Confession

by Martin O'Brien

  16

  A MAID ANSWERED THE DOOR – small, dark, her shiny bobbed black hair pinned into a starched white cap, a Filipino or Malay, Jacquot guessed – and without waiting for his name or asking for identification, she led him down a set of runnered stairs into a formal parquet-floored salon, its four picture-windows and a length of terrace outside looking out over a stepped landscape of leaded mansard roofs to the dome of the distant Opéra and the rainshrouded slopes of Montmartre. There was little time to take in the view, however, as the maid moved swiftly ahead of him, nor was there any real opportunity to take in what appeared to be a series of separate living areas connected to this central salon, each ‘quartier’ with its own grand fireplace, each space elegantly separated by folding oriental screens or curtained arches: a small family drawing room with plumper, friendlier sofas and armchairs than the main reception area; a television room with modern loungers and damasked bean bags; and a music salon with silver-framed family photos set out on a grand piano. All Jacquot could say for sure was big money, big influence, before the maid was leaning forward to open double panelled doors. She stood aside, waited till he passed, then closed them behind him.

  Apart from a spill of light from a desk-top lamp, the room Jacquot entered was in shadow, outside shutters all but closed on a set of corner windows, their interior blinds steeply slanted and bordered by thick drapes. There was a scent of leather from the desk top, chairs and bookshelves, and an oaky, masculine eau de cologne, laced with a lighter, more fragrant note.

  ‘My sister tells me you are the best detective she knows,’ came a soft, hesitant voice from the far corner of the room, and a slim shape rose from an armchair placed between the windows. As she came into the fall of light from the desk lamp, Jacquot could see that the voice belonged to a younger version of Madame Bonnefoy – the same proud nose, the same regal air, but the hair longer, much darker and caught in a loose knot, the features sharper, the figure slight and tense. She was wrapped, Jacquot now saw, in a dressing gown, a lushly towelled affair in diamond-shaped blue check with a long narrow collar. It looked a size too big for her, her husband’s possibly.

  Madame Lafour caught the look as they shook hands, hers like a thin purse of bone. ‘Forgive me, Chief Inspector. Recently it is difficult for me to summon the energy to dress. I seem not to have the strength any more.’ She did indeed look pale and drawn, eyes red, the skin around them puffed and grey. She seemed as thin and brittle as the tiny hand she had offered. But then her only child was missing, and for five days now this mother had been through a hell unknown to most. Indeed, Jacquot would have been surprised if it had been otherwise.

  Releasing his hand, Madame Lafour turned to a silver box on the desk, flipped open the lid and found a cigarette. ‘Georges leaves so early in the morning he doesn’t see me,’ she explained, placing the cigarette between her lips and reaching for a lighter. It was silver, the size of a Pétanque boule, and looked just as weighty. Holding it in both hands, she flicked the wheel till the gas caught, then guided the flame to the cigarette. ‘All I have to do,’ she said, replacing the lighter on the desk with a solid clunk, and picking up an even weightier ashtray, ‘is make sure I’m dressed when he comes home in the evening.’ She removed the cigarette from her lips and blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Judging by its colour, she didn’t inhale. ‘And clean my teeth so he doesn’t smell the cigarettes,’ she continued. ‘Autrefois . . . I am as you see me now. My apologies again, Chief Inspector. Please, take a seat,’ she said, pointing to a sofa while she retreated to her armchair, cigarette in one hand, ashtray in the other.

  ‘Please be assured, madame, that you are not alone in this . . . this loss of purpose,’ Jacquot began, settling himself. ‘It happens very frequently. I have seen it many times. And there are more important things than clothes and dressing, n’est-ce-pas? Sometimes, in cases like this, it is enough just to get through the day.’

  Madame Lafour blew out another blue stream of smoke. ‘And nights. Don’t forget the nights, Chief Inspector. They are the worst. While my husband sleeps, I wander. Room to room. Here, the salon, the kitchen. Waiting. Always waiting. And wondering where she is. Praying she is safe, that she will come to no harm.’

  ‘I am sure she will not.’

  Madame Lafour sighed. ‘You sound like Georges. He is certain she will be found.’

  ‘There is every reason to think so.’

  ‘Really, Chief Inspector? You seem very sure.’

  ‘Call it a feeling, madame.’

  ‘Not very policeman-like,’ she replied. ‘A “feeling”. But I appreciate your kind intention.’

  Quietness descended on the room, not even the slightest hum of passing traffic audible, and Jacquot was aware of Madame Lafour steeling herself.

  ‘So, please, ask your questions,’ she continued. ‘Down to business. Solly called this morning and said I should tell you whatever you need to know.’

  ‘I have read the case notes,’ said Jacquot, nodding to the briefcase at his feet. ‘There is very little I need to ask.’

  ‘And yet you have come all this way? From Marseilles?’

  ‘En effet, Cavaillon. But it is a fast and comfortable service, and not a problem, I assure you. A chance, too, to study the files.’

  ‘And to check out the parents, n’est-ce pas?’

  Jacquot inclined his head. ‘That is a part of it, of course. When you meet the parents, it is often possible to get a clearer picture of the situation, of the people involved, of the person you are looking for.’

  Madame Lafour tapped the cigarette against the ashtray in her lap, but did not reply.

  ‘So, tell me. When did you last see Elodie?’

  ‘Friday night. Georges and I came home from dinner. A business thing. Elodie was watching TV. I told her it was late, that she should be in bed.’

  ‘And how did she respond?’

  ‘She asked if she could watch the end of the programme. She said she didn’t need to get up in the morning. She had no classes.’

  ‘And you let her?’

  ‘Georges said it would be fine. So I kissed her goodnight. Half-an-hour later I heard her come to bed, but I did not see her. Just heard the door opening and closing.’

  ‘And the following morning? Saturday.’

  ‘I had an appointment with my hairdresser at ten. Elodie was still asleep when I left.’ Madame Lafour paused. ‘But surely you know this already, Chief Inspector? From the file.’

  Jacquot nodded. ‘Often, in the repetition, tiny additional details are remembered,’ he said softly. ‘It is a wearisome process, for which I apologise, but it often produces results. So, Saturday. When you returned from your hairdresser, Elodie wasn’t here?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She was going somewhere?’

  Madame Lafour shook her head. ‘She hadn’t said anything. And she had left no note. I was a little cross. Normally she would leave a note. Or call.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘At work in his study.’

  ‘He didn’t see her?’

  ‘She would have known not to disturb him. When he is working . . .’

  Jacquot took this in, let a silence settle around them. His questions so far had been unprepared, the way he often liked to run an interview. It helped put the subject at ease. Or confused them, made them angry. Sometimes it was a useful game to play. He waited a moment more before continuing. ‘I understand that Monsieur Lafour is your second husband.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Yet Elodie has his name.’

  ‘After her father’s death, when we married, Georges formally adopted Elodie. She took his name.’

  ‘And she was happy about that? She didn’t mind?’

  ‘She was young, Chief Inspector. Seven years old when her father died. Nine when I married Georges. I doubt she gave it any thought.’

  ‘Your idea or your husband’s? The adoption.’

  ‘Mine. It seemed
the right thing to do.’

  ‘And your husband made no objection?’

  ‘None, Chief Inspector. He was very pleased. Very proud. As you will have read in your file, he has no children of his own.’

  Jacquot smiled, nodded again. ‘And recently, madame, there have been no arguments, no disagreements between the two of them? Your husband and Elodie.’

  ‘With Elodie? No, nothing.’

  ‘And you? You said sometimes you get cross . . .’

  ‘About little things, that’s all,’ she replied, just a shade sharply. ‘Nothing more than in any family.’

  ‘Sometimes, madame, at Elodie’s age, it can be the smallest thing. So small that to others running away seems inconceivable as a consequence, altogether out of proportion.’

  ‘This is not a runaway case, Chief Inspector. Someone has her. Someone has taken Elodie.’ Madame Lafour’s voice caught on the name, but she recovered. ‘And it’s her birthday. Yesterday. She would never miss that.’

  ‘Had you made plans?’

  ‘Since her tenth birthday we have always had lunch at Brasserie Lipp. My husband says their choucroute cannot be beaten. After that, Georges returns to work and we go shopping. Two girls. Such fun. Though each year it becomes more expensive, n’est-ce-pas? You have children, do you, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Non. Je regrette. Pas encore, madame.’

  ‘Then one day, Chief Inspector, you will know. About the expense . . .’ she managed a short little laugh . . . ‘but hopefully not the . . . this . . . this horror.’ She dragged in a breath and held it, gathering herself again. She may have looked done in, and sounded at the end of her tether, but Jacquot decided there was still a core of Bonnefoy steel there.

  ‘Tell me, please, would you say your daughter was a happy person?’

  The corner she sat in was too far away, and too shadowy, for him to see her frown, but Jacquot guessed it was there.

  ‘Happy?’ repeated Madame Lafour, as though this was a question she hadn’t been expecting. ‘Of course, why shouldn’t she be?’

  ‘Sometimes, in cases like this, a young person – girls particularly – they hide things from their parents. Something happening in their lives.’

  ‘You’re talking about boys?’

  Jacquot shrugged, spread his hands. ‘It is certainly a possibility. Something to consider. Surely at Elodie’s age . . .’

  ‘There are no boyfriends, Chief Inspector. I would know. Nor have there been.’ Madame Lafour took a final pull on her cigarette and mashed it into the ashtray, reached out and slid it on to a side table. ‘Elodie is, has always been, a studious girl. Shy too. We worry about her sometimes, my husband and I, but Georges says we must give her time, and space. It will all happen soon enough, he says, and when it does she will be gone from us. And our time with her will be over.’

  Madame Lafour fell silent. When she spoke again, her voice sounded low and lost. ‘Let us hope that time hasn’t come already, Chief Inspector.’

  17

  Marseilles

  IT WAS CHIEF INSPECTOR ALAIN GASTAL who discovered Valentine’s body. When his garagiste informant failed to phone that Thursday morning as arranged, Gastal decided to pay a call at the man’s workshop. A personal visit. A little knock-about persuasion, the kind Gastal liked, to make sure it didn’t happen again, to let the man know just who was running the show. Striding out of the squad room on the third floor of police headquarters on rue de l’Evêché, he called out to Claude Peluze, his number two, to hold the fort.

  He didn’t say when he’d be back.

  Now that he was boss, he didn’t have to.

  The ex-legionnaire Peluze nodded, just a bare acknowledgement, probably only too pleased to have him out of there.

  Of course, Gastal knew they all hated him. Every single one of them on the squad. Peluze, Muzon, Serre, the lot of them. And Gastal loved it; could almost warm his hands on the glow of loathing that radiated off every single one of them. The man who’d got Jacquot sacked. The man who’d had that pony-tailed poseur transferred out of homicide to a no-future posting in the Luberon. And kept him there for close on three years, quietly putting in a word of warning whenever requests came through from the authorities in Marseilles, suggesting Jacquot’s return to more active duty.

  No bloody way, not the shadow of a chance.

  Not if he, Alain Gastal, had anything to do with it.

  Stepping out of police headquarters, Gastal jogged through the rain to his car, pulling up his collar, wishing he’d brought a hat. Five minutes later he swung past Cathédrale de la Major, its striped flanks smeared through the windscreen, and, pulling a toothpick from his breast pocket, followed the tram lines west.

  Ten days in this city and already he was on top, thought Gastal. Two weeks earlier, he’d been behind a desk in the Lyons headquarters of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, tracking freighter movements between Genoa, Palermo and Toulon. Now he was running Marseilles’ homicide squad while his old boss was on leave.

  ‘Good cover,’ his current boss at the DGSE had told him. ‘Just sniff around, see what you can find out. You got any indics down there?’ It was agency slang for Indicateurs – informants.

  ‘Not as many as in Toulon,’ Gastal had replied, holding out for a longer stint in his old stamping ground. But the Toulon posting had already been assigned. Which wasn’t to say that a desk in Marseilles didn’t have its compensations, not least the opportunity to stick it to his old comrades from a position of power.

  And if Gastal had more snouts in Toulon than he did in Marseilles, there was still Jules Valentine. Within three days of taking over on rue de l’Evêché, he had finally tracked down the garagiste to a café-bar called La Toppa on the slopes above the railway line in L’Estaque. It had been an entertaining encounter. Valentine, sitting at the corner of the bar, had done a classic double-take when Gastal sauntered in – couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘I’m out of it now,’ the man had told him when they met up five minutes later in the parking lot outside La Toppa.

  ‘And I’ve taken holy orders,’ Gastal replied, telling Valentine what he wanted: anything on the Cabrille family whose shipping interests he’d been monitoring from Lyons.

  The name brought forth even more disavowals from Valentine.

  Cabrille? Cabrille? Never heard of them . . . Nope . . . Doesn’t ring a bell.

  What did ring a bell was the fold of five hundreds that Gastal slipped from his trouser pocket and, licking a finger, started counting, right there in the car park, a dozen regulars keeping a covert eye on them through La Toppa’s steamy window. They all knew he was a cop, and here he was, paying Valentine money. Of course, he could have been settling a bill for some body work on his car, but Gastal knew what most of them would be thinking.

  So did Valentine.

  Keen to conclude this meeting as swiftly as possible, he had then suddenly recalled that he did indeed know of the Cabrilles, and yes, yes, Gastal was right, he did seem to remember something about questionable cargoes.

  ‘When and where?’ Gastal had pressed, pushing the money back in his own pocket. ‘I want to know the when and the where. Compris?’

  Valentine had nodded and promised to get in touch.

  ‘You’ve got till Tuesday,’ Gastal had told him. After that, he’d warned, he’d put the word out that Valentine was a grass. Tant pis.

  And he’d do it, too. He might lose a good snout, but the sooner he got something solid back to the DGSE, the better he would look. In Lyons, competition for promotion or preferment was fierce. Keep your head down and you spent your career lunching in the city’s prix-fixe bouchons. Not that they weren’t good. It was just that La Tour Rose and Paul Bocuse were better.

  But it wasn’t only the Cabrille set-up and the prospect of promotion at headquarters that was lighting his fires. On Tuesday afternoon, waiting for Valentine to get in touch, a call had come through from Madame Bonnefoy, examining magistrate, drawing hi
s attention to the fact that a car-crash fatality on Boulevard Cambrai had been reported missing from Paris the previous week.

  So? Gastal had asked.

  And Madame Bonnefoy had spelled it out for him. He could almost see her gritted teeth. But by the time she’d finished, he was altogether more attentive. The name Georges Lafour, and the examining magistrate’s close family connection with such a man, had galvanised Gastal. He knew an opportunity for advancement when he smelled one, and this particular cherry had Bocuse written all over it. By the time the call ended, Gastal had assured Madame Bonnefoy that the Viviers case was currently his top priority, that he’d already assigned men to check out this particular link, and that he would keep her fully informed of all developments. Anything Madame needed . . . Anything at all . . . Any time . . .

  Two hours later, Gastal had cornered Valentine at the same bar in L’Estaque and suggested that, while he was digging up all he could on the Cabrilles, he should also keep an eye out for a missing girl. Elodie Lafour. Was Fonton still around, he’d asked? Or Lousine? Or any of the other traffickers?

  Once again, Valentine had promised to find out what he could. And Gastal had given him till this morning to get in touch. Or else.

  But there’d been no word from him. Nothing.

  If the stupid bastard was jerking his strings, by Christ he’d regret it, thought Gastal as he swung off rue Chatelier and pulled up outside Valentine’s garage in the fifteenth arrondissement. He’d do it. He bloody well would. He’d put it around that Valentine was a snout, and leave the man to the sharks.

  Five minutes later, after finding Valentine’s broken body at the bottom of the inspection pit, Gastal acknowledged that he wouldn’t have to bother.

  Someone had made quite sure of that.

  18

  Paris

  AN HOUR AFTER ARRIVING AT La Résidence Camille, Jacquot jogged down the front steps, crossed the road just as Elodie had done the week before and found a doorway out of the rain. Huddling into it, he lit up a cigarette and considered all that he had seen and heard. Such a magnificent home, he thought, looking up at the topmost floors of the building opposite. Beautiful furnishings, stylishly decorated. Great wealth, certainly – either from Georges Lafour’s financial dealings, or Bonnefoy family trusts. Maybe the two combined. Yet the only room there that had any soul, any heart, was Elodie’s bedroom. He had asked Madame Lafour if he could see it and she had called the maid to take him there. She did not want to show him herself, she explained, and Jacquot had understood. Sometimes a parent slept in the missing child’s room, sometimes a parent never went near it. It just depended.