Confession

by Martin O'Brien

  The call ended with Madame Bonnefoy promising to get hold of new, more plausible papers, and making a request of her own: ‘And do please call me Solange,’ she told him. ‘Madame Bonnefoy sounds so stiff and severe.’

  With promises to get back to each other the moment either of them had something to report, they ended the call.

  Turning to replace the phone on the hook, Jacquot was startled to see Madame Boileau leaning against the counter. Quite a performer in her time, Salette had told him. Looking at her now, Jacquot was hard pressed to see it. There was a harshness about her face which had set in deep grim lines. But he detected an undercurrent of gentleness, too, in her old grey eyes.

  ‘With everyone checking out, there are rooms free, Monsieur Muller. If you want to have one of your own. Same rate,’ she told him.

  He shook his head. He was quite happy staying in the dormitory, he told her, heading for the stairs.

  But she wasn’t finished with him. ‘Any luck at the docks?’

  ‘Not today, but maybe tomorrow,’ he replied, his foot on the first step, hand on the rope banister.

  She shrugged her shoulders, spread her arms. ‘Les docks. C’est autre monde, n’est-ce pas? It is different from the real world, non? All on its own. People come, people go . . .’ She shot him a look. ‘Is this your first time in Marseilles?’

  There was something in the way she framed the question – so light and conversational – that it brought Jacquot up short. Had she seen through him too? What was it Salette had said about sniffing out bullshit?

  ‘Two or three times,’ he replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘On the phone just then, your French was good. Not many lowlanders have that Marseilles tone. I thought you must have spent some time here, ça, c’est tout.’ And she smiled archly.

  Up in the dormitory – every bed stripped down to its bare mattress save his – Jacquot was still kicking himself. First Franco seeing through him, and now letting his cover slip in front of Madame Boileau. If she’d seen his log she’d probably have said something about the tan as well. As he tugged off his rain-soaked clothes in the empty dormitory, he wondered how much she had overheard? Had he mentioned any names during the phone call: Salette? Madame Bonnefoy? Elodie? Had he given anything away? He couldn’t for the life of him remember now, but acknowledged that if he was going to get anywhere in this investigation he’d have to play a smarter game than he had done so far. The next time he called Solange Bonnefoy, he’d find another phone, or keep up his low-lander accent if Madame Boileau was within earshot. It had been a careless slip, and he should have known better. Going undercover, he decided, as he reached for a towel and headed for the showers, might be a good way to track down a missing girl, but keeping up that cover was a great deal harder than he had imagined.

  40

  MARIE-ANGE SAT IN HER car on the corner of Impasse Massalia, listening to the rain bounce off the canvas roof, keeping an eye on her wing and rear-view mirrors, waiting for the mysterious Monsieur Muller to make an appearance. She didn’t know for sure whether he was still staying at Auberge des Vagues, or whether he had moved on. But so far, the prospect of facing that concierge again, to find out one way or the other, had put Marie-Ange off a return visit. Later, she would do that later, if he hadn’t shown up in – she glanced at her watch – another hour.

  After her lunch with Pascale at Bernard’s and seeing that story in the newspaper, Marie-Ange had spent the entire afternoon in a haze of uncertainty and indecision. There was no doubt in her mind that the hairclip in her pocket belonged to the missing girl from Paris, Elodie Lafour. And she was equally certain that Elodie Lafour had been in that lorry park when Lucienne Viviers made her escape.

  That she was still alive.

  And somewhere close by.

  But what to do about it?

  By the time she’d rolled down the metal blind at Fleurs des Quais, Marie-Ange had decided there were two options open to her. Either she should go immediately to the police and show them the hairclip – and the matching hairband in the newspaper photo – and tell them where she had found it. Or she should keep the clip and use it to find Elodie herself.

  Of course, if she went to the police, she’d have to decide whether or not to let them know about her dreams, her ‘moments’. The slim possibility that these disclosures might add weight to her evidence was heavily undermined by the fact that the police might attach even less importance to the hairclip because of them. Over the years, Marie-Ange had learned that policemen were somehow hotwired to dismiss anything . . . psychic. They simply couldn’t accept it. She might be able to offer references – the detectives in Metz and the Luberon whom she had ‘helped’ in the past – but she knew she was just as likely to be shown the nearest door.

  Marie-Ange also knew that even if they did believe her – and in her experience it was a very big ‘if’ – there was still a procedure to be followed, a bureaucratic by-the-book protocol: questions would be asked, statements would be taken, endless hours sitting at a table saying the same thing over and over again to different people. It didn’t happen like it happened on TV. When you dealt with the real police, things took their own sweet time. And time, she was certain, was in short supply.

  Most of the afternoon, too, she had tried to come up with some plausible explanation for Elodie Lafour and Lucienne Viviers actually being in that lorry park in the first place, trying to think what could have caused Lucienne to run, and Elodie to drop or throw or lose her hairclip – or have it torn from her head during some dreadful, deadly attack.

  And both girls from Paris, reported missing within days of each other. Had they been friends? Had they planned something together? Were they running away? Or had they been kidnapped? Two of them? At the same time? And why had the flics not connected the girls as she had done? Surely they could put two and two together – Lucienne and Elodie both reported missing in Paris in the same week, then Lucienne run over by a car on Boulevard Cambrai. Then again, maybe not.

  Which was why, by the time she arrived home, Marie-Ange had decided to go her own way for now. And if she hadn’t got anywhere by this time tomorrow, well, that’s when she would go to the police and show the clip and tell her story.

  In the meantime, there was this Jan Muller to check out on Impasse Massalia, as good a place as any, she’d decided, to start her evening’s wandering. This man she’d just glimpsed the night before. From Rotterdam.

  Something about him. Something familiar.

  But who was he?

  Did she know him?

  Did he have something to do with the missing girls?

  She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see the man until he brushed past her wing-mirror. The sound, the snapping contact, made her start. For a moment she couldn’t think what had happened, and then she saw the bent mirror and a figure hurrying on through the rain, the man from the night before, she was sure of it – the stooped shoulders, hands plunged in pockets – striding away from her. It was him, Jan Muller. She was certain.

  Pushing open the car door, Marie-Ange stepped out into the rain, opened up her umbrella and started after him. He was a fast walker, she thought. Half-walking, half-running, she tried to catch him up, now a good fifteen metres ahead, turning into rue Pythéas and rapidly increasing his lead.

  She gave up the half-and-half pace and started jogging, cutting down his lead.

  ‘Monsieur,’ she called out when she judged herself close enough to be heard over the rain. ‘Monsieur? Monsieur?’

  But still he hurried on, as though he hadn’t heard her.

  ‘Monsieur Muller,’ she called now, louder this time.

  Without thinking, close enough now, she reached out to grab his sleeve.

  41

  GLOWING WITH WARMTH AFTER A piping hot shower, and dressed in dry clothes, Jacquot set out from the hostel, pulling up his collar, digging his hands into the pockets of his jacket and hunching his shoulders against the rain. His day wasn’t ove
r yet. There were a couple of bars he’d spotted on his travels that looked like good places to hang out and pick up the gossip. He was heading in their direction when he heard a voice call out.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  It was a woman’s voice, and for a moment he thought it might be Madame Boileau coming after him. But this voice was not hers, altogether more gentle, tentative. He decided to walk on, as though he hadn’t heard anything over the pelting of the rain, or didn’t realise that he was the ‘Monsieur’ being addressed. He was just a sailor, didn’t know anyone, just waiting for the strike to end before taking a ship somewhere.

  But it didn’t work. The voice came again, more persistent this time – ‘Monsieur? Monsieur?’ – and he could hear footsteps, a younger woman’s lighter, quicker footsteps coming up behind him.

  And then the voice came a third time, breathless, uncertain, spoken at the very moment that a hand closed on his arm.

  ‘Monsieur Muller?’

  Reluctantly, he turned. A woman. A familiar face under the brim of an umbrella.

  There was a moment’s confusion and then a slow, dawning recognition. For both of them. In the shadowy darkness, with rain spitting down between them, Marie-Ange Buhl and Daniel Jacquot looked at each other.

  And then, almost together, with Jacquot just a fraction slower, they said, ‘You.’

  Marie-Ange started to laugh, the rim of her umbrella dipping down to cover her face, rain spilling off its taut black slopes.

  ‘I knew . . .’ she began, tipping the umbrella back over her shoulder, gripping its handle with both hands as though for support. ‘I knew there was something . . .’

  ‘It’s been a long time, Mademoiselle . . . Buhl,’ replied Jacquot, the surname slipping in from somewhere, the Christian name just out of reach, as he remembered his investigations in St Bédard the past summer. The two of them huddled over a table at Mazzelli’s bar on the place. The Martner case, an innocent man accused, an innocent man arrested. Marie-Christine . . . No, Marie- . . . Marie-. . . Marie-Ange. That was it. Marie-Ange Buhl.

  It was then, standing there in the rain, each of them wondering what came next, that they both thought the same thing.

  What is he doing here?

  What is she doing here?

  Marie-Ange was first to break the silence. ‘I saw you yesterday evening,’ she said. ‘I realised I knew you from somewhere.’

  ‘Then you had the advantage of me, mademoiselle,’ he replied, wondering where and when she might have seen him. He’d certainly not seen her. ‘I’m so sorry. It took me a moment . . .’

  ‘St Bédard,’ she said, thinking he still needed help. ‘The Fontaine des Fleurs. The Chaberts.’

  ‘That’s right, I remember now,’ he replied, smiling, rain streaming down his face. He wiped it away with a hand. ‘But what . . .?’

  ‘What am I doing here? All dry under my umbrella, while you . . . Here, you take it. We can stand under it together.’ She handed it to him and he took it, raising it to cover his own head, but trying to keep it over hers too. It brought them closer, sheltering together under the drumming rain.

  ‘There’s a bar up ahead,’ he began, for want of something to say. ‘If you’re . . .’ He was going to add ‘If you’re not doing anything’, but realised how stupid it would sound. He remembered too, at the same moment, how unsettled she always made him feel. Not exactly uncomfortable, more . . .

  ‘I have a car back there,’ said Marie-Ange, pointing over her shoulder, the way they had come.

  ‘The bar is closer . . . If that . . .?’

  She shrugged. ‘Then lead the way, Chief Inspector,’ she said, and taking his umbrella elbow, drawing close to keep out of the rain, they hurried down the street, both grateful for the opportunity to gather themselves, covering any awkwardness with exclamations about the downpour, followed by the familiar dance of precedence under the narrow awning of Café-Bar Dantès, its door pushed open by Marie-Ange, held open by Jacquot, the umbrella shaken, and closed behind them.

  They saw at once that every stool in the bar, every table and booth was taken, a low smoky haze hanging over the crowd and barely stirred by three ceilings fans. There were more men than women and a few curious looks settled on Marie-Ange and Jacquot as he led her across the room to the bar. He imagined they looked an unlikely pair – twenty years between them, surely? He in his thick canvas trousers, working boots and pea-jacket, his woollen hat and close-cropped hair; she with her shiny cap of black hair, just as he remembered it but a little longer now, her perfect oval face and finely-set features, her slim figure in belted leather jacket and black cotton jeans over heeled boots. Then he remembered where they were, a couple of streets away from the docks of Marseilles, and it struck him that they probably weren’t that unlikely a couple – only most couples like them usually headed off for a room somewhere to complete their business. The thought brought an unexpected flush of heat to Jacquot’s stubbled cheeks and he was grateful now for his tan. It was just the same; she still somehow managed to rattle him.

  As he scooped up a pair of glasses and a bottle of white wine from the bar, he felt her nudge him, heard her whisper ‘Voilà’, and saw her head across the room as one of the booths was vacated. Jacquot followed, nodding thanks to the people leaving, squeezing into the banquette opposite her, pushing aside empty glasses and bottles, brimming ashtray, crumpled paper napkins, to place their own bottle and glasses.

  ‘So,’ he began, making himself comfortable on the warm red plastic, intending to take the initiative. But that single word was as far as he got.

  ‘Muller? Monsieur Muller?’ asked Marie-Ange. ‘What happened to Jacquot, and the ponytail, and the poli—?’

  He held up the bottle. ‘Wine?’

  She noted the swift interruption, looked around, and nodded.

  He poured. Both glasses, hers first. As he did so, a waitress came to the table, set down a plate of olives and a basket of bread, and removed the remains of the last occupants.

  Marie-Ange leaned forward. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . . Are you working? Is that why you’ve cut your hair?’

  And then she paused, knew what he was doing there.

  The same thing as her.

  Looking for Elodie.

  It made her smile.

  ‘Santé,’ said Jacquot lifting his glass and tilting its edge against hers. The wine was tart and bitter, strangely astringent, but satisfyingly fresh. ‘And you . . .? You live in Marseilles now?’ he asked.

  ‘Working. Like St Bédard. Another flower shop, off La Canebière.’

  Suddenly knowing what he was doing there, prowling the streets in his clumsy disguise, gave her an edge and she played it, wondering how long it would take him to realise they were working on the same case. She took another sip of wine, and watched him.

  Jacquot nodded and the two of them were silent for a moment. He looked across at her, sipping her wine, her eyes catching his, her lips curving into a smile. A very beautiful girl. Or rather, woman.

  ‘I came back to St Bédard after the arrests,’ Jacquot began, ‘but you had gone.’

  ‘Job done,’ she replied.

  He couldn’t decide whether she meant her stand-in job at the Fontaine des Fleurs, or the job of hunting down the killer of the German family.

  ‘Monsieur and Madame Chabert were coming back from Lyons,’ she continued. ‘The trial was over. It was time to move on.’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you. For the help . . .’

  She smiled, sipped her wine again, waited.

  ‘And after St Bédard, you came here?’

  Marie-Ange nodded. She was starting to enjoy this. He still hadn’t made the connection; he was still trying to work it all out. ‘I’d never eaten a real bouillabaisse,’ she said.

  ‘So you travel the country in search of regional specialities?’ said Jacquot with a smile.

  ‘And sometimes in search of other things, Monsieur Muller,’ she teased, keeping her eyes on him. She
could see now that he was catching up, starting to put it all together, the last few pieces of the jigsaw. She decided to put him out of his misery. ‘Elodie Lafour,’ she said, and saw his expression change, a look of swift, stunned surprise, his face lighting up with sudden understanding.

  ‘You know about her? You’re . . .?’

  ‘Looking for her, that’s right. Like you. Because she’s here, somewhere.’

  Jacquot was careful with his words. ‘You know that? Or you . . . feel it?’

  ‘You should remember, Chief Inspector . . .’

  He held up a warning hand. ‘Daniel. Or rather – Jan.’

  ‘Jan then, though you don’t look like a Jan. But as I was saying, you should remember that with me the two are very much the same. Knowing and feeling.’ And leaning forward, lowering her voice, she told him how she came to be there, sitting in the booth with him – the dreams she had had of Lucienne Viviers running down the street, the photo and the story in the newspaper about her death, tracing her back to the lorry park, the sense of threat and escape, of being chased . . .

  ‘And Elodie?’

  ‘They were together. Elodie was there too, I’m sure of it,’ she said, reaching into her pocket and bringing out the hairclip. She passed it to Jacquot. ‘I found it in the lorry park. Where it all happened. It’s hers, Elodie’s.’

  Jacquot turned the clip in his fingers. ‘It could belong to anyone . . .’

  ‘It’s hers,’ said Marie-Ange, low and fierce. ‘It’s hers, believe me. She’s here somewhere, and close by.’ And she looked around the bar as though she might see Elodie sitting at a table.

  Behind him, Jacquot felt a draft of chill air and heard the Bar Dantès’s front door open and close.

  Marie-Ange heard it too, and looked over his shoulder.

  Her eyes narrowed, then widened, her lips parted as though to speak, and in an instant her face drained of colour.