by Cara Black
“Around le Sénat it’s another world. Not our jurisdiction.”
That sounded ominous. “What do you mean?”
“The big boys.” His voice carried resignation.
Her mind went back to Bellan saying he worked in DGI. Counterterrorism.
State security and foreign relations fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior. Bellan had worn a suit, not a uniform. This smelled.
Friday Afternoon
She was up to something, that Aimée Leduc. But when wasn’t she? thought Loïc Bellan. He’d followed l’affair de Champ de Mars in the papers—she’d ticked off every level of the government. Bien sûr, they’d whitewashed it, but everyone knew the truth. He secretly applauded her for having the guts to topple the rotten bunch. Even Morbier. She’d been trained by the best, her own father with his wild style.
Une gamine—the longish pixie haircut, those cheekbones that could cut paper, those huge eyes. So expressive—she spoke with her eyes. When she listened to you, she fixed them on you—it was riveting, felt like the whole world was focused on you. She was the type you felt an urge to take care of, and then the next moment you wanted to chain her high heels to cement.
She’d been a little softened by motherhood, maybe. It had cost her. He saw it, plain as day—more nervous, more worried than she’d seemed before. He’d learned to read people in his job.
“Guilluame had a good day,” said the école maternelle teacher at the school gate on rue de Jardinet. “He wants to tell you something, right, Guillaume?”
His six-year-old son lifted his backpack. “I spilled my juice. It’s sticky all over.” His lip trembled. There were tears in his close-set blue eyes. “Teacher said I wasn’t careful.”
Loïc knelt down, stole a glance at the teacher for a cue. He didn’t know whether to scold his Down syndrome son or take him in his arms. He interrogated terrorists, sweet-talked la Proc—but right now words evaporated.
He tried remembering the parenting class techniques—parenting a Down syndrome child required patience. You had to remember how intelligent they were, how vivid their memories could be, and try to react to challenges in a forward-looking way. What lesson was Loïc supposed to teach now?
In the end, he came up with only a stock phrase. “Accidents happen, Guillaume.”
Couldn’t he do better than that?
“But, Guillaume, we talked about how to put your pack under your desk so juice doesn’t spill,” said the teacher, resting a hand on Guillaume’s shoulder. “That’s our plan for next time.”
Guillaume brushed his eyes. Smiled, his head bobbing. “We always come up with a plan. Figure out how to do better next time.”
“That’s right, Guilluame.” She grinned. “We learn something new every day. You’re so good at that.”
The next minute Guillaume was hugging his teacher and then Loïc.
“You’re not mad, Papa?”
This small ball of love was his boy.
Loïc hugged him back. Tight.
He held Guilluame’s hand as they walked into the Cour de Rohan. A private passage, but Loïc, like most flics, had a master postman’s key.
Guillaume loved climbing on the three-legged metal pas-de-mule, the medieval mount.
“Remember who used that, Guilluame?” A memory game they always played.
“Nuns and fat priests to get on their ponies.” Guillaume, like any six-year-old boy would, gave a whoop and jumped onto the cobbles. He grinned and pointed. “That’s the pretty house where the king’s girlfriend, Diane, lived.”
Diane de Poitiers, Henri II’s favorite mistress and rival of Catherine de Medici.
“You remembered. Good job, Guillaume.” Amazed that Guillaume retained the factoid, he swelled with pride.
They passed through three small leafy green courtyards to reach Cour du Commerce St-André’s uneven cobbled passageway.
Guilluame tugged Loïc’s sleeve. “Papa, I remember more.”
“Bien sûr, you’re a smart boy.” Loïc squeezed his son’s hand.
“I remember we always get a marroon glacé right after we pass the place where the doctor made the guillotine.”
“That’s good, Guillaume. Remember anything else?”
“And Grand-mère gets her pedicure just by the oldest café in the world. There.”
His mother had her bunions treated near la Procope. “You’ve earned a special treat with that good memory of yours.”
Headlines on le Figaro at the newsagent on rue du Buci proclaimed New Conflicts in the Balkans—Where Are the Teeth in the Dayton Accord?
His phone vibrated. His boss. Merde. He’d have to get back to work.
Friday Afternoon
In the Leduc Detective office, René rocked Chloé back and forth in her swing crib as Radio Classique played Brahms. A steaming cup of green tea sat on René’s desk.
Aimée blinked in surprise. “But Zazie was supposed to be watching Chloé.”
“Shh. I just got her to sleep.”
She wanted an explanation. She knew she was distracted these days, but . . .
“What are you doing here, René?” she said, whispering. “Don’t you have the Hackaviste seminar?”
“My friend’s covering for me for a few hours,” he said. “You need me here.”
He was right about that. Gestured her toward his desk.
“I can’t find anything on Mirko Vladić postdating the explosion in Foča—if he had survived, there would be some evidence. But he has no family, no traceable acquaintances . . .” René shrugged. “No DNA confirmation he’s dead, either. Basically no leads in any direction. Rien. I’ve spent two hours looking. Alors, Aimée, you’ve done what you can. The flics are looking for you.”
“A woman who doesn’t really look like me,” she said.
“Stay away from it. Meanwhile, what is this about? It looks bad.”
She craned her neck over his shoulder. It was the email she’d forwarded Saj from Sybille’s inbox.
“It is bad,” Aimée said. “That’s our employer at École des Beaux-Arts. And she’s the one blackmailing Jules Dechard.”
“You’re kidding.” He scrolled through the emails. Sucked in his breath. “How does that make sense?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t. But not an hour ago I saw Sybille’s assistant, Bette, pick up Dechard’s envelope from his colleague’s dead drop. Couldn’t believe it.”
“You’re sure? How did this simple IT job go off track like this?”
“Good question. But now we’re working for Dechard’s lawyer, and we owe him what information we can get to help him get Dechard out of trouble.”
“Who’s the lawyer really working for, Aimée? And why did Sybille hire you if your investigation would only lead you back to her?”
More good questions. She bit her lip. “Dechard’s a victim, René. We have to hurry and figure this out.”
René had pulled up Sybille’s whole email thread.
“I’d say, based on their ignorance of computers, Sybille doubted we’d delve into her account. But”—his fingers paused on the keyboard—“I don’t think this is about blackmail.”
“Eh, what do you mean?” she said. Aimée stepped over and straightened Chloé’s blanket. Rewound the mobile. “I know he’s terrified, René. Now there are allegations of him helping himself to the collection.” How did it all fit together? “What if Sybille worked with the blackmailer at the gallery? Did she attack them both? Then why did she involve me, René?”
He pointed to his screen. “Haven’t you twigged yet, Aimée?”
“Pray tell, Sherlock.”
He pointed to the email thread. “See this ‘DAV’ alluded to in several emails? This one email mentions a ‘da Vinci drawing.’ Maybe every ‘DAV’ reference is the da Vinci drawing—one of the dra
wings missing from the collection,” said René. “The École des Beaux-Arts’ collection holds a treasure trove. So much was donated to them in the last century. They could easily have priceless da Vinci drawings.”
“Go on.”
“Precise thinking overcomes every obstacle, as da Vinci said.” René lowered the volume on the radio.
He amazed her. “So you’re some kind of da Vinci expert, too?”
He grinned. Shook his head. “Moi? Did you forget I grew up in Amboise, where da Vinci died?” He pointed to his screen. “But getting back to Sybille’s email thread . . .”
“Sybille’s so scared, she’s scattered,” she said. “She was in a hurry, rushing off to an audit meeting. That’s why she forgot to mask this one.”
“I’ll get to it later, desolé, I’m late for the seminar at the Hackaviste.” René slid his laptop into his bag and hit the pump to lower his ergonomic chair. He grabbed his tailored Burberry trench coat. Chloé had woken up, and he blew her a kiss. “Blow big bubbles at bébé swim, Chloé. You’re such a natural in water.”
“Spoken like a proud godparent,” said Aimée.
René grinned. “Zazie’s waiting.”
In BHV, the rue du Rivoli department store, Aimée paused in the swimwear section. Chloé, in the poussette, gummed a teething biscuit.
“You’re buying me a maillot de bain?” Zazie’s mouth was an O of amazement. Aimée noticed she wore a touch of rose lip gloss, more than a hint of mascara.
“If you’re quick about it, Zazie. How else can you get in the pool for bébé swim?” At fourteen years old, Zadie had filled out. “No bikini. Your mother would shoot me.”
Zazie fell in love with a low-cut turquoise two-piece. They settled on a black Speedo with red racing stripes. Aimée visualized facing this with Chloé someday.
In the dressing room, Aimée checked out her disguises. Chloé squealed at her reflection in the mirror.
“Going on surveillance, again?” Awe filled Zazie’s voice. She admired Aimée, insisted she wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a detective.
“You know the drill, Zazie.”
Feeling important, Zazie squared her shoulders. “No answering the landline, call you every hour, walk Miles Davis, and keep Chloé hydrated.”
Thirty minutes later Aimée left Zazie and Chloé at the Saint-Germain-des-Prés pool. The chlorinated aquamarine water made her feel guilty thinking about how she wasn’t taking Chloé to swim in the turquoise Mediterranean at Martine’s boyfriend’s Sicilian villa.
She caught a wink from the male lifeguard—had his Speedo shrunk, or was she imagining it? She didn’t have time for that type of fun, sadly. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
Her call to Sybille went to voice mail. Dechard’s message box was full. Michel Sarlat’s line connected to reception.
Frustrated at whatever game they were playing—why had they had to involve her and get la Proc on her heels?—Aimée wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. Her foot slid, and her low-heeled Valentino sandal strap tore. Great. She wobbled to the nearest metal bollard, leaned down on the hot, uneven cobbles. Water sluiced in the gutters, swirling with cigarette butts and leaves. She caught the tang of piss and old beer from the corner bar’s wall.
She slipped into her spare shoes, metallic ballet flats. Ten minutes’ walking brought her to the École des Beaux-Arts locker room. She changed into a jumpsuit, taped a generic construction company logo from her collection on the lapel, donned a navy-blue cap, and tucked her hair under it. Thank God the school was mostly empty that day—only a few bricklayers repairing the far courtyard.
First on her agenda—checking out whether a blue camionnette was in the school’s vehicle pool. She headed past the courtyard and turned in to another strewn with chunks of Gothic pillars. A graffitied portion of crumbling wall abutted a garage in what appeared to be an old warehouse.
“Mademoiselle?”
A ponytailed young mechanic in grease-stained overalls appeared in front of her. He was holding a small paper cup of espresso, and a cigarette dangled from the side of his mouth. What she wouldn’t have given for both those right then.
“Alors, the van piston’s out of whack,” he said. “Tell your boss it’s going to take some time.”
He had taken her for someone else. Play along.
“And you’re right on it, eh?” She grinned, heavy on the flirting. His deep-set brown eyes locked on hers. He filled out the overalls nicely. “Bon, he’s fine with taking the blue camionette instead.”
“Which one?”
She wished she didn’t want to grab his cigarette.
“That one, you know, the blue one he used yesterday afternoon. He can fit everything in it.”
“People sign out vehicles all the time. How am I supposed to remember?”
“Let’s check the log.”
Ten minutes later, after enjoying a fresh-brewed espresso and a cigarette, she left with a name and a description; in exchange, she’d left him a false phone number.
Using the notes she’d made during her orientation the previous month, she reviewed the school’s electrical layout, the locations of the telephone lines and the computer network wires and the cable installations. All the centralized upgrades to the power system made it easy to troubleshoot, according to the building manager.
Time to follow her nose to what stank.
The École des Beaux-Arts had been erected on the site of the seventeenth-century Couvent des Petits-Augustins. The convent’s remnants were the small cloister and the church with a supposedly gorgeous hexagonal chapel that exhibited the school’s rare art collections and was open by appointment. Which meant twice a year, if that, she’d heard.
The chapel’s underground vaults contained the control room for the revamped computer cable network. The building manager had given her the access code, since she’d need it for her job, and had told her where to find the ring of old-fashioned keys in case of a power outage. No one would think it was strange for her to be down there.
The vaulted, pockmarked stone passages were damp and cool. She punched in the code, entered, and bypassed the control room, took the ring of old keys from where they hung. They were as big as her hand and as heavy as lead. Archaic—original.
Further on and to the right, she tried a key in a small wormholed door, which yielded. Behind it, she expected to find the rare art collection within a climate-controlled area like the one at Bibliothèque Mazarine. Instead the door revealed a medieval warren, cold and musty like a crypt. She sneezed.
How could they keep masterpieces down here, protected only by a fire extinguisher, regulation hatchet, and emergency kit at the entrance?
After the Revolution, religious sites were ransacked, and even the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church had been turned into an artillery depot. But more than two hundred years later, wouldn’t the school have gotten its act together for the priceless works of art in its collection?
The tunnel she was walking down forked. She followed the passage lit by a string of bare bulbs to a series of moisture-proof metal trailers taking up a huge cavern-like space supported by Gothic arches. Each trailer was marked with a label: paintings, sculptures, drawings, manuscripts. Locked. But the locks were no problem to pick with the set in her manicure case.
Minimal security, she thought, after you knew the code.
In the portable with the drawings, a temperature-control system hummed. Museum-quality storage racks. Old, yellowed, handwritten tabs divided the folders by century, in a few cases by artists’ names. The smell of ancient paper was strong.
The hair rose on the back of her neck in the tepid air as she read the names: Tiepolo, Michelangelo, Leonardo. Name after name she recognized and plenty she didn’t. She’d only seen their work in the Louvre, never this close up. Not touchable.
She d
onned the white cotton gloves someone had left sitting by some paperwork. Started pulling out the shallow metal racks. Her eyes bulged. Drawing after drawing, arching forms and vibrant colors—it was staggering. Here and there a slip of paper contained a catalog number and said, On loan to the Louvre or On loan to Musée d’Orsay.
She carefully opened the Leonardo folder, expecting drawings by the master. But it was empty.
“Take your hands off that. Now!”
Aimée spun around to see Jules Dechard advancing with the hatchet.
Friday Afternoon
Melac sat on the stone wall along the quai d’Anjou across from Aimée’s apartment, a cup of blood orange Berthillon sorbet in one hand, his phone in the other. Her phone went to voice mail. Again. He’d tried the office, too.
A red-haired girl emerged from Aimée’s building, pushing a stroller. He recognized her—Zazie from the café. Those were Chloé’s bare feet bobbing from the poussette.
He fumed. Aimée had hired a teenager to babysit his daughter, hadn’t thought to ask him? He crumpled the paper cup, snapped the plastic spoon, and tossed them in the bin.
His blood roiled for a moment until doubt crept in. Did she suspect something?
He yearned to explain how much he wanted to be a part of their life. How much he wanted to protect Aimée—protect them—from all the dangers the Leducs had brushed up against over the years: the thugs with grudges because Aimée or her father had helped put them away; Aimée’s mother’s terrorist reputation; the long reach of the Hand. Now that Morbier couldn’t protect Aimée anymore, it was Melac’s job.
The noise of a shaking rattle came from the poussette across the way; Zazie’s red hair gleamed in the sun. His phone vibrated in his hand. He answered without looking.
“Aimée?”
Pause. “I thought you were a pro. Why aren’t you there?” The woman’s voice vibrated with fear. “Find her.”
Friday Afternoon
Panicked, Aimée dropped the folder. Heard it smack on the table. She moved to the left behind the long table, ducking around the humming wall unit. “Calm down, Dechard. It’s me, Aimée.”