or coffee?’ said Viviane.
‘Coffee would be nice,’ agreed Rocco.
She smiled knowingly. ‘I know how you like yours, but what about you?’ She looked at Claude. ‘You look like a man with hair on his chest, too.’
Rocco was surprised to see Claude blushing, before he replied, ‘As it comes.’
‘Give me a second or two.’ Viviane shuffled away through a glass door and they heard cups rattling.
Rocco briefly filled Claude in on Viviane’s history. He knew she wouldn’t mind; she’d always been honest about her trade, with no concessions or apologies to anyone. Claude looked surprised but said nothing, merely lowering his bottom lip and eyeing Rocco with renewed interest.
‘So, what can I help you with?’ Viviane entered bearing a tray with three cups, cream and sugar. She served the two men before sitting down, then glanced at Claude. ‘This man is a gentleman,’ she said disarmingly, ‘for a Paris cop, anyway. Always treated us like ladies and never expected or took a freebie. Not once.’ She sipped her coffee, then seemed to realise what impression she might have conveyed and added, ‘Actually, he wasn’t a client, either. Strictly professional.’ She beamed at Rocco then said softly, ‘I heard about Emilie. A great pity; you two seemed set for the long one.’
Rocco shrugged. ‘It happens.’
Viviane nodded and changed the subject. ‘So, are you on a case? I heard you had left the city.’
‘I am and I have,’ confirmed Rocco, adding, ‘in fact, I have an interest in one of your tenants.’
Viviane put her cup down. ‘Who?’
‘Nathalie Bayer-Berbier.’
The name dropped into the room and left a lengthy silence. A car hooted outside and a woman’s laughter echoed along the street, followed by a truck engine and a scooter puttering past like an angry wasp. Normal noises off, lives being lived.
Rocco waited patiently for Viviane to say something.
‘She’s up on three. Number twelve. What has she done?’
‘We know the number,’ Rocco told her. ‘I’d like to see inside her flat.’
Viviane eyed him carefully, then Claude. ‘She hasn’t been in for over a week. I heard she was going to a friend for the weekend, possibly longer. She’s a good tenant.’
‘I’m sure she is. Can we see inside? It’s important.’
Viviane nodded but didn’t move, her whole manner wary. ‘It’s bad? You’re looking for something?’
‘Yes to both. Not sure what, though.’
‘It won’t do you any good, Lucas.’
Rocco felt his gut tighten. ‘Why do you say that?’
The old woman shifted in her chair. ‘Because some men came here late last night and took her stuff away.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rocco cursed under his breath. They were too late. ‘Any idea who they were?’
‘Her father’s employees, I suppose. Polite but firm — you know the type. Not the kind to argue with. And they had a cop with them.’
Rocco and Claude exchanged a look. More official help. ‘What did they want?’
‘They took some stuff away. Not furniture — but boxes and bags. It looked like correspondence and things like that. I couldn’t stop them because Berbier pays the rent.’ She shrugged. ‘Half my tenants have their rent paid by parents… or others.’ She stood up and went to a flat wall cabinet behind the door. Opened it to reveal several hooks hung with keys and numbered cardboard tags. Taking one of the keys, she handed it to Rocco. ‘Is the girl all right?’
‘No. I’m afraid not.’ Rocco took the key. ‘How about friends, boyfriends, people she worked with?’
Viviane gave a huge shrug. ‘You think I can keep track of that kind of thing? She’s a young woman — she has more friends than I have ever known, probably more admirers than she can ever hope to enjoy. But she used to share meals with Sophie in number ten, across the hallway. I think they shared boyfriends, too, on occasion, but that’s the old woman in me talking.’ She gave a quick smile. ‘Lucky her, if you ask me.’
Rocco stood up. ‘It might be best if nobody knew we were here.’
‘Nobody?’
‘Not the local cops, not Bayer-Berbier or his polite but firm employees, and certainly nobody who knew Nathalie.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re working off our patch.’ He waggled his hand from side to side. ‘It’s a jurisdiction thing.’
‘Ah. Understood.’ Viviane would know all about jurisdictions, had probably played with them from time to time, too, to avoid too much interest from the law.
They left her alone and walked up three flights of tiled stairs. If there were any other tenants in the building, they were being very quiet. Flat 12 was at the end of a short corridor. A woman’s bicycle stood outside, with another door — No. 10 — directly across the hall. Rocco knocked on No. 10 first. Best to try and see the friend, if she was in. He watched the peephole in the middle for signs of movement, of the light changing. But there was nothing.
He turned to the door of No. 12 and inserted the key. Pushed the door open.
The air inside smelt of soap and polish, with a hint of perfume. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant, a place to call home. He led Claude inside, noting coats on a rack inside the door, a small table piled with newspapers and some circulars. No mail, though. A pair of walking shoes stood neatly against the skirting board, and alongside them, a furled umbrella, bright and fragile-looking, as if a faint breeze would turn it inside out.
‘What are we looking for?’ said Claude softly.
‘Anything,’ said Rocco, ‘that tells us where she was last week. A note, a letter, train ticket — anything.’ He didn’t expect to find much, after what Viviane had just told them. But all it needed was something the other men might have dismissed as inconsequential.
It took them ten minutes to search the three rooms and discover that the men had dismissed nothing. Most of that time was spent going through pockets, handbags and drawers, because there were no other obvious hiding places, nor, Rocco concluded, any reason for having one.
The flat was neat, plain, if expensively furnished, and spoke more of money wisely spent than a young woman splashing daddy’s wealth
around. It was comfortable and light, with white walls, and to Rocco looked like something copied from American tastes, currently sweeping Europe in the wake of the Beach Boys and other left-coast music.
It took a further two minutes to establish that there was not a scrap of paperwork in the flat. No letters, receipts, bills, postcards; no jottings or scribbled memos, no REMEMBER board; no notebooks, pads or work notes, no portfolios.
‘They cleaned it out,’ said Claude, huffing at the lack of evidence. ‘Not even a single photo. Why?’
‘Because it was quicker than going through it here,’ said Rocco. Easier to just bundle it up in boxes or bags and look through it at their leisure. The last time he’d seen this level of cleansing was when he’d taken part in a raid on the house of a Turkish drug dealer. The man had got a tip-off just prior to the raid and had used his gang to clear the house of every scrap of paper, right down to his wife’s magazines and shopping lists, in case someone had made a careless note which could implicate him.
He walked through the flat, absorbing the atmosphere and wondering whether Nathalie had had anything worth hiding or whether her father was merely being ultra cautious in the wake of her death. Maybe she was simply a young woman, as Berbier and Viviane had variously described her, working in the fashion business and having a good time. If so, she wouldn’t have needed to hide anything.
Unless somebody else knew different.
He stepped into the living room. Looked at a telephone on a small side table near the front window. It was facing the window, as if someone had sat in the window seat to use it. There was a button on the base of the phone, the kind that releases the note tray in the base, like his own. He pressed it. The tray shot out, revealing a small notepad. On it was scribbled a name and a number in a neat hand.
Tomas Broute — frid even — 21 J? 482787
He tore off the top sheet and showed it to Claude. ‘Somebody’s name and a phone number at the very least.’
Claude looked sceptical. ‘You think? A bit too easy, isn’t it? It could be a date on a Friday evening or a reminder for a lottery ticket number.’
‘You think she would have played the lottery?’
‘Good point.’
‘And if it’s a date, why write down the full name?’
‘A poor memory… or lots of boyfriends.’
Rocco picked up the phone, listened for a tone, then dialled the number. ‘Only one way to find out.’ He waited.
No connection.
‘Not a Paris number, then,’ Claude concluded. ‘Without an exchange, that’s a lot of places left to cover. He picked up a directory from the floor and flicked through it. ‘No Broute in Paris, Tomas or otherwise.’
‘I’ll get a search done through the PTT.’
Claude looked doubtful. ‘Good luck with that. According to Dede they couldn’t find their arses in a thunderstorm.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, who knows? With the power of the police behind it, they might perform a miracle.’
From out in the street, a furious honking of a car horn drifted up, followed by shouting. More horns were followed by more shouting.
Rocco stepped over to the window and looked down.
Two cars had stopped outside. Both black, both gleaming. In front of the first car, a man in a delivery uniform was standing by his truck, gesticulating at his trolley piled high with boxes. In response, the car driver got out of his vehicle and walked towards him, flexing his shoulders.
It was the chauffeur from the Bayer-Berbier house.
‘Out,’ said Rocco. ‘We’ve got company.’
‘Can’t you pull rank?’
‘It’s not that kind of company. Besides, whoever they are, I’d rather they didn’t know we were here.’
They hurried downstairs, footsteps echoing off the walls. As they rounded the last bend, someone began pounding on the front door, and they saw Viviane coming out of her flat. She turned towards them and handed Rocco a key.
‘Out the back,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the same men who came last night. Post the key back to me when you can.’ She clutched his arm. ‘Did you find anything?’
He thought it better to lie, if only for her sake. She was a tough character, but she might find herself facing heavy opposition and he didn’t want her compromised if they leant on her.
‘Sadly, no. No answer from number 10, either. But thanks. Ring me if you think of anything that might help.’ He pressed his card into her hand, his new number scribbled on it. Ducked his head and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Give us two minutes.’
They were just clear of Paris when Claude slapped a hand on the steering wheel and swore. ‘How did they know we were there? Are you sure she-?’
‘I’m sure,’ Rocco interrupted him. It was natural that Claude might suspect Viviane of having made a sneak phone call, but he was certain that she hadn’t. ‘They must have been watching the place. I should have noticed.’
‘Maybe. OK, if you say so.’ Claude thought it over, then shrugged. Moments later, he looked sharply at Rocco. ‘What was that phone number again?’
Rocco took out the piece of paper from the telephone pad. ‘Forty-eight, twenty-seven, eighty-seven.’
‘Thought so.’ Claude looked confused. ‘But how-? My number starts with forty-eight. I bet yours does, too.’
Rocco pictured the number in the house in Poissons. He was right. ‘Forty-eight, twenty-seven, ninety-three.’ He turned and looked at Claude. ‘Who else in the village has a phone?’
‘His highness the mayor. Francine at the co-op. The cafe. Maybe a couple of others.’ Claude shrugged, making the wheel wobble. ‘I don’t know. Not many. But there’s nobody called Broute; I’d know, otherwise.’
‘Then he or she must be using another name.’ Rocco scowled darkly and wondered what other secrets the village of Poissons was hiding.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
Massin sounded frosty, his voice snapping down the line like a whip. The phone had been ringing when Rocco got back home. It was nearly eleven and he had a feeling it might have been ringing for a while.
He gathered up the phone wire and walked through to the kitchen. While Massin continued ranting, he put on some water for coffee. If this went the way he was expecting, he might not get the opportunity later.
‘You break with protocol,’ Massin grated, ‘you cross boundaries without as much as a thought to other regions and you interrogate an important man like Bayer-Berbier — all without clearing it with this office first! Who gave you the authority? Did I say you could proceed outside this division? Did I?’
‘I couldn’t get hold of you in time,’ Rocco lied easily, and sat down to wait for the accusation that he and Claude had entered Nathalie Berbier’s flat without authority and against instructions. Massin had clearly been in receipt of a shit storm from the Interior Ministry, and was now passing it on down the line in time-honoured fashion.
‘Really? What was so urgent that you could break all the rules like this?’
‘Because the body was removed from the pathology room by order of a Paris magistrate before I had completed my investigation. It struck me as suspicious.’
‘You could still have gone through official channels.’
‘The local station wouldn’t have known anything about it. I needed to brace Berbier direct, not through a functionary with one hand on his arse and his eye on his career.’
A brief pause, then, ‘What did he say?’
Rocco noted the change in tone. It represented a slight shift in Massin’s response. Was the man going soft?
He relayed the brief conversation he’d had with Berbier. ‘It amounted to nothing. He didn’t confirm his daughter’s death — in fact he claimed he’d spoken to her the previous evening, which was bullshit. He’s either in denial or hiding something.’
‘Thank you for that expert analysis,’ said Massin dryly. ‘But has it not occurred to you that he might be grieving? Or that being
interrogated by a member of the police was too much, too soon? He’s not a country farmer, you know.’
‘Yeah, that occurred to me,’ Rocco said. He got up to pour water into the percolator. ‘The fact is, if he was a local farmer I wouldn’t be having this problem. Berbier pulled strings and got his daughter’s body lifted out of a police establishment before my investigation even began. Farmers don’t get that privilege.’
A short silence, then, to Rocco’s surprise Massin said, ‘I agree. Even so, we operate with the consensus of the people. Don’t forget that. Some of them have powers we cannot dream of.’
‘Really? Damn. And there was I thinking we had a job to do and to hell with what the people thought.’ He still couldn’t work out what Massin was up to. After opening with angry bluster, the man was now sounding almost reasonable.
A door slammed not far from the other end of the phone, and Rocco heard Massin murmur a brief greeting, before the senior officer said, ‘You have your instructions, Inspector Rocco. See that you follow them.’
Rocco immediately knew what was up. Massin had someone close by, listening to his end of the call.
‘Are you telling me to back off?’ he asked carefully.
‘No. I merely suggest that from here on, you proceed with all appropriate attention to procedure. Do you understand me?’
The words were stiff with authority, yet Rocco detected a tone in Massin’s voice which allowed flexibility of interpretation. There was something else: Massin hadn’t mentioned Felix Faure.
‘What if my investigation should take me back to the city?’
‘Is that likely?’
Rocco thought about it. Massin wasn’t expressly forbidding him from going back to Paris, in spite of the clash with Berbier and the Ministry men. As convoluted as he knew the official mind could be, it sounded like a blind eye was being turned.
‘It’s looking possible.’
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