Confession

by Martin O'Brien

  Elodie’s bedroom was on the floor above the library, with the same corner windows. The shutters were properly closed here and when she opened the door for Jacquot the maid leaned in and switched on the light. The room, as he had expected, was soft and pink and warm, and standing in the doorway he took it in quickly: the bed just short of a double, piled with plump cushions and lacey squares and favourite teddies and assorted furry creatures; a dressing table between the corner windows, with a tilted, necklace-hung mirror; a rocking chair covered in a tasselled silk shawl; a Sony hi-fi on a chest of drawers with a stack of CDs; a low bookcase within reach of bed and rocker; a pair of ancient armoire doors set into the wall, clearly opening into a wardrobe; the remaining windowless wall blu-tacked with posters of boy-bands.

  Stepping into the room, Jacquot had noticed the music stand behind the door, sheet music in place – a tricky Mozart adagio – and noted the violin case. At the dressing table he pushed his fingers through a cut-glass bowl of decorative hairclips and brooches, and at the chest of drawers he riffled through the CDs. Apart from the Mozart and the Chopin, not a single name he recognised. On the wall above the chest were four clip-framed watercolours. He leaned forward, looked at each one: a cream and blue seascape, a vase of budding flowers, a stream running through bare woodland, snow on Paris rooftops. The four seasons, Jacquot had guessed. The same hand too. The same ‘EL’ in the bottom right corner of each.

  Slowly he’d made his rounds, watched from the doorway by the maid. He sat on the edge of Elodie’s bed, felt the soft surrender of springs and mattress; opened the armoire doors and leafed through her hangered clothes; pulled out some drawers; then paused to sniff the air – the scent of freshly laundered clothes, soap, shoes, and something . . . something sweeter. Closing the armoire doors he went through into the bathroom and opened a mirrored cabinet above the vanity. A box of plasters, a well-known brand of cream for spots, an unopened packet of toothpaste, and a pack of tampons behind which, almost hidden, was a small bottle of scent. He reached in and lifted it out. Read the label. Versage. Sniffed it. Jacquot knew from the advertising posters at the pharmacie near police headquarters in Cavaillon that it was a popular fragrance with the young, and it struck him how appropriate a name it was for all the girls like Elodie who wore it. Sixteen. Not quite grown-up, but heading that way.

  Coming out of the bathroom, he’d asked the maid if she had tidied the room. She’d shaken her head, Madame had asked her not to clean, pas du tout. The room was as Elodie had left it, for the police to examine.

  Now, sheltering in his doorway from the shawling drizzle, Jacquot flicked away his cigarette and glanced at his watch.

  Time to call Claudine again.

  19

  Cavaillon

  CLAUDINE WAS FEEDING THE SPIN drier with damp clothes from the washing machine when the phone rang. For a moment she was tempted not to take it. It would be Daniel again. Two messages so far. If you could call ‘It’s me. Are you there? I’ll phone you back’ a message. Nothing about coming home last night when she was asleep and leaving before she’d woken up. No apology. No explanation. All he’d done was leave a note. He was going to Paris. He’d call.

  He had some ground to make up.

  Which might be fun, she thought, as she set the spin timer. If the ansaphone didn’t cut in by the time she got to the phone, she’d answer it.

  It didn’t, so she picked up.

  ‘Oui? Allo? . . .’

  ‘So it’s you. The stay-out . . .’

  ‘It would have been nice if you had woken me before you left, that’s all . . .’

  ‘You’re doing what? . . .’

  ‘This is to do with the call last night? . . .’

  ‘So when will you be back? . . .’

  ‘Don’t forget we have lunch with Maddy and Paul on Sunday . . .’

  ‘You had better be, or I’ll be cross . . .’

  ‘No, I am not cross now . . .’

  ‘No, I do not have that tone, s’il te plaît . . .’

  ‘If you must know I am going out for lunch – with Gilles . . .’

  ‘No, I am not doing the washing,’ she said, hunching over the phone, cupping the mouthpiece so he wouldn’t hear the drier. He’d seen that pile of laundry and known she wouldn’t have been able to resist it.

  ‘What noise? . . .’

  ‘No, it is not the spin drier. I told you. I’m seeing Gilles. He’ll be here à l’instant . . .’

  Damn him! Up there in Paris, probably going off to lunch somewhere, and her meekly doing the laundry. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  ‘He’s taking me to Scaramouche. Yes, that’s right. Scaramouche.’

  She listened, pursed her lips.

  ‘Okay, okay. I understand. All I ask is that you stay in touch . . .’

  ‘I mean it . . .’

  ‘You promise? . . .’

  ‘Okay then, but be careful, you hear? . . .’

  ‘You had better not or there’ll be trouble . . .’

  ‘That’s right, trouble.’

  20

  Paris

  JACQUOT PUT DOWN THE PHONE. The third time he’d called since arriving in Paris, but the first time he’d got through. She’d sounded terse at first, put out. Hard to tell if it was game-play or genuine. Bit of both, Jacquot guessed as he stepped from the phone kiosk on the corner of rue Camille and pulled up his collar. He blew out his cheeks with relief. Not as bad as he had expected. Not as bad as he probably deserved. And he’d pitched it just right, kept it loose, got himself out from under. A clean slate. Or at least not as dirty as it had been, he decided, as he crossed place Saint Sulpice, retracing Elodie’s last known movements.

  His first stop was at the flower stall where he spoke to the fleuriste mentioned in the case notes. She was in her sixties, Jacquot guessed, large enough for the apron she wore to tie at the back rather than the front. The tips of her fingers were a grimy green and her makeup as thick as pastry. Yes, she told him, tipping the rain from a bellying awning with a broom-handle, she was the one who had seen the girl. And, yes, she told Jacquot, Mademoiselle Lafour had seemed very happy. ‘A spring in her step, Chief Inspector. And about time.’

  When Jacquot asked what she meant, she told him. Usually the same tight smile when she passed the stall . . . but suddenly radiant. ‘There’s a man in her life, you ask me. She may be just fifteen, that’s what they said in the papers, but you’d never know it.’

  Jacquot asked if she had ever seen Mademoiselle Lafour with a man, and the fleuriste shook her head. ‘I just know,’ she told him, and tapped her nose. ‘Only your first man brings out a smile like that. You take my word for it.’

  Thanking her for her time, Jacquot walked on, looking to the left for the opening to passage Guillaume. When he found it a few metres further on, between a launderette and a tabac, he followed it down the slope, coming out on Carrefour des Quatres Carrosses.

  This, he knew from the file, was the last place that Elodie Lafour had been seen, sitting at a café table. Had she been waiting for someone? he wondered. The man that the fleuriste had guessed at? It certainly seemed possible. A suitable place to meet, with its bars and cafés, or to start a journey, he mused, glancing around the sloping square. Carrefour des Quatres Carrosses. The place of the four carriages. One of those carriages, he now decided, had been for her and, like Madame Bonnefoy, he felt increasingly certain that it had carried her niece away from here and headed south, up onto rue Raspail, which started over there in the far corner of the square. If the girl hadn’t just eloped with a lover only to turn up in a few months time married and pregnant, or deserted and pregnant, Jacquot was now certain that the chances were good that she’d be somewhere down south, in Marseilles, or Fos, or Toulon. With no demand for ransom, and no body yet found, he could only assume she’d be waiting for transport to God knew where. And standing in the rain, watching the hustle and the bustle of the place, it suddenly struck Jacquot that he had as long as the dockers
’ strike to find her. Once the docks were open for business again, she’d be gone. If she hadn’t gone already.

  He glanced at his watch. Lunch-time. He was suddenly hungry. With more than an hour to go until his meeting with Georges Lafour, Jacquot took a seat beneath the scarlet awning of the brasserie-café Les Carrosses, where Elodie Lafour had ordered her menthe frappée, and asked for a menu.

  Choucroute, he decided, with the pork knuckle and Montbéliard sausages. And a ballon or two of rouge to go with it.

  21

  Marseilles

  ‘YOU WANT TO GET SOME lunch?’ asked Pascale.

  Marie-Ange Buhl had just cashed up after her shift at Fleurs des Quais on rue Francis and was pulling on her coat. It was her half-day, and since the rain seemed to be holding off she’d decided to take another look at the lorry park.

  ‘Next time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got so much to get done.’

  Her friend and co-worker Pascale gave a moue of disappointment, and Marie-Ange squirmed. It was Pascale who’d got her the job at Fleurs des Quais three months earlier. And it was also Pascale who’d found the small apartment for her up in Curiol. Pascale, whom she’d known since they worked together at Jardins Gilbert in Metz, and Pascale, back there in Metz, who had taught her to drink and smoke and roll a joint. Good, solid, dependable, irrepressible Pascale.

  But the lorry park prevailed.

  ‘You meeting someone?’ Pascale gave her a suspicious look. ‘Is there something you’re not telling big sister?’

  ‘You’d be the first to know,’ Marie-Ange replied, bustling out from behind the counter, winding a long scarf round her neck, pausing to kiss her friend on both cheeks.

  ‘It’s not healthy, you know. Use it or lose it, kiddo. They may be just men, but they sure come in handy.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind. But right now, I’ve got to scoot. Tomorrow, chérie, I promise. Bernard’s. And the morue’s on me.’ And with that Marie-Ange was out of the door and heading towards Noailles on La Canebière. Half-way down the slope a dark wedge of low cloud settled over the rooftops and the air grew chill and gusty. Any minute now the rain would start up again, but by the time it did Marie-Ange was rattling west on the Metro heading out to Bougainville. When she got there, the rain had passed and another chill wind brought in the salty tang of the ocean, out there, unseen beyond the wharves and zig-zag warehouse roofs.

  If it had been raining, she’d have taken a bus from Bougainville, but the fresh, sharp scent of the sea persuaded her to walk, wondering how far she’d have to go to reach the lorry park, which turning off rue de Lyon she’d need to take. In the event all she had to do was follow the lorries that pulled past her, one wheezing truck after another, turned away from the docks, she decided, and looking for somewhere to park up before working out what to do next. Coming round a bend, Marie-Ange saw the last lorry to pass her indicate left and turn out of sight. Five minutes’ brisk walk after that, she saw the park’s steel-mesh fence up ahead and, at the bottom of the slope, the lorries drawn up in regimental lines. The previous evening there’d been maybe a dozen trucks parked there, now the space was pretty much filled to capacity.

  In daylight, the lorry park looked bigger, maybe two blocks wide by three long. But there was something disorganised and ad hoc about it; it seemed somehow improvised. Which it was. Since Dock Authority rules forbade haulage rigs from parking up on the wharves overnight, the Municipal authorities turned a blind eye when drivers used empty redevelopment sites as somewhere to rest up before or after a long drive. As soon as the building crews turned up to start construction, another vacant lot would come along and the rigs would move on. Better that, the authorities agreed, than lines of lorries parked along the streets, or clogging the wharves.

  But Marie-Ange didn’t know that. Standing at the mesh fence, looking down at the lorries drawn up in orderly lines, she just felt the place looked unsettled, unregulated, maybe even a little dangerous. For a moment she debated the good sense of going any further. But it was just a moment. Somewhere down among those lorries, she was certain she’d find something to point the way, take her to the next stage.

  She found it sooner than expected, no more than twenty metres from the entrance gate, between the first two rows of lorries: a glint of blue pressed into the packed gravel tread of a lorry’s tyre. She bent down and teased it out of the ground, wiped it off, examined it. A hairclip shaped like a coiling serpent, its body enamelled with alternating blue and silver stripes and its eyes picked out in diamanté clusters. It had a feeling of solidity to it, no department-store hairclip picked up for a few francs but a real antique, Marie-Ange decided, turning it in her fingers. Almost Art Deco, elegantly hinged, and with a snappy spring to the clasp.

  But it wasn’t the weight, or the sinuous shape, or the work-manship Marie-Ange marvelled at.

  It was the heat radiating off it.

  From the moment she stooped down to lever it out of the tyre tread, the heat just seemed to increase until it settled at a level that was half-way between scorching and left-on-a-radiator hot. Not hot enough to burn a hand, but hot enough to keep it warm. If she’d put the hairclip in her fridge for an hour, Marie-Ange was certain it would still have come out warm to the touch.

  It was precisely then, while she was examining the hairclip, standing between two parked lorries, that a familiar silence settled around her, dropping the volume on a nearby cabin radio tuned to a football match. And with the silence came that dry dusty taste in her mouth. Clenching her fist around the hairclip, Marie-Ange closed her eyes and tipped back her head.

  Night-time. Rain hammering down. She could feel it on her face, hear it smacking on to the packed gravel. And voices, not two metres distant, in the narrow alley between the rigs. Low, muffled voices. Two men, whispering together – a certain urgency in their tone. Next came the sound of a van drawing up, the engine dying and the rattle of the roller door at the back.

  Marie-Ange opened her eyes but it was still dark. Still nighttime. Now she could make out shadows passing between the outlines of two trucks – a hurrying and a scurrying, what looked like a small bundle being carried in someone’s arms. Then, suddenly, in the darkness and the rain, she heard a stifled scream of pain, a scrabbling over the gravel and something swept past her. Just a shadow, the chill, swirling air of its wake wafting against her, reminding her immediately of the traboule off Boulevard Cambrai, that cold draft of Lucienne Viviers, making good her escape.

  And here, Marie-Ange was certain, was the place where she had started that run.

  Almost immediately, there was a smothered shout of alarm and a second, larger shadow raced past her with the same grunting oath – merde, merde, merde – that she remembered so clearly from the side street off Cambrai. Over by the trucks, where the two shadows had sprung from, there was a sense of panic. A hissing, whispered argument. Doors slammed, an engine started up, and one of the two vans swung away with gravel spitting out from under its tyres.

  ‘Hey, chérie, you all right? Tout va bien?’

  Night-time to day-time.

  Darkness to light.

  Rain to no rain. Just grey scudding cloud moving above the rigs.

  Marie-Ange spun round.

  A driver was climbing down from his cab. He jumped from the steel footplate and ambled towards her, a big man with a pouched, puffy red face, in cowboy boots and working bleus, bib and braces hidden beneath a thick woolly sweater with Tintin’s head knitted on the chest.

  ‘No, I’m fine. Just . . . just looking for my cat.’ Marie-Ange turned round, left and right, peering under the lorry beside her, even calling out a name. ‘Tommi? Tommi? Viens. Viens.’

  It was a pathetic effort and she knew it, knew she’d never be able to carry it off. And she was right.

  The driver shot her an indulgent look.

  ‘Well, why don’t you come up to my place,’ he nodded back at the cab, ‘and you and I can look for your little pussy together?’

  Marie-Ange co
uldn’t believe what she’d heard, what he was suggesting, and she felt a flush rise into her cheeks, of shock and then anger more than embarrassment. She might have been asking for it, traipsing round a lorry park, but he had no right to assume . . .

  She gathered herself, pulled back her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘In your dreams, Tintin.’

  And with that she turned on her heel and walked away, praying he wouldn’t follow, the hairclip burning in her clenched fist.

  22

  Paris

  THE OFFICES OF BANQUE LAFOUR et Finance Mondiale were across the river, a block beyond Place des Vosges, a rattling twelve-minute cab ride from the brasserie-café Les Carrosses whose choucroute, disappointingly, had turned out to be sharp and sour. Had it not been for the meaty pork knuckle, the brace of Montbéliard sausages, and the two ballons of cru Bourgogne, Jacquot would have rated his capital lunch a disaster. Next time, he thought, he’d go to Lipp and see what all the fuss was about.

  Getting his driver to drop him on rue de Turenne, Jacquot walked the last few drizzling metres to the corner of rue Baranot. It was from here, half-way along a row of elegant Marais townhouses, that Elodie’s stepfather ran his banking operations, the name of the bank visible in black italic script on a silver plate beside a pair of glass doors, the glass thick enough to show green around the large brass handle set into each panel. The brass shone, Jacquot noticed. Not a single smudge of fingerprints. He was about to reach for one of the handles when he realised why. With a soft hiss, both doors opened automatically, sliding into recesses.