Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

Thus reminded, I pulled out my notepad and smiled at the concierge, who nodded. ‘You may.’

  ‘Thank you, m’sieur. Now, on their arrival, did the officers attending identify themselves? As we did?’ Clever Markham, strengthening the supposed link between us and the Time Police.

  M Caron nodded.

  I made a tick in my notebook.

  ‘Did they state the purpose of their investigation?’

  He nodded again.

  I made another tick in my notebook and Peterson nodded approvingly; whether at me or M Caron was unclear.

  ‘You gave a statement, I believe.’

  ‘I did, m’sieur,’ he said, feelingly. ‘I gave several.’

  ‘Were you given copies of these statements for you or your legal representatives to hold? Were you informed you could have a legal representative present whenever you so desired?’

  He nodded. I made another tick. And then, feeling something more might be required, I underlined it.

  ‘Were you the only person interviewed by the Time Police?’

  ‘Oh, no, m’sieur. We all were. I was interviewed because I was on duty when the body was discovered. Mademoiselle Duval was the concierge on duty on the night of . . . of . . .’

  ‘We understand,’ said Markham. ‘There are five of you altogether, I believe, providing a twenty-four-hour service.’

  M Caron nodded again.

  ‘Is Mademoiselle Duval here now?’ asked Markham.

  He shook his head. ‘When the police – the civilian police, you understand – told her that she had been the one to let the murderer into the building, she was, naturally, most upset.’

  Peterson made a sympathetic noise.

  ‘Mademoiselle de Maupassant was very much liked within the building. By everyone. This is such a tragedy.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Markham.

  ‘Mademoiselle Duval has not been into work since the night of . . . that night . . . but the police have interviewed her at her home, I believe.’

  ‘And as far as you know, again, all the correct procedures were adhered to throughout the investigation?’

  M Caron nodded again. He was answering Markham’s questions much more readily now and having got him in the habit of responding, Markham veered off into the investigation itself.

  ‘So – just to clarify: Mademoiselle Odette Duval was on duty that night when, at approximately half past eleven, a man entered the building and requested admittance to the apartment of Mademoiselle de Maupassant.’

  ‘Yes. Odette rang through and Mademoiselle de Maupassant herself authorised her to let him in. This is a very respectable block, you understand. We have several single ladies here – and families, too. Security is very important. If Mademoiselle de Maupassant had not given permission, we would not have opened the inner doors and the man could not have gained access.’

  ‘There is no other entrance?’ asked Markham, who knew very well there was.

  ‘A back door, m’sieur, opening on to a small yard at the rear. There is, however, no access to the yard from the street. The gate is always locked.’

  ‘I understand completely,’ said Markham. ‘In fact, there is a note here from the investigating officer remarking on the effect­iveness of the security procedures in this building.’

  Another good move. Some of M Caron’s anxiety faded away. He smiled tentatively. Markham smiled back again.

  ‘So, the . . . intruder . . . gained access to her apartment in the normal manner?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Other than the lateness of the hour, there was no indication that anything was out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Had he been here before?’

  ‘Not that any of us could recall, m’sieur, and nothing was discovered from the security tapes. This appeared to have been his only visit.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Markham, and I made another squiggly note in my pad. ‘And then?’

  M Caron swallowed. ‘And then he went upstairs.’

  ‘Obviously you have discussed this among yourselves, Monsieur Caron, so perhaps you can tell me – I do not want to disturb Mademoiselle Duval any more than necessary, you understand – was the intruder showing signs of . . . anxiety? Or anger? Or strong emotion of any kind?’

  ‘No. Odette was very positive. He entered, apologised for the lateness of the hour and politely asked if Mademoiselle de Maupassant would see him. He said he had urgent personal news for her.’

  My stomach clenched. That would be exactly right. Leon could easily have been bringing news of the boys’ illness. Had he come to plead with her to return with him to the hospital? Because, sometimes, he had told me, some sort of serum could be manufactured using the parent’s blood. Which was when Leon had discovered he was not their father. Or had he been here to tell her they were dead and to exact his revenge? I remembered Leon had said that after the boys’ deaths he had scoured France looking for her. He’d also said he never found her. He’d lied to me. I thrust that thought away.

  ‘I have a copy of the relevant page here,’ said Markham, indicating the file, ‘but may I see your book of visitors, please?’

  Silently, M Caron pulled it out from under the counter, found the correct page and passed it over.

  Another hope faded. There was Leon’s familiar signature.

  I made a note in my pad. Why would he sign his own name? Was he required to show ID?

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘Mademoiselle Maxwell has a question,’ said Markham.

  ‘Are visitors required to show their ID, m’sieur?’

  ‘Of course.’ He peered at the register. ‘Driving licence. See the initials here. He showed Mademoiselle Duval his driving licence.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Markham, even though it wasn’t. ‘So, having passed your stringent security procedures, the man took the lift to the fifth floor where resides the abode of Mademoiselle de Maupassant?’

  M Caron nodded again.

  ‘And no one heard or saw anything unusual until the body was discovered by the cleaners, one day later?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Markham frowned and leafed through the file. ‘I do not seem able to find a copy of the tape showing the intruder leaving the building.’ He assumed a stern expression. ‘Did they forget to take it with them?’ The implication being that heads would roll for this.

  ‘There is an image, m’sieur, but his face is not clear. I believe, from what they said, that the tape has been sent off to a specialist laboratory to see if it can be cleaned up in some way and better images obtained.’

  Markham nodded. ‘Ah. I see. All this seems quite satisfactory. Do you have any comments to make regarding the professional standards of the Time Police?’

  I lifted my pen and waited hopefully.

  He shook his head. ‘No. They were very polite throughout. And I believe they treated poor Odette with great compassion.’

  Markham nodded. ‘I am very glad to hear it. And now, it remains only for us to see the apartment of Mademoiselle de Maupassant itself. Could you let us in, please, m’sieur?’

  ‘I cannot leave the desk,’ he said, so quickly that I wondered if he thought it was some sort of trap. To see if there were any circumstances under which the desk would be left unmanned and someone could have got in from the outside.

  ‘Perhaps then,’ suggested Markham, ‘you would entrust us with your pass key for a few minutes. If it amuses you, I could leave one of my colleagues here as a deposit.’

  M Caron chose to regard that as M Markham’s little joke. M Markham’s colleagues were less amused.

  The lift was smooth and silent. We regarded our reflections in the mirror without speaking. Peterson tried to smooth his hair.

  The corridor ahead of us was heavily carpeted and very quiet. Not a sound drifted in from outside. Two doors opened off, one on the left and one o
n the right. Monique’s was the door on the left.

  The flat was still sealed with black and yellow police tape. A large sign fixed neatly to the door read – SCÈNE DE CRIME. NE PAS TRAVERSER.

  Markham gently peeled the tape away and we traversed.

  ‘Right,’ said Markham, handing them out. ‘Gloves on, everyone. If you touch something, be certain you put it back exactly as it was. Peterson and I will search the flat. I’ll go right – you go left.’ Peterson nodded. ‘Max, I just want you to have a general look around.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘No idea. Anything that strikes you as not quite right. Hurry now. I don’t want our good friend M Caron becoming suspicious.’

  It was a very nice flat. Plenty big enough for one which made me wonder if there had often been more than one person here. Given her history as described by Leon, that was perfectly possible. Although, now, treacherously, I couldn’t help wondering how much of what Leon had told me was actually true.

  The front door opened into a tiny hall, with a built-in cupboard for coats and shoes.

  Ahead of us, an ornate archway led into a bright, square sitting room with honey-coloured floors and two large floor-to-ceiling windows, one on the wall ahead of us and the other to the right, looking out over the street.

  An empty desk stood next to the window on the far wall, its drawers pulled out to show the contents had been taken away. On either side of the desk, bookcases had been built against the walls. I drifted over to have a look.

  I don’t read French as well as I speak it but here were novels in several languages; books on art, history, travel and politics. Some of them looked quite interesting. I made myself move away and came face to face with a photograph of a vivacious young woman, muffled against the cold wind, standing with an enormous dog on top of a hill somewhere. The dog’s tongue was hanging out and she was laughing as the wind whipped her hair around her head. And no – before anyone asks – she didn’t look anything like me. Her hair was dark and her eyes darker. Her cheeks were as red as her cagoule. She looked happy and full of life. And now she wasn’t.

  I pushed the thought away.

  In front of the desk stood a large, comfortable sofa facing a home entertainment wall. It was all here. All the very latest equipment. She had good art on the walls, as well. The general colour scheme was fairly neutral, but several large canvases in brilliant metallic colours grabbed and held my attention.

  And yet, the effect was oddly impersonal. I stared around, thoughtfully, trying to put my finger on it. And then I had it. There were no other photos. None of Monique as a child. None of her parents. None of Leon. And none of the boys. I used to be like that too. Until Leon gave me a photograph of the two of us, laughing at something.

  Everything in Monique’s apartment was neat, clean – albeit slightly dusty from fingerprint powder – and smelled as any room did where the windows hadn’t been opened for some time. That was a point – did the windows this high up even open?

  No. There were vents behind the wooden shutters but the windows couldn’t be opened. No one had got in this way. Not that I thought they had.

  I glanced out of the back window. As M Caron had said, there was no access to the tiny yard. Refuse bins stood neatly along the back wall. A locked gate barred entrance from the street.

  A well-managed, slightly old-fashioned building with contented tenants and staff, all of whom got on well together. There would be gifts exchanged at Christmas and on birthdays. One big, happy family. And then a murderer came to call.

  From the sitting room, I went to have a look at the bedroom. No, she didn’t have satin sheets or erotic pictures around the place. The bedding was good quality Egyptian cotton and plain white. A white dressing table stood under the window. There were a few cosmetics in the top drawer but nothing major. Her moisturiser was run-of-the-mill department store stuff as well. She didn’t have enormous numbers of clothes in the wardrobe. Nor was there anything interesting under the bed. In fact, there wasn’t anything under the bed. Not even the obligatory single shoe.

  Her bathroom was gleaming white and chrome – modern but still in keeping with the flat. The towels were dry. I don’t know why I thought they wouldn’t be. It occurred to me that I wasn’t being a great deal of help. Certainly nothing was leaping out at me.

  I wandered back into the living room. The other two were still circling the room, picking things up, opening drawers, feeling down the back of the sofa and so on. I picked up the file, took myself to the desk and sat down.

  I didn’t bother comparing the photos to the apartment – Peterson and Markham had done that. I pulled out the photos of the contents of the desk and laid them out in front of me.

  My heart stopped. Such a cliché but it’s the only way to describe it. My heart stopped. The very first image showed the contents of the top drawer and there, right on the very top – travel tickets. To England. From France to England. Monique had been planning to travel to England and there could be only one reason for that. Somehow, she had found out her boys were ill and had been planning to go to them.

  What did this mean? Was it good or bad? Did it mean that Leon had no motive for killing her? In fact, if her blood could be used as part of an antidote, he had every reason for keeping her alive.

  Unless she had refused to go – in which case, what were the tickets for? Had she said she’d go and then changed her mind? Or had she said she’d go and Leon had arrived to escort her to England? No – that wasn’t right. He wouldn’t have left the boys.

  Were the boys already dead and Monique travelling to England wouldn’t have made the slightest difference and he’d come seeking revenge?

  I stared again. The top right-hand corner of the ticket had curled a little and the date wasn’t quite clear – not important if you had access to the originals as the police would have – but quite frustrating for those working from the copies.

  It was the tiniest thing. Just something that didn’t add up. If she wasn’t going to use the tickets, why hadn’t she cashed them in? If she was, then why had Leon killed her?

  I pulled myself up short. Leon hadn’t killed her. Someone else had killed her. Who and why was unknown at the moment but these tickets meant something, I was sure of it.

  Whatever their significance, no one else appeared to have picked up on it either. I stared thoughtfully at Markham, just emerging from the bedroom. Peterson was in the hall going through her coat pockets.

  They were wasting their time. The police would have anything of value. Or if not them then the Time Police. There was nothing here that pointed to Leon’s innocence. In fact, I rather thought the tickets made things worse. Should I say anything?

  No – not here or now. Perhaps when we got back to the pod and I could pull my scattered thoughts together and have a proper think.

  I picked up the papers and images and carefully began to sort them back into order. It gave me something on which to concentrate and helped calm my thoughts. I made sure everything was completely in order and then handed the file to Markham.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  I looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen you hand me files that look as if they’ve been involved in a major RTA. In fact, the Doggerland file was actually soaking wet, and your equipment requisition looked as if it had been eaten by mice. And here you are handing me this nice, clean, tidy, perfect file.’

  I smiled and shook my head. ‘New Year’s resolution. Be nicer to Markham.’

  ‘And not a second before time,’ he said, taking the file off me. ‘Was it the tickets that upset you?’

  I don’t know why I bother. I nodded and went to look out of the window. I stared out over the dark, wet rooftops for a moment and then turned back into the room, trying to picture the scene.

  Monique is here, alone, perhaps just on her way to bed
since – per the report – she’d been in nightclothes but the bed unslept in. The concierge buzzes her – she has a visitor. Leon. No one knows if she was expecting him or not.

  She lets Leon in and brings him in through the hall into her sitting room. What did they talk about? Did they talk at all? Did they sit down? At some point she is strangled.

  I looked down at the floor. At the spot where she’d been found, midway between the sofa and the entertainment wall.

  According to the police report she’d fought back. Her knuckles and forearms were badly bruised. She was a pilot in the armed forces – she would have known how to defend herself. Surely she would have left marks on her attacker. Perhaps even hurt him badly. And then I remembered – no one had seen him leave and the tape was of poor quality.

  And then what? What do you do after you’ve just murdered someone? Having strangled her, did he just step back and let her fall? In the photographs, her body had a crumpled look to it. As if she’d dropped where she stood.

  Again, then what? Had he stepped over her, quietly let himself out of the front door, entered the lift, exited into the reception area, said goodnight to the unsuspecting Mlle Duval and walked away into the night?

  And done what? Gone where? Interestingly, there were no CCTV camera images – or the equivalent – of him leaving the scene. He would have been on foot. The street was too narrow for a car. Not that there were many around these days.

  ‘Are there any CCTV cameras in this street?’

  Markham shook his head. ‘The residents objected.’

  Oh, well. It was just a thought.

  How would he have felt afterwards? Would he have got away as quickly as possible? Fled back to England? Or had he stayed in France, found the nearest bar and drowned himself in alcohol in an effort to forget? To forget everything?

  A few months later, he would be tracked down by Dr Bairstow, who would take him off to St Mary’s. And from there he’d volunteered for an assignment in a different time and place. Somewhere completely safe. He’d got away with it. Or so he’d thought.

  Mentally, I shook myself. No – I didn’t believe any of that. But there was no getting away from the fact that there wasn’t a shred of evidence in favour of Leon anywhere.